Page 126 of The Sea Witch
“Our kiss at the waterfall,” she said. “And in that room at the inn in Domingo.”
“And when the Redthorn threatened you.” He scowled. “I don’t want anyone here endangering you.”
“There’s a much better way to get your magic going.” She looped her arms around his neck and pressed her body to his. At once, he tossed the tankard aside and his hands clasped her waist as his eyes darkened. “Objections, Bloody Ben?”
“None at all.” His voice had gone rough. He backed her against the wall, and one of his hands cradled her jaw. Her pulse was urgent beneath his touch.
She lifted onto her toes, straining into him with her hands on his shoulders. His lips found hers.
They didn’t waste time with beginnings. Their mouths opened at once to each other. She met his tongue with her own, twining against him.
She forgot everything but the feel of Ben and riding the waves of desire that rose and crested and crashed.
A bottle smashed near them.
They broke apart with a gasp. He still held her, and she continued to cling to him. Their panting breaths intermingled in the narrow space between them.
Her fingers traced the dark markings now climbing up his throat and twisting across his chest, revealed by the open neck of his shirt.
“Glad my theory’s correct,” she breathed.
“That voice in me, the notes yet to be sung,” he said, low and urgent. “They’re searching for a way out.”
She wove her fingers into his hair. “The spark of your magic. I sense it, too.”
“It’s... strange,” he said slowly. “Different.” At her nod, he went on, “Is it enough? Can you use it?”
With her own magic, she reached for his. The power inside him rose up, tentative. Unsteady. She didn’t back down, instead stretching toward him with careful patience. Slowly, his magic glowed brighter. Awakening like a creature that had long slumbered at the bottom of the sea and now swam to the surface. Meeting hers, growing more vivid, stronger.
She inhaled sharply. Joining her magic with other witches had always filled her with power and joy, to be part of something greater. Yet this was surging and vital, encircling her and Ben, taking each of their strength and becoming fiercer. She’d been complete in herself, but this lifted her higher. She could touch stars.
“Ben,” she gasped. “It’s...”
“Strange. Wonderful.”
She wanted to explore every corner of the sky with him, from Polaris to Pegasus, and swim through the hidden depths of the ocean, to the coral reefs off Cozumel to deep water caves of Bermuda.
Again, Alys felt for magic Little George had left behind, hidden behind a blockade. She summoned the light-gathering of a prism, collecting her and Ben’s power, concentrating it and aiming it toward the barrier.
The blockade shuddered and shook. Yet it held.
She focused her and Ben’s magic even more, strain pulsing through her body.
Suddenly, she felt the barrier shatter into fragments like tiles liberated from their mosaic.
She moved away from the wall of the large hall, nudging him to follow her. Walking along the edge of the massive noisy chamber, she would stop and start as she searched for the magic’s origin.
Ben kept pace beside her as she stepped toward one of the dancers. Gold shimmered on the woman’s ankle as she twirled, and Alys went closer. Yet as the dancer spun, Alys moved away, still seeking.
Swirling music pulled on her, and she strode toward a gathering of performers. They banged on drums and sawed at fiddles. A man shook a tambourine.
Yet magic wasn’t here, either.
She turned away and faced the long table running the length of the hall. At the very end, a roast was being carved by none other than Lambert himself in a display of flamboyant hospitality. In one hand, he held a fork with long tines. His other hand gripped an ornate gold-plated carving knife. Patterns and words were engraved into its blade, and small holes dotted its surface.
“A golden holy key you seek to open the gates,” she whispered to Ben.
“Notholy,” he answered, understanding dawning in his face. “Holey.”
