by Gwynn White
His laugh was quiet. “That’s a word I hear only rarely used to describe my kind,” he said.
“You should hear it more often.” I leaned onto his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around me, his inherent heat warding off evening chill.
The Rift whispered to me, telling me what I needed to do.
It whispered to Azar, too, I think.
I could almost hear his thoughts as I stood up and slipped away from the camp.
20
He chased after me, following my scent like it was his destiny. I was an obsession for him right now, and all Azar could think about was catching up to me.
His desire was visceral, instinctual, carnal, and it blazed out of him in waves of heat as he slipped into his fire-demon form, leaving his clothes in an untidy pile on the ground behind him.
But I was already gone, racing toward the one place I knew we could be entirely alone.
He finally caught up with me just as I was slowing down near the ruins of the building we’d stopped in the night before. He shifted back into his human form seamlessly, though it seemed like he never stopped moving towards me.
He stood before me, desire rolling off him in waves so hot I could see them shimmering in the air.
His lips met mine in a heated kiss, and soon, his hand was buried in my hair while his other arm pulled me closer. My own arms twined around his neck, my heart quickening in my chest, beating violently against my rib cage.
I managed to break free for a moment, just to catch my breath.
“You know what this means, right? You’ll be bound to me. Like the wolf.”
“Yes.” His voice raspy with need, Azar nodded in response and I reached for him, pulling him in to kiss me again.
I realized my hands were shaking as I touched him. In that moment, I was convinced I’d never been so frenzied, so overwhelmingly desperate to be with someone before.
I didn’t know if it was my own desire or the Rift’s.
Or maybe both.
But I didn’t care.
Now, with no reason to hold back, we were free to tear into each other.
Sex with a fire-demon—it was something I’d never considered.
I should have.
God, it was hot.
Both metaphorically and physically.
Everywhere he touched me, he left red marks on my pale skin—not hot enough to blister, but enough to remind me he’d been there.
His lips burned a path down my neck, his tongue flicking against the hollow at the base of my throat. I tilted my head back against the wall to give him even more access.
When he moved back up toward my mouth, I moaned at the loss of his heat on my neck. He captured my lips with his, swallowing the sound. His tongue swirled in my mouth, filling it with the steam of our kiss.
When he pulled away enough to gaze at me for a moment, his irises flashed orange, flames dancing behind them, carefully restrained to keep from hurting me, even as he pressed every part of his body against me.
Holding his gaze with mine, I pushed him back gently, giving myself enough room to unbutton my shirt and shrug it off, then drop my pants and kick them to one side.
The fire-demon’s eyes glowed.
“You are beautiful,” he said, his accent thicker with passion.
“As are you.” His slender height was strong, muscled.
With one hand, I reached out and touched his chest. It should have scorched my hand from the heat rolling off him, but it simply tingled, sending chills racing up through my arm and down into that magical core of me—the part of me that I’d shared so far with only Rafe.
But I knew, instinctively, that Azar’s touch would not burn away Rafe’s connection to me. That bond could not be destroyed by fire.
I had a space for each of them.
Almost reverently, Azar reached out to touch my cheek, his hands setting the passion smoldering within me ablaze.
The wall behind me was cool and slightly rough against my bare back, a contrast to the burning fire-demon before me.
Then he let the demon out—not enough to hurt me, not enough to burn.
But enough to almost make me wish for that—to wish for the power of fire to burn me to ashes, that I might rise again like a phoenix.
At the thought, the sound of the Rift echoed through me, opening me up to Azar’s fire, even as it opened him, and we both lost control.
I lost track of the magical threads burning through me, as the power flew apart, searing us together.
Afterward, I realized my body glowed with a slight orange light—the flame of our connection flickering beneath my skin.
“You’re mine,” I whispered.
“I am,” he said, his voice contented.
“And I will never let you be hurt, if I can do anything to help it.”
Azar laughed lightly and kissed me again. “I believe you.”
For a moment, the Rift was quiet within me.
No one made any comments when we returned to the campsite. But when I spooled a line of magic back into my hand, I could see threads of power tying me to both Rafe and Azar.
And from the way they both nodded when I glanced at them, they recognized the connections, too.
As I closed my eyes that night, the Rift flowed through me like a whisper rather than a hammer.
But I knew its voice would grow louder, more insistent, the longer I tried to ignore it.
You must have them all, it whispered to me.
All four.
21
We should have the genie just, like, wish us to the Rift,” Coit complained as we broke camp that next morning.
Even I had to admit that the thought was tempting. But I knew we couldn’t use my wishes once the djinni had made his discontent with his bondage clear.
Sure, we could get him to grant us another wish or even two.
But the magical debt we would incur would be much worse than anything we now faced.
The Rift would make sure of that. I knew it as surely as I knew that Rafe and Azar were mine, that I could draw upon their power when it came time to use my own magic.
With a grim expression, Zehr made to follow us back into the ruined streets of Brochan City.
I paused, biting my lip. “Wait, everyone.” The four men I traveled with stopped, drawing back in toward the shelter we’d used the night before.
Turning to Zehr, I took his hands in mine, gazing deep into his eyes. “Zehr, I set you free from your bondage.”
He blinked at me. “You don’t have that power.”
My lips tilted up in a slight smile. “I’ve been rehearsing this one.” The Rift whispered its approval through me. “Zehr, I wish for your complete freedom from the bondage that has kept you tied to the lamp and to those who would compel wishes from you.”
“You have two more wishes,” he said warily. “Are you certain this is the wish you make?”
“I am.”
His hands fell away to his sides, as if freed from invisible bonds. He stared at them blankly for a moment.
“I can go?” he asked, sounding stunned.
I dropped my pack to the ground and pulled the lamp out of it. Without its connection to Zehr’s magical geas, it no longer sparkled and drew me to it.
But Zehr did. His blue skin flickered with magic, its pull as strong as the bottle’s had been before.
“Here,” I said, handing the lamp to him. “You may go where you will. Where you wish.”
“And if I do not stay with you, how can I repay my debt to you?”
I tilted my head and studied him for a long moment. Then I shrugged. “That’s for you to decide. As far as I’m concerned, there is no debt.” I closed my eyes and spun a tiny thread of magic around us, testing. “The magic is satisfied.” I opened my eyes. “Whether or not you will ever be content that you’ve done enough? That’s up to you.”
Zehr stared at the ornate lamp in his hands, and then, with one sudden motion, he dashed it to the ground, where it sh
attered into a million pieces.
He rolled his hand in front of him in a bow almost as elaborate as the lamp had been. “I give you my gratitude willingly—and for as long as we should travel together, until our paths diverge, I give you my loyalty and protection.”
His words blew through me like a blast of air blowing away old dust, picking up the thread of connection and carrying it aloft to him, where he made another of his complex hand gestures and drew it into himself.
“And thus I join your quest,” he said quietly.
I simply nodded and struck out again.
The entire thing couldn’t have taken more than a moment or two—and yet it shook me, bound me, held me as tightly as the sexual connections I had made with Rafe and Azar.
Not all love is physical, the Rift whispered to me.
So we traveled through that shattered city, over crushed buildings, across the derelict cityscape toward the Rift.
Always toward the Rift, as if it exerted its own gravity, drawing us ever closer.
Until finally, we reached it—a gaping hole in the world.
Part III
Spirit
22
I didn’t quite have the nerve to enter the church immediately, however.
I heard the Rift whispering to me, its meaning lost in the repetition of words, of power undefined and incomplete.
Love, desire, hate, need, trust.
Although it still offered an entrance, the building no longer contained the Rift. That hole in the world erupted in power, blowing the roof away. I imagined flying apart in the shower of shingles and rock.
Now, the Rift arced up and away, like a white, sparking rainbow that never landed.
We weren’t the only ones there.
The power it shot out misted down, as well. There were pilgrims who came simply to walk through that mist, determined to take away some of its power.
And sometimes the Rift allowed it.
All around the church, people gathered in small groups.
I began to truly understand the things the Rift had been whispering to me.
“The slavers don’t often get this close,” Rafe said as I came to a stop about ten feet from the door.
“No,” Zehr said. “The Rift considers all pilgrims its own. Sometimes a slaver will grow bold and begin taking victims from near Rift’s End. But that doesn’t last long.”
I glanced up at the djinni. “What does the Rift do?”
His pale blue, aristocratic face turned grim. “I’ve seen it destroy men, explode them with a single lash of its power. I’ve also seen it lift them up and take them in, sucking them through to who knows what universe.”
That certainly squared with my sense of the Rift. It was a jealous God, petty and capricious and desiring to be worshiped and loved. Anyone who came to its shores hoping to profit from the pain of others without making an appropriate sacrifice to the Rift was likely to find himself at the mercy of the Rift’s wrath.
That Zehr’s reminder of that came at the moment we arrived seemed like some kind of divine providence. I took two steps toward the entrance of the church, my entourage of men following me. When I stopped they stepped up to flank me in a protective semicircle, two to each side.
And I fell in.
I moved through Rift-dreams, dipping in and out of them faster and faster, no longer even sure who I was in any of them.
23
Trade winds. That’s what I remembered from the guidebook I had ordered from my favorite online bookstore. Part of what made the climate so hospitable was the mild temperature, aided by year-round trade winds cooling down the West Indies island. Rummaging around inside the oversized beach bag I was using as a carry-all, I pulled the book out, flipping once again through its already dog-eared and worn pages.
Trade winds were part of what had made the island such a popular colonial shipping point, too. As much as I looked forward to visiting the old sugar mills that dotted the island, my stomach turned at the thought of the slavery that had both produced and stemmed from the sugar cane trade.
The quality of the silence surrounding me made Ava look up from the book. The driver was gone.
Bathroom break, maybe?
Not here, the Rift whispered to me.
No. Move on, I agreed.
24
Ever since that one night three years ago, Jane’s motto had apparently been the farther away the better, at least when it came to me.
I was fine with that.
Better an honest distance than an insincere closeness.
That’s what I told myself, anyway.
But now I had to go to a party with her there.
As usual when faced with an uncertainty like that, I felt a twinge at the thought of navigating yet another social situation. Numbers made sense to me. My friend Leo was the one who understood the equations of people. I never would fully comprehend why Leo had chosen me to befriend, but people were unpredictable. That was the point of all this.
Much more unpredictable, even, than the gas and oil wells I worked with as a petroleum engineer.
Anyway, speaking to Jane in a social setting without Leo there was dangerous. Look what had happened the last time I’d tried it.
No, I decided as the driver slammed the door and the shuttle pulled away from the hotel. Better to sit here and check out the colorful buildings flashing by outside the window than to risk saying anything that Leo might not approve of.
I struggled to the surface of myself, then dropped back down into the Rift-dreams.
25
Every bullrider knows the ride is magic; they all know it, though they can't always say it. They know the numbers, too, most of them, the good ones. They know that a bull weighs just about 10 times more than a man—assuming they're both average. But they're never average. Every cowboy who comes in here's got something special, even if it's the same special the last cowboy came in scraping off his boots.
They know that sometimes their gloves mean more than their boots, though in the natural order of things, they generally have twice as many boots. They know that eight seconds is the magic number. They know that ninety points will bring in a purse but seventy-five or eighty will keep them in.
Cowboys know that number magic; they run those numbers every day, count them in their hats and on their hands, follow that purse magic from city to city wherever it goes. Cowboys' magic numbers are clean and precise, even when the bulls aren't.
It's a magic incomplete, though. That number magic plays a shell-game with money; it's there, but almost never where it should be.
I can tell this one's a counter, leaning on the rails and staring between the bars into the arena. He watches the numbers, follows the bulls. He has counting fingers, tapping on the edge of his chaps—not anxious, just watching. Counting. Adding up who knows what—a debt to pay off? A girl to marry? In any case, he's the one to watch.
He's flowing magic through those fingers.
By the time they're fifteen, most cowboys know bone magic, too. They count it in snapped wrists, taped ribs, blown knees, backs that don't stand straight anymore before they’re thirty. They count it when it rains when they're young, even more when they are old.
Cowboy magic is in the blood: soaking into the dirt and disappearing under thousands of pounds of hooves. It's all in your head, all in your mind, but sometimes I forget to tell you it's all in your brains and your brains are all in the mud and the dirt and the blood.
Cowboy magic is in the flight. Cowboy magic is on-the-fly.
But rodeo magic is not cowboy magic.
Sometimes the cowboys forget that
But rodeo magic is in the dirt, soaked in blood and shit and matted with hay until it's swept out, away from the grieving families.
And back to those of us who need it.
“Help me,” I managed to mutter aloud, pulling out of the dreams enough to beg.
26
My hands were still wrapped around the two guns when I woke the next morn
ing. Of course, I knew that guns weren't necessarily all that useful when killing werewolves. Or vampires, or ghouls, or demons. Fairies tended to hate them, but I really didn't run up against that many of the Fae in New Mexico or Texas. As far as I knew, they preferred the forests of the Pacific Northwest.
But every one of those creatures can feel pain, and that's what guns are good for: making monsters think twice about coming at me.
Last time we hunted together, Nadine had preferred a hella-sharp blade, slightly curved and completely wicked looking. Cassidy was the strongest magic user among us, though we all three had trained to be proficient in all the standard methods of creature-killing.
I took the opportunity for a long shower where the hot water never ran out, though I took the weapons bag into the bathroom with me and locked the door behind me.
Once I had dressed in clean clothes from the go-bag, I brewed a cup of crappy hotel coffee, and try to decide what I was going to do next.
Closing my eyes, I drew on what little magic I had. My sense of the ripples of power surrounding me was weaker up on the third floor — I always did better with magic when I was in direct contact with the ground. Still, I was able to tell that there were no supernaturals in the hotel, or immediately outside. It was at least safe enough for me to go get breakfast in the tiny dining room, and then check out.
Before I left the safety of my room, though, I needed to try to figure out what my next step would be.
I knew what I needed to do.
I just didn't want to.
But no matter how long I paced back and forth in that room, no other answer came to me.
I was going to have to go talk to Daddy.
That one, I thought. That one was almost right.
My head spun with the realization.
The Rift-dreams—they were the Rift’s way of helping me find Brodric.