I turned and headed to the corner of the hospital where my humans lived. When I got there, Missy looked up, hopeful for a second, before her face fell.
“Penny will be here in forty-five minutes. Or so. She’s not particularly punctual. In the meantime, do any of you know this mage?” I snapped my fingers and an image of the mage from the road appeared in the center of the room.
Missy didn’t say anything, but her reaction, freezing and then shrinking down onto the couch as though her bones turned to water was pretty clear.
“He’s your mage?” I asked, snapping my fingers again so the figure disappeared.
She stared at me with her one eye, not blinking. “He’s not my mage. I’m his pet.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Beg your pardon. Was that your former master?”
She swallowed before nodding, her brown hair bouncing a little bit. She’d fixed it so it wasn’t just hanging in stringy strands around her face, so she’d look normal and pulled together for Penny. I wasn’t being delicate enough, but we had to get through this before Penny finished with her princesses.
“Excellent. I’m going out. When I come back, I’ll have Penny with me. Your hair looks nice. Gentlemen, watch after Missy while I’m gone.”
The human men looked uncomfortable, except for the Necromancer who nodded from his chair where he read a newspaper. He wasn’t behind bars today. Hopefully that wasn’t an error on my part.
I stepped Throughside and then back into Dayside on the road where I’d left the Darksider mage. I could smell him, his scent heavy and dark. I followed his trail off the road and into the woods beyond. I moved quickly at a jog. I had to get this wrapped up in only a few minutes.
I came down a ravine and then jerked to a stop as a sword swung towards my throat. The mage stepped out from behind a tree and glowered at me, but he wasn’t as insane as most Darkside mages I dealt with. I held my hands up because as much as I’d like to fight him, time was precious on Tuesdays. “Good evening.”
“Good evening,” he replied in English, his voice surprisingly melodious and lilting. He smiled slightly, baring teeth that were much whiter than most Darksiders. And he spoke English. That meant he’d made an effort, probably for Missy. Which meant that he was attached to her.
“Will you be here long?” I asked, not for something to say. It was a serious question. If Missy’s former master moved to Dayside, there wasn’t anything I could do about it or about their relationship if she chose to take up with him again. He couldn’t take her to Darkside, but he could be with her here. For some reason, I didn’t think that would help her progress.
“You’re the mage who takes the humans from Darkside.” He lowered his sword so the words were slightly less threatening.
“I am one of them. Do you know of a human who needs rescuing?”
He smiled a little bit more showing his terrifying teeth. “I do not. I have a question for you, mage.”
“What will you give me for its answer?”
He cocked his head and studied me. “I will give you a location.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I already have a location. I am currently always somewhere. At least usually.”
He folded his arms over his heavy coat that hung down past his knees. “I have in times past been in a position of knowledge about a certain mage, a sorcerer some call him. You may be interested in knowing his location, or that of one of his holdings.”
I blinked at him. He was offering me information on the Subtle Sorcerer or someone else? “Interesting. Very well. We shall see if I can answer your question.”
“You took the girl, gray eyes, laugh like falling water. Is she safe?”
I stared at him, the way his eyes held a world of concern, madness, worry for the human girl he’d eaten bits of. “Missy is well. She hasn’t adjusted to Dayside yet, but she’s talking more.”
He blinked rapidly and opened and closed his fists. “She’s well? You swear it?”
“I swear it.”
His relief was visible, relief and something else. “She’s well. What is your intent with her?”
I understood what he meant even if the words didn’t translate exactly. “I’m curious about how much madness humans can handle and still readapt in Dayside. The process is fascinating.”
He frowned at me. “You want to see how easily humans forget Darkside? Yes, it is interesting. Will Missy marry a human?”
I hesitated for a moment. Coming out and asking about Missy’s personal relationships showed his hand more than usual from a Darksider. “I don’t know. She doesn’t talk to most males, so probably not any time soon.”
He nodded very, very slowly. “I see. She hasn’t forgotten yet.” He pulled a piece of parchment out of his coat and ripped off a corner with his teeth. He put the rest back and focused on spelling the paper very precisely.
“It’s a little bit difficult to forget about the mage who ripped out your eye.”
He glanced up at me with his head cocked while he folded the paper and wrapped it in a bit of red fabric before he held it out to me. “For a human. One location. You activate it like a search spell.” He gave me a short bow then turned and stepped throughside.
I struggled with the urge I had to follow him and put my fist through his skull. The way he talked about Missy, the way he clearly intended her to be unable to forget him made things shimmer green for a long moment until I managed to take a deep breath and put that bit of paper in my pocket, the pocket that came out in my closet at Huntsman manor.
I shouldn’t take it personally. The mage clearly loved Missy, so naturally he behaved despicably towards her. I stepped Throughside and came out in the hospital hall outside of the room where Penny sat with her Princesses, letting them completely mangle her exquisite curls.
I leaned against the doorway, watching and fighting with my own impulses to take her hair away from her so no one else could touch it. Shaving her head and keeping her hair as my pillow wouldn’t physically hurt her, but that it was the same impulse as Darkside mages had should give me more than pause.
A Darkside witch wouldn’t mind a mage who took her eye for sentimental reasons. No, the more mangled, the more adored she was. I shook my head and smiled at Penny once she saw me. Her face flushed in a ridiculously charming blush that crept down her neck.
“You’re early today,” she murmured, glancing up at me from beneath her lashes on our way to the human rehabilitation ward.
“I missed you.”
She beamed at me and grabbed my arm. “Me too. I love my princesses, but I wish you’d come with me so I could hold your hand the entire time. All the time. Maybe I should chop it off and take it with me wherever I go.”
I laughed out loud because that was precisely a Darksider mage reaction. Trust her to turn everything on its head. And I’d been feeling guilty for wanting to steal her hair. “You should know that it’s common courtesy to take the hand that isn’t the dominant one, unless you really, really love me, in which case you should take my right hand.”
Her eyes widened and lips parted. “You aren’t joking. Right. I could make a morsel out of you.” She pressed her face against my shoulder. “Drake, it’s too horrible.”
I pulled her head against me, my hand spread through her golden curls while I soaked in the feel of her. I wanted her to learn possession so she could hold onto me so tightly that I didn’t have to worry that I would crush her with my own bone-deep aching for her.
It took us a long time to get to my humans. Missy was a wreck, tugging on her hair while she curled into the corner of the couch, staring at the space in front of the television while my humans shifted restlessly around the edges, all except the Necromancer’s pet. He met my eyes with a cold question in them. Had I really needed to ask Missy in such a rough way?
“Narcollo wanted to be certain that his human pet is being treated well.”
Missy gasped and shrank deeper into herself. “He knows where I am?”
I blinked at
her. I’d meant that to be pacifying. “No. He knows that you are in my care, under my protection.”
“On the contrary, that means yes, of course he knows where you are,” the Necromancer’s pet corrected, like he wasn’t the human in this situation.
Penny pulled her hand out of mine. “Wait, the mage on the road, that was the psycho mage who ate Missy’s eye? Did you kill him?”
I blinked at her viciousness. Not that I didn’t like it. “He didn’t threaten her. He only wanted to know that she was safe.”
The Necromancer’s pet laughed. “Oh, I’m sure that’s right. Why else would a Darksider mage come to Dayside and get your attention other than to make sure some human pet of his isn’t off its feed? Missy, how long did he have you?”
Missy shuddered and shook her head. “I don’t know. Time stopped.”
“What year were you born?”
She stared at him and then shook her head. “Nineteen thirty-nine.”
“So he stopped time so you wouldn’t age. That’s a lot of effort to put into a pet. He either wants you back, wants to kill you, or wants to kill the mage for stealing you from him.” He gave me a flat glare. “You may have spent some time in the Burning Lands, but you haven’t known a lot of Darksiders. Pity. You might understand yourself a little bit better if you had.”
I frowned at the Necromancer’s pet. Carl. “You raise extremely excellent points. What about the rest of you, any insightful tips I’m missing?”
Larry the bartender cleared his throat. “What did he say, exactly? What language? We’re all perfectly fluent in Darksider so you don’t have to translate.”
I studied him for a long time. “He spoke English. He said he had a question; I negotiated for it.”
“What did he give you?”
I hesitated. This really wasn’t any of his concern. “A location. He might know where someone is that I’m looking for.”
“A human?” Penny asked.
I smiled at her and stroked her cheek. “A mage. He’s been undermining some of our campaigns.”
“Narcollo could find anyone,” Missy said in an emotionless voice.
“Good to know. At any rate his exact words were, ‘You took the girl, gray eyes, laugh like falling water. Is she safe?’ I told him that you were. He asked me two more times.”
“What else?” the bartender asked, eyes narrowed like he was reading my face for lies.
“What else? He wanted to know why I did what I do, and whether or not Missy was going to get married to a human any time soon. I apologize, Missy. He’s a monster that you shouldn’t have to remember, but as I discussed with the creature, it’s difficult for a human to forget someone who took their eye.”
Penny hissed. “You should have taken his eye.”
“Next time,” I said with a slight smile. “I’ll take both his eyes, all his fingers, and send him back to Darkside to be eaten by the Corweillans. Those are slug-like creatures that follow wars, consuming corpses or anyone unable to move away fast enough. I can’t imagine what Darkside would be like without them.”
She stared at me, mouth in a slight ‘o’. “None of this seems possible.”
“It is,” the Necromancer’s pet said, folding his newspaper and standing. “You’ve never been to Darkside? Perhaps your mage likes you to think that you’re human.” He turned and went into his own private room.
Penny sat down on the couch beside Missy, abandoning me. Penny grabbed her hand, the three fingers remaining on her left one. “I’m sorry about Drake. He’s an idiot mage. He thought he was helping.”
I did?
“You’re safe here. No one is ever going to take you back to Darkside against your will.”
Missy turned to look at Penny, her head cocked before she smiled slightly. “You don’t understand. I still live there in my head. He used to make me wait for him for days, weeks sometimes before he came. This feels like that. I’m just waiting for him to come and consume a little bit more of me.”
Penny slid even closer, pulling Missy over in a hug. “I’d send you home if I didn’t think my mother would torture you. No one could find you there, not even your psychotic mage.” She pulled away while I stood there, grinding my teeth together. Penny should not touch another mage’s pet. Or anyone.
I spoke loudly. “I don’t think that any of you understand. This isn’t Darkside. Darksider mages do not rule here. Narcollo is welcome to try to hurt me and any of you, but he will fail. In Dayside it is Huntsman who rules.”
On our way out of the hospital, I texted to make certain the hospital would be extremely well protected with magic as well as guards. Nothing was going to get to Missy or any of the rest of them.
I spent the entire drive to the Chinese place going over everything I needed to improve security. Was I missing anything?
“What about Missy?” Penny asked once we’d pulled up outside the Chinese place on the edge of Fairfield.
“I shouldn’t have been so insensitive. I’ve been a little bit distracted tonight.”
She frowned and turned to me. “She loves him. He doesn’t have to go to her, all he has to do is give her the chance to go to him.”
I sighed and leaned forward to kiss her. “Brilliant,” I murmured before kissing her again.
She pulled away and got out, closing the door behind her firmly. We walked towards the restaurant, holding hands.
“Maybe I should stay there overnight.”
“Absolutely not.” She was signing a contract and spending the night in my bed, even if it was without me. It didn’t have to be.
She glanced at me with a frown. “I’m worried about her.”
“And I’m worried about the Necromancer. And Missy. We do not need you thrown into the mix. You’re my witch. It would be the perfect revenge for the mage to steal you away from me.”
She smiled slightly. “I don’t think that I’d make a very good hostage.”
I stopped walking and turned to her, my fingers tightening on hers. I didn’t want to go inside the restaurant and sit in separate booths. I couldn’t. I stepped closer to her while she watched me warily. “Penny, if I give you a contract, will you let me share a booth with you?”
She inhaled sharply and her fingers gripped mine. “What kind of contract? Business?”
I cleared my throat. Was I really doing this? Into the gap. “Wedding. I mean marriage. Surprise.”
She stared at me, her grip getting tighter and tighter and tighter while her eyes went darker, not in a soft way, in a knife in a back alley kind of way. My mouth watered.
“You want to give me a contract? Why?”
“I’ve decided to marry you. Congratulations.”
She frowned at me. “You don’t want to get married. Are you messing with me?” She took a deep breath and shook her head, giving me a tight smile while her eyes grew even darker. “Of course you are. Very funny, Drake. Trying to be as inane as me.”
I dropped her hands and reached into my inside pocket, pulling out the three inch thick contract which I dumped into her arms before continuing to walk towards the restaurant. “We’re sharing a booth. I own you. Contract or not.”
She took a second standing there in the dark parking lot, holding onto the contract before she hurried after me, her shoes echoing in the shadowy night. “Drake, wait, you can’t throw this at me and then just…”
“Good evening,” I said to the server, smiling at him brightly. “One booth tonight.”
His eyes widened and he smiled and bowed over and over and over while he led us to a booth next to the fish tank.
Penny spent the entire meal reading the contract. Still, I kept brushing her shoe with my boot and that was enough. Also, she frowned in concentration as she read which meant she wasn’t going to mindlessly sign a marriage contract, even with me. Especially with me. I liked that. She should be nervous about mage contracts. By the time she’d finished the last bite of Szechuan, I’d been finished for fifteen minutes, sliding my fortune betw
een my fingers and watching her read. There wasn’t anything lovelier than my strawberry gold witch trailing sauce over my meticulously crafted document. She was going to accept it. The harder she scowled, the more certain I was. My heart felt lighter than it had in days. She would be mine in absolutely every way that mattered.
Chapter 11
Witch
I read the contract over and over, at the restaurant, in the back on the way home, sitting on my own swinging bed with the papers spread out, Señor Mort nibbling on the corner where I’d gotten sweet and sour sauce on it. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Drake was offering me a marriage contract. The terms were incredibly favorable, although he still wanted to share control of my company, Darkly Sweet, and any other business ventures I started over the course of our marriage. There were no details about the length of the marriage, but it was very clear that we would not have more than ten children together. That he felt like that needed to be specifically stated, but how long we’d be married didn’t, showed that he’d completely lost his mind. He would give me half of his stock shares in Huntsman inc and all its subsidiaries, in Day and Darkside. Listing that took a lot of paper and it only gave me a glimpse into the machine that was Huntsman inc. That’s what it took to show the inner workings of the family that ran two worlds. Terrifying.
My brain was glazed by the time morning came and my class with Zach. I left the contract spread out over my bed and hauled the box of witch hair and mage cast-offs to Zach’s room. I didn’t bother knocking, just picked his lock and went in.
“Get out,” he groaned from beneath his blankets.
I yanked them off. “Vacation’s over. You wanted to do a tech study with me, so here I am. I’m going to play with your serious machinery today so you might want to advise me. On the other hand, your room could use a complete overhaul. The Commons Room could also use a good burning down.”
Blooming Black: Rosewood Academy of Witches and Mages (Darkly Sweet Book 4) Page 9