Spring Rain (21 page)

Beck set the food down and went to her
immediately, knowing how much she’d been through since arriving at
the school four months before. He sat down beside her, shoulder to
shoulder. “Hey,” he said and nudged her.

She said nothing. Unable to resist, he
wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his body. She gave
without a fight this time, her frame shaking and breathing uneven.
He steadied her magick automatically and did his best to buffer
himself against the fiery, playful invasion touching her brought.
He fantasized about the day when he didn’t have to throw up his
guards, when he could let his fire melt him from the inside and
dare her to unleash everything she could, then make love to her
until they couldn’t move.

The potential for a physical relationship
beyond anything he could imagine was there. He had tasted it
whenever they kissed, and he grappled with his yearning to remember
she was damaged and needed time while desire born of hormones and
lust quickened his blood.

She calmed in his arms,
and he shifted to lean back against the heavy armchair near the
fire so he could support her better. Beck held her, breathing in
the scent of his shampoo in her hair and trying hard not to notice
how her supple, perfect body reclined against his. This was the
first night of
them,
and he feared ruining it.

“Did you call your mom?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Beck didn’t quite know what else to say.

“I thought being Light would change
everything,” she whispered at last. “I thought I’d … I don’t know.
Forget all the bad things and know what to do next.”

“It’s an incredible step, Morgan,” he
replied. “It means the world. It really does.”

“But I’m still bad for you.” She lifted her
head. Her gorgeous green eyes were lined with red, and her nose was
red as well.

“But look at what you can do,” he said,
touched by her distress. “You can help me fight the Dark.”

“From a million miles away!”

He laughed softly, unable
to help it. “Morgan, you’re Light. The first Light fire witchling
in centuries. Take the victory. It means you’re stronger than every
fire witchling that’s existed in five hundred years. It means
you’re special.”
And you’re
mine.

She was listening. She straightened to
support her own weight without leaving his body, eyes on his face.
“It means we can …” she cleared her throat, tiny flames igniting
across her body in a sign of visual arousal he found sexy as
hell.

“Be together?” he teased.

She nodded.

“In every way. When you’re ready.”

She didn’t speak and rested her head against
his shoulder with a deep sigh. He felt her exhaustion and
surrender.

“What is that?” she murmured, pointing to
the large history book he had placed by the fire while trying to
get through more of it during the week.

“Oral histories of the witchlings.” He
stretched until his fingers brushed the binding then tugged it
towards them, not wanting to release her. “I was searching for some
information about how to trap Bartholomew.”

“Using the soul stone?”

“Yeah.”

Morgan eased away enough to open the front
cover. “Did you find anything?”

“No. It’s kind of hard to read, though. They
wrote an ‘s’ like an ‘f’ and had other letters we don’t use so some
of the words are weird.”

“Did you ask your magick?”

“It doesn’t know, and the earth kind of
speaks in riddles, so I can’t really figure out its answers
sometimes.”

“No, I mean, did you ask your element to
tell you where the information is in the book?”

His eyebrows lifted. “Um, no.”

“Why not?” She gazed at him.

“I guess I never thought of magick as doing
that. Kind of seems silly to use it to do something I can do
without it.”

“I summon it; ask it for things,” she said
defensively.

He cleared his throat. “By silly, I meant …
uh, not silly.”

Morgan gave him a half smile. “I’ll burn it
if I turn the flames on it. But you should ask it with your earth
magick. These are, or were, trees.” She nudged the pages.
“Shouldn’t they tell you?”

“Maybe.”
Why didn’t I think of this?
Beck thought in frustration. Even when he started to gain
ground in one area, he came up completely oblivious in another. He
rested a hand on the book and summoned his earth magick. It was
hard to tell if the book retained the spirit of the trees its pages
had come from. He heard no distinct voice and saw no images in his
mind.

Morgan relaxed more deeply against him as
the magick passed through her to get to the book.

He lifted his hand and waited. The pages
began to turn of their own accord. He watched, fascinated. They
stopped towards the end of the book and fell open.

Morgan tugged the heavy tome into her lap.
Beck read over her shoulder, struggling through the clunky
words.

“Ugh,” Morgan said. “All it says is that it
took all five elements and both Masters to capture him. I was
hoping for an instruction manual, I think.”

“That’s more than we knew,” he said
thoughtfully. “All five elements, Light and Dark. That’s a ton of
magic to bind one guy. The equinox is tomorrow. That might
help.”

“One really bad guy.” Morgan closed the book
and set it aside. “You didn’t know you could do that? Find things
with your magick?”

“No,” he admitted.

“So … you
do
need me to protect
you as well as help you figure things out.” She sounded
satisfied.

“I suppose,” he said with a laugh. “We can
work together. As a team.”

She muttered something he
didn’t make out, and he guessed he’d failed to disguise his
I-told-you-so
tone.

“Right? Teamwork!” he said and squeezed
her.

“Not until the stone no longer hurts you and
the Light.” The stubbornness was back.

“Morgan.” He sighed. “We will work together.
There’s no other choice.”

“Yes there is.”

“This isn’t Beck speaking, but the Master of
Light.”

“I have a problem with authority.”

He lifted her chin to meet her gaze. “I
know,” he replied. “Then do it because you love me.”

She flushed and yanked away, burying her
face in his sweater once more.

Beck smiled, sensing he had won, albeit not
in the way he intended to. “What’s your plan? Burn Bartholomew out
of Dawn?”

She said nothing.

Got that right.
“Sam said it’s not possible. She invited
Bartholomew in. She’s pretty much a lost cause.”

“No,” Morgan replied. “I can’t accept the
idea she’s lost.”

“You’re too sweet,” he murmured. “You think
because you were damaged, another damaged soul can be saved.
Morgan, you can’t save someone else. I know this first hand. We all
are charged with the responsibility of saving ourselves.”

“No.” Her protest was softer this time. “You
saved me. I’ll save you.”

“I didn’t save you! You turned Light when
you fried Noah,” he reminded her, amused.

Her anger flared and she sat up, glaring at
him. “You gave me a reason to try, Beck. You gave me a reason not
to run away, to want to stay.” Fire flashed in her eyes, and the
burning hearth stretched towards them in response to her pulse of
magick.

He maintained their physical contact,
sensing she was too tired to manage on her own, and pushed back the
fire with earth magick. Her look ensnared him, reminded him he
could never fight hard enough or make enough excuses to keep what
was between them from existing. He had once wanted to keep his
distance from her, so she wasn’t dragged into his life, his messes
with Dawn and internal struggle.

Losing her for three months, however, had
showed him how terrible the idea was and how much he needed to
treasure their time together. With her in his arms, even if she
were angry, he could no longer support the small whisper inside
that tried to convince him they were better off apart.

“
I don’t understand …
this,” she continued with a combination of frustration and looked
at his hands. “I don’t understand why I can’t leave.”

“Do you want to?” he asked.

She shook her head then proclaimed. “But I
should.”

“Why?” He didn’t smile even though he wanted
to. She was moving through some huge issues rather quickly, and he
didn’t want to discourage her from opening up to him the way she
rarely did anyone.

She gazed at him, telling him with her eyes
what she couldn’t with her voice. He touched her face, satisfied
that she didn’t flinch away this time. Beck had an idea of what she
had been through at the hands of another man. Connor had hinted at
the abuse while Decker, who could read the thoughts of someone else
with a shared element, confirmed it. Morgan’s on-off again warmth
towards Beck was another indication.

Thinking that anyone could hurt the sweet
girl before him infuriated him to the point of wanting to do
something no Master of Light should and send her abuser a message.
He purposely didn’t let himself dwell on these thoughts, not
wanting to disturb her progress or the fact that he had her in his
arms again after three months of believing her to be dead.

Emotions tumbled within him. “It’s okay,” he
said when it was clear she couldn’t say the words. “I was scared at
the beginning, too.”

“What changed?”

“You fried my resistance.”

“Beck.” She frowned, her plump lower lip
sticking out in a pout.

He grinned briefly. “This isn’t natural.
That much you feel right?”

She nodded.

“There’s a reason for that, for the draw we
can’t fight and the knowledge this isn’t the way it is for everyone
else.”

Morgan said nothing, listening.

“Every Master of Dark and Master of Light
has a counterbalance, someone with the potential to be a perfect
match, to balance out the side of the Master that otherwise isn’t
balanced. Decker has Summer. I have …” he drifted off.

Her eyebrows were lifted quizzically.

“Well. You.”

Morgan’s expression didn’t change. She
wasn’t surprised. “Did Sam do this?”

“No.” Beck chuckled. “From what I can
gather, the elements decide it. Our magick chooses. Mine chose you.
Yours chose me.” He waited for her to make some snide remark about
how his taste in women was as bad as his magick’s.

She didn’t. If anything, Morgan appeared
pensive.

“Does that make it less scary?” he
asked.

“It helps.” She ducked her head. “I have a …
you know my past. Parts of it.” She stopped.

He said nothing.

“We wouldn’t be chosen for each other if we
weren’t meant to be together,” she observed with a deep breath.
“Does that mean there’s a solution we haven’t found yet?”

“I want to think so, yes.”

“I need there to be.” Morgan studied him,
the pink of her cheeks heightened. Sitting here like this was
killing him.

“You should get some rest,” he said. “We
have some big days of figuring stuff out before us.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“I am, Beck.”

“Morgan, you aren’t.” He leaned forward,
unwilling to give. “I just told you we’re destined for one another
and your response is to leave?”

“To protect you, as always,” she replied
archly.

“Like my duty is to protect you.”

“I won’t let you.”

There were moments … Beck stepped back from
the edge her fire pushed him to. “You. Won’t. Leave. I’m putting my
foot down.”

A flare of something else sprang into her
gaze. It was more than a challenge; there was amusement as well.
“You don’t have the guts to stop me, Beck. You didn’t three months
ago. You didn’t at the hospital. You won’t now.” She stood and
moved away.

Beck watched her, compelled towards her with
a power he struggled to fight and which flustered his thoughts for
him to know how to handle her blatant defiance. She would get
herself killed because she wasn’t capable of bending or
compromising. She was likewise accurate about his history of not
standing up to her.

It ends now.
There was no question or doubt in his mind they
were meant to be together. He had stood up to Dark witchlings; he
could stand up to his own counterbalance, no matter how angry – or
beautiful – she was.

“I’ll check in daily,” Morgan said and
draped her wet clothing over the furniture. She didn’t think twice
about Beck’s silence, assured he would roll over the way he usually
did. She’d seen him do it with Dawn; he’d done it multiple times
with her. Confident and amazing, Beck nonetheless usually let women
walk all over him.

For once, she was almost glad about it.
Sitting in his arms left her too turned on, too confused and afraid
of messing up to know what to do. She was mentally puzzling over
his assertion about them being destined for one another. The part
of her that felt the primal belonging agreed, yet the rational side
of her didn’t quite get how two people were chosen for one another
by magick. She’d been able to ignore the idea until he finally
admitted to it.

His explanation made
sense. It wasn’t the fact it happened. It was the fact it happened
to
her.
To
someone who had never had a good day in her life, and she was the
one given a gift as incredible, exhilarating and terrifying as
Beck.

“Alright. That’s it.” Beck rose and
approached her.

Morgan glanced at him and tossed her wet
sweater over the arm of the small couch near the fire. Beck was
glowing with Light, and there was resolve on his features.
Entertained at the thought he was really going to try to put his
foot down with her, she faced him and placed her hands on her hips.
“You grow a backbone with women while I was gone?” she taunted,
unable to help the words when her fire magick was sending flutters
of desire in every direction inside her.