Bound by Magic Chapter 13

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CHAPTER 13

Kayla

CRAP. CRAP. CRAP.

What did she just do?

Kayla paced the expanse of their tiny bathroom, even though the motion made her thighs rub together, reminding her of exactly what they’d just done.

Holy foremages, she could still feel Garrick as if he was still inside her. She’d never taken anyone so big. It was a wonder how she was able to fit him in.

And the craziest thing? She wanted to do it again despite knowing she shouldn’t.

That she couldn’t.

Her whole purpose in learning to control her magic was to get them to the point where he could go home in one piece.

Sleeping with him complicated that plan. Even worse, her magic twisted itself on him. Her magic untethered the moment he turned to her with his hauntingly beautiful eyes and she lost herself in them. In him.

And when he bit her, a small spray of her magic spread across his back and seeped into him. It was as if part of her soul left her body and joined Garrick in some sort of ritual of unending pleasure. She’d never felt anything so mind-bending. Heck, she barely remembered to breathe when he bit her for the second time.

Even now, it was like his fangs were still there.

Kayla turned to the mirror. Sure enough, two puckered red puncture marks were on display like a horse at a pony show.

Her magic should have healed them by now, but who was she kidding? It didn’t want to. Her magic softened the soreness between her legs left in the wake of Garrick’s thick girth, but his marks? Her magic avoided them.

She’d never seen bite marks so prominent. Even when he bit her to feed, his wounds never stayed long and were always small. These were like a giant billboard advertisement. And they tingled. Subconsciously, her fingers grazed the markings. She was in no way prepared for the blinging flash of white-hot pleasure that raced through her.

Holy foremages, that felt good.

She did it again. Another jolt zipped through her and her body reacted on its own accord. Warmth spread from her core and up her spine. Her breathing grew husky as she traced the outline of his fang marks. Leaning back against the wall, her eyes closed, and her head fell back as she let her hands go to work.

It was as if something had taken over her body and forced her hand to rub the marks with the same ferocity Garrick had used with his tongue. Her hips bucked against her hands as a rush of endorphins raced from her brain to her toes.

Kayla moaned, unable to stop now that she’d started. She couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

She was out of control. Completely and utterly out of control. And at the moment, all she could think of was the blinding pleasure that came from touching herself.

Foremages, she wished Garrick was in the bathroom with her. On top of her again and stuffing her full. Too paralyzed with pleasure to call out for him, she envisioned him in front of her, on his knees and sucking her into his mouth.

Time ceased to exist as her hands and imagination attempted to compete with the warrior who drove her into blissed-out insanity. But nothing could compare to his sure hands.

Garrick was incredible.

More than incredible.

He’d done things to her that even her wildest dreams couldn’t have come up with. He was confident and assured and all-consuming. When he filled her, all she could think of was wanting more.

Like now. She felt empty without him inside her, and neglected without him licking her folds while she touched his marks. She needed him.

Suddenly, several flashes of light careened across her closed eyelids. Kayla blinked, still in a bit of a haze, then choked on her desire when she saw what was happening.

Streaks of white lightning zipped across the bathroom, while a golden mist swirled around her like a cloud. Her fingers ripped away from their pursuit. A second later, her violet essence ruptured from her hands to join the fray and violently twisted around her body.

Foremages, she was creating a freaking storm cloud of magic in their bathroom.

More of the lightning flashed as a mini storm formed. It was small now, but if she didn’t stop this, it would grow out of control. She needed to distract herself, force her body to focus on something else.

Without a second thought, Kayla dashed to the shower and turned the cold water on full blast and stepped into it. The icy spray doused her scalp, then tunneled a freezing path down her back, but it was like throwing water on a grease fire.

Her magic flared. Lightning skirted across the shower, bouncing off the walls. When it found no traction, it boiled over, then pooled at her feet before swirling into a vortex of water rivaling a water twister.

Oh, shit.

Her heart hammered so loudly in her chest it was difficult to hear anything but the pulse in her ears.

She needed to calm down—get herself under control and her magic would follow—but even managing to breathe was next to impossible.

Stop, you know how to calm yourself. She and Garrick practiced this. She only needed to get herself back in focus.

She closed her eyes and worked on the calming technique he taught her, but seeing the image of him working her muscles in her mind’s eye made everything worse.

The magic cloud grew more violent, thrashing against the shower wall until the tiles cracked. Then a charge of electricity lit the air.

No, no, no, no!

A lightning bolt pelted across the room in a flash so bright, it hurt her eyes. In its wake, the wall burned under its power.

Oh, fuck. She yelped, flinging as far away from the damage as possible. This couldn’t be happening. She tried to find the spot inside her where her magic had tethered, but it was nowhere to be found. Instead, she felt nothing but chaos.

What was wrong with her magic? It had been chaotic before, but this… this was out of control. Her nerve endings shot to attention. Adrenaline burned a path through her veins, giving birth to a jittery out-of-control feeling that settled in her muscles.

By Kayla’s tally, she should be at the advantage. She was in a mage community locked in a room in the basement that was supposed to absorb her magic if it’d gotten out of control, and still, it had gone berserk.

Just an hour ago, it wouldn’t come out of her. Now…

Foremages, she was having a panic attack. A full-blown, massive panic spell in the middle of the bathroom. This could not be happening right now.

She squeezed her eyes closed. Freaking out was only making it worse. She wished she had Chem’s tonic right now. Just a vial of it would get her back to baseline.

Tightening her fists, she slid down the wall in the shower, praying to the ancestors that her magic would just calm on its own, like it had when she and Garrick were alone together.

He was right in the next room, so why didn’t it settle?

A rogue thought cut through the haze, then. Even with him, your magic is dangerous. It’s only a matter of time before it’s so out of control, not even Garrick can help you.

Despite the little progress she’d made at the compound, her magic was still volatile. This was why Hela looked at her with pitying defeat when she informed her about her extra magical signature. The medic knew. Eventually there would be no controlling it.

As if it too understood this fact, the golden cloud of magic deepened to an ochre brown as it thrashed against the bathroom tile again, then pelted to the mirror, causing it to break into several shards on the wall.

“Stop,” she whispered. Her voice shook with adrenaline. “Please stop.”

It didn’t. It swirled again, ready to crack a few more tiles. Her chest constricted. Her heart lost rhythm.

Suddenly, a knock pounded at her door.

“Kayla. What happened? Are you well in there?” Garrick asked from the other side. The handle twisted; her magic revved.

“No! You can’t come in here.” It was much too dangerous. The golden magic raced to the door, holding it shut.

Another knock came, more frantic than the last.

“Kayla, what are you doing? Let me in.” Garrick’s urgency jostled her as he ripped at the door handle again.

Fear coated her bones, paralyzing them.

“I-I can’t.”

He can’t see you like this. If your magic gets ahold of him, it might kill him. She was losing her mind and her magic was hellbent on destroying the place, and for what reason?

Neither of them was in any danger. The only thing different was that he’d just made her orgasm twice in the span of minutes and left pleasure markings on her. Was that it?

She couldn’t handle a freaking orgasm?

A tile from the shower floor loosened and flew across the room, shattering against the wall above her head.

The sudden sound made her flinch as shards of porcelain rained down. Her adrenaline spiked.

“Kayla! What was that? Have you come to harm?” Garrick banged on the door. “Open the door.”

From the sound of it, he rammed it with his shoulders as he twisted the handle. The golden magic pushed back, thrashing against the door with equal force, causing a thunderous boom to rattle the room.

“It won’t stop,” she cried out when more of her purple essence leaked from her palms, dashed to the door, and ignited it.

The flames made her heart rate spiral out of control. Bile gurgled in the back of her throat.

“Move, so I can help her.” The last voice she expected to be in her room spoke behind Garrick. Theo? What’s he doing here?

“No. I’ve seen the way you help.” Garrick’s voice dripped with venom.

“Her magic is trying to get to you. It doesn’t realize it needs to pull on the door instead of push.”

What?

Her magic had no trouble with that before. It didn’t make sense. Stupid chaotic magic.

After a moment, Garrick seemed to move, and the voice came from a different spot behind the door. “Open the door and no more.”

“You can’t,” Kayla cried out, watching the ochre magic darken to black and thrash against the door again, leaving a small notch in the center. “It will hurt you.”

Stop this. Stop before you hurt them.

“Kayla, your magic will only get worse if you don’t let me contain it,” Theo said.

She couldn’t be sure of that. Eventually, she’d overexert, right? Her magic will fizzle like it had in the training arena.

“It’ll die away on its own,” she said with absolute zero confidence as fire scorched the door, concentrating around the doorframe as if searching for a way out.

“That’s not how your magic works. When you are in fight mode, yes, it can exert itself. When you’re trying to protect him, it draws on your extra signature. You have a self-sustaining power source inside of you. Eventually, it’ll break through our holds. It already has. Look around you.”

She did. The bathroom door had been built like a fortress, sturdy and unyielding, but it burned just the same. Black smoke filled the room as the heat from the fire blazed against her skin. At the edges of her magic, she could see the surrounding air rippling.

“Our protection holds on this room should have quelled your magic before it’d gotten like this. But it can’t because we’ve had to divert our magic away from this room to stop another threat.”

Garrick made an indistinct noise. “What threat?”

“Ever since your arrival, we’ve had visitors at our doors.”

Foremages, the shifters. They’d found them.

“We’ve been keeping them at bay the best we can, but our defenses have weakened to the point of a breach.”

The air sucked out of the room, leaving nothing but Kayla with her chaotic magic and black smoke growing in its ferocity.

“Then, open the door for her.” Garrick’s voice turned urgent. “You are a mage. This is your compound.”

“Her magic is too volatile. If I try to, the results can be catastrophic. I need her to recall her magic to herself. Then I can help.”

Easier said than done. Her magic was throwing the mother of all hissy fits and she was expected to just call it to her?

“I tried, it didn’t work,” she answered him even though she wasn’t part of the conversation.

Theo’s voice seemed to turn toward the door. “When it’s this volatile, you need to force it back to you. If you’re harmed, for example, it will come to heal you.”

Her intestines became contortionists inside her stomach as Garrick’s voice turned furious. “Are you asking she bring harm to herself when there’s a threat at your doors?”

“Her magic will rebound to heal her.” Theo’s voice remained calm.

He was right. Even with its wayward, iffy ways, her magic should sling back to heal her, but his was crazy. Another tile loosened, this time whizzing above her head, shattering against the wall behind her. Porcelain shards cascaded down her back.

Her magic was going to destroy the bathroom with her in it.

Kayla looked around the bathroom. When her eyes took in several large shards of mirror glass, she knew what she had to do.

Foremages, this was crazy. She was actually contemplating stabbing herself, but if that’s what it took to get her magic to heel so she and Garrick could leave, then she’d do it.

She took a deep, adrenaline-soaked breath, then stood on shaky legs. Across the room, she grabbed a shard of mirror and gripped it tight.

“Kayla, we can find another way,” Garrick said.

There wasn’t one. Kayla forced her mind away from the inferno of her hands and shut her eyes. Raising it above her head, she gritted her teeth, and with determined force, her arms swung like a pendulum and jammed it into her gut. Kayla grunted and staggered back until her back hit the wall behind her.

Foremages, her magic actually let her do it. And it hurt.

Stabbing felt nothing like she’d imagined a stabbing sensation to feel like. It was like she’d taken a battering ram to her gut. And when she saw the blood pool around the shard and drip down her, she panicked.

So, it seemed, did Garrick. The thrashing against the door intensified as if he were trying to claw through it with his bare hands.

“Kayla, what did you do? Why do I smell your blood?” Garrick asked. “Kayla, answer me. Are you well?”

She looked at the blood dripping to her feet, then at the magic barricading the door.

Why wasn’t it coming back to her?

“I’m-I…” she started to say she was fine, but couldn’t bring herself to lie. She wasn’t fine. Nowhere even close. She’d lost every bit of her mind and now she was going to bleed out while her magic let her.

She looked down at her bloody hands and the blood staining her skin red.

Her skin.

She was standing feet away from Garrick and Theo, completely naked and bleeding out. Hadn’t her father always taught her to wear clean underwear and clothes in case of an emergency? Now she was in one with not a stitch of clothing on.

Her brain split into too many directions and she lost her ability to prioritize. Despite it, she gingerly grabbed a pair of spare clothes that were in a closet in the bathroom and stepped into them, careful of the blood draining from her stomach.

This much blood wasn’t supposed to come out of a person, right?

Her heart responded, pounding so loudly in her ears, it drowned out the sound of Garrick railing against the door.

Blood rushed to her head, forcing her to sit on the cold tile floor.

After a moment, the black magic ramming against the door released its tyranny and raced to her. Her purple essence followed.

Finally.

Her shoulders loosened, so did her chest and the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

The magic spiraled around her body, checking for any other lacerations before burrowing into her open wound. She waited for relief that never came.

Something wasn’t right.

The magic dug painfully deep, deeper than her wound as if trying to carve her stomach out instead of healing it.

She grunted, then made a grab for it and only succeeding in sticking her fingers in her stomach.

The door handle rattled, and Garrick tore through the bathroom. His breaths were heavy as his eyes, shiny like black glass marbles, narrowed in on her stomach.

In a blur, he was at her side, kneeling beside her. Theo extinguished the budding flames and drove out the smoke.

“Why are you not healing?” His ginger hands were cool to the touch as he examined her wound. But the moment he touched her, the black magic digging a hole to her spine unfurled from her body and gripped Garrick’s wrist. On instinct, he pulled back, but when he did, the magic violently sprayed his face, then streamed into any open orifice. His eyes, his nose, his mouth—any place it could find penetration into his body.

A second later, he choked on it. He coughed. A spray of black magic left his mouth before coiling back in, shoving down his throat. The gurgle coming from him was frightening.

A figure eclipsed the doorway. She looked up. Theo’s face appeared concerned. He surveyed the destruction that was their bathroom before racing to her. A pool of forest green mist raised from his palms before shooting to her stomach.

“No, help him,” she pleaded when Garrick clutched his throat. Blood leaked from his eyes as her magic turned on him.

Theo looked between them, but his magic tingled against her stomach, healing the wound from the inside. The pain eased, but she wasn’t concerned about herself. The magic contorting inside Garrick’s throat made an inhuman sound erupt as he groaned.

“Stop, Theo. Let go of me and help him.”

Theo ignored her request as he stared at her stomach in confusion. “Were you trying to rebind with him?”

“What?” What the heck was he talking about? Garrick was choking to death. They didn’t have time for this.

“Your magic is displaced. Like it’s trying to bind with him, but the bond won’t form. Before this,” he said, but shook his head to clarify. “Before your magic went out of control, were you trying to bind with him again?”

“No. Now help him.”

Theo finally glanced at Garrick’s way. His sandy hair shook a bit as he nodded. “I’ll have to dig your magic out to fight it. But this isn’t going to be pleasant for either of you.”

She reached for Garrick’s hand and weaved her fingers through his. He squeezed her gently like he was trying to reassure her.

There was no telling if he trusted Theo to do this, but she did. She had to. If he’d wanted Garrick dead, he would have done it while she was trapped in the bathroom or let her magic choke him to death.

She’d gotten them into this mess because of her inability to control the monstrous magic inside her. And she’d do anything to make sure he was safe.

“Whatever you have to do, just do it.”