Bodyguards (12 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Colors and Light

Vivien couldn’t have stopped
herself from smiling even if she had wanted to. She had been so sure Brad felt
something for her that his rejection had hurt more than she had thought
possible. To hear him say so now—for him to admit it wasn’t all just his
job—was the first bright spot since this had all started.

Holding on to his hand, she leaned
closer to him, her eyes locked with his as she tilted her face up for a kiss.
He pulled back ever so slowly and shook his head.

“I can’t,” he breathed. “Whatever
I feel, I’m still your guard, and you’re still my dame. It wouldn’t be proper.”

The same sting she had felt at the
coffee shop drew tears to her eyes. She chased them away with a few blinks. She
wasn’t going to cry, not here, not now, and certainly not in front of Brad.

“Says who?” she asked, trying to
keep her voice as level as she could. “Who decides what’s proper or not? Ana—”
She felt a pang of guilt as Anabel’s image resurfaced. Vivien couldn’t do
anything about her now, though, and if she thought about her, the tears would
rise again. “She always told me you weren’t right for me. I never accepted
that. What makes you think I’m going to accept it now that you’ve said you like
me?”

Except...he hadn’t said he liked
her, had he? He’d just said he used to have a crush on her and that she was
beautiful. That didn’t mean anything; she could have called his brother
handsome, but that didn’t mean she liked him, or could even stand him, the same
way Brad calling her beautiful didn’t mean he liked her...not unless he said so
out right.

“You do like me, right?” she asked
in a tiny voice, suddenly afraid she was reading too much into his words again.

Long seconds trickled by, their
passage marked by the beating of Vivien’s heart, faster and faster. Had she
made a fool out of herself again? Why wasn’t Brad saying anything? Why was he
looking at her with that small frown?

The frown finally smoothed out,
and Brad’s whole face seemed to relax.

“Like is not a good word,” he
finally said. “I love you. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. But
even if I do—”

She refused to listen to him say
that his feelings didn’t matter again, that it wasn’t proper for them to be
together. She shut him up the only way she knew how: by pressing her mouth to
his.

In the moment before she closed
her eyes, she could see how wide his were, how surprised. He remained
completely still against her, but his fingers did tighten over hers when she
flicked her tongue against the seam of his lips. When she did it a second time,
his mouth parted, inviting her inside. She pressed in harder against him, caressing
his tongue lightly, hoping that he’d join in.

After a few more seconds, just
when she was ready to give up and pull away, he finally did. He tilted his face
and deepened the kiss, stroking her tongue delicately, almost shyly. Vivien’s
heart fluttered, and a small sound rose from her throat, half moan, half sigh.

Everything came to a standstill as
they continued to kiss, the birds falling quiet, the wind abating until she was
conscious of nothing but their bodies, their clasped hands, their joined mouths,
and how warm and good she felt. After a moment longer, when they pulled away at
the same time, the world seemed to lurch back into movement.

Vivien opened her eyes; Brad’s
were right there, and she felt as though he were looking right to the deepest
corners of her soul. She smiled and ducked her head, caught between embarrassed
and happy.

“See?” she teased. “Nothing bad
happened. We didn’t break some cosmic rule or anything. We weren’t struck by
lightning or swallowed by the lake.”

Her only warning was a wicked
twist to Brad’s grin before he kicked the water hard with both feet. Water
splashed high, sprinkling over both of them. Vivien yelped in surprise at how
cool it was, especially when every inch of her body felt like it was burning.
She kicked back, spraying water toward him, and for a few moments they splashed
water at each other like kids. Vivien was laughing so hard she could hardly
breathe.

“Truce!” she wheezed out in
between two fits of laughter. “I call a truce!”

Brad stopped at once, still grinning.
“I can summon lightning, too, if you really insist.”

She stuck her tongue out at him
and stood, tugging at her skirt where it adhered to her legs.

“I’m soaked,” she complained,
turning a pout to him. “I thought you were supposed to keep me safe, not give
me pneumonia.”

“In this weather?” He chuckled.
“Fine. I’ll fix it. Don’t move.”

He got to his feet, too, and stood
in front of her. A slight grimace marred his smile when he raised both his
hands between them, and he glanced at his arm for a second. But before she
could ask if he was all right, his gaze was back on her.

“Don’t move,” he said again, more
quietly now.

Wondering what he was going to do,
Vivien remained very still, even holding her breath when she felt the first
brush of warm air on her skin. Her eyes flitted between her clothes and his
face, where a look of concentration tugged his eyebrows into a small frown. Her
skirt was dancing around her legs as though caught in a whirlwind, while the
bottom of her blouse kept riding up, exposing her stomach above the skirt’s
waistband.

He was directing a light flow of
warm air at her, drying her clothes. Each puff of air was so gentle, it was
like a caress, and goose bumps erupted over Vivien’s legs and arms. Like before
when Brad had done magic, she noticed the colors swirling around him.

“There,” Brad said in an absent
tone as he lowered his hands and the flow stopped. “No pneumonia for you.”

Would it be too much to kiss him
again so soon after their first kiss? Vivien leaned forward and brushed her lips
across his cheek as she murmured, “Thank you.”

He looked surprised as he raised a
hand to touch his cheek. He smiled and offered a quiet, “Thank you.” Louder, he
added, “Are you ready to go back?”

Without thinking, Vivien looked
toward the castle. Because of the slope, she couldn’t see it. It was almost as
if it didn’t exist—as if nothing existed but the lake, Brad, and her. As though
they were truly on that date she had thought they’d never have.

“Can we... Can we stay here a
little longer? Walk for a bit?”

“Anything you want.”

They left their shoes by the
boulders and started to stroll along the edge of the lake, where small expanses
of a fine gray sand alternated with stretches of lush grass that went right to
the water’s edge.

“How does it work? Your magic, I
mean.” Remembering Aedan’s admonition that first night, she corrected herself.
“The Quickening. Do you say spells in your head or something?”

Without stopping, Brad bent down
to pluck a blade of grass. He held it in one hand in front of him and waved his
other hand toward it. At once, the grass lifted, like it was caught by the
wind. But rather than flying away, it twirled in Brad’s palm. As before, colors
seemed to play over him, as though reflected through a prism.

“No incantation,” he said. “No
spell, no potion. It’s mostly a matter of determination.”

Watching that blade of grass
dance, Vivien thought about what Aedan had said about her learning to use the
Quickening and how Brad had summoned a sword of light. Three fighters might not
be enough against the king’s forces, but it had to be better than two.

“Can you teach me?” she asked,
touching his arm lightly.

He nodded and invited her to sit
down with him. They sat in the grass, legs crossed, facing each other. The
blade of grass was still twirling in his palm.

“Like I said, using the
Quickening—channeling—is a lot about determination. Strength of will. You have
to want something to happen, to know it will happen because you want it to.
There can be no doubt whatsoever in your mind.”

“Is that all?” she asked,
nonplussed. Her fingers were itching to pluck a blade of grass and try to make
it dance, but it couldn’t be that easy, could it?

Brad grinned. “Look at me,” he
said softly. “What do you see?”

“Colors,” she replied at once,
waving her fingers as though to show how they glittered. “All around you.”

“Only around me?” he prodded.
“Look closer.”

She did, her eyes narrowing as she
focused her gaze. After a few seconds, she realized what he was getting at. The
colors didn’t only surround him; they filtered out of him, radiating from his
chest.

“Not around,” she corrected
herself. “It comes from you.”

He nodded again. “That’s the other
part of it. You have to fuel your determination with something, and that
something is what you feel. Your emotions.” He touched his chest, right over
the place where the colors were pouring out of him. “It’s called ‘channeling’
because you’re focusing those emotions to accomplish what you want to happen.
It’s easier if you try something you can actually see at first. When you start
seeing results, it reinforces your will, and it trains your mind for the next
time, and for more complex uses of the Quickening.”

The slim blade of grass finally
stopped twirling in Brad’s hand. Vivien was about to ask if she should try now
when she felt the first petal graze her cheek. She looked up and let out a
quiet “Oh” as petals of all colors started raining down on her, covering her
like a light, fragrant snow. He’d never taken his eyes off her as he spoke; how
had he gathered all those petals?

Strength of will, she remembered
he had said. She had to truly believe she would achieve her goal. No, not just
believe. She had to know she would.

She picked up a large petal from
her lap, almost fuchsia on the edge and baby pink along the center vein. She
held it in her cupped hands and focused on it, staring so hard that her eyes
began to water. Nothing happened, and the petal did not twirl like she was
imagining.

“Should I make gestures or
something?” she asked, remembering how Brad always waved his hands whenever he
did magic—channeled.

“Gestures are just a crutch,” he
replied. “A bad habit I can’t get rid of. Better if you don’t do the same.”

She glanced at his face and lost
her focus. He was watching her with such hope, his lips pinched tight as he
observed her... She couldn’t think of anything other than kissing him again.

He made a small, reproving sound
in his throat. “You’re not focusing,” he chided gently. “Can you even tell what
emotions you’re trying to channel?”

She dropped her gaze back to the
petal in her hands, feeling a little embarrassed. “Huh... I don’t know,” she
admitted. “I’m not sure I understand how to channel emotions, actually.”

Brad shifted a little closer, then
cupped his hands underneath hers. As gentle as the touch was, it sent a shiver
through Vivien’s entire body.

“Find your emotion first,” he said
in a low, almost lulling voice. “Hope. Happiness. Fear. It doesn’t matter what
it is, it just needs to be something you feel very strongly at the moment you
try to channel.”

Vivien looked inside herself. What
was she feeling? Fear and anger were at the back of her mind, like a dull light
she couldn’t quite turn off; fear of what that king might do to her, anger at
what he might be doing to Anabel. At that very moment, though, she felt
something else much more acutely.

After the first kiss she and Brad
had shared, after those innocent ribbons of air that had caressed her body,
with Brad sitting so close to her, with his hands so warm underneath hers, what
she felt was desire. She wanted him, wanted another kiss, wanted to run her
fingers through his hair and feel his body against her like when he had held
her to his chest the previous night. Maybe even more than that, but she
couldn’t quite admit that to herself.

“There you go,” Brad said in that
same hypnotic tone. “Keep focusing on what you’re feeling. Embrace that
emotion, whatever it is. Let it fill you, all of you.”

Vivien squirmed a little,
remembering the softness of Brad’s lips and how gentle his tongue had been,
sliding alongside hers. Her panties were becoming a little damp.

“Hold on to that feeling, but
rather than keeping it inside you, you’re going to let it out. You’re going to
direct it at that petal, like it’s the source of what you feel. And at the same
time, you’re going to will that petal to do something. You’re going to see it
in your mind, like it’s already...happening.”

His last word was no louder than a
whisper, as though he were afraid to disrupt Vivien’s focus when she was
finally doing it. The petal was fluttering in her palms, like the wings of a
bird just learning to fly. No, not learning, she told herself forcefully.
Flying. She could do this. She was already doing it.

The petal rose in the air,
revolving slowly on itself. It was the only thing left around her that still
had color. The rest of the world was shades of gray, as though she were
watching an old movie, but the petal was a bright, vivid fuchsia color. Vivien
let out a quick laugh, but silenced it when the petal wavered along with her
concentration. She clung to that image in her mind, clung to the desire she
felt—clung to Brad, turning her hands palms down to clutch his.

The petal danced in the air
between them, rising higher until it was level with Brad’s face. With no color
left in them, his eyes were a silvery gray, like his brother’s. Vivien chased
that thought away and tightened her hands over his as she focused a little
more. The petal drifted up, as though on a breeze, and brushed against Brad’s
cheek where a hint of stubble darkened his skin. His eyes fluttered closed when
the petal caressed first one eyelid then the other. He smiled, and Vivien had
to touch that smile.