by CD Coffelt
“Mom!” Justus laughed. “It’s been forever since you’ve been here.”
His mother seemed to look everywhere at once, a huge smile on her face. Her navy blue slacks and flowered top set off her figure, trim despite her years. Her iron gray hair framed her face in short curls. He took her hand to help her over the scattered contents of boxes and litter. The McIntyres came to her aid, one on either side of her, and Justus released her hand as they led her away from the clutter to a padded chair.
She shook her head and looked at him. “So. Got some good bargains? Treasures?”
Justus raked his hand through his hair and studied the mess on the floor. “I think so,” he said and nudged a box of china with his toe. It had a pattern that was in demand, a valuable antique. “I got lucky this time. It was raining, nobody wanted to postpone the sale, and there weren’t a lot of buyers. The estate was selling everything.”
“Sad,” his mother said. Her dentures clicked as she spoke. She waved her hand. “Leaving everything to relatives who attach no sentimental value to stuff like this.”
“That’s how estates sell sometimes, by the box. Not by the memories.” Justus picked up a blue and gold cup, the raised figure of a dragon on the side. On the bottom was a date and name, obviously written by the owner, a keepsake to remember the giver. Now, all the memories were in a stranger’s hands. They would wash away the bits of dust caught in the crevices and the handwritten legacies of someone’s life. It would be gone.
The money from the estate auction went to the inheritors, used for rent or cigarettes or at a fast food place. Just like the spidery handwriting, the money would be gone. He would resell the pieces to collectors to begin the process again, with new owners acquiring the new keepsakes.
Sable bent for a closer look at another box, and his mother turned to her in surprise.
“Well, hello. Who are you?” She cocked her head and waited, her eyes suddenly sharp.
Sable smiled and stepped around another box. “I’m your son’s newest slave, of course.” The McIntyres snickered, and she stepped forward to take his mother’s outstretched hand.
They shook, and just when Sable started to pull away, his mother gripped her hand tighter. For a moment, his mother stared at her, then with a quick, easy smile, released her hand and turned away. Sable stared with her brows furrowed, scrubbing her hands together.
“She always does that with the people she meets,” Justus murmured quietly to Sable. “She says it fixes their face and name into her head and it helps her to remember them.”
“That’s okay. Not a problem.”
“Hey, Mrs. Aubre, did you see her cat?” Bert asked.
“Cat?” she said. She turned back and peered at the kitten clinging to Sable’s shoulder. Its eyes narrowed as it stared back with glittering blue fire.
“Oh, a cat,” she said.
The cat didn’t move, barely breathing.
“A cat,” she repeated. The old woman turned away.
All of them jumped when the kitten snarled with ugly malevolence.
Except for his mother. She ignored the cat’s snarl as if she didn’t hear it.
Chapter Seven
“Is not,” Dayne said, laughing as he stroked Macy’s hair. “It’s more honey-blond, not ‘dishwater’ blond.” He smoothed the long curl over her shoulder, taking time to caress her collarbone and arm. He hesitated, as if considering, furrowing his brow. “But you know, those roots could use a touch-up…”
His laugh ended in a pained grunt when she elbowed his ribs. Macy pushed on his chest and then struggled to sit up. The blankets tangled around her legs.
“Dayne, you nit. I do not color my hair,” she said archly, emphasizing each word clearly. In feigned horror, she patted her hair, smoothing it back.
Dayne caught her hands together in one of his and pinned them over her head, pushing her back down into the mattress as he did. She struggled, but without much effect, twisting the sheets more. He laughed and cuddled closer, his other hand around her waist and his bare chest against her. When she sighed and appeared to give up the fight, Dayne felt disappointed.
Her resistance had been rather intriguing.
“Sorry, sweetie. I must be mistaken. No, now stop,” he said as she renewed her struggle to break free. It gave him a chance to press closer.
“Lemme up,” Macy said.
But then his mouth muffled her next words, and he decided a draw was a wonderful way to end a conflict.
Later, she narrowed her eyes against the morning sun streaming through the bedroom window as Dayne searched for his shirt among her clothes and the tangled sheets.
“Sock, sock,” he muttered. “Ah, okay, there it is.” He bent, snagged the other black sock, and looked down at her.
“You’ve made me late,” he declared somberly. “No more showing off your black underwear when I need to be somewhere.”
“Yeah, it was an epic battle. You fought me off like a tiger.”
Dayne snorted and began to button his shirt. He gasped and waved his hands over and around his ribs frantically. “Ack. Stop!”
She chuckled and dropped the fingers of Air she had wriggled over his ribs.
She rolled over and laughed at the ceiling while he muttered all kinds of threats. “Yeah, yeah, I’m really scared,” she said, snickering.
He began tucking in his shirt, eyeing their small black alarm clock teetering precariously at the edge of the nightstand. He pushed it back. “At least you kept the Earth element down to a minimum this time. Hardly any quakes.”
He paused and arranged his face into a brooding look. “Or else I’m losing my touch already,” he said, looking at her with a worried frown.
Macy chortled and wiggled her body like a snake. “Or maybe I am learning to control it better,” she said.
“Control? Damn, is that what you call it?”
Dayne grinned, took a half step to the bed, hesitated, and shook his head, muttering,
“I think you only rattled stuff in the bedroom that time. Maybe the house. At least it wasn’t a six point something or other like the first time.”
She growled in a deep tone that nearly curled his toes and made him fight again for control. He could not be late.
“That first time…” she said, looking at him with fire-hot eyes. She made another sound deep in the back of her throat.
Dayne grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “I have the same reaction when I think of it too. That was some quake. Who knew you would be so strong in Earth and in Air?”
Macy’s smile lasted a few seconds more, then she looked down at the tangled sheets and fingered the fleece blanket under her arm. The rest of the mauve blanket was on the floor. Dayne saw her jaw flex, and he waited for what he knew was coming.
All his playfulness vanished.
She rubbed the soft material between her fingers and smoothed it back over his side of the bed, hesitated, and said quietly, “She’ll be calling for me soon, won’t she?”
The name was always there, if not in their conversations, then somewhere in the room. Hovering over them like an ephemeral specter.
The consequences of Tiarra’s attention, no matter whether desired or not, was a part of their lives. And there was nothing either one of them could do, not when the head of the Imperium was several times more powerful in all the elements than they were put together. Their talents would not come to a tenth of Tiarra’s skill and innate ability in magic. Whatever she wanted, she took. And she wanted Dayne for now. There could be no argument or recourse to prevent it.
His concern was for Macy, and as he watched, she seemed to focus all her attention on the edge of the blanket now showing a frayed edge. His stomach twisted into a knot.
She blew out a quick breath, smiled at him thinly, and shrugged. “Oh well,” she said.
“Oh well,” he agreed.
They stared at each other, all the love and anxiety written in their faces for each to see.
“Better get to you
r meeting,” she said, her eyes looking at the little black clock. “You don’t want to keep that big, fat insect waiting.”
A faint, mirthless smile appeared on her face.
Dayne bit the inside of his cheek and then nodded. He bent and took her face into his hands, looking at her as if it was the last time. Or the first time.
“Your eyes, like a blue-eyed china doll,” he said quietly. “Can’t think of anyone less likely to have eyes like you.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I mean, you are nothing like a china doll. Breakable. Fragile.”
She shrugged, but he could tell she liked his words. “How about a blue-eyed cougar?” she said.
“Oh, honey, you’re not that old.”
He laughed and dodged the first swipe of her hand, but her Air element tangled his hair gently and pulled him down to her for a sweet kiss. A moment later, he sighed and straightened.
“I have got to go,” Dayne said firmly, but more reluctant than ever to leave.
She nodded.
He turned without speaking and quickly walked to the door leading to the hallway.
“Love you.”
Her simple words followed him to the front door and then to his Vulcan. He put his arms into his black leather jacket as he held the words close, those words spoken so softly, and put his own with them, his feelings of love. Into a mental box, he put them with all the memories of their days together and turned the imagined key to lock them in place.
And keep them safe.
He gunned the engine and arrowed the motorcycle to the highway. Now the mask was in place and his thoughts became his own. In essence, Dayne divorced himself from the life he cherished and became the “other” person, the mage who was the Imperator of the Imperium, the one who wielded the element of Fire, his only talent, but enough latent energy to lay waste to a building. Or a continent.
Or to warm his lady on a cold night.
Viciously, Dayne slammed the mental door again, his lockbox of thoughts and memories. He felt the cold, emotionless mask return and settle onto his face and into his bones.
Fire was a much-envied talent in magic. Nearly every mage had it, but few with his strength. And the head of the Imperium fostered him, allowed his potential and skill to grow before she brought him into her herd. Like a prize bull in a bunch of cattle, and treated with the same fondness.
He had brought his ability to work fire to the Imperium. And Macy, regretfully, he had brought her to Tiarra as well. The delicate girl, no longer a tener unus, was barely out of her teens and now into the Imperium, by way of Dayne. She brought her powerful talents in Air and Earth to them, controlled by Tiarra at her convenience.
Macy had refused the suitor assigned by Tiarra and laughed at his crude attentions and his undisguised lust and ego. Volker was persistent, but Macy had scorned him at every turn. If not for the serious nature of the cretin’s goal—her submission and an awakening of her magic potential—it would have been entertaining for Dayne to watch her flay Volker’s pride with nothing but words.
Dayne was supposed to guard the young one. He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with his charge.
Damn it…focus, idiot.
He dug his fingers into his thigh as he maneuvered through traffic with one hand on the bars. Focus. He needed to focus and have no more thoughts of the best part of his life. Of the girl who had given herself to him and their life together.
He growled.
By drawing his Fire element and sending it into his flesh, he bypassed the material of his jeans. He directed a flicker of heat into his thigh, a sizzle of pain answering his will as he used it to focus his mind on the business with Tiarra.
Nothing else mattered, nothing except his report and her reaction to his words.
They had lost her, the tener unus Tiarra had wanted guarded and watched. Those two idiots, cassette-tape-minds in a terabyte world, were useless with anything more complex than a cell phone. Both had limited abilities in magic. They were better than nothing, but just barely.
Now it was his job to tell Tiarra about their failure to keep the powerful young woman under surveillance.
Dayne pulled up to his parking spot and shut the engine off. For a while, he stood beside the bike and watched the passing humans, so content in their thoughtless lives and freedoms.
What lucky jerks they were.
And he laughed without humor as Fire scorched his leg again to remind him.
He was not free.
“So they lost her because they were looking for the taste of her magic. They had no picture or description. Right?” Tiarra said.
He was surprised when Tiarra only drummed her fingertips on the desk, coolly accepting the results without the fierce rage Dayne expected.
The heavy gold ring on her left index finger caught his eye. It had an ebony-colored stone, smooth with no facets. Now she was turning the ring, a man’s ring, around on her finger, her face thoughtful.
Tiarra sat across from him in her large office behind an L-shaped desk, looking like the competent, successful businesswoman that she was. Her maroon dress was so deeply colored that is was nearly black, and he idly wondered if she had conjured the colors from her Earth element. The fabric whispered as she moved, like raw silk, and clung to her figure from her neckline to her waist, where it flared into a knee-length skirt.
He tamped down his relief when the assistant had shown him to this room. A Spirit-adept was rare, and Dayne didn’t have much knowledge of their talents, but he knew they felt the surrounding emotions. And Tiarra was very talented in all five elements. Dayne held himself under control and willed his thoughts into some semblance of composure. Tiarra gave an amused laugh.
“Yes, they relied on the tener unus’s signature only, no photos or descriptions.”
He hesitated, but she didn’t look up. She continued to turn the heavy gold ring, her face emotionless. Tension pulled his muscles into a knot, and he shifted his weight to relax. He froze when her eyes flicked to him.
She shrugged, seemed to lose interest in whatever information was on her monitor, and turned her office chair to the wall-sized window. Through the tinted glass, Dayne could see the birds as they wheeled in the strong, midday sun, and in the distance, a glint of light reflected off the bay.
“Replace them with two new tails and provide them with photos. When the tener unus lights up or we run across her signature, direct them to her location. Until then, sit tight and monitor the crystal board,” she said. Tiarra sat back in her chair and played with the heavy gold band.
“The crystal…I’m sorry, the what?”
“Crystal board,” she said. “I keep forgetting. You are essentially new to this type of surveillance.” Tiarra’s eyes closed. “It is a map of the continent and is infused with the essence of all five elements in a clear board made of crystal. When a bonded adept is close to becoming a full wizard, the location lights up on the board.”
He hesitated and rose from the chair.
Her eyes opened and flicked to him.
“You have questions?” she asked.
Dayne paused. Too much information might be a bad thing, inviting her displeasure. The results of annoying Tiarra were well known. But still…
“The men. They bungled their assignment. Lost her.” He stopped as she continued to look at him without emotion, turning the heavy gold ring on her finger. I thought you would be…very pissed.”
Tiarra looked away with a small smile, and he relaxed the hard fist he had made.
“It isn’t that I forgive them,” she said. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him again. “Or you, for that matter.”
His nails dug into his palm.
Her eyes released him as she shrugged, leaned back in her chair, and looked at the ceiling. “I understand. That is all. We sometimes rely on our abilities too much and not enough on common sense.” She laughed a short, ugly sound and looked at him again.
“You see, I did the same thing once, a
long time ago...relied on my magic more than I should have, and it cost me a very talented young man.”
Dayne stared at her, his brows lifted to his hairline in surprise. A mage had escaped her and slipped through her talented fingers?
“Uh…did he…die?”
Tiarra laughed again, this time low and throaty. “No, my Imperator, he didn’t die. In fact, he was quite happy. For a while.” She laughed again and stood. “Then we, shall I say, ‘noticed’ what each of us was, and it was…interesting.”
“He escaped then.” Dayne froze when the eyes that turned to him held a flash of anger.
“Oh, yes, my Imperator, he escaped. Skipped right out on me. A one-night stand, I believe. And I was most upset. Not only because he managed to evade me, but because he was one of the most powerful mages I have ever touched.”
Her thoughts seemed to turn inward, and Dayne nearly missed her next words. “But I pinked him. Oh, yes, I hurt him.”
She idly traced one finger along the desk, following one of the patterns in the wood with her nail.
“He was strong, you say,” Dayne said.
She nodded. Her eyes were on the desktop.
“What elements did he have?”
Tiarra smiled, and he felt the magic gather around her. He heard a harsh scraping noise and felt the element of Earth as she dug furrows into the wooden desk.
“All of them,” she said, still following the wood grains. “He was exceedingly powerful in all of them. Especially Spirit.”
“Spirit? That isn’t so important, is it?”
Tiarra stopped her destruction of the desktop and looked up. Immediately, Dayne felt an overwhelming need, a physical craving to push her to the floor and take her now. In his mind, as he took that first step to her, her body was already his, her dress ripped away from her. He was fumbling at his clothes.
In a blink of the eye, the need died, drowned in her delighted laugh and his embarrassment. Dayne stood with his eyes tightly closed, trying to collect himself.