Flamebound (29 page)

Winter
2005

M
y humiliation is complete.

I can see it in their faces, in the way some are trying desperately not to look at me while others can't stare long or hard enough.

I can see it in the embarrassed flush on my father's cheeks and the clenched hands, wandering gazes and tapping toes of my sisters.

And, most of all, I can see it in the way my mother's amethyst eyes have glazed over with mortified tears. In the way she keeps clicking together the heels of her favorite, ruby red pair of cowboy boots—like if she hits the perfect spot she'll spiral out of the room just as Dorothy did all those years ago.

Too bad there's never a tornado around when you need one.

I try to tune them out, to close my eyes and pretend that I'm up in my room, practicing, instead of standing here in the middle of my Kas Djedet—my magical coming out party—making a complete and total ass of myself. If I can do that, if I can just forget my audience of legions, then maybe this once I can find a way to make the stupid spell work.

The fact that it never has before is utterly inconsequential to me now. Everything is, except making fire.

Please, Isis, just this once. I beg of you.

There's no answer, but then I didn't really expect one. Except for the day I was born, Isis has been notably absent from my life. You'd think, by now, I would have learned to stop asking.

Still, I concentrate on the spell as hard as I can, repeating the words over and over again in my head like I've been taught. The charm itself is child's play—or at least, to a certain kind of child. But I've never been able to do it. Never been able to do
anything
when it comes to magic, no matter how much I study or how hard I try. Why I let my family talk me into believing tonight would be different, I'll never know.

Maybe because I wanted to believe it as much as they did.

Still, I'd warned my parents, weeks ago, that this party was a bad idea. Told them that I was going to fail. That I absolutely, positively could not do what they so desperately wanted me to.

They'd refused to listen.

“You're simply a late bloomer,” my mother told me. “Your powers will unlock on your nineteenth birthday and you'll do fine. Isis knew what she was doing when she marked you. Trust me.”

“You're just nervous,” my dad concurred. “Once you're up there, the magic will come.”

“Performance anxiety,” my oldest sister, Rachael, commented with a smirk that was a long way from sympathetic. “Good luck with that.” Still, despite her amusement, it was obvious that she hadn't expected me to fail, either. But then, why would she? No one in my family fails. At anything. And certainly not at magic. There hasn't been a latent witch on either side of my family tree for seven generations. And if there
was
going to be one, it certainly shouldn't be me.

After all, with my birthright, I should be loaded with power. Showered with it. It should be leaking out my pores and lighting up everything I touch.

Instead, it turns out that seven is
not
my lucky number. I can't do even the most basic spell.

I try again.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

In the audience, someone clears his throat, coughs, and the small amount of concentration I've been able to muster shatters. I glance around—I can't help myself—and once again see the shock, the horror and disgust, rolling off the witches and wizards gathered in my family's ceremonial ballroom.

Even my own family looks ashamed, like they can't believe I'm one of them.

It's the last straw and more than enough to get me moving, to have me jumping off the circular stage set up in the center of the room and zooming out the French doors that lead to the patio.

Behind me, my mother shrieks my name. In a booming voice, my father demands that I return to the ballroom at once. But I'm running full out now, scrambling to get away from the pity and the revulsion radiating from so many of the guests. They've come from all over our territory, all over the
world
, to witness the Kas Djedet of the youngest, and supposedly most powerful, Morgan daughter. What they've witnessed instead doesn't bear thinking about.

No, I tell myself, nothing can make me go back there. Not when the joke that is my nineteenth birthday party is still in full swing, and maybe not even when it's over.

My black designer cowboy boots, bought by my mother especially for tonight, pound over the hard, packed earth as I flee my yard for the safety and comfort of the peach orchard behind my house. The sweet scent of the fruit tickles my nose but I'm too busy sprinting down row after row of trees to notice. The only thing clear in my head is the need to get away.

I don't come to a stop until I'm at the lake at the very end of my family's property. It's my thinking spot, the place I've been coming to brood and cry and reflect since I was a little girl. As far as I know, I'm the only member of my family to come here, and if I'm lucky, it will be the last place they think to look for me.

Frustrated, fuming, I yank off my eight hundred dollar boots—which are supposed to help me channel magic and instead have only aided in channeling mortification—and hurl them, one after the other, into the lake. As they sink, I feel an incredible surge of satisfaction welling up inside of me. The first satisfaction I've felt all day, all week. All year.

Screw magic, I tell myself as—mindless of the Dolce & Gabbana party dress I'm wearing (again courtesy of my mother)—I sink down onto the moist dirt surrounding the lake so I can dangle my feet in the water. Being a latent witch isn't the worst thing in the world. It just feels like it now because of the party.

Most days, it's actually a relief not to be able to practice magic. After all, who needs the hassle? The responsibility? And who actually wants to touch all those gross potion ingredients, anyway?

A couple of tears roll down my face and I brush them impatiently away. I will not feel sorry for myself. I. Will. Not. Feel. Sorry. For. Myself. It's stupid and useless and utterly selfish. My life is better than a lot of people's, even if it doesn't feel like that right now.

Leaning back on my elbows, I gaze up at the beautiful night sky above me. And repeat the admonishment again and again, until I almost believe it.

I lay there until the heat of the summer night sinks straight through the cold brought on by nervousness and humiliation. Until my arms fall asleep from resting so long in the same position and my neck gets a crick in it for the same reason. And still I don't move. I can't. I'm transfixed by the idea of what comes next. Or, to be more specific, what doesn't.

What am I supposed to do with my life now that it's clear, once and for all, that I am
never
going to follow in my family's boot steps.

College?

Backpacking through Europe?

Getting a job—a regular, run-of-the-mill
job
with no magic involved?

Is it too much to contemplate all three?

The possibilities stretch endlessly in front of me, not nearly as disappointing as they should be. I'm actually a little excited, to be honest, at least until reality comes crashing back down. There's no way my mother will let me do any of those things. No way my parents will just let me walk away from centuries of coven tradition to lead my own life somewhere else. It simply isn't done. At least not for me, the youngest princess in Ipswitch's royal family and second in line to the throne, right behind my only brother. Latent witch or not, my place is with the Ipswitch royal family of witches. No other choice will be tolerated.

Depressed, I pick up a handful of rocks, then skip them across the surface of the lake, one after the other. I'm lost in thought, not paying much attention to what I'm doing even as I'm doing it—at least not until the last stone goes spinning out of control. Instead of jumping harmlessly across the water, it starts to glow, to spin. Then it rises straight up from the lake—about ten or fifteen feet in the air—and hangs there, whirling, for long seconds before it explodes outward. Hundreds of small, burning red pebbles fall harmlessly back into the water.

Eyes wide, heart pounding, I scramble back from the edge of the lake.
Did I do that?
I wonder frantically. But if so, how? I can't even light a candle using magic, let alone make a rock levitate and then explode. It simply isn't possible. No matter how much I want it to be so.

I glance wildly around, looking for some explanation, some
reason
for that rock to have done what it did. But there's nothing, no one, on either side of me.

Just to be sure, I turn to look behind me . . . and that's when I spot him. Dressed in black, he blends completely into the surrounding trees. I wouldn't have seen him at all except for the small flames dancing back and forth along his fingertips.

The show-off.

“What are you doing out here?” I demand, keeping my voice steady with an effort. “This is private property.”

I can't see his face, don't know who he is, but the power rolling off him is unmistakable. Not because of the rock or the fire—both are simple spells for someone who can wield magic. There's just something about him, an electricity that fills the air between us, that overwhelms the peace and quiet of the lake with the unmistakable aura of potent magic ruthlessly leashed.

“Looking for you.” He walks toward me slowly and as he does, he extinguishes the flames that have moved from his fingertips to his upturned palms. I can still see him, though. Away from the trees, the light of the full moon silvers over him.

He's tall, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist and long, powerful legs. I strain to see more of him, to figure out who he is though I am certain I've never met him before. I would remember the aura of raw power that surrounds him—it's not something anyone could easily forget.

With that realization, suspicion whispers through me—an idea so outlandish I can't begin to credit it. But then he takes a few more steps and I get my first good look at his face. Razor-sharp cheekbones where they peek through his dark, chin-length hair. Full lips curled into a sardonic smile. Midnight eyes rimmed with impossibly long lashes. And a face so beautiful, so distinctive, that it's impossible to forget.

I don't know who he is and while there's a small part of me that wants to swoon at his feet, the majority of my brain is screaming for me to run. To get as far away from him as fast as I possibly can.

I choose not to listen.

Instead, I start to ask his name, but he's even closer now. So close that I can see
his
mark. It's a stark black tattoo in the shape of Seba, the Ancient Egyptian star, and like mine, it has been magically cast into the left side of his neck. It's an unusual place for a mark and seeing it has me stumbling, though I haven't moved an inch. I catch myself, force my knees to hold my weight when they want nothing more than to buckle.

Two thoughts hit me at once.

First, that I was right about the power. The man who is even now slowly, inexorably, crossing the last few feet between us, is a warlock of almost unimaginable skill. One who straddles the line between light and dark, white magic and black. One who even my very powerful parents speak about only in whispers, despite the fact that his brother has been dating my sister for years now. Though Ryder celebrates most holidays with us, Declan has never before been invited to our house. I'm not sure he was even invited this time. After all, my mother is adamant that we don't associate with his kind of power.

And secondly, that he's even better looking than the stories proclaim. And that's saying something.

He stops only a foot or so from me and though I want to look away, I force myself to meet the burning gaze of Declan Chumomisto, the man many consider the most powerful warlock living today. Some people say that he's losing it, that he's not nearly as formidable as he once was, but the rumbles only feed the rumors about him. Especially when he can still do things that most witches can only dream of. Standing here, across from him, I see no hint that he's lost any of that power. The air around us all but throbs with it.

Which, unfortunately, makes holding my ground even harder than I expected. Being near him is intense, overwhelming. So electric that I can feel every cell in my body vibrating with the strength of it. It's also scary as hell.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper, when what I really want to ask is
why me?

Why am
I
reacting like this to you?

What did
I
do to attract your attention?

And why did you come out here to talk to me when there are so many more interesting people back at the house?

But reading minds must not be one of his gifts, because his smirk grows more pronounced as he answers my original question. “The same thing everybody else is, I would imagine. I came for Xandra Morgan's Kas Djedet.”

Of course he had. My cheeks burn with shame and I want nothing more than to duck my head and run away yet again. From him, from home, from the whole nightmare of my nineteenth birthday. Still, I might have fled earlier, but I wasn't raised to be weak. Tilting my chin, I ask, “Did you enjoy the show?”

He laughs as predicted, but there's no mockery in the sound—which is totally not what I expected. “Your family will get over it.”

“You know my family?” This is news to me.

“Not really. But isn't that what people are supposed to say at times like this? When royalty screws up, royally?”

Now I'm the one who's laughing. At least he's honest. “Yeah, I guess they are.”

He glances down at my muddy feet. “You want to sit?”

Do I? With
him
? I don't know. His laugh has calmed my earlier terror, but my heart is still practically beating out of my chest. Declan Chumomisto is talking to me.