Page 75 of Wind Called

She looked a little more cheerful. “That’s something, I suppose. I guess I can do some research after we get past this meeting with the elders.”

He wanted to tell her that they could look for a vacation rental together, since he had to be out of his in a few more days anyway. But maybe that was asking too much.

Or maybe not. They might not have pledged to be together for all eternity yet, but he knew he couldn’t imagine a single day without Bellamy McAllister in it…and he hoped she felt the same way about him.

So he only said, “Sounds like a good idea,” and they continued their way through Clarkdale and up the hill to Jerome.

All three elders were already waiting at his grandmother’s house when Marc and Bellamy arrived, and there was a pitcher of lemonade and a set of matching glasses sitting on the coffee table.

“Thank you for coming over so quickly,” Tricia said, her tone almost formal, as if she wanted to signal that she was going to be handling the current situation as a McAllister elder and not as his grandmother.

Which he figured was fair. Bellamy was one of their own, and although Sedona was supposed to be a neutral place, it was still far more McAllister territory than anything to do with the de la Paz clan.

“It wasn’t a problem,” he replied as he and Bellamy sat down on the couch. His grandmother and Allegra occupied the two wing chairs that usually faced the sofa, while Levi was sitting in a side chair that appeared to have been brought in from the dining room.

“All right,” Levi said once they’d all poured some lemonade for themselves. “Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened?”

Marc glanced over at Bellamy, and she gave him an encouraging tilt of the head, as though she was all too happy to let him provide the narrative of their last couple of hours.

So he explained their theories about the vortexes as best he could, and how Bellamy and her cousin Bree had clearly responded to the inflow type, while he’d only experienced their true effects after spending the night at the Sky Ranch Lodge up on the Airport Mesa outflow vortex.

The elders exchanged troubled glances at getting that particular piece of news. “I suppose that’s why both the McAllisters and the Wilcoxes decided to stay away,” Allegra said. “That kind of energy is just too unpredictable for any of us to handle.”

Although Marc wasn’t so sure about that…after all, he and Bellamy and Bree had had their powers enhanced, but not in a way they hadn’t predicted…he decided now wasn’t the time to argue that point.

Instead, he described the visionary dream he’d had while sleeping at the Sky Ranch Lodge, and how he’d seen the man who’d tried to steal the amulet from Angela and Connor’s house. “Since we had an idea of where he was, we decided to go find him.”

“That was not the wisest of plans,” Levi said, golden-brown brows drawing together.

Maybe not, but Marc didn’t want to argue the point. “We knew what we were doing. We’re both experienced hikers.”

Levi’s frown remained in place. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Bellamy reached over and took Marc by the hand. Her touch made him feel a bit better — not only because he always loved to feel her skin against his, but that by doing so, she’d shown the elders that their relationship wasn’t precisely a casual one.

“We thought about letting you know what was going on,” she said. “But even Angela and Connor would have had a tough time teleporting into a place so unfamiliar to them. And we didn’t know if any of you could have managed hiking out into such rough country. So we figured we might as well go ahead and do what needed to be done.”

None of the elders seemed too happy with this observation, although at least Allegra appeared somewhat resigned, as though she knew deep down that her nearly ninety-year-old knees and back could never have gotten her all the way out to that lonely rock formation where Marc and Bellamy had found the thief.

His grandmother’s eyes narrowed, but it seemed as if she also had realized she could never have kept up with a couple of fit twenty-somethings.

And since neither Tricia nor Allegra seemed compelled to argue the point, Levi also refrained, even though he was probably the one with the most reason to.

“We hiked for almost two hours just to get out there,” Bellamy put in. “The place was really in the middle of nowhere. I have no idea how the guy even found it.”

“Some kind of magic, maybe,” Allegra suggested, but Bellamy only gave a small lift of her shoulders.

“I suppose that’s possible, even though the only real magic we saw him display was a gift of invisibility.”

“Well, that explains why none of the security systems were able to record him,” Levi said.

“And I think I have an idea of why he was able to get past the wards,” Marc added with a nod toward Bellamy.

She pulled the silvery orb out of her purse and handed it over to Levi, whose eyes narrowed as he studied the object.

“Like the amulet, I can feel that it’s very powerful,” he observed. “But what is its particular magic?”

Marc explained how the thief had spun the orb around, and as he did so, the shield magic Marc had been employing slowly began to break down. “So I suppose it’s possible he also used that thing to get past the wards. Luckily, they were strong enough that he still couldn’t get the safe out of the house.”

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