Enchantment Emporium

“Yeah. I did. I hung onto the phone and I kept hoping Michael would call and we could talk. I couldn’t go running after him. I didn’t know what to say.”

“I’m sorry?”

“How could that be enough?”

Allie glanced over at Michael, but he seemed willing to let Brian do the talking. The bruised look had left his eyes, and he watched Brian as though he was the most amazing, impossible thing he’d ever seen. She wondered what had been said. Or, if in the heat of the moment, words had been unnecessary. Didn’t matter. Like she’d told the aunties, it was none of her business. It was between Brian and Michael. “If you hadn’t been there, if Michael hadn’t been in danger, I would never have…” She waved a hand because she wasn’t entirely certain language was up to what she’d done. What she and Graham had done. “But the question still remains, why were you there?”

Fingers laced through Michael’s, Brian shrugged. “I got a call from one of your aunties. She said Michael needed me. That I had to meet him at the summit of Nose Hill Park.” He chewed a little on his lower lip, as though trying to decide how much to add. “She didn’t mention anything about dragons,” he said at last.

“Yeah, well, they tend to edit.” Allie rubbed her hand along Graham’s thigh until he caught her fingers and gave them a warning squeeze. Even six hours later, the aftereffects were still wearing off, and it didn’t take much for need to take over. From the way both Michael and Brian were shifting, they seem to have gotten caught up in it, too. Or maybe that was just a normal result of their reunion. She didn’t want to speculate. Much. “You guys were set up.”

“On the hill?”

“On the hill,” Allie agreed, “because if Michael hadn’t been in danger, I might not have pushed that little bit further. But before that. In Vancouver. When Brian…”

Michael’s free hand rose and cut her off. “You’re saying the aunties arranged that?” His voice had dropped about half an octave into what Charlie had once labeled the danger zone.

“One of them, yeah.”

“Allie…”

“I’ll deal with it.”

“He looks like you, you know.”

Allie lifted herself up on one elbow and stared down at Graham. The darkness in the room was no longer able to put a barrier between them. Walls were barely a barrier. “Who?”

“Brian. Blond hair, gray eyes, little sprinkle of freckles.”

“Penis.”

Graham grinned. “I’m not saying there aren’t differences.”

“He’s a what?”

“A seventh son of a seventh son,” Auntie Jane told her, watching her with the same wariness all the aunties had exhibited for the last twenty-four hours. Allie figured it’d get old eventually, but for now she was definitely enjoying it. “You didn’t wonder about the strength of the attraction?”

Gale girls were attracted to power.

She squirmed around in Graham’s arms until she could look up at him. “Is this true?”

Graham looked a little confused. “Well, yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I spent the last thirteen years not thinking about my family, Allie. But yeah, I had six older brothers…” He shoved a hand into his pocket and Allie knew he was rolling the bullet. Jack had returned it, after he’d finished eating. “… and so did my father. But…”

“But nothing,” Auntie Christie snorted. “The mere fact you’re a seventh son of a seventh son is the only reason that stunt worked.”

Auntie Muriel’s knitting needles clicked an agreement. “Who ever heard of a non-Gale anchoring a ritual?”

Charlie had to have known, Allie realized. Charlie’d pushed them together on the hill. When Charlie got back from wherever Charlie had wandered off to, Charlie was going to have some explaining to do!

“Still…” Auntie Meredith took a thoughtful sip of coffee. “Just think what a seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son who is a Gale might be capable of.”

Gale girls had mostly daughters. Allie did the math. “No.”

“Does the mother matter?” Auntie Grace wondered. “Charlotte could always help.”

“I think it’s time you all went home,” Allie said more-or-less pleasantly.

Allie set the pile of folded clothes down on a rock, just inside the tree line and backed away as the stag pushed through the underbrush. He was enormous. Beautiful. Heartbreaking.

The air shimmered and David pulled on the jeans but left the rest. They looked wrong on him but Allie was grateful for the faked semblance of normalcy. He had a welt across one shoulder. Even in skin, his eyes were black rim to rim. His antlers had barely diminished with the change.

His skin was damp and hot where Allie touched it, his heartbeat slow and strong under the press of her fingers.

He closed his hand around hers, new callus already forming. “Feels strange,” he said, carefully forming each word. “But more control in time.”

“I know.” The aunties had explained that when Granddad was young, he’d spent as much or more time at the farm as in the wood.