Page 21 of Alpha's Magic

“Yes, I’m afraid so. I couldn’t cut it for a long time, and so it just grew. Maybe you have a barber in the village who could cut it for me.”

“Oh no, you shouldn’t do that without asking Asher first. That will be his decision.”

“Asher? But what does he have to do with my hair?”

“Well, he’s your Alpha. That’s what Lex told me in the note he sent me about you. Captain Larue brought it. Anyway, as your Alpha, Asher has the say over everything when it comes to you. Believe me, I had to learn that the hard way.” He threw back his head and laughed and it was so infectious I smiled a little too, though what he’d told me had been outrageous.

That little speech was astonishing, in fact, and I was totally at a loss as to what to say, though I wanted to say something cutting. He was so sweet, though, that I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by being rude. I also wanted to say that Asher was not the boss of me or anything to do with me, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it. I had liked Asher taking care of me, though I was still mad about the doll thing, so I simply said, “Oh,” and let him keep rattling on.

He hooked his arm in mine and drew me upstairs. “You must be so tired. I’ll take you to the room where Asher stays when he’s here and let you get some rest. I’ll send up some servants with hot bath water in the morning and you can sleep as long as you like. Does that sound all right?”

Since a bath sounded heavenly, I just nodded and let him take me to a big, beautifully furnished room upstairs. “This is the room Asher uses,” he said, throwing open the door and indicating a huge feather bed, and a roaring fire in the fireplace.

“Lie down and get some rest. I understand you rode all night. I’ve had the servants make up the fire for you, because I figured you’d be chilled.”

Indeed, the fire was popping and crackling away in the cavernous stone fireplace, making the room feel cozy and wonderful. Rory gave me a brief hug and then left me alone in the room, calling over his shoulder to be sure and let him know if I needed anything at all. I went over to the huge feather mattress and threw back the covers to see warming pans heating my sheets. I almost swooned. It had been a long time since I’d seen such luxury.

I practically tore off my clothes and climbed in, loving the feel of the soft, warm sheets on my skin. It was the last conscious thought I had before I allowed myself to sink so deeply into sleep that I never woke up before the next morning.

Chapter Eight

Asher

There were signs that the chimaera hadn’t moved on and may have made a den somewhere in the many caves known to exist in the mountains, with some of them not far from the pass. It would be safer for us if we could catch the creature outside its den, so we found a place to settle in and wait in the rocks overlooking the pass.

Once, hundreds of years earlier, before the crack-down on dark magic, when it was outlawed forever, Morovia was full of chimaera. Every wizard and warlock, it seemed, had one of the fearsome creatures to guard his house or his tower. The prototypes seemed to come from ancient pottery that depicted the monsters, who didn’t appear in Nature. Usually, the creatures resembled a female lion in the front, the fire-breathing head of a goat in the middle and a dragon in the back, with webbed wings and even sometimes a tail that ended in a snake’s head.

Ultimately, the design didn’t work too well, with the poor goat never getting enough to eat and always being malformed, but they were still fearsome creatures and deadly on top of that. Lex had mentioned it was a little cold for a chimaera, because they were cold blooded creatures themselves and needed to fly in the summer or late spring. Still, it wasn’t unheard of for them to be seen in late fall, as if they just couldn’t bear to give up getting out in the world and killing whatever they came across.

Even though the wizards designed them, they weren’t able to control them very well, and the things were their own creatures, doing whatever they liked. Very much like a cat, if a cat would just as soon kill you as look at you.

Finally, when they began killing their own makers in rather large numbers, as well as a good deal of the servants that took care of them, the king put a stop to it all by royal decree and ordered the extermination of all the chimaeras.

Some of the darker warlocks declined, and soldiers were sent along with the king’s priests to make them comply. Warlocks weren’t popular with the king, anyway, considered to be the most evil of the dark magic practitioners. They were usually necromancers. In other words, they trafficked with the dead and the demonic. They were outlaws and criminals and were thought of as deceivers and liars—in fact, the word “warlock” itself was derived from an old word that meant “oath breaker.”

Witches, on the other hand, like me or Lex, were generally more truthful and considered to have “good magic.” Witches were often called wise men or women who fought against the darker powers, defended the king and his armies, healed the sick and even helped the crops to grow. The powers belonging to both types of magic practitioners were believed to be passed down within families, but after the king outlawed the dark side, all signs of dark magic or warlockry were stamped out as soon as they appeared, on pain of death.

After the king’s decree, outlawing the chimaeras and dark magic altogether, the Warlock Wars raged in Morovia for the next ten years. Eventually, dark magic was mostly eradicated, though it still showed up in families from time to time.

If it appeared in an omega, then his or her Alpha father or husband had a duty to monitor them closely and either purge it from them or control it. They did so by binding their powers and teaching them the correct way to use magic, controlling every aspect of it. Lex did that now with his omega, Rory, though it was never a sure thing, and that was one reason he’d moved permanently to Igella. He wanted to give Rory more freedom to use his magic and be himself, without fear of reprisal or punishment from the authorities and priests if he made a miscalculation.

I wanted the same for Leo. I still had a great deal to learn about his magic and its nature. Until then, and until he learned to control it, and he learned to listen to me and be guided by me—he needed to be in a safe place. It wasn’t that Alphas were being harsh. If dark magic appeared in an Alpha or beta in Morovia, it was even more serious, and they could face banishment or even execution, depending on the nature of their crimes. If an omega’s Alpha was unable to control the dark magic of his charge, then the omega could be taken away and executed. That’s how critical the issue was and how vital it was that I take charge of Leo.

These were the thoughts that were buzzing in my head all morning as we waited in the mountain pass for the chimaera to make an appearance. I couldn’t get Leo off my mind, and I had decided I needed to formally claim him before I took him to Morovia to meet Harrison.

It was fast—perhaps way too fast, but it was the only way I would have any control over the situation when we arrived. I didn’t like the idea of having no say in what happened to Leo. In fact, I hated it. I felt strongly that he belonged to me.

It wasn’t that I was in love with Leo. Not exactly. There had hardly been time for that. But I had never been so strongly drawn to anyone before. He’d indicated that he might be interested in me too, so I was determined to speak to him about it when we returned. I’d told Lex as much on the way up to the mountains.

“Are you sure about this, Asher?” he’d asked. “Shouldn’t you try to get to know him better first?”

“I’m sure. How long did it take you to know about Rory?”

“That was different. I came to Igella specifically to marry him and to control his magic. You know that.”

“Yes, I do. I also know that if you hadn’t been attracted to him you would have found a way out of it. So I ask you again—how long did it take you to know you wanted Rory? Before you had to have him.”

“Not long, damn it. I knew it from the first time we met out on the ramparts of the castle. Love at first sight is not supposed to be real, but I don’t know how else to explain what I felt that night.”

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