Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3)

by Nicolette Jinks

  I wriggled. Mordon held tighter. I thought he was asleep and knew if I stayed in bed, I'd awaken him.

  “Let me up.”

  He nuzzled my neck and kissed it. A soft, sleepy “no” was my answer.

  “I have to go pee.”

  The grapple-hold released.

  I wondered if that meant he really was awake, but no sooner was I out of bed than he let out a snore.

  Still groggy and a little unsure of myself, I checked on Anna's bassinet. She was asleep. The irony that I was missing out on good rest was not lost on me. But there was no way I could fall back to sleep now.

  Feeling physically ill, I wandered into my kitchen with its mint-green fridge. I grabbed a pitcher with mint and cucumbers, drinking straight from it instead of dirtying a glass. The water brought a bit of stability to my shaking hands.

  As soon as I replaced the pitcher, I felt the nauseous twist of an empty stomach sloshing with water. Was it from the dream or did the dream inspire the illness? I fumbled with a peach in its basket on the counter, washed it, and sank down at the table. One of the books I kept scattered throughout the house was in the middle of the table.

  I struck a match, lit the three pillar candles in their nest of gravel lining a dish, and opened the book.

  But the potion I was planning to look up did not appear. The ink faded into a white page, and fresh words appeared.

  An Introduction to the Unwritten Spells

  “Not now,”I groaned to myself. My spellbook did not read as books normally do. Occasionally it demanded payment for its use by requesting I write articles.

  “What got you up?” Mordon asked from the hallway to the bedrooms.

  I closed the book and examined him. His chest was bare but he wore soft trousers. His hair hadn't been combed since its last encounter with a pillow. He looked perfect.

  A rush of heat tinged my cheeks and raw desire uncurled through me. I would have thought that I was way too worn out to feel like that.

  “Another bad dream?” he asked, drawing towards me, his gait surprisingly relaxed.

  “Yeah. It gave me the shakes.” I lifted the peach I had yet to bite into. “Thought I would let you sleep.”

  He paused at the counter, pulled open a drawer, and produced a knife. Standing behind me, he took the peach and proceeded to cut it into six slices. He licked the juice off his fingers.

  “You are exhausted. Too stressed.”

  I chewed a peach slice, sighing as Mordon kneaded my shoulders. His big rings caught on my hair. He moved the hair over my shoulder, and dug thumbs into my neck. I groaned at the controlled strength in his hands.

  “What was the dream?”

  “Railey at the window.”

  “Again?”

  I nodded. “I was conscious this time and tried to tell them to not go.”

  “You can't change the past.”

  “I know, but it was my fault.”

  “It was not your fault. A mistake, definitely, but you need to stop taking the blame for things you are not in control of.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “I know. I can't help it.”

  “You can start with consciously telling yourself.”

  I nodded again and finished my peach. His hands started to dip lower, tracing my shoulderblades through my loose shirt.

  “You pinned me to bed,” I accused softly.

  “I got an elbow in the lip earlier.”

  “Oh! I'm sorry, I—”

  He stopped massaging me to cover my apology in a kiss. When I was slightly breathless, he murmured, “Stop saying sorry,” and kissed me harder. His hands slid to cup my face and something in me snapped. White hot hunger coursed through my body.

  I didn't want to stop this. Before, there had been a nagging worry about how far to go with him but now that we had a baby, I felt no reason to restrict myself. I wanted him.

  His mouth softened, he started to lean away.

  I wove my fingers through his hair, kissing him hard, and rose to my feet.

  He grasped my hair in return, pulling me flush against his body. I slid onto the table, wrapped a leg around his hips, and drew him tight to me. He made a muffled growl, closed his hand into a fist full of my hair, and tipped my chin back to bare my throat.

  His response sent my heartbeat skittering through my veins. This close I could smell his black pepper and nutmeg magic thicken about us. I could smell myself, too, and I was certain that Mordon's acute senses were hit even harder.

  He nipped the soft of my throat, letting me feel the point of a fang. Sheer thrill made me disoriented. Even sitting, I was wrapped up in a cloud of dizzy euphoria. I wanted to kiss him, but he angled my head to the side and nipped me under the jaw. I arced into him and raked my nails down his back, harder than I'd intended. My nails pressed over ridges in his scarred back.

  He retaliated by using his spare hand to grab my lower back. He pressed himself hard against his hips. I felt his arousal on my inner thigh. I sucked in a quick breath. My body rocked against his.

  He slid a hand over my hip, up my waist, over the curve of my breast. There he paused, rolling a thumb over the hardening nipple.

  I was out of control of my breathing now. Each quick little gasp made me dizzier, more frenzied. Mordon was sucking in shallow breaths in between kisses, his hands hard and taking rougher liberties than he'd ever done before.

  When he lifted his head, he claimed my mouth fiercely. I scraped my nails down his back again. He froze against my lips, shivering.

  “What?” I taunted in a strange, husky voice I didn't recognize as my own. “Too much for you?”

  “The question is if it's too much for you.”

  “Nothing is,” I said and dug my nails into his back again.

  He growled, moved his hand down my side to my thigh all the way to the hem of my long shirt. Hot fingers inserted between the shirt and my skin and he pushed his hand up to my hip. A thumb eased downwards, meeting with bare flesh instead of more fabric.

  My breath caught in an audible gasp over his lips.

  I felt a ripple of tension flow through all the muscles in his body. He froze. I realized I wasn't giving any signals to him. I ran my tongue lightly over his lips and murmured, “Don't stop.”

  Breath shuddering, his thumb lowered, traced my outline, and dipped down.

  I cried out, the sensations so sharp and overwhelming.

  His chest shook and he looked at me with wide eyes and a furrow between his brows. I bit my lip and tried to gain some control over the demand growing in my body.

  At the slightest movement, I was moaning, tiny bumps all over my arms. He lowered himself to take a nipple between his lips.

  I groaned, arching my back towards him in anticipation.

  A plaintive wail from the abandoned bedroom drifted through the house. The tension that had built through my body kept me rigid. We'd woken Anna.

  Maybe she'd go back to sleep if we were quiet.

  Mordon froze, too, and I could see in his expression the same hope that I felt.

  Another bout of cries emerged from the cradle.

  I swallowed to make my throat work. “Sorry.”

  He grinned. “I think this started because you said that word.”

  “I should have been quieter.”

  “I disagree.” He kissed me again.

  Anna wailed. Hard.

  She'd be hiccuping and spitting up if she continued at this rate.

  I pressed a flat hand against Mordon's chest. He stepped back, swiping a hand down his face as if waking up from a solid sleep.

  I got to my feet and took one step. My whole leg collapsed beneath me. I would have fallen if it wasn't for Mordon and the table.

  He laughed. “Having a hard time?”

  “Shut up and fuck me.”

  I slapped a hand over my mouth, astonished that those words spilled out of my lips. Where did that come from?

  Mordon was grinning, looking entirely too smug in the flickering candleligh
t and with his hair mussed up from my hands.

  “Perhaps. If you ask nicely.”

  I opened my mouth to object.

  He brushed the hair out of my face, swooped down, and kissed me.

  At Anna's next angry cry, he was suddenly gone. I caught a glimpse of the scars on his back before he was out of sight entirely. Anna only slightly quieted for Mordon.

  When he brought her out, Anna was thrashing and pouting. She screamed all throughout a whole change of clothes and a sponge bath. It wasn't until she was swaddled in my lap that the puffy lips stopped blubbering and her eyes dried.

  “She absolutely wanted you,” Mordon said. He kissed me on the top of the head, draping his arms around mine. I let my head fall back against his chest.

  “I'm so annoyed.”

  Now that the burst of passion had subsided to irritated tension, I was beginning to second-guess the wisdom of unleashing my reservations. For one thing, Mordon had never explicitly said it, but I knew that the Kragdomen Colony did not approve of birth control in healthy young adults. Their numbers had suffered badly, as was evidenced in how many of the residences were now unoccupied. The consequences of us getting carried away would be permanent, no matter what. If I got off lucky, I'd still be Mordon's official mate and would be expected to perform responsibilities in the colony. If I did get pregnant, we'd have our hands very full with two under-one-year-olds. And if the worst came to pass, and I got pregnant only to lose it …

  I dreaded his reaction if something like that were to happen. That would possibly be the one thing I couldn't take. All the anger, disgust at myself, and cold reasoning that I must have done something wrong to deserve losing a child returned.

  I blinked hard, feeling on the verge of losing control of my emotions.

  Now wasn't the time to explain those months to him, which is what I would have to do if I burst into tears so randomly. I tried to sweep the memory of those months back under the rug I'd hidden them beneath. Up until now, I'd been able to pretend they hadn't happened. Life was easier like that. Especially when the only other person who knew had sworn not to talk about it.

  “Perhaps she'll fall asleep again,” Mordon said.

  She didn't. Not for a long, long time.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mordon emerged from around the couch, a parchment in one hand, his chin in the other. Though he'd come to see me, he stood there stroking his nonexistent beard for a couple of minutes. I stirred myself up from trying to take a nap.

  Anna lay unbundled on the plush carpet, waving a teething ring in the air. While I didn't see what was so fascinating about a ridged, purple ring of plastic, Anna evidently found it an amazing item. It went into her mouth, where she gummed it. For once, Mordon barely registered her existence.

  I asked, “What do you have there?”

  He blinked as if startled to find me in the same room. “This is an itemized invoice.”

  I yawned. “Someone actually think to bill you properly for a storage container purchase?”

  He raised a brow. “I'm expected to pay for the tracking, containment, and repair of a grotesque.”

  “What?” I reached for the bill.

  It was boringly standard. Looked as if it had been made out on a typewriter with a carbon copy beneath. The letterhead had an image of a bulldog with crossed arms and the words Mason Security. The billable items were as Mordon said. Four hours of tracking. One hour of containment.

  I double-checked to be sure I read it correctly, then flashed the page at him. “Nearly ten thousand dinaires in repair work? Is this an appointment for this afternoon?”

  “Do you see the insignia on the bottom?”

  It was a circle with a smudged scales inside. “Yes?”

  “That bill was sent to the Merlyn's Market Council for their records. It is as good as a court summons. I have to go.”

  “What if you don't go?”

  Mordon seemed genuinely amused by the question. He opened his mouth once, shut it, and tried again. At last he grinned. “That is a question you will have to ask Leif or Lilly. I would be telling a falsehood to say that I knew the consequences of choosing to ignore an appointment of this kind.”

  Which meant he was planning to go. But why?

  I pursed my lips. “You aren't going to pay this?”

  Mordon blinked again. He smiled at me. “Naturally, I am going to pay Mason Security a visit with the notarized copy of my intent to pursue charges. Breaking and entering and vandalism.” He sat beside me, a half smile on his lips. “In many ways this is a good thing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because now I do not have to expend energy to find out where the grotesque came from. It should be a simple matter to find who hired it.”

  I considered what he was saying. “I doubt he'll tell us. But there would be a record?”

  “That is what I would assume, unless it is a cash-only operation.”

  I nodded, thinking quickly. “Right, so I'd want to go into their office with an invisibility ring to dig through things.”

  Mordon lifted a finger, making the ring on it flash in the sunlight. “Are you sure that is a wise idea in a security business?”

  “Huh. Well, if it was a wise idea to sneak and spy on a security business, that would make the whole situation rather ironic.” I angled my head to the side. “So, who is going?”

  “Leif and Lilly are occupied in court. Barnes is out at Oberon's. They had a bit of a scuffle earlier with raiding gang members, I believe.”

  “So we're going alone?”

  “No, I'm going. You stay and watch Anna.”

  “I'll come with you and take Anna.”

  “This is no place for an infant.”

  I spread my arms wide, giving him what I hoped was a friendly smile. “All you're doing is showing up to some guy's place to tell him where to stuff this invoice. What can go wrong?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Everything. That was the answer. Everything could go wrong, but I wasn't about to break my own argument when I was reasonably certain that only some things would go wrong. Despite my obviously infallible argument, it was the threat to follow Mordon that got him to agree to take me.

  Mason Security was not in a shady shop in a worn out industrial district the way I'd thought it was going to be. It was in cathedral ruins which had been made whole with the application of a great deal of concrete. Gardeners trimmed ornamental trees which were finished blooming.

  Grotesques decorated every eve of the massive roof far above, even inside the building where their crazy faces mocked those who looked up. Instead of church pews or votives, the interior was crowded with tables of grotesques in varying stages of birth and repair. Drinks and tools rested where they'd been put down.

  “A little late for lunch hour,” I said, my voice echoing through the vast expanse of the reconstructed cathedral. It brought the tap of men's workboots.

  “Mordon Meadows?” the man asked. He was a professional in a mason's workshop. The toughest thing about him were his steel-toed boots and those were even polished. However, the side of his right hand was smudged with pale blue drafting ink.

  “Jason Morris?” Mordon asked.

  Jason nodded and extended his hand. Mordon raised a single brow. Belatedly, I realized I'd never seen him shake anyone's hand before nor had I seen it as a custom in Kragdomen. Even sorcerers preferred not to touch.

  I took his hand instead and held onto it while I said, “I'm Feraline. We're here for a meeting.”

  Jason's eyes lit up. “You're the ones who gave Andrews trouble? Never seen a grotesque come home with so many curses on him. It was a great challenge to fix him.”

  “You seem excited.”

  “Well, I don't want you to do it again, but it was the most thrilling thing I have done in months.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Ugh, don't remind me. You should have seen the state of the shop after Andrews smashed around in it for hours.”