A Match Made in Spell (Fate Weaver Book 1)

by ReGina Welling

  "What? I...What is happening in there?"

  "Dutch Elm disease," Evian explained without providing illumination.

  "And the nymph is trying to scare the disease out of the tree." I could see how that might work.

  "Something like that. Rhenei is a Hamadryad. Her singing promotes healing and regrowth."

  "To trees. Not to humans," I pointed out. "Is she almost done?"

  "Great Goddess, I hope so." Evian rolled her eyes.

  "What happened to the silencing charm on my bedroom? You know most of my work is done at night. I'm not a sunrise girl."

  "Just sharing the love." Evian joked. "Go back to bed, it will be quiet now."

  Easier said than done. Salem snuggled up against the small of my back, but my mind would not quiet enough to be lulled back to sleep. Images from a half-forgotten dream--the kind that you just know was important--surfaced then slipped away every time I closed my eyes. That maddening feeling of anticipating some nebulous event lured me out of bed. A few hours sorting through the closet in the office might drive the teeth-chattering emotions back into submission.

  The unholy racket continued in the kitchen, and I needed coffee now. Like in an IV. Stat. Northeastern spring mornings can bring brisk temperatures, but today no breeze cooled the warmth of the sun. I grabbed a warmer jacket anyway and detoured into the garage. Driving a car, while a skill I have mastered, is not something I do unless I have to. I can't explain why, but I feel like I'm climbing into the belly of a beast every time the car door closes behind me.

  It might have to do with Soleil--the only one of my faerie godmothers with a license--being the worst driver on the planet. I'm an orphan with safety issues, what can I say? Almost everything I ever need to do plays out within a reasonable walking distance from home anyway. For those days, like today, when I needed to roam farther or faster, I had Pinky.

  Pinky is a vintage Vespa. Flix says she's a stepping stone to something worthy, like a Harley, but I love her just the way she is. And right now, she was going to get me to coffee in half the time it would take to walk. Grinning, I slid into the bubblegum pink helmet that matched Pinky's gleaming paint and plunked down on her vinyl seat.

  She fired right up with a satisfying sound, so I zipped out the door and down the drive where I nearly ran over Kin Clark. Did I mention I'm not a morning person?

  Kin managed to step aside in the nick of time and I brought Pinky to a gravel-spewing stop while my heart galloped on ahead.

  "Are you all right? I'm so sorry. I didn't mean..." The words trailed off when I saw the look on his face. He wasn't mad, he was laughing at me. Apparently, my overly enthusiastic kiss from the other night hadn't scared him away. I wondered if he had thought about it as much as I had; if he had replayed it over and over in his mind, finishing out what might have happened if we hadn't been interrupted. Oh jeez, now I was blushing.

  "If it isn't Lexi Balefire and the pink rocket," his mocking was without malice. "The least you could do is take me for a ride and buy me a coffee. After all, you almost killed me back there."

  "I...um...okay." Under the helmet, I wore almost no makeup. A coffee date had not been part of my agenda. No graceful method of refusal popped into my mind, a fact I totally blame on being awake so early in the morning.

  Kin slid on behind me, wrapped his arms loosely around my waist, and I forgot how to drive. Only for a second, until the warmth of his chest against my back relaxed my busy brain. Keeping Pinky at a sedated pace--you know, for safety's sake, not because it felt so good to be cocooned against Kin--I drove us into the heart of the city and parked Pinky in the alley behind my office. It was easier to walk from there than to find parking near The Grind.

  Helmet hair. That's what you want to show a guy in the bright light of day. Kin didn't seem to notice and while I examined that thought for possible subtext, I tripped over an uneven spot in the sidewalk.

  "I swear I'm not really a klutz." Kin's hand on my arm steadied me until I regained my footing.

  "You're not usually up and around when I leave for work." How did he know that? Was he watching the house or something? That was either sweet or creepy.

  "There was a..." Words failed me. Singing nymph in my kitchen was not a wise ending to that sentence. "...disturbance this morning."

  "Sounded like someone was flogging a dying cat. I hope Salem hasn't met his maker."

  "Oh, you heard that?" I made a note to remind the godmothers that disturbing the neighborhood wasn't the best way to win friends and influence people. Sometimes they forget that small things count.

  "Heard it? No. It was more like a visceral experience. I can hook you up with new speakers if you want. From the sounds of things, yours are totally blown."

  I snorted. I couldn't help myself. "Thanks for the offer, but it wasn't a mechanical malfunction."

  "Alternative music, then. Interesting. Like Peruvian throat singing? Maybe you could loan me the CD sometime."

  "You wouldn't believe me if I did," I muttered and then changed the subject. "Do you need me to drop you at work after this?" He was too interested in things I had no valid explanation for. Most of what went on at my house went far beyond the realm of normal. "I don't have any clients today, so I'm headed into the office for a bout of spring cleaning." The perfect explanation for my lack of personal grooming. Nobody dresses up to clean their office, right?

  "Nope, I have the day off." He gave me a crooked smile. "Buy me lunch in exchange for my services and I'll give you a hand. You can't beat that for a deal."

  I think I managed to keep my mouth from dropping open. Who volunteers for cleaning duty?

  "Okay, I guess I can find you something to do." There are worse things than having a hot guy at your beck and call. Right now I couldn't think of a single one, though. "First, coffee." I needed it now more than ever.

  "Lexi." I got the standard Cheers-style greeting when I walked through the door and before I made it to the counter in the rear of the store, my regular order was waiting for me. Not even caring about burning my tongue, I guzzled a few swallows and waited for the sweet, sweet burst of caffeine to clear my mind.

  "Give the man whatever he wants, Pete. I'm still waiting to see those photos of the new baby."

  "Even better," the smile of pride on Pete's face warmed my heart, "Elena's in the back. Wait one minute, okay?" Pete disappeared and returned with an arm around his wife who cradled an infant in her capable hands.

  "You want to hold her?" Elena's pride shone through the smile on her face. She didn't wait for me to answer but handed me the pink bundle topped by tiny head covered with dark fuzz. I'm more used to setting up the circumstances that lead to making babies than actually holding them, so the whole transaction felt awkward and strange.

  I shot a wide-eyed glance Kin's way, then looked down into innocent blue eyes that blinked back at me. One second was all it took to turn me from a fully grown adult with a fairly wide vocabulary to a nonsense-spewing baby-talker. I think babies are magic that way. The babbling lasted until the tiny face screwed up and turned red. A rumbling, liquid sound emanated from the area under my cupped hand and the powdery baby smell I'd been enjoying turned considerably less sweet.

  A lot less reluctantly than I would have done a minute before, I handed the pretty pink bundle back to her mother and when her hand brushed my own the world flipped over without warning.

  Kin told me later that my eyes rolled back in my head. I thought I was dying, right there in the coffee shop. Even hopped up on faerie wine I don't get the head spins. Dry mouth and a headache, sure, but I'm never disoriented. Fingers tightened on my arms as Kin lowered me into a chair and, in the same motion, pushed my head down between my legs.

  From a great distance, I heard him calling my name, but I was too far down the rabbit hole to answer. Symbols written in sparkling blue light branded themselves across the inside of my fluttering eyelids. A heart, a lightning bolt, that circle with a line through it that means no, and a couple more
glittering images paraded past my inner vision. As they did, I felt a sense of recognition, almost as if an old friend had finally come home. When it was all over, I basked in the sense of rightness--of balance--that came over me.

  "Call 911." Kin's voice seemed unnaturally loud as his warm hand chafed mine. "I'm right here, Lexi. You're going to be okay." His tone belied the reassuring words. He was scared.

  "No, I'm okay. It's okay." I forced my eyes open and waited for the blur that was his face to clear. "It was...my blood sugar must have dropped." I struggled to sit up, but Kin held me down. "Mackintosh Clark, you let me up right now. I'm perfectly fine."

  Reluctantly, he obeyed, but his face was dark and worried.

  "I think you should see a doctor. At least get checked out."

  "No. Everything is fine. I feel perfectly healthy." I scrambled to my feet. "Though, I have to admit my pride is a little bruised. I left the house without eating breakfast. It's not a big deal." That last part was a complete lie. Whatever it was that had just happened was more than a big deal--it was life-changing--of that I was certain, but I needed time to ponder the experience. Pete snatched the bag holding my breakfast order off the counter--a sesame bagel slathered with veggie cream cheese--and ordered me to eat.

  "We're not leaving until you do." Kin stuck his chin in the air and stared me down with a cocked eyebrow until I took the first bite.

  "Fine. I'm starving anyway."

  By the time the last bite was gone, the last half hour seemed like a waking dream. One that triggered a fleeting memory of flame and caused my heartbeat to speed up a little.

  Meanwhile, Kin drank his coffee and watched me like a hawk for signs of a relapse.

  "You have seriously got to stop staring at me." Placing one hand on my heart, I raised the other in the air, "I promise to never skip breakfast again. Are you happy now?"

  Reluctantly, Kin let it go and followed me back to FootSwept where I unlocked the door and let us in.

  To be honest, it was a bit unnerving having him see where I spend most of my time; I've never had a boyfriend to speak of, and I would never bring a date to work with me, so Kin was the first person I was sort-of involved with who had ever come to my office.

  He looked around in a manner I can only describe as 'nosy' and then turned to me with both hands outstretched. "Where's the big mess. This looks pretty neat and tidy to me." FootSwept isn't a big business; I typically deal with no more than three clients at a time. I don't videotape them, or have them make testimonials; there's no wait list, and I'm not actually a dating service. Most of my work takes place around town, and in the space beyond the door I hadn't led Kin through yet. But it's my space, and I love it.

  The main reception area looks more like a living room than an office. I have a fireplace, a cluster of cozy chairs, and a table that doubles as my desk. Abstract paintings and some pretty pillows provide a pop of color. The whole room is designed to put clients at ease.

  "It's nothing like I expected." Kin wasn't the first person to say that.

  "This is my favorite part." I opened the door leading to the closet and gave Kin the tour.

  He let out a low whistle and sat down on Flix's gleaming barber's chair. "Well, I can see why. It looks like the back room of a department store in here."

  "Yeah, if it exploded. That's why I'm here on my day off." I picked up a couple of hangers and Kin started handing me discarded items. "My last client was a browser. Or a tornado. She tore through here in about three minutes. Made it easy to see why she's having trouble finding a match."

  "How does all this work, anyway? And who is that guy in the photo?" he asked, pointing toward the glamour shot of Flix with his chest bared that took up the entire back wall of the salon.

  I laughed. "That's Flix, my partner. He works on an on-call basis; runs the salon, keeps the closet stocked, and manages what little PR we do. And he's my friend. As far as how this works, well, mostly I follow my instincts. I know a lot of people, and I do a lot of networking around town."

  Usually, I can avoid questions like that with a simple "trade secrets" riff, and even though there was no way I was going to tell Kin I used my Goddess-given witchy powers to identify a person's true soul mate, it felt wrong, somehow, to brush off the question. Maybe I liked him more than I was willing to admit.

  "So you what, polish them up till they look shiny and new, and then go with them to meet their future husbands? Or wives." Kin corrected himself.

  I sighed. "Not exactly. Only about half the people I work with end up coming in here. It's the ones who come to me obsessed with the idea of finding someone--anyone--they can believe is the one. Usually, by the time I get them, they've spent time on the roller coaster of life with unsuitable relationships and have suffered all sorts of emotional damage. The clothes and the hair and the attention are worth at least a few good therapy sessions on overcoming low self-esteem. A lot of them end up with someone they already knew but were too scared to ask out. I'm more of an orchestrator than anything else. And I have a very high success rate."

  If Kin picked up on my defensiveness, he didn't let on. "It must be nice to help people like that. True love is a rare and magical thing." It took everything I had not to snort.

  "Have you ever been in love?" I can't believe I asked him that, but my mouth had a mind of its own.

  "Not really. I thought so once, but it didn't work out. People change. Some people were never who you thought they were, to begin with. What about you?"

  "I'm exactly who I say I am. Open book." A total lie that was sure to bite me in my ass at some later date.

  Kin laughed. "Good to know, but I meant have you ever been in love."

  "Oh, that. No, never. Always a matchmaker, never a match."

  I turned my away from him and made myself busy with the hangers so he wouldn't see just how painful a question that was to answer. Seconds later, I felt the warmth of his body against my back.

  "Maybe your luck is about to change." His voice grew husky and he gently spun me around to face him. I held my breath as he leaned in and kissed me.

  Chapter Eleven

  Thinking it best to stop the epic makeout session with Kin before things got carnal, I dropped him at his front door and refused his offer to come inside. He held the tips of my fingers until our arms were stretched between us, refusing to let go until the last possible second like a scene from an overly-dramatic movie. The dopey smile lingered on my face until I approached my front walkway and prepared for another possible disaster.

  I tiptoed through the front door, sniffing the air for any clue as to whether the dark windows I saw from the street were a good thing or a bad thing. The acrid smell I anticipated was absent, and it seemed nobody was home. Maybe Evian had dragged the rest of them to her underwater grotto for an evening of...whatever it was they did there.

  I was content to wonder and briefly considered calling Flix over for wine, chick flicks, and a second-by-second breakdown of my entire afternoon with Kin, but decided an evening completely alone was in order. When was the last time that had happened? And furthermore, when was the next time it was likely to?

  Inside my bedroom, I kicked off the uncomfortable flats that had rubbed a blister into my heel throughout the day and shoved them under the bed. Undressing quickly, I changed into a pair of super stretchy yoga pants and a soft cotton camisole and took a seat at the old, antique vanity.

  Suddenly, the piece seemed out of place, crammed into a corner across from the foot of my bed. Some niggling part of my brain insisted that it would look better along the other, longer wall where the sun coming through the big bay window would provide the perfect amount of light in the mornings. Too bad the bathroom door was positioned right in that exact spot.

  My own tired face stared back at me from the gilt-trimmed mirror, and I noticed the brightness had gone completely out of my eyes. The minute I walked back through the front door, the weight of my family legacy crept over me like a pall. I couldn't stop imaginin
g what would happen if I lost the Balefire.

  It stood to reason that if I couldn't muster up enough magic keep it going, I'd also lose everything else--my livelihood, my passion, and possibly my family. Would my faerie godmothers need to stay here anymore? And if not, would they move on and continue with their own lives?

  I opened the top drawer of the vanity and was about to shove all the various tubes of lip gloss and eyeliner pencils into it when that absurd, irritating feeling of deja vu came over me. Reaching into the drawer, I slipped my hand into the secret compartment at the back, guided by an overwhelming feeling that there would be something different than what I knew was tucked inside.

  My hand closed around a thick stack of photographs, and the feel of the rough edges made my heart skip a beat. I looked through the familiar images: me with Evian, Terra, and Soleil at a Halloween party when I was about seven, dressed as a witch in a black pointy hat, them in full faerie mode during the one night of the year when they wouldn't be considered insane; me and my poor prom date who didn't yet realize his soul mate was another boy from our history class; several more photos fluttered to the floor, all the same, me and my happy but misfit family.

  A rush of emotions gnawed at me; disappointment mostly, but not directed anywhere in particular. It felt as though I was repeating actions I had already taken, and that something that was supposed to happen hadn't yet. A lousy end to a perfect day. I didn't know what any of it meant, and so I hastily finished removing my makeup, brushed my teeth and, grabbing a mystery novel, headed for my bed.

  With no faeries around to yell at me about leaving crumbs in my bed, I changed trajectory and went to the kitchen for a package of cookies. White chocolate with macadamia nuts would pair well with a glass of cold milk. Who says milk and cookies are for kids? I needed the distraction of living someone else's life for a little while.

  Salem, who normally just curled up next to me and continued the nap he spent most of his time enjoying, was standing at attention on the edge of my bed when I returned. He let out a yowl and hopped down, ran to the door and began scratching at the frame.