by Lauren Dane
She heard Faine roar and then snarl. “Shit. Shit! Helena?”
Faine had been watching the crowd, taking care not to hold Molly too tightly, not to bump her casts or injure her. And then he turned, noting Helena’s body language had stiffened, her focus shifted to the curb where the vehicles were.
Helena was right in front of the vehicle and she shouted for them to get down and he felt the air suck away and then the taste of her magick as she pulled it from all around. He’d covered Molly with his body, expecting the blow of the flaming wreckage, but instead he’d watched as Helena had shouted in a language he rarely heard, her hands drawing runes as she wove the spell. He knew channeling that much power was dangerous for anyone, a fact underlined when her nose started to bleed.
He heard Gage shouting at people to get back, heard the panic behind him as humans scattered. All he could do was watch, helpless as she took all that power and shoved it at the explosion.
Molly spoke to him quietly. “She’ll be all right. She’s strong.” But her words were nearly a question. Not quite, but close enough that it only scared him more.
He’d only held himself in place because he knew that if he’d disturbed Helena she could have lost control of her magick. And his job was Molly right then. He’d promised Helena and he couldn’t break that promise.
But when Helena dropped to her knees and pitched forward, blood all over her face, he made sure Gage was there with Molly before he exploded up, running to her. He scooped Helena into his arms as the sounds of sirens began to break through the wall of power she’d kept between the car and the crowd.
He shook so fucking hard it was a challenge to stand, but he did, holding her close, breathing her in until he was sure she was alive and would be all right. Her blood was everywhere, freaking him out.
“Damn it, Helena Jaansen, you will open those eyes right this moment. You’re scaring me.” He gave her his best officer-issuing-orders voice and hoped the fear wasn’t showing.
Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first, but then she seemed to grasp consciousness with a gasp. “Is everyone all right?”
He growled. “Everyone but you, brown eyes. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
She sighed, turning her face into his chest. “Not failing.”
Chapter 8
“WE need to get her help.” He turned to Gage, still holding Helena.
Gage held his hands up, approaching slowly, understanding exactly what it meant to be wild with the need to protect the woman you loved. “When the ambulance arrives, we’ll send her first. You go with her.”
Helena stirred, trying to get down and he held her tighter.
“Stop that.”
“So imperious.” She blinked. So slowly he found his panic fighting to return. “Stop growling. I’m all right. The police are going to want to question us all. And I’m not leaving the scene.”
“I’m taking over the team.” Gage sighed. “Temporarily. Helena, you’re covered in blood. You’ve burned yourself out handling that much power at once. I don’t even know what the hell you just did, but it had to have fried your circuits.” He said the last very quietly and Faine realized he wasn’t the only one who’d been amazed at what Helena had done.
“In case you haven’t noticed, a riot is brewing. We need to get Molly out of here, along with the rest of the group. We need to be sure Tosh, Delilah and Parrish Carroll are all okay, along with all the Others who work here at the capitol.”
“Caspar has already gotten on making sure Sato and everyone else is all right. You are not all right.”
“I’ve called to have a car sent over immediately.” Before Helena could argue with Gage any further, Cade Warden stepped forward. “Ms. Jaansen, I’m in your debt for what you just did. I can see the physical toll as well. How about we get you back to the house where you can rest? Then you can have your needs tended by Others instead of humans.”
“That’s probably best.” Gage nodded.
Faine held her tighter. “Unless she needs a hospital, in which case, your need for privacy can be hanged. You’re not going to sacrifice her for that. I won’t allow it.”
Things got very still for long moments. Even Helena stopped trying to move. Cade’s brow rose, but a smile fought at the corner of his mouth. Yes, yes, Faine knew he’d made a declaration on several levels, but he didn’t care. There was no way he’d allow Helena’s needs to be shunted to the side.
“I’d never allow that either.” Gage put an arm around Molly’s shoulders. “She’s my friend and my boss. But she’ll be more comfortable in private, and treated by our own people. If it turns out she needs more care, we’ll get it for her. I swear to you.”
Agent Anderson came jogging over along with several other FBI agents and cops. The rest fanned out, immediately getting to work. “Jesus. Is everyone all right?”
Helena coughed on the poisonous black smoke from the wreckage and Faine stepped away so she could breathe easier, Anderson following as he did.
“Put me down,” Helena ordered. But he heard the pain in her words and ignored her.
“Agent Anderson, as you can see, Ms. Jaansen was injured while she protected the crowd from the explosion. She needs to be back at the home we’re staying in so she can rest. We need to get all our people out of here.” Faine’s jaw was clenched so tight he was sure it creaked when he spoke.
Anderson nodded, paling as he took Helena in. “Come on. We’ll talk to you all while we drive you over. Do we need to stop at the hospital?”
“I don’t need a doctor.”
Faine didn’t know if he agreed with that point, but for the time being he let it go because he wanted her out of there and that was happening.
“Molly and Gage first.” Helena gave him a look that dared him to argue. “Be sure she doesn’t need to go to the hospital. She’s still healing from the last time.”
“She’s fine and she will be very cross with you if you don’t get your butt into that car right now.” Molly gave Helena a stern look and Helena snorted.
“It’s my job to protect you.”
“And you did.” Emotion bled into Molly’s voice. “You did. Please. For me?”
That seemed to do the trick and she allowed herself to be loaded into one of the SUVs Cade Warden had brought to the curb.
Anderson spoke to one of the officers on the scene and he loaded in with them, one of his cars following the group.
“You can wait until she’s resting before you question her.”
Anderson sent him a look but Faine just ignored it. He’d done all the order taking he was going to for the time being. Helena was fragile in his arms, bloody, trembling, the glass shimmering in her hair, and he had to clamp down the urge to let his beast take over and rampage through that crowd back there to find who did this.
Helena started speaking. “I don’t know much. We came out from the hearing. I’d called about ten minutes before to have the cars brought around.” Her face changed. “Goddess, the drivers. Someone needs to check to see if they’re—”
Anderson interrupted. “My people are on the scene now. I’ll let you know what we find. But you can’t do anything about it. Just relax and keep talking.”
“The protesters were yelling, shoving. I was focused on that. I missed the signs until I was too close. Until we were all too close.”
Faine saw that she took it personally. As if it were her fault.
“Christ, Helena. You’re one person. You were dealing with the most emergent threat, all those people shoving around.” Gage held Molly’s hand like he planned to never let her go.
“I should have seen it. It’s my job.” Helena’s words were lost in a flurry of hacking coughs. Anderson handed her a moistened handkerchief. She continued coughing until Faine’s ribs hurt just listening to it.
“The smoke is toxic. It’s better out than inside you.” Anderson shrugged at Faine’s look. “I’ve worked more than my fair share of bomb scenes.”
&nb
sp; She took a drink from a bottle of cold water. “I saw something off. Felt it. But then the air sort of sucked away. I think the bomb was under the passenger side, front. That’s where the blast seemed to come from.”
“You should have died, being that close. Your, um, powers protected you?”
Gage interrupted. “Her powers protected everyone all around us. She . . . Witches have reservoirs of power, she pulled hers up too fast, she did it to shove as much as she could back at the blast to protect everyone. Not just our people, but the humans on those steps. That sort of thing is harmful. She’s bleeding because she burst capillaries with the exertion. She needs to rest. To restore her magick and let her body heal itself.”
Faine wanted to kiss Gage for that defense of Helena.
“Thank you. For what you did. You may not hear it from humans, though it’s clear you were a hero today. But you’ll hear it from me.” Anderson leaned forward to touch Helena’s knee and before he knew it, Faine found himself cutting off a possessive growl at the human male.
Helena raised a brow even in her exhausted state. He’d have to talk with her. Later, when she wasn’t on the verge of collapse.
• • •
ONCE Anderson had gone, Molly tutted and fussed while Gage looked on, amused. “You need to get cleaned up. I’ve laid out a robe in the bathroom. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital? They have Others on staff. I know this from the last time we were bombed here.” Molly handed her the glass of juice Helena had already half drained. She obediently finished it.
She returned in less than a minute with more juice and pushed it Helena’s way.
“Molly, you know I adore you, but girl, back up or I am going to lose my mind.” Helena waved her away.
“Fine. But I’m calling your mother to see who we can speak to around here who will help you get yourself recharged.” Molly sniffed and before Helena could argue, she left the room.
“What did you do?” Gage hefted himself up onto the bathroom counter as Helena attempted to clean her face.
Faine sighed and took the cloth from her, washing the soot away and getting it wet again. He gently pushed her hands back. “Hush and let me work. I’ve been dressing field wounds longer than witches have been in the New World.”
She rolled her eyes, but held still as he dabbed at her skin.
“What do you mean? I protected you all, that’s my job.”
Gage blew out a breath. “I have never seen a spell like that, Helena. Ever.”
“Oh. That. Well, all right, I suppose you’ve experienced your magick building, growing, since the Magister, right?”
Gage nodded.
“Since I was young, a big part of my power has been sort of intuitive. I haven’t had to learn spells the same way others do. I just sort of knew what I needed and then I did it. Since the Magister, my magick has . . . leapt to me in a wholly new way. It’s easier to call it no matter the place. But there are less filters so it comes hard and fast unless I regulate it. I knew I needed a lot to hold that energy from the blast back. There’s no Font here like there is in Gennessee or Owen territory and I was worried about siphoning from any witches around me. So I yanked it hard from the air and the earth. It was so much.”
Faine grimaced. “Are you going to be all right? Did you do permanent damage?”
“No, I’ll be fine. I’m crispy and if I had to do any major magick just now I’d be fucked. But rest will restore me.”
“More than that, how did you do it? Sure, you can call more power, but that spell was awe-inspiring. You . . . what?”
“I just . . . I knew I needed to block the blast somehow. I didn’t have a physical shield or a wall to hide behind. It occurred to me that it was physics, that’s all magick is anyway. I just used energy to push back at the energy of the blast. The opposite of the wave from the explosion so it repelled. I don’t know if I could do it again in the same way, only that if I had to do something similar in the future, I could.”
“Can you teach me? Do you think it could stop a bullet?”
“I don’t know about a bullet. But I think I can help you visualize a wall of energy. I don’t know your gifts that well and like I said, it’s not spellwork, not completely. I knitted something together on the fly but that was to focus my power in one spot and keep it from feeding back and harming me.”
“You mean like bleeding from the nose and mouth?” Faine wanted to shake her and order her to never, ever do such a thing again. But he knew she would. And that she could was apparently a big deal. She was a warrior like he was. Just a few days ago he accepted it, but now the stakes were higher, and his feelings? Well, they’d adjusted and deepened, which made it far more difficult to accept that she’d put herself in danger.
“When I was young I got nosebleeds all the time. My dad says it’s because I have a poor sense of moderation.” Her smile was wry and he sighed, charmed.
“I think I can teach you to spool the power better. Still quickly, but with more control.” Gage nodded. “As for my gifts? They’ve been growing, as yours seem to have. I can sense intent. I knew there was danger in that crowd. Mortal danger. But I couldn’t see it as the cars.”
“You both chose the obvious dangers and focused, which is the way it should be. There are so many things to constantly be aware of, you can only examine so many at once.” Faine shrugged. It was true. Yes, they’d missed the cars being a possible threat, but in their place he’d have done the same. He had done the same.
“I need to check in with the people at the garage here. I instituted a policy and it’s been in place for months now. All vehicles are monitored in the garage and they’re examined on entry and exit for physical issues as well as spellwork that isn’t mine or anyone else’s from my team.”
Faine sighed; the female was flat-out insane. “Why don’t you take a shower first? Then you can eat out in the garden and sleep. You can call and bark orders at people and have them brought here while you eat.” She started to argue and he held a hand up. “I’m saying you’re the leader of this team. You will be needed again, as will your magick. You’re depleted right now, you said so yourself. So get back to 100 percent first and then get back out there. You can deal with the car and your people while you handle getting yourself taken care of.”
Gage nodded. “He’s right. Don’t make me go over your head and have The Gennessee overrule you.”
“Molly has to stay in for the rest of the day then. And I need you to call Tosh’s office to be sure he’s all right, as well as any Others who work at the capitol.”
Gage nodded. “We can do that.” He hopped down and headed for the door. “You amazed me today. I’ve seen some amazing magick—after all, I was there watching Meriel and her mother stop the Magister. What you did today ranks up there.”
Helena blushed as he left the room.
“Do you need help showering?” Faine asked.
One of her brows went up. “You offering?”
“Don’t poke at me right now. I’m not all right. My beast is more agitated than the man.”
She paused, he could tell, trying to figure out what to say. “I’m fine, thank you for offering. I can stand long enough to take a shower. But if you would ask the chef to make me something high in protein and green vegetables, I’d appreciate that.”
He sucked in a breath but didn’t stop himself from pressing a kiss to her forehead. When she asked for his help it always did things to his system. “I’ll be listening for you. Just yell if you need help. I mean it.”
She nodded and he left before he could say or do anything else.
Chapter 9
SHE knew Lark would call. The only surprise was how long it took. She’d showered, spoken with her team about the car, mourned two who’d been killed, eaten, been fussed over by Faine and Molly and escaped finally by going to sit out in the middle of the raised beds in the garden to recharge.
She’d scowled everyone away and finally had returned inside, finding a sma
ll sitting room and settling on a couch with a blanket, reading her mail and taking calls.
Helena answered her sister’s call with, “I’m all right.”
“The only reason I am not on a plane to you right now is because of that. Gage has been keeping me updated but I figured you’d had long enough and I needed to hear your voice.”
Helena smiled, touched at that.
“Christ, Hellie, what the hell? Car bombs? Do you think we should pull the plug and bring people home?”
“I’m going to take the next few hours to think on that. I ate some lunch and sat in the garden for an hour. My nose isn’t bleeding anymore and my teeth haven’t fallen out, so I’m counting that as a win.”
“Don’t joke. This is serious. You could have died.” Lark’s voice was stern, but the fear bled through.
“Yeah, like when you got shot. Twice. Saving the world.”
“Goddamn, we’re fucking awesome, huh?” Tension broken, Lark soldiered on. “What’s the situation with the cars? I know there is simply no way you didn’t have a process in place to check the undercarriage of any and all vehicles you use.”
“I do.” Though it was nice that her sister knew that of her. “There were two SUVs. Both were checked thoroughly before they left here. Both were in a secure garage. I went through the security footage for the last twenty-four hours and there’s nothing. No one approached either vehicle until this morning when we left and then when they came back they were checked and checked again when they left to retrieve us. There’s a checkpoint at the gates at the capitol too and the cars were clear.”
“What the fuck?”
“Somewhere between those gates and the drive near the building where we were at the hearing our drivers were stopped, shot in the head, left in a Dumpster and the attackers took over. There are cameras everywhere but, conveniently, several were out of commission for a few hours today.” The anger rushed through her again at the thought.
“Are you kidding me?”