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“Holy shit,” Fern snapped. “Calum, I cannot be a witch!”
“Well, you certainly can because you already are.” Calum stood up and strolled around the edge of his desk until he was standing across from Fern. The atmosphere grew tense.
“How did you find out?” Her voice was only a whisper.
“It took me a couple of decades, but I found where Gweyir’s daughter went, tracked your family line, and here you are.”
“Here I am.” Fern drawled the words, shaking her head. “Do I have magic?” She looked up at Calum, her eyes cautiously optimistic for the first time.
Calum’s face twisted up into a slow smile, warmth taking over his features. “You do.”
Fern started biting her nails, an old nervous habit. “You’re kidding.” She sounded awestruck. “How come I didn’t know before? Why didn’t I…”
“Blow up your aunt at dinner?”
Fern gasped playfully, her voice dropping to a reverent whisper. “Dr. Welsh, did you just make a Harry Potter reference?”
Calum smiled wider but didn’t acknowledge the question. “Magic is almost sentient, and it needs to be invited in. If you didn’t know about it and were never trained, it would lie dormant your entire life.”
“That makes sense, I suppose.” Fern was tapping her finger against her chin and rapidly cataloging everything Calum said.
Her voice was quiet when she looked up and met Calum’s eyes. “Is it magic that’s pulled me to you since I got here?” Calum paled, and Fern could’ve sworn that the distance between them shrank.
“What?”
* * *
Calum swallowed thickly and looked away, biting his lip before shaking his head to regain some of his composure. He recognized the bond as soon as he laid eyes on Fern, but he had never experienced a mating bond before. The rational side of his brain tried to explain it away and failed.
It’s a fucking mating bond, and you know it.
Ironically, it was the more sensible part of his brain that pushed against him. Calum had been prepared for Fern to react many ways when he told her about Gweyir. He had not expected her to ask him about the bond.
He stuttered, stumbling to his desk to put some distance between them and trying to find a suitable answer. Fern stared at him. “It’s not… It is… It’s not not magic.” Calum fought the urge to smack himself.
Oh, brilliant. That was just brimming with eloquence, you idiot.
Fern raised her eyebrows at him, readjusting herself in the leather seat. She leaned forward, placing her elbow on her knee and settling her chin on her palm.
“It’s not not magic,” she quoted back to him, her expression equal parts disbelieving and amused.
Calum’s clothes were too tight. He tugged at his tie and interlocked his fingers together, trying to regain some professionalism.
“Excuse me,” he started again. “It is magic. You likely haven’t been around other Scottish magic users for some time, so it’s reacting to it.”
“But I thought you said my magic would lie dormant unless I acknowledge it? How could it be reacting to you? It didn’t react to Mara or Emmett like that.”
“I sure hope it fucking didn’t react to Emmett,” Calum grumbled, his eyes flashing gold, and the sudden intensity shocked them both. Fern’s mouth fell open in surprise, compounding Calum’s feelings as he was bombarded with the sight of her lips in a perfect pink O-shape.
A wave of primal possessiveness nearly ran him over at the thought of Fern getting close to Emmett. Calum closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. When he spoke again, he was miraculously every inch the stoic, sullen professor.
“It could be a lot of things.” He dismissed the question with a wave. Fern interrupted him, but Calum kept talking. “That brings me to another important reason that I’ve brought you here.”
Fern was immediately distracted. “Yes?” Calum’s expression twisted as he wished he had planned what to say in advance. All the heat in the room vanished, and Fern fidgeted in her seat.
Calum aimlessly shuffled a few papers around on his desk, sending a few flying to the floor before he looked up from the mess. His voice was grave.
“We need you to break Scotland’s curse. You’re my last hope.”
