Mind & Matter (Tethered by Temptation #2)

Chapter 1

Quinn

I wasn’t waiting for Doctor Oz anymore, or blaming Miss Q. This was my reality now… maybe a second chance. And I wanted to experience every bit of it.

The Architect wouldn’t decide my fate.

Tentatively, I reached forward and plucked a single coin out of the pile now sitting on my desk.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I let my Majekah rush forward.

The coin dissolved into chunks of gold, bits of metal, and some gray powder.

A small black shape zoomed out of the pile and buzzed around my head twice before I lost track of it.

I sighed.

This was getting ridiculous.

I turned a page in Rowan’s magic book. The final colors of sunset faded into the night, leaving my room too dark to read.

Fortunately, books made of scrawl glowed on their own, and each gray page blurred with the speed of my search.

Counting money must be too basic to include.

I leaned back in my chair and wrinkled my nose.

Nothing worked like it used to. I couldn’t even turn the lights on. Electricity, energy as I knew it, was now magic, raw power I couldn’t figure out how to channel.

I bit my lower lip. The past few months, real or Miss Q’s delusion, had changed me. Instead of living in fear of being different, I’d done whatever I wanted, no matter what anyone thought.

Honestly, it hadn’t always worked out, but did it really matter?

Not just because I might wake up any minute, but because the consequences weren’t catastrophic.

I opened my pocket-void and pulled out a small bag to put the remains of the coins into.

My first few days were a masterclass in bad manners. Accidental lap-sitting, too much eye contact, and telling the dangerously good-looking commander at the gym to take off his shirt. Rowan, the mountain of an elemental mage who’d made me lose control on horseback, and I had something.

Something we shouldn’t. He was under contract.

I sighed, struggling to regret our moment, stupid, horny virgin that I was. I scrubbed a hand over my face.

Cayden was the opposite. He didn’t make my pulse spike or my brain short-circuit. He was calm, grounded. He listened. I’d toyed with Cayden and somehow gained a best friend.

But being nice to Brody got me a stalker. People were weird.

My dad told me over and over that I couldn’t control others. He taught me to change myself to keep the peace. He’d been right. I can’t control other people. But he’d also been wrong: I didn’t need to change myself.

I was out! A he-turned-she.

Some people treated me differently. I got a lot more waves, but none of the people who encouraged me to hide my gender said a thing.

I scrubbed my face again, only to feel grit on my fingers from the destroyed coin.

If I were being honest with myself, I wanted my gender reveal to change how three specific people thought of me.

But Rowan was with Angela. Cayden dodged my kiss. And I’d have to stop avoiding Ezra to figure out what was going on there.

There’s nothing like getting turned down by my own subconscious, right, Miss Q?

I took a deep breath.

I was doing it again. When things didn’t go my way, I just assumed all of this was a delusion and I was still on the operating table. But when things did go my way, I found myself happier here than I’d ever been in my old life.

I couldn’t just exist until I woke up anymore. I needed to know what was real and what wasn’t, and that started with getting enough freedom to at least figure out my magic and not spend hours carting books around and oiling tack.

Which brought me back to the stupid bag of gold I couldn’t figure out how to count.

What was I supposed to do with it? I couldn’t exactly take it to a bank. Maybe I could hire someone to count it. Did this world have accountants?

A pang of homesickness brought a tear to my eye. I’d woken up in a pitch-black cave, but there’d been padding under me, and a single red LED which died seconds after I woke. That cave had answers, but to get to it, I’d have to face Gandalf again.

“Thou shalt not pass,” I said to my empty room.

Gandalf’s famous line from The Lord of the Rings. It was too fitting. A chill ran down my spine. Birds chirping in my memory was my only warning before a vivid echo from scenario one stirred.

Gandalf, flanked by his twin boys, walked at my side, his staff thunking on the dirt path with each step.

It wasn’t the cool wizard’s staff from the movies, more like a really tall stick with some nonsense doodles carved along it; basically, what I’d get if I ordered a wizard staff from Temu, but it only made the old Gandalf look-alike more endearing.

The forest came to an abrupt end at a cave mouth. I’d stumbled out of here three days ago and had yet to go back in. Fear made my hands tremble, and I clasped them together.

“The cave is not what it was,” Gandalf said. “It’s only the echo of fear now, and you are brighter than its shadows. You proved that the moment you crawled out. Let’s walk back in, not as who you were, but as who you’ve become.”

Just like in the movies, Gandalf made a ball of cold white light out of magic.

“Fear fades when we stand together.” He held out his hand. “Let’s be near, and I will carry the silence for you.”

I’d taken his hand once, but now that memory tangled with another, his twin boys holding me down. If I hadn’t teleported, they would have raped me.

Facing him meant facing all of it again. I couldn’t do that alone.

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them with my face practically in my pile of gold.

No metallic scent stung my nose. A hint of acid and a slight zing of power made me itch.

The little textured circles glowed with magic tinted the same color.

There were no heads on one side or dates.

A tiny rune was etched into the bottom of each one, but that was it.

My dorm room door banged open.

I started shoving gold back into the bag.

A woman giggled and raced up the stairs with Erick hot on her heels. She turned in a delighted circle, and her simple green dress twirled around her wide hips. Erick wrapped his arms around her waist and lowered her onto the couch.

I got the last coin into the bag and gently hid it in the bottom drawer of my desk before closing it with a thud and clearing my throat.

The woman screeched and tried to jump, but Erick and his oddly strong arms had her pinned. He turned his head, probably well aware I was here before he even opened the door.

“It could be the three of us, you know?” His long coral hair fell across his face. “Ivy doesn’t mind sharing, do you, pet?”

The woman, Ivy, peeked at me and shrugged.

I narrowed my eyes. “I thought I was your sister?”

Erick tucked his hair behind his ear. “You’re whatever I need you to be.” He grinned. “I promise our new friendship will benefit you greatly.” His eyes glowed. “And if you decide you want an Adler Michelson growing in your belly, I wouldn’t object.”

I soured, lemon pucker and all. “Do not want.”

Erick chuckled. “Do not want, yet.”

He turned back to Ivy and buried his face in her ample cleavage.

If Brody waited for me in the hall, he could just kill me this time.

Fortunately for me, Brody wasn’t at my door, and my subconscious took me to the gym, the place I went to my very first night here to avoid everyone.

I stepped into the dark room and immediately remembered I couldn’t activate the cauldrons.

This time, the lack of light fit my mood.

I stepped inside and dropped to the floor, leaning against the door.

My stomach growled, and I barked out a bitter laugh.

I’d gone through so much to get money I didn’t know how to use.

But I had it. Fuck me. I’d asked for help, drawn attention to myself, and benefited.

Either Miss Q was having a field day, or this is what it was to have friends.

The door opened, nailing me in the back and pushing me forward. I yelped and scooted more to get out of the way. A body slipped inside, and plum-purple fog filled the gym with light.

I squinted.

“Why are you sitting against the door?” Ezra’s low, rough voice was unmistakable.

My heart raced in my chest. When we were coming back from The Green, he’d appeared with six enforcers at his back. I’d instantly assumed I was in trouble, and he was coming to haul my ass to a cell, so I couldn’t run.

After talking, I wondered if he’d brought them for extra security.

He was eager for me to meet the man who’d risked his life to heal me.

Alexander, the Architect, who ran this entire family, was a mentalist capable of messing with a person’s thoughts.

Nothing anyone said about the Architect matched how I’d been treated here, except Chancellor Morgen’s assurance that he only saved me to pop out his kids.

That stuck with me. This world valued fertility more than anything.

I clenched my fists and looked at Ezra towering over me. His shadow stretched across my knees like an invitation and a warning. “I’m leaning against the door because I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

I wasn’t sure if I meant in the gym, this castle, or in this world. Maybe all of it.

Ezra lowered himself until our shoulders nearly brushed, close enough that my breath bounced off his arm. “Did you get what you needed from Willow?”

“Yes.” The single-word answer tasted like acid on my tongue. Did I admit I didn’t understand money in this world? Did I trust Ezra? Was I ready for the possible time-traveler conversation?

I clasped my hands together and felt my heart beat between mine and Ezra’s even breaths.

The answer was no.

He was hot as hell, and my crush still made my head spin. He’d saved me, twice. It wasn’t the attraction that scared me; it was how safe I felt wanting him.

But.