by Amelia Shaw
Sol leaned in and hissed in my face. I did the first thing that popped in my head and hissed back. Fuck him and his mind games. I was done with them all.
Then pain flooded my body as did the chill in my bedroom, and the realization that I stared up into the captain’s ghost-like face. He chanted under his breath like he was creating a spell.
“Can I help you?” I squeaked out.
He stopped chanting and looked down at me. “Zoey.”
His voice sounded far away. Like coming from the end of a long tunnel. I had to focus on it and even shutting my eyes to listen stole strength I didn’t have to spare.
“Captain, what do you want? I thought I made myself clear. Right now, I want to lie here and die in peace. No magic, no sendings, nothing in my brain that’s not my own.”
Even as I said it, I could feel the bond bright and shining between Fin and me. I couldn’t see him like I did in my dream, but I felt his steady presence on the other end of the thread that connected us. Healing magic had been flowing down the bond while I slept. Even now, even after walking out on him, Fin wanted to help me.
Was the dream real too? Had I drawn Fin into it, or was it my imagination wanting him there as an anchor?
“Zoey?” The captain said, his voice more urgent this time.
I realized I’d dozed off again and blinked my eyes open to see him still hovering over me, hazy and out of focus.
“Are you listening, Zoey? Please, help me. We need you!”
The urgency in his voice drew me fully to consciousness. I sat up, wincing and aching in every muscle which twitched as I rolled over.
“Captain, what do you need? As you can see, I’m not exactly in fighting form at the moment. You have an entire battalion of well-trained guards at your house. Can’t they help you?”
“Not with this. I can’t trust them anymore. Someone has been spying for the Black Mage. I discovered it tonight.”
Oh, shit... Me too. No one should have known about my virginity or that I was more than a standard bounty hunter.
“You want me to catch your traitor? That’s easy enough done when it’s daylight and I’m not actually dying.”
“Zoey, please. I don’t have time,” he said. “I need you to find Fin. He and I share a connection, but it’s nothing like the vow you and he share. Please tell me where he is.”
I spun back to look at his ghostly self. “Why can’t you find him? Isn’t he at his house with you right now?”
Did I leave him in the woods with the fake Sol?
Damn it.
Chapter Seventeen
I eyed the captain’s spectral form. “What’s happening right now, by the way? How are you contacting me like this?”
His form wavered. No doubt whatever he did taxed his strength. Like me, he needed to recover. “It’s not something I advertise, but I’m also a mage. Born, like you, not created like the Black Mage.”
“Born?” I whispered. “That matters?”
“Of course it does. You’ve not taken anyone’s magic, their life, to bolster your own power. Neither have I. Once a mage crosses that barrier, he or she becomes something else, someone else. I work hard to maintain the lines of my power and keep it in check. Ideally, I don’t do any magic, but seeing as this was an emergency, I made an exception.”
I hung my head. “Tell me what you want me to do and I will so I can go back to sleep.”
“Find Fin. Use your bond and locate him.”
Instead of arguing, as was my first instinct with him, I closed my eyes and focused on the bond stretched tight between us. I followed it, trailing my consciousness down its length to find our missing fae. But on the other side, stood a door. Fin had hidden himself behind it to keep me out.
I blinked my eyes open and stared up at the captain, trying to hide the hurt in my chest at him cutting me off. “I don’t know where he is. He’s blocking me. I’ll come. Give me a little time and I’ll be there.”
He nodded and his form wavered and disappeared. I quickly dressed, noting my wounds looked weeks through healing, not just a few hours. Everything still hurt, but I grabbed my black steel knives and slipped them into their sheathes on the outside of my thighs, and walked out the door.
A black SUV sat on the curb, one of the captain’s guards inside. Was this the traitor? If I climbed inside would he take me to Fin’s? Or to the Black Mage?
I climbed into the back of the car and snapped my seatbelt on. “Take me to Fin’s.”
He pulled away without a word. Only one way to find out how this would end. I settled into the seat to wait.
When we arrived at Fin’s home, I wasn’t sure if I felt relief or disappointment. With the end in sight, I just wanted to finish things up and get back to my bed. One way or another.
The driver barely got out of the car before I charged into the house.
The captain met me inside the door, and we marched straight to his office. I half expected Fin to be sitting behind his desk, staring out the window. Obviously, he wasn’t.
I faced the captain. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“When you left, he followed you to the door, and that was it. I tried to speak to him, but he went into his room and refused to see anyone.”
Guilt raked down my insides in red, furious lines. “Well, don’t you two have a mental thing? Can’t you see where he is?”
He paced in front of the doors. “It’s only in person. Now I wish it weren’t, but he’s never gone off like this before.”
Distress weighed across his shoulders, dragging them down as he continued his frantic walk.
“Can I do anything to bring down the door he put up? Get through it somehow? I assume you know a lot more about magic than I do.”
He waved his arms like he wanted to say a lot more than he was about to. “I do know more magic than you, but as I said, I refuse to do it.”
I grabbed him and forced him to face me. “You might, but I don’t. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it if it means saving him.”
He stared down at me, his jaw set tight, worry etched in every line of his face. Whatever the captain felt for me, he loved Fin. Really loved him. And whatever fear he harbored for magic, his love for Fin outweighed that exponentially.
“Tell me what to do,” I whispered, seizing his face between my hands. “Show me, write it down, anything. Just let me help him.”
He nodded slowly. “Fine. I’ll show you, and I’ll help you, but I can’t join you.”
He trapped my hands against his cheeks and closed his eyes. I was dragged down into a spiral until I stood outside the door Fin had erected between us over the bond. The captain controlled my movements, and I threw my mental barriers wide open and let him rifle through everything in my head. He drew a dagger out of my dream self’s thigh holster, and then raised it to hover over my outstretched hand.
“It won’t work,” I whispered through my head. “It can’t cut me.”
His voice echoed through me. “Yes, but as someone possessed, you’re not you and these knives can hurt you if you’re not in control of your own body and mind.”
He made the smallest cut on my index finger and pressed the blood into the door.
“Now call to him,” he said.
His presence snapped out of me and I was left standing in front of the door, bloody fingers touching it.
“Fin,” I said. Could he even hear me? “Fin. I know we left things in a weird place but please, open back up. Let me in so we can help you. Let us save you for once.”
The door shuddered.
“Not enough,” The captain’s voice shouted inside my head, anger lacing his tone.
I huffed and looked around the dark void. “Give me a minute, for fuck’s sake. I’m not exactly great at sharing my feelings.”
Once I felt him leave me again, I resettled in front of the door. “Okay, you bastard. If I have to tell you how I feel, then obviously you haven’t been paying attention. I’m sorry I stormed out last night,
but I got scared, okay? I’m terrified of who I am, of what I’m becoming. I’m scared of how I feel when I’m near you and what kind of person you’re turning me into.”
I let out a breath and pictured Fin there instead of the door. “I’m not a friendly person. Hell, I’m a downright bitch on most days, but you make me feel like that’s okay. You make me feel like I don’t need to be anything but who I really am. Let me be that person now and help you.”
The door shuddered again, harder. A crack shot up through the middle, and the door splintered, falling to the ground in pieces.
I rushed into Fin’s mind, looking through his eyes, and stared up at the murky tree branches of the Forest of Shadows.
I jerked back to reality with a gasp and doubled over with guilt and pain.
“He’s in the forest. I think I left him there. When I went home, I had a dream,” I told the captain, still hunched over my knees even though it hurt so badly. “I drew him into it so he could see Sol, try to catch something I wasn’t able. When I left, I thought he left. But he’s still there.”
The captain hauled me upright and shook me. “No, he took the helicopter. Whatever you showed him made him go to that place, but he went physically on his own. I’ve already called another one. Let’s go get him.”
We headed out to the lawn where a helicopter already sat waiting. This time, I climbed inside without any delay or argument. The captain buckled me in, tossed a pair of headphones into my lap, and then took off. Once I’d adjusted the straps and put the headphones on, I peered over at him.
He no longer looked scared, and determination hardened his face.
“How did you and Fin meet?” I asked.
His sideways glare told me I was an idiot for asking such a personal question, but I wasn’t taking it.
“I just let you shuffle my brain like an UNO deck. If I want to know how you masturbate, right now, you’re going to tell me.”
Another glare, but he settled his shoulders back. “Classy, Zoey. But fine. Fin and I met years and years ago, before you were even born. He was hunting for the Black Mage even then, and I was one of his guards.”
“Esteban’s?”
“That’s not his name, but yes, I was guarding one of his summer homes. Not the one he went to often, but enough that I’d be able to give up his location if someone got me. And Fin did. He tortured me for information. Of course, I’m a stubborn bastard and didn’t break. But while he questioned me, I saw a lot more than he thought. It forged a mental connection between us, accidentally. After that, I tried to help him bring down my former boss and here we are.”
I flopped my mouth open. “You worked for that maniac? How could you?”
“Don’t get all righteous indignation on me, kid. The Black Mage has always been evil, but I didn’t know the depths of it until Fin showed me. All I knew was the job paid well, and I didn’t have to do much. I was young and wanted to travel. It gave me that, and money for whatever I needed.”
My mental picture of the captain had fundamentally shifted. Not that I thought he would betray Fin, but that he knew a lot more about this world than even me. Until a few days ago, I’d only considered him an overpriced guard dog meant to scare people away.
“Why did you agree to work for Fin?” he asked me.
“Money,” I said. “To be fair, as you well know, he didn’t give me much of a choice to begin with. Do you know why that is?”
He squeezed his mouth shut and stared straight out at the darkness beyond the helicopter window.
“You keep his secrets, and he keeps yours, I assume,” I said. “What about your mage power? What can it do?”
He sputtered at first, then took in a deep breath I could hear through his mic. “Mage power isn’t the same as fae power. Mage power grows what you feed it. I feed mine nothing, so it does nothing.”
“What do you mean feed it?”
More information both he and Fin kept from me.
“Mages are all over the world. Born ones and made ones. They become experts in their fields, devoted to them. Whatever you choose to channel yourself into is what your magic will manifest as. You’ve been an excellent bounty hunter since the day you earned your license, correct? You either have a perfect record, or nearly perfect.”
The man knew I’d never had sex before; I would bet every considerable penny in my bank account, he knew exactly what my trapping rate was.
“That is your magic. It feeds, it grows, it assists in those things you excel at. Those things you really focus on cultivating.”
“And fae power?”
He huffed like I disturbed him with my barrage of questions. “Fae power is inherited. They are given gifts at birth, and that’s it. They can’t grow or change the same way mages can.”
What did that mean about a mix of fae and mage born? Did I have inherited powers lurking inside me that I’d yet to tap into? What if I hurt someone because I didn’t know how to wield them correctly? A comforting thought as we flew ten thousand feet in the air to bring home our friend.
This entire ordeal had taught me I’d only begun with magic. No more running, no more pretending it didn’t exist. After this, if we saved Fin, I would make him teach me everything he knew. If he refused, I would find someone who would.
We flew in silence and I dozed, the link between Fin and I growing weightier the closer we came to the forest.
“Wake up,” the captain shouted over the headset.
I jerked upright and then remembered where I was. My stomach did a neat somersault, and I focused on not throwing up.
“We’re here, but something is wrong. There’s a force field over the landing area. I can’t bring the helicopter down,” he said, his tone clipped and angry.
Of course they did. Besides, Fin’s helicopter was parked in our usual spot and we weren’t exactly going to be able to perch right on top of him.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“You jump down, and I’ll go set this old girl down and race back to you.” He said it like the idea of jumping out of a helicopter was the obvious course of action.
“Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not jumping out of this thing.” I gripped the harness tight against me as if it would protect me from him tossing me out into the dark.
He turned to look at me and shook his head. “Well, if you learned how to fly in the last day and want to take over, then I’ll gladly jump out.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck.
I would not be able to talk my way out of this, and even if I did, it still left Fin down there in danger, without backup.
I released the belt and stood up, cursing the entire time. “Tell me what to do. Believe it or not, I’ve never jumped out of a helicopter before.”
He pressed some buttons and then climbed out of his seat. I protested, but he grabbed a harness and motioned at me to climb into it. Once he buckled me in, he strapped it to a line on the door of the helicopter.
“Just go down. Use this.” He wrapped my fingers around a control switch. “When you get to the bottom, just unsnap yourself and I’ll go land.”
He didn’t bother asking me to wait for him to return. We both knew I wouldn’t listen, anyway.
I stood on the edge of the helicopter and stared at the dark ground below. Shit. I huffed out a few exhales, trying to focus on not puking, and then let myself fall back over the lip of the door. The line held. I didn’t budge until I squeezed the control and descended slowly.
As long as I didn’t look down, I would be okay. That was the mantra I clung to until my boots hit the soft pine needle strewn forest floor. My still healing body screamed in protest at all the ways I’d tensed on my descent.
I let the line go and covered my ears while the captain pulled up and away from me.
Behind me, a voice in the dark spoke. “Zoey, my dear, we’ve been waiting for you.”
Chapter Eighteen
Hands clamped around my shoulders and arms. I crouched, drew my knives, and slashed backwa
rds, across any thigh within reaching distance.
Blood spurted around me. The screams of the men echoed in my ears as they fell. I didn’t know how many. They toppled over each other, heaped around me.
I spun around. “Anyone else want to touch me without my permission?”
Another goon stepped up and balanced on either foot like we were about to throw down.
I waved my knife at him. “You know, I’m recovering from an injury. Do you think you can come to me, make it a little easier for me?”
The goon side-stepped his fallen brethren and charged at me.
I twisted out of the way, setting a flame of pain up my ribs. He doubled back, and I parried his knife thrust with my blade.
“You fucking suck. Is it too much to ask you to die in peace?” He swiped out with another knife.
I plunged my blade into the space between his neck and shoulders.
His crumpled, and I pulled my knife free from him. I stepped over the heap of fallen men and faced the voice I’d heard in the dark.
“Come out, come out,” I called.
Esteban exited the edge of the forest, dressed in a gray suit and black button down.
“You do make for a good show, little one,” he said.
I tightened my grip on the blades and pointed one toward his chest. “Stop where you are. No closer.”
To my surprise, he actually halted. He took up a relaxed stance, hands clasped in front of him. No weapons in sight.
A beefy mage who had to be related to the one I’d faced the night before came running from the shadows. He tackled me to the ground. My back hit hard. One of my knives spun away into the pine needles. He launched a fist toward my face.
I blocked him with my forearm and then used the other knife to jam it straight up under his rubs. He shuddered above me and then slid off to the side. Adrenaline pumped through me, and my hands shook as I rolled over to get up.
Once I’d retrieved my knife, I lumbered all the way upright, cursing Fin, Esteban, and the captain.