By a Thread

by Nyna Queen

  Darken hesitated. All the normal means of transportation posed a considerable risk. If he was traveling alone, moving unseen wouldn’t pose a problem, but now he had to factor in the children. And the shaper. No light baggage.

  Steepling his fingers, he rested them against his chin. “Just out of curiosity: where were you headed before I showed up?”

  The spider opened her mouth. “Ah well, I was still working on—”

  “We were on the way to Gomorrha,” Max announced cheerfully.

  “She knows someone with a cat house there,” Josy added.

  The woman closed her mouth with a click.

  Darken dashed around to her, his magic flaring like an angry candle, licking at the inside of his skin.

  “And you dare talk to me about morals?” His voice brimmed with a growl. “Gomorrha is a damn sink of inequity. That’s like leading them directly into the lion’s den!”

  The Blind Child only knew what she had planned to do with them in Gomorrha. Everything was possible in that hornet nest of a city.

  “I’m well aware of that!” Alex pushed herself out of her chair, baring her teeth at him. She swayed precariously on her feet and years and years of ingrained etiquette training compelled him to offer her support, but she looked like she’d bite off his hand if he came too close and he wasn’t sure either if he wouldn’t accidentally snap her neck if he touched her right now.

  “Look sugar, I’m a shaper,” she snapped, pacing up and down the room. “It’s not like my options are growing on trees lining the street for me to have my sweet pick from. Someone like me can’t just cross the damn border back and forth as she pleases.”

  She paused, pressing the fingertips of her left hand to a spot between her eyebrows. Finally, she took a deep breath, obviously making an effort to calm down.

  “I know this guy there, okay? He’s a portalist. And he owes me, sort of.”

  When he didn’t say anything, she shrugged. “It was the best I could come up with, but if you’ve got a better idea, please feel free to share.”

  Darken forced himself to breathe deeply, trying not to rise to the obvious challenge. They had more pressing issues right now than a battle for dominance.

  So, a portalist, well, well. The problem with portalists, like with teleporters for that matter, was that they had to be licensed and part of a guild, and that their activities were strictly logged and reported, just like most castes had their rules and regulations one way or another. His gloved thumb absently stroked the back of his bare hand. If she really knew a portalist, she likely knew this as well, which would render the option useless, unless …

  “Is he registered?”

  She just gave him a look. “Please.”

  Great Mother, that woman really had nerve.

  An unregistered portalist then. Darken picked up his other glove from the ground and thoughtfully rolled it between his hands, questioning his own sanity for even considering this as a viable option. But Gomorrha wasn’t that far from here. And if there really was a portalist—which remained to be seen—it would shorten the travel distance immensely and avoid a lot of awkward questions. It would also definitely destroy the trace for the hounds. They could be at the Rose Petal Estate by midnight or at least tomorrow morning, having the children safe and sound behind wards and guarded lines before any of this could spiral even more out of control. Always provided the shaper wasn’t lying through her teeth. And if she was … well, in that case he, would give her a very thorough taste of why the forfeits’ reputation was sometimes, utterly deserved.

  “How exact is that portalist?”

  Another one of those looks. “Exact enough.”

  Darken sighed and lowered his hands. He had to be insane. “Alright, then we go through with the original plan.”

  With a swift movement, he slipped on the glove over his bare hand, hiding the mark of his shame for which his caste was so infamous.

  “Since I was able to track you down here,” he said, “it is only a matter of time until the legal forces show up as well, so I suggest we get going. I suppose the car I saw outside has not been … legitimately acquired?”

  “Why, aren’t you a smart bastard,” Alex said sweetly, while her eyes were sparkling with outrage.

  Why? he wondered. He had just agreed to go along with her plan. Perhaps she was angry to see her little scheme falling apart.

  He took a deep breath, his fingers curling at his sides. He wouldn’t kill her, not yet anyway.

  “What I was trying to say is that we’ll have to swap better sooner than later. If this vehicle is reported missing—”

  She raised her hands. “Save your breath, Mr. Smarty-pants. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

  Muttering something about a backpack and clean air, she marched toward the undamaged side of the staircase and vanished upstairs.

  “You caught yourself quite a feisty little spider,” Darken muttered to his nephew when she was out of earshot. The boy grinned. Something smashed upstairs and then someone swore.

  When Alex returned with a shabby old backpack slung over her shoulder, still looking like a winter fury ready to unleash an avalanche, he had already pulled out a little pouch from his coat and carefully extracted a handful of glittery black powder.

  She raised an eyebrow and he answered her unspoken question. “Pepper, mace, and a magically engineered distributor. This will keep the hounds occupied for a while and should give us a good head start. Please close your eyes for a moment. You too, Maxwell.”

  When they all did, he carefully turned around his own axis and blew the powder in all directions. The distributor would scatter it in a radius of about a mile in the next couple of minutes—a fine welcome gift for anyone coming to sniff around.

  “You can open up again.”

  Max rubbed his nose. “It stings.”

  “Just think what it will do to the sensitive nose of a dog.”

  Josy’s eyes widened in alarm. “Will it hurt them?”

  Darken reached out and gently caressed her cheek. “No, darling. It will just confuse them.” As to their handlers … he could make no promises there.

  A wheezing sound made him turn. Alex was coughing violently and rubbing at her eyes. Damn, he hadn’t considered that she might react stronger to the concoction due to her shaper senses.

  He took a moment to study her. Her eyes were reddened and her already pale skin had a slightly unhealthy gray tint to it, but apart from that, he couldn’t spot any other visible manifestation of the upcoming repercussions in her physical appearance, except for an occasional rub of her arms or neck. Well, it wouldn’t stay like that. It never did.

  She glared at him. “What?”

  He suppressed a sigh. This would be a lot harder than he’d thought. But they would have to work together, at least for a while, so perhaps it was time to act a little more civil to each other.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  She folded her arms under her breasts and arched her eyebrows at him. “Why the sudden heap of concern?”

  Darken gritted his teeth. On the other hand, civil might just not be possible with this woman.

  “Sole self-preservation,” he said stiffly. “You’ve been touched by a forfeit’s magic. Death magic. There will be physical repercussions. I just want to avoid any unpleasant surprises. Whatever you are experiencing now, it will get worse in the course of the next hours. You will likely feel quite sick.”

  Alex leaned forward and smiled at him with the sweetest venom. “Sugar, if I get sick from your touch, it has nothing to do with your magic—and if you ever touch me again, I’ll gut you!”

  With that, she stalked past him to the door and closed it behind her with enough force to make the whole building shake.

  Darken stared at the closed door, waiting for the glass to stop rattling.

  “Charming,” he muttered.

  ALEX stomped over to the car half-hidden in the shrubs beside the house, furiously rubbing at her burni
ng eyes.

  That trueborn prick! Just who did he think he was? First coming along all criticizing and righteous, morals blah, blah, blah, and then making decisions without even asking her—but, hey, she was still there, thanks for the inquiry!

  It was just her neck that had landed in the sling, wasn’t it, so why would he care for her opinion?

  Well, apparently, he simply expected her to follow his command.

  The arrogance! It was just beyond incredible.

  When she reached for the driver’s door handle, Darken materialized out of thin air beside her and slid between them, barring the door with one hand.

  “Maybe it would be best if I drove.” There was just enough emphasis on the words to make it clear that this wasn’t just a simple friendly suggestion.

  Alex glared at him, outraged. This isn’t happening, is it?

  “You’re not one of those guys, are you?”

  “And what kind of guy would that be?”

  She flipped back a strand of blond hair. “One of those macho-imbeciles who think that women belong behind the stove and not behind the steering wheel.”

  Darken gave her a puzzled look that was almost convincing.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly. “I didn’t mean to imply that there was anything wrong with your driving skills.”

  Of course not. “What did you mean to imply, if I may ask?”

  He sighed, impatiently. “If I recall it correctly, I just told you about the possible physical repercussions of my magic. At the moment you’re experiencing dizziness, perhaps even blurred vision. Your mouth feels dry and your skin raw. Your pupils are dilated.” He bent forward, peering into her face and she involuntarily took a step backward. Damn!

  Max and Josy appeared around the car, notably dallying while getting into the car to be able to listen in.

  “And your point is?”

  Darken waved an irritated hand. “Haven’t you been listening at all? It’s going to get worse, a lot worse. What you are experiencing right now are just the first ripples. Especially the first time when someone is touched by a forfeit’s magic the effects are particularly dire. You’ll likely feel like you’re having a bad case of the chills, perhaps even suffer from shivering attacks and other … certain … physical symptoms.” His voice gained a slightly clipped edge at those last words, but she was too mad to pay it any attention.

  Oh, so now he was getting all indignant because she wasn’t falling to pieces at his touch. Poor little woman wasn’t able to handle the touch of the big threatening predator. Males! He’d probably expected her to suffer some kind of nervous breakdown or something, getting all teary and whiny and swooning on his arm, begging him for smelling salts. Perhaps that was what most people did in her current circumstances. Well, she wouldn’t do him that favor, oh no! She’d suffered physical backlash of magic before and while it wasn’t a pleasant experience, a shapers’ body usually coped much better with it than other humans.

  It was true, she did feel a bit shaky on her legs and there was a faint tingling sensation on her skin, but there was just no way she would grant him the triumph of backing down now. She’d have to grit her teeth and tough it out.

  “Thanks a lot,” she said pointedly, “but I think I can manage.”

  She yanked the door open—forcing him to quickly pull away his hand if he didn’t want his fingers to get squashed—and paused to look at him over the door casing. “Don’t worry, it’s a few hours’ drive to Gomorrha. You’ll come to your right.”

  Before he could argue, she pushed past him, slipped into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut behind her.

  Well, chew on that, Mr. Smug.

  He watched her through the windowpane for a long heartbeat, his face an unreadable stony mask, lips curling at the corners, before he turned with an irritable shake of his head—as if to say “you asked for it”—and walked around the car to get into the passenger seat.

  Alex rolled her eyes.

  Cursed trueborn.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ALEX accelerated and eased the car back onto the country road, turning right. It gave her the opportunity to sneak a quick, inconspicuous side glance at her co-pilot without appearing to do so.

  There he sat, in all his trueborn glory: a picture of self-assertiveness and haughty arrogance. As if he owned the car and all its inhabitants. He hadn’t said a single word since he’d entered the car, just stared out of the front shield with a stony expression on his handsome face.

  Sulking, your Truebornness?

  Probably not used to someone refusing to dance to his tune. She bet where he came from people fell all over themselves to do his biddings. Well, she didn’t plan on joining the act.

  He turned his head and she quickly forced her eyes back to the rain-soaked street, hoping that he hadn’t caught her looking. The skin around her throat tingled and she rolled her neck.

  “So, Alexis.” Darken slowly put his fingertips together in front of his chest and studied her from the side, and he wasn’t at all subtle about it.

  “Alex,” she corrected automatically.

  “Alex,” he repeated dryly. “What is it that you do when you’re not rescuing trueborn children in distress?”

  She shot him a sharp glance. You don’t seriously want to play that game, do you?

  “Just because we’re stuck together in this car without any physical privacy, doesn’t mean we don’t have any privacy at all.”

  Darken cocked a finely shaped eyebrow. “Forgive me, I was under the impression of making simple small talk. It wasn’t my intention to be indiscreet. Let me make this clear: I wasn’t asking for the size of your underwear.”

  That produced a fit of giggles from the backseat.

  Alex felt herself blush. Right, he hadn’t asked anything indiscreet. Still. What did he care at all? Her private life was none of his damn business.

  “And just so you know,” Darken leaned over to her, his voice dropping into a slightly husky, intimate purr, “if I wanted to know the size of your underwear I’d go about it quite differently.”

  Oh please! Alex rolled her eyes and flipped around, but her pithy retort got stuck in her throat when she found herself within inches from his face. He was so close that they were almost touching, taking up her complete sight field. She caught his scent—a rich earthy male scent, like the smell of fresh water and pine mixed with a hint of sweat and musk. It was a purely dominant scent that wrapped around her senses and the spider lasciviously sprawled under her skin, rising with sharp attention.

  His dark mocha eyes were drinking her in, taking in every inch of her face, their touch like a heated caress, daring her to take a sip.

  No, not mocha, some remote part of Alex’s brain decided as she stared into the beckoning depths, rather the richest, deepest, most delicious shade of espresso. The kind that gave you a heart attack if you overdosed. Yep, exactly that kind of brown.

  He bent forward another bit and she felt his hot breath on her mouth, sending liquid heat through her limbs. Her whole body froze, sparking with panicky anticipation.

  His lips parted.

  “Street,” he said casually.

  Street? Street!

  Alex jerked at the wheel in time to avoid a street sign, oversteered and ripped them back into the right lane, just as two trucks passed them in the opposite lane, horns blaring enraged in response to her maneuver.

  Her heart fluttered, pounding wildly in her chest. Her whole body was buzzing, every part of her prickling in response to the adrenaline racing through her bloodstream, and she wasn’t quite sure how much was from the shock of the near-miss and how much from …

  A tiny glance at Darken showed her that he sprawled in his seat, watching her with a lazy, smug smile. Her eyes widened. Sweet Jester, he was playing her! And like a sucker, she’d stumbled right into his trap.

  The heat of embarrassment flooded her cheeks and she clenched the wheel with both hands, deepening the already existing dents.r />
  But something just wasn’t right. Her body felt … it felt out of control, like an obedient dog suddenly running wild. As if someone had jumbled up all her buttons and was now pressing them without regard to their purpose. She wasn’t able to think straight. And how in the Jester’s name was she supposed to when it was so fucking hot in this car? Honestly, it was broiling. Her skin was practically burning.

  Pushing up her sleeves, Alex fumbled with the heater, turning it right down into the cooling department, which, for some unfathomable reason, only seemed to spur Darken’s amusement.

  She grabbed the wheel harder to keep herself from punching that smug smile from his face. Oh, it would probably feel amazing, but it would only confirm how much he’d unsettled her. And she wouldn’t allow some complacent trueborn jackass to thwart her like that. No matter how hot he was. He wasn’t even thaaat hot. Alright, he was. But the point was, she didn’t care.

  And why were the kids so uncharacteristically quiet? Not even a single “are we there yet.” How could they let her down now of all times? Little traitors!

  “That guy in Gomorrha, the portalist,” Darken said after a while. “He’s a friend of yours?”

  Relieved about the change of subject, Alex let out a mixture between a snort and a laugh. “By far.”

  His forehead creased a little. “But you trust him.”

  “Not as far as my shadow stretches.” If it always were a question of trust we wouldn’t sit together in this car, now, would we?

  She rubbed the back of her neck, trying to erase the growing tingle below her skin.

  The crease on Darken’s forehead deepened into a real frown and his voice gained an edge. “And you still think this is a wise idea, then? Entrusting him with something so … delicate?”

  She could tell that he was thinking about the children’s safety. And wondering if he’d made a wrong decision by not killing her straight away.

  Alex sighed. “Look. Valentine is a ruthless, vicious asshole and I wouldn’t entrust him with the life of my worst enemy’s dog, but his talents come in quite handy at times. And he’s a trader. It’s all about a good bargain. If the price is right, he’ll open us a portal to wherever we want to go. Hell, he’d get us into the Royal fucking Palace, if we could pay the charge.”