Boredom

This is the first piece of really short fiction from the Blood Mage universe. I sometimes get these ideas stuck in my head that really don't belong in a longer story but are fun and help me get to know the characters a little better. It hasn't been edited or checked for errors by anyone other than myself.

This story came about when I asked myself what Cal and Lucas would do if they were bored on a night at home. It doesn't really have a set time it takes place other than sometime after Cal and Lucas begin living together.

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Cal could feel a light pressure behind her eyes. She looked up from the book she was reading and turned to Lucas.

"I get it, you're bored?"

"What?" He gave her his most innocent look. It didn't work, maybe because he was never innocent.

"You're trying to get into my head and you only do that when you're bored." The first time Lucas had tried to use mind control on her Cal had been livid. That was before either of them knew what the other was, now it had become something of a game between them. Lucas would try to find cracks in her shields and she would build them up stronger. This time he had tried to be subtle, to find a weakness before she knew he was probing at her mind. He was getting much better at this but his touch still wasn’t light enough to avoid detection.

The force inside her mind grew stronger, sliding along the edges of her mind. Warm fingers feeling for a way in. Now that he was discovered Lucas was neither gentle nor tentative, holding back would spoil the challenge. Cal closed her eyes and focused inwards on her shields looking for any weaknesses. Lucas' mind was attacking multiple locations at once trying to keep her from figuring out his point of focus.

Right there was a thin spot, somewhere near her left ear or at least that's where it felt like it was. Her shields were built of mental energy and concentration, they didn't really have a physical form or location inside her head. The pressure was pushing harder against the spot. He was trying a new tactic this time and she wasn't quite sure what it was bit it wasn't going to work. It was getting warmer and warmer, almost hot now.

Cal gasped as the mental fingers turned cold and sharp and spread out into an ice cold sheet of needles wrapped around her shields. Her concentration wavered at the shock but didn't break Gathering up her focus she poured energy into her shields, reinforcing them and pushing out hard. Lucas' influence broke and melted away.

Lucas was leaned forward in his chair, exhausted when Cal opened her eyes. He had thrown everything he had at her.

"Still bored?"

"Not at all."

"Good."