Completely Smitten Read Online Free PDF Page B

room of his house.
    The guest room was big, with a comfortable bed made out of logs. Log furniture sat in the corners, and a desk he’d owned since the mid-seventeenth century sat beneath one of the windows. The main window opened into the forest. The green rug that covered the floor had grown threadbare, but it would do.
    At least the room didn’t smell of mothballs. He’d had the window open during most of his stay.
    With a nod of his head, he used a slight spell to change the sheets. He couldn’t remember having a guest sleep over since Ernest Hemingway stayed here more than eighty years before. For all Darius knew, the sheets hadn’t been changed since then. It was probably less a reflection on his housekeeping skills than it was on his need for privacy. He hadn’t allowed anyone to stay in this house for a very long time.
    It seemed odd to him that this woman was here now, right after his visit from Cupid.
    Darius stiffened. Cupid hadn’t used those silly arrows on him, had he? Darius would have noticed.
    Or would he?
    Was that little creep finally getting his revenge?
    The woman moaned again, and Darius focused on her instead. He laid her on the bed. Her hair had spilled out of its ponytail and cascaded across the pillow, accentuating the pallor of her face. She still looked as if she were in pain, but that could be simply the aftereffects of the fall. Her forearms were scraped raw and she had a large bruise on her right cheek.
    He went into the bathroom and got his medical kit. From it, he removed some wet disinfectant pads and some bandages.
    Then he went back into the guest room and cleaned off her scrapes.
    She tossed her head from side to side. It appeared that what he was doing hurt her, but not enough to wake her up.
    After he got the wounds cleaned, he bandaged them, then covered her with a blanket. He was staggering with exhaustion now—the magic use having taken its toll—but he still had several things left to do.
    He went outside and reversed his ledge spell. From the river below, he heard shouts, followed by a curse, and then laughter. Apparently more rafters had been going by, but only one saw the ledge disappear. Darius smiled. That person would talk about his rafting hallucination for a long time to come.
    Darius walked to the good part of the trail before doing his last spell. He watched the river, saw several rafts float by, and waited until he didn’t see them anymore. Then he raised his arms and did a summons spell.
    At first, he thought it didn’t work. Then a water-soaked backpack emerged from the river. The pack was torn and pouring water from its side. It rose the thousand feet, then dropped in front of him, landing with a soggy thud.
    He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain this one to her. She was all right, but her pack had gotten wet? It had somehow fallen into the river and he had managed to fish it out, despite the steep canyon walls and the dangerous currents? Maybe he would tell her that a rafter had thrown it the thousand feet from the river below. Surely she would believe that.
    He smiled. He was exhausted. He was getting punchy. Any more magic use would take the last of his reserves. That was what happened when a man didn’t stay in shape. If his best friend Aethelstan were here, he would be able to do all these spells and not lose a bit of energy.
    Darius had become lazy over the centuries, and he hadn’t even realized it. All of the parlor tricks he had done to impress recalcitrant lovers had taken very little of his magical energy.
    Then, in his mind’s eye, he saw her bruised face, heard her soft voice, filled with despair.
    My pack… It’s got everything …
    He knew what it was like to lose everything in a single moment. It was a sensation he never forgot, no matter that thousands of years had passed in the interim.
    Slowly, he raised his tired arms to cast one more spell.
    Heaven smelled like spaghetti.
    Ariel kept her eyes closed. She lay on the softest