by Mason Sabre
She nodded, smiled. “I think so.”
It had been an odd few months between them … a struggle, a balance of everything they held onto. One thing they had agreed on was that they would not betray Natalie, or Karl. They had done nothing to deserve that …. Nothing but get tied up in the schemes of Trevor and whatever his initial game plan had been.
Maybe Natalie knew … maybe she didn’t. It was so hard to tell, so hard to read her. She’d accepted Gemma as Cade’s friend, as theirs. That alone tugged at Gemma’s soul, her belief system. She’d never be someone else’s other woman, would never demean herself that low, but then Cade belonged to her. He always had. She was just sorry that it had taken his death … his almost death to make her realise that.
Cade gently placed his new daughter into her arms. An affectionate stroke of the small head from his strong hands …
“She’s perfect,” Gemma said. Tilting her head, Gemma gazed down at the cub. She used the knuckle of her smallest finger and ran it across the back of the baby’s hand. She opened her fingers, tiny fingers that reached for her.
“She has your eyes,” Gemma said. “Perfect.”
“Amara,” Cade said.
“Amara …” Gemma raised her gaze to meet Cade’s. He was standing so close now, touching her almost. “Do you think …” She lowered her voice to a whisper, one fraught with so much pain. “Do you think Connor would’ve had your eyes too?” She felt her eyes well. She couldn’t help it. She blinked at them, trying to push that away and the emotions that were about ready to spill out.
Cade slid a hand around her neck, pulled her into him so she rested her forehead against his shoulder, Amara pressed between them. “He would have been perfect, just like you.”
Another pause. Gemma let herself stay there, taking comfort from Cade, but also burning into her mind, the image of his daughter. She ran a knuckle along the soft skin of Amara’s cheek.
“I’ll never forget him, you know? Never replace him.” He hooked his fingers under Gemma’s chin, pressed his other hand to his chest. “He’s in here. He will always be in here.”
“Amara is very lucky to have you for a dad.” And she meant it. He would have been a great father to Connor too. She knew it with every ounce of herself.
She didn’t know how their future would go now. How anything would go. She had promised him, though, no matter what happened. She’d wait. She’d wait forever if she had to.
Martial Magic
Book Twelve
Chapter 1
Whoever it was daring to make that infernal racket was about two bangs away from getting the door opened and a hex thrown at them. Tomorrow, when the sun rose … which was the point, when the sun rose, because it was so fucking early … too fucking early, they’d be slugs. Big giant, man-sized slugs. At first the banging started as a distant sound inside her head. It breached the boundaries of sleep and somehow wedged itself into her dream until her brain realised it was in fact real. She’d been having a nice dream, for a change. Had, being the important word there.
Crystal rolled onto her back, pulling her pillow with her and pressing it over her head. She clenched her eyes closed as if the two actions would somehow shut out the noise.
They didn’t.
If anything, it got louder, more frantic.
She pushed her hands against the sides of her head and pushed the pillow down over her ears. It turned the banging into muffled thumps. She was wide awake now. Thanks for that.
“For God’s sake,” she yelled, and then with a burst of heated breath, she let out her frustration into the soft feathered pillow. Even that wasn’t enough to quell the fire trying to ignite in the pit of her stomach. She slammed her arms down at the sides of her body and made the bed shake. The springs give a squeaky moan, and the pillow balanced on her face. She stayed like that for a few seconds, annoyance bubbling under her skin. When she reached out blindly to the bedside table and grabbed her sports watch, she had to move the pillow from her face to squint at the digital display. “Half past three? Are you kidding me?” She pushed herself up and let the blanket pool at her waist. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she stared into the darkness of her room and let out another sigh, this one, a little calmer … a little more aware.
The banging had stopped, but it was too late now. She was wide awake and there was already the niggle of a headache threatening at the side of her eye. She’d hunt whoever it was down tomorrow if it broke into a full-on migraine.
Bastard.
The light squeal of a rusty hinge sounded, followed by a rattle. “Hello?” called a voice … a man’s voice. He was yelling through the letter box.
Her stomach jolted with a cold block of ice inside it, twisting, making her skin break out in goosebumps. She didn’t flick the bedside light on as she swung her legs down. She would not alert whoever it was to the fact she was indeed home, although she should have done. She should have marched down and given them what for with a good old lecture about manners and decent hours. Could he not see the closed sign on her school door?
Barefooted, she tiptoed across her bedroom to one of the big windows. Her bedroom spanned across the top of her flat. She lived above her work, above her small school. She peeked out at the edge of the blind, careful not to make it move too much and give her away.
Eyes met hers … eyes downstairs that she could see so clearly, and they were staring right at her as if he had honed in on her location.
She squinted at him. He waved. Of course, he’d bloody seen her. His eyes glowed bluer than a fly zapper in a restaurant. And those eyes meant one thing and one thing alone, trouble.
Great.
There was no way to pretend she wasn’t home. She contemplated just going to her kitchen, making coffee, turning on the television and ignoring him until he got bored and realised she wasn’t answering him. He’d deserve that at least. She’d not been in her wonderful pit of a bed for more than an hour. How dare he disturb that? Instead, she grabbed her robe, pulled it on and stuffed powders into her pocket … just in case.
No smart woman would open the door to a man at three thirty in the morning and not be armed.
“Yes?” she said when she opened the door a to him, chain still attached, leaving only a small gap so they could peer at each other. She lived alone, wasn't stupid. The last thing she wanted was to let some crazy ass in who had graced her door. Didn't they show that in the movies? Stupid woman opening her door, man jumps in, hand over her mouth, raped, beaten. No, she wasn't stupid, nor was she naïve … but this man.
She looked him up and down, her brow raising at one side … it was a good peek at least. He was young, her age perhaps. If that was still classed as young in this day and age. He had dark hair, sort of wispy. It fell down close to his eyes, eyes that peered back at her reminiscent of a rabbit already broken and run over.
“School’s closed,” she said. She owned a school, or rather, it was more of a building with a sign on it. She taught children. Anyone who still hadn’t completed puberty. She was a witch, retired … early of course, but her magic still burned, still sang in her veins every time she moved. The energy flowed through her, connecting her to the earth, the water, even the moon. She had to pass it on somehow, and she did that through children, not just any children, though, no. Children who weren't so genetically gifted to accidentally raise the dead, or fry off Grandma’s eyebrows.
“Crystal?”
“Yes?” she cocked her eyebrow again. “And you are?”
“Jason,” he said … he said it with vague familiarity, like she should know him, recognise him. His eyes shimmered. They had that gleam under them and a tinge of blue that was like water moving in pools just under the surface. He blinked, stilled them, and himself. There was only one kind of Other whose eyes shimmered and glowed when their emotions ran high. It made Crystal feel sorry for them in a way. They couldn’t hide their internal turmoil so well. At least, the lessers couldn't. Kind of like getting a stiffy at the wrong time and giving yourself
away. Wolf … he was wolf. “Raven said to come here.”
“At this hour?” She would have to remember to kick Raven’s arse. She’d make sure it was in the middle of the morning, when he was sleeping. He ran a bar, sort of a crossroads between Humans, Others, Strays and Society.
“He said …” Jason frowned. “He said to tell you that the Queen isn’t dead yet. Not on his watch anyway.” He said it with a kind of confused expression across his face, like he knew the words he had been told to repeat, he’d recited them, but he didn’t really understand what they meant. To anyone else, it made no sense. That was the point.
“Raven said to say that?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” He nodded and stepped back a little away from the door as if he had relaxed and decided that there wasn't so much danger of her slamming the door in his face. She thought to do it just to show him not to assume shit. He’d be damned lucky if she didn’t, but she was too curious now.
“And what is it that he sent you here for at this hour?”
“You’re a Seeker? Best one—”
“I don’t do that anymore.” A lump formed instantly in her throat at that word—Seeker. Suddenly she couldn't swallow. Her stomach heaved, and she pushed out her chest to keep from retching and spewing last night’s meal on the wolf outside. In her own mind, she tried to pass it off as indigestion. Too much curry the night before, either that, or those god damned pizza rolls with all the extra topping on them. Fear. That’s what her brain whispered at her, her brain with the voice of Raven and the chastising expression he had when she had told him she was done.
Almost three years since she had last used her magic in that way. But magic had a life … a shelf life, and like anything in the world, if one uses it too much, too often, it runs out, turns bad. She had felt her badness, dreamt of it more times than she dared to remember. It was a whispering shadow waiting for her, a hand in the darkness ready to take her to the pit. She practiced only white magic, and while her pot of magical gold still had some dregs in the bottom, she would keep it … she would keep her sanity as long as she was alive. No, the Queen wasn’t dead yet. She intended to keep it that way.
“I know. Raven said you’d say that. He said to tell you he’d owe you one.”
“He’ll owe me more than that.” He owed her an explanation, an apology … he knew. He bloody knew and yet here he was, trying to force her hand. She was half tempted to bundle Jason into her car, take him to Raven’s bar and hex the hell out of the panther. She’d turn him into a tabby cat and advertise to every tom in town.
“He said to tell you … when you refused.” Jason paused, twisted his fingers together. “Glinda is strong.”
Crystal barked a laugh at that. She couldn’t help it. “That fucking shit. I bet he did too.” Glinda the good witch. That was his joke … his joke loaded with seriousness. He’d promised her that if she ever turned bad, he’d be sure to drop a house on her. When she had calmed a little, she pressed her head to the corner edge of the door and took a breath. “I really can’t help you. I’m sorry.” With that, she went to close the door on him, but Jason put his hand up. Damn fool almost got it trapt between the door and the jamb.
“Please,” he said. “I don’t know where else to go. My sister … someone took her.”
“Then go to DSA,” Crystal said. She had to force the harshness into her words, had to make herself sound like she didn’t care. “Sorry.”
“I can’t.” He did actually cast his gaze down for a second and then back up, although not all the way. In a matter of seconds, he’d made himself seem smaller … look smaller. Not the act of a male wolf, but rather the act of a man … a brother.
“Not Society?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Stray. Please help us.”
Chapter 2
Strays … they were like the dregs of Society. The things in the dark everyone tried to ignore. They were hated, hunted and to be forgotten … by some people at least. Not Crystal, not Raven, and she was sure, many others. But Strays weren’t liked. In some cases, they were hated more than the Humans. They were dangerous. They walked between the good and the bad and posed threats because of all those around them; they had no rules, no laws to govern them and keep them in check. It was because of the Strays she didn’t hire her services out any longer.
Years ago, when she had been a witch to hire, she had been asked to go underground, to the caves, holes … places Strays made into their own world. She was to taint their water, poison it in such a way the Strays would kill each other. She had a spell. It was simple yet effective—a magical weapon only stronger witches could conjure effectively. Once the tainted water was ingested, it would take less than five minutes for the victim to fall foul. Then they would fight whoever was close … fight them to the death. The plan was to let the Strays destroy each other.
But they had been poor people, animals, creatures, beings. Witches like her … but not like her. She had been lucky to be born into a coven who had money—a coven that paid her fees and made it so that she was part of the elite. There were witches down there, good fucking witches who couldn’t get a pound to their names just because of their parents’ failings. Crystal had stared into the eyes of the weak, of those below her, and she had nearly done as she had been asked. She’d been so close, so consumed by the hatred that she had almost shaken hands with the darkness inside her. That’s what scared her the most. The fact if she hadn’t seen the young witch, a witch no more than ten-years-old, and already selling herself so she could eat, she would have done it. It scared her, even now, to think how close she had come to causing the death of innocent people.
“Don't you have a pack?” she asked flatly, her heart fighting to warm a little at the sound of the desperation in his voice.
He was chewing on the thought … on his words. Strays weren’t supposed to have packs. They did of course, everyone knew it too, but they weren’t allowed. Pack meant strength, it meant numbers that could break and run against Society. Society didn’t want that. Society was law, and the god given word that all must abide by. They were scared of that prophecy, the one that said one day, there would be a revolt. The poor would band together, stand strong and because there were more outside Society than in it, all hell would break loose. The only way to stop it was segregation. It came by religion, race, species, and for them, it came by the way of saying who they could have sex with. God forbid a wolf went and screwed a fae, or some shit like that. Not that they would now. The shifters and the Fae were at war. It was brewing under the surface like a festering sore, waiting. And it would blow. Crystal had no doubt about that.
“I have people we call pack brothers and sisters, but we aren’t pack.”
A lie. “You live with other wolves?”
He nodded.
“All of you together?”
“Yes.”
She gripped the handle of the door. “And you’d do anything for them? Even come to a witch’s door after three in the morning?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” He had an accent she realised just then. She couldn’t place it for sure, but she was fairly certain it had an American twang to it.
“Then you have pack. Can’t they help? She is their pack sister, too?”
If it was at all possible, his shoulders dropped even more. Like someone had added more weights to the burden already pressing him down. “I tried. I even tried DSA. That’s how I got to Raven. DCI MacDonald gave me his name.”
“You went to DSA?”
Another shrug, then a nod. “Cade is wolf. He’s like one of us, but I don’t know. He’s alpha now. I guess that changes things.”
She guessed it did too. She knew of Cade. He was a friend of Raven’s. Worked DSA, but he was okay. Good inside. “What is it exactly that you need help with?” She realised then that she didn’t know for sure. “Your sister?”
He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a picture. It was neat, folded in the middle. It looked like he had taken it from a frame. It certai
nly wasn’t in a state that would suggest he carried it around for a long time. He handed it to her. There were five people in the picture, one of them was Jason. There were two women, and two other men. “The woman next to me is Shayla. She’s missing.”
The wolves were all the same. A little pack if ever she saw one. They looked more like a bunch of students on a night out. Shayla was pretty. She had a beaming smile, dark hair. “How long has she been missing?”
He glanced at his watch then, as if he couldn’t remember. How could someone not remember that? "Almost two hours.”
She handed the picture back. “Two hours? That isn’t missing yet.” The girl in the picture looked like a girl who enjoyed life.
“She is. Please. No one will help me. No one will listen. Even our pa—even the wolves I live with won’t believe me, but you must.”
Whatever it was in her gut, bad pizza, too much spice, or even fear, that god damn witch’s instinct sparked into life. She could feel Jason. Maybe it was the panic in his voice, the sincerity of his words. Maybe it was that she had been single too damn long, and he was hot … yes, she’d noticed. She was a red-blooded female after all and she was not blind, because sure as hell, looking at Jason, any woman not feeling her blood heat when around him, would have to be visually impaired. “Do you drink coffee, Jason?”
“Coffee?”
“Yes. You know? Dark drink. We drink it hot, some odd people have it cold. Wakes me up, stops me being cranky and hexing people who wake me up too early.”
“I know what coffee is. I just …” He puffed out a breath, sending a plume of white air into the world. “I don’t have time for coffee. My sister is missing.”
“Have you heard from whoever took her?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re either going to hear something from them, because whoever has taken her, has her as leverage, so they’ll keep her alive, or … she did something real bad and she’s dead already. Either way, there is time for coffee.”