Page 2 of Lawful Mate
Ivy rolled her eyes. “I’m fine, Mom. Just overslept and was in a rush.”
“Oh, well… why didn’t you say so?”
I just did.
“Well, no worries. I can clear the traffic for you. Don’t want you to be late on your first day.”
“No, Mom, really…” Ivy moved the phone away from her ear and took a deep breath. She loved her mother, but at thirty years old, she did not need to be babied with her mom’s spells. If she was going to be late, she’d deal with the consequences or manifest her own clear path.
Her mom and grandmother were the ones who taught her not to meddle with human activities or to do so as little as possible, what with the witch hunts, oh… centuries ago. If humans had been privy to the real existence of witches back then, they’d have known never to mess with them. Hell, a real witch may have allowed humans to try to burn her at the stake, especially a fire witch. A few whispered words and the townsfolk would be sent running to water with their asses on fire. Ivy laughed a little maniacally, causing Skeezy to finally cast his eyes down and away from her.
Actual witches were never caught. As if. Too many innocent human lives, however, were taken in those fruitless witch hunts. Maybe her kind should have interfered back then.
Ivy turned her back on Skeezy to face the wall and brought her cell phone back up to her ear, whispering, “Aw, come on, Mom. Don’t do that. I’m taking the train. It will be fine.”
“If you say so, sweetie.”
“Mom!” The line went dead, and Ivy couldn’t help her frustrated growl. Skeezy practically bolted out of the elevator, not glancing back at her.
Good! Two weeks of living in the building and the guy ogled her without so much as a polite greeting every time she ran into him. Maybe now he’d stop being such a creep.
If he knows what’s good for him!
Stepping out into the fresh breezy air, Ivy inhaled deeply. She loved the fall. The lack of humidity did wonders for her hair. Even with her witchy powers, taming frizz was a constant battle. Still, she missed her home upstate. The stars were too hidden in the city for her liking. She had a purpose here, a responsibility she would not take lightly, but she already missed the small law firm she worked for back home. She also missed the one person who she could always vent to, though it had been years since she had the option to do so.
He was the reason she was here.
Ivy took a another deep breath to clear her mind of those thoughts now. She needed her head in the game.
Her three-block walk to the train was suspiciously filled with people who seemed to want to get out of her way. Same thing down the stairs to the train station. One turn-style was avoided by all patrons, though there was no issue with it when she swiped her MetroCard and went through. When she got to the platform, one seat on the bench remained unoccupied.
“I think I’ll stand,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.
Only then, a young woman took the unoccupied seat.
Mothers!
At least her mother refrained from messing with the train schedule—Ivy’s uptown train was three minutes out. Surely, if her mom had tampered with it, the train would have arrived as soon as she stepped foot on the platform.
Ivy inhaled the air. This seemed to be where the magic ended, or at least for now, knowing her mother. Movement to her left caught her attention. She turned to face a hooded man walking slowly, hands plastered to his side. A glint of metal peeked through his left hand, then a premonition hit her. He would walk a few more feet toward an unsuspecting waiting passenger—a middle-aged man with glasses standing not too far from Ivy. He would then bash the man in the back of the head with his concealed wrench and flee up the stairs as his victim fell onto the platform, bleeding and unconscious. Ivy saw the hooded man hit at least two more people on the stairs before her vision ended.
She couldn’t let that happen, interfering be damned. What use were her powers if she couldn’t do some good with them?
Ivy let out a deep breath and whispered, too low for any human ears to hear her, “Invoco ventum. Sile, impotens.”
The hooded man stiffened, then fell to the ground, face first, his wrench clanking to the floor. A few people near him jumped back and screamed.
Ivy turned away from the scene. She knew her face had remained stoic as the premonition hit her. Trained as she was, no one would have noticed anything amiss, so subtle was the use of her magic. No one human, that is.
Across the platform on the downtown-bound side, a man with a knowing look stared directly at her, then raised a brow and gifted her with a devilish half-smirk. Damn, he was handsome in his sharp navy-blue suit and his thick, golden-brown hair styled in a sexy low-tapered fade look. She couldn’t make out the color of his eyes from this distance, but she could tell they were on the light side.
Ivy breathed in the air around her. Shifter! Of course, he had heard her. She shrugged her shoulders and smirked back.
His train arrived, saving them both from the aftermath of awkwardness. It wasn’t forbidden by any of the supernatural councils to help humans, including the Supernatural Council of New York City or SCNYC as it was more commonly referred to. Not that she cared what they thought. Witches, by choice, were unrepresented on the Council, though given the reason she was here in the first place, maybe that should change.
The handsome stranger stepped inside his crowded train, moved all the way to the opposite doors, bringing himself a little closer to her, and gave her a sexy wink before his train took off.
Her train arrived less than a minute later. Ivy ignored the commotion to her left involving the still unmoving, would-be assailant. Two police officers were already at the scene when the doors to the train car opened. Ivy stepped inside and took the lone empty seat immediately to her right, which she saw a passenger vacate, though he didn’t depart the train.
