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Authors: Ann Macela

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Romance, #Suspense

Wild Magic (23 page)

BOOK: Wild Magic
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She stifled a sigh. From those words and his sharp, cutting tone, it looked like persuading him to accept the actuality of the phenomenon was going to be more difficult than she originally thought. He’d accepted the reality of being a practitioner, hadn’t he? Why couldn’t he at least say the phenomenon was possible? Or did he object to her, personally? How could he even frame the idea with the soul-mate phenomenon in full active force?
“Do
you
want us to be soul mates?” he asked. “To have me for a ready-made, automatic, arranged mate with no say of your own?”
That was the question on her side, of course, and she could understand his opposition based on those factors. She could only tell him the truth. “To your first question, I honestly don’t know. We’ve only just met. Neither of us knows the other well. I have no real objection to the idea. I like you—although you can be exasperating at times.”
He snorted, and she ignored the derisive noise. “I think you’ve handled finding out about your talents really well. I admire what you do for the DEA. I think you’re a man of integrity, intensity, and purpose. I think you’re good-look ing—but appearance doesn’t really matter to a soul mate. I don’t know what you like or dislike yet, except for my throwing spells at what you think are inopportune times.”
She said the last with a smile. He didn’t smile back, only maintained his relentless scrutiny.
“Granted,” she continued, “I’m coming at the possibility from a very different place than you are. I’m used to the idea. I grew up with the certainty that ‘someday my soul mate will come,’ and I expect to make a life with him. I’m open to the idea of you as my mate.”
She expected to fall in love with him, and he with her. Her expectation, however, seemed both too important and too “fairy tale-ish” to mention at this stage, so she tried to lighten the conversation. “When I was young, I did all the foolish daydreaming a girl does about the man in her future. I must tell you, you’re nothing like what I expected.”
He smiled grimly at her statement. “I’ll bet. What did you expect?”
“Some sort of corporate honcho or lawyer, like all the men I saw at my parents’ parties, or maybe one of those very serious, nerdy academic types. Most probably a man who needed my organizational skills. I watched a number of practitioner friends find their mates, and each couple seemed made for each other. Fergus, however, knows a couple who, on the surface, are almost total opposites, even to the way they work magic, and they’re together as solidly as those totally compatible mates.”
“Great, so there’s hope for us yet.”
She couldn’t let him sit there and make snide comments. They’d never get through this and to his agreement. Time to get him talking.
“All right, those are the basic facts about soul mates and the imperative. What do you think so far?”
He leaned back in the easy chair, put his elbows on the armrests, and steepled his fingers under his chin. His lids half-covered his eyes, and she had no clue as to what he might be thinking.
She made herself sit still and wait.
Finally, he rose, shook his head, and said, “I think it’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard. The idea some magic force would bring two people together for a happily-ever-after is ridiculous. God, talk about a fantasy. You people actually believe this stuff?” He made a scoff ing gesture with one hand.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
 
Irenee sighed to herself. Jim was reacting as she was afraid he might, claiming the entire soul-mate phenomenon was their imagination. Thank goodness she hadn’t mentioned love. He
really
wasn’t ready to face that idea yet. She’d let him fuss and fume and see if he talked himself into accepting the situation. Most of the evidence was indisputable to her, but twistable by someone who didn’t believe in or couldn’t accept the magic.
Walking around the chair, he began to pace in front of the windows for a few seconds. He finally stopped to lean on the back of the chair and look at her. “You, Whipple, and the rest have thrown a lot of info at me in the past couple of days. Fantastic, surprising stuff I never even thought of and wouldn’t have believed possible.”
He ticked them off on his fingers. “Practitioners exist and can do magic. I’m one of them. I actually cast a spell—or did something to light a damned candle and put a ball of light in the air.”
He straightened up and ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve seen you do things that should be impossible—your little ‘puff of wind,’ for example. I’ve heard about evil magic items and how Finster and Ubell have been using them. Except for the last, I’ve seen proof with my own eyes of all those things, and the problems the accountants are having with Finster’s books is convincing evidence, too. Yes, magic exists, and yes, you—and I—can cast spells.”
Irenee made no movement, said nothing. He was going to deny the phenomenon. He had a surprise coming.
“But you’ve gone too far with this soul-mate business. It’s entirely too much to swallow. Yeah, I’ll admit I’m attracted to you. What man wouldn’t be? You’re a beautiful woman, sexy, smart. I’m certainly up for a fling if you are.”
He gave her what she could only think of as a predatory smile before scowling. “I’m definitely not interested in a long-term anything. Never have been, never will be. Soul mates? Bullshit to get you practitioners together and keep the bloodlines going.”
She simply looked at him for a few seconds. Sure enough, as she expected, there was a reaction to his rejection of the entire phenomenon, and it didn’t come from her.
“Ouch!” He started rubbing his center and almost doubled over. “Damn!”
She stopped herself from grinning. Served him right for not believing. “That’s the soul-mate imperative telling you it isn’t pleased.”
Slowly and still bending over, he made his way around the chair and collapsed into its cushions. He continued to massage his middle. She said nothing; what he decided was between him and the imperative.
“This isn’t a spell you threw on me to convince me, is it?”
“Of course not. Weren’t you listening? Soul mates can’t cast spells on each other except for healing and defense. I can’t cause you harm. In our specific case, I can’t cast a defense against the imperative either. It’s totally out of everybody’s power, including Fergus’s. You’re only looking for an excuse, a way out.”
Pressing his hands against his breastbone, he winced and shifted his position several times. The imperative was obviously hitting him hard.
She said nothing. It hurt her to watch him suffering—little jabs were hitting her own center as if goading her to persuade him. She knew from the discussion with Fergus, Bridget, and her father, however, whatever Jim concluded had to be his decision alone.
After a while, he asked through gritted teeth, “How do I get it to stop? Is it one of those ‘almost conscious’ forces like the items?”
“It seems to be aware and to respond—when it wants to. We’ve found, if you continue to reject the idea, the pain will only get worse. To stop the torment, I imagine at the least, you have to accept the phenomenon’s existence and be open to the possibility of a mate—and you have to mean it. I’ve been told the imperative won’t let you fake it.”
“Look, Irenee, the whole concept is crazy, right out of a fairy tale. I’m
not
Prince Charming, Cinderella. How can you believe in it so strongly?”
“I’ve never known anything else, it’s part of my world, and I’ve seen it in action. My best friend from college found her mate our senior year. My parents are soul mates, like every other practitioner couple I’ve ever met. It’s not supposition or make-believe to me. It’s reality, and since you’re a practitioner, it’s reality for you, too.”
“In another universe, maybe.”
Obstinate man
. Okay, what evidence could she use to persuade him? What argument to convince him of practitioner reality and her as his mate? She almost despaired when no ideas came to mind. Then she took a good look at him. A light blue tinge of an aura surrounded him.
Of course, the absolutely only voice she knew he’d listen to. She looked him straight in the eye. “For you to accept it honestly and not because of coercion, let’s ask the question another way. What does your
hunch
tell you about it and me? Are we soul mates?”
The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the blue went from light and faint to dark and bright and surrounded his entire body. He froze and stared at her with big golden-green eyes. This time he did look exactly like the proverbial deer in the headlights.
“Holy shit!” Jim couldn’t decide whether to clutch his head or his stomach. His hunch antennae started whipping back and forth like they were in a hurricane. His center burned like the entire country’s Fourth-of July displays were going off right under his breastbone. Through it all, the mother of all hunches was working toward a conclusion he knew would be the absolutely right, totally correct, take-to-the-bank, impossible answer.
He tried to stand, maybe with some goofy idea to get away, but his knees buckled. He slid to the floor and curled up on his side in a ball around the pain.
The hunch mechanism in his head churned on.
Yes,
he was attracted to her. Extremely.
Yes,
he wanted her.
Yes,
he wanted a family.
Yes,
having a soul mate—her, all his—would put an end to his loneliness, his rootless-ness, his bone-deep need for someone in his life who gave a damn whether he was alive or dead.
Yes,
he wanted somebody to help him in his cause.
Yes, yes, yes!
But first, he had to recognize what he’d been keeping behind the wall in his head, what he’d been longing for, what was now almost in his grasp.
Out of the torment came a crystal-clear vision of his parents, standing in the kitchen, looking into each other’s eyes and saying, “I love you, my soul mate.”
Oh, my God.
Yes, deep down, that’s what he wanted—her, a family of his own, her, companionship, her, togetherness, love, her, her, her. Was all of it really his, simply for the asking? How could he be truly happy after what he’d let happen to his sister?
“Jim? Jim! Can you hear me? What’s going on?” Dimly Irenee’s voice made its way through the waves of pain and revelation.
He opened his eyes. She was kneeling by his side, one soothing hand on his forehead, the other gripping his top arm.
“Y-y-yes,” he forced the word out, grabbed her hand on his forehead, and pulled it closer to his center. The pain in his middle eased.
“Jim. How do you feel? Can you straighten out? Where does it hurt?”
“Irenee.” Her name came out more as a prayer than a call for help—or maybe they were both the same. Saying it brought her gaze to his, and the warmth and caring in her eyes almost made him want to cry. Nobody had looked at him like that in a very long time. It gave him the strength to press her hand against his center.
The pain stopped.
It was gone, just like that.
He blinked up at her, even managed a smile of sorts.
She smiled and sat up.
Her movement took her hand away from contact with his chest.
Wham! And, just like that, the pain returned—doubled.
He pulled her hand to its previous position, reached his bottom arm around her back, and jerked the rest of her down beside him so they were on their sides, facing each other.
The pain vanished.
“What happened?” she asked, her eyes big, brown, and puzzled.
It took him a second to get his breath back before he could croak, “When your hand touched my chest, the pain went away. When you sat up and your hand wasn’t touching, it came back worse. Nothing hurts now.”
She raised her head and glanced at their parallel bodies, then back at him. A little smirk played around her mouth, and her eyes twinkled when she said, “We can’t stay like this forever, though, can we?
I’m fine
, to use your words.
I don’t hurt.
The imperative knows I believe in it, and I’m willing to give our relationship a try. What about you? What does your hunch say?”
“Thank you, Ms. Voice of Reason, for your analysis.” He closed his eyes. Crunch time. After this episode with such awful agony, he couldn’t pretend he was okay or nothing special was going on. His hunch was beating on the back of his forehead with its answers. He took a deep breath—inhale, exhale—and opened his eyes. “Okay. It got me. The damn imperative and whole soulmate thing are real.”
“You’re sure.”
“Absolutely, positively,” he said and realized he meant it, unequivocally.
She smiled, and it turned into a great big grin.
His center cooled to a comforting, contented warmth and vibrated.
A happy notion entered his head—or somewhere—and he acted on it. He gave her a quick kiss and asked, “If we’re soul mates, do we get to fool around right away? Don’t we have to bond or something? What about our first mating?”
She stared at him with those big chocolate eyes, but said nothing.
BOOK: Wild Magic
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