Witches' Waves (13 page)

“And that lovely bright red?” She had a feeling she knew the answer, but she asked anyway.

To her surprise, Deck sputtered and didn't answer. Kyle drew her a little closer, though, surrounding her in browns and cool gray blues, surrounding her in wiry, strong arms. “Deck has red magic.”

She blushed again.

It was one thing for Deck to have red magic in his aura. He was a Donovan witch. She'd listened in often enough when the agents around her thought she wasn't paying attention to know that it was one of the Donovan family's more common powers.

But if Kyle's aura was also streaked with red, that must mean he was aroused.

Very aroused.

And she was in his arms feeling rather excited herself.

From the way Deck was casually talking about what Kyle's aura looked like, he could probably see hers as well, red streaks and all.

She thought she heard a hitch in Deck's voice, like he was trying to catch his breath, though he said with breezy casualness, “This is awesome news. Literally awesome, as in I'm in awe that brains work this way. What about my grandmother? I know you had breakfast with her because she'd want to make sure you ate well before doing some heavy magical practice.”

“What about your grandmother, other than she's a sweet lady and makes a wonderful omelet?”

“Did you see her aura? Shades of pink, with some clear light blue?”

Meaghan screwed up her eyebrows. “No, I didn't. I feel clear, friendly energy from her, but I didn't see anything.” A suspicion struck her as she spoke. “Kyle, I need to try something. Would you let go of me?” She resisted adding “for a second”. Barely.

As she slipped out of Kyle's warm grasp, her world shifted back to its familiar nothingness, a visual void that properly speaking was neither darkness nor black since both imply the possibility of their opposite, and light and color were closed to her.
Had
been closed to her, and she thought she was used to it by now, but she'd seen something for a few minutes. Something 90 percent of the world couldn't perceive, sure, but something. It was hard to switch back to complete blindness. “Apparently,” she said, trying to piece together the puzzle, trying as well to sound sensible and calm in the face of emotional turmoil, “I see only
your
auras, and, except when Deck actually looped me into his magic, only when one of you is touching me.” She tried to cover the pain in her voice by asking what seemed like a logical question. “How will this affect my learning magic?”

“Guess we'll have to touch you a lot,” Deck teased. He added in a more serious tone, “Honestly, I'm not sure. If you can sense auras, it'll make it much easier for you to figure out the flow of magical energy. Even if it's only our auras, you can get used to the way the flow feels and pick it up more easily without witch-sight. I'm not sure if a completely blind witch develops something to compensate for not having full witch-sight. Sometime in Donovan history, we must have had a blind family member. I'll have to look into that.”

“And by ‘look into it', you mean you'll ask Paul.”

A brief scuffle ensued between the two men, the kind that ended with the soft sound of kissing.

She tried not to feel wistful that she wasn't sharing those kisses.

They stole time for only a few kisses, though, before Deck returned and took her hand. “Time to get to work, beautiful.” She knew he was smiling by the music of his voice. As soon as he took her hand, she saw the wash of colors once more and they were more brilliant than before, confirming her suspicion that he was smiling. And he didn't let go of her hand as they walked.

Though it was easy to tell where the water was, she appreciated the guidance. Much as she relished the freedom to be outside, the outdoors was huge and cluttered with obstacles.

Deck kept squeezing her hand, though, which seemed more affectionate than practical. Kyle fell in on her other side.

“Don't tell me you're actually happy about working,” Kyle teased as Meaghan walked closer to the water with the two men. “Never thought I'd hear that, but you're grinning like you're looking at the best waves you've seen all season.”

“This is more like playing.” Deck squeezed her hand again. “Magic is fun. No,” he corrected himself, “not exactly fun, and sometimes it's scary, even painful. But it's what I was born to do—and what you were born to do as well, Meaghan—and when it's working, nothing could feel better.”

Daring greatly, she squeezed his hand back and asked as flirtatiously as she could manage, “Nothing?”

Kyle snorted, then took her free hand. Making a point, she suspected, but even if she was getting to be between the two hunks as part of setting boundaries in their own relationship, it was still fun.

Deck, though, confirmed, “Nothing. Not even surfing or sex. Though if you can figure out sex while surfing, that might beat magic.”

“That's easy,” Kyle said, and this time he squeezed Meaghan's hand.

“Not sex lying on a surfboard in calm water. Been there, done that. I mean sex while riding an actual wave.” Deck said it so calmly, but Meaghan clenched at the image. She'd never been on a surfboard, had only the vaguest idea what one was, but the idea of floating on the ocean having sex sounded extraordinary.

“Still easy if you're otterside. Wait…you don't actually have an otterside. I forget sometimes.” Kyle laughed. It always surprised Meaghan when he did. She'd never given much thought to what an otter dual would be like, but she'd always had the impression otters were playful, somewhat goofy animals. Kyle laughed less than Deck did, and his laugh had a melancholy undertone.

Then again, being a dual wasn't easy, for reasons she knew all too well. Probably he had a reason for his seriousness.

Meaghan was distracted from this line of thought by water splashing onto her bare feet. She squealed and jumped from surprise, making Deck laugh. By the second wave attack, though, it felt good. Cold, of course, but good, and the cold was tempered by a surge of wild energy that made her smile. Wild,
friendly
energy. “It likes me!” she couldn't help exclaiming. “The ocean likes me!” Breaking away from the men, she took two steps forward into the shallow water and was rewarded by a wave that wet her halfway up the thigh.

“Easy there.” Deck put his hand on her shoulder. “The Pacific senses your magic, but remember when it tried to say hello before. It doesn't understand about human bodies, or maybe it doesn't care.”

“How could it understand? Not like it has a brain.”

“The oceans have consciousness of a sort. Lakes and rivers too, at least the larger ones. But never forget it's not a human consciousness, or any other species you've dealt with. The ocean is immortal, and it's not exactly sentient, but it knows everything that touches it or any other living water on this planet, and how it connects to everything else, in ways that mortal brains can't grasp without ending up in a little padded room. And sooner or later, everything touches water.”

She shivered, and not from chill. Best not to get too relaxed with the ocean, even though she was convinced it kept her alive when she tried to drown herself. Maybe it had even carried her to Kyle on purpose.

But if it had, it had been for the ocean's incomprehensible purpose and only incidentally to save her life. Which led to another question. “It feels like my magic and the ocean want to become one. I imagine that if I let it happen too fully or too suddenly, it would overwhelm me even worse than when I almost drowned on land. But if I can't figure how to let it happen at all, it'll handicap me. Right?”

Deck swore in Gaelic, but without rancor in his tone. “You're good,” he said. “Scary good. It took me forever to figure that out, with the best teachers trying to help me see it.”

“You must be a better teacher than they were.”

He snorted. “I haven't even started teaching you yet. We'll see what you think by the end of the day.”

He'd already started teaching her, Meaghan wanted to say, with the stories he'd told and the way the ocean—and earth and lightning, now that she knew what the other presences in him were—was integrated so closely into his being. But that clearly wasn't what he meant, so she didn't argue.

“The first lesson is how to center and ground. You must already know how to do it instinctively or the visions would be even worse for you.”

She nodded. “Is that what I'm doing when I do the deep breathing and imagine myself somewhere safe and warm?”

She heard Deck clapping. “Pretty much exactly. But there are ways to do it that work with your affinity to water. Makes it quicker and more reliable. Plus, anytime you get to connect with water, even in a small, simple way, it'll feel really good. The first thing you do…”

He proceeded to explain and to demonstrate, then to work through it with her. And he was right. It was easier to center when she used the thought of water buoying her up and washing away her worries, easier to ground when she connected to water rather than trying to connect with the earth or her own breath.

After she felt confident she knew how to ground and could do it on her own, Deck moved on to working on her shields. That was bruising work, even with the ocean on her side, but Deck proved to be a surprising hard-ass when it came to teaching, making her tear down and rebuild her shields over and over until suddenly—

“It's not hard anymore!” she exclaimed.

“Good! Now we can get started on the fun stuff. Shields up, ground and center, and then I'll teach you your first spell. It will help you sense the pattern of the currents near shore. I'll teach you the English first and then the Gaelic.”

“Maybe you should just stick to the English. I don't speak Gaelic and I don't want to mess anything up by mistake.”

“Not many people speak Gaelic these days and that's kind of the point. The Donovans all know some Gaelic, and part of the family still lives in the Gaeltacht, the Gaelic-speaking part of Ireland, but even my Irish cousins speak English most of the time. For witches, though, a language you only sort of understand can work best.”

“How come?”

She could tell Deck thought carefully before he spoke. “Witch magic isn't word magic, not like sorcery. It comes from your spirit and your connection to nature, and the words are a tool to build the connection. You can cast a spell without knowing what the words mean if you know the intent and use the words as a tool for focusing. In theory, anyway. Sometimes I feel less dorky chanting something in my own language.”

He gave her the spell in English first—simple, powerful words. Then he repeated them in Gaelic.

She'd been worried she wouldn't be able to remember them, but they shivered their way into her brain.

She would have known their meaning even if Deck hadn't given her the translation.

She focused on the ocean and on the way its energy flowed inside her. Then, as best she could, she repeated the Gaelic words.

The world changed. She couldn't imagine how it would be for a sighted person, someone who experienced the witch-sight Deck talked about. For her, it was both subtle and dramatic. Quietly and gradually, the currents began to make sense to her, forming a pattern in her brain. It came across as sound and a weird tactile sensation without a referent. She
knew
where the undertow was, knew where a colder current ran just below the surface, knew surface temperature versus temperature farther down. Her knowledge didn't extend far out, but just knowing all this information for the little cove was overwhelming.

And she knew there was an animal out in the waves. Correction: there were many animals, fish and invertebrates, for the most part, and some birds floating on the surface, but there was one that felt unique, yet very familiar. “Kyle's gone otterside! He's out there, but he feels different.”

Deck laughed. “You got it. I guess watching you learn to ground and shield wasn't a thrill a minute.” Large, gentle hands turned her slightly so she was once again facing directly into the spray. “Wave to him.”

“Will he recognize me when he's otterside?” Shaw used to swear up and down that an animalside dual was no more sentient than an ordinary animal would be. Then again, he was also convinced that wordside duals weren't as bright as humans either, which obviously wasn't true. There must be dumb duals, just like there were stupid humans, but she hadn't met any yet.

“The otterside knows everything the wordside does, but he knows it in a different way. He might not remember our names right now without really concentrating—he says the ocean washes away words—but he remembers every interaction he's ever had with you.”

As she waved, it occurred to her that this included seeing her naked in the shower the day he'd rescued her.

Deck laughed. “He waved back! Arched up in the water and
waved
. Good to know we were waving at the right otter. Not that we have wild otters on this part of the coast, but stranger things have happened around Donovans.”

She laughed at the sheer joy of the moment shared with Deck and, more distantly, Kyle. The warmth of the laugh started in Meaghan's low belly and spread out, filling her body. She'd been chilly in her wet jeans, though she suspected Deck had done something magical so it wasn't worse. Now she was more than warm enough. Heated, even. She flung her arms open wide and spun around.

And found herself stumbling into Deck. Into Deck's broad chest. Into Deck's arms, which closed around her.

Meaghan held herself stiff and still. Magic swirled around her, swirled
inside
her, and that made the contact with Deck that much more intense. She didn't dare dissipate the power, didn't dare use it. She just held her breath.

Deck moved. A whisper of air hinted he was bending his head down to meet hers. Maybe to kiss her. She held her breath, opened her mouth slightly.