Just Like Magic

by Gayla Drummond

  We’d reached the path that would take us back to our cottage. Logan switched back to holding my hand. “I can set things up with her for you.”

  I stopped walking, and he turned to me, raising both his eyebrows. Reaching up, I used the tip of my finger to make him put them back down. “Unless there’s a reason you need to be the one to talk to her about it, I’d rather do it myself.”

  “No reason,” he assured me. “Other than trying to be helpful.”

  “Which I appreciate the hell out of.” I went to my toes to press a kiss on his lips. “You can be helpful by reminding me to talk to her sometime this week, okay?”

  “Sure.” Logan made a face. “I just hit the over-managing line, didn’t I?”

  “Almost.” I really did love that he apparently enjoyed taking care of stuff for me, but a line did need to be drawn. I didn’t want to grow so accustomed to him doing it that I started taking him for granted or something. Or began feeling like he was micromanaging my life. “You don’t have to make yourself indispensable to me. You already are.”

  That earned me a long, sweet kiss. I had to fan my face after it. “Whew. Save some of that for later.”

  He laughed. “We could skip the soaking, or rearrange the order of our evening.”

  I thought about that as we began walking again. “That’s a good idea. I was a loose goose after my last soaking.”

  “Rearranging it is.”

  “Ooh.” I wasn’t sure which I enjoyed more: the foreplay or getting down to business. There was a lot to be said for both, especially when done by firelight. The golden, flickering light created a dreamlike quality for our activities.

  Running my fingers through Logan’s hair, I giggled when he purred. It tickled in a perfectly delicious way. His fingers gently kneaded the inside of my thighs, creating a triangle of pleasure that grew until I was trembling and breathless.

  Logan moved upward, depositing butterfly kisses until we were face to face. He pretended to peer into my eyes, bumping my nose with his. “It appears to be working for you.”

  “Huh?”

  “The fireplace. You’re all toasty now.”

  “Not because of the fireplace.” I tickled his ribs. “And you know it.”

  “Hm.” His lips brushed mine. “Are you sure? I’m feeling rather warm myself.”

  “Only warm?” I slipped my hand between us, and he shivered. “Uh-oh, are you cold now?”

  Logan’s response was a slow, deep kiss, his tongue lazily dancing with mine while I stroked him. After several minutes, I straightened one leg, moving my free hand from his side to his chest, and pushed.

  He didn’t resist, but did pull me along as he rolled onto his back and chuckled. “If you wanted on top, all you had to do was say so.”

  I pushed upright, straddling him on my knees. “I want on top.”

  He tucked his hands behind his head, smiling up at me. “What are you going to do now that you are?”

  “Kind of thinking I’d do this.” I sank down, watching his eyes finish their change from dark to light. “That’s okay, right?”

  “Yes. Completely okay.”

  “What about this?” I began to move while walking my fingers up his stomach and to his chest.

  “Oh, ‘this’ is good,” he sighed, his eyes closing. “Really, really good.”

  I thought so too, and kept moving.

  “Mm.” Logan nuzzled my neck as we soaked in the natural hot tub under the stars. “This has been a fantastic day.”

  “We’ve gotta do weekend getaways a lot.” I was totally relaxed, and finally understood what “sated” meant. “Is every weekend too often?”

  “Not for me.”

  “I bet we can’t every weekend. How about one weekend per month? And I’ll plan the next one. We’ll take turns.” Fair was fair; I should do all the planning and paying next time.

  “Sounds good.”

  We fell silent. I watched the faint steam rising from the surface of the water as it eddied this way and that in the soft breeze. It quickly became hard to keep my eyes open.

  Perfect ending to a wonderful day.

  And then a blood-curdling scream shattered my drowsiness, both of us kicking and splashing as we lurched upright. The scream stopped abruptly, without another one following. We looked at each other, and I spoke first. “Any chance that was an animal?”

  “No.” Logan hitched himself up and back, onto the pool’s ledge. “I’ll go see if I can help.”

  “I’ll go with you.” I had to turn and clamber out while he swung his legs clear of the water and ledge.

  “I’m going to shift. You may want to get dry and put some clothes on.”

  I shivered in the cool breeze, water sliding down to drip from my fingers and everything else. “Right, good idea. I’ll catch up.”

  “Okay.” He gave me a quick kiss, took a couple steps back, and shifted. It was the first time I’d actually seen the entire process up close, and it made me forget how cold and wet I was for several seconds. It looked far less painful than I’d imagined, and the way his fur sprouted in a roll from head to hind paws—because they were hind paws by the time the fur reached there—was kind of hypnotic. Hypnotic enough that I missed the entire growing a tail part.

  I remembered I was cold and wet pretty quickly, once his huge tiger self went bounding down our private path and into the darkness, and grabbed one of the waiting towels before hurrying inside. While scrambling to dry off and find all my clothes as fast as possible, I wondered who’d screamed and why?

  Holy crap, what if the magical barrier had failed, and the basilisks were out? The thought gave me a heavy case of the shudders, and I dropped the towel. The basilisks weren’t the only scary critters onsite. There was a pair of saber-tooth tigers too, and more. “Oh God, please don’t let this turn into a Jurassic Park nightmare.”

  I bent, grabbed the towel, and finished drying my legs. Or thought I did, but the difficulty I had yanking on my jeans said otherwise. By the time I rushed out the door, nearly seven minutes had passed. I reached the end of our private path before I realized I’d brought my soggy towel along.

  Deciding it could be of use, since that scream had sounded like someone was being badly injured, I kept hold of it. It didn’t do a damn bit of good to look down each way of the main path to figure out which direction I should go in. Logan?

  No response. “Well, crap. What now?”

  If it were an animal attack, I should go left. Except there were probably people still at the main building, and they may not have heard the scream. I hesitated, chewing on my bottom lip. Or it could’ve been an attack in the parking lot. We’d seen the unicorns there, maybe other animals used the area around it too?

  After straining my ears and not hearing anything, I decided to turn right and broke into a run. There had to be someone still at the main building, and an actual resident could probably find out what the hell was going on faster than I could.

  Chapter Eight

  Whatever had happened, it hadn’t happened in the parking lot. Nothing but silent, parked vehicles met my eyes when I reached it, and I kept going, angling toward the main building.

  Though a light was on inside, the door was locked. I banged on it, but no one responded. “Now what?”

  Answering my own question, I teleported inside, checked the dining area, and peeked into the kitchen. No one around. I teleported back outside and ran to the head of the path again. Logan?

  Still no response. What the hell? I slowed to a jog, tossing the towel aside as I passed the little wooden sign for our cottage. Thirty feet past it, I halted. “I know there are other cottages. We can’t be the only ones who heard that scream.”

  Yet no one else was on the path, which didn’t look nearly as nice and wide at night. The trees didn’t just line it in the dark, they crowded close and loomed overhead. I looked up to find clouds building in the sky. Closing my eyes, I let out a soft huff. “Perfect.”

  Time to get my pri
orities in order. Finding Logan was number one, which should lead to my second: discovering who’d screamed and why. I opened my eyes and did my best to ignore the creepy feeling the trees were giving me. “Okay, forward ho.”

  Unfortunately, the creepy feeling kept getting stronger the farther I walked. My paranoia raised its head, assuring me that there were things in the trees watching me. I tried to shake it off, but my feet moved slower.

  Every dozen steps or so, I tried contacting Logan with my telepathy with no luck at all. An attempt to check the time reminded me that I’d left my cell phone at the cottage. “Great. Just freaking great.”

  I wasn’t sure how far I walked before I realized I hadn’t passed any of the viewing areas we’d visited earlier. Turning around, I looked back to find a curve in the path I didn’t remember walking around. “This can’t be good.”

  The path was changing, either by itself, or because of someone’s magical interference. I scowled. “Why did I think that?”

  Maybe due to the circumstances. A loud, scary scream in the middle of the night? Logan apparently disappearing into thin air after leaving to investigate? No one else around?

  “Wait a minute. That scream was loud, which means it had to be close.” I thought. I wasn’t sure how well a sound like that would carry. The unicorns’ neighs hadn’t sounded that loud, but their viewing area had been pretty close to where we’d first heard them. Wouldn’t the trees act as a sound break of sorts?

  Then there was the magical privacy thing. It concealed the side paths to each cottage from other guests, but did it also block sounds? Not knowing, I paced in a circle, trying to decide what I should do.

  Keep going, or turn back? I glanced at the path and let fly a quiet F-bomb. It curved on both sides of me now, and I didn’t know which direction led to the way back. “What the hell is going on?”

  I didn’t actually have to know the way back, because I could teleport to the cottage or main building. But if I did, there was no guarantee I could find the spot I currently occupied again. Blinking, I discovered I was moving to face one direction. A tiny wiggle in my midsection made it clear it wasn’t me directing my turning feet.

  Are you awake in there? I asked my silent guest.

  Cerridwen didn’t answer. Maybe she couldn’t, and never would. But she had moved my body, and she was a shifter. A White Queen who’d probably hunted a lot. Maybe she was picking up on something I couldn’t.

  The last time she’d acted, she had pretty much saved Logan, an FBI agent, me, and possibly thousands of other people by shooting a really bad guy in the head, so I started walking.

  If all else failed, I’d teleport back to the cottage and call for help.

  A few fat drops of rain plunked down, some of them hitting my head. “Of course it’s going to start raining.”

  I briefly considered creating a thick air umbrella, but since I didn’t know what was going on, wearing myself out just to stay dry probably wasn’t the best idea.

  “This sucks so bad.” I’d been grumbling under my breath for a while, not that it did any good. The path had grown steadily skinnier, until I was fighting through wet tree branches to keep following it. The little light available wasn’t enough to assure myself that the colored rocks were still lining it either.

  My clothing was soaked, and I was cold. All I could hear was the constant thap-thap-thap of raindrops on trees. It wasn’t a comforting sound, and I was considering doing a little screaming myself just to break the monotony of it.

  Teleporting back to the cottage was looking better every passing second. I had absolutely no idea how much time had passed since I’d left it. A couple hours? A dozen? “Probably not a dozen. I’m not that tired yet.”

  I shoved another branch to the side and paused, looking at it. It wasn’t a pine tree branch. “When did the freaking trees change?”

  My urge to scream hit danger level, but the possibility of drawing the attention of something that liked to snack on people occurred to me before I gave into it. “I’ll just keep going.”

  “Cordi?”

  “Ahhh!” I stumbled backward, looking around wildly and seeing nothing but trees. “Who the hell... Nick?”

  “It is her,” I heard him say. “Stay where you are. I’m coming.”

  “Good, especially if you know what in the hell is going on with this place.” I peered at the trees on my left, almost certain that was the direction his voice had come from. “Do you?”

  “No.”

  Yes, his voice was coming from that direction. Relieved, I opened my mouth to ask him if he’d seen Logan, only to reconsider. Probably not the best question to ask at the moment. “How did you get out here?”

  “They have an area set aside for guests to hunt in.” He was getting closer. “We decided to go for a run there.”

  A tree about four feet away shivered and Nick’s upper half came into sight, ducking under its waterlogged branches and around its trunk. “Come on.”

  I hesitated. “What happened to the safety barrier?”

  “I don’t know. Come on, we found some shelter.”

  Magic word, shelter. I took a cautious step in his direction and nothing happened. Two more and he was reaching out to grab my hand. “It’s back this way.”

  I didn’t bother trying to figure out what direction we were headed, because my sense of direction had imploded some time before. It didn’t take but a minute or two to reach the shelter, which was underneath a pile of deadfall. I crawled after him, rejoicing in the fact that it was dry and they had a tiny fire going.

  Settling cross-legged next to him, I looked around. Patrick was present on my other side, and one of the couples they’d had their dinner meeting with completed our small circle. Everyone but me was stark naked. I kept my eyes above chest level. Perhaps silly under the circumstances, but nudity equaled intimacy to me. I wasn’t sleeping with any of them and they hadn’t given birth to me. “Where’s the other two?”

  Patrick scowled. “Dead.”

  “What? How?”

  He shrugged. “We didn’t see it. Just heard Tatiana scream.”

  “We heard a scream too. That’s why I’m out here.” Had it been her scream we’d heard? “But we heard it close to our cottage, and I’ve walked for,” I hesitated before admitting, “I don’t know how long or how far. It’s gotten super weird out there.”

  Nick was frowning. “Why are you alone?”

  “Logan went ahead. He shifted, but I had to get dressed and...” Yikes, talk about rubbing his nose into it. Move on fast, dummy. “I was going to meet up with him, but I don’t have shifter hearing and couldn’t figure out which direction to go. Are you sure they’re dead?”

  “We found pieces.” Patrick picked up a short stick and jabbed at the fire. “Of them both. Something tore them apart.”

  My priorities became a single priority, hearing that. I uncrossed my legs and started to twist up and around to crawl out, but Nick grabbed my arm. “What are you doing?”

  “I have to find Logan.” If the thing had taken down two wolf shifters, it probably wouldn’t have much trouble killing a single tiger shifter. He stared at me, his brow furrowing. I pulled against his grip, but he didn’t release my arm. “Let me go.”

  “Discord,” Patrick patted my knee, drawing my attention to him. “It’s not safe out there right now.”

  “Which is why I have to go find him.” I yanked against Nick’s hold and glared at him. “Serious about you letting go of me.”

  “Not happening. You can’t go running around in a dark, crazy pocket realm when something large and strong enough to surprise and kill two shifters is hunting.”

  His brother snapped his fingers to reclaim my attention. “We will help you search for him once the sun’s up.”

  I sighed. “Think for a minute. How wacky has this pocket realm gone? Do you really think the sun’s gonna come up?”

  “We’ll know in a few hours. If it doesn’t come up, we’ll leave then and help y
ou search for him. Okay?” Patrick’s tone was patient. “You probably need to worry about yourself more than him. He’s far better suited to traveling in a forest than you are. You’re soaked, cold, and tired. It won’t take long before you’re completely exhausted.”

  Who did he think he was, bombarding me with facts like that? “He could be hurt.”

  Nick released my arm. “He’s big, strong, and experienced. If he’s hurt, he’ll find a defensible spot and go to ground.”

  Why were they so determined to make sense? I wanted to argue, but knew I wouldn’t be of any help to Logan if I stumbled around aimlessly and got myself eaten by whatever had killed the wolf shifters’ companions. Patrick was right. I was cold and tired. “Okay, fine. If I can’t look for him right now, there is something I can do.”

  “Which is?” the woman asked, startling me. I’d forgotten the couple was there.

  “I can teleport us back to the main building or our cottage.”

  “Ah, Psychic Girl to our rescue,” Patrick said. “I’m on board for that. We can find people who live here to tell us what’s going on, get together a larger search party if necessary.”

  I kind of hated to admit it, but did anyway. “I went to the main building first. No one was there. You guys are the first people I’ve seen since Logan left our cottage.”

  A four-way trading of looks occurred. Nick cleared his throat. “It’s still probably safer than here, and you can get some dry clothes.”

  I held out both my hands. “Let’s go.”

  Once everyone had hold of each other’s hands, I teleported us to the cottage. We went from under the deadfall to in front of the fireplace. Right on top of the comforter and pillows. Someone coughed, but before anyone said a word our surroundings blurred. We were back under the deadfall before I could blink. “Holy freaking crap, what just happened?”

  “Try again,” the woman urged, and I did. Once again, a brief few seconds of being in the cottage and bam! We were back under the deadfall before we could release our holds on each other.