Chapter 29 #2
“What about you?” I ask in a whisper, fingers drifting from his side to the planes of his lower abdomen, tracing the hard ridges of muscle, the deep vee at his hip leading right to the place I want to—
“I’m not going to hold myself back when you touch me, star,” he says in a low murmur, fingers wrapping around my wrist to stop it from going any lower.
“I’m not going to be quiet. And as much as I’d like for that to happen this morning, I won’t put your friends in the awkward position of hearing how loudly my mate makes me come. ”
Heat flushes through me, eclipsing any momentary frustration at being denied the chance to get my hands and my mouth on him.
Besides, the more I think about it and the more the lust clears, the more I realize he’s probably right.
Rhett and Joan absolutely do not need to hear the two of us getting it on in their guest room first thing in the morning.
Heat flushes through me again—pure mortification this time.
Did they hear us getting it on in their guest room first thing in the morning?
I strain to listen, but can’t tell if there’s anyone else awake in the apartment. No voices, no footsteps, but that doesn’t mean anything. They could very well have heard me despite how hard Callum tried to keep me quiet.
I roll out of bed.
Callum grumbles a little, but doesn’t stop me as I hurriedly throw on a sweatshirt and shimmy back into my shorts before I tiptoe toward the door.
“Be right back,” I whisper. “Gonna go see how much apologizing I need to do.”
More grumbles, but I slip out into the hallway and listen again. All quiet, and even quieter as I pad into the living room and peek around the corner.
Heading into the kitchen, I find that it’s empty.
As a matter of fact, the entire apartment seems empty. Silent, with no sounds from Joan and Rhett’s bedroom and no sign they’re still here.
Glancing at the window, the first rays of dawn are just lightening the sky, and my question is answered for me when I see the note on the counter.
Went down to open the shop. Come grab a cup and say goodbye before you go.
I nearly laugh out loud.
Of course they’re already up and gone.
There was absolutely no reason for me and Callum to be quiet, no reason I couldn’t have pulled down those shorts and found out exactly what would make him lose control.
I’m of a mind to do exactly that, damn our hunt or delaying us from getting to wherever we’re going next.
But before I can, he appears in the kitchen door.
Back in his human glamour, hair tousled from sleep, wearing another set of my dad’s clothes, he surveys me where I stand at the counter. His eyes trace a leisurely path up and down my body, leaving a trail of heat burning over every inch of me.
Goddess, I could tackle him right back into that mattress.
I could yank off that ring and get my hands on the real Callum, find out how to make him as crazy as he made me.
But he’s already dressed, ready to get out of here and off to our next stop, so I bottle that feeling up for later.
Because there will absolutely be a later.
Now that I’ve gotten a taste, and despite what might be any better judgment or rational thought, I already know there won’t be any stopping this.
My magick makes me single-minded, obsessed, focused, determined.
And now it’s just found a new prize it absolutely won’t be satisfied until it wins.
“You’ll be careful?”
“I always am.”
Joan scoffs. “Sure, sure. Seren Pendergast, the absolute definition of caution and restraint.”
“The one and only,” I tease, and enfold her in a quick hug. “Yeah, Joan. I’ll be careful. And I’m not alone this time, so that’s gotta increase my odds of making it back here alive.”
She sighs and hugs me back. “I had a demon with me too, and that didn’t stop my ass from almost ending up six feet under.”
It’s a grim reminder, but her tone is light, joking, and after one last squeeze, she lets me go.
Even this early in the morning, there are already a half-dozen patrons sitting in the shop sipping their morning beverages, and a handful more waiting to be served.
A few of them I recognize—other witches who’ve left the coven, many of whom never made it past the first tests the Council puts to young witches.
The tests decide who receives the coven’s prestigious training.
Those who don’t pass wind up with only a rudimentary magickal education and spend the rest of their adolescence in the mundane world going to public school.
I’ve never felt completely comfortable with this crowd.
Joan has always been nice enough to invite me, and sometimes the little gatherings in her tea shop do include other witches who left the coven after they made the cut.
But mostly there’s a ton of awkward tension hanging in the air.
The recognition of who we are and the different paths we’ve taken.
The echoes of the division the coven sows between us from the moment they decide who’s worthy of joining their ranks and who’s not.
Even though it’s been a decade and a half for me, and far longer than that for some of the other witches, resentments like that last for life.
It’s just one more thing to feel guilty about. It’s one more chip on my shoulder, the feeling of being ungrateful, of squandering the chance I’d bet more than a few of them wish they’d gotten.
I know it’s not my fault things shook out the way they did, but I’ll be damned if I can make the guilty lump in the bottom of my stomach believe that whenever I hang out with this crowd.
But I don’t have to dwell on it for long today, because after Joan makes me and Callum some drinks to go, we’re ready to hit the road again.
Hit the road where, I don’t know, but Joan’s insight about where we might find our wielder—or at least some wielders who could give us an idea of where to go next—is still ringing in my ears.
It’s… not enough, though.
I need a better reason than a rumor before we go on a wild goose chase.
My magick stirs, restless and begging to be used.
The last time I drew on it, it led me right into a death trap with those lizard fae, and though I’ve never been gun-shy about drawing on my power, I hesitate.
“What’s wrong?” Callum asks from where he stands beside me on the sidewalk, just outside Joan’s shop.
Interesting, how perceptive he is.
Maybe he can sense my turbulent magick and my reservation about using it.
Or maybe I’m just not as mysterious as I like to pretend I am.
I glance up at him and see my own disquiet echoed back at me in the furrows of his brow.
“I have an idea of where I’d like to look for this wielder,” I say. “But I’m… not sure. I wish I had a better plan. Or some kind of confirmation. I don’t know. Just something better than a hunch.”
He nods thoughtfully. “Is it something your magick can help with?”
I worry my lower lip between my teeth, and he reaches out to smooth a thumb across my chin.
“You don’t have to,” he says hurriedly. “If it wouldn’t be a good idea for you to use it after everything you’ve been—”
“No.” I make myself stop fretting, make myself stop being such a worrywart. Because I’ll be goddessdamned if there’s anything that gets to me like someone—even inadvertently—insinuating I’m not strong enough to do something. “It’s fine. Come on, follow me.”
Grabbing Callum’s hand, I lead him down the sidewalk to the alley between Joan’s building and the one next to it where I left my car last night. With a quick glance up and down the alley to make sure no one else is around, I close my eyes and reach for my magick.
Like a trusty old friend, it’s right there. Always right there and ready for me whenever I call for it.
Even though this isn’t exactly going to be a smooth ride.
Almost immediately, it flares bright and just a little out of control, flailing without a solid anchor to latch onto. It’s not visible, but for someone who’s magick-sensitive like a witch or a demon, it would be pretty hard to miss.
Callum sucks in a breath. “Seren.”
I squeeze his hand. “It’s alright.”
It’s as much reassurance as I can give him. Drawing on my power like this isn’t easy, but it’s what’s going to get us closer to winning the fae queen’s prize.
Eyes closed, muscles taut, small beads of sweat breaking out on my forehead and the back of my neck, I dive deep into the reserve of power I rarely have to touch.
My magick is always harder to summon when I don’t know what I’m looking for.
If I’ve got a specific object, a person, a place, it’s easy enough to call it forward in my mind’s eye and get a picture of where I need to go to find it.
In the absence of that, I pull forward what I do know.
A human wielder.
A stack of love letters, painstakingly written and read hundreds of times.
A cottage where two people from different realms and different worlds might have fallen in love.
A twisted, darkened version of that love, of that idyllic cottage, a thousand stories I could make up about what might have happened there.
A fae queen looking for her heart.
Tendrils spiral and swirl, streams of magick pouring through the not-quite-place where that power lives—little pockets of realms between realms, the domain of the Goddess where all Crescent witches draw their strength.
At first, nothing happens.
Those tendrils flail wildly, uselessly. Everything is mist and shadow, undefined, nothing solid for me to see or grasp onto before it’s gone.
I push harder, dig deeper. My heart pounds in my ears and my muscles shake.
Somewhere distant, I hear a low, graveled, worried voice say my name, but I’m not done.
It’s been ages since I had to push myself this hard.
The last time was in the coven hall.
Esme Hawthorn and a handful of Ascended council members standing over me, testing me, seeing how far the limits of my gift ran.
Seeing how much they could get out of me.
And me, stupidly, thinking they knew best.
Of course they knew best. They were the teachers who’d guided me and mentored me since I was a child. They were the witches I was supposed to trust, the best of us, the most talented, the most powerful. Of course they wouldn’t let me get hurt.
That day ended with me sprawled out on the floor of the High Priestess’s office, my mouth pried open and a revitalizing tonic shoved down my throat to stabilize me.
It’s not going to happen today.
Not like that.
I’m ten times the witch today than I was then, and it takes a hell of a lot more to knock me down.
With one last push, one last deep grasp, all that power finally finds its target.
The answer comes to me in a flash.
A place I’ve been before.
Bustling streets and towering buildings. A mix of past and present, history and modernity. A home, somewhere in a quiet neighborhood, with a wielder inside I very much want to talk to.
A confirmation. Not quite an exact location, but good enough.
I release my magick, tendrils breaking, dispersing, retreating into me like a rubber band snapping against my skin.
“Boston,” I gasp, gripping Callum’s hand even harder as I’m jerked back into my body. “The wielder we’re looking for is in Boston.”