by Helen Scott
“Actually, yes I do.” Ellie’s cheeks flushed, but Alec knew she wasn’t about to discuss her sex life with his brothers—or at least not in front of him.
“Oh, okay.” Thad was slightly flustered. He wasn’t used to people resisting him. None of them were, for that matter. “Do you know the source of your power?”
“My family— When Granddad passed away, he left me a letter saying I would inherit all the magic from our branch of the MacLeod clan.”
“But you don’t know where it originated from?”
“No.”
“Is it always lightning?”
“I don’t know how it showed up for anyone else; my family never talked about it, but for me it’s electrical. I kept getting huge static shocks, and I can sometimes feel it running over my skin before it, uh, peaks and comes out of my hands.”
Ellie was studiously not looking at Alec; he could almost feel her seeking him out with her peripheral vision though. He tried not to smile, but one corner of his mouth wouldn’t obey. He knew she saw it even though she wasn’t looking at him. Her mouth twitched in response, a restrained smile. He would be willing to bet she had to concentrate to control her facial muscles, which made him oddly happy.
“When you hit this creature with it, what happened?”
“I don’t know. I was cowering in fear. I expected it to kill me, so I wasn’t looking.”
“I see.”
Thad turned his attention away from Ellie, who seemed to sag with relief, and focused his gaze on Alec. There was a strange glint in Thad’s eyes peeking through his curls before they settled on the floor. He knew there was something going on, but he also knew Thad wouldn’t share what it was.
“If we can get something electrical, then that may be enough,” Dem said.
“Right, Dem and Thad, you see if you can figure out how to hit these things with some kind of electricity, and let us know what happens. I’m going to try to summon Hecate. The last time we chatted, she was not the most helpful, and I want to see if she can separate herself from the torches. Alec, see if you can find out anything further about Ellie’s magic.” There were nods of acknowledgment before Alec’s brothers jumped out.
“So what was all that about?” Ellie slid a glance in his direction.
“They wanted to know how you broke the spell on the creature. Turns out if the spell is broken, they go back to their graves.”
“Weird.”
“A little, yeah.” Alec stared at Ellie, trying to figure out what was going on with her.
“Are we going to do the magic lesson you mentioned earlier? I would prefer to be able to figure out something to tell your brothers that wasn’t just the result of us having sex.”
“Sure, let’s go up to the attic—there’s nothing up there to damage.”
“I can’t do it!” Ellie was shouting at him. They had been practicing for hours, trying to get her to feel the magic flowing over her skin and using it to create charges in the palm of her hand. The more they tried, the more Ellie couldn’t do it, and the more frustrated she got. Alec was calm and patient throughout while Ellie raged against him. She felt bad for taking it out on him, but she also hoped it would widen the distance between them emotionally, and then they could go their separate ways. Especially since there was no way for a relationship between them to work. If they nipped this thing in the bud, then surely it would hurt less now, right?
“You can; you just need to start small.” Alec sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.
He stood twenty feet from her, and all she wanted to do was run to him and kiss him like there was no tomorrow. Each breath she took in, Alec’s presence seemed to pull at her, to demand she close the distance between them, both physically and emotionally.
Every nerve in her body craved him—his scent, his touch, the calming effect he had on her when they were together, the way he held her in his arms—but that was not their future. He was an immortal guardian, and she was just a glorified shop girl. She needed to focus on one thing and one thing only, getting her magic under control so she could leave. She had to get out of here and go home to Inverness without becoming attached, or more attached, to the gorgeous half siren in front of her.
“Close your eyes. Listen to my voice.” Ellie complied without hesitation. “Now take three deep breaths.” Alec breathed with her. “Calm your mind, take a deep breath, and release your frustrations. I want you to visualize the electricity flowing around you. Think about what’s powering Speak O’ the Devil or your home in Scotland—it’s all around you. Now you can see it, try hearing it. Can you hear the buzz of the lines of electricity? Can you hear the hum of your cell phone battery? Now think about the electricity running over your skin—focus on your right arm. What can you feel there? Feel the electricity moving to your fingertips and sparking outward or arcing from hand to hand.”
They sat in silence while Ellie tried to follow his instructions. Nothing happened. Nothing would happen. She knew whatever so-called “magic” she had was not hers to control. She would never be able to throw a ball of electricity at an undead creature on purpose. After a while, she sighed and opened her eyes.
“This is pointless.”
“It’s not. We just need to keep trying.”
Alec was almost pleading with her to be patient. He knew it could be hard to adjust to random things happening to your body. His memory briefly conjured the first time he tried to use his newly sprouted wings. He was twelve years old again, his rough tunic hanging off his narrow shoulders, his mother cutting slits in the back over his new wings. He and his brothers had all sprouted wings when they hit puberty. It was not a fun time.
The pain of the bones pushing through the skin had been excruciating, and the feathers seemed to always get stuck to something they weren’t supposed to. The first time he had tried to actually use his wings had been a disaster. Like a baby bird but less graceful. He spent most of his time falling on his face. He actually succeeded in breaking his nose and a collarbone once when he had become overconfident at an unsafe height. When he’d tumbled to the ground, his landing ended with his face and shoulder against rocks.
“We’ve been up here for five hours now. I’m getting hungry, and t’be honest, I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Okay. I hear what you’re saying, but can we try one last thing?” Alec had an idea that he knew she wouldn’t like, at least not the Ellie he’d been around today.
“One last thing, then I’m going to find some food.” Ellie arched an eyebrow, clearly suspicious of him.
“I’m not going to touch you, but I want you to imagine what I’m saying like you have before.”
“What are you up to?” She squinted at him, like she was trying to see his plan somehow.
“Just trust me one more time.”
Ellie nodded at him and closed her eyes.
“Clear your mind. Focus on my voice.” Alec’s voice got huskier. “Take a deep breath and imagine me in front of you. We’re standing in the middle of nothing, and as far as the eye can see, there is just white, nothing else. I step up to you and place a hand behind your head. You can feel my fingers threading though the hair at the nape of your neck. I bring my mouth to yours, our lips connecting softly at first, and then I kiss you deeply.”
“I run my other hand over the skin of your exposed arm, taking your hand in mine. I tease your mouth with my tongue as my other hand runs from your neck down your other arm until my fingers entwine with yours. Our bodies are pressed tightly together, and I move both my hands to your neck and run them over your shoulders and down your arms again. I am your magic; I am inside you.”
Alec took a deep breath; he had—at least—succeeded in turning himself on with this little, imagined scenario, and he hoped it was working for Ellie too so her magic would show itself. He thought it was, judging by how her chest was rapidly rising and falling, but now was the test.
“Now the next time I run my hands down your arms, your fingers are go
ing to spark. I kiss your neck and run my hands over your breasts, I feel your nipples through your T-shirt, and I stop to pay them the attention they deserve before my hands go back to your neck and run down your arms, causing your fingers to spark.”
Chapter 13
Ellie did feel him. She could feel everything about him, all over her skin. She would have sworn he was actually touching her. As she pictured him running his hands down her skin, she felt her fingers go slightly numb before a sharp, tingly sensation took over, making her fingertips feel like they had just been under extremely hot water, or like she had touched the metal part of the kettle after it had just boiled.
“You did it! Ellie, you did it!” Alec’s voice was filled with joy as he clapped his hands together.
Ellie’s eyes snapped open. “I did?”
Immediately Ellie tried to repeat it with no success. She couldn’t replicate what she had just done, and instantly she was even more frustrated than she had been before.
“It’s no flippin’ good if I cannae do it on command, now is it? I cannae very well sit around when the undead are here and imagine snogging ye, now can I?” The rich burr of her Scots accent filled the room.
“I just wanted to see if it would work.”
“Well, I guess I’ll have ta take your word for it since I didnae see it myself.” Her frustration lashed out in her sharp tongue.
“I guess you will.” Alec was getting frustrated with her now. “It’s a start, Ellie. That’s something.”
“I guess.” She was pouting like a child, but she couldn’t help it. “I just want to see it, that’s all.”
“I think right now it’s mainly controlled by deeply felt emotions; you will have to work up to summoning it on command, but that should mean you’re safe if one of those creatures attacks.”
Ellie remembered the last time she saw one of the creatures. It just looked like someone who needed a shower until she really looked at it, then you couldn’t unsee what it actually was. It was like her brain had been trying to protect her from what it was. A walking corpse. Not to mention when it got violent, it had the strength of an army. She was so thankful Granddad had never had to witness one of them breaking into his shop. That did raise an interesting idea though. Granddad would never have abandoned her to this journey of learning her magic without any guidance.
“What if Granddad wrote about it in one of his journals? I want to go back to the store and see if he left any advice for me.” The idea filled Ellie with more hope than she had felt in the past few days. Granddad had to have left something for her—he just had to.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t want to keep you here when you so clearly want to leave, but I really don’t want to risk your safety.”
Alec’s comment about her leaving was a dagger straight to the heart. She could tell she’d hurt him with the distance she’d put between them today. It didn’t change the fact that she thought it was for the best though. “It’s the only idea we’ve got. Besides, he wouldn’t have just left me without any advice at all. He would have said something. I just need to find it.”
“Ellie, it’s not safe!”
“Alec, I want to go home—I mean back to the store.” Ellie definitely shouldn’t be thinking of the store as her home. Inverness was her home. Her craptastic little apartment was her home.
“Ellie, please—” Alec shook his head, seeming to sense her stubbornness.
“No. I’ve stayed with you long enough. I got a tattoo for protection, and it’s been well over twenty-four hours. I want to go back to the shop. I have to get everything ready there before I leave.”
“Let’s have dinner and talk about it.”
“No, Alec, you aren’t listening to me. I want to go home. Now.”
“Fine. But I’ll have to touch you to jump you.”
“I’m not opposed to that.” She smiled at Alec, feeling guilty for how she had been treating him, but she couldn’t afford to get attached. He held out his hand, and as she took it, she stepped closer to him than she needed to, but she couldn’t help herself; this may be her last chance to be this close to him. He looked down at her for a moment, his eyes a stormy gray, and then they jumped.
Ellie felt that same sucker punch of grief when they arrived in the store that she had become accustomed to when she thought about Granddad, but having Alec with her helped soften the blow. They stood awkwardly in the small back room of the shop.
“I’m going to call for delivery. Is Indian okay with you?” He was studiously looking at his phone. The way his body reacted when she had taken his hand was uncomfortable to think about. A wave of contentment had washed over him that he was so unaccustomed to it left him almost speechless. He was starting to fall for Ellie, which was something he couldn’t afford to do—even though he didn’t want to be without her. He was trapped between intense feelings for her and his duty to the gods. He couldn’t have her, but he couldn’t stand the idea of her being away from him either. If Zeus found out… No, he couldn’t think about that.
“Sure. Some chicken vindaloo and naan would be good for me.”
Alec stepped out and made the call. “Done,” he said as he came back in, reluctantly looking up at her only to be struck by her beauty all over again. Her hair was falling softly around her shoulders, and her eyes were a forest green that spoke of places man had yet to discover, filled with sounds of birds calling and bugs buzzing. She was watching him watch her, and all he wanted to do was find out what she was thinking. But that wasn’t an option. “So, where are the journals?”
“In Granddad’s room.”
Alec followed behind her as they made their way up the stairs. He remembered the first time he had caught her off guard and smiled to himself. Ellie looked over her shoulder at him and was also smiling. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing. He couldn’t help but watch that gift of an ass as she went up the stairs; gods, he wanted to touch it again, to feel her luscious skin against his own. She seemed to be swaying an awful lot. He wondered if she was aware of what her body was doing and of the effect it had on him.
“Do you want a drink before we get started?” she called over her shoulder as she detoured into the kitchen.
“Sure.”
Ellie cracked open the bottle of scotch and grabbed two glasses, taking it all over to the couch. The rich, fragrant amber-colored liquid seemed to call to him more tonight than ever before. The smooth taste and the warmth that pooled in his belly made him relax a little more. Ellie leaned back in the chair. The T-shirt he had picked up for her while he was getting Tony hugged her breasts in a way no one would be able to resist looking at. He watched as she sipped and relaxed, the tension visibly leaving her body. She roused herself after a moment, sitting forward and shaking her head.
“You okay over there?” Alec chuckled, the magic lesson this afternoon had taken more out of her than he had thought.
“Aye, I’m fine, just needed a wee bit of courage. Shall we?”
“Lead the way.”
Ellie stood and wobbled just a little. Alec put a hand to her elbow to steady her, and she smiled at him. It wasn’t the cold smile from this morning but the warm smile of yesterday and the day before. He felt like his heart took flight as he stood there like an idiot just basking in the warmth it conveyed.
Once she was stable, she wandered off to MacLeod’s room. Alec watched her hips sway as she walked, and his cock began to pulse. Ellie opened the door to the master bedroom, and Alec got his first glimpse of the MacLeod family. They were all beautiful—MacLeod had been very handsome in his day, and his wife was a stunner in their wedding photos. The smiling faces shone out from photos around the room as he took it all in. So much life and so much happiness contained in each frame. One frame held something that wasn’t a face. It was an image of a tattered piece of material, a cup, and an old horn.
“What’s this?” Alec picked up the frame to show Ellie.
“Och, that’s the Fairy Flag of Du
nvegan, the Dunvegan Cup, and Sir Rory Mor’s horn.” Her Scottish accent rolled as she spoke, as though she was now more connected to her homeland than she had been a moment ago. Alec raised an eyebrow in question, and Ellie sighed as though she was about to explain something that was beyond his comprehension.
She smiled at him. “The story goes that a MacLeod clan chief once had a fairy lover who bore him a child. When she had to leave him to return to Tír na nÓg, she bid him farewell on the Fairy Bridge and gave him the flag to help in the protection of their child. If he was ever in distress, then it was to be waved four times and help would come, but it had a limit of three uses, and after that help would come no more.” She told the story with the same lilting tone one would use when talking to a child, making Alec wonder if this was a common story she had heard growing up.
“Fairies? Really?” Alec scoffed at the idea.
“You’re part siren and blessed by Poseidon—I don’t see how fairies are so out of the realm of possibility,” Ellie scolded him. “Anyway, the fairy came back briefly after she left to see that the bairn was cared for and the chief was treating her child appropriately. It was said she passed through closed doors and paralyzed the nanny who was watching the babe sleep. She sang to the bairn as she took him on her knee, and the song was so beautiful that when she left, the nursemaid wrote it down to remember it.
The nursemaid would use it to send the bairn to sleep every night after that, and it came to be family legend that any babe of the chief’s family who had the song sung over them as a wee bairn would have the protection of the Fae. Now, whether or not that’s true, I don’t know. The heirs to the chiefs would often be wrapped in the Fairy Flag as bairns to help the Fae folk find them. People said it gave any bairn who was wrapped in the flag the protection of the Fae, but I doubt it. There haven’t been any reported sightings since Granddad was a lad.”
“So there are legends of the Fae in your family?” Alec’s brain was going a mile a minute. This could be where her magic came from.