Bound by Duty (Bound Series Book 1)

by Smith, Stormy

  It was time. Cole had been blowing up my cell for days because I had canceled our last two dinners and hadn’t come down to the gym. We both knew I hadn’t pushed the issue with Micah, but I didn’t want to have to admit it — or why. And, I really didn’t want to have to lie to anyone. So, instead, I called Micah and set up a time to meet to talk.

  I was waiting on a bench near the beach, staring out at the water and trying not to think too hard about the complications of my life right now when he finally sat down beside me. We sat in silence for a few moments, as if daring the other to go first. I finally decided I had called this meeting so it was my show.

  “You’ve already figured out I don’t really know what I’m doing and I need help.” Simple. Direct.

  Micah snorted a little. “Well, that’s an understatement, Amelia. Do you even know what you are? How did this happen?”

  My blood pressure rose a little at his tone. I took a few deep breaths to keep myself calm. “I’m a Mage, Micah, just like you. And, my story doesn’t matter. What matters is that I need to understand how to handle this. Can you help me or not?”

  Instead of answering me, he stood and gestured out toward the water. “Let’s walk a little,” he said. I was annoyed that he wouldn’t just answer me, but followed anyway. We walked out toward the rising tide, stopping far enough away that the water wouldn’t reach us. He slid off his shoes and sat down in the sand, so I did the same. I looked at Micah sitting comfortably, albeit stiffly, on the beach next to me. He’d pulled his hair back but pieces of sun-bleached blond were floating in the breeze off the water. A Viking surfer, that’s what he looked like. He was digging his toes farther and farther into the sand and I watched as he stared out at the ocean with the same intensity that I did.

  “Does it touch you, too? Do you feel it?” I asked.

  He looked at me a little shocked, but finally answered. “It does. I expect it’s just the natural pull of the moon. Our power is strongest at night, making the moon more important to us than the sun, and the moon controls the tides. So, by proxy, the water is at the beck and call of our most powerful source of magic. And yes, I’ve always felt pulled to it.”

  I had never thought of it that way, or really even questioned my affinity for the ocean. As the sun was setting, I could feel a rise in Micah’s magic. It wondered if it was a pep talk he was giving himself to start the conversation we both knew was coming. I laughed a little on the inside to think about the self-confident Micah being nervous around me.

  Finally, still without looking away from the sea, he said, “You know, Amelia, it’s so simple to see that you are capable of more than you realize. I’m not entirely sure how it is that you are so naive to the magic inside of you, or how anyone allowed you to be raised without proper precautions and then let you loose in a human area, but I believe that yes, I can help.” He finally turned to me, all of the sincerity I had ever seen sitting in his eyes, and simply stated, “I wasn’t raised with anyone like you — who didn’t know how to control every ounce of their magic — but I believe that you should know how to use it. Your power is an extension of the woman you will become and, at the very least, I can teach you to control it and defend yourself, if that’s what you want.”

  I sat staring into his bright blue eyes, seeing the hope hiding behind the doubt. I finally swallowed the lump of worry lodged in my throat and said, “I haven’t had a lot of people in my life be up front about how to be what I am. I appreciate what you’re offering and would like for you to help me. Obviously, Bethany doesn’t know what we are, but she’s the only person who has ever really been interested in being my friend. I hope we can be friends, too.”

  He nodded and gave me a small smile in return. “She is a beautifully positive creature, isn’t she?” That made me laugh out loud. “Oh, Micah, you save that one for some night you’re in trouble. That is sure to smooth a few things out.” The grin I saw in return was priceless. Maybe he wasn’t going to be so bad for her after all.

  We got up, brushing the sand away, and I stood in front of Micah. “Alright, so we’re doing this. When do we start?” I asked. I was a little leery about this part. I was ready to be pushed, but I still wasn’t sure which abilities I should show Micah. I wasn’t entirely sure of the abilities I even had lurking around inside me. So many things had only happened to me once and random things seemed to only happen when I completely lost control and my power reigned free. I was going to have to find a source that understood which powers belonged to Elders and which were only in Mages. Maybe Cole’s people would be able to help.

  I stood expectantly, nervously crossing my arms over my chest, trying to find peace in the waves crashing as the tide came in. I was very anxious all of a sudden and I could feel a similar nervous energy coming from Micah. I couldn’t hear his thoughts directly, but his emotions hit me like the tides, flowing in and out as he also tried to contain himself.

  “First things first. Time to give you a little test.” With that, he threw me a wicked grin and took off running around a rock formation on the beach. I couldn’t help but laugh and follow. Just as I rounded the corner, I saw a bolt of red magic coming at me. I dodged it and shot back with a purple dart of my own. We weren’t truly aiming for each other, but I could tell that Micah wanted a gauge on what my magical defense looked like. It was liberating to use my power in a playful way and I was thankful human eyes couldn’t detect the darts of color shooting in both directions.

  This went on for a few minutes, him shooting larger bolts and me running behind him, face scrunched, willing something just half the size to come from my palms. I tried to channel the power I’d let loose on the cliffs, to really show him what I knew was inside me, but it was being stubborn today. The more I pushed, the less it reacted. What should have been thick bolts of power laced with violet and streaks of white were tiny streams that looked as if they were shot from a kid’s water gun.

  “Stop. Stop, Amelia.” Micah jogged over to me. “Do you understand how to truly source your power? I feel like you’re concentrating far harder on this than you should be. Your power is an extension of you. It is intermingled in your mind and your soul. It lies in every cell and each individual drop of blood. You cannot separate yourself from your power, so you should not have to try so hard to use it.”

  I cocked my head, completely confused. I understood what he was saying from the perspective of how it felt to lose control, but not in everyday use. I’d never had everyday use.

  “Well. I… uh, have never used my power every day, so I don’t know what you mean. I’ve actually spent more time telling it to sit down and shut up than using it.” I glanced sideways at him, ashamed of how I grew up and how inadequate it made me in the scheme of things.

  He stood there, mouth open, completely shocked. “Pardon?” was the only thing he could apparently say, though I got the feeling his mind had far more going on than was coming out his mouth.

  “It’s really not that big of deal. I mean, I just need you to show me how to do it. I’ll be fine. I mean, you saw the freeze thing. And the thing in the alley. Clearly, I’ve got stuff to work with.” I was embarrassed, but also a little annoyed that he was being so condescending. “Is this too much for you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow and allowing sarcasm to flood my tone.

  “Certainly not. It’s just…surprising. Let’s move on.” And with that, we moved into telekinesis. Moving things around would have been a dead giveaway, so even though I’d tested it a few times, I’d never spent any span of time on the skill. The exertion from pulling and yanking at my power for the last hour was grating on me and I could feel the headache starting. Not wanting to let Micah down, I pressed on. Various pieces of driftwood found new homes around our span of beach and I found myself sweating with the exertion of holding a rock the size of a basketball suspended in mid-air.

  Micah was all business, standing with his arms crossed as he evaluated me. Nodding and giving instruction to put things here or there. He didn’t ask
again about what I could or couldn’t do. For that, I was thankful. But as I stood there, a chunk of driftwood hovering over the water, my vision doubled and a sharp ache punched through my core. I dropped the log and fell to my knees, grateful we were on the beach and not concrete.

  Micah was there in an instant, apologizing. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry. I should have realized what this would do to you. Sit down.” He helped me back from my knees to sit on the sand and I could feel the top of my body actually moving in a circle as the rest of the world spun around me. Darkness threatened at the edges of my vision and I took deep breaths, willing myself to stay conscious. It took a few minutes but finally the world righted itself and it was only a dull throb thudding in the back of my skull.

  “How about I drive you home?” Micah asked.

  “No, just take me to the gym. Cole can help me.” I realized as the words came out that Micah hadn’t made that connection yet. I closed my eyes and exhaled in frustration. “He’s my brother. Which also makes him a Mage. But, it’s fine. He can help me. That’s what he does.”

  Micah didn’t ask questions. I was thankful he let it go and supported me as he led me up the beach and across the street to the gym. He let me go in alone, but wasn’t happy about it.

  As luck would have it, Cole wasn’t actually at the gym, so I sat in his office for a while until my headache subsided. I was still exhausted, but I forced myself out to my car and navigated my way back to the apartment. I was asleep instantly and didn’t move until the alarm went off the next morning. My only dreamless nights seemed to come after my body had been through the ringer.

  Chapter 11

  Over the next two weeks if I wasn’t with Aidan, then I was with Micah. We changed locations often and, if the weather was bad and Bethany was working, we would just go to my apartment. I was kind of avoiding her because it was awkward to know I was spending all of this time with her boyfriend and we weren’t telling her. It had been so much easier when I was hiding my power from everyone and the worst thing we had to discuss was where our next double date would take us. She was still my best friend, but I had to be honest with myself and realize that my human best friend just couldn’t know, no matter how much I wanted her to.

  In my sessions with Micah, we worked on so many things, but the biggest challenge and his biggest focal point was my mental defense. He wanted to make damn sure that I not only knew how to keep other Mages out, but that I could get in. This was some of the stuff Cole was most concerned about, too. He and I kept missing each other as he searched for more of his connections and I intentionally avoided having to talk to him and not explain about Aidan. But, we had texted and he was pacified to know that I was working on things. The problem, however, was that I just didn’t get it. So, here we sat on the beach, yet again, as Micah explained the process.

  “Okay, Amelia. We’re going to try this a different way. Instead of you coming at me, I’m going to come at you. I’m going to do it slowly and we’re going to talk through each step.” His patient tone amazed me. I had all but given up on myself already. I sat up straight and forced myself to focus. So often in these sessions my mind drifted to Aidan and wished I were cuddled with him on my couch, watching a movie instead of sitting on a windy beach with my best friend’s boyfriend. I opened my mouth and let out an audible exhale, trying to clear my head. I tilted my head toward my left shoulder and then my right. “Okay, Micah. Let’s do this.” I sounded more confident than I felt.

  “This time, I want you to keep your eyes open,” he directed. “Remember that humans can’t see what we’re doing here, so don’t react to what you see. I’m trying to make this easier on you so I’m going to be very blatant about it. Watch me.” Micah stared intently at me, his eyes slowly transitioning from their normal ice blue to red. It always freaked me out because he looked almost demonic — his blond hair, pale skin, and now bright red eyes. But as I watched him, I saw the tendrils of red start to float between us and knew my own eyes deepened to violet as my power rose in response. The red wisps spun and swirled, looking like smoke as they moved from him toward me. Suddenly, the smoke zipped quickly toward my face and it took all my strength to hold steady as people walked by on the beach. The smoke came to a dead stop right in front of my nose. I was almost cross-eyed as I stared into it, waiting for something to happen.

  “Now, stop me.” Micah gave me all of two seconds for that to sink in before he was pushing at my mind. It was as if a stranger were beating on my front door. Pounding furiously.

  My hands went to my ears to stop the pounding. “What? Micah? What the hell?”

  “Amelia. Stop doing that and stop me,” he said through gritted teeth.

  I closed my eyes and let the pressure in my mind extend throughout the rest of my body. When I felt that feeling of simmering electricity in every cell that was finally becoming familiar, I let my power seek out his. With a mental shove, I pushed at the red smoke. Not realizing I didn’t need to push that hard, Micah and I both flew apart and back into the sand.

  I sat back up, rubbing my temple, one eye closed and the other squinting across at him. His reaction was much the same as he scowled.

  “Too much?” I asked. He gave a chuckle. “Too much, indeed. Let’s try it again, except this time, I want you to let me in. Not far, but just far enough to open our lines of communication.”

  I took another deep breath and nodded as I repositioned myself on the sand and focused on Micah again.

  “I’m not going to project the fact that I’m coming at you,” he explained. “So, look for me. Find me. This is what I was talking about in the alley. We all have a signature and now that you’ve met mine, you can find it more easily.” His directions seemed clear enough.

  I closed my eyes, surprised to still see Micah in my mind. Though all I saw was red smoke sitting in front of me, it was obvious when he pushed his power toward me. He lightly knocked on the door of my mind. The pressure of him was there, just on the fringes, and I knew I had to decide if I could truly let him in — if it were smart to let him in. Quickly weighing the pros and cons, I decided he had been more of a friend to me in the last few weeks than most, so I took the chance. I allowed my power to meet his, the two swept around and around each other, tightening their loops until they resembled a twisted braid of color. They spun faster and faster until finally the braid was one single strand. Then, I heard him.

  Looks like you finally figured out how to talk to me.

  Hearing Micah in my head had to truly be the strangest happening yet. I had no idea this was even possible.

  I heard his laugh as he said, There’s so much you don’t know. But, we’ll get there.

  With that, he left my mind. I opened my eyes to find both of us grinning at each other.

  We sat there in silence for just a few moments and then Micah brought me back to the present with a muttered curse.

  “What?” I asked. “Did I mess it up somehow?”

  “No, I just realized that I am, yet again, late for a date with Bethany and she just might kill me this time.” Micah sighed and stood, brushing himself off.

  “Oh, no! We can pick this up another time,” I said. “You need to take that girl out and have a good night. I’m sure she’s missed you!”

  He shrugged and helped me to my feet. “What we’re doing here is very important. But, yes, she deserves better than this.”

  The sun had long gone down and the moon was just rising. We were basically alone on the beach and I’m sure to the average person looked like a couple coming up from a rendezvous. We were both quietly walking up toward the parking area with our shoes in our hands when a bolt of blue magic went shooting by us. Micah plowed into me, sending us both face first into the sand just as the next bolt came flying by.

  “Shit! Amelia, we have to get to safety. Dammit! Where are they?”

  He was crouched and looking in every direction, muttering to himself, “I should have been paying attention. I can’t believe I wasn’t paying
attention!”

  “What do you want me to do?” I whispered, bringing myself into a crouch as well.

  “The best we can hope for is that we can run and shoot at the same time. Your aim has gotten much better and the blasts don’t actually have to be big, just frequent,” he said.

  “The gym is just over the boardwalk. If we can make it to the back alley, then we can get inside,” I explained. “Cole is always cleaning up around this time and props that back door open to empty the trash.”

  Micah nodded and we spoke in low voices for just a few minutes more, finalizing our plan. On “Three!” we were up and sprinting for the boardwalk. Even with magic coursing through our veins at top speed, I still had a hard time keeping my footing in the dense sand. As I shot purple blasts, thankfully larger now than they were at first, toward the direction of the blue bolts, Micah was also blasting them with large red bolts.

  Trees were falling, sand was exploding everywhere, and the area was a mess. It was only as we hit the boardwalk and started around the corner that I saw bright blue eyes staring back at me. It suddenly hit me that I’d never seen or heard of blue power. Each Immortal race has their own signature and blue was never one we discussed. It was the same reason my father tried to keep me quarantined…violet eyes were rarely seen and he didn’t want people asking questions.

  I didn’t have a chance to look again or process it further because another bolt came flying at me at the same time Micah hauled me around a corner and shoved me into the back door of Cole’s gym.

  The locker room was dark and we both fell against the door as we shoved it closed. We were panting and I realized I had left my shoes on the beach. So many thoughts were racing through my mind…Who were those people? What did they want? How did they find us? I turned to question Micah about these same things and couldn’t help but laugh as I realized he had a huge chunk of seaweed in his hair. I was just reaching up to brush it away when I heard a voice say, “What the hell are you two doing?”