Odd Melody (Odd Series Book 2)

by Nelson, Virginia

  He smelled like wild magic and reminded me of home. Unlike my mother’s scent, his male essence called to a part of me that I usually ignored. For a moment, as I snapped him in, since he had been unresponsive up to that point, I breathed deeply of his aroma.

  I stood quickly and moved to my side of the car. I cracked my window to keep his scent from permeating the car and drove as fast as the road conditions would allow to the house on the far side of Jefferson. Pulling into the long drive and through the gates, a feeling of nostalgia hit me that I hadn’t gotten when I came to the courts at night. Maybe because I hadn’t been kidnapped this time and had come on my own steam. Maybe it was the snow glistening off those big iron gates that triggered years of tightly repressed childhood memories.

  I had grown up there. Most of my formative years had been spent running wild in the halls and on the land. It still felt like coming home, even if it would never be my home again. I wondered if that explained my mother’s reason for bringing me there, and then remembered she did not think like a person and discarded the notion.

  I parked the car and we all hustled through the cold. Well, Vickie and I hustled. Avery simply went where I led him.

  A man, shorter than I was, opened the front door. I was always curious when we visited my mother if Vickie wondered why everyone her grandmother hung out with stood shorter than average. As she had never asked, I hadn’t had to come up with any clever answers yet.

  We gave up our coats to the doorman, and he did not ask about Avery. Although, he glanced from my fiancé to me, one apparently did not ask the prodigal princess how she had broken the chosen prince.

  We followed the butler fairy down two stairs into the large living room with a cathedral ceiling and bay windows all around. Vance would fry in this room. On the far wall loomed a huge, stone fireplace big enough to barbeque a pig in—I only say that because I had seen it done once. Granite fieldstone, sparkling glass, and rich cherry wood materials gave a magical, yet earthy spirit to the room. My mother preferred to use natural materials in her decorating, and the glass allowed the outside to flow inside, which let her revel in her nature as a fairy. She perched on a leather sofa and looked up as we entered.

  Her smile withered around the edges as she saw Avery. “That is a bit more than not himself, wouldn’t you say, Janie?”

  I shrugged and flopped on a couch across from her. When I tugged, Avery dropped like a bag of rocks and continued his silent weeping next to me.

  Excited and eager, Vickie rushed to hug her grandmother, but I sat back and prepared myself for hell rather than high tea. Spending quality time with my mother while my daughter sported a tail and one of Mom’s favorite minions leaked black muck made hell a rather apt descriptor. The entire situation did not really create a recipe for a good time.

  My mother examined Vickie’s hair, tail, and the tattoos but did not comment. She did glare at me, but I had expected worse so I let it pass.

  Silent comments echoed in my head, though. Fairies do not befriend witches. Witches and fairies do not mix well. When they try, things like little girls with purple streaked hair, tattoos, and purple tails happen.

  As if weird crap occurred all the time around Mia. Okay, odd stuff did happen all the time, but most of it could not be blamed on Mia.

  Mother did not have to say any of it. Her disapproval and my putting my daughter in harm’s way shifted my guilty maternal conscience into overdrive. Not that my happy Vickie seemed terribly harmed just then, but still…

  A small wave of dizziness came over me. Shit. I had not fed the stupid starving siren abilities. I hadn’t figured I would need energy again this soon. I bit my lip.

  I could stall, but I would suffer if I waited too long. If I ignored it, the dizzy feeling got worse. I could not risk being weak so close to the fairie mounds. I needed Chance. I just had to figure out how to call him to me.

  I considered my mother. Would she catch on if I left?

  “Hey, I have something I need to take care of. Do you want to visit while I go off the property to make a call or two? Cells never work well this far from town.” The fairie mound messed with cell signals, making them sketchy at best, but I hesitated to remind Mom of that in front of Vickie.

  “Sure.” She smiled agreeably and waved me away. “Don’t forget your coat.”

  I grabbed my coat and dashed out the door. I probably seemed like an addict off to get my fix, but I burrowed in my coat and shuffled down the driveway. I unlocked my cell phone at the end of the drive.

  As I did, the air swished around me, and I heard an almost inaudible pop. The cold parted and became slightly warmer as Chance appeared. I stuffed the phone back in my pocket, and he followed me silently down the road.

  “How did you know I was going to call you?” I couldn’t resist asking even though I didn’t expect his response to really answer anything.

  “We are two halves of a whole.” His cheerful mask settled in place and I went on alert. Cheery Chance came out when he wanted to distract me. “We’re connected now. More than we were. You called. I came. I’m better than a phone.”

  “Do you have to come whenever I call?” I peered out of the corners of my eyes at him.

  With a flash of gold in his eyes, he changed from cheerful to cold. “No. I do not have to but as it suits neither my, nor your, needs for you to be weak and starving. It seemed logical for me to come when I sensed your need for me.”

  “How did you know I’d look for you?” My eyes had to have flashed in irritation. I was lightheaded and moody.

  “Aside from the fact that you have not been brave enough to feed off anyone else because you’re afraid to kill someone, but you aren’t afraid of hurting me because you think I’m some endless source of brain energy?” He gave me innocent, owlish eyes.

  I stared back and stopped walking down the snow packed road for a moment. I had not rationalized it, but he was right. “Can I hurt you?” Part of me worried about that, however, another part did not. My feelings for Chance were nothing if not conflicted.

  “Probably, but you haven’t yet. I’m not positive I can sustain you single handedly forever, but more than likely I can do it for a long time, years even, barring major injury. Our power seems to balance us evenly…further proof you belong to me.”

  I kept walking and he kept pace easily. “I hadn’t realized I was too chicken to try feeding off anyone else, but now that you mention it, I think I am leaning on you. It’s probably a terrible idea. It probably won’t help the other situation at all.” I probably should not have said all that out loud. However, Chance had a way about him that made my tongue and other things looser than normal.

  He smirked at me, “The other situation is not going to get better either way. Accepting that would probably help more than anything else but that is neither here nor there.”

  I gave him my best glare and opened the door to a small guesthouse. Although off fairie land technically, it still sat on the property my mother owned. It would provide a bright, safe place out of the weather, yet free of fairy magic. I walked in, shrugged out of my coat, and dropped it on the table, still there after years of disuse.

  The house had been my refuge when I was a kid. When my mother bought the property, she had used it for visitors. I had used it to hide. It created my safe place when I wanted to read, to escape, or to play somewhere that wasn’t drenched in magic. It became, in my head, my place. When I had gotten older, I had practically lived there. In Ohio, well, you can’t hide outside all the time. You need someplace warm to go.

  Chance spun once, took it all in, and smiled a small smile. “This place smells of you.”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged and frowned at the sudden intimacy of sharing my private space with him of all people. “I spent a lot of time here.”

  He shrugged out of his coat. It was a long tan duster and again I noticed how ordinary he dressed. For a creature of such power, of such mystery, he did try to fly under the radar. He dropped his coat on mine an
d sprawled on the couch as if he were at home.

  I moved to stand in front of him. “Well?”

  “I am here.” His smile was slow and his eyes glittered up at me. “Do your thing.”

  I made a noise of frustration. “Will you quit doing that? Why can’t you ever make this easy? You have the power to feed the darn thing and get it over with, and yet you make me work for it. I have a kid with a tail, a crying fairy issue, and a mother in there expecting me to join her for tea. Can we do this simply for once?”

  He studied me from hooded eyes. “Come to me.” He murmured the words in a low rumble that made goose bumps rise on my arms.

  “Chance.” My voice rose and fell on an exaggerated whine and sounded especially grating after his rumble.

  He said nothing more, only sat there, gazing at me with those half-lidded green eyes. In the semi-darkness, they were almost mossy, rather than their normal bright green. His denim encased legs spread comfortably, but I was anything but comfortable looking at the long legged picture of sex sprawled in my secret space. Wearing a long sleeved, white shirt with only his hands and neck bare, he presented the picture of decorum. Yet there was something decidedly lethal about him.

  Another wave of dizziness pressed behind my eyelids. Shimmering with power as the dust motes twinkled in the winter light, he waited for my next move. A shaft of sunlight broke the grey that had dominated the day so far and illuminated his enticing energy. A dry, burning sensation began to crackle along my flesh. The solution lay in him. I simply had to reach out and he would make the weakness go away. Chance’s light and energy pulsed from his flesh just for me, and I had not even opened my powers yet.

  He practically radiated vigor. Regrettably, he also radiated a pull that had nothing to do with energy.

  I walked to him, but stopped just out of reach and continued my silent study.

  “Rules pause while you feed.” One auburn brow quirked at me in challenge.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I licked lips suddenly gone dry. I watched him watch me. A pulse throbbed in my body that had nothing to do with the hunger and yet made the hunger all the worse.

  “No one is here. If you could do whatever you wanted, what would you do right now?”

  I blinked and shook my head. Nothing. I would do nothing but feed from him. That summed up all I wanted. He represented a means to an end. Nothing more. I lied to myself. He provided something so much more, something so terribly real sitting there watching and waiting for me.

  “I can’t think right now.” That was not a lie. Grey spots started to swim in my vision. The hunger came like that. I could not put it off. I went from fine, to worse, to desperately bad too quickly.

  “So don’t think. What do you want, Janie?”

  I glared at him, but he swam a bit. His image cleared then went fuzzy then lit with a glare of light. “You’re trying to take advantage of the fact that I am weak again.” I didn’t hide the accusation in my tone.

  “Oh, yeah.” His hoarse voice made part of me hungry in a way that had nothing to do with feeding. “You may be hungry for power, but did it occur to you that I’m addicted, too? The more I feed you, the more I need you. Come to me. Ease this want.”

  “I can’t.” I wanted to close the space between us. Our knees practically touched, and still he had not moved a muscle. His hands spread across the back of the couch, and I noticed that they clutched the pillows as if to keep from reaching for me. His knuckles grew white from tension. Maybe he was not as relaxed as he pretended. The thought offered little comfort. I couldn’t think clearly enough to remember why exactly I couldn’t do what we both wanted. At that moment, it did seem like a good idea to crawl into his lap and suck him into me.

  “Janie.” He whispered my name and need hummed in his voice.

  A part of me had to answer.

  After a pause, far too brief for my well-being, those half-lidded eyes opened and focused fully on mine. The intense green drew me. Irresistible. Fated. “Come to me,” he repeated.

  Through a new wave of dry, burning, siren hunger, I could no longer remember why touching him was such a terrible idea. He would feed me. I crawled across his legs and pressed him into the couch. I did not bother to sing to him. It would not work with this prey anyway. I caught his curls and tugged his head back to pin him to the sofa.

  His hands and arms closed around me and my legs wrapped around his body to hold him in place. Even if he stood, he could not escape.

  I jerked his head, tugging that hair hard. His eyes went a little wild and his breath came out in a sigh. “I do not like your games when I am starving, Chance.” With that, I closed my mouth over his and demanded his power.

  His light came up and met mine like an inferno. Energy swept into me and quickly satisfied the burning ache. But for the first time when I had my fill, rather than stop, I continued to pull. He tried to draw back but I sucked more of the light. I tugged on his power, the very essence that ran his brain. Call it his soul, call it the electricity of the mind, whatever it was, I tugged on it rather than taking only that which flowed to me. At the same time, I pulled his hair and tilted his head back and arched over him. I stretched his neck and drew him in as if to drink him all in one long gulp. When I had gotten that extra bit, I tried to shove it back at him.

  He writhed up against me when I pushed it down his throat. His fingers dug into my hips and a long, sensual, guttural sound escaped from him. I shoved his own power down his throat. In my head, where feelings had taste and color, the moment tinted blue and tasted of the sea. The power ran from me to him and pulsed with a surge of sheer electricity.

  His hands tangled in my hair and his body twisted mine. He pressed me into the couch in one long waving move. “What are you doing?” He growled into my ear and bit the lobe.

  “You like games.” Flying on a rush of power, the breathy sound of my own voice surprised me. “I thought you should taste my power.”

  “Shit.” His voice was barely audible. “Your learning curve is interesting, you know that?”

  I caught his mouth with mine. His tongue stroked mine, and its warmth filled me before he thrust power at me again. A testing swirl of energy slid down my throat, and I shivered for him. He tasted of a storm, moist and enticing like the spring. My eyes closed and areas far below my brain tightened. All that I had went wet and ready for his naked skin on mine. On a sigh, I writhed for him.

  I tugged again on his hair and he met my gaze. His grin held sheer devilry. I caught his lips and shoved the power back.

  His hands squeezed me. His body tightened and bucked against me, and he growled low in his chest. I wondered if he even realized he had growled. He came up for air like a man from a pool of water and looked at me with laughing eyes.

  I met them with a smile of my own. “Did you know we could do that?”

  He rubbed on the tattoo on my neck, and I wriggled upward to rub my body against him. My breathing grew harsh and rapid.

  “Not that exactly, no. Apparently, there are endless surprises in store for us. If you would just stop fighting me.” He whispered into my neck and began to nibble his way across my flesh.

  My body lit on fire. I had never needed to finish that race to completion more in my life. Chance’s touch represented everything I’d ever wanted a lover to be. But I stilled because of what he had said not because of what he did. Fighting him? Yes, I had to fight him. Damn it. He had done it again.

  With one swift move, that worked largely because I did it out of nowhere, I dumped Chance off me and onto the floor.

  He landed on his ass with an uncharacteristic lack of grace. I stared at the ceiling. It was my turn to clutch the couch cushions and relearn how to breathe. I stared upward, anywhere but at him, and convinced myself not to roll off the couch on top of Chance and finish what I had started.

  My body insisted I take what I wanted. My mind screamed. What are you doing?

  “Well, I guess that means you’re feeling be
tter.” He spoke from the floor with a dry sort of humor.

  I snorted. I choked. I burst into semi-hysterical laughter. I rolled onto my side and looked at him. He sat, hands on his knees, smiling at me. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  He grinned, unrepentant. “Nope.”

  I curled into myself, holding onto my body to stop it from shattering. The scent of summer storm lingered everywhere he had touched. His curls hung like burnt amber in the light with its dancing dust motes that tangoed more quickly since we had moved the air around. His eyes glittered like green gems. His smile held a little regret, but not much, as he studied me. Almost as if he really saw me for the first time. As if he alone saw all my flaws, all my strengths and liked me just fine because of them. Not many men saw a woman like that. Not really.

  “I don’t give up either.”

  As I issued the warning, he shifted to his side and propped up on an elbow, his grin and gorgeous eyes closer than I could handle objectively. “That’s part of the attraction. I like that you’re strong enough to fight me. We both know eventually I will win, but I like that you’re tough enough not to give up easily. That means no one else will ever beat you down.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “You don’t know that.”

  He leaned in suddenly in one of those moves almost too quick to track with the naked eye. His eyes, inches from mine, flashed gold. “I know what you are. You are mine.”

  His lips closed over mine in a kiss so sweet as to be nearly heartbreaking. The surprising tenderness threw me. I had expected the kiss to be possessive, or perhaps fiery. Instead, it tasted so sweet, so tender…so something unnamable. A kiss unlike any he had given me before. I closed my eyes and for a moment, I floated, suspended on a wave, on the edge of something bigger than myself and then—

  He disappeared.

  I opened my eyes to an empty room. Even his coat had gone. I curled tighter into a ball and stared at the wall, heart confused. What had that moment of gentleness meant? The feeding I understood. The sexual tension I got. The soul mate thing I could handle so long as it seemed to revolve mostly around sexual tension and hunger. But that last kiss disturbed me in a way beyond the physical. I shuddered and sat up. It was better not to think too deeply about anything having to do with Chance. Nothing good would come of it.