But all monsters aren’t monsters.
Cuz I met a monster.
I think he is nice. He saved me, but when I tried to see him, he was gone.
He doesn’t know, but I tagged him, so I can find and thank him.
He paused his reading to look at me in confusion. “Tagged me? You said this, too, when you were drunk.”
“Magic drunk!” I corrected quickly. “Different type of drunk, and why do you always catch me at my worst?”
“I’ve yet to see your worst, actually,” he replied, a kind smile on his lips.
Man, I was so freaking glad I couldn’t blush. I felt like a silly, airheaded teenage girl in a YA novel. If I said the words “dazzle someone,” please, I beg you, knock me out and save me from myself.
“The tag?” he asked again when I did not speak.
“Yeah, ugh…” My eyebrows bunched together as I tried to collect myself. “I think when you picked me up, I put an alert on you. I don’t know how to explain it well. My magic isn’t traditional. Basically, I think I wanted to make sure that I would be able to find you again no matter what. But ever since then, whenever you came close enough, I’d feel it. You don’t feel anything?”
“From that moment onward, I was not sure if I was more aware of you or if I was just…being, as you said, a stalker in my own delusions.” He frowned at the word, glancing down at the page. “Sometimes, it felt as if you were calling for me. Other times, I felt as if you were sad and I would come to check. By the time I came here, whatever had made you sad was gone, or you were never sad at all. So, I assumed it was just in my head.”
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “It’s been…a ride trying to figure out how to control my magic. Not that I am not in control. It’s just that sometimes my magic…” I trailed off, not sure how to explain.
“Sometimes your magic does what you want to do and not what you ask it to do,” he said perfectly.
“Exactly. How did you know?”
“Stalking,” he said with a straight face.
I bit my lip, but it didn’t help because the laughter broke through anyway. “Well, that helps me explain it, I guess. I never have the right words. Not that I would be okay with stalking in other contexts.”
“When it’s a vampire?” he teased.
“A handsome vampire.” The words came out before I could even think straight. “Ugh, as I was saying, I’m a boundless witch. So my magic is a little tricky as—”
“Your magic allows for your desire to become a reality. It’s fine when you live merely by desire. However, mortals and even immortals do not. We have reasons, and that sometimes conflicts.” He apparently had the right words and ignored my earlier words. “I did realize it was not all in my mind, our connection, as I was able to walk upon your lands with no interference from your coven. It is as if I am invisible to them. Is this the work of your tag?”
I tried not to cringe and reached for the book, but he held it away from me. “That’s why I can’t use spells. They end up mixing or conflicting with my desires when I try to use them. No one understood that at the time, not even me. I’m not exactly sure what the spell did, but I think the magic I used in creating it does cloak you a bit from other witches. I noticed it whenever I could feel you around, but none of my circle could.” Except for maybe Simone now. The spell might be weakening, seeing as how I wanted to sense him now.
“Do the spell,” he replied, returning the book to me.
“Didn’t you hear me? It won’t work right—”
“If I have the honor of being the very first and the only one you’ve ever written a spell for, then I wish to hear it from your lips, even if it goes awry,” he said, now smiling fully at me, and it was not fear. He looked effortlessly beautiful. How the hell was I to think, let alone not do what he said.
“Fine.” I took the book back from him. Taking a short inhale of breath before I read, “Monster, monster, stay longer, stay longer, shine bright all night, like the moonlight at midnight for a witch’s sight.”
I tensed, worried for a moment, then slowly, like increasing the light’s setting in a room, he began to glow, his skin getting brighter and brighter, to the point where it was almost too much to look at him.
“Ugh.” He grimaced.
“Are you all right?” I said quickly, panicked I had done something.
He
laughed and rubbed the side of his head. “Yes, the spell is definitely not straightforward.”
“What? What else did I do?”