The loaded questions just kept on firing. “Yes. Please.” A scowl cut Isaac’s mouth in my periphery. “You’re right about clearing the parking lot. We can’t just leave whatever this is here. Someone is bound to notice it and report it, and that’s attention we don’t need.”
Considering Earth really was being invaded by fae, all we needed was a bunch of tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists attempting to solve The Mystery of the Parking Lot Push Back. No doubt they’d find someone to debunk the obvious magic in short order. Blame it on magnets or swamp gas, water tampering or visiting aliens. Who knows?
Humans are weird.
Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Isaac skirted the invisible car and joined me. He stopped so close the heat from his skin warmed mine even through our clothing, or maybe the wolf was going into heat. Inwardly I groaned. That wasn’t something worth kidding about. True heats were rare for female wargs—our species wasn’t the most fertile—but they hit like tsunamis, and even sensible males lost their ever-loving minds.
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen grown men catch a whiff of pheromones, shift and start humping a poor woman’s leg.
Enzo jingled his keys in his hand, cast me a look that seemed to beg for me to ask him not to go, then caved and set out for the trunk of his car.
“How long has he been here?” Isaac’s breath warmed my neck.
“A few days.” I locked my knees to prevent them from noodling. “He got the wards operational last night. Some fine-tuning is required, or so says the witch, but they’re in place.” I showed him the same courtesy as he gave me by not meeting his gaze. “You’ll have to bleed for the wards if you want access.”
“I figured that out when they stopped me stone-cold in the driveway.” A slight curl edged his lips. “I had to leave my Airstream behind. There wasn’t room to go forward and loop around, and backing all that way would have been a pain in the ass.”
The fact he had brought his trailer with him hammered home his words. “You’re serious about staying?”
“Yes.”
Short and to the point. Okay. No wiggle room there. “How did you know where to find me?”
“Moore was on sentry duty. He spotted me and came to investigate. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t some human looking for hookups and a paid slot for the night.” A frown cut his lips so deep it was visible out of the corner of my eye. “That sounds...”
“Yeah.” Who knew RV lingo could come off as kinky? “Bad. That sounded bad. But I know what you meant.”
“Moore figured I was looking for you and told me you were in town. With the witch.”
“Were you?” The breathless quality to my voice made my ears burn.
“Of course.” He chuckled softly. “You’re the beta. Who else do I check in with?”
A rock settled in my gut that must have shaken loose from between my ears. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course he was observing formalities. He was doing Cam a solid, helping his cousin’s pack fix a potentially dangerous situation because she was unavailable.
I didn’t answer. I don’t think he expected me to anyway.
“You might want to stand back.” Enzo walked past with another of those expensive black suitcases in tow. “Witch magic doesn’t always play nice with fae magic.”
The Cantina’s alley was narrower than the one at Panda, but I headed there to be on the safe side. Isaac joined me, taking position in front of me and to one side, allowing me to watch Enzo work while shielding me with his body.
Misplaced chivalry was no doubt to blame, but I wasn’t too proud to accept the offer of a man-sized shield placed between me and an experiment that might go boom.
The witch knelt, opened his suitcase and balanced a thin white board on the gravel. To that he added herbs, a few drops of oil and what appeared to be tiny rodent bones. Using a silver dagger affixed to the lid, he pricked his finger and bled onto the mixture before starting to chant.
At first nothing happened. Nothing visible to the untrained eye anyway. A few more drops of blood joined the others, and he stirred the mixture with his blade while maintaining his melodic chant.
The scraggly hedges boxing in the rear of the parking lot began swaying, the limbs shaking in the conjured breeze. A few rocks wiggled, wobbling back and forth in time with his cadence. I strained my neck to catch a glimpse of the main road, but all was still and silent beyond our small area.
“I hope he knows what he’s doing,” Isaac mumbled. “This kind of show will attract attention.”
About the time I was beginning to agree with him—I mean, how long can you hide a contained hurricane?—pressure began stuffing my ears. I worked my jaw, trying to pop them. I was wiggling my finger in my right ear when sweet relief burst over my skin and the wind quieted to a whisper.
Isaac stood a skosh taller than me. I had to nudge him aside in order to watch the boxy green car he described come into view.
“He did it.” Relief pinned a smile on my face. “The glamour is broken.”
The vacuum left by the spell carried my voice to Enzo, and he turned wearing an answering grin. Blood poured from his nose and dripped down his chin.
“Enzo?”
The spatters on his pants caught his attention, and he wiped at them as if annoyed by the possibility of stains. The motion rocked him, and he swayed. “I’m—”
“Enzo.”
He face-planted into the gravel.
Chapter 11
Isaac offered to drive us back to the RV park, and I didn’t let hair grow on the offer. Wargs are strong, and lifting Enzo into the cab of the truck was light work compared to, say, the six-dozen cinder blocks I hauled through the park in batches on my shoulders to build the short retaining wall at the clinic.
Careful of his head, which flopped on his neck in an unsettling way, I arranged Enzo on the bench seat between Isaac and me. The seat belt I snapped around him helped secure him, and I gripped his jaw, forcing his head back to slow the bleeding.
“We’re in, let’s go.” My leg jiggled with the wolf’s urgency to run.
Isaac cranked the engine and got us angled toward the road. “There are napkins in the dash if that will help.”
“Good idea.” I fumbled behind me and fisted a handful, twisting them into slender plugs easier shoved up the witch’s nose. “Your clothes are trashed, you know that? How much did this shirt cost anyway? Probably more than I earn in a year.” Babble, babble. “Unless you know a spell that removes bloodstains. And if you do, is that something I can be taught? Living with wargs—you have no idea. Okay, you probably have some idea.”
“He’s going to be okay, Dell.”
Isaac’s calm voice sliced through my panic like a hot knife through butter. He sounded matter-of-fact and not placating, so I restrained the urge to snarl at him. Barely. “I hope you’re right.”
“Witches have no power of their own. They aren’t magical creatures like fae or wargs. They’re conduits. They channel energy bound to the elements, to the earth, and that requires finesse.” He hit the road out of town going a tick above the posted speed limit. “Ripping apart glamour that strong was the equivalent of sucking on a live wire. He burned out. He’ll recover in a day or two.”
“He’s bleeding like a stuck pig,” I growled. “We have to get it stopped, or it won’t matter if his magic will recover. He’ll be dead.” And his brother would curse the pack for allowing it to happen. Riding that unpleasant train of thought, I sent a quick mental tendril toward Abram. “We’ve got an unconscious witch bleeding all over the cab of Isaac’s truck. Meet me at the office?”
“Enzo’s hurt?” A slight hesitation as he processed what I’d said. “Wait a minute. Isaac’s with you?”
“Yes and yes.” I switched out the napkins for clean ones, and the blood kept dripping. “We’ll sort it all out when I get there.”
“All right,” he said with reluctance. “I’ll meet you at the office.”
“We’re almost there.” Isaa
c intruded on the conversation he wasn’t aware I was having. “Are you close enough to reach out to Abram? Can you have him meet us at the office?”
“Good idea. Why didn’t I think of that?” I snapped, getting my teeth involved. “Oh wait, I did.”
Isaac didn’t snap back. He kept his head facing forward, eyes on the road, and let me seethe in silence.
The trip dragged to the point where I half-decided I could get out, put Enzo in a fireman’s carry and run the rest of the way faster than Isaac was driving. But I resisted the urge, aware it was my nerves stretching out the miles and not the amount of pressure exerted by his boot on the pedal.
An eternity later, we hit the long driveway leading into Stone’s Throw. At the head of the road, a gleaming silver Airstream that may or may not still have an outline of my bare butt on one of its panels sat parked in the grass.
“This is as far as I can take you.” He threw the truck into park. “Get Enzo to help. You can drop the truck off once he’s stabilized since it looks like I won’t be allowed inside the wards any time soon.”
He didn’t have to ask me twice. I hopped out, circled the truck and ducked under his arm to get behind the wheel. I left him in a plume of smoke and braced for the shiver of magic about to sweep over us. It hit a second later, raising chills down my arms. I floored it through the icy cascade then braked harder than I should have in the parking lot. Enzo slumped forward, and I cursed under my breath.
I killed the ignition then jogged around the truck as if stuck in a twisted game of ring around the pickup.
“I’ve got him.” Moore wedged himself between me and the door, almost yanking it off its hinges and putting us in close proximity. My hackles might have raised if he hadn’t started lifting Enzo out with care that didn’t come naturally to him. “Abram’s waiting for us inside.”
“I’ll get the door.” I ran ahead and had it open by the time Moore arrived. “Abram, incoming!”
The doctor poked his head out of his glorified exam room and waved us in. “Put him on the table.”
Moore lowered the witch gently then retreated to a guard position near the exit.
Abram began a standard examination that ended with him frowning. “The good news is I’ve seen this before. It’s burnout. Mostly young witches get it when they draw more power than they know how to handle.”
Or when they’d rather win Macho Man of the Day than admit a task might be too large or dangerous for them to handle alone.
“For Enzo to be this crispy, he must have grabbed the source of all magic with both hands,” Abram continued. “What did he do?”
“He shattered the glamour on the parking lot at the Cantina.” I pushed the rogue hairs off his forehead back in line with the rest of their gel-set siblings. “Idiot. He should have admitted he couldn’t do it—or shouldn’t do it—instead of magically castrating himself.” Irritated at his recklessness, I ruffled his hair into disarray. That would show him when he woke up. “Isaac had already told us it was concealing Mr. O’Malley’s car. We could have waited and found an alternate method for clearing the lot.”
“There’s your problem.” Abram crossed to a cabinet and removed clear tubing and what suspiciously resembled a needle packet. “Your old flame showed up with a quick fix for a problem that’s been on your mind. Except Gemini don’t, as far as I know, break glamours. Since they can see through them, there’s no reason for that trait to have evolved in their race.”
“So Enzo decides to prove his superiority by almost dying to show me what Isaac couldn’t,” I summarized.
“That’s my official diagnosis,” Abram confirmed.
More blood covered his face and fancy clothes than was safe for a human to lose. Witches weren’t strictly human but, like wargs, humanity gave us our template. “Tell me, doc, will he die of stupidity?”
“Assuming we can transfuse him?” Abram hustled about the room. “He should be fine.”
“Transfuse…” I paled. “Do you know his blood type?”
“No, I don’t.” He gripped my shoulders and shoved me out into the hall. “That’s why I need you to get Isaac in here, now.”
Why I didn’t see that coming, I had no idea. But a trill of panic ran up my spine. Cam was not going to like this, but Cam wasn’t here to offer an alternative either.
Gemini were one of the chameleons of the fae world. They adopted traits from any person foolish enough to grant them blood rights. Even a drop altered their physiology temporarily. Enough that, say you needed a transfusion, they could match you.
“He can’t cross the wards.” And Enzo hadn’t told us how to lower them, assuming they could be shut down for short periods. “Isaac tried earlier and hit the barrier. He’s waiting at his trailer outside the gates.”
Abram cursed under his breath then waved toward Moore. “You carry the patient, and we’ll carry the supplies.”
I danced out of the way before Moore touched me. “Are you sure it’s safe to move him in his condition?”
“It’s move him or lose him.” Abram deferred to me. “You’re beta, you make the call.”
“Saving him sounds good.” I accepted all the implements he shoved into my arms and backed out the door, pinning it open while Moore slid through. “Here. Let me lower the tailgate. You can sit there and hold him.” It beat stuffing Enzo in and out of the cab again. Not that I was sure we could shut the door behind him, seeing as how it was hanging off its hinges. Moore settled, legs so long they almost dragged the ground, with Enzo held in a bride carry. “Sit tight.”
Abram slammed the passenger-side door shut as I hopped behind the wheel. As itchy as my right foot got, I kept us slow and steady until we passed under the cool ripple of the wards. This time, I rolled to a gentle stop. Dumping Moore off the tailgate was probably not the best method of promoting healing in our resident witch.
“Isaac,” I screamed as my feet hit the grass.
The door to his Airstream blasted open, bouncing off the exterior. “Dell?” Eyes wild, he skipped the steps and jumped to the ground, closing the distance between us with four long strides. “Are you okay?”
For the first time since Isaac’s unexpected return, I locked gazes with him. The moment stretched until my eyes got dry, and I blinked, eager to break that bone-searing connection. Seeing those baby blues pinched at the corners, raking over me for the slightest injury as if he would patch up my hurts by sheer will alone, gutted me.
“Enzo needs your blood.” I rubbed my palms on my thighs to dry them. “Will you help? Please?”
The weight of his attention pressed down on me, and I ducked my head to escape him.
“You’re lucky you used the P word,” he groused. “I don’t like to bleed.”
“Mind if we borrow your bed?” Abram didn’t wait for an answer. He stepped around Isaac and into the Airstream. “This won’t take long. A few hours at most.”
“Help yourself,” Isaac called to his retreating back.
“Coming through,” Moore bellowed as he followed Abram’s example by trudging past us up the stairs.
Isaac ruffled his hair. “I would have cleaned up if I’d known I was having guests.”
“Dell?” Abram cried out. “I need you.”
“That’s my cue.” I scooted past Isaac but froze with one hand on the siding and one foot on the first step. This trailer was the last place I wanted to be right now—or ever again. I sucked in a deep breath and hauled myself inside, battling vertigo against the richness of Isaac’s scent assaulting my nose. Breathing through my mouth helped a bit, so I gulped air that way until I reached the bedroom. “What do you need?”
Enzo occupied the right side of the bed. The worst part was the bleeding had slowed to a trickle. That couldn’t be good.
“It’s your lucky day,” Abram said distractedly. “You get to play nurse.”
The urge to promote Moore leapt to my tongue, but the sight of Enzo had blanched the ruddiness from his cheeks. Then again, he was a warg
. Blood was just another outfit we sometimes wore. Maybe it was the wicked-looking syringe resting on the mattress or the tubing coiled like a snake ready to strike on the comforter giving him the willies.
“You can wait outside,” I told him, and Moore bolted.
“Where do you want me?” Isaac asked from over my shoulder, his breath hot on my neck.
Abram patted the mattress. “Right here will do.”
Brushing past me, Isaac assumed the position. He stretched out across the left side of the bed, leaving a foot of space between his shoulder and Enzo’s. He extended his left arm and gripped Enzo at the elbow. The nail covering Isaac’s middle finger wiggled and dropped onto the sheets. The sight of the razor-sharp spur curving over his fingertip gave me sympathy pangs for what came next. While I watched, he jabbed the point deep into the meat of Enzo’s forearm. More blood welled, but the wound soon dried.
“Interesting.” Abram leaned forward, taking Isaac’s hand. “Does the spur produce a clotting enzyme?”
“You’ll have to ask the witch when he wakes.” A hard edge cut through Isaac’s voice as he yanked his hand back. “Cam bargained her blood to the Garzas once as payment for a favor. I’m sure he can tell you all kinds of interesting things about the tests he ran on her.”
“I’ll do that,” Abram said, appearing oblivious to the vitriol lurking beneath the remark.
The next half hour passed in a blur of crimson and needle points. Abram performed his tasks with quick efficiency that spoke to all his years in the field while I did the best I could to keep up with him. Once both patients were resting comfortably, Abram left the room. The sound of water coming from the kitchen told he me was washing the blood off his hands. I lingered in the doorway, torn between the impulse to run and the urge to stay.
“Dell?” He suffused my name with gentle chiding.
I shoved off the doorframe and walked the three steps into the kitchen. Abram dried his hands on a paper towel while I flopped into the booth-style table across from the sink.
“This will take a couple of hours. I gave Isaac a mild sedative in the hopes he’ll stop fidgeting long enough for the process to complete. He ought to be asleep in a few minutes.” He sat across from me. “That said, do you want to stay with them, or do you want me to?”
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