Wilder Mage

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Wilder Mage Page 16

by CD Coffelt


  “Stop it, stop it,” he growled into her angry face. “You’re starting to erupt, your magic, and you’ll send up a signature.”

  He held her against the wall with the weight of his body as she struggled for a while longer until the words sunk in. He saw her aura dissipate, the shimmer growing less and less as he watched her take a deep breath and visibly calm down. Her eyes closed and she trembled against the skin of his bare chest and arms.

  He became aware of her scent, of strawberries or lilacs, the smell of summer and a fresh breeze, and he caught himself before he rubbed his chin in her hair. His breath stirred the strands, and the scent swirled around him again. He felt his respiration increase again, and it had nothing to do with his physical exertions. Her face was close, her chest heaving in time to his. Her eyes opened and slid to his mouth. She parted her lips, leaned forward, and his breath caught in his throat as he started to turn his head to meet hers.

  In his face, she snarled. “I took care of the effect caused by tener unus a long time ago, as soon as I realized what it meant for me and what it was. Fixed magic; I used fixed magic. It took a long time, but I did it, saved what little I had in the talent and fixed it bit by bit onto this bracelet, a kind of warding, like your stone. To avoid stupid men. I didn’t want stupid men chasing me all my life. You stupid, stupid man.”

  The word sounded like a curse.

  They were so close, his breath blew strands of her hair away from her face. He watched the play of emotions cross her face, from anger to something like weariness. For a moment, he nearly gave in to his need to taste her mouth again, just to see if it was like before. But the snap of Fire on his arms distracted him.

  Her Fire element was little more than a prickle now.

  “Now, let me go before I really hurt you,” Sable said.

  “Yeah, let me know how that’s working out for you,” he said.

  “How about I give you another matched set of tattoos on your chest?” She pulled her lips back from her clenched teeth, and he hurriedly released her.

  “Okay, but calm down. Please,” he added when her eyes narrowed again. “You were about to erupt.” She started to sputter, and he said quickly, “No, your emotions pulled energies from around you, gathering the magic and causing it to fire up.”

  He stood back and then immediately reached for her when she stumbled. She held onto his forearm until she steadied from the physical drain caused by the use of magic.

  “It must have taken a long time to pull energy from all around to make the warding,” Justus said. “Fixing a warding onto the bracelet, killing the aura of tener unus must have been exhausting.”

  And taken a lot of strong-minded purpose, he thought.

  “How long did it take you?” he asked softly.

  Her eyes were down and her shoulders slumped. “Six weeks,” she said.

  He was stunned. It took the fixing of all five elements to make her shield, gathering and braiding them into an intricate pattern, a task that wasn’t easy for a full adept. For a warding-type amulet that protected her night and day through the years, the skill and power involved was enormous. That it had taken only six weeks to mold the elements was stunning.

  No wonder the Imperium wanted her. After she came into her potential and acquired her full talents as a wizard, the one who controlled her would control the world.

  Her power might even surpass his, and Justus felt his stomach clench at that thought. She was a weapon of great magnitude for the Imperium to use, and she didn’t even know it.

  He swallowed his concern. “And that has protected you from the attentions of guys answering your siren’s call,” he said lightly.

  Sable looked up and gave him a wry grin, her mouth twisting into a half-smile. “Yes, all true. So, when you kissed me, it was all you.”

  “Well, some of it was you.”

  She shrugged. “Still, it had nothing to do with the tener unus crap, so don’t use that as an excuse for kissing me. You got my emotions hot, and it was enough to call the Imperium,” she said.

  He swallowed noisily, the thought of that heated kiss a memory he tried to stop, especially on the nights he couldn’t sleep. He didn’t reply.

  “So. It affected you also. Didn’t it?” she asked.

  “Well, Sable, it isn’t something I do every day, kiss my employees, so yeah, I guess you could say that,” Justus said with a wry smile.

  He watched her warily. She had a slight grin that had less to do with humor and more to do with a cat ready to pounce on a mouse.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said, satisfied with something he didn’t see. “You don’t have much experience either. Do you?”

  He twitched, cleared his throat, and decided to take the offensive.

  “Kissing, though... I am hell at kissing.” His leer tapered off when her eyes narrowed.

  Defense might have been a better choice, he decided.

  “Anyhow,” he said looking anywhere but at her. “It doesn’t matter. I have my full talents, and you are potential only. When your magic busts out, it won’t take a rodeo in the sack. It will free itself, like a caged panther. It will find a way to escape. Don’t make it any easier for it by letting your emotions get away from you. Any strong emotion will do it; anger, joy, fear—any of those emotions, if they are strong enough, will give your innate talent the advantage it needs to break out. So use care. And you have a lot of magic, more than some who are full wizards.”

  “But I don’t want it.” She pitched her voice so low, it was barely audible. “It was never something I wanted, this magic thing.”

  “Me either,” he said slowly, “but we can’t do anything about that, just use it in the best ways possible. Morally and physically.”

  She looked up, her eyes shadowed. He smiled when she sighed.

  “Acceptance is the key,” she said.

  “Yep.”

  Her smile gathered magic all on its own. Her personality pulled it into her eyes and face, and he stopped breathing, fascinated as he watched it change her features into something that tightened his stomach into knots.

  He didn’t try to resist. His qualms against touching her were gone, and he lightly traced the outline of her mouth with one finger. Her smile vanished and her lips parted as he covered her cheek with his hand and counted her breaths. In slow motion, he bent his head and lightly brushed her lips.

  The silver bracelets jangled as she lifted her hand, to touch him or to hold him, he didn’t know, but the sound of the chimes made him break away and glance at her wrist. The multiple hoops and bracelets had worked down her arm, exposing her wrist. Justus frowned. She started to step away, but stopped when he gently took her hand. Old scars marred the skin around her wrist. The silver coils had concealed the marks.

  “My parents,” Sable said softly, “did not want me to leave.”

  He stared down at her; his blood chilled as she took her arm back and carefully arranged the bracelets to hide the marks. Her head bowed as she fingered the charms. “As soon as I found out the truth, I ran away. They found me and brought me back. I got away again.”

  She looked at him with a smile, but it didn’t go to her eyes. “When they caught me the second time, they wanted to make sure I didn’t escape again. So they used handcuffs, held me in a room in the basement until I ‘got some sense,’ my father said.”

  She brushed the back of her shoulder with one hand. It chilled him, the look on her face. Justus touched her neck; she nodded and pulled her blouse away. He looked down her neckline to her back. Several raised streaks were across her shoulders, scars from a stick or whip. He stepped away, his face neutral.

  “Anyway, I escaped again. This time for good.” She rubbed the marks under her bracelets. “Saved up my talent for that too,” she said, her tone grim.

  And he thought she had merely a strong will? How about steel bars, adamant will, with a force of character to match.

  “What a team we would make, the pair of us. Enough to give eve
n the Imperium pause, I think,” he said. Under his hand, he felt her shrug, but her eyes smiled at him.

  “Together?” Sable’s smile lasted only a second longer, then vanished. She moved from under his hand to stand away from him, the light no longer in her eyes. “Kind of an impossible dream, isn’t it? My first day’s assignment will be rounding up wilders like you, no doubt. That is a good start for relationships.”

  She started to move to the door.

  “Wait.” He slashed his hand through the air and stopped her. “Listen. Someone’s walking around the shop.”

  Her head cocked slightly and she frowned, as if trying to hear. Justus flicked his fingers and extended his magic outside his rooms. Someone with a heavy foot, he decided, not Bert or the McIntyres, he was sure. A man’s tread, but not a mage. The office door opened.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured. “No one, not even another wizard, can touch the door. It is warded.” He eased to the door.

  “What are you doing?”

  He turned back. “I’m gonna surprise the hell out of a robber, that’s what.”

  Her brows lowered and she grabbed his arm. “No, wait. See if it is…wait, he’s leaving. Hear that?”

  The footsteps faded, crossing the front room. Then the squeak of the shop’s door closing. Sable rushed to the window.

  “Don’t touch the curtains,” he said.

  She nodded. A man with dark curly hair walked across the street and stood looking the way he had come.

  “Oh,” she said. “It’s Wesley.”

  “Wesley? Who’s Wesley?”

  “Maggie’s nephew. He’s staying with them now. He’s the one that gave them such a turn.”

  The man dithered for a bit, then quickly walked away.

  “I do feel other mages now,” she said. “They don’t come close enough that I can see them, but they are keeping tabs on me.”

  Justus rubbed his chin and wondered absently how he could get her close again. He sighed. Not a tener unus making his senses come alive, he thought. What a revelation that was.

  “Yeah, I think shielding you is over. That ship has sailed. They probably have pictures, a description, and someone’s boot on their neck to keep them in line.”

  “I’m on their radar.”

  “Most definitely.”

  Another figure moved into their line of sight across the street, a lanky teenager who seemed to watch Wesley’s retreat.

  “I’ll be right back,” Bert said to the seemingly empty street. Then he muttered, “If you’re listening, that is. Hope I’m not talking to myself.” Bert disappeared down the street, following Wesley.

  “Checking to make sure he’s gone, I guess,” she said.

  The teen returned, trotting back down the street, and they heard the door open.

  “Little pig, little pig, let me come in,” Bert said softly from the office room.

  Justus chuckled and waved one hand. A creak of a door, and then the thud of a teenager leaping the steps two at a time.

  “Hey, it worked, my newly made-up password,” he said as he came into the room. He looked around and laughed again when his eyes fell on the bed.

  “More Fourth of July, people? Or did you all practice safe s—”

  “Bert,” Justus said with a threat in his voice. “You are such a little kid.”

  “And you are such a wiener,” Bert said. He flipped his hand at Justus. “So all back to normal, huh? No more drooling, stumbling around?”

  “Normal is such a subjective word,” Justus said.

  “Thanks for not turning me into a toad.”

  “There’s still time.”

  Bert snickered. “I gotta be hopping along—got ball practice this morning—but I wanted to stop and see how things were shakin’. We figured you’d come out of your beauty sleep this morning.” He gestured at a well-used notebook at one end of the small counter. “Your instructions made that pretty clear. Anyway, I’m off.”

  He started for the front entrance, but stopped. “Oh, wait. Don’t open it yet, Justus. I saw Weasel snoopin’ around. Is he still gone?”

  “Hey. His name is Wesley.” Sable was frowning at Bert.

  “Oh, yeah, yeah. I keep forgetting, what with his supreme imitation of a rodent.”

  Justus bit the inside of this cheek to keep from laughing. “He’s gone.”

  “Good enough, then.” Bert took a step to the entrance. “Little pig, little pig, get me the hell out of here,” he said dramatically and spread his arms wide. When the door opened—with Justus’s help—the teenager blurted, “Cool.”

  “He’s a good kid,” Sable said quietly after Bert left.

  “Yes, he is. One of a kind.”

  She brushed the top of the table with her fingertips and hesitated.

  “I’ll tidy up here,” Justus said. He noticed how long and graceful her fingers were. Strange he had never noticed this before.

  She glanced at him with a small smile and nodded. “So, what’s the plan? You are coming back to the shop, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I went away, and now I have returned from an unproductive buying trip. Don’t worry; I’ll come up with something to cover my time away.”

  Sable dropped her hand to her side and looked down at the red-topped table. “But you are staying. Right? They aren’t driving you away now that I am in their crosshairs?”

  “No. I’ll stay.”

  She gave him a hard look. “Okay. Well. I guess that’s settled, then,” she said briskly. She started for the door and stopped abruptly when it didn’t open for her as it had for Bert. She threw a startled look at him.

  “You forgot the magic words.” Her magical smile rewarded him and made the muscles in his belly tighten again.

  “Little pig, little pig…”

  Justus opened the door with a flick of his hand, and the cool morning air sifted through the entrance.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After cleaning the essentials of his apartment—the bed sheets, the refrigerator, and sweeping, always the sweeping—Justus released the fixed magic covering the door and dressed for a run. He needed the exercise and to think of a plan. Decisions and sorting the resulting consequences meant some alone time was in order. Besides, stretching his unused muscles left his mind free and felt good. It made the shower afterwards even better.

  Several phone calls later, his story was set and he felt he could relax. First thing on the list—after he followed his mom’s strict order to show up at her house within the hour—was adjusting another warding stone to shield him from another attack by the Imperium’s locating device.

  The magic used on unbonded adepts tasted mostly of Air and Spirit, with a small amount of Earth and Water. All of those plus a bit of Fire for armor should do the trick for his fixed shield. But he would need to go outside the city; somewhere the hunters couldn’t feel his use of magic. That was the problem with his plans, the meddling adepts—too close for comfort and security. Touching Spirit without the confines of his ward stone created its own problems.

  The Weasel’s…using Bert’s nickname for Wesley could be habit forming…presence at the McIntyres’ might be a good thing, someone to keep him from making a mistake with her. It set his teeth on edge to think of it, but it was better that she forge a relationship with someone else. And he needed to find a way to leave. Despite what he had told her, he decided he would leave as soon as he could find the means to do it. Simple as that.

  He didn’t understand the effect she had on him without the tener unus aura as an excuse. There was no explanation for the strange yearnings, the happiness he felt when she was near, and the need to see her smile. He wanted to see her now, just to see if she was happy, to hear her speak, if only to scold him. It made no sense. There was no magic pulling him to her.

  Justus flexed his hand and looked at his palm, remembering the way her cheek felt under his fingertips, the soft skin like velvet. Her reactions to his touch. When she had leaned into his hand and it had cupped her face
. Her soft moan when his mouth covered hers…

  He made a harsh sound and shook his head. No more idiocy. He wouldn’t let his foolish thoughts carry him away into Crazy Land. When she came into her full potential, he could not be near her. That was the danger he had to avoid.

  Tiarra would own Sable’s magic, control her body and soul. His freedom would end when Sable became a full wizard, and he had to leave before that happened.

  Justus gritted his teeth when he found himself reaching for the phone, glared at the cell as if it was the problem. He jumped when it rang.

  Idiot.

  He answered and felt disappointed when his mother began talking, her voice anxious.

  “Yeah, Mom, I’m headed that way now,” he said.

  His mom’s irritation had come through during the visit, annoyed that he didn’t call her as he usually did during and after a road trip. She’d seemed worried by his disappearance and had brushed off his apologies.

  “You need to be safe, dear,” she had said. “I just need to know you are safe.”

  The mantra: be safe, stay safe, check in. She was such a worrywart when he wasn’t close.

  The lines in her creased face had smoothed with his words of apology and his promise to try to do better in the future.

  He pulled his car into the McIntyres’ drive, turned the engine off, and sat for a moment, wondering how he had managed to break his pledge to himself already. Here he was, trying to think of an excuse for seeing her. The roses hid his car from the entrance leading to the front room of the house, but Justus could see the lights glimmering through curtained windows. He could hear them talking in the living room, the McIntyres and Sable, her voice sweet with laughter. He augmented his hearing with the fixed magic of his ward stone and recognized her familiar footfall in the hallway leading to the kitchen at the other end of the house and then her return to the front room. The sound of her voice and her movements filled him with an incomprehensible yearning to be near her, to touch her and see her react.

 

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