by Lila Dubois
Trajan whirled back to Nim. “We need a place to hide,” he whispered to her. “Where?”
She shook her head, and there was a glassy look in her eyes that was not a good sign. “My place? I don’t know anywhere else.”
He looked up the slope. “Back up?”
“Yes,” she whispered, and there was weariness in her voice.
“Come on. We’ll stay in the shadows.”
This ascent was nothing like the calm, well-lit travels from before. This was a mad scramble in the dark. Trajan couldn’t hold her hand. In places it was so steep they had to grab trees and handfuls of undergrowth and use that to haul themselves up.
“I see why you didn’t plant anything over here,” he puffed.
“This isn’t right,” she replied.
“I know it’s not, but we’ll get through it.”
“No, I mean it shouldn’t be this steep. Or this tall.”
“Tall?”
“The hill…grew.”
Trajan paused, one hand hooked around the trunk of a relatively small evergreen, and reached down to haul Nim up the steep section she was stuck on, until she was standing on the same relatively flat ground that he was.
“I would say that hills don’t grow, but maybe it did.” Trajan looked up the slope, but all he saw was more trees, more to climb. “Maybe it will keep growing the higher we climb.
Nim made a noise of frustration and jerked the sides of her dress apart, exposing her abdomen below the point of the dress’s tie and her black underwear.
“Um…”
She started taking off her panties.
“Uh…”
She grabbed the dampener needle and jerked it free of her skin, then dropped to her knees.
“Nim, no,” he snarled, reaching for her.
She leaned away from his hand, and for a second her eyes glowed white. She popped back to her feet and jabbed the needle back into the skin midway between her bellybutton and parts south. She must have stabbed too deep because she gasped in pain and he saw a trickle of blood before she pulled her underwear back up.
“The mountain did grow, because now there’s a cave.”
“Where?”
“This way.”
She gestured up and back toward the area where her crops were. Back toward the Huntsman.
He shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“We need shelter, so we can stop and figure out how to save Harris.”
“Nim.”
“No, Tray. We’re saving him. We weren’t dead before and we’re not going to be dead now.”
That hadn’t precisely made sense, but given the fierce way she was looking at him, Trajan didn’t think it was a good idea to argue with her. “I’ll go first, but tell me if I go off course.”
Nim laced her fingers with his and squeezed his hand. Trajan started climbing, pulling her along behind him. The moon was up, and the silver-white glow, so like the light of her magic, put the luminescence from the trees to shame. They tried to stay in the shadows, but at one point were forced to race through a clearing. As they did, he got a good look at Nim.
She was pale, and it wasn’t just from the whitewash effect of moonlight. Her arms and legs were a mass of black-marked skin and streaks of blood. He realized that he’d been able to ignore it, because her skin was so obscured that it looked like she was wearing dark leggings and long sleeves under her dress.
Nim was badly hurt, Harris had been body snatched by a ghost, and Trajan was leaving a trail of blood behind them.
When they reached the safety of the shadows on the other side of the clearing, he took a moment to crouch and roll up his pant leg. The jeans were tight enough that once he’d rolled them, the thick cuff of fabric applied sufficient pressure to stop the bleeding, which had slowed to a trickle.
“You’re bleeding.” Nim sounded grim.
“So are you.”
“We’re close.”
“Where?”
Nim pointed. “Between those trees, see the rock?”
“Vaguely. The trees aren’t glowing as much up here.”
“Because Harris is—”
“Stop. Don’t. We get to this cave then we regroup.”
“The entrance is somewhere in those rocks.”
“We head for the rocks. If there’s a cave entrance, there might be a defensible position. I have materials to start a fire.”
“A fire? I don’t need to be warm, I need to help Harris.”
“It’s not about warm. If this cave was created during the transformation, it’s probably incredibly dangerous. We’re not going in, at least not very far. We’ll go in just deep enough that we’re in a good defensive position, then light a fire. Hopefully the fire keeps whatever’s in the cave from coming to see who we are, and I can defend from the front.”
“If I use my magic…”
“As a last resort, maybe, but if the Huntsman is looking for you, it might be able to track your magic.”
Nim nodded. “Then we need to keep moving.”
“Come on, lady.” He laced his fingers with hers and led her through trees.
Chapter 14
“Mr. Barclay—”
Fitz Barclay interrupted her. Again. “We have no dealings with drug dealers like them.” The older man sounded pompous.
Iris Dixon flicked her fingers though the air. A soft, controlled breeze whirled across the floor of her apartment, picking up every speck of dust and condensing it into a small tornado. She pulled out the drawer holding the garbage can and the tornado moved over it. Iris clamped down on the flow of magic and the tornado collapsed, the dust dropping into the bin.
The use of power helped stem some of her anger. Using magic was, for her, a bit like exercising, in that the effort often served as stress relief.
“Miss Dixon?” Barclay asked.
“Ms.,” she corrected, stressing the “z” sound.
“Ms. Dixon, I’ve answered your question. No, I have no dealings with the Mahkah coven, nor would I ever.”
“It sounds like there’s animosity. Why?”
“Do you know what they do?”
“Last I heard they grew and distributed legal cannabis.”
“They sell marijuana.”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
There was an affronted silence.
Be nice.
She didn’t need Fitz storming off—or in this case, ending the call—in a fit of outrage and making a big deal about how she’d talked to him. He’d probably say “disrespected” like that was actually a verb, which it wasn’t. Though it wasn’t exactly against the law for leaders of different covens to speak to one another, it was frowned upon. Custom dictated that they go to the High Magus of their respective cabals, and have the cabal leadership arrange a virtual meeting.
But the Barclay coven had hired her cousin to find Mr. Harris Barclay, and as of this morning, the investigation had led Tray to the Mahkah coven. She’d tried calling Tray several times, but his phone had always gone straight to voicemail. It was nearly ten p.m. now, and she was starting to get really worried.
Be nice.
Fuck being nice. Get answers.
“Let’s not play games,” she said. “Answer my questions.”
“My nephew’s life is not a game, and if this is how you—”
“Why don’t you like Mahkah?”
“What does this have to do with—”
“If you made your dislike for them known, or maybe insulted them in some way, they may have kidnapped Harris to get back at you. So. Answer my question. Why don’t you like them?”
“They sell pot!”
“It’s a plant. You’re a Saol coven, why is that…” Iris let out a little laugh. “Oh, I get it. They’re making money off a plant. That’s your thing.”
“I have no desire to grow or sell marijuana.”
“Really? Because last I heard, as soon as California made it legal for recreational use, Mahkah coven’s busines
s became a nearly billion-dollar industry, and they’ve won awards for creating strains with low THC for cancer patients and sick kids.” She said all this like she had this information casually tucked away in her mind, but she’d used her few minutes of down time between meetings to look up Mahkah.
Fitz Barclay’s sneer was easy to hear. “They have no idea what they’re doing, but it hardly matters. They are no threat to us, and other Saol flora covens in Colorado produce far better quality crops than they ever could.”
“So you don’t really object to marijuana, you object to them growing it. Have you made complaints through the High Magus?”
“Of course not.”
“Have you filed legal action?”
“Through the human courts? Of course not.”
Last time she checked, practitioners were human too, but the fact that Fitz Barclay had phrased it that way told her a lot about how he thought of himself.
“If you are not capable of finding my nephew…”
She waited for him to finish that sentence, but he didn’t. An empty threat. How original.
“We will complete the job, as per the contract. If you’ve withheld information and my cousin is hurt as a result, you will have a problem with me. Personally.”
Iris let the wind that was always waiting inside her, just barely restrained, gust free. Her hair whipped around her head, and the sound of rushing air was loud enough he’d be able to hear it. A good, strong wind could wreak havoc on a field of crops, not to mention what a tornado could do.
“Goodnight, Mr. Barclay.”
“Ms. Dixon.”
Iris stabbed at her phone screen to end the call in worry-tinged annoyance, then flung it into the air. A small gust of wind caught it, directed its fall so it landed softly on the couch instead of cracking on the hardwood of her fiftieth-floor condo.
Tray was a powerful practitioner, a good tactical mind, and dangerous even when he wasn’t using his magic. She was sure he was fine. He was probably out of cellphone range, or he had found Harris Barclay and ditched his cellphone as a counter measure to prevent the kidnappers from tracking them until such a time as he was sure Harris was safe.
But worry bit at her with small, sharp teeth, like those of a kitten.
There was someone else she could ask, someone else who might know if there was trouble brewing between Barclay and Mahkah, or worse, Salachar and Saol. Fitz Barclay might not even be aware of an issue. Barclay was a massive coven, not unlike her own—as Tray had said the last time she saw him, there were a lot of cousins. Barclay had just as many practitioners, and that meant a lot of possibilities for someone to have said or done something that might inspire a kidnapping-based retaliation.
Really, she had no choice but to ask him.
And that was a massive lie. An excuse.
She needed to see him.
Iris stripped off her shirt as she walked through the door of her bedroom. Dropping the white shirt into the dry-cleaning hamper, she shimmied out of her black tailored pants. Her shoes were already put away in their spot in her large walk-in closet. She was wearing the no-show beige underwear that was her by-necessity day-to-day undergarment.
She stripped out of those too.
Naked, she walked into the closet and knelt. Brushing aside the bottoms of several long dresses, she pulled out a small, simple cedar trunk. It was wide but short, with leather rather than metal straps. She unbuckled the straps and lifted the lid, which wasn’t on exactly straight—the hinges weren’t level and the lid was crooked when raised. She’d lined the inside of the box with craft-store felt long ago, because she didn’t have the skill to do anything better than hot glue some pale blue material to the inside. The lining was starting to yellow in places, but the box was still in good condition, the woodworking not to a professional standard, but done with love and care.
She reached into the box, pulling out one of the things she wore only for him.
This was a new acquisition, a black mesh-and-lace bodysuit that was cut high on the hips and had molded demi-cups that did wonderful things for her breasts.
She prepared as if she were going on a date—touching up her makeup, turning her daytime look to something nighttime appropriate by applying smoky gray and glittering cobalt eye shadow. She went with a pale pink lipstick and brushed out her hair.
The bodysuit fit her like a second skin, leaving her legs naked from her bare feet all the way up to above her hip bones thanks to the high-cut sides. Her pale skin was visible though the single layer of black lace and mesh that covered her from just below her belly button to her breasts. Extra layers of fabric at the crotch and in the bra-style cups hid her most intimate places, but didn’t totally obscure them.
When she was done she looked like a woman ready to seduce, or to be seduced. A woman who knew who she was and what—no, who—she wanted.
Her bedroom was large, especially for Chicago, but her coven had owned controlling interest in this building since it was built. Not every member of the coven lived in the building, of course—even with their substantial family discount, the condos were expensive—but many of the most powerful practitioners, who had correspondingly high-paying positions within Dixon Securities, bought in the building, selling it to a sibling or cousin when they moved to the suburbs or other Dixon-controlled areas when they got married and started a family.
Several years ago Iris had done an extensive remodel, even going so far as to enlarge her condo by purchasing the smaller one beside it so she could turn her two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath place into a three-bedroom, two-bath abode complete with the generous master suite.
Her bed was a large four-poster affair, so tall she had a small set of wooden steps she used to get in and out. Most people laughed or rolled their eyes when they first saw it, and she’d gotten more than her fair share of jokes about her “princess” bed. The duvet was pewter-colored raw silk, the multitude of pillows all in tones of silver and gray.
It was positioned with the headboard against the wall opposite the door. To the right was the exterior wall, which was nearly all glass with only a thin top and bottom border of concrete hidden by white wood paneling. One of the major things she’d done—and she’d had to pay exorbitantly to make it happen since it was against code—was to change out the center panel of glass, replacing it with an all-glass balcony door.
There was no balcony on the other side. Only a fifty-story drop to the ground below. The contractor had thought she was nuts, but she’d paid him and he’d done it, though he’d installed several safety bars on the interior which she’d had to remove herself. If she wanted she could open the door and let the whipping wind fill the room. She had very few knickknacks—the top of her dresser was bare, her paintings were screwed to studs in the wall, and the pillows on her bed were all filled with heavy feathers, making them too weighty to be easily shifted.
But it wasn’t her balcony door that she headed for. It was the mirror opposite her bed.
A meter tall and half a meter wide, the mirror was flawed with age, black spots around the edges showing where the silver backing had worn away. The frame was made of wood that had been carved with images of animals amid waving, looping lines.
Iris touched her finger to the mirror. Magic sparked in reaction to her touch, almost like she’d just turned on a car, the key her touch. The magic of the mirror was an idling engine—full of explosive power just waiting to be used.
“Mirror, mirror,” she murmured. When she’d crafted the spell that made the mirror work, the fairytale incantation had seemed very droll and tongue-in-cheek. “Show me my heart’s desire.”
The silvery backing of the mirror flowed like mercury, gathering into the center of the oval and then disappearing all together, leaving a clear sheet of glass. She should have been staring through the glass at the wall behind it, but instead she was looking at a bedroom as dramatically masculine as hers was feminine.
The bed was large—an Alaskan king, the largest bed commerc
ially available. There was a custom-made headboard of rough-hewn wood. His woodworking skill had improved only marginally in the years between when he’d made the chest she hid in her closet and the headboard for his bed.
Simple three-legged wooden tables stood on either side of the bed, iron lamps on each one. Colorado was an hour behind Chicago time, so it wasn’t surprising that the lights were on, the bed made—the gray duvet a nearly identical color match to hers.
It was not a coincidence.
Iris climbed onto her bed, arranging herself so she was facing the mirror, sitting with her legs out to one side, resting most of her weight on one hand.
She heard voices—the masculine one she was expecting, and a woman’s voice. Young. He was on a date.
Iris pulled a lock of hair over her shoulder and held it up, checking for split ends.
The voices continued, and though she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, she could guess what was happening from the changes in volume and tone. The woman was now asking questions, as evidenced by the way her voice was rising at the end of each sentence. The masculine voice maintained a flat, even tone that held only hints of irritation as their conversation dragged on. Less than five minutes after she’d touched the mirror, she heard the door closing behind the woman.
She flipped her hair back over her shoulder and waited.
She heard the bedroom door, which was beside the mirror, open and then he was there.
As always her heart clenched and a longing so acute it made her nauseous gripped her. Outwardly, she smiled slightly.
“Hello, Rowan.”
Rowan Laveau, grandson of the current High Magus of the Saol cabal, leader of the western branch of the Laveau coven and one of the most powerful fauna practitioners in the world, stared back at her.
He was huge and handsome—dark curling hair cut close to his head, mahogany skin, and equally dark eyes. Or at least they had been. She still remembered what he’d looked like before, when both his irises were a brown so dark they seemed black.