Especially since Ron was lobbing another energy pulse at Colin and her. Only half-standing, she pushed from her heels and fell through the doorway, tumbling off a porch into a sandy patch of grass.
She was all tangled up with Colin. She eased him off herself, found a grenade, held it up to the night sky so that she could verify that it had a pin, and pulled it with her teeth. Swearing, she lobbed it at the doorway as hard as she could just as Ron appeared. His eyes widened.
The grenade went off. The house went up with a fiery concussion that threw her backwards onto her ass. Burning debris flew everywhere and she screamed and covered her ears, throwing herself over Colin.
Only, she didn’t hear herself scream. The world had gone silent. Had her eardrums burst? She looked down at Colin, whose eyes were open, and whose lips were moving. She shook her head and looked fearfully back at the wreckage. Ron and the woman; were they still in there? Were they dead?
She trembled and dry-heaved. Then Colin’s hand was on her forehead, and then he clamped his hand on her shoulder. Hard. He shook her. He was looking up in the blackness, and he was freaking out.
She followed his line of sight. The helicopter was hovering above them.
And Xavier Amaya—who was dead—was at the controls.
CHAPTER NINE
Bridget stared in shock at Xavier as he brought the helicopter down until it hovered just inches from the ground. He was wearing body armor and he gestured to her urgently to come to him. It really was Xavier Amaya, olive-skinned and alive, not his fish-belly-white phantom. She read his dark eyes, silently ordering her to get up and climb aboard.
Something slammed into the ground beside her knee—bullet, energy ball?—and it galvanized her into action. She started dragging Colin toward the chopper. He’s dead, he’s freaking dead, her mind argued, but resistance fighters on the ground were converging on the helicopter. Shots were ricocheting off the window. Xavier made some kind of hand motion and Colin was instantly so light he nearly floated away. Bridget guided more than carried him to the helicopter. Xavier remained at the controls. He was speaking to her. She shook her head and said—or hoped she did—“I can’t hear you.”
He nodded, then made some more gestures, and Colin was aboard. Bullets kicked up sand around her feet as she hoisted herself into the helicopter and Xavier took off. They shot into the black sky. Below, the wreckage of the Art Deco structure blazed.
Colin opened his eyes and said, “Where are we?”
She heard each syllable, and she glanced over at Xavier.
“Fix him. He’s hurt,” she ordered Xavier. “And give him a leg and an eye.”
Xavier frowned, looking puzzled, but murmured in what sounded like Latin—she and Colin had watched a lot of horror movies, and priests were always speaking in Latin to beat back the Devil—and Colin smiled and said, “Oh yeah.” He gestured to his face. “Two eyes?” he asked her.
“Yes. Two,” she said, sagging with relief and giving him a hug, then looking over at Xavier, who smiled.
Bridget crawled up into the chair to Xavier’s right. He glanced over at her and gave her a nod, but his attention was on flying the helicopter.
“Bridget Flynn, right?” he asked her.
She gave him a look. “Yes. As you already know. So, what? You’re back from the dead?”
He smiled faintly.
“I haven’t died yet,” he said.
“I have bad news for you,” she began, but he held up a finger.
“Please, take this,” he said.
Then he reached down to the left and picked something up with one hand. It looked like a crystal ball, only it was filled with purple, indigo, and black swirls that ran into each other, mingled, and glittered. She contracted slightly, putting distance between herself and it. With an air of impatience, he placed it in her lap. It was warm.
“Colin,” he said. “Come up here, please. Put one of your hands on the crystal and both of you, stare into it.”
“Why? What is it? What’s going to happen?” Bridget demanded, making as if to hand it back to him. But he was working the helicopter controls. “I’m not doing anything until you answer a few questions. I saw you die. And you tried to kill me.”
“I would never have tried to kill you.” He glanced over at her. “You were my year wife.”
“I was?” she said cautiously. And she wasn’t now? Was she free?
Then the sky lit up with brilliance and he shouted, “Stare into the crystal now!”
Something hit the chopper and it lurched to the left. She heard a crack, and then nothing but Xavier yelling at her to stare into the crystal. The rotor blades had stopped spinning, and the helicopter began to plummet through the sky.
CHAPTER TEN
“Give me the chair. I can fly this thing,” Colin said, as the copter swooped earthward.
“Stare into the crystal or you’re going to die!” Xavier shouted.
Oh, my God, it was Colin’s last Halloween, Bridget thought frantically. She did as not-dead Xavier ordered, staring at the colors as hard as she could. Deep blue, dark purple, ebony, mixing and shimmering, separating, tangling and weaving and darting and—
“Oh, shit, shit,” Colin said, and she was about to shut her eyes and brace for impact when Xavier grabbed her by the chin and forced her attention back to the sphere.
Something glinted off the windshield, nearly blinding her. It was the blaze of the bonfire in the courtyard of the Amayas’ mansion on Shadow Island. And she, and Colin, and Xavier were standing on the ground, facing the same assembled crowd who were wearing their finery—the dresses, the tuxes, the flowers and the half-masks—whom she had seen on Halloween night. And all of them were cheering and applauding.
The firelight gleamed on the angles and shadows of Xavier’s incredible face. He pressed both his hands on either side of Bridget’s face and leaned forward as if to kiss her. Instead, he said, “Brava.”
“What the hell?”
She jerked herself free and took a step toward Colin, who was holding the crystal between his hands. His leg was still there. And so was his eye.
“Bienvenidos. Welcome,” said the masked man with the goatee. Xavier’s father, as she recalled. “If you don’t mind,” he added as he took the sphere from Colin and carried it to a small table beside the bonfire. There he set it on a pedestal, to louder cheers and more applause.
A flamenco guitar began to play the same song Bridget had heard the night before. There was so much that was the same—she was even wearing the same clothes. Except…so much had happened.
Removing his mask, Xavier’s father came up beside Xavier and the two embraced. Then the older man turned to Bridget and Colin and said, “Xavier will explain. Once you have decided, he’ll let me know.” He bent forward and kissed Bridget on the cheek. “We won’t be so hasty this time.”
Xavier’s father rejoined the crowd. The same older woman who had danced with him swayed toward him, raising her hands in the air. So did the couple Anita and José. It was like watching a play for the second time.
“Come with me,” Xavier said to both Flynns. “Please.”
He led them around the courtyard toward the mansion. Bridget watched the torchlight play over his tall, lanky frame. She had seen him dead.
The mansion doors opened as they approached, and heady, sensual scents wafted toward them: ginger and jasmine and sandalwood. They walked across the threshold into a magnificent bower of hundreds if not thousands of exquisite flowers. Three wicker high-backed chairs appeared around a wicker table laden with liquor bottles, glasses and ice, and a heaping tray of Cuban sandwiches.
“Unless you would prefer champagne and hors d’oeuvres,” Xavier said.
“Are you kidding? This sucker’s mine,” Bridget said, reaching for a bottle of Scotch.
Xavier got to it first. He opened it and handed it to her. She took a long pull and handed it to Colin, who did the same. The fiery liquor spread through her veins and took the edge off
, just a little. After a moment’s hesitation, Colin passed it to Xavier, who threw back, then pressed it into Bridget’s hand. Then he gave Colin a fresh bottle, and selected a bottle of rum for himself.
The three sank into the high-back chairs. Bridget held on tightly to her bottle to conceal how badly her hands were shaking. She’d reached her limit of bizarreness long before Xavier’s return from the dead.
“Let me explain, before you burst,” Xavier said, looking at her. “I’m not sure what you know, so be patient. I was married last Samhain to Maria del Carmen Caracol of the House of the Devil. The Caracols are our enemies. We are the Amayas, of the House of the Spirit.”
“Like I said, superpowers,” Colin muttered under his breath. Bridget wasn’t certain that Xavier heard him.
“Marica stole a crystal like the one I handed you in the helicopter. Her family believes it belongs to them, but there are actually three crystals. They don’t know about the other two. We had two, and we’ve been looking for the third. Now we have one, and they have one.
“And all three of them can be used for a number of things, including time travel,” he continued.
He paused, as if to let that sink in. Bridget gaped at him as she put two and two together.
“You’re from the past. You’re from before you died.”
He inclined his head. “That’s one way of looking at it. But time can be very confusing. Do you know what day this is?”
“November first,” she replied, and he shook his head.
“Samhain. Again. What you call Halloween,” he explained to Colin. “We have all gone back in time.”
“No way,” Colin protested. “I was never here on Halloween. Marica came over to my house to get ready for Bridge’s party.”
“When was that?” Xavier asked.
“Around nine. In her Jag.”
“It’s eight-thirty,” Xavier said, glancing at a Rolex Bridget hadn’t noticed before. “She hasn’t shown up yet, and you won’t be there. Because you’re here.” He gestured to Colin’s bottle. “You look like you could use another drink.”
Colin glanced over at Bridget. “Think I’ll slow down.”
“You’re still married to Marica,” Bridget ventured. “And…not me.”
“And that’s what we need to talk about. That marriage will soon end. And I’ll be free to marry again.” Xavier leaned forward in his chair. She remembered the softness of his lips when he kissed her, the promise—or was it the threat?—of passion to come.
“Dude, you are not getting anywhere near my sister,” Colin growled. “We’re getting the hell out of here.”
“It’s not up to you,” Xavier said, gazing at Bridget. “Your sister is the older twin. In magic, she is the more powerful. And the leader.”
Despite herself, Bridget guffawed and Xavier grinned at her. “You have my sympathies. I’m an older sibling, too.”
“Whatever,” she said curtly, trying not to fall under the spell of his intense charisma. Colin had gotten them into this mess by succumbing to Marica’s wiles. She wasn’t going to plunge them right back in by doing the same thing.
“You turned the day back,” she said. “So now Marica doesn’t know Colin has a twin and she is never going to.” She gave her brother a look. “California’s nice.”
“I love it already,” he affirmed. “We’ll send for our stuff later.”
“This isn’t our war,” Bridget said, screwing the top back on her bottle and setting it on the table. “We got sucked into this by accident. We’re done.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Colin said.
“But it is your war. You’re Favored. You have magical power, and someone is going to use it if you don’t. Use you,” Xavier warned.
“Here we go again,” Bridget said with asperity. “We already got this sales talk from Leo.”
He jerked at the name. “Leo was there? You met him?”
I had sex with him, she thought, then picked up a sandwich so he wouldn’t be able to read the expression on her face. It wasn’t so much that she felt she had to answer to him. It was just…she didn’t want him to know.
“I think Leo and I could have been good allies,” Xavier said wistfully.
She raised a brow. “He said the same thing about you.”
He looked startled, and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to entangle herself in their drama.
“His sister is psycho,” Colin said. “Why the hell did you marry her, bro?”
She winced at the “bro.” She started to stand up when Xavier put his and over hers. “I need to talk to you alone.”
“Not happening.” Colin glowered at him. “And take your hand off her or I’ll break it.”
“Colin,wait,” Bridget said. “He gave you back your leg. And your eye.”
“Bribes. Go ahead. Take ‘em back.”
“I never will,” Xavier said, not letting go of Bridget. “Please. We have to talk.”
“Colin, It’s okay,” she said.
“Bullshit,” he spat.
“Go,” she insisted.
Swearing, Colin hefted himself out of the chair and stomped away. When he was out of earshot, Bridget yanked her hand away from Xavier.
“If you take his leg away, I’ll take something of yours away. And unless ‘Favored’ means more than I think it does, you won’t have one left.”
He laughed. Then he said calmly, “How did Leo persuade you to have sex with him?”
“Excuse me?” she blurted. She felt her cheeks stain scarlet.
“My father told me that when you first came to us, you were a virgin in the sense of magical powers. And now you aren’t. The Favored world is different from yours,” he said gently. “We don’t view sex as an expression of love. Pleasure is power.”
“Yeah, well, welcome to the twenty-first century,” she said, fighting to get rid of the heat on her skin. “I’m not sure how many people see it as an expression of love either, nowadays.”
He looked intrigued. “You’re a romantic.”
“What I am doesn’t matter.”
“All you would be giving up is the illusion of a limited life,” he said. “There’s so much you’d be able to do once I showed you how. Conjuring. Some of us have premonitions. As it is, you will age very slowly, and there will be questions.” From somewhere on the table, he put a glass of red wine to his lips. “I’m older than I look.”
“Thirty-five,” she guessed, and his eyes twinkled.
“A hundred and fifty-seven.”
“Holy shit.”
“I’ve always felt sorry for Untouched. They burn out so quickly. Since you and Colin are twins, you’ll probably age even more slowly than us.” He sipped his wine. “There’s nothing you can do to be Untouched, Bridget. You’re Favored, and you always will be.”
“No one else will know about us,” she insisted. “You took care of that for us.”
“The thing about changing time is that there may be pieces of the old reality that leak through. My family was briefed on what was going to happen tonight. Desperate times require desperate measures.”
“These are times that try men’s souls,” she riposted. But she was startled to realize that she remembered all of it—the before and the after. Was that normal? How much would change now that she and Colin had Halloween to relive?
“You know what I want.” He leveled his gaze at her. “To marry you before the last stroke of midnight tonight. My family needs this alliance. We need fresh blood, both magically and physically. And we can help you. You and your brother are alone.”
“What do you mean, ‘physically’?” she cut in, and he looked pained.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“But you did.”
He was quiet for a moment, as if trying to make a decision. Finally, he nodded, and took another sip of wine.
“We Favored are dying out,” he said plainly. “We don’t get along—we’re all too strong-willed—and we hardly ever marry ou
tside our Houses. We have children ever more rarely than that. Even before all our wars, we were inbreeding too much. And—”
“Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa.” She held up her hands.
“I didn’t mean to imply that I wanted to have a child together,” he said. But it was written all over his face that that was exactly what he’d been talking about.
“You’re such a bullshitter.” She was indignant. “Is that how you’re going to help poor Colin and me? Use me as breeding stock?”
“No,” he said. “Absolutely not.”
“Just zap me and alakazam! I’m pregnant?”
A smile played on his lips. “Not by zapping you. No worries, Bridget. Favored women control the reproductive process. You can’t have a baby by accident. You have to will it to happen. Just you. Not me.”
“So you say.”
“Marry me for one year,” he said. “Live here, where you’ll be safe. You and Colin both. We’ll teach you how to use your powers. We’ll protect you.”
“And when you and the Caracols go after each other again, you’ll deploy your secret weapons the Flynn kids. Just like they wanted to do.”
He looked at her long and hard. She could almost hear the seconds ticking as a chasm of silence formed between them. What was it about his eyes that was so hypnotic? What would it be like to go to bed with a guy who could turn back time and keep himself from dying? Had kept her and Colin from dying?
“That was my intent,” he confessed. “My hope. My family’s hope. But no. I’ll take it off the table. For this year marriage, my gift to you will be peace and shelter. And discovery. I’ll show you what you are, and what you can become.”
He held out his hand, simply, an entreaty, a pledge. “Or I’ll help you leave. I’ll shield you so you can run away and I will never bother you again. If that’s what you want.”
It’s not running away, she thought, but she knew, deep in her heart, that he was right. They were something else. Something they hadn’t known they were, or wanted to be.
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