Eleri Stone - Witch Bound

“You’re not.” He could feel her gaze settle on him. “Why do you call her that? Did she ask you to?”

He glanced up and found Audrey studying him with a frown on her face, waiting for an answer. “Rocky suits her.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, but something about his answer seemed to unsettle her. He shook his head and returned his attention to the sketch. The runes should be connected, he thought, in one unbroken chain, but he didn’t know if that would change the effect they had on Raquel’s magic.

Audrey pointed at the paper. “It worries me that she’s adding that one.”

“To amplify her power.”

“Power’s not her problem.” Audrey sat back. “She’s the most powerful witch Kathy’s ever come across. I think she needs something to blunt her power, you know. Otherwise it’s like trying to douse a match with a fire hose.”

Fen stopped to consider that. Rocky came up behind him and knelt on his other side. “I don’t want to give up my power. I want to learn to use it.”

She shifted closer to examine the drawing. The scent of sunshine and magic surrounded him. Her hair brushed his ear. Her breast, full and tempting, gave slightly when she leaned against him. He closed his eyes and set the notepad down on his leg so she wouldn’t notice the tremble in his hand. “That line—” she pointed, “—there’s too much of a curve to it. It needs to be straight.”

He corrected it as she studied the rest. He wished she’d move away. He could do this for her. The tattoo, he’d help her with that. Hopefully, it would do what she wanted it to. She could replace the wards herself and take her place as clan witch, take her place as Christian’s wife. Fen knew she felt the need to prove herself. Like a cracked pot that needed to be glued back together. There was nothing wrong with her so far as he could see. She let other people tie her up with their expectations, tie her into knots, just like Christian had always done to win his father’s approval.

She didn’t need to be fixed. Neither had Christian. Maybe the two of them could...help each other see that. They’d marry, heal. Be happy.

Fen very badly wanted them both to be happy.

“Can I overlap the runes? Or join them?”

She hesitated. “Best not. I’m not exactly sure what that would do. It might strengthen them, but it could create an entirely new effect that we don’t want.”

He nodded and adjusted a line or two. He held it up. “What do you think?”

She sat next to him on the carpet, her knee bumping against his, and rolled up her shirtsleeve. “Let’s do it.”

“Tonight?”

“Why not? I need to know. I won’t do anything hard. I’ll...I’ll reheat the pizza. I could practically manage that now without any help.”

He hesitated, considered the set of her shoulders and the mulish glint to her eyes. “You’re drunk.”

She straightened and gave him her best sober look, which wouldn’t have fooled a second grader. He sighed. There wasn’t much danger in this. He was using washable marker for the test run and could disable the runes with a single swipe from the damp rag on the table.

“Okay, give me your hand.”

She leaned over to set her forearm on the table but he grabbed it instead, pulling it across his lap. She inhaled sharply and he looked up at her, but she stared at her arm. A blush slowly crept up her neck. He could feel the flutter of her pulse through her wrist. He would have noticed her reaction to his touch even if he hadn’t been able to scent it on her skin. Arousal. It hit him hard. Unrequited lust was one thing. This was a whole ‘nother level of hell.

He tightened his grip and bent his head, focused his attention on the art. It was a simple design but important to get the runes exactly right. It would be easy to write a curse onto a person if you didn’t know what you were doing. He hoped to hell they knew what they were doing.

He could see the veins clearly through her fair skin. She had freckles everywhere, across her nose and forehead, on the tops of the lovely breasts he shouldn’t ever have noticed. There were no freckles on the inside of her arm, only soft skin and delicate, fascinatingly feminine musculature. A wrist so narrow he could snap it by flexing his hand and a pulse that raced beneath his fingertips. If she’d set out to purposefully torture him, she couldn’t have done better.

Done.

He released her. He and Audrey sat staring at her for a moment and when they were certain she wasn’t going to explode or anything, Audrey said, “Well?”

Rocky rotated her arm to look at the design. “It tingles a bit on my skin, but I can’t feel the difference inside.”

“Try it.” He lifted his chin to indicate the pizza. At the edge of his control, he needed her to leave soon. He hoped to hell this worked. If it did, he’d only need to see her again like this once more to place the permanent tattoo. And then he could make himself scarce until the wedding.

She flipped open the cardboard lid and squinted at the pizza with the intensity of a starving pit bull. It should have been comical, but both he and Audrey held their breaths until the cheese began to bubble. Audrey made a yip of joy and grabbed his hand.

Well, it was nice, he supposed, to have someone not afraid to touch him. But other than that? Nothing. Rocky wasn’t even paying any attention to him and he could feel her on his skin.

You could hear the sizzle now and a tendril of smoke rose up. Rocky finally glanced away from the pizza and looked at him, a big smile creasing her face. “I did it.”

“You did it.”

“Rocky?” She turned that smile to Audrey, who stood. “Turn it off, Rocky.”

“What do you—”

The pepperoni blackened and shriveled as they watched. That tendril of smoke expanded and a flame ignited in the center of the slice. Rocky looked panicked as she climbed to her feet. He grabbed the cardboard box, intending to bring it to the sink, when the pizza burst entirely into flame.

Audrey shouted as the box disintegrated to ash in his hands, but the blackened ball of grease and cheese continued to burn.

“Shit.”

Rocky had darted ahead of him into the kitchen and ran back in with a bowl of water. “Shit. Shit. I’m so sorry, Fen.”

She dumped her bowl on the molten mess and Audrey brought another. It took three altogether to put the damn thing out, but not before the fire had melted the nylon fiber of the carpet. Rocky apologized while she tried to repair the damage, but even she gave up after a few minutes. She looked forlornly around the room. “It’s right in the middle too. You can’t even reposition your furniture around it.”

He shrugged. “It’s just an area rug. I redid the floors and planned to replace that one anyway after I painted and bought furniture. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t unpacked everything yet.”

Raquel closed her eyes and he resisted the urge to go to her.

“Well, what do you think, Rocky? That was promising, right?”

Her expression didn’t change. Her shoulders slumped and she looked plain defeated. He didn’t think it was over his rug.

“Sure,” she agreed, mustering a smile and climbing to her feet. “It’s pretty late. We should head home. Unless...” She waved at the sodden, melted mess. There was nothing else to be done about that.

“Don’t worry about this. I’ll roll it up so the water doesn’t damage the wood. You should probably wash off the runes before you go.”

He watched her walk toward the bathroom until Audrey cleared her throat. “You see what I mean by the fire hose? She needs to pull it back until she learns how to control it. I think the block is her mind’s natural defense system kicking in. She could have burned down your house.”