My Forbidden Desire (19 page)

“Copa solves that for you.”

Her heart headed for the floor, taking her stomach along with it. “Copa.”

“You’re going to have to pull. Alexandrine.” A frown quirked at his mouth. “I know how you feel about taking drugs, but it’s the safest way to do this. If we do it. Otherwise it’s like I’ll be in there with a machete when what I need is a scalpel.”

Alexandrine rocked forward. “You said it’s addicting to mages.”

“Yeah. Eventually.”

“But not so much for mages without much magic?”

He shook his head. “No exceptions that I know about. But it’s only addicting when you keep using.”

Alexandrine took a deep breath. “What’s it like? Taking copa.”

“You’re magekind, Alexandrine. I’m not. I don’t know what it’d be like for you. All I know is taking the copa will help you pull enough magic to make this safer.”

There had to be another way. But as the panicked thought clamored in her head, a voice in there whispered,
You could use magic. Real magic. At last
. “That doesn’t mean it would work on me.”

He rested his head against the doorway. “It’s not about whether you have much magic or not, Alexandrine. You have plenty. It’s just you can’t use what you have because you didn’t get taught before it was too late.” He frowned. “It’s like this. Rasmus has an open door between him and his magic. You have a pinhole. Every now and then, the talisman widens your access, and if you knew anything about what to do with your magic when that happens, you could probably take Rasmus’s head off. The copa will make your pinhole wider. Give you better access and allow you to pull more than otherwise.”

She stared at him. Great. Just great. “You sure there’s no other way?”

“Nothing that isn’t way more risky than this.”

From somewhere deep inside her, a place she knew could never be buried deep enough, she felt a buzz of anticipation. She would feel what it was like to have the kind of magic that mattered. She’d be able to do things. Create fire from atoms in the air, turn on a light when she was nowhere near the switch. Hell, she might even be able to impress her father. She could pull magic and change her reality with a thought or a word. Her throat closed off. She refused to blink for fear she might cry. It wasn’t fair to want this so bad and have it be for all the wrong reasons.

“You could keep the talisman,” he said. “We could wait for Nikodemus to get back and see if he can’t do something to help.” He drew a breath. “He saved Carson from something similar. Maybe he could save you, too.”

“There’s no way of knowing how much longer it’s going to hold together, right?” she asked.

Xia nodded. “It could crack in you, Alexandrine, and I don’t know if I could bring you back from that.”

“So,” she said softly, “we wait. Or we crack the talisman now. Either way it’s risky.”

“Pretty much.”

“But the longer we wait, the more unstable the talisman gets.” He nodded. She traced a line on the floor with her bare toe. There was another side to this they were both avoiding, and it was time to get it out in the open. “The longer we wait to do something,” she said while her stomach turned to lead, “the longer what’s trapped inside suffers. Isn’t that true?”

He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth before he answered her. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s true.”

“All right, then,” she said.

He touched the side of her head, taking a lock of her platinum hair between his fingers. She wondered if he was thinking about Rasmus. “I’ll throw it away afterward,” he said.

“The talisman?”

He gave her a look. “The copa.”

It didn’t matter, but she didn’t tell Xia that. The real danger wasn’t that she would steal some copa off him afterward. Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t. The real danger was the bone-deep hunger for magic she’d lived with all these years. If she fed the hunger now, after starving for so long, she’d spend the rest of her life knowing there was a way to have the magic back. No wonder mages abused the stuff.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Xia said. His hand slid around to her cheek.

“Now,” she whispered. Her heart pounded in her ears. “Let’s do it now, okay?”

He inclined his head. “There are rituals,” he said, “that can make this easier. For us both.”

She knew he meant easier for her. “Rituals.” She licked her lower lip. “What kind of rituals? Do I have to do something disgusting to you?”

“Well, it helps,” he said with no change in expression, “if I’ve had a mind-blowing orgasm beforehand.” He ogled her. “Two or three would be even better.”

“Pervert.” She was grateful that he’d tried to make her laugh. That was really very sweet of him. And coming from him, that meant something. Her heart kind of twisted up. Here he was being decent to her, thinking of her when he hated her because of her father and because of what she was and what had been done to him by people like her. She resisted the urge to throw her arms around him and hold on tight.

“So?” he said.

“I’m not giving you an orgasm.” Maybe she’d be okay. Maybe the copa wouldn’t work on her the way he thought. She wasn’t much of a witch, after all. She was practically vanilla. Maybe it wouldn’t work on her, and she wouldn’t have to spend her life knowing what it was like to use real magic.

“It was worth a shot. You sure?”

“So tempting,” she said, and this time she didn’t resist the urge to touch him. He didn’t shift away from the contact. “But, no.”

He left the doorway. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get this done.”

Chapter 15

X
ia’s living room was stunning. While he organized a few things and got ready for the big event, Alexandrine stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows, trying to get a handle on her nerves. The view of the cove flat-out took her breath away. She gave up trying to relax and just let herself fall into the beauty of the moon on the water while nerves churned a hole in her stomach.

When she got around to noticing anything else, she had to adjust her assumptions about the man who owned this house.
Elegant
wasn’t the word, but
striking
came close. One wall was dark blue, the others stark white. Contrast was everywhere. Nepalese rugs in various shapes and sizes accented the bamboo floor. He favored the more austere designs, but one of the rugs was a riot of color and pattern. A bittersweet-orange couch angled toward the windows on one side. A smaller couch faced a gas fireplace built into a wall perpendicular to the windows. Tibetan and Nepalese masks hung on the walls; some of them were garishly painted devils while others were animal faces carved of dark wood. There were framed photographs, too, all of them black-and-white nature scenes. Carved animals cavorted on the mantel, some abstract, some disturbingly real.

Xia came in with an armful of items that he arranged by the fireplace. Alexandrine’s stomach tightened. He laid out a small brazier and poured oil into the bowl on top. He did something with his hand, said a word, and a flame appeared underneath the bowl. He laid out several other items by the fireplace—his knife, unsheathed; a stoppered glass bottle; and a wooden box, which he opened. She recognized the pills he took from it: copa. He crumbled one into the oil, and she swore she saw sparks dance over the surface.

Alexandrine walked to him. She didn’t trust herself to speak without betraying her anxiety. Part of her wanted to run away, to make a mad dash for the door. As she stood there, inhaling the scent of warming oil, she composed a speech about why she had to refuse the ritual. The amulet was hers. Hers. Hers only. She couldn’t give it up or she’d die. And the copa, a really bad idea.

He held up another of the pills. “It’ll be different for you than it is for me. Sometimes a mage gets disoriented his first time taking copa. I’ve seen that happen.”

“Disoriented how?”

“It depends.” His eyes flickered between neon blue and aquamarine, and she wondered what memory he was dealing with. The witch who’d betrayed him to Rasmus? The paler his eyes, she realized, the more stress he was feeling. “I’ll be here with you, Alexandrine. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Two distinct compulsions went to war, one new, one old. The first and newer one was the impulse to keep the talisman to herself by any means necessary. The second and far older reaction was her indescribable longing to be able to do something with her magic that wasn’t trivial. She stared at the pill on his palm.

“Does it last?” she asked. “I mean, does the effect fade away, or is it something permanent?”

Xia walked to the larger couch. He held out a hand and waited for her to join him. She did, pulling her T-shirt down and underneath her butt as she sat. “You have to be a serious abuser for the change to be permanent,” he said. “Most of the mages I’ve seen who were addicted died before they reached that point.”

“And the others?”

“If they don’t stop, they all die from it.” He settled in on the couch. “Sooner or later, copa will kill a mage.”

“Great.”

“Don’t worry.” His southeastern view of the water was completely dark. “You won’t go that far tonight. This being your first time and all, you aren’t going to have some instant-death moment. Besides, if you take only one, the change will fade pretty quickly.” He put a hand on her thigh. Very nonchalantly. “You have what it takes not to let it go that far, Alexandrine.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

He lifted one shoulder. His fingers curled around her thigh, though. “I’m not.”

She torqued her upper body to put her forearms on the back of the couch and got her legs tucked under her, with her torso facing Xia. “Thanks for believing in me.”

“Why wouldn’t I? Now, the first sign it’s working is your eyes change. From what I hear, you’ll feel the physical effects later.” He shook his head to get his hair off his forehead. “Don’t be surprised if the copa changes your irises dark gold.”

“Gold, huh?” She was nervous about this whole thing and feeling shaky. “That sounds kind of pretty.”

His fingertip brushed beneath her eye. “Your eyes are pretty just the way they are.”

She touched his hair with her near hand. His curls were soft. “The feeling’s mutual. Have I told you how gorgeous your eyes are? Women probably tell you that all the time.”

“Actually, they don’t,” he said. He settled a hand on the top of her shoulder, stroking gently, and Alexandrine leaned toward him.

“Maybe we should have sex now. In case something bad happens, you know?”

He cupped the side of her face. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you. When we get there, Alexandrine, I want to take my time.”

“I’m okay with that.” She felt a light pressure in her head, the way you do when you’re in an elevator that’s going too fast. Did that mean he was pulling magic?

He held out his hand. One triangle of ochre yellow lay on his palm. She took it from him. “I’ll be right here. Okay?”

“Bottom’s up,” she said. The shit was awful. Disgusting. The copa had an earthy, mildewy taste, maybe a little bitter. “Gaghhh.”

“Don’t chew it, Alexandrine. Just swallow fast.”

“Now you tell me. Yuck.” The stuff went gritty on her tongue, but she got it down. “What about you?”

“Me?” He leaned toward her. “I’m getting hot, looking at you in my shirt and thinking how you don’t have anything on underneath.”

“Perv.”

“Yeah, I know.” He sidled closer to her.

“Are you going to take any?” In answer, he took out three and tossed them down like they were his favorite kind of gumdrops. She raised her eyebrows at him.

“I’m bigger than you,” he said. “It takes more to get going in me.”

She frowned at him. “Your eyes haven’t changed color.”

“Baby,” he said softly, stroking her arm between her wrist and the sleeve of her T-shirt, “I’m not a witch.”

“Me neither,” she said. She resisted the impulse to tug on her sleeve. “Not to speak of, anyway. I’m just a plain old nonmagical mage. Of the female variety.” She stayed where she was. Her pulse was going hard, but that was just anxiety with a little bit of horniness thrown in. At least she thought so. “I don’t feel different yet. How long do we have to wait for something to happen?”

“Not long. A couple of seconds more.”

“That fast?” She put her chin on her forearm. So, was she relieved or disappointed? She wasn’t sure. A little of both, maybe. She didn’t feel anything at all. Nothing different. No altered state of consciousness. No magic bubbling up just waiting for her to pull. What a disappointment. The copa didn’t work on her. “Guess that means I’m not a witch after all. The stuff doesn’t work on me.”

“Baby.” He drew a finger along the underside of her right eye. “Guess again.”

By the time Xia said
guess again
in a voice that was sex on tap, the taste of the pill she’d taken was gone. She still didn’t feel any different.

Xia got off the couch and pulled her to her feet to lead her to a bathroom off the living room. Everything in here was black. Everything. The tiles, the walls, the ceiling, the fixtures. He even had black soap. Black towels and hand towels, too. He got her facing the mirror above the black granite vanity. “Take a look.”