by Leah Ross
“No, thank you.” Shana replied with a shake of her head.
Neia turned her attention to Laria. “You, my girl, have a most interesting aura. Let us find out what the fates have in store for you, then.” She began turning her cards and laying them out on the table. She nodded in agreement at several of them.
“What do they mean?” Laria whispered. Shana clasped her friend’s hand and smiled encouragement.
“As I expected,” Neia said finally. “You will fill a very important role with your exceptional skills. You will aide many and they will depend a great deal upon your abilities. Unparalleled love has already found you, it seems, and shall be revealed very soon. You will marry, bear offspring, and experience much happiness.”
Shana squeezed Laria’s hand and smiled knowingly. “Can’t get much better than that! Any idea who could reveal their love?” She winked.
Laria blushed. “Is that all?”
Shana dug another coin pouch out of her bag. “Thank you, Neia. Now let’s hear the rest of it.”
“The rest?” Laria asked.
“Most people don’t know that an additional payment will get you more detail. Most are happy enough with the first reading and leave with that.”
Neia smiled. “You are fortunate indeed to have such a good customer of mine guiding you through your first reading, child. As you wish, ladies.” She turned more cards, a frown creasing her brow. The turn of the final card ushered a small gasp from the gypsy’s mouth, and she sat back slightly from the table, laying the rest of the deck aside with a shaking hand.
Laria’s heart pounded. “What is it?”
“I apologize for alarming you, my dear. The fates are rarely so clear with their intentions.” Neia put her hand to her forehead and took a deep breath. “I am afraid that the women of your line are under a terrible curse, child.”
“A curse?” Laria and Shana both whispered together.
Neia nodded. “You already know that magic runs deep and strong among your female ancestors, as it does in you. So, too, does the strongest kind of love. The women who share your blood, however, also share this curse. Any man who loves you will do so unconditionally, but he will be destroyed by it. Only the one with the power to defy death will break the curse.”
“What does that mean?” Laria asked.
“I’m sorry, child, but I don’t know.” Neia reached across the table and squeezed Laria’s hand. “I must tell you that the cards also say that you will encounter a great evil and play an integral part in defeating it.”
Laria was horrified. “What should I do?”
“You cannot change what the fates have already designed. I urge you not to avoid love because of what I’ve told you. Rather, you should make the most of the time you have. Your life will be all the richer for it. As for the other part, you will need strong magic and the aide of another with conviction as strong as yours.”
Shana put her arm around Laria. “We should go.”
The girls stood and Neia led them back outside. Laria was dazed and leaned on Shana. “Thank you, Neia,” Shana said.
“My pleasure,” the gypsy replied with a bow. Then she retreated back into her tent.
Guinn rushed to Laria’s side when he saw the stricken look on her face. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Shana said quickly, waving him off. “Where are the others?”
“Getting another drink.” He gestured to a booth.
“Would you like something?” Shana asked Laria.
Laria nodded.
“I’ve got her.” Guinn wrapped his arm around Laria’s shoulders.
“Will you be all right?” Shana wouldn’t leave Laria alone with Guinn if she really didn’t want to be.
Laria nodded and leaned into Guinn’s chest.
Shana punched Guinn’s shoulder as she went to join the others. “Don’t do anything stupid, McCabe.”
“Shana?” Laria piped up. “Get me something strong, would you please?”
“You got it.”
~*~
Guinn brought Laria, who was clutching her drink closely to her chest, but not drinking it, to sit under a tree far enough away from the performance stage so they could have some privacy. Whatever the fortune teller had said had obviously shaken Laria up. He wanted to help.
“Are you really all right?” he asked gently.
“Yes,” she answered far too quickly. Then she hesitated. “Well, maybe.”
“What did she tell you?”
“I’m not sure I want to talk about it.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “That’s fine. Whatever you want. I’m here for you if you need me, though. I actually can be a good listener, and sometimes I’ve been known to give out halfway decent advice.”
She smiled. A new band took the stage, and she turned to listen to the music, snuggling back against Guinn. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, savoring the feel of her small, soft body against his. Her hair smelled like sweet flowers, and her skin of vanilla, the combination creating an intoxicating perfume that made him lightheaded. Breathing her in, he memorized every facet of her being with every one of his senses, save one. He’d not yet had the pleasure of tasting her, but he vowed to rectify that very soon. He wagered she tasted just as sweet as everything else about her.
Laria sighed happily, allowing herself to enjoy Guinn’s closeness. She felt safe in his arms, his broad chest at her back encircling her with solid security. Her heart banged against her ribs as he rested his chin atop her head and squeezed her tightly. The subtle spicy scent of his tanned skin reminded her of her mother’s herb garden at home. Her breath caught on a sob as she remembered home and the reason she’d come to Holystorm.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” she lamented, guilt weighing heavily on her conscience.
“Doing what?”
Goose flesh rose on her arms at his breath on her ear. “Getting involved with you. You’re a distraction I can’t afford.”
“I sincerely apologize if I offended you, Laria. I have the unfortunate habit of speaking before I think.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s nothing you did.”
“Does it have to do with what happened tonight?”
Laria hesitated for a moment. “The gypsy lent a little… clarity to some of the events in my life. It made me realize that I need to focus on my priorities.”
He chuckled.
She sat forward and turned to glare at him. “What?”
“Fortune, fate, luck. It’s all superstitious bullshit.”
“You don’t believe?”
“I believe in hard work, in making your own way in the world. If I want something, I go get it. No way in hell am I going to wait around for some mystical force to tell me what to do.”
She smiled. He’d summed himself up so perfectly, she’d be hard pressed to do a better job. “And what if, despite all your hard work, desire, and ambition, things still seemed dead set against you?”
“Make the most of it. We only get one chance to live this life. Take every opportunity, enjoy the adventure, and don’t regret a blasted thing.” His eyes sparkled.
“A pirate’s philosophy on life, if ever I heard one!” She laughed.
He traced his thumb down the curve of her cheek. “Bloody damn right.”
They sat in silence for several minutes, contemplating each other’s view of the world. Then Guinn asked softly, “Laria, why are you here?”
She raised a confused brow at him. “What do you mean?”
“You said I’m a distraction. From what exactly am I distracting you?”
“From my studies. I’ve been spending more time on you lately than studying.”
“I know you’re here to study. Study what?”
“Magic.”
He rolled his eyes, knowing she was being evasive on purpose. “How are we ever to reach the next level if you can’t trust me?” He sighed. “Every student must declare a specialty at Holystorm. Shana’s in m
edical, William chose architecture, I’m in the naval command program, naturally. What’s your specialty?”
“William’s in architecture?” That genuinely surprised her. She wouldn’t have pegged him for something so mundane.
Guinn waved his hand dismissively. “Hannigan likes to scheme and engineer impossibly elaborate plans and then make others do all the work. It’s perfect for him, really. But you’re avoiding my question. Why?”
She lowered her eyes as her face flushed pink. “I couldn’t afford to start at Holystorm as a first year student, so I did my first year work at a local school in Callinar and transferred when I’d saved enough. Since I came here as a second year student, I couldn’t go into the program I wanted. So I chose the next best option.”
He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “Don’t be ashamed. You worked hard to get what you wanted and make your own way here, and made the best of a shitty situation. See? You and I aren’t as different as you think.”
She frowned. “But I didn’t get to do what I came here to do.”
“What did you want to do?”
“I wanted to be a healer,” she whispered.
Guinn sensed her anguish. He took her hands in his and waited for her to continue.
“My father,” she said around the lump in her throat. “He’s very sick. He has been for years. My mother works herself to exhaustion every day, just to afford his medical care. All the money I gave to her from my own employment before I left home she saved to send me here.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “She wouldn’t let me help pay for my father’s care. She’s told me my whole life that I have so much potential with my magic, and she wanted me to learn to develop it, to make something more of myself than she was able to give me. I wanted to give something back to her. I wanted to learn how to make my father well again.” She dropped her face into her hands and sobbed.
Guinn’s heart broke. He gathered her in his arms and tried to soothe her pain. “Sweet Laria. Why didn’t you tell anyone? I’m sure someone would have made an exception. Let me talk to the Headmistress.”
Laria shook her head. “I can’t afford the required extra supplies and texts anyway.”
“I’ll pay for them,” he offered immediately.
“No! I don’t need charity, and I don’t want any special treatment. I can do this myself.” She pushed away from him and sat on the grass, hugging her knees to her chest and struggling to regain her composure.
He left her alone and let her calm down. When her eyes were dry again, he reached out and squeezed her hand. “You’re very brave, you know.”
“I feel like a failure.”
He didn’t think that she would accept his argument to the contrary, so he left it alone. “So which specialty did you choose?”
“Defensive magic, but I’m taking the maximum allowed course load with classes in any subject to which I have access. And Shana is tutoring me in intermediate healing spells.”
“Bloody hell,” he said, his eyes wide. “You really don’t have time for me, do you?”
She smiled. “I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment.”
“What do you plan to do after Holystorm?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
“Not all of us have our futures figured out so far in advance, Guinn. I don’t know. I guess I’ll just see what fate has in store when I get there.”
“And we’re back to fate and destiny again,” he joked. He thought for a moment. “I’ll need an experienced mage aboard my ship. Perhaps you could come with me. Then you could distract me from getting anything done.”
Recoiling in disgust, she stood abruptly and scowled at him. “I can’t believe you just suggested I go with you as a pirate’s whore! Just what every girl aspires to be!”
His jaw dropped in utter shock and he stood, searching his mind desperately for the right apology. “That’s not—”
She jabbed her finger into his chest. “When you figure out what you want from me Guinn McCabe, come find me, and I’ll let you know if I’m still interested.” She stormed off, heading back to the school.
Bewildered at the horribly wrong turn of events, and at a complete loss as to how to fix anything, he stood as firmly rooted to the ground as the tree behind him, powerless to stop Laria. He released a growl of rage at his own stupidity, turned toward town, and headed for the nearest tavern.
~*~
Laria burst through the women’s common room door, letting it slam behind her, heedless of the late hour in her fury. Shana popped her head up from behind the tall wingback chair situated in front of the nearly extinguished fire. Shana had returned more than an hour earlier and gone to check on Laria. Finding her friend still out, she’d decided to wait up for her.
Now Shana jumped up and dragged Laria to a couch in the deserted room. She could tell Laria was upset, and there was only one likely source. “Guinn did something stupid, didn’t he?”
“He asked me to go with him and be his pirate mistress,” Laria sputtered, pounding the cushion with her fist.
“He said that?!”
Laria shook her head. “Not in so many words, but that’s what he implied. And he didn’t even apologize!”
Shana smacked her palm against her forehead and sighed. “Boys are so stupid. They’re absolutely incapable of knowing how to deal with their feelings.”
“Well, he’s on his own now. When he figures it out, he can come to me. And he sure as hell better start with an apology!” Laria stomped up the stairs to her room, slamming and locking her door.
Shana shook her head. Guinn, you’re such a moron! Someday you’ve got to learn to think before you speak.
~*~
William munched on a piece of fruit he’d grabbed on his way out of the dining hall after his early breakfast. The end of the semester was approaching, and he wanted to get an early start on his exam studying. He’d spread his books and notes out on one of the common room tables, enjoying the early morning silence before anyone else got up.
When Guinn stomped through the door, wearing the same clothes from the previous night, rumpled and smelling of rum and something femininely sweet, William gaped midway through a bite of fruit, his pencil frozen over his paper. His brows shot up into his hairline. It was painfully apparent that Guinn had been out all night. William wasn’t letting the man escape without finding out what his friend had been up to.
“Morning, Guinn,” William called nonchalantly.
Guinn glared in response, heading for the stairs.
William knocked over his chair in his haste to intercept. “Oh, no you don’t! I caught you sneaking in at this ungodly hour; I get the prize! Where have you been all night, you scoundrel?”
“Bugger off, Hannigan! I don’t owe you an explanation.”
William smiled conspiratorially. “It was Laria, yeah?”
Guinn growled in frustration and slumped on the nearest couch. “It wasn’t anyone, Will. I pissed her off, she left me, and I spent the rest of the night getting drunk.”
William sighed. “What did you do this time?”
“I don’t even know.” He rubbed his temples with his fingers. “We were talking about what she was going to do after school, I suggested she come with me and distract me, and she got angry. She yelled something about being a pirate’s whore, told me to figure out what I want, and ran off. I just can’t figure her out!”
William pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed, and shook his head. “Are you completely stark-raving daft, man? What would possess you to say such a thing to a young, impressionable lady like Laria?”
Guinn glared at William, with genuine confusion in his gaze. “What the hell did I do wrong?”
“Did the two of you say anything about commitment, relationship, even dating, at all?”
“No. Why the hell would we?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” William replied with heavy sarcasm. “Perhaps because you like her, she likes you, and if you want any kind of future with her, there has to be a relations
hip in there somewhere?” He waved his hand. “But that’s beside the point. If neither of you even mentioned any kind of commitment now or in the future, how exactly should a girl interpret an offer to ‘come with me and distract me anytime I feel like it’?”
“I didn’t think—“
“Precisely.”
Guinn banged his knuckles against his forehead. “I’m such a fucking idiot.”
William clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Positively certifiable, Captain.”
“How the hell do I fix it, smartass?”
“Charm her, court her. You know, all that romance shit. What do you usually do?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
William’s jaw dropped open and he fell into the chair opposite Guinn. Then he shook his head and regarded his friend critically. “Mate, what, exactly, have you never done before? Because, to my recollection, there is precious little that you, sir, have never done.”
Guinn scowled at William. “Courted a woman, you ass.”
Falling over in a mock faint, William draped his arm over his eyes. “Be still my poor fragile heart!” Then he sat up. “Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that girls have always just fallen all over themselves, clawing each other to ribbons to get into your pants just because you smiled prettily at them?”
Guinn shrugged and offered a sheepish smile.
William narrowed a lethal glare at him. “I hate you. Truly. Weasley guts, black heart, pea brain, boyish good looks wrapped in the body of a sex god, everything. Have you no shame? No wonder Shana broke up with you; you have no idea how to please a woman.”
“And I suppose you do, mister ‘can’t make a commitment to save his life’?”
William nearly choked on the bite of fruit he’d taken and coughed hard, masking his discomfort behind the guise of avoiding asphyxiation. “My inability to commit does not negate the fact that I know how to properly treat a girl, mate,” he said when he’d recovered. “Which is more than I can apparently say for you.”