Chapter 14 The Wave for the Win
FOURTEEN
The Wave for the Win
When we got home, I went straight for the bedroom.
Declan had put the bedding on. The sheets were a warm brown that reminded me of his eyes.
I’d had the comforter custom made. Alaskan king comforters weren’t common.
I’d chosen a deep green brocade, with subtle medallions in varying greens and browns.
Our bed was looking appropriately foresty.
Declan picked me up and tossed me onto it before climbing on himself. “This may be the greatest bed ever made. Look at this.” He stretched out across the narrow side—if one could call anything about this thing narrow. “I fit going this way too!”
Grinning, I climbed on top of him and stretched out with him. “There’s so much room now. I guess we don’t need to cuddle up together anymore.” I tried to roll off him, but his arms came up, caging me in.
“Where do you think you’re going? We have a football field of bed to make our own, starting right here.” He pulled my top over my head and drew me in for a kiss that had me yanking at his clothes.
Much later, we finally made it to the kitchen for dinner.
“I can grill a couple of steaks?” Declan suggested.
He’d added a grill to the side deck. The outside stairs to our second floor flat crested at a deck that spanned the whole side of the building.
The far end had a perfect ocean view. Most of the deck, though, looked out over the trees between Declan’s property and the B&B next door.
I considered steak. I normally wasn’t much of a meat eater, but that sounded good. “Okay. Do we have vegetables to go with it?”
He looked in the fridge. “We should. I can grill the zucchini.” He pulled out a yellow one, grabbed a cutting board, and got to work chopping. “Do we still have those garlic twists you baked?”
“We should.” I looked in the freezer and pulled out a plastic baggie filled with them. I watched him a moment, fixated on his large, beautiful hands, the way the muscles in his arms moved as he chopped.
“Whatever you’re thinking over there, cut it out or we’ll never eat. I won’t be accused of starving my pregnant mate.”
I often forgot that he could scent emotions, like lust. “You’re doing all the cooking. What should I do?”
Grinning, he looked over his shoulder. “You should give me a kiss.”
So I did.
“And you could keep me company while I grill.” He pushed all the zucchini pieces off the cutting board and into a bowl. He drizzled olive oil over them, hit them with seasonings, and stirred before pouring them into a metal mesh basket.
“I’ll get the steaks in a few. The zucchini takes longer.” He held out his free hand for me, and I took it.
While he cooked us dinner, I went down to the end of the deck to watch the waves.
The sun had set while we’d christened the new bed.
The sky had a stranglehold on the last of the reflected light, the ocean taking on an otherworldly periwinkle color.
This was my favorite time of day. We had only a few minutes at most before the light changed and the landscape returned to normal.
Declan wrapped his arms around me and rested his chin on the top of my head. “My favorite time of day.”
Why that made me tear up, I didn’t know. I held on to him and breathed in the perfection before the magical light disappeared.
Declan kissed the top of my head and said, “Dinner’s ready. Let’s go in.”
He went to collect our steaks and veggies, but I stayed at the railing. A person was walking along the opposite side of the road, toward my gallery, and that person was making me uncomfortable. They hadn’t done anything unusual or problematic, but I didn’t want them near my gallery.
“Arwyn?” Declan called.
“Be there in a minute. I need to make sure of something.” He went in, but I continued to watch. The person—slight, in black jeans and a black hoodie—slowed at the gallery. Yes, there were things to look at, but it felt menacing.
Declan was back, his arms slipping around me again. “What’s the matter?”
I pointed. “I don’t know who that is, but I don’t like them. They’re up to something. Neither Bracken nor I are over there tonight.”
He kissed my head again. “I’ll run over and scare them off.”
I held on to his arms. “It’s warded. They shouldn’t be able to touch it. I’m trying to figure out who they are and why they’re there. Wait. Look.” I pointed again. “See the way that right hand is moving? That’s a wicche and they’re trying to unwind my wards.”
Declan tried to move again, but I held on. “It won’t work. I want to see what they try next.” Was it Colin? Mom told him he had to be out of town by now. Aunt Sarah, though, loved the creep. Maybe she was hiding him and he was trying to fuck me over for exposing him.
“If it’s Colin, that’s easy. His magic is no match—wait. No. He has no magic anymore.” I tilted my head. “Who is that?”
Declan stared a moment and said, “Whoever it is, it’s not your cousin. They’re pretty far away, but I’d say that’s a woman. Maybe five-seven or five-eight and skinny.”
I looked up at him. “But you can’t see her well, huh?”
He grinned and moved his arms so they were wrapped around my shoulders and chest, keeping me warm. “If you can send a spell to the pack grounds, you can send one down the road to your gallery.”
“I could indeed, but I’m doing reconnaissance. Have you noticed? She hasn’t looked over here once. The magical community—well, the wicche one—doesn’t seem to know I live here now.
“Wait. Look,” I said. “That left hand is clenched tight around something while her right hand is trying to unweave. It’ll never work.
She should have figured that out already.
My fae magic runs through all my wards. A wicche can’t unwind them, but she either doesn’t recognize the feel, the scent, of fae magic, or she thinks whatever is in her left hand will break it. ”
“Is it common knowledge amongst wicches that you’re half fae?” Declan asked.
I thought about that a moment and shook my head. “Mom and Gran kept me hidden away from most wicches.”
“For very different reasons,” Declan muttered.
I looked up at him.
“Your Gran wanted a secret weapon. Your Mom tried to keep you safe from stalkers and envious wicches who wanted the prestige of taking you down.” He shrugged. “It was kind of the same for me. Even as a teenager, wolves were trying to challenge me for the bragging rights of besting a Quinn.”
Lifting his hand to my lips, I kissed him. I knew that wasn’t a happy thought. He’d killed for the first time as a teenager in just such a challenge.
“I think she’s giving up,” he said. “That right hand dropped.”
I pulled the pearl around my neck out of my top, held on, and flicked the fingers of my free hand. The spell pouch clutched in her left hand flamed before turning to ash and sifting to the ground. She jumped back, shaking her injured hand.
“Ouch.” Declan pulled me back from the edge as the woman spun, looking around. “There. She’s leaving. Check your wards tomorrow. Make sure she wasn’t able to do any damage.”
I nodded, letting him lead me inside.
Dinner was delicious and hit the spot. He asked about my new pearl necklace, and I explained my meeting with my dad. Most of it anyway.
“If you’re wearing the pearl at night, does that mean you’ll have nightmares again?” He looked quite concerned. “You’re finally getting some sleep. I don’t want you going back to two hours a night.”
That was an excellent point. I considered. “If I wear it outside my clothes, it won’t be touching me.”
“Sure,” he said with a wicked grin. “But you often aren’t wearing clothes—to my everlasting delight—when we go to bed.”
“There’s that. Okay, necklace goes on the nightstand at bedtime. Good call.”
By the time we retired for the night, I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. The necklace was put aside and Declan pulled me to him. I fell asleep, my head on his chest.
I woke some hours later, but I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t experience nightmares when Declan was touching me. There was something, though. Something had woken me.
I rolled away from Declan and had to keep on rolling.
The bed was comically large. I slipped the pearl around my neck and went to the window overlooking the ocean.
The hooded figure was across the street, standing in pale moonlight and a patch of seagrass.
She was facing this building, her face tilted up to the second floor, while her fingers moved in precise patterns at her side.
I knew she couldn’t see in the windows, but she was definitely sending a curse at us.
I went to the far side of the room and watched a moment. She may have been testing to see if I responded, thereby revealing this was my home. She may have already tried the ward and known. That was probably what woke me.
Regardless, it was only a matter of time before people figured it out. What I wasn’t going to do was stand by while she cursed my home. I pressed the pearl into my chest and held up my hands. Wicche and fae magic wove together, swirling down my arms and around my hands.
I pushed, creating a wall of magic at the fence. Focusing hard on my adversary, I saw the black magic like a puff of smoke drifting across the empty road toward our home. When it hit my wall, I felt a wave of nausea run through me. I shoved the wall and the miasma of black magic back at her.
Anger overtook me, rage that what should have been a safe home for my mate and child was already under attack. Was nowhere safe? I shoved hard, her spell knocking her off her feet, as I pulled on the ocean.
A huge wave reared up and crashed over the rocks, swamping her and washing her into the road.
Headlights appeared. The woman scrambled up and ran to the edge of the road, out of oncoming traffic.
Instead of hitting her, though, the car stopped and picked her up before speeding away. Who the hell was that?
“What’s happening?” Declan asked. He was sitting up in bed, watching me.
Suddenly cold, I flicked my fingers, starting the fire. “Did I mention I love having a fireplace in the bedroom?”
He held up the covers for me to crawl back in. I returned the pearl to the nightstand and moved into the crook of his arm. Head on his chest, I wrapped an arm across his waist. He covered us up and held me tightly while I explained.
“Black magic? Is she a Swan, or do we have more Coreys doing evil magic?”
“That is the question.” I ran my hand up and down his abs. “I’m sorry. They know I’m here now. This won’t be the last magical attack we have to fend off.”
He wrapped his hand around mine. “I knew what I was getting into. This means I need to move up getting a security wall built. The cyclone fencing out there is an eyesore anyway. I wanted some time to decide on the design, but we’re going to fast-track that project instead.”
“Bracken said your construction crew was going to start working on his new apartment,” I reminded him.
“They’re not my construction crew. They work for Kenji’s family’s company,” he said, referring to his second in the pack.
“I think his sister drew up the plans for Bracken’s addition to the gallery.
The fence job is going to be a lot of heavy lifting.
Kenji can get me another all-shifter crew.
” He kissed my head. “Let me worry about that. Once it’s done, you, your mom, and Faith can build additional wards to keep our home safe. ”
I nodded, feeling unaccountably sleepy. Normally, when I woke in the middle of the night, that would be it for me. Not now, apparently.
As I drifted off, my mind kept returning to the lower half of the face I saw under the black wicche’s hood. Declan was right. It was a woman.