The Carver's Magic (14 page)

I nod at her, not really knowing what to say about the potions anymore, but I do want to address the vampire. "That vampire is dangerous, Cory. If you see her again, you call me." I say, heading to out of the kitchen. "Oh," I turn around and point at her, "and for the record, I will never trust them. Any of them. So be prepared that if one more person breaks into our house, I will kill them." Then I turn back around and go to my room.

* * *

A heavy pounding on the front door woke me up. I didn’t even check the time before I bound down the hall and press my hand to the door, making an invisible barrier so no one could walk through. Then I open the door. To my shock, Dar was standing there in a plain, black t-shirt and dark blue jean, with dark black boots.

“You’re an idiot,” he says in a tired breath. He leans back and shakes his head. “Patra came to the pack land to find out about the huge misunderstanding you mentioned.” He didn’t look pleased at all. “Now there will be a formal complaint filed against you, from me.”

Putting my fisted hands on my hips, I cough out, “You told me you were getting a restraining order. So when I caught that toothy suck-face in my home tonight, I thought the only reason she would be here was because you sent her.”

“I didn’t tell her anything,” he says, as he puts his hands in his pockets.

“Because you didn’t get a chance yet?” I fold my arms under my chest.

“No.” He takes out one hand and scratches the back of his head. “I let it go when I noticed you weren’t lying. So someone else must have been looking into my stuff.”

“Is that a wolf thing? You just knew I wasn’t lying because you know me so well, or is it something else?”

He lets out a breath and looks at the door, as if he just realized I had not asked him to come in. And I wasn’t planning on it either. “Yeah it’s a werewolf thing.” He stops looking at the frame and asks, “What did Patra want?”

A little uneasy with his total 180 from how he treated me at the bar I say, “Don’t act like you care.”

He growled lightly and I see something pass by his eyes. He turned around and walked away, “I don’t.”

“I know,” I mumble to myself.

He turns back to me, eyes glowing, “You have no idea what I have been through because of you, so drop the fucking attitude.”

“Oh by all means,” I step back and push the door open behind me. “Come and explain it to me. I’d love to know why I’m the problem.”

He hesitates and looks at me as if I have set up a bunch of booby-traps for him. Then he looks at the door and says, “Take it down.”

I smirk, and mentally take down the barrier I put up, “Done.”

He walks back to the door slowly and steps away from me as he walks in. Already regretting my suggestion for him to come in and talk, I walk to the kitchen table and pull out a seat. Then I walk to the cabinet, open it, and pull down a mug. “Do you want some coffee?” Not that I wanted to make him some, but I didn’t mind showing him the cool trick I learned tonight.

“No.”

I put my hands around the mug and think of some more hot chocolate, but without the marshmallows. I don’t think marshmallows were practical for the conversation I am about to engage in.

Dar sits down at the head of the oval kitchen table and puts one arm down in front of him. “Before I start, I just want to know if you are planning on leaving again. I know I told you to get out of here, but I just want to know if you are going to or not.”

I sit down next to him so that we are far enough away, and yet close enough to have a conversation. “What do you mean by again? And no, I am not planning on leaving.”

“You left after we graduated.” He was not looking at me. He was looking at the mug.

“How did you know I left?” I couldn’t help the intrigue and excitement I feel to actually have this conversation.

“I couldn’t feel you as clearly as I had before. Not that I could feel you much. I could only feel your emotions, but when you left the bond weakened.” His tone sounded dark and I adjusted my feet as a result of being uncomfortable.

“You can feel me?”
Bond?

Dar narrowed his eyes at me. “You know exactly what I am talking about. You figured it out when your weird fire went inside of me, which was the most uncomfortable thing I have ever experienced, by the way.”

Didn’t look like it was painful in the way it was when it went back inside me. “I wanted to help you back then, but I didn’t want to be…” I stop myself from saying “mate” because I’m not sure if he saw it that way, or if he even knows about the way Carvers mate.

“Werewolves can hear the thoughts and feelings of their mates. I couldn’t hear your thoughts when I woke up in the hospital, but I remember talking to you in my mind, I just didn’t remember what you said. But I could feel your emotions. So that was the first tip-off that I was mated.”

So he did consider me a mate. “So you did remember me?”

“I knew I had a mate. I knew your voice somewhat and I could feel your emotions, but I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t even know your scent so I had no way of finding you.” He took the mug in front of me and drank the rest, “Not that I tried.”

Be still my heart… you rude bastard.

He looked at me with a knowing look. But he continued, “It was kind of a big shock to take in. One moment I am worrying about midterms and dealing with crap from my father because my brother had just been kidnapped. At the same time I was mauled by a bear wielding a knife, which is still unexplainable, oh and blacking out because I was dying, then miraculously being healed by your mate who I didn’t even know, or had met.”

“You didn’t know it was me who healed you?”

“Nope,” he said, with a pop on the ‘p,’ “I could feel when you were close, but by the time I had return to school where I knew you were, I wasn’t really interested in finding you. I kind of … wanted to pretend you didn’t exist.”

I regret asking him to come in now. This conversation sucks. “Why?” I said, taking back the mug and filling it back up with hot chocolate.

“Because… of a lot of reasons.” He looks at my mug and shakes his head. “Can you make it coffee with sugar no cream?” I push the mug forward, putting in the order in my head. He takes a sip and nods, “That’s a neat trick.” But it doesn’t sound like he thinks it is neat, more so an oddity, and unnatural.

I am not sure, but I am starting to think he is bipolar or something. “I have spent years thinking you didn’t even know me. I think you owe me some kind of explanation.”

“You’re not the only one who deserves an explanation, Beth.” He takes a sip of the coffee and then downs it after that.

“What does that mean?”

“Why weren’t you there when I woke up? Or better yet, why didn’t you come find me? You want to put all this blame on me, when you were half the reason for all this bullshit.” He pushes the mug to me again and taps the top.

“Me?!” I almost slam my hand down on the table but halt just before it made impact because Dar grabbed my wrist with a finger to his lips. Telling me to be quiet. Ugh. Acting responsible, and an asshole at the same time. Was that even possible? He tapped the top of his mug again and I hated myself for wanting to fill it for him. I filled the mug again promising myself that was the last time.

“I had no idea WHO you were Beth. I had no idea how to find you. I didn’t know your scent and I didn’t know…” When his words died off I was unsure if it was because of what he was saying, or if there was something else I should be aware of. They did have an excellent sense of smell and hearing.

“What?”

He lifts his eyebrows almost like he is warning me that I am not going to like the next thing he talks about. “I didn’t know you weren’t a werewolf. That’s whom I had been looking for, trying to sniff out all those years ago in high school. I was looking for my mate, who I thought was my kind.”

“Oh.” Could this get any worse?

“It took a long time to come to terms that you might not be a werewolf. Then when you disappeared, I was even more angry at you.” He drank the last of the coffee and thankfully he didn’t ask me to fill it up.

“Because you couldn’t feel me or because I left?”

“Because I realized you are a Carver.” His tone and words make it perfect how he feels about Carvers. He doesn’t like them at all.

“How did you realize that?” I make myself ask, even though I think I am breaking apart on the inside.

Dar looks me over curiously, but then looks away. “Do you remember my brother Cort?”

“I remember hearing he went missing.”

He nods, “He was kidnapped. By a Carver. He told me about her the night he was taken. He said that he knew who his mate was. That it was a Carver. I didn’t think anything of it when he left to go meet her. I didn’t say anything when my father showed everyone the note the Carver left on his desk the next morning, announcing his only heir was dead. It said that they were punishing my father for passing a new law that would give the council the right to sentence a Carver to death if they were found doing magic in front of humans.”

I tilt my head forward, grab the back of my hair at the nape and hold on for dear life. No wonder Dar hated me. He was one of those assholes who thought I was an abomination. “Your father passed that law?” My voice shook a little, but I figured that it wouldn’t bother Dar considering he was totally apathetic to me always.

“He was one of many to support it and agree to it.” His tone is souring and I would have looked further into it but he didn’t deserve it.

“That’s a shitty fucking law. And complete bullshit, you know that right?”

He gave me a skeptical look, “I know that Carvers are dangerous. But can you see my point? My brother had just been killed by Carvers, and I found out a year later my mate that had been avoiding me, was one?”

I can’t stop myself from defending my actions and who I was as person, not that it would change his mind about me, “I’m not like that, I’m not like them.”

“I didn’t know that. And you didn’t give me a chance to find out because you left.”

Yeah right, like it would have made a difference.
“I didn’t know that Carvers gave their hearts to their mates. And to be honest I didn’t think I gave you my heart in the hospital. I thought I loaned it to you when you needed it. Actually that all sounds dumb now that I say that out loud.”

“I am figuring that out. But I also know that I would have died if you didn’t.” Then he shrugged as if that made it okay. It was okay to have saved him but he wasn’t happy with being mated.

“That’s why I did it.”

He nods again. “The thing is, I don’t know if you are my true mate. I have heard so many stories about how werewolves just know their mates the second they see them. But I never had that with you. I never felt like my mate was close or that I was going to school with her.”

“What are you saying?” I really hate this conversation.

“I don’t think you are my true mate. I think your Carver magic overruled the werewolves mating rites by giving me your heart.”

A knot starts forming in my throat, “I didn’t…” I can’t even finish my words.

“I know. I just wanted you to see my side.”

“I do and I am really sorry. I don’t know how to fix it. I was told that once a Carver gives their heart to the other, there is no taking it back.” I felt like crawling up in my bed and never coming out. I have never felt so horrible. Did I really fuck up his life? Did I fuck up mine by accident? How could I feel so many things at once?

“Yeah, I heard that too.” He seriously sounded sad by that. As if I really did take his future from him.

“Damn. I’m really sorry.”

“Me too.”

“Do you think you if you found your true mate it would fix this?” I ask hopefully, wondering if he might know how to fix this. If he didn’t then I was going to ask Cory to help me. She might have some ideas. If not I would find someone. There has to be someone that would know.

“I don’t think so. Once a wolf has a mate, he can’t be with anyone else. Literally. I can’t physically be with someone else, even if I wanted to. Nothing works for anyone but my mate.”

“Oh wow. So you haven’t?” How did he transition to this topic? Why are we having this conversation? I really didn’t want to know his equipment was . . . eww.

“Nope.”

“Oh wow.”

“Yep. But it seems like you were able to get around that.”

I what? Miffed, I say, “Me? I haven’t been with anyone.”

His eyes are amber again, “I have felt it Beth. I can feel it when you . . . get excited in that way.”

“Oh my gosh!” I covered my mouth and wish I could cover the blush that is burning on my cheeks.

“Yeah, imagine how I felt,” he says darkly.

“That’s not what I meant you sick fuck.” I take a few relieving breaths and shake my head at him. He doesn’t know shit.

“I know what I felt.”

“Obviously you didn’t because I have never been with anyone. You didn’t feel me with anyone. You felt me take care of myself.” I can feel the blush burning on my skin but I am not going to hide from this. I am being honest and his vulgar ass can just deal with it. I was never able to even date because every guy that I talked to just seemed wrong.

“What?” He sat back in the chair and looked at me. Really looked at me.

“Yeah, uh. Yeah.” I pull back the mug and fill it with hot chocolate and take a sip.

“Humm.”

Not looking at him I ask, “Can you not? Uh. . .”

“Yeah I can do that.”

“Oh. Well uh, good?” I sneak a peak at him and he might be blushing, I am not sure. It is not really bright in the kitchen. I had kept the stove light on, but nothing else.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So do you want me to see if maybe finding your true mate can fix all this?” I ask.

“Like I said before. I have no idea if I would even be able to recognize her now because my wolf sees you as his mate.”

“Oh. Uh. Well, uh. Maybe there’s a way. With Carvers we can do magic that is not explained or even possible. So, give me a chance to fix it.”

“I’m not going to hold by breath.” He takes my mug and downs the hot chocolate.

Pity.

“I can hear you by the way. Once I saw you in the bar that night, I have been able to hear your thoughts and see the things in your mind.”