Page 40 of Bewitching the Dragon
“No,” Pacey said. “Your mother and my mother were both Daughters of Light, but I…I wasn’t born with the right genes, I guess.”
“What does that mean?”
Pacey cupped Becca’s cheek and gave her a watery smile. “It means you are extremely precious. And also that your magic is a great deal more powerful than mine.”
Becca looked down at her non-glowing hands. “It does?”
Pacey abruptly stood. “I could really use a glass of wine right now. How about you?”
“Sure.”
“Argyle?”
He shook his head. Becca supposed, technically, he was on bodyguard duty, so he probably shouldn’t be drinking. “Wait,” she said abruptly, and Pacey froze.
Becca shook her head. “You-you were the handyman.”
Argyle didn’t seem to be the sort to emote much, but he definitely looked a little sheepish.
“You had a glass of wine with us,” she said.
He nodded once. “I was…pretending. Trying to ensure you did not realize what was actually occurring all around you.”
He deserved points for honesty.
Except he still hadn’t given a satisfactory answer as to why he let her believe she was human for her entire life thus far.
Pacey hurried to the kitchen and returned with two glasses of rosé. After handing one to Becca, she sat next to her on the couch and tucked one leg underneath the other thigh. “First rule of magic: don’t use it when drunk.” She took a swallow. “But given what you’ve been through today, I think one glass to take the edge off won’t hurt. So, tell me what you’ve discovered you are able to do so far.”
Becca took her time sipping her wine while she mulled this over. “My hand lights up a lot. Seems to be connected to my emotions.”
Pacey nodded. “That makes sense. Especially given your magic has been latent for twenty-five years.”
A fact that annoyed Becca, but since Pacey was about to teach her about magic, she decided not to bring it up and potentially start an argument.
“Now that I think about it, it must have been my magic that made that guy fly across the room at the bar when I first met those warlocks. At the time I convinced myself it didn’t happen that way, but I remember the bright light when he touched me.” She remembered the pain, too, when his red light had seemed to battle with her lighter one. It wasn’t an experience she was in a hurry to repeat.
Pacey and Argyle shared another look. Probably thanking their lucky stars she had survived that interlude. To be honest, Rahu had been a large part of the reason she’d survived.
“Did Rahu know?” she asked. “When I met him at the bar?”
Argyle nodded. “All magical beings have an ability to recognize other beings. We give off an aura that indicates we possess magic. Yours had been concealed since your birth; however, at some point that evening, the concealment spell was breached, and both he and the warlocks became aware of your existence.”
“It was when we touched,” she murmured, looking at her hand.
“So it appears,” Argyle said.
“Delilah said physical contact with someone with whom you are emotionally vested can break a concealment spell. But we’d just met. How was it possible we were already emotionally vested?”
Argyle sighed. “Rahu is a dragon, and dragons have fated mates. It is highly unusual considering you aren’t a dragon, but—”
“No. Really? Rahu and me?”
“It would explain how he was able to break the spell before you even knew one another.”
How did she feel about that? She wasn’t sure, honestly. She was still upset with him for not telling her what she was before they slept together, although there was a small voice in the back of her head whispering questions like,Would you have believed him?
“Is that how I was able to summon him? Wait,” she said abruptly. “Do you remember when Petra’s baby was kidnapped?”
