Page 29 of My Blind Date is a Warlock

Jacob and I started jogging. I almost tripped over an exposed root and twisted my ankle, but I skinned my knees and scraped the heels of my palms instead. I should have changed out of my dress and sandals.

When Jacob turned back to help me, I urged him to keep going, shouting over the roar of wind that came out of nowhere. Whatever Daniel was doing, it was having an adverse effect on the weather. The skies had been clear of clouds all day with no sign of rain, but thunder rumbled in the distance. The air smelled of ozone, its very particles charged with an energy distinct only to magic. A sudden flare of light went out, washing everything in a pure white light and near incinerating my retina. I navigated the rest of the way to the clearing half-blind and felt my heart drop when I saw the wisteria on fire—and not with normal fire.

The brilliant flash of white from earlier had been the tree going up in a blaze of magic-charged flames, oversaturating the air with an abundance of life force. My hair started floating like the time I touched a plasma ball at a science center.

Jacob and Daniel were throwing energy bolts at each other, the Book of Shadows lying at the foot of the wisteria tree. Daniel stood between the book and Jacob, his eyes an unnatural color. At first, I thought they’d gone completely black, but it was a deep, putrid green—the color of decay. A web of vein-like marks pulsed on his skin in the same color and a speck of it shone in the heart of the white flame—and it was growing bigger.

Jacob threw another energy bolt at his cousin, which Daniel easily deflected and sent careening into the forest, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

“You don’t need to do this, Danny! Let Rosie rest in peace and stop this madness before you do something that we’ll all live to regret!” he pleaded with his cousin, his hand wreathed in blue light. Another energy bolt. The fact that the two of them were constantly producing them without recharging their stamina was a feat in and of itself.

“The only thing I regret is not finding this book before you. I could have brought her back much sooner, saved her from the pits of purgatory.” Daniel sounded unhinged. And he was yet to spot me hiding behind a tree.

I wondered if I could circle around and grab the book while Jacob distracted him. If I returned it to Jacob, he could shut down whatever spell Daniel had unleashed. Keeping low to the ground, I used the trees as cover and circled around behind Daniel. The only problem was that once I walked past the copse of trees into the clearing, he would notice me instantly.

“You don’t know what it’s like to lose your mate, Jacob! She haunts my dreams every night, begging me to save her from that horrible place. I can’t let her suffer any longer. I am bringing her back here where she belongs!” He thumped at his chest.

I felt bad for the guy, I really did, but that did not give him the right to do what he was doing.

“You’re not making any sense,” Jacob roared, approaching his cousin cautiously, stopping when Daniel tossed another bolt in his direction. “She wouldn’t want this for you, man. Rosie would not ask you to sully your soul by using black magic.”

“We’re Buchanans. We come from a long line of dark mages. Our souls were tainted long before we were born.”

Jacob remained impassive even when he saw me sneak out of the woods. I tried to summon my own power. I could feel it in me, but it refused to manifest. So I figured I would rush Daniel and tackle him to the ground and Jacob would do the rest. Taking a deep breath, I prepared to get a running start.

CHAPTER 27

“Not so fast, Miss Barnes. Did you really think I did not see you skulking about in the darkness?” Without sparing me a glance, Daniel stretched his hand out and I was floating three feet off the ground, an invisible hand choking me.

“How about I break her neck and we’ll see the lengths you’ll go through to have her returned to you?” he taunted Jacob, clenching his fist, the phantom hand around my neck. I tried to pry it off, which was easier said than done because there was nothing to touch. Blue sparks flickered and fizzed out.

“No!” Jacob roared, his eyes going preternaturally bright. “Let her go, Daniel, before I make you.”

Daniel laughed. If evil had a sound, it would be that disjointed, maniacal cackle. He was unfazed even in the face of Jacob’s wrath. More thunder clapped overhead, but this time with forks of lightning that struck the ground dangerously close to where he stood.

It felt as if Jacob was calling the power, leeching off the burning wisteria, but before he could unleash it on Daniel, his cousin sent him flying. Jacob crashed into the thick trunk of one of the trees with a resounding thwack, his head bouncing against the tree before he fell lifelessly onto the ground.

Someone screamed. I only realized later from how sore my throat was that I was the one screaming. And that I’d somehow broken free of Daniel’s hold.

“You monster, you killed him!” Something crackled, and before I realized what I was doing, blue flames shot out of my hands and surrounded Daniel. At that moment, I’d fully intended to reduce him to ash and bone, thinking he’d killed Jacob. An indescribable, all-consuming rage spurred me on, but at the end of the day, I was still a fledgling, a level one to Daniel’s level one hundred. I had the stamina for a prolonged attack, but he was already breaking through the barrier and redirecting the flames back to me. I had no clue how to defend myself except to keep pushing the power outward even though it was draining me like water through a sieve.

“Do send my regards to my cousin when you find him in hell. I think both your lives shall be a sufficient price to bring my Rosie back to me.” Daniel raised his hands, palms facing up like he was about to pull the sky down on me, but before he could finish whatever he was doing, his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell back on the ground, knocked out cold.

“Jacob?” I cried. He was leaning against the tree, one hand clutched to his ribs. I ran over to him, tears blurring my vision as I kneeled beside him, peppering him with kisses. “You’re okay! I thought I’d lost you.”

“That depends on what your definition of okay is, sweetheart. I’m seeing two of you right now, and I think I’ve broken a few ribs.” He groaned. When I asked him whether he couldn heal himself, he shook his head. “But I can coach you. Remember what I said, shape your magic. Will it to do what you command. All you need do is picture my body healing and the rest will sort itself out…kind of.” He added the last bit when I gave him a disbelieving stare. I did what he asked anyway, feeling the magic flow through my body and arrowing it to the palms of my hands.

Heal him. Please heal him, I repeated in my head, pouring everything I had into making him okay. The fresh scent of lilacs and violets filled the air. The smell of my healing magic.

“Wow, babe, your healing magic smells like Febreze,” he joked, his laugh trailing off into a series of coughs. My lips trembled with the suppressed need to laugh, but I glared at him instead.

“Hush, you, I need to concentrate, else you’ll be healing from your injuries the old-fashioned way,” I chastised him. Five minutes later, he was nearly good as new, so I had no compunction about throwing my hands around him. “I thought I’d lost you,” I breathed into his hair.

“As if I’d let you get rid of me that easily.”

“I love you too, Jacob Buchanan. You are mine and I am yours for as long as you shall have me. I don’t want you to go another day doubting my feelings for you.” I repeated the vows he had said to me the night we made love for the first time with a goofy smile on my face.

“I never did. But we might as well make things official.” He took my hands in his, his eyes locked on mine. “Marry me, Soph. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want yours to be the first face I see when I wake up in the mornings when I wake up and the last when I go to sleep. I want our souls bound together so that we keep finding each other in all the other lifetimes to come.”

---