Chapter 4 #2
“Shame. Who are you planning to assign as my guard?” There were several vampires Quentin wouldn’t trust to watch his back, and a few who would actively throw him to his enemies.
Many weren’t a fan of Jaks’s ‘human pet’ as they called him when Jaks wasn’t around.
He didn’t appreciate the nickname, but he also didn’t want to start a war over their pettiness.
It wasn’t worth the wasted energy. The vampires who saw him fight were more respectful, mainly because they knew he could incinerate them with a spell.
Unfortunately, that was only a handful of them, and Quentin didn’t have the energy or interest in proving himself to those who wouldn’t find him worthy, no matter what he was capable of.
If they didn’t try to confront him or his mother, their opinion meant little.
His mother had raised him with positive self-esteem, and he wouldn’t let bitey sycophants undermine it.
Jaks kissed the top of Quentin’s head, lulling him into a false sense of peace before dropping the verbal bomb. “Braed.”
Quentin sat up to glare at his lover. “Ugh, why him? You have several less annoying vampires.”
Jaks grinned. “Because they will let you get away with too much. Braed is your mother’s sire and intimately involved in her life. He will be the most invested in making sure you don’t rush into danger.”
Quentin wrinkled his nose. “Isn’t their relationship a bit incestuous? He’s her sire.”
“It doesn’t quite work that way,” Jaks said, amusement in his voice. “I know I said I didn’t want to change her because of our relationship, but that was only so I didn’t have that kind of connection with my mother-in-law.”
Quentin choked at Jaks’s phrasing. “We aren’t married.”
Jaks hooked a finger through Quentin’s necklace and pulled him in for another kiss.
“Lovely, we are already bound by magic and soul, a certificate won’t change our relationship.
The consort ceremony is only for the others.
” He tucked a strand of hair behind Quentin’s ear.
“We can also file human paperwork if it makes you feel better.”
“That didn’t sound patronizing at all,” he said, deadpan. He pinched Jaks’s side and frowned when the vampire didn’t react.
Smug bastard.
Time to get their conversation back on track. “I’m just saying, shouldn’t he still be introducing her to vampire life, not running around after me?”
“I’m certain he’s introduced her to the vampire life quite thoroughly.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Quentin.
“Gross. Stop that. That’s my mother.” He couldn’t help laughing at Jaks’s ridiculous expressions. “Fine. I’ll take him, but I won’t need him today. I’m going to stay home and wash clothes and do some gardening.”
“Promise me you won’t leave the house.”
“I promise.”
“If you need to leave, call me, and I’ll have someone meet you here.”
“I will.” He wanted to protest being watched over like a child, but he knew it was Jaks’s instincts to protect his consort, so he didn’t object.
They could have that battle once the bond smoothed more.
Quentin could feel the low-key humming between them.
The sound had a slightly rough texture as if things weren’t settled quite yet.
Hopefully, time would take care of that.
After one more kiss, Jaks slid out of bed. He didn’t look at Quentin while he dressed.
“Are you heading out right now?” Quentin tried not to pout. He had been enjoying the rare experience of lounging in bed with his lover. None of his other brief relationships had reached that stage.
“Yes. I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on, and the sight of you in bed is terrible for my motivation.”
Quentin sighed but didn’t protest Jaks’s leaving as much as he wanted to. He could hear the unspoken statement that his lover had fallen behind because he’d been spending too much time with Quentin. “Thank you for being there for me. Sorry, I’m such a mess.”
Jaks leaned down and kissed Quentin. He only lifted his mouth once Quentin was hard and panting. “You are the perfect amount of mess. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Quentin watched his lover walk out of the house with a smile on his lips. He might have questionable, shadowy enemies, but his love life was going well, at least for now. He didn’t have enough experience to tell if it would stay on that path or veer horrifyingly off.
He decided to spend the afternoon gardening. He didn’t want all the hard work his mother did to fall apart. It had gotten dangerously close to dying off while she’d been in the hospital. He didn’t have the same green thumb, but she had taught him enough to make sure things didn’t die.
After sliding out of bed, he dressed in his best gardening clothes, a soft T-shirt, and a pair of tattered shorts that had gotten on the bad side of some thorns a few years ago. He shoved his feet into the thick-soled shoes he kept by the back door and grabbed a pair of gloves.
Ten minutes later, he was kneeling on a gardening mat among the flowers. Time to do some weeding. Before he put on his gloves, he remembered he needed to feed the earth.
His mother usually did this part, but he’d watched it enough times to know the process. ‘Hearts have to care for their land,” she’d say. “Feeding the earth a few drops of blood every time you garden bonds the property to our bloodline.”
Now it was his responsibility to ‘feed the garden’. He hadn’t shared that with Jaks, unsure of how the vampire would react to Quentin’s blood purposely being anywhere outside his body.
The ceremonial folding knife was in its usual location inside the bucket of tools he’d retrieved from the small toolshed. His mother had stashed it there for convenience. It was only used for shedding blood in the garden and was sterilized after each use, usually by Quentin’s magic.
He flipped the blade open, sliced his right palm, then his left. Once the blood was flowing freely, he pressed both hands to a patch of bare ground. His mother always said it didn’t matter which part of the garden was bloodied as long as it was somewhere on the warded property.
A soft hum rose quietly from the earth. Quentin tilted his head at the sound.
This had never happened when his mother performed the ceremony.
Before he could puzzle over the change, the noise increased incrementally until it vibrated his bones.
The flowers around him bolted up several inches, and the still summer day gained a breeze that smelled of warm earth, magic, and possibilities.
Ancestral power from family members he had never met swirled around him in a joyous greeting of shimmering gold, before sinking into his chest. Gasping for air, he choked on the thickness of the magic pushing its way inside.
He tugged at his hands. They didn’t budge an inch from their meeting between earth and skin.
“What the hell!”
Panic jolted through him like an electric shock. His magic, reacting to an unknown attack, spiked. A responding punch of energy flew from the soil and straight through him, rattling his bones. He clenched his teeth as more power than he’d ever channeled burned through his veins.
The ley lines.
He recognized the magic. The low buzz that had followed him during his childhood sought to claim him now. To absorb him into the world’s network, even if it had to rip the magic from his marrow.
Quentin threw back his head and screamed.
“Quentin!” His father’s voice broke through his cocoon of terror.
A warm chest pressed against his back as Lars Trehorn, fae king, wrapped him in protective arms, channeling away the overwhelming weight the ley lines had pressed on his body.
“I got you.”
“H-help,” he struggled to get the words through the magic being yanked from his core.
Lars slid around Quentin, keeping contact on his right side to counter the drain on Quentin’s power. The fae king’s fingers circled Quentin’s wrists. The burning eased from an uncomfortable roaring flame to a warm, comforting fire.
“Deep breath.”
Quentin sucked in a needed lungful of oxygen the exact second that Lars yanked his hands clear of the ground. He choked on the fresh air when the connection broke.
It took him several minutes to get his lungs working properly again. A panic attack dulled his senses into a faded blanket of gray.
“Shh, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” His father wrapped his arms around Quentin, rocking him back and forth while making nonsense calming sounds. “Nothing to fear, just a little magical backlash. You shouldn’t channel ley lines directly, my dear child.”
It took ten shaky breaths in and out before he could speak.
He counted. It was several minutes more before he could articulate what had just happened.
He didn’t count those.
“I-I didn’t do it on purpose. Mother always said we should blood the garden to keep the land’s connection to our family.”
Lars rubbed Quentin’s back. “Which is fine for a regular human with a small hedge witch inclination. It’s not all right for a fully mature, powerful wizard right next to a ley line.”
“What did I do wrong? I thought I would be feeding energy to the garden. The ley lines felt like they were trying to eat me.”
“They were.” Lars brushed the sweaty hair back from Quentin’s face. “What they don’t teach you in that fancy school of yours is that ley lines used to be part of an exchange between magic users and nature.”
Quentin frowned. That didn’t match up to what he remembered from his studies. “I thought they were generated by pools of natural energy in the earth.”
“They were originally formed by nature, but humankind did what humans do. They got greedy. They started draining the ley lines to gain more magic for their rituals, for their personal use, for whatever they wanted. They thought they were getting free extra magic at no cost. Instead, they drained the world.”
“Then why are there still ley lines if they were drained?”