Magic Temptations (Lead Me to Temptation #2)

Willan

Perfect. As always.

I survey my handiwork with a critical eye, all but daring the precariously stacked Orbs of Crosis to fall. Some would say stacking a giant pile of crystalline balls into a pyramid is impractical. Personally, I think they lack the skills and stamina for proper ball handling skills.

Gods, I never thought I’d miss having Lusce about.

Making dick jokes—or even ball jokes—on my own isn’t half as fun.

But my friend, colleague and sometimes student skipped out of work, declaring he needed to leave early before breezing out the door.

We’re heading to a bar with all the rest of our friends and in his words he ‘needed time to prepare’.

Honestly, I know him and I know our plans, so any surprise about him abandoning me is entirely my own fault. But the store is quiet, and I’m bored enough to be dirty with him. Especially because he’s left me with nothing but the cleanup from the classes earlier today upstairs, and my own thoughts.

A dangerous thing lately.

Chewing on my lip, I look around the ground floor of The Magnifitestique Mage for something to do.

The shop-slash-magic-learning-centre is owned by my uncle, Egbert, and has been in the family for generations.

We’ve been selling our mage clan’s wares and magic to the population of Osneau for centuries now.

It’s the kind of thing that should be interesting, and usually it is.

But today it’s gratingly irritating. Today it feels like someone's trapped time in a bottle, just letting it pass in teeny tiny drips.

Not that someone could actually do that. Well, probably not. Hopefully not. That would be shit if someone could actually pull off that kind of magic. Horrifying actually.

And look, I’ve managed to distract myself from the phone burning a hole in my pocket.

I need to check it, because I know that I’ve got a bunch of messages from my friends about going out tonight—and Bedeer’s gone and invited his friend from work—so I need to be on my game.

But if I pull out my phone and read the messages, I know I’m going to look at other things again.

Things I shouldn’t be looking at. Especially if I’m going to be on my game tonight.

Fuck it, maybe I should go polish my swords or something.

Not euphemistically, the actual swords hanging on the walls of the shop.

My ancestors forged the antiques in the fires that burn in the mountains of our home.

We even mine the corunonite the weapons are made of.

Our weaponry is one of the things the Mazheri—my clan—is known for.

That and the fabric we weave, made by the webs of the giant silk nest spiders that live in the caves of our mountains.

It’s no use, though. A man is only so strong.

Returning to my place behind the long cabinet filled with junky magical looking items that are mainly there for humans and magic-dabbling beings, I exhale a long breath.

And even though I know for absolute certain that there’s no one on this floor of the store, I still cast a wary eye around.

When I’m absolutely sure I’m alone, I pull my phone out of the pockets of my coat.

I can feel the increasing thrum of my heartbeat when my fingers wrap around the device and slide it from the depths of my pocket.

Licking my suddenly dry lips, the logical half of my brain tries to put up one last fight against my idiocy, but it’s no use. I can’t resist.

With shaking fingers I tap away at the screen, dismissing the text message chain and pulling up Crumbles.

I stumbled across the app by accident. I’ve never really been one for social media.

Not because I think I’m above it or anything, we just had really shit coverage where we lived growing up.

By the time I moved to the city, I was behind on everything and didn’t want to admit it to anyone to ask for help.

Egbert likes to tell me my ego is one of my greatest flaws, and the greatest hindrance to my magic. He loves me, really.

Even though I’m only new to the app, my account is still entirely anonymous. I would rather throw myself into the pits of Arkan than have people know that I have it, let alone what I do on here.

I don’t even have to search for it, it’s all there, ready and waiting for me. My secret addiction. My worst vice. My greatest weakness.

The Hot Vampire Bartenders.

The HVBs for short.

The main attraction at Bloody Temptations, a vampire bar in the city, the duo dance on bar tops and sling drinks in their ridiculous outfits.

Their antics have gotten them a giant online following, but their abs and the insane ways they can roll their bodies isn’t the reason I follow them. No. It’s because it’s him.

Nikolo.

He’s not the boy I grew up with anymore.

Not by a long shot. Gawky and a bit weird looking as a kid, he’s really grown into his strong features, and those curls of his.

Somewhere between him running away from our mountain home at sixteen and now, he’s become a man and made a life altering choice—to become a vampire.

When did it happen? How? Was it a choice? Or was he coerced, or was it his last choice? What happened after that last awful day when he left? What paths led him to become the man he is today? Frozen in time for the next couple of centuries or until he chooses to greet the dawn.

An uncomfortable knot forms in my stomach. Just like all the other far too many times I’ve thought about this. About him. About Nikolo and vampires and what it would be like to turn. About his life. And when I get really caught up in the fantasy—what could be.

There are too many questions. Too much I don’t know about who he is now. It feels strange for Nikolo—my Nikolo—to be a stranger to me. Not that he was ever really mine. It just… felt that way. Or at least that it should be that way. Before I lost him.

And tonight, for the first time in thirteen years, I’m going to see him again.

I think I’m going to vomit.

The air shifts around me, my emotions setting off a breeze through the shop.

As a mage, my magic is intrinsically tied to the elements.

Some mages only ever manage to master one element.

Others, like me, manage to master two or three—I’ve never been able to get a strong mastery of water.

Then there are others, like my brother, who are able to master all four.

Whether they are worthy of the skill or not.

Our mastery of the elements allows us to wield our magic, allowing us to manipulate the natural world and draw power from it.

When he wasn’t running around causing trouble with my older brother, Nikolo worked a special variety of earth magic, using the silken web from our spiders, and the wool from the livestock.

He learnt the skill from his mother, though he was an absolute natural at it.

Together they would spin and weave and create the most incredible fabrics, and she taught him how to imbue their magic into the threads.

A jumper from them could be the warmest hug you’ve ever been wrapped in, or it could choke you like your worst nightmares.

We still sell her clothes regularly here at the shop. Both kinds.

Nikolo, though, Nikolo will never be able to weave revenge into another item. That magic is lost to him forever as a vampire.

Gods tits, I will not survive tonight if I keep this shit up.

I let myself look for one more minute, admiring a video I’ve watched half a dozen times already of him dancing around on the bar in a tiny little plaid skirt and high-top sneakers with a skintight leather cropped singlet on, tattoos on full display.

On anyone else, it would be a bit much. On Nikolo, it somehow seems just right.

It perfectly highlights his muscular build in a way that almost makes him look curvy.

He’s crawling along the bar top, a haughty yet seductive smile on his face, staring down whoever’s taking the video like he’s going to bite them with those gleaming fangs.

Or fuck them. Or both. When he’s close enough that he’s all that’s in the frame, he sits back on his heels and grinds his hips in circles, rubbing his hands all over his body and throwing in a couple of hair flips of his long, blonde curls for good measure.

It’s outlandish and completely over the top, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.

Though I’m pretty sure he could sneeze snot trails out his nose and I’d think it was hot.

And that’s how I know that I’m done. I close the app without looking at the comments—they’ll only make me mad and I’m already worked up enough.

There’s still hours to sit and stew in my own bullshit before we head out, and I’d kind of rather do that at home rather than down here in the shop. At least I can rub one out and relieve some tension.

Checking the time to make sure I’m in the clear, I send a breeze to the sign on the door to flip it to ‘closed’ and flick the locks.

Another wave of my hand leaves a little tingle in my sternum and sets the wards for the night.

They aren’t really necessary. At this point the shop is just as much a part of the family as I am, probably more so, considering it’s indispensable to our existence and I’m just the latest in the long line of employees serving it.

It’s certainly got enough juice to keep itself, and us, safe.

Fuck knows it keeps expanding on itself whenever it feels like we need some new stock.

Hauling my ass up three flights of stairs to the fourth floor where I live is a pain in the ass, but it gives me a chance to make sure the place is all set up for the morning.

I’ve got the day off and I have no interest in Egbert interrupting my day of freedom to ride my ass about the state of the store.