Could It Be Magic...?

By Heather Mar-Gerrison

When Saul and Laars meet, they have no idea their connection is destiny or that their union will change the path of the future forever. In fact, Laars doesn't even really like the strange young man that he just can't seem to stay away from...
Saul is a little scared of the red-haired, green-eyed beauty with his demonic good looks and is quite convinced that he's dangerous. Trouble is, he's far too attracted to him to stay away - and the fact that his pretty much non-existent magic has been kick-started from the first moment their eyes meet has him totally intrigued...
Warning: this book contains two adorable MC's, mild magical references, the odd profanity, mild sexual references and a father from hell... Enjoy!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heather Mar-Gerrison
• Release date: Feb 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463443163

Heather Mar-Gerrison

I love to write M/M romance and as a sucker for a HEA, you're guaranteed one in my books. #happyheatherafters

Book preview

Prologue

Saul grinned inwardly, finding it hard to hide his excitement as he perused the glossy brochure again. Ordinary, every-day, human college. At last! He thought, a normal place to study – with normal subjects to study about! No more being the stupid one in the class – no more doing over his final year of magical study in the hope that this would be the year that he might just pass the Advanced Magic exams. (exams that he hadn’t managed to pass for the last three years…) Fat chance of that ever happening.

He looked out of his bedroom window. Well, he wasn’t going to miss that view. He’d never liked this room. He still remembered having to give up his bedroom when his younger sister had come along and they’d made it back into a nursery. His sister’s room was on the other side of the house and got the morning sunshine, something he really missed.

It was darker in the mornings on this side of the house and he’d never been very good at rising – particularly in the winter months when it didn’t get light until around eight o’clock. To make matters worse, they lived in the shadow of the large, imposing church. For some reason, that church had always given Saul the creeps – even though he knew, rationally, that it was a place of worship and therefore, supposedly of peace.

But Saul could never find peace in that place. The beliefs held within those walls would never be a welcoming place for him if they knew his truth…

But he didn’t have to worry about that any longer. He was making his escape in precisely two days. He couldn’t wait. Hell, he was already packed.

Saul glanced at the church and fought down the feeling of panic that swept through him. He wondered if they had the same gods in the normal world. Probably.

To be fair, he could happily go along with most of the gods. The god of peace was something he identified with. It was really only the god of love that he couldn’t get his head around. If she was the god of love, why couldn’t she accept his version of it? Why was it so wrong to fall in love with another boy? Not that he ever had, as such, but he’d had crushes in the past. It didn’t make any sense. It went right against the fundamental belief of loving… He’d listened to thousands of sermons over the years, preaching about loving each other and being kind to each other, which he totally agreed with, only no one would show him kindness if they knew the way in which he liked boys instead of girls. No one else felt that way… or if they did, like him, they kept it entirely to themselves…

Saul sighed. He would never fit in here. Not in a million years. He was so glad he was leaving…

Saul was going to be twenty-one in December and everyone else he’d gone to school with, were now either studying for the Wizarding equivalent of a degree or they’d gone on to find gainful employment within the wizarding community – something he could never do because no one wanted someone to work for them that wasn’t proficient in magical processing. Not everyone in the magical community was actually magical and it was accepted that some people had to go out of town to work. Saul had always imagined that, eventually, he would be sent out of town to work but his father had high hopes that one day he would work for the Pyramid and he’d pushed as far as he could go with his magical education. Saul rather thought that he’d been wasting his time but he didn’t dare utter his thoughts aloud or think about them for too long either, just in case (Not that it would matter if he did, no one could read his mind either because he simply wasn’t wired up properly). He was aware that he was a massive disappointment to his father, because he didn’t even bother to hide it anymore, if indeed he ever had… Everyone knew that it was ten times worse to have no magical powers when you were born to a magical family than just being a normal human. Being human was one thing – but being a witch with no magical powers? Well, that was just sad...

Saul liked to think in his more fanciful moments that he was just a human that had mysteriously stumbled his way into the magical world by some cosmic chance when he was but a small child. After all, he really didn’t look much like the rest of his family. Granted, he had the same almost-black hair of his father, but his eyes were dark brown, which were nothing like his mother’s hazel eyes and certainly nothing like his father’s bright green eyes. Of course, in the wizarding world, people could actually change the colour of their eyes and a whole host of other facial and bodily attributes, and he secretly wondered if this was the case with his father. It wouldn’t surprise him one bit if he did. His father was a bit of a peacock…

He read through the course about Geology and his heart started to beat a little faster with excitement. Okay, so Geology might not be everyone’s idea of a fun subject, but for Saul, who had grown up with witchcraft shoved down his throat at every opportunity, rocks were a nice escape. They were solid and dependable and the chances of getting something wrong with a rock wasn’t nearly as terrifying as getting a spell wrong – disastrous consequences were slim to non-existent with Geology...

He was actually rather bewildered to have been given the opportunity to go to a regular school and he was still pinching himself to make sure it was all real.

But it was real and he had the bruises to prove it – all the way up his arm.

His father had really surprised him this time. He was usually adamant that Saul had to persevere, to master each spell and to use it until he was completely proficient. His mother, bless her, had always tried to intervene; tried to stick up for him against his father’s wrath but generally with little or no success. His father was a bully and he bullied her almost as much as he bullied Saul. Saul’s sister, Marissa, who, incidentally didn’t have black hair or green or dark brown eyes, but was blonde with hazel eyes, just like their mother, was the golden child of the family. Nigel Blackthorn adored his daughter…

Whether he’d just gotten bored with the whole thing, or if Advanced Level Magic was just so much harder than Ordinary Level Magic, which he hadn’t done too badly in, Saul wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he was failing quite spectacularly in every subject from the most basic Spelling to the highly dangerous art of Mind Manipulation – something his father was an absolute genius at – and had been wholeheartedly relieved when his father had sat him down, showed him a couple of brochures for regular human universities (which he’d taken to his room and cherished) and told him in no uncertain terms that once the summer term was over with, he was being withdrawn from the Pyramid recommended education system for adolescent witches and wizards and was transferring to alternative education in the ordinary human world in the autumn.

You’re abysmal at magic. He said cruelly, You’ll fit right in.

Saul swallowed hard, trying his best not to take the criticism to heart but without much success. It always hurt when his father was mean to him. What am I studying? he asked as he perused the glossy pages, hoping against hope it had something to do with rocks. Other than rocks, the only thing he was remotely good at was Astrology and his father looked down his nose at that subject, too.

Geology, His father snapped, That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? he added with a sneer, That and star-gazing, he snorted rudely before slinging his last shot of shaming, "Oh, yes – and, of course, ogling scantily-clad young men online. Do you have something you wish to tell me, Saul?"

Saul blushed crimson. How the hell had his father found out about his Tumblr account? He’d always been very careful to log in through private browsing. Still, his father was one of the top advisors in the Pyramid. Of course, he’d know what Saul was doing... No, sir. He muttered, "I have absolutely nothing to tell you."

His father gave him a hard stare, I’ll let it go this time, then, he said in a clipped tone, but let me tell you here and now, young man, he gave him the evil eye, which, coming from Nigel Blackthorn, with his creepily bright green eyes, was a very evil thing indeed, I expect an heir to continue the Blackthorn bloodline. Since you are my only son, I expect you to meet and marry a young lady of good family to continue the name on – and you know very well that we expect our offspring to make good connections before their twenty-first birthday. Saul nodded miserably. Nigel Blackthorn glared at his only son, disappointment etched in every line of his evil face, "Since you’ve almost managed to get to that age without reaching any kind of attainable qualifications to even begin to look for a wife for you, I’m extending the usual time limit. You’ve got an additional two years. He snapped, Don’t let me down."

Saul fought with himself not to roll his eyes. Don’t let him down? He’d been accusing him of letting him down his whole life. What had suddenly changed? And why the fuck couldn’t his sister be the one to produce the heir? What was in a name, anyway? Wasn’t it all down to blood? The blood didn’t know it had a name…

And when was his father going to wake up and smell the coffee? Saul had been as gay as a picnic basket for as long as he could remember. It was one of the reasons he’d never really fit in with the rest of his classmates. He’d made friends with boys when he was small but he’d always wanted more than the sort of friendships the boys made. He was always left broken-hearted when they decided he was a bit too weird to be friends with.

And he was weird. There was no getting away from it. Absolutely no one else in the magical community seemed remotely attracted to anyone of the same sex. Saul had often wondered if he’d been dropped on his head as a baby or something – or maybe some sort of potion had been administered to him as a youngster... Something had to have made him the way he was – and not just the gay business. He’d read up on that flaw in his personality on