A Reckless Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,25
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Govin spoke softly, but with a force that nearly knocked her to her knees. “That little storm you just made had enough power to kill a small child if it wasn’t handled properly.”
It had just been a plaything. Not even a funnel. “I’d never hurt anyone. I know how to control my magic.”
His eyes sparked. “No one can control their magic all the time. What happens when you screw up, or the energy lines aren’t clean, or you catch a bad bounce?”
That happened to weather witches all the time. “You catch it. You clean it up.” She wasn’t stupid.
“And if you fail?” The words came hard, almost mean. Just like her foster brother, only more grown up. Sierra fought back the tears.
“Cut her a break, Gov.” Devin stepped forward, touching her shoulder. “Grounding matters—can you just trust us that far for now? It keeps us all safer, and it’s a pretty easy thing to add to all your spells.”
It was like he’d taken this huge ball of tension and made it vanish. Sierra took a deep breath, thankful the squeezing pressure on her ribs had stopped. She liked Devin. “I can do that—I promise.” She’d done way dumber things in her life to keep people happy.
“Good.” Then he grinned, and it reminded her so much of Momma, just before something really fun happened. “Now let’s go build a funnel. You can show us all how to dance with one.”
~ ~ ~
Devin crashed into a seat at his brother’s table. He’d had one of the most fun mornings of his entire life, and he was hungry enough to eat the table. Unfortunately, breakfast was waiting on the other guest of honor.
Nat grinned at him. “Lauren’s on her way, honest. And I’ll even let you into the food line before me.” She patted her belly. “Our girl here doesn’t let me eat much anymore.”
“My brother would beat me up if I didn’t let his pregnant wife eat first.”
She winked. “You can take him.”
Devin had been fairly skeptical that Nat was the paragon of perfectness for Jamie that everyone had claimed. Their wedding hadn’t done a whole lot to dispel that—probably because weddings in general made him twitchy.
His skepticism hadn’t made it two hours in the same house with Nat. She was every kind of awesome.
He stretched out and tried to convince his ravenous belly to take a quick nap or something. “Not after this morning. Funnel riding is the coolest thing I’ve done in a really long time, but we didn’t carb-load enough before we left.” He rolled his eyes. “I thought we were making little weather spells for Elorie’s library. I should have known better.”
Jamie came around the corner from the kitchen and laughed. “Don’t blame that one on me—you’re the one who wanted funnel-riding lessons.”
Devin grinned. “Yeah. Govin nearly blew a gasket. But they were properly grounded, all seven of them.” It had been better than the Zero-G rotor ride at the state fair. Way better, and that had been their favorite ride ever since they’d been the required four feet tall to ride it.
Nat shook her head, highly amused. “I can’t believe you took a small boy spinning in a hurricane.”
He snorted. “The small boy made at least three of them. And they weren’t big enough funnels to be a hurricane.” He thought. Govin was the weather expert.
Jamie grinned. “You can help our nephew with his latest brainstorm. He wants to spellcode a small funnel for Realm so he can take Moira for a ride.”
“A ride on what?” Lauren walked into the room, bearing a huge basket of strawberries. “Sorry I’m late. Clients who couldn’t make up their minds.”
“No prob.” Nat reached for the strawberries. “Especially when you bring fresh berries in December. Aervyn wants to take Moira for a ride on a hurricane funnel.”
Lauren laughed. Then she stared at Jamie. “For real?”
He nodded. “Yup. Sierra showed him how. I bet you can have a ride if you want one, too.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Exactly how far off the ground would my feet get?”
Jamie and Devin looked at each other and shrugged. That was one of those unanswerable “mom” questions. Heck, their feet hadn’t even been pointing down the whole time. Devin grinned, remembering one particularly funny moment when the funnel had peeled Aervyn’s pants off as he whirled upside down.
Nat laughed and handed Lauren a plate. “I’m guessing that if you have to ask, you probably don’t want a ride.”
“We’ll see.” Lauren’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll wait and see