CHIARA
WHEN we reach the restaurant, my driver pulls up directly in front of the doors and helps me out of the car.
“Thanks, William. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to leave.” He will wait for my call somewhere else, probably in the pub we have passed on the way here. He tips his hat to me in agreement and then he is off. Meanwhile, I walk up to the entrance of the restaurant.I do not recall having eaten here previously. The outside is elegant and modern, and the interiors look intimate and cozy.But most essentially, the smells emanating from the place are delicious.I can see through the windows that almost all the tables are occupied.So how come I have never heard of this restaurant before?It doesn’t seem to be a family-oriented place though, since there are no children in sight. The patrons that are seated and eating dinner have their faces up and turned towards... me?Interesting.I frown. That’s confusing.They are all really looking at me, watching me. Why the hell are they? What is this place?My spidey sense is vibrating furiously. I’m starting to think I know what’s going on as I follow the hostess to where my reserved table is located.It’s not in the more public part of the restaurant.We enter a hallway and stop in front of one of the private dining- room doors.As soon as the hostess opens the door and I see my dinner companion, everything clears up.“Mom.”My mother gives me the most engaging smile in the world. “Hello, darling!” And as beautiful as a swan gathering herself up to fly, she stands up from her seat to go to me.We kiss and hug like long-lost playmates.(If you stay long enough here, you’ll see this is common in our relationship. She is more like my sister, and they say it’s a mental something in the Mundane world. ADHD. Whatever. She’s the most unusual mother in the world and it’s in the best way.)As I get hugged tightly, I close my eyes. I smell her favorite perfume as she giggles excitedly at my being here.I miss her and I always love her Rose with a hint of Jasmine smell. It strongly brings me back to when I was a child playing on the grass while my parents flirted beside me. They were always so in love…I miss seeing them together.Why does my father have to be Mundane?“Well then, honey, you’ll not be you,” my mother once said earnestly.Well, I know that. But it doesn’t make it any easier that I feel like I get the better in the bargain than the people who made me.The feeling of guilt has always stayed and there are always points to amend it. Even though my father is a Mundane, he is one of the best ones out there, always doing something big to save the world and help others who aren’t as strong, much like his wife is doing on her end of the world. They are the two strongest people I know.And they have to be best separately because of systems they need to adhere to.They belong together.But they had to split to protect and uphold each other.And they are my parents, which means I have to be strong, too, and not complain because I haven’t heard them do so ever.So when I raise my head from her shoulder, my face is beaming at her with my love as she pats my cheeks as if I am still twelve.“I knew it. What are you about now, Mom?” I ask when we are seated. “Is it a new assignment again?”“Well, it is, of a sort,” she answers. “One moment, darling. I’ve already ordered you a glass of their amazing red wine.” She winks at me. “It’s magickal.”Almost immediately, a glass of wine appears in front of me, along with a menu. No wonder I haven’t heard of this restaurant. It isn’t in my part of the world.So I am inside a magickal territory. I wonder suddenly how William is faring, but I don’t worry because I know something like that is taken care of if my mother is involved somehow.Mom watches me avidly as I look through the menu. “The food here is impeccable and you’re going to love it. Order whatever you want, darling. It’s my treat.”I stare at her. “This is a restaurant for Magickals. Those people outside were staring at me, Mom. Like I’m… kind of a… freak.”My mother reaches out and takes one of my hands in hers. “No, sweetheart, but you’re not seen often and they must be curious, as you know. Most Magickals are gossip. You are my daughter, and I’m kind of famous here for being a junior elder,” she says as she preens a little. “But don’t worry, these walls don’t have ears,” she informs me as she sees me looking at specific walls. “That, their food and wine are what I like best about this place.”I take my order… a beef steak kind for the main course, greens on the side, and a second helping of the wonderful wine to follow.We start talking after the first course arrives, but not about why I am here.Instead, I give her news about my father without a preamble because I know she likes that.Sometimes, she can’t control the look of longing on her face when I tell her simple things like me and my father enjoying chicken soup and popcorn while doing a movie marathon on a Saturday evening.She gives suggestions when I mention his diet. And I know before I leave I will be bringing home a few boxes of gifts from her for me and my Dad from the Magickal world.By the time we’re resting on our wine on a couch by the side of the room, I’ve told her about what’s happening to me at work and she’s telling me about some of her less private—and less dangerous—endeavors.You know. Like right now, she’s onto a report that there’s a family of dyads missing from the forest they have lived in for centuries, and that’s just peas.She once handled dragons who shapeshift as old women in a Mundane village in Germany, tending goats.“So, what am I really doing here?” I finally ask.Mom pauses to sip her wine and gather herself together.I knew what that means.This is my mother’s stalling tactic when what will follow is something she isn’t sure I will like.It means the Council will have something to do with it.The Council of Magick has been after me since I turned eighteen because they insist to acknowledge my birthright as a magickal with ritual and all.But I know that will entail service to literally the government of the Magickals, my life run by them.I do not begrudge my mother’s choice. She loves serving the Magickals and loves being sent on missions by the Council that will serve her brethren.But I am not my mother.I am not just a Magickal, I am also Mundane.And I want control of my life, as much as I can hold of it.I also want to be in a position that will protect Mundanes, or I can look out for them. They are already clueless about what’s really in this world. I have always thought they are marginalized, and I can’t abandon them.Nor will I leave my father alone.And I know, as I stare at my mother’s somber face, that she has thought of all of this, too.“There’s no way to say this except to just say it. So... the—”“The council sent you,” I finished for her.Mom stare at me. “So will you let me finish?”“Mother...” I reply, “All the secrecy? Making sure people at home think I can get away and it’s all work-related so no one will look for me tonight, at least? Arranged in a way that Dad will now know you’re the one I’m meeting? This is cloak-and-dagger Council stuff. Are they still interested in recruiting me?”She smiles indulgently at me. “Darling, though you don’t like to acknowledge your powers, you do have them. You have an obligation to your people, too.”“They already have the lot of you,” I complain, meaning her and the nameless and faceless Council who didn't need to appear physically to influence my life. “What about the people of my other-half self?”She sighs. “So there’s the part where I say you’ll have to let me finish first.”“Okay, okay, let’s get this done so I can… enjoy more of this wine.” I amend it by the end because I don’t want my mom to think I want to leave her because of my issue with her Council.I don’t want to ruin the dinner that has been most enjoyable so far.CHIARA “BUT this is something that you must do. There’s no choice.”“There’s always a choice!” I protested.“I hope you really think about it this time.” And… she’s using her adult voice this time. “There’s a man you need to find and bring before the Council. I wish I can do it but I am swamped. If I don’t finish my own assignment, I can’t be with you and your father after your birthday because I’ll have to go straight to my next assignment. There, okay? It’s not a surprise, anyway, that I’m going to be there. But I’m hoping to at least stay for a week after your birthday, darling.”I rolled my eyes because we both know this is grand manipulation!But it’s the kind I like.“I’m in.”She giggles and shakes her head, looking a little guilty, before she pulls me into her hug.“Why? What did this man do?” I ask as I recover the wine glass from the table. “What’s wrong with him?”“He hasn’t done anything… yet.” She frowns. “Why do you always think that when the Council wants a Magickal bro
CHIARA “MOTHER, we’ll have to do something so I can take off from work for me to fly to where this guy is,” I say.But she just waves her hand dismissively. “Consider it all done. We have a cover ready for you, and you’ll not have to lift a finger.”“Yes… though I wish you’d given me a proper warning. I’ll have to make sure my writers are taken care of.”“Darling, it’s not like you’ll be leaving for a whole year. It’s just going to be a day or two.”“Oh.” I blink. “Okay. I guess we can manage that.” I am frowning a little, because I am expecting it will take a longer time to talk to someone with a name like Gideon Swan, who is a notorious hermit billionaire, about Magickals, and that he is one.My mother is still talking, adding a few more details, then I hear something that catches me.“Nooo,” I wail. “I’m not going to Louisiana! You know how much I hate the humidity there!”“It won’t be so bad this time of year,” she soothes, brushing aside my refueled objections. “Your birthday is
GIDEON I stare out the window of my Mystical Grove mansion the following evening.Something big is coming, I think as I look out at the waning light.The day is almost over, but since it’s been raining since the morning, it looks like twilight the whole day. Well, maybe not that big, but definitely something important, and I’m maybe not going to like it.I wonder if this has anything to do with the woman I keep dreaming about lately.A beautiful woman with titian hair and exotic green eyes turns up in my dreams almost every night and on on my mind a lot during my waking hours, too.In my dreams, I search for her, call out for her, desperately trying to tell her something.I can hear my voice begging.But I can never make out what I was saying.Okay, so I can… see.Like I can glimpse a clue of the future by seeing something significant in my environment, signs that no one else can parse or connect but this different brain of mine, and I can dream dreams that warn me of impending event
GIDEON SO is this my punishment for hurting James and all the others before him due to my ignorance?I ran away from the first family that took me in, and then three foster homes, because I was different.During the time, I was just a freak, the kind that scares regular people. Others—kids and grown-ups—know there is something unusual about me. They never talked about it, because they probably feel afraid others would think they are crazy.I was the freak and I have power over them because of it, and I could feel it even as a child, how scared they are of me. How I make every moment they spend with me hellish.Someone would invariably start acting cruelly because of this terror, or just because somebody’s stupid. I got into fistfights. I never started a fight. But I end up un-punished.Because the adults knew.Or, sometimes, in the case of the foolish, I end up hurting someone.In a way, I was chained and battered. Even as a child, I knew I’m a good person.It’s because I keep wanti
GIDEON BUT how I love storms.There is something majestic about them even when they are the most uncontrollable phenomena on earth.Or maybe it is exactly because of this that I find them so fascinating.Uncontrollable. Powerful. Something like that the power that is inside me.Maybe it is exactly the reason why I like watching storms, because they might show me something that I need to control this storm within me.I took control of my life—a difficult undertaking being alone at the age of fourteen—but I was able to. I eluded the system until I was of legal age.By that time, I have already acquired a significant amount of money by gambling here and there to get me through school and then through college, without having to ask for a student loan that will surely put me in the system for years.Then I discovered the stock market and acquired my first million before I graduated.I took up serious investing in real estate, bought companies to rescue from greedy, unfeeling banks, and m
CHIARA AS I watch the gorgeous man in front of me, I feel strange.In a bit of a quandary.Unbelievable.But in my first glimpse of him, giddiness and pure lust slammed into me.I’m a virgin, for pity’s sake. I’ve never felt anything like this for any man, even the sexually magnetic men I have encountered in my life as my father’s heiress. Or those beautiful men who modeled in shoots of some of the projects I undertook for my publisher.Never.I have dated but I never had a boyfriend.I had lusted, but never felt the desire to jump to bed with the man who triggered the yearning like this. I need something more. I need to know the man, need more time.Nothing like this.This is pure, undiluted lust, for a stranger.And it doesn’t make any sense.So I know it is the magick that’s doing this.And I know, without him saying, that he was Gideon Swan.He is the awakened warlock.And Jesus H. Christ… he is potent.It is all I can do to stay calm.I try to imagine what my mother will do in th
CHIARA GIDEON does not lie. There is a warm, cozy fire blazing in the elegant fireplace in his spacious living room where huge rugs scatter on the wooden floor that gives it a homey feel.I lead him towards the biggest couch that happens to be nearest the fireplace, and after settling him down there, I asked him where I can get a blanket and medicine for him.“There’s a blanket inside that door. It’s the den. I sometimes fall asleep there when working during the night and—”“I’ll get it. It’s not locked, right?”He shakes his head. My goodness, he is shivering all over now!I hasten as fast as I can. I see several blankets folded neatly inside a huge cabinet that has several throw pillows in there, too. I bring a thick blanket and a pillow with me and I go back to the living room.“Are you alone here?” I ask as I put the pillow under his head and the blanket over him after helping him lie down. He clutches at it right away to his chest. “There must be servants?”“She just went home be
CHIARA “SO I’m a warlock,” he says. “Or that’s what I’m called.”I nod. His short statement pulls me further from the sexual haze I share with him into the reality of our worlds merging now.I suspect this is the first time he is talking about this with anyone.“And you’re a witch.”“Yes… those are the labels used on us loosely. We’re actually both magickals, or what you call humans who are born from one or more Magickal bloodlines. My mother is a witch and my father is a Mundane—or who we call non-Magickals. So I’m half, but I ended up a Magickal on the Council registry, anyway.”“Why do you sound like you don’t like being Magickal?”“I love my mother—basically the only Magickal I know and like. I love my father and I grew up with him, here in the Mundane world. If my mother isn’t such a cool witch, I’d rather be Mundane.”“But there’s no choice about this? You can’t… deactivate it or something?”I turn to him. “Do you want to? Or, as it does with me, do you think you’d reach this fa