Chapter 4
Sometime early the next morning—it felt early, but that could have been me being exhausted and healing—I woke to a hmmmm very close to my ear. I cracked my eyes and swatted at the annoying mosquito. Which was not a mosquito.
“Oh, good! You are up,” Kinnek said when I blinked the sleep from my eyes. His nose was about two inches away from mine.
The moment I stirred and swatted—Kinnek was too quick for me to actually hit him—Inkiri started clicking.
“What?” I turned back around to Inkiri. “Sorry, did I fall asleep on you? Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
Kinnek straightened. “You are a very apologetic human.”
Inkiri’s breath ghosted over my hair. “He doesn’t want to be a burden.”
What I wanted was to not be the center of attention, but from how Kinnek was looking at me, I was.
Also, Vergis was taking apart and possibly cleaning his gun on the coffee table and glaring at me.
I lifted my head farther off Inkiri’s chest. Okay, maybe Vergis was just looking.
That bagu definitely had resting bitch face.
Kinnek rocked on his feet. “Look at the sweet human and his doting mate! Anyway, sweet pea, we’re going to do a little bit of magic this morning.”
I groaned. “I don’t feel too well.” That immediately started Inkiri fussing again.
“Perhaps it’s best to let him rest more, Kinnek? He’s so delicate.” Inkiri inclined his head while he said it. Huh. Interesting. Was Kinnek more important than my something-like-a-prince mate? Said mate pulled the blanket up and over me again.
Kinnek made a very human noise of total dismissal. “When I say a little, that’s exactly what I mean. I want to see him draw from the land. You need not worry, Inkiri.”
I worried. “Huh?”
“Kinnek wants to see your Lady magic.” Vergis sneered, timing it with the clickety click of his gun fussing. Ugh. Showoff.
“I do not have—you said I was a conduit and couldn’t do magic!
” I pointed an accusing finger at Vergis.
Was it possible to clean your gun in a derisive and mildly threatening way?
If so, that’s what he was doing. Did it even need cleaning?
How often did you clean guns, and did you really have to do it when you were a guest in someone’s home?
Kinnek shrugged. “A mistake that could’ve happened to anyone. Muffin gave it his best guess. You are clearly not a conduit, are you?”
Donna appeared in the doorway, hands on her hips, and cleared her throat.
“You’re cleaning that paint stuff off my patio when you’re done, yes?”
Wilson had followed her in and sauntered over to Vergis. The chicken eyed him for a moment before she pecked at his ankle.
Vergis hissed. “Chicken soup,” he mumbled, locking eyes with Wilson. After a few seconds of eye contact, Wilson strode off, and it looked like she was doing it with attitude. I liked Donna a lot, but it was possible that I liked Wilson even more.
Kinnek clicked his tongue. “Snickerdoodle, leave the fowl be, and don’t threaten members of the household with your cooking. Donna, Vergis will clean your patio for you once we’re done. He’ll be happy to.”
This time, Vergis definitely glowered. He said, “I need more coffee,” reassembled his gun with scary efficiency, holstered it, then stood up and went to the kitchen.
Inkiri turned on the couch so we were face-to-face. “Sadir, shall we see if Kinnek can help you with your magic? Do you think you feel well enough to try?”
If he hadn’t sounded so darn hopeful and so darn optimistic about all the magic stuff, I would’ve told him I was having a migraine, but how could I lie to a bagu who cared for me as if…as if I were someone special?
The answer was: I couldn’t.
“Sure. Let’s.” I managed a smile at Inkiri, even if I hoped that all the magic I might have ever touched had vanished, fizzled out, like the bubbles in an open bottle of soda left in the fridge for a month.
The only problem was, if I was being honest with myself, I knew it hadn’t. But maybe Kinnek could help me get rid of it, and then I could go about my normal, non-magical life.
The rain had let up, and the weather was getting back to being sunny, maybe even a little bit too sunny for my liking. I blinked up at the bright blue sky and the sunlight filtering through the leafy trees surrounding the property.
There were a lot of fields filled with rows upon rows of plants, along with several greenhouses, and some goats in a pen. I spotted a large white dog as well, lounging on the grass, and a calico kitty sleeping on the dog’s back. It reminded me a lot of Inkiri and me.
What I was trying to ignore, hard, was the ko circle, the magic circle, right in the center of the patio.
I fidgeted with the hem of my shirt and tried to look anywhere but at that circle, drawn on neatly and almost perfectly round.
It looked out of place here. A big fire bowl sat in one corner of the patio, and a comfy lounge chair in the other.
Between them, a tentacled garden gnome smiled as if it wanted to lure me into a dream.
Kinnek stretched until his shoulder joints popped, clearly eager to get started. At least it was just him out here with Inkiri and me. Vergis would’ve just made me extra nervous. Inkiri drew me to one side.
“It’ll be fine, Sadir.” His hand was a steady presence on my back. “Kinnek is very skilled. I’ve heard rumors about him, back on Aer.” Inkiri paused. “If anyone can help you control what you can do so you don’t get hurt like this in the future, it’s him.”
Fudge, but Inkiri’s eyes were overflowing with love. I couldn’t disappoint someone who was looking at me like that, I just couldn’t.
I remembered our conversation about magic—my non-standard variety of magic—back on Aer after we’d gotten married…
what, a week ago? This was supposed to be our honeymoon, not him taking care of me like he had.
It should have been constant ravishing, and instead, cola asshats with guns had ruined it all.
That aside, he’d said he wanted me to know how to handle my magic, for my own sake. In a way, that was both sweet and supportive of him. Except, the way I saw it, magic wasn’t all that great to have.
“I really don’t want it,” I blurted out without intending to. “The magic. I don’t want it.”
My eyes started to water, but I didn’t want to fall apart.
I mean, I totally wanted to, but I didn’t want to make Inkiri the guy who had to take care of his husband all the time and didn’t get to have a life and joy of his own, so I did my best to…
woman up. Cat, when she’d still been alive, before the darn apocalypse, had always said that to me.
Woman up, Rory. It was almost like I could hear her voice whispering to me on the air.
Inkiri clicked and hugged me close. “Sadir, I’ve been thinking, and Kinnek has hinted.
Your magic may have been what planted the mate call in my heart and mind.
Of course, before, I thought the mate call happened after the fusing of the veils, but what if it came at the same time, the moment you first reached for your magic?
What if I was handed the privilege of being your mate only because of the magic? ”
Privilege? He was so humoring me right now, never mind that he totally sounded like he believed every word. “I’m pretty sure I’d still love you without any kind of mate call, Ink. I’d have fallen for you anyway.”
He rubbed my back. “Oh, Sadir. You keep rewarding me with your love, and I feel like I have never done anything to earn it. But no matter. We might never have met without it; remember that. I felt you that day in the department store, knew that my mate was finally, finally near. Say I hadn’t—”
“The monster would’ve eaten me. That cramp would’ve made me fall off the chair, and the monster would’ve seen me with all those eyes, and then…”
Inkiri clicked. “Well, I like to think you would’ve managed to outrun it, but you’d still be alone.
Lonely. Rory, my precious human mate, you have spoken of your reservations about your own magic before, but even if you fear its power, I adore it, because I am convinced it brought me to you.
You are my true mate, but also a man who loves me.
” He pulled back and smiled down at me. Dang it.
He looked composed, in the most supportive way.
“And an adventurous human who enjoys my barb and lets me take care of his average-size cock.”
Kinnek had wandered off, presumably to give us some privacy, so this wasn’t half as embarrassing as it could have been. Besides, he was complimenting me in what I was pretty sure was the bagu way. I could be gracious about a compliment.
“Pfft.” I flicked his chest, but my bagu was solid. “Keep my cock out of this.”
He tilted his head this way and that. “I enjoy it too much to keep it out of my mouth.”
Okay, fine, what was that thing about how it was good to have a humorous mate? I loved that Inkiri was trying to cheer me up here, and he was succeeding, which honestly begged the question: How had I landed this guy?
Woman up. Cat’s voice echoed in my head. I tried standing up straighter so I could project confidence I wasn’t really feeling. “Okay, I’ll do this. If only so I can learn how to never do magic again.”
Inkiri smiled down at me. “Learn who you are, Sadir. That will be enough.”
With that ominous piece of advice, I walked over to the ko circle.