I laughed and agreed, paid for lunch, and promised I would be in more regular touch.
Clyde walked me to my car. We hugged, he got into his sedan and waved, and he left. I strapped the suitcase into the passenger’s seat and kept my hand on it the entire drive to the ferry terminal.
During the thirty-five-minute crossing from Swartz Bay to Fulford Harbor, I fiddled with the carry-on’s heavy-duty zipper pulls. At one point I even unstrapped my inanimate companion and undid its zipper all the way. Lifting the suitcase’s cover, I rested a hand on a stack of manila envelopes. No tingles, no pinpricks, punctures or bites. Just the smooth surface under my palm and the smell of old paper.
I found Aunt Noémi’s journals underneath the envelopes and official-looking papers. At first, I thought they were accounting ledgers. Pebbled black on the outside, pale-green paper on the inside, held closed by a loop of black elastic. I lifted the top ledger. The elastic would not budge.
I grinned, felt for the dagger I now carried everywhere with me, and pressed the tip to my finger. I offered the ledger a taste of my blood. The elastic released, allowing me to slip the loop off and open the book.
Every page was filled with my aunt’s writing. Neat in some entries, scrawled in others. These were not records of financial transactions.
Noémi Virginie du Sang’s grimoires were deceptively mundane on the outside and filled with knowledge on the inside. I closed the cover, slipped the loop back in place, and returned the ledger to the suitcase.
When I pulled onto Fortune’s Folly Road, a big aluminum Airstream trailer was parked half on the road, half off, a few yards past my driveway. The driver’s-side door opened, and a long leg clad in denim came out first, followed quickly by the other leg and the rest of a very handsome druid.
Tanner shut the door and jogged over to where I was parking my little electric car. I shouldered my purse and extended the suitcase’s handle. I wasn’t going to let the innocuous piece of luggage out of my sight.
“What’s that?” I asked, accepting the warm hands cupping my face and Tanner’s delicious, drawn-out kiss.
“That is the Blood Mobile,” he said.
“The what?”
“I remembered you once telling me you had a thing for Airstream campers, and I saw this for sale over near Nanaimo. I went over last week and checked it out, and—”
“And you bought it and named it the Blood Mobile?” I looked up at him, the sunset turning his entire face and body golden. “And where do you think you’re going to park it?”
“Well, that’s where you come in.”
“Go on.” I pulled him toward the camper, suitcase in tow, unable to hide how eager I was to see the inside. “I’m listening.”
“Your expanded empire needs an on-site caretaker. And I need a place to live.” He opened the little door to the sleeping area, where flowers, champagne, and chocolate truffles waited by a very comfortable looking, fully decked out, queen-sized bed. “And—you and I need a love nest.”
“A love nest? Hmm.” I set my purse and the suitcase under the tiny table next to the kitchenette, kicked off my shoes, and crawled across the bed. I plumped one of the pillows and tucked it under my head.
Tanner stayed where he was, still bathed in the evening light now coming in through the space between the little curtains. “Yes, Calliope Viridis du Sang, a love nest.”
I curled onto my side and patted the mattress. Tanner shook off his flip-flops and crawled to me. “You know the boys are going to want to hang out in here,” I teased.
Tanner raised one eyebrow. “I can cloak the entire Airstream and soundproof it, too. No one’s allowed in here but you—” he kissed me “—and me.”
He kissed me again for good measure and stroked the side of my face. “You scared me, Calli. More than I’ve ever been before.”
I nodded. “I scared myself. More than I’ve ever been scared before. I’ve been feeling so tired, so…strange. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Tanner moved his hand over my shoulder and breast and stopped at the curve of my hip. “Will you see Belle regularly? I know she’s worried.”
“Everyone’s worried,” I interjected, “and, yes, I’ll see Belle and Rowan and whomever else I need to see until I’m—until I’m better.” I tucked the pillow more firmly under my neck and traced the top of Tanner’s nose and the outline of his upper lip. “I thought everything that was happening to me happened to all Magicals.”
“Turns out, you’re special,” my eager druid said, pulling me toward him and sliding his hand between my shirt and my back. “Very, very, very special.”
“Special enough to love?” I asked, snugging my knee between Tanner’s thighs.
“Special enough to love for a very, very, very long time.”
Magic Restrained A Calliope Jones novelette
Book 3.5
Copyright © 2019 by Coralie Moss
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, objects, and incidents herein are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual living things, events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Published internationally by Pink Moon Books, British Columbia, Canada.
ISBN: 978-1-989446-03-4
Cover design: Elizabeth Mackey
Proofreading: Lillie’s Literary Services
Created with Vellum
Contents
Glossary of Characters in Magic Restrained
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Glossary of Characters in Magic Restrained
