by Bonnie Lamer
I am so wrapped up in her touch that it takes me a moment to realize she is drawing magic. A lot of it. Dragging my lips from hers, I look down at her scared eyes. “Xandra?”
“I think you’re going to want to move away from me,” she says as she struggles to get her magic under control. What the hell? My mind bursts with more expressive oaths than that when flames appear above us. Rolling us away from it, I pull Xandra from the bed and halfway across the room.
To make things even stranger, there is now music. The flames break apart and look like little fire people. Little dancing fire people. “Xandra, what are you doing?”
She looks up at me helplessly. “It’s not me. It’s the little bits of extra soul I’m carrying around.”
It is times like this that I wish she had a better handle on her magic. “Then take control and make them stop.” She closes her eyes and I feel her fighting the magic. With little success.
Just half a second ago, I thought the spreading, dancing flames were the most concerning things in the room. That was before Xandra’s mother comes sliding through the wall. “Xandra, I smell smoke. Is everything alright in here…”
She chokes on her words as she takes in her topless and mostly bottomless daughter pressed against my chest. I am not sure which of the three of us is the most red – Xandra, the flames, or myself. I would put money on me though. I would imagine that Xandra’s mother was a scary Witch when she was alive because she is terrifying as a spirit. I brace myself for the onslaught of her words and her magic. I also dress myself and cover Xandra from neck to toe in a something resembling a flannel tent. Okay, that may have been overkill but I am not about to change her again. The part of me that refuses to be a coward keeps me rooted next to Xandra’s side. The part of me that wishes I was a coward wants to get the hell out of this room as quickly as possible.
“Julienne, are they okay?” Xandra’s father asks as he also floats through the wall. Yet again I am thankful that I have not been raised by spirits. Privacy is definitely at a premium when you are. It does not take her father long to pick up on the molten tension in the room and, I am sure, guess at its cause. He may not have magic but that does not rule him out as an accessory, or perpetrator, of murder.
“Xandra Illuminata Smith, you will put that fire out right now.”
The other souls inside of Xandra are apparently not as terrified of her mother as I am at the moment. The flame people have become tiny coffin bearers and I believe a Cowan funeral march is the music playing in the room. This is the kind of situation that will be funny later. Twenty years later.
After an internal struggle Xandra is finally able to put out the flames. Her mother does not give any of us time to speak before she says, “Kallen, Jim, leave the room.”
I cannot leave Xandra to face her mother alone. I am just as responsible, if not more so, for what happened as Xandra is. After all, I am the one that removed our clothing. “I think I should sta…” is all I can get out before the Witch spirit cracks a bolt of lightning behind me. Son of a bitch that was close! I believe my heels are singed. I am positive the backs of my legs are now hairless.
“Get out,” Xandra’s mother says in a tone of voice that tells me the next lightning bolt will do more than make me hairless. With a helpless look in Xandra’s direction I back out of the room. I do not trust exposing my back to the Witch. Xandra’s expression is understanding as I close the door behind me.
But I am not going far. I am not afraid to face whatever consequences result from our actions. If Grandmother had walked in on us in such a…compromising situation, our hand-fasting would already be planned. Strange how not so long ago that would have terrified me even more than her mother. I have dated a few girls. Nothing serious and certainly no one I was willing to risk a lifelong hand-fasting with. But it is different for Xandra. I know that we are destined to be together.
About a minute after I close the door, Xandra’s father floats through it. “I haven’t seen Julienne this pissed since she told me what her parents tried to do to her.” He becomes thoughtful for a moment. Perhaps he is planning my slow demise. “I am going to go out on a limb here and say that Julienne is probably overreacting to whatever happened between you two.”
Trying to keep my lower jaw from dropping to the floor is difficult when I seem to have lost all muscle control due to the great amount of shock I have suffered this evening. Before I can even consider how to respond to that, he holds his hand up. “Now, I am not saying that whatever you two were doing is not reason for concern,” even his cheeks are red as he says this, “I am simply trying to see this from Xandra’s point of view. As far as I can tell, you are the only constant in Xandra’s life right now. She depends on you to be there for her and you always are. So if you two are making out now and then, it’s okay. Hell, I was seventeen once. But she is still my little girl.” I get a very pointed look here.
I assume his idea of making out is not broad enough to cover what his wife walked in on. My lips refuse to form the words to tell him that though. We spend the next few minutes in awkward silence until Xandra’s mother floats through the door.
I cannot pretend that she does not know what happened. Trying not to meet her husband’s eyes, I say, “Ms. Smith, if you feel that a right hand-fasting is in order, I would completely understand. I would be proud to marry your daughter.”
Her eyebrows rise. “How about if the two of you just slow down some. I may be a ghost, but I’m still too young for grandchildren.”
Whoa, things were not quite that far. Yet. “Of course.”
“Hold up a minute,” Xandra’s father says in surprise. “What exactly went on in there?”
The Witch looks back and forth between her husband and daughter who has now joined us in the hall. Whatever she and Xandra said to each other calmed her down quite a bit. She is almost Zen when she says, “Nothing that we need to be concerned about at the moment. Xandra is about to tell us about the pieces of souls that attached to hers when she was in hell.”
“What?!” Her father has lost any thought of the discussion that was taking place. Now he looks terrified as he gives Xandra an assessing look as if he looks hard enough, he will see the extra bits.
“I don’t have all the details yet, Xandra’s going to fill us in now. We should go downstairs and find Isla and Tabitha.”
Her parents may have forgotten all about the conversation but I have not. Xandra turns to follow her parents down the stairs but I grab her arm. “May I speak with you for a moment before we go down?”
She frowns as she looks back and forth between her parents’ backs and me. “Okay, but we shouldn’t be too long.”
True. Running a nervous hand through my hair, I take a deep breath and say, “Perhaps we should become legally wed.”
“What? No.”
Not exactly the joyful yes I was expecting. Though I have to admit, a tiny part of me is relieved. We are young but…“Xandra, if your mother talks to my grandmother about this…”
She snorts. “Um, I don’t think that’ll be an issue.”
Sure. Her mother tends to let things slip when she is angry. Thinking of that, why is she not still furious with us? “Your mother is not insistent that we have broken the rules of the left hand-fasting?”
Suspicion washes over Xandra’s face. “Is there something I don’t know about this left hand-fasting thing?”
Oops. I backed myself into a corner now. She really is ignorant of the laws of courting in the Fae realm. Nothing we have done fits cleanly into them. “We may have…pushed the rules to the absolute limit.” And a little bit beyond.
She stands akimbo and glares up at me. “I would like a list, a specific list, of what the rules are, because I was under the impression that things only changed if we have sex.”
She cannot be this naïve. “Xandra, we practically were.”
Her anger dissolves as quickly as it rose up. “Yeah, about that.” She bites her bottom lip in a way that makes me
nervous about what she will say next. Probably something along the lines of ‘my room is now off limits to you.’ “I kind of promised my mom that we’d slow things down a bit.”
That is it? We simply need to slow down? I laugh and put my hands on her hips pulling her close. “I think that would be a good idea, as well.”
“Maybe we should have a fully clothed rule?” she whispers after checking to make sure we are truly alone.
Fully clothed? That seems to be taking it to the extreme. Then again, she did not say fully clothed in what. I can get pretty creative when I want to. A see-through nightie that covers her from her neck to her toes is technically ‘fully dressed.’ “Agreed.” Now my mind is quickly going back to thoughts that landed us here in the hallway talking about limits to begin with. I drop my hands and step back from her before we end up back in her bedroom. “We should join the others.”
Not looking forward to speaking with her parents again so soon, we trudge slowly to the stairs. It is already the middle of the night, I am not sure why we have to discuss this again right now. As if reading my mind, Barb moves from the shadows and asks, “Is this place always this loud during the night?”
“Sorry, Aunt Barb. It’s been a rough night,” Xandra says.
With something close to a sneer, Xandra’s aunt says, “You two are quite the naughty pair, aren’t you.” This from the woman who astral projected herself into the Shadow realm. I bite my tongue to keep from saying that out loud. No sense in having all of Xandra’s relatives mad at me. “Are you sure keeping your little secret from Isla is the right thing to do? You have made a binding agreement, after all.”
Is that a loosely veiled threat? And what, exactly, does she know about our actions. Was she peeking in through the key hole?
Xandra’s brows knot up in puzzlement. “Aunt Barb, are you okay?”
This time, it is definitely a sneer. “Of course I’m okay, why do you ask?”
“I guess I thought you would be on Mom and Dad’s side and not want me to get married right now.”
She cocks her head. “But rules are rules, Xandra. If you break them, you have to deal with the consequences. Didn’t your little trip to the Shadow realm drive that point home?”
This Cowan is lucky that I do not know a spell to send her soul back into the Shadow realm. The fingernail grooves on the back of my hand assure me that Xandra is thinking the very same thing. We both open our mouths to retort but Alita interrupts when she opens the door to the bedroom she is staying in.
“Xandra, I thought I heard your voice.” She opens the door wider and comes out into the hall. “I wanted to thank you for what you did earlier. You saved my life.”
Red the color of molten lava creeps up from the center of the earth to spread across Xandra’s face. She is not thinking about saving Alita. She must be thinking about how Alita would feel if she knew what happened in the kitchen. Which Xandra is not forthcoming about. “You’re my only friend. I couldn’t let anything happen to you.” She makes a valiant attempt at a smile.
Alita laughs. “Yes, that would leave you in a pickle, I suppose.” An eyebrow goes up over her left eye as she looks Xandra up and down. “And as your friend, may I say that your fashion sense has suffered greatly since the last time I saw you?”
I try not to laugh as I look down at the outfit I created for Xandra under her mother’s wrathful eye. Maybe something less severe will do now. Someday she will tell me what she wants to wear, but I have found so far that she is not really that worried about clothes. Growing up in the cold, she mostly wore layers of sweaters. That is flattering on no one. I use my magic to dissolve the sack dress she is in and replace it with a pair of short black shorts and a form fitting t-shirt. Yes, definitely a better choice.
“Thanks,” Xandra says with a smile. If only she could read my lustful mind at the moment. She may not be thanking me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Barb is tense. She tries to inconspicuously sidle away from us. Odd. Xandra notices as well. “Aunt Barb…” she starts to say, but is cut off by Alita’s cry of pain.
She was on her way to give Xandra a hug, but as she passes Barb, she drops to her knees and grabs her head with both hands. We are at her side in a flash. “Alita, what is it? Is it the poison, did I miss some?” Xandra asks.
Alita shakes her head slightly and grimaces in pain. “I was fine until right now,” she says.
“She’s certainly high maintenance, isn’t she,” Barb says with more than a little disdain in her voice.
I do not trust this Cowan woman. She is somehow responsible for Alita’s pain, I am sure of it. I do not know what happened to her in the Shadow realm before Xandra rescued her but I intend to find out before she brings this house down around us.
Xandra gives me a meaningful look before saying, “Um, Aunt Barb, how about if you and I go downstairs and Kallen helps Alita back to her room.” Good to know she has her own suspicions.
With what can only be described as a look of disgust in Alita’s direction, Barb turns and walks down the marble stairs. It goes against the grain to let Xandra go off alone with someone who may be carrying darkness inside of her, but then again, she can handle anything her Cowan aunt throws at her.
I give a quick nod and then I scoop Alita up into my arms. Her face is in a grim line as I walk her back to her bedroom. “I will be right down,” I assure Xandra.
Chapter 18
“I am so sorry to be such a bother,” Alita says as I lay her gently on the soft bed. “I cannot believe you had to carry me in here like a log.”
I sit down on the edge of the bed next to her and raise my brows. “You weigh approximately the same as a jellyfish. Are you implying I am too weak to carry you around?”
She slaps playfully at my shoulder. “You know what I mean. But now that you mention it, you do seem to have lost some muscle tone. Must be all that time with Xandra is making you soft.”
I feign insult at her teasing. “I will have you know that I work out rigorously every day. Usually in the form of beating my cousin to a bloody pulp which more often than not he deserves.”
Alita shakes her head but stops immediately; pain is shooting from her eyes. “You do not. It has been years since you two have done any real harm to one another, and even then it was always accidental. I do not understand why you both go on about such things.”
I grin and give her a wink. “It is a special bond we have.” I will not give her any indication things are amiss between Kegan and I. For then I would have to explain why.
“You are all talk. And you reek of love sickness you know. I have never seen a Fairy tumble so fast and so hard before.”
I sniff my shoulders and underarms. “You are mistaken, that is simply sweat. Mine just happens to be sweeter than others.”
Her face sobers. “You would do anything for her.” A statement, not a question.
I nod. “Without any regard for consequences.” I believe I know where her thoughts are. “He will one day figure out what is truly important in life. I did so there must be hope for him.”
Her eyes slide down to look at her hands. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
I put a finger under her chin and lift her face so she has to meet my eyes. “My cousin is the biggest jackass in existence if he does not tell my uncle to go to hell and elope with you. He knows that he will always be welcome under Grandmother’s roof.”
She rolls her eyes. “Get out of here. Xandra looked nervous a moment ago and she probably needs you more than I do.”
I lean forward and kiss her forehead. “I will leave you to rest but you have to promise to let us know if you need anything.” She nods but I know she is lying.
She opens her mouth but whatever she was about to say is lost when we hear Zac scream down the hall. I am several paces ahead of Alita as I crash into his room, expecting the worst. What I find is a scared and tired child who has just woken from a nightmare. He practically leaps into my arms with tears
streaming down his cheeks. “Shhh, everything is fine,” I say softly, sitting down on the bed. “Shh.”
The pounding of feet down the hall proves that his screams were heard throughout the house. I rock him back and forth, trying to calm him down as much as possible before the others arrive. Unfortunately, this may be a nightly occurrence for a while considering what all he has been through. Alita sits down on the bed and rubs his back gently.