Page 23 of Enslaved By Magic

Chapter 10

(Amari)

If it had been a longer trip, they probably would have crashed because he was so busy not looking at her, he didn’t notice the self-satisfied smirk on her face for the whole trip. There were so many ways she could exploit this family visit and she was pissed off enough to use all of them, but her common sense told her to back off and be subtle, so he didn’t realize what she was doing. It was the smart plan. It took more effort, but it was going to be worth it when it all came together.

He’d left her aching and wanting—again—and by the time she poured herself out of her bottle the next morning, he had already gone to work, which was just as well. A dutiful slave didn’t tell off her master, but his stubborn insistence on spurning her was making it hard to avoid. Only the fact that she needed him to fall for her had held back the words she wanted to say to him. His orders for her to act like she wasn’t a slave had opened up a lot of doors.

He’d given her an interesting little phone one day. She hadn’t gotten around to using it yet, so when it rang, she wasn’t sure what to do with it. He’d said it was essential to life now but hadn’t given her many instructions on how it worked. At first, she didn’t even recognize the sound, and by the time she found it and was trying to work out how to answer it, it had stopped playing the music.

She sighed, but as she went to put it back down it started playing the sounds again. This time she was able to remember how to swipe and answer it before it stopped, but she wasn’t sure exactly where to talk. It was nothing like the old wall phones that she remembered, but after some finagling, she finally worked it out.

It was Luke of course, who else could it be? She could hear him faintly and she scowled as she tried to figure out how to hold this strange, flat, rectangle. There was no visible receiver which seemed very impractical to her as she turned it around in her hands.

“Amari? Amari are you there? Can you hear me?” His voice was coming from one end of the phone, and when she settled that part against her ear cautiously, she could hear him much better.

“Yes? I’m here, Luke,” she replied loudly to make sure he could hear her—just in case she wasn’t speaking into the right place.

“Oh, Amari, great! I realized I forgot to show you how to answer the phone, but I guess you figured it out. Listen, I only have a second, but we’re going to go to my aunt and uncle’s for dinner tonight, okay? I’ll pick you up around 6:30 so just be ready to go,” he said.

Really? So soon? When he’d mentioned it the night before, she’d assumed it would be a few days at least, but that was fine; she had hours to get ready and it was time to put phase one of her plan in motion. “I’ll be ready, Luke. Oh, what should I—” Before she could finish her sentence, the screen on the phone flashed, and she looked to see a ‘call ended’ message blinking. Well, that was fine. She’d hop online to get an idea of what people wore for things like this.

It didn’t take long to pull up plenty of examples, but most of them were a little bit modest for her taste. If she was going to seduce her reluctant master, she was going to need just the right outfit. She’d always had an eye for what clothing suited her, and with the magic of her bottle, it was time to disappear inside to work on a basic outfit. She needed something that looked demure at first glance but would still catch the eye. Something that would imply innocence while calling up the baser urges seemingly without provocation, and this wasn’t easy to accomplish.

While the bottle could give her almost anything she desired, these things tended to be complicated to remove to the real world. She’d never been entirely sure why—maybe it was because none of it really existed. If it had been otherwise, she could have done so much more with the power that had been given to her, but luckily clothing was exempt from this rule. Her working assumption was that she was bound to the bottle, which effectively made her an extension of its magic. So, anything she wore could leave the bottle with her.

She’d used the loophole to bring other things into the world, wrapping them around her body until she was solid again, but they tended to vanish once they were no longer in her possession. That was problematic for the majority of the things she might desire to bring with her, but for clothing there was no issue. In fact, she didn’t even need to be inside the bottle to create outfits, she could do it the same way she changed her appearance—it was just easier to focus in her own world, and designing something new required all her attention.

But it was worth it. She spun in front of the ornate standing mirror she’d conjured up in the sumptuous bedroom suite the bottle maintained for her comfort, and decided it was perfect. It wasn’t fancy and wouldn’t look out of place at an intimate family dinner, but it was designed to draw attention to her best features. Luke wouldn’t know what hit him.

The soft stunned look on his face when he first saw her was exactly what she was going for. She noticed he couldn’t keep his eyes off her legs during the short car ride, and she made sure to let her skirt slide way up when she got out of the car. The brief flash of white lace panties against the tan skin of her thigh seemed to throw him into shock, and she had to say his name twice before he blinked and shook his head.

“Sorry, what?” he asked, sounding like he was pulling out of a dream.

“I was just asking if you grew up here,” she said, gesturing toward the house.

He shook his head and, with that, the dazed look vanished. “Oh, yeah, well, for most of my childhood. My mother tried moving us into our own place a few times when I was little, but it never seemed to stick. And then eventually, when I was a teenager, she moved off on her own,” he said.

Amari frowned. “I know you said she moved, but I assumed you were an adult when she left.”

He led the way to the side door as he explained, “She asked me to come with her, but I was happy here. Didn’t want to change schools and it was too far away.” He didn’t sound regretful about it, so she had to assume he was happy with his decision, but when she thought about her own family and how they’d been lost to time, she was sad for him anyway.

Of course, he’d at least gotten to make the choice to be separated from his mother. She’d never even gotten to say goodbye to hers. She understood a little better when she met his aunt and uncle. She could see, immediately, the strong connection of love they shared. His uncle was reserved but there was on obvious pride in his nephew that showed in their interactions, and his aunt was such a beautiful soul that Amari found herself taking to her immediately, which was very unusual.

“Welcome! C’mon in, Amari, is it? I’m Sarah, and I’m so glad to meet you. Dinner will be ready in a while, but why don’t you come hang out in the kitchen with me while I check on things. Leave the men to do whatever it is that they do,” his aunt said. The words rushed out of her in a non-stop stream that gave Amari no time to actually reply to anything, and the next thing she knew, she was being seated at the kitchen table with a cutting board, a sharp knife, and a pile of carrots.

Her head was whirling a bit, and she had a flashback to spending time in the kitchen with her mother. Everything was different of course—even the vegetables she was meant to chop, but still somehow there was a feeling of home and comfort that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Her eyes itched and she blinked a few times to clear away the haze of unshed tears before she got to work.

Luckily Sarah didn’t seem to need much input from Amari to keep up the conversation. She chattered happily as she moved around the kitchen without seeming to notice that Amari was only interjecting the occasional word here and there. Once dinner was in the oven, Sarah heaved a sigh and finally dropped into the seat beside Amari. “There, now we just wait! So, tell me about you! Luke says you haven’t been together very long,” she said. There was a hint of a press for information in her tone, and Amari had a moment of anxiety.

What should she say to that? “No, not too long, but it feels like it’s been a while,” she said.

“I can tell he really cares about you,” Sarah said, smiling and nodding her head. “He can barely take his eyes off of you.”

Amari struggled not to laugh and refrained from pointing out that it had more to do with the outfit she was wearing than any lasting affection Luke had for her. Oddly, hearing it did cause a warm glow to heat her cheeks. Was she actually blushing? “Really? I uh, hadn’t noticed,” she said in a faint voice.

“Mmm, between you and me he doesn’t date much. Too busy working all the time and he’s picky—so I know you must be something special,” Sarah said. She sounded pleased and Amari felt bad about the fact that it was all fake.

“I’m nothing special, honestly,” she said. Lying, of course. What was more special than a supernatural creature who could grant wishes? But her unusual qualities didn’t really extend to making her a better dating prospect the way Sarah seemed to think.

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