Bright Familiar by Jeffe Kennedy

~ 14 ~

It already was tearing him apart. And with considerable chagrin, Gabriel made note of his own hypocrisy—that he didn’t want Nic to know just how much. The wants of the magic, as she put it, pounded through his blood, demanding and possessive. Familiars don’t run around without their wizards, she’d told him once, and he suddenly and viscerally understood why. He’d been out the door and on his way to find Nic before he even realized he’d decided to. Saying he’d missed her had been such a bland way to describe how profoundly something in him had raged to have her nearby.

And when he’d seen another wizard with his hands on her…

Well, he understood Nic’s awful tale of the wizard Sylus and how he’d reacted to the abduction of his familiar. If someone harmed Nic, Gabriel could see himself laying waste to all the world to avenge her. He could’ve cheerfully killed Asa on the spot, convinced he wouldn’t regret it. It was only some appalled remnant of his former self that had stood back, reining in the ferocious desire to destroy. It had only been to prove something to himself that he decided to offer Asa the contract. Gabriel could control himself. He would control himself.

And if he failed… well, it would be good to have someone around who would stand up to him if he lost himself in the insatiable craving for Nic. She still framed his face with her slender hands, the essence of wine and roses filtering from her, heady and delicious as she gazed at him with eyes brilliant as emeralds. “What can I do to ease you, wizard?” she asked softly.

Calling him that, as they’d established in the arcanium, had the effect she no doubt intended. That slavering part of himself leapt to answer, images popping into his mind of what he wanted from her, the ways he wished to consume and dominate her. To mark every fingertip of her skin as his. Nic read it in him, too, her lush lips curving in sensual answer. “Take, wizard,” she purred. “Have.”

This, at least, he could give into without a fight. Picking her up, he carried her to the old desk, setting her on it and pushing between her spread thighs. Then he buried his face in her bosom, inhaling the scent of her skin, the heated flesh in the delicious cleft between the round globes of her breasts. Restraining the urge to bite, he held himself to kissing her velvety skin, laving the newly healed and once-again flawless skin of her throat, even as she whispered encouragements, her fingers twining in his hair as she arched her back to offer him more and more. Pushing up her skirts, he found the enticingly soft skin of her inner thighs—and the slick, heated core of her sex.

She gasped, crying out as he pushed the lacy lingerie aside, sliding his fingers into her. Enjoying her trembles and shudders of need, he stroked a finger into her, tantalizing her with the ball of his thumb. Playing her like an instrument who made music just for him. That thought salved the beast inside, and—with delicate precision—he sipped a bit on her slowly replenishing magic. Not enough to make an impact on her recovery; just enough to give himself a taste. To abate the craving. Not to feast, but to wean himself away from needing it all.

And now that he knew more, now that he was paying better attention, he noticed how the sensual teasing fed the fire in her, her magic intensifying, blooming and growing richer. Caressing her to the point of climax, he backed off, waiting for her to calm before he edged her up to that point again. Never quite letting her go over the edge, though she began to beg for it. Her pleas appeased the possessive need in him, too. Far safer than the other fantasies that occurred to him, darker methods for making her cry and plead with him.

So, despite her entreaties, the growing desperation of her urgent mewls, when he felt the ping of another wizard’s arrival, he withdrew his hand, replacing the lingerie to cover her silky flesh and lifting his head to kiss her cheek. “New arrivals,” he explained when she gave him a bewildered look.

She clutched at him, fingers fierce as claws. “We can finish first.”

Surprised at himself at how much he enjoyed this rush, he kissed her deeply, loving how she yielded so utterly to him. When she melted, he nimbly extracted himself from her grip, shaking his head, hard-pressed not to laugh at her outraged expression. “It wouldn’t be polite to make them wait,” he explained, doing his best to sound earnest.

“You are Lord Phel,” she pointed out. She looked incredibly seductive, perched on the desk with her skirts rucked up around her waist, sex gleaming pink and swollen through the lace of her lingerie. “They can wait for your pleasure.”

Unable to restrain the grin, he tapped her on the nose, aware that she’d scent herself on his fingers. “So can you, familiar.”

She gaped at him, growing understanding in her eyes. “You left me hanging on purpose.”

“Yes.” He held out his hand for her. “Arrange your gown and come along.”

Lips pressed into a mulish expression, she scooted off the desk, doing as he bade, though she muttered viciously under her breath, “This is not playing fair.”

“Isn’t it?” he asked blandly. “This is what you’ve been demonstrating to me, that erotic play between us replenishes the magic. Climax releases it. Therefore arousal without climax builds your magic without releasing it again. I’m following my wizard’s instincts, as repeatedly instructed to do. Am I wrong?”

“You are correct,” she bit out with a glare. “But you can’t tease me like that and not follow through.”

“In point of fact, I can. I just did. And you have more magic now.” Sensing that replenishing in her made him feel immensely better. She might be irritated with him, but he’d take that over leaving her drained of what made her so vividly alive.

Putting her hand in his, she began walking with him. “I’ll just take care of it myself, then. Easy enough.”

“No.” He halted, giving her a stern look, enjoying the way her eyes darkened to emerald in response, a faint blush gracing her cheeks. “You won’t. You’ll wait.”

“Until you say so?” She lifted her chin defiantly, but her words were breathy, the challenge arousing to her.

He leaned in, inhaling her wine-dark magic, intoxicating and rich. “Until we’re in the arcanium,” he breathed against her cheek, taking her earlobe gently in his teeth, so she moaned softly and shuddered in response. His own aching arousal suddenly felt unbearable. Hours and hours until they could dispense with all of these people and be alone together.

“I’ve created a monster,” she observed in a hoarse voice, not sounding all that dismayed.

“I am ever your eager pupil,” he agreed.

She slipped her free hand between them, clasping his hard cock through his pants, squeezing a shudder out of him in return. “Same goes, then,” she said. “If I have to suffer, so do you. It will only build your native magic, and it’s good discipline,” she added with a sweet smile.

Cupping her cheek, profoundly aware of how her fire billowed in his heart, tender and fierce, he nodded soberly. “Done. Fair is fair.”

Despite his enduringsexual frustration—kept at a low simmer by Nic’s proximity, her lush figure so gorgeously flattered by the magically fitted gown, her ample breasts tantalizingly displayed—the rest of the day flew past. More wizards, some with familiars, others alone, arrived with regularity. Sage and Quinn worked at a frenzied rate, installing glass in the rooms as the incoming guests selected them.

Nic actually cried out in delight when the Ratisbon wizard arrived to create furniture. An elegant man with an equally well-dressed familiar, he sniffed at the manse, pronouncing it musty but with excellent bones. He immediately rejected the Ophiel wizardling who arrived, saying that he’d personally request an Ophiel friend of his that he happened to know was dreadfully unhappy in her current contract. Managing to be both scrupulously polite to Gabriel and didactic at the same time, he instructed Gabriel on the amount to offer to buy out her contract and that he should do so immediately.

Gabriel nearly refused on principle but caught the lift of Nic’s dark brow. When she offered to draft a missive and send it, he did his best to hide his resignation. Nic knew, probably better than he did at this point, what they could afford. Unfortunately, she vanished into the library to take care of the task, leaving him to field the new arrivals and their endless questions. The concept of minions, or this potential secretary he could delegate tasks to, began to sound better and better.

When his mother and father showed up, it was his turn to nearly cry out in relief. His father doffed his cap, audibly scratching his skull at the sight of the restored manse and the considerable crowd of people. His mom shook her head in amazement. “People have been by all morning,” she said, “all telling us the house was above water again and looking like nothing we’ve ever seen before, but I hardly credited it.” She stared a moment longer then turned a look on him, a line between her brows—exactly as she’d looked when he created that first deluge, puzzled and a little bit afraid. “I know I said I knew you could do this, but I didn’t expect…” She trailed off, biting back the words.

“For Nic and me to do it overnight?” he asked with a smile he didn’t feel. What he did feel was a similar aghast astonishment. In the magical moonlit night, exploring the newly raised manse with Nic, he’d grown to accept the presence of the sprawling halls, so infused with the unseen presence of his ancestors, like one accepted the reality of a dreamworld while occupying it. In the bright light of midday, spring in full swing around him with riotous birdsong, his father in his dirt-soiled coveralls and his mother with a few stray orange-blossom petals in her hair from inspecting the blooming orchards, the two worlds collided sharply.

“It is quite a feat,” his father acknowledged, carefully situating his hat on his head again. “I’m proud of you, son,” he added, though it came as an afterthought and sounded more bewildered than anything.

“I couldn’t have done this without Nic,” Gabriel explained, not quite sure what he wanted them to understand. “I’m learning a great deal from her.” Turning his face away, he wiped a hand over it, hoping he looked flushed from the warm day and not his thoughts of all he was learning from his luscious wife.

“Where did all these people come from?” his mom asked as a group of laughing young wizards burst out of the north wing, turning to point up at the lofty gables. “I mean, I know you two mentioned that healer and a few others, and Nic sent us a message that you needed help sorting guests into rooms, but I didn’t expect…”

“People to help us restore the house,” he replied, keeping the word deliberately lower case, so they wouldn’t think he meant any of these people would become family. Except, they would, wouldn’t they? “Nic has been busy.”

“Well, she’s an organized soul,” his mom observed faintly. “And she said she’d have House Phel ready for a big society wedding by midsummer.”

“She’s well on her way to accomplishing that goal.” He noted the rueful twist to his words and wondered at it. “And these are just the highest priority staff on her lists, and the nearest to Meresin. There will be more.”

“Well, then,” his mother said, brushing at her hair, “I supposed I’d best find Nic and get my assignments.”

“You could move back into the house, Mom,” he suggested before she could go. “All the windows will have glass soon instead of boards. And new furniture.”

She crooked a finger at him, offering her cheek, and he kissed it. “I like my little cottage,” she confided. “I suspect it will be quieter than this place.”

“Probably true,” he agreed.

“What can I do?” his father asked as his mom bustled off, craning her neck to take in the north and south wings.

“How’s that levee?” Gabriel asked, the sudden inspiration hitting him with a glow of relief.

“Still leaking like a sieve,” his father allowed.

Gabriel clapped his hand on his father’s back. “Let’s go see to that.”

The sun waslowering when Nic arrived on Salve. She’d freshened up, perhaps even bathed, and looked dewily lovely as a rose in first bloom. She also wore a light-green dress he’d never seen before. Had her trousseau arrived? That would certainly relieve some of her unspoken anxiety about her father’s position on her actions.

“You look beautiful,” he told her, leaning on his mud-covered shovel.

“I wish I could say the same of you,” she replied, arching one brow. “Did you soak in the mud—some sort of rejuvenating spa treatment, perhaps?”

He laughed, stretching his back, aware of the ache of hard work in the muscles there. It had been a good afternoon, grounding to work side by side with his father as he’d done when everyone thought he’d be only an honest farmer. He’d sweated up a storm, worn blisters on his hands, and felt more like himself than in longer than he could recall. Even before he’d gone to Elal to meet Nic, he’d spent far too many days and nights holed up in that moldering library, studying histories and spells, wrestling this magic that possessed him far more than he’d wielded it.

“Do I even want to know about House Magical Mud’s healing treatments?” he asked, then lifted a hand to his father’s hail from below. “The good news is, I think we’ve found the weak point in the levee.” He pointed with his shovel to the muddy pit he’d just climbed out of. “There was a bit of sinkhole beneath that just kept undermining everything we put on top of it.”

Nic eyed the pit dubiously, Salve shifting daintily beneath her. “I’ll be irritated with you if you didn’t call for me to help because you were worried about draining my magic.”

“Nope.” He grinned at her. “All manual dig-dig method. Sometimes that does a man good.” He reached down to offer his father a hand up the last bit of slippery slope.

“Nic,” his father said, doffing his muddy cap. He looked like a child’s mannequin made out of mud, so Gabriel figured he didn’t look any better. No wonder Nic was giving him the side-eye.

“GF,” she replied warmly. “I’ve been asked to tell you to go home already and that a man your age doesn’t need to be working himself to death when younger bodies can do it twice as well in half the time.”

His father put on an exaggerated expression of shock. “You look like my daughter-in-law, but that’s my wife’s voice coming out of your mouth!”

Nic laughed, her heartfelt, musical laugh. “I’m memorizing the lines I should use on your son. Would you like to borrow Salve for a lift home?”

“Ah, no, though it’s sweet of you to offer. It’s a short walk that will help loosen the kinks. Good work today, son. I think the boys and me can finish ’er off tomorrow.”

“Perhaps Gabriel and I could help tomorrow,” Nic suggested.

His father glanced at him. “I know you two have important work to do, but…”

“Everything to do with House Phel is important,” Nic emphasized. “We’ll come to do this tomorrow and demonstrate how we work together to use magic to add to the manual methods.” Giving Gabriel a bland look, she invited him to argue.

“See you tomorrow, Dad,” Gabriel said, shouldering his shovel and turning his feet toward the manse, new glass windows glittering in the distance as the setting sun hit them. The house looked pretty. Lived in, even.

“I’d offer you a lift,” Nic said, “but I already bathed and changed for dinner.”

“That’s all right.” He walked alongside Salve, remembering how Nic had walked beside Vale all the way back to Port Anatole when he’d ridden, too injured to do otherwise. She kept Salve to a slow pace, riding easily, regally even, her seat graceful and her strong profile gilded, dressed like a lady and looking nothing like the bedraggled and collared woman he’d rescued. “It’s my turn to walk,” he added, and she returned the wry smile.

“At least it isn’t pouring rain this time,” she replied, clearly remembering that same miserable journey. “Though a good downpour would help to sluice some of that mud off of you before you track it into the house to bathe and dress for dinner.”

“There’s a bucket outside I can use to deal with the worst of it. Why does this dressing for dinner sound like something more than usual?” Funny that, as if they’d established a usual.

“You’re presiding over a formal dinner, Lord Phel,” she replied loftily, “which will be attended by your newly contracted Refoel wizard and those hopeful for placement in various capacities, whom you have yet to meet and approve.”

He sighed at the prospect. “I needed to get away from the crowds for a bit,” he admitted.

The look she gave him was softened with affection—or maybe that was the twilight and his wishful thinking. “I understand,” she said softly. “Today was a lot. All of this is.”

“True.” He gazed at House Phel, the graceful tiers he’d never truly expected to see intact again, the windows blazing with light now, echoing the orange streaking through the high clouds, contrasting with the violet sky behind. “Fire elementals?” he asked. “The Elal shipment must’ve arrived.”

She shook her head, a troubled frown shadowing her face. “Many, many lanterns. We’ve received no word from Elal at all.”

Well, shit. “I’m sorry, Nic,” he offered quietly. “Perhaps your father wasn’t home or—”

Cutting off his words with a sharp and bitter laugh, she shook her head. “Gabriel, my only love, you do not need to coddle me with rosy optimism. I’m practical, remember? And I know Papa better than anyone, perhaps even better than Maman does, because he taught me how to think like a wizard and the head of a High House. He hasn’t replied because he considers my missive unworthy of it. His message is very clear.”

“It was a missive from me,” Gabriel pointed out. “Likely it’s me he regards as unworthy of a reply.”

“No,” she replied softly, gazing into the distance. “He knows my handwriting, and he’ll recognize my mind behind the words. If you had written the letter, he’d have answered you. This is a slap in my face, a reminder of my station.” She sighed. “I gravely miscalculated. You’ll have to write the next letter.”

Wishing he could touch her, he put a hand on the heel of her boot instead, well below where he might muddy her hem, squeezing lightly so she wrenched her gaze from whatever unhappy vision occupied it and glanced down at him with a sad smile. “Forget him,” Gabriel said, shaking her foot a little. “We’re not writing to him again.”

“We need that dowry. And I want my clothes, and my grapes.”

“Is it worth it?” he asked, wanting to make her see that it wasn’t. “Surely other places grow grapes. In Wartson, maybe.”

“I can’t see putting Wartson Summer Red on a label,” she retorted without bite.

“Phel Summer Red doesn’t sound much better, to be honest.”

“I was thinking Gabriel’s Blend myself,” she mused. “Such a pretty name.”

“Veronica’s Red,” he suggested. “With a hint of roses, just like you.”

“Such a romantic.” She rolled her eyes, but he thought she wasn’t displeased. “Still, I don’t want Wartson grapes, though I suppose I could make do. I want what’s mine. I should be able to make my own summer red wine, whether Papa approves of my choices or not.”

He suspected the wine, and the grapes to make it, had become emblematic in her mind of all that her beloved papa had promised, explicitly and implicitly, raising her as his favored child. Nic had lost so much of his regard that the grapes were but a small piece of what she wanted from her father. And the megalomaniacal Lord Elal wouldn’t give her even that.

“That’s a pretty dress,” Gabriel observed, making his own mental list of everything he’d give Nic that her parsimonious family wouldn’t. “That’s part of why I thought your trousseau had arrived. It’s new?”

“Newish. Wizard Wolfgang’s Ophiel friend arrived, and I begged her to convert one of the heavier riding habits to something lighter. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not.” Though he’d loved her in that burgundy velvet. “The wine-colored one or…?”

“The brown one,” she reassured him. “And if you approve the Ophiel wizard—Dahlia—then she can make me a new trousseau without taking apart anything else.”

“Do I have to approve all the wizards and familiars personally?” he asked. “You know more about them than I do and—”

“Yes, you do,” she answered firmly. “I did my part by filtering the invitations to attract the right sort, but you must be the one to decide if you can work closely with another wizard, to the point of having them live in your house and sit at your dinner table nightly.”

“Nightly?” he echoed, appalled. “I thought there was this whole plan to sequester that lot to the north wing and feed them separately.” Like a kennel, or a stables, but for irritating wizards.

“Perhaps not nightly,” she conceded, “but often enough. You’ll want to keep an eye on them. Even without dinners, you’ll be working closely with these people. Some more than others, but look at how you reacted to Asa.”

“I approved him,” Gabriel protested.

“Exactly, even though you don’t like him. I can’t possibly predict that sort of thing.”

“I don’t dislike him.”

Nic, very pointedly, didn’t say anything.

“I like Sage and Quinn.”

“Even a broody and reclusive wizard like you has to like Sage. What did you think of Laryn?”

“I think that you don’t like her.”

Nic glanced at him in surprise. “Was I that obvious?”

He considered the question. “Not to anyone else, I think. I just know you—when you’re pretending and when you mean it.”

“Hmm. Something for me to remember.”

“You should tell me, though, if you dislike someone. You have an equal say in our household.” He braced himself for her argument, but she surprised him.

“Thank you. I very much appreciate that consideration. But I don’t dislike Laryn. I don’t,” she protested at his dubious glance. “Not really. It’s more that she dislikes me, and I react to that. I suspect her feelings have more to do with her own misery than anything I’ve done. Is it arrogant to say that I think she’s always been jealous of me?”

“No, especially since I think it’s true.” He could see how attractive and well bred but unremarkable Laryn would be jealous of the vivid, spirited Nic.

“Jealousy is a bitter and poisonous thing to live with,” Nic said in a reflective tone. “She makes herself unhappier than I ever could, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t think I want. What I’d like is…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

“You’d like what?” he prodded, wiggling her foot by the boot heel he still held.

“I’d like to see what the House Phel new regime could do for her,” Nic answered hesitantly, almost shyly.

“The ‘new regime’?”

“Your whole take on the wizard–familiar dynamic.” She waved a hand at the glorious sky like it demonstrated something. “Partnerships,” she clarified, saying the word as if he’d made it up. “Someone like Laryn, she has to hate feeling powerless to control her life, carrying a baby she likely resents—she’s really not the maternal sort—and dragged off to the swamps of Meresin where she won’t even have the pleasures of Convocation society to soothe her.”

“With her nemesis as lady of the house she serves in,” Gabriel added.

“Yes.” Nic rolled her eyes dramatically. “Horrible, arrogant Veronica Elal, familiar to the lord of a High House, running poor Laryn’s life. Quelle horreur.”

He chuckled. “You’re not like that.”

“No,” she replied in a thoughtful tone, “though arguably I was once quite full of myself. Confident, certain of my rosy future, probably to the point of being insufferable. And people have a tendency to project,” she continued before he could say anything to that. “If our positions were reversed, Laryn would no doubt use her power to torment me, so she expects I’ll do the same.”

“But you’re not tempted?”

“No. In fact, I talked to Asa about her already.”

“Did you now?”

“Yes, do you mind?”

“Why would I?”

“Just checking. I framed it as a way of working with you, that you don’t see things the same as a Convocation wizard and that he’d do well to give Laryn some freedom. Let her have occupations of her own, rather than dance constant attendance on him.”

Wonder of wonders. “All true, too,” he acknowledged blandly, careful not to show her just how much it meant to him that she was coming to see things his way. “I thought you wanted our incoming wizards to believe we have a traditional Convocation relationship, me all broody and demanding.”

“To begin with, yes—but I’d like to wage a subtle campaign with those I think have the mental flexibility to change their thinking, who will then be loyal to you and your new regime. We can’t have vipers in our household waiting to strike. This will be a good way of sorting them out.”

He had no argument with that. “What did Asa say?”

“He was taken aback, but he’s giving it a try. He does want this contract—and to impress you.”

And Asa was at least half in love with Nic, though Gabriel didn’t say that aloud. She’d only tease him about wizard-borne possessiveness.

They went on in silence for a bit, the walk companionable in an oddly peaceful way. Nic had accused him of wanting that simple farmer girl, and while he wouldn’t deny that part of him still longed for that simpler life, this felt meant. His beautiful, fierce, and talented wife understood him like no one else ever had. With both their gazes fixed on the manse, gilded by the purples and golds of a spring sunset in Meresin, the bats emerging to flutter through the crepuscular light, it felt as if this was usual, as if they’d been walking home together all their lives.

He hated to disrupt the peacefulness of the moment, but he felt he had to ask before the opportunity slipped away. “Nic, do you resent the pregnancy?” he asked quietly. “You can be honest with me, because I’d understand if you do.”

“Because I’m not the maternal sort either?” she asked drily.

“Quite the opposite.” He squeezed her ankle. “You are warm, affectionate, nurturing, and thoughtful. You’re also fierce, courageous, and believe in building a family. I think you’ll be a wonderful mother—but I also know this isn’t something you chose.”

“But I did,” she corrected, gentle but firm. “I went into the Betrothal Trials knowing I’d come out of them pregnant. Unless something went terribly wrong.”

“So did Laryn, theoretically.”

“True,” she acknowledged. “But Laryn and I are very different people that way. She’ll do as expected and burn with bitter resentment every step of the way. Whereas I’ll embrace the practicality of my situation and make the best of it.”

“I can absolutely see that.”

“In my way, I’m a sunny optimist.” She smiled broadly at him, making him laugh.

“You joke, but you are,” he mused. She was the sun to his gloom. Her determination to make the best of everything was a kind of profound optimism, in truth. “I feel I should point out, however, that you evaded the question.”

“I didn’t evade it so much as I was giving myself time to think about it.” She lapsed into thought, and this time he gave her the quiet to consider her answer. “For a long time,” she finally said in a soft voice, when they’d very nearly reached the back entrance to the house, “it just didn’t seem real to me. Sometimes it still doesn’t. I mean, the oracle heads are never wrong, and I can feel certain changes in my body, but it’s a lot to wrap my mind around, you know? That there is this whole person, with their own thoughts, feelings, and ambitions, who doesn’t yet exist in the world, but who will grow inside of my body and then appear—poof!—eight months from now. Isn’t it an extraordinary thing, that we just accept this… magic?”

“I suppose so.” He’d never quite thought of it that way. “Though we’re not surprised when orange blossoms become fruit, or when foals appear in springtime.”

“True, though—if you really think about it—those are bizarre and magical transformations, too. Anyway.” She smiled down at him, the expression softer than he’d ever seen on her face. “I don’t resent it. I’m actually kind of… feeling all fuzzy, warm, and anticipatory. We’re going to have a baby, Gabriel. A little person who will be the best of each of us, who will grow up in this beautiful house, surrounded by interesting people. They’ll have a good life, familiar or wizard.”

“We’ll make sure of that,” he answered, his voice choked with surprising emotion.

“Yes, we will. And it feels miraculous to me to be able to believe in that.” She laughed, almost to herself. “Go bathe and dress. I’ll see Salve back to the stables and meet you in the dining hall.”

He groaned, having nearly forgotten about that.

“Gabriel,” Nic called as she turned Salve toward the stables. “Believing in that kind of life for myself and for our child? That’s a gift you’ve given me, more precious than anything. Even Elal grapes.”