Page 43 of Enslaved By Magic

His aunt caught on faster than most. “You’ve heard from her,” she said in a happy tone. There was no question in her voice, and he nodded sheepishly as she pulled him into the house and pushed him down into a chair.

“Is it that obvious?” he asked. It was embarrassing how his emotions always showed so easily.

“It is to me. You’ve been moping around since she left and suddenly, you’re all smiles again? Of course, I knew.” She smiled and sat back in her seat, making a show of getting comfortable. “Tell me all about it,” she demanded.

“I uh—well, there’s not much to tell, Aunt Sarah. She didn’t come back or anything; she just sent me a postcard,” he said. He shrugged. “It might not mean anything, but she said she loved me and missed me, so I—”

Her eyes sparkled and she nodded eagerly. “So you are assuming. Well, I always thought she’d come back eventually, Luke. But even if she doesn’t, at least you know she’s okay.”

He did and he realized that at least some of the dark clouds surrounding him since she’d vanished had been fear of what had happened to her. After all, they’d had no way of knowing what it would do to her when the curse broke. He wanted her back—needed it the way he needed air, but somehow, knowing that she was doing well made him feel better. Even if she was doing well without him.

His mood stayed up, but he couldn’t help noticing a certain excitement whenever he went to the mailbox. Would there be something from her today? Usually the answer was no, but every so often another postcard would arrive. There didn’t seem to be a set schedule, but it averaged out to one or two a month.

She didn’t tell him where she was, but he could see from the postmarks, and sometimes the postcard itself, that she was moving around a lot. He collected the cards and shuffled through them trying to find a pattern to her travels, but there wasn’t one. One week he’d receive one from Texas but the next to come would be from the East coast. She even sent him one from Saskatchewan once that had a giant moose glaring balefully off the cheap cardboard at him.

Things continued like that for months and then the postcards stopped coming and he got worried. Four weeks passed; the longest it had been without hearing from her since the first one had arrived, and he started wondering if he should try to track her down. He had the last postcard she’d sent, and he was sure a private investigator could use it to find her. He even looked up the number for a reputable company, but in the end, he couldn’t go through with it. It felt wrong.

She’d accused him of taking away her power and making all the choices for her, and she’d been right. He’d learned something about himself because of Amari, and how he’d hurt her by putting his own needs before hers. The misery of being without her had forced him to do a lot of introspective soul-searching.

He’d broken her trust, as her lover, her Dominant, and even as a friend and he’d made his peace with that and decided to learn from it instead of continuing to beat himself up over it. He had to let her make her own choices, and he couldn’t save her from the world. All he could do was worry about her until she got back in touch.

Amari would come back when and if she was ready, and chasing her down would only push her farther away. That much he was sure of.

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