Chapter Two #2
I couldn’t help it; I felt the blush creep up my cheeks. Not openly, but in the privacy of my own quarters, I’d fantasized about love for most of my life. But that’s what it was, a fantasy.
“Can I replenish that for you?” Donovan looked at me with soft eyes, pretending not to have noticed me drift off—I told myself it was the booze in his tumbler.
“I can,” I stated and turned around, eyed the bartender, and waved my empty flute in the air.
“Hope your mom doesn’t see that.” His voice rumbled next to me, making a silent path from my ear to parts I didn’t want to mention in conjunction with Donovan. “If there’s any night you’re expected to act like a lady, it’s tonight,” he continued.
The bartender handed me my freshened beverage, and I said, “Thank you” before turning and looking at the man next to me. “You know, you always got on my nerves, even in grade school, when I was nothing but a kid who looked up to you.”
“A kid? Younger than me? By three grades?” he teased.
Donovan was exactly three years older than me. I knew because we shared a birthday in February. “Maybe that’s part of your powers, dominating those younger than you?” I couldn’t help the small chuckle escaping me.
“And now, tell me—do I still get under your skin at the old age of twenty-four?” Donovan chose to ignore the reference to his skill set—igniting discomfort in the form of physical pain—probably because it was the opposite of mine.
“I didn’t say under my skin, Don. We all know what you can do when you get inside someone.”
“Do we now?”
He raised an eyebrow, and I let out a small chuff. Leave it to Donovan to turn my mentioning his evil magic into a sexual joke. We’d known each other practically all our lives, but when I found my ability to take pain away and Donovan discovered he could dole it out, we became unlikely friends.
As for my shortening his name, I wasn’t sure why. I preferred to keep a formal boundary between us.
His palm ran over my exposed forearm. The dress revealed about as much skin as Mama would tolerate.
Never one for sleeveless or strapless, she expected a short sleeve at a minimum.
This year I went with one three-quarter sleeve and one bared arm in an off the shoulder sheath she’d turned her nose up at.
Although she couldn’t say much since I came running every time she needed my magic, including the two times I’d been sworn to secrecy—when my father found himself in bed with another woman.
I’d erased his lover’s ache while my mom doled out a tongue lashing to my father.
“I like the feel of your skin,” Donovan whispered out of nowhere.
“I didn’t say you could touch me” was my response despite the goose bumps breaking out along my flesh. He might have annoyed me for most of my life, but I wasn’t immune to his handsome face and brutish body. Not to mention his gruff voice sending ripples through my core.
“You’re right. My apologies. Maybe I wanted you to see my hands can be as gentle as they want.” He finally pulled his fingers away, and I regretted my rapid response.
When he wasn’t looking directly at me, I caught him throwing a quick glance at the other corner of the room…the one opposite Bruno. Looking closer, I saw he’d been clocking his brother, Magnum, tossing back a drink and chatting with several people.
“Where’s Cinder?” I couldn’t help but ask about Magnum’s fiancée, who was always hanging on his arm.
Cinder was sweet, and under other circumstances we might have been friends.
But she was engaged to the son of Mama’s closest friend, Ceci, and I tried to keep my family and friends separate.
It made for less involvement, on my mother’s part, in my life. For the record, I enjoyed my solitude.
“I don’t know. I was wondering the same.” His voice was deep and grumbly, and tickled over my nerves in a good…no, pleasant, extremely soothing way.
“Maybe she’s off somewhere with her mom, looking at some new jewels in my mother’s wardrobe.” It was a likely scenario, especially knowing all of them the way I did.
“Hmmm, maybe.” He gave me a glance, the side of his mouth curving up.
Then he pushed off the bar an inch or two, and I already missed him even though he didn’t leave yet. I bit my tongue, punishing myself for thinking it. Love, relationships—none of that feeling stuff was for me.
Raising his glass, Donovan said, “Merry Christmas, Tulya.”
“Why don’t you call me Tuvy?” It came blurting out of my mouth and I wasn’t sure why, other than I was trying to delay his departure. Tilting my head, I allowed my red waves to mask the blush creeping up my cheeks.
He leaned to the side, narrowing the already slim gap between us, and the shivers appeared again. I’d been corralling my magic long enough to know that heartache brought heat to my spine, and happiness carried the opposite sensation.
His profile a breath away from mine, he spoke. “Because Tuvy is for friends and girl talk. To me, you are a full-fledged woman and you deserve to be addressed as such—Tulya.”
My toes tingled and I shivered as if ice had been dripped down my back, even though the fire was roaring in the corner and the room was filled with warm bodies. I’d never been told I was a woman. Mostly I’d been used for my capabilities, my own feelings often disregarded.
“Oh…” I didn’t have any other smart quips. “Happy holidays, Don,” was all I could come up with.
“See you in the new year,” he said as he lifted fully away from the bar and walked off, leaving me to wonder why I’d asked about my nickname.
It wasn’t like me to care, or at least admit it mattered.
Mama would never allow me to pick who I might love; my magic was too powerful to share with a partner she didn’t choose.
It was the reason she had me sequestered in a cottage on the property.
And ultimately, why she let Bruno do what he wanted.
His only resource was fire starting, and she’d hoped he’d marry a woman with deep powers.
But now he was Rubia’s resident playboy.
Thinking about my brother had me looking up and catching him with his right arm around Prim and his left around the blonde.
I tried to catch Prim’s eye, but she purposefully avoided me.
I’d made it clear over the years that I wouldn’t help her if she fell for Bruno—something she never paid any mind to.
Deep in thought, I didn’t notice my mother saunter up on the other side of me.
“He’s shameful,” she said, and I didn’t have to pull my head up a second time to know who she meant.
“This night, it’s never a happy one for him,” I reminded Mama, mimicking Prim.
“Meet my eye, Tuvy,” she responded.
I turned to the side and met her gaze. Since I’d turned sixteen, Mama had this hang-up about meeting someone dead-on when talking with them. It yielded a different kind of influence, to let them know you were in charge. She was well practiced at the task.
I met Mama’s gaze and spoke again. “It’s this night,” I repeated.
“You and I know better than anyone it’s not a happy one.
” It had been—I counted in my head—fifteen years, and Bruno still hated the Christmas party.
Then there was poor Mama, who lived in a betwixt-and-between place of being pleased over my coming into my potential, and staying mad at Shelby for ruining Bruno.
“This night has remained joyful ever since then. No one would dare ruin my holiday party ever again.” She ran a hand over her smooth auburn hair, straightened and silky.
For her late fifties, she didn’t look it in her cobalt blue gown, accentuating every fit curve.
Some said it was her daily running with the animals, others believed it was surgery.
“No one would. That’s true.” Maybe that was the one small reason why I enjoyed this night every year; I was guaranteed not to be called upon.
“I don’t like your friend hanging on him,” Mama said sternly about Prim.
“I can’t control her, and neither can you.
” If there was one thing my mother despised, it was being reminded that her ability to control and change minds only reached as far as animals.
Although she had been honing her most recently gifted power, and quite frankly it was something I never wanted to experience.
I could only imagine if she’d had the magic ball capability when Shelby had hitched herself to my brother.
Lord knew she’d tried to influence Shelby long before the failed engagement.
“I expect you to have a word with her” was Mama’s only response before walking away.
After a long breath, I turned and ordered one final glass of bubbly before retreating to my cottage, alone.