Magaestra: Loyalties: An urban fantasy series Read online

  It was Aldric’s turn to blink. He tried to step into the room again, and again he was slowed to near immobility. “Then what...” He pushed harder and it seemed to simply cause the-- the whatever it was to push back harder on him, as if it was using his own strength and effort against him. He threw his shoulder into the invisible barrier, visibly shoving.

  Faith giggled, suddenly, then laughed out loud at his struggles.

  “I do not see the humor in this, Faith. Something is keeping me from you! What if this is the work of the Goldfangs somehow? Or their allies?” Aldric was beginning to truly worry now— he refused to call it panic.

  “It’s just. Oh— “she gasped between laughs. She made a visible effort to calm her mirth, which only set her to laughing harder. “Oh, no.”

  Faith!” Aldric growled. He pounded his fist on the barrier and glared at her. At least she was safely inside the walls of the clan house. “Is this the work of that detective? Is he so determined that we are all monsters?”

  The fight went out of him and he leaned forward, resting his forehead against the thin air that kept him from Faith. “I know he hates us. Hates me. Especially because of what happened in the cave. Tamika told me he figured it out.” He tried to sort out what he wanted to say. “Faith. I would never touch you against your will. I would never touch Kaylee ever. I don’t feed from people, you know this. I won’t do it again, ever. Even if you insist. Even if it means my own death. Please do not leave us, Faith.”

  That seemed to dampen her mood, and the laughter died away. “Aldric, I’m glad you fed from me. And I don’t regret it for a second,” She said. She tipped her head at him and there was a twinkle in her eyes when she continued. “And Ken didn’t ward my room either. Nobody did.”

  Then what is this magic that keeps me out here?” He thumped his hand beside his head like it was spongy glass.

  “It’s your magic.” Faith grinned. Another laugh shook her shoulders before she sat up straight and took a deep, formal breath. “Aldric Donnelly, I extend to you an invitation into my home. Please, come in.”

  As soon as the last word died on her lips, all resistance vanished and Aldric fell into the room to land, sprawled out next to the suitcase.

  “What in the hell?” He groaned into the carpet.

  Faith giggled again. “I guess turning into a mist wasn’t the only storybook vampire trait you gained when you fed from me. I had to invite you in.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “I wonder if that only works for humans, or if you can’t get into anyone’s rooms without an invitation.”

  Aldric rolled to a seated position and rubbed his head where it had banged the floor. “I had no difficulty entering Greg Honeyford’s room. Or any other room I have tried to enter since we returned.”

  Faith tipped her head in thought. “Well, the house in general is public space, mostly. And Greg’s room could be considered semi-public. I mean it’s not really his room. Just the room he’s staying in. Did you knock, though?”

  Aldric blinked up at her. “Of course, I knocked.”

  She grinned back. “Did he answer with ‘come in’?”

  Aldric’s jaw dropped. Greg had answered with those words. Why wouldn’t he? Faith reached down and held her hand out to him, a patient smile on her face now that he was very obviously not following what she was trying to explain. He let her tug him to his feet then to sit on the bed beside her, and once he was settled, she didn’t let go. He still was uncertain about what had just happened, though he felt it was important, but the small gesture was more reassuring than he had expected.

  “Aldric, when you fed from me, you gained a new ability, remember? A vampire turning into a mist is a power commonly associated with vampire mythology, at least among humans,” she said. “Another common aspect of that mythology is that a vampire must be invited in.”

  Aldric blinked at her. “I… I was kept out of your room by a myth?” He sputtered.

  “Clearly not,” she giggled and leaned into him a bit. “I suspect that every vampire is different and every power gain is different. You got turning into a mist and the need for an invitation. What did it feel like?”

  Aldric frowned. “Did you ever make that odd play material for Kaylee? The one with cornstarch and water?”

  Faith blinked at him for a moment then laughed. “Ooblek? Yeah, we’ve made that.”

  “That is what it felt like. The harder I pushed, the harder it resisted me, but when I was simply leaning into it, I felt like I was sinking into it to a point, then I was firmly stopped.” Aldric frowned. If he had sunk any further, would he have been smothered? Would his breathing have been hindered, or his other movements?

  “I think this will require some testing,” he said slowly. His shoulders slumped. He was not looking forward to this. "Marc also wishes to test the mist ability."

  Faith rubbed her hand up and down his spine and the soothing gesture worked like it had magic of its own. “What did you want to talk about? Because when we’re done with that subject, I have a few things to say myself.”

  The anxiety came back and Aldric took a deep breath to brace himself to defend himself and the clan. “Don’t leave.”

  Brilliant argument. Good work, Aldric.

  “What? Why would I leave?” Faith sounded genuinely confused.

  “I… Tamika said that Detective Lincoln had convinced you to leave here. To take Kaylee and stay away from us. From me especially. Faith, I swear to you I would never harm you or Kaylee. I will never again feed from a person like that, whether human or otherwise. I will do whatever I need to do to make sure that you feel safe around me, just please don’t leave.”

  He wasn’t certain what to make of the twitching corners of Faith’s lips as she fought a smile. She gave up quickly, buried her face in his shoulder and laughed.

  “That sneaky… Oh, Tamika!” Faith kept his hand firmly in one of her own while wrapping the other around his shoulders and leaning hard, her whole body shaking. After a few minutes she caught her breath.

  “Well, she did say she would get your sorry hiding-from-me butt up here to talk. I think I owe Tamika a drink," she said at last. “I’m not going anywhere, Aldric. And now I have you here, neither are you.”

  23

  That Tamika was sneaky. Thank goodness.

  “Now then. Why have you been avoiding me? I can’t think of a single good reason for it, since apparently it isn’t some sort of penance imposed upon you by Marc or something.”

  Aldric frowned. “Why would Marc tell me to stay away from you?”

  Faith shrugged. “I have no idea. I thought that maybe you told him about the cave, and that was the price for staying here. It sounded dumb in my head, too, but that was literally the only thing I could think of. Then Tamika pointed out that your great secret wasn’t so secret after all, and laughed at my theory.” She felt a grin creep onto her face. “She had a few less than flattering things to say about your intelligence, too.”

  “She said them to my face as well as behind my back, it seems. Remind me to demote her to secretary, would you?” Aldric said, drily.

  Faith’s grin grew. “She’s one of your best friends and you know it. And don’t avoid the question.”

  Aldric seemed to deflate beside her. His frown reappeared and his gaze turned pensive and he stared at his hand wrapped in her own fingers.

  “I do not wish to hurt you,” he said, slowly. “I have never before fed from a human— I have in fact sworn to never do so. It was one of the stipulations for us joining the Frostwalkers in the first place. I broke my oath, and I…” He sighed deeply, and Faith wondered if he had been sleeping well. Now that she could see him close up, he looked worn out.

  “I do not regret not dying, and I am still humbled and honored by your gift. You saved my life, but beyond that you refused to allow me to give up. I find that there are a great many things I wish to do and see, and being dead would hamper that greatly." Aldric paused for Faith to chuckle, as he most likely inten
ded. "But in choosing to live, I broke my oath and I fed from a human, directly. And not just any human, but a mage. Someone I care about. I…” His mouth moved like he was trying to chew his words, but no more came.

  “Aldric, I didn’t do that to make you feel guilty about anything. But you have to see where I was coming from.”

  Faith shivered at the memory of that moment in the cave, realizing that Aldric was bleeding so badly that he was actually dying. The moment that she realized that she could be trapped in that cave with Aldric’s corpse, her one solid pillar of support gone forever.

  “Aldric, I almost lost you.” Her voice cracked halfway through the short sentence and she swallowed heavily. Aldric’s head snapped up to look at her. “I— I can’t do this without you. I can’t watch over Kaylee and search for Crissy and… and just all of this. I couldn’t sit there and do nothing and watch you die, Aldric. It would have killed me, too, and I don’t regret it.”

  Aldric’s eyes widened. He reached his free hand up to swipe his thumb over her cheek, and that’s when she felt the wetness streaming down her face.

  “Faith,” he said, shock and… almost reverence lacing his voice. He tugged his hand from hers and gently repositioned them both so that he could pull her into his arms.

  She let him, fairly confident that he wasn’t going to run away again, and leaned into his warmth. They sat there for a long time, just quietly reassuring each other that they were there, that they were alive and together and whole. Finally, Aldric turned his head to kiss her hair.

  “I will do better, Faith. I will be less distant. I…” Aldric took a deep breath, but she didn’t lift her head from his shoulder to look at his face. “I was certain that Marc would be angry at the very least. I was sure that the rest of the clan would shun me if they learned that I fed from you. But the only thing Marc was upset over was my reluctance to tell him.”

  “He’s your friend. They’re all your friends, Aldric. None of them wanted you to die any more than I did,” Faith said. She knew that Marc and Tamika and the rest of the Enforcers would have been just as devastated as she would have been. “You’re family, here. Not just a friend.”

  She felt Aldric’s head move as he nodded gently.

  “I suppose you are right. I will have to work through this guilt and move past it. But it is difficult, after a century of believing something to suddenly change my view.”

  Faith could understand that. “A whole life lived one way is probably tough to shake up.” She sat up now and scrubbed her sleeve over her face to soak up any remaining dampness. “But, um.” She scrunched her face up and tried not to blush, like that ever worked. “Tamika pointed out that vampires are usually, um. Very, uh, prone to nibbling when they’re in the throes of passion, as it were.”

  She risked a glance up at Aldric and saw that he was also shading a bit pink, but his eyes had finally lost the slight bleakness they had carried over the past few days.

  “I mean. I know we haven’t… we’re not…” she finally lost her courage to keep talking about it.

  Aldric cleared his throat. “I have, in the past, been very firm in controlling my instincts in that area,” he said, the blush spreading up his face to his hairline. “And I have not been especially social, in a romantic sense, for several decades now.”

  Faith bit her lips together to make sure she didn’t giggle. He wasn’t looking at her, rather staring somewhere over her shoulder in the direction of the curtains, and she didn’t want to make him feel any more uncomfortable.

  “You know, for a guy who secretly reads racy vampire romance novels, it's kind of adorably easy to make you blush,” she finally said.

  He just scowled, but there was no heat behind it at all. She leaned closer to him and bumped his shoulder with her own.

  “If you find yourself in that situation with me,” she said, unable to contain the grin. “Feel free to nibble as the urge strikes you. It was odd, but not unpleasant. The bite, I mean.”

  Aldric just coughed again, and nodded jerkily, and then turned to look at Faith’s bag on the floor at her feet. “If you have no intention of leaving, why is your luggage out?”

  “Tamika suggested that we could send someone back home to get more of our things, mine and Kaylee’s, since we had only packed for a two week stay and I honestly don’t see us going back to the city any time soon.” Faith sighed.

  She had her laptop, so she could still work— one of the biggest benefits to her freelance career— but the whole rest of her life lay in tattered shreds thanks to some power-hungry jerks who somehow got focused on her and her family.

  She did want some of her things, though, so she had taken Tamika up on the offer. Kaylee was also making a list of things she wanted, though Faith wasn’t certain how much of the list would be terribly practical.

  But then, practical might not be what the girl needed. She really needed her mother to be found and rescued, but short of that, a sense of normalcy and safety were the most important things. If getting a few of her stuffies and some other toys helped in that, Faith was all for it.

  “Would it be selfish of me to admit that I like the idea of you living here for a longer period?” Aldric asked, his words quiet now.

  Faith couldn’t stop the smile from spreading fully across her face. Aldric was a badass warrior and a protector, and she knew from the first moment they met that he was more than capable of lethal violence. But he was just so adorable when he got all soft and emotional. Really, he was kind of a dork at home and she loved it.

  “I don’t think it’s selfish,” she said. “Now if you tried to keep us here just because you want it and not for any other reason, that might be a little selfish. But being glad we’re staying? I think that’s pretty encouraging, actually.”

  Aldric dipped his head, but didn’t respond directly. “How long do you think you’ll stay?”

  Faith’s smile faded a bit as she considered the question. It sounded like a simple question, but there were far too many variables to give a simple answer.

  “I’m not honestly sure,” she said after a moment. “If it was just me, and there was nothing else happening, I’d say I would stay as long as you all let me stay.”

  She sighed and grimaced. “Unfortunately, it depends on when we find Crissy and where she is and what shape she’s in, and what’s best for Kaylee, and now I’m teetering on being named her legal guardian because Crissy is still missing, and…” She swallowed hard. There wasn’t time to start freaking out about everything right now.

  “We are all here for you, whatever you need. I know that Marc is waiting for you to ask about lawyers regarding Kaylee. You are both Frostwalkers now, remember, and we will support you. This is as much your home as it is ours, for as long as you wish to stay. But…”

  “But?”

  Aldric shrugged. “I hope you stay for a very long time. Even after we find your sister and bring her home.”

  Faith’s smile returned. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes.” Aldric’s face was serious, but his eyes sparkled and she could hear the hidden smile in his voice. It seemed that he was finally done hiding from her.

  “Do you have any particular reason? Something to motivate me to stay?” She leaned into him and batted her eyelashes up at him.

  “Well,” Aldric said, pulling her into his lap. “Kaylee and Jake have gotten very attached to each other. It would be a shame to split them up.”

  “That’s true,” Faith agreed somberly. She wouldn’t giggle. She would not giggle. Oh, thank God Aldric was finally over his self-inflicted nonsense.

  “And Marc also works from here, so we understand the difficulties and advantages of self-employment. It would be a simple enough thing to find you some office space.”

  “Oh, yes. Office space. That’s very motivating.” Faith felt lighter than she had in days.

  “Indeed. Even if you simply wanted to use my office instead of setting up a whole new space, you’re always welcome there. Most of my wor
k does not happen at a desk.”

  “You don’t say? You wouldn’t mind if I took over your office with my… um… very imposing laptop?” Faith was trying very hard to keep a serious expression on her face. It was getting nearly impossible. “That’s good to know. I’m feeling slightly motivated to stay here now.”

  “Hmmm,” Aldric frowned, thoughtfully. His hand started skimming up and down her back and the heat from his touch warmed her all the way through. “Perhaps developing more close, personal ties to clanmates would encourage you to relocate?”

  Her grin broke through. She couldn’t stop it if her life depended on it now, but she tried to keep her voice serious and steady. “That could be an avenue to investigate, certainly. How would I go about doing that?”

  “Well,” Aldric said. “You have already begun fostering friendships with Tamika and with Marc.”

  “True. And Kenya and Ori are pretty cool, and once you stop being intimidated by his size Rod is actually a very funny man.” Faith nodded.

  She slid her own hand up Aldric’s arm and over his shoulder, enjoying the feeling of his powerful muscles tensing and flexing under her fingers as he moved into the touch. Her mind flashed with a memory of the first time she saw this man as he destroyed the rogue wolf shifters that had attacked her and Kaylee. The way he was unapologetically lethal, then turned and was as gentle and careful with her as anyone could be.

  “Perhaps if I developed a romantic relationship. That would certainly qualify as an incentive to stay close,” Faith murmured. “I could start to fall for someone.”

  Aldric’s eyes grew hot and his fox-serious expression melted away.

  “Faith,” he breathed.

  She met his gaze with her own, and words were no longer necessary.

  24

  Aldric sat on the sofa in Marc’s office, with Faith slumped against him, half dozing. After she confronted him over his anxieties and avoidance of her, they had spent the night together and regretted none of it.