He groaned, letting his head slip forward to rest on my shoulder and grant me better access.
“What is it?” I whispered.
He shook his head slightly, brushing off my concern. But then he reached up and hooked the tips of his fingers into two of the wedding rings attached to my necklace hanging between my breasts. His parents’ rings. Dragon magic stirred at his touch. The instruments of assassination remained dormant where they were also attached to the necklace’s thick-linked gold chain, as they always did until I called them forth. Otherwise, it would have been difficult to make love to a dragon without removing the necklace. And I never, ever took the magical artifact off.
Originally crafted to simply be a pretty trinket I could hang around my neck, the chain now contained so much power that some days I worried it wasn’t safe even with me. The treasure keeper had wanted the necklace locked up in his chamber for safekeeping, along with my knife and my katana. And maybe he was right. But the instruments apparently had their own ideas.
Now, claimed by me and adhered to my necklace with my own alchemy, they were my responsibility. And though he had never expressed any concern over my becoming the wielder of the instruments, Warner being the sentinel of the instruments meant that I was his responsibility.
“I’d prefer not to leave,” he finally said.
I stroked my thumbs lightly down his throat, then firmed my touch across his shoulders, trying to loosen his tense muscles. “Because of the elf?”
I had shared more details about the illusion with everyone earlier, when Bryn slipped away to the washroom. Maia and Peggy had chimed in with their observations as well. Which was good, because we needed to have any and all information on the elves we could accumulate. I was seriously done with blindly barreling into dangerous situations. I had too much to lose.
Warner just made a noncommittal noise, though, lifting my left hand from his shoulder and sliding the smaller of the two rune-carved wedding rings up to the first knuckle of my ring finger. We had discussed using his parents’ rings for our own nuptials, but Warner had preferred that they remain around my neck, for the power they brought to the collective whole of the necklace. Instead, we’d ordered stacked rings from a goldsmith on Granville Island. Three bands, each with a slightly different shape and width, of twenty-four carat white, rose, and yellow gold. Gold that would be perfectly receptive to my alchemy for whatever ‘extras’ I chose to add to the wedding bands.
Warner was to pick the rings up on Wednesday morning, and his custom-tailored suit that afternoon. I had a final fitting for my dress on Monday, and the flowers were being delivered on Wednesday afternoon. The ceremony was scheduled for Thursday at sunset. I’d opted for getting married at Gran’s. Yes, under some duress. In all honesty, I’d really wanted to use the bakery, because that was where Warner and I had first met. Well, technically, we’d met in the alley behind the bakery. And sure, he was unconscious at the time. Then we met again inside the bakery when Warner trashed my safe, got pissy about me having the dragonskin map that led to the instruments of assassination, and sneered at my cupcake pajama pants. But still.
In the end, getting married at the bakery had been seriously kiboshed by my grandmother, who’d wanted the complete opposite — a large church wedding and a huge party in a grand hotel ballroom. So we’d compromised.
“I’d prefer to never leave,” Warner murmured.
“Tell me,” I said. “Just tell me whatever you need to tell me. Did you open Rochelle’s sketch?” I was referring to the drawing that was still tucked beside the bed in my apartment, and still in the art tube in which it had been presented to me. An engagement gift from the oracle that I hadn’t found the right time to open.
Okay, fine. I hadn’t found the courage to open it.
Warner lifted his gaze, still lightly stroking his thumb across the wedding ring at the end of my finger. His expression was still too serious despite the mutual pleasure we’d just shared. “Of course not.”
I smiled. “The gift tag has your name on it as well.”
He brushed his lips across mine. I lightly nipped at his lower lip, which finally resulted in him smiling. Though it was fleeting.
“I have no doubts about you, Jade Godfrey. You will open the oracle’s sketch when you wish. But I will be marrying you in five days, no matter what is pictured within.”
I darted my tongue into his mouth, indulging in the taste of his dark-chocolate-cherry-and-whipped-cream magic.
Pulling back from me slightly, he kissed my hand, tugged my finger from the ring, then allowed the necklace to fall back between my breasts. “I simply do not like the game the elf played today. Deliberately drawing you away when the rest of us were otherwise occupied, and you were away from your power base.”
“Do you think something else is coming? Like whoever sits on the throne she showed me?”
Warner shrugged, feigning casualness while meeting my gaze earnestly.
Yeah, I knew that look. And every time I saw it, I tried to not react childishly. And failed. Sixteenth century needed to say something to me that he knew was probably going to get his head torn off.
He grimaced ruefully. “Will you renew your request for an audience with the treasure keeper?”
I squelched my instantaneous instinct to lose my mind. Pulou had ignored my last two requests. Other than vaguely acknowledging — to Haoxin, who’d then informed Warner — that he had, in fact, dropped three elves into Vancouver without anyone’s knowledge. Confirming that it wasn’t some other mixed groups of Adepts.
“You think I should update him about the elves? The illusionist and what she showed me?” See? I could keep my cool.
“He might have some insight.”
“But is he willing to share it?” I asked caustically. “With me?” Okay, so … still not completely petulant, but …
I took a deep breath, reaching for the stillness I’d been cultivating. A peacefulness that allowed me to coexist with the instruments without charging off into battle at the first hint of confrontation. Well, most days. “Fine. I’ll ask Blossom to carry another message.”
With a satisfied grunt, Warner grasped my hips, lifting me up until my legs were wrapped around him. “Just because I trust you to handle the situation, it doesn’t mean I like running off with the vampire. You know he tries to be friendly with me only because he loves you.”
I gasped as Warner slipped inside me without renewing the foreplay. All my nerve endings were still sensitive from my earlier orgasm. So much so that all I could do for a moment was cling to his shoulders as he pressed me back against the tile and settled into an achingly slow rhythm.
“Kett does things for many different reasons,” I finally managed to say.
“The almost-immortal always do.” Warner darted his tongue teasingly into my mouth. “But you aren’t some passing fancy. Some pretty little magical thing for him to collect in the moment. He’s afraid of losing you.”
“To you?” I asked, honestly confused.
Warner laughed huskily. “No. He doesn’t appear to be jealous. Of anything.”
“And you, sentinel? Are you jealous?”
Warner trailed kisses down my neck instead of immediately answering. Then he lightly sucked and nibbled his way back up along the same path.
I lost track of the conversation.
“I am jealous,” Warner whispered against my ear. “Jealous of every moment I’m not with you. Yes. Every moment I don’t get to have you in my sight, by my side. Can you blame me?”
I groaned. “Take me to the bed. I want to feel your weight. I want to be underneath you.”
He chuckled. “You’ll want to dry off first.”
“The bathroom floor then.”
He turned the water off with a slap, then stepped out of the shower. Somehow, he managed to settle me down on the shower mat with the very cores of our bodies still connected. Looming over me, his hair was darker when wet, dripping across my face, neck, and chest. He tugge
d a towel down from the counter, setting it under my head to cushion it from the hard floor, and all the while continuing his slow pace.
But I wanted to be crushed, to be consumed by his touch and his magic. Pressing my feet to the tile, I sought out the leverage to match his, then increased his rhythm with my own upward thrusts.
I cinched my arms around his shoulders and neck, pulling him tightly against me so I could bury my moans in his warm, wet skin. “I love you, Warner.”
He groaned, then allowed himself to finally give in to the pleasure building swiftly between us.
And there weren’t any more words spoken after that.
I jotted a note to the treasure keeper on the back of the take-out menu that had come with the dinner we’d ordered the previous night, after everyone had gathered in Whistler. Yes, there was a helpfully lined section on the final page, where the restaurant encouraged potential customers to make note of their favorite dishes. It was also just enough space to inform Pulou about the illusionist and the throne in concise, just-on-the-edge-of-pissy prose.
Sealing the missive with one of the Cake in a Cup stickers Bryn had printed for the opening, I tucked it into my overnight bag. Seemingly an odd choice for a letter I intended to have delivered. Except that Blossom’s newest favorite activity was cleaning and obsessively ironing my clothing. Yes, including my jeans and T-shirts. Not that I’d ever caught her with an actual iron.
But I had no doubt that sometime later that night while I was sleeping, the brownie would unpack my bag, find the letter, and deliver it to the treasure keeper. Just as I had no doubt I wouldn’t hear anything in return.
Still, just because Pulou was a huge jerk, it didn’t mean that Warner wasn’t right about keeping him informed. The elves were his freaking escapees, after all. And in truth, before the elf sighting that morning, part of me had begun to think the guardian had simply scooped the last two elves up and locked them away somewhere — snickering to himself all the while at my ineptitude, then conveniently forgetting to mention it to anyone.
But apparently that wasn’t the case.
The elves were still at large, and that both thrilled and worried me. I mean, who wouldn’t crave a fight where you didn’t have to hold back? But there were a lot of people I cared about who might get caught up in the tussle and be seriously hurt. Again.
So I wrote the note, wishing I had time to order spring rolls, and grinning while I imagined the treasure keeper’s confusion over my choice of paper.
I could be a jerk too. I was just more playful about it.
4
Jasmine was completely peeved to be traveling in a vehicle with three werewolves and me, rather than riding in Kett’s SUV and getting set to jet off to some international location that the vampire was keeping a secret. But unfortunately for the golden-haired vampire, the only way Kett could participate in Warner’s apparently three-day-long bachelor party — which for some reason he’d taken upon himself to plan — was if she stayed with Kandy and me. Or if she went to London.
Even though the tech-savvy vampire wasn’t a fan of being babysat, it was heartwarming that Kandy and I ranked higher than the big bad of London — in her mind at least. That big bad was Kett’s granddaddy, who’d banned me from the city. Actually, he’d banned me from all of the United Kingdom. I had no idea how enforceable that was, but had no desire to test it either.
Rumor had it — via Kandy via Benjamin Garrick via the ancient vampire chronicles that Ben was gobbling up as part of his recent remaking — that Big Bad was far more powerful than even the executioner. The unique powers he wielded were said to have allowed him to hold London for himself and his children for centuries. True to form, Kett had never gone into any of those particulars in all the years I’d known him. And remaking Jasmine and mentoring Benjamin hadn’t made the close-mouthed executioner any chattier.
Still, those unsubstantiated rumors were apparently enough to result in Jasmine being pressed up against the back passenger door, hunched over her iPad, and making certain that no part of her body came into contact with mine. I’d been relegated to the middle seat between Lara and her, while Kandy drove the hulking black SUV and Audrey rode in the front passenger seat.
By the time we’d exited the apartment, and after Kandy had taken in my wet curls with a saucy grin, it was snowing so heavily that Kett’s white SUV was practically invisible. As we headed out of the village, I was glad I wasn’t the one driving. The highway that cut through the mountains from Whistler to West Vancouver, then to Vancouver beyond, had been improved many times over the years. But parts of the winding, steep grade still dropped off to nothing at multiple points before the road flattened out near Squamish. And most drivers took the curves way too quickly, Kett included. The white SUV holding the vampire, Warner, and Drake had disappeared ahead of us moments after he’d turned onto the highway.
Of course, no one but me apparently had any concern over being caught in the middle of a blizzard. The werewolf trio had spent the better part of ten minutes teasing me about it when we’d climbed in the SUV. For everyone else, the snowfall was ‘light’ and ‘pretty.’
What could I say? I knew a dangerous situation when I saw one.
In Vancouver, even a light skiff of snow spelled trouble for driving. But unbeknownst to me until fifteen minutes before we set out, Kandy had apparently driven in snow on a regular basis her whole life. My werewolf BFF wasn’t big on sharing childhood details, though. Actually, anything to do with her past was pretty much off the table.
“Where are you going on your honeymoon?” Lara asked.
It took me a moment to realize she was addressing me. The werewolves had been chatting quietly among themselves — gossiping really, and always about people I didn’t know — and I had dropped into a light doze.
“Oh … um, Warner is taking me to Stockholm. He has a house there. It’s slightly bad timing with the delay in opening the Whistler bakery, so I’m actually going to have to close Cake in a Cup for the days that —”
“What is that?” Audrey growled from the front seat. She jabbed a finger toward the front window, indicating something on the side of the road up ahead of us.
All I could see was blowing snow swirling in the headlights.
Kandy tapped on the brakes lightly. “Where?”
“There!” Audrey pointed more emphatically. “Is that an animal?”
Kandy tapped the brakes again. She and Audrey leaned forward, peering through the blizzard that encased the vehicle. Well, from my vantage point in the back seat, anyway.
“Is that a wolf?” Audrey’s tone was low, stressed. “There?”
“Maybe,” Kandy murmured. She slapped on the hazard lights and slowed the SUV to a crawl.
“Pull over there,” Audrey commanded.
Even though Audrey was the beta of her pack, Kandy normally wouldn’t have responded well to that particular tone. But the green-haired werewolf carefully pulled over onto the wide shoulder of the road.
Lara unbuckled, climbing over my lap to perch between the seats. All three werewolves were watching something outside, completely alert. I could feel their magic shifting, rolling between them.
“What’s going on?” Jasmine whispered, belatedly looking up from her iPad.
No one answered her.
“There,” Kandy murmured. “Twenty feet to the right?”
“It’s hurt,” Lara moaned. Then she scrambled backward, elbowing me in the left breast as she threw open the back door before anyone else could respond.
“Ow!” I cried.
“Lara!” Audrey snarled, looking back. The green of her shapeshifter magic had overwhelmed the natural color of her eyes.
“Um, I hate to be the voice of reason,” I said, rubbing my wounded chest and peering out the front window. “But I don’t see anything, and maybe it’s a bad idea to go tramping off through the woods without —”
Kandy glanced at me in the rearview mirror. Then she exited the SUV without a word, Audr
ey close behind her.
All righty, then. Apparently we were going out into the blizzard to track down a wounded wolf. Delightful. What the hell we were supposed to do with it once we caught it, I had no idea.
“Jackets might have been a good idea,” Jasmine muttered, slipping her iPad into the satchel tucked between her feet.
“By the magic I’m feeling, I’m fairly certain that fur coats are on their way.” I begrudgingly pulled my green ski jacket out of the back hatch as I prepared to follow the wolves out into the night.
Jasmine eyed me, twisting her lips wryly. “I guess blindly following you out into a snowstorm goes with the whole hero-warrior thing?”
“You’re more than welcome to stay,” I said pertly. “No one expects you to be a warrior, fledgling. Plus, according to you, this is just a dusting of snow.”
The red of Jasmine’s magic rolled over her eyes as she curled her lip into a snarl. She grabbed for her coat without looking away from me.
I laughed.
The vampire looked a little chagrined, figuring out that I’d been playing with her. No one could accuse Jasmine of being slow though — that was still my territory. She was just easily distracted. And who wasn’t? Though technology certainly didn’t hold the same fascination for me as it did for her.
Together, we climbed out of the toasty-warm vehicle to follow three werewolves into a blizzard. Because nothing could possibly go wrong with that scenario, right?
A car whipped past me as I stepped out. I pressed back against the side of the SUV, cursing under my breath. Then, feeling like an idiot, I shimmied around the front of the vehicle, finding Jasmine crouched on the sheltered side. She was peering down at three sets of tracks in the snow, leading off into the forest.
I zipped my coat up as high as it would go, leaving it uncomfortably snug under my chin. I brushed partially frozen hair from my face, seriously wishing I’d done more than towel-dry it. Vanity had stopped me from using the regular hair dryer I’d found in the en suite. I hadn’t wanted Warner’s last look of me — for three days if Kett’s epic bachelor party went according to plan — to involve a frizzy head.
Misfits, Gemstones, and Other Shattered Magic Page 5