by Lauren Dane
“Hello, Rowan.”
“Hey, Genevieve. Come through to the kitchen. Dinner is nearly ready.”
“Give me a tour first.”
That’d give Clive a little longer with his tea to calm and accept reality and it would give Rowan some extra time to gentle Genevieve toward him.
David had come up to the main house for the meal and Rowan heard him speaking to Betchamp in the kitchen as she and Genevieve headed away. Some part of her relaxed, knowing everyone was in the house and safe.
“I didn’t want to say this on the phone or over text,” Rowan said after the tour of everything but the kitchen and dining room. She and Genevieve remained in Rowan’s office. “I had a visit with Carl today. He told me a bunch of stuff and gave me a dog. Or maybe it’s more like she decided to come live with me and be my keeper. She’s magic. Something like that.”
Genevieve’s gaze sharpened. “Carl? The sage who likes stuffed dead things as his totems? He sought you out?”
“Yeah. He does that from time to time. I’ll open a car door and bingo, weirdo kooky sage who yells out some random name at me and essentially screeches off into the street on two wheels or whatever. He never gets it right even after all these years. It’s our thing now. And all the taxidermy! Thankfully not every time or Clive would have given birth to uptight British Vampire kittens at the idea of stuffed snakes or some type of rodent up on his dash.” Rowan snickered at the thought and Genevieve joined her.
“Wait. Is that what they are? Totems? I thought he was just a weird dude with super questionable taste in clothing and recreational activities.”
“He still holds to the old ways. Old magics. Old power.”
Rowan wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse about Carl but it was unquestionably cooler than simple taxidermy.
Star came in and Genevieve paused before she began to speak in French to her. The dog trotted over to the witch and sat, cocking her head as she seemed to consider Genevieve’s words. From what Rowan could understand, as the dialect was a very old one, it was a sort of introduction and welcome to a circle. But the phrase was more than circle. More like a family or community of power.
Star sneezed and then barked before allowing Genevieve to scratch behind her ears.
“Magic indeed,” Genevieve told Rowan. “Star is more than a dog. She’s your familiar. Your protector. Your watcher and definitely a keeper. Like you and I, she’s rare and unique.”
Star made a happy growly yowl before she flopped to the rug and rolled to her back, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth.
Rowan bent to give the dog a belly rub. “Tell me what you know.”
Genevieve pulled out a small pipe and after a nod of okay from Rowan, took several hits before setting it aside. That meant she was going to use magic so this was more than just a history lesson about whatever Star was.
Genevieve sat back as she slid one of her bracelets off and held it in her palm in a pool of pretty colored stones. “Star is, as I said, a...”—Genevieve paused, searching for the right words—“a type of familiar. Rare. Powerful. She’s got her own magic and her own mind. She’ll never betray you. The longer she’s with you, the tighter your bond and connection will become. Probably to the Vampire as well since you two already share an unbreakable bond.” She lifted a shoulder before continuing. “Her choosing to come to you is a powerful portent.”
“A good portent or an apocalyptic portent? Because we know for sure this brewing unrest within all the different groups of supernaturals isn’t over.”
“Like most things of that type, a bit of both I believe. But another being of power in our circle is a very good thing. It’s also for other reasons. No, this isn’t over. We struck Lyr down and with that landed a powerful blow to our enemies. But there are others. Which we’d suspected anyway. One great power at the head of this. Controlling the rest. Manipulating them. Setting them against one another to keep them busy while he works toward his goal. And I see much in you that was in flux but is now settling. Again, the Vampire I suspect. Star means you’re meant to do great things with your gifts. She’s here to help you through what will be a challenging path.”
“Always with the challenging path stuff,” Rowan muttered.
“We are all becoming more,” Genevieve said. “Sometimes, growth comes with pain.”
Which was fucking bullshit in Rowan’s opinion but her opinion didn’t matter. What was true was true. She stood. “And now part two of the discussion about Carl’s visit with me earlier. Clive needs your professional opinion.”
Rowan laid out, in the most neutral way possible, all the stuff that Clive had been dealing with since he’d attempted to take over Lyr’s mind to access his memories two weeks before. Knowing how delicate all the politics were between Vampires and witches, she kept the personal information to an absolute minimum, including just how strong Clive’s gift really was.
“I’m going to suggest we keep the jokes to a minimum and stay professional,” Rowan said.
“Don’t poke the Vampire into a snit? Is that what you mean?”
Rowan snorted but didn’t disagree.
“What are we having to eat?” Genevieve demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.
“She makes these seafood cakes, with shrimp and white fish. Fries them up and serves them with some sort of sauce that’s a little sweet and a little hot. Rice and some vegetable that smells really good on the side. She baked bread today. Lemon cake for dessert.” Rowan waited a beat. “She’s an amazing cook.”
“Fine. I’m mainly doing this for you. You’d be sad if he fell prey to bad magic.”
When they walked into the dining area Genevieve said her greetings to Elisabeth and Betchamp, welcoming them to Las Vegas, and then she kissed David’s cheeks before turning back to Clive.
“I offer my assistance and my magic freely in your aid and defense,” she said quietly.
“I accept your offer,” Clive said and barely even sounded snotty.
He bowed his head slightly. Thanking in a formal sense without creating any sort of debt neither wanted incurred.
“Let’s do this part before we eat. It’ll make me hungry and I like to relax when I dine,” Genevieve told them both, breaking the tension.
“I still don’t think it’s necessary,” Clive muttered and Rowan deliberately ignored him. It wasn’t an option to pretend this away to save his ego.
“Where do you want him?” Rowan asked Genevieve instead.
“I like contact with the earth. Let’s go outside. Your yard is secure, though I will also ward the entire property for you this week as well.”
Without waiting for a response, Genevieve headed out to the yard just beyond the kitchen and dining room. The place Clive had touched down when he got back home from work earlier.
Private, so hopefully Clive would appreciate that. Whether he could at that point was a question but Rowan certainly was able to.
He followed her, the annoyance coming from him in waves. Star trotted out to sniff all over the place before she came back to Rowan’s side.
“Star says this is a good, safe place,” Rowan said before she even thought about it. The thump of Star’s tail against Rowan’s calf said she’d gotten the right of it.
Clive barely managed not to comment but Rowan knew he wanted to.
Genevieve gave Star a scratch behind her left ear. “You’re very wise. Watch for trouble,” she said to the dog and then she looked up to where Elisabeth and Betchamp stood with David. “You as well.”
They nodded in response, which Rowan found reassuring.
The witch turned back to Clive and motioned him closer. “I need you open to me. When I start this spell, you’re going to want to use your defenses to keep me out. Don’t. I can get past them but Rowan would be mad at me because it might hurt. I give you my word that I will do you
no harm. I want to help you and if the sage says there’s a problem, there is. It could end up hurting Rowan or your Vampires and I know you don’t want that so let’s get this over with.”
It was the right amount of casual and serious and Clive walked over to Genevieve in a way that told Rowan despite his reservations and ego, he trusted Rowan with his life. That was love and it washed over her, settling some of her agitation and worry.
She and Star would keep watch. There were guards patrolling the property too, who’d come at her call or at the first signs of trouble. Rowan let that course through her veins, that surety that Clive would be safe, so he could feel it too via their bond. If she was calm and assured, he would be too. Hopefully.
* * *
Genevieve held out a small knife she’d pulled from her bag. It caught the light of the waning moon. “Your blood is where your magic is concentrated. The blade’s edge is silver—I need your blood to run freely long enough to read it—but the pain will only be momentary.”
Clive forced himself to be still and let Genevieve take his hand, turning it so his wrist was up. Her magic washed over him, purposefully. Controlled. In a way that his own magic did not react. Though that was something he had to work on.
Rowan’s dog stared at him; the expression on her face led Clive to believe Star knew what he was thinking. That was uncomfortable to say the least. Uncomfortable enough that he didn’t see Genevieve’s knife edge until it had already broken his skin and the silvered tip stung, fighting against the natural coagulant in his blood.
The scent of it, rich and powerful, hung in the air as Genevieve continued on, speaking in that way she had. The lyrical aspects to the spell were nearly poetry, even if he only understood a few of the words she spoke in ancient tongues.
The only way he could keep himself from going on the defense was to open himself up to the fascination he had about magic and how this witch used it. He had to remind himself she was helping.
Genevieve wore a faraway expression. Not blank. She clearly saw something, interacted with something he couldn’t outwardly sense. That galled him a great deal. He should have been able to tell there was some bad magic working to keep him from being able to access Lyr’s memories.
Star yawned hugely, growling as she finished. Clive knew it was her canine way of telling him to get out of his feelings and let the witch do her magic to make him better.
Genevieve’s hand and finger movements shifted, changed as she stepped close enough to touch him. She ran her hands over him from head to toe, the incantation changing as she did.
A sharp tingling rode the surface of his skin in the wake of her touch. Not quite painful but impossible to ignore. He coughed, attempting to clear his throat.
They were in the desert after all and it was breezy. The sand and dust tended to irritate his throat on the worst of the days. But the tingling began to migrate from all over his body straight to his chest and then his throat.
Rowan moved to look at him closer. To examine and be assured he was all right. Clive held on to that as he continued to cough, the tingling turning into a burn in his throat. His wife would kick the ass of anything daring to mess with him and he knew it.
She stepped next to Genevieve, which no one seemed to have expected. The witch continued her spellwork after a slight pause and a quick look.
The wash of magic was all Brigid though and when Rowan turned her head to meet Clive’s gaze, it was Her looking at him through his wife’s eyes. The Goddess shining bright. They had an uneasy peace, Clive and Brigid. But they trusted one another fully to protect Rowan as best as they could and he knew without a doubt that Brigid would never purposely harm him if for no other reason than he was Rowan’s.
Rowan’s mouth opened for a moment on a soft exhalation and then power, raw, fierce and immense, flowed from her. Surprising him enough that he wasn’t expecting it when she slapped a hand over his throat so hard he nearly stepped back from the pressure.
Through his bond with Rowan, he knew not to panic. Understood he didn’t need to defend himself but rather give over and continue to trust. Even if he still couldn’t stop coughing beyond drawing just a small breath.
Genevieve continued, her voice rising on the breeze that had turned gusty, but she took Rowan’s free hand and even more power shoved into his body.
His insides were white-hot, molten. His joints ached. A splitting headache settled at the back of his neck.
And through it all, even as he fought panic, he trusted Rowan. Kept his gaze on her as a battle waged within his body. Invading magic had infected him just as Carl had said. And it was powerful enough that a witch like Genevieve took assistance from Rowan’s Goddess to drive it from Clive’s body.
Powerful enough that it was as if claws dug into his insides to keep from being driven out.
Genevieve let go of Rowan before she moved behind Clive and pounded his back—high, between his shoulder blades—three times. On that third time, he coughed out what he could only think of as a wad of darkness.
It dropped to the ground at Rowan’s feet with a wet splat.
Air rushed into his lungs and his heart began to slow as the panic was replaced by first disgust and then relief. The cough was gone. The tingling was more a sense memory than anything he had to endure.
Genevieve said, “Get back.”
Rowan took Clive’s hand and tugged him back a few steps before Genevieve did something to set whatever Clive had coughed up ablaze.
Magical fire, a cold blue flame, devoured the remains of whatever had infected Clive in less than a minute. There was nothing left afterward. He knew that because Star had approached to give the area a sniff and then turned her face up to Rowan’s with a sharp bark and then, he could have sworn, a grin.
Genevieve smiled, satisfied and no small amount smug. “You should feel a lot—”
* * *
Rowan knew something was wrong when Clive’s gaze went blurry. He would have fallen to his knees if Rowan hadn’t moved quickly enough to catch him in her arms first.
“What the fuck?” she demanded of Genevieve, ruthlessly attempting not to panic.
“The foreign magics I just removed from him are gone. He’s not infected or under the influence of any magics but those he came with. I swear to you,” Genevieve said and Rowan believed her. “He’s all right. Use your bond with him to verify it yourself.”
Stupid. How could she have forgotten that? Rowan shoved that aside as she checked their bond. He was there. Not weak. Not at all.
“I’ve never seen him like this before,” Rowan said. “Our bond is fine. He’s not suffering. I just don’t know what’s going on and I don’t like it one bit.” She liked an enemy she could see and punch in the face.
“If I may?”
Rowan turned her attention to Betchamp, who’d been watching from the patio.
She nodded and he approached. “I’ve served House Stewart for a very long time. My father did before that. I expect you understand that, having grown up in a Vampire household yourself. Sometimes when his father, who also has the ability to take memories, ingested someone very powerful, he’d fall into a trancelike state. It didn’t last very long. Ten minutes or less. I believe this is what’s occurring with the Scion.”
Lyr had been not only a very old Vampire, but he’d been Made by an even older and far more powerful Vampire who practiced magic.
“This isn’t the spell though? Not the thing Lyr did?” Rowan asked Genevieve again.
“That magic is gone, Rowan. Your Goddess helped me. Helped Clive. The throat can sometimes be a place where a spell blocking discovery might lodge. Let’s get him inside and on the couch. I think Betchamp is correct that he’s in a state where he can take in all the memories that he’s been unable to access since he killed Lyr.”
Rowan knew how to deal with a blood drunk Vampire. The familiarity of
shouldering Clive’s weight and maneuvering him to the couch helped her to keep her calm. He needed it. There wasn’t anything to panic over at that point and if he came to and she was freaked, he’d sense it and things could go left.
So she swallowed her fear and all the bad what-ifs and once she got him to the couch, she sat nearby to watch him, keeping her hand on his chest.
Star settled herself between Rowan and Clive, her face pointed in his direction. She’d already proven her worth. Had already settled into Rowan’s heart, into her circle of beings she loved and protected.
“So,” Genevieve said as she settled nearby, drinking the tea Elisabeth had pressed into her hands.
“What?” Rowan demanded, worried and irritated.
“How long have you been able to wield healing magic?”
Chapter Four
Rowan stared for long moments before shrugging. “Is that what happened out there when I touched his throat?”
Sharing a body with a Goddess presented challenges but as Rowan had been doing it for her whole life she’d come to a place where when Brigid needed to take over, it happened. She trusted that Brigid was doing whatever was necessary.
“Yes. And when I took your hand, a wave of power rushed to join mine. Yours was all about healing. Getting rid of the sickness. Purging.”
“I’ve been able to calm or soothe the acolytes and followers of Brigid for a decade now. Possibly longer but the last ten years I’ve noticed it and have been able to use it when I needed to comfort. There’ve been instances where I’ve done the same to those who aren’t considered acolytes. Humans most often, usually in distress. Every year I go to Ireland during Imbolc to visit Brigid’s shrine and to be part of the celebration. And every year I seem to attain more power. Some new aspect of Her that I’m able to draw upon.” It was the most she’d said about being Vessel to anyone other than a very few close confidantes.
Genevieve hummed, a sound to indicate she was thinking over everything Rowan had said.