Chapter Eighteen #2
Finn scooted sideways a few inches, letting her lean over the arm of her chair to examine his work.
It wasn’t as sure-fingered and strongly magical as Poppy’s, but he was young.
The fact he could charge any spellcraft at all was nothing short of a miracle.
Magic, especially strong magic, tended to skip males in a line.
“It looks great, Monkey,” GG said fondly, reaching over to ruffle his hair.
Finn frowned but stayed put, letting his great grandmother fuss over him tolerantly. “GG, we’ve talked about that. Only Mom calls me that, and I really wish she wouldn’t.”
“And only in private,” Poppy said in a whisper that nonetheless carried. “He’s a high schooler and high schoolers are supposed to be cool, remember?”
“Mom!”
Wanda let out a chuckle, approaching the staging area with a glass in one hand. Sparkling water shone in the porch lights. She looked like she wanted to be guzzling something stronger. So did I.
“Let your mother give you nicknames, kid,” she said. “Pretty soon you’ll be too old, and that will be a damned shame.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Finn replied, waving her away.
A trickle of wind poured through the yard, snapping the book he’d been copying shut. “We’re overdoing it now,” Wanda said. “I don’t think we need a straight mile of this spellwork. The patio is enough.”
Finally, someone I could find common ground with. The written spellwork was a pain, but theoretically necessary. The chatting and over preparation were something else entirely.
Maverick chose that moment to saunter into view.
He was moving with the ease and confidence of a man who knew what he was doing, but I knew better.
I could almost taste the unease in the air.
Everyone present knew how dangerous and unstable blood magic could be.
So much could go wrong with this ritual.
He opened his mouth, looking like he might be sick, closed it, and then shot me a dirty look.
“Nice swimsuit,” he sneered.
“Glad you like it. I stole it from Crescent Circle when I slept with your mom.”
The juvenile insult had the desired effect. His mouth curled up into a grim little smile. At least we were in familiar, antagonistic territory.
“You are so weird,” Finn said, shaking his head.
“I’ve been called way worse,” I responded.
“You’ll be back to being Mother’s side chick soon enough, Indigo,” Maverick said, cracking his knuckles firmly before stepping into the midst of Poppy’s preparation.
She melted out of his way, taking up a position near the edge of the patio.
Finn took the corner opposite her, while Wanda and GG found their places on the remaining corners.
It felt vaguely claustrophobic being surrounded on all sides, but I couldn’t bitch about it too much.
They’d act as anchors, keeping the magic inside the structure instead of boiling over like a pot left untended.
Every scrap of energy would feed back into the spell, which was exactly what should happen.
Maverick extended a hand in our direction, muttering softly to himself in a language I didn’t know.
It sounded vaguely serpentine and raised every hair on my neck.
The sibilant whispers rang through the night, louder with every heartbeat, but still utterly incomprehensible, no matter how hard I focused.
I felt them inside my head, rather than registering their meaning. I simply knew what came next.
Angelo reached for me an instant before I could wrap a hand around his neck.
His fingers found the hair at the nape of my neck and tugged, holding me fast even as his mouth found mine.
No, Lydia’s. With Angelo’s hands on me, I could feel where she ended and I began.
Angelo had a claim on this body, on her soul, that didn’t extend to me.
As uncomfortable as making out with an incubus in front of a sixteen-year-old made me, it was what it was.
“RJ, you want to take Finn for a walk?” Poppy asked, and I was glad she was removing them both from the situation because Goddess knew it was uncomfortable enough as it was.
I noticed only briefly that neither RJ nor Finn made any motion to argue, and the two of them disappeared back into GG’s house.
Then my attention was back on Angelo and his nimble fingers, which plucked me away from my body, holding me at arm’s length.
It put enough space inside to allow Lydia room.
I rose up on my knees, sticky arms winding around his neck.
It wasn’t just the desire humming through me that made my heart race.
It was the utter clarity with which I could see the magic they were weaving around us.
I knew that it could... no would work. If Lydia was freed from her prison before dawn, it would draw her here.
It would pull her into our embrace once more.
She couldn’t escape her mate. Nor could she escape me.
I was a part of her. Bound at the soul, twins of sorts.
The intimacy had been unwelcome for a while.
Now I couldn’t imagine going on without her. She had to live. I’d make her live.
I was grateful when Angelo drove me into the muck, obscuring the result of his touch from onlookers.
The scream of pleasure he drove from me was lost in his mouth.
He kept me firmly pinned, so the shifting of my hips was invisible to anyone but him.
Maverick would feel the magical moment of release only indirectly, feeding the simulated intimacy by proxy into the spell.
Though I experienced the sensation, it wasn’t meant for me. Lydia was so clear, so present in Angelo’s thoughts, I could practically feel her. I moaned quietly when he ground his hips into mine ever so slightly and bent to snarl into my ear.
“Lydia, I know you’re out there. Come back to me now, or so help me... I will track you down and paddle you into infinity.”
I felt her. Just a flicker, there and gone, but definitely present. A crack in the bottle. I could touch her. If I could just...
Angelo dug his teeth into my throat, bowing my back out of the kiddie pool.
This time I did scream. Blood welled in the cuts, trickling into the pudding gel I was thrashing in.
The effect was almost instantaneous. For a second that felt longer, we were all present.
Me. Her. Him. All of us were suspended in the muck.
And then the pain began.