The Jade Dragon (21 page)

The wind created by magic blew those locks now as it did hers into wild tangles. Her ceremonial shift, plastered itself against her naked form even as his cloak rushed out towards her, flicking flame-like over the tableau and her father's beads.

And then there was a preternatural quiet, the wind dropping as swiftly as it arrived. She opened her eyes and gasped. A wall of just-at-twilight blue encompassed the entire circle, surrounding them like a cocoon.

Gregori surveyed his work. A satisfied lilt to his lips told her he had enjoyed using his power.

“I've done what I can,” he told her. “The rest is up to you.”

This was so difficult. So incredibly hard. “Can we sit? Do we have to stand for this? I'm afraid I might fall down.

“If you fall, I will catch you.” His words were so gentle. “I'll start for you. Your parents were driving the back road to Raven's Creek. Where had you been?”

She gulped down her fear. There was no going back now. “We'd been to a meeting with the Kowhai Coven. I don't think even Rosa or Beth really know why I went with them that night. I went because there was a disciplinary hearing for me.”

Gregori's eyebrows arched. “Why am I not surprised? What did you do?”

“I'll tell you later. It was just plain teenage stupidity and nothing compared to what I did next.”

“And that was?” He waited patiently for her to continue.

Her heart hammered in her chest. It constricted and spasmed as she fought down the beginnings of a panic attack. Tingles ran down her arm and she clenched and stretched her fingers repeatedly.
Breathe Alanna. Breathe. You're safe with Gregori.

“It's a forty-five minute drive from Auckland. Dad decided to take the scenic route. He loved finding new ways home. We'd often get lost, ending up on roads that led to nowhere. It was a game with him. Mom was happy to go along with whatever he wanted. She was more like Beth than any of us. Easygoing, soft, gentle. She was the mother earth type, but she was at a complete loss at how to handle me. I loved nothing more than proving them wrong. If they said don't, I did. If they said sit, I stood. When they said, ‘that spell is too advanced for you,' I'd show them how wrong they were.”

The tingling in her arm lessened. Her breathing evened out. She could feel Gregori's energy thrumming through her like a high-tension wire, grounding and helping her to continue.

“I was bored. Driving around country roads is fun when you're six or seven, but at fourteen it was tedious. Sitting in the back seat looking out the window at all the trees I'd seen before. I've never been one to just sit around. I started making up spells in my head.”

A lump formed in her throat. She struggled to swallow it down so she could continue. There was a roaring sound in her ears. She was grateful for it as it almost blocked out her next words.

“I'd heard Dad talk about how he'd crafted the anti-crash spell on the car.”

She paused long enough to scrutinize Gregori, gauge his reaction. He stood silent, his expression one of compassion as if he already knew what was coming. And perhaps he did.

“I started playing around with a spell of my own, trying to make an anti-crash spell myself. I thought it would be useful for when I rode my bicycle through the woods. I was always falling off and grazing my knees or stubbing my toes. I was forever being told off for being so careless. So that's what I did. I crafted an anti-crash spell, but somehow it got tangled up with Dad's.”

Her words spilled out, fast and furious. “The moment my spell interfered with the one on the car he knew something was wrong. The car skidded on the loose metal on the road and he lost control of the wheel and the car flipped. I'll never forget the sound of the metal graunching against the stones as we rolled over and over and over not knowing which way was up and which was down. The car righted itself and I thought we'd be okay, but … the tree … ” Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her words came out in sobs. “That damned stupid tree, it was just there. The car careened into the large oak on the side of the road. There wasn't enough time for anyone to craft a spell to evade it.” She sucked in a ragged breath. “It … It … the car … was a mangled mess of metal, shattered glass, and a sea of blood and broken bodies.” She covered her eyes with her hands as if trying to block the memory from her vision. “I remember hearing Dad call out before he lost control, “‘Alanna! What have you done?' I hear his voice all the time you know.” She looked directly into Gregori's eyes, her tone as bleak as her heart. “Always saying the same thing. Over and over. ‘Alanna! What have you done? What have you done? What have you done?' Those were the last words he ever said to me.”

She sunk to the ground in a huddle, her head buried in her hands on the mossy earth. In the blink of an eye, Gregori was at her side. She looked up briefly.

“It was me. I killed them. I'm the reason they died. Marylebone have been searching in all the wrong places. I'm the one who should have been ensorcelled in stone! I'm the one who should have died.”

“I'm not going,” Alanna declared to Gregori in the early hours of the morning as she lay awake, unable to sleep. Dark circles rimmed eyes clouded with unhappiness. “You can make my excuses. Tell them I've a migraine or something.”

“They'll all be around in minutes to offer up a potion or a herbal draught the second I do.”

Revealing everything to Gregori had wrung her out, leaving her reserves of energy depleted. She refused his offer to bolster hers, not wanting him to release any magic that could cause him to flare out.

He worried that having divulged what he had suspected all along, the truth had not freed her as he'd thought, but actually made it worse. “I will keep my promise to you,” he'd told her. “I won't tell anyone, but I still believe you should confess everything to Beth and Rosa.”

She turned on him, the fear back in her eyes. “No! They'll hate me.”

What could he say? It was likely there would be resentments. “They'll forgive you in time. If you would allow it, your heart will heal, and eventually you will stop beating yourself up over what has been done and cannot be changed. It was an accident. You were a young adolescent teenager.”

“I knew better. I shouldn't have been crafting spells that complicated. I'm the reason they're dead. Rosa fought so hard to keep us together. My parents are lost because of me. I don't want to lose my sisters as well. They're all I have.”

That hurt. “You have me. Whether you bind with me or not, always know that despite everything, you are a part of my heart and I love you with every fiber, every molecule of my soul. With your barriers down, you are now able to bind yourself to me. I will be your support and you will be mine. If your family refuses to love you, know that I will stand with you. I will be there always.”

He felt Alanna's tears moisten the skin on his shoulder. His arms pulled her tight to him and he brushed a hand down over her hair and back.

“I don't deserve you,” she whispered.

“We are equals, you and I. Once we're officially bound by Marylebone, I will show you just how amazing you truly are.”

Alanna lifted her head to look at him. “I haven't agreed to an official binding yet.”

Gregori pouted. “Yes you have. I see it in your aura.”

“Sometimes a woman likes to be asked.”

“Then listen up,” he growled and flipped her onto her back and seized both of her hands above her head in one of his. “Will you be my lover? Will you be the mother of my children? Will you bind your magic with mine and save me?”

She paused. “I have a question. If I remain mortal and I die of old age. What happens to you?”

“That won't happen.”

“But if it does.”

His gaze was steady, his resolve clear. “Then I will die with you or return to stone to await your rebirth.”

“You must bind with another if I die,” she insisted. “I don't want our children, if we have any, to be left alone.”

His heart skipped a beat. “We will find a way to be together for eternity.”

“I want you to promise me you will bind with someone else to keep you stable and to be present in our children's lives.”

Gregori sighed, but he looked her straight in the eyes. “If I say yes, will you bind with me now?”

He felt her acceptance before the words were uttered. “I will.”

It was a bittersweet moment. Such sadness on her part, and such confidence on his that all would prevail. “Then, reluctantly, I will agree. But I will never love them as I love you.” Gregori leaned down, kissed her deeply, leaving her no room for doubt in his commitment to their union.

Before, finally drifting to sleep, Alanna lifted herself up and looked him straight in the eye. “I will tell my sisters about the accident before we make our vows. You're right. I owe it to them to tell them everything.”

• • •

Beth placed a table under the shade of a Pohutukawa tree in her back yard. Gregori stationed rows of wines from his vineyards including his private collection on one side of the table and glasses on the other. He'd arrived early and crafted a collection of spells around each wine, so that none spoiled and each maintained the best temperature to be drunk.

Ever since last night, since he shared his magic with Alanna, he'd felt less volatile. It was as if the transfer of power between them had already begun to take effect.

He glanced up from the table as Beth came out of her cottage, a tray of finger food in her hands.

“I've made a few nibbles for everyone,” she beamed.

“Good.” He looked towards the door, hoping to see Alanna come through it.

Goran followed behind her with another tray. “She's a goddess in the kitchen. I can vouch everything has been made by hand.” Beth blushed at the compliment, placed her tray on a second table under another tree and signaled for Goran to place his there, also. “Where's Alanna?”

“She'll be here,” he said. “She had a few things to do.”

Goran shot him a sharp look. Gregori stared blandly back, giving nothing away. Beth accepted his statement and returned inside for more food.

The moment she was out of earshot, Goran asked, “What's up?”

“Nothing.”

“You're lying.”

His apprentice's observation irked him. “Nothing I can tell you.”

“I can see from your aura that something's changed.”

“What's changed?” Aden strode across the lawn.

Goran indicated Gregori. “Look at his aura.”

Aden stood beside Goran and both men studied him like he was a stick insect. The moment he attempted to mask any changes they would hound him with a barrage of interminable questions. He lifted a glass and poured a measure of merlot into it. “Stop stirring and try this.”

Goran snagged the glass. “Aden's on duty for Marylebone. He's not drinking. I, on the other hand, have agreed to act as reporter for the Raven's Creek News on today's little event. As such, I will need to taste all the wines so I can comment.”

Aden howled with laughter, but he wasn't deterred from studying Gregori. “There's less wildness in your aura. What have you done?”

Ah.
For a moment Gregori had thought perhaps Aden knew about Alanna's confession. “I've discovered I can share my magic with Alanna.”

“You're sharing magic.” Goran looked to Aden for his advice. “Is that allowed?”

Aden shrugged. “I don't see why not.” He accepted a glass from Gregori. “I gather all is going well between you then.”

“There has been progress.” In the real world of mortals, such a confession as Alanna's would have resulted in reporting it to the police. He imagined there would have been some kind of hearing as well and an eventual resolution. He doubted Alanna would have been charged with anything. At fourteen, she had still been a minor. Plus what could she say; that she was a witch and had crafted a spell that ultimately caused the death of her parents? No one would have believed her.

Goran's eyes narrowed. “Just what kind of progress?”

“That's between us.” He looked up as Ruth and her husband, Joseph, emerged from Beth's cottage onto the deck. He broke out into a flurry of French and left Aden and Goran to work on their interrogation techniques.

• • •

Dressed in what she called her “I'm invisible” outfit, Alanna stood on the perimeter of the group, a glass in her hand as Gregori talked passionately about his wines.

“You need to sample a few New Zealand ones,” Beth was saying and handed him a bottle she'd brought outside with her. “Especially this organic Feijoa wine. It's my favorite.” She was a little flushed and — leaning — into Goran.

“Oh brother!” Alanna held out her glass as Gregori approached with what was fast becoming her favorite. His vin Rousseau rosé. Especially as the alcohol content was zinging its way into her bloodstream. She cast her mind back, trying to recall if she'd eaten anything. No. Nothing. She'd not had the stomach for it this morning despite Gregori producing an array of tempting dishes before her including her absolute favorite, Eggs Benedict.

“Look at them,” she said to Gregori. “They're looking very cozy as a couple, don't you think.”

Gregori had noticed. “Beth's very sociable. She's just making sure everyone is happy.”

Alanna sipped from her glass. Woo hoo, she was feeling woozy. “Me too. Are you going to make sure I'm happy?”

“We're to be bound. There is much to celebrate.” With a free hand, he cupped her cheek. “Don't drink too much,” he told her.

Her lips pursed and she took another sip before wrestling the bottle from his hand and refilling her glass while ignoring his disapproving scowl. She knew she should be happy, but her secret loomed over her, taunting her. “I won't.”