Just never like this.
Ever since that loading dock in Las Vegas, she’d been more than numb. She’d been practically frozen. No one seemed to notice. Everyone was all concerned about supporting Lan and Greta. She couldn’t tell her family what had happened. They’d probably think she was a traitor.
There was nothing to be done about it anyway.
The bleak feeling in her heart threatened to overwhelm her. Her eyes filled. Not fair. Not fair at all. There was no escaping it though. The man she was destined to fall in love with, the only One who could unlock her magic power, was a member of the Clan.
*
“Get out. Hurry up,” his mentor ordered.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he murmured, scooting over to the open door in the automobile. He remembered automobiles, though they were like a far away dream, and not like this huge, sleek machine in any case. As missionaries in the Sudan, his parents had an old Renault. He hung on to that thought. He had so little left of them to hang onto. No pictures. No one to tell him about who they were and what had happened to them. He couldn’t even say he truly remembered what they looked like anymore.
The plane ride from the monastery, finding out that his mentor for all these years was a woman, the lights and the noise of the airport, were all so overwhelming, he almost felt sick to his stomach.
As he got out of the “limo” as his mentor called it, the colored lights and the huge monolith buildings made his head reel. He put out a hand to the car door to steady himself. What place was this that had a pyramid that shot a beam of pure white light from its golden apex? He wasn’t in North Africa, in spite of the fact that he could see a golden glowing sphinx just beyond the pyramid and the air was almost as hot and dry as he remembered in the Sudan. He looked around, seeking something that would anchor him. But all he saw was a huge tower striped with green lights, and behind him the gleaming turrets of a castle like he had seen in one of Brother Theodosius’s picture books.
His mentor motioned him forward impatiently with the large, intricately carved walking stick she carried constantly. He must not disappoint her. She was the focus of his life now. Brother Theodosius said Thomas had a great purpose, and this…woman (it was hard to think of her as a woman, even still) had sponsored him at the monastery to ensure that he would fulfill that purpose. He steadied himself enough to move away from the limo door. He must think of his purpose. Was that not what had sustained him through the years of preparation at the monastery?
His mentor took his arm and hustled him forward. Suddenly, the earth shook and heaved under his feet. He and his mentor both staggered. He gripped the rail.
“What the fuck is that?” his mentor yelled to the driver and the man who had taken her bags. “Earthquake?”
“Explosion,” the driver shouted as the ground heaved again. They heard two yelps of surprise and fear behind them as the ground rolled again. His mentor turned, wielding her staff.
“Tremaines,” she hissed.
A channel of light burst from her staff and slashed at a vehicle parked some distance away. Thomas started back, into the doorway. What thing was this?
A man came out from behind the large vehicle and held up his palms toward them. The staff began to glow, and his mentor dropped it to the ground with a curse. She looked up at Thomas. “Get the Wand,” she ordered the driver. She grabbed Thomas’s arm and turned him into the building.
Thomas felt a premonition fill him. Everything seemed to slow down. He felt his mentor’s grip on his biceps through the shirt she had given him as she hustled him up the stairs. He felt the building roll with another upheaval. The metal railing of the stairs twisted and broke. He smelled the dust of crumbling concrete. But all sensations seemed to recede like waves into the Mediterranean, leaving no mark.
What was important was behind him.
He twisted out of the his mentor’s grip in slow motion, craning to see.
He gasped as he saw her.
She was tall for a woman. At least as compared to the women he had seen since he came from Mt. Athos. Before that, he hadn’t seen a woman in sixteen years, except for the occasional visits of his mentor, and she had come disguised as a man, since no women were allowed on Mt. Athos. The one light from up on the pole above the concrete made her hair a flaming nimbus around her head. Had he ever seen anyone with hair that color? Her eyes—what color were her eyes? Something light. She wore a dress in some bright flaming color that did not even reach her knees, with a flared skirt and a fitted bodice. The straps left creamy white shoulders and chest visible above the fabric across her breasts. Had he ever seen so much female flesh? Her legs were long and graceful. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
She stared at him as though she was struck as much as he was. And he was struck. The impact of her gaze hit him harder than Brother Theodosius’s scourge. The moment stretched, tense, as their eyes locked. This, this was what he was meant for, who he was meant for. His life had been only a prelude to this moment.
He felt his insides lurch. Pain welled up from his loins and his belly. A burst of heat came from behind him. From the corners of his eyes he saw flames licking at the walls inside the building, right out toward the doorway where he stood. They seemed to echo the fire in his belly. He felt like he might burn to death, both inside and outside. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
She mattered.
Then a man came out from behind the truck and grabbed her arm. “Tammy,” he yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?” He grabbed Thomas’s vision and hauled her rudely behind the vehicle. Her gaze didn’t leave Thomas’s until the very last moment. When finally their connection was ripped apart, Thomas felt bereft. Worse than when his parents died and left him an orphan, worse than when the Sudanese man had beat him and sold him to his mentor, worse than the long cold nights in his hut on Mt. Athos when he felt abandoned by the world as he endured the privations necessary to prepare him for fulfilling his purpose.
“Get these flames out,” his mentor was yelling as she pushed Thomas into the building. “Where are the Tremaine boy and the girl being held?”
The building rocked again. The flames leaped higher. Part of the ceiling collapsed ahead of them. His world was falling apart.
No. This was not his world. His world had flaming red hair, and she was behind him. He could feel her moving, off to his left. Confused, he turned to his mentor. “Who was that?” he shouted over the din.
“My enemies, Thomas,” she yelled. “Don’t worry about them. They’ll soon be dead.”
But he didn’t want them dead. At least not one of them.
The Magic's in the Music (Magic Series Book 5) Page 32