“What’s the matter?” Emery asked with his feet spread apart and his body pulled away to give her as much room as humanly possible. As a kid, when Isaias had done this to help him learn, the size difference between pupil and mentor had been much larger. That, and they’d established trust and a parent-child sort of mentality. As much of a lie as it had been, at the time, proximity hadn’t been a problem.

But this was a grown woman. A beautiful, charismatic, witty grown woman with sexiness in spades. The situation was vastly different. Women in general didn’t like strange men pressing against them, and this one, with her naivety and overprotective mother, had probably had few encounters up until this point. She might react aggressively to the situation. Not that he would blame her, but with all the magic pumping around her, that would work out badly for him.

“You’re not doing this right,” she said, annoyance in her voice. She wiggled, and her shapely butt glanced across his groin.

“What—are you doing?” He jerked his lower half away. His jaw hit off her head and she flinched, their hands pushing and pulling at each other.

Magic pulled harder on their surroundings, the tone and mood changing drastically. The pleasant, delicate hum from before turned wild and unruly, the type of magic he’d always struggled with in his dual-mage pairing with Conrad.

“Stop!”

He froze at her whip-crack command.

“Just chill out for a second, would you?” she barked. “You’re too wound up. You’re messing everything up.”

“What are you talking about?” He felt her tug on his hands.

“You’re uncomfortable, which is making me uncomfortable, which is affecting everything else. Just…relax. Feel the world around you. It’s a pretty gross little alleyway you’ve pulled us into, but there is still beauty if you look for it. There is still balance.”

Her hands spread out within his, her fingers pushing outward. Following her lead, he threaded his fingers between hers, immediately feeling a soft hum vibrate up his forearms. She tugged again, and he grudgingly stepped forward, his front now glancing against her back.

“Let’s pause for a moment and see what we’ve got,” she said, her voice a soft, feminine hum. “Just breathe.”

He couldn’t help a smile, hearing his words in her firm tone. He breathed. In and out, rhythmically, slowly letting the world drop away. Even though a mistake would mean death or worse, he let his troubles and pain melt until they oozed out of him. He focused on the clean-smelling air, fragrant with her fabric softener and shampoo, filling and exiting his lungs. On the feel of her warm skin against his, so comforting and reassuring, like it had been in the car when she’d taken his hand. On the sparks of fire that ignited in his body each time her back brushed against his front, or her butt or legs slid against him.

He let his eyes droop, then close, listening to her soft breath, the speed and depth matching his own. Feeling the movement of her body. He laid his cheek against her head before pulling her in a little tighter, flush with her now. His hands curled around hers, the grip a little too tight, but the fear of her pulling away took control.

Still he focused, shutting out the world.

Heat unfurled within his body, but not the romantic kind. It wasn’t lust or even attraction. It was so much deeper. Raw energy shot up from his core, the source of his survival magic. The hum in his arms intensified until it was traveling his body, a live wire. Energy pulsed around them, comforting, peaceful, pleasurable. Sensual.

Flutters rolled his belly. Tingles rode his skin. A deep, earnest pounding rose within him. A consuming drumbeat.

“Emery, look,” Penny said in an awed whisper.

He fluttered his eyes open, but those wonderful feelings stayed with him. His focus didn’t fracture. His thoughts didn’t scatter.

Holding on to her, he was perfectly grounded. Balanced. The way magic should be, and something he’d never experienced before, not even when he and Conrad had been in the zone.

“What are you, Penny Bristol?” he asked in barely more than a whisper. Bursts of light and color surged through the alleyway, rolling and flowering in the air, the texture highly detailed and intricate. But for all its beauty, it had nothing on her.

“A girl that has had to find peace in the quiet times between getting into trouble and causing havoc.” She let her head fall back, hitting his collarbone.

Not able to help it, he turned his head, letting his cheek slide against hers. “That was probably your magical side trying to break free.”

“This is beautiful.” She dropped her hands until he was holding her tightly around the waist.

“I’ve never created something like this,” he said, watching the magic play and frolic. It seemed like it had a life of its own.

“I haven’t either, if it makes you feel any better.”

He chuckled. “It does, actually.”

He thought she might turn her head a little more. Let her lips glide across his. Instead, she sighed and straightened up. “This is breaking a rule, right? Doing magic in the alleyway?”

Despite her attention shift, the feeling around them didn’t wobble. The magic rolling playfully through the air didn’t shift or change.

“Your focus is unreal,” he said, feeling his eyes go wide. “How can you keep this level of…balance? Does it come naturally to you?”

She shrugged as she glanced around. “Practice, probably. I love this feeling. I mean, it has never been this strong. The zing of electricity, the pulse of the energy, the sheer magnitude of oneness—none of that’s normal for me. But the basis of it is. It’s something I work toward all the time, like with my stones. It has helped with my temperamental third eye.”

“Your what?”

She shrugged again, and now things did falter. The bubble around them cracked, ready to break. Something tugged at his middle, attempting to distract him.

He rubbed his palms up her arms and then back down, refocusing on her. Not letting his attention wander.

Miracle of miracles, the magical pocket they’d created—their bubble of balance and peace in topsy-turvy surroundings—strengthened again.

“What happened just there?” he asked softly, finding her hands again and holding them.

“Nothing. It’s fine. Let’s—”

“It’s not nothing, Penny Bristol. Tell me.”

She looked away, and the magic in their surroundings wobbled again. “I have a lot of baggage when it comes to the weird little things I do. I realize that some of those things are magic, but clearly my third eye is just as strange as ever.”

“Strange? Somehow I’m helping with this, instead of tearing it down like I used to do when I worked certain spells with Conrad. I’m speaking and moving and having a conversation in the midst of all this.” He used one of her hands to gesture at the magic. “Because of you. You’re stabilizing me, I have no doubt, and the only way you could do that is by hours and hours of focus, trying to find balance your whole life. There is no other explanation. So cherish that third eye of yours, regardless of how temperamental it may be.” He laughed and pulled in a set of elements, weaving them through his fingers entwined with hers. Shadows draped over them, obscuring them from anyone passing by. He should’ve done it immediately, but he’d been too caught up.

“And don’t forget,” he said, feeling the other elements passing over and around them. “I have a third eye too. It’s my Seer ability. It has kept me alive more times than I can count.”

“My third eye doesn’t keep me out of trouble. What was the spell you just did?”

“I didn’t say my Seer ability kept me out of trouble. I said it’s saved my life. Trust me, you have nothing on the amount of havoc I can create.” He paused to shift gears. “I created a light-concealing spell. Very little power and energy and focus needed. It’s a breeze in this bubble. Here, I’ll do it again.”

He weaved the spell again, moving slower this time. “This is as slow as I can mix things together without the elements of the spell frazzling.”

“Do you use the term ‘elements’ for everything?”

“Kind of, yes. It’s easier.” He got to the end and let the identical spell drift into the air around them. “Do you want to try—”

She shrugged off his hand and started weaving immediately. He chanced stepping around the side of her, wondering if the bubble would break. Amazingly, it held, even when his focus switched from the magic at her fingertips to her teeth chewing her plump bottom lip. Her brows dipped in concentration—or maybe frustration—before her eyes squeezed shut.

At once, the wobbly weave drifted into harmony. The spell came together perfectly, the weave not as tight as his, but the elements in all the right places.

She didn’t work with magic by seeing, like he did—she worked by feeling. Witches did that, for the most part. Was that because they didn’t have extensive spell training either? Was this the natural path found by someone who’d been given no map?

She flung her hand and the spell fell against the wall, not doing much to an already shadowed area.

“Did that work?” she asked, opening those large, luminous eyes. She caught him staring and a crease wormed between her brows. Fire sparked in her eyes, and it wasn’t the lustful kind. It was the explosive kind that promised pain. Whatever she’d seen on his face, she had not liked it.

“Great job.” He took a large step back and barely stopped himself from raising his hands in surrender. Or maybe an apology. “You got it on the first try.”

As if pricked by a pin, the bubble between them burst. The sensual throb of energy and electricity, working together, fizzled out. The magic—so playful and pleasant—dissipated into nothing. Cool air rushed in, replacing the heat from a moment before.

He sighed in the aftermath, returned to the dark and wet alleyway with its musty stink. The hollow ache he’d lived with these last three years beat in time with his heart, the small reprieve making the effects so much stronger.

Somehow, she’d sucked him into her balanced bubble. He might’ve helped keep them on track, but he had to own that she was the anchor. She’d drawn him in, and once there, they’d easily synced up.

When have mages just randomly synced up like this?

He studied her for a moment, remembering the story she’d told about New Orleans. She’d joined a coven, out of the blue, and led them through an advanced potion. She must’ve synced with them, too. Perfect strangers with no basis of trust, and she’d still turned them to a high-powered circle.

He couldn’t help shaking his head in disbelief. He’d never heard of such a thing with mages. In many ways, she seemed more like a witch than a mage. A natural at working with others, with a pulse on the world around her and the emotions of the people around her. Even her intuition was geared toward witchcraft, since mages typically used recipes and remembered spells.

Yet there could be no denying she was a natural of the highest order. In the structure of magic, she was classified a mage.

“Let’s get you settled, then I have to get rid of the car,” he said, chewing on the differences between the magical hierarchy and nature’s way. Maybe the difference was less about power level, and more about corruption of thought.

Maybe being a natural witch would make Penny stronger than a natural mage in the end. Maybe she was an accidental new breed of power that the world hadn’t yet seen. No limits. No rules.