The Beautiful and the Faultless | Cami O'Connell

Chapter 18

Ingrid was patient with her.

She answered her questions. Listened to her worries. Reacted reasonably whenever Cami suddenly changed her mind (as one always should!). Ingrid was just happy seeing Cami's confidence slowly building. Sometimes, she even tried to tease her back (often, to no avail, because Ingrid could easily pretend she was unaffected).

For two months following their first date, they saw each other every day without fault. Every Saturday, they tried a new food place, and a new dessert location. They'd watch a different genre of movie or have an actual activity, such as a board or trivia game. Ingrid was still working up the courage to try laser tag.

Unfortunately, Ingrid wasn't making progress in other aspects of her life. She'd reached a sort of plateau when it came to her exercising. She was finally maintaining a steady weight, and she'd strengthened herself to a point where she felt comfortable. Workouts were the same every day, which albeit useful in keeping her figure as she wanted it, was starting to get boring, especially since Vincent had less time to spar these days, and she'd always be stuck with one of Marcel's vampires, none of which she really liked.

And worst of all was the lack of progress in the magic department. No matter what she tried, she still couldn't do magic unless she channeled a magical object. Kol was massaging her hands every day, and Freya had her drinking all sort of herbal remedies that were meant to help her. She had even started meditating every morning and every night (as much as she could without Irene starting to get restless and rubbing against her until she got attention).

Rebekah, who was still traveling to find a way to resurrect Finn, was now looking for ways to reunite Ingrid with her magic, meaning that she would likely be away longer than originally intended. Ingrid and Freya managed to meet her through astral projection (though Ingrid's connection was always very poor considering she couldn't produce the magic on her own). Despite Rebekah's cheerful attitude letting them know all was well on her end, Ingrid felt like she was the reason Rebekah couldn't come home to spend time with the family.

Though they'd helped the Crescents return to their normal lives, it didn't seem like they were problem-free. Lately, they'd had many poachers in the woods, searching for wolves. Given none of them turned unless they wanted to, the poachers never got anything. However, one or two Crescents had disappeared for no reason, and no one was sure where they'd gone off to.

"Maybe what we need is to restore the spell that allowed us to channel each other," suggested Freya, one day that Ingrid was particularly downcast after news from Hayley that yet another Crescent wolf was MIA.

"No," said Ingrid, shaking her head. "Then we'd need to sleep for centuries again to make sure we stay young. Modifying that spell will take forever."

"Unless you link yourselves in a different manner," suggested Kol. "Think about it— the rest of the family is immortal. Perhaps if you two were to restore that spell, then link yourselves to one of us... you could be protected from harm and able to do magic without having to sleep."

"Maybe," murmured Ingrid. "But who would we link ourselves to?"

"Not me," said Kol. "I've died twice already. Not Nik, he died once before, even though his soul was preserved in another's body. Oh, and Mikael stabbed him with a white oak stake months ago, he just got lucky Davina and I deactivated it temporarily. The only two that have never died aside from being turned are Elijah and Rebekah. I'd say do Bex, given she's in a witch body right now and she's got her true body with her, too. She can help with the spell and strengthen it."

"Are we sure we want to do this?" asked Ingrid, seeing Freya appeared to be on board. "What if it doesn't work?"

"Then at least you're safe," said Freya. "At least if someone tries to hurt you, you won't die permanently. It buys us more time to fix things, Ingrid. Please. This will allow you to channel me and Rebekah, and then at least you needn't hold magical objects. It should give you an advantage as you seek to recover your magic."