Shaw’s voice was unrecognizable when he grated out my name.
“Stop sniffing her,” another familiar voice snapped. “Get your ass in gear, Shaw.”
My eyes still weren’t working, but I turned my head toward the sound. “Mai?”
“Everything will be okay, Tee.” She touched my face. To Shaw she growled, “Keep those hands where I can see them. Get moving. Back down the tunnel. Now. Just like we planned. Go, man, go.”
“No.” My arm flailed behind me. “Branwen—”
“We brought reinforcements,” Mai soothed. “We’re not leaving anyone behind.”
Shaw jerked forward with a snarl, and I got the feeling Mai had popped him hard on the ass. His hold on me tightened before he grunted and air whistled past my ears. He absorbed the impact of our landing from a jump that had my stomach hovering over my head, then he hit the ground running.
I bit my lip to keep from crying out as his frantic sprint jostled me.
He stumbled, shoulder bouncing off the cavern wall. I clutched his shirt while he recovered.
“Damn fox,” he muttered under his breath.
I was betting Mai had shot between his legs in fox form. It was the only way she could keep up with him. A gentle ripple of magic brushed against my senses. It was familiar enough that I recognized it as Mai shifting to her human form.
“Set her down,” Mai ordered. Shaw knelt before settling onto the ground with me on his lap. Mai took my hand, placed it on something warm and slick and held it there. “Feed, Tee.”
I recoiled from the word and protectively clutched my belly, twisting on my side to dry heave. I tumbled from Shaw’s lap onto the cold parquet floor. I reached out, and warm fur ran through my fingers.
A sandpaper tongue swiped my cheek. “Justice is yours to serve.”
“My magic…” I feebly held on to Diode to orient myself. “I can’t feel it.”
“Killing me…won’t save her,” a soft voice wheezed.
Sheer panic popped my eyes open, and I winced against the light, but not before I saw him. Linen. His trademark linen suit hung in tatters. His torso and head were shredded. The methodology told me his attackers had toyed with him, bleeding him, inflicting small pains, probably working him over before he cracked like an egg and directed them to my cell.
My guys weren’t good with restraint. And both of them had left their distinct marks on him. The bone-deep, long swipes of Shaw’s claws were particularly evident against Diode’s more precise cuts.
Shaw had carried me into the study where Jenna served me for the first and last time.
Mai’s fresh scent washed over me as she shoved the cat aside. “You need to do this.”
I touched my face and joked. “Do I look that bad?”
No one laughed.
“Leave us,” Shaw barked. “Go.”
“Can you control yourself?” Diode prowled closer to Shaw.
“For a little longer,” he gritted out from between his teeth.
“Are you insane?” Mai’s fists clenched. “He could kill her when he’s like this.”
“I don’t want you to watch.” I turned my face into my shoulder. “Please.”
“Okay. It’s okay.” She touched my arm. “We’ll do it your way.”
Trembles spread from her hand into me. For her nerves to be this shot, Shaw must have incubused-out.
Without looking, I knew his bronze skin would be snow white. His eyes would swirl opaque and fierce. His claws would be unsheathed. I imagined his blunt fangs, which I had glimpsed only one time, capped the snarl I heard in his voice.
“Hurt her and I’ll wall your ass up and leave you here,” she growled. “Do you understand me?”
My head snapped up in time to witness a curt nod that appeared to test the limits of his restraint.
A shadow fell across my shoulder. Company was standing in the doorway, awaiting orders.
Diode collected Mai with a hip bump, and they left. I called after them, “Check on Branwen.”
“It was…a mistake…” Linen panted, “…placing the crown jewels of my collection…together.”
Shaw’s punch landed so quickly all I saw was Linen’s head snap back on impact.
“Shut. Up,” Shaw enunciated crisply.
Unable to get onto my knees, I scooted toward Linen using my hands and the thigh my weight rested on. He was too broken to flee when I palmed his bare shoulder with my right hand, and there was no remorse in his eyes when his gaze drifted up to meet mine.
“By the power vested in me as a marshal of the Southwestern Conclave, I condemn you to death for your crimes.” My nails pierced his skin when he tried shrugging me off him. “Your soul will now be extinguished and your remains walled up and left to gather dust inside the prison you created.”
A whispered Word released my glove from my left hand. No light rushed to illuminate my runes, and no heat warmed my palm. My magic hovered out of reach.
Linen’s laughter at my impotence made things worse. I was hungry. So hungry. The adrenaline dump from being rescued had kicked my body into high gear, but power that usually leapt into my fingertips fizzled out before I could harness its spurting energy.
“I can’t,” I admitted to Shaw.
He sat on his haunches, leaving inches between us. “You have to.”
“I don’t feel the magic.” And though I used to pray it would vanish, I was desperate for it now.
“You’re close.” He sounded oddly calm. “Your magic is fuel, and your tank is almost empty.”
Close. No further explanation needed. He meant that I—we—were dying.
“I could help her…with that.” Linen choked on his ragged laughter.
His head snapped back again, and this time his smartass reply didn’t materialize.
Shaw had broken his jaw.
What it said about me that violence stirred my appetite I was afraid to know.
The scent of blood, Shaw’s nearness and the relentless hunger managed a spark on my palm. A grateful tear spilled down my cheek when I reached for the magic and it leapt into my hand, eager and ready, clawing its way higher up my arm.
The stink of burning flesh made my stomach tighten as new runes joined the old. My magic was growing, runes up to my elbow, consuming more real estate on my body.
The jolt of energy made my fingertips smoke, and then instinct kicked in.
I grasped Linen’s bare wrist with my left hand.
Raw, desperate power blasted out of me and electrified him. The dark, rich pocket of energy I sensed in him sickened me, because I knew where it came from and who had given it to him. But my magic only worked one way, and either I consumed it all or it went to waste.
My body quivered as streaming ribbons of green power ripped him apart from the inside out.
It was as if I had flung out a lasso, and the steer I roped was putting up the fight of its life. I knew it was going down. It was running on instinct, but so was I, and mine were honed sharper by deprivation. I yanked on that magical thread until Linen’s soul tore free, smashing into me like a cinderblock to the chest. I slumped forward, gasping to fill my empty lungs.
The surge blazed over his skin. It crisped the topmost layers, which sloughed off onto the floor where Shaw ground them to dust under his boot. Only the meat and bones remained in a gnarled, charred heap.
My left hand lifted to my throat from habit, but the days of summoning the Morrigan were over. I fisted the pendant and would have ripped it off my neck, but I had to retrieve my skins from storage first. As much as I hated to, I forced my hand lower. I could stand to wear her mark a bit longer.
“How do you feel?” At some point Shaw had moved a safe distance away. Skin washed out, eyes white, but hanging on to his control.
I took my time answering. “I feel—” My teeth clamped down on my tongue, and my eyes rolled back in my head. Muscles locked up, and my head smashed against the floor when I jerked backward. Tremors kept me writhing and moaning.
<
br /> My eyes had been bigger than my stomach.
“Too much,” I slurred.
“Shh.” Shaw’s knees dug into my side. “This might hurt.”
It didn’t.
Once his left hand clasped mine and my runes brushed his skin, I felt nothing at all.
Chapter 23
A familiar sight greeted me when I wiped away the sleep matting my eyes shut. “Hey.”
Shaw, who must have been staring at me since our eyes met when mine opened, simply nodded. He occupied a worn pleather recliner positioned at the foot of my hospital bed. His shirt was clean, if rumpled. Hair twisted in clumps all over his head. Several of his reddish-brown curls stood straight.
I continued my assessment, knowing he was conducting a similar examination of me.
His tan skin held a healthy glow. Bright copper eyes, a sign he was in control, hadn’t blinked. The tension radiating from him sent my pulse sprinting, and my monitor beeped. Noticing it, Shaw dialed back his intensity, and I found I was able to breathe again. Too bad I smelled bleach instead of him.
Swallowing took effort. My throat was dry, my lips cracked. “Branwen?”
“She’s fine.” He pushed from his chair and headed to a rolling tray positioned next to my bed. Déjà vu washed over me, bringing with it memories of the first time he had played nurse for me. That seemed like a lifetime ago. And yet, here we were again. “She’s a guest of the conclave for the time being.”
Guest, huh? “What about the others?”
He poured chilled water over a cup of ice chips and stuck in a bendy straw before holding it out to me. “Two hundred were evacuated. Linen’s records show more, but we aren’t sure if they’re…” His lips pressed shut. “We haven’t found them yet, but we will. We rounded up a dozen lesser fae in Linen’s employ. Several are directing the rescue crews in exchange for not being executed for their crimes.”
The first sip of water was bliss. I took another. “I take it someone else negotiated for their cooperation?”
He lifted his shoulders. “I was removed after killing four of Balamohan’s guards at the tunnel entrance.”
As the weight of his admission settled around me, I noticed a wide-mouth vase filled with red and yellow tulips sat in the window across the room. I nodded toward them. “Mable?”
Shaw arched an eyebrow. “Who else?”
I screwed up my courage and squinted at him. “How much does Mom know?”
“Not enough.” His jaw flexed. “I’m giving you the opportunity to call her yourself. Twenty-four hours. Then I’m picking up the phone if you haven’t. She deserves to know her only child is all right.”
Guilt pricked at my conscience. He was right. She deserved a phone call. I just needed time to absorb everything that had happened to me before I decided what to tell her.
I scratched my name into the Styrofoam cup with my thumbnail. “Daire and Odhran?”
“I haven’t seen them since the night you disappeared.” Shaw busied his hands mopping dribbled condensation from the tray. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Reliving their betrayal stung almost as much the second time around.
“Rook borrowed them from the Morrigan. If I had known that…” But I hadn’t, and I hadn’t even asked where their loyalties lie. I had naively assumed they were with me. “Something changed while we were at the hotel. They got antsy. They tried to stop me from going to Orlando, but they caved in the end. Maybe they were waiting on a signal that hadn’t come yet? The fact they transported Diode to Orlando proves they had the ability to jump another person long distances with them. Maybe that’s why they figured it didn’t matter if I went inland. They had the means to zap me to Balamohan’s doorstep at any time.”
His expression darkened. “I owed them the benefit of the doubt, but it never sat right with me that they had access to portal magic for casual teleportation. The invisibility gift alone was questionable. I should have pushed harder for restrictions on their powers, but orders handed down from Faerie…”
“No one questioned them.” Even with a portal charm hung around my neck, I had trusted them. “We all made the mistake of taking a gift from Faerie at face value.”
“It won’t happen again.” Voice low, I think he meant it as a reminder to himself.
To jerk him out of the blame game, I asked, “How did you find me?”
The intensity of his expression made me think I had yanked a smidge too hard.
“That’s the crazy thing.” He shook his head. “Jenna, the Jenna no one has seen or heard from in a decade, called me and told me where you were.”
“Where is she?” I choked mid-sip. “Is she okay?”
“I haven’t seen her, but my brother says she’s in rough shape.” Shaw stood there, hip even with my pillow, staring down at me. “He found her curled up asleep in their bed. He woke her up, and the first thing she asked for was a phone to call me. She told me what happened to her and demanded I alert the conclave. I asked if she had seen anyone matching your description. She said yes. The rest is history.” He bent down to get on eye level with me. “So, this is what I’m wondering. Why Jenna? Why now? How is it she escaped?”
I shrank into my pillows. “You’re looking at me like I’m responsible.”
“Only three people knew I was looking for her, and you’re one of them. My brother and I are the other two.” His lips compressed. “You fell off the face of the earth and then she magically resurfaced.”
I ran my thumbnail down the scrunched-up neck of the straw. “I thought it was a dream.”
“What you went through—” he began.
“No.” I cut him off. “I mean, I wished for her freedom.”
He blinked. “You what?”
“My stalker? I had this dream where he was Herbert Slosson’s father.” I laughed. “He offered me one wish to use up the magic his son had stored in the lamp and to square what he perceived as a mystical debt.”
Shaw braced his forearms on the safety rail and rested his forehead on top of them. “That would explain a lot.” I ruffled his hair with my right hand, and he exhaled. “You could have saved yourself. You had the opportunity to wish yourself home, and you didn’t. Why Jenna? Why would you do it?”
“It was the right thing to do. She wouldn’t have lasted much longer.” I raked my fingers through his curls then brushed his temple on my way to cup his chin and lift his face. “I could afford to make that choice because I knew you would come. I just had to hold on long enough for you to get there.”
He turned his face into my hand and kissed my wrist. “I don’t deserve that kind of faith.”
“Everything that’s happened between us…” All the pain and the lies were tempered by the good times. There for a while we had been one hell of a team. “You wouldn’t let me down. Not when it mattered.”
A hard expression settled onto his face. “I hurt you.”
“We’ve hurt each other.” It was the truth. “Maybe that’s what it took to get here, to be friends.”
He lowered his voice. “I don’t want your friendship, Thierry.”
“Shaw.” My hand lowered to the rail and held on tight. “Don’t say something we’ll regret.”
“The stupid cat was right,” he muttered.
“Diode?” I frowned. “What does he have to do with this?”
An odd peace settled over his features. “I never cheated on you.”
I snorted. “Um, yes, you did. I caught you. Naked. In bed. With five harpies.”
“I was naked with them, but we didn’t have sex.”
I covered my face with my free hand. “I don’t want to do this right now.”
He touched my cheek. “Why did we end things?”
“Five harpies,” I growled. “Five.”
“It was over before then, and you know it.”
I dropped my hand and glared at him. “We had sex, I fried you and you quit on me.”
Maybe later, if I worked up the nerve to be hone
st with myself, I could admit he was right. He hadn’t been all in. Not like me. I had known it was over, that it never really started, but I had a nasty habit of holding on the tightest to dreams I wished would come true the most.
“Something happened that night.” He drew in a shaky breath. “It terrified me.”
“You could have been killed,” I said softly. “It would terrify anyone.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It was my fault. I initiated the circuit. That’s why it’s one-sided.”
“What are you talking about?” I studied him. “Like a simultaneous feeding or something?”
He straightened and anchored his hands on his hips, head tilted back, staring at the ceiling. “You aren’t getting it. Maybe you don’t want to. Think about that night. Knowing what you do now, think about the harpies. You didn’t know about my condition until I came back, but think about it, Thierry.”
“Sex with me fried you. You freaked out and went hunting. We broke up and then you left.” Oh crap. “Except…if I fried you…then you couldn’t have fed.” Shaw having sex to stay in control, that I could believe. Might even forgive. Shaw having sex for the sake of having sex didn’t ring true. He would have known I might work past physical betrayal, but not an emotional affair. I rubbed my forehead. “But I saw you.”
“They charge by the hour,” he said. “They didn’t care what I wanted as long as they got paid.”
I flashed the IV piercing my hand at him. “Maybe it’s the drugs, but this sounds insane.”
He gripped the rail on either side of my hand. “You once accused me of being certain our relationship would fail.”
“I remember.” Spectacularly had been his response. “You also warned me you didn’t date.”
“You ignored the warnings.”
“I wanted you.”
“No.” His knuckles whitened. “Plenty of women have wanted me for what I am, and none of their faces haunted me like yours.” Metal groaned under his fingers. “I saw what my brother had with Jenna, and I knew what it cost him. He gave up his home, his family, everything to be with her. When Jenna disappeared, he lost it. If he hadn’t had those kids…”
“I’m sorry.” I said it even knowing sorry was a drop in a bucket of regret. “How did he…?”
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