Lover Behind Enemy Lines

by Liv Olteano

  “Stop,” Nathan said in a small voice.

  She didn’t.

  “I don’t have enough power to go after these connections,” Ginger said from beside me.

  Without that, me chanting and giving us all more life force would just mean more juice for her to suck out of us.

  “Viv,” Nathan said again. “I’m begging you to stop.”

  “You dare talk to me, you disgusting traitor? You turned your back on me. It’s all your fault, for everything. Our parents sent me away because of you.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t mean that.”

  “Of course I fucking mean it! They threw me out like trash because I was harming their precious trophy son. You’ll pay for ruining my life.”

  “Stop right now. Don’t make me do this. I won’t ask you again, Viv.”

  She laughed with a malicious edge to it. The streams of life force she was absorbing got thicker. My thoughts started to get gooey. I sensed more than saw her gather a scary amount of magic.

  Then I felt a surge of life force from the warm, delicious sun that was now Nathan’s presence. It radiated out and swept over all of us. I turned to follow its trail. When it met Vivian, the wave outlined a shape around her. Then it seemed to outline its edges all the more and pressed in. The streams of life force going into the newly formed bubble disappeared.

  “What… what is this?” Vivian asked in a strangely faint voice, looking around her suspiciously.

  “Your cell,” Nathan replied, also sounding faint.

  Vivian slumped to the floor like a puppet with its string cut.

  Angelo looked scared. “Is she dead?”

  “No. I need to sit down,” Nathan said a moment before falling back on the sofa.

  Drew bellowed something and punched the lights out of one of the guys. The second tried to dodge his next blow, but Drew threw another punch right after that one and got him in the gut. The guy crumbled to the floor, clutching his midsection and looking somewhat green in the face.

  I rushed in Nathan’s direction. “Are you okay?”

  He looked into my eyes and smiled, but there was no joy in it. “I’m tired. This thing takes a lot out of me.” He pointed up.

  Taka stepped closer. “Right. About that—”

  I lifted a hand. “First we need to solve the problem of our invaders.”

  “Don’t worry about her.” Nathan looked in his sister’s direction. “She’s contained.”

  Drew seemed pretty sad as he checked out his opponents. “I don’t expect those bozos to get up on their feet anytime soon. Too bad. We were having such a great time together.”

  Aashi walked into the picture, materializing from thin air. She’d gone missing at some point, I realized. I’d been too focused on chanting to keep track of things around.

  “My dear boys, I present to you the newest addition to Team 32,” she said full of excitement as she pointed toward Nathan.

  “What is that thing?” Drew asked and pointed at the sphere.

  “Whatever it is, it’s tied to his very spirit,” Ginger said. “It’s a kind of connection that I wouldn’t dream to begin going at—it’s that strong.”

  “The ancestors have blessed your team’s newest junior member with a special kind of artifact,” Aashi informed us. “It’s not a weapon per se, in fact. More like an aid.”

  “A walking stick is an aid,” Taka muttered. “That is a floating ball that glows.”

  “It’s a materialization of Nathan’s core power,” Aashi said glancing at it. “It focuses his life force into a pressurized battery, if you will.”

  “Like an accumulator?” I asked.

  “Yes. He’s running on fumes right now, for instance. It will take some time for it to recharge.”

  “Can casters drain it?” Angelo asked.

  Aashi shook her head. “Only Nathan can access it directly. He’s not immune to life force or power draining, though. The sphere also helps him balance his life force so he won’t overcharge.”

  “Which is why you called it an aid,” I concluded.

  She sat on the sofa beside him. Nathan slumped back on the cushions.

  “I’m sorry.” She patted his arm. “But you did the right thing.”

  “Are you talking about that bubble he enclosed his sister in?” I asked.

  “Yes. You couldn’t have stopped her without his help.”

  Drew tapped his chin a few times. “Is Nathan’s ball like a kind of electromagnetic pulse weapon?”

  Aashi nodded.

  “Then why wouldn’t spaga simply absorb it?” I asked.

  “They can’t. The life force condensed in the artifact changes in nature. It’s an overload of energy they can’t process. It would wipe off a number of spirit servants, depending on how many he’s facing and how many resources he has.”

  “And Vivian Gallagher couldn’t process his blast?” Taka asked.

  “She was feeding off our life forces,” I explained to everyone else. “When Ginger broke those connections, I managed to replenish us all, but she went at it again after Nathan woke up. I think she was losing her grip on the process.”

  “She usually exerts control over her nature as thief, just like I do over my nature as generator,” Nathan explained. “The less she controls herself, the more she drains. And considering how much of her life force she was using for her crew and spirit servants, she would have bled you dry and possibly those in neighboring houses too just to keep fighting.”

  “But now she’s contained?” Angelo asked.

  “Yes. Permanently,” he added in a broken voice. “There was no other way.”

  Drew glanced at her slumped form. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “She’ll go into a coma, from a life force point of view” was Aashi’s reply.

  I did my best to hide the shock I felt. “You mean she’ll die?”

  She shrugged. “Her system only works by absorbing life force. Right now she’s caught in a loop of absorbing her own. And the moment when she was encased in that loop was after she tried to kill Nathan with a magic attack. She used a lot of her life force in it. So she’s running on fumes too—while they last.”

  “I almost feel sorry for her,” Angelo said. “Sorry you had to make such a choice, Nathan.”

  “You’ve proven yourself worthy of dreamcatcher status,” Taka said in a serious voice.

  He walked over, stood in front of Nathan, and bowed with his arms straight down his torso. That was the highest form of respect I’d seen Taka manifest for someone since I’d saved his life all those years ago.

  Ginger grinned. “And technically he popped his cherry in, like, two minutes from becoming a junior, right?”

  Aashi smiled back. “True. You’re already a full-rights member of the team.”

  The sphere above Nathan’s head vanished. We all looked at Aashi.

  “It’s a bit different than your weapons,” she explained. “Nathan will always carry the sphere with him. But you won’t be able to see it unless he’s actively drawing on its resources.”

  “Fascinating,” Taka muttered. “But he’s vulnerable when his power runs out. And he has no dreamcatcher weapon to use against the spaga then.”

  Ginger hummed. “He can return to home base when he runs out of juice, right? If he goes out on his own, and his so-called battery runs low, one of us can go finish the job. If he could put a strong caster in a loop, I’m sure he can blast some spirit servants out of existence.”

  “I guess it could be weirder,” Drew said.

  Ginger lifted an eyebrow. “What could be weirder than a vanishing ball floating above a guy’s head?”

  “Two vanishing balls floating above a guy’s head.” Drew shrugged.

  Ginger snorted. “Right. That could be weirder, I guess.”

  “Guys, would you mind taking Vivian to the Asylum?” I asked. “Nathan looks like he needs to rest, and I don’t want to leave his side.”

  “Sure thing, man. Angel
o and I can go,” Drew offered.

  Taka looked into Nathan’s eyes. “Need help getting upstairs?”

  “I think I’ll manage. But thanks.”

  “What are we doing about the goons?” Ginger asked, eyeing the passed-out guys.

  “You can take them back to the Asylum too. They seem to be so out of it that they can’t pose much of a problem, anyway. I’ll cast the forgetting spell on them and their crew buddies there,” Aashi said.

  I walked up to the sofa and extended a hand. Nathan grabbed it and pulled himself to his feet. He leaned on me a bit more heavily than I might have liked, but he was in walking condition, so there was that.

  “We’ll leave you guys to it,” I said.

  Aashi sighed. “Great. I’ll have to redo all the protections and shields for my webs room.”

  I thought I heard Taka say something, but by then Nathan and I had already exited the ruined doors.

  “How was that possible?” he asked, sounding defeated. “I thought the webs room was safe.”

  “So did we.” I sighed. “Sadly, it seems we were all wrong.”

  We slowly climbed up the stairs.

  “She came here to get me back or make sure I wouldn’t pose a threat.”

  I didn’t reply. There was no need to.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “HOW did she know I was here?” he asked. “I made sure I was never followed when I stalked around the house.”

  “Maybe she could locate you due to the draining connection? But Ginger weakened it significantly since you’ve been here. He severed it after a few attempts.”

  “He can do that? Impressive skill,” Nathan muttered.

  “Could she have located you before he severed it entirely?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think she could track me that way. I experimented with that before I started to look for you after the Denny Park moment. I needed to know I wasn’t bringing her to you, following my trail.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Are you saying she couldn’t have known where you were without being tipped off?”

  “I didn’t tip her off, that’s for sure.”

  I stole a quick glance at his wrists. No marks. He was telling the truth. Not that I needed magic to make me trust him; but it didn’t hurt to have the comfort of knowing for sure. How often could one say that, after all? That you knew for sure if someone said the truth or not. Except for Angelo, who had the ability to tell, we all had to go on faith. As I’d found out myself recently, faith was a delicate thing—I’d lost it in myself for a while there. Despite having the support of my team and spirit mother, it had been Nathan who’d restored it.

  “She must have found some way to track you,” I said as I turned in the direction of my bedroom. “Maybe using the ley lines grid.”

  He nodded as we walked through the door. “There is such a spell, true. But she would’ve needed a drop of my blood to use it. I don’t remember giving her blood. I’m pretty sure I would have remembered that,” he muttered as I helped him get on the bed. “Oh, this place brings back memories.” He grinned.

  I grinned back. “Lovely memories. So you don’t think she could have gotten your blood?”

  “I’m not sure. It doesn’t need to be fresh blood. Any kind will do. Like from a nick you get while shaving, if you put some toilet paper on it to stop the bleeding.”

  “Did you nick yourself while shaving so that she’d have access to it?”

  “I can’t really remember it happening, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t either.”

  “Is there no other way?”

  His face darkened. “There is another way. If not my blood, she could have used that of either one of my parents.”

  “Has she been in contact with them?”

  “Not that I know of. But then again, I haven’t been in contact with her either as far as they know. We’ll find out. I want to close this chapter of my life for good. In order to do that, we need to tie up all loose ends.”

  I took his hand and kissed it. “I agree. We’ll find out anything you need to know. Don’t worry about that.”

  I lay down beside him, and he cuddled into my arms. We were silent for a while. I hoped he’d drift to sleep, but he squirmed a bit, so I began to caress his back in long and slow strokes.

  “I was such a fool,” he said after a while. “I knew draining was in her nature, but… I figured she just did that when she didn’t control herself well enough. Call me crazy, but I never thought she’d become what she did.”

  “If it’s any consolation, she was a unique kind of caster.”

  “Thank goodness for small mercies if there aren’t many others like her. She was powerful, right? She seemed very powerful to me, especially today. But then again I didn’t meet other casters, so maybe it’s just wishful thinking.”

  “She was powerful,” I said as I squeezed him in my arms.

  He sighed. “When I woke up and realized she was here, I was happy for a second. I hoped that she’d see the error of her ways. I wasn’t thinking straight, I know. But when I realized she was hurting you all—hurting you—I didn’t need to think at all. It was clear as day what I needed to do.”

  “And that was?”

  “Protect the man I love.” He reached up to kiss the underside of my chin.

  It was a bit of an awkward place to kiss somebody, and that made me enjoy it all the more for some reason. When the fear of being weird or doing awkward things vanished between two people, that’s when true intimacy began. Sure, making love could help get there, but only if the two were en route already. Some got there by spending a lot of time together. Others simply clicked in a way that brought them there sooner. Whatever the case was for us, I felt right then that we’d gotten to that point. And true intimacy was the most potent aphrodisiac. To know you’re so deep inside a person that they’re not afraid to lose control around you—that was a real turn-on. But this wasn’t the time to make the most of that state of mind. So I stored away the excitement. “Nathan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How would you feel about moving into my room?”

  He lifted his head and looked me in the eye. “Technically, we’re living together anyway.”

  “Yes, technically. Move into my room anyway.”

  He smiled. “Is this your way of distracting me from the mess of what happened with my sister?”

  “Not really. But is it working?”

  He gave me a languid, lingering kiss—and took his sweet time about it. By the time he pulled away, I had my toes curled, all of my body felt tingly, and I was pretty sure I felt a swarm of butterflies playing catch in my stomach. I opened my eyes slowly and looked at his puffy lips. “Will you?”

  He smiled. “Move in? Sure. I’d love to. And I love the fact that you asked me to. The same thought crossed my mind, but I figured you were the older resident of the house, so I shouldn’t take proprietary liberties.”

  “Please do take liberties. You’re one of us now. And that being older commentary hurts my delicate feelings.” I sniffled dramatically.

  He kissed my cheek. “Don’t worry, old man. I’ll make it up to you later.”

  “In what way, precisely?”

  He batted his eyelashes. “I’m sure something will come to mind.”

  He settled back down on my chest, squirming his way closer until we were glued together. He set one of his legs over mine and put his arm over my chest.

  I chuckled. “Proprietary much?”

  “A lot, actually. You’re literally the man of my dreams.”

  “How so?”

  “Well.” He made a pause. “When I was a kid, I used to have these really vivid dreams about a dark-haired hottie with black eyes and a brooding stare. In my dreams, this guy always looked to be the same age, even when I was just a teenager. I’d get short glimpses of him doing this or that small thing. It was never really a movie in my head or anything. Just flashes of him standing on a bri
dge, looking out at the water as his long, unbound hair billowed in the wind. Or riding a fabulous spotted horse, with his hair tied back and his gaze intent on whatever was beyond the line of the horizon.”

  I used to have a spotted horse, about fifty years ago. Could he have seen Thunder in his dream? The memory of riding Thunder still gave me goose bumps. Nothing compared to the freedom I used to feel riding; particularly when it rained. Thunder used to gallop like mad, enjoying that freedom as much as I did. It broke my heart when I lost Thunder. Just remembering it filled me with bitterness for a moment. Thunder had died before Nathan was even born. Loss was part of what being a dreamcatcher meant. While my current SUV got me where I needed to go and was a secure means of traveling, it would never compare to the joy riding Thunder offered; but losing my SUV would never break my heart—and hopefully neither would it break the bank, thanks to Taka’s financial genius. Today’s life meant more comfort, even if it also seemed less joyful.

  Nathan went on speaking. “I used to get up in the middle of the night and need to—you know.”

  “Need to what?” I asked, feeling merciless yet entirely happy with myself about teasing him.

  “Jerk off. The very image of that man was so arousing, it brought out of me a kind of knee-jerk reaction, only not targeting my knee.”

  We both laughed at that explanation.

  “Was he an actor or something?”

  “It was you. I hadn’t seen you anywhere, I don’t think. Maybe we bumped into each other on the street at some point and you caught my eye, but I forgot it. What’s sure is that you were master of my dreams. I had crushes on boys, of course. Went out with some, slept with them, and so on. But there was always something missing, somehow. Whoever I was with, no matter how hot, couldn’t get me as excited as those dreams.”

  “Were they always so innocent?”

  He snorted. “Of course not. In time, they became so pornographic that the scripts would have won freaking awards. But I didn’t want to share them with anyone. You were all mine, and mine alone.”

  I ran my hand through his hair, burying my fingertips in the silky smooth blond curls.