Page 2 of Wooing the Wiccan (Elf Magic #1)

CHAPTER TWO

Raeulfr

“Say bye, Cecy,” Percy coaxes, his daughter perched comfortably on his hip while he sets an example by waving at me. Cecylia obediently waves.

“Bye-bye!” Then her eyes go wide as she realizes what that means, and her little face crumples. “Nooooooo. Stay here!”

Aww. “I wish I could, Cecy, but I have to go home now.” I probably shouldn’t have come in the first place, given the amount of work I brought home with me this weekend, but it’s hard to resist a visit to Here Be Dragons.

It’s so comfortable and welcoming here… though not really restful. Dragons never are.

But restful or not, I’m never lonely when I’m here, and unfortunately, loneliness has become too big a part of my life to pretend that doesn’t matter.

It’s ridiculous—I’m responsible for nearly two hundred thousand elves, for their safety and wellbeing and happiness, and I’m welcomed enthusiastically by them wherever I go, yet somehow, I’m still lonely.

Cecy sticks out her bottom lip in a stubborn pout. “Stay.” She pats my chest. “Dis new home.”

I chuckle, and Percy outright laughs. “How am I supposed to resist that?” I ask him, and, sensing weakness, Cecy reaches for me.

I step back, putting my hands behind me. That sweet little dragonet inherited a natural streak of manipulation ability, and learned to hone it from Brandt and Dustin. If I hold her, I’ll be a goner.

Her eyes fill with tears. “Rosh,” she whines piteously. It’s the closest she can get to pronouncing my name, and I never thought the sound would be so dear to me. “Stay, Rosh.” Her mouth trembles, and I waver.

“Oh, sweet one, I wish I could.” Maybe if I move?—

“Don’t let her guilt you, Raeulfr,” Percy warns. “You spent two hours playing blocks with her. It’s time for her nap, anyway.”

That’s clearly some kind of reverse magic word, because Cecy hisses and immediately shifts into her dragon form. Percy adjusts his hold on her without batting an eye—a far cry from the first time she did it.

“You still have to nap,” he tells her. She’s no longer baby pale, her coloring beginning to darken from almost white to the blue she’ll be as an adult. Brandt was sighing about that the other day.

“I’m going to leave you to fight this battle,” I say as Cecy gives a tiny growl. Percy taps her on the nose.

“None of that. We don’t growl at family just because we don’t like naps,” he chides, then turns his attention back to me.

“I sometimes can’t tell if I win this battle or not.

Safe travels home, and come see us again soon.

Cecy misses her Uncle Rosh.” His gentle smile is genuine, and not for the first time, I envy Brandt.

Not because of Percy, specifically, though Percy is wonderful, but because he has a loving, supportive partner and a family.

I lost the only family I had long ago, and it hurt, but there were thousands of others who needed me.

Now that we’re not on the brink of extinction—that they know of—they don’t need me quite so much.

I give Percy and Cecy another little wave and leave them in the sunroom at the back of the house, making my way to the kitchen, where my bodyguard for the day is sitting at the table, enjoying a cup of something—tea, probably, if I know the dragons—and gossip.

Dragons always have good gossip, probably because they create so much of it.

Niamh looks up when I enter and smiles. “Ready to go, sir?”

“Only when you are. Don’t abandon your drink before it’s finished.”

Kethe, who’s been looking after Brandt’s household for more years than I can remember—possibly more than I’ve been alive—chuckles fondly. “You’ve always been considerate.” She’s sitting opposite Niamh and reaches out to nudge a plate of cookies in my direction. “Have some.”

I take one—I’m not stupid, and Kethe’s one of the best cooks I’ve ever met, in this dimension or the one we came from.

“I’m ready, Your Majesty,” Niamh assures me, standing. “This is my third cuppa. The others will be so jealous they weren’t on duty today.”

I don’t say anything, but I’m grinning on the inside.

I’m well aware that being on duty when I come to visit Here Be Dragons is a perk for my security staff.

This is very likely the safest place in existence, thanks to Steffen, Brandt’s head of security and resident paranoid conspiracy theorist. There’s really no reason for me to need security here, except that it’s customary for me to go nowhere unguarded.

So whoever has bodyguard duty when I’m here gets to sit down with a snack and good company, relieved of any concern for my safety beyond Cecy accidentally scratching me with her needle-sharp little dragon claws. There are worse things.

We say our goodbyes to Kethe, and then Niamh opens a portal back to my two-story penthouse condo with the incredible roof garden that sometimes allows me to almost forget I’m in the middle of the city.

She does her usual check that nobody’s broken in, then asks if I need anything.

I don’t, of course, and she heads into the butler’s suite—because yes, this condo has a butler’s suite.

It was one of the reasons my security team liked it so much.

The room with an en suite bathroom and tiny kitchenette gives my bodyguard of the day some privacy and prevents me from feeling like I’m being watched all the time.

There are moments when I’m tempted to knock on the door and ask my guard to come and talk to me, but so far, I’ve resisted.

As nice as they all are, and as much as we get along, in the end, they’d still be talking to me because it’s their job.

It doesn’t have quite the same effect when I think of it that way.

I wander through the quiet rooms, up the stairs to the den and through the french windows into the garden. It really is an excellent garden, and I spend most of my time at home out here. I’m not made for city living. Even back on our homeworld, I chafed at the need to be in cities most of the time.

And then the anomalies began, and the cities slowly disappeared. Along with everything else.

Shaking off the gloomy thoughts, I sink to my knees in the soft grass beside a lemon tree. I’m not sure why, but I have a strong connection with lemon trees. The scent, maybe? Even when the fruit isn’t going, the leaves have such a fresh fragrance.

From far below, the faint hum of traffic flavors the air, and the scent of my lemon tree surrounds me.

This isn’t so bad. I have a good life here, and I kept more of my people alive than I thought would be possible.

Fifteen years ago, I was sure we’d all be dead by now. We’re not, and that’s a miracle.

The life force surrounds me, as if it knows I’m trying to cheer myself up, and for just a second, I forget how lonely I am.

“There’s just one more thing,” Caolan says, tapping the screen of his tablet. “We’ve had a request for you to attend a sporting event.”

I blink at him. “What?” Nobody told me our weekly briefing was going to include sports today.

He shrugs. “I don’t have much information. The PR team asked me to mention this to you. Apparently an elf has joined the management of a local team, and I guess they want to get more elves involved and think your patronage will help.”

That’s not unreasonable. “What’s the sport?”

Caolan shrugs. “No idea. I can ask PR to put together a briefing.”

“That’s probably the best path to take for now. Unless there’s a reason you can think of for me to outright refuse?”

Eoin, my head of security, makes a note. “Let me talk to PR directly and check whether we’d be able to make security arrangements. If that checks out, there’s no problem from my side.”

“Nor mine,” Caolan adds. “It might be good for you. In fact?—”

The knock on the door thankfully interrupts what I know was going to be a well-meaning lecture about needing to take more time for leisure. “Enter,” I call. We’re nearly done with this meeting anyway.

The door opens, and the woman who slips inside is one I’ve known for a long time.

If you need a problem solved, Caoimhe is the one to turn to.

Without her, it’s entirely likely we wouldn’t have survived long enough to migrate to Earth.

Now, she’s our liaison on the team working to restore balance to the life force here.

It’s a complicated project in which humans are being taught to use and embrace their innate magic skills without also learning that they’re not the only higher-intelligence species on this planet.

If she and the others fail, we’ll all slowly lose our abilities and the heritage of our species. I don’t envy her this task.

“Sorry to interrupt, Your Majesty,” she says. “I wondered if Caolan or Eoin was free for an hour at five?”

Caolan makes a face even as Eoin shakes his head. “Sorry, Caoimhe, we have a meeting with the combined security team at two that’s likely to last into the evening. It’s quarterly review time.”

I don’t envy them that task, either—Steffen Draco, Brandt’s head of security, is… exacting.

“Damn. It was a long shot, but I was hoping… Oh well.”

“What’s the problem?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “It’s not a disaster.

Pete, the human who’s been teaching some of our classes, has this month off because his wife just had their first child.

She’s the cutest little thing—did you know baby vampires are born with fangs?

They’re retracted and don’t descend until they’re older, but you can see the little teeth through their gums.”

“Aww,” Caolan says, and we all smile at each other, possibly looking foolish, but tiny babies who belong to other people are worth cooing over.

“Anyway,” Caoimhe says, “we’ve been covering his classes, but someone called in sick today, and I can’t find anyone who can help. It has to be a magic-capable human, sorcerer, elf, or dragon—someone who can see at least some of what’s being done and step in to avert any disasters.”

“Hmm,” Caolan muses. “Maybe one of us could slip out of the meeting to take the class?”

Eoin looks at him incredulously. “Do you want to be the one to tell Steffen that there’s an unexpected situation where someone called in sick and now one of us needs to supervise humans using magic?”

Caoimhe grimaces. “Please don’t. I don’t have time to deal with an interrogation today.”

“I can do it.” I hear the words, but it takes me a moment to realize that I said them. I was thinking it was something I could probably handle, but I didn’t exactly plan to volunteer.

The three surprised faces I get are a little annoying, though.

“You can, sir?” Caoimhe asks, then coughs. “I mean, we couldn’t possibly bother you with this. I’ll just send the students a message that today’s class is cancelled.”

My hackles rise. “You’ll do no such thing.

I’ve been spellcasting for a long time, I’m free at five, and I’m perfectly capable of intervening if it seems like a human is going to set something on fire.

Do I need to teach them anything in particular?

” Human magic is slightly different from ours, so I’m not sure how effective I’d be at that.

She slowly shakes her head. “No-o… this group has been learning for a while, and mostly Pete just supervises them and encourages them to try something new. Noah put together a list of things they can experiment with that aren’t dangerous, and once each class masters the basic skills, they work through those. ” She hesitates. “Are you sure…?”

“Absolutely,” I declare. “After all, it will affect me just as much as anyone if humans fail to use magic. Leave it with me.” If nothing else, it’s another hour where I can feel a little less lonely.