Chapter 20 Luciu #2
“Yeah.” I toss my keys onto the old nightstand by the door that serves as my entry table. “She wasn’t crazy about it, but she understood. I don’t think she liked it, though.”
“Will she like Gracie?”
I snort and can’t help but grin at the idea of my witch wife and Mom together. “I think Mom’ll be a big fan.”
“That’s the spirit.” Vyslan claps his hands together. “What do you want me to do?”
“I, uh, don’t know…”
“Well, what do you need to move?”
“Some clothes. Toiletries. But mostly, I need a desk and my rig.”
“Don’t worry about the desk, mate. Unless there’s something you prefer?”
“Kind of… Just…”
“You like your things how you like your things. Don’t worry. Do you want to take all your clothes? Or leave some here? I can start bundling things up real easy, then shrink ‘em down.”
“You… You can do that?”
“Sure! This move’ll be a piece of cake.”
“Wow. Uh, okay. Then, you want to take the bedroom while I work on breaking down a rig?”
“You got it.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “Any surprises I should know about?”
“No, dude. Nothing you haven’t seen before.” I chuckle. If he expects me to be shy about anything in there, he’s got me pegged wrong. “But thanks for the thought.”
We split up after a quick tour, and I settle into my office.
The first half hour or so is just checking email and reaching out to clients to let them know I won’t be taking jobs for a few weeks while I relocate.
Some of these opportunities will have to be directed to someone else since they involve traveling.
There might come a day when I’d be willing to ask Gracie to go with me, but right now I think it’s more important that we stay close to the home base.
I’ve got a feeling in the pit of my stomach that things with the coven are far from settled.
For witches and warlocks, moving is a much more involved process than it is for humans or most other magical beings.
It means cleansing the new home, creating wards, and getting in tune with the location.
Most of that has already been done, and Gracie’s wards are solid.
With her permission, I’ll add some additional security, but that’s a straightforward process.
Mostly, I need to tune myself to the land, the house, and the energies of the other inhabitants.
At the top of my list, I want this time away from work to figure out where I’m going to fit in this family.
It’s clear to me that Gracie is very bonded to Ezra.
There’s a lot of history with Puck and, by extension, Darius that creates a layered relationship I don’t share.
Vyslan is a wildcard. Given that he isn’t from this world, I have no idea if that is a permanent connection or not.
The way he is with Ezra and Gracie makes me think he isn’t leaving anytime soon.
I know she’s talked to the others, and things are moving and solidifying. Me? I have no idea how I fit into things. I can infer from the handful of conversations we’ve had and the kisses we’ve shared that she isn’t opposed to my presence. But I don’t yet know what we are to each other.
She isn’t kicking me out. I should be overjoyed. Happy to just exist in her orbit. But I’m not.
Applying to the coven meant I had to bend my ideals.
I had to shift my priorities. I’m not willing to move away from Mom, and Mom won’t give up Lilith’s Lounge.
So, I’m stuck here. And that meant being ostracized from the general witch community.
It's hostile enough most warlocks have chosen to move to other cities rather than stay here. Some do remain because of family ties back to the coven that make things easier for them, and others simply can’t afford to.
Being matched with Gracie is a touch of fate.
She’s everything I could have wanted in a witch wife.
Maybe more. And I’m finding it difficult to rein in my own dreams for the future now that this opportunity is in front of me.
I’m definitely punching above my weight in this relationship.
Vyslan slaps the desk next to me. “Here you are.”
I blink at the clear box of assorted breath mints. “Um, thanks? Does my breath smell or something?”
He laughs and leans his hip on the desk. “Nah, mate. That’s your bedroom. I packed it all up nice and small like that.”
“You—what?” I lift the container and give it a shake. “They look like breath mints.”
“Nah. So I color coded them, you see?” He gives me a rundown of which color matches toiletries, pants, T-shirts, underclothes, dress clothes, and lastly outerwear and accessories.
To say I’m floored is an understatement. “Fucking hell, man. That’s awesome. Thank you.”
“So…” He claps his hands together and rubs them. “What’s next?”
“I, uh… I haven’t made much headway. Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
I power down my primary rig and spin to face the demon. “I’m… Not sure where to start in here, if I’m being honest.”
My phone begins to ring the moment the words are out of my mouth. I pull it out of my pocket and blink at Gracie’s name on the screen.
That’s unexpected.
I click the answer button and put it on speaker. “Hello?”
“Luc!” Gracie’s voice vibrates with excitement. It’s hard not to smile just hearing her say my name. “Crazy idea. Do you have a minute?”
“Yeah.”
“Wait. You’ve been gone a while. Are you okay? Did you make it to your apartment?”
“Yes. Shit. I should have told you.”
“This is great! Are you still going to move your stuff?”
“I was thinking that might be for the best…”
“Okay, well—like I said—crazy idea. You might hate this…”
“Go on…”
“You know the antique shopping strip across from Witchweed?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, there’s that cute vintage shop at the end.
It’s run by a family of gnomes. Long story short, the family moved out of the apartment over the shop when the patriarch had some mobility issues.
He’s ancient. They turned the apartment into two small office spaces.
I guess they’d planned to rent one to some sort of family friend to run their business out of and find a tenant for the other, but it’s been nothing but a headache for the last few years.
Long story. Lots of drama. Anyway! I don’t know how much room you need to run your business, but would you be interested in looking at the space?
I also kind of, sort of mentioned you by name, and the family is very eager to talk to you about, um, beefing up security on their personal hoard. Sorry.”
“That, uh… That would be great. Yeah. Thanks.”
“Oh, thank the goddess.” Gracie blows out a breath. “I don’t know where you’re working out of now, but I’m guessing this whole binding thing is going to throw a wrench into it.”
“I’ve just been working out of my place.”
“Oh.”
“So, yeah. Having a place across from the shop would be pretty fucking ideal.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Oh, good. I’ve been stressing and spinning my wheels about how unfair all of this has been to you. It’s a relief that something might just work out. How goes packing?”
“Vyslan turned all of my stuff into breath mints.”
“He—what? I’m sorry…”
“It’s just a bit of transfiguration,” Vyslan blurts out.
Gracie chuckles. “Can it be undone?”
“Of course!” The demon huffs and rolls his eyes. “It’s just an old trick to help move things easier. I know you humans move things in their original state, which is completely impractical, but if you want to…”
“No!” I grab the container of mints and shove them in my pocket. “This is better than renting a Uhaul.”
“I’ll say. Okay, see you two soon!”
“Gracie?” Vyslan shouts.
“Yeah?”
“Any news about the Logan fellow?”
Her tone turns dark. “No, nothing yet.”
This is my chance. I lean toward the phone. “I’ll get my stuff set up later and see what I can find.”
“Really? I mean, I know you said something about helping before, but you really don’t have to. This isn’t your problem, Luc.”
Gracie has a lot of people in her corner, yet she seems to want to handle things herself. Puck, Vyslan, and Ezra aren’t afraid to do for her, regardless of what she says. Now, it’s my turn.
“Hey, what are blood-bound husbands for?” I chuckle and wish I’d left off the blood-bound part.
“I really appreciate the help, Luc. Shit. I’ve got to go!”
The call ends abruptly.
Vylsan sighs and shakes his head. “You should be more honest about how you feel.”
His words make me jump a little, and I stare up at him with wide eyes.
Right.
He knows things.
“It’s, um…” I rub my hands on my jeans. “Look, I’m doing the best I can.”
“Have a little more confidence, mate. Don’t forget that you’re the reason we were able to rescue our vampire damsel in distress so quickly. Gracie hasn’t. I promise you that.”
I start to mindlessly unhook the monitors and accessories from my primary rig while my anxiety builds.
Gracie liking me is the goal. Mom always did say I needed to guard my heart more carefully, but that’s one thing I’ve never been able to do.
I fall fast and hard. Most of the time it’s been with people who weren’t able to commit or weren’t emotionally available. But with Gracie? I can see it working.
Vyslan glances around my workspace. “Shit, mate. How many computers do you need? Isn’t there another one in the living room?”
I chuckle. “Oh, that’s my gaming computer. I have three set-ups, and more in the closet.”
“Three? What do you need three for?”
“One that’s purely personal. The gaming computer.
That’s where I install all kinds of shit and fuck around on social media.
But because I need to partition my brain or else I’d get distracted working, I have this rig.
I do all of my work stuff here and a fair amount of the pre-work for my jobs.
That other rig is my sandbox. Nothing is stored on it because I often have to wipe it completely fairly often.
I do a lot of security testing and research on it. Hacking when necessary.”
“We’re taking all of it, yeah?” Vyslan asks.
“I was just going to take this one…”