Magic Possessed

by Jaime Rush

  He was up, his dagger now a tattoo again, and raced out of the house. Jessup shook his head and went after him, Violet and the others close behind. They came to an abrupt halt at the sight of Kade standing in the yard, looking down, hands fisted at his sides.

  “My father wouldn’t do something like that.” He shook his head.

  “He’s slipped into another memory,” Violet whispered, her heart breaking for him. In the memory of, perhaps, hearing about his father’s death and supposed betrayal.

  Jessup leaned closer. “We have to contain him, Violet. He’s dangerous, to us and to himself. We have to pin him to the wall, just until…”

  Until what? He died? Went fully crazy? Jessup gave her a soft look, rare for him. He was right.

  “You’re going to do what?” Mia nearly shouted.

  Ryan put his hand over her mouth and leaned close. “Damn, woman, calm down and hush up. We’ve got to keep him in this memory right now, the one where he’s not trying to kill us.” He explained what the wall of shame was.

  Violet shook her head. “Go get the cuffs from the wall. We’ll contain him here, at my house. He needs to feel safe and comfortable.”

  She could tell Jessup was going to argue, but he nodded instead. “I’ll be right back. Ryan, stay close.”

  “He didn’t do this,” Kade said, his voice hoarse.

  Violet approached Kade, touching his arm. “You’re right. He would never break out a prisoner without good reason.”

  Jessup was back within a few minutes, and Violet distracted him while her brother cuffed Kade’s wrists. “Would you like to see your father?”

  Kade let her lead him into the house, her brothers flanking her in case he slipped to another memory. She kept her hand on his arm. He was alive, with her, and yet…not with her at all. He stared ahead, pain clear on his face.

  Violet was able to lead him to the bed, but he shifted into another memory and spun around, back in fight mode.

  “Kade!” Violet said, taking his face in her hands and making him look at her. “You must get on the bed. It’s safe.”

  His body trembled, with fear or rage, she wasn’t sure.

  “Get on the bed, Kade. That’s an order.”

  He did listen to her, though a part of him warred with her command. She could see that in his eyes and his stiff movements as he lay down. Jessup and Ryan fastened the cuffs to the bedposts while she continued to distract Kade. The moment he realized he was immobile, he struggled, bucking against the mattress. If she could bring him back to the memory of being here, maybe she could bring him back to her.

  She walked up to him, looking at his beautiful face now filled with rage. “Kade, you remember being here, don’t you? You remember me.”

  He looked at her, and she saw a glimmer of recognition. His mouth curved up in a smile.

  Yes. He remembers!

  “You’re the bitch who went on a rampage at the preschool. Who killed four children with your orbs,” he snarled. His fingers stretched, itching to use his deadly magick on her.

  She stumbled back at the rage burning in his eyes. “No, Kade. I’m Violet. I’m…” Her voice broke.

  Mia braved his rage, coming close to him. “You have to remember me, Kade. I’m your sister, damn it. You’re my hero, that knight on a white steed I looked up to when I had no one else. You lied to me about our father’s death, but I know you did it to protect me, and it’s all right. It’s…”

  He looked right at Mia. “Mother, how could you leave your daughter alone? Now? You cowardly bitch.”

  Mia let out a small cry and moved back. “He’s never going to come back,” she said, her voice full of tears. “This is what he’s going to be like, skipping from one memory to another, and maybe he’ll stop on one of me, or you, but then he’ll be gone again, and—”

  She burst into tears, and Ryan pulled her into his arms, awkwardly patting her back. Violet was too caught up in the possibility of what Mia had said to be bothered by the fact that Ryan had never comforted her like that.

  She turned back to Kade. The cut on his forehead had crusted blood on it. “The memories are there.”

  “Some of them,” Mia said through her sobs. “We don’t even know if the ones that matter are still in there!”

  Gods, the woman was melodramatic. Violet tuned her out, watching Kade struggle to free himself. If the memories were there…was there a way to knit them back together? She wasn’t going to give up on him.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, leaning close to his face. “Kade, you had orders to kill me, but you didn’t. I attacked you, and we wrestled in the mud. And…you liked it.” She laughed, though it sounded hollow. “And later, we kissed. That was the best kiss I’d ever experienced, and…” Her voice broke.

  She wouldn’t talk about their lovemaking with everyone standing around. Her fingers trailed down the dip in his chin. “Remember that kiss, Kade.” She put her mouth on his, closed her eyes, and prayed. His mouth moved against hers. She felt the sharp bite of his teeth and jerked back so hard she nearly fell off the bed.

  “You can’t keep me here forever,” he said to her, his upper lip lifted in a snarl. “They’ll send other Vegas. They know I’m here.”

  He was in another memory, living in a fragment of a life full of danger, of death and killing people. She put her fingers to her lip and looked. Blood.

  “That’s enough, Vee,” Jessup said. “This is beyond what we can deal with. Maybe we can find someone who—”

  “No.” She turned to the group. “Nobody can reach him like someone he knows.”

  “He thinks I’m our mother!” Mia said, clutching her stomach. “How am I going to reach him when he obviously hates her?”

  “He thought I was someone else, too.” Violet checked her lip. Still bleeding. “But we’re in there, Mia. All of us. And how he feels about us is in there as well.”

  Mia tugged on her hair. “You have the best chance of reaching him, Violet. He obviously has deep feelings toward you, opening up like he did, and he bit you!”

  Her hopelessness seeped into Violet. Be levelheaded.

  “He listens to me.” She turned back to him. “Kade!”

  He turned to her, confusion in his eyes. It hit her then. His deeply rooted fantasy about a woman ordering him around. Not a memory that could be shattered because it wasn’t a memory, other than a little teasing, but a fantasy. And he’d felt enough of a connection with her to tell her. Tears filled her eyes. Hope. “I can reach him.”

  “How?” Mia asked, clearly not feeling it.

  Violet took all of them in. “You have to leave me alone with him.”

  “No way,” Jessup said. “I know you, Vee. You’ll soften up and release him. And he’ll kill you. He won’t mean to, but he will.”

  She glanced at Kade. “Last time he felt in his gut that killing me was wrong. And I feel in my gut that this is the only way I can reach him, pull him back.”

  Ryan said, “She’s got the look again—”

  “Yeah, I see it.” Jessup furrowed his brows at her. When she thought he would argue further, he said, “Whistle if you need help.”

  She smiled, full of gratitude that he trusted her. “I will.”

  Mia turned her heavy gaze to Kade. Tears glazed her cheeks, and her mouth turned down in a frown. She had lost her mother and her father at such a young age. She looked like that young girl again. “Please save my brother.”

  “I will,” Violet said again. Then words floated into her mind: Or I’ll die trying.

  Chapter 19

  Ferro knew Drakos had saved his life by shoving Violet out of the cell and locking him inside. As much as he hated to admit it, Violet had been a threat. He’d seen the murderous rage in her eyes. His salvation was small comfort. The woman had bested him. Two women, including one of his own Arguses. First Kade had joined forces with Violet, and now Mia had.

  But what did they have? Kade, who would be mental mush, and Violet’s suspicions, with no way
to prove them.

  Still, he wanted her dead.

  He sat in his office while other officers investigated how the jailbreak had happened. Officially, it looked like a desperate sister broke in to save her mentally ill brother. Clearly psychosis ran in the family. Once Mia was captured, she, too, would be treated with the Black Bore Orb.

  He called Onyx. “Violet and Kade Kavanaugh’s sister broke Kade out of the psych ward. I imagine they’ll be returning to Castanega land to try to nurse him back to health. Fortunately for us, that will never happen. Not mentally, anyway, and he may be more dangerous to them than to us.”

  “Why?”

  He told her about the Black Bore Orb. He had bristled at the idea of having Purcell, whom he knew only as a member of the Concilium, coming in and taking care of his problems. But Ferro had to admit that the orb had been a brilliant idea. Kade went crazy within sight of witnesses, and even with him out there, he was harmless. To Ferro, anyway.

  “The idea of it gives me the creepy chills,” she said. “Remind me never to piss off a Deuce of his order. Can I finally take out Violet? You know I so want to.”

  He crossed his ankles on his desk. “We’re too close to have anything happen to us. We’re Drakos’s lifeline. But we do need to ignite the clan wars. They’re already on alert, ready for attack. One more murder, clearly committed by the Castanegas, and they’ll be out of the picture. Then you can swoop in and take those who have killed and Breathed the others, thus gaining more power than you would taking one at a time.”

  “But I want to kill Violet,” she whined.

  “If she survives, take her after we’ve fed Drakos our power. We can’t afford to risk your safety when we’re this close. Remember what’s at stake. You’ll never again have to fear for your life. When you come for Violet after Friday, no one will defeat you.”

  Violet waited for everyone to completely vacate the premises. Her chest was so tight she could hardly breathe. She had an idea—if things worked out well—and ran outside to turn on the hose by her workshop, laying the end in the soggy area where they had fought. She returned to Kade and sat on the bed again, putting herself only an inch from his face. He stared past her with a fierce intensity.

  What scared her most was that he had no mist in his eyes. Just moss green, normal as a Mundane’s. And blank.

  “Kade, look at me.”

  He slowly shifted his gaze to her. “You.” Clearly he wasn’t seeing her, not by the vicious tone in his voice.

  “Kade, I want you to kiss me.”

  He frowned, both disgusted and puzzled. “What?”

  “Kiss me,” she ordered. She straddled him and leaned forward, only a hairsbreadth away from him. “Now.”

  He closed the distance and complied. To feel his mouth on hers…she closed her eyes and put her hand against his jaw.

  “Kiss me like you did this morning,” she said. “You opened your mouth, touched my tongue with yours.” She ran her hands over the front of his chest. “Do it again.”

  “Last month,” he said. “I…we…”

  “No, this morning, with me. Violet Castanega.” Even if he was remembering a fragment with someone else, at least he wasn’t being hostile. She could live with that. “You made love to me this morning, touched me, pleasured me, made me come over and over.” She opened her mouth and sucked his lower lip into hers. Her lip ached, but the pain was nothing compared to the joy of feeling him again. “Remember, Kade.”

  “I touched you,” he said, and desire heated his eyes.

  He joined the kiss, sliding his tongue inside her mouth, tilting his head for a better angle. She closed her eyes and pressed her body into his. He grew hard, and she moved against his erection and made him groan.

  “We made amazing love,” she said between kisses.

  Suddenly he lifted his head, knocking his forehead into hers. “The boat just rocked. Someone came onboard.”

  “No, Kade, it was just the wake. You’re safe. We’re safe here.”

  She ran her hands over his shoulders, along his arms. She laced her fingers with his. His fingers remained stiff and straight. Tap into the fantasy, keep him there and away from memories.

  “Squeeze my hands,” she ordered.

  He complied, clamping his fingers over hers. Panic fluttered through her. She was as secured there as he was.

  “Release me,” she said.

  He held her, an intense look on his face. The pressure squeezed the blood from her fingers.

  “Release me, Kade.”

  His grip loosened, and she slid her hands free.

  “Why am I cuffed to the bed?” He looked at his hands. “You’re keeping me captive?”

  “We’re playing a game.” She nuzzled the curve of his neck, kissing the warm skin there, feeling his hair tickling her cheek. “I’m your master; you are my slave. You do as I say. Call me master.”

  “A sex game?”

  “Exactly.”

  He nodded in understanding, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “Master.”

  “Tell me you’re my slave.”

  “I’m your slave.”

  She ran her hands up beneath his shirt, her fingers bumping over the ridges of his stomach. She kissed his chin, traced her tongue along that superhero indent, nibbled on his lower lip. This time he dipped his head and kissed her without being ordered to. Reflex? Or another memory. No, she had to keep him out of his memories.

  “You love me,” she said, pinning him with her gaze.

  He met her gaze. “I love you.”

  Though the words weren’t genuine, they washed over her anyway. Silly girl. “I love you, too.” She braced her hands on either side of his face. “We’ve loved each other from that first time we met. Our gazes met across the crowded dance floor. Do you remember?”

  His eyebrows furrowed as he searched for the memory. Of course, he would find none, exactly what she wanted. He shook his head.

  “It’s okay, because I remember. I remember for both of us. We danced to ‘Take My Breath Away,’ and you told me how much you loved the group Berlin. And I told you I did, too, because the lead singer sounds so strong and sure of herself. You said you liked her cool half black and half blond hair in the old music videos.”

  “I don’t—”

  “And we kissed on the dance floor, at the end of the song, and we kept kissing right into the next one, which was Mon A Q’s ‘Stay in Love,’ and we laughed because when we came out of it everyone was watching us. Kiss me like that again.”

  He did, fully and thoroughly.

  It was the last test, and she reached up and released the cuffs. “I’m your master.”

  “I’m your slave.”

  She rubbed his cheek. “Good boy. Come with me.” She pulled him up and led him outside to the muddy pit. The smell of moist earth reminded her of hot summer days rolling through the marsh in a swamp buggy. He was still barefoot. “Feel the mud between your toes.”

  He looked down, as though he’d never seen mud squishing around his feet before. She had to keep him in the place between his memories.

  “You like making love in the mud, love the way it looks over my skin, my bare breasts. Take my shirt off.”

  As long as he kept obeying her, she’d be safe. If she lost him, he could kill her. He pulled her shirt over her head, dropping it to the damp ground.

  “Take off your shirt. And your pants.”

  He complied, standing in all his naked glory. The muscles in his body tensed, rippled.

  “Take off my pants. Stay here with me. Think of nothing but my body.”

  He stepped closer and worked the button on her pants, unzipping them. He hooked his fingers over her waistband and pushed them down, using his foot to dislodge them completely.

  “And now my panties. Very slowly. Very, very slowly.”

  His focus was now on her belly button as he knelt in front of her on one knee.

  “This is how you proposed to me. You offered me this ring.”
She held out her hand, the wrong one, and showed him a ring she had made.

  She could see him try to pull the memory. He gave up and continued with his assigned task. He wrapped his index fingers around the thin strap at her hips and slid them down. Slowly. His movements were deliberate, studied. His face was even with her pelvis. At any moment, she had to be ready for him to shift to a violent memory where she was the villain. “You’ve touched this body. Made love to this body. Do you remember?”

  There! She saw the mist in his eyes swirl. For the first time, he seemed to remember something she wanted him to.

  She took his hands and ran them down her legs. “You traced circles in the spots behind my knees, and we were both surprised how erotic it felt.”

  He took over the motion, staring at his fingers as though they were moving of their own volition. The memory was there, at the edge of his mind. She could see it. Dare she let him slide into it rather than keeping him in the fantasy?

  Yes.

  His thumbs rubbed down the front of her thighs, his fingers skimming the sensitive skin behind her knees. He moved his hands up now, his thumbs grazing her inner thighs.

  “You made me wet without even touching me,” she said, sliding one hand up to the apex of her thighs. “You used your tongue in remarkable ways. Do you remember, Kade? Please, please remember.”

  She saw him shift into another memory a moment before he punched her in the stomach, sending her backward into the mud puddle. The breath gushed out of her, from the impact and the shock. Her Dragon heated, but she restrained it, scrambling back as he approached.

  “Where should I start? Being a hotheaded asshole who skipped past me up the ranks because of his daddy, even as he broke all the rules?”

  He was Dune! Somehow so affected by those vile words, he’d assimilated them.

  She held out her hand as the dagger materialized in his hand. “Back, Kade!”

  Magick crackled along the blade’s edge; his fingers tightened on the handle. He stared at her and saw himself.

  “We made love in this mud puddle, Kade. Get down here, on your knees. Down, now!” She jabbed to the place in front of her.