12. Magic Tricks
CHAPTER TWELVE
Magic Tricks
The next week passed in a haze of research and much less productive activities. No longer compelled to ignore the spiraling heat in our bond, we found ourselves being unproductive multiple times a day, and I’d greatly enjoyed ending each day in her bed, in her arms.
Lucia was nearly as nocturnal as me, so we would sleep until late afternoon, then wake and take a quick motorcycle ride over to Gertrude’s to pick up her daily translations and often some sort of homemade dinner.
Tonight, I was reheating veggie ravioli when Lucia wandered into the kitchen in one of her more revealing black lace dresses.
She gave me a soft smile as I placed a steaming mug of tea into her hand and kissed her cheek.
“You know, I never really ate breakfast before you.”
“First, you can’t really call it breakfast if it’s at three p.m. Second, you need energy for that big brain of yours.”
“And what about you?” She eyed the spoon in my mouth and then the empty jar on her counter. “My bees are going to have to start working overtime.”
I’d finished what she’d had, but had woken up two days ago to three fresh jars laid out. She must have collected it from the apiaries behind her greenhouse while I’d been focused on getting the last broken panel down.
“Moth metabolism. Sugar is the only thing that really keeps up, and honey is way more nutritious than the fructose you can get at the store.”
She smiled and stepped closer, running her fingers through the hairs at the back of my neck until a tingle went up my spine.
“Is that why you’re so sweet?” she asked, sounding innocent despite the evil grin on her face.
Heat rushed up my neck. “Oh, you mean my…”
She chuckled softly, leaning in and gently tugging on my earlobe with her teeth until my cock twitched painfully. “I don’t only mean that.”
She ran her hand down the front of my jeans, and I groaned. “Hey, we made a rule—no sex until you get at least one line of translation done.”
She pulled back, pouting. “I didn’t see you enforcing that yesterday.”
Guilty. But she’d been ovulating, and her pheromones had been off the charts, and she’d been entirely feral. How was a guy supposed to resist that?
“Yeah, but the full moon is coming up soon, so we really should—”
She stepped back immediately, and it felt like the bond had been doused in ice water.
But why?
She wanted this bond broken, didn’t she? She certainly acted like it, spending every waking minute without me between her thighs working on the counter-spell. She was the one who had made the rule!
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You’re right.”
“Lucia…”
“Let’s get to work. Not much time left.”
She walked away, and the bond tugged, so I followed. Near the door, she shrugged on her jacket, but as I got closer, the pain didn’t lessen.
“Is it that glyph you were stuck on? Should I call Gertrude?”
“No,” she said harshly. Then she took a deep breath and shoved the pain down. I hated when she did that. “No, I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
The new glass for the greenhouse had been delivered that morning, so I grabbed it off the porch and carried it to the greenhouse, following after her. Like I always did.
She settled into the chair we had brought out there for her to work in, her fingers striking the keyboard with more aggression than necessary.
Her sadness and frustration were bubbling like a cauldron in her chest, and if she had been a storm witch, there would have been a very angry cloud over her head.
Instead, the vine behind her twisted until the leaves looked more like blades than photosynthesizers.
I wanted her to talk to me. I understood the instinct to shove it all down, to let the list and the work keep you from working through it. Hell, I’d done it for years. But I didn’t want her to do that, and it was about more than the fact that I could feel how it was tearing her apart inside.
I wanted her to trust me, because the truth was, I trusted her. This last week had been one of the lightest and most enjoyable of my life. And it wasn’t the sex.
Well…it wasn’t just the sex.
Because I could no longer rush to my brothers’ rescue over every little thing, they had been figuring things out on their own. Motthew had been keeping me up to date via text. At first, each one had sent anxiety spiking through me, but now they were mostly just manageable questions and selfies.
My list was the shortest it had ever been. All I had to worry about was getting new parts for the greenhouse and finding new ways to make Lucia fall apart.
She’d taken care of everything else.
Despite not being able to communicate with others, she’d set up a network of systems that kept her life running—a second garden full of edibles to minimize her trips to town, Gertrude, whom she’d worked out some sort of number-code system with, and an uncrushable will that solved everything else.
For the first time in my life, I was with someone who didn’t need anything from me. I trusted that she could take care of both of us, and that was more freeing than I’d realized.
But she didn’t trust me. I’d seen that two nights ago when she’d asked me to go on a ride around eleven p.m. I’d asked her why, and she’d deflected until I’d gotten on my knees and teased her into compliance.
“That’s—not fair—Mothman—” she’d panted as I’d looped both her legs over my shoulders and pinned her to the kitchen counter.
I hadn’t been able to respond, my tongue buried deep inside her pussy.
She’d tugged my hair, but I could be bratty sometimes. I’d learned that this week too. I didn’t give in to her, as much as I wanted to.
“Okay—it’s medicine—people in town—need—”
I’d rewarded her, sucking the delicious nectar out of her until she’d released more all over my face.
We’d ridden around town, her commanding me to cut the engine before we got too close to any one house so she could sneak up and leave her gifts on porches in the light of smirking jack-o’-lanterns.
We’d made the last delivery, and she’d climbed on behind me, holding tight.
“Why was it so hard for you to ask for my help?”
What I’d meant to ask was why she was hiding the best part of herself from me.
The part that cared so deeply for a town that had shunned her that she continued to care for them, skulking around in the dark like she was guilty of something.
I thought about the pain it would have saved me over the years if someone had done this for my brother, especially before the generic of his medicine had come out.
“Let’s just go home, Hawk.”
She’d shut me out so fast I’d regretted asking anything at all.
It was because she had everything taken care of. She didn’t need me. But every once and a while, that flame inside her would light when she solved a tricky problem, or when I made her laugh. It was just as beautiful as that first night—and happening more frequently—but it never lasted.
Right now…she was glowering. All the plants around her were wilting, and plants were never wrong.
I installed the last panel and stood, wiping the dirt off my hands.
“Finished!” I turned around, smiling at her, hoping she would return it.
Instead, she grew darker and mumbled, “That was fast.”
No. I couldn’t have that. She might not need me, but she was stuck with me for now, and I was going to use that to my advantage. And I was a selfish mothman. I wanted to be the reason she glowed.
I’d already taken off my shirt, but that hadn’t been enough. Time to break out the big guns—metaphorically speaking.
“You’re not the only one with magic tricks, you know,” I replied, moving closer to her.
She perked up at that. “Oh, was your mom a witch? I didn’t think mothmen could—”
Before she could finish, I reached behind her ear in one fluid motion and produced a small wrench. I twirled it between my fingers before making it vanish again. “See? Magic.”
She resisted for a moment, but then she laughed, and the bond hummed pleasantly from both sides.
So much better.
“Quite an advanced bit of spellwork.”
“Told you I was good with my hands.”
She grinned, the flowers around her blooming as she leaned forward. “That you are…”
The rustle of wings and a skirmish behind the feverfew had us both looking up, and Mugen flapped out, a mouse in his mouth.
He landed on her laptop, shutting it, then walked in a circle, giving me a very pointed look before presenting the pest to her.
She laughed again, and my wings twitched in annoyance.
“Aww, who’s my good boy?” She tossed the mouse aside and leaned in to cuddle his neck.
He glanced back at me again—smug as hell.
Oh, fuck no.
I swiped the cat off her lap and put my face in her hands instead.
What? He landed on his feet. He was fine.
I cocked an antenna at her. “Me?”
She paused for a second, then laughed for real. Not a chuckle, not a giggle. A genuine laugh that lit her up from the inside out.
I’d done that.
“Yes, you are.” She leaned down and kissed me, and the bond thrummed with light.
And I realized just how hard letting it go would be.
Maybe I didn’t want this spell broken.
She pulled back.
Had she felt that? How much I wanted to stay by her side?
Her eyes went wide. “Hawk, I—”
But then Mugen hissed, and not at me.
In the distance, gravel crunched beneath tires in the driveway, and a flock of ravens flew overhead like a bad omen.