by Eden Butler
Five
The second Mai braved the outside of her bedroom, I knew about it. The plane hadn’t been on the tarmac for more than ten minutes, and I could feel my sister shaking off what remained of her isolation caused by her husband’s betrayal.
That had been two days ago, or so my brother had relayed, and since that time she’d tidied herself up, returned to work at Batty’s bar, and spread the word around the Cove that she’d be selling the little bungalow she bought less than a year before. It seemed it was that particular decision that had hacked Ronan off. Seeing how he still happened to live in the place.
“You got no rights, Mai. None whatsoever.” My brother-in-law tried using his size, his height to intimidate my twin, but it didn’t work. She was over a foot shorter than him, but that glare, the snarl on her mouth made her seem a damn sight more vicious.
“Yeah, you rotten, dead-bolted scullion?” Mai smiled at that insult, seeming proud she’d reached back into the old coven slang to abuse her husband. “I got every right.”
“It’s my house!”
Her laugh was loud, mocking, and Ronan slammed his fist on the bar as though he didn’t like hearing it. But Mai wasn’t frightened of him. She wouldn’t back down again, not like she’d done so often in her marriage just to keep the peace. After his repeated infidelities, the shoddy handling of my father’s business had been the last straw. “Funny how my name is the only one on the mortgage. You’re gonna move out or I’ll have you kicked out!”
Mai was a romantic, given to quick bouts of lust and passion. Any combination of the two would suit her fine but put both inside a criminally handsome but lazy wizard like Ronan, and you’ve got the makings of a not-so-happy ending.
“Isn’t that the case?” she’d told me the night before when news of my return had my twin calling my cell at four a.m. I was still a little drunk and prone to blunt honesty.
“What’s that?”
“It’s always the good-looking ones. They’ve the biggest heels to stomp your hearts.”
“Then maybe, little sister, next time you should pick an ugly man.”
But I doubted an ugly man was the answer, and just then, with Mai letting loose her fury at her soon-to-be ex sauntering into Batty’s and demanding that she take the bungalow off the market, I realized the glass mugs and array of dishes being flung right at his head was the sort of catharsis my sister needed.
Bane, however, didn’t seem to agree.
“Aren’t you gonna do something?” There was still cool calm in his tone but beneath his crystal eyes was the clear swell of irritation.
“I am.” I pulled Bane out of the line of a flying mug. “I’m staying out of the way. You might want to do the same.” I wasn’t worried about any real damage those two might cause. They couldn’t hex or spell each other. That was a funny little aside to a coven marriage—witches and wizards were bound from hurting one another with magic. But damn if Mai didn’t know how to fling a glass or toss a plate right across the room. I almost felt sorry for Ronan, but just almost.
“Damn Benoit women.” I heard Bane’s mutter, caught that disbelieving head, shake but only had to glare at him before he noticed my frown. “What?”
“You wanna repeat that?”
“Not if it’s gonna keep that look on your face.” We ducked again and when a third mug flew too near my head, Bane pulled me behind the bar. “This is fucking stupid.” He grunted, seeming annoyed when I rolled my eyes at him. “Busting up Batty’s place isn’t going to do anyone any favors.”
“Sure it will.” I edged around the side of the bar, smiling when the plate Mai leveled at her husband zinged him in the shoulder. “It’ll make her feel better.”
“Come on. We’ve got shit to do.” He pulled me back, grabbing my shirt in his fist until we were nearly nose to nose. One slip of my eyebrow arching and Bane exhaled, following my glance at my shirt crumpled between his fingers, and released me. “Your nex is all sorted. The dens and outer covens will be in town soon. There’s shit to settle before we begin our search.”
Behind us, Mai continued to scream, and I rubbed my temples, wondering how much energy, how much rage she needed to release before she was sated. If my twin was anything like me—and God knew she was—then her little catharsis could go on and on. I wouldn’t begrudge her the release of the anger she had pent up for months, but Bane did have a point. Still, I wasn’t worried that we’d lose trace of the Elam. I had a feeling that with my nexus centered again and the lines being unhindered, my abilities would be wide open and very sensitive.
“The trail isn’t going to go cold, Bane, and my sister is only defending what is hers.”
The bell from the front door opened, blunting the flinging of dishes, and I peeked to stare out over the counter, my eyes rounding when I spotted Freya Douglas ducking as she moved through the opening.
“Mai Benoit, is this shit necessary?”
“Ah,” Bane said next to me. “The damn calvary.”
“You wish.” Freya straightened, her hardened features and world-weary expression years working for the mortal police department had given her softening when she turned at my approach. “She’s exorcising the demon.”
“Holy shit.” Ignoring my twin and her bickering husband, Freya adjusted the gun at her hip and marched toward me, her pale skin brightened pink at the cheeks. “Never thought you’d ever land back in the cove again, Jani.”
“Never wanted to.”
It was a quiet look we shared, one that probably would have said a lot if we let it. There was nothing to say. Time and many late-night phone calls had taken care of the apologies I owed her. But Freya had been my best friend when I was eighteen. She knew everything about me and, by the look she gave Bane when he stood at my side, my guess was she was recalling all the secrets she knew about how much I’d wanted him. And, Gods, I had.
I’d wanted Bane and the life the ley line had promised could be ours. Who we were, how we found our center, the source of power, the link to life was a very tangible thing. Like a war cry or a school chant in the middle of the big game, finding that center, that link, which bound us together and that coursed through every magical creature—witch, wizard, were, whoever they were—with a sudden, sometimes blissful effect, was a tantalizing and at times almost overwhelming pull.
The melding. It always came back to that moment. To that promise I had to break.
The one Bane knew nothing about.
“Well, whatever the reason.” Freya moved her gaze from Bane, not bothering to hide the smirk on her heart-shaped face before she looked at me. “I’m happy you’re back.” Then, like it hadn’t been ten years since she’d seen me, like she forgot I’d left her behind too, my friend pulled me in for a hug. “Damn, I’ve missed you.” Her thick, auburn braid brushed against my cheek when she squeezed me, and by how easily I got my arms around her, I could tell Freya had finally managed to gain the ten pounds of muscle she’d been shooting for our last year of high school.
“Yeah,” I told her, smiling when the hint of lilacs and clove cigarettes hit me. She hadn’t given up the habit, it seemed, or stopped using the lotion her mother made for her.
“Now, this particular demon…” Freya turned, wincing when Mai managed to clock Ronan with a bottle to the back of the head and the fool jumped behind a table. “Batty called me in case any of the other mortal shop owners in town heard the ruckus. Can’t have Ivy or anybody else patrolling catching wind of this.”
“She’s winding down,” I told Freya, moving my head to my twin when she leaned against the bar. My sister wobbled, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, then looked down at her fingers and something caught her attention. Likely, the small diamond Ronan had somehow managed to give her. It seemed to piss Mai off and she caught a second wind, pushing away from the bar, darting right toward the cowering man who hid behind a table.
“Oh, Circe,” Freya said, stepping in time with me, likely ready to help me when I lunged toward my
sister, but Bane moved faster.
He let out a quick, “To hell with this,” and had his hand whooshing through the air in a wave before Freya or I could reach Mai. Ronan jumped up from his crouch, his expression hard and angry, a mug shooting from his fingers, but both he and Mai froze in their spots, captured in Bane’s suspension spell that made their movements slow and disjointed.
His spell had caught Mai in mid-wince, just as Ronan’s released mug split her bottom lip. “Son of a bitch!” I yelled. All I saw was the pain scrunching my sister’s face, her brown complexion paling as the spell and pain worked through her, and the wild glee of pleasure that lit up Ronan’s features. Bane caught me before I could get my hands on my brother-in-law, with his large arm pinning down my hands.
“Jani, no.” He held me back, strong arms barely loosening as I moved against them. “You wanna end up in front of the board of covens for attacking a spelled wizard? Calm down.”
Mai and Ronan fell in slow movements, their bodies, their reactions distilled by Bane’s release of magic, and I nodded, let him move me away from Ronan as my brother-in-law slowly fell to the floor. Freya stood over him, holding her hand toward his head, a nasty hex ready, I was sure, anticipating the catch she’d have to make once the spell broke.
I reached Mai, threw the immobile mug away from her face and caught her around the middle before she fell, my touch completely ending Bane’s spell, and we both landed on the floor in a whoosh of breath.
“Shit, that hurt.” Frowning, Mai cupped her bottom lip and I tugged the rag from her apron, holding it against her mouth in an attempt to get the bleeding to slow. Her wild mess of curly hair fell in her face and I twisted it up, securing it in a knot at the back of her head. It was natural and thick, like our mother’s, but where mine had grown straight and long, Mai’s was a mass of ringlet curls she never seemed quite able to tame.
“Hey, asshole,” Bane said, bringing both our attention across the room as he knelt in front of Ronan. Freya shoved him back down when the jerk tried jumping off the floor. “What’s it gonna take to get you out of that house?” Ronan looked around the room, glaring over at Mai, then back at Bane. “Answer me.”
Again Ronan tried to move off the floor and Freya pulled him down, gripping his shoulder until he went still. He shot a glare at the woman but reserved all his venom for Bane. “You can’t throw money at this shit, asshole.”
“Pretty sure I can.”
There was a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach, one that reminded me of the time Sam roughed up Michael Little after he and his friends threw spitballs at me in Miss Deaton’s PE class. I hadn’t needed Sam scaring off anyone. Not Michael anyway, since he spent the next week with a chronic case of chicken pox, and my mother made me clean out the attic and rearrange her canning equipment when she realized I’d spelled a mortal. Point being, I could handle myself despite the consequences I faced. I could handle this, as well, if Mai couldn’t get through to Ronan. Benoits settle their own debts. Bane had no business speaking for us.
Patting Mai’s shoulder, I left her on the floor and stood next to Bane. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t look at me when I spoke and that only annoyed me further. “There’s a problem that’s keeping your attention.” Finally Bane glanced at me, his face expressionless and that same fire making his eyes appear gray and glowing. “I need all of your attention, Jani. Hence me throwing money at said problem.”
“We don’t need you to fight our battles.” I wouldn’t budge on that one. He didn’t know me anymore, but he knew my brother. He knew my father, and if Bane had spent more than a few hours with either of them, he’d have sorted out that the stubborn streak was evident in everyone in my family.
Still, a quick look at Mai’s bloody mouth, and whatever Bane’s experience with my family seemed irrelevant. He certainly didn’t look altogether fussed about me being annoyed. “Maybe not, but as I’ve already said, we don’t have time for this.” He looked at Ronan again, then to Freya, the muscles around his jaw flexing when she shook her head, but spoke to me. “Bastards like this don’t care about anyone. They get by on their connections, their looks, and when that don’t work anymore, they resort to blackmail, sabotage.”
The subtle pop of Bane’s knee sounded when he stood and fit his hands into his pockets. His face had cleared a bit more since yesterday, but it was still slow to heal. Whatever dark magic his attackers had used on him, it worked perfectly to keep him roughed up, and I assumed his injured leg still needed more time to heal.
But watching him glower at my brother-in-law like he was pathetic, nothing but a nuisance, with that cool, scary calm keeping his features even, I realized that Bane would be intimidating no matter how injured he was. Hell, the bruises likely helped that menacing air along.
“Ronan here thought that your sister was weak. He thought that your father was stupid.”
“You got no clue what I thought, Iles,” Ronan said, spitting out a line of bloody spittle when Bane refused to look at him.
The wizard shook his head and looked as though he fought to keep a smile from twitching across his mouth. “It’d be very easy to be rid of him, but I’m not a murderer. Neither are you,” he said, glancing at Freya as an afterthought. This wasn’t mortal business, and while she stood in this bar, watching what was happening, hearing what was said, she wasn’t a Crimson Cove cop. She was the witch we knew we could count on to hold our confidence.
Bane continued, finally looking at me squarely. “So we have to resort to basics for a very basic wizard.” The doorway creaked behind us and I thought maybe Batty had exited the building, likely not eager to see what Bane would do in his bar, but then I smelled the familiar scent of Lennon’s cologne and another new scent, this one like pine needles. Looking around, I saw that Lennon had been joined by another wizard who rivaled Bane’s height and stature.
They weren’t here to usher us back to Bane’s territory. From the slow movement of their eyes around the room, then back at their boss, I understood that they were there to handle whatever it was Bane needed. At that moment, Ronan needed handling.
“He wants money so he doesn’t actually have to work for a living. That’s why he latched onto your sister and, if memory serves, to Widow Aldridge when we were in high school. Remember that, asshole?”
“Bullshit,” my brother-in-law argued, fighting against Freya when she pulled him to his feet. Ronan flashed his gaze at the two guards and tried to put as much space between himself and the threat that loomed, but Freya didn’t let him move more than an arm’s length away from her.
“Bled her dry and the poor thing ended up in the mortal homeless shelter until she died.” Bane reminded me of a tiger, pacing around Ronan with a relaxed, calm expression on his face. He looked almost bored, a little unsettled, but I think that cool demeanor made him even more threatening. Ronan would not take his gaze off of Bane, not when he walked around him, not when that blank expression twisted into a smile that was not friendly at all. “So, the best bet is to send him someplace where he can’t return.”
“I thought you said you weren’t a murderer?” Ronan shouted, turning to face Freya. “Aren’t you supposed to serve and protect? Damn, woman…”
“The innocent, asshole,” she said. “And you know damn well I’m not a woman. I’m a witch.”
“You don’t deserve an easy death.” Bane still kept his hands inside his pockets and tilted his head, looking at Ronan as though staring would make the ideas and possibilities in his mind arrange themselves into a logical solution. “And you’re right, I’m not a murderer, but you damn sure won’t be staying in the Cove.”
“You…you can’t do that.” Ronan didn’t sound convinced. “You don’t own the Cove.”
“Yeah,” Bane said, laughing, moving his shoulder into a shrug. “I kind of do.” He nodded and the guards cornered Ronan, but Freya didn’t let him go.
Instead, she glanced at me, like she wanted me to tell her what I wanted to
be done with Ronan. She knew me, still. She had to sense the irritation I felt. I stepped forward, in front of Ronan, shook my head, and Freya moved him back to her side.
Bane’s coven was large, and he was in line to lead them when his uncle Carter passed away. So yes, Bane did, in effect, own the Cove. The Grant coven’s reach and Bane’s acquired power may have silenced my sister while he threatened her husband. It was definitely the very reason Ronan’s arguing had silenced and why that wild, open fear collected in his eyes. But it meant nothing to me. No matter who he’d been to me once upon a time, no matter the guilt I had felt and how it had sent me fleeing and, on the worst days, climbing into a bottle, I no longer cowered to the social order in the Cove. I was free of that.
“You own the Cove, Mr. Iles, not my family,” I said evenly.
Ronan glared at me when I approached, but his fear seemed to ease as I looked into his undeniably handsome face. Poor jackass. He was too stupid to worry about me, too arrogant to fear me, and he didn’t even blink, didn’t shy away when I rested my fingers along his forehead and whispered, “Awendan,” so only he could hear me. The hex shifted his features, made him stare at nothing, eyes unfocused and glassy.
“You will go to Easton Williams. Try working a grift on those Nevada witches. Their graves are deep and their deserts are endless. You will fail, Ronan, and will leave the Cove and my sister alone.”
I didn’t like Ronan. Never had. Hell, since he was a kid he’d been a pain in most everyone’s ass, and if I was being honest, I wasn’t sad to see Freya finally hand him off to Bane’s guards and escort him out of Batty’s and out of our lives forever. I didn’t care.
Bane didn’t watch his guards escorting Ronan out of the bar. He seemed more interested in my profile. But when I glanced at him, expecting a reprimand, maybe a reminder that I was expected to abide by that shitty social order, Bane kept silent, giving me a nod and the slightest hint of approval with the dip of his chin.
“Now that you’ve handled that,” he said, clearing his throat, “can we get back to business and prepare for the arriving covens?”