Myths & Magic: A Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection

by Kerry Adrienne

  But this pack, this was an opportunity to have a family again. It was an opportunity to be part of something bigger than me, and that was what I wanted.

  The library door opened. I turned in my chair to see who was coming in, and was surprised to see the she-wolf from earlier.

  Had she come to break another one of my bones? Instinct told me that I should clear out of the room to prevent that from happening. It wasn't like I could physically stop her from hurting me; she had more than proven that she was the superior warrior here.

  But then again, she had the advantage. She'd been training since childhood, just like all the other wolves had. They'd grown up in this life, I'd only come it a month ago.

  "Hello," she said, her lips turning up at the corners in a gentle smile.

  I narrowed my eyes. What trick was this? She carried a cup in her hand, and steam was rolling off of it. A sweet aroma filled the room. I wondered what was in the cup, because it smelled delicious, but I didn't ask.

  Maybe if I didn't respond to her she would just go away. As much as I wanted the acceptance of the pack, I had learned that it was best we kept our distance from each other for now.

  She walked into the room and took a seat opposite me, reaching forward so that the cup was held out to me. "Peace offering." She lifted an eyebrow as she held the cup forward.

  I hesitated, then reached forward with my good hand and took the cup from her. I blew on it gently, the paranoid thought coming to mind that she might have done something to whatever was in the cup to hurt me. I hated that I couldn't trust the wolves. But no one had done anything to my food or drink in the month that I'd been here, and she could rough me up whenever she wanted, so I doubted she had done anything to it. I took a sip, and the warm liquid slid down my throat, warming me.

  My eyes closed and a soft 'mmm' sound came from my lips. "Oh, that's good," I said. "Thanks."

  I opened my eyes in time to see her beaming at me.

  "I thought you might like it. It's an old family recipe. Good for relaxing the muscles, which I thought you might need after the day you had."

  Frowning, I tapped one finger against the cup idly. "I'm sorry, but why are you being so nice? You kind of busted my arm earlier."

  She shrugged. "Yeah, sorry about that. I kind of lost it when you caught me by surprise. I won't make the mistake of underestimating you again, though." She grinned. " I thought it was about time someone welcomed you to the group. It hasn't been easy on you, has it?"

  My eyes widened. She meant to make peace between us? Well, I couldn't do anything other than accept that. All I wanted was to get along with the wolves, aside from making Conall proud. After today though, I didn't think that was very likely.

  I sipped at the tea again, allowing myself to relax back against the chair.

  It was then that I felt the distinct sensation of another heart beating. Not that I could hear the heart beating, but I could feel it. I could feel blood running through veins in tandem with my own, and I was now aware of it on a level I hadn't been before. My heart sped up to match the beat of the other heart, and my distress escalated.

  What was happening? How could I feel another heart beating?

  It had to be her heart that I was feeling. I glanced down at the page I was on, reminding me of the spell I had been reading about. It was about biorhythms and how to sync yourself with them—basically, everyone has their own rhythm and a blood mage is capable of seeking out another person’s rhythm and controlling it.

  I had to stop, but I didn't know how. This was freaking me out.

  I pushed at the sensation, trying to get it to go away, and felt a pain in my chest when my own heart stuttered.

  She frowned, rubbing at her chest.

  Oh God, had I made her heart stutter too? Panic began to rush over me in waves and I watched as discomfort colored her face even more.

  "I should be getting to bed," she said, but it came out as more of a mutter. She was clearly distracted by the pain I had given her.

  Shame washed over me. "Yeah. Thanks for the tea," I said, trying to smile. It was a little wobbly, but it did the job.

  She nodded at me and walked out. As she left, the sensation of feeling her heart beating faded away and I breathed a little easier. I took a sip of the tea again to allow its relaxing properties to rush through me.

  If this was what being a blood mage was like, I didn't want any part of it. I didn't want to feel other people’s bodies going through their normal processes, and I hated the way I had hurt her. She had come to me offering peace and I had done the one thing all the wolves feared I would do—I used blood magic on her.

  Even if it had been an accident, it had still happened.

  I should stop. I should put this book away and go find Conall and tell him I can't do any of this.

  And yet a morbid curiosity filled me. Could I feel others in the mansion? I had to wonder. I reached out my senses, and sure enough, I picked up the rhythms of the other wolves in the mansion.

  Breathing deeply, I forced myself to remain calm. It had been my panic that had hurt the woman. It had been an accident, a reaction, and if I could just maintain control I could disconnect with as much ease as I had connected.

  I concentrated, visualizing my magic as tendrils that reached out of the library and called them back to me. I saw them retreating until they curled back inside my body, and I could no longer feel the other wolves.

  I did it. I successfully used my blood magic without hurting anyone or losing control.

  Elation began, but at the same time it was tinged with that same amount of shame. I shouldn't be enjoying what I was doing. I had hurt someone and then immediately proceeded to practice the exact same magic.

  What kind of person repeated a spell that had hurt someone?

  I bowed my head, trying to tell myself that I wasn't horrible, but it was hard to get the idea to fully compute. Maybe the stories were right, and blood mages were all awful, horrible people. Maybe I hadn't been because I hadn't used blood magic before.

  Maybe it corrupted you.

  But no, that was ludicrous. My abuelita hadn't been a horrible person. She'd been kind, caring, and compassionate. She'd loved everyone around her with so much of her heart that she hurt whenever they hurt. She certainly hadn't been corrupt.

  I would just have to be the same sort of mage as abuelita.

  But Conall wants to turn you into a weapon. He doesn't want you healing people, he wants you hurting people.

  And I had to do what Conall wanted. Not because he was in charge here—basically a King in this mansion—but because I owed him. And it wasn't that resentful sort of owing a person. It was that I was genuinely grateful for what he had done for me.

  He had saved me when I hadn't thought it was even possible to be saved. He was my knight in shining armor, and I would do anything he wanted me to do.

  And besides, it wasn't like he wanted me to hurt people. He wanted me to kill vampires.

  The same vampires that had caged and beaten me. I didn't feel even a twinge of remorse at the idea of killing the vampires that had hurt me.

  They weren't people, they were monsters.

  Clearing my head, I returned to the task at hand. I had completed one spell, now I wanted to see if I could do another. I grabbed a letter opener off the side table near me that I had pulled out earlier when I'd come into the library and carefully cut my finger.

  It hurt, but only a little, and a drop of blood welled up on it. I focused on my finger, glaring down at it with immense concentration, and called to mind one of the spells I'd read earlier.

  I began to chant the words for a healing spell, visualizing the skin knitting back together.

  But nothing happened.

  I frowned and tried again, pushing myself harder.

  Still, my finger continued to bleed.

  Frustrated, I snapped the grimoire shut and shoved it aside. I might be able to sense the other wolves, but I couldn't do anything practical. Thi
s was absolute bullshit.

  Then I froze. I heard footsteps coming to the library again.

  Chapter 9

  Nina

  The door opened, I twisted in my seat, and saw Conall come in.

  He was an imposing man, all lean muscle and cold eyes, but I felt a swell of gratitude begin inside of me at the sight of him. I would always feel safe around him, even if I didn't get to see him very much.

  Or at all, really. After he had introduced himself in the dining room that first day, and given me the grimoires the next day, I hadn't seen hide nor hair of him. He was a busy man, and he had a lot on his plate. I didn't dare seek him out, knowing that I would have been intruding on valuable time.

  And he had never come to visit me.

  He glanced at the shut grimoire, lifting one eyebrow.

  My skin flushed, and I averted my gaze. It was obvious that I wasn't getting much studying done with a shut book. I wanted to explain that I had been trying, but my mouth was suddenly dry, and I couldn't get the words to come.

  It didn't matter. He'd caught me in my moment of frustration, and no excuses I had would cover that up.

  Besides, he didn't strike me as the sort of man who accepted excuses.

  He just had to walk in then, didn't he? He couldn't have come in a few minutes earlier, when I had successfully completed a spell and was full of elation and confidence. No, he had to pick the moment when I'd given up.

  "How is practice going?" Now both of his eyebrows lifted.

  I mumbled something along the lines of 'ok.'

  He just stared at me, clearly waiting for me to speak up and elaborate. Right. Mumbling wasn't a very becoming way of speaking, and he was used to being addressed by his hunters with clear responses to everything he said.

  I had to measure up to them.

  "Er, well. Not so well, actually," I said, grimacing. "I can't seem to get any of the practical spells to work. I'm kind of struggling here. I wish there was another blood mage that could teach me, one on one."

  He nodded, remaining silent for a moment. Thinking over my words, I assumed.

  I shouldn't be whining about not having a teacher. If he had someone to teach me, he wouldn't need me in the first place.

  Be grateful he even has the grimoires for you and you don't have to figure this shit out on your own, Nina. Jesus. You're such a spoiled brat.

  I reprimanded myself, and felt well and truly shamed for it. He didn't have to say a word against me, I could do that all on my own.

  "You could practice on me," he said.

  My eyes widened. "That sounds dangerous." I thought about the way I had synced together with the she-wolf earlier and how I had hurt her. I didn't want to hurt Conall.

  He shrugged. "No more dangerous than sparring practice is."

  "Well, it could be. What if I did something to you that couldn't be undone? I don't think it's a good idea."

  His cold eyes settled on mine and the look in his eyes was a very hard, no nonsense one. "Nina. Do it."

  I put the grimoire on the side table and stood up. "Okay. I guess I can try. What do you want me to do?"

  He frowned. "What's a simple spell?"

  "Well, I can sense your heartbeat." I reached out with my magic to pick up the feeling of his heart in his chest. It was a steady beat, albeit faster than mine.

  I guess the wolves just ran at faster speeds than your average human being. And aside from my magic, I was very average.

  He shook his head. "That's too passive. Try to do something to me."

  Now it was my turn to frown. I didn't know what he wanted me to do—there wasn't anything kind that I could do to him. He wasn't bleeding. I couldn't heal a wound that didn't exist.

  And he clearly wanted me to do something more active.

  I shook my head. "I don't want to hurt you." I sounded weak even to my own ears.

  "Cut me," he said calmly.

  My eyes widened and I shook my head again. "No!"

  "Cut me, Nina."

  I clenched my eyes tight and tilted my head towards the ground. I couldn't disobey him, and yet I didn't want to do what he was asking of me. Hurting him was the exact opposite of anything I ever wanted to do. But I wanted to make him proud, and this was what he was asking of me.

  Taking in a deep breath, I straightened my shoulders and opened my eyes again. I looked up at him, concentrating on his exposed forearm. I tried to envision a small cut opening on his wrist there.

  Nothing big, more like a paper cut than anything. Just enough to bring the blood out to the surface.

  But just like when I'd tried to heal the wound I'd inflicted on myself, nothing happened.

  Shoving down the frustration that welled, I tried harder. I felt sweat beading on my forehead as I concentrated on him.

  Come on, just a little cut. Just to show him that you can do something.

  And still, nothing happened. All I could do was feel his heart beating, the same steady beat it had been the whole time.

  At last, I shook my head. "I'm sorry, I can't do it."

  That same look of disappointment that I'd seen earlier that day in the courtyard appeared on his face. Shame washed over me—I couldn't disappoint him!

  "You aren't trying hard enough," he said.

  But I was! Couldn't he see that I was sweating, that my breath was coming in short little pants? Couldn't he see the way my chest rose and fell with my labored breathing?

  It frustrated me that he willfully ignored these signs that I was doing everything I could to do what he asked of me. But that frustration didn't do anything to help me.

  God, if I couldn't do this, was he going to send me back out on the streets?

  I wouldn't last a single night on the streets. The vampires would find me with no problem, and they would throw me back in the cages. If I was lucky, they would recognize that I'd been in the cages before and they would kill me to punish me for escaping.

  If I wasn't lucky, they would take their anger out on me in other, much worse ways.

  I couldn't go back to the cages.

  Swallowing my terror, I forced myself to focus on Conall. He wanted me to work magic, but I couldn't get a simple cut to open on his skin.

  Maybe I was going about this the wrong way. Maybe there was something else I could do with my magic.

  I had introduced a stutter to the she-wolf's heart on accident. That had been an internal act, not an external one. Maybe that would be easier.

  I didn't want to do anything to his heart, though, so I shifted my focus to his head.

  Narrowing my eyes, I waited until I could feel the blood flowing there, and very carefully I visualized the blood heating up.

  A moment later sweat broke out on his forehead and he touched a hand to his head.

  Excitement swept over me.

  And then to my horror he grabbed his head with both his hands, swearing. I had never seen him lose control like that before.

  "Stop it!" He snapped at me, his eyes clenched tight.

  Panicked, I tried to pull back my magic from him, tried to disengage. But I could feel it getting worse, as if my magic was responding to my emotions like there was a threat to me. Like it had to protect me.

  He cried out, falling to his knees on the floor and still gripping his head with both his hands.

  I backed up a step, the backs of my legs knocking into the chair behind me, and lifted a hand to my lips. I had to stop, but I didn't know how.

  Calm down, Nina. You can do this if you're calm. Your panic won't help Conall now.

  Right. I had to stay calm. I took in deep breath after deep breath, forcing myself to relax. I visualized the tendrils of magic around his head and slowly pulled them off one by one, retracting them into my core.

  He remained on the floor for several moments, just breathing deeply, but I was pretty sure he wasn't in pain anymore.

  "I'm sorry," I said, starting forward with a hand raised to touch him.

  He waved a hand at me. "Get away,
" he snarled. He rose to his feet again and stalked out of the room, with one last look back at me that I couldn't quite make out.

  But he had wanted me to do something to him. Something active, and it wasn't like there was any healing magic I could have done...

  I felt the tears burning at my eyes and I hastily blinked to keep them from falling. No, I wasn't going to cry. I wasn't going to be weak like that.

  I had done what he wanted; it wasn't my fault if he hadn't liked it after it had happened.

  But there was a new kind of determination in me. A determination to master my abilities, to prove to the wolves that I wasn't an out of control abomination, and to make Conall proud.

  Most of all, though, I wanted to be strong enough so that I would never ever need someone to save me again.

  Chapter 10

  Grayson

  I stood in my room, strapping my sword belt around my waist as I prepared myself for the hunting trip I was about to embark on with my friend. Hunts were few and far between these days. Not quite forbidden by my father, but they were no longer quite the norm. And worst of all, my father had grown more and more cautious of late, not allowing me to go on the hunts when they did happen.

  It was because the blood mage still had not been found.

  I blamed his slow action for that. If we had flooded the streets immediately after finding out about her escape, perhaps we could have found her before she went to ground. No doubt she was hiding somewhere and hadn't set foot outside of her new sanctuary out of fear of being caught.

  That was good, though. There was no way she could learn any of the spells that the blood mages of old had been able to perform; there were no blood mages to teach her.

  That was another reason the hunts had slowed down—we had all but caught the remaining mages. There were probably a few holdouts left for us to snap up, but for the most part we had done our job.