by Black, C. I.
Jade ran a delicate finger along Anaea’s arm. “Must feel good to have fire again.”
Even through Mark’s coat and sweatshirt, the touch made Anaea’s skin crawl. God. She had to get rid of Jade.
Heat bubbled within her, radiating from her chest, down her arms to her hands. She clutched the woman’s wrists. “I’m not in the mood for games.”
Jade’s eyes widened. Blue fire licked her skin and Anaea pulled it back. She didn’t want to kill the woman, just make her run away.
Translucent green light flashed around Jade, like an aura. It wavered then took hold, surging until she was completely enveloped.
Anaea jerked back and Jade narrowed her eyes.
“You’re not Hunter.”
A chill swept over Anaea. “Of course I am.”
Jade leaned close, peering at Anaea as if she could see her soul. “No. He’s in there. I can see his aura, but—Who the hell are you?”
“Hunter,” Anaea growled.
“There he is,” someone yelled behind her. Two men rushed from the far end of the alley toward her. More light, muddy brown for both men and not nearly as bright as Jade’s, engulfed them. Jade grabbed Anaea’s arm. “What did you do with Hunter?”
“Nothing.” She shoved the woman but Jade held tight. Fire rippled through Anaea. “Let go.”
She didn’t want to kill anyone else. All she wanted was to fix whatever was wrong with Hunter and get him into his own body.
“Get the medallion,” one of the men yelled.
A heavy hand seized Anaea’s shoulder. She wrenched away, shoving Jade into this third man. They staggered back as flames shot from Anaea’s fingertips.
She yanked her hands to the side, aiming the inferno at the wall beside her. Energy poured out of her, the flames twisting into thick white threads. The air shimmered and with a flash, a white hole stretched before her.
The urge to leap into it made her limbs twitch. Her stomach roiled. She had no idea what the white nothing was. But the part that had been Hunter knew exactly what it was. A gate. And a well-crafted one at that, even if it wasn’t the usual black and even if she hadn’t used a power word to make it.
Bully for whatever instinct Hunter had instilled in her. She still didn’t know where it went.
The men yelled, the light surrounding them wavering. Jade’s aura intensified and gathered around her hands. She was doing something and Anaea was certain she didn’t want to hang around to find out what.
Anaea leapt for the gate. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Grey storm into the alley, but it was too late. The vortex wrapped around her, twisting her essence and pouring into her.
* * *
The lightning cage squeezed Hunter tight. He sensed Anaea’s heart pounding, felt a surge of panic, and then the suffocating press of a gate.
Images flashed to him. Jade recognizing two souls in Anaea’s body. Three drakes he didn’t know grabbing for Anaea. Shit.
He fought the urge to squirm in his prison. He couldn’t afford to pass out again.
Anaea’s pulse slowed a little. Good. Calm was good. A black speck materialized before him and the tunnel vision came back. He was still a long ways from her, but if he squinted he could see what she saw.
She stood in a parking lot surrounded by a circle of charred asphalt, indicating an astoundingly powerful gate—especially for one created on instinct. Once she knew the proper spell, she could probably go anywhere in the world like Grey could. Which was good, since they’d need a place to hide as soon as he’d gotten his own body and killed Zenobia, or Nero, or whoever was after him.
Anaea’s gaze searched the area, stopping on a rusty station wagon. She knew that car, knew the owner.
Relief flooded her. He was home.
Jealousy twinged through Hunter, but he tamped it down. He wanted to be the one to help her, but given their current predicament, he’d be happy if she found a safe place for a moment. Maybe if she calmed down he could work free of this cage.
She rushed into the apartment building, up the stairs and down the hall, but slowed halfway.
Hunter squinted. He couldn’t quite see.
A chill rippled over her. She inched forward.
The door at the end hung ajar, ripped free from its top hinge.
Damn. Turn around.
But she didn’t hear him.
Lightning pulsed over the cage, biting into him.
Calm down and run away. Couldn’t she see what was before her?
But of course she could. Whoever he was, he could still be inside. She couldn’t turn around any more than Hunter could have.
* * *
Anaea’s heart pounded and everything within her screamed for her to run. But Mark’s car was in the parking lot below. Which meant he’d returned.
Maybe he wasn’t home. Maybe he’d seen whoever had burst open his door and had run away.
Her mouth went dry, and she peered through the crack between the splintered door and warped metal frame. The apartment was trashed. The sofa lay on its back and the monitor was smashed. Pieces of torn and broken canvases lay among the knocked-over books, movies, magazines, and art supplies. Blood was streaked across the far wall by the balcony door.
A faint groan sent her heart racing. Oh, God. She scrambled across the room. There, behind the couch. A hand with twitching fingers.
Mark lay in a pool of blood, clutching his gut and failing to hold an enormous gash together. Both legs were broken, one lying at an unnatural angle while the other’s bone protruded through his pant leg. Blood covered his bruised and swollen face.
His uneven gaze focused on her through slitted lids. “Anaea.”
“Just lie still. Help is on the way.” She spun around. Where the hell was the phone?
“No, Anaea.”
She needed a phone. But in all the destruction she didn’t even know where to begin looking. Maybe the bedroom. Surely they hadn’t trashed the entire apartment.
“Anaea.” He brushed his free hand against her leg. Her heart leapt into her throat. She had to do something.
“I—” His lids fluttered.
She dropped to her knees. “Just hold on. I’ll get help—”
He reached for her face, drawing a sticky line across her cheek. She grabbed his hand. Tears burned her eyes.
“Please, Mark.” She swallowed hard. Surely someone had heard something and called 911. The attack and all this destruction couldn’t have been quiet. Surely Mark had screamed when they... when they had... Oh God.
She had to get help. Now.
Mark gasped.
“Mark?”
His eyes rolled up and his hand went limp.
“Mark, please.” She squeezed his hand but he didn’t respond. “No. Please.” She shook his shoulder. His other hand fell from his gut, revealing protruding intestines.
Bile burned the back of her throat. Her vision blurred. She’d killed her friend. She shouldn’t have turned to him for help, she should have tried to figure everything out on her own.
She brushed a lock of hair from his face. All she’d wanted was to die in peace and now she was responsible for the deaths of three people. Black specks danced across her vision, blurred then popped into sharp focus. Maybe she should let them take her. Kill her, end it. But then what would happen to Hunter.
The specks swelled. Hunter?
No answer.
She was still very much alone.
Her vision blurred again but the tears wouldn’t come. Trembling, she fought the dry, silent sobs wracking her body. She couldn’t even let go long enough to mourn Mark. It was disgusting. She’d spent too long closing people off under the guise of strength. Surely she could take a moment and cry. She hadn’t even cried for herself, not even when her doctor had said that awful word. She still didn’t know if she was worth tears, but Mark... gentle, artistic Mark certainly deserved them. For just a moment. Just to prove she wasn’t completely broken.
She sucked in a ragged breath and
sobbed it out. The tears quivered in her eyes, and her throat burned. Then one broke free, tracing a hot line down her cheek, and another and another.
A fire ignited in her heart. Gasping, she tried to clutch her chest, but instead reached for Mark, unable to resist the compulsion. She pressed her hands to his temples and smashed her lips against his. Energy flared, burning through her veins, in white-hot agony that bubbled out of her and spilled into Mark’s body. She struggled to regain control. Her muscles shuddered and more energy poured out, burning until she couldn’t breathe. The force controlling her snapped and she wrenched back. Blinding light shot from Mark’s mouth and he inhaled a deep, gasping breath.
Anaea’s heart skipped a beat. “Mark?”
Mark’s gaze darted about the room, his expression shocked for one timeless heartbeat, then he moaned and his face twisted in agony.
“Mark?”
He pressed his hands to his gut and turned his head the fraction necessary to see her. Red flashed around him.
Oh God. “Hunter?”
“Just... give me... a minute,” he gasped.
Anaea’s thoughts whirled, a vortex of half-formed questions that she couldn’t bring into focus. “Is Mark still there?”
Hunter pursed his lips.
He mustn’t want to say.
Which meant Mark was dead.
Her throat tightened.
“Don’t fall apart on me,” he said. With Mark’s voice. “We still have to get out of here.”
CHAPTER 23
Hunter ground his teeth against the pain. His teeth. Not Anaea’s. She stared at him, her eyes wide. He couldn’t imagine what was going through her mind. He could barely think past the agony screaming through his new and broken body. Anaea’s friend had not died peacefully and whoever had done this could come back for Anaea, if they weren’t already hiding in wait for her. What the hell had gone on while he was trapped in her head?
He struggled to sit up. His muscles trembled and partially-healed flesh strained against the movement. He just needed to heal enough so his guts didn’t spill out and his broken legs held together. Thank the Mother of All for dragon-fast healing and not a drop of water in sight to weaken his fiery nature.
Other bones were broken: the fingers in his right hand, his nose and left cheek, and a couple vertebras in his back. He didn’t want to count the lacerations and bruises. It wasn’t the best body to have jumped into, but then he hadn’t had much choice. He hadn’t initiated the transfer. Anaea unconsciously had, a natural involuntary reaction when two souls shared a body and an empty vessel was presented.
“Come on, help me up.”
“But your—” She bit her lip and nodded.
Atta girl. She’d come to the same conclusion he had: they were still in danger.
She stood, braced herself, and offered her hand. He reached for it, but changed his mind. Easier to roll over and stand from hands and knees than using his useless abs to hoist himself upright.
Fire shot through him as he struggled over. His legs, barely mended, trembled with the added weight. Please just let one of them hold. Black specks flashed across his vision and he sucked in a breath. It rasped in his chest. With the exhale, foam bubbled into his mouth and he spat it out. He hadn’t been this hurt since the Fifth Crusade.
Anaea placed a tentative hand on his shoulder and heat tingled down his arm and up his neck. “If we’re leaving perhaps you shouldn’t look like you’ve killed someone,” she said.
“What?”
Her hand withdrew, leaving him cold. “You’re covered in blood.”
He glanced at the pool beneath him.
“Can you get out of those clothes?”
He wasn’t thinking straight. He should have thought of that. He looked like a mass murderer fresh from the kill.
He nodded, spending spikes of pain through his face, and she hurried away.
With sticky fingers, he peeled off his shirt. Agonizing tremors shook him. His damaged gut and chest had knitted shut, but the organs beneath were still damaged and his soul magic was doing everything in its power to keep him together. He was fumbling with the button and fly of his pants when Anaea returned with a duffle bag, a change of clothes, a ball cap, and a towel. Without hesitation, she pushed his hands away and undid his jeans.
Heat swept over him, pooling low, and it had nothing to do with his damaged body or healing soul magic.
“Lean back.”
He worked his pants over his hips and perched on the edge of the toppled sofa. Kneeling, she grabbed the hem and eased the fabric from his body, keeping her gaze locked on his feet. A faint flush of red crept up her neck.
Hunter’s heart pounded and his breath wheezed. Agony battled for a moment with arousal until a fresh wave of pain washed over him. He was damned well going to heal fully, get them out of this mess, and make good on the unspoken promise hanging between them.
“I... ah...” She held out the towel, her gaze not straying from the floor. Her blush swept over her cheeks and forehead.
“Good thinking.” He wrapped his unfamiliar hand around hers, their fingers brushing. More heat slipped up his hand, easing some of his pain.
Her gaze jumped to his. He could see her heartache and confusion. All manner of painful emotions flitted across her expression, but behind it was a fierce determination staring back, as strong as any dragon’s.
He nodded and she matched the movement, relinquishing the towel. On unsteady legs, he stepped away from the blood. With Anaea’s help, he staggered to the kitchenette and washed his face and hands as best and as fast as he could. If the assailants weren’t still around, the police would be soon.
Mostly clean, he changed into the fresh clothes—Mark’s clothes—and pulled the ball cap low to shadow his face. Leaning on Anaea, he staggered out of the apartment and down the hall to the stairs. Somehow, a miracle beyond miracles, all was quiet. The neighbors were probably hiding in their apartments waiting for help to arrive. He couldn’t fathom how their luck had managed to hold, but it did. Maybe the assailants assumed Hunter wouldn’t return, which he wouldn’t have.
He eased down the stairs, careful of his mending bones. Pain jolted through him with every step. Anaea was silent. He didn’t know if he should be grateful or worried.
Reaching the bottom, Hunter glanced into the parking lot through the glass door.
Almost empty and no one looked like a drake.
Good.
They shambled to Mark’s car. Hunter hotwired it and Anaea slipped into the passenger’s seat. Still silent. There was a long conversation coming, one he didn’t particularly want to have because he had no idea what to say.
Hurt as he was, he didn’t want someone as shocked as Anaea driving. They left the lot as a fire truck turned onto the street, a police car close behind.
Once this mess with people trying to kill him was over he’d definitely have to leave Newgate for a while. There’d be too many questions concerning Mark’s disappearance, and Hunter was loath to find another body. He’d hopped twice in an incredibly short time, making him a perfect candidate for soul sickness induced by body-hopping.
They abandoned the car a good distance from the trashed apartment in an elementary school parking lot across the street from a public library. He’d have liked to have parked the car farther away from the library, but he wasn’t in much condition to go marching around.
“The library?” Anaea asked, her first words since the apartment. “What the hell are we doing at the library?”
He opened the glass door and ushered her in. “Confirming a place to stay.”
“We’re what?”
He hobbled through the narrow foyer, up the stairs, and into the hushed main floor. “There must be a thousand questions racing through your mind, and that’s the one you ask?”
“I’m warming up.”
A clerk behind the checkout desk eyed them as they passed. Hunter could just imagine how they looked and didn’t want to think about it. He
inched the cap lower to better shadow his ruined face and made a beeline for the computers in the center of the room. Only half were occupied. Thank goodness for small blessings, since he didn’t want to stand around and wait his turn.
Going to the closest machine, he entered his library card number from memory. Other dragons had scoffed at the invention of the public library. What good was a hoard if it wasn’t your own? But since Hunter wasn’t inclined toward books, he found the concept intriguing. Humans hoarding something and yet sharing it. And, quite frankly, with memorized library card numbers for the cities he frequented the most, he always had internet access.
His body throbbing, he leaned against the desk and brought up his email program. He sent a quick note to the CEO of his company to inform the Royal Park Hotel to book two guests into the reserved executive suite and purchase clothes to fit both of them, as well as send over the sealed envelope in Hunter’s safe. They could both use a change of clothes and the envelope contained emergency money and new credit cards.
The humans had an organization whose motto was ‘always be prepared’ and that philosophy had helped Hunter more times than he’d care to count. The hotel was just one of his many secret holdings. He might have aligned himself with the diminished Royal Coterie shortly after the Great Scourge but he’d prepared for the termination of that arrangement. Particularly when it became obvious that Constantine suffered from soul sickness with his mercurial moods.
It was actually surprising that Hunter had managed to go centuries without having to tap into his carefully developed resources. Only Grey knew of Hunter’s wealth and business holdings, and anyone else could guess that he had something since most drakes who hadn’t been reborn in the last hundred years had created financial safety nets. But even Grey was only aware of a fraction of the details and the Royal Park was one such secret.
It was a luxury accommodation, unlike any place Hunter usually stayed while hunting. He kept a modest-sized executive suite but had never used it, and doubted anyone would consider looking for him there, including Regis. Besides, he wanted Anaea to feel pampered. She deserved it and needed it. And he needed to give her that. It burned in his newly-inamorated soul that he hadn’t treated her like he should have, even if the situation hadn’t allowed it. That, and he needed to hole up for at least a few days. He could only pray this body had a connection to the earth’s magic and he could tap it in record time. Until then, they were going to have to stay put. They might as well be comfortable.