Linda Robertson - Arcane Circle

“I figured if I can’t manage a shower and the stairs, we shouldn’t try this mind-probing business.” He put his feet firmly on the floor. “But I’m good. Saved you some pizza.”

“I see that.”

“And I see that I was right.”

“About?”

“The vamp.”

“How do you know?”

“If he’d been toast, you wouldn’t have taken so long to get back inside.”

Together we walked to the kitchen.

Nana, just finished with the dishes, dried her hands on a kitchen towel. She then ran a hand through her snow-white hair, still adjusting to the new, more modern ’do that had replaced her outdated football helmet of a bouffant.

Dr. Lincoln and Mountain sat at the dinette responding to Beverley’s many questions about the unicorns, mostly answering, “I don’t know.”

When Mountain saw me he asked, “Do you have any camping gear?”

“I have an old tent packed away, but I don’t know what condition it’s in. Been years since I’ve used it. Don’t you want to stay in the house?”

“Nah, I’ll stay with the elementals.”

“Temperature’s dropping out there.”

“I’ll be fine. Plenty of insulation.” He patted his rotund belly. “Someone should monitor them.”

I relented. “I’ll get the tent.” I went out through the kitchen door and into the garage.

After hauling the hard-shelled tube that contained the tent down from a shelf, I wiped cobwebs and years of dust from its surface. The last time I had used it was back in college, when Michael LaCroix and I had gone camping with another couple. We’d broken up before the next planned camping trip, the one that ended with the other couple hospitalized and lucky to be alive after a rogue wære attacked them.

Back in the kitchen, I handed Mountain the somewhat clean tube. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a sleeping bag.” Mine was long gone, not that Mountain would have fit in it anyway.

“That’s okay, Doc’s loaning me one he had in his truck.”

“Sometimes I have to stay with my patients,” Dr. Lincoln said. “Always have one with me.”

Mountain bid us a good night and headed out, the tent bundled under an arm and a flashlight in his grip.

The doc had gathered his things up as well. I walked him to the front door. “Are we going to lose any of them, Doc?”

“I don’t think so. Mostly minor wounds. That griffon, though. If he gets an infection …” He shrugged. “Wouldn’t let me get close to him. I’ll try to come back tomorrow evening.”

“Thanks, Dr. Lincoln.” I held the door open for him.

“I’m going to be over here a lot, tending your new animals, so you may as well call me Geoff.”

“Deal, Geoff.”

After I shut the door, Johnny came down the hall toward me. He carried a plate bearing two slices of pizza and held it out to me, features firm with determination. He knew I hadn’t eaten.

I accepted the plate and picked up a slice. He’d re-heated it for me. Samosky’s pizza was awesome. Before I could take a bite, Beverley, escorted by Nana, appeared for a good-night hug and kiss. Unicorns or not, Nana was making sure she kept to her usual nightly routine.

Being home amid all this average family activity felt very … satisfying. It’s my destiny to bring balance. As aggravating as it might be at times, this is what it is about. Having this.

Johnny and I went back to the kitchen. He looked pale so I made him sit down while I poured myself a glass of 7UP. Joining him at the dinette, I said, “I know you’re the tough-guy Domn Lup, but you lost a lot of blood and you need to take it easy.”

“If you insist.”

“I do.”

Despite his fatigue, he managed to wiggle his eyebrows suggestively. “I’m not sure I can even climb all the way back up those stairs tonight.”

“Would you like to sleep on the couch?”

“No,” he replied quickly. “I can take the main stairs, they’re straight. It’s the attic stairs that are troublesome. I have to hunker down and twist. It pulls the stitches.”

Whining wasn’t in his character, so I was suspicious. “Really?”

He shrugged nonchalantly and moved the napkin holder around. “Maybe I should crash in your bedroom.” His blue eyes locked on mine with the last word.

That was all it took to make my heart beat a little faster. “Let’s see how you feel after we get this ‘probing’ done.”

“Oh.” He grinned. “I always crash after intense probing.”

My bedroom’s creamy-yellow walls were bathed in the flickering glow of white candles and the sweet, heavy scent of nag champa incense filled the air. Nana and Beverley were asleep in their beds, and Johnny and I were alone in my room. I’d promised to try this mind-probe thing and, despite feeling more like sleeping than scrutinizing, I would try it. Plus, with the wærewolf head honchos en route, Johnny needed whatever information he could get.

“How do we do this?” he asked.

“First, we take our pants off.” I dropped my jeans, leaving me in a long-sleeved tee and cotton boy-short panties.

He growled approval and dropped his jeans atop the discarded guitar-strap-sling without a word. I approved of the black stretch cotton boxer briefs. They were snug where they needed to be snug. Regardless of his injury, it was obvious his libido was doing just fine.

“Since when did you start wearing underwear?” I asked.

“Since the summer’s over.”

Just below the hem of the shorts, tattoos of blocky Aztec figures adorned each thigh. Drawn with thick lines and colored in with dark shades of red, these tattoos weren’t my favorites. “Sit on the bed and, here, take these pillows.”

“Please tell me that this is going to involve some kind of kinky sex magic thing.”

“Sorry.”

“Damn.”

“This isn’t even going to stir up a lot of energy like magic does. It’s mostly a meditation. The saline and salt should have cleansed the magic completely from your wound, but if you feel even a hint of energy affecting your injuries, let me know, okay?”

“I am more tolerant to magic than other wæres.”

“I know but …”

“But what?”

“When we made love at the haven … you know Menessos did something, right?”

He arched a brow. He could have given into anger or laughter. “He didn’t have video cameras in our room, did he?”

“Oh, hell. Not that I know of.” I had a sinking feeling inside. That bastard just might have. “He did something magically, through his link to me. He said that we’d already imprinted on each other, and he gave it a nudge into a fuller emotional bond. When it happened, we both murmured, ‘ in signum amoris .’ Do you remember that?”

He squinted. “Now that you mention it … sort of.”

“Well, if, because of that or the sorsanimus, this tweaks you in a way that’s wrong, bad, or unpleasant, say so and we’ll stop, okay?”

“You imply that I could be tweaked in way that is both wrong and bad yet is not unpleasant.”

I licked my index finger and gave him a point on the air scoreboard, then began rearranging my closet. Once all of my clothing hangers were pushed from the right side toward the middle, some old poster frames were exposed. Behind those were smaller frames, and behind them, a rectangle of slate, a little more than a foot wide by two feet long and less than a half-inch thick. The slate was cool and smooth under my fingers. I hefted it out and leaned it against the bed. I passed Johnny a fluorite stone and proceeded to cast a circle around us.

Before calling the elements to guard us I corrected my wording to invoke the “spirit of the elements” and not the elementals themselves. Probably not necessary, but it wouldn’t do to have any of the elemental animals from the grove trying to break into the house, so better to over-think in this instance.