A Reckless Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,83

like giggling otters.

Sierra stuck her head up, face radiant. “Thank you so much. This is perfect!”

And it was. The warm water soaked into Devin’s bones, the ultimate luxury for a water witch. He’d never admit it, but even he got cold in the blustery weather of December. Sunny rays beat down on whatever body parts momentarily stuck out of the water, and he spied gorgeous colors under the waves—little fish come to tickle their toes.

This was the life. Maybe Lauren was a swimmer. Devin froze as that last stray thought registered—and then spluttered as salt water exploded up his nose. Dammit. Water witches didn’t get hit by waves unless they were really, really distracted. He dove down, clearing his nose—and hopefully his head. He had enough to do with four witches to watch without worrying about one who wasn’t even here.

When he surfaced, Sierra was showing the two witchlings how to bodysurf. Moira was treading water watching him, a knowing smile on her face. “Something on your mind, my dear boy?”

He scowled, knowing full well that wouldn’t disturb her a bit. “Nothing that needs to be.”

Moira nodded out toward the threesome zooming on their bellies on the wavetops. “Can you feel what our young Sierra is doing?”

He tapped into power, stretching a finger out toward where they played. “She’s making them surfboards.” Smart, and safe. “Good. Bodysurfing’s tricky. This way they can play and have fun, and nobody gets water up their nose.”

“Aye. She’s being all kinds of responsible.” Moira smiled as Aervyn tumbled off the end of a wave into Sierra’s waiting hands. “And having all kinds of fun while she’s at it.”

Devin nodded. It was very good to see. “It worried me, that she was going to swing too hard away from the fun of magic. Sink too deep into the responsibility.”

“It’s never one or the other. Every witch needs to find their balance. She’ll swing around a bit yet, but she’s finding her own way.” Moira’s eyes held hints of mischief. “It’s a lesson we all need to revisit occasionally.”

He stared at her, nonplussed—and dodged too late as the second wave of the day sent water up his nose.

She was laughing in delight as he surfaced moments later. “Ah, Devin my love. I should have taken you up on your last marriage proposal. Come. Let’s go teach our two littlest ones how to swim in the big swells, shall we?”

He swam behind her, wondering how in the hell this little trip had gotten so out of hand. They were only two-foot waves. Why did he suddenly feel like he was swimming in the Bermuda Triangle?

Heads turned as they approached. Moira simply gestured and angled to swim out to sea. Sierra’s eyes widened. “Is that safe?”

Damned if he had any idea what that meant today. “Should be. We might want to give Moira an assist, though.” He linked power with Sierra, reaching a gentle current forward to the three ahead of them—and discovered that Lizzie and Aervyn, cavorting like dolphins, had already taken care of it. Punk witchlings. They both had water power to burn.

Putting his head down, he matched Sierra’s steady front crawl. Apparently they had to get out the hard way.

~ ~ ~

Govin scowled at his computer, at the southeast coastline of Indonesia on his screen, just where it had been for the last two days. “It’s getting worse, Teej.”

“It’s only class two right now.” His partner continued to bounce a superball off the wall.

“Smells bad.” After ten years, you got a feel for the kind of class-two storm that would eventually fall apart after it drenched a few people. This one wasn’t that kind. He knew it in his bones, however unscientific that might sound.

“Yeah.” TJ was running models, figuring out if they had any options to intervene. “That area’s got good mojo, though.”

It was true—big waves hitting that coastline often caused less damage than their models predicted. They liked being that kind of wrong. However, even mojo was only so useful when you were dealing with waves big enough to kill people. “You got anything yet?”

“Working as fast as I can, dude. Go feed us, or something.”

The storm was edging past Australia, picking up meanness as it went. “What if we get closer? I think we’ve got witches in Australia—maybe Jamie can push us there through Realm.” Govin winced as TJ growled. “Sorry. You’ve probably already thought of that.”

TJ looked ready to pull out his hair—what little of it was still left. “Do you