by Julie Kenner
“I know,” he said. “But dear god, it would kill me to lose you again.”
Her smile was both knowing and sad. “I am immortal, though. If I die I will come back to you.”
A wall of emotion seemed to rise up around him, and he had to fight his way through it just to answer her. “Don’t even think like that. It could be a thousand years before you return, and when you do, you may not know me at all. I can’t even bear the thought of it.”
She shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “Neither can I. But unless we get the weapon out of me, it will happen. Either by violence or by nature.” She licked her lips. “I’m going to grow old, Mal. Every day, I am growing old. And in what feels like the blink of an eye to you, I will leave this earth. We don’t even know what will happen after that. Does natural death change anything? Will the weapon still be in me? Will I come back?”
She blinked and a tear trickled down her cheek, and he felt like a complete ass for starting this whole conversation. For getting soppy and sentimental. For not just focusing on the problem at hand and doing whatever it took to move forward with getting the weapon out of her.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said firmly. “We’re going to be okay. Trust, remember? You have to trust me.”
He kissed her hard, but still felt like an ass. He was being weak when he should be strong, but goddammit, she was the only thing in the entire world that made him feel vulnerable. The only thing that could shatter him. And though he didn’t know how it was possible, with every day that passed, he needed her more.
Chapter 10
‡
Something wakes me from a sound sleep the next morning, and it takes me a few moments to realize that it is my own thoughts.
Callie.
I roll over to tell Mal, but he isn’t in the bed, and so I search the floor for the T-shirt and yoga pants I dropped there last night, then pad out of the bedroom to find him.
He’s in the kitchen reading the newspaper as he waits for the coffee to brew. He’s wearing nothing but boxers and looks so incredibly sexy that he could easily be mistaken for a model advertising the espresso machine. And when he looks up at me and captures me in the heat of that slow, sensual smile, I’m surprised that I do not melt into a pile of goo right then and there.
“Well, good morning,” he says. “Guess who’s not getting breakfast in bed after all.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say me.” I take a seat on one of the barstools, then gratefully take the coffee he offers me. “Ask me why I’m awake.”
“All right,” he says agreeably. “Why are you awake?”
“Callie.”
His brow furrows. “Is she here? I didn’t hear the door.”
“No, I was thinking about her. About her dad, really. And about the amulet.”
“Go on.” I see the subtle change as he shifts seamlessly from morning banter to work mode. Now, he doesn’t look like a model in boxers, he looks like an executive in a suit—despite the boxers. And I can’t help but be impressed.
“It’s just that her dad found it once.”
Mal’s mouth curves down thoughtfully. “Go on.”
“All these different stones I’m seeing, they each have their own energy. And I don’t know how to tell them apart when I look at them in my mind. But what if Oliver does? He’s held the amulet. He’s touched it. Maybe he’d recognize the pattern?”
I take another sip of my coffee as I study his face, trying to guess how he will respond to my suggestion.
“If that’s the case, then shouldn’t Callie recognize it, too?”
I shake my head. “We’ve talked a lot since I came here, and she’s told me all about her dad and how she ended up here with the brotherhood. She’s never actually held the amulet. Just the box. I don’t think it would be the same.”
He’s silent for a moment as he turns away. I watch as he puts the coffee beans up, then takes a bagel out of the bread box and slices it. As soon as he’s pushed the lever down on the toaster, he turns his attention back to me. “It’s a good idea, lover, but Oliver had a stroke. He’s in a nursing home, and he doesn’t talk.”
“He does to Callie. He’s got Livia inside him, too, just like she does, and they’re connected. And we both know that we’re capable of moving energy back and forth.” I think of what happened with Raine—of how Mal gave me his energy for control and I gave Raine the weapon’s energy to heal.
“You’re thinking that she should talk to your dad, and you should eavesdrop on the conversation?”
I lift a shoulder. “More or less.”
“All right, then,” he says as the bagel pops up, as if in punctuation of our conversation. “It’s a good idea, and frankly I don’t have a better one.”
*
A series of strokes left Oliver Sinclair incapacitated, and now he spends his life in a bed, not speaking, not interacting with the staff, but simply being. Despite all that, his room at the nursing home is surprisingly cheerful. It’s full of fresh flowers, and unlike the rest of the building which has the antiseptic smell of a hospital, his room smells fresh and clean, the scent of the flowers mixing with the smell of fresh paint.
“Raine and I spent a weekend trying to make it nice,” Callie said. “I think the ladies on staff think it’s silly since he hasn’t opened his eyes, but he’s seen it through mine. Not that I can explain that to them. Besides,” she adds with a casual lift of her shoulder, “even if we couldn’t communicate the way we can, he can still smell the flowers. And what does it hurt to make his room look nice?”
“I think it’s great,” I say gently. I was never close to my mom, but she was my mom, and losing her so horrifically to suicide had messed me up. I can’t imagine how it must feel to lose a parent and yet not really lose them. And in that moment, I realize that it was that exact fate that she had feared for Raine. That he would be physically there, but mentally not.
With Oliver, the fact that they shared part of Livia’s essence allowed them to communicate despite his strokes. With Raine, the hollow would have left both Raine and Callie with nothing.
I’ve mostly gotten over the weirdness of giving back Raine his lives, but that small revelation pushes the rest of the awkwardness out of me. And even if this experiment in amulet hunting doesn’t work, I am grateful that we came.
There is already a chair at Oliver’s bedside, and Mal moves another one beside it. Callie looks at me. “Ready?”
I nod, and we both sit. Callie takes Oliver’s hand, and I cup their joined hands in both of mine. “Hey Daddy,” she says. “I’ve brought a friend. This is Christina, and I knew her a long time ago. She’s trying to find the amulet. You know, the one Raine hired you to find. We thought you might be able to help.”
She starts by speaking out loud, but at some point that stops, and I realize that I am hearing her words in my head.
“Do you remember how you found it?”
“Luck,” he says. “Luck and leg work.”
“Can I—can you hear me?” I ask.
“Christina,” he says. “I don’t remember you, but I know you.”
Livia, I remember. Part of Livia is inside him, too.
“We need to find the amulet. The fuerie took it. And I can sense it, but it’s all messed up. There are too many gemstones out there. Too much energy. The fuerie is hiding it from me, and I need to figure out a way to identify the needle in the haystack.”
“You think I will recognize its energy.”
“Can you, Daddy?”
For a moment, there is nothing. Just a blankness, and I fear that we’ve asked too much and he’s backed off into himself. I’ve fallen into enough fugue states myself that I understand.
But then, just when I think he’s slipped away from us, his voice fills my head again.
“There,” he says. “Do you feel it? That tingle under your skin. Almost like a butterfly’s kiss?”
“I don’t,” I say, though I am trying. “I want to, but I
don’t.”
“Me neither,” Callie says, and I can hear the defeat in her voice. If I can’t feel the amulet, I can’t find the amulet.
“Then let me see,” he says. “Let me see the map.”
Relief floods me—because he is right. We’re connected now. And though I cannot feel the amulet, I can feel him. And if he can see the map in my mind, then maybe—just maybe—this will work after all.
I draw in a breath, trying to focus.
It’s hard at first, but then the map appears. It fills my head. Fills the room.
And then, yes, it fills with light.
“The orange flickers are—”
“The fuerie,” he says. “Yes, I see. And the colors are gemstones.” He chuckles. “Clever bastards aren’t they?”
“They tested it first,” I say. “Enhanced the energy in a gemstone so that I would think it was the amulet. They didn’t even lie in wait for us. It was a just a test. Just a test to see if they could hide the real thing.”
“How did they keep the real one from flashing onto the map?”
“Me,” I admit. “Inexperience.”
I remember how I’d seen another hint of color, but it was overwhelmed by the orange glow surrounding it. “They’d gathered around the amulet, their energy pouring over the amulet’s. If I knew then what I know now, I would have realized it.”
“And now you cannot look for the gemstone that is surrounded by the fuerie, because they will know now that you figured out that trick.”
“But at least that means the amulet is not as well guarded,” Callie says. “They may have humans watching it, but there can’t be too many fuerie around it or else Christina would see.”
“And what do we see now?” Oliver asks, and I realize that during this conversation, the orange glows on the map have faded.
“How—”
“It is your map,” Oliver says. “You can learn to control it.”
“So these are all gemstones?” Callie asks. The map is littered with colored lights.
“They are. Now reach out,” Oliver says. “Reach out and feel each one.”
I do—and it is as if I am floating over the map, over the colors. I feel the unique energy of each stone. Some cold and harsh. Others warm and flowing.
And then, yes, a slight tingle. A tickle almost.
Just like the kiss of a butterfly.
“You’ve done well,” Oliver says.
“Thank you.” I am swimming with relief. It’s across the country in California. Not close, but we can get there.
And with any luck, the fuerie won’t see us coming.
“Tired now,” he says.
“Rest,” I say. “And thank you.”
Chapter 11
‡
Now that I know the amulet’s signature, I’m able to hone in on it without Oliver’s help. I do that five times over the next few hours, getting closer and closer each time.
It’s in a large house in the California dessert, about twenty miles out from Palm Springs. Isolated. Easily monitored by electronic surveillance and probably rigged with all sorts of traps. And though I cannot see them, I’m betting that it’s full of human guards who are willing to give their lives to protect the stone.
As for the fuerie, I see none within a ten-mile radius. If that holds, we can get in, get the amulet, and get out before they arrive.
But that doesn’t make the mission less dangerous—their human minions are dangerous, too. And if they manage to take out the brotherhood’s team before we’ve acquired the stone, then it’s all over. The team will come back, of course, but it will be too late. And considering the fuerie’s end game, I’m certain the humans will be under orders to torture me. To do whatever it takes to trigger the weapon.
“All right,” Liam says after I reassure them all once again that the amulet hasn’t moved. “You have your assignments. Wheels up in thirty minutes.”
We’re in Mal’s living room, and all around us the other members of the brotherhood pack up their notes and head off to the various tasks of gathering equipment, readying the aircraft, and contacting brotherhood members in California who will be joining the raid.
Throughout all the hustle and bustle, Mal says nothing. He just sits in the leather armchair that dominates one side of the room. There is a floor lamp behind him, and the light it emits casts him in shadows, as if tinting his gorgeous features with sadness.
I wait until everyone has left, and then go kneel on the floor in front of him. “You don’t want me to go.”
“No,” he says. “I really don’t.”
“We both know I have to,” I say softly. “They might move the amulet. You’ll need me to find it. And if we take the other six amulets with us—”
“No. It’s too risky. If it’s a trap and they get those other six from us, then it really is the end.”
I nod, because he’s right; we need all seven to draw the weapon out of me.
“We get the seventh. We bring it back. And then we take care of you.” He strokes my cheek. “And you don’t take any unnecessary chances.”
“I won’t,” I promise. I’m on my knees, my hands pressed against his thighs for leverage. Now, he pulls me up to face him.
“Christina.” That’s all he says. Just my name. But it is like a soliloquy of pain and fear, and I am not expecting it when he pulls me close. When he kisses me so wild and violently that every cell in my body fires with desire. I cling to him, wanting to deepen the kiss. Wanting more—so much more.
But even as desire stirs within me—even as I feel the weapon shimmer and come to life—I know that there is not time. Right now, we have to go.
Right now, we have to fight.
And I can only hope that the next time he touches me like this the weapon will be gone and I can finally, finally, lose myself fully and completely in my husband’s arms.
And that, I think, is something worth fighting for.
Chapter 12
‡
We descend on the house in darkness, moving slowly, fully armed.
I feel as though I’ve joined a paramilitary organization, and have been thrust into my first mission with no training. Which, frankly, is more or less the reality.
But Mal is at my side, and so I am not nervous. Not too much, anyway.
We make it through the gates with Raine’s help, and we go in slowly, carefully. Our team consists of the New York group, minus Callie who stayed in New York to oversee the operation, and a team from the Los Angeles office of the brotherhood.
On the whole, we are a group of eighteen, and I am amazed that we are moving almost completely unseen.
Though the place was unguarded when we left New York, now I see over thirty fuerie when I scan the map. And it’s anybody’s guess how many humans they have working as backup.
I’m not surprised. After all, this is it. This is the amulet. With all seven, we can pull the weapon out of me and bind it. With it, we can bind the fuerie. With it, we can manipulate the universe and return to our dimension.
Once we have the seventh amulet, we have essentially won. Everything that comes after is just clean-up.
So, yeah, if I were the fuerie, I’d be protecting it, too.
Surprisingly, though, they don’t attack.
The reason becomes clear soon enough—the place is booby-trapped.
The ground is a minefield, and as I watch, horrified, two of the California team members get blow to bits.
“Oh, god. Will they—”
“They will,” Mal assures me, even as the phoenix fire starts to flare around their scattered remains. “But you won’t. Raine!”
“On it,” he says, then kneels down and presses his hand to the ground.
“What’s he doing?”
“Talking to the mines. Shutting them down.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Mal says once Raine rises. He takes my hand. “It’s safe now, but the explosion will have alerted whoever is in the house.
Hurry, and stay low.”
We get inside, along with a dozen more of the team. The rest remain outside, surrounding the location to guard against anyone coming late to the party.
Immediately, we are attacked as five fuerie with their whips extended launch themselves at us. Mal shoves me out of the way just in time to prevent me from taking the brunt of a lashing.
He holds them off with his fire sword until Liam arrives beside him. “Go! Let Christina lead you to the amulet. We’ll hold them off.”
Mal takes my hand and I point toward the stairs. I didn’t see the interior of the house on the map, but somehow I know that is where we need to be.
Raine follows, assigned to stay with us in case we need him to enter a vault.
As it happens, we do.
But it is rigged, too, and as soon as the door opens, an arrow springs out, catching him in the throat. I scream as he falls, but Mal only pushes me behind him. “The amulet,” he says. “We need to get the amulet.”
My pulse is pounding with terror, and all I want to do is tug Mal away from here. But I realize that the only reason we’re here—the only reason Raine suffered such a horrific injury—is to get this stone. We have to get it. For me. For the brotherhood. For the world.
“Got it!” Triumphantly, Mal holds up his hand, the stone hidden in his fist and the golden chain dangling.
I turn to look at Raine even as the first sparks of the phoenix fire begin to dance around him. “Should we—?”
“He’ll be fine,” he says. His voice is low. Rough. And more serious than I have ever heard it. “We have to go. I have to get you out of here.”
We do, racing with the amulet toward the exit as Mal calls into his headphone for the team to cover us as we retreat, and for another team to enter and cover Raine while the phoenix fire regenerates him.
I start to ask why, since Mal has already said that Raine will be fine. But then I realize—he will come back to life, yes. But that doesn’t mean the fuerie can’t capture him. Can’t torture him.