“Not likekillthem, though?” she pressed.
“Adjust memories so they are calm,” Sondre said. “There is a witch called Prospero. She owes me a favor, and if you want, I can send her to verify that your son’s caretaker isn’t a danger to him.”
“I do want that. Name your price.”
Sondre gave her an unreadable look. “What sort of men are you used to, Margaret? I would not exploit you to make your son safer.”
His words still felt true, and the silver lining hit her then. “If I stay here, the custody battle will be resolved. Once we’re both here, Craig won’t have to deal with hopping between me and his louse of a father!”
Sondre nodded once. “That would be true.”
Maggie pressed the topic a bit further. “So to be clear, all I need todo is adjust to this magic thing, and then we can discuss Craig’s and my future?”
“Yes.”
The single word also rang true, and so for now, Maggie put her questions aside. Maybe magic wasn’t so terrible if she could protect her son from his father’s influence. Maybe this could be like a holiday, especially if there was a witch who could do mind magic.
Sondre stayed silent and still, not leading her deeper into the town. His arm tightened around her, not to keep her from running but like a steady presence, and Maggie hated how much she liked it. She was strong, independent, and capable.
And he felt like a statue with marbled muscles.
Maggie took a deep breath, stepping away from Sondre. His gaze swept her from her slightly too-curvy hips to her not-at-all-flat-because-she-once-had-a-baby stomach. He said, “Once classes begin, there are rules, but today… Iwashoping to share a drink with you.”
Without the complication of thinking he was a crazed kidnapper, Maggie could admit that he seemed like he might not be a horrible person. She still suspected that Sondre had some darker traits she simply wasn’t seeing yet; her taste in men was typically more monster than mouse.
But he didn’t accept my offer of seduction in exchange for rescue.
“Coincidentally, if I have a night off, I was thinking of enjoying a drink and finding someone to burn the sheets up with,” she said in that tone that worked wonders in court. Casual, as if it was no big deal. “I already had a drink.”
Maggie felt like the girl she’d been when she was picking up men before she was married, bold and unembarrassed. Never mind the extra padding. Never mind the dangerous ex-husband or complications. She started to turn away as she said, “But you turned down my offer earlier, so maybe I’ll go back in—”
He caught her by the hip as she was mid-pivot. “I am not interested incoercedsex, Maggie, but sex without strings? That is another matter.”
She leaned in and put a hand on his chest. “I’m facing a custody battle, so I’ve been left to my own devices for over a year. Does Crenshaw have a motel? Or a back way to the headmaster’s rooms?”
Sondre wrapped his arms around her. “Close your eyes.”
She tilted her head up for a kiss, but instead she felt like her whole body was squeezed tightly and released. When she opened her eyes, she was in a larger version of her own room, one that smelled unmistakably of mead and sandalwood.
“Ho-ly fuck.” She stepped out of his arms. This was the apartment version of her room, but more to the point, they had just…popped? Magicked? Teleported?
Sondre watched her warily.
“Did we—we fucking teleported, didn’t we? That was magic,” she exclaimed, walking forward to stare out the window to the village where they just were.
“Yes.” He was still watching her, but he looked marginally calmer.
Maggie laughed. This was real. Absurdly, impossibly, undeniably real. Then she stalked toward Sondre, high on the possibilities in front of her—a holiday, a few orgasms, and then she’d rescue her son, and he’d grow up in a magical new world.
I deserve a holiday,she told herself.What’s the harm?
“Impress me, man-witch.” She reached out to grasp a fistful of his robe with one hand and wrapped the other around the back of his neck to guide him down for a kiss. Somewhere along the way, the cloth in her hand vanished, and she flattened her hand onto bare skin.
A pair of trousers and a shirt were on the nearby dresser, along with the robe she’d just been grabbing. Sondre was suddenly naked.
Not one to refuse a challenge, Maggie stepped back, stripping while she appreciated the man in front of her. A flicker of self-doubt threatened to rise up, but Sondre’s visible reaction erased her doubt before it fully formed.
He lifted her, hands under her thighs as she wrapped her legs around his hips. “I take back every insult I hurled at you.”
