True of Blood (Witch Fairy Series)

by Lamer, Bonnie

  “Here?” It’s as if he was talking to himself in his head and then said the last part out loud and I’m supposed to know what he’s talking about.

  “This is where we will set up camp.”

  I look around. All I see is snow and trees and ridges. Nothing about it is screaming ‘stay here!’ “Why here?”

  “Exactly,” he says with a smile.

  I shake my head as if that will bring clarity to this conversation. “What?”

  He just smiles which is starting to infuriate me now. “Come,” he says and I’m tempted to tell him no. Instead I cross my arms over my chest and watch him walk away while I stay put.

  Finally noticing that I am not following him after he goes about twenty feet, he turns around and gives me an impatient look. “Come.”

  “I’m not a dog.”

  Confusion washes over his face. “I do not recall implying that you are any type of canine.”

  “Come,” I say in a crude imitation of his deep voice. “That’s how you call a dog.”

  Annoyance is now back on his face. “Would you rather I say, oh, please, my Fairy Princess, will you grant me the honor of accompanying me so I may show you to our new abode?”

  “You’re a jerk.”

  “So you have said.” His annoyance is quickly turning to anger. He turns away from me and continues walking towards wherever it is he thinks we’re going to stay. There is no way that I am going to sleep out in the open and he’s crazy if he thinks I am.

  After a moment, he disappears behind some trees and I’m suddenly very alone. I either follow him or try to find my way out of here. Since that’s not likely to happen, I guess I have to follow him.

  After about ten feet, I see why he stopped. I have no idea how he saw it from the path we were on. Behind a clump of trees and a stony crag, there is a cave that was invisible from where we were. I carefully step over rocks and a narrow ledge and find Kallen already setting down the backpacks and pulling out a lantern. Even in the bright sunshine, the cave is pretty dark.

  “How did you notice this?” I ask assuming that he had used his magic.

  “Because of the ice,” he says not lifting his eyes from the lantern as he sets it down and begins removing some food for lunch.

  “What do you mean?”

  Finally, he deigns to look up at me. “The ice there at the opening of the cave. I caught the sun reflecting off from it.”

  Okay, he just doesn’t want to admit that he used magic so I move on. “This is where we’re going to stay?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?” How long can we possibly live in a cave in the mountains? We only have food rations for about a week not to mention the temperamental weather at this altitude.

  He looks up at me again and says dryly, “For as long as it takes.”

  Having a conversation with him must be what it was like for the followers of Buddha when he was alive. He seems to only be able to answer questions with zen-like simplicity. “And how long do you think that will be?” I push.

  Setting the food he was pulling out down, he stands up and crosses his arms over his chest. I’m impressed that he found a cave that he could actually stand up straight in. “How long do you intend to take to learn to control your magic?” he asks.

  What a stupid question. “I don’t know.” He raises his eyebrows and stares at me until understanding sinks in and color floods into my cheeks. If I don’t know how long that will take, he can’t tell me how long we’ll have to stay here. I don’t care, he’s still being a jerk.

  For something to do other than stare back at him, I kneel down in front of my backpack and take my sleeping bag off from it. I bring it to the far side of the cave and unroll it. By the time I’m done, Kallen has the small cook stove out and is warming a can of soup. My stomach begins growling as soon as I smell it.

  He doesn’t say anything while he stirs the soup and when it’s hot enough, he pours it into two bowls. He hands me one and we eat in yet another of our uncomfortable silences. I better learn how to control my magic quickly because this is going to drive me insane.

  “Why don’t you have wings?” I ask trying to fill the silence.

  He looks at me as if I’m stupid. Again. “Because I am not in my raven form.”

  I roll my eyes. “I mean right now when you’re not in your raven form. I thought Fairies had wings.”

  He looks like he wants to say something rude but he doesn’t. Instead, he actually answers my question. “That was a legend that was started a very long time ago because some of the Fae’s animal forms are birds such as mine. When we are not in our animal forms, we do not have wings.”

  “Oh.” I’m actually disappointed. It would be cool to find out he had wings that could pop out of his back any time he wanted. “Do I have an animal form?” I’m not sure I want him to say yes to this. I’m torn on the whole half animal half person thing.

  He nods. “You should, but it will be a while before you discover what yours is. As you begin to use your Fairy magic more, your magic will decide which animal best suits you.”

  “Okay.” I hope it’s something that flies. My luck I’ll probably be a fish and when I change when I’m not around water I’ll drown on air. I really hate all this magic stuff right now.

  After lunch, Kallen brings our bowls to the snow around the cave and uses some to wash them out. Hmm, he’s a lot more domestic than I would have guessed him to be. I have a hard time keeping any number of teasing thoughts that cross my mind from popping out of my mouth so we don’t get into another verbal sparring match. At least I’ve learned something over the last couple of days.

  “Are you ready?” he asks from behind me.

  I turn around to look at him. “Ready for what?”

  He looks at me as if I’m dense and says slowly, “To practice.”

  I would like to practice pushing him over a cliff but I don’t say that out loud either. Instead, I simply say, “Yes.”

  He gestures for me to go ahead of him and we walk out of the cave. I stop after a few feet because I don’t know where he wants me. He seems to get that and he walks ahead of me a few more feet and then stops. He has taken off his hat and I can’t help but notice that his black hair gleams in the sunlight and is just the right length to run fingers through. Whoa, still not going there so I don’t know where that thought came from.

  Turning to me, Kallen says, “We need to start with something smaller than you tried before. We don’t want you to inadvertently start an avalanche.”

  For a moment I think he’s joking but his face says otherwise. Hey, great way to make me nervous I grumble to myself but apparently I did say that out loud because his lips are starting to curl up at the sides. Great, he’s laughing at me again.

  “I had intended to start with the tenets of Witch magic and work up to Fairy magic, but I do not think that is going to be possible. Your Fairy magic seems to want to be dominant so it will be important for you to learn to control it before we try any type of spell or incantation.”

  My brows knit together as I consider what he said. “How do you know so much about Witch magic?”

  “Because the best defense is knowing the tricks of your enemy,” he says matter-of-factly.

  “So you really do consider Witches your enemy? Where does that leave me then?” I ask defensively.

  “It leaves you half Fairy and we are wasting daylight by having this conversation.”

  I give him a dirty look but I say, “Fine, what do you want me to do?”

  Checking to make sure I hadn’t put the amulet back on since he last touched me, Kallen offers me his hand. I take off my gloves and shove them into the pocket of my coat and then place my hand firmly in his. He curls his fingers around mine and I swear I feel a tingle up my arm.

  He must not have felt anything because he’s all business. “I would like you to focus on simply bringing the magic from the earth inside of you. I do not want you to direct it anywhere. I just want
you to hold it.” I nod and close my eyes.

  I imagine that I am an empty vessel again and I can feel the magic trying to fill me up. I let myself revel in the peace that it brings. I truly am one with the earth at this moment. I feel as if I am holding the very essence of life inside of me. I don’t ever want to let it go and I give myself over to it completely.

  The next thing I know, I am lying in the snow and Kallen is on his knees next to me panting. What the hell? He looks like he’s going to be sick. When his eyes meet mine I can’t read them. He just looks at me stonily as he attempts to catch his breath.

  Finding my voice, I ask, “What happened?”

  “You attempted to burn me from the inside out,” he says angrily. I sit up and cross my arms and glare at him until he explains further. “You channeled too much magic to hold yourself so you pushed it inside of me and I had to force it out with my own magic. You kept pushing and as our magic worked against each other, my body was caught in the cross fire.”

  “That must be why my head hurts,” I say and he looks at me as if he really couldn’t care less that I have a headache. “Should we try again?” I ask and I don’t even want to know what thought is going through his mind at the moment. I’m positive it’s not at all flattering towards me.

  Instead of saying what’s on his mind, he sits back in the snow and asks, “How did you know about the give and take of magic?”

  It takes me a minute to remember what he’s talking about. “Oh, you mean the expression that Mom would always use when she was trying to impress upon my brother and me the importance of sharing.”

  “Did she use any other clever expressions?”

  “Lots of them,” I say and he looks at me expectantly so I wrack my brain to think of another one. Any other time I can ramble a bunch of them off but now it takes me a couple of minutes to think of one. “She liked to say ‘soft of eye and light of touch - speak ye little, listen much.’”

  “A lesson you apparently never learned,” he says dryly. I refuse to rise to the bait so he continues. “It appears that your mother may have indeed impressed upon you many of the tenets of Witch magic and in turn, many of these tenets can also be applied to Fairy magic. For instance, soft of eye and light of touch means that magic is delicate, it must be handled carefully. And when using it, you must learn to listen to the earth because it will tell you if you are taking too much, or perhaps more correctly said, more than you can control.” He says this last part while looking at me pointedly before he continues again. “We need to do this again and you have to try harder to sense how much magic you are channeling. Do not take more than you can handle.”

  Four hours and seven attempts later, I still don’t have a good handle on controlling how much magic I pull from the earth and each time we try, Kallen takes longer and longer before he’s willing to try again. I suspect that forcing my magic out of him is even more painful than he had originally implied. It’s not even dark yet when he decides that we should quit for the night.

  He doesn’t say much when we settle back into the cave to make our dinner. The food we brought is simple and doesn’t require a lot of fuss to prepare. I look over our rations with concern as I consider how poorly I did today.

  Right after dinner, Kallen shimmers into his raven form without warning and flies away. Great, alone in a cave in the mountains. Again. Have I mentioned that this cannot possibly be my life? Taking advantage of his abrupt absence, I do a quick sponge bath with some wet wipes I brought and change my clothes. It feels great to be in a new pair of underwear. I keep expecting Kallen to show up just as I’m changing so I move as quickly as I can. I needn’t have worried, though, because three hours later he still hasn’t shown up. I stay up reading from a book that Mom had given me before I left; her grimoire she called it. It’s full of spells and incantations as well as instructions for making amulets and talismans so it holds my attention for a long time but by ten o’clock, I can hardly keep my eyes open any more. I take off my boots and coat and slip into my sleeping bag. I’m able to fall asleep much quicker than I was the night before.

  I’m woken up abruptly by Kallen as he straddles my sleeping bag with his knees by my hips and his hands on either side of my head. I just stifle a scream as I realize it’s him. “What are you doing? Get off me.”

  He has the strangest expression on his face. “You are not stronger than I am. You can’t be. I am full blooded Fae and you are a half-breed.”

  I glare up at him. “So you’ve said several times. Will you get off me now?”

  “I do not know how you are doing it.”

  “Doing what?”

  “There is no one in the realm of Fae who is stronger than I am save the King and my grandmother. That’s why I had to come.”

  “Good for you. You still haven’t gotten off from me.” Good lord, is he drunk or something? Hmm, I wonder if Fairies can get drunk.

  Bringing my attention back to him by putting his hand on my jaw as he had this morning, he says, “This power of yours, it must be some kind of trick.”

  I am beyond angry now. There is no way I’m going to let him get away with this behavior. My amulet is still in my backpack so the only thing I can think to do to get him off from me is to use the earth magic I’ve learned to draw on. I close my eyes and reach down through the earth and I get the now familiar feel of the magic flowing into me. Instead of trying to hold on to it, to control it, I push it outward and I feel it leave me with the force of a tornado.

  “No!” Kallen yells and I feel him wrap his arms and legs around me and we roll about five feet from where we were. I open my eyes to tell him to get the hell off me again but I close my mouth as I realize why he had done what he did. Half of the cave has been buried in rock from what looks like a massive rock slide. My eyes find Kallen’s and the green of his eyes is so intense they appear to be glowing. I have never, ever, seen someone as angry as he is right now. And he’s wrapped completely around me.

  “I gave up my world to save you and this is how you repay me,” he growls and the next thing I know his lips are on mine. Great, my first kiss and it’s a result of anger and control instead of passion. That’s par for how things have been going so far this week. Using my hands instead of my magic, I push against him and he immediately ends the kiss. He looks at me as if he can’t believe what he had just done.

  Well, neither can I. In fact, I’m betting I’m unhappier about it than he is. So much for that not kissing half-breeds crap he gave me last night. “Get off me!” I yell and he scrambles to his feet.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I continue to yell as I stand up shedding my sleeping bag and back away from him but as a rock near the entrance of the cave shifts I realize it’s probably a good idea to keep my voice down. No need to cause another rock slide. “Well?” I ask in a quieter but not less angry voice.

  “You almost killed us by using magic you cannot control,” he accuses as he stands up as well.

  No way am I going to let him deflect all the blame towards me. Through a clenched jaw, I whisper harshly as I poke him hard in the chest with my index finger, “I wouldn’t have had to do anything if you hadn’t attacked me.”

  I can tell that he knows this was all his fault. But does he own up to it? No, he turns feather and runs away. Or flies away, actually. Great, he makes the mess and he leaves me to clean it up. Have I mentioned how much I’m growing to hate him? I pull my boots on to protect my feet not only from the cold but also from the small rocks that are now strewn about the cave. It takes me about twenty minutes to round up all of our stuff and arrange it on the side of the cave that isn’t full of rocks. I also check the rest of the cave to make sure it’s not going to fall down, too. It seems solid so I slip my boots back off, pull my amulet on over my head and crawl back into my sleeping bag but that’s only for warmth. There’s no way I’m going to be able to fall back to sleep any time soon. Instead, I grab Mom’s grimoire and use my flashlight to continue reading.

&nb
sp; I must have fallen asleep at some point because I wake up to sunshine and Kallen sitting against the wall of the cave staring at me. When he realizes I’m awake, he stands up abruptly and says, “I will wait outside for you to be ready to practice.” Not even an indication that an apology is coming.

  I intentionally take my time eating my granola bar savoring every bite as I imagine him outside in the cold waiting for me. It had started to snow at some point during the night and I hoped he would be covered in it by the time I get out there. I’m disappointed to find that he’s not when I finally exit the cave half an hour later.

  He doesn’t say a thing about how long I took. He simply takes his gloves off, makes them disappear and holds his hand out to me. I reach out and take his hand and he immediately snatches his back with a hiss as a bright light glows from my under my coat. I forgot that I had put the amulet back on. Really, I did.