Arcane Kiss (Talents Book 1) Read online

  Jake eyed them both. “Kurt, buddy, if you don’t hold onto this girl with both hands, you’re an idiot.” For once, there was no humor at all in his voice.

  “No,” Kurt said hoarsely. His eyes locked on hers, hungry and intense. “I’m not going to send her away.”

  The tension in her neck relaxed for the first time since she’d realized he was under that spell.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Genevieve made a Skype call to her parents. Her mother had identified most of the sigils, but there were a few in the innermost ring of the spell neither Diane nor Gen’s father had ever seen before.

  Genevieve told them about the Feds’ problem with breaking the spell -- and that Kurt, Dave and Jake remained in danger of becoming that final sacrifice. The cops had put BFS under surveillance in case the terrorists showed up.

  “What about the President and Congress?” her mother asked. “They’re in the bull’s eye too.”

  “They’ve all got Arcanist bodyguards.”

  “Which is really ironic considering these are the same people who want to make us all register.”

  “This kind of crap is why they want us all to register,” Dad said. His voice dropped to a growl. “Fuckin’ terrorists.”

  “Which is why we need to kill these idiots before they hit their targets.”

  “You need to turn the tables on this little bitch,” her father said. “She’s so fond of traps? I think it’s time you set one for her.”

  Which sounded like a damn good idea to Genevieve. She and her folks spent the next hour brainstorming ideas. Finally they ended the call so each could work on the separate layers of the spell they had in mind.

  Kurt returned from transferring Parvati to a larger cage, and headed upstairs to take a shower. Genevieve, absorbed in her spell, barely noticed the sound of the water rushing through the pipes overhead. The water cut off again as she studied the four sigils none of them had been able to identify.

  What the hell do they do?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dave padded into the living room where Gen sat with her sketchpad. Out of the corner of one eye, she saw him manifest a human arm to pick up the remote and turn the television on. He channel surfed for a few moments, only to stop on CNN. “Hey, Gen, both houses of Congress just declared an unscheduled recess. And the President is going golfing. Sounds like they’re all getting the hell out of D.C. before our terrorist buddies get a chance to nuke ‘em.”

  Gen snorted. “At least they have a keen sense of self-preservation.”

  “Can’t get reelected if you’re dead.”

  BFS, too, was under guard. A pair of FBI agents and a deputy were patrolling the park now. The two feds had dropped by earlier in the afternoon.

  Dave fell silent as she concentrated on her work. A moment later he swore. “Oh, hell, we’re famous again.”

  Genevieve looked up and cursed softly. Evidently one of the helicopters she’d heard overhead that afternoon had gotten video of the fight.

  The image dissolved to a split screen. On one side was a pretty, dark-haired anchor Genevieve didn’t recognize. “So what did you think when you realized it was your son fighting the bear Feral?”

  On the other side of the screen, a woman wiped her eyes. A caption below, her face read “Melody Anderson, mother of Feral hero.” She appeared to be middle-aged, judging from the graying roots of her dark hair and the lines that bracketed her wide mouth. Something about the shape of her face looked vaguely familiar. “I was absolutely horrified.” She had a beautiful voice, surprisingly deep for a woman’s, with a purring note that made every word sound like the lyrics of a song. “I watched with my heart in my throat the entire time. I just knew my baby was going to get killed right in front of me. It was bad enough finding out about Fred’s death from the news -- nobody called me -- but seeing the same vicious killer going after my son, watching him fight for his life…”

  “Oh fuck,” Dave said, sitting up, his round ears swiveling forward as his whiskers fanned back. “Kurt! Your mom’s on television!”

  “What?” Feet pounded down the stairs. Kurt stalked in. He stopped dead at the sight of Melody Anderson crying for Fred. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “You just have no idea how painful it was, watching that… creature try to tear my son apart!” She wiped her eyes with a wadded tissue.

  The anchor looked skeptical. “I thought you said you and Fred Briggs were divorced.”

  Kurt’s mother sniffled. “Well, yes, but I still felt something for him.”

  “Right,” Kurt growled at the TV. “That’s why you cheated on him every time his back was turned.”

  Genevieve winced at the pain and anger in his voice.

  The image cut to a wedding photo of a very young Melody and Fred Briggs as the woman talked about how handsome and heroic her husband had been when they met. Next came several photos of Kurt as a child. In one, he was four years old, standing with Melody, Fred and his lion. Lahr appeared to be watching Melody -- and he didn’t look friendly. At all. Kurt’s mother, for her part, had one shoulder hitched up as she eyed the lion nervously.

  “Fred loved his cats,” Melody said bitterly. “More than he ever did me.”

  “That’s a damned lie,” Kurt said through gritted teeth. “He loved you, Mom. You just hated the cats, and you were jealous as hell of Lahr.” He grabbed the remote off the floor where Dave had left it and muted the television. He pulled out his cell and began to dial it with hard stabs of his thumb.

  Genevieve watched a muscle flex in his jaw as he listened to the phone ring. When someone picked up, he didn’t even say hello. “You are not using Dad’s murder to get free publicity for your band, Melody.” His tone was icy with control. He paused, listening. “You gave up the right to be called ‘mother’ when you walked out on us.”

  As Gen watched, he began to pace, striding back and forth. “Here’s a question, Mother of the Year: When’s my birthday? … That’s what I thought.”

  Dave looked away, squeezing his eyes shut.

  “You had better by God think twice about talking to another reporter. Stoli just died. I seriously doubt you want a visit from me.”

  He hung up and lifted his phone as if seriously considering hurling it across the room. Instead he threw himself down on the couch, flipped the cell onto the coffee table, and buried his face in his hands.

  Genevieve closed her eyes and studied his aura.

  “No, Goddamnit, I am not under another spell.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just…”

  “That I sound like a crazy man.”

  “No,” Gen said quietly. “More like a man who’s been badly wounded by the one person he should have been able to trust.”

  “Yeah. Not only did my mother cheat on Dad, she used her Talent on both of us.”

  Gen stared at him, appalled. “Her own family?”

  “Yeah. Melody is a Bard. Not a particularly powerful Bard -- she was only able to use her magic on people who were in the room with her. Her singing ability wasn’t all that great either, so she never had the recording career she dreamed of.”

  A really powerful Bard could affect his listeners even through a recording, but that was relatively rare. The best had both magical ability and a great singing voice.

  “Dad met her when her country band played at a bar in Virginia Beach, near Norfolk, where he was stationed.” Kurt sounded less furious than weary now. “They started dating.”

  Gen thought of the wedding photo. “She was pretty when she was younger.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, she really was. And Dad was completely gone on her. Which is why when she got pregnant with me, he talked her into marrying him. Apparently she’d considered ending the pregnancy.”

  Genevieve winced. “Ow.”

  “So they got married, and I came along. Unfortunately, Dad was gone a lot on Arcane Corps missions, and it didn’t take Melody long to realize a little kid and a musical career don’t mesh. She
started pushing Dad to quit the Corps. Since the military was downsizing at that point, Dad agreed to get out. That was when he decided to open BFS.”

  “I gather things didn’t improve.”

  “No. Running BFS involves almost as much travel as the Corps. He was always driving somewhere to pick up a cat or take one somewhere else for medical treatment. That suited Melody just fine, because she’d started having an affair with her new lead guitarist.”

  “With you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How the hell did she get away with that?” Dave asked, the tip of his tail flicking. “Fred would have smelled the guy on her.”

  “Plus, how did she know you wouldn’t let the cat out of the bag?” Gen asked.

  This time there was no rimshot, nor was there humor in Kurt’s twisted smile. “She was a Bard.”

  Genevieve stared at him. “She cast spells on you to keep you from talking?”

  “Got it in one.”

  “Christ, what a bitch.”

  “With a beautiful voice, though.” He sounded almost wistful now. “She’d sing me to sleep every night -- especially when Dad was out of town and her boyfriend was over.”

  “Jesus,” Dave muttered.

  “Dad told me whenever he got suspicious of her, she’d sing him a love song, and he’d start thinking he was being paranoid.”

  “And he didn’t kill her when he found out?” Dave flicked an ear. “The man’s self-control was a hell of a lot better than mine would have been.”

  “Mine too,” Kurt admitted. “In retrospect, it’s surprising they lasted as long as they did. But when Lahr got testicular cancer and died, the whole fucking situation just imploded.”

  “Because Fred melded with Lahr and she couldn’t deal,” Dave guessed.

  “Not to mention she’d just turned thirty, and she thought she needed to start touring a lot more. Dad told her I was too young for her to disappear for months at a time.”

  “Bet she loved that.”

  “Yep. She and Fred started fighting. The meld with Lahr gave Dad more resistance to Melody’s magic, and he realized she’d been using her powers on both of us. He was furious.”

  Gen shook her head, unable to imagine doing something like that to her own family. “I don’t blame him.”

  “One day Fred left to pick up an abused lion, and Melody saw her chance. No sooner was he out the door than she started packing to leave. She told me I was going to be staying overnight with Jake and Bobby while Dad was gone, because she was leaving.”

  “Without taking you?”

  “Of course without me. I was the albatross around her neck. She told me she loved me, but she had to pursue her dream.” He sounded so controlled, almost emotionless, despite the pain of his words. “I cried. I begged her to stay. But she said she had to leave before Dad got back, or he’d kill her. She said that’s why she couldn’t take me with her -- because he’d never let her go if she did. Which was true.”

  “That bitch is lucky to be alive,” Dave growled.

  “Especially since Dad turned around and caught her on the way out.”

  “He suspected she was leaving him?”

  “Actually, he told me later he just had a bad feeling. Called his USDA contact and told him he’d be a little late. He drove up just as she was loading me in the car to take to the Nolan’s.”

  Dave made a rumbling sound of sympathy.

  “I ran to him and threw my arms around him and told him she was leaving us, that she didn’t want me anymore.” He shook his head. “Dad lost it. Not so much because she was leaving as that she’d hurt me. He manifested his lion. She pulled a gun.”

  Gen stared at him in horror. “With you with your arms around him?”

  “Yeah. Dad realized if he got anywhere near her, he’d kill her. He told her to get the fuck out, and she did. He told me he could have forgiven her cheating, but not the way she’d used her magic on me.”

  “Hell, I don’t blame him,” Dave said.

  “I’ve seen her maybe three times since then. She sent birthday and Christmas presents for a while, then just cards. Then I got a card talking about my birthday being on July twenty-first -- my birthday’s on the twenty-fifth.”

  Genevieve flinched.

  “So after she dumped you, did her career ever take off?” Dave asked.

  Kurt shook his head. “Never even made it to one-hit-wonder.”

  “Serves the bitch right,” Gen growled. “I’m seriously tempted to sit down and draw her portrait.” When they stared at her, puzzled, she bared her teeth. “Bald. She wouldn’t have a single dyed hair left on her head by the time I got done with her.”

  Kurt laughed. “You’re not a nice woman.”

  “Neither is she.” What must it have been like for him, knowing that his own mother had turned her magic against him? Suddenly she remembered what he’d said at the hospital when the spell had had him in its grip. ”I’m not going to let you make me dance like a puppet. You think you can get away with that after what my mother did to me?”

  Oh, hell. Gen had known he was wary of Arcanists, but she’d assumed that distrust had been born from his experiences fighting the Caliphate. But Kurt’s mother had inflicted psychic wounds far deeper than she’d ever imagined.

  What must it have been like, being raised by a man who’d been so thoroughly betrayed? What must it be like to know even your mother’s lullabies had been an act of manipulation?

  Melody Briggs had betrayed him and his father in every possible way. She’d even been willing to endanger her son’s life to protect herself.

  Genevieve’s childhood experiences with magic had been completely different. One of her earliest memories was watching her mother cast a spell. The sigils had floated in the air, intricate lines and curves of glowing magic that bobbed around them, rotating slowly, spinning like soap bubbles.

  Magic for her had never been anything but positive. Oh, she’d always known that people could kill with it. After all, she’d been ten years old when Caliphate terrorists destroyed the Twin Towers.

  But Kurt had been the victim of magic more often than he’d been its beneficiary.

  It all made her heart hurt. Not just for him, but for herself. The depth of the pain was so intense it stole her breath.

  Genevieve froze, feeling as if someone had just hit her over the head with a frying pan. Oh, God. I’m in love with Kurt Briggs. And there’s no way in hell it’s ever going to work. She was distantly aware Kurt had stalked out of the living room. A moment later, she heard the kitchen door slam as he went outside.

  “Are you all right?” Dave asked.

  Gen sank down on the couch. For a moment, she just sat there feeling battered.

  “Hey.” Dave padded over to her and sniffed. He was so big that his head was level with hers. “Are you all right?” he repeated

  “Fine.”

  “You do realize I can smell lies?”

  She stared at him helplessly, eyes stinging. “I’m in love with him.”

  Dave flicked his ear. “No shit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody fall as fast and as hard as you two.”

  “There’s no such thing as love at first sight.”

  “Ordinarily I’d agree with you. Every time I’ve ever fallen for anybody this quick, it was just an acute case of lust. My tenth-grade science teacher… I had it so bad for that woman. It’s a good thing I didn’t have my cat at that point, or her husband would have been Tender Vittles.”

  She leaned forward and rubbed her face tiredly. “I’m surprised Fred even let me and my sketchpad inside the door to begin with.”

  Dave shook his big head. “It was that or put Parvati down.”

  Suddenly Gen wanted to get the hell out of there instead of hanging around getting her heart ground into hamburger. Kurt’s never going to love me because he’ll never be able to trust me.

  Dave extended his big head until she was almost nose to nose with him. She could feel his aura roll across h
ers in a tingling wash of magic. “Gen, whatever you’re feeling isn’t unrequited. Yeah, magic users have done a lot of nasty shit to Kurt over the years. But the existence of assholes does not prove the entire human race puckers.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “Sometimes it does feel that way, though.”

  “Granted. Look, I won’t deny Kurt’s got his demons. I’m also not denying he’s got reasons for them. And it’s certainly true his daddy had a thing about non-Feral women being a bad bet.”

  “Given his ex, I’m not surprised.”

  “Got that right.” Sighing, Dave sat back on his haunches. “I knew Fred’s attitude had something to do with Kurt’s mom, but I never realized how bad it was. I don’t blame Fred for being paranoid.” He lifted a huge paw and put it on her knee. It was twice as big as both her hands put together. “But you’re nothing like that bitch, and Kurt knows it. Do you really think Melody Briggs would have run out to help when she heard Fred roaring in pain? Do you think she would’ve had the guts to break that spell, or that she would have tried to help Kurt regain control the way you did?”

  “Considering her fear of Ferals, I don’t even understand why she stayed with Fred as long as she did.”

  “I guess she thought she could use her magic to manipulate him into supporting her indefinitely while she ran around with her boy toy. Kurt is not an idiot -- though I’ll admit there have been times lately I’ve had my doubts. Fact is, though, he’s one of the most intelligent, dedicated and courageous men that I’ve ever known. He will fight for you -- against the Ferals, against the terrorists and against himself if he has to.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “Otherwise it wouldn’t hurt so fucking bad.”

  “Look, Gen, you can make it work. Don’t give up.” Golden eyes met hers, rich with sympathy. “I would have given anything to have found a woman like you before I got myself killed. Now it’s too goddamn late. Unless I meet a woman who’s trapped in a tigress’ body, I will never have what you and Kurt could. If you throw that away, both of you are idiots.”