Page 5 of Code Mages & Empty Pages (Frostfire #2)

Luc

I t was a long fucking week at the end of a long fucking month.

Dawn hadn’t been part of our team for long, but with her managing tickets our department slowly settled into a rhythm. I was getting used to her laughter echoing across the office and the way she brought the team together, knitting us all into something new.

By Friday, the rush of new projects and the usual small office disasters had left me more tired than I’d wanted to admit. Still, I found myself looking forward to coming in each morning, just to see what she’d say or do next.

Work was finally done for the week, and both Dawn and Desmond had left already.

Time for me to head home.

I shoved my laptop in my bag and headed for the exit. Balmy air greeted me. I stopped and inhaled the scent of the blooming trees that shaded the courtyard.

It had been unusually warm and dry for the last couple of years, nothing like the gloomy and wet Scottish summers I remembered from my childhood.

So strange.

I walked past the fountain topped with a bronze Selkie, a seal with a weirdly human face and water pouring from its mouth, flippers, and tail.

Desmond had made Hector and me cry with his reenactment of the unveiling, when Carson had almost tipped into the pool with excitement over introducing the sculptor to the staff.

The sky turned a dusky shade of blue as I parked in front of my house.

Its peace and quiet enveloped me when I stepped through the door.

It did me good after the buzz of the office.

I dropped my bag in the hallway and kicked off my shoes.

On the way into the kitchen I finally found a moment to check Mia’s message that had come in as I’d been driving home.

She’d set up a group chat a couple of days ago and added everyone: Dawn, Harper, her brother Aspen, Hector, and even the Grants.

I skimmed a string of updates about the knitting group and a reminder about game night at her place next week.

There was a message saying “don’t forget to relax this weekend, you workaholic” directed at me that made me huff out a laugh.

I tossed my phone onto the counter. I bet Dawn told her that I’d fixed her dashboard on my day off.

I grabbed a bottle of cider from the fridge, picked up my sleek, new smartphone again and took it to the living room with me.

For the first time all week, I allowed myself to relax.

I’d probably get online later. Chances were high that Hip or Dante were online.

Hip, our Bounty Hunter, practically lived online, and our Arcani, who I knew was at uni, was on whenever she didn’t have lectures.

Then I read through the last couple of messages that had come through.

Mia: Hi everyone, Des and I want to have a picnic in Kalon Gardens. Meet us Saturday at 2 on the field opposite the statue of that Dragoness?

Harper: Lovely idea, I’ll be there

Mason: Hec and I can make half two

Luc: Sure, see you tomorrow

The next morning, I dipped into my local Dwarfoods to grab a few things for the picnic that afternoon.

It was a beautiful day, and once again I wondered when exactly it had stopped raining so much in Scotland.

I remembered how miserable the weather had been in my childhood.

I huffed to myself. Probably climate change.

Des, Mia, and Harper lounged on a couple of blankets under the wide, sheltering branches of an enormous moss pear maple when I arrived.

“Luc, hi!” Mia called over with an enthusiastic wave as I approached them.

“Hey, guys.” I spread my own picnic blanket, not wanting to share someone else’s, and put the basket down. “I brought pasta salad and a bunch of other stuff. Help yourself.”

“Don’t miss out on Luc’s cooking,” Des advised Harper with a grin. “He should have been a chef.”

”I tried to be a chef and hated it,“ I reminded my cousin. After training as a sysadmin—the job my father found even less suitable for one of his offspring than studying Informatics like Hector had done—I’d jumped from job to job in my early twenties, desperately trying to find the one I enjoyed.

The job at the electricians was what I thought I’d do for the rest of my life.

That was until my Lupinian colleague had ruined it all.

I’d done my best to get him to stop being a cunt, but he was too well established in the company.

Instead of changing, he went to the boss and claimed I was out to get him, that I’d even threatened him with violence.

When the boss confronted me, I didn’t even bother denying it.

He told me not to come back the next day, and that was that.

Good fucking riddance.

I still felt guilty for not standing up to him more.

“I always knew you were a weakling, Lucien,” I heard my father scoff.

I was so lost in thought that I didn’t hear the newcomer until she stood right behind me. The moss under the tree must have muffled her footsteps.

“Hi.”

The conversation in my head stilled, as if her voice had pressed pause on my spiralling thoughts of the past.

I swallowed and turned, steeling myself for those dark, inquisitive eyes and the smile, warm as the morning sun caressing my fur.

“Hi, Luc.”

Hearing my name in her soft, gentle voice sent warmth curling through my chest.

“Hi.” I could only stare, mesmerised as dappled sunlight traced shifting patterns over her brown skin.

“Sit down! We have plenty of food. Hector and Mason will be here with more drinks in a bit,” Mia said as she consulted her watch. “And Aspen and Ed wanted to drop by, too. Aspen is my brother,” she added.

“Oh, crap.” Dawn’s eyes flitted from Desmond and Mia, to Harper, and me. “That’s what I wanted to grab from the hallway cabinet—my picnic blanket! Sorry, I…” Dawn’s voice trailed off and tears welled up in her eyes.

“Dawn, are you okay?” Harper jumped to her feet and threw an arm around her shoulders.

“Yeah, sorry.” She sniffed, dabbing at her face with the hem of her shirt. “It’s just been a morning.”

“You can share my blanket, if you want,” I blurted out as my eyes lingered on the glimpse of bare skin with faint silver lines and a tiny sliver of her black bra. You really need to stop staring!

“Oh, thanks, Luc. I really appreciate it.”

She settled at the very edge of my blue-and-green blanket. The flicker of annoyance I felt surprised me. Did she think she couldn’t take up space? Or was she just keeping a safe distance from me?

Did I do something wrong?

“I brought some snacks for all of us.” Dawn pulled a few stainless steel boxes out of her straw bag and spread them on the soft moss.

“Can I try these?” I asked, making sure I didn’t invade her personal space. The cookies in one of the tins looked delicious.

“Of course. I made them myself. They have raspberries and white chocolate in them. I found the recipe on a homesteading blog online. Thickets & Tea Cakes, it’s my favourite.” She broke off as if she was scared she would bore me.

How do I tell her it’s nice to listen to her?

I bit into one of the doughy cookies and groaned.

“Goddess, they are delicious.” I smacked my lips. “I’m a passable cook, but I’m useless at baking. You two amaze me.” I looked from her to Mia, who was also a fantastic baker, and back again.

“I’ll bring some to the office when I bake them next time.” Something in my chest unknotted at the cautious smile she gave me when she said it. I held onto her eyes for a long moment before snagging another cookie from the tin.

Just one more.

We alternated between snacking on what we’d brought, talking about everything and nothing, and just lounging in the late spring air.

About half an hour after Dawn arrived, Hector and Mason turned up with their arms full.

They brought a crate of craft beer and a cooler loaded with cider, lemonade, and water.

“Hey, little brother,” I called, getting up to greet Hec. We did the usual sort-of-a-hug side hug. Since Desmond had got together with Mia and Hector had Mace, both of them had become a lot more touchy-feely. To my surprise, it had rubbed off on me.

“By three minutes!” Hec snorted, bumping his fist against my shoulder before going to hug our cousin and Mia.

We all adored her, not just because she did Desmond good, but because Mia was such a lovely person.

I knew Hector and I agreed our lives were better with her in them. Mason gave me a quick hug too.

“How are you, BIL?” Mason asked with his usual tongue-in-cheek grin, capitalising on the nickname like it was a royal title. I snorted. Mace had been calling me BIL—his brother-in-law— since the day he put a ring on Hector, and he wasn’t going to stop now.

“Could you hand me a bottle of quince cider, baby?” Hec asked.

Mason’s cheeks flushed pink when Hector addressed him thus in front of all of us, and he rummaged in the cooler with an embarrassed grin on his face.

“Can I have one too, Mace?” I piped up.

“Sure!” he said, passing me a bottle.

I was doing my best to avoid temptation by sitting just close enough to Dawn to catch her scent, but far enough not to do anything stupid.

Ed and Aspen joined our group. Aspen’s sons weren’t with them.

“They are fifteen,” Aspen explained to the rest of the group when Mia inquired about her nephews.

He sketched quotation marks in the air to indicate that he quoted them.

“They don’t want to ‘hang out’ with us on a Saturday.

” He huffed as he leaned back against Ed, who wrapped a heavily tattooed arm around his waist.

Later in the afternoon, Mia, Aspen, and Dawn got up to grab some ice cream for all of us from the ice cream truck outside the park.

The mood shifted when Mia came back and sat beside me. She handed me my ice cream and gave me an upset look. “Dawn found some kind of fungus growing in her hallway cabinet,” she said. “She just told me and said it was okay if I told you. That’s why she’s been feeling so shitty.”

I watched Dawn settle back down on my blanket and was relieved to see she scooted over to take up about a third of it. She’d told me she felt off on her first day but had put it down to nerves.

“Oh, fuck. I’m sorry.” What else could I say?

“Thanks, Luc,” Dawn sniffed. For the first time in my life, I wanted to wrap an arm around someone to comfort them but I didn’t.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. I never had to deal with anything like this before.

” There was a stubborn set to her jaw that told me she wasn’t about to let anyone else swoop in and fix it for her.

She stared down at her hands in her lap.

Something about her quiet resolve pulled at me, and my gaze drifted lower, to where the loose fabric of her shorts had ridden up over her lush thighs.

Fuuuck. Bad wolf!

I tore my eyes away.

“Tell me more about the fungus.”

What Dawn described made me uneasy.

“You can’t stay in your house,” I said. “I’m not an expert, but that sounds like Greenleech.”

“That doesn’t sound reassuring.” She sounded dejected.

“Greenleech can be dangerous,” I told her. “I mean, there are a few other fungi that look similar, like Mintfilm or Willowmoss, but you won’t know until you get it tested.”

“Luc is right,” Mason said, suddenly serious. “You can’t stay where there’s Greenleech. We Pookas are pretty much indestructible, but Ed had that in his old flat. It wasn’t great.”

“Nope,” Ed agreed. “I felt nauseous all the time and had—”

“Headaches?” Dawn offered.

“The worst!” He grinned at her and licked some more strawberry ice cream from his cone, the barbell in his tongue catching the light.

All three Grants had tattoos, and Ed alone had more piercings than I’d ever seen on a person.

Somehow, it worked. They were all gorgeous, sprawled on their blankets like supermodels waiting for a photoshoot.

“You could stay on our couch,” Mia blurted, always wanting to fix things for others, even if it meant stretching her own boundaries.

But their house was too small for someone to stay more than a few days.

They still had two unfinished rooms, and Desmond and I wouldn’t be able to sort those out in a hurry.

If they argued or split up because of the stress, I’d never forgive myself.

And it wouldn’t be fair for Dawn not to have her own space.

“Nope,” I said, before Dawn could answer. Her head snapped up, eyes watery, and I felt like a world-class asshole.

“You can stay in my guest room until it’s fixed,” I said in a voice so soft I barely recognised it as my own.

Desmond was the one who broke the silence. “Say that again.” He, Mia, Dawn, and everyone else stared at me.

“What?” I shot back. “You’re still fixing up your cottage. A guest can stay on a couch for a day or two, no problem. This could take weeks to fix,” I said, looking right at Dawn.

And in the end, she agreed.