Page 20 of Demon Loved (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #5)

“Yes,” Belshegar managed. From what he’d been able to tell, Bree hadn’t said anything about him to her family — and why would she, when they were only casually seeing one another during these few days he was here in Jerome?

— so there was no reason in the world why her father would think of him as anything other than the man who’d been sketching the Victorian houses in the neighborhood as his own way of sightseeing.

Thinking he needed to elaborate, he went on, “I heard about the folk festival from someone at the Grand Hotel, so I thought I’d come down and check it out. ”

“You’re in for a treat,” the man said. Then he held out a hand, surprising Belshegar a little.

“I suppose I should have introduced myself earlier. I’m Levi McAllister.

And this” — he inclined his head toward the blonde woman who stood next to him, someone whose golden hair and clear blue eyes echoed her daughter’s — “is my wife Hayley. Our daughter is performing next.”

“Very nice to meet you,” Belshegar murmured, shaking the woman’s hand next. “And you must be very proud of your daughter.”

“Oh, we are,” Hayley McAllister said. She was tall and slender, like her daughter, and didn’t seem quite old enough to have a child in her mid-twenties. “Brianna doesn’t get the chance to play her original music very often, so we definitely didn’t want to miss this.”

And neither did Belshegar. Brianna’s voice was as beautiful as her face, and she was clearly a skilled guitar player, but he hoped when he heard her play her own songs, he might get to learn a bit more about her, to see past the public face she’d presented during this time while they were still getting acquainted.

A little rustle went through the crowd, and he looked away from the McAllisters to see Bree walking on stage, a twelve-string in her right hand and the other guitar in her left.

She leaned that one against a stand that had been placed there for that purpose, then lifted the twelve-string and slung it over one shoulder.

“Hello,” she said into the microphone, her voice carrying clearly across the crowd and out toward the rest of Jerome. “I’m Brianna McAllister. I’d like to play you a few of my songs.”

Everyone clapped, and Belshegar could sense how many of the men in the crowd seemed particularly attentive. Well, she was very beautiful, with her pale hair falling in mermaid ripples past her shoulders and the full skirt and tank top she wore hinting at her form without obviously flaunting it.

The first song was livelier than he’d expected, with a sort of rhythm that made him think of water rushing through a creek full after a summer storm.

Around him, the crowd seemed to fall into the spell of the music, clapping along and tapping toes, all while her voice carried clear and strong above it all, speaking of dusty roads that needed to be traveled and a longing for a life that might exist far beyond the small town where she’d grown up.

Was that truly how she felt? Was she constrained by her life as a witch, made restless by a need to see something more than this one small corner of Arizona?

Perhaps. He hadn’t encountered such sentiments in Elena, but then, she’d been so happy to be set free from the house that had been her prison, she had thought Santa Fe on its own was more than enough to keep her happy, let alone the entirety of New Mexico.

But you are free, Brianna, he thought then. Free in the love of the people who surround you.

It was an odd thought to emerge from the mind of a being who could go anywhere and do almost anything.

And yet, even though he’d been given that freedom, he knew he hadn’t done much with it.

No, he had been content to stay at home and tend his gardens.

Somehow he’d known that seeing more of the universe wouldn’t change the emptiness he carried inside.

He hadn’t felt empty the past couple of days, however. Even when he hadn’t been around Brianna McAllister, it had still seemed as though he carried something of her within him.

The song ended, replaced by another, slower, one that talked about the simple beauties found in the everyday, whether it was watching the sun rise or lying in the tall grass and breathing in as clouds passed by overhead.

Once again, Belshegar was struck by the way she could capture the essence of those moments in just a few words and a few carefully chosen chords.

Around him, the crowd had fallen mostly silent, listening carefully rather than chatting or texting or one of a hundred different things humans did to distract themselves when their minds or their hearts weren’t fully engaged.

This, he thought, was true magic, even though he could tell it had nothing to do with whatever gifts Brianna might have inherited from her parents.

No, this was all her.

The set went on, with songs sometimes faster and sometimes slower.

From time to time, she would put down the twelve-string and pick up the six-string and stay with it for a song or two.

As the set wound down, though, she reached for the twelve-string again and settled it in her lap, causing some of the silver sequins on her skirt to sparkle like little stars.

Her expression grew almost melancholy, and she bent her head toward the strings, a few locks of golden hair falling forward to obscure her lovely features.

And then she sang again.

Midnight roads stretch endlessly

The horizon keeps its secrets from me

I’m walking through valleys deep and wide

With mountains of questions I keep inside

The ache in her voice was so pure, so true, that a similar ache awoke in Belshegar’s breast, one he wasn’t sure he could ever explain. Once again, he wanted to take her in his arms…only this time, he thought it was more to soothe himself than to comfort her.

I’ve painted dreams in crimson and gold

Of worlds beyond what these eyes can hold

Standing at the edge of what I know

Feeling the pull of where I might go

Yes, now he could feel it, that desire to go beyond the constraints of the world she lived in. Some might have said she was a lucky woman, blessed with brains and beauty and the voice of an angel, but still, she couldn’t do whatever she liked.

She would always have to keep the truth of her soul, her spirit, hidden from most of the people she met.

Except for times like now, when she allowed just a little of it to slip out.

And then she slowed, shifting into another minor key as she echoed the chorus one last time.

There’s a distance in my soul

That no map could ever show

Like shadows between stars

So close, yet so far

So close, yet so far….

The song ended there, the final chord drifting off into utter silence. All around him, the people in the crowd stood quietly, as if they weren’t sure what to do next.

But then someone started clapping, and another, and the applause turned thunderous, echoing off the buildings across the way and the tall retaining wall that kept the street above from sliding down into the park. Belshegar clapped as well, clapped until his palms began to hurt.

Pain. It was such a human thing.

In that moment, he would have given anything to be human, to be one with the people in the crowd all around him.

A few feet away, Brianna’s mother was wiping tears from her eyes.

“How does she know?” she asked. Her voice was only a little more than a whisper, the words intended for her husband and no one else, and yet Belshegar was still able to hear them well enough.

“How does she know what it feels like for us?”

“Because she’s a poet,” Levi McAllister replied in equally low tones. “Along with so many other things.”

Then Levi looked over at Belshegar, and his expression shifted, becoming one that seemed far more public, friendly and open. “What did you think?”

“I think she was amazing,” he said honestly, and Levi smiled.

“We think that, too.”

Up on the stage, Brianna was making awkward little half-bows, as if she knew she needed to acknowledge the adulation from the crowd even while being horribly embarrassed by it.

After a minute or so, however, she made her escape, fleeing with her twelve-string in hand.

A few seconds later, the woman who had been watching the musicians’ equipment came up to retrieve the six-string Bree had left behind, shot a brilliant smile at the audience, and then hurried off again.

Belshegar had no idea who had been scheduled to follow her, and he rather pitied them in that moment. He might not have been human or understood all the subtle nuances of their interactions, but even he realized that appearing after such a scintillating performance must be trying, to say the least.

He and Brianna had exchanged phone numbers at the end of their second date, so he thought he would leave the park and go to the Vino Zona tasting room not too far from her apartment and see if she would like to meet him there.

That was just far enough away from the park where the festival was being held that it would allow her a bit of separation.

So he murmured a goodbye to her parents and made his way through the crowd to the sidewalk, then walked to the end of the street and continued his way down the hill. This part of town wasn’t nearly as flush with visitors, probably because so many of them were in the park, listening to the music.

In fact, he was the only one in the tasting room, and after he told the woman who was tending the place that he was going to check and see if his friend wanted to meet him there, she nodded and headed toward the back of the space, allowing him some privacy.

He got out his phone.

I’m at Vino Zona. Would you like me to buy you a drink?

The seconds ticked by with no response. Perhaps Brianna’s parents had scooped her up and taken her out for a congratulatory treat, or perhaps she was so thronged by admirers that she hadn’t even had a chance to look at her phone.

But then his cell phone chimed, and he let out a breath of relief.

You have no idea how much. I’ll be there in a few.

He smiled and turned toward the woman who worked at the tasting room.

“My friend will be here shortly.”