The Marriage Contract

by Rose Wulf

  “Oh. Shit.” Kipp nodded with understanding. “Ah, yeah, I think so.” He stopped moving and crossed his arms, his thinking pose.

  Batson forced his feet to hold still.

  Kipp rolled his jaw side to side for a moment before lifting his gaze to Batson’s. “This way!” He darted forward, but to the side. Off-course from the tunnel they’d been aiming for.

  Batson jogged after him without question.

  They half-slid down the slope of the first hill and Batson spotted an old steel cover embedded in the dirt almost directly ahead. Exposed? If it led to a dead-end caved-in tunnel, the entrance wouldn’t be in use anymore. Time and the weather would have at least partially covered it. Unless someone else had more recently dug it up.

  “We’ll probably have to transform if we want to fit throu—”

  Kipp’s words, and their dash across the dead dirt, were cut short by an echoing feminine cry on the air. It whipped around them with the sudden sharp breeze.

  Kipp turned surprised eyes to him.

  Batson shifted his attention in the direction of the wind. It hadn’t been aimed at them, they’d just been in the way. It’d been going up and over the slope of dirt the metal door was stuck in. “This way,” he said through clenched teeth as he moved forward. His blood had nearly reached boiling some time ago. The last thing he—or anyone—needed was to hear Lia’s pained scream. But that was exactly whose voice that’d been.

  He’d know it anywhere.

  Kipp followed him without argument.

  He wasn’t halfway up the slope before he’d cleared it enough to lay eyes on a scene he’d have sold his soul to prevent.

  Lia was crumpled on the ground, naked and dirty. They weren’t so far apart that he couldn’t see her shaking. Approaching her, parallel to and seemingly oblivious of Batson, was Yvette. The Elder’s hair was unkempt and she had a slight limp, but she also had the clear advantage. As he watched, momentarily too horrified to move, Yvette swept one hand up in a deliberate arch. A twister of air swirled around Lia, sucking her hair and shoulders up, and Lia let out another—louder—scream.

  Batson moved with a roar, uncaring of who was around them or what consequences would come. None of it fucking mattered.

  Yvette stopped, her hand falling to her side as she turned startled eyes to him.

  Lia collapsed back to the ground, gasping.

  Focusing his rage, Batson lifted one curled hand up and with it, a wide half-circle of fire. The flame held at barely two feet high, a warning as much as a barrier, curving between Yvette and Lia. Only as he dropped to a knee beside his startled, disheveled, exposed wife did Batson register the presence of an unfamiliar man somewhere on the other side of Yvette. A stranger, undoubtedly connected to the other vehicle in the lot.

  “B-Batson?” Lia’s voice was weak. Raw and ragged in a way he’d never heard, not even when her mother had passed.

  “I’m somewhat impressed you found this place, mongrel,” Yvette said from the other side of the flame. “But go home. This is between me and my granddaughter.”

  Batson pulled Lia into his chest, folding his arms around her shaking body. She clutched tight fistfuls of his shirt and tucked her head under his jaw. He leveled a glare on the Elder sylph. “You stay the hell away from her,” he said, a low growl of warning in his voice.

  His flame flickered as she pushed on it with her exhale.

  “I will not be challenged by a half-breed,” Yvette snapped. “I am an Elder and she is my grandchild. I will punish her as I see fit.”

  Batson tensed, torn between staying with Lia and showing the arrogant Elder what a challenge actually looked like.

  Kipp beat him to it. He walked forward, though he didn’t cut off Batson’s line of sight, and said firmly, “Elders have the right to reprimand their tribe—on their own land. This is salamander territory. So get the hell off it.”

  Yvette’s scornful glare shifted to Kipp without hesitation. “Another brat issuing disrespectful orders. Salamanders know nothing of respect.”

  “Says the trespassing bitch who just kidnapped and beat on her own granddaughter,” Kipp returned. “I respect the crap out of my grandfather. My Elder. And he’s gonna be pissed when he hears about this.”

  “Elder,” the unfamiliar man said, speaking up for the first time as he moved to her side. His tone indicated concern, but his worried gaze glanced only to Kipp.

  “This is unfortunate,” Yvette said. “But we are ever flexible.” She looked past Kipp and back toward Batson. She didn’t quite meet his stare, though—her cold blue gaze was focused on Lia. “Ophelia, it’s not too late. I’ll forgive your attack on me if you—”

  Batson’s entire body ached with the effort not to physically respond to that insult. “How fucking generous of you,” he spat, letting her see in his eyes every ounce of his anger. “What if she doesn’t forgive you, you traitorous old bitch?”

  The stranger seemed to take offense to Batson’s words and turned toward the flame. “You would dare speak to our honored Elder that way!”

  Yvette placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t let that thing’s words under your skin,” she said. “He lacks the intellect to comprehend the situation.”

  “Wow,” Kipp said, sarcasm dripping heavy from his voice, “you are a real piece of work, lady.”

  She cut a quick glance to him before refocusing on Batson and Lia. Her gaze hardened and a chill shot down Batson’s spine.

  “Lia,” he whispered, giving the shoulder beneath his hand a squeeze. Her only response was a slight shift in her breathing. “I have to get up. You wait—”

  “It’s not how I would have preferred to do things,” Yvette said. She spoke as though she felt remorse, but no sense of regret filled her voice. “Still, in the end, I really did want to get her away from you. It’s a shame there will be collateral damage now.”

  “What?” Kipp muttered.

  Batson watched as she turned her palms up and raised her arms. The air around them swirled rapidly. His flame snuffed out a moment before he processed that he couldn’t breathe. He opened his mouth to gasp for air, somewhere in the back of his mind realizing Yvette had decided to simply murder him, and registered the sound of Kipp hitting his knees with a strangled gasp of his own.

  “Land territory means nothing,” Yvette said coldly, “to we who are air.”

  Batson felt his grip going lax as his chest began to ache. His throat burned in an unfamiliar way but there was nothing he could do about it. He needed a breath—just one good, steadying breath.

  “No…” Lia’s whispered voice tickled his ear as his eyes rolled up in his head.

  ****

  “No…” Ophelia whispered as the spiraling air sucked the life from Batson and Kipp. She felt as if she were frozen. Her body hurt and she’d only just begun to regain her breath and this—this was so much worse.

  She’d escaped the cave, only to find herself in a tunnel. It was easy enough to navigate out of that while she was transformed, since the grate that was probably meant to seal it off was open. She hadn’t been prepared for the other sylph. The man she didn’t know. Which was dumb, because she’d acknowledged the probability of another’s involvement. She should have assumed the other might be sylph, too. But she hadn’t, so when he’d attacked her, grabbed hold of her essence and flung it off-course, she hadn’t been prepared.

  It had looked like it was all over after that. Her grandmother had recovered—Ophelia had known she would, it’d only ever been a matter of time—and two-on-one was no contest. Not for her. She’d never been any kind of a fighter.

  The last thing she’d expected was for Batson to show up, let alone with Kipp. She ought to have been mortified to be seen like this. Both in the beaten-down sense and in the literal naked-as-the-day-she-was-born sense. Instead, she didn’t care. Not at all. When Batson scooped her into his arms and his warmth and strength enveloped her, Ophelia was so relieved she nearly passed out from it. Words were exchanged th
at she paid no attention to, even when she thought she heard her name.

  Then Batson had drawn her attention, but too late, she realized. By then, her grandmother had made the ultimate move. The worst, most unthinkable move imaginable.

  Yvette intended to kill both Batson and Kipp.

  Ophelia’s heart slammed as it leaped back into overdrive. She’d caught her breath, albeit barely. If she did nothing more, the man she loved—and an innocent, his best friend—would die. She couldn’t allow that. Even if it meant challenging her grandmother. Challenging her Elder. “No!”

  Ophelia twisted from Batson’s limp embrace and extended her magical senses. She closed her eyes, better able to see the difference between the natural circulation of air and the air her grandmother was manipulating. Time was too crucial to be gentle, so she wrapped her mind and her spirit around every bit of oxygen Yvette had pulled from the men and forcefully reversed course. Their throats would be sore, but they would live.

  Yvette made a startled sound a heartbeat before Kipp, and then Batson, began coughing.

  But Ophelia wasn’t done this time.

  “How dare you interfere with our Elder’s—” the male sylph started, stepping forward to intercept her.

  Ophelia lifted her arm and flicked her wrist in a sharp, tight gesture. He wasn’t prepared for it and went flying straight into Yvette. She wasted no time taking advantage of the opening and again shifted forms from physical to intangible. Every sylph was at their strongest when they were one with the air. She was still up against two, but it was no longer two against one. She knew the odds now—both in terms of who her opponents were and what lengths they were willing to go to.

  Some lines could never be un-crossed.

  The male sylph transformed to meet her in the air for a fight. Ophelia had no idea who he was, and she didn’t even know his name. For all she knew, he was also pureblooded. But he wasn’t motivated the way she was. His aura rushed at her headlong like a bulldozer, so Ophelia pivoted before employing the same trick he’d used on her previously. She took hold of him as he passed and envisioned herself to be some kind of invisible martial artist, throwing her opponent bodily to the ground.

  He hit with a satisfying, solid oomf!

  Seconds passed before he groaned and shifted as if intending to move, maybe rejoin the fight. He stilled when Kipp settled a flaming foot atop his bare chest.

  “Stay the hell down.”

  “Lia!” Batson called, on his feet now. She focused on him for a moment. He couldn’t see her as she was and she wished she could just go to him, but her grandmother couldn’t be ignored—or underestimated—again.

  “Ophelia.” Yvette’s firm and threatening tone left no question as to whether or not she might surrender peacefully. She retained her human form but lifted her surprisingly cold blue eyes to the section of space Ophelia occupied. “I would be impressed, had you chosen to use that skill on them. Now come here and comply while I feel merciful.”

  Merciful? Ophelia shouted the best way she could without the benefit of vocal cords. She summoned a powerful gale and hurled it at the woman she’d once trusted so blindly.

  Yvette braced herself, skidded back several paces on the dirt, and finally transformed.

  “Goddammit,” Batson growled from the ground as Ophelia spun out of the way of her grandmother’s first attack. “I’m the one you hate, you old bat!”

  Ophelia wanted to tell him not to worry. Not to pick a fight with a woman who could literally pull the air from his lungs in an instant. A part of her also wanted to kiss him for the fact that he knew full well what Yvette was capable of and he was trying, anyway. He’d be doing more than shouting if he could see his opponent, she was sure.

  But there was no time for any of that. Yvette had hesitated for a beat at Batson’s belligerent outcry, before apparently deciding this time her focus was her granddaughter.

  They tangled and twisted on the currents of their own wind, pulling at each other’s essences until one pushed free and circled back. There was nothing delicate about the fight. No code of conduct, no mutual respect, no elegant maneuvering. Ophelia hadn’t been taught any form of combat. She moved purely on the instinct to survive, driven with the need to keep someone else alive, too. She had no desire to kill her grandmother, but she couldn’t hold back. Not here.

  So when Yvette wavered, Ophelia dove to take advantage of the opening. It was a chance. It might have been her only chance.

  She weaved through her grandmother’s essence, stretching the aura too wide and too thin, before immediately retreating and letting it all snap back into place. Yvette’s pain howled on the wind, licked at a flicker of flame on the ground keeping their fellow sylph in check, and finally, she retreated. The Elder dropped to the ground and reformed inside her deceptively unassuming dress and overcoat.

  Yvette settled heavily on her knees, her body trembling.

  It pierced something in Ophelia’s soul to see her grandmother that way. To know she was the one who’d put her there.

  “Lia?” Batson called again, worried this time.

  This wasn’t the time to feel guilty. Ophelia knew that. So she pulled herself together, literally, and materialized a couple of feet away from Batson. Several paces away from Kipp, who had the grace to quickly look away.

  Gods, I’m naked!

  “Fucking hell,” Batson said with a grunt. Before she could register his movements, his warmth was around her again, but differently, and the reassuring weight of fabric settled over her shoulders.

  Ophelia blinked and looked down to see he’d shoved his own shirt over her head. Even though it was always tight on him, and she wasn’t a small woman by any means, he was so muscular it still managed to swim on her. Although it technically only barely covered the important parts. She pulled her hair free as she lifted her gaze and searched for his eyes. “I—” What was she supposed to say? Gods, what had he told Kipp? How were they going to explain all this? Her throat swelled. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have a damn thing to be sorry for,” Batson said before he shoved his hands into her hair and sealed his lips over hers. Right there, in front of everyone.

  His tongue barely brushed hers. The kiss lasted only a few seconds. It was the best kiss of her life.

  She stared into his eyes, realizing her hands had found their way to his newly-bared sides, unsure of what to say. Again.

  Yvette started to laugh.

  Ophelia sucked in a breath, Batson stepped back, and they both turned to face the older woman still sitting in the dirt.

  The humor in her eyes was far from warm. “After all that, I still win.”

  Ophelia’s eyes widened. Kipp. He’d seen everything. Who knew what Batson had had to tell him to get him there. The contract!

  “You haven’t won a damn thing, you fucking crone,” Batson spat. He stomped forward until he was close enough to tower over her and crouched to look her straight in the eye. He wasn’t so far away that Ophelia couldn’t hear what he said next. “You wanna know why? Because I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

  The smug laughter in Yvette’s gaze vanished in an instant.

  “You know who is going somewhere?” Kipp interrupted before Yvette could do more than open her mouth in response. Ophelia looked over at him, but his focus remained on her grandmother. “You and your boy toy. See, my grandpa’s pretty laid-back. He lets us do our own thing most of the time. Doesn’t butt in. But when someone—especially another race—tries to kill his favorite grandson, well, I’m bettin’ he’s gonna start yelling. And then he’s gonna want you gone. Off-his-land-and-out-of-his-sight kind of gone.” Kipp shrugged. “If I were you, I’d start packin’ now, ’cause he still gets up pretty early.”

  Yvette drew a shaky breath. “My home is in the next town, insolent—”

  “You should’ve thought about that, then,” Kipp said. His words were calm, but his expression was surprisingly firm. It didn’t match the usually cheerful and carefree man Oph
elia knew, though she admitted she didn’t know him well. Nor could she blame him. He had nearly been murdered on his own land.

  Whatever happened next, Ophelia owed him a massive apology. Perhaps multiple massive apologies. She drew herself up, held the hem of Batson’s shirt as low as she could in the interest of what little decency she could still claim, and approached him. His vision was perfect no matter the hour, so she prayed her face wasn’t crimson. “Kipp,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry.” She’d intended to add more, but he waved a hand in her face.

  “For what? Saving my life? Yeah, you owe me big for that,” he said. “That was a real asshole move.” He grinned for a beat to make extra sure she knew he was joking. Perhaps in case she didn’t know sarcasm when she’d been drowned in it.

  Batson stood and turned his back on Yvette, walking up to them. “What do you want to do, Lia?”

  She swallowed around a lump in her throat. Her chest was a throbbing mix of emotions. Everything from unspeakable pain over what she’d had to do to her own grandmother to juvenile giddiness at the fact that Batson was using his nickname for her in public. It’s exhaustion. She wasn’t sure what time it was exactly, but the sky was starting to lighten, so she’d missed basically the entire night. The part she’d been unconscious for did not count as rest.

  “Ah,” she started, reflexively twisting her hands in the fabric at her sides, “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t have anyone to call. No one’s going to arrest them or anything.” How unsatisfying was that? All of that effort, and they had to just let Yvette and her nameless backup walk away.

  “Do you happen to know who this guy is?” Kipp asked, drawing her attention again. He nudged the sylph man with his foot. During her fight with her grandmother, the stranger had regained his pants and lost consciousness. The latter might likely have been a result of whatever had put the burn marks on the side of his head and singed some of his hair. If she had to take a guess.

  Ophelia shook her head. “I’ve never seen him before.” She’d also never known any other sylphs to live locally. But obviously, her grandmother had been less than honest with her for quite a long time.