by Nicole Hall
Twenty minutes later, she was once again cursing the lack of coffee. One of these days she was going to remember to actually buy coffee pods when she went to the store. Her phone chimed while she searched the kitchen again, except she couldn’t find her phone either. A couple of seconds later another chime sounded, definitely from the pantry.
She dug behind several cereal boxes and came up with her phone and a box of dark roast coffee pods. “Oh, hell yes.”
The phone chimed again while she was holding it. Three new messages from Ryan. She didn’t remember giving him her number, but she didn’t remember leaving her phone behind the cereal either. And thank god for that oversight. She popped a pod in the coffee maker.
Sera read the messages while the machine worked.
One included a link to the list. One was an apology for the early text. And the last one was a borderline indecent GIF she hoped was for Jake, who was also included on the text. Sera skimmed the list and whistled at one of the names. Wouldn’t the local parish be surprised to learn their close-minded pastor could wield magical powers?
The machine beeped, and Sera didn’t waste any time. She blew on the steaming coffee, then scalded her tongue with a sip. Once upon a time she’d put enough sugar and creamer in her coffee for it to qualify as a milkshake, but Will had insisted that coffee should be drunk black or not at all. She snorted and pulled milk out of the fridge, adding a healthy dollop. Her day would not be ruined with thoughts of her ex. What a tool.
For once, Sera was glad she was unemployed. Evie’s “death” had left her with a small trust that would hold her for a while, and the house was paid off. That meant she had a lot of free time on her hands. The moving container was still outside waiting for her to empty it, but she had limited time before she, possibly they, became a human buffet.
Sera realized she didn’t know what day it was. She opened the calendar app on her phone and frowned. Eight days until Halloween. It didn’t feel like late October.
Texas didn’t seem eager to let go of summer. The kitchen was already heating up in the morning sun, but the shade trees she could see through the window were starting to look a bit less green. As she watched, a huge brownish squirrel climbed up the trunk of the tree closest to her kitchen window. It stopped on a branch at eye level and stared at her, tail twitching. Before they could resolve the staring contest, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and the squirrel jumped into the leafy branches out of her sight. Beyond the tree, Jake was leaving his house.
Sera was annoyed to realize that she spent a lot of time staring out that window toward Jake’s house, even as she continued to watch him climb into his truck with a backpack in his hand and a waffle in his mouth. Of course, he had to work. She’d woken up with this half-assed plan to lure him into the woods and find out what else she could do with her powers.
Sera smiled. That sounded dirty even to herself, but then she remembered she’d yelled at him about not needing to wait for him and doing the exact opposite. Something about helpless princesses and shooting fire arrows from her eyes. That last part might have just been in her head.
Her phone chimed again. Man, she was popular this morning. Her grin faded. It was her mom, not Jake with a response.
Mom: I got a call from the moving company about when they can come pick up the container. Have you unpacked? Evie leaving you enough to be lazy doesn’t mean you should be.
A suffocating show of love and affection, as usual. Or not. It was a miracle her mother had agreed to handle the funeral, but Sera hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to take care of it. She’d also been broke. The fact that there were appearances to maintain after all was what she thought had swayed her mother in the end. Then they’d had a fight when she’d told her mom she was moving into Evie’s house instead of selling it. After much discussion, ok, Mom talking at her while she’d stubbornly refused to engage or change her mind, her mother had acquiesced. Eventually, probably when Mom had finally realized she couldn’t stop Sera, she’d offered to pay for the moving container. Money was one of the few ways she showed love.
Sera: I’m working on it. The house is already full. There’s a lot to go through. If they call again, give them my number. I’ll take care of it.
Mom: If that’s what you want. You have two more days until you have to pay extra.
Sera: I’m aware. I’ll deal with it.
Her mother didn’t text back after that, and Sera was relieved they had been able to handle the issue without a call. Direct conversations between the two of them always ended in frustration. They didn’t know how to talk to each other. She was mostly sure her mom didn’t think she was incompetent and lazy, but she couldn’t help feeling like less of a person after one text message. Well, that and because her mom had thought drugging her because she was crazy was a solid plan of action…
Fae powers or not, she’d have to figure out what to do with her stuff now that she knew Evie wasn’t dead. Her fingers tightened on the coffee cup. As far as she was concerned, Evie would be returning to her home, and Sera was determined that she’d find some way to pay back the money she was using. That meant her meager belongings were going into her room or into storage in the attic.
Sera slurped the last of her coffee and put the mug in the sink. First order of business was to clear space in the attic. Jake and Ryan were probably at work like people who didn’t have trust funds, so she had some time to focus on something that was going to scar her emotionally instead of physically.
It took her a couple of hours, but she finally got all her things out of the container and sorted into storage or keep piles. Bless her grandmother for being an organized magpie. There were trunks full of interesting things in the attic neatly placed under the eaves and labeled. Her storage boxes and the few pieces of furniture she’d kept would easily fit in the open space.
She’d decided to unpack the necessities in her room. Evie had kept the closet empty, and there was plenty of storage under the high wrought iron bed. By the time she’d finished putting everything away, the sun had shifted to the other side of the house, and she’d sweated through her tank top.
Evie’s house had air conditioning, but Sera thought it was probably older than she was. It cooled the main room downstairs, but that was about it. Something else she’d have to look into once this mess with the Fae was over. Evie needed a respite from the Texas heat. Hell, Sera needed a respite.
A glance out the window showed Jake’s truck back in his driveway. As tempting as it had been to use magic to help her, she’d sort of promised him she’d try not to play with it by herself. She fully intended to get him over for a little practice session, but in the meantime, it had been nice to finish something on her own. It reminded her she was stronger than she thought she was.
Sera flopped on the bed and picked up her phone where she’d abandoned it hours ago on her nightstand. Several new messages from Ryan and Jake that included increasingly disturbing insults to their respective manhoods. Probably best not to get Ryan involved in a practice session. She sent a private message to Jake.
Sera: Are you free tonight? I want to try to make some stuff glow.
Jake: No plans. Want me to bring dinner over?
Sera’s stomach rumbled at the thought of dinner and she realized she’d skipped lunch.
Sera: Sure. No more pizza.
Jake: 15 minutes?
Sera: Make it 30, I need to shower.
Jake: Need any help with that?
Sera: You just couldn’t resist, could you?
Jake didn’t answer right away, and Sera was about to head to the bathroom when her phone chimed.
Jake: I’m glad you waited.
She didn’t have a response for that, and the clock was ticking on her thirty minutes.
7
SERA
Jake was true to his word. Sera was in the kitchen putting the dishes away thirty minutes later when he walked in without knocking. He set a paper bag on the table next to the b
at that she still hadn’t put away.
“I went to the Taco Stand. They said to tell you hi and they put your favorite in there.” He dug through the bag and pulled out several items wrapped in wax paper and grease stains. Sera had never seen such a beautiful sight.
“They remembered me?”
“Everyone remembers you. It’s not like we get a whole lot of new people in town. Besides, Evie talked about you all the time.”
Sera sat down at the table and pointed to the closest bundle, trying not to let the choked emotions show in her voice. “This one for me?”
“Those two are both for you. It was my best hope to keep you away from my tacos.”
She pulled one of the burritos toward her and unwrapped it. Chorizo, potatoes, eggs, refried beans, zucchini, verde sauce, and nacho cheese. Perfect. The first bite made her moan, and Jake’s eyes to heat, but she refused to be embarrassed because it was the best damn burrito in existence.
Jake joined her at the table and plowed through four tacos to her one burrito. “So how was your day? I saw the moving container thing was gone.”
Sera chewed carefully and swallowed. “I don’t want you to get any wrong ideas about this.”
“We’re friends, Sera. I’m curious about what you did while I was at work. I’m assuming there was some pining involved, maybe sighing of my name, but strictly platonic.”
Sera rolled her eyes but smiled against her better judgement. “There was no pining. I’m not a Victorian spinster.”
Jake’s mouth was full of taco number five, but his face clearly asked if she was sure about that.
“You’re not as funny as you think you are.”
“Yes I am. So what’d you do today, Mistress Allen?”
“I unpacked. I also finally found the coffee. That’s about all.” There was no point in mentioning the text from her mom.
“Not even a little accidental magic today, huh? Good for you.”
Sera remembered the dream and the golden dragon armor. “I guess there was one other thing.”
“I knew there was pining.”
Sera threw her wadded-up wrapper at him. “I had a dream with Zee.”
“With Zee? That’s a strange way to phrase it.”
Sera shrugged. “It was strange. We walked through the woods, she answered questions with more cryptic answers, the wolf was there for a bit…” She took a deep breath and jumped in. “She taught me to make shields.”
Jake set his taco down slowly. “She taught you, in a dream, how to do a magic thing?”
“It was real. I happened to be asleep.”
“I wasn’t questioning that. But, Sera, are you sure it was Zee?”
“Yes. Absolutely. She felt right. I can’t explain it any more than that.”
“I haven’t heard of the Fae teaching humans anything that would help them use their power.”
Sera’s jaw clenched. “I guess I’m special then.”
“That was never in doubt,” Jake muttered.
She pushed the remaining burrito away and stood up to stretch. “Thanks for dinner, but that’s not why I wanted you to come over.”
“Is this the part where you want me to take my shirt off?”
Sera’s traitorous inner hussy perked up with a yes, please. “No. All clothes will be staying on this time.”
“Too bad.”
“Jake, I know it’s hard, but I need you to focus. I want to try a few things with my power and you insisted on being around for it.”
He picked up his last taco and her burrito. When he moved to stick them in the fridge, she thought she heard him mutter, ‘damn right it’s hard,’ but he turned to face her before she could voice her indignation. “Let’s do it. One anchor, reporting for duty.”
Sera took a moment to let go of what she wanted to say. Mostly because she wasn’t sure where to start. The last few times, she’d gotten upset, her hands had started to glow, and something fantastic had happened. Zee had said magic was about intention and visualization. It was too bad all she could seem to visualize was Jake’s naked chest. Thank goodness her hands remained their usual color. Jake would never let her hear the end of it if the first bit of intentional magic she did was to remove his shirt.
“Are we starting now or do you need a pep talk?”
“You are entirely unhelpful.”
“Did Zee give you any pointers on how to do this?”
“Nope. She said we should work on it together and that…” Jake narrowed his eyes at her abrupt stop. She’d almost let it slip that Zee thought she needed Jake to not be sucked dry like a Capri Sun. “That I didn’t make zombie bunnies.”
Sera groaned inwardly. She’d planned to keep the rabbit thing to herself, especially the part where she’d slowly backed away from cute little rabbits in suspicion. Her stupid brain was refusing to focus.
Jake crossed his arms. “Zombie bunnies? I desperately want to hear this story.”
“I desperately want to be able to control my power. Can we focus please?”
“I’m not letting this go, but in the interest of time and not getting exploded from the inside, okay. But we’re definitely coming back to this. What do you want to try first?”
“I don’t know. What’s something that might come in useful in a fight against a super pissed powerful Fae?”
“Teleportation?”
He was probably joking, but Sera considered it. “Let’s put it on the list, but we should probably start with something smaller.”
“What about a shield?”
“I told you I already learned how to make those. It’s pretty cool actually.”
“Not for your mind, for your body. Make a shield to protect against the tree that the super pissed powerful Fae is going to try to smash you with.”
Sera cocked her head. “Do they have telekinesis or would he have to physically heft a tree and lob it at me?”
“Umm, I’ve never seen Zee move anything with her mind, but this falls into the area where she’d most likely keep it a secret. I’ve seen her change things and make things stop moving. And once she lifted a big ass rock like it was nothing.”
Sera thought about Zee appearing as a built Amazon, and she wasn’t surprised to find out she had super strength. An itemized list of Fae abilities would have been useful. Where was Ryan and his spreadsheets when they needed him? An external shield was a great idea, and she put it at the top of the list to try, but she wanted to go even smaller.
Sprites were gathering in the kitchen, and they made Sera think of Zee’s tiny form. The Fae could change their appearances, maybe she could too. A glamour, then. Something simple. She’d change her hair color from brown to blonde. Dark to light. “Okay, hold on. I’m going to do…something.”
She closed her eyes and dropped her head into her hands. Something told her it would be easier if she wasn’t distracted by large attractive men smirking at her. It took a surprising amount of willpower to get the image of Jake out of her head.
Once clear, she imagined looking at herself in a mirror. Without meaning to, she was back in the powder room clad in her golden armor. It was still disconcerting that she’d become her dragon. She ran a finger along the scales at her collar bone. They were smooth and warm to the touch. Her whole body was warm, but not in an uncomfortable way.
It was like snuggling under a blanket on a snowy day. Not that she knew much about snow, but her mom had taken her to the mountains for a weekend once. She’d gone skiing with a boyfriend and left Sera miraculously alone in the lodge to do as she pleased. It was one of the best weekends of her life until the boyfriend realized her mom had exaggerated her skiing skills.
Sera was distracting herself because she didn’t know how to start the glamour. Even knowing that, she was tempted to keep walking through good memories. The gold rope flared as she was tempted with memories of her summer with Jake. She wondered if he’d like her as a blonde. A blush crept up her cheeks in the mirror, but her hair was still stubbornly brown.
At a loss, Sera ran her hand through it to pull it away from her face and saw a thin blonde streak form where she’d touched it. As she watched, it faded back to brown. Interesting. She’d pictured herself as a blonde and Jake reacting positively. When the hair had actually changed color, her focus had shifted, and she’d lost the vision.
In hindsight, it seemed obvious. She had to picture herself with blonde hair, and it would require continued concentration to maintain. Why would her armor stay up even when she wasn’t thinking about it but a simple change in hair color took constant focus? She’d have to ask Zee if there was a way to apply the shield magic to the rest of it so that she could keep it going in a static state without having to focus on so much detail.
There was so much to learn and no way to know how any of it will come in handy against Torix.
“Sera?”
She opened her eyes to Jake lightly shaking her shoulders. “Sorry. I got distracted, then I figured something out, then I got distracted again.”
“Uh huh. Do I want to know what you figured out?”
“It’s not important right now. I’m going to try again.”
“Sure. Anything I can do to help?”
“Say something if my hair changes color.”
“That’s all? I kind of thought I’d have to be more active in this process.”
Sera shrugged. “I know as much as you do. Any ideas how you can be more active?”
He grinned. “Maybe if we held hands.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Fine. Hands only. Don’t get grabby.”
“I’m never grabby.”
Sera snorted and shut her eyes again, then felt Jake link their hands together. It was familiar and comforting. Back in the powder room, warmth flowed into her through the bond. This time the glow spread beyond her hands, her whole body was radiant. She ran both hands through her hair, imagining it blonde, and to her surprise, her hair changed from a dark chestnut to full Southern California gold. She tried her best to believe she was blonde, to fix the color in her mind. When she opened her eyes, Jake’s grip on her hands was almost painful.