Page 17 of The Witch & the Grizzly

“Alright then. Be careful, as I’m low on some of the ingredients, especially the blood willow. Those are not fun to harvest.”

An ingredient called blood willow did sound ominous. Without too much ceremony, Morgryn conjured up one of his silent, glimmering portals and stepped through it, leaving it open and blurry on this side. She examined it, a part of her curiosity about venturing into the fae realm herself, but she was smart enough to know that the fae realm would not be good for her in the long run.

Once more, she prepared the potion, mixing the ingredients in the precise order mentioned before pouring in a part of her essence. This time, she tapped into some darker feelings – ones that followed the dance of attraction and lust that she felt with Nathan and let it worm its way into the mixture. This time, the potion turned a shade of light red, almost pink, the color the book said it should be.

It took her forty more painstaking minutes, each time being precise, extracting a perfect measurement of her magic, until the fourth and final time, she infused the tincture and sealed the vial with a cork.

The liquid glowed on and off like a storm brewing in the vial before it took on a shimmering, golden hue, gold being evocative of human greed.

It was just what the doctor ordered. She grinned. Maybe her gold wasn’t quite the same shade shown in the book, but it definitely resembled it closely enough for her to be satisfied with the result.

“Okay, done.” She placed the vial on Morgryn’s desk. “Let’s see him complain about this.” She then thumbed through her phone messages, straight to the message she’d received earlier but didn’t look at it because she didn’t want to be distracted before she’d finished.

Nathan: Want to meet up by Bear Creek? It’s north of the academy. I can drive you there. It’s a beautiful place. Strong bear country, but it’ll be safe.

Eva: Count me in. When?

Nathan: Oh, hello. I wanted to say an hour… an hour ago. Ten minutes, then? If you’re free.

Eva: Ten minutes it is!

She made a mad dash to her dorm room to freshen up, then headed out twelve minutes later; Nathan brightened up when he saw her. However, she couldn’t help but notice that quite a few people were staring at Nathan. Women and men, some with naked lust in their eyes. He saw her noticing, and his smile thinned as she approached.

“Yeah. It happens a lot.”

“Jesus,” she whispered to him, “how can you stand it?”

“You get used to it, believe me,” he said, walking ahead and grasping her hand to pull her along with him. The fact that they were holding hands seemed to make no difference to those who stared. “I think once you’re aware of what’s going on, it’s easier to understand and handle.”

“Yeah, I think so,” she said, following him to his vehicle, parked just outside the academy gates next to visitor’s cars. He drove a white Volkswagen, roomy and modern. “I mean, I can still feel the effect you have on me, but I’m able to think a bit more critically about it.”

Although she didn’t really want to think critically at all, after her heated little “session” the night they’d met, she may have had a couple more like it. She vowed not to do it tonight, however. She wanted to let the heat build, to let the anticipation simmer within her like the potions she mixed. She had a feeling it might inspire her next potion. With any luck, she might be able to create a new, even better one to patent. While people before her had created sensory potions, their potions tended to focus on only one sense at a time. Hers neatly combined all of them and lasted much longer, which is why she was in a hurry to patent it.

She made herself comfortable in the front seat or the car, inhaling the polished fragrance of good leather, of chamois, and of the distinctive smell cars had when they were new or just well-maintained.

He drove them smoothly out and across the road. It was a thirty-minute journey to Bear Creek, and she savored the beauty of the scenery, of the strange glimmers of magic and normal world that overlapped, and some of the fae beings that lived there, unrelated to any of the court realms.

She felt a pang in her heart when they passed a patch of blackness, of rotting wood and dark ground, blighted by something foul as if there’d been an oil spill, except, she knew from the mission brief she’d been given, that this was a result of one too many deals the fae had made. It leached the life out of the land and made it barren. The foulness crept closer and closer to the academy, which is why they needed to sort this out before souls became restless, magic was lost, and reality unraveled, warping and all the laws of physics.

Nathan noticed the blighted land as well, and his gaze narrowed. “It sickens me, honestly, that there are beings that care so little. They just want to consume, to have a good life themselves without any regard for any life that might follow them. It’s short-sighted. It’s insanity.”

“At least not all of them feel that way.” Eva leaned her elbow against the window ledge. “We know of at least two. And this Greer person you spoke to is helping to gather more. They’re assembling a resistance, and we’re a direct part of it. Plus, I’m getting paid. You were right, by the way. I did have to ask. There was a bit of hemming and hawing, but I’m getting a nice wage now.”

“Good.” He fixed his eyes on the road. “Don’t let other people give you any less than you’re worth. That’s all that matters.”

“Do you think I’m worth more?” she asked coyly. He smiled, and his hands gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we? Right now, though, I just want to get away from the people who stare. It’s really distracting when I want to have a good conversation with you. Even in the coffee shop, I was at risk of being approached despite very clearly being with you.”

“Such a hard life,” she teased before getting serious. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay; I know you don’t mean it in a bad way,” he said, and they fell into an amiable silence, relaxing and listening to classical piano music.

It was not the type of music she usually went for, but it was… okay. Maybe she’d ask to pick a few tracks on the way back. Right now, she didn’t feel like she had the right to do that.

As they drove near a rushing, wide river, Bear Creek drifted into view. Nathan found a parking spot, and they clambered out of the car. She wondered if they were going to hike a bit, but he lifted the trunk lid and pulled out a picnic basket. He even had a red-and-white-checkered blanket on top.

Alright then. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

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