Braving the Elements (8 page)

Stopping in the middle of the cluster of trees and brush, he took out his phone and dialed the number. After four rings
, a gruff voice answered. “Yeah?”

“I followed them into the woods
, but they disappeared.” Jessiah turned where he stood and looked out at the trees, squinting into the first rays of the sun.

“She couldn’t have just
disappeared.
Where did she go?”

“I don’t know. She had that kid Watch Commander with her. He’s good at melting into the trees.”

“Did they know you followed them?”

“No. They seemed disgruntled from their last class.”

The silence hung on the line for a moment. “Fine. Keep tabs on her. Figure out where she goes when she isn’t in class. Figure out where she’s sleeping. Most importantly, get close to her. Get her to trust you.”

“She’s the Boss’ pet. He’s not going to let any harm come to her
; and if it does, and he catches me, he’ll kill me. I need a guarantee I’ll be taken care of.”

“You received the packet?”

Jessiah squeezed the phone. A packet of money had awaited him in his room. Tucked into the bills was an organizational chart of the Eastern Territory’s guard. His name had appeared in the upper echelon. It was privileged information. Not even the boss had that layout, or the names attached. He was
in
. Thoroughly in. All he had to do was deliver the girl.

E
asier said than done, especially with her high-powered friends guarding her.

“Yeah, I got it.” He scanned the trees, making sure he was alone.

“Good. Then you know what waits for you. Just deliver the goods, alive and in one piece, and we’ll bring you over.”

“
How’m I supposed to get her out of here without her guards?” He cleared his throat, trying to erase the whine from his voice.

“You’re attractive and good with the ladies, I hear. Get creative.”

The line clicked off. Jessiah kicked a rock into orbit. How the hell was he going to get her off the grounds?

*****

I walked into the secret room in the middle of the mansion via a door that looked like just another part of the wall. I’d had to use my inner guide
to find the secret entrance and open it. As soon as the door clicked shut, pitch black dousing me, I heaved a relieved sigh and let magic fill me. The colors in the wall swirled to life, the gamut of power forming a complex protective ward embedded into the fiber of the mansion.

Alone time.
I sighed again, just for good measure.

I’d ditched Charles after dinner—eating “dinner” at five o’clock in the morning still felt wrong—ducked away from the chatty, handsome
Jessiah, and bowed my head through the halls of staring eyes. I needed to disappear. To have time to reflect without Charles yapping in my ear. I loved the guy, but after a while, he could be a little much.

I’d been at this magic gig for over two weeks so far. Each class had people
who snubbed, sneered at, or ignored me, and each night ended with another torture session from Darla, who hated me more than most people hate the dentist. I was struggling, and that was putting it mildly. Depression from my inability to learn and fit in dragged at me. The only highs I got seemed to be driving fast, but lately that just bordered on recklessness—the forced joy receding shortly after reality seeped back in. I just couldn’t get it. I couldn’t find my groove.

The
desperate thought constantly squeezed me: what if I didn’t have a groove? What if I could never fit in? If this had all been a mistake, and I didn’t have any way to bounce back, what then?

Forlorn,
I walked through the small corridor until it emptied into a medium sized room, the furniture standing out as black spots among the swirls of the rainbow. There wasn’t much. A couple couches in the middle of the room, facing each other, a desk in the corner, books, and a rug. I couldn’t remember if knickknacks lined the available surfaces, but I suspected not. I wasn’t even sure what the room was used for. Nor did I care. It was secret, safe, and empty. Hooray.

The couch welcomed my butt into its embrace, the
kush
loud in the silent room. And there I sat. Staring. Mind empty. Body filled with magic.

I could hold more magic for longer, now. I pushed down the euphoric feeling, took comfort in the vibrant pinging within my skin, and relaxed with it.
Jessiah said I shouldn’t have magic always at my disposal, that it could burn me out, so I tried to force it away as often as I remembered. The thing was, though, it seeped in naturally. It lingered happily. I just kept forgetting to push it away again.

Today, though, I didn’t feel like stressing about it. I wanted to relax. I wanted to forget about school.
I actually wanted to hang out with Jared. I no longer had the same feelings for him, but he’d been a friend. He’d been someone to laugh with and hang out with. He’d been a big part of my life, and I still missed his presence.

I hoped he was happy
. I hoped he found a good gal to go with his awesome job. He was smart, he would land on his feet if given half a chance. And Stefan had given him just such a chance. I owed Stefan a thanks for that.

Trying to find peace, I blanked my mind and just
felt.
Just let my magic run through me, gushing within me like blood.

A half-hour into my induced state of paralysis, I heard a distant door click, the magic in the walls swirling like ants confronted with a boot. The closing click sounded a minute later, leaving silence in its wake. Another thirty seconds and light bathed my solitude in a soft glow.

Stefan appeared from a corridor on the right, a faded black T-shirt hugging his deliciously defined body. His hair had grown, the tamed messy giving his chiseled face a rogue look—bad boy meets professional model with a trip through the computer for some airbrush. His expressive dark eyes studied my pose as he walked near, noting my slouch and lack of interest in how my limbs spilled over the leather cushions.

He settled on the couch opposite me, eyes still studying.

“Lights.” I nodded, not bothering to look around since my head weighed too much. “That makes seeing the details easier.”

“Were you afraid someone would find you if you had them on?”

“Hadn’t thought about it, actually.”

“Then why didn’t you turn them on?”

I would have shrugged but my shoulders seemed just as heavy as my head, and therefore, immovable. “Didn’t know they existed.”

“So you’ve been sitting in pitch black…why?” His eyes stayed trained on my face.

My eyes stayed trained on his body. Each bump and valley gave me a pang of longing and flare of arousal. It was then I realized another thing I had constantly missed. Him. Seeing his face, talking with him, even for just a moment, feeling his touch. My body constantly reached for his, noticing the absence when he wasn’t around. In the same room as him, I didn’t feel desperately alone anymore. I didn’t feel like something was missing. I wasn’t hopeless.

Lot of good it did me. His lady love reminded me of her claim on him nightly.

“I’ve just been watching the colors swirl around,” I said absently. “I wonder if they’d move if no one walked around within the house. But then there is always wind. I wonder if they would swirl in a vacuum? Neat experiment. We should try it.”

“What do you mean, swirls?”

“Ugh, you sound like Darla. The magic. In my limited vocabulary, it swirls.”

“And you can see this…here?
In this room?”

I frowned. “Not as much when the lights are on, but in the pitch dark, yeah. It looks like the northern lights. Which
are really cool by the way. I’d love to see them again. Maybe they look different with magic.”

Stefan
’s gaze slid past me, his gaze scanning the walls.

“You can’t see that? Or maybe you never tried?” I asked to fill the potentially awkward gap.

He shook his head slowly in a noncommittal response, his gaze returning to me. “You’re blocking your link somewhat. You’ve been doing it often, lately. Why?”

This time I went through the trouble of shrugging. I didn’t want to admit that it felt weird
flirting with Jessiah when Stefan could peep at my emotions. I had no idea where it might lead with Jessiah, or even if I wanted it to lead anywhere, but I wanted the freedom to make that decision away from prying eyes.

Black eyes stalked me like a lion on the prairie. He probably had some idea where my thoughts had traveled, and judging by the clenched jaw and
forced-even breathing, it didn’t thrill him.

“Why are you in here?” he asked.

“I’m tired of people. I used to live alone. Now I have Charles around all the time. I barely get time to—“ I cut off before I could embarrass myself by saying something intimate, and instead said, “shower.”

His eyes caught fire, but he ignored it. “Charles came to find me. You panicked him. He thought you’d run off.”

“Sorry about that, but I can’t have him following me constantly. It gets overbearing.”

He brought his hands to his lap and intertwined his fingers. I got the distinct impression he wanted to go find a chain and secure me to something heavy. It didn’t take a genius to know I tested his patience.

“We’ll work something out. Please inform him in the future, however. Your ability is known now throughout the clan. Reaching the black power level is still largely a myth, but blowing up chairs, singeing off hair, shooting fire from your dagger, and other such things tend to raise eyebrows. You use red with so much power, it can’t stay contained. Even if you never got beyond red, that type of magic is… unusual. Jealous inspiring. Being a human, you are…”

“Not taken seriously? Hated?
The butt of practical jokes?”

The corners of his mouth tweaked. “Anomaly fit
s better, I think. Interesting.”

He only thought that because he wasn’t in my classes. “Well, my saving grace is my
in
ability. I’m struggling with everything but elements.”

His jaw clenched again. “Yes, I am contemplating tutoring.”

“Oh, good,
more
of my day down the toilet.”

“Night, you mean.”

“Semantics.”

His lips tweaked up further. He considered me for a minute, that half smile revving up my sexy systems and reminding me of how long it’d been since I’d been touched.
Since I’d been kissed. Charles kept pushing me to take part in the house freedoms of sexual expression, but I had this insane fear that people would start making fun of me for my deficiency in sex as well as magic. I also feared that it wouldn’t end the dry mouthed
thirst
that I’d had quenched with one
dream
of Stefan. What if it was him, and not just the lack of sex in general?

Still assessing me, his voice lowered when he said, “You never came to report to me. I’d hoped you would.”

It took me a moment to figure out what he was referencing. “With an update, you mean?” Charles had mentioned something about that, but the constant badgering from Darla had chased it from both our minds.

Stefan
nodded, a relaxed movement, as though this conversation had switched gears, now dribbled in honey. “I haven’t seen you in a while. I’ve missed you.”

It took a second for the words to register. He was entirely serious. His eyes had taken on an intimate, soft quality I remembered from when he walked me home.

“Do…”

I stopped with that one word. You couldn’t very well ask the guy if he missed other people, too. If this was limited to me, and by it being limited to me, if it meant he viewed me with more importance than a mere subject. How lame would that sound?

His eyebrows quirked, wanting me to finish.

“Um.”
Suddenly, that weird thing deep inside that felt his pull had to know if he had any semblance of feelings for me. If he, perhaps, felt even a fraction for me like what I felt for him.

“
Hmm.” But how to phrase it.

Big breath.

“Is, um, that normal? Wanting—I mean, you know, missing a…minion. Or whatever?”

I was a dynamite linguist.

A smile flickered. “Open the link.”

With magic already occupying my body like blood, I merely had to swish away the muffle on
our connection, and there he was, pouring into me. His impassive face contrasted the emotions warring in his body. Warmth glowed through him, tingly anticipation at being in the same room with me, and the desire to stay in my presence. Arousal flamed, but was overshadowed by his belief in me; in his confidence that I was doing well, and would continue to make him proud. He was showing how much he supported me, and what it meant to sit calmly, relaxed, in the same room without worry of his status or position. With me, he got to be a man, not a leader.

He liked me
!

God, I was a dumb girl, but I could barely talk! The electricity in my body surged
to enormous heights. It suddenly occurred to me that we were alone, in a secret place that no one else would find, at the end of the night. The way he was looking at me, too, implied his willingness to whatever I wanted; going our separate ways, talking, snuggling, other…things.