Chaos Burning

by Lauren Dane

  “Also, I was told tonight that my magick smelled like candy so pooh on you.” She frowned and he wanted to laugh but he didn’t give in to her nonsense. He was pissed off, damn it.

  Still. “Who would tell you that?”

  “Oh, your voice just got scary. Will you punch him in the nose for saying it?”

  Her eyes were closed and her head back on the seat. Strong and yet so soft and fragile. She wore a smile though, which amused him. This is what love got a male.

  “Who told you that, pixie? What silly male hit on you with that line? You don’t taste like candy, you taste like deep, dark chocolate and red wine.”

  “Hit on? Also, you are so ridiculous. How many times a night do you get hit on? Maybe I should start punching whores in the nose for rubbing themselves all over you.”

  “And she unsheathes her claws.” She could be so vicious. “You know that gets me hot.”

  “I wasn’t hit on. Cyrus Pasqual said it.”

  Ice washed through his veins. He clenched his jaw hard enough to click. She opened her eyes and turned to him slowly.

  “That’s a whole different story.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “Hell yes, I’m mad. Not at you. At that piece of garbage. How dare he threaten you? Speak to you at all?”

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you he’s the one who fucked me up, then.”

  He concentrated on driving smoothly to not jostle her unnecessarily, but inside, he plotted to put an end to Cyrus Pasqual once and for all.

  MERIEL looked her over carefully through narrowed eyes. “You look like hell. Gage tells me you refused to have Shelley look you over.”

  Simon knew Lark was pissed at that. Her mouth hardened for a brief moment, but she didn’t show any more emotion.

  “Meriel, you make it sound like I’m tattling.” Gage sighed and looked back to Lark. “She asked why you hadn’t been treated. I explained Teo helped you and my mom wasn’t necessary.”

  She didn’t comment, but moved on. “Let’s get down to it so I can shower and sleep.”

  Simon put a glass of juice at her left hand and narrowed his gaze at her, making sure she got the message. Seeing her like this made him nervous.

  She took a drink and he relaxed a little, sitting nearby.

  “The first prisoner was easily dealt with. He’s afraid and rightfully so. He knows there’s a big boss that everyone is afraid of and avoids, but he hasn’t seen anything. He says they operate in small cells. He’s contacted at his apartment with possibilities. They stalk them until they figure out who’d be best and they snatch them. He says they’ve been under more pressure to grab more people faster.”

  “Where are they holding them?” Meriel asked.

  “They aren’t.”

  Things got very still for long moments before Lark continued. “They’re not holding people, Meriel. They’re taking them and delivering them to one of the Magister’s minions. Cyrus thinks of him as the helper.” She described its appearance to everyone’s shuddering dismay. “I don’t know what happens to them afterward, but we can guess.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “So the first prisoner, he was really bothered by it. He didn’t seem overly bugged by the kidnapping part. He’s a junkie and all. But some of them don’t like the rise in killing. And those people who’ve spoken out have disappeared.”

  “This is crazy.” Gage pushed out of his seat and began to pace. “We should call Nell and get her in on this. She’d want to know.”

  “Yes. I should have thought of that.” Lark pulled her phone out.

  “Wait. Just debrief and we can update her. I don’t want to upset her.”

  “Meriel, you need to stop thinking of her as your bestie and remember she’s a hunter. This is her crew and her town. She’s going to want to know. It’s hard enough for her already because she can’t be involved in the day-to-day stuff.”

  Meriel didn’t like being argued with, Simon knew. He caught the hardening of her jaw as she took Lark in. Dominic met Simon’s gaze for a moment as they watched their women.

  “I’m not heartless, Lark. I can’t just hear all this without worrying over a friend. I’m not made that way.”

  Lark took it without a word but it pissed Simon off.

  “Are you insinuating Lark doesn’t care?”

  Startled, Meriel shook her head. “No. I’m just saying—”

  Lark interrupted with a movement of her hand and a quick glare at Simon, who didn’t give a shit. He wasn’t going to allow her to be slapped at because Meriel was upset. “It doesn’t matter. In any case, it’s her crew and she’ll need to know. My feelings about anyone else’s personal stuff can’t come into play. I’ve got enough on my hands just now. So call her or don’t but she’ll have to know.”

  “Fine.”

  Meriel called Nell and filled her in on what had happened before putting her on speaker to hear the rest.

  “So they’re collecting Others, draining them and killing them. What for? Oh, I mean I get it when they’re stealing it for themselves but they can’t store the magick they steal right?”

  “Last I understood from the Kellys, it is not possible for them to hold stolen magick for later use, no. That’s why they’d been keeping some of the kidnapped witches alive for a while after they kidnapped them. The mages and turned witches drained them slowly until they had nothing left.”

  “What if they’re trying to set up a font?”

  “They can’t. The construct of a font is magickal, they have no magick to do it. Once it’s stolen from an Other, it’s changed in elemental ways. They have to use it or it comes back to our font or into the air or ground.”

  “So what are they doing with it? Are the ranks of turned witches and mages growing so large they have to feed this many?”

  “Prisoner number one doesn’t know. But Cyrus does.”

  Things got still again before Lark continued. “I got in Cyrus’s head and if you think the first guy was afraid, Cyrus is dead terrified. He’s taking his orders from… It’s hard to describe it, but a rough translation is a male, shadowy, but clearly humanoid. Cyrus thinks of him as the helper. He came to them three months ago, right before the incident at the warehouse you guys were part of. This thing came to them and told them they’d be even more powerful if they started collecting witches to his master.

  “Cyrus was only too eager to comply because like any dumbass turned witch he had delusions of power and grandeur as a fuck you to his family and own people. So they started cooperating. Keeping some of the witches for themselves but giving most of them over to the helper. And then about two weeks ago the helper said to target Others in general. Shifters and vampires especially.”

  Lark rubbed her hands over her face and then winced. Simon reached out to take one of her hands and squeezed.

  “I’m assuming this is for the Magister.” Meriel tapped her pen against the pad.

  “Cyrus hasn’t seen it, but he knows it’s here. Doesn’t know where so I don’t have that info. But these victims are being taken by the helper and they never see them again.”

  “Well, that’s a bunch of fuckery,” Nell spoke over the phone.

  Lark’s laugh was humorless. “Indeed.”

  “They’re in our town, attacking our people. I’m going to guess the Magister has to be nearby. Or why take them from here?” Simon sipped his coffee.

  “Certainly that was Cyrus’s belief. They feel watched. It’s making them restless. And more and more reckless.”

  “Where? Where is something so large hiding itself? This is what I keep hanging up on. Where could some giant storm like thing hang out?” Gage kept pacing.

  “Do we have access to weather satellites?” Lark asked.

  “Shit, you think? In the atmosphere?” Gage stopped his pacing.

  “I have no idea. But it’s a guess. We don’t even really know if it’s an actual storm, or if that’s just an ancient description based on something else entirely. Ca
n’t hurt to follow up.” Lark shrugged.

  Gage let out a breath. “All right. I’ll follow up on it. I know someone who’s pretty good at computer stuff. Maybe she has some ideas on how to check.”

  “I think my greatest concerns right now are where the Magister is and just what it needs with the Others its having kidnapped. We’ll need to talk with the vampires and the wolves.” The knowledge of it sat in her gut like a stone.

  Meriel let out a long sigh. “I’ll call Lex Warden, the Alpha of Cascadia when we leave here. The vampires aren’t as open to us as the wolves are, but you’re right, they need to know.”

  “I’ll head out to their nest tonight.” Lark took a quick note. “I met one of their people a few nights ago. He wasn’t a total arrogant asshole and we chatted a bit about this whole thing. Hopefully we can get an in that way.”

  “Don’t go alone,” Nell spoke over the phone. “They’re hostile to outsiders, even us. I’ll make a call when we hang up here. The local Seattle master owes me a favor.”

  “Appreciate that.” Lark turned back to the rest of the group. “I don’t have a location on them. At the very least, they’ve learned to be more careful about where they go. So I was thinking we could let the first prisoner go. With a homing spell attached of course. See if we can’t follow him.”

  “They’re going to search for that.” Dominic shrugged.

  “Sure they will. But we’ll already know where he is. And my father taught me a nifty trick. We can have the spell disintegrate in a certain period of time. So if we time it right, we can track him and then the spell will be gone before they find it.”

  “I’d love you to teach that one to me.” Gage tipped his chin toward her.

  “It’s part of the arsenal of spells we’re working into our training. I’m sorry I haven’t taught it yet. I’ll remedy that this week. It’s risky because we don’t know if he’ll go straight back to their hidey-hole or whether he’ll take a few hours. The timing will depend on that. And if they find it before the spell wears off, they might leave. But we’d still know where they were and be able to track with far fresher tracks.”

  They spoke for an hour or so more and then Meriel finally stood. “You need to rest. Gage, you as well. You can’t do your jobs effectively if you’re run down. That’s an order.” She sent a raised brow to Lark, who nodded.

  “Keep me updated.”

  Chapter 21

  ONCE they’d all gone, Simon pulled her to him, hugging her gently. The need to know she was there, alive and vital had made his heart race for hours and finally he calmed. “Let me make you some food. You barely touched anything while they were here. Take a shower and when you get out, I’ll even serve it to you in bed.”

  She smiled but it was wan.

  “Are you all right? Truly?”

  “I’m run down. It’s fine. I’ll feel better after that shower, most definitely. I can just have yogurt and toast you know.”

  “You could if I was an old woman instead of a Lycian with a fridge bursting with protein. Which you know you need. So go. Unless you want my help in the shower.”

  Her smile was better then. “If I let you in there you know what’ll happen.”

  “Oh, that’ll happen too. Just not until you’ve gotten some sleep.”

  She managed to leave the room on a laugh and a tired flounce and it fueled him as he began to prepare her a big breakfast.

  * * *

  LARK stood under the hot spray, ignoring the sting. She’d messed up, big-time, with not anticipating Cyrus’s presence at the scene last night. But it had worked out. Having him as a prisoner had been a boon. Her hands shook as she washed her hair. Cyrus had so much fear in his memories every time she got near the Magister or its helper. The taste of it still wafted through her system.

  She’d never doubted herself. Not really. But this was big. This was big and bad and they didn’t know how to stop it.

  She wasn’t a full-council witch; she didn’t have that kind of powerful magick. She only had her wits, her fists and the magick she’d been trained to use like a weapon. Her father had been right to be as hard as he was, she realized. She wouldn’t be able to even focus on this stuff if he hadn’t been.

  They had to find out where this Magister was and what he needed all that stolen magick for. Oh, and there was the not-so-insignificant problem that it was so powerful no one knew how to stop it, even if they did figure out what the hell it was doing and why.

  She sighed, rinsing off. She liked using his soap, liked the way the place was stamped with Simon Leviathan’s presence.

  He’d been a boon too. In their brief time in Lycia she’d come to accept fate. Come to accept this connection the two of them had. No matter how unlikely. No matter how totally unexpected, he was meant to be there; she was meant to be there with him. She’d be a fool not to be grateful for it, and not to grab him with both hands and never let go.

  She needed the time to work through this and he was very stingy with that. It would be something they probably would always butt heads over. She understood why he pushed and bossed. It was who he was. But she was not to be pushed and bossed around, especially about important stuff.

  Just because she accepted that they had a deep connection didn’t mean she ceded her entire life to him. Keeping him in line would be a tiring job. It was a good thing he had so many other wonderful qualities.

  She’d gotten some wonderful advice from an unexpected quarter when she’d gone in to talk to the folks at the archives when she’d returned from Lycia. Sheila Kelly had said to her, “All these notions of time and courtship and all that, those are human ideals. We often use them because they make sense. But what you two have is more than an attraction. You and he are fated. Fate doesn’t mess around and it sure as heck doesn’t give second chances. If you can accept that you’re able to send a fireball from your fingertips, why not accept the concept that you and he are meant to be?”

  She’d been right of course.

  Lark stepped from the shower and toweled off before she noticed he’d come in and left a pair of panties and one of his T-shirts. They were supersoft cotton and she had taken to stealing them when he wasn’t looking. She should have known he was looking.

  Feeling better, she wandered out to the smell of bacon and eggs. And the sight of a naked Lycian in his bed, waiting with food and a promise of something altogether naughty on his face.

  “Damn. I feel like it’s my birthday.”

  He laughed. “Come to bed.”

  She did, settling where he’d fluffed her pillows. “You look better.”

  “I guess I’m busted over the shirts.”

  “You have no idea, do you, pixie?”

  She paused after taking a huge bite of eggs. “Hm?”

  “When you wear my clothes, you’re wearing my scent. My beast goes crazy for that.”

  She blushed, flattered and flustered. Her normal state around the man. “Oh. Well, good.”

  They fit nearly to her knees so it wasn’t like it was form-fitting or even revealing. That he found her sexy for an entirely different reason pleased her.

  “Drink the tea. It’s the stuff your mom sends. By the way, I called and asked her to send more.”

  She nearly choked. “You called my mother?”

  “I did. I like her.”

  Oh man.

  “Why would you do such a thing? What did you say?”

  “I told her who and what I was. I told her you were mine and I wanted you to have plenty of her tea as you were on the trail of something nasty and you, being you, would run yourself down unless you had me to make you rest. She liked that part.”

  Oh, she bet. She bet Rain absolutely adored Simon.

  “In fact, I think it’s safe to say your mother is totally in our corner. She said she wanted us to come down when this was over. Or that she and your father would come here. She also wants to meet Tila.”

  Unbelievable! “Really? Like I was four and in nursery school? Yo
u called my mother to tattle? Just how long were you two on the phone?”

  It was clear from the look on his face that he finally figured out she was pissed. “It wasn’t like that. I wanted to meet her. She’s your mother.”

  “I haven’t had the chance to even talk to them about you. That was my job, Simon. My responsibility. You can’t just do this stuff on your own because you want to and no one has ever told you no.”

  “I can’t believe you’re making a big deal out of this. How many females would love their men for calling their parents to tell them how much he loved their daughter?”

  “Only if they were crazy.” She sighed. “I get that you want to take care of me. I get that you’re a bossy, bossy alpha male who likes to make life easier for those people he loves. But you can’t just call my mother to tell on me and then announce you’re my lover and arrange for visits to another realm.”

  “I want to know more about you. Is that so wrong? Is it so bad that when I worried about you I sought out your mother? To try to know her because she’s your mother?”

  “You seem to miss the point where I tell my parents about you and I make the choice to speak about our relationship. You can’t live my life for me. I agreed to see you. I agreed we have something special but I told you I needed the space to work it all through. Calling my mother isn’t giving me space. It’s trying to manage me. I have enough people trying to manage me. I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I want a partner, not a fucking parent.”

  He blinked at her, clearly flummoxed by her reaction and she had to harden herself to his charm. She cared about him deeply. Was touched that he wanted to help and reach out to her mother. But she had to push back when he went too far or he’d think it was all right.

  “I’m not going to apologize for worrying about you. You haven’t introduced them to me. You haven’t told them about me. I wanted to meet them in some way. Wanted to be sure they knew you were taken care of by someone who cared about you.”

  She wanted to get out of bed and storm off. She would have with anyone else. But her entire body hurt. She was exhausted and emotional and she wanted to be with him.