“I’ve had about enough of this.”
“Bullshit. I’m the one who’s had enough. I should have called you on this when I first got back and you made it clear that you didn’t want me here if I wasn’t going to do things your way.”
“Stop it,” he said, louder this time, but he wouldn’t look at her, just kept scrubbing away like he wanted to take the design off the plate.
But she couldn’t stop. The words were tumbling out now, propelled by years of frustration and the inner voice that whispered, No regrets. “Or maybe you just don’t want me around at all. If I hadn’t been at the ranch, Sven wouldn’t have needed to stay away for all those years, would he? Or maybe I should go all the way back, to when Mom got pregnant with a half-blood. Is that why you spent all your time with Sven and left me to her? Because I’m half human, not even a real winikin? Is that why you never cared as much about me… because you didn’t want me in the first place?”
Her eyes were dry, her chest hollow, because none of it was news. She’d thought it all before, though never said it aloud. And for a moment it seemed like she still hadn’t, because she got zero response.
Her father kept working, methodically washing and rinsing the last glass and then setting it in the drainer. He turned off the water and wiped his hands on the towel he’d tucked at his waist. And then—and only then—he turned to face her.
She wasn’t sure what she had been hoping to see in his expression—grief, perhaps, or guilt. Maybe the hint of a tear… some acknowledgment that he’d been a shitty dad. What she got was… nothing. There was no guilt, no anger, no nothing but the face of a man who thought himself blameless in this mess. “I did my duty by both you and Sven.”
“Your duty according to the writs, you mean.”
“Of course.” For a second she thought she saw something in his eyes, as if maybe he wasn’t as sure as he seemed, but needed to cling to that certainty rather than admit there might have been other ways to go. But when she looked again, it was gone.
Anger bubbled up from some inner store she hadn’t even been aware of keeping deep inside. “Was it your duty to force the marks on me without any explanation, never mind training?”
Impatience flashed. “I did what needed to be done.”
“You needed Sven and used me to get him.”
“The Nightkeepers are the keys to this war. Not us.”
He was so sure of it, so immovable. Pressure vised her chest, making it hard to breathe. “You could have told me what was going on. You could have asked. That would have taken what? Five minutes? Ten?”
“Would you have agreed to try it?”
She had asked herself that more than once. “Yeah. I would have.” But she would have known what was going on, what to expect… and how little of that expectation to put on him.
“Well, then.”
“That’s not the point. The point is… Shit.” It didn’t matter, really, did it? He wasn’t going to apologize or change and she didn’t need him to do either. She was doing fine without him. “Thank the gods you married Mom. You got that one right, at least.”
There it was again—that nanosecond flash of emotion. But then he squared his shoulders. “Is that what you came to tell me?”
“No, I… no.” She exhaled, trying to push past the pressure in her throat that said she’d been hoping for more without even realizing it. Which was dumb, because she damn well knew better.
She and Carlos might have gotten closer in the years after her mom died, when they’d had only each other left, but all that had changed when the barrier reactivated and Jox called the Nightkeepers home, and any sense of family loyalty her father had picked up in the outside world had disappeared. Whatever warmth might have remained between them after that had been dealt a death blow when she left Skywatch, and then slaughtered utterly when she returned, took over the winikin, and refused to force the rebels into the traditional mold. He hadn’t been able to deal with that, hadn’t even tried.
Doesn’t matter, she told herself. What mattered was that she needed to stop wishing things were different and just work with what she had. Neither of them would change, and both of them thought they were right. In that sense, they were both doing the best jobs they knew how under the circumstances.
It sucked, but she needed to find a way to work with it. And she didn’t have much time.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “Fine. Here’s the deal. I’m calling a meeting to announce that Zane and Lora are gone—and why—and that Sven is stepping in as my coleader.”
“You’ll lose the winikin.” He said it flatly, as if it were a foregone conclusion.
“Not if I have the support of some key people.”
“And I’m one of them.”
“I have JT and Natalie on board. They’ll help sway the more moderate rebels. If you stand up for me, the older generation will follow.” She hoped.
“They’ll think it’s only because I’m your father.”
She smiled with zero humor. “Bullshit.”
He scowled, but relented slightly with, “You’ll want to tell them what happened with Zane, and about the cave and your mark, and everything that happened yesterday too. There are rumors flying like a bitch, and they’ll get you in more trouble than the truth.”
“I know. I’m going to lay it all out there. If they know what’s going on, they’ll make the right choice, especially if I’ve got the support of people they trust.” Fingers crossed. “So… can I count on you to back me up on this one?”
He hesitated, then pushed away from the counter, brushed past her, and headed for the second bedroom of his suite, which had been her room when they first came to Skywatch, but was now an office, with zero evidence that she’d ever been there. A desk drawer rasped open and then slid shut, and she heard the sound of a pencil scratching on paper, an archaic noise that made her think of childhood and essay tests.
She was being tested, all right, but she waited him out, and eventually the pencil scratches stopped and he emerged from the office, holding out an index card. “For you.”
“What is it?” She met him halfway, took the card, and skimmed the lines of text. Her blood chilled and a shimmy took root in her stomach at the sight of unfamiliar words that somehow struck a chord. “Some sort of spell? What—” She broke off, realizing what it was, what it had to be—one of the few spells granted to the winikin, and the only one she knew for certain Carlos had used: the binding spell that gave a winikin the aj winikin glyph, officially marking them as a servant to their bound bloodline. She would have dropped it, but couldn’t make her fingers move. “You want me to fully bind myself to Sven?”
“I want you to swear that you’ll be his winikin, but not his lover.”
“You…” The air leaked from her on a vicious hiss. She wanted to lash out at him, but knew that wouldn’t make a dent. Logic might, though, and she still needed to get his support somehow. Not this way, though. There had to be another. “You’d risk going against the nahwal’s message?”
“It said you needed to join, but didn’t specify how. The aj winikin bond is the obvious answer.” He plucked the index card from her fingers, folded it once, and tucked it into her jacket pocket.
She swatted at his hand, but the damn thing was, he had a point. The magic had come through the bloodline mark… or had it? “Zane said there was mage blood in the coyote winikin. What if the magic is coming through that connection instead. What if…” She trailed off and pressed her lips together, not wanting to say it aloud. Words like “mates” and “destiny” didn’t have any place in her and Sven’s relationship… but that didn’t mean she was going to give up that relationship to buy her father’s vote, especially when every instinct she possessed said not to.
Her father looked disgusted. “You’re reaching, saying anything you can to keep him as your lover.”
“And you’d do anything to stop us, wouldn’t you?” She breathed past the tightness in her throat, her chest. “Why i
s that, really? Is it because you see it as your failure as a winikin, or is there some real reason you don’t want us to be together?” As a woman and a daughter she was trying not to care. But as the leader of the winikin, she had to ask.
His face hardened. “You risk him, risk tainting his magic.”
“Bull. His magic is stronger when we’re together. Ask him yourself.”
“He needs to focus. Sex is a distraction.”
She couldn’t argue that one, because she was coming to learn that it certainly was—especially the way Sven did it. But she shook her head and drummed up a weak smile, trying to defuse things a little. “By your logic, nobody here should be getting any until the zero date. Good luck selling that idea.”
His expression shifted, but not to one of amusement. Instead, he looked almost wistful. “Can’t you trust me to know what’s right?”
And for a moment, she saw him as he used to be, back when the four of them had sat around the card table as a family, betting chores and pretzels. Back then, she might have gone along with anything he said, thrilled to be included. But that was a long time ago. “Your version of ‘right’ is outdated.”
“Perhaps. But everything I know, everything I’ve experienced in twice as many years, says that you’re talking yourself into this, and that’s going to get you in trouble.” He paused, and for a second she thought she might be getting somewhere. But then he said, “If you two are meant to be together, truly meant, then your feelings will still be the same three months from now. If you take the mark, stay out of his bed, and fight the war, you’ll have the winikin behind you.”
Her stomach knotted into a tight ball, and she didn’t want to look too closely at the reasons why. “But—”
“I’ll support you as Sven’s winikin… but not his lover. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
If she hadn’t been convinced that her and Sven’s relationship was connected in some way with the gods and the war, she might have taken the deal… at least she wanted to think she would have. But it wasn’t; it couldn’t be. So she shook her head. “No deal.” She was going to have to win over the winikin without her father’s support. She headed for the door, saying over her shoulder, “Meeting’s in the training hall in an hour.”
He didn’t call her back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
From the shelter of the cacao grove, Sven watched the winikin file into the training hall. Mac sat on his haunches nearby, with a confused whine ghosting in the back of his throat, not getting why they were hiding from the good guys.
“It’s complicated,” Sven said, because he didn’t think there were enough thought-glyphs in the world to cover what was going on in his head.
He didn’t want to go in there alone and cause a scene, but he hadn’t been able to make himself wait up at the mansion for Cara. And that was a problem—while part of the twitchiness had come from knowing that she was talking to Carlos, the rest came courtesy of a familiar itch that said, Get out, get moving, get some distance. And although for a long time he had embraced that itch, now he wished he could take a damn pill and get rid of it. Or maybe a spray or something. A bug bomb. Whatever.
He didn’t want the restlessness. More, it worried him that he’d awakened that morning from a bright, vivid dream of running through a closely growing rain forest, searching, always searching, though he didn’t know what he sought. Part of the time in the dream he’d been himself, but the rest of the time he’d had four legs and tough-padded feet that flew across the soft earth.
He’d had the same sort of visions in the weeks leading up to Mac’s finding him and the two of them becoming linked through the familiar bond. But he already had a familiar, and that was an exclusive partnership, so these dreams and vision flashes had to be something else. And the only thing he could think was that some part of his coyote magic was coming to the fore, telling him he needed to move on, that a true coyote mage didn’t stay in one place—or with one mate—for long.
But he didn’t want to leave Skywatch, damn it, and he didn’t want to leave Cara. She needed to know he was capable of sticking around.
And he was sticking, damn it, would continue to stick, no matter what it took.
He must have muttered something under his breath, because as the last few stragglers jogged up the stairs to the hall and the door banged shut a final time, Mac cocked his head and rolled an eye back in inquiry.
“We’ll go down there in a minute. I’m just waiting for… There she is,” he said as he spotted Cara coming down the path, stalking stiff legged with her hands jammed in the pockets of her studded jacket. “Uh-oh. I’m guessing things didn’t go so well with Carlos. Come on.”
They slipped out of the cacao grove and angled to intercept her near the picnic area. Up close, Sven caught the snap of anger in her eyes as she glanced at him, then watched her try to shove it behind a calm facade. “Hey, wait up,” he said, catching her wrist and drawing her into the lee of the huge ceiba tree. “Give yourself a minute. You don’t want to go in there looking like that.”
She glared up at him. “Looking like what, exactly? And are we really hiding behind a tree? Seriously?”
“You look like you’re about to rip a chunk out of the first person who crosses you, and I’m pretty sure the goal was to keep this meeting as calm and controlled as possible. As for the tree thing, yeah, but only because it means I can do this.” He drew her into his arms, but when she shot him a don’t even think about kissing me right now glare, he tucked her head beneath his chin, wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. “Give yourself a minute, okay? Just breathe and remember that he’s not going to change.”
She stayed tense for a moment, then exhaled a shuddering breath and relaxed against him. “Damn it, don’t be nice to me. I need to go into this meeting a little pissed off.”
“How about calm, focused, and ready to kick some ass?”
Laughing a little, she sneaked an arm around his waist and squeezed. “Yeah. That’ll work.” She eased away, then looked up at him. “Thanks. You’re not a bad guy to have around.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” he said lightly, though the comment brought the same sort of clutch he used to get when one of his casual hookups had dropped a not-so-casual remark about him sticking around. Only this time he was the one trying to hem himself in. Stifling the urge to hold on to her too hard, he let her go instead. “Ready to go blow up the hierarchy?”
She groaned. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Sorry.” But as they headed for the training hall, walking side by side but not touching, he took heart from the fact that she looked more resolute than grim, and her eyes held a gleam of step off; I’m in charge. And, damn, that was sexy.
He let her take the lead going up the steps and through the doors, and then on into the main room. It was packed with winikin, some sitting at the round tables, others lounging at the closed-down bar. Pretty much every one of them took one look at her and then another, longer look at him and the big coyote that slunk at his heels.
Some of those looks were friendly enough, but most weren’t. Especially the ones coming from the two guys who’d gotten hurt in the dustup two days earlier. Sasha had patched them up, but they still had some healing to do.
There were mutters of, “Now what?” and, “What’s he doing here?” and, “I heard he’s schtupping her.”
Sven zeroed in on the last commenter, a twenty-something guy who met his glare for about five seconds before looking away. A couple of the guy’s buddies shifted as if looking for a fight, but Sven just raised an eyebrow and kept going through the throng.
His restraint got an approving look from Cara as she reached the place opposite the bar where a couple of risers formed an impromptu stage for meetings and karaoke. There was no sound system, so she stepped up on the stage and gave the room a minute to settle.
Moving around behind her, so he was off the risers and thus not looming, and Mac was more or
less out of sight, Sven took up his I’ve got her back position and tried not to picture Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard, because gods knew he’d never admit to having watched it.
Like a good bodyguard, he scanned the crowd, trying to figure out where the biggest threat was going to come from. And he found Carlos staring daggers at him from the back of the room.
A pang went through him at the look in the winikin’s eyes, but he locked gazes for a long moment, then sent the other man a nod. Carlos grimaced and looked away, but Sven figured the message was clear enough. He had followed through with his promise to Carlos, and waited to get his sign. Cara’s father didn’t need to know that the sign hadn’t really mattered, though, because despite everything else, he just bloody well felt right when he was with Cara.
Even now, as she held up a hand and waited for the mutters and shuffles to subside, and he stood there knowing that they had a hell of a fight ahead of them, he was exactly where he wanted to be.
It was when they were apart that the doubts—and the visions of being somewhere else—crept in.
“Okay, I’d like to get started,” Cara said, pitching her voice to carry to the far corners of the room, where the radicals had gravitated—Carlos and a few of the old guard on one side, Sebastian and a dozen or so rebels on the other. Sven kept his eyes moving as she continued. “I know there have been some major rumors flying over the past couple of days. Some are true, some aren’t, and most are a mix of the two. I had thought about apologizing that I’m just now calling this meeting, but the thing is, I’m not sorry for the delay. We needed the time to figure out the facts, what we think they mean, and what we’re going to do about them.”
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