Rain of Ash: Skydancer Book 1 (The Zyne Legacy)

by Gwen Mitchell

  He’d rescued her from that death trap of a cellar without even a scorch mark to show for it. How had he been there? She had lost some time somewhere. The ceiling was collapsing, about to bury her in a fiery grave…and then she was opening her eyes to Kean’s worried face. Those minutes in the dungeon as Vivianne had passed in an instant. How was that possible? She’d never been taken back to the same life twice before. And it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like a …memory. Was that normal? Part of her power flare?

  So many questions were piling up, about the shadowed figure, Ce-Ce’s message, her powers, but secure in Kean’s arms, her body was willing to grant her a blissful intermission from thought. She didn’t have to recall the pain and horror in Earl Moaggen’s eyes. Not yet. She let out a deep breath and sank into Kean’s embrace, simply thankful to be alive.

  His arms wrapped tightly around her. He kissed her neck, her ear. She responded with an automatic hum of pleasure.

  “Aww, hell, Bri.” He turned her to face him and pressed her against the counter with his hips. “You kill me, you know that?”

  Her breath soughed out in surprise at the view of his naked chest and abs, a broad expanse of smooth, taut muscle, flexing with every breath. She traced her fingers through the honey brown hair on his chest, then glanced at his face. His hazel eyes were burning with intent that started a molten reaction deep in her core. She ran her fingers over his firm lips, the crease in his brow. She could see the question there, the hesitation — and she wanted none of it.

  Kean nuzzled her mouth with a testing kiss.

  Her hands slid down his ribs to settle at his belt.

  He paused for a breath, probably about to say something that would make her start thinking again.

  She shut him up with a kiss that caught them both by surprise. A challenge. An invitation. Daring him to make good on all his silent promises, to make her forget everything, at least for a little while.

  “You better speak up soon if you want me to stop.” He slid one jean-clad thigh between her legs, and the heat coming off his body ratcheted up. She wanted to wrap herself up in it like a blanket and roll around for days. Forget her responsibilities, her pain, the pending disaster that was her rapidly unraveling life. All she had to do was surrender…and surrendering to Kean felt as natural as the tide.

  She dug her fingers into his shoulders. “Kean Fitzgerald, don’t you dare stop.”

  He groaned. Fingers traced over her nipples through the thin cotton of her camisole until she cried out. Kean bit her lip, then kissed the sting away. “You have no idea how bad I want this.” He ground the evidence into her hip.

  “Yes. I do.” She drew his mouth to hers as one of his hands sought to cup her from the front. Even through her clothes, his touch seared. The force of her body’s response to every small contact was staggering. Maybe it was being older, or all the time they’d spent apart. Or maybe the rush of almost dying. Warmth and wetness surged to meet his hands. Her heart pounded a desperate rhythm.

  Kean eased back, but only enough to pick her up by the waist and set her on the tile countertop. His hands splayed over her thighs and spread them so he could shift between her legs. The teakettle started to whistle. Neither one of them stopped, still lost in mindless need for each other.

  And then the front door slammed.

  “Bri?” Astrid’s anxious voice called from the hall.

  Kean cursed under his breath and stepped back, his shoulders heaving. Cold washed over her without the heat of his body or the protective bubble of his power. She hopped off the counter, took the screaming kettle off the stove, and wiped her swollen lips.

  Astrid stomped into the kitchen in her furry boots and hot pink ski cap, laden with canvas grocery bags. Her face was flushed and streaked with mascara. When she caught sight of the two of them, she froze in her tracks. “Oh. I didn’t realize you were… I thought…” Her red-rimmed eyes welled with fresh tears. She sniffed them back, hauling her bags onto the counter. “Sorry.”

  The world came crashing down on Bri in a single heartbeat, a thunderclap smacking her back to reality. Earl — someone else Astrid clearly cared about — was dead. Because of her. She reached for Astrid, but Kean reacted faster.

  “Should I leave you two alone?” Astrid asked, smushed into Kean’s chest.

  “Of course not.” She wrapped her arms around her best friend, who for once felt as small and fragile as she looked. Kean held them both. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s alright.” Astrid tried to sound nonchalant and wiped her face with her sleeve. “These things happen… I can’t believe we’d just spoken to him.” Her gaze flitted back and forth between the two of them. “What?”

  Bri’s throat felt clogged with smoke again. What was she supposed to say, besides how sorry she was? She pursed her lips. “When I got there he was already dead.”

  Astrid’s brow puckered with confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  Kean saved Bri from having to choke any more of the story out. “She had a vision of the killer.”

  “Killer? You mean…” Astrid’s face became a placid lake before the first winter freeze. “Who is it?”

  “I couldn’t see him, just a silhouette. There were shadows and fire.” Bri shook her head, trying to clear the picture away. It was no use. It would haunt her forever, along with Earl Moaggen’s bulging eyes, and Tara’s face covered in blood, and Ce-Ce’s scream. Her mother… This was just one more torment to add to her little treasure chest of horrors.

  “Fuck!” Astrid yanked her cap off and ruffled her spiked hair. “This is getting out of control. We need to tell Gawain what’s going on. How can he ignore it now? We have to get the whole coven on lockdown, pull a truth serum on everyone.”

  “I don’t trust him,” Bri said, just as Kean shook his head.

  “Fine. He can be first.” Astrid looked ready to see heads roll, but didn’t fight as Kean led her by the elbow to a nearby chair. She slumped into it.

  “No one can know about Bri’s visions. It’s our only advantage at this point,” Kean said.

  “Then what do we do now?” Asrid’s defeated tone captured Bri’s feelings exactly. “It would take me weeks to get a Sight potion from somewhere else. I’m out of ideas.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the counter. “We’ll do the séance. Maybe that’ll be enough.”

  The doubt in that maybe was palpable.

  “We’ll release my binding,” Bri said, her voice still hoarse from the fire. They didn’t hear her the first time, but kept talking about methods to make the ritual more effective. She said it a second time, louder.

  The other two stared like she’d grown a second head.

  “What? I can’t let people keep dying.” She was caught in a riptide. The sharks were circling. And she was starting to realize that swimming against the currents of Fate would only drown her faster. “Isn’t that what you guys wanted from the get-go? I go full-blown Oracle, we find the killer, save the day. I thought you would be thrilled with this plan.”

  “Yes, absolutely, if you’re sure,” Astrid said, “but—”

  “Then let’s do it.” Bri held her arms out wide to embrace the Universe at large, her face turned up to the ceiling. “I yield. Please, just cut me a small break!”

  “Bri,” Kean said, solemn, “there’s a catch.”

  She let out a humorless laugh. Oh, no doubt this decision was going to cost her. Her career, her sanity, and possibly her life. At least she would go out with a bang. “Of course there is. What is it? My firstborn?”

  “Your power is bound with blood magic. Only blood magic can undo it.”

  She shrugged. “So, I have to open a vein? I’m sure I can handle it.”

  “No,” Astrid said. “He means only someone of your blood can release the binding spell.”

  There was only one man with a direct blood tie to her still living in these parts, and he was the last person in the world she wanted to see.<
br />
  Nope, no breaks today.

  She was actually baffled how she was keeping it together so well. Maybe the fact that she wasn’t freaking out was a sign she had finally lost it. Any sane person would run. There was no time to make her snarky comment about being kept more in the loop from now on, before they were interrupted by a knock on the door. Bri gave a resigned sigh and went to answer it with Kean and Astrid right on her heels.

  Okay, Universe, what else have you got?

  Chapter Twelve

  When he saw who was on the other side of the screen, Kean grimaced. That wide-brimmed hat was always bad news.

  Gawain stepped into the doorway and froze. Even if the blood wards would permit him, he couldn’t cross Kean’s reinforcements without a good wallop. His mouth thinned into a stitch in his face, his eyes blasting cold fire. No matter how much he trained, how much he practiced, how many Council members he sucked up to, Kean would always be better. And Gawain hated him for it.

  “What can I do for you, Sheriff?” Bri opened the screen and stepped back, inviting him in.

  Gawain cracked his neck and glanced over her shoulder at Kean. “Would you mind stepping out on the porch, Briana? I need a few minutes of your time.” He used a sweet country drawl on her, not his usual sharp clip.

  “Why don’t you come on in?” Kean slapped Gawain on the shoulder and pulled him through the ward, which shimmered blue, then settled.

  Gawain jerked out of Kean’s grip and adjusted his starched sleeve, then gave them all a speculative look. “I’m actually glad all three of you are here.”

  “Really.” Kean very much doubted that.

  “Yes.” He removed a silver pen and leather-bound notebook from his pocket and thumbed it open. “The coven is stirred up. Accidents like this don’t hit us often. Now we’ve got a string of them in a single week. There’s talk about Briana and her involvement in the fire. They say the two of you fled the scene right after. I’ve come to get an official statement.”

  Kean opened his mouth to tell him where to shove his official statement, but Bri cut in.

  “We didn’t ‘flee the scene.’ I was in shock and Kean was tending to me.” The gaze she locked on Gawain was cold and hard as marble. “I had just been in the shop with Astrid. I realized I’d forgotten my wallet, so I went back for it. When I got there, I smelled the smoke. Then I tried to get in, but the door was locked, so I broke the window. Earl was already dead when I found him, but by then I was trapped. Kean saved me just in time.”

  The lie spun off Bri’s lips like spider silk, wrapping the truth up in a neat little cocoon. Not a single crack in her mask or falter in the made-up part. This was a side of her he’d never seen — the performer — and it was impressive. Kean didn’t know any way to be but straightforward, but he could admit there were times that called for quick thinking and fast talking. Apparently, his woman had both in spades. He was okay with that, as long as she didn’t use that talent against him.

  “What did you purchase in the shop?” Gawain asked.

  Bri didn’t miss a beat. “A sleeping tonic for my jetlag.”

  “What kind of tonic?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t really know anything about natural remedies.” She looked over her shoulder at Astrid, all innocent and curious. “What was it again?”

  “Valerian,” Astrid said, sounding bored.

  “Do you have it with you?”

  She shook her head. “I lost my purse somewhere in the excitement. Maybe I should file a report with you, in case someone hands it in?”

  He scribbled away on his pad. “You paid by credit card?”

  “Cash.”

  “Notice anything odd while you were there.”

  “A lot of this is odd to me.”

  Scribble. Scribble. “See anyone else coming or going?”

  “No.”

  “So you two,” he gestured to Astrid and Bri with his pen, “were the last to see him alive.”

  Astrid just glared at him. Bri said, “No.”

  “No?”

  “His owl, Loki. He would have been the last one. He flew out of the shop when I opened the door.”

  “Oh thank the Stars!” Astrid hopped up and down with excitement, squeezing Bri’s shoulder. “I was hoping he got out.”

  The bunching of his jaw was the only thing that gave away Gawain’s irritation.

  Kean smiled to himself. As much as he’d enjoy watching the girls run circles around the town nitwit all afternoon, the sooner they got rid of him, the sooner they could get Bri ready for the Arcanum. Seeing her father was going to be upsetting enough without the added shock of the immense power of that place. All Arcanum were positioned over nodes of magic, where Conduit energies converged. That, combined with the immortals swarming the place was probably enough to make any mundane run screaming. He was worried how her power flare would respond.

  “Maybe you can find him and ask him if he saw anyone else.” Bri added helpfully.

  Gawain put away his notepad. “This is no joking matter.”

  Bitter emotion slid across Bri’s face before she could smooth it away. “No one is laughing.”

  Kean decided to run interference. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, as usual, Pesty. But that’s a real official-looking pen. Thanks for stopping by.”

  Gawain turned to Bri, ignoring Kean’s glare. “I shouldn’t have to tell you that our livelihood in this town depends on tourism, and a series of accidents draws too much of the wrong sort of attention. I’ve got half the locals up in arms about this curse now. As their Sheriff, all I can do is reassure folks these incidents are unrelated. As Sigma, I have to do more.”

  “Well, at least we agree on something,” Astrid said.

  “I know you’re up to something, though I don’t know what. Which is why I called the Synod to report the situation. They’ve issued a summons for all three of you.”

  Some of Gawain’s power tasted Kean’s shields, then slipped right through them.

  “What the—” Kean’s fists bunched as he flexed against an invisible lasso around his magic. He reached for his power and found nothing but a smothered flame where there should be an inferno.

  Gawain’s next words were an edict spoken by the Sigma of their coven, carrying the weight of power imbued on his position by the Synod. “You are under a magic prohibition until you face the Council’s inquiry.”

  “You slimy little weasel!” Astrid shouted in outrage.

  Gawain tried real hard to look relaxed as he tucked all that power and the charge it gave him back into his small town policeman’s uniform. The pressure choking Kean’s power slowly eased, but he could feel the clamp of the Synod’s magic tag. Wherever he went now, whatever magic he used, the Synod would know it. It was one step shy of being bound.

  Astrid stood motionless, biting her cheek, straining to keep a lid on her temper. The room chilled. Kean half-expected to see the bead of sweat at Gawain’s temple freeze solid. Bri shivered, her brow scrunched with worry, and he couldn’t hold himself back anymore.

  “You need to leave.” It was hard not to blast him onto the porch, but for Bri’s sake, he held back. No price was too high when it came to her safety. He would not risk having his powers fully bound. He opened the door and gave the Sheriff a flat get-the-fuck-gone stare.

  “You have until sundown to report to the Arcanum, or you will be retrieved.” Gawain straightened his hat, smirked at Kean, and walked out the door like it had been his idea to leave.

  Kean watched Pesty cross the street and climb into his suped-up Explorer. He made a promise to himself as the truck rolled down the street. Once they were out of this mess, he would settle things between the two of them once and for all. The coven deserved more than a chicken-shit tattletale for a leader. He would challenge for Sigma, and he would win.

  He left Astrid to explain to Bri what had just occurred, and what it meant. Yes, they were already planning to go to the Synod, but under different circumstances. If the
y’d just been seeing Bri’s father to have her binding removed, it was a family matter. But Pesty had to throw them under the bus, risking their shot at finding the killer. Short-sighted son of a bitch. The prohibition was just him dangling his position over Kean’s head. Now their every move would be under scrutiny and they would have to give up more of what they knew, which was their only advantage.

  He’d let Bri believe they’d hand the one responsible over to the Council when they’d gathered enough evidence, but he’d already made up his mind to take down the murdering bastard himself and deal with the backlash after.

  Fuck Gawain’s prohibition. He had to burn off some power before they went to the Arcanum. The full moon was too close, and that place always put him on edge. Too many immortals, too many memories. Magic drummed through his veins, hot and agitated. He needed to calm himself, but none of his breathing exercises were going to cut it.

  He walked around the property, testing and reinforcing his psychic alarms and magical trip-wires. Given the circumstances, the Council couldn’t fault him for that. He hadn’t thought before to set some keyed for immortals, but now he did. The incantation came back to him easily. Still antsy, he jogged across the street to Geri’s to make sure there were no signs of… hell, what was he looking for? Other than another excuse to break Gawain’s directive.

  Geri’s back door opened, and her grey feathered head stuck out as Kean bent in the flowerbed for some earth from the foundation. Spelled climbing roses covered most of the dark grey house in miraculous pink and white November blooms. The vines shivered and whipped out when he reached near them.

  “Hot damn!” Kean sucked on his bleeding knuckles as Geri came down the cobbled garden path, a knitted shawl wrapped around her sturdy shoulders.

  “Kean, my boy, what’s amiss? I just saw the Sheriff leaving.”

  “Yeah.” Kean finished the warding incantation, now strengthened by the blood dripping down his fingers. He sprinkled bits of dirt as he walked up to her.

  “And what are ye on about?”