HORNS (BoyXBoy)

Chapter 76

Chapter Seventy Six

Over the next few days, my life changed drastically.

Every morning around six, my alarm woke me up and I started my day by either getting out of my bed, walking into Echo's room, and flopping down beside him so I could cuddle him awake or waking up in his bed and snuggling close to his side so I could pepper him with kisses.

He was a grumpy one in the mornings and often complained at me even though I got the feeling he did like me cuddling and kissing him. The clothes he'd ordered himself arrived not long after Aerin went back home to Sebastian's manor, which was a blessing since he'd needed them. He now owned his own skirts, decorated jeans, shorts, stockings, and shirts, sweaters, hoodies, underwear, jockstraps, and blouses. He'd even gotten himself lacy black thigh-highs with a garter belt open in the back and closed in the front like a weird jockstrap.

I'd asked him why he'd bought that and he'd just looked at me.

His blank face clearly asked if I was dumb and I'd felt my cheeks burn.

After letting him bite me and spending time with him together, talking and hanging out and just filling each other in on our interests and experiences, I would leave the apartment and head down to the forest around noon so I could spend time with Yuma, Luka, and Sasha.

I hadn't said a word about my birthmark.

I hadn't even seen it. I'd been tempted to shave my head many times since the moment my dad told me where it was, but I'd fought the urge to look at it because I didn't want to be tempted to do anything stupid. My father had given me hope that something would happen, either way. Part of me still contemplated telling Yuma about what I now knew since he seemed to be a very open and trusting guy, but I'd promised I wouldn't so that was that.

Instead, I focused on other, more constructive things.

Yuma would often sit with me in the grass near the river and teach me about the strange magical forces known as glamour and Arcana. The lessons were the actual highlights of my day... it was just so far-fetched and alien to know I could use magic like some sort of wand-wielding wizard or one of those characters from fantasy movies. Granted, I could already do incredible shit what with my werewolf genetics and all, but still, jumping higher than a skyscraper, moving faster than a car, being capable of punching through a stone wall was enough for me.

If I could do magic on top of all that, I would literally be a super hero and the thought made me tingle because despite seeming so unrealistic... when I saw magic right in front of me and watched Yuma give examples of it, like making plants shoot out of the ground, healing dead trees, making flowers grow and bloom all around, and even creating insane light shows that glittered and spiraled and sparkled around my head like fireflies, it would hit me.

Magic was real.

Magic existed.

And now, I could only wonder how long it was going to take for me to learn how to use it.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't so much that I didn't think I could--the practice Yuma and I were putting in had shown me that all I really had to do was think right and follow his very specific instructions and shocking things would happen, but the way it flowed inside me, like a whisper of power just beneath the surface... well, that was going to take a little time adjusting to.

I'd always been capable of using magic because it was the feeling I got whenever I played my panpipes. Raw. Primal. Wild. Like I was somehow a part of nature, a force that couldn't be controlled or tamed, free to do as I pleased and thoroughly enjoying every single part of it.