Page 9 of Out of Time (The Ice King Chronicles #3)

Ethan

Something was happening to me, and I had to find out what was it was.

I knew my magic was much more powerful than Finn’s, so if he had slipped me some kind of love potion—and I didn’t think that was possible even with a spell because of my wards and the candles not reacting to him—then a reverse potion that I could make for myself would easily do the trick to remove it.

After we’d made love and he’d crashed into sleep like a pole-axed steer, I’d gotten up and went downstairs to the kitchen to brew up a potion to see if I could be under some kind of spell. I kept a jug of rainwater collected during a thunderstorm under a full moon in the back of the refrigerator. I pulled it out, poured enough for a cup of it into a pan that I set it on the stove to boil. I added seven crushed Coriander seeds, along with a few drops of my own blood. When it came to a rolling boil, I strained it into a cup and said the words of a strong love spell over it—but backward. Then I drank it down and waited.

After an hour, nothing happened, but I still couldn’t be sure. I had to see him face to face. I had to be with him to be able to tell for sure. I went back up to the bedroom and sat beside him as he slept, murmuring a spell over him to give him sweet dreams and keep him sleeping. He whimpered once and turned restlessly onto his back as I gazed down at him.

His face was bathed in moonlight from the windows, and his long dark eyelashes lay on his creamy cheeks with a few tears caught up in them. A bad dream, perhaps? I caught one tear on my fingertip and tasted it. It was salty and bitter on my tongue. Before I could stop myself, I bent to kiss each eyelid and lick the tears away. I whispered the words of a spell that would ease him. Then I kissed his lips again...and again.

Those kisses only got me started. I moved down to his cute little nose and his cheeks and back to his luscious lips, and there I lingered a while. He moved restlessly under me and threw his sweet arms around my neck. Finally, I sighed and pushed his arms down and took the spell off him. I slipped back into bed beside him, gathering him close to hold him to my heart.

I had awakened a few hours later at my usual time, five a.m., when the light was still dim outside. Glori was sprawled across my queen-sized mattress, all tangled up in the sheets. I thought it safe to say he was a restless sleeper—he had literally pulled the bottom sheet off the bed and had one leg and foot wrapped up in it. His other leg was across my neck. His arms were outstretched and flung wide like the girl on that Titanic movie, when she says she’s flying. I patiently pulled his leg off my throat and rearranged him back up on the pillow beside me, untangling his foot and generally straightening him out, unable to resist a kiss on his lush mouth when he yawned widely and blew his morning breath in my face. Even that didn’t put me off, so I knew I had it bad for him.

Something he didn’t need to know. From what I knew of Fairies, that would only give him a leg up on me, and he could use the knowledge against me.

I sat down on the side of the bed, not wanting to leave him, dreading it, though knowing I had to soon. I’d have just enough time now to take a shower and make myself some badly needed coffee. And, as I had since the moment I first laid eyes on him, I began to think hard about just what the hell could be happening between us.

It felt like I was spellbound, but the potion I’d taken said otherwise. I couldn’t, for the life of me, seem to keep my mind or my hands off him, despite my best intentions. When I kissed him, the world seemed to fall away, and I could have spent hours just mapping out every inch of his beautiful body.

And still I wondered if I had somehow fallen victim to a love potion I just couldn’t detect. Some arcane, previously unknown to me Fairy concoction that was stronger than my own power to find it. Was that possible? I couldn’t remember any time he’d offered me a drink, or a time when I’d left something unattended around him, but he had undeniable magic. He could have put some kind of quick obfuscation spell on me.

From what I knew of love potions, it seemed to fit. Love potions were dangerous and compelling things, especially if made by someone with power. Then they became strong and nearly irrevocable unless another strong witch intervened. If, however, the victim were to be already in love, it wouldn’t work on them at all. And a potion could never bring about true love. But obsession? Jealousy? Infatuation? Absolutely.

What I was feeling for this annoying little Fairy prince felt dangerously like either true love or a love potion. It had come on me like a bolt from the blue, and it was turning me inside out. I couldn’t seem to stay away from him for long, and when I was near him, I had to be touching him. I thought of him constantly and felt extremely protective and possessive of him.

Those could be the symptoms of a potion—or true love—which was a whole other proposition. Not only was true love impossible to cause in someone, but it also couldn’t be stopped once it had already taken hold. Some witches said there was no magic more powerful in the universe and achieving true love in an unnatural way was impossible.

In contrast, a love potion didn’t work forever. And once it wore off or was taken off by the one who gave it, the feelings of love often rebounded violently and turned to something like hatred. What then were these crazy feelings I had for Glori? A love spell or something far, far more powerful?

I’d never felt true love myself, but I believed my grandfather must have felt it for my Fairy grandmother, I suspected it was why he’d never married after she left him or even had a relationship with another woman. He had raised my mother, loved her with everything he had and always provided for her. He even stuck around long enough to see me. But when I was a young boy, he’d quietly passed away from an undiagnosed heart condition. I always suspected that “condition” had been a broken heart.

I was afraid it had to be true love, damn it—the kind that lasted till the end of time. And maybe beyond that. The reverse potion I’d made was simple, but strong, and it would have worked otherwise. I lay next to him and slept—badly—until my alarm went off at five. I’d been sitting on the side of the bed, trying to convince myself to start moving when he woke up and began to berate me, going on and on about me having regrets.

“I even know what you’re going to say.” Then he mocked me in a simpering voice that same one that he thought sounded like me. “ It isn’t you. It’s me .”

I looked over my shoulder at him and smiled. I couldn’t resist teasing him.

“It isn’t me, actually. I’m pretty sure it is you.”

He balled up one of his fists to hit me, and I caught it in one hand and twisted it gently behind his back. Or maybe not so gently. I pulled him up to me and kissed him until he was breathless and making delicious little moaning sounds that seduced me back into bed beside him.

I pushed him onto his back so I could engulf his lovely prick in my mouth as he held onto my head and gasped and moaned. I may have pushed a finger or two up inside him to give his prostate an impromptu massage, but mostly I was trying to shut him up and put him back to sleep with another strong orgasm. I intended to begin right away with this Fairy, taking my grandfather’s advice to keep him too well-fucked to cause much trouble. It seemed to me to be an excellent solution.

It didn’t take long and soon he had come so hard he lost his breath and I had to pull him up and arrange him on the pillow. He was languishing there now, his chest heaving and his eyes already closing. It was almost too easy. I kissed him again, unable to resist and covered him up before I went to take a shower and get dressed. He was still snoring softly as I left.

My day started early at the store, which opened every morning except Sundays at nine o’clock. By the time I finished breakfast, put a plate of food for Finn on the counter and loaded the dishwasher, it was eight-thirty, so I went out to check the stock and turn on the cash register or point of sale system. Today was Saturday and I had decided to try Finn on the register and let the girls help customers, as it wasn’t his strong suit by a long shot. They could also be free to do readings.

Our readings were popular and accounted for a good deal of income. I told the girls to always carefully explain to customers that readings were for entertainment purposes only and to never try to sell them anything afterward. Sometimes they would suggest a candle for healing or whatever, but those were small and less than a dollar. They told them the brand didn’t matter—only the color—so they could purchase them at Walmart or anywhere else they preferred. Ingredients for real potions were only sold to a few witches in the area that I knew personally—so called white witches or Wiccans, who pretty much knew what they were doing. It wasn’t the same kind of magic as mine or Drogheda’s and certainly not the same as Finn’s, but it was power of a sort, and I respected it. The majority of my business was selling books on Magic and of course, selling souvenirs to tourists.

I had a degree in Business from Boston College, but I’d never pursued a Masters’ degree. From the time I started, I knew what was on every test the professors gave me, and the answers to every question. Not because I was that intelligent, but because the answers just appeared in my head. It seemed disingenuous to keep on, so I quit after getting my bachelor’s degree. I only went that far to please my parents and it still broke my dad’s heart. He’d wanted me to teach in college like he did, but I just didn’t have the passion for teaching.

Maybe Drogheda was right, and I was some kind of magical throwback.

Anyway, I enjoyed the shop and working with the Wiccans who frequented the place, but I still felt unsatisfied. Most of the time, I ignored the feeling. I enjoyed meeting the tourists that came through and interacting with them. I still Timeroamed occasionally, mostly because I had a real love of history. But now I had to wonder how Finn might fit into my life. If it were even possible.

Not that I had any intention of letting him go yet. Not until I found out for sure what was going on, that is. Besides, he’d never be truly happy here in Salem in what was not only the mortal world but his future. He was out of time and out of place, and I knew he’d miss his home after a while.

He was all Fairy, though, and I had to train at least some of that out of him so he would fit into this mortal world while he was here. I was sure he’d balk at having to obey my rules—even simple ones, like no turning people into frogs.

I was thinking about all of this as I got ready for the day, and I greeted Dee as she arrived. Marcy was running late, which was unusual, but I shrugged it off as no big deal. Everybody has a late morning from time to time. I’d been up late the night before myself, and I remembered that Macy had a date with her girlfriend Pat the night before.

I had been sensing Glori up and moving around for the last few minutes, so I yelled up the stairs to him to get a move on. Marcy arrived, out of breath and her cheeks flushed bright red.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, Ethan. I overslept. It won’t happen again.”

“It’s barely ten minutes, Darcy. Don’t worry about it.”

She blushed again and her shoulders sagged. “Thank you, Ethan. I appreciate it.”

“I’ve changed my mind about Finn,” I told her. “I’m going to put him on the register today, and I’ll be sticking close in case he has problems. If you and Dee could concentrate on readings and helping customers that would be great.”

“Of course.” She set off to the storeroom in back to put away her purse and change into what she called her “witchy” outfit, which was really just a long caftan and a head scarf, which she said reflected her West Indies heritage.

Dee was already out on the floor by this time, straightening up the t-shirt and sweatshirt stock. A few customers drifted in, and soon after that, Finn finally made an appearance. He came out to stand beside me, uncharacteristically quiet and subdued. He kept darting me nervous looks.

“Hello,” he said when I looked at him. “I’m sorry if I’m late. I-I overslept.”

I glanced around the store, saw no one watching and bent down to kiss his lips. He tasted like coffee and smelled like my shower gel and shampoo. I liked the idea of providing for him, and that gave me an instant erection. He looked shocked, so I turned determinedly away, adjusted myself and said, “It’s okay. Come on and let’s get started. Do you remember the lessons from yesterday?”

He nodded, but bit down on his bottom lip. I’d been hard on him yesterday, and a part of me regretted it, but there didn’t seem to be a middle ground for me when it came to him. At least not yet, though it was something I needed to work on.

I wanted to help him, but I refused to become a besotted fool, like the knights, and princes and kings in the poem my father read me. “Alone and palely loitering...haggard and so woebegone.” No, that was not for me. I was protected by my wards and would remain so until I had a handle on this thing. And until Glori’s curse was completely gone too. Then if he still cheated on me, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. I didn’t want to find out, though I suspected it would involve chastity devices with me having the only key.

If he felt the same way about me—if he was experiencing these feelings that were so much like true love too—then the curse should soon disappear on its own, if it hadn’t already. I planned to speak to him later that afternoon about what he was feeling exactly. And I still had to talk to him about that ill-wish he sent to the bartender.

Was it possible he didn’t know he’d done it? I had both felt the heaviness in the air and saw it like a black mist drifting from Glori’s direction and heading straight to the bartender. Yet he sounded shocked when I’d accused him of sending it.

There was definitely something going on with Glori, and I vowed to get to the bottom of it.

We got a little busy as a large family group came in, but with my help, Glori did amazingly well on the register. He was nervous and awkward and of course, a bit rude with the customers, but he was improving with each transaction. And when a nice-looking young college aged guy stepped up to the register to buy a book on herbs and potions, Glori never batted an eye, despite the young guy hitting on him pretty hard. I finally stepped in when he asked Glori what time he got off work.

“He’ll be busy,” I said, a little gruff around the edges. I put a proprietary hand on the back of his waist. “For the foreseeable future,” I added.

He glanced over at me and nodded, good natured about it. “Can’t blame a guy for trying, right?” he asked, giving me a wink and picking up his bag. “You’re a lucky man,” he said, and left.

“What did he mean by that?” Glori asked, looking up at me. “Why are you lucky?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” I told him. I peered down at him. “Are you wearing lip gloss?”

He touched his mouth and looked confused. “No, why?”

I shook my head at him, and those bee-stung, pink lips puffed out in a pout. “I’m not doing anything .”

I smiled at him. “Okay, calm down. It was just a question. Concentrate on the register, and don’t flirt, okay?”

“I didn’t. I…” He glanced up at me and shrugged. “It’s funny, but I barely noticed him until he said that.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way.” I went back to what I’d been doing, still keeping an eye out for everything he was doing.

Another large group came in, and Dee waved at me from a stack of men’s sweatshirts, so I went over to see if I could help. It looked like we were going to have a busy day. It was a few minutes later that a series of loud shouts suddenly started up from the sidewalk outside.

Alarmed, I rushed to the front door to see what was going on and saw a middle-aged man and woman hovering outside Pat’s candle shop next door, pointing up at an upstairs window that had smoke pouring out of it. The woman, who had gray hair streaked with pink and was wearing one of the soft conical hats every shop seemed to be selling these days was the one really freaking out, as her husband tried to calm her.

“Fire!” she was yelling, “Inside that store!”

I looked inside and sure enough I could see flames shooting up. Of course, I tried the door, but it was firmly locked.

“Yes, we already tried the door,” the man said. “They must be closed.”

I stood in front of it, dug out my cell phone and called for help, because I knew Pat had an upstairs apartment like I did. She could still be inside.

Of course, a big crowd was already beginning to gather, summoned by the woman’s screams, but I stood in the doorway and managed to keep everyone away, while trying to answer the 911 operator’s questions.

In another minute or two I began to hear sirens from the fire station located a half block down the street from our square.

The fire truck, along with Rescue was responding, both blowing their horns repeatedly for people to get out of the way. Soon a police car was coming as well. They pulled up right outside the shop, Pat’s Handmade Candles , and one of the cops and some of the firemen began pushing people back so police could enter.

There was a lot of commotion as they had to break the glass on the front door to enter, but before long, the firemen emerged, one of them carrying an unconscious Pat over his shoulder. I stayed out of their way, until I was sure she was still breathing. She was suffering from smoke inhalation and had been found upstairs in her apartment over her shop, as I’d feared. Thank goodness for the early shoppers who had noticed the smoke coming from the window. Not only would Pat have lost her life, but her business would have gone up too, possibly igniting a huge fire that might have taken out most of the shops on the block.

Marcy was eager to follow the ambulance to the hospital, so I told her to take the rest of the day and trailed back inside my store. We were really busy for a while after that, as all the excitement had drawn a mob of people to rubberneck. It was a long day, and I hadn’t seen much of Glori, and he kept himself out of sight most of the day. Out of mischief too, I hoped.

After I’d tallied up the sales we’d had that day, and closed everything up, I went in search of Glori, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet since that morning when the screaming first started. I finally found him in the kitchen, eating a piece of chocolate cake right out of the box. Dee had brought the cake in for her birthday that morning. We were supposed to be having it later, after work, but Dee said she’d wait until Marcy could join us the next day.

Not one to let a minor detail like the fact it wasn’t his stop him, he had already finished off most of it, according to how much of the cake was missing and he’d apparently come back for more. The cake was topped with little sprinkles that were sticking to his lips along with the frosting. He turned to look at me with all that sugar coating his lips and his fingers messy with icing. “Oh, you’re back.”

I suppressed the fucking urge to lick the sugary icing from his lips and turned away. This was getting out of hand.

“Yes. I’ve closed the shop for the day. Is the cake good?”

“Not bad. I like these little squiggly things on top.”

“You realize that cake is Dee’s, right? She brought it in for her birthday, and we were all supposed to have some together.”

“Oh. Well, it’s almost gone now.”

“Yes, because you ate it.”

“Cake is for eating.”

“Not if it doesn’t belong to you.”

“Dee won’t mind if I went ahead and ate my piece.”

“But you should still have asked first. And your so-called ‘piece’ was most of the cake.”

He looked down at the ruin of crumbs and icing and began to try to mash what was left together. I stood watching him making a mess with his fingers and when he had chocolate icing up to his wrists, I finally stopped him. “Enough,” I said, and took the box over to the trash to throw it away.

“Tomorrow you’ll find Dee first thing and confess what you did. And you’ll buy her a new cake.”

“I don’t have any money for that.”

“I’ll loan you some and take it out of your first paycheck. No reason for Dee to suffer because I brought in a sociopath to work here.”

He frowned. “I don’t know what that is.”

“Never mind. I think it’s a good time to see if I can summon Drogheda. If not, I’ll just go after her.”

“Oh.” He fidgeted a little on his stool. “To...to take me back home?”

“No. Why? Did you still want to go home?”

“Do you want me to go home?”

“No,” I said firmly. “Stop it. We are not doing this again. Give me a straight answer. Now.”

He fiddled with his fork beside him on the table and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “No,” he replied sullenly. “I’d rather stay here with you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged and because I had things to do other than scoop him up and take him to my bed, I didn’t go over to him the way I wanted to. I really needed to get Drogheda here before this thing, whatever it was, got any worse between us.

“You think about it so you can answer me later, okay?” I told him softly and he nodded, still refusing to meet my gaze. I didn’t think there was a shy bone in his body, but he was looking a little wary.

I turned away to go back to my office, hoping for some privacy to do a summoning, when he spoke up again to stop me.

“Wait. I suppose Darcy is pretty upset about the ogre...I mean, about Pat’s fire.”

“She seemed to be, yes.”

“What happened exactly? Did she leave one of those candles burning?”

“I don’t know—the fire marshal will have to make that determination.”

“I wonder if someone set it deliberately, because they hate her? She’s not very nice, you know.”

I gave him an exasperated look. “What makes you think someone would do something like that?”

He opened his mouth eagerly to answer, saw my face and then snapped it closed again and shrugged. “Never mind,” he said.

Maybe he was learning a bit after all.

“I’m going to summon Drogheda. Stay out of trouble until I come find you again. Stop eating so much or you’ll be sick. And don’t go outside—there may still be some fire personnel on the scene or some media taking pictures.”

“What’s media?”

“Something you need to stay far away from.”