Bound by Magic Chapter 6

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CHAPTER 6

Kayla

GARRICK STARED AT HER LIKE she’d suddenly grew a webbed foot out of her nose. Hell, she’d just been freaking out ten minutes ago because she thought she’d lost control again. Yet there was no denying the small disk hovering above her palms.

He looked down at her hands; his brow arched. “So you believe you may have it in hand?”

Several emotions flashed in his eyes. She caught the excitement in them, and for a second, she wasn’t sure if he was excited for her or for the fact that the sooner she had her magic under control, the sooner he could leave the safehouse. The thought extinguished when a mischievous smile curved his beautiful full lips. His expression lightened. “Do you wish to test it?”

Test it? “So soon?”

Nervous worry bubbled up in her stomach. What if her magic went haywire again? Yesterday, she nearly killed a cathedral full of people. Five minutes ago, it nearly burned a hole in his shoulders. Maybe she shouldn’t tempt fate.

He noticed the worry on her face.

“We know how to calm it if it becomes too much,” he assured her. “Like we’ve done earlier.”

She nodded and took a courageous breath. She should try it now that the feeling was still there. It might be her only chance. Plopping onto the bed, she tucked her feet and held her hands out. A blip of terror and excitement shot through her, much like being on a rollercoaster for the first time.

She stared at the small disk above her palms.

“So, what do I do with it?”

Garrick shrugged and knelt on the bed in front of her. Of course, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t without a suggestion. “Make it come to me.”

Okay, go to Garrick. She stared at her palms, but nothing happened. She shook them like she was trying to shake excess water from her hands before staring at them again.

Two small circles of her magic hovered like a hologram image but did nothing else.

“It’s not working. How do I get it to work?”

Another shrug. “How do you usually get it to come to me?”

“I don’t. It does it on its own. Or whenever I’m freaking out.”

“What’s the first thing that happens?”

“My hands grow hot.”

As she said the words, her hands started to warm. Panic bubbled, but she breathed it away. Like Garrick said, she had this under control.

“How did it happen just now with the mage in the hall?”

“On instinct. I thought we were in danger, and I had to protect you.”

“So then, we are in danger and I am in need of protecting,” he said as a matter of fact.

She frowned. “But we’re not.”

“We don’t know that. Neither of us knows where the true danger lies.”

He was only trying to get her nervous system going, but it was working. She looked up at the scant light in the room. They were in an unknown place surrounded by people they’d never met before. Her father called it a safehouse, but how safe was it if they’d been keen on separating her from the vampire in front of her by force so they could hurt him.

Her heart began to race, but she tried to harness the feeling, not allowing it overwhelm her.

Garrick’s hands slid under hers and a jolt shot between them. It wasn’t painful. Just sudden.

“Try to focus on the feeling you had when you thought you needed to protect us.” His grip tightened.

Closing her eyes, she focused on it. The panic and determination came first, followed by grit and a sprig of fear. Her hands grew warmer.

“It’s working.” It sounded like he was smiling. “What did it look like coming from you?”

“It was purple mist at first, then it looked like the air around a bolt of lightning when it went to you.”

She envisioned her magic running from her hands like a slow-moving river, then up onto Garrick again. The warmth in her hands spread.

His breath caught and she flinched, eyes shooting open, searching for any sign that he was hurt. He wasn’t, but purple spindles of her magic wrapped around his hand up to his wrists.

“Keep going.” His grip tightened on hers when she tried to tug away. “You have this in control.”

She did. Amazingly. Her magic spread across him, and it wasn’t dizzyingly out of bounds, but instead laced around Garrick in a wave. Her chin dropped in awe.

“Try to get it up to my shoulders.”

She did.

Slowly, it moved, but it was like climbing up hill. She gritted her teeth when it slowed and pushed.

“It feels as if I’m being encased in gel.”

“Is that good or bad?” she asked, her nervousness growing a fraction. Her magic stopped moving for a second.

“It’s an odd feeling but not unpleasant. Keep going.” Both of them watched her magic slowly crawl up his arm until it just barely made it to his shoulders.

“Cha!” The sudden sound made her jump, and her magic ricocheted, launching her against the pillows with an oomph.

“Are you well?” Garrick popped over her in concern, but she was too busy being excited.

She burst into a fit of giggles. She did it. She actually did it. Sure, it was a little bit of a rocky landing, but she got her magic to obey.

“Did you see that?” A burst of energy pushed her up from the pillows. “It worked! That was amazing. Thank you!”

She threw herself into his arms, the dampness of his hair grazing her ear. Responding to their proximity, her magic reacted to him again. Just like it had the night before. Lightning quick, it scooted to him, caressing him, then circled them both, warming her from a different place.

Garrick’s strong hands tightened around her waist. A light groan rumbled against her, masking her own small moan. But he stiffened and pushed her back, his eyes darting to her nose in concern.

“You’re injured,” he said.

A droplet of blood trickled from her nose. She quickly wiped it away and shot off to the bathroom mirror. It didn’t even hurt, and by the time she looked it over, it had stopped.

“I probably nicked myself going into the pillows,” she said, washing her hands before racing back into the room with excitement. “Let’s try it again.”

“I think we should eat now.” Garrick hovered over the trays Killian had dropped off. “You need to gather your strength.”

He opened the trays to hard scrambled eggs and thick slices of well-done French toast. From the look of it, Killian made enough to feed ten people.

“I’m not really hungry.” She didn’t want to eat. She wanted to explore her magic more, but a loud rumble from her stomach disagreed.

Garrick chuckled, clearly hearing the racket from her gut. “Eat. Then we’ll practice more.”

She was too excited to eat, but his reassurance made her grab a plate and sit cross-legged across form him on the floor to have breakfast.

Hesitantly, he stuck his fork in the French toast and tasted it, then nodded pleasantly.

“I like this sweet bread,” he said, stuffing his mouth full on the next bite, before taking a spoon and digging it into the butter and shoveling that in as well.

“Cha!” His face curled in disgust. “I am not keen on the yellow pudding.”

“That’s because it’s butter. You’re only supposed to use a little of it to melt on the French toast.” She showed him what to do. He eyed the butter knife in her hand as she slathered her French toast, then sneered in disdain when it melted under the maple syrup she put on top.

“And this you eat willingly?”

“It’s actually good. Here, try it.” She offered her fork to him, and he took a hesitant bite and shivered.

“Cha, I still do not like this butter. But the brown sauce goes well with the sweet bread.” He picked up the syrup from between them and carefully poured two lines of it over his mountain of French toast. “What’s this flat yellow crumbles?”

“Eggs.”

“So dark?” Garrick poked his form into the pile of scrambled eggs and lifted to his nose and tasted a forkful.

“He scrambled them hard.”

“I like this scrambled. It has a crunch.”

Eggs definitely weren’t supposed to be crunchy. She tasted a bit of hers. Ah, a few eggshells got in there.

“You do not like this?” He noticed her nose scrunch.

“He accidentally left part of the eggshells in there.”

“Then he should do this accident more often. It is good.”

As he shoveled in another forkful, she sat in astonishment at the fact that he ate. She’d always heard vampires were sanguine. He drank from her yesterday, but this was the first time she’d seen him sit down for a meal. Then something he’d said earlier made her even more curious.

“You said you were born a vampire?”

“I was. All vampires of my kind are born human, then we meet our full change and that transfers us from youngling to vampire.”

It sounded like the vampire version of puberty.

“Oh. Does it hurt to become vampire?”

“No. It is painless. Although my mouth was sore when my fangs first came down. And my gums itched for days after until I got used to them. My sister teased me for weeks because my mouth looked funny.”

“You have a sister?” She smiled, unable to help herself, trying to imagine him with a sibling.

“I had, yes.” His voice had gone quiet. “It’s been many years since my sister has been no more.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Why do you apologize? It is not your fault she is gone. She was born with a sickness that made her unable to accept the full change into a vampire and her body succumbed. You did not cause that.”

“I know, but I’m sorry for your loss.”

“To apologize for the loss of life is a mage thing?”

“Isn’t it an everyone thing?”

“For vampires, no. We mourn for a time, but then we celebrate. Even for a short life, she lived a happy one. She was a teller of stories. At nights, she would tell us a new one after we’d had our final meal for the day. Our mother always said she was wise beyond her years. Which has never been truer. I will take her stories with me to the eons. For that, I give many thanks and know her final sunfall was met with peace. So, for me, you don’t need to apologize about her. Only for the things that you’ve caused.”

Like this whole mess they were in? Or maybe her most recent blunders, bursting on him in the shower and nearly setting him on fire because her libido got out of control.

“Like, I’m sorry for everything that’s happened.” She kept get gaze on her half-eaten plate. “You must regret ever setting eyes on me. Ever since this started, it’s been nothing but trouble for you.”

It pained her to hear the words coming from her own mouth, but they were true. Ever since breaking her out of that cage, he’d been in nonstop danger. From shifters to mages, not to mention he’d been ripped away from his own life. He’d been leading a perfectly good one before she showed up. And here he was, trapped inside of a mage compound because she’d gotten herself kidnapped.

“You have your own life. Now you’re stuck here with me.”

“So did you, and you’re stuck with me also.”

“But you weren’t the one kidnapped.”

“Did you kidnap yourself?”

What kind of question was that? Of course not. “No.”

“Then why do you apologize for something you did not cause?”

“Because your life has been turned upside down, and I’m responsible for that.”

“As has yours. I’ve spent my entire life in service to others. You were in need of help and I was available to provide it. There’s no reason to apologize for that.”

“You’re a saint. I don’t know if I’d be so reasonable if someone I didn’t even know created that kind of upheaval in my life.”

“That would imply I had much of one from the start,” he said softly.

“What about your friends? Family? I’m sure they’re wondering about you.”

“I don’t carry many friends, and I don’t have any family left. My parents have met their final sunfall, and my sister didn’t meet her full change. I am the last of my line.”

That sounded lonely. She’d only had her father and even that felt lonely sometimes. She hardly knew anything about her mom. Only that she died during childbirth and the scant stories her father told her growing up. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be all alone.

“As I consider it,” he continued. “We are allies in this.”

They were, sort of. Even though he hardly showed it, he was just as out of his element as she was.

She’d found an ally in her world, one to which they were both strangers to. Her entire life, she’d grown up around mages, but she didn’t know the first thing about how to use her own magic like everyone else seemed to. She would have never dreamed of using it the way her father had, or the way Marnie did. She’d been too afraid to.

But now, things were different.

She was going to figure it out and give Garrick his life back.