by Janet Tait
The cold seeped into her. Her body shook, rattling her teeth. Pulling her knees up to her chin, she hugged them, trying to stay warm. But that hurt her ribs too much, so she curled up on her side, lying on the embankment. Her throbbing head joined the symphony of pain alongside the stabbing hurt in her ribs and the ache in her right arm. Then nausea rose up in her, so strong she couldn’t hold it down. She barely got up before she heaved, over and over. Nothing came out but a thin thread of bile.
After a few more heaves, she thought she might be done. She wiped her mouth and tried to move. She looked up and saw Dylan kneeling next to her, his eyes sane again, and kind. Oh, God, he didn’t see all that, did he?
“Casters react like soldiers do after combat,” Dylan said. “The heaves, the shakes. It’s normal. Take things slow and easy. You’ll feel better if you can relax.”
She tried to breathe the way Grayson had taught her. In and out, from her stomach. The nausea eased. Her pulse calmed. She realized that her shirt was still open, her bra visible. Blushing, she pulled the edges of her blouse together.
Dylan took off his jacket and handed it to her.
“It’s wet, but at least it will—”
“Thanks.” The jacket hung too large on her small frame, the wet fabric uncomfortable. She buttoned two of the wooden buttons. The row of silver talismans felt cold against her skin.
“Feel better? Any trouble with the paranoia?” His lip twitched. “Like me? Sorry about that.”
“No problem. I handled the backlash.”
She lied. Her spell back at the tree house hadn’t caused any paranoia—none at all.
“I’ve got to get you back. Your father will be worried about you.” He reached up to push his glasses back then paused, as if puzzled to find them gone.
“That’s the understatement of the year. He’s freaking out right now. He better not have given the stone away.”
She stumbled to her feet, crushing several sand beetles beneath her. “Where are we, anyway?”
Dylan turned and pointed at the falls, its white spray barely visible through the darkness. “The Zambezi River, the Zimbabwe side, I think. That’s Victoria Falls behind us, through the gorge. I came here once, looking for…something. It doesn’t matter what. What does is that the best way to break a fall is in moving water. Victoria’s the biggest waterfall I knew how to teleport to, once we fell far enough to be free of the teleport block.”
“Well, I guess it worked.” She started to shake again. “Can you get us home from here?”
“Sure, I—”
Across the plain, a flash of light glinted in the darkness. “Down!” She shoved Dylan as she dropped to the ground, her chest and arm both seizing in a spasm of pain as she hit.
A high-pitched whine sounded overhead as a lightning bolt sizzled and cracked above them, right where Dylan had been standing.
It took Kristof a moment to orient himself to his new location when the teleport trace landed him on a grassy plain by a wide river next to the largest waterfall he’d ever seen. He gave his senses time to adjust to the new location, trusting to his cloak and shield spells for protection, and after a moment he could ignore the rumble of the falls. Amid the high-pitched screech of insects and the small movements of animals in the bush, the zap of a lightning spell sizzled.
Kristof’s head snapped to its source. Dmitri. Up the embankment and on the wide plain, striding toward the river. He hadn’t even bothered to cloak himself. Idiot.
The lightning bolt barely missed Kate and a disheveled young man lying on the riverbank. He looked closer at the man. Dylan Pearce—Hamilton’s primal magic specialist. Kate had a man’s brown jacket wrapped around her—Dylan’s?
Kristof needed to be careful. Although his monitor talisman had been destroyed, his father could still see through Dmitri’s. He needed to make sure Kate got away from Dmitri and back to her family safe and sound, without his father knowing he had been here. And he had to find a way to keep the stone out of his father’s hands.
Kate grabbed Dylan’s arm and whispered something. Dylan’s fingers twitched, the start of a spell. He stopped, and Kristof could barely hear him say, “We’re blocked.”
Dmitri didn’t want them to teleport out again. Well, if Dylan could keep Dmitri busy for a few minutes, Kristof could take care of the teleport block.
He concentrated, searching with his magesight for the block. There, in Dmitri’s hand, the silver horse talisman, sending its purple bands of power across the plain. Kristof didn’t have a talisman to break the block. He’d have to do it the hard way and pay the price. He chanted, a quiet string of guttural words, and waited as the amber streams of magic wove their way through the bands of energy around the embankment and began to dissolve them.
Every shadow behind every tree took on a deeper meaning. Who else is here? Did my father send someone else to help Dmitri? Anton maybe? Did I just expose my position?
No. Calm down.
Dmitri flicked his hand toward Dylan, and three kinetic-energy blades cut through the air. Dylan grabbed Kate, fumbling in his jacket for a talisman. Probably trying to get a shield up before the blades hit.
He failed. Dmitri’s ephemeral knives sliced into his chest, his blood spurting on the wet riverbank as Dylan toppled forward.
Only a few strands of magic remained in Dmitri’s teleport block. Good. In a moment he could sweep up Kate and leave.
A gleam caught Kristof’s eye, in the bushes beyond Kate. Shit. Someone else teleported in, someone cloaked like him.
The air rippled in front of Kristof. A force like a wrecking ball slammed into him and hurled him back onto the riverbank, laptop bag twisted around his chest. His shield took the brunt of the kinetic punch, flickering to a pale blue and winking out. His cloak spell dissolved in a shimmer as it was ripped away by the rampaging energy of the spell.
Damn, damn. How did anyone know I was here?
Kristof rolled down the bank, avoiding the lightning bolt that followed and hit precisely where he’d fallen. He searched with his magesight.
There. A slight glimmer in the darkness, behind Kate. He touched his last talisman, a silver lightning bolt, once, then again. The last charge in his talismans. Everything would have a cost from here on out.
The bolts hit where he’d aimed, tearing away his assailant’s cloak spell and sending him stumbling back a few paces even through his glowing shield spell.
Kristof stared at the sandy-haired Hamilton security caster, whose clenched jaw showed grim determination. Well, no real surprise. He’d been wondering when Victor Cole would show up.
Kate cradled Dylan’s head in her arms. Oh God. There was blood everywhere. But he was breathing. She had no idea how to do a healing spell—one of these talismans inside Dylan’s jacket would probably do it, but which one? And even if she figured it out, casting from a talisman hadn’t been covered in Grayson’s last assignment.
Victor could help Dylan. Victor could get them out of here. But Victor was busy with the other caster who’d shown up, just a few seconds ago: Kristof Makris. In jeans and a T-shirt, a laptop bag slung across his chest, he traded spells with Victor faster than she could follow.
A few yards beyond them, Dmitri Makris glowered at her and raised his hand to cast a spell. There was no chance for her to cast a regular spell, even if she could remember the symbols and focus. Only one other option—cast the other way.
She descended to meet the dark ocean that lived in the center of her being. Stun, she willed at Dmitri with all her might. Nothing filled her mind except her intention, pure as a flame burning brightly in the sea of blackness. Diving down into the expanse of power within her, she touched its viscous energy and cast it forth.
She didn’t see any symbols, any visible effects of a spell at all. One moment, Dmitri chanted, his arm outstretched, the next, he dropped to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
The mud around her went still and lifeless. All the beetles rolled over o
n their backs, mandibles open, their bodies curling up into small, dried corpses.
Kate stumbled to her feet, staring at the death-strewn sand.
The buzz of a lightning bolt snapped her attention back to Victor and Kristof. Kristof’s spell had ripped away the last of Victor’s shield, knocking him back a few steps. Kristof circled closer to her, keeping her between him and Victor. Kristof’s own shield, renewed sometime during the battle, glowed with a mere wisp of sky blue.
Victor recovered and took a step toward her, his attention on Kristof. They were eyeing each other like two dogs about to fight over a bone. Kate got the uncomfortable impression that she was the bone.
Three Hamilton casters teleported in behind Victor—Missy, Gordon, and the guy who had hosted Brian’s wake. Victor jerked his head toward Kristof, then spun a spell in the air, fingers flashing. They all moved to surround Kristof, the grim looks that twitched on their faces telling Kate everything she needed to know about the danger this guy posed.
Kristof didn’t look scared or pressured. His eyes coolly assessed the situation, as if he was adding up the odds and calculating how to place his bet.
Then he moved.
“Kate, get out of the—” Victor said as Kristof darted over to her. He grabbed her, pulling her tight against him. His shield snapped up around them.
Her rib cage spasmed in pain. She pulled against his grip, trying to break free, but his strong arms held her so tight she could barely move.
No. He wasn’t going to use her against Victor. She bit down hard on his bare arm, her teeth breaking his skin.
He flinched but never took his attention off Victor. But the scent of his skin, so clean, like the ocean air, brought the memories of dozens of intimate moments rushing back.
Kris. He smells just like Kris.
Kristof held Kate close against him. She flailed her elbow at him, and it connected against his ribs. He winced.
“Dammit, Kate, stop,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. And neither are they.”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t stop struggling, either. He didn’t have time for this. Not when the Hamilton team multiplied every second he delayed. Another glimmer shining in the bushes, against the dark sky, then another.
He blinked. Took one breath, then two.
No, no. There are enough Hamilton casters here as it is. Don’t let the backlash make it seem worse. He ignored the phantoms his mind had created.
He had to break the teleport block Victor’s team had put up on their arrival, and he had to do it now. A quick spell, the same one he’d used with Dmitri, and an amber glow appeared around his hand, shooting out to find the block and wear it down, strand by strand.
The fear came roaring back into his mind. A dozen new glimmers appeared around him. Hamilton casters, reinforcements.
His pulse raced. His muscles tensed. His eyes flicked from the Hamilton casters, circling him, to Pearce, still and bleeding on the ground, to Dmitri, lying in a heap on the hill. The glimmers might have been artifacts of his paranoia. But maybe not.
Kate still struggled in his arms, trying to get free. He had to get her someplace safe. Someplace with security strong enough, with people who were loyal to him. Nothing else mattered.
Only one place he could go.
Kristof Makris couldn’t be Kris Stevens. That was impossible.
Then Kate remembered the conch-shell key fob Kris had given her, glowing a bright purple in her purse right before she and Dylan were attacked. How Dmitri Makris managed to get through the security grid, how she couldn’t call Victor on her phone.
Looking like someone else was child’s play for a caster. A caster who could use his disguise to get close to her. Get her to confide in him about her family. Make her fall in love with him.
The last trusting place inside her started to fracture.
“Shouldn’t have been so cautious,” Kristof said to Victor as the amber glow around his hand spun off into the night. “Gave me a chance to get set up.”
“Shit,” Victor said. “Teleport block’s down.”
To Victor’s left, a gleam of light shone from a talisman on Dmitri Makris’s chest. He shimmered and disappeared. Victor cursed.
Gordon stretched his hands toward Kristof, prepping a kinetic punch. Victor yelled, “Stop. You’ll hit Kate.”
“Forget about me,” she shouted at them. “Get him.” She concentrated on a fire spell, tried to focus on its symbol. But while glowing flames flooded her mind, the symbol itself faded. Hell with it. She could do the other magic again—will the spell to life. She tried to concentrate, visualize the Old Bear, the long staircase. The images evaporated in the heat of her anger.
Screw it. She jabbed the heel of her shoe into Kris, Kristof, whatever his name was. He shuddered, but his fingers flicked out a new spell, weaving the complex symbol faster that she would have thought possible.
The Hamilton casters looked to Victor for orders, but Victor didn’t move or speak. His eyes shifted from Kris to her, and something strange and unfamiliar flickered across those sharp features for a brief moment. Fear.
Then Victor’s hand shot out, a spell forming around it. Which promptly died as Missy, a smirk flashing across her face for the briefest instant, jostled Victor’s arm, disrupting his spell.
Kristof teleported them both out before Kate could do more than draw in a disbelieving breath.
Chapter Nineteen
Kate felt a cool breeze against her skin, a hint of moist sea air mixed with the scent of apple blossoms. The pain in her head had become even worse, crushing and throbbing as if her skull had shrunk two sizes too small.
Kristof still held onto her. His arms were wrapped around her, her back rubbing against his chest, her curves pressing oh-so-tight against him. No.
“Let go of me, you asshole.” She jerked away.
He didn’t try to stop her. She stumbled forward a few steps, catching herself before she fell. Rocks jutted beneath her feet, wet and slippery under her sandals. Seabirds cried as they dove for fish in the clear, blue ocean a few yards away.
She had no idea where Kristof had brought her.
Groves of fruit trees bloomed up a steep hill, and through their branches an imposing white estate house kept watch. Over the water, islands sparkled in the turquoise sea.
Kristof gazed at her with those deep-blue eyes of his, eyes so like and yet so unlike Kris’s. It seemed he was fixing her face in his memory, like he didn’t expect to see her again.
She took in his tanned skin, his wavy brown hair, his hard, closed face. The resemblance between Kristof Makris and Kris Stevens was superficial. Then she thought about how her memories of Kris came raging back when she’d breathed in the scent of his skin, how her heart sped up every time Kristof touched her.
Kris Stevens and Kristof Makris were definitely the same guy.
She studied him again. The corner of one eye twitched, an irregular, asynchronous beat. His mouth was tight. One hand struck his thigh repeatedly. She knew the signs. How many spells had he cast?
She took a step back, waiting a moment until the intensity in his eyes eased and his stance relaxed.
“Why? Why pretend to be Kris Stevens?” she asked. “I’m not important. I’m not…anyone.”
His head jerked up. “You know—”
“Give me some credit.” Did he think she was too dumb to figure out that he and Kris Stevens were the same person after he stood so close to her that she could feel his heart beat? Oh God. She had been an idiot. Her face burned. Too clueless to figure out she’d been played by a Makris spy. A spy who should never had targeted her.
“Why break the Rules?” she said. Why break my heart?
“Did you think your father’s enemies wouldn’t try to get to him through you? Are you really that naive?”
“I’m a Null. I’m supposed to be off-limits.”
“You think that’s going to protect you? From us?”
Oh God. What had she told hi
m? About her father, about Grayson, Victor, Hayley, Brian…the stone? He’d seen her with it, how it had possessed her. He probably figured out that it had killed Brian. She had told him so much, more than she ever should have, about her training, about how her status had changed. She kicked the stones under her feet. Had he figured out she was a caster?
She had played right into his hands. Confiding in him, taking his damn conch-shell love token, giving him and his bastard cousin the opportunity to kidnap her and trade her for the stone, as if she were a piece of property. Was that what was in his laptop bag? Did he handle the trade-off while Dmitri…
“So whose plan was it to kidnap me? Yours?”
“I was in charge of the mission.” His eye twitched.
“You let your cousin…” She jerked Dylan’s jacket closed around her.
“No.” Kristof’s eyes travelled from her torn blouse to her face. His voice softened. “I told him not to touch you. He’ll pay. I promise.”
“Do you care about me at all? Did you ever? Or is this a game to you, a job? Sleep with Hamilton’s daughter, spy on her for Papa, get a prize?”
“Kate,” he said. “Kate…” His hand touched her cheek. He let it fall and stepped away from her. His voice went harsh. The operative was back. “I’m Kristof Makris. Not Kris Stevens. I did my job, a job I’m good at. Getting inside my enemies heads, finding out how they tick. You were just a mission.” He smiled at her, a self-satisfied smile so unlike Kris’s. “A really pleasant mission until the end, I have to say.”
She slapped him, hard.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“I’ll feel better when I’m home, I know the stone is safe, and I can focus on grinding your pathetic little family’s empire into dust.” I should stop. Saying more is really bad idea. But I don’t care. “You think I’m naive? Maybe I was. But that’s over. I’m done with sitting out. As of now, I’m in the Game.”