It had been a week of hell. Kicks, flips, muscle straining, a whole lot of sweating, and mental exercises. Silva was a damn workaholic, and since the moment she’d been put on “whip Kalinda into shape” duty, she’d been a tyrant.
“Kalinda!”
“If you say my name one more time, I’m going to send you to the floor screaming. I swear.”
Silva, the minx, only smiled before sticking out her tongue. “You can try.”
Challenge accepted.
Kalinda practiced what Silva had showed her: picturing her magic in her mind. She associated colors with the skill. Red for anger, blue for calm, purple for manipulation, white for force, black for fear, and … well, the gold really liked Romano and caused orgies, so she figured that was all about sex.
“Totally not focusing,” Silva teased.
Kalinda’s face grew hot. Whatever. She focused on Silva and pulled her magic close, swirling it from the air. She didn’t know why she chose to view it that way, or use it like that, but it seemed to work for her. Each time she attempted to do it with traditional methods, it sputtered and flickered out, but literally pulling it out of thin air worked best.
Sort of. Everybody feels these things, right? Must be residuals just hanging out here.
The more she focused, the more a purple haze appeared around Silva. That was new too, as she’d learned better control with her magic. Kalinda couldn’t make it happen instantly just yet, but she could see her magic with the naked eye.
Silva wasn’t smiling now.
“Okay, turn off the twisting-my-insides thing.”
“What’s that? I don’t hear any screaming.”
Not that she really wanted to make Silva hurt that much, but her word was her word.
Romano came into the clearing, Zoey trailing behind him. “The roses, Zoey. We’re growing roses not daffodils.”
Zoey scoffed. “And what’s wrong with daffodils?”
“They’re pansies, that’s what. The roses had thorns and took a chunk out of Giuliana’s ass. That makes them the first line of defense, so we grow those.”
Distracted by hearing Romano, Kalinda lost her concentration. She found herself looking over at the man of her wet dreams. The week hadn’t been total hell. He made sure to massage away every ache and pain and even gave her some more in the best of ways. For seven straight days she’d warmed his bed, and he slid into her soul.
Scarred inside and out, Romano found a way to smile at every moment, joke in the face of anger, and make her feel like her world wasn’t completely on the upside-down curve.
He’d taken to also working with Zoey to grow a cage of defense around the pack land borders. In order to do that, they had to be pretty close. The open space, cleared for visibility against invaders, became their practice zone.
“Shit.”
Kalinda refocused on Silva, who, while not screaming and withering on the ground in pain, was most definitely feeling something. Her cheeks were flushed, her thighs tense, and she shifted from one foot back to the other.
“Stop looking at him when we are training! Every damn time, you get all weepy between the legs and then you have to make me suffer for it.”
“I am not!” Kalinda argued.
“Yeah, whatever. It’s the only magic you’ve got that can push through.”
They’d found out, with practice, that while Silva wasn’t largely affected by Kalinda’s magic as a Fae, she could still feel residuals depending on how much work Kalinda put into the power.
“It’s because my sex healed her,” Romano called out. “Do you know what this means? I’ve got magic sex.”
Kalinda wanted to punch him and take back everything nice she’d said about how he made her feel good because, in two seconds, he’d ruined it.
“I am not going to tell you again that your sex is not magic.”
“Kalinda, it’s okay. We can let them in on our secret. Your magic really likes me … like … a lot. And it’s fine. We all have addictions sometimes, and yours is just me.”
