He didn’t laugh. His face had gone cold, and the air in the truck thickened with the weight of his mounting fury. “So then what?”
“It’s been getting harder to wake up. He’s been—” How to explain? “He takes me to this place.” She closed her eyes, seeing the gray world again, with the spinning shards of cutting magic, the billows of silk that burned like acid, the clouds of flittering beauty that cut through her like flying razor blades. “It’s like a minefield, and if I don’t follow the path he’s laid out or if I try to escape, I get hurt.”
That was an understatement.
“My healing spells have had a hard time keeping up, especially with the lack of sleep.” She paused. “This last time ….. I almost didn’t get away.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” he said, enunciating each word through clenched teeth. “Ask for help?”
“What could anybody do? It’s his right. I told you, Giselle sold me to him. He just wants to collect on their bargain.”
“Fuck that,” he said with a snarl.
“Oddly, when I told them the same thing, neither Giselle nor Scooter found it to be a very compelling argument,” she said. “They seem to think that they can do whatever they want with me.”
Bitterness filled her mouth and made her want to spit. Old hate for Giselle welled up inside her, and she swallowed it down, forcing herself to remember that things had changed, and she wasn’t fighting the witch-bitch anymore. But she hadn’t forgiven, and she sure as hell hadn’t forgotten.
“So what happened when you went to see him?” Alexander’s fingers had tightened on the steering wheel, and she wondered if he was going to snap it into pieces. He’d sped up, and she felt the left wheels of the truck leave the ground and then settle back down. They skidded on the loose dirt and gravel that lined every Montana road, fishtailing across the rumble strip before he straightened it out.
“If you don’t want to flip the truck, then you might want to ease up, Slick.”
He growled but slowed down. She said nothing for a while, watching the steep sides of the wooded ridge beside them.
“I knew I was going to have to confront him,” she began again. “I’d been trying to wait until Giselle was stronger and Horngate had recovered some so I could go get my family, but I couldn’t put it off any longer, or my healing spells were going to eat me alive. So I went to see him. I made a deal. He’s going to leave off the dream attacks until I can go help my family.”
“A deal?”
“I told him if he lets me go get my family, I’ll go to him as soon as I get back, and he can have his wicked way with me. Otherwise, he was going to have to kill me to get me to cooperate. Apparently, he wants me breathing.”
“And your arm?”
“Says it’s a gift. If my life is seriously in danger, it will help me jump through the abyss or the web between worlds or whatever, and I’ll land a few feet away. But really, it’s a leash, to keep me from wandering off or taking too long. If I’m not careful, he’ll drag me back, and that will be that.”
Alexander sat silently for a long moment. He was seething. She could feel his body shaking, and his face was pulled into a harsh mask of fury. What exactly had crawled up his ass and died, she didn’t know.
“So you will go to him when this is done,” he said.
“That’s the deal.”
“Forever?”
There was a wealth of bullheaded tenacity in that word. Like he meant to fight the sentence with all his might. Scooter would wad him up like toilet paper and flush him, but Max appreciated the sentiment. Giselle hadn’t offered even that much.
She grimaced, exhaustion pulling at her. “Maybe. Probably. You’d have to ask Scooter or Giselle. Good luck with it. Neither has given me any straight answers. But then, it’s just my life. Why should I care?”
“I would like to strangle Giselle,” he grated.
“Get in line.” Max yawned. “Now, if you don’t mind, I want to sleep a little.”
She leaned her seat back and closed her eyes. She’d fallen into a doze when she felt Alexander’s fingers wrap hers. He pulled her hand to his mouth and whispered a kiss across her knuckles. As he lowered her hand back to her lap, he didn’t let go, holding firmly. Max didn’t try to pull away.
Chapter 7
ALEXANDER STOPPED IN KENNEWICK FOR FUEL before heading across the Columbia River Gorge. He rolled his window down, smelling the wet of the river on the right and the dry of the sunbaked grass and dirt on the left. The wind was unexpectedly calm. He pressed the gas, going faster than he ought to. The speed limit here was a paltry sixty-five, and he was going nearly ninety. There were only a few hours left before daylight, and he meant to be in Portland by then, or at least to Troutdale.
His chest churned with a wash of violent emotions. He was not going to let Scooter have Max. Yet how could he stop him? Giselle had made the bargain and so had Max. And Scooter was a powerful creature. He chewed his lower lip. He was not bound to Horngate or to Giselle. He did not have to obey their rules. Everybody had an Achilles’ heel. All he had to do was find Scooter’s.
His mind skipped ahead. He should tell her about Valery. About the Amengohr amulet. She had told him everything about Scooter and had not seemed to hold anything back. Hadn’t seemed. He smiled in the darkness of the truck’s cab, remembering Max’s admonishments about his too formal language.
He wondered then if, in fact, she had told him everything. He scowled. He thought she would not tell him anything at all about Scooter, and then she had surprised him. But did that mean she had told him all there was to tell? He gritted his teeth, wanting to shake her awake and demand full disclosure. Not that she would give it. No one made Max do anything. Not without spilling a lot of blood.
He smoothed his thumb over the back of her hand. She shifted in her seat and sat up, pulling away from him to stretch.
“Where are we?”
“Coming up on Hood River.”
She eyed the clock and nodded approvingly. “You’ve made good time.” She paused. “I’m hungry.”
She leaned over the seat and dug in the cooler Magpie had made up for them. She returned with two thick roast beef sandwiches, handing him one. She reached back again for two bottles of Coke and a sack of barbecue chips. They ate in silence as the river rushed by on the right and the summer-dried hills flashed by on the left.
Alexander finished his sandwich, and Max handed him another.
He should tell her about Valery. Max was going to learn about her soon, anyway—it would be better if he came clean up front. He wanted her to trust him. Keeping secrets would not win him any points, especially when that was all Giselle did to her. He thought of Giselle’s vision that Max would die. Did he tell her that, too? His stomach clenched. What did he say? A living void would kill her? What the hell did that mean?
He heaved a silent sigh, feeling trapped between a rock and a hard place. Deep within, the predator inside him stirred, sensing a battle. Alexander quelled it. Now was definitely not the time.
He checked the clock. It was almost five. They had a little under an hour before sunrise. Before then, they needed to find a hotel and make it light tight, and he had to get in touch with Valery. Max followed his gaze.
“Cutting it close.”
“When don’t you?” he said, forcing himself to use the contraction.
She grinned. “That looked like it actually hurt, Slick. To answer your question, I try not to, but it seems events conspire against me.”
“Of course, you have nothing to do with such events.”
“Me? Never. It’s all just bad luck.”
They had just passed the Benson State Recreation Area when his secret phone vibrated. He’d broken the one Giselle had given him. His foot pressed down, and the truck leaped forward. Max glanced at him with a frown. He eased up and made his decision. He pulled out the phone, glancing at the caller ID. It was Valery.
“Hello,” he said, putting it to his ear and
knowing full well that nothing the Caramaras witch said would be lost on Max. Her Shadowblade hearing was too good, and she was paying attention.
“Where are you?” Her usually rich voice was thin with tension.
“About ten miles from Troutdale.”
“Good. I’ll meet you at the Holiday Inn Express. You can get under cover for the day.”
“You all right?”
“Holt’s hard on my heels. You might want to hurry.” She took a drink of something, her voice tight with something like fear, or maybe it was anticipation. She and Holt had a peculiar relationship. “Maybe I’d better leave the amulet at the hotel where you can find it. You don’t need his kind of trouble.”
“He does not scare me,” Alexander said. “Wait for me.”
“He’s a mage, Alexander. He scares everybody.” She paused. “I’ll see you at the hotel if I can.”
The phone went dead. He put it back in his pocket and pushed the gas pedal until they were flying through the steep-sided gorge. He glanced at Max. She had turned to face him, leaning back against her door. She was tapping her fingers on her thigh, her face as expressionless as a stone wall.
“Friend of yours?”
“A little more than that,” he said.
“Do tell,” she said, her voice as dry as dust.
Was she jealous? He could not tell. More likely, she was raging angry. But she was not jumping to conclusions; she was giving him a chance to explain.
“Do you know what the Caramaras are?” he asked.
“No.”
“They are gypsies. Their bloodlines trace back to Egypt. Today, many live as Travelers.”
“The thieves? Con artists?”
“Yes.”
Her brows rose. “And this woman is one of them?”
“Valery. She is a Caramaras witch. I met her when I helped her escape after she broke into a witches’ retreat.”
“You have hidden depths, Slick. Why would you help a strange witch?”
“I am also Caramaras. And blood is family.”
“Selange must have loved that.”
He smiled tightly. “Selange did not need to know about Valery.”
“You shock me. You kept secrets from your witch? Here I thought you were a Boy Scout,” Max said. “So what is this amulet she has for you? And who is Holt?”
Alexander hesitated a bare second and then decided that honesty was the smartest course. Lying to Max would win him nothing. “My mother told me stories of an ancient Egyptian amulet called the Amengohr amulet. It was said to grant the wearer invisibility in the night and the power to walk in the daylight without harm.”
She stiffened. “In the daylight?”
“So it is said.” He swerved around a bend. Not far now. He had better tell her the rest quickly. “Valery is a thief, and a good one. Most often, she comes and goes without anyone noticing. That night I helped her, she was off her game. She decided to repay me by searching for the amulet. I thought if it had ever existed, then surely it had been destroyed or locked away in some museum collection somewhere. A few days ago, she left a message for me. She had found it.”
“And the mage—Holt?”
They were coming up on Troutdale. He could see the green and white sign of the Holiday Inn Express just off the freeway. “Logan Holt. She was married to him. A few years ago, she divorced him. She also took something from him—I do not know what. But he wants it back. He has been hunting her ever since.”
Max leaned her head back against the window, staring up at the truck’s headliner. Alexander veered onto the off-ramp, hitting the brake hard and squealing the tires. He stopped for the light, then gunned the gas again as it turned green. There was no traffic.
“Take it easy, Slick. We don’t need someone calling the cops.”
“I have to help her,” he said abruptly. “She is the closest thing to family I have. Holt is very powerful.”
“Never heard of a mage who wasn’t,” Max said, straightening in her seat. She slid out her .45 and made sure there was a bullet in the chamber and the safety was off. She holstered it again and checked the gun in her ankle holster. Her fingers touched lightly over her knives. She glanced at the eastern sky. “Not much time before we’re ash in a pan. We need to get inside quick.”
“And Valery?”
“She’d better not snore.”
Alexander felt a surge of wonder. Max was not angry, nor was she cutting him loose. Just that much was astonishing, but clearly she meant to help him. He pulled into a parking space near the entrance and jumped out. Max was still inside, rifling through the weapons locker beneath the backseat. After a moment, she got out.
“I smell Divine magic,” Max said. She frowned, her nose wrinkling. “It’s peppery,” she said just as Valery stepped out from behind a thick clump of bushes.
Max tensed, jerking around to face the witch. Valery stopped, looking like she might leap away. She was tall, with sun-gilded skin and black hair cut in a dramatic jagged fringe around her face and cheeks. She wore torn blue jeans and a faded blue T-shirt with purple tennis shoes. Her eyes were shadowed, and her expression was tense. Energy snapped around her like fireworks. She was always that way after a successful job.
“It is all right,” Alexander said. “This is Max. She is a friend.”
Her dark gaze scanned Max from head to foot, and then she relaxed slightly. “I am Valery.”
“So I hear,” Max said. “You’ve got some trouble on your ass, too. Is that right?”
“You don’t need to be involved. I only came to give Alexander this.” She strode over to him and held out her hand, dropping a heavy metal object onto his palm. “I’d better go before Holt gets here.”
“It’s a little late for that,” came a liquid masculine voice.
Neither Max nor Alexander hesitated. Alexander dragged Valery behind him, and Max stepped to his shoulder so that the witch was shielded from the parking lot where the voice had come from.
“What are you idiots doing? Holt is my problem,” Valery said, shoving at her protectors’ backs. Neither moved.
“Tonight he’s ours,” was Max’s reply. “Besides, we need exercise after that drive.”
Alexander grinned, hearing the playful tone of her voice and feeling the surge of her predator rising. His own leaped to the surface, and he felt a crackling wave of violence pressing at him to be unleashed.
“We’d better make this quick,” Max murmured. “We only have ten minutes or so before dawn.”
“Get out of the way. I am perfectly capable of managing my own problems,” Valery said as she started to step around Alexander.
He shoved her back with a snarl. “Stay. Put.”
“You’re nuts. Holt won’t hurt me, but he’ll turn you into hamburger. He’s a mage. That’s a witch squared or quadrupled or something. I don’t have so much family that I want to waste one because I was a coward.”
“I know what you can do. So be ready, and let us have a little fun,” Alexander said.
“Fun?” she sputtered, but then Holt stepped from the shadows.
Except that there were no shadows that a Blade could not see through. It was as if the mage materialized from thin air.
Holt was not an imposing figure. He stood a little over six feet tall, with a slim waist and brown shoulder-length hair. His jaw prickled with stubble as if he had not shaved in days. He had thick, straight eyebrows, and beneath them, his eyes were the color of new spring leaves. He wore canvas pants, an untucked faded jeans shirt and scuffed brown boots. He stood hipshot, his hands in his pockets, his head tilted slightly to the side.
“Alexander. I should have known she’d come running to you,” he said, looking like he’d just swallowed anti-freeze. “I really wish you’d go sniffing after someone else’s wife. Valery belongs to me.”
There was a sound of spitting fury from behind Alexander. Valery tried to thrust herself between him and Max, and both held firm. “I am not your wife. I haven’t been
for a long time,” she called loudly from behind her Shadowblade wall. “You really need to get that through your cement head.”
“Caramaras witches can’t divorce. You will be mine forever.” His expression had turned molten.
“If we are married still, then where are your marriage marks?” she retorted. “I don’t know why you are getting your boxers in a twist. You never really wanted me. You made that clear enough. So why don’t you just shove off already and leave me the hell alone?”
“I want you. I always wanted you,” he grated, as if the words were dragged out of him against his will. “You’re the one who quit us. You’re the one who stole the marks. I want them back. And the rest of what belongs to me, too.”
“Never,” she said. “You might as well give up, because I’d rather die before I give you anything.”
A ripple of emotion flashed over Holt’s expression, and then his face turned almost serene. Both Alexander and Max stiffened. The mage was clearly done talking.
“Let’s make this very quick,” Max said in a voice too low for any but Alexander to hear. “Distract him.” She turned her head, still watching Holt. “You can handle yourself, Val?” she asked.
“Of course I can,” the witch snapped.
Alexander felt her gather power. An invisible wind brushed past him full of magic. She was a Caramaras smoke witch, and her power was unlike Giselle’s or Holt’s. Alexander had never seen her use it for more than minor spells. She did not believe in relying on it. He hoped she was strong enough to fend off Holt until Max took him down.
Despite Holt’s appearance, Alexander knew very well that the other man was dangerous. He was a mage, which meant he had all the power of several witches combined, and he was more than willing to use it. Holt was vicious, brutal, and a cold-blooded bastard, and why Valery had married him, Alexander did not know. Holt had been looking for Valery since she had walked away from him, and it was clear that he had no intention of letting Max and Alexander keep him from snatching her back, no matter how much blood he had to spill.
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