Magical Weddings (13 page)

Ax saw danger and reacted immediately, shooting to his feet. He crossed the kitchen toward Colleen in two strides.

“I’m tired of it.” Her voice rose, breaking, “The house is tired of it. We need someone to care about fixing this place.”

“Colleen.” He grabbed her wrists, tried his best to calm her, repeating her name softly. “Colleen.”

“No!” She fought his hold on her. “What are you doing? Let me go.”

He did not let go. He waited out her struggles.

“Colleen,” he said. “Stop.”

He nodded at her hands.

She looked where his eyes instructed her to look. Fine porcelain shards from the teacup ground against each other in her grasp, fingers curling viselike around razor thin edges hard and sharp as glass.

“Oh!”

She opened her fists at once and the pieces dropped to the floor, shattering a second time.

Ax didn’t release his grip, instead pulling her close to examine her hands for cuts.

“I may be able to conjure a half-assed spell for a wound in a crisis,” he said. “But I’m no healer.”

“No,” she said. “That would be Chloe.”

The ire might be gone from her voice, but the ragged breathing remained and did not slow. She was tall enough to come to shoulder height on him, unusual for a witch in Breens, most of whom tended to be on the petite side. Lithe and strong, she could have pulled herself free of almost anyone’s grasp, but Ax was not anyone. Filtered through the red of her lashes, her brown-eyed gaze slanted upward and met his. His left thumb continued to press against the pulse at her inner wrist, as if he could somehow contain the frenzied rhythm.

As if he would even want to.

“Or Patrick. Or Hansen.” He named two more healers.

“Neither of whom are here,” she said.

“No, they’re not.”

Her skin infused the tight space between them with the fragrance of heated chocolate. He could not break eye contact with her. The tip of her tongue snuck out to wet her bottom lip and that was the farthest into the periphery his concentration could extend itself. He was lost.

“Damn. That was century-old Belleek. My favorite cup.”

She whispered this while completely ignoring remnants of said cup.

“And that’s my favorite hand,” he whispered back, and then felt like a complete idiot.

My favorite hand? Are you kidding me?

“…of the two you have, that is.” He stammered an awkward qualifier.

Get it together, Paxton
.

“Am I okay?” she said, searching his eyes for the answer. He had the feeling she sought the answer to something more than an injury. What that something was, he couldn’t say. He didn’t think she knew herself.

“You tell me,” he said.

“I mean, am I injured?”

“You can’t feel–?”

“Feel what?” She laughed. “Feel which?” The laugh was light. At him? At herself?

He still hadn’t released her. She could do nothing to touch him. Or so he thought, until she leaned in and her warm breath snuck its way under his collar, brushed his skin. Shocked by a rare flavor of magic he’d never tasted in his life, his lower body came to life at the sensation of something stroking the length of him. Not fingertips, nothing so corporeal as her hand, but
her
. She stared up at him, lips just slightly parted, but what he imagined was their lushness on him, weighty with need.

Her power cudgeled the breadth out of him in a shudder.

Was this her gift? Her real gift? Not her connection with Drayhome. But
this
?

Good Lord
. He didn’t think he could survive a full onslaught.

Car tires spun on gravel outside. A small compact skid to a stop near the rear entrance.

Flustered by the sound, Colleen pulled at his hold. He let her go and the taut leash between them faded away. She looked down. Auburn eyelashes batted away the intensity of the moment.

“That would be Shelley and the others,” she said. “Right on cue.”

Almost as an afterthought, he glanced at her palms and fingers.

At least she wasn’t bleeding,
thank God
.

Saved by intruders,
thank God
.

Colleen thought of all visitors to Drayhome except Ax as intruders.

What in the hell was I thinking? What was I about to
do
just now?

Whatever had or had not been about to happen between she and Ax, fizzled at the sound of Shelley’s Audi on the drive. She knew it was the glamorous witch’s car not because she glimpsed the vehicle through a window, or knew enough about car engines to recognize the sound, but because the house told her.

Drayhome creaked and groaned at the rafters as the last ripple from her encounter with Ax pushed violently outward like the overblast from an explosion, gradually dying away.

She tried centering herself, finding her calm, but Ax had shattered it like she had the cup, torn away the entire morning’s carefully constructed façade for dealing with the onslaught of people about to descend on the house. No amount of time would ever be enough to prepare her mentally. She’d had mere hours between the wedding spell and their arrival, a fraction of what she typically needed. Her fingers trembled as she knelt down and gathered the pieces of the Belleek one by one. She couldn’t think clearly and found herself slowing to a literal stop, hand vacillating over the piece of the cup with the handle, unable to understand how to operate her own body. Chaotic winds built a squall of misfiring synapses inside her head. Her lower, more primal self rocked from what Ax had just done to her. He was known in their community for an entirely different gift, one that had nothing to do with the blossom of sexual need he’d opened ruthlessly inside her.

Oh, God. Oh, my. Ohhhh. My. Who knew?

Could a warlock have two main gifts? She’d never heard of such a thing. You became a witch in Breens, you got one big talent. That was it. In addition, every witch and warlock could perform a variety of everyday magicks, but–

That was anything but garden variety
.

Had he even realized what he did as he did it? Was it instinctual only? A raw gift, never cultivated, allowed to go wild?

He’d retreated to the table to pick up her list, but she could still feel him as if his hand were laid on her bare skin right now. Roughened by work, yet unfailingly gentle, the fingers that minutes ago had slid down her belly could not have been real. His real hands had never let go of hers. Yet she’d been able to feel each fingertip, could describe every swell and hollow in the strong, sensual palm that slid lower, then lower with a touch lighter than a wisp of cashmere.

Her breathing started to speed up again uncontrollably at the thought, the memory he’d mapped into her skin.

So achingly close but never reaching what she wanted him to touch.

Slow down. Catch yourself.

She stared at the cup fragment like it was a foreign object.

“Colleen?”

His quiet inquiry spooked her anew.

Her attention bounced up and locked on his face.

“You okay?” he asked.

First one, then two car doors slammed outside.

The spell broke.

She came back to herself.

Personal control clamped down on her with the welcome of armor buckled into place prior to battle.

“Perfectly,” she said and resumed picking up the pieces of the cup. “Why?”

“It’s just that you were–”

Drayhome’s side entrance, which was also the back door to the kitchen, opened, cutting off whatever Ax might have intended to say.

“Colleen?” a familiar woman’s voice called.

Light speared into the room, rendering the trio of women in the doorway in silhouette. While the edges of their hair glowed, backlit as they were, their faces were cast in shadow, expressions difficult to read. Lysée Burke, the wedding planner for their community of less than one hundred witches and warlocks, eased the door inward and crossed the threshold, her friends, Mia and Shelley, close on Lysée’s heels. Colleen squinted, attempting to cut the glare from an uncustomarily bright day. Or was that Shelley who brought the light? Wherever the little witch went, the sun seemed to trail along after her like a faithful puppy.

“Colleen?” Lysée repeated.

True to her French-American heritage, Lysée carried herself with feminine efficiency, a natural economy of style, the perfectly mussed hair, the scarf that almost knew how to knot itself, the wonder of a lipstick so exactingly chosen that no other makeup was needed.

“Oh. Hi, Ax,” Lysée said, spotting the warlock before she did Colleen. “Glad to see you’re already here. I have a list.”

“Figured you would,” Ax said. “You can add it to Colleen’s, which I have right here.” He waved Colleen’s carefully drawn up sheet of tasks at her.

“Colleen should be expecting us,” Lysée said. “
L'as-tu vue?
”

“Sorry,” Ax said, refocusing his attention on the list in his hand. “I don’t speak French.”

“Right here.” Colleen popped up from behind the counter, cup shards cradled in her hands. “She asked if you’d seen me.”

“Oh,” Ax said, and then glanced at Lysée. “Sure. She’s over there.”

He pointed at Colleen.

“Droll.” Shelley stepped around Lysée, pulled out a chair at the table, turned it a very precise amount to the side and dropped into it. Built like a model, if models could be 5'1" and under, Shelley was as blonde as they came and never failed to dress in the most expensive and up-to-the-minute, a miracle considering Breens Mist was a rural nowhere.

“
Bonjour
, Colleen. How is the house this morning?” Lysée turned to her and asked.

That simple question instantly broke down the barrier between them. Somehow, per usual, Lysée understood the fundamental thing about Colleen that eluded so many. She couldn’t even be sure Ax grasped it. Colleen was not just the caretaker of Drayhome. In many ways she
was
Drayhome.

Colleen gifted Lysée with an honest smile. “As well as can be expected. In its neglected shape.”

“Beauty like Drayhome’s should never be neglected,” the witch said. “It should be celebrated.”

“I can’t agree more,” Colleen said. “Too bad The Priest doesn’t see it that way.”

Awkward silence dropped into the spaces between them all. That tended to happen to conversations whenever The Priest was mentioned. His power was enough to send even the least sensible witch or warlock into self-defense mode.

Ax turned out to be the bravest of them, speaking first. “When the hell are we ever going to have five elementals again so we can get rid of the conclave and get back to normal in Breens?”

“Don’t I wish,” Shelley said, the sour tone unmistakable, “but we’re missing three. It could take decades to find replacements. Face it, we’ll probably be stuck with the conclave well into the next century.”

Everyone groaned.

“And Spirit would be the hardest to find,” Colleen said. “Who knows if there even is another?”

Spirit, the warlock elemental who had banded together and led the witchkind of Breens more than two hundred years before had gone missing in the early 1930s and was presumed dead. He’d left Drayhome, his personal home and the heart of all they were as a coven, abandoned. Colleen had done her best to step in to help some years later, using her talent to preserve the house’s precious resources, but she wasn’t an elemental.

“If we had The Five in charge again, I bet they would never think to ask me to…” Ax spoke again, though Colleen half-suspected he hadn’t meant to do so aloud.

“Yes?” Lysée asked. “To what?”

He grumbled. “Nothing.”

Mia, the last of Colleen’s three visitors, rushed toward her.

“Oh, Colleen!” she said, spotting the cup remnants. “Is that what I think it is?”

“What you think it
was
, you mean?” Colleen said. She nodded confirmation.

“Your Belleek!” Mia’s soft words uttered sympathy.

Colleen stepped on the steel pedal of a lidded waste can under the sink. The lid popped up and she dropped the porcelain shards into the can.

“How tragic. That was your mother’s, wasn’t it?” Mia said.

“Yup,” Colleen said.

Mia wrapped her arms around Colleen in a hug. Colleen did her best not to stiffen at the touch and accept the comforting, but it was hard. It was always hard for her.

Yet, somehow, Mia managed to get through her armor, like the sister she’d never had. Strange they weren’t better friends, closer friends. Colleen smiled over her shoulder at the witch. Or perhaps that should be
around her upper arm
at her? Like Lysée and Shelley, Mia was slight in stature.
Delicate in extremis
, Colleen thought of her, so light in body, hair and actions, she almost wasn’t there. Mia didn’t resemble a ghost, however. Hardly. She had far too much life to her for that, an abundance of hidden energies. Still, she never seemed fully engaged with her surroundings.

Maybe that’s why I like her so much. We have a lot in common. We hide.

“That’s not the only serving piece with problems, unfortunately,” Lysée said, and tapped the handle of the teapot Colleen had set on the table. Hot water pooled around its base onto the wooden surface. “You have a leak.”

“Damn!” Colleen said, rushing to pick up the pot, set it in the sink, and blot up the spill. “How did that happen?”

Did I do that? Did I kill the teapot as well?

“Yes,” Shelley spoke up suddenly and asked. “What did happen in here just before we arrived?” With an intrigued lift of one eyebrow, she tossed a glance to where Ax stood.

Or should be standing.

Ax had left, taking the list with him.

Colleen tried, but couldn’t suppress the amusement pursing her lips when she noticed, not one, but two chocolate scones missing from the cooling rack. She looked up from the rack to find all three women eyeing her speculatively.

“Care to share?” Shelley asked.

“Are you sure?” Colleen asked. “It’s almost the last week of May.”

Instead of hammering out the particulars of an expected plan for holding the ceremony in the South Garden and the reception on the estate’s tri-level terrace overlooking the river, Lysée had asked to be shown the current condition of Drayhome’s ballroom and nearby conservatory. Neither had been used in more than a quarter century and the most of the furnishings had been removed.