Page 25 of Wooing the Wiccan (Elf Magic #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

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I try not to hold my breath while I wait for Jared’s reply. The smile that spreads slowly across his face is exactly what I wanted to see.

“That’s a great idea. We’ll also talk about limitations, won’t we? Things you can’t do right now because of your job, but that might be on the table for later? And vice versa.”

The way he so clearly understands my situation makes me a little dizzy.

All the fear that was swamping me earlier is gone, replaced by a low-key buzz of excitement.

I don’t know yet how things are going to work out for us, but the fact that Jared wants it to makes me so wildly happy in a way I haven’t been since ásta died.

Before, even—those last years we were together were plagued by the anomalies.

Now, my people are safe and I have someone to love. I’m giddy with joy.

“The first limitation is my security team,” I say, writing that down. “I’m sorry, but we’re stuck with them.”

“Hmm.” Jared’s brows draw together while he thinks about that.

“We’re better off spending more time here, then.

There’s not a lot of room at my place for them to hang around, and it’s not fair to make them sit outside like they have been.

Even if I do kind of like the idea of Eoin being uncomfortable,” he adds with a chuckle.

I snort. “You’re not the only person to like that. You’ll have to meet Dáithí. He and Eoin are sort of dating, and he lives to drive Eoin nuts.”

“I like him already.” He leans against me. “I guess I should meet the rest of the security team too. Do they all hate me as much as Niamh and Eoin?”

“None of them hate you,” I insist. “They were worried that I was being impulsive, and they didn’t like the secrecy and risks, but I’ve been told they all like you, personally. Just not the situation. Ari—he was there when we first met—Ari thinks you’ll be good for me.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Not so glad that you were taking risks.”

“To be with you! I?—”

His laugh cuts me off. He’s teasing me, and I love it.

“Maybe I can convert the attic at my place into a space for your guards,” he muses. “Not that it isn’t nice here, but there’ll be times I’ll want to be at home, and it would be nice if you could still come over.”

“We can look into that. There’s no rush, though. They’ve all been crafting spells for warmth and comfort for a long time, and it’s practically second nature now.”

“A long time, huh?”

I glance sideways at his thoughtful expression. “Yes.”

“Longer than I’ve been alive?”

Ah. That’s where this is going. I lay the notepad and pen in my lap. “All but one have been doing it for longer than recorded human history.”

He blows out a breath, staring straight ahead. “Wow. That’s… a long time.”

I nudge him with my shoulder. “Ask me, Jared.”

Biting his lip, he shakes his head, then says very fast, “How old are you?”

Steadily, I reply, “In Earth years, almost nineteen thousand.”

His whole body jerks, then goes very still. “That’s… I don’t even know how to get my head around that number.”

I should have planned better for this conversation. “Is it a problem for you?”

“No. Maybe. No, it’s not. Hearing the exact number was a shock,” he admits. “It’s a lot. But I’ve already thought about this. Noah and the others said I should be thinking ‘thousand’ for your age, and I asked myself if I could handle being with a guy who was a thousand years old.”

I’m a lot older than that, but I don’t think now is the time to point that out. “And you decided you could?”

“Yeah. It’s not like if I was dating an eighty-year-old human, who was entering into the late stage of their life. You choose your mortality, the same as I will when I learn how.”

My heart sings at the news that he’s already planning to prolong his life.

“Sure, you’ve got a lot more experience than me, and you’ve seen a lot more, but that doesn’t always have to be specific to age.

I’m not an immature kid. I understand what I want from my life.

I’ve been in relationships and know how interpersonal stuff works.

I don’t think you being older than me is going to be a dominant part of our relationship. ”

“I certainly don’t plan to make it one,” I agree.

“Just one thing—no, two things.”

“As many things as you like.” I’d give him anything he wanted to see that smile flash at me.

“Did you ever come to Earth before the species wars?”

That’s an easy one. “Yes, often. We enjoyed visiting here. I didn’t get to spend much time here after I was invested, but before then, it was our favorite vacation spot.”

“That leads into my next question—though I’m going to ask about a million later about what Earth was like back then.”

“Anything, anytime,” I promise.

“The ‘we’ you mentioned—was that a long-term partner? Because I can’t imagine you’ve lived nineteen thousand years without being in a serious relationship.”

That’s a question I should have expected, but I didn’t. I’m not sure why, but I’m unprepared to answer it.

He deserves something, though—and I won’t ever deny how important ásta was to me.

“Yes,” I say finally. “ásta and I were married for five thousand years, and together for a thousand years before that. We both loved coming here, and in the two thousand or so years that we were together before I was invested, we came often. At one point I think we were visiting once a year. She was always so delighted by the fact that grass is green here.”

Jared does a double take. “What other color— That’s not important right now.” I can see that he’s mentally filing the fact away to ask about another time, though. “Do you mind if I ask about her? ásta?”

Smiling, I shake my head. “I don’t mind. It’s been a long time since she died. We lost her to one of the anomalies. Has anyone explained about the anomalies and what they did?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “It must have been terrifying to live through. I’m so sorry for everything—everyone—you lost.” He puts a hand on my thigh, right beside the notepad, and gives me a gentle squeeze. “I wasn’t there, but I still know you did an amazing job leading your people through it.”

The chuckle that escapes me is born of surprise, though that’s quickly followed by gratitude.

He might not have been there, but it’s still nice to have someone reassure me that I didn’t fuck everything up.

“Thank you. For a while, I worried that none of us would survive, and I felt… guilty.” I’ve never said this out loud to anyone before, and I hear the words as if from a distance.

“I made the decision to close the dimensional portals during the species wars, and I made the decision to keep them closed afterward, when it was clear that humanity was still volatile and that visiting Earth could be risky. It’s because the dimensional portals were banned that experimentation with temporal portals?—”

“Okay, yeah, I’m going to stop you there,” he interrupts, his tone gentle but very firm.

“The person who made the decision to fuck around with time and then keep on doing it even after the consequences were discovered is the only person to blame for everything that happened after. Guilt is one of those messed-up emotions that doesn’t always respond to logic, but you were absolved of any responsibility the second that asshat learned that tem-temporal portals were causing the anomalies and kept opening them anyway.

” He shakes his head. “Temporal portals. I never thought those were words I’d use in a sentence.

Not unless it was about a sci-fi movie.”

His words soothe the hurt I’ve been carrying for millennia, but I can’t help smiling at his disbelief. “Stick with me, and I’ll have you using words in all kinds of weird sentences.” I hesitate. “If you wanted, I could teach you my native language.”

“Your…” Jared’s eyes widen. “Oh goddess, I never thought of that. Of course beings from another dimension wouldn’t speak English! You even have an accent… But your English is so perfect.”

“Thank you. We used a translator spell to help for the first few years, until English became second nature. But many of us still like to use our own language when we’re alone.”

“Translator spell,” he mouths, then, “Of course you do. And I’d be so honored if you’d help me learn it. Add that to the list of things I want.” He leans over to kiss my cheek. “But first, tell me about ásta.”

Sighing, I lean my head against his and think about my late wife.

“We met here on Earth, actually,” I say.

“It was her first time visiting, but I’d been here at least half a dozen times before, and that time I’d come specifically to see some friends I’d made the last time.

They suggested we go to another settlement for a festival, and ásta was there with her sister and brother-in-law.

The first time I saw her, she was casting spells to entertain some children—little tricks with moving lights and shadows, and her laugh caught my attention.

” I stop for a moment, lost in the memory of that moment.

“By the time we both went home, we were firmly infatuated with each other. Back then, I was… well, there’s not really an equivalent job here on Earth.

A horticulturist, I suppose, but on an ecosystem level.

My job called for me to travel a lot, and ásta came with me.

She was an archivist, so it fit well with her work.

Has anyone mentioned the living archive to you? ”

“No,” he murmurs, and with my ear so close to his mouth, the sound seems to vibrate through me.

“It’s something the elves and dragons developed—a kind of sentient memory. When any member of our species dies, their memories automatically upload to the living archive. Archivists have access to the memories of every elf and dragon who ever lived.”

His breath hitches. “That’s amazing .”

“We think so. ásta was so young to have been made an archivist, and we were all so proud of her. When I was invested, our lives changed a lot, but she saw it all as a challenge—a new perspective she could bring to her work.”

“She sounds pretty great. I wish I could have met her.”

I lift my head to meet his gaze. “She would have liked you. She always said that if she hadn’t become an archivist, she would have been a teacher. She thought giving children foundational knowledge and a love of learning was the most important thing we could do for them—other than loving them.”

The question is in his eyes even as he hesitates to ask it. “You two never had any kids?”

I shake my head. “No. We wanted to—planned to. But when you can choose how long to live, you always think you have more time. At first we were adventuring, and then after I was invested, we decided to wait until the life force released me from leadership.” I shrug. “The anomalies ended that plan.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Mustering a smile, I lay my hand over his where it rests on my leg. “We would still have been waiting. ásta devoted a great deal of time to working with children before we lost her, and I don’t think she regretted that.”

He turns his hand and laces his fingers through mine. “Is that something you still want? Children?”

It seems to be the night for me to be caught unprepared for questions.

“I… Not right now. My situation hasn’t changed—I would want to give my children more time and attention than I can spare while I’m king.

It wouldn’t be fair for them if the first thing they learned was duty—and it wouldn’t be fair to my people if I let myself be distracted from said duty.

” The words hang between us. “That’s not to say I think having a family would be?—”

“I know what you meant,” he says with a huff of laughter. “Kids need more attention than a partner does—a different kind of attention. They’re dependent on their parents for everything. So… not right now for kids, but maybe in the future?”

“If that’s something you’d want. It would need to be a mutual decision.” I’m suddenly conscious that we never talked about this before.

“Hmm. If you’d asked me last month, I would have said no. I’m in my forties, and I work with children every day. But now that my future looks so different—longer, for one—I’m open to considering it.”

I pick up the pen with my free hand and write that down on the notepad—along with teaching him Elvish. “Potential children to be discussed in the future,” I say out loud.

“Perfect. That does bring me to another question.”

“You can ask me anything.”

“What, if anything, would you need from me to support your work?”