The Problem with Promises

by Leigh Evans

  “Hurry up,” called Whitlock.

  Liam stiffened. This was one biker who didn’t like dancing to the Alpha’s tune. But then again, he wasn’t a wolf. He was something other though. But what?

  “Now!” snarled Whitlock.

  Whenever Liam was within a foot of me, I had to fight against the desire to slide into a coma of sleep, the logical consequence of being so close to his vest of iron. But if he moved away, I started to revive. Not anywhere close to full capacity. I still had an iron-coated bolt sticking out of me and chaining thoughts together took heavy effort.

  Go away, Liam. Do what Whitlock tells you to. Weak relief spread when he said something under his breath. He left me—my sprawled legs hanging out of the car, my toes hitched on a clump of stray grass—and went to help.

  Thank you, Goddess.

  I listened, identifying the sound of a rear cargo door being raised, then heard the slide of plastic and a thump that I hoped was Trowbridge’s knee, not his head.

  “I want this place cleaned up,” snapped Whitlock. “Hide Ryan’s body. Find the girl stat—I do not want her flagging down some trucker for help. When you get her, kill her. And I want that frickin’ amulet.”

  “I don’t climb—”

  “Ten grand,” Whitlock said flatly.

  “Twelve and I’ll do it.”

  Whitlock said some more stuff in the surreal haze that followed. I could vaguely hear the drone of his voice—like the hum of an angry bee—but here’s what happened. I stopped listening and started thinking. Liam thought me weak. I am not. Liam thought me done. I am not. Liam thinks I can’t move with this iron bolt inside me. He might be a bit right on that.

  The bolt had to go. Could I grab that iron-tipped thing with my bare hand? Could I make a fist around it strong enough to pull the long shaft all the way through my body? Without passing out? Before he came back? Maybe I could reach behind myself, and grasp it from the other side? Or what if I heaved myself against something hard, and drove it right through my body?

  I’ll pass out. Doing that, guaranteed, I’ll pass out.

  Shit.

  While I was still pondering the possibilities, I heard the crunch of gravel under boot, a door shut—with a frustrated bang—and an engine turn over. My wolf surged inside me. Scrambled to be released.

  Exploding into fur? I didn’t know how to do it.

  “Goddamn fairy,” Whitlock muttered with disgust, putting his vehicle into drive.

  I hung my head, as the black SUV carrying My One True Thing left the Peach Pit.

  * * *

  I would have folded into the mire of despair except someone chose that moment to drip molten lava on the underside of my upper arm. Each droplet, as hot as a sear of solder. I sucked in a shuddering breath against the sensation. What fresh hell was this? I opened my eyes, and discovered something interesting.

  Iron was on the move.

  Stunned, I considered the molten bead of the metal poised at the tip of the bolt that protruded from my shoulder. Was I hallucinating? But no … look at that. The end that Liam had so carefully coated with iron was turning liquid right in front of my disbelieving eyes. Melting right off the tip of the bolt. Each tiny drip of it—splat, pause, splat—sharp microbites of fire.

  Another pearl formed. Crap. Move your arm out of the drip path. It was a simple, straightforward suggestion from my brain to my body, but damn, it took an enormous amount of effort to force myself to accomplish that simple feat.

  Iron’s on the move. It’s been called.

  The next bit always embarrasses me to remember. Truth? I’d seen too many ghosts and specters in one night. And simply put, I wasn’t firing on all cylinders. My gaze traveled from the iron, to the seat’s upholstery, past the door frame, beyond my splayed foot, searching for Lou. Yes, I knew she was dead, but hell, this was the night of spooks, and my brain was fumbling to supply an answer to the fact that melted iron was being summoned by a Collector.

  There could be only one. Lou had returned to save me in my moment of dire need. Yup, that’s what I was thinking. Because there had been only one Fae I knew who could make the seven metals do her bidding. So I was sure Lou had come back—the Jacob Marley of the Fae—filled with self-reproach and the desperate need to make things up to me.

  What my bleary eyes found was Anu. Standing half hidden by Larry the llama’s shed. Colt legs, big eyes, expression a meld of fear and determination.

  I promised Lexi you’d be safe.

  Chapter Fifteen

  If she’d had any sense, Anu would have kept going, sprinting through the cover of the woods until she hit the highway where she could have flagged down help. Or hidden. Or done any of the things any sane thirteen-year-old kid would have done in the face of the bad guys. Instead she’d come back, and in so doing, she’d pushed herself into what should have come far later, when her body was ready for it, when the timing was right—all of it done in a place far, far safer than this one. My niece had gone straight to the claiming; that turning point for those with Fae blood where they received the full gift of their heritage.

  For some that moment never comes.

  But for those that it does, its arrival comes at you in a visceral rush. It courses through you—blood, heart, brain—filling you. Your Fae. Your magic. Your destiny. You cannot anticipate the full impact of it and nothing will adequately prepare you for that first introduction to your Fae. It changes your inner balance and even the way you stand.

  I’d fallen to my knees when my gift had burst to life.

  Lexi’s daughter stood, more or less upright, her narrow back braced against the chewed-up board siding on Larry the llama’s little shack. White-faced, she held her trembling hand aloft. Her mouth moved silently as she called to the iron.

  Within seconds, she’d cleansed the shaft of the crossbow’s bolt of its iron taint. If I could have, I would have cheered as the molten ore pooled on the ground. Instead I watched, half numb, half dumb, as the round blob of melted misery elongated into a tear shape, and then funneled into a long spittoon of evil. Compelled by Anu’s call, the slender rivulet moved in a slow but steadfast direction toward her.

  Moving on out.

  I slowed my respiration from dog pant to forced and steady breath. Getting out of the truck was going to be difficult. You want your mate back? I asked my wolf. She lifted her head from her paws and whined. Stand up. Butterflies in my stomach, then a squeeze, and I felt her expand. Her essence—that wild creature that reacted rather than planned—filled in the cracks left in my physical body. This is good. But I need more. I required every bitter bit of me. The good, the bad, and the awful.

  “Return to me,” I said. There was no doubt in my voice. No plea or petition.

  She will obey.

  “We will destroy them,” I promised her. Whitlock. Liam. Every single being that stood between me and those that I loved. Every person who chose to stop me. Every wolf who made the mistake of thwarting me. I will get back what is mine. And then—

  “Liam first,” murmured my Fae, spilling down my throat.

  Agreed.

  The world did a drunken spin around us as I pushed myself upright. Don’t think about the hot pain. It will flare, but it will go. Clenching my jaw against a whimper, I did an awkward turn in my seat. Oh, sweet heavens. I forced myself to butt-shuffle toward the open door. That minor flex of hip, spine, and torso was bad. In terms of body revolts it was very, very bad. Standing was going to be worse.

  Do it anyhow. Don’t think about the bolt. Think about Liam.

  He of the bolt, and the desire to hunt Anu.

  I stood, holding on to the door. Things tilted, then righted themselves.

  Where was Liam?

  Coming up from the pond, his back to me, his attention focused on navigating Ryan’s corpse over the lip of a walkway without leaving a telltale trail of the red and the awful. He gripped the wolf’s collar as he had done with me, but this time, he was straining. Ryan’s dead weight demanded
more muscle.

  Cautious son of a bitch. He hadn’t given up on the crossbow.

  My Fae was with me—indistinguishable from me. In my blood, in my bone, in my thoughts. Magic streamed weakly from the fingertips. Goddess. We’d taken a heavy hit—my normally fat serpent of green was thin as a wafer; our fluorescence muted to tepid spits and sparkles of fire.

  Not good.

  I couldn’t see strangling Liam with it. My gaze frantically swept the area. Next time I met a biker, I’d arm myself with an Uzi. Better yet, I’d order a flamethrower from Amazon.

  Come on. Give me something, anything.

  What can I turn into a weapon? There were signs. Wooden ones. Pounded into the ground with sharpened stakes. Giving directions, tossing out reminders, and warnings about perceived dangers. CHILDREN UNDER FIVE SHOULD NOT …

  The closest one read BEWARE OF RABBITS.

  My magic was an extension of me—of my hand, of my rage. It grafted itself onto the sign and tore it from the turf. Turned it upside down so that those worried about feral bunnies would be required to perform a handstand in order to read the caution. The stake had been honed to a nice point. A long sharp spear for stabbing, slightly encumbered by a tailfin of signage.

  I lifted my hand.

  Liam dropped Ryan’s corpse. Fast as a zombie-killer, he raised his crossbow.

  He aimed. My inner-bitch saw his eyes tighten.

  We both fired at the same time. Two separate events, in two separate streamlines of intent, like a poorly scheduled synchronized swim event.

  My sideways lunge would have made a stuntwoman proud. I registered air being squeezed by a fist of cold as his bolt brushed past us, but little else.

  Unbelievably, he’d missed. Even more miraculous? I’d hit the bull’s-eye. Or close enough. Okay, a fragile bond, at best—my bunny stake had torn right through into the meat of his thigh and kept going until the sign’s rectangle would let it go no farther. But we were connected, Liam and I. This time I had him on my hook.

  Before he could wriggle free from it, I willed my magic to slip off the dirt-smeared pointed end of the stake and wrap itself around his upper leg with the squeezing power of a famished python. Gotcha, Hook, line, and sinker. You—thing that must be destroyed—are now mine. My serpent was strong, tensile. Invisible, indomitable, damn near indestructible. She did another circle around his abductor muscles.

  Any other man would have reacted to a DON’T FEED THE BUNNY placard nuzzling his package. Liam spared the briefest look for the stake skewering his thigh. Eyes slit, he reached behind to wrench another bolt from his quiver.

  Doesn’t he feel pain?

  Fine. I’d give him a harsher lesson in remittance costs. I slashed my hand viciously to the left. My invisible cable of magic jerked his thigh right off the ground and held it raised, hip high.

  Every joint from my knuckles to neck howled, “Son of a bitch, that bastard’s leg is heavy!” My fingernails felt too tight and the bolt in my opposite shoulder took exception to sudden movement.

  I swear I heard it grate across a bone.

  Stake through thigh plus an invisible tourniquet tightening near his groin should have unmanned him. For crap’s sake, his leg had been plucked, squeezed, and suspended in an awkward side lift.

  The fucker smiled and swiftly rebalanced his weight to his other foot.

  So standing like a crane was no big deal, huh? Resolve tightened my hand into a fist. I will bring him to his knees. I put everything I thought I had into my next move. Body, mind over matter, hatred, fear. I lunged to the left.

  Liam offered no resistance to my savage tug—anticipating my reaction, he simply leaped in the same direction, using my magic’s momentum to his full advantage. Baldly put, Liam went with it, going all the way to the edge of my serpent’s physical limits, and from there, a scant inch beyond it. Without losing his grip on the damn crossbow.

  He slowly lowered his leg, stretching the line between us until it trembled. Feet planted, sign fluttering from his groin, he calmly leaned back. That’s the problem when your magic is a rope—strings have two ends. Fae Stars. I was the bantamweight in a tug-of-war game against a heavy hitter. My bare feet lost a layer of dead skin on the asphalt. I stumbled, did a few skittering steps in his direction, then found my balance.

  Magic bound us.

  Hate too.

  Without lifting his hooded gaze from mine, he groped for the stake spearing his thigh. He yanked it out. Stood, frozen and silent as he absorbed whatever irritation that injury produced. Then he lowered his chin and threw the blood-smeared sign on the ground between us.

  I knew what he was going to do. He was going to reel me in using the thin rope of magic connecting us. Once I was dragged past the gauntlet-sign … he was going to hurt me. Not with a bow, but his bare hands. His touch would sear my skin. Leave it bubbling with heat blisters.

  My fingernails throbbed. My shoulder burned.

  Screw him. If he was going to make me suffer more, he was going to have to work for it.

  Feet, don’t fail me now.

  “Break!” I said harshly to my magic. I meant it to cut in two or to unravel from him. I wanted it to follow my retreat like a hive of bees. But worn to extinction, my wire-thin talent didn’t splinter so much as dissolve. No good-bye burst of sparkles. No hovering mass of flickering bits of fluorescence sparkling in the air around me. It just … disappeared as if it had never been part of my soul.

  It’s gone.

  Inside me I heard a terrible wail. “I’m dying,” my Fae wept.

  A horrible, knowing smile creased Liam’s face, plumping his hollow cheeks and webbing the lines drawn from the corners of his eyes. It drew my attention to the fleck of glitter, glinting dully on his cheekbone. Another similar particle glimmered on the bridge of his nose.

  My stomach squeezed. Goddess, he’s coated in bits of my magic.

  “I’m fading,” Fae-me sobbed.

  “No you’re not.” I shook my head, even as my frantic gaze traveled. More glitter on the ground. Bright specks on my sleeves. “I won’t let you.” A faint coating of magic dusted the feathers on the bolt protruding from me. A sheen of it clung to the wet, copper-scented patches of my shirt.

  “Having a burnout?” inquired Liam.

  A stone bit into my sole as I spun on my heel. Run. That’s what I planned to do. Even if it was futile. Even if he caught me before I made it four feet. I wasn’t going to stand like a sheep waiting for slaughter.

  “You can’t run from me,” he called as I darted up the little hill toward the parking lot. He followed at an easy lope. “I can see for miles. I can track you—”

  Headlights bit into the gray of the early dawn.

  Karma, for all the pity in your mean little heart, throw me a freakin’ bone.

  Liam’s head spun, his lips splitting into a delighted grin, as he took in the sight of a truck tearing down the Peach Pit’s private drive. What? More bikers? The truck hit the speed bump at full power; its front wheels dipped and the undercarriage issued a stream of sparks. Undeterred, the driver stomped harder on the gas. The engine revved and the vehicle careened across the parking lot straight toward me.

  Liam’s smile faded.

  A woman leaned out of the open passenger window. Her hair streamed behind her, a Valkyrie’s mane. Her gun arm was solid and muscled, braced on the side of the car. Her wide mouth was set into a snarl. She fired. Once. Twice. Again. Very fast, very sure. But the vehicle hit a depression in the asphalt and the bullets went wide.

  That’s when Liam threw me under the bus. A few strides collapsed the distance between us. I didn’t even see it coming—I was standing transfixed, not believing my eyes—and then I was being shoved right into the oncoming vehicle’s path.

  Brakes were trod, tires burned. The driver slewed the car violently to the left. Back end swinging into a skid, the truck’s path altered at the last moment.

  It almost missed me.

  I’d have come out clea
n if I wasn’t impersonating a felled tree. Liam’s shove had caught me right between the shoulder blades, upsetting my center of balance. My head snapped forward, my hair flew. My mane—such as it is—slid over the mirror and got caught.

  I cried out.

  And things went briefly gray. Too much pain. Too many hurts.

  It’s a bad feeling falling backward, knowing you’re bristling with a bolt. Mostly because under the right circumstances (example: the potential for body injury) the same brain that can’t make up its mind whether it wants to supersize the fry order proves itself perfectly capable of working faster than a computer. “You know that bolt?” it inquires. “It’s going to be the first thing to kiss the pavement. And that, my dear friend, will feel comparable to being crossbowed all over again.”

  Shit.

  “You may,” it says dourly. “Particularly since the sharp end won’t be the first thing to meet the ground. It will be the other end.”

  It’s just too damn bad you figure out all of that before you have a chance to put your hands up to break your fall.

  Not the feathered end. Please, not the—

  On impact, an exquisitely awful blast of agony shuddered through me, robbing me for 2.2 seconds of the ability to breathe, to scream, to even think. Then I did an inhale and wished, with every strand of my outraged nerves, that I hadn’t.

  Sweet pea scent oozed from my shoulder.

  I must be bleeding again.

  Was it a call to arms? The speck of dull glitter on my knuckle sparked bright. And then another spitfire—tinier than a scintilla’s wink—twinkled at me from the nap of my shirt. My magic was reviving?

  Come to me. I need all parts of me.

  A well-shod foot thrust open the vehicle’s door. The shooter slid out, took three long strides, raised her gun and aimed. Bang. Bang. A short pause to adjust aim as Liam pitched forward, and … a final bang.

  That’s when the impossible happened.

  His body exploded.

  Literally. From the inside, as if he’d swallowed a pound of C-4. A blowout of skin, sinew, and bone. I shielded my eyes as gore pit-pattered on the hood of Ryan’s car. The rainfall of Liam parts was mercifully brief. Something soft and light fell on the web of my fingers. I peeked.