Page 26 of Bombshell

Effie didn’t look like she believed me.

“I can sometimes feel Cash’s emotions,” I threw out, hoping that the swelling panic in Effie’s green eyes would go away.

“But you can’t talk to him with your mind?”

I grinned half-heartedly. “I don’t have sex with Cash, Lass.”

Effie’s cheeks flushed a green-tinged pink as she abruptly began to gather her laptop and other items. “I see—well I need to get going—there’s still a bunch of tax stuff to go over with Daphne before I spend the afternoon enchanting ink.”

The desire to stop her and force her to face the fact that she was my mate was almost overpowering and my fingers twitched with the urge to reach out for her and call her myAnam Carain my home tongue.

But then I remembered her asking me to wait, finally acknowledging what we’d both spent a ridiculous time dancing around for years.

So, instead, I just let my hands drop to my side and watched her head for the door, her skirts swishing around her pale, freckled legs. “If you need anything for the taxes, let me know.”

“I will,” Effie called over her shoulder before the door to my office clicked shut and I sat down in my desk chair. It was still warm from her sitting in it only moments ago.

We were definitely making progress, no matter how small, so why did it feel like Effie was starting to slip out of my grasp completely?

Chapter 8

“Good job, Euphemia, that’s it!” Alexander crowed with delight, watching me with a bright smile as I passed the ball of fire I’d conjured from one hand to the other with surprising ease. “That’s amazing!”

Never in my nearly seventy years of life had I ever been capable of fire magic. I’d always figured it went against the half of my nature that was built up from the earth because, if there was one thing tree nymphs feared, it was fire.

Especially in the mountains of California where wildfires were growing increasingly more rampant year by year.

But now, as I watched the glowing inferno sitting like a docile kitten in my hand, I couldn’t imagine never using fire magic again.

There was a thrilling rush of adrenaline to feel the heat coursing through my veins. For once, I felt totally powerful as I tossed the ball up into the sky and squeezed my hand until it was the size of a pea but even hotter than it had been before.

The day we hired Byrne Leonidas and caught Fiero eavesdropping—as we usually did with the snoopy satyr—I found myself irritated and snapped my fingers almost without thinking.

Then we heard him yelp and run out of the shop. Later on, Daphne told me that the satyr’s fur on his legs had caught fire seemingly out of nowhere… but somehow I knew it was me.

And today? Today I managed to conjure fire. Onpurpose.

“Now try and put it out,” Alexander instructed as he put his hands on his hips, staring up at the tiny little blaze in the air.

I frowned because I didn’t reallyknowhow to do the put it out step, but something seemed to whisper in my mind, instructing me on what to do next.

Releasing my clenched fist, I brought the ball back down to me and imagined cutting off each of the threads—or the vines—of my magic until there was nothing left to feed the ball.

The sphere glowed bright for just a moment before disappearing into thin air, leaving only the echoes of its warmth behind on the palm of my hand.

“I wasright,” Alexander said, pulling my hands into his, his magic reaching out to prod at mine. It was the same thing he’d done before that night in the shop when we made our deal. At the time, my magic had shied away from him, almost like it was hiding from the bite of it. Now it seemed to reach out and yank at it, making the man wince and pull away.

“You were right about what?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

Alexander blinked like I’d caught him saying something he shouldn’t have before he shrugged. “Youaredifferent from anywitch that is living, but that doesn’t make you a dud. It just means you need to be taught differently. If I could go back and kick the elder’s asses I would.”

I frowned at that. While my father was the head of the North Coast coven, there was still a council of elders he was forced to answer to.

They called it checks and balances, but my father always referred to it as his leash and he did everything in his power to do what he wanted in the coven, with or without the elder’s approval.

“Then why didn’t you try to teach me like this when I was younger?”

Alexander ran a hand through his dark hair. “I had no proof that it would work—besides your magic had not matured yet so it probably would have been useless even if I had tried.”

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