The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance, #1)

by Sara Raasch

The words are only spoken loud enough to be heard over the music, but the voice itself is a thunderhead, and it crashes into my nerve endings like each one was caught unaware in a storm.

I feel the memory of it anyway. Feel it scrape along my spine and fizzle at the base of my neck. It’s been six years but there’s no protection from it, no dullness of time, no armor from any of the ineffective ways I try to shield myself. It’s always right there. Waiting.

What if all I am, all I’ll ever be, is an irresponsible, immature fuckup who can’t cope with anything in a normal way?

Why did the internet give me so many plant-based mantras? Are all psychologists druids?

Lol

I push the question into our lab, let it nestle alongside the silence after Elethior’s too appropriate dressing-down.

“Aw,” he throws at my retreating back. “I’m proud of you, baby boy.” Don’t cuss at him. Don’t curse him. Don’t anything him.

Every place he touches sparks so strongly that the club won’t need their light shows—we can create pyrotechnics on our own.

My lips part, eyes pinched shut like I’m in pain. I am. It hurts, and it doesn’t, and that hurts, too.

But it’s not a bad catastrophe, and I never knew, never fucking knew that calamities could be wondrous, too.

His smirk returns. Crawls back across his face like it never left.

Three days. It’s only been three days since I kissed him—earlier tonight was barely a kiss, not like this—and the moment we connect, it’s oxygen after being submerged, it’s something I missed.

My brain shuts down. No one’s home, forward the mail, hire a plant-sitter.

There, that’s what I want; destroy me with a look, take me apart piece by piece, leave nothing behind.

By the time his eyes lazily make their way up to mine, an hour might’ve passed. Two. It could be the next day. My heart’s veering onto a runaway course and my hands twitch so I pocket them and lean against my desk, feigning nonchalance.

A frustrated snarl builds and I stay facing my desk. I am not a flower and don’t need to be drawn to his sun.

All the sharp lines of his features, all his harsh edges become cliffs I want to bungee jump off, see how far down I can fall before the rebound snaps me back up. He’s the plummet and the catch and the rise again all in one, and kneeling at his feet, the world orients around him.

Seeing him slants reality. Makes me question if maybe reality was slanted, and looking at him is what it feels like to be level.

I wheeze but stagger to safety behind the wall next to him, where he’s wearing that way too smug, way too satisfied grin I hate. Used to hate. Not sure I ever did hate.

I’ve seen him smile so many times. So many different flavors of it, I could write a thesis on the dozens of ways Elethior Tourael’s lips move. But this smile? It puts all the others to shame. It’s joy and relief, it’s ecstasy and an unspoken, vibrant finally.

The wall wobbles. Teeters. Topples right on down, even before Thio steps back across the threshold.

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve stopped believing there’s a way to get this out of my system at all. I’m pretty sure you are my system now.”

“How did I find you?” The words tattoo right where his lips are, at the intersection of neck and shoulder. The world goes evanescent, attention whittling to sensation only, and that sensation is a falling open.

More, part of me cries out. This, another part says. This, forever.

No more talking. I’ll ruin it, or it’ll open too wide and eat me whole.

Yes, sweet is frightening. It’s real and foundational. But gods, it’s good.

I laugh again; has it ever been this fun? Gods, it’s breaking my heart and filling in the cracks all at once.

We’re both broken, though. And our jagged pieces don’t exactly fit together, but we know how to move around the sharpest points of each other’s, how to adjust and make space so no one bleeds.

For two people who built a relationship on screaming at each other, Thio’s good at saying things I can’t argue with.

I don’t know who moves. It’s a shared collision, we’re both at fault.

I need to change him from the inside the way he’s altering me at a cellular level.

What good is living in a world with magic if I can’t use it to make him happy?

second, over my dead body is he going to propose like I’m the prize in this relationship. He’s the prize. He’s the whole damn jackpot, and I’m going to get down on one knee and proclaim how much I love this man and put my ring on his finger.