Fugitive by Magic: a Baine Chronicles novel (The Baine Chronicles: Fenris's Story Book 1)

by Jasmine Walt

  The sadness in his voice filled me with compassion. “I’m sorry,” I said, guiding my horse close enough to him so I could reach out and touch his hand. “That must have been hard.”

  Fenris curled his hand around mine briefly, then let go. “It was. But it is done, and life goes on.”

  We fell silent as we reached the town, unwilling to discuss magic where sharp ears might be listening. As we trotted through the streets, quite a few people turned to stare.

  “Oh, is that a sapphire on her hand?” one woman cooed, and I blushed. “A present from her new suitor?”

  “Figures it would take an exotic fellow like a shifter to catch Mina’s eye,” her companion said. “She’s spurned even my son’s advances, and he’s quite a catch!”

  I held in a snort at that—her son was good-looking, but like Roor, he did not have very much in the brains department. Thankfully, he wasn’t a brute, and had left me alone when I’d made myself clear.

  Fenris, who likely heard even more than I did with his sharp shifter ears, looked startled. “I have no idea why they are reading so much into our friendship,” he said, lowering his voice and leaning in a little. A trio of young women twittered excitedly at that, and I held in a grin—Fenris was only reinforcing the impression, making us look like two lovers exchanging some delicious secret. “Surely nobody would think that we are romantically involved, not when you are so young and pretty, and considered human.”

  I shrugged, trying not to take the discomfort in his gaze personally. “Perhaps,” I said lightly as we headed out of the town and onto the winding road that led to the trail. “But Roor’s instant jealousy implies he considers you to be competition, and if he does, that means the other townsfolk do as well.”

  Fenris frowned. “Well, I am not his competition.” He tightened the grip on his reins almost imperceptibly.

  I flinched at the harsh tone, at the wall he’d suddenly slammed up between us. “Am I so repulsive,” I said quietly, “that the mere notion of a romance with me is enough to make you recoil?”

  Fenris started. “There is nothing about you that repulses me,” he said, sounding instantly apologetic.

  “And neither is there anything about you that repulses me,” I said, suddenly struck by the notion that this might well be the reason Fenris was so keen to keep his distance. “I am not as young as I look, no matter what people might say, and…” My throat closed, and I forced the anxiety back. “I would not be averse to exploring something more than friendship with you.” I blushed, but I wasn’t sorry I had finally voiced my desires. The thought of something more between us had teased me for days, no, weeks. I had to know whether he felt the same.

  Utter stillness filled the air around us. For a moment, I wasn’t sure Fenris was even breathing. He’d turned in the saddle to face me, and that look in his dark eyes…it was as if he were seeing me for the first time. Gooseflesh rippled across my arms as he trailed his gaze up and down my body, and the unmistakable flash of hunger in his eyes had my core tightening with desire. Whatever he might say or pretend, he wanted me just as much as I wanted him.

  “No.” He ripped his gaze from me, turning it back to the road. “If you desire sexual release, it would be far safer to take a human lover than get yourself entangled with me.”

  I scowled. “I did not say I only wanted to take you to my bed,” I snapped, urging the gelding forward as Fenris’s stallion picked up the pace. “You aren’t just some casual entertainment to me, no matter what the townsfolk might think. I like you for who you are, not because you are a shifter, or a mage, or…or…whatever you are!”

  Fenris only shook his head. “It is dangerous to play with feelings,” he said flatly. “Either mine or yours. And there is no point in indulging in a dalliance, or anything more meaningful. I am not a suitable partner for anyone, regardless of race. Why do you think I came out here in the first place?”

  A wave of sympathy swept through me at the note of anguish in his voice, so faint I would not have detected it if I hadn’t spent so much time with him. But it wasn’t enough to eclipse the burning anger in my heart. “I don’t know what happened to you, Fenris, but you cannot simply live your days out here like a hermit, cut off from the world. Everybody needs love, companionship. Family.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly, “and you will find those things once you reach your majority and resume your rightful place in society. You will find the man of your dreams, the man you deserve, and then you shall forget all about me.”

  My throat burned with the desire to scold him for daring to put himself down like that. I had never heard Fenris speak so disparagingly of himself—he always exuded such quiet confidence, full of grace and strength. Today was the first time I’d seen the crack in his armor, and it unsettled me deeply.

  But I knew if I pushed him on this, it would only drive him further away.

  Time for a change of tack. “As you like,” I said lightly, lifting my chin. “It’s your loss. By the way, I have decided to attend the Chief Mage’s party after all, and sent my acceptance. If I get into trouble, I will simply pretend I am hard of hearing and play up my role as an eccentric old lady.” Sweat broke out along my spine at the very thought, and I yanked back on the emotion, hard, before Fenris could scent my nerves. It would just be for an hour or two, and if I could pull it off, I would be safe until I came of age. It would mean I could stay here in Abbsville in the meantime.

  An alarmed look flashed across Fenris’s face. “Please reconsider, Mina,” he implored, all traces of our previous argument wiped from his gaze, leaving only frank concern. “You do not have the knowledge to pass yourself off as a mage in such a setting, where the others will be watching you like a hawk since you are a newcomer. I cannot possibly help you,” he said as I opened my mouth to ask him to do just that, “as it would be suicide for me to mingle with the Chief Mage and his entourage. I chose my rural retreat precisely because it is so far away from mage society.”

  Disappointment filled me at his outright refusal, but I really had no right to expect him to risk himself further for my tangled affairs.

  “Fine,” I said, pointedly turning my gaze from him. “I shall do well enough on my own, whatever you may think of my acting skills. I would appreciate if you helped me practice for the role, but I quite understand if you don’t have the time for that either.”

  With that parting shot, I turned the horse around and rode back to town, urging the gelding into a gallop. As I clung to the horse, I channeled my annoyance into the powerful hooves thundering beneath me, the wind whipping my hair from its ponytail so it flew around my face like a wild banner. It was only when I was nearly back to town, slowing the horse down again, that I realized I was on Fenris’s horse, not my own.

  Well, he can come back to my house if he wants to retrieve him, I told myself, trying not to feel too silly. But embarrassment heated my cheeks all the same. Fenris must think me a flighty, immature girl, too hotheaded to respond rationally instead of with catty words.

  No wonder he’s not interested in you.

  Not ready to go back home, I went to the general store to visit with Barrla. To my relief, she was completely alone, sitting behind the counter reading one of her shifter romances.

  “Mina!” Barrla hopped off the seat. “It’s been an age since you last visited. How was your trip to the capital?”

  Casting my argument with Fenris from my mind, I leaned my hip against the counter and told her an embellished version of my trip, emphasizing the bookshop and omitting the visit to the Mages Guild. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to miss the next book club meeting, as I’ll be quite busy this week.”

  Barrla raised an eyebrow. “I can only imagine,” she said, crossing her arms beneath her ample chest. “You’ve been entertaining Mr. Shelton quite a lot.” She didn’t sound entirely pleased.

  I sat up straight at the tone in her voice. “We’re just friends, Barrla.”

  She snorted. “Friends don’t look at
each other the way he looks at you,” she said. “I suppose I can’t be angry he’s turned his gaze your way, but I thought you would at least have the decency to tell me that the two of you are seeing each other since you knew how interested I was.” She pouted.

  I winced, feeling incredibly guilty. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think to tell you, because there isn’t much to tell. Fenris and I really haven’t done anything more than talk—he likes to discuss literature, and we get along quite well, so he comes around a lot. We really are just friends.”

  Barrla laughed. “Friends? I wasn’t aware that men gave presents like that to women who are ‘only friends.’” She gazed pointedly at the ring on my finger.

  “I did get the ring from him, but it’s not what it looks like,” I admitted, my cheeks flushing. I knew Barrla would spread news of this to all corners of the world if she could, and that any hope Fenris had of convincing the townsfolk that our relationship was platonic would be crushed.

  Let him deal with the fallout, the part of me that still smarted at his rejection sneered. It would serve him right for trying to decide what kind of men you should and shouldn’t be looking at.

  “So there,” Barrla declared, looking triumphant. “That settles it. He’s your new beau. And I will forgive you for stealing him out from under my nose, if you tell me what you two are really doing when he comes over.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.

  I had to laugh at that. “I do like him,” I admitted, my lips still twitching, “but he is a gentleman to the core, and has not taken any liberties so far.” That sense of honor he clung to would not permit him to act on the desire I’d seen in his eyes. And as I remembered the charged look he’d given me earlier in the day, and the heated glances he’d given me over the past few weeks when he thought I hadn’t been looking, something in me relaxed. Maybe Fenris didn’t think we should be together, but there was no doubt in my mind that he did want me.

  “Well then, you’ll just have to take matters into your own hands,” Barrla decided, putting her hands on her curvy hips. “Seducing him won’t be hard, Mina—with the way he looks at you, I’m surprised he hasn’t taken you to bed already.”

  I sighed. “I’ve broached the subject, and he seems determined to resist. But I’ll think about it.” I wasn’t about to make another move on Fenris, especially not so soon. I’d already declared my feelings—the rest was up to him.

  I bid Barrla farewell with the promise to have tea later in the week. And as I rode the gelding back to my house, I wondered if Fenris was going to come and pick him up, and if so, how I could face him again after that humiliating scene.

  19

  Mina

  I spent the rest of the week religiously practicing my role every chance I got—which was less often than I’d hoped due to a highly contagious cough that had spread amongst the cattle at various farms. I’d been called out to deal with the infection several times. Fenris had not come to my house again, except to collect the gelding, and that he had done while I was out, leaving only a note behind as evidence he’d been there. My heart ached at the abrupt severance of our friendship, but I did my best not to think about him too much.

  He was not obligated to help me, and I certainly could not force him to act on the attraction between us. If he did not think helping me was worth the risk…then he was not worth pining over.

  As I waited at the bus station for the steambus to arrive, I kept glancing over my shoulder, in the absurd hope he would change his mind and show up at the last moment. It was only when I’d finally settled into my seat, the town of Abbsville disappearing behind us, that I accepted he really, truly wasn’t going to come help me.

  How had I come to depend on Fenris so quickly, in just a few weeks, when I had lived alone quite well for all those years? Cross with myself, I folded my arms and scowled at the passing scenery. It had been a mistake to let myself get so attached, and at the rate things were going, I’d better get used to depending solely on myself again.

  With no one to keep me company but my gloomy thoughts, I spent the three-hour ride working myself into a nervous wreck as I contemplated everything that could go wrong. Why in Recca had I thought this was a good idea? I wondered as the steambus hurtled past towns and villages that grew progressively larger and more advanced the closer we got to our destination. After all these years hiding out as a human, I had nearly forgotten what it was to be a mage. These past weeks of training myself to act like one had challenged me to the limits. Under the scrutiny of real mages, I might very well crack. Any small detail could expose my lies, my inexperience.

  A vision of my cousin Vanley cornering me in the hall late at night, leering at me with his cruelly handsome features, sent my gut roiling with nausea. My skin went clammy as I recalled what came before my escape—months of lewd comments and threats when nobody else could hear, unwanted touches in sensitive places whenever he caught me alone, even bruises on my arm from his violent grip. Worst of all was the feeling of helplessness. That was why I had to do this, no matter the risk.

  I would never subject myself to those horrors again. Never submit to those callous relatives who did not care about me and brushed off my complaints about their darling son. Relatives who only saw me as a welcome source of money, instead of a person with needs and feelings.

  Descending into fresh air at the Willowdale terminal, free of the sweat and bodily odors of the other passengers, went a long way toward clearing my head and diluting the anxiety that was crawling beneath my skin. I hailed a cab and directed the driver to take me to the hotel I’d booked just a few blocks from the manor. It was far too opulent for someone of my income level, as was the classically cut purple robe that waited in a white box on my bed. I’d nearly cleaned out my savings to purchase both. But a mage of my pretended status could not be seen staying at a hostel, and I knew enough about the sort of clothes expected at a formal function that I could not show up in anything currently hanging in my closet.

  With hours left until the party, I ordered room service—another luxury I could ill afford —and tried to subdue my worries by indulging in a delicious salmon fillet and a slice of cheesecake. But though I did my best to savor each bite of the rich food, it was not enough to fill the time. I showered and donned the robe, but since I was using the ring’s illusion to disguise myself as the old lady, there was not much else to do to get ready aside from fixing a set of earrings into my lobes and sticking some faux jeweled pins in my upswept gray hair.

  Eventually, the time came to leave, and I called down to the front desk and asked them to call a car for me. I could easily have walked over, but that would not do—I needed to arrive in style. As I paced back and forth, wearing a hole into the carpet with my fancy shoes, a knock came at the door, startling me out of my wits.

  “Coming,” I called, hurrying to the door. I hadn’t expected the driver to come up and collect me, but maybe—

  “Good evening.” A stunningly handsome man with thick, wavy blond hair, who was dressed in neatly pressed apprentice robes, stood at my door. He bowed, a devilish smile on his full lips. “Are you ready to depart, Mistress?”

  I stared at him. “Mistress?” I asked, just barely remembering to use my haughty tone. “And just who do you think you are, young man?”

  The stranger was not easy to intimidate—his grin broadened as I looked down my nose at him, and he took my pale hands in his large ones and kissed them with an elegant bow. “Fennias ar’Lutis…and your date,” he said, his voice a melodious baritone that slid down my spine like a sensual caress. Heat bloomed on my cheeks as his thumbs brushed the backs of my hands, lingering longer than necessary, and as he looked up, his form flickered, revealing—

  “Fenris!” I gasped.

  “Shhh.” Grasping me by the shoulders, he pushed me into the room before anybody could come down the hall and see us. My heart thundered as he closed the door behind us, and we were suddenly alone together for the first time in nearly a week. “A lady of your distinctio
n should not attend a party without escort,” he murmured, cupping my face with both hands. A magical tingle rushed across my skin, telling me he’d stripped my illusion away, and I suddenly found myself short of breath. “And since you have let it be known that you have a taste for younger men, who would be more fitting at your side than an apprentice?”

  A surprised laugh escaped me, forcing past the questions scalding my tongue. “I thought you weren’t coming, that it was too much of a risk—”

  He pressed his finger against my lips to silence me. “Never mind the risk,” he said quietly. “I was being foolish. Since then, I have had a long time to regret my hasty refusal when you so bravely indicated what you wanted. I may not be worthy of you, but if it is me that you want, Mina, I would be an idiot not to take full advantage before you come to your senses.”

  He silenced my next laugh with a kiss, fierce and full of joy. The dam of fear and anxiety in my chest burst, and a floodgate of exhilaration burst through me, making me giddy and lightheaded as I wrapped my arms around his muscular neck and kissed him back. His broad hands slid around my waist, pressing me close until I could feel his heart galloping beneath his strong chest, just as mine was doing.

  This was real, I told myself as he finally pulled back to stare into my eyes. But even as my gaze roamed over his flushed cheeks and dark eyes, which had gone molten with desire, disbelief filled me.

  “If you truly felt this way,” I breathed, brushing the back of my hand along the scruff covering his jaw, “then why wait until now to tell me? Why didn’t you come to me after our fight? I missed you, Fenris.”

  “Because,” he said, leaning in to nip at my lower lip, “I can think of little else more romantic than gallantly charging in at the last moment to save my lady from disaster.”