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“Mistakes like me.” I knew he was well meaning in his warning, but it hurt. It wasn’t a secret that my mom had multiple flings, some happening at the same time. I’d been the result of one of them. She’d never mentioned my father, and I wasn’t sure if she even knew which of the men had donated his DNA in my creation.
“You are not a mistake, Tessa.”
As discreetly as I could, I wiped at a tear which had escaped down my cheek. Nathaniel wouldn’t say more now. He always shut down when we talked about my mom in this regard. The fact that Nathaniel could very well be my father didn’t help these conversations. He and Mom had been on and off throughout most of their lives. Of course, I didn’t know if they’d been “on” during the time of my conception, and I wasn’t asking Nathaniel. It also didn’t help that I looked nothing like my father and everything like my mom.
Nothing else was said on the way back to the cabins, and it was a quiet hour. We were the first to arrive back at the Lanshay Compound, and Jeff parked in his usual spot on the far right. He was out of the car almost before he’d turned the engine off and opening my door before I’d even finished unbuckling my seatbelt.
He reached for me, and I pulled back. I didn’t want him to touch me, but he picked me up anyway.
“Let’s not ruin your dress or your shoes,” he murmured in my ear. “Besides, the snow is still cold.”
The warrior-healer continued on with no care to my opinion on the subject. Not wanting to touch him, I leaned away from his body as much as I could. It made for some difficult carrying, but I didn’t care. As long as he didn’t drop me. Then I would care.
Jeff put my feet down on his front porch and unlocked the door.
“I’m going to bed.” I didn’t wait for either of them to respond but went up the stairs and locked myself in Jeff’s room.
The dress still looked amazing, making me look beautiful, but the glamour of it was gone, the excitement diminished. It was Jeff’s fault, and I hated him for it. Not to mention, he’d stolen my first kiss, an amazing first kiss, and then tainted the memory.
Tears soaked my pillow after I’d changed and washed the makeup off my face. Nathaniel was right; I was nothing more than a child pretending to be an adult.
I’d forgotten to unlock the door, but somehow Jeff made it inside. I’d fallen asleep and rolled into him in the night. After the encounter, I made sure to stay on my side of the bed and fell back to sleep.
It was still dark outside when Jeff’s alarm started shrieking. The night hadn’t been long, and my mind dreaded the even longer day ahead of us.
Jeff made no move to turn it off, and I smacked him. My hand hit a body that was too soft to be the muscled form of the Elemental, even if he was under a blanket.
Sitting up, I turned on the lamp on my bedside table. Anger rose inside me again. Jeff wasn’t lying beside me, but his pillow was, acting the part of a person.
The alarm still blared, and I was the only person available to turn it off. How cruel of him.
I looked at the time. One o’clock in the morning.
After dismissing the alarm, I tried to open the phone to the alarm clock app. I wanted to bust the phone in half when I needed a passcode.
With a growl, I placed the phone back on his nightstand a little roughly. He’d had his joke, and it wasn’t funny.
It took a long time to fall back to sleep, but it was a deep sleep when I got there.
My temper flared when the shrieking began again and the sun was still not in the sky. The phone said it was two o’clock in the morning. How dare he!
By five o’clock I was ready to murder the Elemental. Bursting from the room, I didn’t see him waiting just outside the door on the balcony. Before I could grind my feet to a halt, my upper body was assaulted by a combination of water and pasta noodles—the long, thin kind.
His laughter created tunnel vision where I could see nothing else but him. I moved quickly with the magic already at my fingertips. My hand slammed into him and sent him over the railing of the balcony. His body crashing into the floor below cleared the angry haze covering my tired brain.
Oh. My. Gosh. What had I done? I’d hit him with death magic! I’d just killed him! I should have been elated, should have jumped for joy. Instead, dread filled the pit of my stomach. A life was now over. I’d worked for this moment all my life, and I’d succeeded. However, the Mindolin would now rise.
The thought sent me to my knees, gasping for air. Everyone would die. Millions upon millions of people. Harbor Witches, Vampires, Demons, Dark, Light, Neutrals, Elementals. Everyone. And it would be my fault.
Jeff was an Elemental. Maybe he’d somehow survived the magic and maybe, somehow, he’d survived the fall?
My feet raced down the stairs before I’d even finished the thought. The living room and kitchen were dark. The warrior-healer had fallen to the floor by the stairs to the basement. With the terrible lighting, I couldn’t see if he breathed, but I could tell he wasn’t conscious.
“Oh, no. Please be alive,” I begged him as I knelt at his side. His pulse beat under my finger, and I slumped forward to lay my head against the cool wood floor.
With legs that wobbled and hands that shook, I made my way to the kitchen to turn a light on. My eyes watered at the light, but that was okay.
Jeff was pale, and a hole was burned into his shirt where I’d touched him with my hand, the hand the death spell had been in. I wasn’t yet strong enough to send the spell across a space, but I could create it, something a Witch my age shouldn’t be able to do. Like Mom, though, I was powerful.
