by Anna Abner
“Yes, son,” he answered with a chuckle, trying not to be exasperated by the boy’s timing. He’d have to teach Ryan how to politely enter another person’s bedroom.
David wedged his finger under his son’s arm, and Ryan went rigid with giggles. So he leaned up on his elbow and danced his fingers across Ryan’s belly.
Hesitantly, Dani tickled the boy’s ribs, and Ryan curled into a fetal position.
“I surrender!” he shrieked in glee.
David had taught him the phrase, and hearing him use it so appropriately made him laugh. “Understood.” He lifted Ryan out of the bed and set him on his feet. Immediately, the child was off and running.
“Turn on cartoons,” David called. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Returning his attention to the enchanting woman in his arms, he shrugged apologetically. “Breakfast, darlin’?”
“Sounds perfect.”
David bounded out of bed and closed the bedroom door so they could dress in private, but the moment they stepped into the hallway and Ryan’s line of sight, they were peppered with questions.
“Where’s Grandma? Is she coming back? Can I have chocolate milk? Is it Saturday? When is Saturday?”
David shooed Dani away from the stove and whipped up some scrambled eggs with buttered toast for the three of them.
“I hear some kids playing next door,” Dani said as she poured two mugs of fresh coffee and then joined Ryan at the counter.
Yeah, he heard them now and again, mostly on the weekends. His neighbors had a boy and a girl, and sometimes a couple of kids from the neighborhood joined them in the front yard for games.
“Why don’t we go outside so Ryan can play?” she asked.
Maybe Dani didn’t know how dangerous life was for a kid Ryan’s age. Most accidents happened at home and often in the yard. Bike crashes, insect bites, sunburn, not to mention the big ones like teenage bullies, out-of-control cars, or child abusers. No, Ryan wasn’t ready for all of that.
“Ryan’s not allowed to play outside,” David explained. He grabbed his box of sweetener packets, took one, and gave Dani another.
Dani smiled at Ryan, tousled his hair, and then shot David a look. “Can I talk to you for a sec? In the bedroom?”
Why did David feel like he was being summoned to the principal’s office? “Of course.”
Once the door shut, she faced him, her brow puckered in concern. “Why doesn’t Ryan play outside with other kids?”
“It’s too dangerous,” he answered. “Too many variables.”
“But it’s good for him to get physical exercise and socialize.”
He frowned, not sure he liked her implications. “He socializes at day care. He gets plenty of exercise. I just don’t like him going in the yard.”
“You could sit outside and supervise from the porch. It’s perfectly safe.”
David rocked on his heels. “Where is this coming from?” As far as he knew they were having a pleasant morning together. Why was he being forced to defend his parenting style?
“I’m not trying to question your authority, but I’ve noticed you’re a bit overprotective.”
And that was a bad thing? “Maybe I am. I care about my son. I’m not going to apologize for that.”
“Is it possible that you coddle him and me and your mom because you’re afraid of everything you can’t control? Like the motorcycle that caused your accident?”
“Jesus, Dani.” He forced a laugh, though his skin shrank two sizes. “This is getting a little serious for breakfast small talk.”
“Okay.” She smiled as she rubbed her palm up and down the tensed muscle in his right arm. “But I’d like to sit on the porch with you and drink coffee while Ryan plays with the neighbor kids. Would that be alright?”
Damn it. He sighed in resignation and opened the bedroom door for her. “I’m not overprotective,” he said, following her into the living room.
“Sure you are,” Dani said. “You just don’t realize it yet.”
Ryan was back in front of the TV, his breakfast plate cleared.
“You want to play outside for a bit?” David asked him.
Ryan whooped and did a frantic swimming dance.
“Then get your shoes on.”
He blazed a trail into his bedroom and emerged thirty seconds later wearing Velcro sandals, but on the wrong feet. David sorted him out and then grabbed his cup of coffee, and they all ventured outside.
“Just keep your cell handy,” David said. “If you see so much as a Carver-shaped shadow, call 911.”
“We’ll be okay,” she assured. “You and Tony can take out anything supernatural.”
Ryan ran off to play in the yard next door while David and Dani sat on his patio furniture where they could both see the boy.
Stretching out, David said, “Being protective isn’t a bad thing.”
“There are worse things.” Dani scooted her chair so she could prop both her feet in his lap. He set aside his coffee to run his hands over her calves in a gentle massage. “But it would hurt me to think of you missing out on things because you’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” he grumbled. He was terrified. There was no end to the uncontrollable dangers in the world. Concussions, choking, lightning strikes, animal attacks. And now he had to worry about rogue casters, sleep spells, and nightmares come to life.
Okay, maybe he was taking things a tiny bit further than the average parent, but other people didn’t know how fast a life could be cleaved in two. One moment he’d been a happy, proud new dad with his whole life laid out like precisely cut paving stones. The next moment he’d been widowed, a single parent suffering grief beyond any understanding.
“And,” Dani added, wiggling her toes, “when I get my magic back, I don’t want you freaking out every time I cast a spell.”
“Fat chance.” He chuckled. “I’m going to freak out no matter what, even if I keep it to myself.”
She tipped her mug at him and then drank deeply. “I’m not used to anyone giving a crap about me or what I do. It’s weird.”
He glanced across the yard as Ryan face planted in the neighbor’s lawn. He lay there for a split second, during which David stopped breathing, but then he popped to his feet and ran to where a little girl was drawing on her driveway with chalk.
Distracted, David answered, “Get used to it, darlin’. You mean a lot to me.”
* * *
As the spring sunshine warmed her legs, Dani sipped her coffee and hid a giddy smile behind her cup. Things were looking up. Sure, her abductors were running around scot-free, and she had no magic to protect herself, but nothing seemed all that ominous. Not with the sounds of happy children in her ears and the feel of David’s hands on her skin.
Her cell phone rang. She fumbled to pull it out of her pocket, and then she answered the unlisted number.
“Hello, sunshine.” The Carver.
Dani’s stomach roiled, and sweat tickled her brow as if she were back in his basement and terrified for her life.
She scrambled into the house, locked herself in the hall bathroom, and ran the water in the sink. “What do you want?”
“I’ve been watching you. Did you know that? Everywhere you go. Everything you do. Even when you sleep with your douche bag necromancer, I’m watching you.”
“Good for you.” She faked a confidence she did not feel. “Did you call for sex tips?”
He snorted. “I’m going to enjoy punishing you. I really am. I called, princess, to tell you that your vacation is over. You’re going to meet me tomorrow, and we’re going to finish what we started. You’ll get your magic back, and I’ll get a demon pet. Wait for my call.” He hung up, and the line went dead.
She let the faucet run as she stared blankly at the mini waterfall. So, it was too good to be true that she could ever escape. It had all been part of a bigger plan. Let her think she breathed free. Let her believe the people she cared about were safe. And then yank the rug out from under her.
They really were cruel bastards.
“Dani?” David rapped on the bathroom door. “You okay?”
She turned off the water, schooled her features, and opened the door. “Yeah. But it’s time to call Holden and break the binding spell.” She held up both arms, showing him the dark spider webs.
“I thought you were going to leave it on for a while.”
“I can’t.” She’d been a naive, ridiculous fool to think she could ever live a normal life. Her fate was solitude and longing. Always had been. No necromancer’s binding spell was going to change that.
“When did you decide this?” David asked.
Dani read the hurt in his eyes. It would be so much easier if they could both pretend she was a human girl who could kiss and hold hands and make love without risking death with every caress. She hated disappointing him, but she was a witch.
“Just now.” She pushed past him and turned on her phone. “I’ll call Holden.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
No, he’d only convince her to wait. But her magic was the one thing that would stop these bastards.
“There’s nothing else to say.”
“Hold up.” David pulled on her arm, and she curled into him. She’d never forget how amazing it felt to be held and cared for. Maybe even loved.
“What about us?” His voice was feather soft against her hair. “I remember how you were before your magic was bound…”
She closed her eyes and inhaled his woodsy, musky scent. “I don’t want to lose you,” Dani whispered. “I’ll try, okay? I’ll practice controlling it, and we’ll see how it goes.”
“I don’t care if you zap me now and again.” He chuckled, and it vibrated against her cheek. “But I have to be able to touch you. And be touched. Do you understand?”
Of course she did. He wanted normal. Except she wasn’t.
* * *
Neither David nor Dani wanted Ryan anywhere near magic, so they all loaded into the rental car and headed downtown. Dani buckled Ryan into his car seat and gave his knee a quick tickle, knowing this may be the final time she’d ever be able to do it. And then she held David’s hand the whole drive.
New Horizons was a mega size child care center near the Target store, a two-story building servicing an awful lot of children. They would be her competition if, no when, her child care business opened. But because she aimed for reduced class sizes and more specialized care, Dani wasn’t worried. People would always need quality child care.
David carried Ryan across the parking lot and inside the security door to sign him in while Dani called Holden. He and Rebecca had made it safely home to Richlands, North Carolina, and both were super excited to help.
Thirty minutes after they hung up, Holden Clark, the tall, blue-eyed necromancer she’d helped with a spell not too long ago, was knocking on David’s front door.
“Dani, it’s really good to see you safe and sound.” He leaned in as if his instinct was to hug her, but then he thought better of it.
Screw that. She was ecstatic he’d come to help. With her magic still safely bound, she yanked him into a quick, hard hug. “Good to be safe.” She shrugged. “As safe as anyone can be, anyway.”
Holden took both her hands in his and frowned at the magical tattoos running up and down her arms. “This is what a binding spell looks like?”
“Hang on. David!” she called over her shoulder, and then to Holden she said, “Let’s go around to the back.” She led him outside, through the side gate, and into the fenced yard. “My power was bound by a necromancer’s spell. I can’t break it. David could do it with a little help.”
“Yeah, no problem. I’ve been studying.”
“Even on vacation?” What a spaz. If she were on a gorgeous foreign beach with the person she loved, she wouldn’t be reading up on magic.
“Yeah. Well, that wasn’t all I did.” He chuckled suggestively.
“Speaking of Rebecca,” Dani teased. Holden had been helping Rebecca Powell find the dark necromancer trying to possess her with a demon. It was obvious from the grin on his face that they’d succeeded and moved on to happier days.
“She’s great.” He flushed. “Amazing. Fantastic.” He caught Dani’s eye. “I didn’t know life could be like this. I really didn’t.”
“I’m happy for you.”
And she truly was. But Holden’s newfound joy for living only intensified the cold disappointment crowding around her heart. Because she was never going to find the same contentment Holden had found. Her touch was toxic. And it always would be.
“Rebecca said to tell you she’s really glad you’re okay, but she’s at our diner today installing a whole new computerized ticketing system.”
“Hello,” David called, coming out the rear kitchen door. “I’m David.” He shook hands with Holden. “Good to meet you.”
“Same. You ready to do this spell?”
David glanced nervously from Dani to Holden. “I thought you’d do it.”
Dani laid her hand on David’s chest and felt his heart beat through his shirt. “I want you to do it.”
He slid an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him, inhaling his strength. It steadied her like nothing else could.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it if I can.”
“Here.” Holden pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and unfolded it. “I wrote down the spell marks to break another necromancer’s spell. The tricky part is focusing enough power. It’ll take a lot from your spirit, and if you channel too much, you’ll wound yourself.”
“Wound how?” David asked, his arm tightening around Dani. “I’m still new at this stuff.”
Sometimes too much preparation was a hindrance. Dani didn’t want David overthinking this. Magic was more organic and instinctive than logical. “You’re going to be great. Let’s just do the spell. Are Grams and Tony here?”
“Uh.” Holden shifted feet. “Grams crossed over to the other side,” he said. “A little girl named Olive is my spirit companion now. She helped Rebecca and I defeat Derek Walker.”
“Oh.” Losing the spirit of his Grams must have been just as painful as losing her human form the first time around. “Are you okay?”
“Very okay. It was time.”
David used his stub of chalk to draw a spell circle on the backyard patio and added Holden’s spell marks. “I’m ready.”
* * *
David exhaled a long stream of breath as he knelt in his spell circle and made eye contact with Tony. “Can you do this?”
“Can you?” Tony shot back. “All I gotta do is shoot power at you. Can you direct it into her or not?”
“That’s the question.”
“Quit talking to yourself,” Dani teased. “You’re dragging your feet.”
She was right. It was one thing to cast a spell onto Cole, a complete stranger, and something very different to cast a spell on the woman he loved. If he screwed this up, he didn’t know what could happen.
Loved? God, when had that happened? But there it was like a warm blanket over his shoulders telling him he’d fallen in love with Daniela Ferraro. Her vivacity, her caring heart, her beauty, and her passion had all wrapped him up and branded him hers.
“Okay. Go ahead.” Tony hit David with a wave of power that crackled under his skin and vibrated through his bones.
“Libero,” Holden prompted. “You’ve got to say, Libero.”
“Libero,” David said with a hiss. Magic rattled inside him and his teeth clinked together.
Dani held out her hands, turning them over. The black webs remained. It wasn’t working.
“Wait a sec.” David shook himself and stood up, stumbling into the back wall of his condo. “I’m not ready.”
“David?” Dani appeared at his side, her small hand on his back. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to touch him like that. He’d lose her. And there was no way to stop it.
“I need a minute.” He didn’t feel right.
> How was this spell supposed to unfold? How was David supposed to control Tony’s power so it didn’t hurt Dani? Holden acted like he should know this instinctively. But one wrong move, one wrong word, and Dani could end up a vegetable. Like her friend Cole. Or worse.
Dani rose up on her tiptoes so they were almost eye to eye. “You can do this.”
“I don’t trust myself,” he admitted. “I could hurt you.”
“You won’t,” Dani assured.
“How do you know?”
“The same way I know you won’t erase my memories or mess with my emotions. I trust you. But if you’re not ready, Holden will try to do it.”
He glanced at the other man. Holden seemed perfectly normal and was probably an awesome caster, but it didn’t matter. Dani’s safety was too important to trust to anyone else.
“No. I’ll do it.”
“Clear your mind and focus,” Holden said. “That was the best advice I ever got. And visualize. That’s important, too. Picture blowing the spell out of her. Or erasing it. Whatever works.”
“Got it.” David returned to his circle, double-checked the marks, and exhaled. “Do it again,” he said to Tony, “but stronger.”
Power burned inside him like an inferno. His blood boiled, and his skin superheated.
Stifling a cry of pain, he visualized the webs on Dani’s arms bursting into blue flames and blowing away.
But it wasn’t working.
He squeezed his eyes shut and pictured it in his mind. Webs and flame.
Nothing.
“A little more,” he murmured at Tony. “A tiny bit more.”
David’s breath froze in his chest as if he’d fallen into a vacuum. His head spun from the lack of oxygen, but he mouthed the spell. “Libero.”
Cold arms wrapped him in a welcome embrace, keeping his face off the concrete. He looked up into Dani’s concerned expression. Her eyes were bright, but her arms were free of any webs or lines or spells.
“Can you hear me?” she asked.
“I hear you, darlin’.”
“Lie still.”
“Good idea.”
“You did it.” Dani smiled sadly.