Magic Fire: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Shifting Magic Book 1)

by Catherine Vale

  When I came to yet another mouth, I realized why. As I approached, orange light flickered along the floor and the walls, signaling a fire beyond the opening, so I dimmed my personal light and slowed myself to a crawl, as I peered into the opening.

  My jaw dropped before I could stop it. I seemed to have stumbled upon a grand hall of sorts, like the kind dwarves would burrow deep into a mountain’s core. The ceiling shot up at least a hundred feet above, revealing an opening from which one could see the stars, beautiful and twinkling and beckoning me forth.

  And in the middle of it all, a man sat on a log in front of a healthy fire, roasting something on the end of a stick. I crossed my arms and straightened up, feeling his presence so profoundly and so suddenly that it actually took my breath away—not that I’d let it show, of course. No human could throw me so off-balance, yet he wasn’t a supernatural like me.

  I inhaled softly. Not like a werewolf breathing in the scent of its prey, but like a snake who flicks its tongue out for just a second to taste the air.

  Shifter. The word flashed through my mind when his head snapped up, eyes darting in my direction. He must have scented me when I let my guard drop, so startled to find a shifter in our fairy wards that I momentarily forgot myself.

  Fuck it. No sense hiding now. We both knew the other was there.

  “Hey,” he barked, shooting to his feet and marching around his bonfire. Attractive shifter that he was… I couldn’t stop myself from skimming his muscular figure, made more prominent by the fact that he was shirtless and totally ripped.

  Chestnut brown hair, tousled and thick—begging for someone to run their fingers through and tame it. A chiseled jaw and light eyes: gray, if I wasn’t mistaken, and beautiful. Oh, and a six pack that probably made human women weep at first sight, with a tantalizing V-cut guiding my gaze down to the low-hanging waistline of his olive-green sweatpants. Yum. Yum times a thousand.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, handsome face contorted somewhere between surprised and annoyed. I could deal with that. The shifter raised his stick between us, maybe to intimidate, but the now obvious marshmallow on the end was on fire. It bubbled up as I stared at it, my eyebrows shooting up, as it finally fell off and landed on the floor of the cave with an oddly satisfying splat.

  I looked up, biting back a grin. “Wow. Terrifying.”

  “Yeah, well…” He tossed the stick back toward his happy little bonfire. “I don’t need a weapon to throw you on your ass. Answer the question.”

  “No need to be rude, shifter,” I fired back, temper prickling at the thinly veiled threat. Arms still crossed, I stepped out of the shadows completely and into the cave, noting the flash surprise, this time surpassing the annoyance that I called him out. Surely he could sense me too. “My sisters and I are camping at the base of the mountain. I…” I swallowed hard. “I couldn’t sleep and went wandering. No foul intentions, I swear.”

  I raised my hands innocently. Lying had never come easily to me, or to most fae. We preferred to play with our words, saying one thing and meaning another, but not outright lying. And this wasn’t a lie. Just not the whole truth.

  He stood silent for a moment, assessing me, then stepped back, though his body remained tense. “Right. Okay. Not to be rude, I just didn’t expect to see other people here.”

  “Neither did we… inside our shields,” I remarked, watching his movements as he made his way back to the log. He moved with the swagger of a confident man, yet there was a slight hunch to his broad, muscular shoulders. “How did you get here?”

  “How long have you all been here?” His eyes fixed on the flames as he waited for my response. I took a tentative step forward, then a few more when he didn’t react.

  “Today.”

  “Well, I’ve been out here since Thursday. Must have been caught inside.” He glanced up, then swept his gaze up and down my figure. Heat rose to my cheeks—and I was the last person in the world to blush, even in the presence of such a fine specimen. “You a witch?”

  I snorted.

  “Then what are you?”

  “I’m a psychologist from Manhattan,” I told him. Most supernaturals were secretive, and with good reason, yet none of my usual fight-or-flight reflexes were kicking in around this shifter. He had a peaceful aura about him—for now. “And my name’s Kaye.”

  “Kaye the fae, huh? Nice.”

  I laughed again. “So you figured it out?”

  Generally, supernatural men were worse than humans when they discovered you were a fairy. For some, our gifts, our presence, our natural beauty—like catnip to the fattest, greediest of cats. Yet the shifter before me gave no indication that it phased him in the slightest. Peculiar.

  “It was my first guess, actually,” he admitted. When I finally strolled over to the bonfire, he lifted a half-eaten bag of extra-large marshmallows toward me. Smirking, I shoved my hand in and grabbed two—just to be polite. He motioned for me to sit, which I did, but not right away. I took my time, easing around the flames and perching on the far edge of the log. “You have that light about you, I guess. Totally threw me, but I wasn’t completely sure.”

  “Why not?” I popped a marshmallow in my mouth after giving it a subtle sniff. No lingering magic or poisons that I could detect. Tasted like a regular old grocery store marshmallow.

  He shot me a crooked grin, one that made my insides twist in ways I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. “Well, most of the fairies I know aren’t dressed in all black and skulking around in shadows.”

  “Then you know some pretty boring fairies.”

  A dark, almost too seductive chuckle followed as he returned his gaze to the flames. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

  We sat blanketed in a comfortable silence, him watching the fire and occasionally adding small blocks of wood to it from a pile, me munching on my midnight snack. When I was through, I turned to him, this intriguing shifter with gray eyes and a pleasant, alluring scent.

  “And what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You got a name?”

  “Sure do.”

  “And?”

  “And I don’t just give it to strangers who wander into my vacation cave,” he said, smirking. I arched a brow.

  “Fair is fair, shifter. I gave you my name.” I pursed my lips momentarily. “Or maybe I’ll just have to name you myself. Maybe a Calvin or Ewan—”

  “Darius,” he admitted softly. “I’m a dragon shifter.”

  I stiffened slightly, then released a breath and willed away the internal prejudice that had built up over the years. There were many kinds of supernatural creatures, yet they seldom interacted with shifters, if they could help it. Even in Alfheim, our underground haven for all things non-human, named after Norse mythology’s realm of the elves, supers and shifters tended not to have much to do with one another.

  But Darius wasn’t looking for an out.

  And neither was I.

  “So,” he said after a few beats, “Kaye the fae is a psychologist, huh? I thought all fairies were, I don’t know, poets and dancers and hippies.”

  “Again, only the boring ones. I bet you think all of us can fly and we’re all tiny little things, right? Well, I’ve never had wings, nor am I remotely skinny,” I fired back, biting my tongue about unpleasant shifter stereotypes. Fairies weren’t persecuted by the magical communities in the same way that shifters were. They weren’t seen as animals, as lesser than. It wouldn’t be fair for me to tease him about it when he didn’t know me well. “I run a part-time practice with a psychiatrist friend in the city. I love what I do.”

  He seemed cowed, forcing out a: “Well, good for you.”

  “And you? What does Darius the Dragon do?” Underwear model. Magazine cover page frequenter. … Real estate, maybe, with that smile.

  “Bodyguard,” he said, almost grunting it. “Personal security.”

  “Really? Who are you protecting out here?”

  “My sanit
y,” he offered, this time with a smile. “Everybody needs a few days away.”

  If I had a drink, I would have toasted him. “I hear that.”

  Darius lifted the bag again, shaking it. “Want me to make you a s’more?”

  I blinked away my disbelief and decided right then and there to just accept the comfort, the feeling that we’d known each other for years, without questioning it. “You bet your ass I do.”

  I wasn’t sure how long we chatted for after, but four s’mores later, the fire burned lower, dropping the hue of the light on the cave walls and harkening me to study the stars overhead. We’d discussed our jobs, our moves to the city, and our need to escape it. Nothing too serious. While alarm bells weren’t screaming as I’d inched closer to him on the log, he was still a stranger. A gorgeous stranger, sure, but still a man who hadn’t earned access to any of my secrets.

  “I can see why you’d come out here,” I admitted, head tilted back as I took in the twinkling show of beauty above. An almost perfect circle in the cave’s ceiling gave a spectacular view to the night sky. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It really is.”

  I flinched at the words—Darius almost breathed them in my ear, appearing at my side in a curious silence. Eyes narrowed, I glanced his way and bit back a smile. However, before I could ooze the snarky reply that was bubbling up in my throat, he tucked my hair behind my ear—slowly, carefully, like he was testing the waters. The faintest caress of his fingertips sent a chill down my spine, and I swallowed all my sass as heat bloomed within me.

  “I’ve been fortunate enough to look at something much more beautiful for the last couple hours,” he murmured, and even though my immediate reaction was to roll my eyes—which I did, dramatically, paired with a scoff—something inside me squirmed happily at the flattery. Who doesn’t want a guy who looks like a sex god complimenting them?

  “Wow,” I managed, smirking. “You reel in a lot of girls with one-liners like that?”

  Darius chuckled, and I stiffened slightly at the feel of his long fingers curving around my wrist. “One or two.”

  He swallowed my comeback with a kiss, one I fell into almost too willingly. Eyes fluttering closed, I let him pull me into it, our lips finding each other like long lost lovers. The faint tickle of heat within me blossomed to something more scorching, my cheeks prickling with color and my core tightening with desire when Darius nipped gently at my lower lip.

  My fingers threaded through his hair as our lips parted, opening to one another with a soft sigh. He grunted in surprise when my tongue swept over his first, and I bit back some sounds of my own when his arm snaked around my waist in response and yanked me closer.

  The dragon radiated dominance without coming off as aggressive—the perfect combination, honestly. So, I let myself fall. I let myself succumb, just for a moment, as the dance of our lips, teeth, and tongues grew more complex. Kissing him… It sparked something within me, something I never knew was there before. An inner beast, for lack of a better term, which roared to life the second he pulled away and pressed heated kisses along my jaw and neck.

  The creature within demanded sacrifice, appeasement, its hunger for Darius so raw that it frightened me. While I let my head tilt back, knowing his teeth would leave marks on my skin, I had to put a stop to things when I felt him tugging my bathrobe belt loose.

  “Wait,” I whispered, trying to contain the way my chest heaved, “hold on.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s fine,” I said as we broke apart, me righting my clothes and him tucking a pretty noticeable pants-tent out of sight. “I just… I’m not really a one-night stand kind of girl, even with someone as gorgeous as you.”

  This time I caught the flash of color on his cheeks as he grinned. “Totally understandable. I’m just some dragon you met in a cave.”

  I took a few steps back, head cocked to the side. “I’m pretty sure there are fairytales out there telling me why that’s a bad thing.”

  “Only if you try to steal my gold.” He seemed to want to follow me, moving a half-step after, but then held himself back. “Maybe I could steal your number instead?”

  Laughing, I tightened my belt and slowly padded back to the mouth of the cave. “Ask me when the sun comes up, shifter. I’m sure you’ll know where to find me.”

  When the sun comes up and the fae-wine fades, I might have an answer for him. For now, I concentrated on staying upright, giddy from his kiss, and battling the desires of the beast within…

  Who wanted nothing more than to run back and mount that beautiful dragon with that sexy smirk, and those steel-gray eyes.

  Fae-wine, and one hell of a handsome shifter: a lethal combination, indeed.

  Chapter Two

  This time I didn’t wake to the beckoning call of a dragon, riddled with intrigue and mystery, but the dulcet tones of my fae sisters starting off their day. My eyes opened heavily like they were caked in make-up, despite my face being clean, and I rolled over with a groan. At least the awnings overhead kept the sun out, but still, its shimmer managed to pierce through.

  Beside me, Catriona was on the exact same wavelength.

  “Shut up,” she said, moaning. Despite my slight hangover and my lack of sleep, I still managed to smile as I shifted around to face her. My fae sister had been wearing make-up yesterday; mascara smeared across her sinfully pale skin, her under-eye a little puffy. She’d be the talk of the sisters if she didn’t clean up. Fairies were noted for their beauty, and anytime you didn’t look effortlessly stunning, there were whispers. I was used to it at this point. Slightly rounder in the hip, breast, and butt areas, I’d had fairies gossiping about me since I was a kid, insisting that I wasn’t a full fae, that my blood was diluted with human blood—all the usual bullshit that breaks down an already fragile teenage girl’s self-esteem.

  Luckily I’d gotten past that long ago. Catriona, meanwhile, was a typical angelic fae, with a crown of near-white hair and dark brows, her features pointed and modelesque. To spare her the ignorant whispers, I shuffled over to my bottomless bag and retrieved an unopened package of make-up remover wipes. Although I would have rather gone back to sleep, I sat up with a languid sigh, stretching to wake my weary limbs, and then cracked open the package and pulled out a wipe.

  “What are you doing?” Catriona whined, weakly trying to both push me away and shield her face when I started to clean her up.

  “Making you look presentable, my little hungover munchkin,” I insisted. “You look like a raccoon.”

  “And you look like a vampire on good days, so what’s the issue?”

  I cocked my head to the side, smirking as her eyes fluttered open. There you go. That’s how a fae awakens: gently and beautifully.

  “I’m gonna chalk that up to the fact you have a hangover and you’re just being bitchy,” I told her, then shoved the make-up wipe into her hand. Catriona huffed, lower lip pouted out, then sat up with some difficulty.

  “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean it. You don’t look like a vampire.”

  I grinned. “Sometimes I do.”

  Our eyes met, my emerald greens to her ice blues, and our brief spat, if you could call it that, ended with giggles.

  This weekend was my time to get all my giggles out. In the real world, I absolutely was not a giggler, but my fae sisters brought it out of me. At least here I wasn’t judged. I ran my hands through my hair, which had doubled in size while I slept, full of knots and tangles.

  Well, I wasn’t judged much.

  “Now let me help with that,” Catriona offered after I dug out a comb. “Then food. I could really go for a greasy, fatty burger right about now. Or fries. What do those Canadians call that dish with fries and cheese?”

  “A poutine?” I replied.

  “Yeah, that. I had it once when visiting Montreal, and it was amazing.”

  “It’ll be fae cakes and flowery jams for breakfast, you know that,” I muttered, which made her groan. “But mayb
e I can conjure something that’ll appease the Hangover Gods better.”

  I winced as she dragged the comb through my hair, obviously used to dealing with her straight, relatively thin mane.

  “Oh, please! If I don’t eat a piece of bacon soon, everyone’s going to suffer.”

  As I watched my sleepy, probably equally hungover fae sisters slowly rise from their sleeping quarters, many looking bleary-eyed but still beautiful, I couldn’t help but smile.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  We’d both need something. Catriona to battle the hangover, me to forget a dragon—otherwise there was no way we’d get through a day of fairy activities with our sisters.

  I rubbed my eyes, brushing the crusty bits of sleep out. Ugh. Once I figured out how to conjure a bacon cheeseburger, I’d need a whole pot of coffee to recover from last night—stat. Floral-scented sweet water from the springs of Alfheim was just not going to cut it today.

  * * *

  “Ouch!” I turned my narrowed gaze down to whatever dared embed itself in my foot. Placing a hand on the tree I’d been hiding behind for balance, I lifted my foot and found a thorn, seemingly detached from its prickle bush and just waiting for me to step on it. Tsking, I gripped it firmly and yanked it out.

  Heh. Apparently, this weekend was one of fairytales, because last night I had met a dragon in a cave, and now with my lion-like red mane, a thorn had stuck itself in my paw. There had to be a bigger picture here that I was missing.

  At the sound of giggles carried on the mid-morning breeze, I ducked down, scanning the terrain. Our gatherings consisted of many things: the days for games, the nights for drinking and talking and dancing. I preferred the nights, using the time to catch up and reconnect with sisters I only saw once or twice a year, but the games could be just as fun. They were an excuse to be a child again, something that happened so rarely in my day-to-day life that I’d never pass on the opportunity.

  First game voted in after breakfast: tag. Fae tag was nothing like the sort of game that human children played. Fairies were fast—like blink and you’ll miss them fast. While I knew some of my more hungover sisters, Catriona included, wanted to play so they could hide in the landscape and hunker down for a nap, the more alert among us knew you couldn’t let your guard down for even a second.