Finding Valor (58 page)

Josh’s voice cracked. He’d drained all the energy from the plants that he could without killing them, but he wasn’t done. He opened his heart to Channie and drew on her power to regain his composure.
 

Her eyes widened in obvious surprise, then shone with pride.
 

He needed to remember that they were a team. Letting Channie help him made her feel good. He smiled at her then lifted his chin. “My father gave his life to save mine. Countless others have also made the ultimate sacrifice so that all mages can live in peace; free from fear, oppression and unrighteous domination. May we all strive to live in such a manner as to honor that sacrifice.”

Someone in the distance clapped. Several others joined in. The applause spread from the back of the crowd to the front. The ‘common people’ were already standing, but when Channie stood up and clapped. One by one, all the royals joined her. Josh took note of the ones that hesitated.
 

He’d beaten Dominance. The mage war was over. But he still had a long way to go before the final battle was won.

In the months that followed, Josh made sweeping changes. He also made new friends and enemies. He changed the form of government from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy and even that was a huge compromise.

He wished he could abolish mage government completely and tell everyone they were citizens of the United States of America and to get over themselves. But mages had too much individual power to just unleash them on the general public.

Josh appointed Wisdom as the first Prime Minister then put her in charge of organizing elections for parliament. Not everyone agreed with his choice, but they had to start somewhere and he
was
king. That had to count for something. He’d thought the hard part was over, until he announced his decision to move out of the castle and turn it into an orphanage.

The other royals acted as if he’d given away the crown jewels…something he would’ve done if he thought he could get away with it. In the end, he reserved the top floor of the castle for royalty and future generations of monarchs that might want to continue the tradition of living in a stone fortress and gave the bottom four floors to the Vincent Veyjivik Children’s Home.

Even that concession infuriated the current ruling class. Josh figured it was just too damn bad and told them so. “If some of you would have stood up to Dominance when she went off the rails twenty years ago, there wouldn’t be such an urgent need for an orphanage today.”

That shut them up.
 

As winter gave way to spring, Josh became increasingly homesick for Colorado. Mom and Elijah had spent spring break with them in March. Dad and Liz had brought the trips for a visit in April. He and Channie had gone home for a couple of weeks in May, but it wasn’t the same as living there. So…he moved the center of government to Nederland. There were some perks to being king after all.

Josh tried to get back into BMX racing. He was fast enough, but he’d been gone too long and couldn’t explain his extended absence to the satisfaction of his coaches and sponsors. He could’ve used magic to persuade them, but that seemed like cheating. So, he decided to pursue his other dream and enrolled at the University of Colorado to study sports psychology.
 

Channie refused to go back to high school and got her GED instead. She joined Josh at CU in the spring to study herbal medicine.
 

Their lives would never be normal. Josh was king for life. But they had each other and that’s all that really mattered.

Twelve years later…

Channie sat in a lawn chair under the Abrim’s tarp with her feet propped up on the ice chest, a bottle of water in her hand. She would’ve killed for a Dr. Pepper but Josh was a dictator when it came to diet and nutrition during pregnancy. The twenty-seven milligrams of caffeine wasn’t going to hurt her or the baby, but it wasn’t worth upsetting her man, especially on a race day. She smiled as she watched Elijah bounce Hope on his knees. She had Channie’s platinum blonde hair, but her daddy’s bright, blue eyes.

Liz reached for the toddler. “Come see Grandma, sweetheart. Uncle Lijah needs to go find Zeal. His and CoCo’s moto is about to start.”

“Send Savvy.” Elijah shifted his shoulders away from Liz.

“He’s studying.”

“He’s always studying. The kid needs to lighten up and live a little.” Elijah waved his hand in front of Savvy’s face. But all he did was bat it out of his way. He didn’t even look up from his “Advanced Concepts of Biological Engineering” textbook.

Channie would never admit it to Liz or Ezra, but she agreed with Elijah. Savvy graduated from high school at sixteen then went straight to CU. He hadn’t even taken the summer off. Courage and Zeal did okay in school, but only because Ezra and Liz wouldn’t let them race if they didn’t maintain at least a 3.0 grade point average.

Elijah fanned the air in front of his face then stood up and handed Hope to Liz. “I think she needs a diaper change.”

Liz frowned when the announcer called the fourteen-year-old experts to the starting hill. “Where is that kid and what is he doing?”

Elijah looked back over his shoulder as he walked away. “I know exactly what he’s doing. The real question is who?”

“Elijah!” Liz’s scolding didn’t do a bit of good. Elijah just laughed and shook his head.

Unfortunately, he was probably right. Channie leaned sideways to pull a diaper out of the diaper bag. “Has Ezra had ‘the talk’ with Zeal?”

Liz rolled her eyes. “We both have, with all three of them. Savvy claims he’s too smart to mess around with girls. Courage is madly in love with a devout Baptist whose parents never let her out of their sight. Zeal assures us he’s being safe, but one of these days he’s going to piss off the wrong girl.”

“I’d be more worried about her daddy and brothers.”

Liz exhaled through pursed lips. “We had a situation a couple of years ago with one of Ezra’s clients. If his daughter hadn’t been three years older than Zeal, it would have been a lot worse.”

“What happened?”

“The two of them got caught in the pool house during a company party. Her father was livid. He claimed Zeal was taking advantage of his daughter. Once Ezra explained that Zeal was only fifteen and that his daughter could be charged with statutory rape, he backed off.”

“Good lord.”

“If Zeal wasn’t such a little player, we would have pressed charges, but he’s far from innocent.” Liz leaned closer and lowered her voice. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he was using magic to seduce these girls.”

The little devils had grown into extraordinarily handsome young men. They’d inherited Diego’s caramel complexion, chocolate eyes, feather duster lashes and thick black curls. Savvy was smart enough to know he needed exercise to stay healthy so he followed the same weight-lifting routine as his brothers. His shoulders were just as broad, his chest just as deep and his abs just as defined as Courage and Zeal’s. None of them needed magic to attract girls.

They wouldn’t turn eighteen until the end of summer, but they already towered over Channie. According to Zeal, he was five feet, eleven and three-quarters inches tall. Courage and Savvy were within half an inch, but Zeal liked to tell everyone he was the tallest as well as the oldest and best looking.
 

“Come-hither spells are illegal. I’ll ask Josh to talk to him about it if you want.”

“That’d be great. He looks up to him so much.”

“He better.” Channie swiped the cold plastic water bottle across her forehead. The condensation felt great. “He’s the king.”

“He’s also Zeal’s coach—which carries a lot more weight.”

Channie laughed. “True.”

“I hope Josh can talk some sense into him.” Liz nodded to her right. “There’s the little Casanova right now. And I can tell by his swagger that he’s definitely been up to no good.”

“Why don’t you ground him or something?”

Liz arched her eyebrows and gave Channie her ‘are you serious’ look. “We’ve grounded him, taken away his cell phone, his stereo, game consoles, television and driving privileges. We even threatened to pull him out of racing but that’s the only thing he cares about, other than sex.”

“Have you considered counseling?” Channie and Josh were both worried about Zeal’s promiscuity.
 

“He refuses to go.”
 

Channie wanted to persuade Liz to keep trying, but Zeal was in hearing range.
 

Liz pulled a highly caffeinated energy drink out of the cooler and tossed it to him. “You almost missed your moto.”

“They’re just now starting the sixteen-year-old novices. There’s five more motos before they get to the seventeen-year-old experts.” Zeal popped the top on the energy drink then chugged half of it. Josh would have a fit if he found out. And maybe if Liz didn’t let Zeal recharge with stimulants, he’d think twice before messing around right before a race. He grinned at Channie then lifted his drink as if he were offering her a toast—or daring her to tell Josh. “Hey, Aunt Channie, you’re looking good. When you gonna pop that kid?”

“Any day now.” She rubbed her belly and smiled. There was no doubt Zeal was a charmer.
But he was also sincere. It was one of the reasons girls were so attracted to him. He honestly loved just about everyone he met, girls in particular.
 

Channie arched her back and shifted her weight, but it didn’t help the ache in her lower back. She hoped the baby would wait until after Josh met with the budget committee next week to be born. Josh delegated most of his royal duties, but some things required his presence and the annual budget meeting was one of them.

They probably could have planned this pregnancy a little better. The demand for Channie’s medicinal herbs was so high, she’d had to hire another mage to help her out. Aunt Wisdom was too preoccupied with her political career to practice the healing arts. Josh was busy coaching his star racers, studying the budget and managing his booming sports psychology practice. But he’s the one that wanted another kid right away so Hope would have a sibling close to her own age. It’d taken them seven years to get pregnant with Hope. But this little guy was conceived the very night they decided to try again.
 

The baby kicked her. “Ow! Vincent, that hurt.”

Zeal snorted energy drink out his nose. “Did you just call that kid, Vincent?

Savvy looked up and frowned at her. “Please tell me you aren’t going to name him Vengeance.”

They’d planned to keep the baby’s name a secret until after he was born. They didn’t want to hear anyone’s arguments against it. Channie lowered her voice. “We won’t give him his power-name until we’re certain it fits his personality, but we want Vincent’s name on the birth certificate to honor Josh’s father.”

Savvy nodded then lowered his gaze to his book.

Zeal took another swig of his drink. “That’s cool.”

“If you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll tell you his middle name, too.”

“Sure.”

Channie sighed. Zeal was already checking out another girl. He wasn’t interested in baby names…just babes. And they were definitely interested in him.

“His middle name is Diego.”

Zeal grinned at Channie. “That’s
really
cool.”

Savvy looked up and blinked. “Momma would’ve liked that.”

“Thanks. I’m glad you think so.” Ezra and Liz had adopted the trips a few months after taking them in. They called them ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ and referred to Abby and Diego as ‘Momma’ and ‘Daddy’ even though they barely remembered them. Liz and Ezra had always told the boys that their biological parents were heroes. They each had a framed copy of Abby and Diego’s wedding picture in their rooms.

The sound of children’s laughter floated above the noise of the crowd. It came from behind the Abrim’s tarp and was getting closer.
 

“Serenity how many times do I have to tell you that is
not
okay?”

“But he was tickling me.”

 
HJ if you don’t stop teasing your sister, I’m going to tell your father to disable your shield permanently. Hunter! Do something with your daughter!”

Channie looked over her shoulder in time to see Hunter pop his shield open. He grabbed Serenity and tickled her ribs.
 

She lit up like the fourth of July. Sparks flew off her as she giggled and squirmed.
 

Tickling young mages was a common parenting technique to help kids get rid of extra energy. Channie suspected HJ tickled his sister just to get her to zap him. As long as his shield held, Serenity’s uncontrolled magical discharges would feel like static electricity.

“Daddy!” Serenity’s voice was as sweet and smooth as honey. “That’s enough. I’m good, now.”
 

Zeal crushed his empty can and tossed it in the recycle bin. “Sounds like the Feenies are back. I need to go get ready for my moto.”

Savvy sighed and closed his book. “I’m going to the trailer to study.”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Liz stood up with a very sleepy Hope draped over her shoulder and grabbed the back of his t-shirt. “You can either stay here and root for your brothers or take Hope to the trailer and babysit while she takes a nap.”

Savvy tucked his book under one arm and reached for Hope with the other.
 

Liz stepped back, refusing to hand the baby over. “You can’t study and babysit at the same time. You have to actually watch her.”

Savvy rolled his eyes. “I’ll wait until she falls asleep.”

Liz’s smile turned into a smirk. “And…you’ll need to change her diaper before you put her down.”

Savvy curled his lips and wrinkled his nose then flopped back into the chair. “This is so boring. CoCo and Zeal always win.”
 

It was true, they did. When the boys were younger, Josh cast spells on them to inhibit their magic before every race. But it soon became evident that they were winning because of talent, ambition and hard work. Magic had nothing to do with it. The only real question was which brother would win and which would have to settle for second place.