AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yay!” She clapped her hands together and kissed Vale’s cheek, as if the horse had given her a gift—and the traitorous beast whuffled in affection, nibbling her temple in return. “Do you hear that, Vale? Our master will let us stay at a nice, warm inn. Isn’t he kind?”
“Keep that up and you’ll be sleeping in the cold tonight,” he warned.
“Grumpy, though,” she confided to the horse. “But this is what he gets when he acquires high-maintenance livestock.”
Vale bobbed his head in apparent affirmation, and Gabriel stifled a sigh. “You’re treading close to violating our agreement.”
She fluttered her lashes at him, lips in a pretty bow of a smile, face a picture of innocence. “I was talking about Vale.”
Sure she was. “I am not your master.”
“In point of fact, you are,” she replied, dropping the teasing façade. “You can’t have it both ways, Lord Phel. Either I’m your familiar or I’m not. If I am, then you are my master. There’s no such thing as a wizard–familiar partnership.”
The barge scraped against the pier, hitting harder than he’d intended, and jolting Nic off balance. He caught her before she pitched over the edge, pulling her briefly against him. She softened, her fiery heat blazing into him, and she looked up through her lashes. “Thank you,” she breathed, her lips parting invitingly. He nearly kissed her—he longed to, rather desperately—but he hated to think that she felt coerced. Pretending to want him, as she’d been so carefully taught, to submit to her wizard master.
“Why not?” he asked. The harbor workers shouted questions at him, throwing out ropes to tie up the barge. He held up a hand to hold them off a moment.
“Why not what?”
“Why aren’t there wizard–familiar partnerships?”
She frowned, pushing at him, and he let her go, missing her warmth immediately. “The dynamic doesn’t work that way.”
“Are you sure?” He signaled the workers that they were disembarking. They’d be expected to pay a docking fee, but he was hoping the barge salvage would cover it.
“Which of us has the extensive education here and which of us is self-admittedly ignorant?” she shot back.
“Which of us has been extensively programmed to believe familiars have no rights and shouldn’t expect to have any?” he replied evenly. She looked so stunned he had to smile. “How about you take Vale and pick out your inn? I’ll negotiate getting rid of this barge and find you.”
“You always do,” she noted sardonically, but she’d brightened. “You trust me to go on my own?”
Familiars don’t run around without their wizards.The way she’d said that so casually about her mother had stuck with him. He was putting together the puzzle of her, slowly but surely. If he could let her go entirely… Well, he couldn’t afford to, for his sake or hers, so the best he could do was try to find a balance between them. A partnership. Why couldn’t it work that way?
“Of course I trust you,” he replied easily. “You’re a grown woman.”
“Plus you have some trick for tracking me,” she added.
True. And ifhecould find her, so could another wizard. “When you pick the place, stay there, all right? I can pick up supplies for us.”
She tensed, lifting her head. “I don’t sense hunters here.”
“Would you, though?”
“Maybe.” She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “Maybe not, though. I think they have to be close before I do.”
“Let’s err on the safe side.” He didn’t want to mention to her that her father’s people might also be searching for her. Would she elect to escape him after all, given the opportunity to run home? He couldn’t take that chance. At least, that’s what he told himself—while his conscience snickered, pointing out that he didn’twantto let her go.
“All right,” Nic agreed easily. “Come on, Vale. Let’s put this floating disaster waiting to happen behind us.” They both jumped the gap to the pier. Nic glanced back at him. “Do I have a budget?”
“I thought this was your treat,” he replied, mimicking her lash-fluttering innocence gambit.
She snorted. “Nicely played. Fine, I’ll see what I can afford.”
“Nic,” he called after her, so she’d turn again. “Pick out the best. I’m not that poor.”
Flashing a wide smile, she bobbed a curtsy—quite the sight with her stocking-clad legs and boots under his shirt—and walked off with Vale, talking to the horse cheerfully about the merits of hot baths, lamenting that she didn’t have a good book to read while she soaked in one.
Missing her vivid presence already, he turned to the approaching harbormaster, hoping it wouldn’t cost him anything to rid himself of the barge.
