Magic on the Storm (8 page)

“Not well.”
“Ha-ha. I’m serious.”
He looked over at me. His eyes sparked with gold, with magic. It was a feral
look, the eyes of a killer.
“So am I. Magic doesn’t follow the rules when it’s being thrown around in a
storm. If a front is big enough, and organized enough that they know it’s going
to hit Portland, and if the wells are somehow being drained by it . . .”
He shook his head and flicked on the turn signal, changing lanes.
“A lot of things could happen. We’ll just have to deal with things as they
come.” He eased the car into the parking lot behind my apartment and parked.
“That’s it?” I asked. “But this isn’t the first wild-magic storm that’s hit the
city. Every building has a storm rod to channel magic strikes. Dad knew what he
was doing when he invented those.”
“They help. But if the storm is big enough, the storm rods won’t be enough.”
Zay turned off the engine and twisted in his seat toward me. “We’ll handle it.
It’s just different this time.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to be there.” He smiled a little, as if his own honesty
surprised him. “These are the sorts of things I didn’t think through when I was
lobbying to get you accepted into the Authority. But now, knowing you’ll be a
part of our fight, of our struggle, against magic . . . that you could get
hurt—” He glanced away. “I don’t know. I know you’re a fighter, Allie. I just
wish you didn’t have to be.”
Actually, that was sweet of him. “I wish you didn’t have to be too.”
He chuckled, and I liked how his eyes curved into crescents. “I’d fight even if
they told me I couldn’t.”
“We’re a lot alike that way. You know I never back down from a challenge.”
He reached over, brushed my hair back, and tucked it behind my ear. “Not the
safest way to go through life.”
“Maybe not. But it’s my way.”
He searched my face, his hand paused to cup the edge of my jaw. I knew he
wanted to say something. I could feel his concern like a hard palm against the
base of my spine.
I was suddenly aware of our connection, of our shared need for the other to be
safe, and our knowledge that it was unlikely either of us would go through life
safe and unscathed. It was hard to face how much we both dreaded the thought of
the other in pain.
I drew away.
“You know what I’d really like right now?” I said, changing the subject, and
trying to change the mood in the car. “A hot shower. Want to join me?”
He leaned his wide shoulders back against his seat and stared out the window
for a second or two. He nodded. “Hot shower sounds good.”
A wave of cold prickled over my skin, a slow, biting chill. Zay rubbed at the
back of his neck. He felt it too. Magic. Pulling, twisting. Magic moving as if stirred
by a wind, as if unsettled by a storm coming over the horizon. Magic that we’d
have to deal with soon.

Chapter Six
T
ime. We needed it. The Authority thought we had it. A day or two before
the storm hit. Which was good. Because I really did want that shower.
Zay and I walked up the stairs and I paused in front of my apartment
door—habit. Didn’t hear anyone moving around in there. I was on my way to a
several-month streak of people not breaking into my apartment, and I wanted
that streak to continue.
I unlocked the door and stepped in, switching on the hall light.
“Stone?” I called out.
A familiar coo, half pipe organ, half vacuum cleaner, answered me from the
corner of the living room. Stone, the gargoyle I couldn’t get rid of, slipped
out from beneath the fall of my curtains, stretched his big, batlike wings, and
tipped his wide head to one side, his ears perked up in perfect triangles.
“Hey, boy. You ready to get up for the night?”
Stone was big as a Saint Bernard, but had a heck of a lot more teeth and
muscle. He clacked, his bag-of-marbles happy sound, and trotted over to me. He
was heavy enough that I felt the vibration of each footfall. He pushed his flat
snout under my hand, then angled his head for a scratch.
Even though he was made out of stone and was alive via magic, he was warm to
the touch and loved getting scratched. I rubbed my fingers behind his ears.
He clacked—happy—then dropped me cold for Zayvion, who knelt and gave his head
the rubbing of its life.
Stone cooed.
“I see how you are,” I said. I shrugged out of my coat, hung it on the back of
the door, and carried my gym bag with me into the bedroom. My answering machine
wasn’t blinking—no messages waiting for me, which was a little strange. I had
expected something from Stotts, since Detective Love had made a point of
telling me he was looking for me.
“Want a shower?” I called back to Zay. I unzipped my bag and dug out my
notebook. Tugged the cap of my pen off with my teeth and opened the book to a
blank page.
It took me less than thirty seconds to note what had happened today, but I
wanted to update it before I spent more time around mega magic users tonight.
Magic hadn’t wiped out many of my memories lately. I didn’t know if I was just
getting better at setting Disbursements, or if maybe having my dad take up
residency in my brain had done something to help with that.
And with all the training I’d been doing, physically and magically, I was
getting more and more nervous that magic was just . . . I don’t know . . .
saving up to take a huge chunk of my life away.
Maeve said the void stone necklace might help block that price magic extracted
from me. Or that my training was helping with the memory loss.
Whatever it was, ever since I’d started training, I’d kept my memories.
Personally, I wondered if it had something to do with being lovers with a
Closer. Zayvion was good at taking people’s memories. Maybe he was good at
helping them stick around too.
“Ready?” Zay said it softly, but I jumped anyway.
Boy was too damn quiet. I glared at him from just inside the bedroom door.
“Make some noise, will you?”
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said all low and sexy-like. “How about I make you
make some noise?”
I smiled. “I thought we were taking a shower.”
“That’s a good place to start.”
“Okay, magic boy. You’re on. First person to cry mercy folds the laundry.”
“After you.” He stepped aside so I could walk past him, and I did too, without
freaking out or even having to hold my breath even though there just wasn’t
enough room in the hall for me and him in the same place.
Of course my bathroom was even smaller.
And it was currently filled with a half ton of living rock who was flushing my
toilet and watching the water circle the drain, his wings quivering in
excitement.
Great. When had he learned to flush the toilet? My water bill was going to be
sky-high.
“Stone,” I said. “Out. Go play with a lathe or something.”
He swiveled his head and looked at me over his shoulder, one five-fingered hand
still resting on the tank plunger.
“Window, boy. Go to the window. It’s dark out. Nighttime. You could go. Out. Go
fly.”
He clacked doubtfully and looked back down at the water.
“Need some help?” Zayvion asked.
“I got it.” I walked into the bathroom, squeezing around Stone, and giving myself
the willies.
I put my hand on Stone’s head and stared straight into his intelligent, round
eyes. “Out.” I pointed my other hand at the door, and tipped his head that way.
He cooed happily at Zayvion, who leaned one wide shoulder against the doorway and
took up all the remaining space and air.
“Getting out of the way would be nice,” I said to Zayvion.
“Oh. Sorry about that,” he said, clearly not at all sorry.
He backed into the hallway and snapped his fingers twice. Stone’s ears flicked
back, then pricked up when Zay snapped his fingers again. Stone looked at me,
clacked, in a why-didn’t-you-say-so way, then lifted up on his two back legs
and waddled out of the bathroom.
He clattered like a bag of marbles being shaken, and Zayvion treated him to another
head scratching and told him he was a good boy.
Fine. Let him play with the statuary. I was taking a shower.
I started the water and stripped, throwing everything but my bra—which wasn’t
wet, wonder of wonders—into the hamper. I did not look at myself in the mirror,
because right now I didn’t care how many scars I had, nor if my father was
going to be looking at me through my eyes. Hot water was calling me and nothing
was getting in between me and the steam.
I shut the door so Stone wouldn’t wander back in, took off the void stone, and
put it on the sink, then stepped into the shower. I dunked my head under the
strong, hot spray and moaned. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to shower at the
gym this morning.
“No fair starting without me,” Zayvion said.
Man was too damn quiet.
But I did hear him taking off his shoes, and then just one clack of his belt
buckle being undone.
The thought of him, of his body, in the shower with me, made me wish I hadn’t
agreed to this little bet.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I called out.
He pulled back the curtain at the head of the shower, caught my arms in his
wide, strong hands, and pulled me in for a kiss.
I sputtered and laughed against his lips as he manhandled me to one side so he
could step into the shower. He tried to pull me out of the water so he could
get in and soak, but I planted my feet.
“Get your own hot water, cowboy,” I said, holding my own under the showerhead.
Zay drew his hands down my arms, his fingers leaving my wrists to caress my
stomach and hips. He stroked back over my ass, and pressed against me
full-body.
Yum.
“What if I like your water?” he asked.
“Then you’re going to have to work a heck of a lot harder for it.”
“Fair enough. I think I’ll start here.”
He leaned down again. This time his mouth found my shoulder. He kissed me
there, his tongue licking over the marks magic had left on me, stroking and
urging the magic inside me to rise to his touch.
I bit my lip on a groan. Magic flared in me, licking hot, and I didn’t even try
to hold it back. Thought, for just a moment, that I should have left the void
stone necklace on. And then I didn’t think about anything but Zayvion, and what
he was doing to me.
Zayvion’s other hand slid up my butt, pressed at the small of my back, while
his mouth moved down to the edge of my breast.
Okay. I was done with the shower. Done with being clean. All I wanted was him.
“Say mercy,” he murmured.
What? Oh no. Hells, no. I wasn’t going to lose.
“You say mercy,” I said. I pulled his head up, my thumbs beneath the scratchy
stubble along his jaw, and then pivoted so his back was against the wall and
the shower fell on both of us.
He smiled, wet, hot, gorgeous, and leaned his shoulders back, giving me all the
time I wanted to take in his dark, hard body.
I spread my legs for balance. He gasped at that move, which made me grin. Then
he swallowed, his eyes sparking gold. He reached out to pull me in closer, but
I held my ground, even though his need washed through me. I had plenty of need
on my own, thank you.
I knew what he wanted. He knew what I wanted.
I held eye contact. “Mercy, Jones.” I pressed my hand against his thigh, and
slowly kneaded my way upward. “Say it.”
He closed his eyes, tipped his head back. “Allie,” he breathed. “M-my God,
woman. Come here.”
Close enough. I couldn’t wait any longer either.
We embraced, giving in to the passion we could no longer contain. I drew him
into me with aching sweetness, his body familiar and right. Water slipped hot
fingers down my shoulders, back, thighs, licking, searching, finding every inch
of my skin that was exposed, wrapping me in wetness and heat.
Inside me, Zayvion’s emotions rose and raged like a summer storm. His need
licked beneath my skin, warring with the magic I held inside me, pushing it up
and up through me, where he caught it in his mouth, drank it from my skin, my
soul.
More. I wanted more. Wanted him to take more, wanted to give him more.
I called on magic. Pulled it through me, and let it pour out, a wild flood of
power and passion and raw need, into him.
His muscles, his body, stiffened, hardened, arms clenching me tighter, caught
in a burning overload of pure magic that lifted to my call, answered my
desires, and rushed swiftly as glyphs pulsing in the air, into him.
He drank the magic down, changed it, and thrust it back into me.
For a moment, everything went black. Silent. Still.
There was no beginning to him. No end to me. There was only the heat of our
nerves, the thrum of our heartbeats, skipping, catching, pounding in rhythm to
the magic that gave and took, from him, from me, to him, to me, building and
falling, and building again.
We were more than man and woman. Magic took control and drew through us glyphs
and spells flashing lightning and fire and heat through my mind, his mind. Our
soul.
Burning us together as one.
We cried out for mercy with one voice, one need.
It took time, maybe too much time, for magic to release us. Too much time until
one of us finally pulled away.
Time while Zayvion convinced me that we were not one, but two people, two
bodies, two minds, his kisses gentle, slow, his lips and fingers reminding me
of my own skin, my own body, separate from his. Reminding me of the rightness
of that. The rightness of being me.
I opened my eyes, blinked from the light. Not magic, just plain electric light.
“It’s okay,” he said, and I knew it was. I also knew he was worried. I could
still feel his emotions as if they were mine, could taste his worry like sour
rinds at the back of my throat.
“Allie,” he said, his fingers splayed against both sides of my face. “Do you
remember where you are? Who you are?”
No words could kill a mood or bring me crashing back into my own mind, my own
body, faster.
I had memory issues. That was something I would never forget.
Checklist: we were standing in the shower. The water was off. I didn’t remember
washing the soap out of my hair, but I knew I had. I didn’t remember turning
off the water, didn’t know how long we had been in the shower.
But yes. I knew who I was. Allison Beckstrom. Hound. Newly a member of the
Authority, filled with magic, and Soul Complement to Zayvion Jones.
And I was just as sure that for some time, I had forgotten all those things,
and had instead been content to be more. Had been a part of Zayvion, joined.
One.
“Me—my place,” I finally answered him. “How long?”
His relief rained through me and I tasted candy melon. “Maybe an hour,” he
said. “I’m not sure.” Which meant he’d lost track of reality too. That I’d made
him forget who he was.
Was it wrong for me to love, just a little, that I could do that to him?
His eyes shifted back and forth between mine.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Light-headed. What exactly happened?”
“We made love.”
I frowned. “I know that.” Eloquent. My middle name.
“Soul Complements,” he said, as if that covered the rest of what I should know.
He stepped out of the shower and I stepped out with him, unthinkingly needing
to stay in contact with him, to move in tandem with him, to be no more than
inches apart from him.
He handed me a towel. “We fell . . . fell too far into each other. Magic drew
us in, and we didn’t let go.”
I took the towel and stayed where I was while he purposefully took two steps
away. The need to follow him and limit the distance between us was still there,
but it was fading. I dried myself off in silence.
He rubbed the towel over his hair, and mopped off, the towel wadded in his
hand. He shook the towel out, and wrapped it around his waist.
“What did we do wrong?” I asked.
“We lost control.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said.
“Too far, too long, and we won’t want to be who we are without also being the
other person.” He said it without emotion, as if he were reciting a textbook.
“We’ll lose ourselves. Lose what we are as individuals. That’s a problem.”
He was right. I wanted that closeness, that awareness of every inch of him.
Wanted him, wanted us, bound together, burned, melded by magic. There was a
power in it. I could sense it, could almost taste it. A power I’d never felt
before.
And knowing I could never have it again, that we
should
never have it
again, made me hollow and empty, even though he was only a few steps away, and
closer to me than any man in my life.
“You don’t think this will happen every time, do you?” I asked.
“Every time we have sex, or every time we take a shower?” He smiled.
I knew he was trying to change the mood, push away the seriousness of what had
just happened, of how bad it could have been. I tried to follow his lead, to
let go of the fear.
“I don’t think the shower had anything to do with it,” I said. Yes, I sucked at
letting go of fear.
Zay shrugged one shoulder. “I wouldn’t say it was entirely innocent. All that
warm, wet water touching us everywhere. And the soap definitely had ulterior
motives.”
I wrapped the towel around me, tucking it tight at the top. “That career in
comedy? Walk away now, Jones.”
“And give up on my dreams?” He gave me a grin, and carefully avoided touching
me while he picked up his jeans and shoes and carried them into the bedroom.