Spellbound (Spellbringers Book 1) (16 page)

“Rachel.” He nearly wept with relief upon
hearing her voice. It was embarrassing to witness.

The rest of us were practically dead to him.
He wandered from the room, speaking rapidly into his phone. Bryce
rolled his eyes. The three of us watched a boring reality show on
television for a few minutes until Mikael yawned and announced he
was ready to go to bed.

When we were alone, Bryce asked, “What time do
you need to be home?”

“Around ten,” I said wondering if he was
trying to get rid of me. A silly high school student must seem
pretty boring to a nineteen-year-old man of the world.

“I’m not trying to get rid of you, Alisa,” he
explained, as if reading my mind. “I was going to offer to give you
a ride if you needed one. Jace and Rachel might be on the phone for
an eternity.”

“Do you like Rachel?” I asked
cautiously.

Bryce seemed surprised by my question. “Yes, I
do. I don’t know her very well, but from what I do know, I like her
a lot.”

My cheeks burned with jealousy and rage. What
a slap in the face. Bryce made it obvious on more than one occasion
that he felt I wasn’t good enough for his family, but Rachel was
accepted instantly. I remembered what Jerica told me about heritage
meaning a lot to Bryce. Clearly, my lack of magical blood meant I
was less than nothing in his eyes.

“Rachel is good for my brother. Some men need
an anchor—a person to stand by them and help them make the right
decisions. Jace isn’t very bright, so apparently he needs two
people to help keep his feet on the ground.” Bryce laughed at his
own joke.

I was startled. Did he mean that I was good
for Jace too? That I was his anchor?

“What about you, Bryce? Who’s your anchor?” I
regretted the question as soon as I saw the expression on his
face.

“My brother, Royce, was my anchor. I looked up
to him. I worshipped him. I thought our family would fall apart
when he died. I thought I would die too. The pain will never go
away.” Bryce paused, and from his ragged and irregular breathing, I
could tell he was barely hanging on to his emotions.

“A Warrior is supposed to be his own anchor.
Before our training is complete, we have to learn to be alone, to
depend only on ourselves for survival. A Warrior isn’t supposed to
depend on another person. That’s why they give up the job if they
get married. They can’t have conflicting loyalties. Like my dad. He
gave it all up when he married my mom. Mom always felt Royce would
have done the same—meet the right girl, get married, and get into a
safer line of work. I think that’s one of the hardest parts of
losing someone so young. You miss the things they never got to do.
Like get married, have children, travel to a faraway place they’d
always talked about visiting. My heart feels like it’s going to
split open from the pain, but the anger is there too. I feel like
he was cheated and so were the rest of us.”

Bryce’s rage made sense to me now. I could
understand the pain of losing someone you love, but never
considered the anger that would fill in all the holes left by
despair.

“Bryce, I’m really sorry about
your brother.” I tried to hold back tears.
Sorry
seemed so inadequate. It was
probably the most overused word in the English language. Without
thinking, I reached out and held his hand. We sat that way for
several minutes, each lost in our own thoughts.

Jace often spoke about his oldest brother.
According to Jace, Bryce and Royce had attended Central together
for seven months. Bryce had always dreamed of attending WTB with
his older brother, and for a while, that dream had become a
reality—until it turned into a nightmare. I tried to picture Bryce
as a little boy who looked up to his big brother, who wanted to be
like him more than anything in the whole world. My heart broke for
Bryce, a boy who’d lost his hero. And for Jerica and Abe, parents
who lost the grown son who would always be their baby.

Bryce gave my hand a squeeze and released it.
He moved closer to me, looking serious when he said, “I meant it
when I told Jace he’s lucky to have you as a friend. You’re a good
person, Alisa.” Bryce must have sensed my shock and embarrassment,
because his next words were clearly intended to lighten the mood.
“I wouldn’t have tried to trade you for a truck.” He smiled and I
felt slightly disoriented.

“That’s high praise coming from you,” I said,
trying to sound lighthearted.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well, you never seem very happy to see me.
I’ve always assumed you don’t like me,” I said.

“Why?” He seemed genuinely
confused.

“Well, from the second I met you, you’ve made
it clear I’m not welcome. I mean, just the other day, you pointed
out once again that I’m not one of you. Right in front of Mikael.”
My words were tumbling out, one over the other. I wasn’t saying
what I wanted to say the way I wanted to say it.

“Okay, first of all, I was pretty shocked the
first time we met. My brother had just been attacked. Trust me. I’m
grateful you saved his life, more than you could ever know. By
saving him, you saved the whole family. My parents wouldn’t have
survived the death of another child. But you were a witness to our
family’s secrets. Do you know how many people outside the magical
community our family has trusted with our secrets? None. At the
time, I couldn’t understand why my mother insisted on telling you
about us.”

“Second, I truly did not mean what
I said the other day. At least, I didn’t mean it the way it
sounded. You
aren’t
one of us. That’s a fact. But I
can
accept you for who you are. I
know you don’t believe that, but it’s true.” Bryce took a deep
breath.

“Third—and don’t think I don’t listen to every
single word you say—why do you care so much that I said what I said
in front of Mikael? Why do you care what Mikael thinks?” He sounded
annoyed when he asked this.

Heat crept up my neck and spread across my
face. How could I have known Bryce would be so perceptive? Why, oh,
why did I have to mention Mikael? Now Bryce would think I was not
only a loser who couldn’t get Jace to fall in love with me, but
that I was a loser with a very short attention span. I didn’t want
him to think I had a crush on his friend.

“Well, it’s just that… I don’t know Mikael and
I…uh, don’t want him to think…” Smooth. So much for damage control.
Every time I opened my mouth, I dug myself a deeper hole. I should
have asked for a muzzle for Christmas.

“It doesn’t matter to him or any of the rest
of us whether or not you have magic. Mikael likes you, or at least
he did. He was asking all kinds of questions about you, but stopped
when I pointed out that it’s illegal in our country for a man of
twenty to pursue a fourteen-year-old girl.” A wicked gleam lit
Bryce’s eyes and I choked when everything he said finally sunk
in.

“Fourteen?” I sputtered. “I just turned
seventeen. You didn’t really think…”

“Of course not.” He laughed.

“Then why did you tell him that?” I
asked.

It took a moment for him to answer. “I have my
reasons.” He stood up, checked the time on his cell phone, and
announced, “Come on. I’ll drive you home. No telling how long Jace
is going to be on the phone. Probably forever.”

I followed him out to the living room and
waited by the door while he told Jace we were leaving. I wondered
if Jace cared. I decided to harass my parents about getting my
driver’s license. Up until that moment, I’d been pretty content to
bum rides or walk to get where I wanted to go. Standing alone,
waiting for my best friend’s brother to drive me home, I decided I
was tired of always depending on others. Besides, if I’d been
driving myself back and forth, Mikael wouldn’t have believed I was
only fourteen.

I smiled, thinking about what Bryce said about
Mikael asking about me. If only that were true. Bryce certainly had
a sick sense of humor.

Bryce came down the hallway with Jace in
pursuit.

“You sure it’s okay for Bryce to drive you? I
can call Rachel later if you want me to take you home.” I
appreciated Jace’s efforts to prioritize our friendship.

“It’s fine, Jace. Call me tomorrow. And tell
Rachel I said hi.” We hugged briefly while Bryce stood by the front
door, looking impatient.

Bryce led me out to his truck, his hand
resting gently on the small of my back. He opened the door for me
and helped me in. The spot on my back where his hand touched me
tingled with warmth.

We rode in silence. I felt as nervous and
uncomfortable as I did the first time Bryce drove me home. When we
pulled into my driveway, he told me to wait while he opened the
passenger side door. He walked me to my front door and grabbed my
hand before I went inside.

“Hey, I enjoyed talking to you
tonight.”

“Yeah, me too.” I couldn’t seem to make eye
contact.

“Alisa,” Bryce said. I could feel him willing
me to look at him. When I met his eyes, it seemed like he changed
his mind about something he’d been about to say. “Good night.” He
turned and walked to his truck. I stood in the chilly night air and
watched as he drove away.

Ch
apter Fourteen

Rachel

My brother, Jeffrey, moved to Atlanta
three years ago to attend culinary school. His visits home were
regular while he was still in school, but after graduation, he
couldn’t come home as often. His job at the hotel restaurant meant
he worked many holidays and weekends. As the newest pastry chef,
Jeffrey was required to work on Christmas and New Year’s, so we
decided to come to him. Since there was no way we could all fit
comfortably into his tiny studio apartment, my mother booked a room
at the fancy hotel where he worked.

Mama dragged us all around the city,
pointing out every place Daddy had ever taken her to. She sounded
so much like a tour guide, I had to stop myself from busting up
with laughter. To his credit, Jeffrey refrained from mentioning
that he’d lived in the city for three years and probably knew more
about it than she did. I enjoyed her walk down memory lane for the
most part, but my thoughts kept drifting to Jace.

Mama, Jeffrey, and I had just sat down
to dinner after a long and exhausting day, when I felt a familiar
tug at my mind. While I was proud of Jace for holding back as long
as he had, he’d picked the worst possible time to
connect.

“We’re just sitting down to dinner.
I’ll call you tonight.”

“I can’t wait that long. I miss you,”
he pleaded.

“I miss you too, but now isn’t a good
time.”

I turned my attention back to my
mother. She was in the middle of interrogating Jeffrey, and I
desperately tried to find an excuse to interrupt her. She could be
very overbearing, and poor Jeffrey was squirming with
discomfort.

“Who said you could stop taking your
pills?” she asked a little too loudly. A couple of fellow diners
turned to stare.

“Calm down, Mama. I’ve been fine for
two years. I stopped seeing the doctor. It was a waste of money,”
he said, looking apologetically at the waiter who’d approached to
take our order. My mother waved the stoic young man
away.

“Boy, why didn’t you call me if you
didn’t have the money?” she hissed.

“It wasn’t about the money. Those
pills had side effects. They didn’t help at all. They just made me
feel worse,” he said.

“I don’t want to be getting another
late night phone call to drive all the way to Atlanta to bail you
out of trouble,” she said, referring to an incident during his
second year of school.

“You won’t,” he replied in a hushed
voice.

“Do you know how it felt for me to
have to see you in that condition? Paranoid, irrational—you said
people were out to get you.”

“Can we talk about this later?” he
asked.

My mother glanced around the crowded
restaurant before nodding curtly in Jeffrey’s direction. I felt
sorry for him. Mama wasn’t easy to get along with. It was no wonder
he had a mental breakdown a couple of years ago. At the time, I
believed my mother’s assessment that Jeffrey was unbalanced and in
need of medical intervention. Now I wasn’t so sure.

After dinner, we stood outside the
restaurant and waited for a cab. Mama started in on him once again.
“Maybe you should move back to Oaktree if you aren’t going to take
care of yourself.” Jeffrey squeezed his eyes shut and I knew he’d
had enough. So had I.

“Mama,” I said. “Can we see the High
Museum while we’re in town? Isn’t that where you met
Daddy?”

“Of course, baby. Did I ever tell you
the story about how he proposed to me on top of Stone Mountain? Oh,
Rachel, we’ll have to go there before we head home.” Her eyes went
misty and my brother flashed me a grateful smile.

We headed back to the hotel and
Jeffrey went home to his apartment. My cell phone rang just as my
mother was climbing into bed. I ignored the call and switched off
my phone.

“That might have been Jace, honey.
Aren’t you going to talk to him?” she asked.