Her pulse pounded. Distracting the wild mage was dangerous. The fae had set a trap that had almost killed Warren, and she had no idea what else he could cast. Except now wasn’t the place to argue with Couper about his safety… and there’d never be a time or place. They weren’t friends. Why was it so hard to remember that? “Distracting the wild mage doesn’t help us get the Seal or figure out who’s behind all this.”
“I’m hoping the wild mage will be cocky enough to show his face.”
“An identity isn’t enough for an assignment. We need proof.” The Warlord would never believe her, especially if the wild mage was someone prominent within the Golden King’s court. And he certainly wouldn’t believe her if it was someone she wasn’t supposed to know. He’d start asking questions and she couldn’t tell him she’d made a deal with one of the Shadow King’s bounty hunters.
“It is for me.” Couper flashed her a fierce grin that made her insides sear and the memory of his pheromones wrap around her. “If I let slip who the wild mage is, the Golden King will have to send you after him if only to stay more powerful than the Shadow King in the eyes of the golden fae.”
“Why are you helping me?” He wasn’t acting like any fae she’d ever met before. Perhaps it was part of his game.
“We finish this, and I’ll tell you.”
Definitely part of some game. But it was in his nature, and, as much as she trusted him — with an irrational belief that scared her — they weren’t friends. They weren’t even from the same court.
“The thief is to the left,” she said. “You go right. We’ll meet in the middle.”
“Deal.” He smiled again, but something — it looked like fear — filled his eyes. He slipped away as questions bubbled inside her.
She bit the inside of her cheek. It was a game. She had to keep that in mind. It was the only explanation that made his behavior make sense. When this was done, she was going to proposition him, enjoy his company, and move on.
Except that thought made her insides hurt.
Shit.
She pulled her attention to the thief and the wild mage, and, while staying within the cover of the trees, eased to the left side of the lawn. Couper said he’d distract the wild mage while she relocated the thief.
It was a terrible plan.
The worst.
But the only one they had.
She pierced her fingertip and prepared two relocation spell stickers. Here was hoping she’d be able to tag the wild mage before he killed Couper.
“No,” the thief said, his voice rising above a harsh whisper.
The wild mage pushed away from the railing. Red smoke edged with a hint of lightning billowed around him before he sucked his pheromones back. Even a hint of his power made her shudder. Couper couldn’t act as a distraction. He wouldn’t survive, and she couldn’t be responsible for his death.
New plan. Tag the thief and the wild mage at the same time and relocate them together. Fast. Before either realized what was going on. She bolted from the trees and dove for the thief. He screamed and jerked to the side, but she slapped the sticker on his cheek.
Couper dashed from his cover and raced for the wild mage, but she was closer and leapt at him.
The wild mage slipped out of her way, grabbed her shoulder, and threw her into Couper with a strength she didn’t think was possible for any fae. They slammed into a tree and sagged to the ground.
A breeze swept off the river, bringing with it the scent of murky water and something else, something overripe.
Couper’s arms tightened around her. “You okay?”
She scrambled out of his embrace. “We have to tag him with a relocation sticker.”
“Or kill him.”
“I won’t jeopardize my freedom.”
“I won’t jeopardize your life,” he said so softly she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
“What?”
With a growl, Couper lunged at the wild mage. The fae — a man by the low timbre of his voice — yelled words of power she didn’t recognize, and the world exploded beneath her in a shower of earth and stone and fire, tossing her back into the tree trunk again. She hit the ground, hard, unconsciousness flickered against her vision for a second as she gasped to get her breath back. Somehow, she’d managed to keep hold of her long dagger, but she had no idea how, and another blast like that could finish her off.
She gasped her words of power and sent the thief into the Warlord’s dungeon. If she survived this, she’d need something to prove she wasn’t incompetent.
The wild mage yelled more words of power, and a blast of fire roared toward her. She scrambled out of the way, the magic inside her crackling in response to the power the wild mage was channeling, searing her skin and flooding into the empty part of her soul.
Across from her, Couper lay on the ground beside a smoking crater, holding his side. Her heart skipped a beat. He was hurt. But he was still conscious, and conscious meant he could concentrate and use his self-regeneration… if the wild mage didn’t slam him with another blast and finish him off.
She forced herself forward a step and squared her shoulders. “The Golden King wants the Seal.”
“The Golden King wants lots of things,” the wild mage hissed as he raised his hands. The ground beneath her trembled. She dove to the side as the earth exploded again. Stone propelled into shrapnel lanced her left side, and she staggered, half of her body numb, the other on fire with pain.
Another tremble and another blast of earth. She jerked back, but more pain sliced up her leg. Couper staggered to his feet and yelled. She dove to the side, earth showering around her from yet another blast. Wild magic crackled through her, and the energy now materialized in the air was so thick she could barely breathe.
Red smoke swept around the wild mage and the wind shifted carrying the too sweet, overripe scent. He laughed, the sound manic, setting her nerves on edge.
“Burn him up,” Couper shouted, lunging for the wild mage.
The mage yelled, and a blast of fire shot from his hands and slammed into Couper. “If I burn up, you’ll never find the Seal. Of course, if you die, you’ll never find the Seal, either.”
Her only option to free herself was to send him to the Warlord’s dungeon.
He flexed his hand, and the earth beneath her exploded again. She dove forward, more pain searing up her legs and hip, and rolled to her feet a few steps from him. With a yell, she pulled the sticker from her coat’s lapel and grabbed his wrist.
All she had to do was tag his skin and cast the spell, but a harsher, faster, more compact boom shattered the air, and an inferno exploded in her chest.
She staggered back, her legs weak. She had to place the sticker and say the words to power the relocation spell, but she couldn’t think past the agony filling her. It was more than the crackle of wild magic or the slices from the rocky shrapnel. It threatened to consume her.
The wild mage huffed. Her attention jumped to him and something shiny in his hands reflected the streetlight. It looked familiar. She knew what it was. She just couldn’t make her mind work past the agony to think of the word.
Gun.
He held a gun. But fae didn’t carry guns. It was a racial compulsion. She was positive of that. Even being half human, she couldn’t bring herself to carry one.
But he held one. And he’d shot her.
Blood bubbled over her lips. Instinct lurched her forward to slapped the sticker on his hand, before she dropped to her knees. She peered into the cowl’s shadows. All she could see of him was his mouth and a toothy sneer. No elongated canines, which didn’t necessarily mean he belonged to the Golden Court, but was certainly evidence toward that.
She coughed, trying to clear her throat to power the relocation spell, but blood kept bubbling into her mouth, and she couldn’t catch her breath.
His sneer deepened. He grabbed the front of her duster and hauled her to her feet. A hint of red smoke billowed around him, and his scent wrapped
around her. Berries, rotting berries. It made her stomach heave, sending waves of agony coursing through her, and clogged her throat, drowning her in scent and blood.
“This is what happens to abominations who think they’re fae.” He tossed her, one-handed, to the side. Her ankle hit the safety railing, and she tumbled over the barrier.
Her shoulder slammed into a rock, sending agony blazing through her, then cold water engulfed her. It flooded into her nose and mouth, and she didn’t have the strength to hold her breath. Her blood, her life essence, wept from her body in a billowing dark cloud, caught in the streetlight streaming into the river, and she drifted deeper into darkness.
Chapter Thirteen
Couper’s heart stopped at the gunshot. His whole essence stopped. Riley screamed. She’d been shot. Somehow, the wild mage had managed to get past the fae compulsion to avoid guns and shoot her. The wild mage hissed something, his voice too quiet for Couper to hear, then he tossed Riley into the river and relocated away.
“Riley.” Couper scrambled to the safety railing, hopped over, and skidded down the jagged rocks into the river. His side burned from the wild mage’s gash and his pulse raced. The pit in his gut filled with frozen terror, and he dove into the water. He had to find her and heal her. He couldn’t lose her. Not like Elizabeth.
Except this wasn’t like Elizabeth. He might still be angry and sad over what had happened to Elizabeth, but Riley was his other half. He’d shatter if he lost her and never recover.
Pale beams of streetlight cut into the river’s murky depths, and he strained to see anything in the gloom. Please. He had to save her, had to—
A hint of a hand swept through a strand of light.
He kicked forward, seized it, and tugged her toward him. She didn’t respond. Her half-lidded eyes didn’t open, and her body remained slack.
Please, no.
He shoved at his panic and wrapped his arms around her. If even a hint of her soul was still inside her, he could save her.
He would save her.
He wouldn’t let her fate be Elizabeth’s.
Fighting to concentrate, he shoved everything else aside and said the words of power for his relocation spell. Magic flooded the empty part of his soul — the part that fit Riley’s — and the spell took shape.
The gloomy water twisted, the hints of streetlights and Riley’s blood churned into the kaleidoscope and burned bright, and then the spell dumped him into his bathroom, the motion sensor light flashing on, momentarily blinding him. Water tinged with both of their blood gushed over the floor, and he gasped for breath. Riley didn’t.
He pulled her into his lap, ignoring his injuries, and shoved aside her duster. He pushed her wet T-shirt up and exposed her bra and the gunshot wound in her chest. For his mystic healing to be most effective, he needed direct contact with her flesh, preferably at the wound site.
Except there were other injuries. So many. Her side was sliced and bleeding from dozens of cuts, some dangerously deep, and blood darkened her left hip and both legs — also from the fight with the wild mage.
So much blood, filling the puddles around him, mingling with his and turning the water red like the pools that had been around Elizabeth’s lifeless body.
“Please don’t die.” But there was too much to heal, and he didn’t have enough magic—
Unless he used some of the wild magic readily available in the shadow realm.
But that was dangerous. He didn’t have experience using wild magic, only with channeling it away from someone about to burn up — and even then he’d only done that three times before. He could easily lose control and burn up both him and Riley.
Except if he didn’t do something, she’d die.
Lord and Lady help him.
He pressed his hand over the wound above her heart and opened the empty place in his soul to the wild magic swirling around him. It leapt inside, faster than he expected, with a crackling surge that filled him instantly and stole his breath. Lightning snapped over his skin, and now the crawling sensation he’d felt in Warren’s cave wasn’t sizzling over him, but searing inside him and magnified a hundred times.
He gritted his teeth and concentrated on his power. Unlike most fae abilities, his mystic healing wasn’t a spell. It was a way of channeling magic through him into someone else to knit bone, flesh, and cells back together. Healing himself was easy, but healing someone else hurt with the magic burning out of him into whomever he was healing.
With the wild magic, the sensation of healing agony was magnified into an inferno blazing through his body. His muscles trembled and every nerve screamed. He fought to breathe and stay focused. He needed to heal her enough to save her. That was all. Just save her. Once she was alive, he could release the wild magic and finish healing her without it. It would take time and she’d fail at her assignment to return the Seal to the Golden King by dawn but she’d be alive.
But the wild magic snapped and flared, drawing a scream he couldn’t keep contained. The magic sliced into his skin, healing him but also cutting past the empty part of his soul into his soul’s essence. His control on it slipped, and it roared down his arm, through his hand, and into Riley.
The ferocious power blazed even hotter. He couldn’t control it. It was burning him up, but the slices in Riley’s side that he could see were sealing shut. He was saving her. He just didn’t know if he was sacrificing himself to do it.
A part of him, a calm part somehow distant from the surging magic and the agony, knew he was giving his life for hers and was grateful he hadn’t told her his fear about her being his other half. She didn’t seem to realize the truth. She might be able to carry on. She was smart, she’d think of using the fact she’d saved Warren to get him to help her flee King Rian. Kane might help too. She’d be okay.
Another flare, and he screamed again. Riley’s body tensed beneath him.
“Stop,” she gasped, her eyelids flying open and her gaze filled with panic and pain. “Don’t burn yourself up.”
But he couldn’t stop. He had to save her. The wild magic surged, and they both screamed.
She grabbed for the hand he had pressed to her chest, seized his wrist, and wrenched his arm away from her. “I said stop.”
The wound in her chest was sealed shut into an ugly pink scar, and the slices in her side were gone without even a hint of a scar.
She was going to live.
He gasped against the fury of the wild magic.
Thank the Lord and Lady, she was going to live.
“Now let it go.” Her grip on his wrist tightened and somehow she yanked the wild magic from his soul. It exploded against the ceiling of his bathroom and showered them with stinging sparks then vanished.
A frozen emptiness swept through him, his body yearning for and yet fearing the wild magic.
“You’re a mystic healer,” she said, her voice trembling.
A shiver shook him. It swept the memory of the electric power of the wild magic skittering across his skin, and he closed his eyes praying the sensation would pass.
“You shouldn’t have channeled wild magic to save me.”
He jerked his attention to her and just about shattered at her expression. Her gaze was filled with fear and sadness and confusion.
“Why did you save me?”
“Because I had to. I—”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you can feel it too.” He tugged her T-shirt down, wanting to tell her the truth and yet not. Hope and fear swirled through him. Hope for finding his soul’s match, that one fae who matched the empty part of his soul. And fear that he was wrong, that it was his fae compulsion to charm the human half of her that drew him to her — and drove him to risk his life to save her. Maybe he was crazy. Maybe Elizabeth’s death had broken some part of him, and his desperation to be complete made him see a connection where there wasn’t one. Maybe—
“It?” she asked her voice soft and breathy. “The electric shock every t
ime we touch?”
“Yes.” His throat tightened. Binding her fate to his would make her a target for the Golden King. To Rian it would be annoying if she fled the Golden Court, but it would be infuriating if she fled to be with Couper.
Except if he was her other half, there wasn’t anything either of them could do about it.
“I thought it was your charm.”
“But I can’t charm you, and this is deeper than charm. I was drawn to you the moment I saw you.” His hope and fear churned stronger. He had to tell. He couldn’t let her go without her knowing the truth. That wouldn’t be fair, either. She’d spend the rest of her days feeling empty and never knowing why because she’d met her match and left him. “I think we’re a soul match.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m your soul’s other half? But I’m half human. I don’t have enough of a fae’s soul to be a match for anyone.”
His throat tightened with grief for her. She’d spend her whole life believing there was no hope in hell she’d ever be complete. “Is that what they told you?”
“If I have enough space in my soul to cast the relocation spell I have even less fae soul available. At most, my soul is only one-quarter fae.”
“Except it doesn’t work that way. What really makes you and the rest of us fae is the space in our souls, not our souls. A soul is a soul is a soul. Be it fae or human. You have just as much fae soul, or rather lack of soul, as any fae, but other fae don’t want to accept that because that would mean a half-fae like you would their equal.”
She frowned. “The myths say the only way to find out if we’re a match is to sleep together.”
“Yeah.” There was the crux of the problem between them. She was a half-human living in the Golden Court. Some fae had probably tried to play games with her, and he didn’t doubt that she thought this was just another game. Except the only way he could prove his sincerity was to complete their souls, and he had no doubts she’d refuse for fear he was trying to manipulate her.
“I understand if you don’t… you know.” Jeez. He fought the urge to roll his eyes at himself. That was smooth. He’d never had so little romantic game before, except he’d never been faced with his soul’s other half before. “We don’t really know each other, I know you can’t trust me yet, I under—”
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