Page 16 of My Blind Date is a Warlock

“Yes.” I placed the tray of refreshments on the black wrought iron table standing in the middle of the rows of plants and flowers. It had been Rita’s idea to drag it here from the kitchen porch because she and Charlotte wanted to have a tea party among the flowers. I’d left it in here for them ever since and often brought my guests out here as well.

Identical sets of blue-green ocean eyes stared at me—one set heavy with sleepy laziness and the other vibrant and alive in a way that stole my breath. I’d often thought that there was nothing sexier than a man with a baby in his arms, but there was something to be said for a drop-dead gorgeous man cradling an equally adorable tabby too.

“This is quite the setup you’ve got here. My grandmother would like it. I get the feeling that you two would get along like a house on fire. She spends most of her days in her greenhouse too, though it’s nothing as cozy as this,” he commented, dropping Chairman Meow gently to the ground and brushing his fingers against the dark burgundy petal of a black dragon hibiscus bloom before making his way to the table. “Did you construct this yourself or…”

“My dad and brother-in-law own a construction company. They supplied the materials at half the price and everyone helped in setting up this and my workshop as a graduation/welcome home gift,” I explained, a soft smile on my lips as I remembered the day they’d unveiled their gift to me.

Grabbing the handle of the glass teapot I used to brew the tea in, I poured a cup for Jacob and then one for myself in matching cups. My grandmother had the same set at the bookstore, and so did my mom and sister. Jacob held it up, a dubious expression on his face as he examined the deep red of the brew.

“I promise it’s not poisoned,” I teased when he kept sniffing at the tea instead of drinking it. To prove my point, I took a small sip, careful not to scald my tongue. Jacob did the same, made a noncommittal hum deep in his throat, and reached for a sandwich. Chairman Meow mewled, rubbing himself against Jacob’s legs before curling himself into a ball of fur at his feet and settling in for a nap. “You didn’t cast a spell on my cat, did you? I’ve never seen him take to a person so quickly,” I said, suspicion coloring my tone. His eyes twinkled with amusement, the movement of his shoulders fluid and languid when he gave me a nonchalant shrug.

“What can I say? Animals love me,” he said around a full mouth.

My smile died away when I remembered why we were here in the first place. I could have waited for him to finish eating first, but I could hardly get anything down my throat except for the tea. Best to just get it over and done with.

“I have no idea how to say this except to just rip the Band-Aid off,” I began, curling my hands around the porcelain teacup and rubbing the rim with both my index fingers.

Jacob sat up straighter in his chair, gulping down a huge bite of the chicken sandwich that he’d barely had any time to chew properly.

“I do not possess any magic. I am a witch in name only,” I confessed, my voice shaky and my pulse pounding in my throat. It felt like I was about to hurl out a chunk of my heart with the way it was thundering away, but I continued talking before Jacob could say anything in reply to my shameful confession. As if by saying it out loud to him was a spell that loosened my tongue, I spilled my entire backstory to him.

“And that’s why Jerome and his band of purists detest me so much. They detest the fact that I call myself a witch when I am basically just a human who happens to be particularly skilled at potion-making.

“There was quite an uproar when my parents enrolled me at Redwood—Headmaster Pritchard and quite a number of the teaching staff were against it. Most of the professors had valid reasons for their doubts. Mainly that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my peers. And they were right. Every class, except for potion-making and the core classes like reading, writing, and math, required the use of magic. My grades were horrible in those. To say I barely scraped by was an understatement. But despite urges to transfer to a mundane school, I refused to be shooed out and my mother was stubborn about keeping me enrolled there. I guess maybe she hoped I would awaken into my power eventually. I wished for that too.”

There was a beat of heavy silence, Jacob looking down at the platter of sandwiches with an opaque countenance. The automatic lights came on, casting his features in shadow and light, making him appear a harsh sculpture hewn from marble since he wasn't moving a muscle. Not even his chest appeared to be rising and falling with drawn breath, and I waited for the other shoe to drop. I waited for the harsh words, the derision and rejection.

I could no more stop the involuntary flinch that overtook my body when Jacob cleared his throat than I could have stopped my heart from beating. “I see.” His voice was void of any emotion. He cleared his throat again and took a sip of tea, wincing at the tart taste. I pushed the bottle of honey toward him to sweeten his tea. Most people didn’t like the strong taste of hibiscus tea, but I did not mind the sweet and sour tartness of it.

“You say that most of the staff had valid reasons for not wanting you on the student roster. What about those who didn’t?”

I tried to read his mood, but he’d brought the shutters down. No, that wasn’t true. He had an analytical look about him. His eyes were narrowed and settled squarely on me like he was trying to figure out something. What, I had no idea.

“That was mostly Pritchard. He claimed that he did not want to sully the prestigious reputation of the school by allowing a lowly human to attend classes with talented warlocks and witches. And yes, he referred to me as a lowly human.” My nostrils flared, a breath catching in my throat at remembering the appalling way a man of Fredrick Pritchard’s age and stature had treated the twelve-year-old. And all the years after that he’d turned a blind eye to my bullying. “His open opposition to my attendance was all the permission the warlocks needed to pick me apart. Some witches joined in too, but the boys…”

I huffed out a dry laugh, scratching my eyebrow and focusing on the swath of riotous colors over his shoulders—hibiscus blooms of all colors, lavender flowers, bluebells, orchids, and many, many others. Focusing on them helped drown out the images and sounds that sometimes plagued me in my sleep and kept the tears at bay even though I could feel the tell-tale sting in my eyes and a familiar itch in my nose and throat.

“The boys were especially cruel. You would have thought I was some stray beast instead of a living, breathing person with feelings, worthy of respect, with the way they picked on me. Even punching bags get a reprieve from having blows rained upon them, but I couldn’t even sleep in peace in my own dorm room. I always had to keep an eye open. Had to have eyes in the back of my head and hearing better than any wolf. But what good are normal human senses against beings with magic? I never saw or heard them coming, and I did not have the power to defend myself. Pritchard couldn’t be arsed to do anything about the blatant target on my back, especially when the ringleader was one of his favorite students.”

“I assume you mean Jerome.” Jacob’s voice was a low, guttural growl. I nodded in answer.

Pressure built in the air, pressing against my skin, leashed but violent like a brewing rainstorm before the heavens let loose and a deluge of rain pours down accompanied by blinding lightning flashes. It made me wonder what an unleashed Jacob was like, when he let his power run amok without regard for anyone or anything around him. His power was a potent, brilliant thing. Alive in a way I couldn’t explain, and it seemed to change with his emotions. When he was healing my ears earlier, it had been a gentle touch. Something I wanted to cocoon myself in and snuggle up against. He was one of the most powerful mages I’d ever encountered. No wonder Pritchard wanted him as his replacement. The teachers at Redwood all had huge and often fragile egos. If someone wanted to keep them in check, they would need a deep and powerful reserve of magic at their disposal.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but are you sure you have no power at all?”

“I think I would have known if I had magic by now, Jacob. I’ve never cast a successful spell in all the twenty-four years I have been alive.”

“And in the thirty that I’ve been on this earth, I’ve come to realize that we will never fully understand this force we call magic. It is an ever-changing and complex thing. Unique to each warlock and witch but very much the same, and it has a very distinct aura. An aura that I have felt around you on more than one occasion.”

I was already shaking my head before he finished speaking. Needing to do something with my hands, I pushed up from my seat and went to pick up one of the watering cans stored at the back of the greenhouse. I wasn’t surprised when Jacob grabbed the second one and followed me out the door as we both went to fill them up with water.

“You’re wrong,” I told him over my shoulder.

“I’m not so sure I am,” he countered. “I’ll admit that the first time I met you, I couldn't tell whether you were human or something else because I couldn’t sense anything from you. But sometimes when you get emotional, like earlier when I…when you asked me to pull over, I could definitely sense the magic flowing off you when you lashed out at me. It wasn’t a powerful thing, but I sensed it, Sophia.”

“What you sensed was the power coming from the wisteria tree at the center of the coven circle. We were close to its location where multiple ley lines intersect. Of course the place would be teeming with magic,” I said through clenched teeth. I hoped that would put an end to the sudden turn this conversation had taken, but Jacob was determined to die on this hill, and it only served to enrage me because I knew what it felt like to be given false hope and then have reality slap you in the face so hard you could never see straight again.

“How can you be so sure—”

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