Madison's Song

by Christine Amsden

  She felt a heavy hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t jerk away. She looked at Scott in question.

  “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he said. “I only meant in self-defense. Would you let me help you? It would make me feel better.”

  “All right. I’ll try.”

  The hand fell away. “It’s almost dark out. Why don’t you try to get some sleep? We’ll be on the road for a few hours yet.”

  She leaned her head against the window, pressing her forehead against the door and losing herself in the steady vibration of the truck as it drove down the highway. It almost felt like a song to her, like some kind of tender lullaby. She had barely slept in three nights, and with the truck lulling her to sleep...

  * * *

  Scott spent the next few hours with a sleeping angel for company. That, and the memory of the red bra beneath his black t-shirt. It made for an uncomfortable trip, but it was better than dwelling upon the rage he still felt towards Isaac and his pack.

  He had the blood of two more men on his hands. That each man had deserved what he’d gotten meant little in the aftermath, when shock and guilt inevitably set in. Those were the feelings he never let anyone see, particularly his pack. For them he was the stoic alpha, certain of himself and his deeds. Only in private did he let himself feel the blood that never washed away.

  He’d do it all again. He’d kill Isaac and Bret a hundred times to keep Madison safe. He’d almost killed Mick, too; only common sense had held him back. Sparing Mick had gained him two allies, and might gain him more in the future. Yet there had been a moment when that hadn’t mattered, when the fact that Mick had dared touch Madison nearly trumped all reason.

  She’d been so brave. He didn’t know what it had taken her to use her voice against the other two werewolves, but he knew it couldn’t have been easy. Her father had done a number on her when it came to magic, putting her at odds with a big part of herself. He wondered if he could correct that over the next few weeks or months, and whether he’d survive the proximity to her if he did. Every minute he spent with her, every glimpse he got beneath her mousy exterior to the lioness within, had him falling harder.

  There was a nasty bruise darkening her throat. Scott wanted to wipe it away, but he didn’t have the required skill with healing magic. In a pinch, he could stabilize someone who had been mortally wounded until he could get them to someone who knew what he was doing. Madison wasn’t in danger any longer, so he preferred not to touch the bruise, even if it angered him.

  Madison muttered something incomprehensible in her sleep. He couldn’t be sure, but he almost thought it had sounded like his own name. It had to be wishful thinking of course, like that moment when she’d been staring at his naked chest and he thought he caught the faintest hint of arousal.

  She murmured something again, and this time Scott was almost sure she’d said his name. Hope started to well up inside of him until the next instant, when she cried out, a sound like a strangled scream. She shivered, whimpered, then fell silent.

  Nightmares.

  Scott pulled into the parking lot of the dingy little motel, parking right in front of their room. The door was splintered and hanging open. Great. He glanced at Madison, loathe to leave her alone again for even a second, but he didn’t want to wake her. And he would only be across the parking lot. He could hear her from that distance if she needed help.

  Quickly, Scott dealt with getting them a new room and transferring their belongings from the damaged room to the new one. The clerk had wanted to give him trouble, but Scott used the most basic magic in his arsenal – a roll of hundred dollar bills.

  Since the new room was two doors down from the old one, he left his truck where he’d parked it. He returned to pull open the passenger door, unbuckle Madison’s belt, then as gently as if she were the most fragile of flowers, gathered her into his arms.

  Mine, rumbled something primitive inside of him. He ignored it as he unlocked the door and laid her down on the nearest of two double beds. She didn’t stir, although she grumbled a bit when he slid her shoes off, tugged the blankets out from under her, and then tucked them around her shoulders.

  He started to leave, but that primitive part of himself rebelled. She had her head on a white pillow smelling strongly of bleach, one arm tucked around her face, her hair splayed wildly across the snowy white linen. He sat down beside her on the bed, using one arm to prop himself up.

  Gently, so as not to wake her, he ran a finger through some of that hair. When she still didn’t stir, he grew bolder, letting one finger trail feather-light across her cheek.

  Her eyes popped open. She stared at him, drew in a startled breath, and pulled herself away as if he’d burned her.

  “What are you doing?” Madison asked.

  “Just putting you to bed. I was hoping not to wake you.”

  Madison’s fingers flew to the cheek where he’d touched her. She kept staring at him with wide, haunted eyes, probably reconciling her dream image with reality. He started to back away, but her hand fell from her cheek, landing heavily on the arm he’d used to prop himself up. It lingered there for a long moment, so long that Scott almost wondered if the touch was intentional, and if so, whether she had any idea what it was doing to him.

  “Madison,” Scott began.

  “Scott,” she said at the same time. She smiled and her cheeks went delightfully pink. “You first.”

  “No, you.”

  She pulled her hand away from his arm. The loss of contact left him feeling empty.

  “Thank you for saving me,” Madison said. “Again. Looks like I owe you. Again.”

  “At least until Evan finds out,” Scott said.

  “What did he give you last time to pay it off?” Madison asked. “He never said.”

  “He helped Amanda get the apprenticeship she’d been wanting. Illusion in its purest form is very difficult, although almost everyone has a simple invisibility spell. In Eagle Rock we’re already the best, so there was nothing new she could learn locally. The man she wanted to learn from lives in New York City and he hates women. Rather than say no, though, he told her he’d teach her for a hundred million dollars, never expecting she’d come up with it.”

  Madison’s mouth dropped open in appropriate astonishment. Magical apprenticeships were never cheap. It was hard to put a monetary value on them since they usually involved some sharing of priceless knowledge, but the most valued apprenticeship in the world would cost one one-hundredth that amount.

  “Yeah, it was an outrage. I told Amanda she’d be better off finding someone else, but she swore there was no one she’d rather learn from. I couldn’t disagree. I mean, Amanda’s gift is invisibility – true invisibility, not something you can see through with a camera.”

  “I didn’t know that was possible.”

  Almost no one did. Scott probably shouldn’t have mentioned it to Madison, but he knew instinctively that she would never tell anyone, not even Evan, who also didn’t know. Amanda’s gift had Scott convinced that true invisibility was possible with magic too, but he had not yet worked out the details.

  “Officially, it’s not possible,” Scott said.

  She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “I see. So, Evan paid that guy a hundred million dollars?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. So is that the going rate for saving someone’s life?”

  “It’s not really something you can put a price tag on. Evan and I have had one another’s backs so many times anyway that this worked just fine for us. The important part is we agreed to it.”

  “And if he wasn’t my brother?” Madison asked. “If he couldn’t pay it off for me? What would have happened then?”

  “I don’t know.” He’d felt it hanging over their heads, but there was only one thing he had ever wanted from her, and it was something she couldn’t give him, not even in exchange for her life.

  Searching her eyes now, he wanted to tell her not to be afraid, that under n
o circumstances would he hurt her. But words weren’t going to be enough. Perhaps actions would work – and time – but never words.

  Chapter 13

  MADISON DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. NIGHTMARES PLAGUED her dreams, and not just the recurring nightmare she’d had for two years. Bret and Mick haunted her now, too.

  It had been startling to wake in a new motel room to find Scott hovering over her, especially in the wake of those dreams. His touch hadn’t reassured her, although she hadn’t exactly minded. It made her feel... strange. She’d felt that way before. And after he had withdrawn his hand, she had still felt the imprint of him on her cheek. She’d put her hand on his almost as a dare to herself, to find out if she could – if she had conquered that much of her fear – but also to find out if this touch would feel the same way. It had, but something about it had reminded her of the new debt she owed him, so she’d retreated back into uncertainty.

  Somehow she’d fallen back asleep afterward, probably because she had slept very little in the previous three nights. She awoke to the sight of sunlight penetrating the shabby drapes and the smell of burning incense.

  She sat up, looking across at the other bed, which lay vacant. Scott sat on the floor in the center of a casting circle, working some kind of spell she knew better than to interrupt, so she went into the bathroom to take care of her morning rituals. When she emerged, he had finished.

  “She’s still here,” he said. “Still in the motel, actually.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose. I wonder if she’s tried to get rid of that transmitter she thinks they put on her. I feel like I’m missing something important.”

  From what Evan had told her about Scott’s sense of intuition, he was probably right. If only Evan had told her something of his talent with illusion, she might have been more prepared to handle sitting behind the wheel of an invisible truck. Then again, maybe not. How did a person learn to drive an invisible vehicle?

  “Is there a way we can watch her without being seen?” Madison asked. “Can you make us invisible?”

  “Easily,” Scott said. “The bigger risk is being smelled. It was never something anyone in my family had needed to experiment with until I came along, and I’m afraid I haven’t had as much time to research it as I’d like.”

  “Perfume won’t work?”

  “No, it just covers up the underlying scent.”

  Madison was about to say that what they needed was a third party to help them, someone who wasn’t a werewolf and who Clara had never had the opportunity to smell, when someone started pounding on the motel room door so loudly she thought it would break open. She had a sharp, painful vision of two doors splintering open the day before, but despite the violence of the knocking, this door remained secure in its frame.

  “What the hell?” Scott stood, stepped carefully out of his casting circle and threw open the door. “What are you doing here?”

  Madison was about to ask who it was when her half brother, Evan, shouldered his way past Scott. There was a storm in his eyes, making her take an unconscious step backwards. In the cramped confines of the motel room there wasn’t far to go, so she ended up running into the bed and taking an involuntary seat.

  “I forgot to call you back,” Madison said, though the observation didn’t exactly explain his mood.

  Evan spent a silent minute looking her over, checking her from head to toe, though his eyes kept flying back to her bruised neck. Then his gaze switched to Scott, who was leaning casually against the now closed door of the motel room.

  “Bastard,” Evan said, the invective aimed at Scott.

  “He didn’t do this.” Madison touched a hand lightly to her throat. At least it didn’t hurt. “I’m sorry I forgot to call you back.”

  Evan didn’t pay attention to her. He only had eyes for Scott. “I told you to stay the hell away from her.”

  “This is pack business,” Scott replied.

  “Like hell it is. Don’t tell me you had her alone in a motel room and nothing happened.”

  “Nothing happened,” Scott said levelly.

  Madison frowned. Evan was behaving like a father trying to protect his daughter from an over-eager suitor. He’d acted this way before, especially when it came to Scott. Evan seemed to think Scott would pounce on her at any moment, though he’d never touched her.

  Well, not exactly, she recalled with red-cheeked embarrassment when Evan looked her way. As a matter of fact, Scott had once been as intimate with her as it was possible to be. He’d taken her virginity, but only because there had been no other choice. If he sometimes gazed at her with something she could almost swear was longing, he had never acted on it.

  Except he’d touched her last night. He’d said he was just putting her to bed, but since when did putting someone to bed involve brushing a finger across their cheek? It wasn’t necessarily a romantic or intimate gesture, it might have been the sort of touch shared between a parent and child, but Scott was definitely not her father – biological or otherwise.

  Evan was still looking at her expectantly, his posture screaming his willingness to fight. She didn’t know what was going on between the two men, but she knew she had to try to diffuse the situation, or something in the air would explode. She was glad now that she had never mentioned to anyone exactly how Scott had kept his wolf from killing her that long-ago night.

  “Nothing happened.” Madison couldn’t bring herself to look at Evan, though, and as her eyes slid to the side she remembered reading somewhere that non-verbal cues constitute 90% of communication. It was why she couldn’t lie. She could say the words, but her body told the truth at all times. There were her eyes sliding away from Evan’s face. Her own face burned scarlet and her hands twisted anxiously.

  Reading her correctly, Evan turned his back to her, giving Scott his full attention. “I told you to stay away from her.”

  Scott pulled away from the door, his posture far less casual, as he faced his best friend in the world, preparing for a fight. It was a mark of their friendship, perhaps, that he did not attack right away.

  “You promised she was going to stay at home,” Evan said.

  “She was convincing,” Scott replied. “I did my best.”

  “You did your best? I still can’t believe she would ever willingly go anywhere with you.”

  “She’s braver than you think. Braver than she thinks, actually.”

  Madison wasn’t sure she agreed, but she didn’t have time to dissect the statement right now. She didn’t know which of these two powerful men would come out better in a fight, but she didn’t want to find out. Evan had Scott beaten when it came to raw magic, but Evan had confided more than once that Scott’s inner wolf gave him advantages that couldn’t be discounted.

  “Stop it you two,” Madison said, though without the force of will she needed to get through to them. She may as well not have spoken. So instead, she switched to reason. “Evan, you can’t fight Scott. Think of your daughter.”

  His only answer was to use his telekinetic gift to lift Scott into the air. Scott didn’t miss a beat before aiming some kind of spell at Evan, who dodged, still maintaining his hold.

  “Why are you doing this?” Madison asked, bewildered. Evan might be her half brother, but Scott was his best friend, his cousin (on his mother’s side), and they’d known one another longer. It hadn’t been too long ago when Evan had held her as a hostage to support Scott. Now, he was dueling Scott for some theoretical slight against her.

  The fight continued, with Scott throwing another spell, this time making Evan stagger backwards a step. It had probably taken a chunk out of Evan’s shields.

  “Stop!” Madison cried, more forcefully this time.

  Scott landed another blow against Evan, and this time Evan dropped his friend. Scott took advantage of the situation, tackling Evan to the floor.

  “Stop!” This time, she didn’t say the word, she sang it. She recognized the tune that popped into her head al
ong with the word, not a song she knew very well, but she did at least know the highly recognizable refrain. It was corny, but actually, it fit. These two men loved each other, if they could just get past their temporary anger. So she sang a couple of lines of “Stop in the Name of Love.” Her version had a slight twang to it, but remained effective.

  They stopped. Madison stood, rounded the bed, and encouraged Scott to step away. Then she placed herself between the two men.

  Evan’s eyes were large and fixed squarely on her as if he had never seen her before. “Did you just do that on purpose?”

  Scott smiled broadly, an expression that rarely crossed his moody face. He was positively beaming. At her. “I told you the only thing standing between you and real power was confidence.”

  “I’m sorry,” Madison said to Evan. “But I couldn’t let you two hurt each other.” It was only just dawning on her that she had successfully stopped two of the most powerful sorcerers in Eagle Rock from hurting one another. Maybe Scott was right.

  “Don’t apologize,” Scott said. “Evan was being an idiot.”

  “Excuse me?” Evan got to his feet and glared at his friend. “You’re the one spending the night with her in some skanky motel room in another state!”

  “I told you why,” Madison said.

  “You didn’t tell me why you, personally, are here.” Evan took a deep breath, then leveled a look at Madison that would have made her quake a few years earlier. Okay, so even today it made her flinch.

  “Because I – because...” She trailed off. She couldn’t tell him everything she had divulged to Scott about Clinton. Evan knew parts of it, from bits and pieces of conversations over the past year or so, but he couldn’t understand how she felt. For one thing, he seemed to have this desperate need to be her brother, whereas she did not feel the same way about being his sister. She already had a brother. When she thought of Evan as a brother at all, it was always with the “half” settled squarely before it.

  Besides, Evan had a family of his own now. It made her place in his life even murkier than it already had been. She had trouble maintaining her bond with Clinton, who she had known her entire life, because he was away at college. She wasn’t walking the same path through life with either of her half brothers, and she and Evan never had, however much he wanted to try to pretend otherwise.