Unnatural Magic by C M Waggoner

Author:C M Waggoner [Waggoner, C M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781984805843
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

• • •

Tsira woke up warm.

She was in bed with Jeckran. He was soft and hot and still in her arms. Awake, and trying not to wake her, too. She stretched a little and pulled him closer against her chest. She figured she could get away with it in the first heartbeats of the morning. “Morning, Pink,” she said. Her voice came out a little raspy. Smoked too much last night.

“Good morning, old goat,” he said.

She smiled. Took a lot for her not to nuzzle at him. She tried to let her face drift close enough to smell his hair without him noticing. She fucking loved how he smelled. A good filthy living smell. “Don’t want to get up.”

“Me, neither. I suppose that everyone must feel that way on a cold morning.”

“Don’t think my ma does.”

He chewed that over. “I expect that you’re right.”

She yawned. “You’re like a hot stone.”

“Thank you, I suppose.”

“How’s your head?”

“Perfectly well. And yours?”

“Fine.” She paused. “I let the fire go out.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Stupid of me.” Her ma would never let the fire go out like that.

They just lay there for a while. She didn’t pull away and neither did he. It was nice. Warm and cozy. Jeckran stirred a little. “Tsira,” he said, just as her ma called her name from outside the house.

She sat up to call back and Jeckran squawked like a chicken.

She looked down at herself and snorted. She’d forgotten that she’d stripped down to her smalls before she’d fallen asleep last night. “Sorry. Because of the choke. Warms you up.” She stood. He looked away.

“Good God, Tsira.”

“Wait,” she said, and scrambled around to pull the rest of her underclothes on. “All right.”

He looked back at her. She ran her fingers through her hair, jerking at a knot. Pain in the ass. “Hair’s a mess. Don’t have a comb.”

He laughed. “You do sound like a human girl sometimes, don’t you?”

“Sound like someone who doesn’t want her hair to look like it’s got swallows nesting in it.” She gave up. “Ma’s calling us for breakfast.”

He got up and scrambled to pull on his robe and hand her hers. She took it.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I don’t suppose that you might have seen—”

She handed him his boots. “Took them off you last night.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Pleasure.” She shrugged her robe on and pulled on her boots before heading toward the door. “Come on, Pink.”

He followed her, hopping to get into his boots. Outside there was a cold wind and dew on the grass. Tsira’s ma looked mad. Hung over, probably. She nagged Tsira in Dacyn all through breakfast, going after her for all the same shit she’d been bothering her about the day before. As soon as she’d finished eating, Tsira grabbed Jeckran’s shoulder and dragged him back into her ma’s house.

He shook himself free once they were back inside. “I don’t appreciate being hauled about like a workman’s lunch pail, Tsira!”

“Sorry,” she said. Then she said, “Ma’s half up my ass.”

“Well,” Jeckran said. “She is your mother.

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