An Unlikely Witch (2 page)

“Ouch.”  A warm hand touched what would soon be a hell of a bruise.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He wrenched the earphones out of his ears.  “I wouldn’t have heard an elephant coming with these things in.”  Bike-repair ambience.  He rubbed his hands together and took another surreptitious look at Lauren.  “Let’s go inside—it’s freezing out here.” 

That she didn’t protest was even more worrying.  She was oddly protective of his time in his ramshackle shed of a man cave.

Her hand reached for his on the path back to the cottage.  “You need a space heater in there or something.  Your fingers are freezing.”

“My brother’s a fire witch.”  He had no idea why they were discussing the state of his hands when something else was clearly going on, but he knew better than to derail conversational detours.  “I’ll tell him he needs to provide a heat spell as partial payment for keeping his rustbucket on the road.”

Lauren almost managed a smile.  “You call it a classic when he lets you ride it.”

Of course he did.  And rust didn’t dare come anywhere near Jamie’s bike, but that was way beside the point.  Brotherhood had rules.

So did marriage.  Dev pulled open the door and gently herded his wife inside.  “You need coffee?”

“No.”  Her eyes turned sober and sad again.  “Just you.”

Ah, hell.  He wrapped his arms around her in the narrow hallway, wishing he could squeeze away whatever had come to invade.  She didn’t need him to tilt at windmills for her, but he always wanted to anyhow.

He led her over to the couch, relocating the sleeping cat, a forgotten fire truck, and her laptop as he did so.  Signs of normal life.  Lauren unhappy wasn’t one of those.  Gently he tugged her down into the nest of cushions and blankets and comfort that he’d once laughed at, and now tucked into almost as often as she did.

And then he tried to settle the seeking, restless soul he’d been born with long enough for the woman he loved to find her words.

She nestled in, their bodies finding all the places they fit together.  He could feel her heart beating—or rather, he could sense it, his water magic responding to the marching ebb and flow of the fluid in her veins.  A new thing, and one that had the healers inspecting him with interested eyes.

He was pretty sure it was just one of the weird things love did.

“The orb showed me another image.”

Bloody, bleeping hell.  Dev closed his eyes and wished the ball of glass to the depths of the ocean.  He could easily make it so.  “Who did it see this time?”

Her whole body sank deeper into his.  “Nat.”  A pause, just long enough for him to feel the tremors.  “Building a snowman with her son.”

Oh, God.  Devin felt his insides rip in two.  Insane, wild hope—and the need to break things.  Crystal balls didn’t deliver easy messages.  “Maybe it’s good news.”  The other possibility didn’t bear considering.

“Maybe.”  She spoke through a waterfall of unshed tears.  “I would give anything for that to be true.”

They all would.  He stroked her hair, feeling the fear now.  Sharing it.  “You think it might be bad.”

“I don’t know.  It looked bad for Lizard, but in the end, it wasn’t.”  She sniffled.  “I read that one wrong.  I have no idea what to think this time.”

And it was spearing holes in her lungs.  “Maybe they’re not connected.”

She raised an eyebrow—he felt it slide up against his chest.  “You don’t believe that.”

Nope, he didn’t.  Lizard could have been a one-time thing.  Two felt uncomfortably like a pattern.  A pattern that was going to shake up Lauren along with whoever the fates had decided to mess with next.

He’d have volunteered a whole lot of people before his sister-in-law with the gorgeous heart.

“It’ll be Jamie, too,” said his wife, easily following his thoughts.  “He loves that little boy as much as she does.”

Yeah.  And when one Sullivan hurt, or two, the rest of the family turned into a snarling bear.  “Nice freaking Solstice gift.”  Maybe the deep-ocean thing was worth considering.

“The orb’s only the messenger.”  Lauren sat up a little, staring off into the distance.  “And now it’s passed the message to me, and I have no idea what to do with it.”  She turned to look at Dev, eyes fierce.  “This kills them, every single day.  How can I tell them this?  I don’t even know whether I’m bearing glad tidings or totally sucky ones.”

He felt the beat of his own heart, knowing exactly what had flamed to life when he’d heard.  Subversive, aching hope. 

The kind that would dynamite if that little boy wasn’t on the way, and damn soon.

“I can’t tell them, can I?”  Lauren’s shoulders squared under the burden.  “Magic can maybe be that cruel.  I can’t.”

He winced, pretty sure the damn orb wasn’t telling her just so she could keep a secret.  However, he also knew his wife.  “I’m thinking that maybe it tells you this stuff for a reason.”

The death glare was a pretty good one.

Devin was smart enough not to grin.  “I mean that it picked
you
specifically.  Have you thought about why?”  He hadn’t, really, but he was now.  “What are you best at?”

The death glare had been replaced by confusion.  “Selling houses.  What does that have to do with this?”

Nothing.  And everything.  “You know how to make a deal.  How to gather information and use it at exactly the right moment to make things work out the very best they can.”  He shrugged.  “You don’t just blabber useful intel the second you learn it.”

Surprise flickered in Lauren’s eyes—and then the grit he’d been hoping to see.  The sense of power.  The negotiator, seeking her angle.  “You think the orb’s giving me information and it’s up to me when to use it?”

He wasn’t at all sure—oceans were his playground, not hunks of glass.  But the forces of the universe had tagged his wife on this one, and they were idiots if they weren’t playing to her strengths.  “It’s what you do best.”  What she needed to do, even if magical marbles didn’t know it.

Her eyes cleared.  A power broker, taking hold of the reins.  “Then I’m sitting on this for now.”

It was the right choice.  The only choice.  If good news was coming, it would barely take Witch Central a nanosecond to flood with joy, and the orb would only be a footnote.  If it wasn’t good, the message could damn well wait.  But it was going to cost the woman he loved to live with the awfulness in the meantime.

Devin wrapped his arms around her shoulders and sent a whispered thought to the small boy with the contagious grin.

If you have any say in this, little dude—now’s the time.
 

Chapter 2

Nat walked through the door of her house and grinned at the excited shriek from upstairs.

“Mama!”  Kenna flew down the stairs at a speed that would have been a lot scarier if her six-year-old cousin wasn’t right behind her.  Aervyn’s teleporting skills saved his little cousin’s noggin from damage on a daily basis.

Nat caught the two of them in a big hug, holding them close an extra second or two.  Sinking into the present.  Cherishing what she already had.

Kenna jiggled out of reach, babbling about a fire truck and a princess with a sword.

Aervyn just shook his head ruefully.  “We’re supposed to be putting out the dragon’s fire with the big hose, but she just keeps setting him on fire again.”

Nat hid a grin, well aware that this particular princess lacked a little in the flexibility department.  “Who’s making sure the whole house doesn’t go up in flames?”

“Me.” 

He seemed pretty comfortable about that—Kenna must be on good behavior today.  “Just the two of you here, huh?”  Not likely.

“Nuh, uh.  Uncle Jamie’s working on something that’s broken in Realm.”

Occupational hazard when you ran a gaming world that let witches play using real magic.  “Okay.  How about I make us some lunch, then?”

“No green stuff.”  The words came automatically as Aervyn loosed a small spell in Kenna’s direction.  He grinned as the little girl squealed and chased the neon-orange lights over her head.  “And maybe Helga already made lunch—she’s been making lots of banging noises in the kitchen.”

That was far more concerning than small children playing with fire.  Nat got up from her knees, preparing to go investigate.  Helga was Witch Central’s resident senior-citizen hellion, and what she lacked for in magic, she more than made up for in imagination.

Aervyn’s hand squeezed hers.  “I’m glad you feel better now.”

Nat looked down, caught by the sincerity in his voice—and the wisdom.  His mind magic was huge, and he picked up so much.  “Caught that, did you?”

“A little.”  He cuddled his head into her belly.  “I hope your boy comes soon.  I know you miss him.”

She didn’t murmur the platitudes, the cautions that their little boy who liked to build snowmen might never come at all.  Instead, Nat wrapped her arms around the curly head of the wise six-year-old who so resembled that laughing toddler.  And accepted the truth and comfort he offered.

What’s up? 
Her husband’s voice slid into her head, gentle and slightly concerned.

She looked up as he made his way down the stairs.
 I’m fine.
  It was close to true, now.

Jamie ruffled Aervyn’s hair and gave her one last careful look.  “I hear Helga’s made worm slime and spider bones for lunch.”

“No way.”  Aervyn backed away, giggling.  “Spiders don’t have bones.”

“The worm slime’s for dessert,” said an amused voice from the hallway.  Helga waved a spoon in the direction of the kitchen.  “First you have to eat up all your grilled cheese sandwiches and pumpkin soup.”

Nat hid a giggle of her own as Jamie and Aervyn exchanged perturbed glances.  Pumpkin was a vegetable.

Kenna had no such qualms.  “Teese and toup!”  She bestowed an enormous grin on her honorary grandma and took her hand.  “Me eat.”

Helga wiggled an eyebrow Aervyn’s direction.  “I put bacon in the soup and cinnamon and some more secret stuff I bet you can’t even guess.”

The boy’s eyes lit with mischief.  “Spider bones?”

“Maaaaaybe.”

Jamie wrapped an arm around Nat’s shoulders, grinning at the three carousing down the hallway ahead of them.  “I guess this means I have to eat it, huh?”

Nat was pretty sure it wouldn’t kill him—Helga had been bribing Aaron for recipes lately.  “If you don’t, no worm slime for you.”  There was leftover green Jello in the fridge that probably wouldn’t mind being repurposed.

The shortest members of their current household had disappeared from view.  Jamie dropped a kiss on the top of her head. 
Sure you’re okay?

Yeah.
  She kept her answer in her head, trusting his mind magic to hear the words.  And shared her pain, even though she knew it would create some of his own. 
I saw a little boy with curls in our park today.

Sorrow came down his mind channels, along with comfort.  They leaned into it together, lending strength and solace both.

In three-and-a-half years, they’d had a lot of practice.

And then Nat slid her fingers into his and entered the cheerful kitchen chaos.  She’d made a promise to herself on the morning of her sixteenth birthday as she’d come downstairs to a table full of carefully wrapped presents, empty chairs, and a note.

Grief didn’t get to steal any more of her life.

-o0o-

She pulled herself together for him.  Even as he walked into his kitchen and the smell of Helga’s most excellent grilled cheese sandwiches, Jamie knew that. 

Nat would pull in her sadness, her aching yearning for the small boy they both wanted so terribly much, so he didn’t have to feel it in duplicate.

A gesture he both loved and hated every time it happened.

She was moving gracefully around the kitchen now, reaching for cups, pouring milk, dropping a kiss on Kenna’s messy curls.  Comfortable in the chaos.

Reveling in it.

She found her balance so much faster than he did.

And he worried that underneath it all, she still walked in pain.  Alone.

Nat had dragged herself out of the lonely muck of her growing up and prepared to be the center of a large and boisterous family.  He’d known that moments after they’d met, even if she hadn’t understood it yet.  And then she’d married into a clan where big families were legion and began to build one of her own.

He was terribly afraid that somewhere underneath the grace and gentle smiles in his kitchen walked a woman who felt like a failure.  Like she was somehow letting down him and Kenna and a small boy with laughing eyes and all the children who were meant to come after him.

He had no idea what to do about it.  Words didn’t fix stuff like this, especially not with his yogini wife.  But yoga wasn’t fixing it either, or any of the other things Nat was so very good at using to find her balance.

She hurt.  And too often, she hurt alone.  It was killing him.

Helga squeezed his arm and laid a plate in his hands, eyes sharp.  “Everything okay?”

Jamie was suddenly apprehensive, in his kitchen full of the redolent smells of melted cheddar, that the answer had tipped a lot more sharply toward “no.”