by Lucy Smoke
He stops so abruptly, I fear his legs will continue walking with him or he will fall down the long grand staircase. Blue eyes widen when they see us. “Good,” he says. “You’re back. I was just about to come get you.” Though his words aren’t concerning, his tone of voice is.
My headache is raging now, incomparable to anything else I’ve ever felt and though I know I should be worried as we climb the staircase, it’s all I can do to put one foot in front of the other. Coen takes my elbow and watches me as we reach the last few steps.
“Are you okay?” he asks. I start to nod, but my chin drops to my chest and I can’t pick it back up. Darkness creeps into the edges of my vision as my knees buckle under the weight and strain of holding my own body up. He catches me before I eat marble on Richard’s shiny, clean, staircase.
“Booker… not going to like this... she needs...sooner rather than later.” Titus’s voice, strong and warm, drifts in and out of my consciousness. How did I make it all the way back to the Courtyard? My legs had felt like frozen noodles dusted in snow the entire walk back.
The steady motion of my hair swinging over Coen’s arm is like a strong shot of whiskey in my stomach, settling me enough to put me to sleep, but it hurts to think about how I got here. The more I consider how I got in Coen’s arms, the more I think about the sharp thudding against my skull and where it’s coming from.
When I close my eyes and try to pinpoint its location, the signal bounces me around. I end up chasing the painful throbbing from my front temples to the area behind my left eye to the base of my spine at the back of my neck. I sink further inside, trying to grab the string of shredded thoughts the pain has interrupted and left behind like a trail of breadcrumbs leading me back to a tiger’s lair.
“...hear me? Nerys, can you hear me?” Something taps my cheek.
“She’s not waking up,” Holden says, but I know I’m awake, or I wouldn’t hear them so well.
Why can’t I see them?
“It’s getting worse.” Coen’s tone is shaking with emotion. “What do we do? How do we fix her?”
“It’s not her we need to fix.” The strong factual tone of Booker’s voice is still there. Hidden beneath is an unsteady tremble to his words. “It’s the spirit guide.”
“They are one in the same.”
“This is not the time for philosophical thought,” Booker barks. “Unless you have an idea on how to help her, then keep your opinions to yourself.” A tense silence ensues and I wish I could open my eyes and see them, because I would smack the crap out of Booker for yelling at Luca like that. Before I can even work up the energy, not that I could, because I have none, Booker speaks again. “I’m sorry, that was unnecessary.”
“You worry for her. I understand,” Luca assures him. My head aches like I’m stuck in a vacuum that’s sucking all of my strength away. It hurts to listen when the darkness that took my vision is edging along the barriers of my consciousness, wanting to spill over and take me under.
“Did you find anything out?” Coen asks. It’s a moment before someone answers and when they do, it’s not Booker or Luca as I would have guessed.
“We did,” Titus announces.
“It is not a solution we’re willing to take.” Booker is back to growling and Luca is strangely quiet.
“What did you find?” Holden asks.
“Someone who might be able to help her,” Titus answers. Something cracks in the distance like wood splitting apart. The room is silent once more.
“Why does this make you so angry?” The sound of Holden’s lyrical voice fades as the distance between us increases. My anxiety bubbles up.
“He cannot be trusted.”
“Well, we should know what options she has,” Coen interrupts. The vibration of his words make me realize he’s still holding me to his chest. “Were you not going to tell her? Shouldn’t we let her make the decision?”
There’s a sigh from somewhere in the room, but I can’t tell who. “Nothing good can come from working with an alchemist, especially a criminal.”
"Booker.” There’s a distinct hurt in Holden’s tone and I don’t understand it. I don’t like it. There’s another silence before I hear Booker murmur a few words to Holden. Their voices fade in an out like something to be heard underwater from far away. I can’t differentiate the words.
“He’ll work with us if we pay him,” Titus says. “He’ll be loyal for money.”
“People like him are never loyal. Someone can always offer him more money.”
“He may be the only chance she has. Who else would be able to perform such an intense ceremony to break the binding? The binding itself was done by Gods not a priest or warlock, Gods. We need someone powerful—”
“Don’t you think I know that? She is powerful. She can do it, I know she can. She just needs more time,” Booker replies.
“Does it look like she has the ability right now?” Titus’s voice is strained. “She doesn’t have time.” I’ve never heard him so angry. Usually, his intensity is reserved, hidden. I knew there was a fire building, but Booker has crawled over the top of his walls and unleashed the fury that resides inside. “Look at her! She’s not even conscious. She’s going to keep getting worse until we do something. So you tell me, druid,” the way he spits the last word it sounds like a curse.
I hate listening to them fight. What’s worse is that I can’t do a damn thing about it. I can’t just roll out of Coen’s arms, place my hands on my hips, and demand that they stop acting like trollfaces. Yelling at each other isn’t doing anything but building more pressure. Booker never answers, or if he does, I don’t hear because the darkness that was slowly slipping over the edges of my walls suddenly comes pouring over like a waterfall and knocking me further under its weight until I can’t feel, see, or hear anything more.
⚜⚜⚜
Someone had put a space heater right next to me. I knew it was getting colder outside, it had even started to snow, but the warmth against my side was ridiculous. I squirm, trying to lessen the heat and wiggle away. When the space heater wiggles with me and returns to the same spot as before, my eyelids fly open. It’s not a space heater at all. It’s a dog.
“Luca.” My whisper wakes him and his puppy ears perk up, long snout dragging away from his crossed paws. I smile and scratch his head. Luca makes a little doggy noise and rumbles appreciatively, leaning even harder against me. All that skin and fur is cute, but he’s warmer than the Sun God and I move my lower half away from his to find some relief.
“He’s been like that for a while.” I jerk my gaze up and Booker is standing against the opposite side of the room, his arms crossed, making the muscles there seem bigger. “He was worried.”
“I’m fine now.” I wonder if I should tell them about what I had heard. Booker watches me as if looking for a sign that I’m going to keel over at any second. I rub my palm over Luca’s muzzle and down his long neck. He noses into my lap before dropping his weight on my thighs. I grunt and cast him an amused smirk.
“Is he too heavy?” Booker asks. “I can have him move.”
Luca lifts his head and turns to Booker with a bleary-eyed look.
“He’s fine. If I didn’t want him on me, I would shove him off.”
Luca’s head swings back to me and I can almost swear he’s the one smirking at me now. He lowers until he’s back in his original spot. “What happened?” I ask.
There’s a moment of silence and I watch as several emotions flicker across Booker’s face. I wait patiently, hoping that Booker will tell me the truth despite his angry words with the guys. “It’s…” A pained grimace tugs his mouth down. “Are you sure you want to know now?” he asks suddenly. “Wouldn’t you rather wait and heal first?”
“I told you, I’m fine. I’d rather know than not.”
He sighs. “You... you’re not…” Booker deflates, his arms uncrossing and hanging by his sides. He strides across the room and is sitting next to me before I even blink. “You’r
e not getting better, Nerys. Did you find anything at the Pharaoh’s library that might help?” He takes my free hand. “Anything at all?”
I shake my head. The only thing of use Coen and I had found were old stories about the Gods and power of the Original Priestess turned Spirit Goddess, Ngame. It wasn’t like we could call upon a Goddess though to take away the very binding she had helped put in place. His face is crestfallen.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, reaching up and tracing his cheek. He blinks at me as though he’s surprised by my actions but recovers quickly. “What did you find?” I ask.
“There is a man that can do such a thing as unbind a soul.” He frowns. “He’s an alchemist for hire, a criminal.”
“And he can unbind my spirit guide?”
Booker looks like he has taken a bite of the most sour and rotten fruit anyone has ever tasted, but he nods. “He can, but I don’t trust him.”
“What about him don’t you trust?” Luca wiggles closer, a paw on my thigh.
“He’s greedy,” Booker spits. “And greedy people can’t be trusted. If Hans thinks he’ll get more money from someone else, he’ll try.”
“Does he know?” I see Booker’s point. If this Hans, the alchemist, wants to, he can sell us out for a fortune. “About me?” I ask. “About the spirit guide?”
“He knows that you’re special. Not your name, who you are, or...the rest. But, he knows that you’re important.” Luca glances between us. “But, it’s possible he might put two and two together.”
“What do you mean?” Luca’s back stiffens under my gentle caresses and I lean down, pressing a kiss to his ear.
“Matric knows all of us now. Do you remember the highwaymen you ran into before you arrived at Ragnarok?” Vaguely, but I do recall a few men–boys, really–and their father and their threats and the ensuing argument between Coen, Titus, Holden, and I. “Well, they went to Matric to complain about a young woman outside of his kingdom attacking and robbing them.”
“I didn’t rob them!”
“I know,” Booker says. “We know that. I suspect that they expected the King to send someone out to capture you. It was a revenge ploy for them. They couldn’t have known that you were a fugitive.”
“So he knows that I am the daimon then. Are you sure?” There are six of us total, four from his kingdom. How can he pinpoint which of us is the daimon?
“Think about it, Nerys,” Booker says. “Five men, all traveling with one girl. Why would you be with us if you weren’t the daimon?”
“You’re my friends,” I say. “Whether I’m a daimon or not.” Luca licks my fingers. I grin down at him and run my fingers through his fur.
“You wouldn’t have met us if it hadn’t been for your spirit guide.” I stay quiet for another few moments.
“So, he knows then.” It’s not a question, merely a statement of fact now. Booker nods anyway.
“The bounty hunters you and Holden…” he trails off for a second before shaking himself. “Well, that didn’t exactly help us. Matric’s soldiers picked them up as well.” If he doesn’t already know and I suspect he might if he’s learned so much in the short amount of time we’ve been in Cephei then I need to tell him about what else happened with the bounty hunters. “Nerys?” He ducks his head to look at me and when I don’t respond, he grips my chin and tilts it back until his green eyes are hovering over my face. “Is there more?”
“I think I’m a bomb waiting to explode.” I whisper the words, the fear comes rushing out of me and the look of surprise that briefly crosses his features molds into one of concern.
“Keep talking,” he demands and I do. I tell him everything about Holden and me and how my skin heated and I burned one of the bounty hunters. I tell him about feeling like I’m going to combust or hurt someone. I tell him about Titus and escaping Ragnarok and the kiss. I talk so much that my lungs burn with soreness and my throat dries up. When I’m done, Luca’s body is frozen half on me, half hanging onto the side of the bed and Booker is silent. Several seconds go by and all I can hear is our collective breathing and the sound of my heartbeat thudding in my ears.
“You kissed Titus?” the question comes from a familiar voice in the doorway. Holden and Coen are at the forefront. I don’t know which of them voiced the question. Titus lingers behind them, his blue eyes blazing with heat as he stares at me. I know I’ve sailed right into a storm.
Chapter 12: The Storm
“You kissed him?”
“Yes, Coen.” I sigh for the hundredth time. “I kissed him.”
He had been the one to ask and the one to keep repeating the question as though he couldn’t believe the answer. I got the feeling that he was more surprised than anything else. Although there is a definite undercurrent of something else, a part of me doesn’t want to pick it apart right now. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye from my position on the bed. I just need time to focus on not dying and then I’ll deal with the repercussions of my actions.
Coen cups his hand around his neck and looks back and forth between Titus and I. “So are you two…together?”
My eyes shoot over to Titus. But he, too, is watching me, waiting for an answer. “I don’t…um…we’re…we haven’t exactly talked about—”
“Perhaps this is a conversation we should all save for later,” Booker says, saving me from stuttering out an awkward answer I’m not sure I have yet. Holden snickers. Luca lays his muzzle across my thighs.
Titus’s burning blue gaze watches me and I can feel my skin heating up. We really should have discussed the kiss before I revealed it to Booker and, incidentally, everyone else. One kiss doesn’t make a relationship and I resolve to talk to him the very next chance I get to figure out what we’ve started. One way or another, I’ll know for sure what that kiss meant.
Holden opens his mouth, a teasing glint in his eye.
“I think that’s enough,” Booker interrupts. “This is something that will have to wait. What we need now is a plan. Matric knows about Nerys and he knows that her powers are starting to show.”
“What?” Coen’s head snaps in Booker’s direction, his dark hair falls over his forehead as his eyes snap to me. “When was this?”
“I guess you missed that part of the conversation,” Booker says. “That’s what happens when you eavesdrop.”
“Eavesdropping? I wasn’t eavesdropping!” Coen looks back at me expectantly. “When did your powers start showing?” I’ve never seen Booker resist the urge to pinch the skin between his eyebrows so hard and I squash my amusement in favor of answering Coen’s question. Holden hangs over the side of my bed while idly petting Luca’s soft fur while Booker paces the floor.
“Send word to the Alchemist,” Booker says suddenly. The room quiets and even Holden drops the teasing air. “We will meet him after hours at the Pharoah’s library in three days. If we find nothing in that time to unbind the spirit guide, we pay him.”
Luca leaps off of the bed and off of my lap and barks once before heading to the open door. As if we’ve become a unit of some kind, Coen foresees his needs and steps up to open the door. Luca can travel covertly much quicker simpler as a dog than he would as a human. I watch him go with a twinge in my chest. Everything is so real now. Not that it hasn’t been, but Matric knows who the actual Daimon is now. Whenever one of the guys goes off alone now, I know I’ll be thinking of all of the terrible things that could happen.
“Holden. Coen.” Booker barks out. “We’re going to need a rotation on Nerys. “One of you is with her tonight. The other tomorrow. Choose.”
“I’ll stay tonight,” Holden says.
“I’ll take her back to the library tomorrow,” Coen agrees. Booker nods.
“Is it really necessary when we’re at the Courtyard?” I ask. “I mean, I’m safe so long as I’m in the studios right?”
Booker shoots me a look. “No.” He turns back to the group. “Titus, you’re with me.” Titus stands from his seat and nods once. Titus doesn’t as
k where they are going and though I really want to, I keep my mouth shut as well. Booker heads for the door and Coen catches it and holds it open. “Holden, you’re staying in her studio tonight. No exceptions.”
“You got it, boss.” Holden smiles at me, moving his eyebrows up and down. “I’ll keep her safe.”
“You’ll keep your hands to yourself, you reprobate,” Booker replies, but he softens his tone with a small smile of amusement. I sniff, holding in my laugh. It’s so odd how one second they can be frustrating and confusing and the next, I’m laughing my ass off. Titus shoots me another melting look and Coen pauses at the door. Turning around and stalking back towards me. I blink in surprise as Coen leans down and presses a quick, firm kiss to my forehead before following them. Booker and Titus frown, but they remain quiet as they trail behind him out the door.
“So, you and Titus, huh?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Holden shrugs, but his teasing is gone.
“It might make things awkward.”
“We’re not a couple, Holden. One kiss does not a relationship make.” I stand and go into the kitchen. I grab a glass and fill it with water from the faucet in the sink of the kitchen area, anything to get me away from the subject. Holden follows, leaning up against the counter as I suck back my drink and refill it.
“And if he wants a relationship?” He asks.
I sigh as I finish my drink, setting the glass on the counter. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you want one or you don’t know if he wants one?”
“I just... I don’t know.” My eyes flit around the room, mostly going to the floor at his feet. “What do you want me to say? It just sort of happened.”
“You haven’t talked about it with him?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should.” I sigh, finally risking a glance up.
“I know,” I say. “I will. Right now, though, we have more important things to worry about.” I set my glass in the sink and go to move past him. Holden grabs my arm and holds me at a standstill. I’m pressed against the counter, the lip digging into the small of my back as he leans over me.