Matthew stopped, stared at the woman, and felt the blood rush into his ears. His phone being dead was not an accident or coincidence. Neither was the fact that phone service was out here. Whatever Alexander had done to his plane, he had made sure that the survivors of the crash would not be able to call for help. Not anywhere within miles, at least.
And suddenly, Matthew knew they couldn’t go into this woman’s house and accept her hospitality. For one thing, they would be putting her in danger. For another, Alexander would be sure to look there.
Taking a deep breath and reaching still deeper for his fleeting magic, Matthew cast a memory charm on the woman, erasing the last few minutes. No strangers had come to her door for help. She had never seen the two of them. When she returned to her activities inside, Matthew once again slung Kaitlin over his shoulder and headed for the only place he could think of – the stables.
How he got Kaitlin up the ladder and into the hayloft he might never know. But once she was settled, Matthew collapsed in a heap beside her, unable to move. Barely able to breathe. He was utterly drained and utterly helpless. He didn’t even know if Kaitlin would know what to do to help him, when she woke.
He’d need help. It wasn’t something he liked to admit, but he had to face reality. He had never pushed his magic so far, right to the edge of burnout.
Or had he crossed the line?
With that petrifying thought, he slid sideways into unconsciousness.
Chapter 23
JASON CROUCHED BEHIND THE STABLES, LISTENING for signs of life from the loft. He heard it – barely – two sets of heartbeats. Two breathing humans. They were weak; they’d suffered in the crash, even if they had survived it.
If he took them now, Xavier would win. He’d dissect Kaitlin and lure Matthew into allying with him. How would Jason kill the monster then?
At least Jay was gone – taken in another direction by Jason’s old teacher, Hideyuki. Xavier was trying to follow them, but he wouldn’t get far. Not far at all.
Jason briefly considered killing Matthew and Kaitlin in their sleep, but he dismissed the idea almost as soon as it occurred to him. Xavier would know, and he would know why – that Jason wanted to kill him. No, Jason had to bring these two to Xavier alive.
What he didn’t have to do was bring them to him immediately, while they were injured, possibly suffering concussions, and maybe even magic drain. No, Jason didn’t have to “find” them so quickly. Xavier would assume, in fact, that a powerful mind mage like Matthew would keep Jason off his trail for some time.
How long, though? Long enough for Matthew to heal? Long enough for Jason to come up with a plan of his own? Because he had an idea, one that wouldn’t be easy after he had gone to so much trouble to make Kaitlin afraid of him, but an idea nonetheless.
Chapter 24
KAITLIN WASN’T DEAD. SHE COULDN’T BE dead, because she hurt too much for heaven but not enough for hell. Plus, she was covered in straw. She didn’t think there would be straw in heaven or hell. Unless horses went to heaven.
Kaitlin lay on her stomach in a graceless sprawl, with her nose pressed against the hay. Actually, some of it was stuck in her nose. She wiped at it furiously, then carefully got to her hands and knees, squinting through the darkness to try to figure out where she was.
“Jay?” Kaitlin called. She recalled the crash then, and her voice became shrill as she cried again, “Jay!”
“He’s not here,” came a slightly slurred voice from somewhere to her right. She couldn’t see the source of the voice, though she recognized it as Matthew’s. “He’s fine. With Yuki.”
“Where’s Hideyuki?” Kaitlin asked. She could feel her voice rising a little hysterically.
“Split up.” It seemed to cost Matthew a great deal of effort to talk, but Kaitlin didn’t care. Not when her baby was missing.
“Split up? What are you talking about?”
“Plane crash. Hunted. Split up. If vampires find you, won’t... won’t find ...”
“Jay,” Kaitlin whispered. Oh God, it was her worst nightmare. They were out in the world God-only-knew where, being hunted, probably by Alexander’s men as well as the vampires. And she didn’t even know where her child was!
“Yuki loves him,” Matthew murmured.
Kaitlin closed her eyes, trying to still her racing heart. Damn him for doing this to her! And damn him even more for being right. Jason had her blood, but he might not have Jay’s. He might not find her son if he was with someone else. And Hideyuki had a strange relationship with Jay. She thought – or hoped – he would protect her child with his life.
“Damn it!” Kaitlin closed her eyes and threw herself to the ground. She imagined the real possibility that she would die here, alone, in the dark, without even getting to say goodbye to her son. It didn’t matter that not long ago she had been willing to give him up for his own good. It just didn’t matter.
“Where are we?” Kaitlin finally managed to ask.
“Loft. Hiding.”
“Are you okay?” Kaitlin asked, suddenly realizing that while she had been in hysterics, she hadn’t noticed the pain and exhaustion in Matthew’s voice. What had happened? Where was the plane? And how had they gotten here?
“No.” He hesitated. “I don’t know.”
The stark honesty startled her. Attempting to set aside her own fears for the moment, she crawled toward Matthew’s voice and set her hand on the first bit of him she could reach – an outstretched arm.
It burned.
“Matthew?” Kaitlin asked. She followed his arm up to his shoulder, then to his face, which was on fire. She’d heard of “burning with fever” before but she had never felt it until now. How he remained conscious was beyond her.
“What happened to you?”
“Drained.”
Kaitlin stiffened before realizing that he didn’t mean literally drained, like Janelle had been drained of her magic, but dried up for the moment. At least, she hoped it was for the moment. A sorcerer could go too far and burn out, or so she’d been told.
Can you still hear my thoughts? she thought.
“Yes.”
A few hours ago that would have appalled her, but now she felt relief at knowing that the one man standing between her and danger retained at least some of his power. She felt a twinge of guilt at her selfish reasoning, but shoved it away. For now, she had surviving to do.
Was there anything she could do to help him? She couldn’t see him in the darkness, but she continued to press her hands against his skin, eliciting moans that sounded like half pain, half pleasure.
“Do you have a cell phone?” Kaitlin asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I... plane... walked...”
“Don’t try to talk. It’s not that important.” But it struck Kaitlin that the only way they could be here, in a loft, instead of by the wreckage of a plane waiting to be found by one of their enemies, was because Matthew had carried her. She hadn’t walked.
He’d saved her life. And from the looks of it, he had done it at great personal risk. No one had ever done that for her before. No one had even come close.
Kaitlin knelt beside him, her hand nearly frozen to his forehead, her pulse racing. What was she supposed to do now?
Water. He needed water. Whatever else was wrong with him, he was burning with fever and she needed to get it down. Staggering to her feet – and nearly falling back down – Kaitlin tried to figure out where they were and where they might find some water. It didn’t take long for her to put it together: They were in a hayloft. Below, she heard the whinny of horses, as if they could smell the sickness and fear above.
If there were horses, there had to be water. They had to have troughs full of water. Kaitlin found the ladder leading to the stable floor, then began searchi
ng for water and a bucket.
“No light,” Matthew mumbled.
Kaitlin barely heard him, and she half wished she hadn’t, but she understood too well. They were on the run and had to stay in hiding, whatever else was going on. Which made the process of finding water and a bucket a hundred times harder. She found a wall and followed it with her hands like a blind woman, suddenly feeling extremely blessed that she had a working sense of sight. She’d always taken it for granted before.
She found stalls, and at one point the nose of a horse poking its head over the stall door. It nipped at her, and she only just got her hand away in time. Then, on the far wall hanging from a peg, she found a bucket. With that firmly in hand she continued working her way around until she realized that the best place to find water would be in a stall with one of the horses.
She had lived in a small town in the countryside for her entire life, but she had never been near a horse. The one she’d brushed up against had tried to bite her, and she didn’t relish the thought of getting too close to the powerful hooves on the giant animals. But most stories painted the creatures as gentle, right? Well, some of them. And some were wild. How would she know the difference here, alone, in the dark?
Steeling her courage, she reached over the side of a stall that seemed devoid of horse muzzles. When she continued to find no resistance she fumbled open the stall door and felt around inside for the water trough. It was there, next to the sleeping horse that neighed when she brushed against its flank. It scooted away in the opposite direction, thankfully neither biting nor stomping, and Kaitlin filled the bucket with water.
Ascending the ladder with the bucket full of water wasn’t easy, but she managed it with a strength of will she hadn’t been aware of possessing. When she returned to Matthew’s side she fed him the water from the bucket one cupped handful at a time, trying not to think about what was probably swimming in it.
He drank thirstily, like a man who had been wandering in the desert for weeks. The first few handfuls of water disappeared so quickly she feared she had let the water splash through her fingers – and she had, to some extent. Trying to maneuver water blindly into a man’s mouth wasn’t easy for either one of them. At one point he sucked her finger into his mouth, the sensation startling but not at all unpleasant. Kaitlin let it remain there for a few seconds as a warm tingle flooded through her body, finally removing the appendage when she remembered that he was sick – and that he would know exactly how the contact was affecting her.
When Matthew could drink no more, Kaitlin splashed water onto his face, anything to bring the fever down. In books and movies, they submerged someone with a high fever in water, but there was no way she could carry Matthew down that ladder to the trough. She considered dumping the bucket of water over the top of him, but before she could he spoke.
“Take off my shirt. Use it.”
“Okay.” Kaitlin did as he suggested, clumsily turning him this way and that with minimal help from Matthew, until she had the shirt off. “Aren’t you supposed to be delirious or unconscious?”
“Not the flu,” Matthew said.
“I see.” She didn’t, but she would have to take his word for it. Dumping the shirt into the bucket, she squeezed off the excess liquid and pressed it against his forehead, then his cheeks and his chest, until it became warm. She repeated the process over and over again through the endless hours of the night, until the dawn asserted itself through tiny holes in the wall and Matthew fell into a deep sleep from which Kaitlin wasn’t sure he would awaken. His fever was down, but would he be the same when he woke?
For the first time, Kaitlin thought back to the confrontation she’d witnessed between Alexander and Matthew. Matthew had admitted to doing some terrible things, and she knew he had done others. He had hurt Cassie, and he had never answered for that. Was he even sorry? Would it help if he were?
Not that Kaitlin was a saint herself. She’d laughingly told Cassie one time that she’d let her friend pick her next boyfriend, but she’d known it would never work. Cassie would pick someone too nice. Kaitlin didn’t do nice. It wasn’t even something she understood. She wasn’t a nice girl, she wasn’t a good girl, and she hadn’t been since she’d lost her virginity at the tender age of twelve. And that wasn’t the worst she’d done. Not by a long shot.
If she spent too much time with Matthew, he would learn the truth. Sooner or later, she wouldn’t be able to keep it from her thoughts. She imagined how he would look at her then, the revulsion she’d see on his face, and she nearly cried. Would he be sorry he’d rescued her then?
Chapter 25
MATTHEW SLEPT POORLY THAT NIGHT, KNOWING that every time he jerked awake, imagining he was hearing the imminent approach of Alexander’s men or perhaps two powerful vampires, he was making things worse. He needed rest. He needed food. He needed water. The water Kaitlin had found for him tasted awful, and he wished he didn’t know where it had come from. Sometimes, telepathy was a curse.
He must have dozed off before sunrise, because the next thing he knew sunlight was slanting in through slits in the wood panels. He sat bolt upright, his heart hammering wildly, trying to find or even sense Kaitlin. She wasn’t there, not within telepathic range and not, as far as he could tell, anywhere else either. Had the vampires come during the night while he’d lain weak and helpless? Had they taken her from right under his nose without him even knowing?
He forced calm upon himself through a sheer effort of will. He took deep breaths, found his quiet place, and spent long minutes studying the large diamond he found there. His first thought was that it had gone out – all the sparkle gone – but then he saw a faint luster, a hint of magic.
He hadn’t burnt out. But he had come much, much too close. He had no idea how long it would take him to regain his full strength – or if he would regain his full strength.
Angrily, Matthew pushed that last thought aside. He had exhausted himself, but there was no reason to believe he had pushed himself so far that he would suffer permanent consequences.
Except, perhaps, for the fever. He’d never burned with fever like that, and he’d heard that a fever usually accompanied burnout.
No, there was magic! Right there. He could sense it. He drew it into himself, what little there was at the moment, let it run through him and comfort him. He didn’t do anything with it – only a fool would do something with magic in this state – but he reassured himself that it existed and that it would soon spark back into its usual firestorm.
“Matthew?” came a soft whisper from the other end of the loft.
He snapped his eyes open and felt a second moment of relief when he saw Kaitlin’s head, framed by wild, lustrous blonde hair in beautiful disarray. She was there. The vampires hadn’t gotten her. He hadn’t failed her.
Yet.
“I’m okay,” Matthew said. That was debatable, but he didn’t want to worry her. Let her think there were wards around this barn keeping them safe. Let her believe he had been able to accomplish that much.
“I brought breakfast.” Kaitlin climbed the rest of the way up the ladder, carrying a plastic grocery bag.
“You went shopping?”
She came within telepathic range then, and he sensed her shame even before she told him the truth. “I ‘borrowed’ a few things from the house nearby. They left the back door unlocked... I just went in. I tried the phone first, but it was dead.”
“Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to get a signal out anytime soon.”
“Then I grabbed a loaf of bread, jar of peanut butter, and some apples. I thought you’d be hungry. Cassie says magical exhaustion makes you hungry.”
“Ravenous.” Matthew’s stomach gave an indelicate growl at the thought of the simple food. He didn’t normally like peanut butter, but today he could eat the whole jar.
“Oh damn, I forgot to take a knife.”
Kaitlin considered going back, but Matthew forestalled her.
“We’ll make do. Don’t take risks you don’t have to right now.”
“How do you feel?” Kaitlin asked. And inside her mind, she wondered the same thing he had been wondering – if he had lost his magic completely.
“I’m fine,” Matthew told her, firmly.
“Are you sure? That fever was bad.”
“I’m sure.” He hesitated, unused to telling people the whole, unvarnished truth, especially when he had no means of making them forget it later on. But they were in this together, one way or the other. She had to know what they were up against. “I can’t use magic right now. I’m too low. That means there’s nothing protecting this place: no wards, no suggestions to turn and go the other way. I can’t even hide our trail like I did yesterday.”
“I see.” And she did. Her mind grasped the situation all-too easily. She thought of her son, and wondered if she would ever see him again. Yeah, that was about the long and short of it. “We should move, shouldn’t we?”
“I don’t know.” Matthew considered the situation, or tried to. His head hurt too much. “Give me one of those apples.”
Kaitlin tossed him an apple, which Matthew caught deftly, along with the undercurrent: Best not to touch him, if I can.
She still wanted him, and not because he’d made a subtle suggestion or even because he’d dug something out of her mind he could use to tempt her. In fact, until a few hours ago he had done everything in his power to push away the woman who was completely immune to his charms.
No, completely immune to his magical charms. Amazingly, she wasn’t immune to him personally.
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