~ Nine ~
A NEW DAY LOOMED and it has been said by many people in the ‘know’ that if you can ‘make it’ in New York, you can ‘make it’ anywhere.
I think that is very true for mortals and immortals alike.
I learned a lot living in New York about human nature. I learned how to deal when given a lousy hand. I learned about immortals and all kinds of creatures that lurk about in and out of the city. By all that is witchy, I certainly have encountered any number of supernaturals willing to hurt or help, depending on their life experiences. I know the signs to look for.
The mission I have probably stupidly taken on, might, just might get me killed. I will have to look sharp and watch my back. However, I had no intention of giving up and going home. My grandmother raised my mom and my mom was the best of the best. Both of them would want me to free Devin MacLeod from a spell only our bloodline could undo. Besides that, I wanted to free him for reasons I couldn’t quite name.
A question came to mind. Was it a binding spell keeping him in his realm? Binding spells come in many forms. Earthly witches generally use their wand, or at the very least a familiar. I don’t use either…only my Shama, and my Shama wasn’t telling me anything until I had some training from another immortal witch.
Here is the trick. There are so many different types of binding spells and I would need the exact one my grandmother used in order to undo it.
I know a couple of earthly spells taught to me by Aunt Elle. They aren’t very strong and certainly would not hold up for years, let alone over twenty years, like the one holding Devin on the other side.
Right. So somewhere in my Shama was the answer and it was up to Jeremy to teach me enough to go back into my brain and find the answers I need. Ah, thinking of the devil, the library door opened and Jeremy stood, grinning and rubbing his hands together.
“Good morning, Bobbie. I trust you slept well?”
“Like a baby. With you down the hall, and his lordship on watch, I had no worries,” I answered, wondering where Devin was and if he was with Loli.
It didn’t take long for Jeremy and me to start our first session together, and as we worked on spells I had never even known existed, the morning flew by.
Then he decided we needed to do defensive training. He didn’t warn me.
He threw a ball of fire at me. I deflected it and smiled too soon as a snake wrapped itself around my ankles. I screamed and destroyed the illusion and put my hands on my hips and made a face at him.
He laughed. “Good, you are a very quick learner. Now, tell me, why do you call your magic your Shama?”
I frowned as I gave it some thought. “Hmm. Not sure, but I have since I was a toddler, and it stuck.”
“So, then, it was before you lost your mother?” he asked.
I closed my eyes. “Yes, as I said, when I was a toddler…maybe three years old. Mom encouraged me to store my magic in a safe place in my head where I could get to it when I needed, but never in front of glans— you know—humans.”
“Did your mother come up with the title Shama?” he asked, and he seemed intense.
“Yes. She said it was part of our heritage and that she would teach me all about it before I turned sixteen. She said we had lots of time and she just wanted me to enjoy my childhood and not think about it. By the time I was ten, I had a knack of storing everything magical I could do, and things I couldn’t quite understand how to do, in the deepest part of my brain…my Shama is loaded with locked doors that I go to when I need an answer, but it won’t open the door with the answer to the spell we are looking for.”
He didn’t speak at first. He put a hand to his forehead and said, “Bobbie, I need to research this. I’ll be back later.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have family journals at home. They go back…let’s say, centuries. Something about the word Shama rings a bell.” He turned and started out of the room. “I won’t be long.”
“Wait!” I called after him. He turned and arched a brow at me. “What do you want me to do today?” I asked, suddenly at a loss. I did feel safer with him there.
He smiled. “I left you a manuscript. Acquaint yourself with it. If Davis or Mrs. Tunny asks what tasks I’ve set you at, you tell them I want you to compile a manuscript on the history of the MacLeod family. That his lordship requires it. That will give you cover for a bit longer, as they will eventually realize you really aren’t here to manage the estates.”
A moment later he marched out and I turned to find the hunk of all hunks staring at me through the transparent wall that separated us.
Hot damn but he sent erotic shivers through me. Something about the way his gaze traveled over me, lingered over my breasts while my nipples got sensitive and hard, made me think of being pressed up…oh no, no, no. Not ever. He was a bloodsucker. A vampire. Not doing a vampire.
“Bobbie,” he said my name like it was the only name he ever wanted to say. His voice was low and damned sexy.
I stared at him because for that moment I was lost in the fantasy of sex, hardcore sex, not love, not emotions, not relationship, no, just sex…with him. He was a vampire and he would have stamina to match my own…
Bobbie—what are you doing?
I am not big on the idea of one-nighters. My friends laugh at me, but I always wanted more than that. This hottie changed that with the blink of an eye, and I was thinking a one-nighter was just fine with me.
I moved closer to the shield. Was I panting? I should be ashamed…no…that couldn’t be me breathing so hard I sounded like a bitch in heat. Noooo.
He said again, “Bobbie.” Nothing else. Just my name and my knees turned into gobbety-goo and melted. I put my hand on the back of a nearby chair and steadied myself.
“Er…yes?” I finally managed.
“Can ye enact a shield around yerself, lass?”
What? What had he asked? Oh…a shield…around myself? Where had that come from?
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it would serve to protect ye if ye were surprised by Allora…”
“Oh! Good thinking.” It was a great idea. I had something, but I wasn’t sure it worked against vampires. “Yes, well, sorta. Not sure it would keep an ancient vampire at bay very long. It is a spell…something my mom taught me when I was eight. I ran out into the street to get the ball my dad had thrown. You see, I missed catching it and ran without thinking. A car stopped inches away from me. Mom was hysterical, crazy hysterical, and stood me in front of her and chanted something. I laughed at her and reminded her I was immortal like her, but she said that, even so, if the car had taken off my head…or set me on fire…I would die. She said she enacted a shield spell. I asked her to teach it to me so I could protect my dolly, and she did. I haven’t a clue if it would work against vampires. It works against humans and…I guess vehicles…?”
“Do it, Bobbie,” he cut me off impatiently. “At the very least it would be a deterrent and give ye a head start…”
I put my palm against the invisible wall that kept him on the other side. It wasn’t glass. It was transparent, translucent, and sparkled when I came in contact with it.
His brows went up. “It has never sparkled when I have touched it.”
“No? Odd,” I said, and put my palm flat against it. He immediately matched my palm with his own. A blast of sensations swept through me. Hot damn, he felt it, too. I saw the startled look in his blue eyes.
I swallowed and tried to ignore the fact that I was clenching my thighs.
“A shield…” I said, trying to get back on point. “But I’ll have to practice…once I enacted a shield around myself for fun and forgot it was there and my best friend, Suse, a human,” I inclined my head at him, “bounced right off it.” I sighed. “I doubt the shield I learned as a kid is as multifaceted as my mom’s was…”
“Meaning?”
“Well, the shield my mom constructed around me protected me from danger—any kind of immediate danger, while allowing me to interact with whomever I wished. She had said she would teach that particular skill to me when I got older, as it was complicated. She told me it was a part of my Shama and always available to me, but I needed training in the arts and sciences to connect all the ingredients.” I shrugged. “We never had the chance to go any further.”
My palm still rested against the wall between us.
I watched, mesmerized as he moved his pointer finger over my palm. He planted his palm once again over mine, and I swear I heard a growl in his throat. It was so erotic a sound and I felt the wetness make my little panties damned uncomfortable.
He whispered my name and a shiver swept through me and my body went into hyper-drive. What the hell?
“Bobbie,” he repeated. “If ye are going to remain here in the evenings, enact the spell before dark sets in.”
“Okay, I will work on it all day ‘til I get it right.” That seemed a reasonable solution.
He turned and stared into the jungle at his back a moment before he dropped his hand and asked, thoughtfully, “Do ye have any special kind of magical locomotion available to ye?”
“What do you mean?” I knew what he meant, but he looked like he was getting ready to leave and I wanted him to stay a bit longer.
“A vampire has super-speed. An ancient vampire—faster than that. If ye needed to escape. Do ye have any kind of speed?”
“Well…I jog and never seem to tire,” I offered.
“That is nae what I mean. Jeremy—for example, has perfected a locomotion known to the Fae as shifting. It is similar to passing through time. He cannae do it over long distances, but it takes a great deal of power and he dinnae like the sensation of being a part of space. He is, as I told ye, an immortal, but he has almost one hundred years on ye, so I am nae sure ye can learn this form of travel quickly enough to matter, lass.”
“I know about ‘shifting’. Auntie Elle told me a great deal about the Fae, but…I don’t know how it works.”
“Devin!” Loli called as she pushed away the lush green vegetation and stroked his arm. “You must come now.”
She couldn’t see me but I could see her, and Devin’s reaction to her. He smiled and took her chin and said, “Why must I coom now?”
“My father and brother say you must.”
“Loli, ye are nae being truthful,” he accused. “What could they want me for now?”
“Come and see then for yourself,” she said as she twirled her black hair around her finger and stared without seeing me. “Who keeps you talking here so much lately?”
“A friend,” he answered, and turned back to smile at me.
“I heard you call your friend lass. Your friend is a woman. You are talking to a woman,” she accused hotly.
“And that, m’dear, is of nae concern to ye.”
She huffed and folded her arms across her bare middle and her elf-like ears turned red. I felt for her. She was obviously infatuated with him.
He eyed me and said with a resigned sigh, “I had better go see what the problem is now.”
“Yup,” I answered, because I suddenly realized that while I felt for her, I also felt a whole lot of jealousy I had no business feeling!