by Kate Kelley
His eyes flew to mine and he nodded curtly before looking away. I hugged him again and he wrapped strong arms around me tightly. The whole thing had caught me by surprise, but suddenly it felt like I maybe had a friend.
“Miss Peterson, you were supposed to clock in five minutes ago.” Wolfram’s hard voice cut the moment short and I broke the hug, guilt ripping through me again. I wasn’t getting employee of the month anytime soon.
Wolfram stood watching us with cool eyes--except for the copper blazing in them.
“Sorry, “ I said, “I’m on it.”
I ran to the computer and clocked in, while waving bye to Frances who flew out the door, cigarette already trailing smoke on the way to her car.
I plopped into the desk chair and Row came by, leaned over and ruffled my hair. I gave him a look. “If we’re going to try to be friends, you can’t be doing that to me.”
He grimaced. “You need a haircut. The ends are looking as bad as Frances’s.”
“You’re still evil,” I said through a laugh.
He adjusted his man bag strap on his shoulder and winked. “Can’t change me overnight, Princess.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Ooh, I’ve been promoted to just Princess. I feel special.”
He pointed a finger at me. “Do something stupid and your ass is back to Zombie.”
I flipped him off and he chuckled as he strode out of the door.
I smiled after him, gratitude on my heart. It was sappy, true, and part of me was disgusted by it. The other part of me was thrilled. I had a real, live friend. My own age. Wow.
Wolfram leaned over the desk, blocking my view of the door. “Just so you know,” he said, his tone serious, “I don’t tolerate physical displays of affection in my workplace. I know it feels like home right now, but it’s not. Don’t forget you work here, and these are your coworkers. I don’t encourage fraternizing. Row is your coworker. And I am your boss.”
“Won’t happen again,” I bit out, and turned back to the computer so he wouldn’t see my violet eyes.
◆◆◆
I spent the rest of the evening angry at Wolfram, who seemed busy with papers and books at the table in the foyer. Why he didn’t just go to his room, I didn’t know. It wasn’t like it was that far away if Cole were to jump out of nowhere and try to kidnap me again.
I shivered at the thought and looked down at my hands, then curled them into fists. I need to know more magic if I was going to fight Wildfire. I couldn’t keep running forever, and I couldn’t be under Wolfram’s wing forever. In fact, I wanted out from under his wing as soon as possible.
I set my pen down and crossed the marble floor to Wolfram. He looked up and watched me walk to him with cool eyes. He averted his gaze when I finally reached his table. “I need you to teach me more magic. I won’t be able to defend myself--”
Wolfram glanced behind him, then back to me. “Keep your voice down.”
I glanced around the room, not a soul in sight. “Okay,” I mumbled. “So you agree?”
He gave me a cursory once over before wiping his face with his hand, his expression weary. “Let’s talk about it in your room. Lock up. With the blizzard, I don’t think we will be getting any guests.”
I glanced at the door, then strode to the window, peeking out of the curtains. A wall of white was falling from the sky.
“Whoa. No wonder we don’t have any guests tonight,” I said as I locked the front door and pulled the curtain.
“Should we douse the lights?” I asked. Wolfram held his hand toward the gas lamps and flicked his wrist several times, and each time the fire was doused from each lamp.
“Okay, how about you teach me that first.”
It was completely dark. I noticed my eyes adapted to the dark more quickly after my magic came in. If there was any shred of light, my eyes would find it. But at that moment, it was pretty damn dark.
The moon and stars outside were covered with cloud. There were zero guests residing at the inn making light, as they all checked out earlier in the day. We were in utter pitch black darkness.
Wolfram’s warm hand touched my ribs for a moment before he quickly moved it away. I could make out a fine outline of him, but it was still hard to see him. I reached out and grabbed, catching his bicep, then slid my hand down to his hand. I felt his muscles tense for a moment before we walked to my room together, hand in hand. It was nice, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t squeal a little on the inside. But he had a girlfriend. Stefani.
“This is it,” Wolfram’s gravel voice resounded, even as quiet as it was and he reached over me, as my back must have been at the door, and turned the knob, his hand once again brushing my waist and eliciting a need deep inside of me. I shirked away from his touch, and in the process, leaned against the door, so that when Wolfram opened it, I stumbled backward into the room like an idiot. I caught myself from falling completely backward, and Wolfram grabbed my arm, yanking me upright and too far, right into his chest. I laughed deeply, the peels of laughter coming out even as Wolfram walked away and lit the new gas lamp that sat on the desk.
He looked at me, a smile playing on his lips. “You’re a klutz.”
I wiped tears from my eyes. “It’s a trait that will help me become a great fighter, right?”
Wolfram laid on the unmade bed, stretching all the way out like a panther, and all the laughter shrank from me. He put his arms behind his head, and his biceps flexed under his dress shirt.
Ugh. Does he even know what he does to me?
Trying to play it cool, I grabbed the chair to the desk, flipped it around, and straddled it, resting my chin on top. “Ouch,” I said, lifting my hurt chin off again. I touched it gingerly.
“You can’t fight if you can’t even handle a scratch,” Wolfram said, cracking an eye open to look at me.
“All the more reason I need to train,” I retorted.
It was quiet a moment before he spoke again. He watched me through hooded lids, which did odd things to my nether regions. “You’re Air, but, you have something odd going on with it. As if, somehow, you have a touch of Fire too.”
“Yes, I gathered that,” I snapped. I buzzed with unreleased, nervous energy, waiting for Wolfram to start the training. I pulled my cardigan off in one quick movement and threw it to the floor, leaving my black tank top on only. And my jeans and boots, of course. I pushed my heavy hair back behind my shoulders and sat up, my spine ramrod straight.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, waiting for instruction.
Wolfram’s tongue flicked out and lined his bottom lip, distracting me again. His eyes flashed copper, I thought, and he clutched a large hand over his eyes and rubbed his temples.
“Sorry,” I bit out, thought I wasn’t the least bit sorry. I didn’t even know why I was supposed to be sorry.
Wolfram sighed. “My point is that we know you can work Air, but the Fire is less certain. I’m not sure of the extent of of what you can naturally do, and so it’s hard to know where to begin on training you. You aren’t normal. It’s not as simple as you’d like to believe.”
Well, gee, make a girl feel special.
I squirmed in my chair waiting for Wolfram to elaborate, and when he didn’t, I hauled my feet up onto the chair and removed my boots. I wiggled my bare toes and flexed them against the hard floor.
I watched Wolfram lie there, hand over his eyes like a fucking damsel in distress at the prospect of teaching me something.
Well, fine, then. Let’s give this damsel some distress to work with then.
I quietly began focusing on the fire in the hearth. I figured it had to be similar to summoning air, right? I held my mind clear and let my breath flow naturally, then extended my hands discreetly toward the flickering flames, and called them to me. After several minutes of buzzing in my fingertips, I felt a suction of energy into my hands, almost like the feeling when a part of the body loses circulation, that tingling that’s almost painful.
A delicious heat
crept up my arms until my entire body glowed from within--at least, that’s what it felt like. The tingling had faded, it was just all energy and power now, with anywhere my little heart desired it to go.
And I knew just where I wanted it to go.
I settled my palms toward Wolfram’s prone form--was he sleeping?-- and flicked my wrists the same way I did when I was rushing Air magic. And the most marvelous thing happened.
Torches of fire erupted from my palms, blasting into Wolfram. He leapt to his feet like a fucking ninja, his weight crushing into the soft mattress, his dress shirt in singed tatters around his chiseled frame.
Well, that was a bonus I wasn’t expecting.
I laughed and stood on my own chair so that he wasn’t’ towering above me.
Wolfram smirked, his black eyes glowing a dull copper as he glared darkly at me. He crooked a finger and flicked it, and a torch of enormous flame blasted toward me before I had the chance to think. I blew fire back at him, to no avail, as I was meaning to switch to Air. Damn.
The fire touched my torso all over but didn’t burn me. It was just a faint heat when it should have melted my skin off.
My shirt, however, didn’t stand a chance.
My bra either. Shit, that’d been my only one.
Wolfram’s eyes flickered the brightest copper I’d seen on him as he looked me over, his eyes settling on my chest. He licked his bottom lip again and I thought I heard a low growl.
I wrapped an arm around my breasts and jumped down from the chair. “Not fair,” I said, rummaging in the drawer for another shirt. Wolfram had brought me three shirts and two pairs of jeans, all somehow exactly my size, style, and much too expensive. But he forgot about underwear and bras.
“You want to play fair, you don’t attack a sleeping man in his bed.” I heard him land on the floor as he jumped from the bed. I grabbed a fitted, red shirt and pulled it over my head just as he reached me, the heat from his body singing my back. I whipped around, giving him no warning as I blasted him backward with Air. “You mean my bed,” I said, smiling.
He stumbled back and hit the desk hard, then dodged my next attack, rolling over the top of the mattress to the other side of the bed. “It isn’t yours. I own it. You’re a guest. Or did you forget?” He swirled his arm in the air and a shimmery, red sphere surrounded him, the kind Cole had made the first time she’d met him. “And this is how you keep your clothes from melting off.”
I tried to switch back to Fire, but couldn’t. I didn’t have the technique down, and couldn’t figure out how to go from one to the other quickly.
“How did I make that explosion?” I asked, lowering my arms in surrender.
Wolfram eyed me, the sphere gone, and then pulled the remnants of his tattered shirt off. I tried not to drool.
Did this guy go to the gym every single day or something?
I normally didn’t like the big, muscular guys. Evan had been a bit pudgy, honestly, and at the time, I found it endearing. Now the image of him in my mind made me want to puke.
“An explosion is a combination of air and fire. Fire elementals can’t create one alone, Air elementals can’t create one alone. Just like smoke--it’s a combination. You don’t remember how you tapped into it?”
I shook my head, frustration sizzling inside of me.
Wolfram walked around the bed and approached me, his scent washing over me. I’d noticed my sense of smell had gotten more sensitive too--at least, with Wolfram. There was a heat in smell that was more intense now. I wasn’t sure how I was able to smell heat, but I could. That must be the Fire scent.
“I don’t know how to teach you. You’re different--”
“You’ve said that already,” I grumbled.
Wolfram stilled, looking into my eyes. “I wish I could tell you that it was a good thing, your mixed powers, but it’s not. Not for our world. It puts a target on your back, especially since the Zephyrine incident. It’s best if you hide it. Pick one--Air or Fire, and use only that magic. And only if you have to. Don’t practice out in the open.”
“You think I’m stupid?” I snapped, turning away from him. I bit my lip at the thought of suppressing a part of my magic. It instinctively felt wrong, and I felt queasy just thinking about it. “What if I want to practice both?”
“Then you’re on your own,” he said coolly. I glanced sharply at him, anger rising in me in a hot wave. I closed my eyes and focused on that Fire feeling, the energy that had buzzed up my arms. I called it to me, and called to the Air, too, though I wasn’t sure it was coming through. I heard Wolfram move away and the creak of the bed that signaled he was laying back down. He must have not slept at all last night. Too busy sexing it up with that dumb Stefani chick.
Hot anger ripped through me at the thought of her and I felt a pull of magic in the center of my being, and the buzzing was on steroids suddenly, prickling every inch of my skin until it evened out , shushing into that heavy weight of power.
Release it.
No, it could be an explosion.
My palms itched.
“Cian…”
My eyes popped open at the foreign word and all the power drained from me as I watched what was before me in horror.
Swirls of opaque light danced in front of me, swirling just the way they had before, and they were speaking in that tongue that chilled my bones.
My blood froze. My whole body froze.
The ghosts, they were back.
Chapter Eighteen
“Wolfram,” I whispered sharply from the corner of my mouth. I glanced at him--his chest was rising and falling evenly. He was sleeping like a baby.
I was afraid that if I yelled, the ghosts would go away, and I wanted Wolfram to tell me what they were.
The light swirled viciously suddenly, and the voices got louder.
“Cian...awaheya...oetseira...onewatchen…”
I slowly crept to the bed, keeping my eyes trained on the lights. They jerked at me and I stumbled back onto the bed--and onto Wolfram.
Well, that woke him up.
He grabbed around me in a death hold, his arm crooked tightly around me just under my boobs. “It’s me,” I whispered sharply.
Wolfram loosened the hold and I whirled to face him, backing up against the panel of the headboard. I grabbed his face and turned it in the direction of the ghost lights. Wolfram stared at them, then looked back at me, a question in his eyes.
“What am I looking at?” he said through mushed cheeks.
I crouched lower and pulled the blanket on top of me. I could admit it, the ghost light thingies freaked me out. A lot.
Especially when they lunged like a zombie toward me, and eyes and hands flashed randomly through it, like they were currently doing.
I yelped and hid under the cover. Slowly, Wolfram joined me under it. I could see his face from the glow of the light ghosts, but I knew he couldn’t. Why was I the only one that could see them?
“I thought you’d be able to see it,” I hissed. He held up his hand and a sphere of light encompassed it--not a torch, but a contained light, almost like a light bulb. It didn’t singe the covers. He turned to his side and looked at me, his face and body inches from mine as I laid flat on my back. “Why are we hiding under the covers?” He didn’t whisper, and his voice was deep, the kind that only sleep could create.
“The ghosts--the light thingies.” I felt it come closer and I closed my eyes tightly, squishing into Wolfram’s side.
Wolfram looked out of the covers again and after about a minute, he came back under. “There’s nothing.”
“So I’m even a freak to the freaks.”
Wolfram squinted at me. “You’re serious about this?”
“I wish I wasn’t. You know that medical leave I took? It’s because I saw those things in the meeting room and I passed out or something.”
“Cian...awaheya...oetseira...onewatchen…”
“God, it’s just so loud,” I said as I pressed my palms to my ears. My heart
beat erratically against my chest, and that faint feeling came to my head again.
Wolfram lifted the hem of my shirt and and pressed his palm against my rib. Almost immediately, my wits started coming together and I lowered my hands from my ears. My heartbeat became more steady.
“What do you see? What is it saying?” he asked, his hand still on my body. And even though it calmed me, it excited me too, so that it was hard to think for a different reason.
I swallowed. “It’s like a yellowish light wisp that changes shape. Sometimes I’ll see a pair of eyes, or hands fade in and out. And it speaks this language, I don’t know what it’s saying.”
Wolfram frowned. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. What does it say? Sound it out.”
I took a deep breath and listened for its words, and tried to repeat them.
“See-ann. Uhh...owie hey-ah...etseera...wan-wuh-chin...and then it just repeats.”
Wolfram had stilled, so frozen that I thought he’d stopped breathing.
“Cian awaheya oetseira onewatchen,” he repeated.
I pointed at him. “That’s exactly the way he says it! That’s it! What is he saying?”
Wolfram looked dazed as he looked through me. He pulled the covers off and shined the light closer to the ghost that he couldn’t see.
I screamed, as the ghost had been replaced with a solid, albeit still shimmery, human form.
A huge, portly man with wild, dark hair and eyes eerily similar to...I turned to Wolfram. “I can see him now. Fully. It’s a man.”
Wolfram swallowed. “What does he look like?”
I described him and Wolfram jumped up and out of the bed. “Is he wearing a necklace? A saphire, about the size of a coin, with three-”
“Three spikes on the bottom of the gem?” I finished, looking at the ghost man’s necklace.
Wolfram grabbed my arm, a crazed light in his eyes. “Can you talk to him?”
I peeked at the ghost man’s face, how unwavering it was, almost as if he were a statue. He stood up straight, his eyes not blinking. His mouth didn’t even move when the words came.