Fire Forged Page 2

  Cord nodded, and she was grateful that he didn’t mention that the stun spell wasn’t the most reliable in her repertoire. She’d gotten more elven traits than witch ones, so spells weren’t always her strong suit.

  She gathered her power, and when the two new cats were within a foot of the one sitting next to the catnip, she released the spell. “Mannaz!”

  All three cats toppled over, their invisibility fading away, and they could both see a calico and two tabbies.

  Cord wore a big grin as he held up a hand for a high five. “Nice!”

  Shasta couldn’t help but smile back as she cheerfully smacked his hand with her own. “Let’s put those cats in cages and get out of here.”

  Cord took one of the cats, and Shasta took the other two. They stayed asleep while they were carried back to the cages, gently set inside, and the cages were locked.

  After that it was simple enough. Cord went to tell the staff that they had successfully recovered the cats while Shasta cleaned up. She scraped as much of the catnip back in the bag as she could, collected a few miscellaneous things lying around, like a scrap of Cord’s shirt, and hauled all their belongings back to the SUV. She finished packing up about the same time the animal control officers came out to collect the cages of cats.

  Rather than going back over to the cages, Cord headed to her. “Well, they don’t need us for anything else, so we can head home.”

  “About time.” Shasta settled into the passenger seat, and Cord got in the driver’s side. He put the key in the ignition and turned the car on, and a wave of hot air bellowed out of the vents. Shasta leaned forward and turned the air off.

  “Thanks,” Cord said as he checked the mirrors.

  “I’ll turn it back on in a few minutes.” He didn’t reply, but she hadn’t expected him to. Instead, as he navigated them out of the animal control complex, she looked out her window.

  She’d been so excited when she joined Oaks Consulting. Since both her parents and her brother were part of the company, it just felt right. However, that feeling had faded since the events in the Dragon Lands. To stop a sorcerer, she’d had to be unapologetically her, the exact person the earth designed her to be: hunter of evil and bringer of justice.

  She still liked the work, but rounding up escaped cats didn’t feel right. Neither did working with Cord. It wasn’t as effortless as it had been before, and she wasn’t sure it would ever be that way again.

  “Are you going to turn the air back on?”

  Shasta fiddled with the controls. Cool, but not cold, air shot out of the vents. “Sorry about that.”

  After several minutes of uneasy silence ticked by, Cord sighed. “I know what’s wrong.”

  There was nothing like being trapped in a moving car to ensure someone had the opportunity to make an uncomfortable conversation. “I don’t think this is the best time.” She kept looking out the window.

  “Then when is?” His voice had an edge to it.

  Shasta leaned her head against the window. “I don’t know.”

  The car came to a stop at a light, and he flicked on the turn signal. “It’s been a long time since we talked.”

  “Three weeks.” Shasta said it more to herself than to him. She’d known Cord most of her life. He was twenty years her senior, which between elves was more or less like growing up together. She’d loved him for as long as she could remember, but not until she was in college had she seen him as more than a family friend. About the same time, he’d stopped seeing her as a girl.

  “We spend one night together, and I wake up to find you’re too scared to stick around.” The SUV rolled forward, taking a left.

  Cord’s reply was nice and even. “When we were in the Dragon Lands, you told me you were afraid that we couldn’t be in a relationship and be work partners.”

  She slowly sucked in a deep breath. It wasn’t worth it, she told herself. It wasn’t worth fighting with him. Until he decided he could be with her, or she could convince her traitorous heart not to love him, things were what they were.

  Cord kept talking in that nice, mellow tone, as if this wasn’t painful and difficult. “I told you I loved you. Then you fought a sorcerer, showing sides of you I’d never seen before, and I told you I needed time. That’s still true.”

  “I think we can agree three weeks is a rather plentiful amount of time.” See? She could keep her voice even too. “You’ve known me for fourteen years. I haven’t changed. The only thing that changed was how you see me.”

  She clamped her mouth shut before she could say anything else. One of the problems with working in a family business was that her parents were also her bosses. It was one thing to tell her mom she was having boy trouble. But telling her boss? That was a bit different. Over the past few weeks, she’d thought about asking for a different partner, but she didn’t really want to explain to her boss why the person she’d worked well with for more than six months wasn’t acceptable anymore.

  She closed her eyes and sent a desperate prayer to the earth and moon. Please let us get to the lodge soon. There she would have plenty of paperwork, sword practice, and staff practice to keep her busy and away from Cord.

  “You kept a secret from me, and not a small one either. A change-who-you-are type of a secret. You admitted it yourself. You’re the ‘hunter of evil and bringer of justice.’ It’ll be years before you can have a quiet life.” He said it so softly, like that would make the words hurt less.

  She closed her eyes and held her breath, very slowly counting to ten. She was at nine when the SUV swayed as it turned onto a gravel road. Thank the earth, they were almost back at the lodge.

  Cord sighed again. “Just give me a little longer.”

  She pivoted in her seat to look at him. “Longer? Three weeks hasn’t been enough? I’m not the only one who kept a secret. You had one of your own, Mr. I Might Have One of Those Fancy Elven Callings That Makes Me Have to Serve Some Higher Purpose.” So much for not losing her temper. “I didn’t look at you all that differently. Even after you admitted your Calling might be the reason you hung around me all these years, that it might even be part of the feelings you have for me, strangely, I still love you. It’s unfortunate that those emotions don’t seem to be reciprocated or flat-out denied. Instead, I’m stuck here in limbo because you can’t figure out if you actually want to be in a relationship with someone you claim to have loved for years.”

  “That’s not—”

  “That’s exactly how it is. And I deserve better.” The SUV slowed to a stop. Shasta unclipped her seat belt, pushed open the door, hopped out, and slammed the door shut behind her.

  The humid Georgia air hit her like a wall, making her chest feel tight. Shasta leaned against the SUV. This wasn’t working. She had to get out of here. Maybe if she went far enough away, somewhere she didn’t have any memories of Cord, she could talk her heart out of love.

  Chapter Two

  The gravel crunched under Cord’s feet as he walked around the SUV. His fingers were warm and gentle as he lifted her chin. Shasta blinked away enough tears to see clearly. His blue eyes were filled with honest concern. But neither his fingers nor his eyes could take away the words said and time passed.

  “Hey now,” his voice was soft and kind and made her heart break a little bit more. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I meant to happen.”

  Shasta closed her eyes, dredging up strength. The day was far from over, and the longer this conversation continued, the harder it would be to hold herself together until she could retreat to her apartment. “Why don’t you go start on the reports? I’ll take care of the car.”

  His fingers fell away from her chin. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Her heart ached, but it had ached every day this year. One more day made little difference.

  Cord nodded, tucked his hands in his pockets, and headed into the lodge.

  Shasta rubbed her hands over her face. It would be nice to cry, purge the emotion from her system, and move on. But she’d tried that already, and it hadn’t worked. Stupid, determined heart.

  She pushed off the SUV and circled around to the tailgate. She opened it up, made a big pile of all the trash, used items, and anything else that would need to be replaced or replenished, like the shirt Cord had used. She piled all of it into one of the big cloth bags left in the SUV just for this purpose. She set it on the ground, closed the tailgate, and did a quick pass through the front and back seats. Luckily, it was fairly clean today so all she had to do was carry the bag inside, sort everything, and restock.

  She hoisted the bag onto her shoulder and turned toward the lodge. Technically, the name was Landa’s Lodge, but everyone called it the lodge. To Shasta, the big log building with the expansive gardens, jogging trails, and woods was home. Her mom had moved in when she started Oaks Consulting, way back when she was about Shasta’s age. She’d still been living here when she adopted Shasta, and it had been a great place to grow up.

  Shasta headed around the outside of the building, threading her way through one of the formal gardens to the side entrance that led to Oaks Consulting’s headquarters. She opened the door and took a right into a supply room. Then she set the bag on the table and started sorting through what would need to be cleaned, replaced, or thrown away.

  It was a little odd working in the same place she’d grown up, but these days she had her own studio apartment on the other side of the lodge with a view of a different garden, and it was completely off limits to Cord.

  That last feature was currently the one that excited her the most. As soon as she was done with work, she was going to hightail it back to her place, crack open a pint of ice cream, and put on a nice action movie. No love, just explosions and corny fight scenes.

  She dumped the replace
ment parts into the bag, picked it up, and headed back to the SUV. After restocking and tucking the bag back in its holder, she closed the tailgate and checked the time. Paperwork would have to wait. She wasn’t going to miss fencing practice.

  She headed back to Oaks Consulting, but this time took a door to the left near the end of the hallway. Down the staircase, around the bend, through another door, and she was in the ladies’ changing room. She quickly traded her boots for soft, flexible shoes, her khakis for pants that stretched a little better, and her polo for a formfitting workout shirt. She grabbed a bottle of water and a granola bar from the communal snack basket. When she was finished with the food, she settled onto a mat and started stretching.

  She was about a quarter of the way through her warm-up when her dad walked in. Elron, as Cord called him, was an elf still in his prime. He looked the same as the first day she’d come home, with pointed ears just like hers, long silver hair, and graceful movements from years of martial arts training.

  Being created by the earth had given her a somewhat unique childhood. She been about eight the first time she met Michelle and Elron, or as she’d came to know them, Mom and Dad. Since elves and witches couldn’t have children together, Shasta and her brother Victor, who was also earth born, were as close as they were going to get. Being created rather than born hadn’t made her parents love her any less. Because of them, she’d grown up believing that the ties she chose could be stronger than those of blood. Cord had been part of that group of people who mattered. Now, years later, she wasn’t sure the bond they’d forged was enough.

  Her dad sat down next to her and started his own stretches. “Did the cats give you much trouble?”

  Shasta huffed out a breath and switched to a set of leg stretches. “Well, they have a type of invisibility that worked against fey and elves, the disposition of an angry grizzly bear, and they could fly. It was a blast.”

  He winced. “Were either of you hurt?”

  “I got a few scratches, but they’ve healed already. Cord got fairly cut up by one of the cats though. We had to pull an extra shirt and a minor healing charm out of supplies.” She didn’t mention the emotional wounds from a fight.

  Her dad looked her over. “Anything else?”

  “Nope.” She stood up and bent at the hips, hands pressed to the floor on each side of her feet.

  He mirrored her stretch. “I thought there might be, since traditionally we have sword practice in the morning and you wanted to move it to the evening.”

  “We went over all this when we talked about it last night.” She exhaled slowly. It wouldn’t do to get tense while she was trying to limber up.

  “We did.”

  “Like I said before, your sword lessons helped save my life. I want to get better, and I’m often out on calls in the morning. So I figured if we did our lessons at night, we’d get more consistent practice in.” She hadn’t mentioned the most important reason—avoiding Cord.

  “So you said.”

  Somehow she didn’t think she was fooling her dad.

  “We will warm up with wooden swords and then see how you feel.” He headed toward the armor rack.

  Shasta straightened and followed him. She quickly donned a padded shirt, leather arm guards, gauntlets, and a helmet. After picking her sword, she moved to the center of the room and took a few practice swings. From there she moved into a pattern. High guard into block, sweep aside the phantom sword on the way to low guard, then come back up for another pass. Somewhere in there, the rest of the day faded away and she only existed in the here and now.

  “Good. Very good.”

  Her dad’s voice broke through. Shasta lowered the sword. “Thank you.”

  “Are you ready to warm up against a person?” He lifted his sword.

  She grinned and returned to high guard. “You bet.”

  After a furious warm-up with wooden swords, they moved to their actual swords. Elron twisted his wrist to summon his sword. Shasta copied the movement, looking at the wooden bracelet on her wrist that connected her to the sword. Years ago she’d asked about the spell that made sword summoning possible. He’d said they were secrets of the elven master smiths. Her mom had said the same thing, and for a witch to give up on defining a spelling and call it elven secrets was a statement of its own. Even without knowing the interworkings of the magic, Shasta was grateful to have it since it allowed her to carry her sword without strapping it to herself.

  With live steel in hand, the attacks, blocks, and parries became more deliberate. When her technique faltered, her dad had them go from bouts to drills. First they did sets of attacks and responses that focused on the weaker aspects of her sword work. Then it was endless repetitive movements to strengthen her form. Finally, when they were both covered in sweat from head to toe, her dad called a halt. “You did well today.

  “Thanks.” Shasta dismissed her sword and started stripping off the armor. As tired as she was, the thoughts of Cord, which had been blessedly absent during the fight, were starting to creep back.

  Her dad patted her shoulder. “I’m not your mother, but I am here if you wish to talk.”

  Shasta felt the blood rush to her cheeks. She forced herself to meet her dad’s crystal-blue eyes. “It’s that obvious?”

  He shrugged. “I am your father.”

  She lowered her eyes, unable to picture herself telling her dad about boy problems, especially when that boy was an employee. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”

  “When you are, I will be here.” He pulled her in for a hug.

  She leaned into him, once again feeling like she had as a little girl, when she believed he really was invincible and able to do anything. She knew better now, but it still felt like he could fix the entire world for her.

  As he pulled back, he whispered, “I love you.”

  She smiled up at him. “I love you too, Dad.”

  There were shadows in his eyes as he turned and walked toward the men’s locker room. At the door he looked back at her. “He hurts you, I’ll kill him.”

  Shasta stood there, mouth agape, as he walked through the door. He was gone well before her brain caught up. She didn’t really want Cord dead, just decisive. Though to be fair to her dad, dead was a form of decisive.

  She shook her head. That was why she hadn’t told her father. That was also why she’d been wary of telling everything to her mom. She didn’t want Cord dead, or hurt, or fired. She just wanted to be free of him. Free of the love she felt for him and free of his presence.

  The sound of soft footsteps on the stairs made her turn around. Her mom trotted down, already wearing workout clothes and with her brown hair pulled back in a braid. “You’re already down here? And I thought I was early.”

  This had been the second part of the real reason she wanted to move her sword practice time. By putting it back to back with staff practice with her mom, she figured she’d be so tired that she wouldn’t spend any time thinking about Cord when she got back to her apartment. If she was extra lucky, she’d be awake just long enough to shower, eat dinner, and then fall blissfully asleep. So far that was the one place Cord wasn’t tormenting her.

  “I moved sword practice so it would be right before this.”

  Some of the cheer fell away from her mom’s face. “Oh, your dad mentioned that.”

  Shasta wasn’t sure if she was dealing with her boss or her mother. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

  “I just finished a jog, so I’m fairly warmed up.” Michelle headed for the staves on the wall. “Shall we get to it?”

  “Please.” Shasta picked up the staff and got into position. As long as they were actually doing staff work, she should be able to avoid uncomfortable questions. But through the light warm-up, her mom spent as much time watching Shasta’s face as her weapon and body. Shasta finally landed a soft blow to her mom’s hip to force her to pay more attention. It did the trick, and before long they were moving at full speed.

  The staff cut through the air, heading for Shasta’s head. She thrust one end of her weapon up, blocking the blow. While her staff was vibrating with the impact, she pushed forward, tossing her mom back. Continuing the same move, she brought her staff down on the section of wood right between her mother’s hands. Her mom’s staff clattered to the ground.