The Magic Within Ch. 03

I grabbed my phone and scrolled through my contacts. "I have their number," I said, mostly to myself. There was a growing uneasiness spreading from the pit of my stomach.

"Call it." Rex's voice was cold.

I didn't want to, but I hit the green button before I could stop myself. We both heard the dial tone as it echoed in the silent room.

You don't have a family, Cara. He's right. I felt something crumble within me.

I dialed the number again. Disconnected.

Flames burned my ankles.

My fingers punched in the number a third time, and then a fourth. Disconnected.

Heat seared my face and my voice screamed soundlessly as I ran.

"I grew up in Boston." The words sounded wrong. Why did they sound wrong?

I was outside on my back, sweat soaking my shirt, sobbing.

"I...I have two brothers and a dog." It didn't feel right, saying it out loud. Something was very wrong.

A voice was speaking into my ear. Rex's voice.

No. Not Rex's voice. That was impossible.

"I went to Merrifield University." Awful emotions were welling up in me and I didn't understand where they came from. There was such grief and overpowering sadness.

"I studied Finance. When I was eight I fell off my bike and cut my hand open. My first grade teacher was Mrs. Kennedy." The memories were too brittle, too slippery. They didn't feel real anymore. My nose was running now, and I was openly crying, my shoulders shaking, hunching into myself.

"Fuck, Regis, what did you do?" Marabelle shouted. I heard her enter the living room. Slim arms encircled me. "It's going to be okay." I pushed her away, my face red and splotchy, but she persisted and stuck to me like a barnacle until I finally relented, leaning into her.

"It's going to be okay," Marabelle repeatedly firmly, her arms strong around me. "We're going to get your memories back."

At this, I lifted my head and shoved myself backwards, out of her grip. "No. I don't want them back," I said, unable to keep the fear out of my voice. "I don't have amnesia." Yeah. Keep saying it and maybe you'll believe it, Cara.

"You've been having odd dreams, right?" Marabella asked pointedly. "Weird ones that feel real?"

I gave a small shake of my head but it was more for me then for them, like I was trying to convince myself this wasn't happening.

"Those dreams are your old memories, Cara," Rex said. "They're coming back to you, in bits and pieces."

I stared at him, feeling like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole. My head was buzzing. "How do you know that?"

He chewed his lower lip, clearly unhappy. "Because you're leaking magic."

***

"I'm what?"

Marabelle got up to grab another pickle from the jar in the fridge.

"You're leaking magic," Rex repeated, his eyes closed. He rubbed them tiredly.

"Magic." My tongue wound around the word, disbelieving. "Like Sabrina the Teenage Witch magic? Harry Potter magic wands and potions?"

"Something like that," he said, amused. "When you lost your memories, the link to your magic was severed, too. But it must have healed over time, otherwise that tracer would never have been able to find you. It tracks magical energy, and you've been leaking for the last couple weeks."

"That's also probably why you've been having those dreams," Marabelle piped up from the kitchen. "Your memories are returning, along with your magic."

"They're not real," I said, afraid. I was certain by now that someone had died in that fire, and I didn't want to know who.

"I'm afraid they are," Rex said grimly. "We found you just in time, apparently. Another week and you'd probably be dead by tracer demon." He moved away into the living room and began to tidy up the coffee table, collecting empty plates and glasses, giving me space.

"We can help you regain your memories, or you can allow them to come back piecemeal, but in the meantime you need to learn how to temper your magic or you'll attract unwanted attention."

From who? More tracers? My head hurt. It wasn't a migraine, it was the pressure of one thousand thoughts and questions racing in circles inside my head. "Who would want to hurt me?"

"Demons. They hunt us. That tracer was just the beginning."

"Who is us? What am I?" I blinked, looking up at him.

"We don't really have a name." Rex looked tired now. There were dark circles beneath his eyes. "We've been called a lot of things. Angels, demons, fairies, sorcerers. You name it. Fact of the matter is, we are the link between what is above, and what lies below. Whatever that may be. I'm not even sure myself."

"And my family?" I whispered.

Rex didn't look at me. "That's not for me to say," he said gruffly.

Something inside me shriveled. Don't cry, Cara. Don't.

"It's late," Rex said, standing. "But it's important for you to learn some basic tempering before we turn in." The man was ruthless.

I shook my head, my joints hurting. "I'd like some sleep, first."

"Not yet. It's important that we do this right away." He stepped in front of me, blocking my path. I looked up, up past the wall of hard, muscled male torso, past the tick in his stubbled jawline, to those eyes I had once thought of as bottomless, now darkened with anger. Something in me went off.

"It's two in the morning," I snapped. "I didn't get any sleep last night, and I have work tomorrow!" I pushed past him but he took hold of my shoulder with one strong hand.

Now I was royally angry. "Let. Go. Of. Me." I shrugged him off and he relented without a word, even though he clearly had the advantage in height and weight. The man was a six foot plus wall of muscle.

"You need to learn this tonight," he insisted in a voice that was low and rough with fatigue. Clearly he was just as tired as I was.

"It can wait a day," I said, glaring at him. "And I am sleeping in my own bed!"

***

I stripped down to my underwear and brushed my teeth, even though I was tempted not to, staring at my pale chest in the bathroom mirror as I worked the toothbrush around my mouth. My skin was flawless, not a scar or redness to show for what I was sure had been flesh wounds left by the tracer demon in the park.

My mind was buzzing like I had gulped down shot after shot of espresso. It was the worse kind of feeling, reminding me of my college days pulling all-nighters with Red Bull and coffee. In a minute I'd probably get the shakes.

My muscles sighed with relief as I slipped into the cool sheets of my bed, but try as I might, I wasn't able to fall asleep. My heart was pounding a mile a minute, and I couldn't get my thoughts to quiet down. I lay there, suspended between wakefulness and dreaming, unable to cross the divide.

At some point, though, I must have drifted off, because I woke up to a pitch black room, burning up. My body was warm all over, as though it were a balmy Florida night. A look toward my window showed me it was open, the thin, gauzy curtains floating in the warm current of air that pushed through the screen. I didn't open that window again...did I?

There was the faint scent of hibiscus in the room. I hadn't smelled that in a long time. It reminded me of a trip Matt and I had taken to Hawaii two years ago. Our hotel room had one in a pot by the balcony. The flowers had been a bright, blood red. That trip had been one of my happiest memories of us together.

Gradually, I realized I wasn't alone. There was a body in bed next to me—a very large, very warm, and very male body, who at the moment was lazily running a palm down my ribs, over the swell of my hips, and along my thighs. I could feel the heat emanating from his massive chest and the hot length of his cock as it nuzzled against the crevice of my ass.

I knew him. Of course I did. He was safety, strength, and passion, and I had missed him terribly. I didn't care how he had found me, or how he had slipped into my room, only that I wanted him...badly.

My arousal hung heavy in the air like a drug. Smelling it, he murmured something unintelligible into my ear, his whiskers tickling the delicate skin of my neck, his voice impossibly deep, intoxicatingly sexy. I let out a happy groan and gently pushed myself back against his erection, a silent entreaty to nudge himself just a little bit further into the space between my thighs.

"You're a tease, aren't you?" His hand ran up the length of my body again, sending shivers down my spine. "I can tease, too. Here's a taste." He bit my earlobe and trailed light, tender kisses down the sensitive column of my neck. Below my hips, I felt the thick crown of his cock burrow between the juncture where my buttocks met my thighs, dipping into the wetness there. His touch was a brand of fire, awakening long-forgotten nerves.

He chuckled when I shuddered and busied himself with slicking his cockhead in my juices, muttering a soft curse when he realized how wet I had become. I was panting now, little gasps escaping my lips at the feel of him rubbing against my delicate folds. He ignored me and continued, laughing when I bit out a moan and tried to thrust myself backwards onto his dick. I had not spoken, but I was begging in every sense of the word, which seemed to please him to no end.

My body was on fire. I ached everywhere. The feeling suffused my entire being so that I was drunk with it, and all I could think of, all I could feel, were his arms around me like bands of steel, and that persistent, teasing pressure rubbing against my entrance, denying me my release.

He allowed me to slide my wet pussy against the column of his erection for some moments, not moving, just relishing the sensation. His breathing was quickening. I knew he was just as hungry as I was, although he was showing much better restraint. When I became too aggressive, he pulled back, leaving me with nothing.

I was close, so close. Each time I thought I would crest, he pulled me back down, eased himself back from my aching cunt, which by now had painted the backs of my thighs with glistening tracks of my arousal.

"Your pussy is such a delicious shade of pink right now," he murmured into my ear as I wept with frustration. His arms around me squeezed tight and there he was again, hard against my back. "Maybe next time I'll eat you out. My treat."

Slowly, slowly, he pushed into me. My inner muscles gripped his searing length desperately, trying to suck him in. I could feel my body struggle to accommodate him—I had never really gotten used to his size, even after all this time.

He heard the shuddering release of my breath as I moved against him, letting out a faint whimper as the angle brought forth a sizzle of feeling deep within my belly. "Such a tight little pussy," he breathed, thrusting into me freely now. He kept the pace slow and measured, knowing exactly how I liked it.

Pleasure built upon itself with each thrust of that magnificent cock, until I found myself teetering on the edge of oblivion. We were both slick with sweat now, the room heavy with the scent of our bodies. The sheet had been kicked away and it was just us fucking naked on my bed, the sheer window curtains waving softly in the breeze.

Every bit of my awareness was focused on my pussy as it eagerly took in his length, until at last, he managed to wring from me what I had struggled all night to reach. My body stiffened as I finally fell over the edge, my pussy tightening around him, milking him for all he was worth.

"Fuck!" He grabbed me by the hips and savagely yanked me back onto his cock, seating himself as far into me as he could. Still coming down from my first orgasm, I couldn't take the second one so soon, and shrieked in protest at the the intense bursts of pleasure that exploded within me every time he yanked me down onto him. He ignored my attempts to wriggle off him, of course, and continued to pump mercilessly into me, seeking his own pleasure, until we both collapsed.

I was dimly aware that he had gotten up, but I was too exhausted to turn around to look. My hair was matted to my face, my breath still coming and going shakily, the remnants of my climax dissipating through my system.

It was so quiet in the room. Had he left me? The moon shone brightly through the window, filling my room with a cool blue glow.

"Matt?" I moved to get up, but a palm pressed itself against my back.

"Shhh..." He brushed back the damp hair on my face and kissed my cheek.

I slept.