He raises his eyebrows and snorts in disbelief. Answering my original question, he says, “I will sleep in my raven form. That will make better use of the space we have.”
When he finishes with the sleeping bag he stands up. He has to stoop because the cave is not tall enough for him to stand straight. I figure he has to be at least six foot six. I wonder if they have basketball in the Fae realm.
His voice pulls me out of my reverie. “You will want to avert your eyes. I know it offends your sensibilities when I am skyclad.”
Great, now he’s acting like I’m a prude. Okay, maybe I am a little bit of one. I don’t think it’s wrong to expect someone not to walk around naked. “Whatever,” I grumble as I move to my sleeping bag. I put my back to him as I pull off my boots and my jeans that are damp from the snow. My long underwear are still dry, thank goodness. By the time I crawl into my sleeping bag, he is already a raven. He caws loudly and then flies out of the cave leaving me alone. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad for him to have slept in my sleeping bag with me because every little sound is making me think a wild animal is coming back to claim it’s home and I’ll admit that his presence did make me feel safer. It takes a while for me to relax enough to fall asleep.
It feels like only a couple of minutes have passed when I am woken up by a howling sound. I open my eyes fearing a mountain lion has found me but I can’t make out any animal eyes in the small amount of light that is streaming in from the still almost full moon. After a moment, I realize it was the wind that woke me up.
A flutter of wings startles me as a very ruffled raven flies into the cave. The air around it begins to shimmer and I try to inconspicuously avert my eyes until he becomes himself again and has time to put on clothes. Yup, I’m a prude.
“You may look now.” Apparently, I wasn’t inconspicuous enough.
Kallen is dressed the same as he was before he changed into his raven form and the thought that he’s hot even all bundled up flows through my mind and I squelch it before it has time to take root. Yeah, me and the three hundred year old Witch and human hater. Like that’s going to happen.
“It appears we may be here longer than I hoped,” he says and I can hear the frustration in his voice. “The weather has taken a turn.” He sits down near me and leans his back against the rock wall of the cave.
“I can hear that,” I say and I snuggle deeper into my sleeping back. The air in the cave has probably dropped twenty degrees since I fell asleep. Thank goodness my sleeping bag is made for mountain climbing. It can keep me warm in temperatures as cold as twenty below zero.
There is no chance that I’m going to be able to go back to sleep with the wind as loud as it is. Neither Kallen nor I say anything as we listen to the storm. A loud crashing noise makes me sit up straight.
“I believe that was a tree falling, nothing to worry about,” Kallen says and as I look closely at him I notice his teeth are chattering and he is folded in on himself as much as possible trying to get warm.
“Okay, it’s ridiculous that I’m in a nice warm sleeping bag and you’re freezing to death.” I sit up and unzip my coat until I can reach the cord holding my amulet. Kallen watches warily as I pull it over my head. It’s still good to know it scares him at least a little bit. I lay it down on the ground next to me. “Come here.”
“I’m fine,” he says but a violent chill shakes his body proving his words to be lies.
“Stop being stubborn and come here.” I unzip my sleeping back until there is enough open for him to crawl in. He hesitates for a few a moment more but he finally gives in to his need for warmth. His boots magically disappear and he crawls towards me. I lay down on my side to make room for him. As he tries to fit himself in it becomes apparent that the only way the sleeping bag is going to cover all of his height is if we’re spooning. I try to not let my discomfort show as I feel his body pressed full length against mine as he zips the bag back up.
Feeling the need to say something, I state the obvious. “You’re cold.”
“That was the point of you inviting me inside your warm cocoon.” He slips one arm underneath me and the other rests on my waist. I’m not sure what to do with my arm so I hug it close to my chest trying not to have any more of me touching him than what already was.
His breath tickles as he whispers in my ear, “You have nothing to worry about, remember I am only here for your body heat, not your body.”
I turn my head so I can see at least part of his face. “Is ten minutes a day the most you’re allowed to be a nice guy and the rest of the day you’re required to be as big of a jerk as you can be?”
To my surprise, he chuckles. “So it would seem.” He shivers and pulls me closer to him and I have to lay my arm on his to accommodate the shift. He had taken off his gloves before he joined me and his hands are like icicles.
“How long do you think the storm will last?”
I feel him shrug. “It came on quickly so I am hoping that it will blow over just as quickly but as I am sure you know from living in the mountains that is not always the case.”
I groan. “We could be here for days.”
“Which is why it was a good idea to have followed a less than obvious path. If we are not able to move from here we are still difficult to find even without magical help.”
“Fine, you win. You’re smarter than me. Are you happy now?”
He chuckles again. “As I am three hundred and fifty years older than you I certainly hope I have garnered more intelligence than you have in your seventeen years.”
I turn so I can see him again, this time shifting my body as well as my head. “If you believe that then why do you keep getting so annoyed with me when I don’t know all of the things you do?”
He sighs. “I am afraid patience is not one of my virtues.”
“You have virtues?” I can’t help but ask and I’m rewarded with a frown.
“You seem to fling barbs just as readily as I do.”
Great, he’s right again. I look at him sheepishly. “Sorry, I guess I do.”
Some of my hair had fallen across my face when I turned. Kallen lifts his hand and pushes it back. “You have the eyes of a Fairy. Your beauty belies the Witch’s blood that flows through your veins.”
I’m beginning to get uncomfortable and I don’t know how to respond. “Your ten minutes are up for the day, remember?” I whisper.
He smiles. “I believe it is after the midnight hour. I am allowed ten minutes for this new day.” His face moves closer to mine and my eyes grow round as saucers because I’m sure he’s going to kiss me. But he doesn’t. Instead, he whispers in my ear as if he had heard my thoughts, “Do not worry, I do not kiss Witches.”
I can’t believe I fell for his nice guy routine again. I intentionally elbow him in the stomach as I turn back onto my side and push his arms away from me. As if I even wanted to kiss him. “I’m surprised you’re cold, your ego is big enough to use as a blanket.” He laughs which makes me even madder.
“Good night, Xandra,” he says and I can still feel his shoulders shaking as he laughs at my expense.
Chapter 9
At some point I managed to fall asleep. When I wake up I’m happy to see that the storm has passed and the sun is shining. Kallen is still sleeping which surprises me. I thought he would pop awake like a rooster at sunrise.
My shifting to look outside must have woken him because he begins to stir next to me. With sleepy eyes, he yawns and says, “I did not figure you to be an early riser. I assumed you would be lazy and want to sleep until noon.”
I give him a sardonic look. “You and your compliments, my heart’s all aflutter.” He laughs and begins to unzip the sleeping bag to set us free from our confinement.
As I crawl out and begin putting my boots on, I say over my shoulder to him as he stretches as much as the cave will let him, “You know, it’s nice to find that you actually have a sense of humor but are you able to laugh at anything besides me?”
He grins at me. “You should feel proud; I have not found anything as amusing as you in a very long time. You are bringing back a part of me that I had thought was lost.”
“Glad I could help,” I grumble as I roll the sleeping bag back up.
It only takes a few minutes to gather everything up and have the backpacks ready to go. The last thing I pick up is my amulet. I hesitate. Is Kallen going to think that I don’t trust him if I put it on? Ultimately, I decide I don’t care because I don’t trust him and I slip it over my head. Kallen narrows his eyes but he doesn’t say anything. What, he thought I was going to leave it in the cave?
I pick up my backpack to put it on but Kallen takes it from me again. I can’t decide if he’s being chivalrous or implying that I’m too weak to carry it on my own. His expression is blank at the moment which doesn’t help me figure it out. Whatever, he can carry it if he wants. I’m not going to complain.
The sun is bright as it reflects off the snow and I pull my sunglasses out of my jacket pocket and put them on. I notice moments later that sunglasses magically appear on Kallen’s face as well. We have another silent morning as we trudge who knows where through the snow.
“Aren’t I supposed to be practicing my magic?” I ask testily as I lose my footing because of a snow covered rock and land on my butt for the third time since we left the cave.
Kallen looks back at me and I can see that he’s trying not to laugh as he walks back to where I am. I glare at him from where I’m sitting and when he’s close enough, I throw a handful of snow at him. That takes him by surprise and he just stares at me for a moment, which gives me time to throw another snowball at him hitting in the head. Oh, good shot me.
Shaking the snow from his hat, he asks, “Are you enjoying yourself?”
I grin up at him. “Yes, at the moment I am. Don’t you know how to have fun?”
He narrows his eyes. “In this little game of yours, am I supposed to retaliate in kind?”
“That’s how a snowball fight usually goes, yeah.”
“Alright then.” But he doesn’t reach down to pick up any snow and I frown up at him for being such a stick in the mud. And then a huge pile of snow from the tree I’m sitting under falls on my head. I’m almost completely covered in snow and it’s Kallen’s turn to grin.
I start to get mad at him for cheating by using magic but a different thought hits me. “Can I do that?”
Kallen shrugs. “I do not know,” he admits.
“Wow, there’s something you don’t know? Isn’t your head going to explode now from the devastation to your psyche?”
Ignoring me, he says, “Seeing as you are half Fairy it is likely you are able to do some of the things I am. The Cowan Fairies are able to do a lot of things a true blooded Fairy is but not all. Your Witch’s blood may allow you to do more than they can.”
“So a Cowan Fairy wouldn’t be able to make the snow fall off the tree?” I ask as I stand up and brush the snow from my pants.
Kallen shakes his head. “No, Cowan Fairies are not able to perform magic by just thinking about what they want to do. They must use incantations or spells similar to how Witches perform their magic.”
I frown. “But I saw Maurelle and Olwyn change from their animal forms to human without the need for an incantation or a spell.”
He shakes his head again. “What you saw was them thinking the spelled word that had been recited in their incantations that allowed them to assume their animal form and then be released from it.”
“So they can’t just change form at will like you can.”
“Correct.”
“So how do we see if I can make snow fall from the trees?”
He looks pointedly at my chest and color washes into my face but I feel stupid when he says, “You will have to remove your amulet for me to help you learn how.”
Okay, it was one thing to take it off last night when it was my idea but taking it off because Kallen tells me to is completely different. I want to say no. I look at the trees and then back to Kallen weighing how great my desire to learn is against keeping my control over him not being able to do anything to me. Finally, I sigh and take it off putting it in one of the pockets of my backpack.
“I am glad that I passed whatever test you were putting me through in your mind before removing your amulet,” he says dryly.
I really wish I wasn’t too old to stick my tongue out at him because he has this insane ability to make me want to do just that. Instead, I take the high road. “What do I have to do?”
He takes off his gloves as he answers. “We are going to do something similar to what you did with your mother to heal me but instead of joining our mana to make a saka, I am simply going to act as a channel for your mana, or magic as the Fae call it, to flow through so that I can direct it to where it needs to go. This is how Fairy children are taught by their parents.”
I’m pretty sure he just called me a child but I ignore it. I take off my gloves and I hesitantly put my hand in his when he reaches for me. He raises his eyebrows and looks at me expectantly until I give in and take a firm hold of his hand. “Better,” he says. “Now, you need to envision what you want to do as you pull the magic into you. Fairy magic is drawn from the earth the same way that Witch magic is only it is wilder and stronger. It is easy for Fairy magic to go astray if you do not keep a tight hold on it.”
That sounds scary. No wonder he wanted me to be away from people while he teaches me. Closing my eyes, I imagine that I can feel a force being drawn into me from the earth. I imagine it filling me as if I was an empty vessel and when I can’t hold any more, I imagine that force spreading out to the tree in front of me and shaking the snow from it. I have no idea if it’s working or not but I feel strangely at peace and I want the sensation to last forever.
A hand grasps my face roughly under my chin. “Open your eyes, dammit!”
Good lord, does he always have to ruin my happy moments? Slowly, I open my eyes and the feeling of peace that I had plummets down through my body until I feel it seeping back into the earth leaving me feeling incomplete and colder than I was before.
“Ouch,” I say as I realize that Kallen is squeezing both my hand and my face. “Stop it,” I manage to say despite his tight grip.
“Is it gone?” he asks and I look at him like he’s crazy. He sighs heavily. “The magic, has all of it left you?” I nod my head and with relief obvious on his face he lets go of both my hand and my jaw at the same time.
“What is the matter with you?” I demand with my hands on my hips.
He tilts his head and makes a gesture with his arm for me to look around us. I slowly pivot and as I do, I realize that I was successful in making the snow shake down from the tree I had been thinking about. But then I also realize that there is no longer snow on any of the trees for as far as I can see. My mouth drops open. Kallen must have lied when he said he wasn’t going to join his magic with mine. Annoyed, I turn back towards him. “What did you do that for?”
His face contorts into a look of amazement and not in a good way. “What exactly is it you believe I did?”
“You used your own magic. How are we going to know if mine works if you don’t let me try?”
His look of incredulity slowly turns into amusement and he begins to laugh. At me. Again. “Just what’s so funny about you not letting me use my own magic?”
He tries to sober up as he shakes his head in wonder. “I did not use a drop of my magic. I had a hard enough time reining in yours. It burned through me so hot and fast that I almost wasn’t able to hold onto it.”
“Right, like I believe that.”
He shrugs. “Believe it or not, neither makes it less true. But we do need to work on your control. You were lost. It took several attempts on my part to bring you back.”
I don’t understand what he means. “Lost?”
He nods. “As I explained, Fairy magic is different than Witch magic. It is purer, not forced. Because of this, it can create a sense
of oneness with the earth. It can be difficult to let go of that.”
I nod because now I understand what he means. “It was peaceful.”
He smiles. “Yes, it can be.”
Looking around again, I ask, “Did I really do this?”
“Yes.”
“And you really didn’t use any of your own magic?”
“That is correct.”
“Wow.”
“Shall we continue on our way?” Yup, there’s the buzz kill who’s name is Kallen.
“Sure.”
We go for a long time before Kallen says anything to break our silence. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t end it this time and I don’t. He stops abruptly and I almost walk into him. “Here,” he says.
True of Blood (Witch Fairy Series) Page 10