I had always wanted to learn magic and for Thatch to teach me something useful. Now I was torn between his relentless lessons and spending real time together. When we practiced magic, I was so tired and depleted afterward, there wasn’t any energy for sex.
I couldn’t help wondering if he wanted it that way. Even at his best, he wasn’t a cornucopia of communication.
One Saturday when Josie asked me if I wanted to watch a movie with her and Pinky on a contraband laptop she had snuck into the school, I was tempted to say yes.
She whispered, a twinkle in her eye. “It’s Harry Potter. I have all the DVDs. I know it’s your favorite.”
She knew me so well.
I had to choose. Thatch and magic. Or Josie and friendship. I felt as though I were being torn in two. “I want to, but I’m supposed to meet Thatch for a . . . meditation lesson.”
“Right.” Her smile faded. “You would rather be tortured by the dungeon master than spend time with me?”
“It isn’t like that. I want to be a witch. If I study hard and do everything right, I’ll be able to get my magic back.” Another lie that widened the divide between us. I wished I could have told her I had my magic back. If I didn’t, I might slip up and use it in front of her.
She eyed me pityingly. “Did that bag of dicks tell you that? He’s just messing with you. Witchkin don’t regain magic after being drained.”
“It’s rare, but not unheard of.” Except for those with the Red affinity. We could get our magic back more easily than other affinities. “Thatch regained his magic after Alouette Loraline drained him.”
“Yeah, but he’s a freak.”
I would have thought with Josie’s “medical condition,” she might have been a little less judgmental of all the other freaks in the world. Maybe Thatch was right, and she would look down on me for what I was—and for who I was dating.
“Don’t make me choose between magic and friendship,” I said. I didn’t want her to be as bad as him. “I have to learn to protect myself. The Raven Queen—or someone else—might try to kill me if I don’t learn defensive magic. This is the first time Thatch has willingly taught me anything.”
“What’s he teaching you? How to be a prig like him?” She crossed her arms.
“No. He’s teaching me . . . hard magic.” I tried to think of something close to what I was learning that sounded like Celestor skills. “Telepathy.”
She smiled smugly. “Okay, let’s see how good of a teacher he is. What am I thinking?”
I tried to project my awareness out beyond my skin with limited success. I wasn’t used to doing this exercise at will. “You’re thinking that Thatch is a bag of dicks, and he’s stealing me away from you.” In truth, I didn’t know if that was what she was thinking or what I was. I couldn’t differentiate between the ache of guilt in my own chest and the shame and guilt in hers.
Josie laughed. “Okay, that’s really close, but you’ve still got a lot to learn if you’re attempting telepathy.”
“I didn’t say I was any good at it. I’m sure I’ll be better once my affinity returns.” I smiled too now, pleased Josie had gotten a chuckle out of this.
I didn’t want to become like Thatch and push people away. He may have been my magical mentor, but he was far from a master of social skills. “How about you give me an hour with He Who Must Not Be Named? I’ll make it a short lesson. Then join you.”
When I told Thatch about my desire to spend time with Josie, he shrugged indifferently. “Go play with your friends. You don’t need this magic lesson. It isn’t as though it’s important to learn awareness as a means of defensive magic. It isn’t as though it might save your life someday.”
“You’re doing it again,” I said. “You’re making me choose between you and Josie.”
“Pardon me for making your magical education a priority.”
I left the dungeon in a bad mood. Thatch’s grouchiness clung to my aura like a rain cloud. My outlook brightened when I saw that Pinky had brought root beer. Josie had acquired potato chips and Twinkies.
“Mana from the gods!” I said. “How did you know what I needed?”
“Girl, that’s what friends are for,” Josie said.
Another week went by. Thatch vetoed my plan to go home for Thanksgiving, claiming it was too dangerous. I wrote a letter home to break the news to my fairy godmother.
My one joy was that I was improving in my lessons. I expanded my awareness out farther from my body. I could project my will into someone else’s skin so they might perceive I had touched them—or I could do so with Thatch, at least. It wasn’t the same as telekinesis or astral projection, both Celestor abilities, but what I was learning could pass for Celestor magic if someone questioned me about it.
Using my newfound ability to smooth an invisible palm against Thatch’s could have been a great excuse for sexy time, even with how mentally taxed it left me afterward, but my magical mentor made me perform most of these lessons in his office, not in the bedroom like our first lesson.
I sat in the uncomfortable metal chair while he sat behind his desk. He walked me through exercises and tested my abilities.
At moments he tested my patience.
On one of these days, he sat at his desk, fingers steepled as he stared at Priscilla’s empty cage after one of our lessons. “The more we develop this skill, I am convinced this talent is an extension of your ability to walk into dreams. If you hone this skill, it might lead to mind control, which will be useful should you ever encounter someone who wishes to do you harm.”
“So . . . how long before I master the powers of making my students listen respectfully and not talk while I’m talking?”
He snorted. “You’re unlikely to ever accomplish that one.”
“What about using this to put you in a happy mood?” I would have loved to make him into less of a curmudgeon.
“When am I not in a . . . happy mood?” He spat out the word happy as though it tasted bad.
I laughed at that one. “What about helping me learn to use this so I can recruit students with you on one of your reconnaissance missions?” I smoothed out the hem of my black skirt over my striped leggings.
“No. Too dangerous. I’d prefer to keep you someplace heavily warded.” He rose from his seat, which had often been my cue to leave in the past.
I stood as well. “Okay, well, see you tomorrow during our next lesson.” I tried not to let the disappointment show on my face. I had wanted to spend time with him. Not magic lesson-time, but quality time.
“You aren’t trying to leave already, are you?” He strode around the desk and extended a hand toward me.
I took it, savoring the way he pressed my palm in his.
His lips curled up into a smile. “After all this work, I think I deserve a reward.”
“Really? On a school night?” I asked eagerly.
He leaned in closer. “What do you say to a bath in my room? I’ll make sure you get to your room before curfew.”
I squealed in absolute joy. I had always wanted to take a bath in his secret garden. He locked up the dungeon and tugged me into his private chamber. A moment of hesitation squashed my enthusiasm as I thought about the presence in the bathroom that I’d sensed before. Someone had been there, watching us. We’d only made love twice in the last few weeks since that incident, and I had made sure to keep the bathroom door closed. I didn’t want to even use his shower anymore.
I’d always thought of the dungeon as the safest place in the school, but doubt needled under my skin, burrowing so deep that it couldn’t be ignored.
Thatch had already dressed down to his T-shirt and underwear, snug briefs that left little to the imagination. I held my socks in my hands, trying to undress while simultaneously using my awareness to examine his room for the bogeyman.
Or in this case, the bogeywoman.
Thatch sat on his bed, watching me. “If you are attempting to use magic to sense
any intruders, you will be sadly disappointed to find none. I have reinforced my wards, including that of the mirrors. Only brownies will be allowed inside. And invited guests.”
“Right. Sadly disappointed.” I went back to undressing.
Apparently I wasn’t fast enough because he decided to assist me.
We spent the next half hour luxuriating in his hot-tub room. The little chamber was about the size of his office but contained a stone pool surrounded by tropical ferns and flowering orchids that belonged in a rainforest.
Swirls of mist rose from the water as we sat in the pool. I leaned my head against his shoulder.
“How is this room even possible?” I asked.
He poked me in the ribs. “Clarissa, when will you stop asking the obvious?”
I laughed. “Magic? Is that what you were going to say?”
“No. Money.” He laughed too now.
“Really?”
“A combination of the two. I paid a few graduates who excelled in horticulture and earth magic to assist so I wouldn’t kill all the foliage by planting them in an unsuitable environment.” His cheeks were rosy from the warmth. The white lines of his tattoos stood out against the flushed skin of his chest.
“Couldn’t you have done it yourself?” He was the master of everything. Supposedly.
“With time, but I preferred to spend my time working.”
I closed my eyes. I reached out with my awareness to the corners of his room. I wasn’t usually able to detect wards, but when I projected my consciousness out of my body, I could see the grid of lines. The way he wove magic reminded me of the Celtic knotwork he drew in his tattoos.
I turned back to him, studying the white lace patterns over his chest. His eyes were closed, his head leaned back on a rock that had been placed in the perfect position for him to use as a pillow.
I traced a finger along an intricate pattern that spanned from his shoulder to his bicep. “This is a ward?”
“Indeed.”
“And this one?” I asked, following spirals of thorns down his chest and into the water.
“Not a ward, precisely, but similar. Protective magic.” His muscles contracted as I smoothed my hand over his ribs.
“Did that hurt?”
“It tickled. I don’t like to be tickled.”
“What? Felix Thatch has a weakness.” Never had I heard such an invitation. Naturally, I had to exploit it.
I tickled his ribs. Or tried to. He caught my wrists and pinned them to my sides. He twisted to plant a peck on my lips. “No tickling allowed, or else I will punish you.”
I giggled. “How will you punish me?”
“I won’t give you any more kisses.” As if to emphasize the point, he leaned in as though he intended to kiss me but turned his face away before my lips could meet his.
“I promise not to tickle,” I said. Not at the moment anyway.
“I suspect you might be fibbing.”
“Probably.”
He released my hands and placed them on his chest as he kissed me. I slid them under the water, lower on his body.
He mumbled against my lips. “If you’re searching for my most ticklish spot, you’ll need to go lower.”
I slipped my hands over his ribs, watching his poker face.
“Lower,” he said.
I slid them over his abdomen.
It looked like he was trying hard not to smile. “You haven’t found my most ticklish spot yet. Lower.”
I paused when I reached his pubic hair. I purposefully bypassed his groin and continued down his legs.
“No. Higher. You missed my ticklish spot,” he said.
“Really?” I wiggled my fingers in a tickling motion against his crotch.
“That isn’t the proper way to tickle, just so you know.” He arched an eyebrow upward, a sardonic smile tugging at his lips. “You need to be more firm with your touch.” He placed his hands on mine, showing me.
I played his game and “tickled” him more firmly, massaging him until he was hard, which didn’t take long. He drew me closer, kissing me.
He moaned as I continued to stroke him. I liked seeing him happy. His breath came more quickly.
After another minute, he took my hands in his and kissed my knuckles. He placed my palms flat on his chest. “You’re living dangerously, Clarissa. It would be best if you stopped now before you boil yourself alive when my magic comes out.”
I giggled. “When your magic comes.”
He pulled me onto his lap, nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck. “You and your puns. You’re incorrigible.”
“But it is a problem, isn’t it? Not the puns, I mean, but your affinity.” I considered how flames had burst out of him in the shower. “You might burn me alive when we’re together.”
“Unlikely. I’m in full control of myself these days.”
“These days? What kind of accidents did you have in the past?” I teased. “Did you burn someone alive with your flaming-hot mojo of magic?”
His arms became still and stiff around me. The smile slipped away from his face.
“Oh,” I said.
“Yes. I killed her. It was an accident.” He leaned his head against the rocks and closed his eyes again. “When my adoptive mother—the Raven Queen—figured out what I had done, she wanted to see me do it again. I was already traumatized by the girl’s death; this didn’t help matters any.”
Even in the cozy embrace of the water, ice prickled against me.
He seldom shared his personal life. Probably this was why. So much of it had left him scarred. I could feel the hurt inside him, raw and aching even after all these years.
His voice came out cool, devoid of the emotion he actually felt. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Your magic. You’re trying to feel inside me. I didn’t give you permission to do that.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. Sorry.” I had been using magic without even thinking about it.
A gloom of melancholy buried the happy mood of earlier. The warm mist no longer felt relaxing. The steamy air felt suffocating. I had thought being with Felix Thatch would temper some of the longing inside me, but even when I was with him, I wasn’t really with him. I was practicing magic or he was in a bad mood—or I served as a catalyst for sharpening the razor edge of his temperament.
I shifted to the edge of his knees, about to slide off him, but he circled his arms around me. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. Just . . . sit here with me for another minute. Pretend I hadn’t told you all that.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and cuddled close to him. I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen the hurt inside him.
“I love you,” I said.
He sighed into my hair. I didn’t know how to take that. I was a little disappointed, but then I didn’t blame him with the world of hurt dwelling under his skin, keeping him from wanting to admit he was capable of having feelings about anyone. Probably I was using magic again. I tried to draw back into myself.
A creak and a distant thud caught my attention. His entire body stiffened, and he released me. He stood so abruptly, I fell back into the water and came up sputtering.
“Be quiet and stay here,” Thatch said. “Someone is in my room.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Intruder Alert
The moment he said the words, my heart started thudding with anxiety. I stretched out my awareness, but it bounced around, out of control like the other time. I was too nervous to hone my skills properly.
Thatch left me alone in the pool, leaving puddles on the rocks. I forced myself to calm, to center myself inside my own body once again.
Thatch closed the door between the pool and the bathroom. “What are you doing here?” His voice was a mixture of wariness and alarm, but there was no anger.
I thought I heard a woman’s voice. It had been a woman before whom I had s
ensed. As quietly as I could, I lifted myself from the tub and snuck toward the door to listen. Using as much restraint as I could, I only projected ten percent of myself beyond the door. I didn’t want my awareness to start bouncing around, out of control.
Thatch carried surprise and concern in his body, not fear. In the woman there was no animosity, only longing. She laughed. I could feel both of them but not see them.
I opened the door a crack. Thatch stood in his bedroom, a towel wrapped around his waist as Gertrude Periwinkle attempted to tug it off him.
As always, she was radiant. Her skin shimmered like mother-of-pearl, her long blonde hair reminding me of water cascading over her back, more than something human and mundane. Even her modest Edwardian attire couldn’t hide her hourglass figure or dull the impression she was a blonde bombshell.
It could be worse, I told myself. I hadn’t found him with the Raven Queen. Or Vega. Or Josie. Just his crazy hex-girlfriend who had tried to kill me multiple times.
“Gertrude, no,” Thatch said firmly. “When I said I would help you alleviate your siren desires, I meant with a draft of medicine to make the yearning less intolerable.”
“You didn’t give me a potion the last time I came to you.”
No, he’d just given her a little injection of his special potion. I must have made a little noise, because her gaze flickered my way where I peeked between the door and frame into the bedroom. Her blue eyes went wide.
I shifted out of sight.
“Who else is here?” Gertrude Periwinkle squealed. “Is that Clarissa?”
“No, of course not,” Thatch said, calm and collected. He would have been convincing if she hadn’t already seen me.
“No,” he said. “Do not—”
The door yanked open. I stood there, naked and dripping, Gertrude looking me up and down.
“Hi.” I waved, not knowing what else to do.
So much for Thatch’s grand plan about keeping our relationship a secret.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Notorious VAG
Of Curse You Will Page 12