To Tame A Wild Heart: A Zyne Witch Urban Fantasy Romance (Zyne Legacy Romance Book 1)

by Gwen Mitchell

  Corvin laughed to himself, then realized the group’s full attention had settled on him. Smoke hopped to his shoulder and pecked him on the ear, earning another laugh. He shooed the raven off and got to his feet. “All right, raise your hand if you can already read auras.”

  As they all filed out of the training room to break for lunch, Corvin spotted Audrey a few people ahead of him. She was joking with a young man next to her who was tossing a small fireball up over the crowd. His head was shaved into a cropped Mohawk, and a sleeve of tattoos covered his bare arm and shoulder under his tank top. He had a wiry build that gave the impression of muscles but possessed no deeper strength. There was no question in Corvin’s mind that he would best the punk in combat, Ward or not.

  He didn’t have time to consider why he was picturing slamming a novice’s face in with the end of his staff, because a commotion broke out under one of the fireballs. Mohawk boy charged at someone, and Audrey’s shout echoed off the high walls of the chamber. The crowd backed up, pushing Corvin farther from the action, and he lost track of them until one of the Hohlwen arrowed toward the brewing fight, and the crowd took a collective step back.

  Corvin shoved his way through, and by the time he reached the scene, the novices were cowering away to make him a path.

  Audrey stood in the center, her icy glare bouncing between Mohawk and the Hohlwen while she shielded Peter behind her.

  He felt a rush of heat that he had a hard time identifying. It was desire, but tinged with…pride? He was proud of her. The ferocity in her gaze spiked his emotional cocktail with an extra shot of heat. His mouth went dry and he had to clear his throat. “That’s enough. Everyone, keep walking.”

  The other novices obeyed, and Audrey dropped her threatening stance, while he still sensed her energy building and building, as if she were coiling it up, readying to spring it loose. A good strategy. Knock your opponent out and save yourself the pain of ten rounds. And that sort of power coiling took a high degree of skill and control.

  Who was this woman, with her wild, haunted eyes and mysteriously well-honed abilities? What had given her such lethal and brutal instincts? Her body language gave no indication of the fear trembling in her core, and he had to add admiration to his growing list of intriguing things about his new student. His fists ached from where he clenched them at his sides to keep from reaching out to touch her again.

  Peter gave him a lost look.

  He kept his voice calm and steady as he said, “Peter, go enjoy your lunch. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have a beggar at your table. Remember, I warned you.”

  The boy smiled and wove through the last few novices leaving the room.

  Audrey stood stock still, her eyes steady on the Hohlwen’s every move as that energy coiled and coiled, until Corvin could feel it like an electric charge in the air. He pulsed wave of calm at her and stepped closer. “Audrey.”

  She glanced at him, then back at the Hohlwen, who stood with a bored, taunting look on his face. It was not the same one they had fought yesterday, but from the way she looked at him, it was clear Audrey had decided to hate the entire species.

  “That will be all,” Corvin said to the Hohlwen.

  The hollow one snorted at him and took flight to the rafters.

  Audrey flinched, then let out a shaky breath. Corvin laid a hand on the center of her back, then pulled it away just before he transferred not calm, but that elemental heat she’d awakened within him when he saw her taking a stand. A primal desire to protect, to claim, to provide, all rolled into one. Summoning the image made him want to sweep her into his arms and…

  What the hell are you thinking?

  He had a responsibility to keep his own desire in check. Audrey had clearly been through a lot of abuse. He could never take advantage of his position as her mentor and potentially only friend. He suspected her trust was a rare gift, bestowed upon very few. He’d decided today that he wanted that gift, very badly. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I appreciate you looking out for Peter.”

  She relaxed a few more degrees and shrugged. “I don’t like bullies.”

  He smiled. “He needs extra help. Empaths have it tough at the beginning.”

  She cocked her head at him. “Is that what you are?”

  He nodded. “Among other things.”

  “Why do you have it tough?”

  “The way I would explain it is this: with your telekinesis, when you fully tap into your power, you will already have quite a bit of training. The more control you gain, the more power you will be able to access and manipulate at once.”

  Audrey fell into step with him, following him out into the hall, her eyes alight with interest.

  “With an empath, it is the reverse. Our power is on full blast at the beginning, and the more control we gain, the more of it we can block out.”

  “You guys are basically thrown into the deep end on the first day of lessons.”

  “Yes, exactly.” He kept fighting the urge to touch her. Reaching out for her hand or shoulder or waist seemed like the most natural thing. She was driving all his instincts haywire, and it was both intoxicating and aggravating.

  “So you can read peoples’ thoughts?”

  “Not if they are shielded, and not without great effort. That is telepathy and mine is rather weak. Empathy is reading feelings, not thoughts. We experience them as if they are our own.”

  If she was put off by the notion, she didn’t show it. “You must have to keep really good control of your own feelings, then.”

  He nodded, smiling at her apparent respect. “We do. We also have to control the input. Too many feelings at too high of a volume is very—”

  “That would suck.”

  He chuckled. “Yes, it sucks.” Again, her canniness caught him off guard. He found himself anxious to uncover where her strength and determination came from, to learn if she could ever lower her guard enough to soften toward someone. He wanted it to be him. That realization shook him out of the daze that he kept stumbling into around Audrey.

  You are acting like a man ensorcelled to a siren. He needed to get away from her and clear his thoughts.

  “Can you teach me how to shield?”

  He stopped just inside the main entrance and sighed. “Aren’t you more interested in warding? Throwing fireballs? Fading?”

  “Fading?”

  “Teleporting. I’m sure they will get to that soon.”

  She shrugged. “Oh, yeah. I’ve done that before, but only a couple of times on accident. I want you to teach me what I can’t learn in class.”

  If only she knew how tempting that was. He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders where he had been leaning in, almost as if to kiss her.

  Stay focused—you have three months to go. This was never going to work if he didn’t get a hold of himself. “Maybe some other time. I have lots of work to do back at the tower.”

  “Can I come with you? I’m over the class thing. Except for all the destiny mumbo-jumbo, I haven’t learned anything new. My teacher can’t even do invisibility.” She didn’t say it with any bravado, just relayed it as a fact. “Besides, it would probably be good to give Jared some time to save face. You know boys and their egos.”

  He smirked at her reference to Mohawk as a boy and tried not to imagine taking Audrey hard and fast against the outer wall of the tower…Would she meet him with equal heat and urgency? He gave himself a mental shake and was thankful that his robes were loose.

  He glanced toward the door, wanting to throw himself into his work, something familiar to ground him. To be honest, he didn’t think he would be able to focus if she was in close proximity, but he said, “Fine, as long as you pull your weight and do exactly as I say.”

  “Yes, sir.” Audrey answered to his back as she followed him into the courtyard, then muttered under her breath, “Mr. Bossy Robes.”

  Chapter Nine

  Almost a month later, Audrey had explored as much of the grounds as she
could during class breaks and she still didn’t know more than two routes out of the labyrinth of the Synod’s fortress—the main entry through the courtyard, and the side entry through the kitchen that led to Corvin’s tower. Both were guarded, but that didn’t matter, since the Hohlwen seemed to be everywhere the Kinde guards were not. Any time she’d been down a new hallway or snooping through a new room, one had appeared. Now she recognized the itch between her shoulder blades to be a warning that they were watching, even if she couldn’t see them. She’d come to appreciate the seclusion of Corvin’s tower. He had some sort of truce or magic that kept the Hohlwen from entering his airspace. It was the one place she could relax, and she’d taken every opportunity to help him there rather than attending her more book-centric lessons.

  It had felt ah-mazing to flex her powers the first week. She was one of the more advanced Wards, both in power and know-how, but she hadn’t known about the wicked-ass energy blasts. She’d mastered them in one afternoon. Her teacher, Marjorie, couldn’t break Audrey’s wards when they sparred, and it had only taken her a couple of days to be able to fade from one end of the training chamber to the other with just a thought. She couldn’t wait to put that to use in the real world. The possibilities were endless.

  By week two, she was bored. The only valuable part of her lessons was the morning meditation practices Cian led them through, which had taught her how to tap into the Conduit and practice controlling the flow of her power. Before, she’d only been able to take a sip at a time and use it immediately, but now she could go directly to the source whenever she wanted and store it within her. It was the difference between using a cup to go back and forth to a well or tapping into a river. Just that small tweak, and she could hold her invisibility shield for hours without feeling drained. So, magic school hadn’t been a total loss.

  Except she was still a prisoner.

  Every day she got no closer to a solution she battled with what to do about Lilly. That poor, innocent girl was still in the hands of Dr. Banner and his goons. It made Audrey queasy to remember the terror in those deep, knowing eyes. She would be better off at the Arcanum. At least here she wouldn’t be tortured. But she couldn’t free her from that hellhole just to sign her future over to the Synod, trading one cage for another.

  No, she would get both of them free. It was just taking longer than expected.

  Aside from the immortal guards, there were two big problems. One—breaking the binding and getting her powers back. And two—getting away from the fortress without passing out.

  She’d spent the last week focused on the simpler of the two. Her energy only drained if she headed away from the fortress, unless she followed a specific path Corvin had laid out for her. Corvin’s tower was another safe zone. She could move around the tower and the surrounding outbuildings freely as long as she didn’t stray too far. He could send her to the well or shed without any issue. She sort of missed him escorting her to and from classes at first, but not being supervised had allowed her to test the limits of the magic to see if she could find the trigger.

  Was it some spelled object? A password? Fairy dust?

  All magic has counter-magic.

  They’d pounded that into her head. The Zyne were all about balance. She just needed to figure out what the magic was and then look up how to counter it.

  He was very clever at dodging her questions about it, no matter how sideways she came at the subject. Despite her inability to pump him for useful intel, she took the opportunity to learn what she could from him and about him. One thing had become very clear in the course of those conversations—Corvin was totally drinking the Kool-Aid.

  Sometimes he would go on and on about the Legacy and the Threefold Path, until she had to make snoring noises to get him to stop. She wasn’t interested in any of their stuffy traditions, arcane ritual-speak, or theatrical black robes. The Synod was basically the church of magic, and as such, she wrote them off along with all the other religious zealots that had tried to convert and “save” her.

  Magic was real, obviously. She could accept that she had supernatural powers by birthright, that there were others with similar gifts, and a whole bunch of scary immortal beings on earth too. But just because she had these abilities did not mean she had to accept their way of life or their way of thinking. She didn’t believe in souls, in heaven or hell, or in an afterlife or circle of life or whatever they called it. She’d given up arguing those points with Corvin, though. He’d been brainwashed with the rhetoric from an early age and didn’t understand why it was so important to live life on your own terms.

  Corvin was highly gifted at magic in his own right. He was a strong Summoner, with good control of all four elements and super heightened empathy, which was why he got along with animals so well. As he’d explained, most animals communicated with feelings, not thoughts. Any time he joined their training sessions and she saw him use his magic, she felt all fluttery inside.

  His combative magic was damned impressive too. Of course, he’d been born into magic and had all the best tutors, but it was still a turn-on to watch him throw down. He couldn’t shield against an energy blast or spell like a Ward, but he could charge up magical objects with enough power to knock most people out. He could even hold his own against immortals. The Hohlwen absorbed most Zyne magic, so the fact that he could weave a spell that could faze one of them was kind of a big deal.

  She often recalled him twirling that staff around his back in the courtyard, though in her daydreams, he was shirtless for some reason. And then there was…that way about him. No BS. He moved with quiet purpose, always in his own head, yet completely tuned-in to everyone around him. She’d become painfully aware of the physical magnetism between them.

  Or maybe you’re just imagining things.

  She rolled her eyes at herself and kicked a rock through the underbrush as she made her way to the tower. Though she could admit she liked him, she wasn’t sure if the feeling was mutual. When they were alone, he was more careful and reserved. Overly formal. Aloof.

  Corvin was never unkind to her, but she’d concluded that wasn’t because he liked her, but because it was beneath him. The spark between them had either sputtered and choked out, or she’d imagined it in the first place. He hadn’t pressed her for any more personal details, even when she’d dropped strategic hints about her past that would have left most people burning with curiosity. His interest in her had apparently evaporated.

  It made her wish for some Oracle powers of her own. Then she could read his mind or ask a crystal ball if he was ever going to make a move.

  She found him at the shed behind the backdoor to the mews, loading a wheelbarrow with straw. She waited behind him and couldn’t help admiring the flex of the muscles of his back with each toss. It had become difficult not to notice those sorts of things. She was annoyingly aware of him, like all the time. If he was in the same room, her hearing sharpened for the rich timbre of his voice, her eyes sought him out without her permission. Sleeping in his bed surrounded by the scent of sweet oil and herbs had given her some heated dreams that hadn’t made living in close quarters very easy.

  “What’s on the agenda today, boss? Pump the well? Scrub the floors? Chop the wood?” He’d given her nothing but manual labor as “training” so far. It would have been a lot easier if she could use her magic, but she’d still take the work over studying in the stuffy library. She didn’t care if she “graduated” the Synod’s program as long as she left with everything she’d come in with.

  Corvin tossed the pitchfork into the straw and turned to her, wiping sweat off his forehead with the hankie he kept in his pocket. “It’s Wednesday.”

  “And?”

  He nodded at the wheelbarrow. “The birds get fresh straw on Wednesdays.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t hide how unenthused she was by that news.

  He took the handles of the wheelbarrow and led her to the wooden door at the backside of the tower.

  “You know, I could do
this in like five minutes if I had my powers.”

  “I’m sure you could.” He opened the door to the mews.

  Audrey peeked in. It was dark and musty smelling.

  “Nice try.”

  She wrinkled her nose.

  “Besides, this builds character.”

  She snorted at that. “Yeah, I had a foster father that said the same thing.” Every time he made me clean up after one of his drunken rages.

  Corvin’s brow furrowed. “Truthfully, I would do it myself, but I’m behind on my other work. I need to start spending more time with the eagle, or she won’t trust me enough to have a successful release. She will need rehab and exercise before it’s safe for her to fly any distance or hunt.”

  Great, now she felt like a burden. She sighed and stormed back to the shed to retrieve the pitch fork. “At least one of us gets to leave. Can’t you just explain that to her?”

  “I’m trying to form a bond, but she’s stubborn. Wild.”

  The smile playing at the corner of his mouth made her stomach dip. “Fine, I’ll help you out. But how am I supposed to go in there without getting shit on? I draw the line at feces.”

  His lips took on a mischievous curl, and she fidgeted, not sure what was so funny—she was serious. Corvin took a few steps back, rubbed his hands together, and rolled his shoulders back. He closed his eyes, and Audrey felt the familiar hum of magic pulsing through the ground beneath her feet, swirling in the air around her. She tried to tap into it, but nothing happened. Her own magic lay dormant.

  A strange hush came over the tower. She hadn’t noticed the background noise of the birds until it was gone. Now she could hear every rustle of leaves in the forest around them. Then the rustling got louder. The wind picked up.

  Corvin stood with his head bowed, calling energy. Straw swirled around his feet as he slowly raised his arms. The trees closest to them rocked back and forth, as if dancing to a song only they could hear. He tilted his face up to the sky, and his summoned wind tossed his hair and feathers about his face. Her chest squeezed at the sight. He was wild beauty and magic embodied.