Natural Dual-Mage (Page 5)

I didn’t even care. I’d walk in the cold. Anything to get away from her inevitable effort to talk me into another hunt. I really was done. Totally finished.

3

Emery sat in a chair at the edge of a green field dotted with occasional white specks, the last of the snow from yesterday finally melting away. The temperature was still down near freezing, but the cold couldn’t permeate the blackness of his mood.

He sighed deeply and a cloud of white left his lips. He’d jumped at the chance to go back to Ireland with Penny. He’d follow her to the ends of the Earth if she asked. His feelings for her had only gotten stronger. And would only get stronger as they continued to weave into each other’s lives.

But he’d been assailed by bad memories of the time he’d spent here alone. Of his life after his brother, having to kill liberally to stay alive. Emery couldn’t help but wonder how different things would have been if his brother had lived and he had died. Would Conrad have been able to turn things around? Emery only knew how to maim and kill, not save. He was a rogue, a recluse, and he’d never be as easily liked as his brother had been.

He shook his head and reached for the glass of whiskey resting in the grass next to the sinking leg of his chair. Not for the first time, a thread of guilt wormed through him. Penny deserved better than a guy like him. And he felt guilty for praying to God she never realized it, because he didn’t know what he’d do if she left. She’d put the color back into his life. The depth. She was his anchor.

And if she were here right now, she’d tell him to stop dwelling.

He grinned and looked at his feet. She’d be right, too. Life felt better when you enjoyed the positive instead of lingering on the negative.

Soft footfalls reached his ears, somewhat quicker than a human would naturally walk. A moment later, he could pick out the rhythm of the gait and the careful steps. He was well versed on all things dangerous, and the approaching individual was one of the more dangerous things in the world.

Darius. A cunning elder vampire who was way too deeply involved in Emery’s affairs.

Judging from the overcast sky and short days, he guessed it to be about four or four thirty in the afternoon. Evening had replaced the day.

Penny and Reagan would be finishing up with paperwork about now, Penny sour about whatever had happened, and Reagan likely filled with pride that her training buddy had come up with unique and airtight spells. The two of them were as effective as they were hilariously predictable. He got endless enjoyment out of listening to their squabbles.

“Black thoughts?” Darius asked quietly, setting down the chair he’d grabbed from their rental house across the road. Emery sat on one just like it.

“Just reflecting on my life choices.” Emery took a sip of his whiskey and leaned back.

“Dwelling, as Penny would call it?”

Emery huffed out a laugh. The vampire couldn’t actually pick thoughts from his head, but he was so good at reading body language, mood, and situational cues that it practically came to the same thing. “It’s easy to blame myself for what the Guild has become. For years they were merely festering, but I resurfaced, raised havoc, and suddenly they’re spreading like a virus. In just a few months they’ve claimed a couple dozen new cities around the world and a host of new talent. The mages who vocally oppose their methods are being slaughtered. If I’d left the whole thing alone, the darker magic wouldn’t be spreading, and innocent mages wouldn’t be in jeopardy. Penny would be so much safer. It’s a lot to feel accountable for.”

“Pardon me for a moment.” Darius stood up and zipped off so fast that Emery had woven together a spell before realizing he’d been startled. Usually when an elder vampire moved that fast, he was two seconds from ripping out a throat. A moment later, though, Darius was sitting down again with a snifter filled with a deep brown liquid.

Apparently they were about to have a man-to-man chat. No doubt Darius would use it as an opportunity to glean information. You could never trust a vampire, and elder vampires were the worst kind.

Yet…Emery found himself leaning back a little more into his chair, interested in what the vampire had to say. Whatever else he might be, he was also incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable.

“Let’s go over the facts, shall we?” Darius asked, crossing an argyle sock over his designer jeans. The vampire did nothing by halves, including dressing casually. “Before your brother’s death, the Guild already had a firm hold over Seattle, and they had started increasing their scope.”

“But they haven’t done much in the three and a half years since my brother was killed…until now.”

“This is true. Of course, organizations largely operate in fits and starts as their leaders change over. It was bound to happen sooner or later. You—and I—have ensured that it happened sooner.”

“Dangling an untrained, naive natural in front of them really helped speed things up, yes,” Emery said dryly, trying (and failing) to push away the surge of guilt. “It’s their desire to obtain her that has driven this sudden focus, I have no doubt. I’ve put Penny in extreme danger.”

“Ah.” Darius swirled the brown liquid in his glass. “I think that is the root of the problem, is it not? The issue of Penny has been weighing on you.”

Emery leaned his forearms onto his knees. He didn’t comment. Darius had been subtle about it, but Emery knew the elder had been watching him. Cataloguing his actions and noticing his mood slips. The vampire filed away everything he saw into that incredible computer of a brain, puzzling out the patterns and working out how he could manipulate the present situation into what he planned for the future. Emery shouldn’t give him any more fodder for his plans, but…

Well, when it came down to it, he wanted to know what the vampire had to say. Wondered if Darius had any wisdom to impart.

Emery desperately wanted to make this situation with Penny right. He wanted to dig himself out of this hole. If he had to temporarily get chummy with a vampire to do it, he would.

Darius paused for a moment, looking out over the field.

“We must remember, she had already stumbled onto magic when you first met her,” he said slowly.

Emery huffed out a laugh. Penny’s version of stumbling onto magic had involved turning a coven of witches into zombies. That woman could really unravel a situation. Like him.

“She was a ticking time bomb,” Darius went on. He paused again, and it almost seemed like the words were being dragged from him. “Being an elder, I’ve largely shrugged off many things. The idea of each of us having one true mate, for example. Fate as a whole, actually. However…” He took a sip of his drink. “I’ve looked into what it means to be a natural pairing.”

Ja, an extremely old vampire whose interest in Penny had forced her out of the bored stupor many vampires fall into if he or she gets old enough, had said Penny and Emery were a natural pairing, something Emery had heard was even rarer than natural mages. It meant Penny was the yin to his yang, and together they formed a balanced whole. That sort of natural affinity was different than the kind that could be achieved magically—something he’d shared with his brother.

Emery absently wiped at his chest, the familiar pang of loss cutting him deeply. He remembered what it had felt like when the dual-mage connection had been ripped out of him by his brother’s untimely demise. Like someone had punched a hole in his chest, yanked out his ribs one by one, then used a dull knife to extract his heart. The feeling had spread throughout his body, flash-boiling his blood, crunching each bone, and twisting his guts. If the Guild hadn’t tried to kill him that very night, he might’ve succumbed to the mental anguish. He might’ve let it take him.

His rage had saved him in the end.

Darius cut into Emery’s dark reverie. “Further research has revealed that a natural pairing is actually not rare at all. It is widely believed that everyone has one. The rarity is that each member of the pairing should find each other. Some magical creatures can only love their natural pair, and in extreme cases, they can only produce offspring with that person or creature. In a huge population, it stands to reason that you would never meet the one ‘destined’ for you. This goes double for you, since you’ve spent so little time living amongst the human population over the last three years. The chances that you would meet your pair were so slim, they might well be classified as miraculous.”

“Except…” Emery scratched his nose. “I’d have to think that a natural’s pairing would be another natural. Which means there would only be so many options for me.”

“Interesting assessment.” Darius’s thumb tapped his glass. “Meaning…instead of being a human with magic, you are reduced down to your own subset of species, a natural.” He shifted and his brow furrowed. “Be that as it may, and we cannot know if there’s any truth to it until I look more thoroughly into the matter…”

Emery grimaced. Any entanglement with an elder was bad, but long-term entanglement was parallel to entrapment. And here he was, giving the elder new information to digest. That would just give the vampire more ideas.

“Anyway,” Darius went on, “even if it was because you were naturals, there are a few other naturals scattered around the world, and you never planned to have a connection with any of them. Yet you were brought face to face with your natural pairing when you took an unplanned day trip into a medieval village to waste time.”