I sighed and nodded. “Okay. I get it.” I bit my lip. “I really do get where you’re coming from, but we’re at the point where you need to get past that fear.” I held up a hand before he could talk. “I’m not saying get over it. I’m saying you need to work past it. Otherwise, all you guys will smother me, and that is not the kind of relationship I want to be in. Not with anyone.”
That had him pausing and thinking over where I was coming from. I really did understand. When Elliot was able to go back to work after waking up, I’d been just as scared. Dwight closed his eyes, blowing air out of his nose. When he opened them, he was more relaxed, his eyes clear of his anger. “Okay.”
I expected him to stalk back out like he had earlier. He didn’t.
“Okay. You can work again, but nothing big. You still need to get cleared by the doctor. She’ll be in on Monday, so she can check on you. If she gives you the all clear, then you can work to your heart’s content. Two days, Laila. Can you hold back for two more days?”
“I can do that.”
“Good.” He smiled, but it was strained. “I’m here to remind you about dinner tonight.”
“I’ll go get ready then.” Not wanting to deal with Dwight, I teleported away from him. This time, he could be the one left standing there.
When I landed in the apartment, my head didn’t even pound. I was recovering. They just needed to see it.
I didn’t take my time getting ready like I normally would. My body felt jittery, as if I’d had six cups of coffee in an hour. I didn’t know what to do with that boost of energy. I knew I should just tell the guys what I wanted to do, but based on Dwight’s reaction to me simply stepping into the lab, they would shut me down, and I couldn’t let them. I was prepared to bring my idea to him too, until that fight we’d had. I couldn’t let them discard what I could do. Not right now. Not when so many people have already been hurt.
Maybe I could just locate Padraig and then, depending on where he was, I could let the guys do the rest. They’d be angry I went off on my own, but they couldn’t stay too angry if I didn’t put myself into danger. I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t going to approach him.
Locate where he was hiding and then let Dwight and the others know. That sounded like a solid plan to me.
Happy with the idea, I got dressed and met Dwight outside the apartment. He escorted me down to the car and to the restaurant where everyone else waited. Our last conversation was still too raw, so neither of us said anything as soft instrumental music played in the background. I tuned it all out, letting my thoughts drift off. I itched to start hunting, an intense feeling I’d never had. Was that how shifters felt every time they needed to go hunting?
Dinner was hard.
Dwight, Venni, Alijah, and Elliot were there, the others working. The tension was thick. They knew I had worked in the lab, and like Dwight, they were struggling with not saying anything. I could practically feel their misguided disapproval as I cut into my chicken. It just created a huge chasm between us that kept stretching further out every time they glanced at me with disapproval. I couldn’t cave. They needed to realize I wasn’t so weak that I needed to be bedridden every time I got hurt. I wasn’t lying to Dwight when I’d said I refused to be in a relationship that smothered me that way.
“When are you thinking of moving into your new house?” Dwight asked.
I poked at a piece of chicken. “Can’t wait to kick me out?” I asked, sounding a little snippy. I winced, knowing I was sounding like a brat again.
“You know that isn’t true,” he said with a dark voice.
“Sorry,” I said and sighed. “I’m on edge.” I looked up at him so he knew how sincere I was. He relaxed and nodded. “I’m thinking next weekend. I want some more time to set up security.”
“Do you mind if we help?” Alijah asked carefully. He still hadn’t met my gaze. At least he had given me a hug when I had gotten there.
“What did you have in mind?”
That seemed to relax them enough to go into a long discussion about how I should set up security on my new property, including the type of programs and equipment to buy. Talking to them was insightful as I got a better understanding in how the tech worked behind it all. I had a good idea, but apparently there was a whole other layer of depth that I hadn’t had a chance to get into. Like how I should do the wiring to protect the system from getting hacked into or creating timers. Even how to make the program flip from one setting to another and how to put the whole thing on its own system separate from all the other electronics and then having separate backup generator for it too.
With the way this conversation was going, we were going to have a panic room built into my house in no time. That actually interested me. I would have enjoyed the conversation if the strain wasn’t an undercurrent to their words. It put me on edge.
I was more than happy to leave when it was over. Not every dinner was going to be fun and amazing. If this was going to work, we needed to learn to not tiptoe around each other. They had something to say to me, but they were all too chicken shit.
Alijah brought me back to the apartment. He was still barely looking at me. “I need to do some work so I’ll be in the apartment next to yours.”
I smirked. “Worried I’d distract you?” I asked.
His eyes darkened as he took in my navy blue dress and the way it fit my body.
“Definitely,” he said and leaned forward, giving me a quick kiss. I wanted more, but he was determined not to give it to me. When I moaned, he pulled away. By the time my brain synapses were done misfiring, he had already closed the door.
Probably for the best. As soon as he was gone, I ran through the apartment, grabbing the essentials: extra money, some potions, spells, and whatever else I thought I might have to use. Normally, I would’ve planned it out carefully, making sure I had everything I’d need, but time was limited. I needed to find Padraig as quickly as possible. Then I’d let them know, and they could handle him.
Once I had everything, I grabbed the charm and squeezed hard, letting my magic tap it. My intuition flared to life, and I turned to face the direction. West. He was west. In theory.
Wrapping my magic around me, I teleported west as far as I could go. Using teleportation, I could travel about ten miles. This brought me to the outskirts of the city. When I landed, I grabbed the necklace.
“Shit,” I said and groaned as I stared at the looming trees barely lit up by the city lights. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
I didn’t know what to do. They were further west, and all that was left that way was Nature, and most likely my death. This had to be some kind of joke. And to make it worse, I didn’t know if my tracker spell was working or if my necklace decided to attune to a creature frolicking around in the wild.
After pulling out my phone, I hesitated, staring at Dwight’s number. He had already dismissed my idea once. Would he do it again?
“Hello?”
I stared at the phone dumbly for a moment. Too lost in my thoughts, I didn’t realize I had called him.
“Laila? Is everything okay?” His concern pulled at me.
“Dwight, I just wanted to ask again about doing the tracking spell. I cast it.”
He didn’t say anything for too long and my nerves skyrocketed as I stared into the woods towering over me.
“And? Are you okay? What happened?”
“I think they left the city. We can still go after them.”
He sighed. “How sure are you that it’s tracking the right people?”
“I’m good at what I do.”
“You’re a scientist, Laila. You know things are trial and error. You have no way to know if this worked. And if they left the city, that would mean we’d need to waste resources to go after them. I can’t agree with that unless you know for sure it’s tracking Padraig. I’ll stop by tomorrow morning, and we can look into this. I’m tied up right now. Go to sleep, Laila.”
I sighed. Of course he wasn’t going t
o believe in me. That hurt. “Okay.”
“Goodnight, Laila. I’ll swing by in the morning.”
“Bye.” I hung up feeling cold, and not because of the chill in the air. I was at a crossroads. A smart person would turn back around and wait until morning.
For once, I didn’t want to be smart. I was sick of being under their watchful eyes, and if I waited until morning, they’d only dismiss me. In their eyes, the risk outweighed the cost. I didn’t see it that way and time was running out.
I had to believe that my necklace was attuned to the memories Padraig carried. Besides, the guys had already failed. We needed to try something else. Alijah was their best tracker and he couldn’t find them. If he couldn’t find them, no one could.
Well, I could. I had the tracking spell, and it wouldn’t work without my magic.
I stood there for far too long weighing pros and cons. I kept a tight grip on my necklace and, I felt them getting further away. They were moving fast. Fleeing? Were they finally leaving the city? With what happened at the park, they probably gotten what they wanted.
But it couldn’t be that simple. It wasn’t over just like that. If they were only collecting magic, and it was all shoved into some container, that container would eventually break down and explode.
They were carrying a ticking time bomb. Even I had struggled to find a way to prevent that from happening, and I knew it wasn’t one of the tidbits they took from me.
With resolution and renewed determination, I wrapped my magic tight around me, casting a refraction spell that made me look invisible, and then I entered the wild.
On my own.
In the middle of the frickin night.
Was I insane? Yes. But I was determined too. I couldn’t handle seeing more people hurt because of these magic thieves. No more comatose family, no more children begging for their father to respond to them while yanking on their arm. No more blank faces.
With those thoughts, and all those faces whirling in my mind, I went after who I hoped was Padraig.
Chapter Fourteen
When the sun came up and the creatures of the night settled down, I released a spell that kept me hidden. I slouched down, breathing heavily. Chasing after them all night and into the early morning proved to be difficult. They moved too fast and knew the land far better than I ever would. And for some odd reason, despite it being winter, the air was hot. It might as well have been summer out here. I was already down to just my shirt, but I was tempted to toss that too and go in my bra.
Trying to cool off, I took a moment to sense out Padraig. He’d finally stopped moving forward, but if I had a chance of catching up to them at all, I needed to keep going, even as that bed of moss on the rock looked so damn comfortable.
With my luck, the moss would devour me while I slept.
Blinking hard, I dug through my bag.
“Into the next round,” I whispered. If I’d known I was going to be traipsing around in the wild where Nature would be more than happy to turn me into fertilizer, I would have packed more carefully. Maybe included a change of clothes or two.
I needed more supplies and without going back, there was only one other place that I could go. To Shetz, a shrewd pixie who lived in a village tucked away in a valley. The others in the same village were just like him. They coveted the rare, and forced anyone who thought to do business with them to pay an arm and a leg for their products.
Shetz was practically their leader in that sense. If I wanted more supplies to survive, I’d need to see him. I didn’t have a lot of money on me, but I knew how to be shrewd when I needed.
And to make it easier, he was in the same direction my necklace was sending me, so I didn’t need to go off trail too much. After taking a potion to rejuvenate my magic, I pictured the closest landing point I had created. My magic went to work, and I popped into a small field. Needing to do it again, I imagined the next clearing, a perfect ten miles from my current location, and then I was where I imagined. This one brought me close to the village. I was going to have to hike the last couple of miles.
This village was the only reason I had ever went into the wild, and I did my best to keep those visits to a minimum. I had the route from the city carefully planned with landing spots exactly ten miles apart so I could teleport. I would have used it to get out there during the night if I weren’t afraid of dropping my cloaking spell and being found. Besides, the village was still a little off course, even if it was in the right direction. The village was northwest, while my target was moving southwest.
The final landing was a small meadow, surrounded by thick, looming trees that looked like they wanted to eat me. Even with the sun rising, it was still a fight for the light to make it past the canopies of the trees. Once I left the clearing, I’d have to rely on a ball of light to help make sure I didn’t trip over any roots. There was a good chance that if I stepped on a root, it would piss off a tree, and it’d try to pull me into the earth and suffocate me.
Remembering the conversation I’d had with the Blackfoot brothers, Hale and Tek, I slowly worked my way through the forest. Their advice repeated itself through my head. As long as I respected Nature, I had a better chance of surviving. I needed to listen to my surroundings and trust what it was telling me. In that moment, as I ducked under thick branches with spikes on them, my instincts told me a predator was nearby, stalking me.
I tried to keep my fear at bay. Predators loved the stench of fear, and I didn’t want to do anything that would rile it up.
Trying to listen, I picked my way around a sharp, pointy bush that looked like it would grab me if I got too close. While my neck prickled, all my little hairs stood up in warning. I didn’t hear my stalker for a full ten minutes when something snapped.
I froze, my pounding heart in my chest distracting as my instincts to flee kicked into gear. One thing I learned from the shifters was that running was a very bad idea. Never run from a predator. Ever.
Rustling surrounded me, and I tried not to spin around frantically. That was also a bad idea and would only feed into my panic. I forced my body still, listening. The creature was to my right, inching closer, his paws making the slightest sound. My imagination drew his hot breath against my neck, saliva dripping down my back as he hovered over me. Refusing to let my imagination send me into a panic, I turned slowly and faced the darkness. It wasn’t natural darkness, the sunlight hitting it and doing nothing to let me see into its depths. It was a cloud of black inkiness moving closer to me.
I had a feeling I didn’t want it touching me. I focused on everything I knew about predators. No acting like prey, and I had to make them feel like I was bigger and badder than they were. Then maybe they’d think I wasn’t worth it and scramble away. Problem was I didn’t know how to do that. Shanton had roared once when we first reached his encampment in the wild to scare away my pet behesiff. Since the kitty was now my pet, it obviously didn’t work permanently, but it got the behesiff to leave us.
That left very little options for me. I couldn’t roar, and I had a feeling if I tried, I’d sound more like a dying little kitten instead of something packing any amount of power.
Playing dead had to be a bad idea.
I couldn’t hurt it. If I did, I risked pissing off Nature, though it was in self-defense.
It was all confusing, and I didn’t know what to do. All the while, the thing got closer to me, ready to devour me once I was in reach. I could feel its hunger, and in that moment, he had his sights on me. I bit my lip, but let go when I risked drawing blood. The last thing I wanted to do was rile the creature up. I might as well open its jaws—if it had any—and climb inside myself.
My only option was to be a bigger, badder, more dangerous creature. But what? What were all creatures scared off? A dragon was too hard. The memory of all the fleeing creatures when the behesiff came out to play came to mind. I couldn’t pretend to be a dragon, but maybe I could pull off a behesiff. They were about the size of Alijah’s tiger.
&nb
sp; Releasing the tight hold on my magic, I thought about Siitha, my recently named behesiff. I missed the guy, missed the way he attached himself to me, a constant reminder that he would protect me at all costs. A behesiff was a lion-like creature who tracked magic. They were twice the size of the average jungle cat with two barbed tails. His claws were as long as my face, and his large, lean body was covered in a gray coat with spotted black dots. When his eyes were slitted yellow and his feline face was framed with a dark brown mane of hair. One of the scariest things about a behesiff was when they roared. They showcased their two long incisors, about the length of my forearm.
Using that memory, I pushed the image into my magic and let it form a wall between the creature and me. The black puff of darkness stopped, and I remembered the roar of the behesiff, the power behind the sound, the way the creatures who heard it took a moment to get out of the shock and run away. I heard it now coming from the wall of magic in front of me.
This needed to work; otherwise, I was screwed. I really hoped there wasn’t anything much stronger in the wild than a behesiff. The way Shanton had explained it to me, there wasn’t. Unless there was a dragon around, but a dragon always trumped all creatures as the most dangerous.
The creature rose from the inky darkness, and I shuddered. White predatory eyes peeked out from a sheet of blackness that flowed around the body. I couldn’t make much out except that it was on four legs, and it was as long as I was tall with a long black tail. When it stepped out from the shadows, it couldn’t shed the blackness. Or maybe the creature used the shadows as a type of cloak. Did that mean sunlight was a weakness? The air vibrated with its energy, eerily coming off as a growl despite the creature never making an actual sound.
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