Magic's Design (30 page)

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Authors: Cat Adams

BOOK: Magic's Design
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She nodded absently and stared at the table—not really seeing it, her fingers sliding along her bottom lip. “Cool. That explains it, then.”
“Explains what?”
Her eyes blinked rapidly, like she was waking from a dream and another blush painted her cheeks. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Just the blush told him what he needed to know, and she was right. Kissing a mage tasted sweet. Honey, chocolate, ripe fruit—the kind of sweet was based on the individual, and all slightly different. He couldn’t pass up the chance, but it had to be on her terms. He leaned closer, until he was bare inches from her face. She froze and began to breathe fast with wide eyes. But this time he could tell it wasn’t from fear. “You never can be sure if I’m right unless you try again … just to be certain.” He paused and held her gaze, then whispered to her, so close now that the air bounced off her lips and tickled his skin. “If you want me, take me. Kiss me, Mila.”
Her breathing stilled altogether and he watched her eyelids flutter closed as she leaned forward just that tiny bit, tipping her head slightly to miss his nose. Her lips brushed against his. As much as he wanted to lean in and claim her mouth, give her a kiss that would leave her breathless, he held back.
It’s her turn to explore, if she’s willing
.
Time and again she let the lightest hint of her smooth lips glide across his, soft as flower petals. With each kiss, he felt her skin growing warmer. Whether it was fire magic or mere human desire didn’t change that he began to feel his body tighten and harden. He parted his lips slightly, hoping she’d take the hint that he was ready for more.
Mila took hints well.
Useful knowledge
.
Leaning forward abruptly, her jaw forced his open and she took her taste of sweet fire magic. He pulled some of the remaining magic from the opal back inside and let it fill him so she could get some measure of what passion used to be like among their kind, and what it could be again if she truly could do what the scroll claimed.
It was a struggle not to reach out and pull her into his arms. But the goal was to let
her
experience and fulfill whatever attraction she felt. When she finally pulled back, after a delightful mingling of tongues that pulled a groan from his chest, he couldn’t help but give her a tiny bit of extra pleasure.
Eyes still closed, she gasped when his lips found the line of her jaw. As he traveled down her neck, kissing and licking her skin, her head flopped to one side bonelessly and her hand reached around to slide fingers through his hair.
When he took a small nibble of the hollow of her throat, her fingers clenched abruptly into his scalp and a hungry whimper found his ear.
She was more than ready for another kiss by the time he returned to her lips and this time he could sense she wanted to be the passive one.
It was pure, unadulterated torture to kiss her slowly, gently. But the goal was to relax, not excite. When he pulled back, she tried to follow, to continue the game. But he put a finger on her lips and pushed backward gently. “That’s enough for now.”
Her eyes opened and her brow raised. “No, it’s not.” But he pushed back his chair before she could finish wrapping her arms around his neck.
“You have” he tried to remember the proper pronunciation, “pusankuh to craft, and we need to eat. I’ll cook us some dinner and if you’re a very good girl,” he said with a wink and a touch of her nose, “we can
relax
you more later.”
She grabbed the finger and used the leverage to pull herself out of her chair and to her feet. “Just one more,” she whispered before sliding her arms around his waist and leaning in until her lips hovered near his chin and her sofly curved body covered every inch of his—including the erection that was growing more urgent with every moment that passed.
“Maybe just one,” he agreed, once again lost in those stunning green eyes. He twined his fingers into her curls to pull her close and then ground his mouth against hers. Jaws worked and tongues moved as the kiss deepened. When she moaned, he felt his fingers dig into her strong back muscles and she moved her hands rather wantonly to his buttocks to cause a similar reaction in him.
This must surely be the sort of kiss that sent men willingly on dangerous quests.
Because he was nearly willing to take on Vegre himself if it would please her.
At last she pulled away with a gasp and he let her … reluctantly. She turned and grabbed the table’s edge with near desperation, and he wondered whether she really did need it to stay standing. “Eggs. I definitely think I’m in a mood to make some kick-ass pysanky. Wow. And if they don’t wind up being
duszats
, I’ll be really surprised.” She looked over at him to where he was regarding her with amusement and waved a hand as though to push him away. “Go. Shoo. Stop standing there looking so delicious and …
available,
so I can think.”
Delicious.
That one word dissolved his fears, and didn’t harm his ego a bit. There were still problems aplenty, but for a few moments, he could relax and just enjoy a woman’s company. It had been a very long time since that had happened.
Y
our problem is that nothing ever seems like a dating opportunity
. Mila heard Candy’s voice in her mind and it nearly made her laugh. Here she was, trapped in some strange new world for the night, with a gorgeous magician who was obviously interested in her, who’d called her
darling, and
who was making dinner for her in the next room. There was even the very real possibility that she might be having a wild romp later.
I’ll take Dating Opportunity for five hundred, Alex.
Of course there was the small matter of a demented madman wanting to take over the world, a horrible virus she’d just saved a woman from, and a group of people hunting them like animals—after
way
too much spiked Kool-Aid.
If this is a romance movie, it’s being directed by John Hurt … or maybe Wes Craven.
She looked down again at the tiny bit of eggshell on the table as she mixed the dyes and vinegar in their various jars, trying to remember the patterns she’d seen while at the Tree. But the amazing scent of whatever Tal was cooking in the next room kept dragging her brain back to him, and to the kiss that had weakened her knees to the point she couldn’t stand afterward.
Beard stubble scraping, lips nibbling, and a very talented tongue … wow Oh, he could be a lot of fun
.
She shook her head to clear it, took a scoop of wax, and flicked the tip of the kistka through the candle flame.
Dots are easy. We’ll start there. Big dots, tiny pinpoints, and then
a bold sun—one on each half.
What about tomorrow?
The sun would rise in the morning and, if they were successful, a week from now. Where would she be then? Where would
Tal
be? He was like a biker who just rolled into town, or a sailor on shore leave.
But I’m not like Candy I’m no good at one-night stands … or even one-week stands.
Okay, that was plenty of dots. Sheesh! There’d barely be room for the basket weave and stags. The stag should be yellow, and so should the sun, so she dipped the egg in the first jar, thick and blue-tinted with tiny bubbles trapped inside the glass. She stirred it around lightly with the end of a fork, making sure no part touched the jar too long, which would prevent the dye from penetrating.
I don’t know where he lives, or even what his favorite color is. And what about …
“Tal? Do you roll up your toothpaste tubes, or squish them flat?”
He turned his head away from the flat stone on the counter, which wasn’t attached to any electricity or gas, but which he’d sworn could cook their meal. He kept stirring whatever was in the glass pot. “Excuse me?”
She realized what a stupid question it was, but she couldn’t say
never mind
yet again. “Toothpaste. I presume you use it when you’re topside. Do you roll the tube or squish it?”
He tipped his head and then shook it slightly with a supremely amused expression. “I use it down here, too. I press it flat. Why? What do you do?”
She nodded, oddly relieved. “Same. Sorry, go back to cooking.”
His smile turned to a grin before he turned his head and moved the pot to a cool spot. After rubbing his hands on the towel that was draped over his shoulder, he spoke. “Nope. Sorry, you started it.”
“What do you mean?” She blew lightly on the now yellow egg, dotted with black. Fortunately the dye was as fast setting as hers at home, but a much richer yellow—closer to marigold than lemon.
“Favorite color, food, hobbies—other than eggs, and … music, I think. Roll them out.”
That stopped her cold and she had to raise the kistka or risk a big yellow spot rising off the stag’s antlers.
He wants to know about me?
It both excited and terrified her. “Um, blue—that really vivid cobalt, like the candy-apple blue they paint cars with. Spaghetti with garlic bread, fixing up my house, gardening, and easy listening. You?”
He waggled his head and then pursed his lips. “I’ll have to separate it into
up there, down here
choices. Up there … I like autumn-sky blue, Chinese stir-fry, searching for focus stones in rock shops, and classical music. Down here, I’ll have to say the purple of ripe
majorica
fruit, shepherd’s pie made with
squelk
meat, carving hearth stones to sell, and crystal chimes.”
She looked up from where she was quickly drawing lines to hold in the images she wanted before dipping the egg in the red dye. “What is
majorica
fruit and what’s a
squelk?
”
He started to rummage around in the cupboards. When he pulled out a shallow casserole dish and a bowl and placed them in front of the chairs, it occurred to her that there probably wouldn’t be matching china and silverware after an evacuation. “Majorica fruit is what the Sacred Trees used to produce when they were healthy. Gorgeous color. The closest I can come up with that you might recognize is between heather and a plum, but glowing. A squelk is just what it sounds like—a hybrid ground squirrel and elk. Big and meaty, but burrowing. They love nuts, roots, and tuber vegetables. Great diggers. They really saved on magic and sore backs when we were expanding the rings in Rohm. They can even be trained to search for particular gems, like pigs dig truffles topside.”
She tried to get that picture in her mind and failed miserably. She pulled the egg from the red dye, but it wasn’t dark enough yet so she put it back in and continued to stir. “Squirrels the size of
elks
. Um … wow. You’d think someone from back home would have noticed something like that.”
Tal smiled as he used the cloth on his shoulder to wipe dust off a pair of forks he’d found in a drawer. “I don’t think you realize just how
far
underground we are, and we’re not idiots. We originated the
leave no trace
concept your parks have finally adopted. But you’re right that it’s getting harder to keep our existence a secret. Your technology keeps increasing, while our magic is diminishing. That’s a bad combination.”
Of course that led to the big question. “What happens if I fail? What if Viktor was all wet and it’s just coincidence that there was an eggshell in the tree?”
He stopped and stared at her for a long moment. She realized he’d been thinking about this for a while. “I don’t know. More riots, I suppose. Maybe a world war or mysterious deaths around the planet that kill off large numbers of humans to make space for us.” He picked up the pot and began to ladle the contents into the bowls. “I’m hoping none of the above, but I don’t have a very high opinion of the integrity of my people when they’re desperate.”
She sighed and put the now dark red pysanka on the table and pushed back her chair from the table near the couch to join him in the kitchen. “I don’t have a high opinion of
anyone
when they’re desperate. So I guess I’d better not fail, huh?” She tried to smile, but knew it was tight from the tension in her cheeks. “No pressure, though.”
They ate at a small wooden table. They sat in silence for long minutes but only because they were stuffing their faces. The dish Tal had cooked was amazing—with big chunks of chicken, potatoes, carrots, and some other root vegetables she didn’t recognize in a spicy cream sauce. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she put the first bite in her mouth. But her last meal, if it could be called that, was a hot dog from the wheeled cart outside the library. They talked a little more while they cleaned up the dishes. She finally got to find out what a hearth stone was and how the magic worked. “So, the Sacred Trees exhale magic as they grow like trees up here exhale carbon dioxide? The kings are somehow tied to the Trees so they can harvest the magic, and they can either use it right away or store it in stones. Right? And any kind of stone can hold magic, but some hold it better than others? Have I got it?”

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