by May Dawson
I struggled up to my elbows, trying to blink my eyes open even though they felt crusted together. It was dark. Cade and Nix both knelt in front of me, worry written across their faces.
From the way my face ached, both with the cold and fresh bruises, it hadn’t been Cade’s first attempt to slap me awake.
“What happened?” Cade demanded again.
When I tried to lift my head from the ground, sharp pain ripped through it, as if someone had buried a knife in my temple. I frowned, trying to remember.
“Where’s Deidra?” Nix said, his voice furious. He got to his feet, his hands clutching his forehead in disbelief. “You were supposed to look after her—”
“Nix.” Cade warned. “He did his best.”
Nix stormed off a few feet. Back to us, he muttered, “I guess we were no match for Truby.”
I swallowed cotton. “Not when Truby can offer her sister.”
“Deidra has a sister?” Cade demanded.
“Had,” I said. “But that doesn’t matter to Truby.”
Reanimation spells never held. If Deidra thought she’d be able to have her sister back, she was very much mistaken.
“We lost her.” Cade got to his feet heavily. “Christ. Truby will feed her all his lies, the Council will keep hunting her—”
And I’d thought I could remind her that I was on her side, that what we had was special…by fucking her against the garden wall.
Shame washed over me. I should’ve been able to convince her that we needed each other. The last minutes I’d had with Deidra, before she left with Truby, I’d acted as if sex was magic. As if it could prove something.
As much as being close to Deidra meant to me, apparently it didn’t mean much to her.
“How could she be so stupid?” Cade demanded, raking his hand through his hair. He sounded furious.
Protectiveness for Deidra washed over me.
“She’s not being stupid.” I snapped back. “She’s doing the best she can.”
“What’s this about a sister?” Nix turned back. His face was composed, even though his voice was tight with frustration.
“There were demons ‘helping her remember’,” I said, making air quotes with my fingers. “From what I gather, Deidra remembers having a sister, she thinks she killed her, and that’s why her parents blocked her magic.”
“Is it true?” Nix demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“Fuck.” Nix slammed his hand into the side of the house.
“Are we alone? Are they all gone?” I stared around the dark, empty yard.
“Not exactly alone.”
I snapped my head up at the unfamiliar voice. Cade pulled his gun out from underneath his jacket, and Nix had his sword in his hand in a second.
On the edge of the porch stood a young woman in Hunting leather, flanked by four guys who stared at us.
“Why did you follow us?” she asked, her voice calm. Her gaze was on me, as if she didn’t care about the weapons.
They were the Hunters we’d run into in New York City.
“How’d your production of Poltergeist turn out?” I asked.
She flashed me a grin. “It was a hit. One night only, though.”
“Who the hell are you?” Cade demanded, a frown furrowing the space between his cool blue eyes.
“Put the gun down,” one of the guys, a tall blond, said. His arm was raised, his hand gripping the hilt of the sword in his harness. “We’re all friends here.”
“We’re all Hunters, at least,” muttered the guy next to him, who looked similar enough to be his brother.
“Deidra and I ran into them in New York,” I told Cade, putting my hand on his forearm to push the gun down. “We were trying to track down Truby, and her spell led us to them.”
“Is one of you related to the witch?” Nix demanded, staring from face-to-face. “If you are, that’ll give us a way to track Deidra.”
Hope leapt in my chest at the idea.
“You’d better start at the beginning,” she said.
“Actually, why don’t you start at the beginning, with who the hell you are?” Nix said.
“I’m Ellis,” she said. “This is Levi,” she pointed to the big blond, “and Ryker.”
“I’m Jacob,” said a tall guy with tousled black curls and golden eyes beside her, his voice laced with a British accent. “And this is Nim.”
The green-eyed guy next to him raised two fingers in a flippant greeting.
“Now,” Ryker said, “who the hell are you?”
Chapter Thirty-One
Deidra
“What are you going to do if they come after me?” I asked Truby.
The two of us sat on the front porch of his house on coven land, hidden from outsiders and yet, so near the academy that it sent a prickle of unease creeping up my spine. I wasn’t even sure who I was scared for. Maybe I was scared by both outside. Maybe I wanted to protect both sides.
From here, I could see the lights on in the other houses that dotted the territory. This was his real home, or at least, this was where he claimed it was now. Still, it seemed hard to fake how settled this place was, with witches and their families living together on houses dotted throughout the compound.
I just had to wonder how Truby had ended up living so near the academy, just an hour’s drive away. Had he known I’d end up there? Was he planning to attack the academy as part of the long, bloody, pointless war between Hunters and the covens?
He took a long sip of his drink before he answered. “It’s not a matter of if, but when.”
I knew that was true. The Hunters wouldn’t stop until Truby was dead. And well they shouldn’t—he’d left a trail of Hunters’ bodies. I wouldn’t have given up my search for revenge, and I knew they wouldn’t.
I didn’t think Tristan or Cade or Nix would stop looking for me either. Every time I thought of Tristan’s body against mine, just minutes before I chose to go with Truby, guilt washed over me. It was the right thing, wasn’t it, to come with Truby? To chase down the truth?
But when I thought of the way Tristan had looked at me right before he fell, unconscious, my stomach got so tight that I thought I’d throw up all over again.
I’d caught Tristan before he could hit the ground, landing hard on my knees as I softened his landing. When I’d looked up at Truby, he’d taken a step back, raising his hands as if to profess his innocence.
“He’s fine,” Truby had promised me.
If I hadn’t believed him, I wouldn’t have come with him upstate. I would have tried to tear Truby apart.
“Then what?” I asked.
“I don’t want to hurt them,” he said evenly, “but I will if I must.”
“You don’t want to hurt them? How many of them have you killed?”
“I don’t keep track.”
“That’s a fancy way of saying a lot.”
Truby shrugged one shoulder. “They are my enemies. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to promise that you won’t hurt anyone I care about. That you won’t hurt any of the Hunters, because if you do, I can never go home. That’s what I want.”
He paused, then set his glass on the edge of the table in front of us. When he leaned back, he templed his fingers together, as if he was gathering his thoughts. “I wish I could make that promise. I’d do it, for you. If it were only about you.”
“Who else is it about?”
“These are my people.” He waved his hand at the houses. The winter night was clear, and stars shone out of a deep black sky above. “I won’t let the Hunters take everything from me again.”
I felt my jaw set.
But before I could say anything, he went on, more quietly, “That boy will come looking for you, won’t he?”
Truby sounded as if he felt sympathetic. For some reason, that quiet, confiding tone made me feel suddenly furious. I wasn’t really mad; I just knew whatever I really felt, I dreaded as much as I’d dreaded the t
ruth about my sister.
There was no point in lying. “Yes, he will.”
Tristan thought he loved me.
But he didn’t know how dangerous I really was.
“I’ll do everything in my power not to hurt him,” he said. “If there’s a fight, I’ll try to protect him as much as I can without letting my own people come to harm.”
I chewed my lip as I stared at him, wondering if I really trusted him to protect Tristan. If I did, I had to push harder. There were so many Hunters I cared about—not just Tristan, and Nix and Cade, but Hanna, and Malcolm, and the guys on my team who had surrounded me with easy friendship.
The sense that I’d lost something—that I’d chosen to lose something to be here—felt like the ground falling away under my feet.
“Don’t do that,” he said, sounding fatherly as he leaned forward, frowning at my lip. “You’re bleeding.”
I touched my mouth absently, and my fingers came away blood-streaked. “Oh.”
He gave me a worried look. “Are you sure you’re okay, Deidra?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s been a long month.”
He ran his hand over his dull brown hair, then pushed the table with the remains of our dinner away as if he felt trapped. He stood, walking down the steps of the porch to stand in the grass, still looking out over the other houses.
“It’s been too much,” he said quietly. “You learned too much, too fast.”
“Well, better to rip the band-aid off.” I said it lightly, not knowing if it was true or not.
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “A father should know this, I’m aware. But what is it that makes you feel better, Deidra?”
There was a wry, self-denigrating note in his voice that made me feel a pang of sympathy for him.
I didn’t know that I wanted to feel better right now, and I wasn’t about to have a heart-to-heart with Jonathan Truby, even if I did feel a little bit sorry for him.
I came down the stairs to join him, crossing my arms over my chest. The cold seeped through my coat, but even so, I felt better when I was outside. Being indoors in the witch’s house made me feel claustrophobic. “Normally, at home, I train.”
I stumbled after I’d said those words. What home? What normal?
“We could practice,” he said. “Work on developing your powers.”
I wasn’t sure I deserved those powers.
“I meant fighting,” I said. “I’ve spent my life learning to fight.”
“And you’re quite good at it,” he said, his smile arching the corners of his lips. “I was very proud of you—and a bit concerned—when we faced off outside your academy.”
“If you hadn’t been more than a bit concerned, you might’ve dared to come in person,” I shot back.
He grinned. “I guess you’ve got a point.”
I rubbed my hands over my arms. I’d come here for a reason. I’d left behind the academy and my guys for a reason. I needed to stop agonizing and just learn.
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s practice.”
He didn’t say anything, but there was a glint in his eye.
“You know that most witches in the U.S. use Latin to focus their spells. It just feels appropriate,” he said. “But anything will work.”
I nodded. “Liam made me learn a good bit of Latin.”
He paused, and I regretted mentioning Liam. Guilt spiked through my chest. This man had killed Liam, and I was going to kill him for it. I was just biding my time until I got the information I needed.
But my traitorous heart didn’t want to hurt Truby.
“Good,” he said. “What kind of spell did you want to learn?”
“I want to learn how to control the beasts like you do.”
“I don’t think that’s a good place to start,” he said. “What about fire?”
I turned to him, crossing my arms. “You want me to trust you, but you refuse to trust me.”
“I know I’m not going to murder you,” Truby said wrily. “I don’t trust you not to murder me.”
“I don’t trust you not to use magic to turn me into the evil Stepford daughter of your dreams, but here we are.”
His lips pursed. “Once again, perhaps you have a point.”
He buttoned the top flap on his pea coat, closing it tightly around his neck. “Come on. We have a walk to reach the rip.”
“The rip?” I repeated.
“The rips are tears in the fabric between worlds,” he said. “The worlds of the Fae and the Ravengers, of Avalon and Loreth, of the pocket worlds.”
I had so many questions, it was hard to choose where to start. I matched his pace, crossing my arms to hold in my body heat…and maybe my sanity. “Are these rips dangerous?”
“Very.”
“How do we close them?”
“I don’t want them closed,” he said. “I use them to fuel my magic.”
Right, but you’re not a good person…
“Without the rips,” he said, “none of us would have magic at all. There’s not much magic in this world. Witches gather it in their bones, so to speak. Shifters carry it in their blood to power their change. Everyone else has to call tendrils of magic with their spells.”
“But other things come through the rips,” I said. “Animals. Like the ones…”
Like the ones that ripped Liam apart. That memory, of his face staring up at the stars, his throat ripped up, rose in my mind. But then, that memory was never far away. I must’ve pictured it a dozen times a day.
“Look around. This world is starved of magic,” he said. “We can protect our world from the dangers and still make use of the rips.”
“You aren’t protecting the world from its dangers, though. You brought the monsters through. You controlled them.”
He was quiet for a second. “This is a war, Deidra. We’re at war with the Hunters. With the shifters too, for that matter.”
“Well, that’s no surprise. They’re a bunch of assholes.”
That made him smile. Our feet crunched over the frozen grass as we headed across the sloping fields, passing through backyards toward the forest beyond. I heard laughter in a house and glanced in through the kitchen window. A whole family—father, mother, a small son and even smaller daughter—were gathered around the dining room table, chatting over dinner.
“What do you think the Hunters would do with the children?” he asked. “After they killed their parents?”
Nix had been adopted by Hunters.
The mother got up to bring something from the kitchen, then stopped to kiss the head of the little boy, as if she couldn’t resist him. He put his arm around her neck absently, hugging her back. The little girl jumped up onto her chair, squealing about cookies.
What if the story Nix’s second family had told him had been a lie? What if the witch who gave birth to him hadn’t planned to sacrifice him at all?
What if the witches weren’t all evil? What if the Hunters—who had sent me here to kill my own father—weren’t good enough to be worth serving?
“When I see a family like that,” I said slowly, wondering even as I said the words why I’d say them to Truby, “I always feel sad.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
He touched my shoulder, urging me forward, and the two of us left the light behind and walked into the dark and silent wood.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“If I were you, I’d start with a simpler spell,” Truby said. “Make light or something.”
I glanced at the rip, a faint shimmer in the air. “You promise you’ll show me.”
“You act like there’s no time at all,” Truby said, and there was sadness in his eyes. “Like you know you won’t stay long.”
“Maybe I need to know your secrets to know you won’t betray me,” I said.
“Deidra,” he said, and his voice had gone soft as a whisper. “We both know you’re going to betray me. There’s no point in pretending.”
His wo
rds chilled me. If he knew, then had he brought me here to kill me? I shifted, ready for a fight, although I kept my hands loose at my side.
He sighed, then turned to the rip. He started to mutter the words of the spell, as if out of habit, then stopped himself. When he began again, his voice broke the night, loud and clear.
As if he wanted me to remember. As if he genuinely meant to teach me.
“Controlling the beasts is difficult,” he said. “There’s a powerful witch in Avalon who did just that—she used that power to save her people and, I suppose, to seal the rips. I can’t reach their world anymore. But it took me a long time to master it.”
“I’ll try to be a quick study,” I said.
He hesitated. “What should I bring through?”
Not the boar. The thought of the animal that had torn apart Liam still made my stomach twist with fear, my heart racing…
“Can you bring a boar?” I asked, squelching my fears as best as I could.
He nodded curtly. “All right. I’ll focus on the boar—you open the portal. I keep it sealed to protect our territory.”
“How do I open it?”
He told me to imagine a gate where the shimmer was, to picture myself opening it. When I imagined the gate, at first I felt ridiculous. Then, suddenly, the image in my head took on color and life. I could see it there, glowing and golden, holding back the shimmering gap between our earth and the next.
Another wisp of memory broke loose. I was lying in my bed, drowsily listening to my mother read a story. It was my favorite story, about a little mouse who outsmarts a monster. As my mother read through the animals that the mouse met, they marched out of my closet and across the carpet until they fell into smoke at the opposite wall. She didn’t notice until the very end, when the monster itself lurched out of my closet, and she sat up so fast that she dropped the book.
Magic had felt so nice then, so warm and fuzzy. I’d laughed so hard at her, giggling like that little kid I’d seen earlier tonight. Her heart had pounded furiously against my cheek when she hugged me back.
When I swung the gate open, I felt the same surge of warm golden power that I’d felt that night as a kid, but as soon as it bloomed, it turned dark and sharp-edged and strange. I didn’t feel any sense of triumph as the rip shimmered.