Crossroads Burning

by Nash, Layla

  I turned my face into the caress, eyes closed, and inhaled the deeply masculine scent of his skin.

  Lincoln exhaled, and his nose bumped mine. “We should probably go to sleep. We have to start early tomorrow.”

  “Uh...” I blinked, starting to frown as I forced my eyes open to meet his. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “What?” He looked puzzled in a rather adorable way, though it made wrinkles in his forehead.

  I freed a hand and rested my fingers against his mouth. “You’re supposed to kiss me.”

  “I am?” His eyebrows rose, and the very smallest hint of a smile tugged at his lips.

  “Yeah.” I met his gaze without fear, even though it felt like the sky rotated around us in a blur of stars, and ignored the pounding of my heart. “You can’t get me all snuggled up in my sleeping bag and talk about the stars if you don’t mean to kiss me. I don’t know how things are in West Virginia, slick, but—”

  He chuckled and his mouth descended to mine before I got any further, and his lips were softer than I expected. The gentle pressure increased and I sighed, closing my eyes as his tongue traced my lips. I opened to him and his hand slid into my hair, keeping my head exactly where he wanted it as Lincoln plundered my mouth. Everything else faded away except the warmth of his touch and the heat gathering low in my stomach as he leisurely kissed me.

  I could hardly breathe by the time he broke away, and I followed him as he retreated, trying to brush my lips to his once more. Lincoln kissed the corner of my mouth, his fingers strong and sure where they tangled in my hair, and he sounded a little breathless himself. “There. So that’s how to get you to stop arguing.”

  “You found the secret,” I said weakly, almost unable to think. My arms had linked around his neck to hold him close, though I released him as all sensation left my body. “Congratulations. Your prize is—”

  “We have to get some sleep,” he said, still on the verge of laughing at me. “I’ll get my bag and set it up here, so you don’t end up creeping after me while I sleep.”

  I gave him a dirty look but didn’t mind at all that he rolled to his feet and retrieved his sleeping bag and mat. I didn’t even care what the others might think if they returned and found us sleeping next to each other. All I wanted was to feel anchored and connected and... normal. With Lincoln, it felt like I had a chance.

  Chapter 26

  I woke up as a small mountain moved next to me. Lincoln was sitting up in his sleeping bag, and I resisted the urge to bury my face in my sweatshirt and burrow deeper into the bag. I didn’t want to face him or his team after last night’s drowsy make-out session, but I wanted to face the cave even less. I’d been several times in my life, but only once with my sisters since Aunt Bess died. Something had changed with it the last time I went in, although it could have been me that changed.

  Lincoln grumbled at someone over by the fire, and continued his long unfolding. He touched my shoulder to wake me up, saying in a surprisingly normal voice. “Up and at ‘em, sleepy head. Time for coffee.”

  I kept the sweatshirt over my face, hoping the warmth would fade from my cheeks before I had to look at anyone. “In a minute.”

  He got up and shoved on his boots, facing the grins and chuckles of his friends with good humor, and that gave me enough courage to do the same. Coffee helped immensely, even though Mason served it with a grin that assumed a great deal about what had happened after everyone else fell asleep. I gave him a dark look in return, but the shifter was undeterred.

  Eddie just shook his head and smiled a bit, passing me some oatmeal, as if I were his little sister with her first serious boyfriend. I wondered how I’d gone from the werewolf-killing witch to everyone’s kid sister. Not that I minded. I didn’t want to be known as the werewolf-killer or a witch or anything except Luckett. Even that didn’t sit well sometimes.

  I crouched near the fire and watched the flames, trying to settle the uneasiness in my stomach. It could have been the newness of whatever it was between Lincoln and me, or the coffee and questionable oatmeal and beans we’d been eating, or something seething below the surface of the Crossroads. I’d thought the feeling of wrongness in the ley magic had come from the werewolves, but after Hazel had gotten rid of the bodies and purified where they’d died, the wrongness remained. It felt like wearing a wool sweater against bare skin, a little itchy and a little stiff but tolerable until the very moment it was completely intolerable.

  When everyone gathered around the fire, I cleared my throat and waited until I had their attention before speaking. “We’re about an hour from the cave, depending on a few... factors. I’ll go first, everyone else follows.”

  Mason smiled into his coffee cup. “Sounds like a great morning.”

  “If there’s—” I stopped myself from going on, not wanting to give voice to the nerves that still unsettled my insides and made the ley lines feel all wobbly and unbalanced in the earth. But they all watched me and I didn’t want them to walk into something unpredictable—again. “Something isn’t right. I don’t know what it is, but the magic around the cave has been a bit... off.”

  Hazel frowned, her eyebrows drawn down until I could hardly see her eyes. “How can you tell?”

  “Ley lines,” Lincoln said into his oatmeal, not taking his attention off his spoon as he ate. “She can read the lines.”

  My skin felt tight as more heat gathered in my cheeks. Funny how he didn’t mind spilling those secrets but I was supposed to keep his. Not that I really knew what he meant by “reading the lines.”

  The witch eyed me, knowing more about what that meant than I did, and finally nodded. “If the lines are telling you something is off, trust it. Trust yourself. We’ll follow your lead.”

  Everyone else looked serious enough I knew they believed me, though it was a bit disconcerting to have them all relying on me from the beginning. It was bad enough when everything went wrong and I had to step in to do something terrible. Knowing that the shifters and the witch and the druid all watched me and waited for me to give them a heads up on pending danger just made my stomach clench more. And there was Eddie, hanging back but listening, relying on me even more than the others.

  “It could be nothing,” I said. I wiped out my bowl and dumped the last dregs of coffee into the fire so Eddie could pack up the dishes and we could get on our way. Most of me wanted this trip to be over with, even though it meant Lincoln and the rest of the feds would probably leave. Riding forever in the Crossroads was not the way to live, even if it meant stargazing with Lincoln every night.

  “In our world,” Nelson said, going to saddle his horse as I got my mule ready, “it’s never nothing. Even when it is.”

  I shook my head, wanting to smile at the thought. What a way to live. Roaming around searching for problems and then solving them. “Maybe we should focus on where the hell our next meal is coming from first.”

  “Supplies are low,” Eddie said. He hefted one of the empty panniers from the pack mules, shaking his head. “We can try hunting, even though it’s out of season. Or a couple of us can ride out now fast as they can to one of the ranches along the southern border of the Crossroads. They’d stand a good chance of getting there and back with supplies before the rest of us could make it out.”

  “What about the tribe’s land?” Lincoln scuffed dirt over the last of the fire, making sure it was fully extinguished before he started rolling up his sleeping bag and mat. “They’re closer.”

  “Luckett can’t,” Eddie said.

  At least he remembered.

  Mason leaned against his horse, eyebrows raised as he watched me. “Even without supplies and needing their help, the tribe won’t let you enter their land?”

  “Nah.” I managed to smile, even though it stung a bit to consider. I hadn’t ever asked Luke whether there were circumstances when I could break the rules without paying the penalty. After everything with Aunt Bess, the tribe hadn’t exactly been open to conversation and renegotiati
ng the ban. “Too many exceptions mean the rules don’t matter anymore. And the rules have to matter.”

  “Why?” Hazel sounded genuinely curious. “Who made the rules? How old are they?”

  “They’re just... there. They just are.” I shrugged, lifting my hands. “It’s how things are.”

  “Luckett,” Nelson said, shaking his head. “We’re gonna have to chat about how magic works. When we get back to town and have a nice big steak and a couple of beers, we’ll figure out what the hell to do to change this situation.”

  “Add negotiation to the list of lessons,” Lincoln added under his breath, and I struggled to keep from smiling or scowling.

  There was a twinkle in Mason’s eyes that made me think he overheard and understood. I focused on tying my sleeping bag and mat to the pack mule and hauling myself onto its back. At least we didn’t have a lot of supplies left to make the mules carry. I wondered again how my horse was doing, whether she’d made it back to the house. What my sisters thought of the horse returning alone. I hadn’t heard or felt their worry or anger, even though I’d listened along the ley lines for any messages from them. It might have been worth calling to them to see if they could bring us supplies. I frowned, internally dismissing the possibility. I didn’t want to bring them into the middle of whatever it was we faced, in case there was something behind the werewolves. And they’d no doubt have opinions about Lincoln that I wasn’t ready to hear.

  Lucia facing Hazel down could end up being amusing or terrifying, but either way I wanted a beer in my hand before that happened.

  No one spoke as we headed toward the cave, me and the borrowed mule in the lead, and so I was left alone with my thoughts. A lingering sense of betraying the ancestors made me uneasy and unsettled my stomach. It felt wrong to take others to the cave. Just wrong. Especially people who might be able to suss out some of the secrets all on their own.

  But I also didn’t think I could figure out how to deal with the werewolves, and whatever had created them, on my own. Even if I’d killed eleven of them.

  I adjusted how I sat on the mule, the blanket I sat on slipping a bit, and the mule turned its head to eye me in irritation. Clearly it preferred to be a pack mule. I patted its shoulder and made a list of the treats I would bring for it when we made it back to Rattler’s Run. Carrots and peppermints and apples for sure.

  It didn’t distract me long from the equally uneasy feeling of what might wait for us at the cave, above and beyond the sickness of betraying the ancestors. What if more werewolves waited for us in the dark? Would we desecrate the sacred cave with more blood? What if they’d destroyed the wards inside and the other magical protections the early Lucketts had created?

  “Penny for your thoughts.” Hazel appeared on my right, her horse nosing my mule with a flick of his ears.

  “Are werewolves magical?” I frowned at the horizon in front of us, not wanting to take my eyes off the land in case I missed the slight divot in the ley lines that revealed the cave’s location.

  “Only if the person had magic before they turned. Even then it’s not always a one-for-one transfer. Some of them are able to resist magical weapons, but we haven’t seen any that can hex back.” She played with the ends of her reins. “You worried about something in particular?”

  Despite everything, I still wanted to trust her. She held the key to a lot of secrets, no doubt, when it came to magic. I could learn as much as possible before she left, and use what would help the Lucketts and Rattler’s Run. “There’s no telling how long they were at the cave.”

  And I couldn’t go on. We didn’t name the worst things, just in case they came true. Sometimes speaking of something would manifest it. I knew that much about magic, or at least about the Crossroads. That was how nightmares became real, how they found us in the daylight.

  But Hazel seemed to have a talent for hearing the unsaid. She nodded along, flipping the reins back and forth despite the way her horse’s ears flicked back in irritation. “Normally werewolves only focus on feeding—finding things to eat and people to bite and turn. It’s the only thing that drives them. I wouldn’t worry too much about them deliberately screwing up your family’s mementos or whatever else you’ve got in there.”

  “But what if...” I rubbed the back of my neck as my skin prickled, and I got the sense from the ley lines that I might be getting closer to saying something dangerous. It was like the first time I’d learned the words of power, the strange syllables that were usually too slippery and uncanny to hear directly unless you were the one using them or had a hell of a lot more power than the one who did. The first time hearing them was like trying to recall the lyrics to a song you’d heard in your dreams as a child. I figured posing a question wouldn’t be nearly as damning as what I’d been about to say. “Have you ever heard of a situation where someone like a witch told the werewolves what to do? Used them like attack dogs or something?”

  The witch’s eyebrows rose, and her hands stilled on the reins. Her horse heaved a sigh and shook his head out, testing her control. “I’ve never heard of that before. It’s an... intriguing thought, although I’m not sure how it would work, exactly. Witch magic wouldn’t necessarily be able to... Huh.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “There are spells for mind control,” she said slowly, her frown deepening. She glanced back and gestured for Lincoln to ride up on my other side, and he listened without comment as she went on. “But no witch would use those spells without significant risk to their own sanity. Witchcraft returns threefold—whatever you put into the world will come back to you, whether for good or ill. So it’s technically possible to exercise control over another person, though I’m not sure how or when that would also work on a werewolf. They may not retain enough of their faculties in beast form for those spells to work on them. Have you heard of anything like that, Lincoln?”

  “Some of the old ways could control animals,” he said, scratching his jaw and beard. After over two weeks without bathing, we were all getting itchy and smelly. “But I don’t remember anything about controlling magical beasts or the fae. Werewolves are somewhere in between animals and fae.”

  I made a thoughtful noise, trying to process what they’d said. Maybe it was all true for where they came from, but nothing seemed to work right in the Crossroads. Then I reined in my mule and took a deep breath, looking back to make sure I had everyone’s attention. “We’re almost there. Remember what you all promised. This location, the things inside... they can’t be spoken of outside the Crossroads. No reports, no theorizing, nothing. As soon as we leave this place, forget what you saw. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” they all said, though Hazel didn’t look happy about it.

  I nodded to her. “And you’ll stay outside.”

  “I’ll stay outside too,” Eddie said. “Help keep an eye on the horses. I’ll try my sat phone as well, see if I can get someone in the ranger station to meet us with more supplies just outside the Crossroads.”

  I wanted to hug him, since I suspected he meant to keep an eye on Hazel and make sure she kept her promise. From the sour look on her face, she must have suspected the same. Which only made me more certain she’d intended to sneak a peek. I didn’t do anything but nod to them all once more. “All right, then.”

  I slid down from the mule and handed the reins over to Hazel so I could walk a few feet ahead of the rest of them. Normally I could reveal the cave without dismounting, but I didn’t want to risk startling the borrowed mule. It didn’t take much to remove the glamour and open the door, but horses were nervous creatures to start with and I didn’t fancy walking back to Rattler’s Run.

  I sank my awareness into the earth and the spiderweb of ley lines that ran throughout the Crossroads, searching for the knot that tied a net across the cave and kept it hidden. The massive ley lines converged on the cave from the cardinal directions, pulsing and seething beneath the earth, and I hesitated a moment as I felt their power bucking and fraying. It ha
dn’t felt nearly so out-of-control before, even after Bess’s episode. Maybe the werewolves could affect the ley magic more than Hazel and Lincoln knew.

  A very small tug removed the net, and I released the ley magic as I straightened from crouching to touch the ground. I dusted my hands off and looked back at the others. “Well, we’re—”

  Mason and Nelson both stared at me like I’d grown a second head, and Eddie gripped the front of his saddle as if he feared the horse would disappear right out from underneath him. Lincoln swung down from his saddle, eyebrows raised. “I didn’t think we were so close.”

  A pile of gray rock, shot through with darker streaks, rose out of the ground to twice my height not more than ten feet away from where we stood. At least none of the horses had startled when the magic faded and revealed the cave. A dark hole yawned from the eastern side of the rock and into the ground, revealing a couple of stairs that disappeared into the darkness below. When I considered it from their perspective, though, I could see how disconcerting it was to have that much rock appear out of nowhere. Nothing else in the Crossroads looked remotely like it.

  Lincoln exhaled and started to glow very faintly, his eyes half-closed, and my heart jumped to my throat. What the hell was he doing? The ley lines trembled underneath the earth as somehow his magic reached into them, although not in any way I recognized. I squinted, trying to decipher what he did, but the ley lines around the cave suddenly strengthened and pushed, and Lincoln staggered back.

  It hurt with a deep punch in my gut at the same time, a bright flare of warning, and I grunted. I stepped back as well, though the ley lines kept me close and would not let me retreat to where Lincoln and the others stood. As if the lines didn’t want me to be with them. I concentrated on the message in the magic, since it had never steered me wrong, and felt an echo of a warning. Something about being with Lincoln and the others wasn’t what the magic wanted.