Visions of Magic

by Regan Hastings

  “I don’t understand it,” he muttered, staring at his whiskey as if looking for the answer to his question in the bottom of his glass. “There was no trace of Egan in Scotland. Anywhere.”

  Odell laughed shortly and shook his head. “Did you expect to find him standing on his doorstep, waiting for you?”

  Rune scowled at his old friend. “No, but I expected there to be some sign of him. Some clue to where he might be.”

  “He’s not a child,” Odell snapped, then took a breath and leashed his temper. “You said yourself that the waiting is an agony, Rune. Is it any wonder that some of us disappear from time to time? Centuries we’ve been kept waiting, dangling on the end of the witches’ leashes. We’re Eternals, man, not tame dogs to be told when to come and when to go.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Rune argued, realizing that he’d said the very same things all too recently to Torin. “But with the Awakening on us now, we should all be aware of where our witch is and what’s happening to her.”

  “What makes you think he isn’t?” Odell leapt up from his chair, stalked to the liquor cabinet and poured himself another splash of Irish. He kicked it back, then slammed the tumbler onto the closest table. “He owes no one an explanation of where he goes and what he does, Rune. He’s no doubt keeping an eye on this Kellyn from afar. Waiting for her powers to awaken, just like the rest of us damn fools.”

  Rune stood up too, facing down the man he’d called friend for thousands of years. “Her powers are awakening. She’s a teleporter, and a damn strong one, from what I saw. So if it’s all kicking into place, where the hell is Egan?”

  Odell scowled at him, fierceness carved into his features. “How am I to know? You come to my home and start fuming at me over another Eternal’s problems? What sense is that, man?”

  “I didn’t start fuming until you started shouting, dumb shit.”

  Instantly, the fury on Odell’s face drifted into an expression of amusement. “Well, you have me there. All right, then. Since you can’t find your stray Eternal and you’ve clearly nothing better to do with your time than drink my whiskey . . .”

  Wary, Rune watched his friend. “What?”

  Odell slapped his palms together and scrubbed them briskly. “I thought I might convince you to come along with me on an adventure of sorts.”

  He’d been on an adventure with Odell once before, in 1014. He’d ended up a part of the battle against the Ulstermen and was witness to the death of the last hereditary high king of Ireland, Brian Boru. The war had been a glorious one, though, as Rune remembered it.

  “What sort of ‘adventure’ is it this time, old friend?”

  Odell winked and grinned. “I’ve a raid planned on an internment camp just outside Crawley.”

  “A raid?”

  “Aye,” Odell told him. “The camp’s not far from Gatwick. Authorities fly the women in from all over England and Scotland, then trundle them off to the Crawley camp. I’m going in tonight to spirit away those sentenced to death.” His features went hard and cold. His Eternal gray eyes were as icy as winter fog. “There are six slated to be put to the fire in the next week. I’m getting them out. And if you’re not too busy, I might be able to use your help.”

  Rune smiled. He couldn’t find Egan. Had no idea where to look next. So. Until he came up with a better plan, he’d do what he could here, with Odell. A raging battle with mortal prison guards sounded good to him at the moment. “I’m in.”

  Odell grinned and slapped him on the back hard enough to send a lesser man through a wall. “Excellent. We’ll go now.”

  “Where do we take them once we’ve got them free?”

  Odell laughed and the sound boomed in the otherwise still room. “That’s the best part. The closest Sanctuary is in Ashdown Forest. One of the biggest tourist draws around these parts.”

  “Are you crazy?” Rune demanded.

  “Not at all,” Odell told him, already calling on the fire and becoming a giant pillar of flame. “Hide in plain sight and those who chase you never find you.”

  “If he’s not crazy,” Rune said as his friend flashed out of the room, “then I certainly am.”

  An instant later, he followed Odell into the heart of the enemy.

  The sea air was cold.

  The ever-waxing moon tossed pale light onto the surface of the churned-up waves, highlighting them with an otherworldly green phosphorescence. There was music drifting into the air from the Queen’s Room ballroom on the third deck. Shea stepped through the open terrace doors to the private verandah off their suite. She followed the music as if she could see the notes hanging in the air.

  The song playing was an old one. If she’d had to make a guess at its age, she would have put it somewhere in the forties. It was slow and sad and bluesy, with a wailing saxophone that touched something inside her deeply enough to bring tears to her eyes.

  “You cry?”

  She didn’t even jump when Torin came up behind her. What did that say? she wondered. Was she getting so used to him now? Or was she on such a high alert at all times it was simply impossible to startle her anymore?

  “Shea,” he said, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her back to his front. Resting his chin on top of her head, he asked, “Tell me why you’re crying.”

  “It’s silly,” she said, staring out at the moon-dropped diamonds of light on the surface of the ocean. “I’m not even sure why. It’s the music, I guess. It sounds . . . lonely.”

  “There’s more to your tears than music.”

  She tipped her head back to look up at him. “Of course there’s more, Torin. We’re almost to England. Two more days and then what?”

  “Then we do what we must to end this. Or at least, our share of it.”

  “Easier said than done,” she whispered, turning her gaze back to the sea and sky. “I don’t know where I hid my piece of the Artifact. I don’t even know where Haven is.”

  “You will.”

  “You sound so sure,” she said and heard the envy in her own voice. “I wish I was.”

  Tiny white lights rimmed the edges of the ship’s decks. It looked like a fairyland at night, Shea thought. Hundreds of people were on the decks below, but here, on the verandah, she and Torin were the only two people in the world. No one could see them here. They were alone with each other and the night.

  “Your confidence is growing, Shea. I can sense it in you.”

  “Not quickly enough,” she said.

  He chuckled, a rare sound coming from him. “You always were impatient.”

  Being reminded of her past self did nothing to heighten Shea’s self-confidence. Yes, she had been impatient. And greedy. And reckless. Did she still have those traits inside her? Were they strong enough to resurface? And if they did, could she stop herself from making the same mistake she’d made so long ago?

  “Call the fire.”

  Her thoughts splintered. “What?”

  “Call on your fire, Shea,” Torin told her. “As you did on the day we met, when you stopped the attacker.”

  “When I killed him, you mean.”

  “Shea—”

  Shaking her head, she pulled free of Torin’s grip and ignored the iciness crawling through her without his touch to ground her.

  “I don’t need that power, Torin,” she said firmly. “I don’t want it. I don’t ever want to risk losing control again.”

  “If you fear losing control,” he said quietly, “then there’s a reason for that fear. It means only that you don’t trust yourself.”

  “Damn straight I don’t,” she countered. “I killed that guy, Torin.” She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her middle to offset the shivers racking her body. “God, sometimes in my dreams, I can still hear him screaming.”

  He huffed out an impatient breath. “The man was not worth one moment of your guilt or misery. He would have killed you, Shea.”

  “Instead I killed him.” She looked at him. “I don’t want to use the fire, T
orin. I don’t want to open that door again.”

  God, she thought with a wincing inner laugh. Opening doors. Wasn’t that what had gotten her into trouble centuries ago? The coven had opened doors and nearly ended the world.

  “Pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t tame the ability. You can’t claim some of your power and not the rest, Shea. This gift is yours. The magic is in you. You decide how and when to use it.”

  She stabbed her index finger at him. “Exactly. And I choose not to use it.”

  She tried to walk away from him, but he snaked out a hand and held her fast. Whipping her head around, she glared at him, but his grip only tightened.

  “And if you need that power to defend yourself or an innocent?”

  Good question. She didn’t know.

  “Shea,” he said, his voice dipping so low she nearly didn’t hear it over the hum of the great ship’s engines and the slap of the waves against her hull. “You must trust me. I can show you how to use the fire. To contain it. Your fear, your inexperience, drove you before when that man attacked you. It wouldn’t be the same now.”

  Was he right? Shea wanted him to be. She never wanted to lose control of her powers again. She had come a long way in a few short weeks, mastering abilities, channeling her energies. She’d learned so much, but there was still so much she didn’t know.

  And there wasn’t much time left to cram for her upcoming test. Only another thousand or so years of things to study up on.

  Could she really afford not to learn?

  “All right,” she said softly, before she could change her mind. “Show me, Torin.”

  He smiled then and something inside her fisted. Those rare, beautiful smiles of his never failed to stir her. But then, he had been right when he told her that once the mating had begun, the feelings between them would only intensify.

  Her body burned for his constantly. Her soul cried out for him. He really was the other half of her soul. But still, there was something holding her back, keeping her from admitting even to herself how much she loved him, and she couldn’t confess to him what it was.

  She was afraid.

  Not of Torin.

  Of herself.

  A seed of doubt lingered inside her. The worry that she wouldn’t be strong enough to vanquish the darkness. That she would instead get sucked into it all over again. That the power raging through her would overwhelm who she was and turn her into something she didn’t even want to think about.

  But Torin couldn’t hear her thoughts, thank God, so he didn’t know about those night terrors that brought her up out of sleep, shaking. He didn’t hear the sly whispers in her mind, reminding her of what she had once been—what she could be again.

  He stood there, holding her, smiling at her, and Shea wanted to tell him what she was feeling, thinking, dreading. But she didn’t want to risk seeing disgust on his features. Didn’t want to see him turn from her, or stop believing in her.

  She wasn’t at all sure that she would be able to go on if she didn’t have her Eternal at her side.

  “We’ll do this now, then,” he said and released her.

  The night was all around them, the moon drifting in a star-splashed sky. At the rear of the ship, with only the sweep of sky and sea surrounding them, they were as isolated as it was possible to be.

  “Call the fire, Shea.”

  “How?”

  “Feel it rise inside you. Hold your hands out in front of you and will the flames into existence.”

  She swallowed hard and did as he asked, making sure that her hands weren’t pointed at him. How odd to have to treat your own hands like loaded guns.

  Nodding to herself in silent encouragement, she concentrated on her hands. In her mind, she saw the fire and a rush of power pushed through her. She surrendered to it, allowing it to grow and burst free. Instantly, flames erupted at her fingertips and she jumped in response.

  “Easy,” he soothed.

  The flames were wild, whipping in the wind, shooting from the tips of her fingers into the dark like tiny roman candles.

  “Call it back,” he said, from right beside her. “Tame each flame with your mind. Bend them to your will.”

  She tipped her head to one side, studied the fire and focused as she never had before. One by one, the flames obeyed, shrinking, then growing as she wished it. They danced across her skin, flared with brilliant color, then dimmed until they were hardly more than match flames, struggling in the wind.

  Smiling now, Shea stretched her arms over her head, waved her hands and looked up so she could watch the lights she had created through her abilities and the strength of her own will.

  “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Torin said.

  Her heartbeat leapt and the flames on her hands magnified in response. Quickly, she gathered herself, quieted the flames and watched as they winked out, leaving her hands unharmed. Only then did she turn to Torin and look into his eyes.

  “Beautiful,” he repeated. “In lifetime after lifetime, the essence of you was unchanged. Your eyes, always this brilliant green. Your soul, always calling to mine. And always, I have loved you.”

  She swayed unsteadily, hearing those words and knowing just how deeply he meant them. She wanted to give them back to him. Needed to, as if her very life depended on it. Yet they stuck in her throat and died unuttered. How could she love him when she didn’t trust herself?

  “But now, in this lifetime, Shea, you are more beautiful than you have ever been.” He moved closer and cupped her face in his palms. “Your magic drives you, but your heart guides you.”

  “Torin . . .”

  “No more words, Shea,” he said. “For what we both want, there is no need for words.”

  Torin waved one hand and her clothing disappeared. In the glow of the moonlight, her skin looked like porcelain. His unbeating heart swelled with the emotions crowding inside him. Torin had never, in all the years of his existence, felt what he did now, for this woman. This witch. His. Always and forever, his.

  He dispensed with his own clothing an instant later and reached for her, pulling her body to align with his. The slide of her skin on his inflamed him. His flesh warmed, his body went to stone. Weeks now, they had been together. They had given themselves up to the mating sex and the fire they produced between them was searing. But they hadn’t shared tenderness. And tonight, that was what he wanted-for himself.

  For her.

  Her arms linked around his neck and she went up on her toes to kiss him, parting his lips with her tongue, sliding inside his mouth to quicken the heat building between them.

  He took as well as he gave, delving deep into her warmth, tasting all she was, all she would be. His mind raced with raw emotions and sensations that he had hardly had time to appreciate. On the run, chased from one supposedly safe spot to the next, running for their lives and on a quest, they had yet to be able to stand still long enough to thoroughly enjoy what they had found together.

  Until now.

  Breaking the kiss, he locked his gaze with hers as he waved his hand at the deck of the verandah. Instantly, there appeared a mattress of the softest down. Covered in snowy white linen with mounds of pillows at one end, it shone like a jewel in the darkness.

  “Torin . . .”

  “We take tonight, Shea,” he whispered. “No training, no practicing, no worries for what will come. Tonight there is only us.”

  “Yes,” she said on a sigh and allowed him to lay her down gently on the mattress beneath the stars.

  Gently, lovingly, he traced the outline of her mating tattoo with the tips of his fingers. Starting at her nipple, he followed the line of flames around and back to her shoulder, her spine. Each tiny flame burst into color, life, as he touched them. her body instinctively responding to the call of his.

  He felt his own branding burn on his skin and he relished the feel, because it marked them as one. It joined them as nothing else ever could.

  Bending his head to her b
reast, Torin let his tongue trace the same trail his fingers had moments before. She sighed at the contact and held his head to her breast, hungry for more.

  He gave her what she craved. What they both craved.

  “Torin,” she whispered, “you make me feel so much.”

  His hands moved over her skin, tracing every line, every curve and he felt his heart swell in his chest. She was everything and more to him. She had no idea what he would do for her. What he would sacrifice for her.

  To save this witch, he would surrender the world if he had to. Because without her, he was nothing. Without her, there was only the loneliness of centuries past. The misery of knowing what he had found only to lose it.

  Her hands slid up and down his back, then his chest, stroking the branding tattoo until the lines of each flame burned with a fiery red light and he felt the heat of every one of those flames licking at him.

  She stroked him, reaching down between their bodies to wrap her fingers around his hard thickness. Sliding her hand gently up and down, stroking the tip of him until he was forced to hiss in breath after breath in a gritty determination to hold on. To not claim the release she was bent on giving him.

  At last, though, he couldn’t take her touch without the risk of exploding, so he pulled her hand free of him and smiled down into her emerald green eyes. “Not yet, Shea. There is much I wish to do to you. For you.”

  “You give to me all the time, Torin,” she said, arching off the bed toward him, needing the feel of his skin on hers as badly as he did.

  “And it will continue,” he vowed. “I will always put you first above all others. Your happiness means more to me than anything.”

  She stilled and looked deeply into his eyes. “You do make me happy, Torin. Happier than I ever thought I would be. After Aunt Mairi died, I was so alone and so scared. I never imagined I could feel like this. That I would find purpose again. That I would find you.”

  He kissed her then, long and deep and hard. Dragging that moment on for a small eternity because the taste of her was staggering to him. But there was more he wanted, needed, to taste.