Chapter 7
A magical resonance awakened Kellen, one he needed to investigate. One he should even now be rolling away from Analia and hunting.
He didn’t move. Didn’t recoil at finding himself curled around her, as if he could make up for those emotionally cold years in the fey realm by absorbing her heat and kindness through his skin.
He rubbed his cheek against her silky hair, his arms tightening, his body making the claim of ownership—his mind, too sluggish, too full of contentment to protest.
Why had he been so determined not to end up in bed with her? He struggled for a reason, gave up when she snuggled backward against him and made a soft sound of pleasure.
It brought a smile, and with it, a bubbling warmth in his chest, like the hot springs in some of the caves that pocketed the rocky, mountainous territory of the fey realm he’d left behind.
He liked this, with her. He could get used to this, come to crave it.
Analia wasn’t like Cosette. She wasn’t like any of the women he’d taken up on their offer of sex. If there was a comparison to made with another human female, it would be to Saffron—not in the sense of a lover—he’d never been drawn to Taine’s mate, but as someone trustworthy enough to be bound to.
His heartbeat quickened at finding himself on the precipice of thinking of Analia in terms of a mate. Automatically he released her, edged away from her only to nearly reverse direction when she murmured a protest.
He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. This was what Maksim had been counting on by forcing him to remain in Analia’s company.
Resistance is futile. Though he’d never seen the human TV show that had minted the phrase, he could well imagine Maksim intoning it, and Taine happily appending it to: Resistance is futile when it comes to taking a mate.
Kellen shook his head, trying to dislodge all thoughts of mating. He needed to find whatever artifact someone was after and get it safely ensconced in the vault at headquarters. When that was done, then he couldn’t be compelled to remain with Analia.
His heart twinged at the prospect of separating from her. He rubbed his chest, telling himself that separating would actually make going out—and ending up in bed together—safer. It’d be easier to maintain his control, to have a relationship without inadvertently ending up mated.
He sat, not needing the sunlight streaming through the window or the handmade wall clock to tell him it was solidly morning. His heart beat a little faster at being confronted by truth; so deep was his contentment, he wouldn’t have awakened except for the magical resonance.
Rather than fight the reality of that contentment, he focused on the magic vibrating against his senses. Not spells, at least not obviously spells. He didn’t smell magic.
Frowning, he slid from the bed. He wished he could shift to fey hound. His nose was far keener in that form.
She’d told Maksim that she’d purchased a tiger fetish at the supernatural fair. In their fever to shed clothing and extinguish the fiery need the night before, he hadn’t once thought about locating the artifact in her possession.
He prowled forward, skirting the row of potted plants delineating her bedroom. He found the fetish on a small table near the front door. There were a couple of other figurines there, along with a picture taken at the beach of Analia, Saffron and Sabra as teenagers.
The fetish was carved from wood that was bleached gray but retained natural black streaks. A true artist, or perhaps a shaman, had seen the image already existing in the dead branch, and brought it into life-like existence.
Kellen lifted the tiger, though he didn’t need to bring it to his lips and nose to know it hadn’t been the source of the resonance or the cause of someone’s interest in Analia.
The fetish was a human creation and not a magical artifact. He turned it over in his hand, rubbed his thumb across the textured wood. There was magic attached to the tiger, or rather, the potential for magic, but it would require a working.
A tightness settled in his chest. Neither the fetish nor the tarot cards he’d examined at Stones explained the assault.
Setting the fetish down, he thought back to the supernatural fair and the first time he’d encountered Analia’s scent—a lush combination of woman and magic. But not a powerful magic. Whatever someone was after, she hadn’t been in possession of it at that point in time. Maybe she hadn’t purchased it at the supernatural fair at all.
He prowled the rest of Analia’s studio apartment. The human who’d mugged her had been telling the truth. His scent wasn’t present.
Kellen returned to the bedroom area. With the sight of Analia, heat rolled through him, in his chest first, easing the tightness, and then into his cock, filling him with the need to stroke her, scent her, fuck her.
She was beautiful, soft and vulnerable in a way that fed protective instincts as well as carnal ones. She lay curled on her side, an adorable frown indicating she’d noticed his abandoning the bed.
He’d return momentarily, might even wake her for another round of lovemak—
Sex. It was just sex. Though even the humans used the term lovemaking as a euphemism for sex.
The resonance was gone. But he hadn’t imagined it.
There were only two places in the room emitting enough magic for him to be aware of it, her charm bracelet and the dresser.
He should probably wake her, but impatience got the better of him—and, if he were being totally honest, his nose was the part of him most adept at ferreting out magic and he didn’t want Analia seeing him sniff whatever item caught his attention.
He reached the dresser, opened the top drawer and nearly groaned at the extent of her collection of charms. Ideal would be to handle each one separately, and it might come to that, but for expediency, he leaned down so his face, and by extension, his nose, hovered above the contents of the drawer.
There was magic radiating from some of the charms. Most were meant to keep her safe and healthy, though there were some crafted to help her see with clarity, and he could easily imagine her buying them in the hopes they’d help her to better serve her clients.
His sense of her as someone who was honest and trustworthy grew stronger. There were no charms to bring her wealth or power.
She stirred, mumbled, “What are you doing?”
“I picked up a hint of magic,” he said, straightening, switching from using his nose to using his eyes.
There was the sound of rustling fabric and he easily imagined the sheet falling away, revealing her breasts. A look and he’d abandon his search.
“Just a hint? Nothing stronger?”
“Not strong enough to explain the attack or a search of your apartment.”
“The search might have been my overactive imagination,” she said, though they both knew it was unlikely.
His gaze sharpened on the charms, his focus narrowing to those that had sigils or other symbols carved into their surfaces. There were no more than a dozen bearing supposedly magical markings. Starting from the back, he began picking them up one by one, lifting them close to his face—ostensibly to examine them more closely.
He didn’t expect to find any truly powerful sigils. He didn’t expect the scent of magic to intensify. He didn’t truly expect to locate the source of the resonance that had penetrated his sleep. It was as if his very awareness of that resonance had caused it to cease.
Reaching the front of the drawer, he lifted the last charm bearing symbols. He rubbed his thumb over the tiny sigils covering a piece of dark crystal that had been carved into the shape of a tree.
There was almost no scent or sense of magic. Like the crystal apple he’d located on the beach, it had only barely enough magic that should Analia misplace it, he could find the charm.
It bore symbols he didn’t recognize, made up perhaps. Or possibly they were ancient sigils copied from a book by someone who didn’t have the magical ability to funnel power into the design and activate the charm.
Kellen could feel Analia’s tension mounting. Could hear it in her dry-mouthed, “Anything?”
“No.”
“What will happen when you find whatever someone is after?”
“It’ll be confiscated.”
“Is anything ever returned?”
He placed the tree-shaped charm in the spot where he’d found it and closed the drawer. “No.”
At least not in this realm, though he couldn’t share that distinction. Nor could he tell her that supernatural courts could take centuries to determine the fate of a magical artifact.
He turned and found Analia sitting, knees hugged to her chest. The sight of her in distress had him automatically stepping toward the bed.
Her visible relief had a satisfied heat swelling his chest while a carnal heat filled his cock.
Her gaze dipped and her tongue darted out, further swelling his shaft. Another long stride took him closer, his thoughts sliding into fantasy that would soon be reality: The spread of her knees. The swoop of his mouth onto her pussy.
His cock bobbed, trying to hurry him along. His balls grew heavy and full in anticipation of filling her with semen.
Just the mere thought of it was enough to have a throbbing heartbeat migrate to his shaft and the place that would thicken and lock him into a mate’s body—her body—if he ever lost all control.
The idea didn’t terrify his as it would have days ago, and that increased the pounding in his chest and the answering beat in his cock. Her arms loosened from around her knees and slid downward to her ankles, as if reading his intentions.
He might have missed the quick, there-and-gone magical resonance altogether as he reached her except that the light caught on her bracelet. It gave him pause though it didn’t stop him from grasping the sheet and giving it a sharp tug.
The sight of her bared nearly obliterated the need to investigate the charms she wore. It’d seemed unnecessary before. In hound form, when she’d stroked him while at the beach, the bracelet had been inches away from his nose and hadn’t warranted a first look. But the resonance suggested it needed a second, harder look.
He snagged her hand, pulling it away from its light clasp around her ankles. “Anything special about one of these charms?”
She trembled slightly, the reaction so minute he was only aware of it because his fingers curled around hers. “They’re all special to me,” she said, leaning forward, pressing her lips to his, her tongue a sweet lick across the seam of his mouth.
He speared the fingers of his free hand through her hair, closed the silky strands in his fist and held her in place, his lips parting, his tongue answering the invitation issued by hers. Greeting. Rubbing. Twining.
Need built with each stroke of tongue against tongue. Deepened as her scent—already heady and lush further invaded with each inhalation, each swallow of shared breath.
She pulled her hand from his, taking the charm bracelet with it as she placed her palm against his chest and slid it downward, eliciting a moan. Fuck, he could barely think with her hand so close to his dick.
He was as bad as Taine when it came to Saffron.
Kellen’s pride demanded that he pull back, prove he wasn’t completely ensnared.
Forcing his mouth from Analia’s, he said, “I should examine the charms on your bracelet.”
Her hand reached his cock, encircled it, making his hips buck. “Right now?” she murmured against his mouth.
She stroked down, then up, creating a fiery surge of want that burned away thought and pride. He released her hair in favor of cupping her knees and pushing them outward, exposing her wet pussy.
There was no resisting its lure.
He pitched forward. Buried his face between her thighs.
He rubbed lips and nose against her mound, inhaled their mingled scents and savored the sound of her moans and the feel of her hands fisted in his hair. Already wanted to wallow forever in the paradise between her legs.
He swirled his tongue over and around her clit. Used his hands and weight to keep her lower body pinned to the bed as her hips surged upward with each rasp of his tongue. “Please, Kellen,” she said, and he discovered he liked the sound of her asking him for pleasure. That he liked delivering that pleasure. Too much.
Too much. But the thought didn’t stop him. Didn’t lessen his efforts or cool the fiery want pounding in his cock.
With his tongue and mouth he brought her to orgasm, her cry of ecstasy further swelling his cock with satisfaction.
He rubbed his beard against satiny inner thighs, sucked, leaving her silky skin marked. Only barely had the control required to crawl up her body rather than flip her onto elbows and knees. Do that and they’d become mated.
His buttocks clenched as the imagery of mounting her filled his head. Then clenched again when he slid into her wet opening.
She guided his mouth to hers and he was lost to sensation.
Mine! His hound nature growled with each thrust, and the only way to avoid being tied to her for a lifetime was to surrender, thrusting urgently, racing the rapid swelling of his cock.
Her legs wrapped around his waist, driving him deeper, deeper, closer to her womb and he didn’t fight the urge to come.
Scorching heat streaked up his spine. Fiery ecstasy streaked up his shaft, exploding from his cock in surge after surge of hot semen.
He had the presence of mind to jerk his hips upward at the very end, pulling from her channel with a silent snarl then covering her again, trapping his cock between their bodies.
She hugged him to her, her soft sigh of pleasure a warm caress against his ear. “That was a very nice way to start the day,” she murmured.
“True.” He rubbed his cheek against hers, waves of satisfied lethargy pulsing through him.
He wanted to roll off her, then pull her against his chest and snooze like a hound luxuriating in a sated nap on a summer day. But he wouldn’t put it past Gaige or Crew to find some excuse to stop by Analia’s apartment in order to see if he’d succumbed and was now mated.
Kellen slid to his side, but didn’t lose contact with her. He grasped Analia’s hand, felt the tiniest resistance as he guided it toward him for a better look at the charm bracelet.
The hint of resistance chased some of the lassitude away, leaving room for suspicion to creep in. Earlier she’d trembled when he’d turned his attention to the bracelet. And then his attention had been diverted by the exquisite feel of her hand around his cock.
Neither the tiger fetish nor the tarot cards she’d given to Sabra—the only two things she’d claimed to have purchased at the supernatural fair—were cause for someone’s interest in Analia.
Are you sure you didn’t purchase anything else? he wanted to ask, but said, “Do you remember exactly where and when you got each charm?”
Analia grasped her bottom lip between her teeth, released it, caught it again. “It might take some effort.”
Her answer only strengthened the suspicion, though he acknowledged that he could be looking for a reason to distrust her. He stroked his thumb over a small wooden carving of a cat.
She said, “The mugger told you he was after my purse.”
“True.”
“If the man who paid him to attack me was after a charm, wouldn’t he have assumed it was on my bracelet, and not in my purse? My bracelet was visible.”
Her logic made sense. The ache muted in Kellen’s chest but the suspicion wasn’t completely eradicated.
He concentrated on the charm bracelet, searching by sight and scent and touch for magic that might justify the assault, that might explain the resonance that had caused him to awaken, that had disappeared then flashed when he approached the bed, only to once again cease.
She held steady, but there was an underlying tension in her body, a holding of breath that had him glancing at her face.
Her gaze was focused on her wrist, locked there as if she was worried she’d had contact with dangerous magic. Or was she afraid of something else?
He turned her wrist, more closely scrutinized any of the charms engraved with sigils or symbols. Nothing registered as either powerful or potentially powerful.
Watching her carefully, he said, “We need to go see the astrologist.”
She tensed further though her eyes widened with curiosity. “The astrologist? So readings involving the position of the planets and astrological signs can actually reveal truths?”
He studied her silently for another few seconds, finally concluding the subtle tension in her body was the result of natural worry, given everything that had happened to her recently.
“It’s a little more complex than that,” he said in answer to her question, and to head off further probing, added, “Don’t ask me to explain how he does what he does. It’s not my area of magic.”
He released her hand, nearly purred like a cat when she immediately rolled onto her side, placing her free hand on his chest and her lips on his.
Her kiss tasted of relief and desire, and very nearly derailed his intention to get out of bed and visit the astrologist.
Would it be so terrible to take her again, and again, and again? Hadn’t he promised himself that if he ever found the woman whose intoxicating scent had taken up far too much of his attention since the supernatural fair, he’d fuck her until she no longer had the power to entrance him?
Cupping Analia’s breast and swallowing her moan of pleasure, he acknowledged that it might no longer be possible to fuck her out of his system. And if he attempted it?
He wouldn’t leave the bed unmated.
He forced his lips off hers. And then forced himself to roll away and stand. “We better get going.”
“I need a shower first,” Analia said, torn by desire and guilt.
She hated not being able to tell him the truth about the charms.
Hated that she’d used sex to divert his focus on her bracelet. It hadn’t been intentional, or feigned—hadn’t been a conscious thought, until after her hand had encircled his shaft—and then she’d stroked, knowing what it would lead to, and what it would lead away from…
She didn’t like how it made her feel, or that he might question whether her desire was real.
It was real. Absolutely real.
He was carving his name across her heart.
She left the bed and got into the shower, curious about the visit to the astrologist, but also worried. Very worried.
She couldn’t take the charm off. But she couldn’t allow it to come to Kellen’s attention either.
Do it and her chance at happiness with him would disappear.
She just needed more time, she told herself. Maybe at some point in the future she could tell him, except…
That would mean he’d have to choose between her and IRE. The old man had been very clear, the charms would end up in an IRE vault if they came to the attention of a Supernatural Ops agent, and Kellen had confirmed it, admitting that he’d confiscate whatever he found and it wouldn’t be returned.
Kellen joined her beneath the spray, sending a flutter through her chest. Her nipples tightened and her channel clenched. He was turning her into a sex addict.
He pooled body wash in his hands then used those same hands on her breasts. She arched her back and ground her pussy against his rapidly filling cock.
“We’re not going to get out of here very quickly like this,” she said, unable to keep her hands off him, her palms gliding over his chest then stroking along the muscles in his arms.
“One of the hazards of being around you.”
His thumbs brushed over her nipples and sent spikes of pleasure straight to her toes, weakening her knees in the process and introducing temptation.
She allowed herself to slide downward. Reveled in his quick inhalation and the subtle tensing of his body. Thrilled at the quickened throb of his cock against her abdomen.
Her lips brushed water-slickened skin. Tormented him by stopping when he fisted her hair.
“Lia,” he moaned, the husky need in his voice making her feel powerfully feminine.
A tug to her hair had her moving again, kissing downward, downward, downward to a cock that was fully engorged, the foreskin pulled back slightly, the veins along the velvety skin more pronounced.
She traced one of those veins with her tongue, and smiled at his panted, “Fuck.”
“You should have expected payback,” she murmured, running her tongue over a throbbing vein then sucking along the length of his shaft.
His hips bucked. His grip in her hair tightened.
“Do it,” he growled, his voice deep and rough, striking a primal chord that made her want to torment him until she was the only women who would ever matter to him, until all the women who’d come before her were erased from his memory.
Only when she was shivering with desire did she take him into her mouth. Her lips stretched around his girth. Her gaze flicked upward, drinking in the sight of him with hands against the wall, a flush across his cheekbones and eyes hot with need as they locked with hers.
“Touch yourself. Fuck yourself with your fingers.”
She blushed. How it was possible—given that her lips were around his cock—she didn’t know, but heat streaked through her cheeks.
Shyness kept her hand from hurrying to her pussy. But that shyness gave way with his husky, “Do it, Lia.”
Her lashes fluttered downward with the touch of her fingertips to her clit. She moaned and took him deep, deeper, bobbed and sucked and swallowed on his shaft.
“That’s right,” he whispered. “That’s so right.”
Pleasure shuddered through him, through her. She worked her clit, slipped her fingers into her channel, ecstasy surging outward in continuous waves.
Somehow she managed to open her eyes and that pleasure was doubled at seeing Kellen’s rapturous expression. Then heightened further at bringing him to release.
He came, then pulled from her mouth and dropped to his knees.
His hand replaced hers between her thighs. His talented fingers urged her higher, sending pleasure through her with each thrust into her channel, with each press and rub and pump of her clit.
His kiss was a carnal sharing of taste. A wicked reminder of his mouth on her pussy and hers on his cock.
She closed her eyes and just felt. Came in a shudder-flash of heat.
And lingered in a state of bliss.
“I feel like going back to bed,” she said long moments later, still on her knees, but now with her heels digging into her buttocks and her shoulders touched to the wall, keeping her upright.
“No time for sleep,” Kellen said, sounding as if he was struggling against the same lassitude. “As it is, we’ll be lucky if the astrologist will see us today.”
She resisted the urge to look down at her charm bracelet. Felt her chest tightening, forcing the pleasure into a tight ball around her heart. “What do you hope he’ll tell us?”
Kellen opened his eyes and shrugged. “I’m hoping for a lead.”
She consciously breathed, caught herself worrying her bottom lip. “What kind of a lead? You said his magic wasn’t something you understood.”
Kellen stood. He offered her a hand, then pulled her up and against his heated, water-slick body. “The astrologist’s talent is in dealing with the various realms.”
Her heart beat faster at the direction the conversation was taking. “Realms?”
“Do you think this plane of existence is the only one?”
She slipped her arms around his waist. Felt excited more than anything else. “I think parallel universes are possible. And I’ve never believed Earth is the only place that gave rise to intelligent species, or even that humans are the most advanced species in existence anywhere.”
She dared to ask, “Were the unicorns real?”
“Yes. Pulled into this realm by a sorcerer for his child’s birthday party.”
There was a decided growl when he said sorcerer. She smiled and pressed a kiss against his chest. “I haven’t had a chance to watch the news or hit YouTube to see the capture, were you there?”
“Yes.”
“And the unicorns?”
“Sent back to where they belong.”
“That’s what Supernatural Ops does?”
“It accounts for a lot of our work.”
“I’ve always thought there was truth in myth. What about dragons and faeries, especially the shapeshifting kind?”
“Now you’re talking about huge expenditures of power, more than any sorcerer is capable of harnessing and channeling.”
“Oh.” Too bad. Though it made her smile and say a silent thank you to Saffron, for preventing her from spending a grand on a charm meant to attract a supernatural mate.
Kellen stroked a hand down her back. “We should get going.”
They toweled dry, dressed and grabbed a quick drive-through breakfast at McDonald’s before reaching Old Town and traveling through it to Mission Hills. Kellen parked in front of a pale-yellow adobe house with a red-tile roof.
It was set behind a short wooden fence and among landscaping meant to look wild. A red stone walkway led up a small incline to a front door carved with symbols.
She’d never been very interested in Astrology, though she knew what the Zodiac symbols for Libra, Aries, Aquarius, and hers—Pisces—looked like. None of them were present on the astrologist’s door, nor was there a doorbell or knocker.
Kellen made no move to use his knuckles on the light-colored wood. She said, “So we just wait for him to magically appear?”
His flashed smile sent a surge of heat into her sex. “That sounds about right.”
She nibbled her bottom lip, found herself more excited about meeting a real magic practitioner than worried, though her chest felt tighter with each passing moment, and every other thought was a fervent hope the astrologist wouldn’t say anything about the charm.
Rather than glance nervously at her bracelet, she studied Kellen’s profile and heard again the old man’s words.
Together the charms will open the doors to a journey of discovery. They will lead you to a deeper understanding of the world and the mate meant for you.
She was definitely on that journey of discovery. And Kellen… He felt right. Incredibly, amazingly right.
The tarot reading at Stones had confirmed they were meant to be together. But how could she reconcile the rest of what the old man had told her? How could she sustain a relationship with him if she couldn’t be completely honest?
Swallowing against the rising guilt, she said, “Maybe whoever hired the mugger saw me pick something up at the supernatural fair and mistakenly thinks I bought it. I handled a lot of items and talked to a lot of vendors.”
None if it was a lie, but the misdirection made her feel worse. It tightened her chest and created a leaden weight in her stomach.
“Hopefully the astrologist will make an appearance and provide some additional information,” Kellen said. “Strong magic leaves a trace.”
As if in answer to his comment, the door opened and she was immediately hit by the scent of vanilla. And then she was fighting against doing something totally inappropriate—like drooling.
She might be with Kellen, but that didn’t make her blind.
Wow. Just wow.
The astrologist was the stuff of steamy romance covers with his long black hair and sinfully blue bedroom eyes. Eyes that were even now focused on her and doing a slow perusal.
Next to her Kellen took a small step away from her, eradicating the astrologist’s impact and bringing a heart-squeezing guilt. Not that she was interested in the astrologist, but guys who looked like him and exuded the kind of masculine pheromones he did weren’t all that common in her day-to-day life.
She reached over, put a hand-lock around Kellen’s wrist and used it to erase the physical distance he’d put between them. The astrologist’s lips kicked up in a wickedly sensual smile. To Kellen he said, “I’m starting to see a pattern. Should I expect to find Gaige or Crew on my doorstep next with a woman?”
“We’re in a hurry here,” Kellen responded on a growl.
The astrologist’s smile widened. “Of course you are. And as it so happens, I have little time to spare. I’m expecting someone.”
He stepped out of the doorway and allowed them into the house. The scent of vanilla intensified, and Analia spotted its source, a multitude of flowering cacti.
“How can I assist you?” the astrologist asked.
“It’s likely that Analia has come into contact with a powerful artifact,” Kellen said, then briefly described how she’d been attacked at the beach and what he’d learned during his interrogation of the mugger at the police station.
The astrologist sighed and shook his head. “Not a lot to go on in other words. Best I’m going to be able to do is give you a general direction.”
“Even that’ll be a help.”
“This way,” the astrologist said, leading them to what might have been a sunroom except there was no furniture, only a large circle created of crystal and stone set in the middle of the room.
Sunshine struck some of the crystals, making symbols glitter and pop. A closer look, and Analia could make out other designs, as well as subtle lines connecting strings of magical characters.
The stone in the very center of the circle was free of imagery, it was glossy black, obsidian maybe and delineated by narrow dual bands carved into the stone and inscribed with markings she assumed were sigils.
Similar dual bands of etched lines in shiny black stone formed the outer boundary of the circle, though rather than markings in between the lines, the rock had been carved to form a channel.
The astrologist opened a small wooden chest next to the circle and pulled out what looked like a rolled carpet runner. He knelt, intoned words she couldn’t distinguish then set the runner on the ground and gave it a push. It unfurled, rolling across the circle to reach its center.
Like the center and outer channel, the heavy cloth was a glossy black, though its edges were woven with strands of silver and gold, the pattern making her think of wave caps in the moonlight.
The astrologist stood, lifted his arm with a flourish and tilted his head, “Just stay on the path, and when you reach the center, make yourself comfortable but don’t cross any of the lines.”
Analia’s mouth went dry. She cleared her throat, not wanting to squeak out her question. “What’s going to happen?”
“Nothing harmful, I promise. This will provide a very rough reading of what type of supernatural beings you’re currently attracting.”
She shivered, partly in trepidation and partly with anticipation. Wait until she told Sabra about this! Sabra would probably beat a path to the astrologist’s door!
“Okay, here goes,” she said, stepping onto the cloth runner and proceeding to the center of the circle.
She sat, crossing her legs in front of her and resting her hands on her knees. The astrologist crouched, facing her, and once again murmured words she couldn’t differentiate.
Inches away from her, the runner folded over on itself, doing it over and over again until it gained momentum and returned to a rolled-up appearance in front of the astrologist. “Magic,” Analia whispered, her heart pounding harder, her belief in what the old man had told her solidifying—that the charms had picked her to be their guardian.
The old man was probably a sorcerer. Not just that, but someone who came from a long line of sorcerers.
When she’d asked him how he knew she was the charm’s choice, he’d said there was a knowing, a connection to the charm that his family had possessed for generations. What if one of his ancestors had pulled the charms into the human realm?
Her heart thumped a little harder. The astrologist returned the cloth to the wooden chest, a chest she now noticed had sigils burned into its corners.
The astrologist’s hand emerged from the chest fisted. He used the other to close the chest’s lid.
Swiveling in his crouched position, so he once again faced her, he brought his closed hand to his lips, like a dice player about to make a lucky toss.
He spoke against his fist, then lowered his hand and placed what looked like a glossy black marble into the channel forming the circle’s boundary.
As he’d done with the carpet, he gave a nudge, setting the marble in motion.
There was no discernable tilt to the floor, nothing to explain how the marble picked up speed as it traveled around the circle in a clockwise direction. Around and around and around it went, soundlessly, Analia realized with a start.
The astrologist’s absolute focus on the glossy ball didn’t invite questions, so she remained silent, her heart beating faster with each pass, her mouth getting drier and drier.
Without apparent cause, the black marble slowed, slowed, seemed to pause at a spot along the circle before continuing. The astrologist laughed, murmured no surprise there freeing her to ask, “What did that mean?”
He glanced up at her. “You’ve attracted the attention of a fey hound.”
Instantaneously she pictured the huge Irish Wolfhound that’d both kept her company on the beach and intervened when she was attacked. No wonder her call to Saffron had brought Maksim to the animal shelter!
Her gaze flew to Kellen. “The dog? He came from another realm?”
His nod sent a thrill of excitement through her. It was further validation of what the old man had told her, that possession of the charms would open the doors of discovery.
But the zip of the ball as it went past her, dampened that excitement. Because validation of the supernatural also meant that because of the charms, she was facing a very real threat.
Moments later the glossy ball slowed again. It was close to the spot where it’d slowed before. Relief edged in, maybe whoever had paid the mugger had stuck around and seen the hound. Maybe that’d scared him off for good.
She had a bad feeling she was trying desperately to fool herself. The old man had warned her against carrying both charms at the same time or she’d attract harm, which was suggestion enough that someone might do anything to acquire the charms.
The ball stopped. She stood, trying to get a better look to determine if it was in the exact same spot, but she just couldn’t tell.
“Fey,” the astrologist said. He stood and walked around the circle until he reached the ball. “The interest in Analia has origins in the fey, or the artifact she came into contact with is fey in nature.”