He smiled brighter and sat down. He had the most gorgeous light blue eyes. I winced. “Was that me?” I pointed to his nose.
He nodded. “Don’t worry, I found it extremely sexy you were able to protect yourself.” His nose had dried blood around it and I couldn’t tell if it was broken or not.
“Uh, um, cool.” Was he into me? Or teasing me? Did he need anything from me? “What time is it?” The door was open, letting me peek outside and see the many trees and bright sunlight.
“Just after eight,” he replied.
“Jerry!” I said, getting ready to move outside but was hit with a burst of nausea. “He’ll worry,” I said, holding my head as the throbbing calmed down.
“I’ll call the gas station,” he said, likely knowing who Jerry was from his obsessive stalking. He used his phone to find the number easily. “Hi, I’m calling on behalf of… Wait, what’s your name?” he asked, holding the phone to his chest as he waited for my response.
“Niam,” I replied, hoping Jerry hadn’t been too worried.
“I have Niam here with me,” he said. I could hear Jerry on the other side, sounding relieved. “Well, I found him unconscious in the parking lot, a big bruise on his head and drove him to the hospital. I’ll bring him back in a little bit.” They shared a few more words and then they hung up. “Jerry told me to apologize for him. He didn’t like leaving you there each night alone, but he’s glad you’re okay.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have been knocked out if you hadn’t chased me,” I reminded him.
He gave me a guilty smile. “You kept running away from me, what else was I supposed to do?”
“Gee, I don’t know, maybe leave a written note?”
“Huh, that would’ve been a great idea actually. But I couldn’t tell you I was a shunned mage in the note, and I doubt you’d want to talk to me if you saw a note with “call me” on it.”
I had to give him that. “Fine, your kidnapping was valid. Now can we please move on to the part where you tell me why you needed to talk to me?” I figured it was because we were both shunned from our world, and I would like a friend I could share that with. He must’ve been lonely here all these years without anyone to talk to about our home world, or just magic in general.
He leaned back against the side and looked deep in thought. His teeth pulled on his bottom lip, making it impossible not to look at it. I wanted to straddle his lap and take over the biting.
Where the hell had that come from?!
I needed to reign myself in a bit. I might’ve truly hurt my head. Then I felt mortified. I’d knocked myself out against a tree. This would be one of those things that would keep me up at night for the rest of my life.
“I was given a task before being shunned,” he began. I raised a brow.This was interesting. “My mothers had a suspicion of why I was being shunned, and they told me more mages would follow. In old legendsof our world, the most powerful mages were born without magic and couldn’t reach it without their soulmatch.” I snorted. Fairytales had always been just that,fairytales. He stopped talking and looked over at me. “You haven’t even heard the rest yet.”
I rolled my eyes. “If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is. We don’t have magic and we need to just accept that and make the best life we can for ourselves here.”
He shook his head and looked almost hurt that I wasn’t as into the old legends as he apparently was. Maybe he wasn’t doing well here, hoping someday to get back to our old world. Maybe he had friends, a loving family? But the fact his mom, Leah, had been in on his banishment didn’t bode well for his home situation. I hated my parents for their treatment of me, but at least mine weren’t the ones who had kicked me through the portal.
“I was given this.” He held up a locket that was shining so brightly my head was aching from the impact. “I was given it to find my soulmatch,” he explained.
I closed my eyes against the brightness and sighed. “And let me guess, you need me to help you find them on this heroic quest?”
“No,” he said, surprising me. I looked over at him, trying to ignore the light. He looked me straight in the eyes, a vulnerable look on his face. “Youare my soulmatch.”
Chapter 10
Xarius
Maybe I should’ve waited with that part. Niam looked pale, his eyes wide and worried. Then he laughed. “Oh, my God! You almost had me there!” he wheezed, wiping tears away from his eyes. “Ow!” he said, rubbing at his sore head.
“I’m not joking,” I said sternly, taking the locket out and removing it from my neck, placing it over his heart. The light burst out filling the entire van with its glow and then the light seeped into us both, leaving the locket without any light, only a regular locket now.
Niam gaped at me. “How did you do that! You have magic?!How?!” For someone who seemed over not having magic, he wasn’t dealing well with the thought of me suddenly getting it.
“I told you. The locket would find my soulmatch, and it led me to you.”
He rubbed his temple, likely annoyed he was dealing with this so early in the morning, and with what had to be a massive headache. “And together we would get our magic?” That was as far as I’d gotten with the story before he’d snorted with amusement over my “fairytale”.
“Yes, and then we need to help the other shunned mages sent here andthenwe can fight back,” I explained eagerly.
