Smug bastard.
Time to get their conversation back on track.“I’m just saying, shouldn’t he still be introducing her to vampire life, not running around after me?”
“I’m certain he’s introduced her to the vampire life quite thoroughly.”He wiggled his eyebrows at Quentin.
“Gross.Stop that.That’s my mother.”He couldn’t help laughing at Jaks’s ridiculous expressions.“Fine.I’ll take him, but I won’t need him today.I’m going to stay home and wash clothes and do some gardening.”
“Promise me you won’t leave the house.”
“I promise.”
“If you need to leave, call me, and I’ll have someone meet you here.”
“I will.”He wanted to protest being watched over like a child, but he knew it was Jaks’s instincts to protect his consort, so he didn’t object.They could have that battle once the bond smoothed more.Quentin could feel the low-key humming between them.The sound had a slightly rough texture as if things weren’t settled quite yet.Hopefully, time would take care of that.
After one more kiss, Jaks slid out of bed.He didn’t look at Quentin while he dressed.
“Are you heading out right now?”Quentin tried not to pout.He had been enjoying the rare experience of lounging in bed with his lover.None of his other brief relationships had reached that stage.
“Yes.I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on, and the sight of you in bed is terrible for my motivation.”
Quentin sighed but didn’t protest Jaks’s leaving as much as he wanted to.He could hear the unspoken statement that his lover had fallen behind because he’d been spending too much time with Quentin.“Thank you for being there for me.Sorry, I’m such a mess.”
Jaks leaned down and kissed Quentin.He only lifted his mouth once Quentin was hard and panting.“You are the perfect amount of mess.Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Quentin watched his lover walk out of the house with a smile on his lips.He might have questionable, shadowy enemies, but his love life was going well, at least for now.He didn’t have enough experience to tell if it would stay on that path or veer horrifyingly off.
He decided to spend the afternoon gardening.He didn’t want all the hard work his mother did to fall apart.It had gotten dangerously close to dying off while she’d been in the hospital.He didn’t have the same green thumb, but she had taught him enough to make sure things didn’t die.
After sliding out of bed, he dressed in his best gardening clothes, a soft T-shirt, and a pair of tattered shorts that had gotten on the bad side of some thorns a few years ago.He shoved his feet into the thick-soled shoes he kept by the back door and grabbed a pair of gloves.
Ten minutes later, he was kneeling on a gardening mat among the flowers.Time to do some weeding.Before he put on his gloves, he remembered he needed to feed the earth.
His mother usually did this part, but he’d watched it enough times to know the process.‘Hearts have to care for their land,” she’d say.“Feeding the earth a few drops of blood every time you garden bonds the property to our bloodline.”
Now it was his responsibility to ‘feed the garden’.He hadn’t shared that with Jaks, unsure of how the vampire would react to Quentin’s blood purposely being anywhere outside his body.
The ceremonial folding knife was in its usual location inside the bucket of tools he’d retrieved from the small toolshed.His mother had stashed it there for convenience.It was only used for shedding blood in the garden and was sterilized after each use, usually by Quentin’s magic.
He flipped the blade open, sliced his right palm, then his left.Once the blood was flowing freely, he pressed both hands to a patch of bare ground.His mother always said it didn’t matter which part of the garden was bloodied as long as it was somewhere on the warded property.
A soft hum rose quietly from the earth.Quentin tilted his head at the sound.This had never happened when his mother performed the ceremony.Before he could puzzle over the change, the noise increased incrementally until it vibrated his bones.The flowers around him bolted up several inches, and the still summer day gained a breeze that smelled of warm earth, magic, and possibilities.Ancestral power from family members he had never met swirled around him in a joyous greeting of shimmering gold, before sinking into his chest.Gasping for air, he choked on the thickness of the magic pushing its way inside.He tugged at his hands.They didn’t budge an inch from their meeting between earth and skin.
“What the hell!”
Panic jolted through him like an electric shock.His magic, reacting to an unknown attack, spiked.A responding punch of energy flew from the soil and straight through him, rattling his bones.He clenched his teeth as more power than he’d ever channeled burned through his veins.
The ley lines.
He recognized the magic.The low buzz that had followed him during his childhood sought to claim him now.To absorb him into the world’s network, even if it had to rip the magic from his marrow.
Quentin threw back his head and screamed.
“Quentin!”His father’s voice broke through his cocoon of terror.
A warm chest pressed against his back as Lars Trehorn, fae king, wrapped him in protective arms, channeling away the overwhelming weight the ley lines had pressed on his body.
“I got you.”
