by Eva Chase
He looked so guilty saying that, my heart wrenched. I grasped his arm. “Of course. Seth, I’ve got four other consorts. If our luck holds, especially with Naomi with us, I won’t even need to use so much magic I’d exhaust one consort. The last thing I want is for our bond to be hurting you.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I hated to tell you. But obviously you needed to know.”
“I did. Thank you. I wouldn’t ever want you to keep something like that from me.” I dragged in a breath, and a fresh pang ran through my chest. “Don’t offer any more than you think is good for you. I won’t initiate anything until you give me the go ahead. And any time in the future, if it ever becomes too much again—”
He was already nodding. “I’ll speak up. Don’t worry. That’s why I’m telling you now—so you know that I will tell you, and that if I haven’t said anything, you can assume I’m fine. I won’t pretend I am when I’m not again. You can count on that.”
I held his gaze with a little smile of my own. “Promise.”
The corner of his lips curved up again. “Should I pinkie swear?”
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt.”
He hooked his little finger around mine, his face turning serious again. “I swear if anything about your magic is affecting me badly, I’ll tell you.”
His resolve rang through the words. The wrenching inside me eased, but only partly.
Seth had come to me with this—had been suffering, even if only in a small way, for days. What if he wasn’t the only one?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rose
“I’ve got to say again, this is quite the ride,” Kyler said, stretching out his arms along the back of the cushioned bench.
The colors of the bus’s interior were a little garish, neon blues and greens splattered across the dark gray, but I couldn’t complain about it otherwise. It was perfect for our purposes, with the two long comfortable benches at the front behind the driver’s area, two sets of curtained bunks beyond them where we could sleep, and another seating area at the very back. We’d swapped in and out of the bunks overnight after we’d started our hasty journey from the Levesque estate.
Naomi laughed. “It’s amazing what you can find on short notice around New York City. This was a band tour bus in another life.”
Damon sucked in a deep breath. “And I think I can still smell the booze and the weed.”
“Give me another few pit stops, and all you’ll smell is paint,” Jin said with a grin. A faintly tangy scent already hung in the air from the glyphs he’d been painting on the inner walls, using a few sketches I’d done for reference. As he finished each one, Naomi imbued it with protective magic to match the symbol. The goal was to shield and repel any destructive magic that came at us.
“It doesn’t maneuver too badly either,” Seth said from the driver’s seat. He patted the wheel.
Naomi slid her fingers around Greg’s hand where he was sitting next to her. Her consort had been taking this whole escapade in with a somewhat bemused expression, but at least he didn’t look upset about being here.
“So,” she said. “New day, well on our way—let’s talk plans. What can we get on this crazy faction of the Assembly to shut them down? And how?”
Gabriel tipped his head to Ky. “You managed to dig up that one incriminating file from their server in Portland. If you could manage to get in there longer…”
Ky nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. I’m pretty sure I’d need to go right into the building to get full access. They detected the outside intrusion way too quickly last time. But with a little magic on my side, maybe that won’t be a problem.” He smiled, but I could tell from the tensing of his shoulders that the idea made him a little nervous.
“Figure out exactly what you’d need as well as you can, and Naomi and I will work out the best way to make that happen,” I told him. He shifted his smile directly at me, warmer now.
“And what was that thing the one guy said to you,” Damon asked Gabriel. “Something about a cliff?”
“Right!” I said. “We have some idea where that is thanks to Ky’s searching before. Charles Frankford has his property out there. If they’re doing something they can threaten people with there, it’s worth looking into. And they won’t expect us to know about it, so that might be a better place to start than trying to waltz right into the Assembly building.”
“Cliff?” Naomi said, sounding puzzled.
“When we were being held by the Assembly, one of the enforcers made a comment to me about taking me out to “The Cliff” to terrify me into talking,” Gabriel said.
“You’ve never heard anything about that either?” I asked Naomi.
She shook her head. “Nope. Beats me what that could be. But anything that’s going on out west, we’re always a little detached from on the east coast. If you didn’t know about it, living out there, they must be keeping it really under wraps.”
“Like a lot of things,” Damon muttered.
Naomi patted her pocket with her phone. “Well, I talked with my mom about the families she knows fairly well. I’ve got a list of people we’re both pretty sure we can trust to at least help once we have some proof.”
“Perfect,” I said. Now we just had to get that proof.
“Hey,” Greg said, tapping the back of the driver’s seat. “You’ve been up there for a while. Why don’t we gas up and I’ll take over the next stint?”
From the way Seth inhaled, I thought he was going to argue that he could handle more. Something in me twisted, remembering the admission he’d made to me yesterday about how he’d pushed himself too hard. But to my relief he paused and then said, “Good idea. It looks like there’s a service station in a few miles.”
“I’ll be your trusty navigator,” Naomi said, kissing her consort on the cheek. He beamed at her in return. I had to smile, watching them. She might have been nervous about how quickly they’d gotten together, but the affection between them showed in every gesture.
At the service station, Seth and Greg got out to see about the gas, and Jin immediately pulled out his paint set to create a couple more glyphs. He was working his way down the bus, the driver’s area and the walls over the benches now marked. They weren’t the beautiful works of art he’d turned the pendants into, but right now we were more worried about practicalities.
As Greg settled into the driver’s seat and Seth sat down next to me, the pang I’d felt earlier echoed through me again. I looked around at all my consorts.
“Can I talk to you guys for a minute? In the back?”
Naomi raised her eyebrows at us but didn’t comment as they followed me past the bunks to the smaller seating area at the rear of the bus. Gabriel looped his arm around my waist as we all sat in a cluster there. “What’s going on, Sprout?”
“Nothing really, I just—” I met each of their gazes, one after another. “I’ve had to draw on my spark for a lot of magic in the last week. Which means I’ve drawn a lot on you when we’ve been together, to light it again. I just wanted to make sure you know that if any intimacy with me ever starts to feel like too much, if we’re together and the energy we’re creating starts to hurt or become a strain, I want you to tell me. Right away.”
“Taking a little pain for you wouldn’t be a problem, angel,” Damon said.
I pointed a finger at him. “No. Don’t even start with that. I have five of you—there’s no reason lighting my spark should take too much out of anyone. You’ve been through enough pain just because of this mess with the Assembly. If I can’t trust that you’ll stop me before I’m adding to it…”
My voice broke, my throat abruptly choking up. Gabriel hugged me tighter, leaning his head against mine. “Hey. You can trust us to be honest with you. Right?” He shot a pointed look around the rest of the group.
“You know I’m going to be open with you,” Seth said.
Ky looked a little startled. “Of course.”
“It’s been nothing
but good so far for me,” Jin said. “But if that changes, I won’t hide it from you.”
“Well, when you put it that way,” Damon grumbled. Then his voice softened. “I won’t be keeping any secrets from you, Rose.”
I exhaled in a rush. “Okay. Good. I’ve got so much to worry about…”
“The last thing you should have to worry about is us,” Gabriel filled in. “And you don’t have to. We’re all in this together.”
“Almost there,” I said, and stifled a yawn as I looked up from the digital map. I’d taken over navigating a few hours ago, in the earliest hours of the morning. Outside the windshield, the dawn was just starting to streak over the freeway ahead of us. “We’re coming up on the Oregon border in a few miles.”
Jin gave me a thumbs-up from the driver’s seat. “So we stop at that town near the cliffs to plan our approach?”
“That’s the idea.” Apprehension coiled around my gut. But the enforcers hadn’t made any appearances yet. I hadn’t even felt their magic. Either the enchanted glyphs now dappling the entire interior of the bus had bounced any searching spells off, or our enemies weren’t even searching this area for us. They might believe we were still out east.
Naomi stirred and sat up where she’d been dozing on the opposite bench. “I’ll let my mom know we’ve made it this far safely. She pretended to be all cool about the whole thing, but I know she’s worried about us.”
Kyler came up from the bunks, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He stopped beside me and squeezed my shoulder. “I can take over navigation. You should be as rested as possible before we storm The Cliff, whatever the heck it is, right?”
“Let’s hope there’s minimal storming involved.” I got up and stretched my arms. My head did still feel a little heavy. The rumble of the bus’s engine and the periodic bumping of the wheels didn’t make for the easiest sleeping.
I slipped past Kyler to the bunks, checking which one was unoccupied. Instead, my gaze caught on Damon’s form in the one on the lower right. The curtain had drifted open a few inches, and as I watched he rolled from one side to the other, bunching his pillow under his head. His eyes were shut, but I could tell from the brisk movement and his frown that he was awake.
Sleep wasn’t coming easily to him either. Maybe because of what he might be thinking he’d have to do in the possible storming ahead of us?
I eased the curtain a little farther back and climbed in next to him. Damon shifted toward the wall, his eyes opening.
“Hey,” I said. “Do you mind the company?”
His lips curled up. “Never when it’s you. C’mere, angel.”
It was a small space, but we fit all right when he tucked his arm around me and aligned our bodies. I snuggled close, taking a moment to just enjoy the warmth of his breath tickling over my skin. But I hadn’t come over just to cuddle.
“We never really talked about that last fight,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“You mean when I brought out the gun?” His tone was nonchalant, but his muscles tensed.
“Yeah.” I shifted my head back so I could look him in the eyes. “How are you feeling about that? Shooting those people? Or… I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation like that before.”
“I’ve had a gun on me a few times before,” he said. “But I never had to shoot at anyone. Never shot at anything other than a target on the range.” He was silent for a moment, his heart thudding where our chests were pressed together. “I really only wanted to stop them from using their magic. Hurt them a little. But if I killed a couple of them, I guess that makes our lives easier.”
He tensed even more as he said that. I didn’t think he was as blasé about the idea as he was pretending.
“I’ve had to think about the same thing,” I said. “Some of the enforcers I’ve hit with my spells… I’m not sure whether I knocked them out or really hurt them. Maybe even killed some of them. It’s hard to aim that carefully when I’m doing everything I can just to block them from getting at us.”
“You’ve done a fucking good job of blocking them,” Damon said.
“It doesn’t feel good though, knowing that I might have killed someone. No matter what they were trying to do to us. I wouldn’t ever have wanted to be a killer.” Saying those words out loud made my stomach ball into a knot.
“You’re not one,” Damon said with a sudden fierceness. He eased his hand around my head to draw my forehead under his chin, his fingers stroking over my hair. “No one could call you that for just defending yourself and people you care about. Nothing you’ve done has changed the way I think about you, angel. Don’t you ever worry about that.”
I breathed in the bittersweet smell of him and let my lips brush the bare skin just above the collar of his T-shirt. “The same goes for you. Nothing you’ve done has changed the way I think about you, Damon. Or how much I love you.”
He swallowed audibly. Then he was tilting my chin up to capture my mouth with his, his kiss searingly passionate. I arched into him as the sensation flooded me. His other hand slid down to my ass, urging me against him.
“It’s been too long since I’ve been inside you,” he muttered against my lips. The words sent a fresh wave of heat through me.
I kicked the curtain completely closed. “There’s an easy way to fix that.”
He chuckled and cupped his hand between my legs, drawing a gasp I couldn’t contain from my throat. My body thrummed with anticipation as he rolled his weight onto me. His thumb flicked open the button of my jeans.
Then feet thumped against the floor at the front of the bus, and I stiffened.
“My mom just texted me,” Naomi called back to us, her voice sharp with panic. “Aunt Irene said something to her—Mom thinks Irene tipped off the Assembly. They might know where we are right now.”
Damon swore. I’d barely had time to scramble out from under him when the air warbled. The bus rocked with a wallop of magic.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Damon
At the first heave of the bus, Rose was shoving past the curtain to run to the front. Even as a jolt of adrenaline rushed through me, a prickle of annoyance ran alongside it. The Assembly assholes really had picked the worst time to launch their latest attack. My body ached with the loss of my woman against me.
But I didn’t have time to dwell on that right now. As the bus swayed again, lurching to a stop, I pawed around the blanket for my backpack. With a yank of the zipper, my fingers had closed around the grip of the pistol. The same one I’d used earlier, although none of the other guys had decided to give firepower a try with the two others I’d picked up. It melded into my hand, leaving me with a weird mix of confidence and trepidation.
Rose’s words, her murmur in my ear just a few moments ago, came back to me. If I hurt people right now, even if I killed them, she knew it was only because I had to. She knew I didn’t like the idea of that kind of blood on my hands.
As long as I had her, the rest didn’t matter.
“They’re not managing to break through the barrier we’ve put up inside the bus,” Naomi was saying when I hurried to join the rest of the group at the front. “The magic in the glyphs is holding for now. But we don’t have anything on the outside to deflect them completely.”
“And it won’t hold forever,” Rose said, her face drawn. “Not with a bunch of them hitting us.”
“Can we just drive through them?” Kyler asked.
Rose shook her head and pointed to the windshield. Beyond the glass, several feet down the road, a glinting wall of magic rose from the asphalt.
Not just a wall. A ring. And as I watched, it contracted in on us. Shadowy figures moved behind it—directing it, I guessed. My body tensed defensively.
“What happened to keeping a low profile with their magic?” I said.
Jin grimaced in the driver’s seat. “I think they redirected the other traffic to set up this ambush, the way they cleared the streets in New York that time. I thought things were just
quiet because it’s so early in the morning. I was just starting to think it was strange I hadn’t seen any other cars in a few minutes when they hit us.”
“We can’t let them close in on us,” Rose said. “We’ve got to push them back, break our way through.”
The bus shook. Naomi swiveled her arms in a quick magicking. She swore under her breath. “There’s hardly enough room in here to work properly.”
“We can—” Gabriel started, and the bus door wrenched open.
Two enforcers charged up the steps, magic blazing around their hands. Rose cried out and whirled with the fastest spell I’d ever seen her cast. A blast of air tossed our attackers off their feet, but there were more rushing in. A sizzling bolt of magic flew through the open doorway and smacked the back of Jin’s seat.
Rose threw herself forward through the doorway, moving in the strange dance of her magic as she went. The energy she gave off let out an electric crackle. Someone on the road beyond yelped. Naomi raced after her, her face pale and her hands tight.
I wasn’t letting them go out there alone. I brushed past Ky and Greg to the doorway, gun raised. Seth was already hurtling out, and Gabriel came right at my heels.
“Hold back,” Gabriel said. “We don’t want to get in the way of the girls’ magic. Just be ready if the enforcers try to rush the bus again.”
I was already swinging around, searching for those shadowy figures through the hazy shell of magic they’d pushed up around us. My finger squeezed the trigger. The bang of the shot reverberated up my arms and rang in my ears. Someone beyond that barrier flinched, clutching their arm. Good.
As I swerved to the left, Rose and Naomi let out a shout in unison. Wind rushed past me, and the magical barrier that had hemmed us in shattered. I caught one glimpse of scattered men and women on the asphalt and the grass beyond the guardrail, and then they were charging at us, hands and magically charged batons waving.