Chapter 23
ANNA
In the library, David tossed Anna a small book. “You might enjoy this one.”
She plucked it from the air. The words Lust Magic were embossed in gold script across the front, followed by a smaller subtitle, The Role of Libido in Our Magical Core.
Flopping it onto their usual table in the library with a loud smack, she said, “You think you’re being funny, but I’m inexplicably interested.”
Green eyes flashed at her, then dropped to his own book. “Page fifty-seven.”
Against her better judgment, Anna opened the book and read three sentences before laughter overcame her. The passage detailed a raunchy deva ceremonial orgy meant to charge their Light.
“Why can it only be done at the full moon?” she asked through her giggles.
“Because,” came David’s dry response, “nourishment of life, obviously.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a metaphor for”—she made the mistake of turning the page—“oh no, there’s a picture.”
A faint smile touched his mouth as the hilarity overcame her. An indulgent, teasing glint in his eye unlocked the smallest kernel of warmth in her chest. It reminded her, strangely, of Sean.
Odd, that. The two men couldn’t have been more different, but for one infinitesimal moment, a similarity revealed itself, there and gone before she had a chance to explore it.
The glint disappeared behind ice, the moment passed, and Anna returned to her regular book in silence.
Days and days had glided by since his mother had returned, and he’d not spoken a word.
Anna was dying to ask how their meeting went but already knew he’d shut her down.
The dread from that day was the sharpest thing she’d felt inside him.
She wanted to understand it, but it was just another David curiosity to add to the ever-growing list.
“Autumn knows about you, by the way,” he said after a few minutes. He kept his head down, gaze locked on the pages before him. “Just thought you should know.”
In the space of one heartbeat, Anna’s insides twisted into a tight knot. “Wh-what?”
A hint of regret darkened his eyes when he peeked up at her, but then he returned to his book.
Hiding from her.
“She, um, figured it out,” he said.
No. No. No.
If Autumn knew, she’d tell Isobel, who’d tell Sean, and then it was only a matter of time before everyone found out.
She’d be the pixie with Morgan’s magic.
They’d want her gone.
Her heart thudded in her temples. She was an idiot for thinking there might be a chance they wouldn’t find out. The I told you so lecture Maddy would give her later…
David winced. “Fuck. How do you handle that kind of emotion? Your anxiety is like thorns are growing in my nerves.”
Anna let out a lengthy breath. “I’m used to it, I guess,” she said faintly.
“You should shield yourself better,” he said.
“I don’t know how.”
David flicked his attention up again. “I could teach you.” The faintest hint of affection skimmed through his ice before it disappeared.
She blinked, stunned. “You’d do that?”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. And…I didn’t tell Autumn, just so you know. She heard us…that day.”
Anna’s jaw clenched. “Ah.”
“It will be okay,” he said, voice soft in a way that surprised her more than his offer to help. Then a smirk ghosted across that dangerous mouth, and they were back on even ground. “Besides, you sort of invited this, didn’t you? Hanging with me?”
She leaned closer to whisper, “You’re the only other child of Morgan I’ve met. I’ve been alone with this for so long.”
His gaze grew shrewd. “So have I. But…they said my bloodline was the only one left to have it.”
She shrugged.
“Where did you get it?”
“I’ve searched years for that answer, and I still don’t know.”
He set his elbows on the table. “Who are your parents?”
“My dad raised me. He was just…normal. As much as a crofter on the Isle of Skye can be. Never told me about any of this.”
One gold brow lifted. “And your mother?”
“Never met her.”
He gazed, unblinking, deep in thought. A long moment passed before he said, “My mother might be able to help you.”
“Your mother is terrifying,” she hissed.
“I would argue she’s more terrible than terrifying.”
Anna fingered the edge of her book, debating. “You…you’d help me with this?”
“I would,” he said, sincerity threading through his tone even though his emotions remained their customary ice wall.
“It’s been ruling my life since I was a kid. Controlling it seems…impossible.”
He gave a slow nod, and for the first time in her life, she felt as if someone finally understood. “Control is my superpower,” he said without a hint of jest. “I can teach you.”
She could only imagine what Maddy would have to say about this, but she acquiesced with a deep breath and a nod. “Alright, then. Show me.”
They walked in silence to the stairs that led beneath the library, where stacks morphed into mazes diving through the giant roots of the Tree.
The passages glimmered with dim overhead crystals and the omnipresent flicker of Luster.
Rare nooks with chairs and tables lodged in off-kilter places, difficult to see without looking closely.
On the main floor, the library was bright and yawning, with wide stairs leading to open upper floors and large windows shedding gold across every surface.
Down here, the place felt a bit spooky, like curious creatures lurked in the shadows, reaching out ghostly fingers in want of things Anna could only imagine.
“Is there really no better place to do this?” she asked, rubbing the goosebumps from her arms.
David shrugged. “There probably is, but this is both the closest and the least likely to be interrupted. Have you noticed no one ever comes down here?”
“Because it’s haunted, obviously.”
He shot an amused glance over his shoulder. “Haunted?”
“At the very minimum, it’s creepy.”
“So is Morgan,” he deadpanned, “so it’s fitting.”
With a nod of concession, she followed until he chose a hidden nook off a sharp corner.
Two red wingback chairs sat catty-corner to each other, and a trio of lavender crystals hung from the low ceiling.
The entire place smelled of vellum and earth, with the barest hint of something sweet, something that reminded her of rain-drenched leaves.
David took a seat and gestured her to do the same, scooting his chair until they sat knee-to-knee.
“The first step,” he said, green eyes darkened by the low light, “is confidence. When I was young, I didn’t know why sometimes people would do what I said, but when I realized it was the way I said the words, it got easier.
And then, once people kept obeying me, I got more confident that they’d do it, and it gave me even more power. It was a cycle.”
“So what happened when you were a kid that brought it out?”
His bare expression darkened a shade. “I just had to really want it. Whatever I was asking for, I was desperate for it.”
Desperate.
A powerful word.
Anna knew his childhood had not been happy. She suspected it had been abusive, as that scar on his forehead had clearly been inflicted by a blunt object. The jagged edges of it tormented her curiosity—and probably haunted his dreams.
She leaned forward. “So how do you do it now? When you aren’t desperate for something. Like, when you compelled me to come to the library with you, how did you do it?”
A wry smile pulled at his mouth. “I was pretty desperate for that, to be truthful. You said you knew about Morgan’s magic, and no one else seemed willing to teach me.”
Oh. She hadn’t expected that. “Okay, then. So that day you made me read to you, how did you do it?”
His gaze turned inward, thoughtful. “There’s a certain timbre. Their eyes always dilate when I reach the right pitch.”
Anna nodded.
“Then, if they resist, I do things to keep their attention on me. I use their name or touch them or get close enough that I’m the only thing they can see. Oh, and it works better when they think it’s their idea.”
Her throat thickened, and she swallowed against it. “Why do you know so much about this, David? How often were you doing it?”
“A lot.”
That was it. No further explanation. Just A lot.
But why? The questions were maddening.
“So try it,” he said. “Think back to how you got me to stop and just do it.”
“But I have no idea what to ask you to do.”
He opened his arms wide. “Whatever you want.”
David must have had little confidence she’d succeed if he was giving her free rein. She took a deep breath and looked deep into his eyes, trying to find the tone of voice he described. “Stand up.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Nope. Not at all. Try harder.”
She leaned forward, narrowing the distance between them. “David,” she said, voice low and sugary. “Stand up.”
He smiled. “That’s a little better.”
She sweetened the sugar. “Stand up.”
He twitched, his hands moving to the armrests as if he meant to stand, but he didn’t. Anna sighed, a flicker of annoyance licking at her chest. She wondered if this was how it felt to try to seduce someone.
Someone not interested.
“Try softening your tone,” he said. “You have to want me to do it.”
She softened her tone to a whisper that, in her humble opinion, sounded fairly seductive for a woman who’d never had the slightest interest in sex. The command washed over him with no more magic than a blown kiss.
He chuckled, and with crossed arms, she slumped back in her chair. “The magic isn’t just your voice,” he said. “It’s in everything you do.”
His gaze slid from her eyes to her throat and downward, and she sensed a distinct shift in him—from practice dummy to teacher.
The smile that suddenly graced his face could have convinced her to strip naked and give him whatever he wanted.
He set an elbow on the armrest and propped his temple on one finger.
Alluring and dangerous, like poisoned wine.