Fair Konig had joined his family in the garden while I tried not to hyperventilate. My anxiety and panic levels were rising.
Keir rubbed my back as I dropped my head between my knees. “It could be worse,” he said.
I sucked a breath in through my teeth. “I’m a supernatural bouncer for a hundred or so randy pixies. I would hope it couldn’t get much worse.” I gave him a flat stare. “Unless you’re seeing all my possible futures again and know something I don’t know.”
“My seven gazillion cable channels of Iris are still on the fritz,” he said, using the metaphor I’d once used. “I really wish I knew why your magic started their cycle, though. That has me worried.”
“If you’re worried, then I’m worried.” I sighed.
The wild aero-craft magic inside me hadn’t acted like the terra-craft. It didn’t feel as if I were being cooked from the inside out. Other than not being able to control it, it hadn’t really seemed to affect me physically at all. But I knew that all magic had a price. Maybe protecting the pixies was the cost this time. Better than my life, right? Although, losing my life wasn’t completely off the table.
I turned to meet Keir’s gaze. “It’s moments like these that I hate my birth mother. She could’ve filled in a lot of the blanks, and maybe I wouldn’t be such a shit tru-crafter.”
“I wish I had the answers for you.” He raised his brow at me. “If only there was some kind of book that might provide insight.”
I groaned. “You know I love books.” After all, I’d majored in English, taught for several years at the university, and for the last seventeen years, I’d worked as a non-fiction editor. But he wasn’t just talking about any kind of reference book. He was speaking of my grimoire. “Just not that one. Besides, I’m not sure this problem can be solved with cryptic riddles.”
“Knowledge is the only true way to solve problems,” Keir disagreed. “While ignorance is usually the source.”
“I’m proof of that.”
“Iris,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean you.”
“I know, but still, you seem to have hit the proverbial nail, or in this case, problem-child, on the head.” I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my gut. “Do you think it’s because I’m both Fade and Bright?”
“I told you that neither is good or bad. They’re just different.” He lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to my fingertips. “You’re a once-in-a-lifetime miracle.”
“You’re only saying that because you love me.”
“I do love you,” he said. He kissed my palm, and I could feel a tingle of magic flow into my skin. “But that’s not the reason it’s true. Whatever happens next, we will get through it. Together.”
“Thanks.” I chewed my lower lip. “I hope you’re right.” I’d been so wrapped up in my misery I hadn’t heard the front door open. My seventeen-year-old bounded into the kitchen.
He was over six feet tall, and in the past couple of months, he’d really started putting on extra muscle. “S’up?” he asked as he grabbed an apple from the counter on his way through.
Just finished negotiating with a pack of hot-to-trot pixies who were itching to get it on, I thought. Not that much different than teenagers, really. Aloud, I said, “Oh, you know, same old-same old.”
He paused and stared at me. “Are you crying?”
“No,” I told him, then realized that I had been. I forced a smile as I wiped the tears away from my eyes. “What are you doing at home?”
“I live here,” he said.
“Don’t be a smart ass,” I told him.
“Better than a dumbass,” he replied. His dimples deepened as he grinned, adding to his adorable factor, and while I knew he was having a little fun at my expense, I was just happy he was having fun. For a few weeks after my ex had left the village, I worried Michael would never smile again.
“You’re hilarious. If you’re thinking about a career in comedy, don’t give up your day job.” I chucked him under the chin. “I thought you were going over to Doug’s after school.” Doug was one of Michael’s best friends since kindergarten. They both played on the football team. “Weren’t you going to ride to the game with him?”
The corner of his lips turned up in a smile. “I just came home to get a change of clothes.”
“For what?”
“I need it for after the game. If that’s okay.”
“Is there something going on after the game?” I asked.
“Duh, Mom. The bonfire at Silver End Lake tonight.”
Of course. I’d forgotten the football boosters threw a big party at the lake with live music, food, and a big bonfire for the team and fans to celebrate the first game and kick off the season every year.
“Coach Jordan wants the team there,” Michael added. “His band is going to perform.”
I wrinkled my nose. I hadn’t heard much about Coach Jordan, aka Jordan Sonnavilsa, other than Michael and his friends really liked him. I was looking forward to finally meeting him tonight. “The coach has a band?”
“He plays a lot of that old rock-n-roll.” He ran his hands through his curly blonde hair.
“Like Chuck Barry?”
“Nah. More like Radiohead and Nirvana.”
I smacked the kid’s shoulder with a backhand. “That’s not old rock-n-roll. I grew up with that music.”
Michael shrugged, mischief in his eyes. “Like I said, pretty old.”
“Cheeky,” I countered. “I remember when you thought I hung the moon.”
“When dinosaurs still roamed the earth.”
“You’re feeling your oats, aren’t you?”
Keir, who’d witnessed the banter play out, chuckled. He held his hand up, and Michael gave him a high five.
I shook my head. I wasn’t irritated or annoyed in the slightest. Seeing my son back to his happy, smart-assy self felt like a point in the win column. I’d take it.
“Go,” I told Michael. “Get your clothes and get out of here.” I went up on my toes and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you tonight. Kick some serious ass on the field.”
My son grinned. “That’s the plan.” He gave me another quick assessment. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Absolutely,” I lied. “Your Pop-Pop took a tumble this morning, and I just found out before you got home.” Less of a lie. His expression turned dark and worried, so I added, “He’s fine, though, according to your Aunt Marigold. Just a little bruised.”
The tension around Michael’s soft brown eyes eased. “You sure?”
“Yes. He’ll be at the game tonight.” I ushered him toward his room. “Get going. You don’t want to be late.”
When we were alone, Keir put his arms around me. “You know I love you, right?”
“And I love you.” Loving each other was not the problem. I pressed my palm against his chest. “What am I going to do?” I poked a finger into his peck. “And if you say research, I’m going to turn your tongue to stone.”
“Then I wouldn’t be able to do this.” He nuzzled my neck, then ran the tip of his tongue along the edge of my earlobe. “Or this.” He kissed me, his mouth moving over mine before sliding his tongue between my parted lips.
I moaned as my body reacted to his every touch and caress.
“God,” Michael complained as he reentered the kitchen. “You guys could’ve waited until after I left.” He held his duffel bag up to his shoulder to block his view. “I’m going to need therapy again.”
I snorted a laugh. “You better hurry up and go unless you want to see a lot more than some kissing and heavy petting.”
“Gross.” He race-walked to the living room and out of the front door.
Keir and I were laughing and kissing again before Michael’s car started. Then Keir picked me up and started toward the hall to my room.
“Wait,” I said as we passed the kitchen window. I looked out. Pixies were behaving. “Okay, we’re good.”
He grinned at me. “I’m about to demonstrate how good.” Then he carried me back to the bedroom and proceeded to show me all the other ways his tongue was useful.
“Go, big green!” I shouted from the stands. “Look, there’s Michael.” I pointed to the end zone as the Southill Howlers took the field. Our mascot was a giant bear-cat called the Ozark Howler. A mythological creature I was pretty sure didn’t exist. At least, I hoped not. But it was the only real legend we had in our neck of the woods.
“Go, Mikey!” Marigold shouted. She’d arrived shortly after Keir and me, and she was the only one Michael let get away with calling him that.
I went ahead to save bleacher seats for the family while Keir went to the concession stand for sodas and popcorn.
Michael, number eighty, was the middle linebacker, an important position on the team. He was sort of like the quarterback for the defense, calling all the plays on the field. At least that’s the way I’d understood it when he’d first described the position. While I wasn’t really into football, I loved watching my kid play. “Go, Michael!” I screamed. “Go, Howlers!”
Several other moms around us were shouting their support as well. A hand on my shoulder made me turn around.
“Reba,” I said, not surprised to see the brunette in the stands. Her son was a wide receiver. The kid was smaller than most of the players on the team, but he was really fast on his feet. Reba and I had been friendly for years. “Hi, there.”
“I’m so glad you made it, Iris,” she replied as she looked around. “Is Evan coming?”
I tensed. “No, he can’t make it.” I didn’t elaborate about his move and such because every football parent damn well knew Evan and Adam had relocated to St. Louis. Enough time had passed that I’d hoped the focus would’ve shifted away from me and my personal life. My husband leaving me for the old football coach had been one of the biggest scandals to hit our town, but after a year, my heartbreak should’ve been old news.
Reba frowned. “Oh, that’s too bad. I’m glad we were able to replace Coach Hauser on such short notice.” There was a tinge of condemnation in her tone that I didn’t like.
Friendly wasn’t the same as intimate. I had no intention of having a conversation about my ex-husband or his current partner with her.
“Yep.” I changed the subject. “Have you met Coach Jordan yet? Michael seems to like him.”
“All the boys like him,” she said. “And a few of the single moms. Maybe even a few married ones.” She waggled her brows at me and grinned. “Now that you’re on the market, you should get yourself in the running.”
“I don’t run,” I joked, offended at her off-handed remark. “Besides, I’m not looking for a man.”
“Too soon?” Reba’s expression was full of pity. I wanted to punch her in the nose.
Lauren Reynolds, mom to Michael’s best friend Doug, scooched in next to Reba. “Are we talking about the new coach?” She touched her arm and made a sssss sizzle sound. “He’s smoking hot.”
Marigold nudged me. “Maybe you could introduce me to the new coach.”
If I thought introducing my sister to anyone would get her to stop pining for a fire djinn named Zev, I would do it. I thought for a minute that Zev and Marigold might come to something, but he had left Southill Village without so much as a “see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya.”
My sister had always been carefree. A real lover of life, and she deserved someone who could love her with the same zest. “We could go down there right now,” I half-teased.
Carla Porter, the quarterback’s mom, squeezed in between Reba and Lauren. Ugh. She was one of the moms I couldn’t fake friendly with. She was always trying to stir up the drama. Her son Roger was a friend of Michael’s, which was the only reason I tolerated the intolerable woman. She put in her two cents about the new coach. “If I was ten years younger….”
“And divorced,” Lauren added with a laugh.
Okay, I hadn’t met the new coach, but I was getting the idea that he was handsome and young. Maybe the PTO gossip had moved past Evan and me.
“Oh, my,” Carla said. “Who’s that tall drink of handsome?”
“He looks like that actor. Tom Hiddleston,” another mom added.
I glanced over and saw Keir with three bags of popcorn and a drink carrier with three sodas. He smiled when our eyes met.
I waved, even though he’d seen me, and patted the bleacher next to me. If I was being completely honest, a petty part of me wanted the “moms,” specifically Carla and Reba, to know I’d landed on my feet.
The players were doing their warm-up routines, Michael leading the defensive team.
Keir handed the soda carrier to me, and Marigold took two of the popcorns off his hands as he sat down.
I placed my hand on his thigh. “Thanks for getting the snacks for us.”
“No problem.” He leaned my way and gave me a kiss. “I like doing things for you.”
I loved that my guy knew how to read a room. I rewarded him with another quick kiss.
“Who’s your friend, Iris?” Reba asked.
I pivoted and looked back at the moms. “Keir Quinn, meet Reba, Lauren, Dana, Terry, Carla, and….” I didn’t know the woman on the other side of Carla.
“This is Yolanda Carver,” Carla supplied. “She and her daughter Maddie just moved to town about a month ago.”
Yolanda smiled. Her blue eyes were bright with humor. She pointed to the sidelines where the cheerleaders were warming up. “That’s Maddie over there. The one on the far left.”
Maddie was cute. Dark-haired like her mother. Slender and petite. She was several inches shorter than most of the other cheerleaders. “She’s beautiful.”
The compliment seemed to make Yolanda happy. “She’s a special girl.”
Carla thrust her hand out to Keir and giggled coyly when he politely gave it a shake. “I’m Carla,” she told him as she leaned forward, touching her throat to draw attention to her plunging v-neck, and added, “My son’s the quarterback.”
As loath as I was to admit it, Carla was attractive, superficially, with her perfectly coiffed blonde hair, expertly applied makeup, hourglass figure, and designer clothes. However, Keir barely acknowledged the woman and certainly didn’t make any lingering eye contact. God, I loved the man. If we hadn’t been on a crowded bleacher, I would’ve shown him just how much.
I gave Carla a tight smile and a silent neener-neener. “Keir teaches at the university with Marigold.”
“I hooked them up,” Marigold said, happy to take some of the credit for our inevitable meeting.
“Any more friends you want to hook-up?” one of the moms asked her.
I let Marigold field the question as I handed off the drinks to Keir and stood up. Rose, her two sons Drake and Dustin, and her husband Don wheeled Dad in a wheelchair toward us. “Be right back.”
The moms started in on Keir with a million questions as I went down to meet them.
“Hey, Dad.” I gave my father, a big man with an even bigger heart, a hug. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
“Your sister insisted I ride in this contraption.” He patted the wheelchair. “I tried to tell her I could walk, but you know how she gets.”
My sister Rose was a force of nature. She was the president of the PTO, she was active with several charities in town, and she’d even taken to training me in Crossfit four days a week. She would have done it seven days a week, but I’m also a force of nature, and I refused the offer. I smiled at my younger sister. “It’s hard to say no to Rose.”
I gave Rose, Don, and the boys hugs. “I’ve saved us the first and second row over there where Keir and Marigold are sitting.”
“Are Rowan and Dahlia here yet?” Rose asked.
“Not yet.” I felt more guilt. Before the grimoire had activated my tru-craft powers, our family saw each other on a weekly basis. We usually had dinners and sometimes played poker. While my siblings and I had all been adopted, as a tribe, we were closer than blood. Since magic had come into my life, the last time I’d been with all of them in the same place was in the hospital when my terra-craft had almost killed me.
I hadn’t realized until this moment that I’d been distancing myself from them, even if it hadn’t been consciously.
Back on the bleachers, I slid my hand into Keir’s. He must’ve felt my unease because he gave me a questioning look.
I shook my head.
“Oh, there’s the coach,” I heard Carla say. “Dang, that man is dreamy.”
I searched the sidelines until my gaze landed on a man who stood a head taller than most of the teenagers on the team. He had blond hair and a neatly groomed beard and mustache. His shoulders were as wide as his hips were narrow.
“Cripes. The guy looks like Thor,” Marigold gasped.” She shook her hands. “Hubba hubba.”
Keir’s grip tightened on mine. I knew it couldn’t be jealousy, but something was wrong. “What is it?”
“The coach,” he said. “I know him.”
“How?”
Keir leaned close so no one but me could hear. “You remember Bogmall?”
I swallowed the hot knot that had formed in my throat. “Yes.” It was hard to forget the blonde bitch who’d tried to suck me dry of magic so she could become a sorcerer.
“He’s what she wanted to be. He hit our radar a few years back when he absorbed a tru-craft witch’s power when she died. That was in Wisconsin. Her coven turned his name over to us, but we never had any proof that he caused her death and took her magic. Only her coven’s word. He’s been on the Iron Grove’s watch list since, though we haven’t had any more reports on him.”
Tru-craft witches were rare, and not just anyone could absorb their powers. Jordan had to have been something else first. Something magical. “Was he a druid like Bogmall?”
Keir shook his head. “We’re not sure what he is or was. We’d never heard of Jordan Oldsen before the incident.”
“His last name is Sonnavilsa, not Oldsen.”
His brow furrowed as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he stared at the football coach. “He’s changed it then because that guy is hard to mistake.”
The coach was pretty unique in his stature and looks. I believed Keir. “Is he here for the pixies?”
“They haven’t started the rites yet.” His eyes never left the coach. “So, he couldn’t know about them.”
“He’s here for me, then, isn’t he?” Cripes. Of course, he was. My tru-craft was having a three-way with the elements, and it was crack for pixies and Hexenmeister, as Linda called them. And now, one of them was coaching my son’s high school football team. “How do we get rid of him?” And we needed to figure it out before the four-inch magic magnets started their mating frenzy.
Keir took his phone from his pocket.
“Who are you calling?” I asked him.
“Reinforcements.” He put the phone to his ear. “Lu, Iris needs you.” He paused for a moment, then added, “I need you.”
I blinked as I watched the deadly Adonis direct our teenage boys to take the field. The audacity of him infiltrating my town in such an insidious manner made me rage-y. I didn’t know what game he thought he was playing, but he wasn’t going to win.