Totally Spellbound by Kristine Grayson Page B

everyone
had called Holy.
    “My God,” Megan said softly. “You
never got over her.”
    He raised his gaze to hers. Her eyes
were filled with the most amazing compassion. She understood. No
one he had ever told had understood.
    People had always told him
that a man should have gotten over losing a loved one after so many
years. It was only natural, right?
    He couldn’t say anything. There was
nothing to say, really.
    Megan kept ahold of his hand. “But I
don’t understand how the Fates were involved in this.”
    “They wouldn’t let me save her.” His
voice was husky. He swallowed, cleared it. “They said it was
wrong.”
    Their words still
echoed, even now: We cannot allow love to
violate the rules of existence.
    “Why?” Megan obviously had heard that
echo. She had heard it, just like she had entered his
bubble.
    What was this connection between
them?
    “They said it took
the world out of balance, and the world would find hideous ways to
come back into balance. They said a few mages had tried this
before, and the world had found hideous ways to come back, and they didn’t
want that to happen again.” He didn’t look at her as he said that.
His voice shook.
    “As if that mattered to you,” Megan
said.
    “Precisely.” He spoke with a little
too much force.
    “So they let her die,” Megan
said.
    He shook his head. “They reversed my
spell. It was a deliberate act. They killed her. They didn’t let
her die. They took an action that made her die.”
    “Changing what you had done,” Megan
said.
    “Because they said it was
wrong.”
    She closed her eyes for a moment, as
if she were absorbing his words. Then she shook her head, frowned,
and opened her eyes.
    “Have you seen them since?” she
asked.
    “No,” he said. “Of course
not.”
    “Until today.”
    “Yeah.” He whispered because he no
longer trusted his voice. He was afraid it would break. If it
broke, he might lose what little grip he had on himself.
    “When they came, asking for a
favor.”
    “Yeah.”
    Megan’s lips thinned. “That is so
wrong.”
    His gaze met hers
and then, despite himself, he smiled. It was wrong. But she had expressed her
objection in such a thoroughly modern manner that her words brought
him back to the present.
    “No wonder you locked them in a room,”
she said. “I might have killed them with my own bare
hands.”
    “Do that to the Fates,” he said, “and
you’d be imprisoned forever.”
    Megan sighed. “I really don’t
understand this new world, do I?”
    His smile grew fond. “But you’re
beginning to.”
    She smiled back at him.
She had no idea how beautiful she was and he loved that. Too much,
these days, women knew exactly how attractive they were.
    Then Megan broke the eye contact. Her
cheeks were slightly flushed. “My nephew says they’ve lost their
magic. Would they still be dangerous without it?”
    “Lost their magic.” Rob shook his
head. Both the Fates and John had mentioned that, but he hadn’t
believed it. “It could be some sort of test.”
    “Why would they test you?”
    He shrugged. “I’ve never responded to
any of their summonses in the past. Maybe they decided to come to
me.”
    “To ask a favor,” Megan said, as if
she were thinking about it.
    Now it was his turn to sigh. He didn’t
owe them anything. And the idea of a test didn’t really ring true
to him. The Fates were devious and they lacked a sense of time, but
they usually played with emotional things, not spinning
wheels.
    If they were messing with him, they’d
be doing something with true love and death, not spinning wheels
and little children.
    “How long have you known the Fates?”
he asked.
    Megan gathered the last of the
newspapers and clutched them to her chest. “About twelve
hours.”
    “About twelve…?” he let his voice
trail off. “My heavens. And you’re here?”
    “My brother is getting a
marriage license. He’s not in the mood to help the Fates any more.
Technically, all I’m supposed