Page 44 of Veiled

“Laillaaaa, wait for me!” I giggled and ran behind my sister. We were only seven, but my mom and dad always said that if we stayed only by the stream and no further that we could go out to play. They could see us from the window. Our home was warded against intruders, so we were safe.

“Logan! Hurry, I want to play with the flowers and pick some before supper!” Laila giggled while she squealed. Her beautiful, long blonde hair trailing behind her, her white dress getting tangled around her legs as she ran and laughed. She is my best friend.

“Okay, okay, Laila, I’m coming. Supper is hours away, Lai.” We reached the stream and put our toes in the water. We spent hours out, until we fell asleep right next to the flowers. Until my mom shook me awake.

“Where’s Laila, Logan? It’s time for supper.”

“She is right here…” I trailed off, not seeing her next to me where we fell asleep holding hands. “Well, she was here. Maybe she went back home?” I bit my lip, knowing Lai wouldn’t leave me. We are best friends; two halves of a whole. I saw the doubt and panic creep into my mother’s eyes. She smiled tightly and picked up my small frame, rushing back towards the house, looking around her whipping her head back and forth.

“Laiiiiii, you left me sleeping!” I yelled into the house as we got to the front door. Except she wasn’t here. Dad chuckled, but then seeing my mom’s face, immediately questioned what was going on.

“Laila wasn’t outside with Logan. Lo said they fell asleep. When I looked out there, they were still there. Where could she have gone so quickly?” Ma said.

That night we didn’t sleep. My dad sent up a search party and that’s how we spent every day for three weeks. My mom started to pray to whatever God would listen, my dad spent his every waking moment throwing himself into his work. And I... I stood by the window staring at the stream every single night and day until mom would put me in bed. Lai couldn’t be gone; she would never leave me. She would come back. One night before bed, I was staring out the window when I saw a flash of a white dress. I ran out of the house with my mom on my heels. “Mom, I saw her dress. I saw it. She’s here.”

She broke down in tears. “Don’t cry, Mom, she’s here I just saw her dress! Let’s go get her!”

“Lo, listen to me. I never want you to go out there and search for Lai,” she choked out, “you need to stay inside where you’re safe… I. Can’t. I can’t have them take you too.”

“Mom, who? Who took Lai?” I started to get angry, stomping my feet. “She’s my sister, I want her back!”

She never answered me. It took weeks of eavesdropping before I heard her pray to people called the “Fae”, begging them to bring her back Laila.

It took another few weeks before I learned that my mom had been looking into gaining more magic, except she bartered wrong and lost a child in the deal. I didn’t know what that meant. Bartered wrong. Did she make a deal and with who? My father called her foolish and said grief was making her mad. She fell deeper within herself, becoming so quiet, I never really saw or heard her anymore. In a matter of months, she passed away, a shell of her former beautiful self; I had lost my mother and sister.

The day of her funeral, my father held me close and I saw something glimmer in the trees from the corner of my eye, but when I looked, it was gone. In a matter of days, we had packed up and moved, leaving that home and those memories behind, but if we left, how would Lai eventually find us? So, I left a note in the woods before I left, telling her where we were going and that I loved her and forgave her for leaving me and not taking me with her on her adventure.

A year later, during dinner, I brought up what I overheard from my mom during her discussion with Father, and he immediately shushed me. “We will not discuss that part of our lives anymore. We will remember them with good times, Logan, never with the days of panic or the ramblings of a mad woman, stuck in her grief.” His sad eyes pierced me, and he sighed. “Logan, your mother lost her mind in the end. We must never discuss such things because the last thing we need is people looking further into false myths.”

I looked at him genuinely confused, wringing my hands in front of the dinner table. “What false myths, dad?”

“The kind where people try to look into magic as more than what it is. Practice makes us stronger, son. Power comes from practice. Power cannot just manifest. That kind of thinking makes us weak, for if we’re always seeking more power, we are never content with the fierce pride that comes from genuine practice. Remember that, son. It will always be your most important lesson.”

I went to bed that night with thoughts of what my father said floating through my head as I tossed and turned. He was wrong. I was obsessed after that moment, feeling like something was missing. I went back to that little stream at our old childhood home every year. I took opportunities when my father started working with the council to read everything I could about magic in their libraries. Oftentimes, when I was sixteen, I found myself there after dark, taking my father’s keys and going into a section that was always blocked off and warded. It took me weeks to figure out the ward, but it was worth it. There were references, never full descriptions of the origin of magic of pure magic. Theoretically, that meant pure power. So, my mom wasn’t crazy. For years, I couldn’t not figure out who she could have bargained to. Who were the Fae and why did she barter? I questioned myself every moment.

But unlike what my dad said, while I obsessed, I trained, and I excelled. When I went to DeLorean on an accelerated path, it was the same year that Hunter, Ryder, Zane, Grayson, King, and Blair also went. We became teachers shortly after, and teachers due to retire soon came at a good time. Everything clicked when I was given the opportunity to teach magical history. Pure magic, prayer, Fae. You can practice all you want but there will always be those out there stronger. Did they practice more? Or were some simply more gifted? Who made people more gifted? Rather what? I brought up my musings to the men and they would tell me that I shouldn’t spread ‘such lies’. Then I met Remi this year, she felt… more… her warning… almost made me snap. They don’t want to share that power. They want to promise it and then kidnap the kids of those who ask for it. They want to kill mothers slowly from depression.

We walked out to go have dinner and I caught her gaze and smiled. I knew she knew something. She was possibly inconsequential, but maybe she was a part of something grander. Something that must come toppling down. Pure magic belongs to me… no… no… I mean us, I… no… we shouldn’t have to barter for it. I felt my fists clenching and I had to catch myself and take a deep breath. I settled in at the teachers table in the dining room and laughed along to whatever the guys were talking about. No, we shouldn’t have to barter. Some were more worthy to be there; they took my mom, they have my sister… clearly, I deserve to be a part of them too. It was my right. They owed me… I mean us.

Zane

Fucking shit,looking at her had my dick hard as fuck. Trying to maintain my face was the easy part. My eyes though? Couldn’t help themselves, following the beads of sweat as they crawled over her defined abs. I was jealous as fuck, wanting to be doing the same with my tongue and fingers, before ripping her training pants off and drifting lower. I needed to taste her, feel her, worship every fucking curve. She didn’t know it, but I was going to make sure she screamed under me, my dick worshipping her just as my mouth and tongue will again. Fuck, I had to discreetly adjust myself, but Hunter noticed and laughed at me.

“Don’t give me that fucking look. You know damn well she had the same effect on your dumb ass too,” I grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah she does, but I fuck her and don’t leave after.” He looked at her as she got ready to head to dinner, hanging back slightly. Before I responded to his smart as comment, he continued, “Fuck, she better have an extra fucking shirt. She’s not walking around like that. These fucking assholes won’t stop staring.” I had been too busy lusting and wanting to punch Hunter to realize that Hudson was indeed still in her sports bra, her breast straining underneath. Her confidence rocking it. Amazing. My temper with it? Not so amazing.

“Not happening.” I walked over to Hudson and Remi, Hunter stalking behind me. “Good work, princess. Now that you have successfully made every man's dick hard in here, how about you put on a shirt?” Hunter rumbled in agreement. She gave me a little smirk and took a step away from the bleachers and closer to me, having to strain her neck to look me in the eye.

“I don’t know. I was thinking of making this my new uniform. Very comfortable, free range of motion… I like it.”

Remi turned to look at her and then back at me with a smile in her eyes. “You know, telling her what to do will probably have the opposite effect.” Hudson nodded, sagely.

“She’s right, but I mean, I can be persuaded by other means.” She blinked up at me, so goddamn beautiful that I almost missed her insinuation. Right as I was going to respond, a senior student, Maddie, who I may or may not have slept with a few years ago before I became a professor, and a few dozen times after, walked up to us.

“Zane,” she giggled and put her hand on my arm, and I raised my eyebrow at her. “I mean, Professor Zane,” she giggled again while putting emphasis on the professor and I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes.

“Yes, Madison?” My tone bland and disinterested. Her eyes faltered but she quickly looked at Hudson and back to me, her hand sliding up and down my arm.

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