by Eden Butler
Just as the brilliant energy coated us like a second skin, Mai shouted, pulled back from me as Joe grabbed her arm.
Twenty
“Get off my sister!”
The tussle of strength was unbelievable. Joe shouldn’t have had the power to battle me and Mai, not to mention the current that flowed from the lines, but he fought it, shooting hexes that looked dark, that the lines both absorbed and exaggerated the moment they left his fingertips.
“You idiot, you’ll kill us all.”
“Fine with me,” he growled, shaking Mai like she weighed nothing. My sister kept reaching for me, but my fingers ached against the current vibrating from the Elam and the struggle it made to drop into the lines. “As long as that damn thing is destroyed in the process,” he said, nodding toward the Elam.
Mai continued to struggle with Joe and it took all my focus to keep the Elam from bouncing out of my grip. All the time we were moving; around us, the forest slid past, a zip of trees and limbs and ground that became a big blur, the whiz of animals and rock all zooming past us as the line shot us forward on the surface of arcane energy. It was like walking on a half-erected stone bridge with pavers that slipped and tottered with each step you made.
“Nearly there, Mai,” I shouted over my shoulder, glaring at Joe when he pulled my sister against his chest.
“You had better drop it before we reach the Cove.” Joe slipped his arm around Mai’s neck and she widened her eyes, immediately grabbing at his large arm to put her fingers between it and her neck.
“Stop it!”
“I’m not messing around, Janiver. Drop the fucking Elam or I will kill her.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Are you stupid?” He jerked Mai closer to emphasize his point. “You believed me when I said I didn’t mean for Malak to kill Wyatt? Of course I did. That asshole overheard me talking to my trackers.”
“Wyatt was a …”
“Too damn nosy for his own good.”
My throat closed up and magic ran like lava through in my limbs. “And Freya…”
Joe frowned, his features going tight. “Collateral damage. Wrong place. Wrong damn time.”
When I moved forward, Joe tightened his grip on Mai and my sister winced. “Careful.” He moved his gaze to my hands, to the glowing turquoise stone resting in my palm. “Now drop the Elam or I will choke the life out of your pretty twin.”
Behind Joe the lines rippled and I knew someone else had hopped them, but my attention stayed on Mai’s face, on the rounding of her eyes and the blue cast of her skin as Joe squeezed the breath from her.
“Please,” I told him, making myself seem small, wishing he knew what this pain was, to have an impossible choice. “I can’t choose between them.”
“Then you will lose them both. Your sister and your town. Either way,” Joe said dragging Mai closer as he stepped toward me, “the Elam will be destroyed.”
It was so heavy in my hand. That beautiful stone, the small tortoise face blinking up at me, as though it could read me, see me, tell me how important I was, how pivotal it was that I restore it to its home. And then there was my twin, eyes wide, shining with fear as Joe choked her. The choice should have been so simple. It should have been something I needn’t give any thought to. My blood, my twin, she was what mattered most to me. But the Elam protected thousands. It kept us all safe. Millions more would be affected if it were destroyed. Life as we knew it, life as everyone knew it, could change. Disintegrate. Come to an end.
Who was I to make that choice?
“Save the Cove, Jani,” Mai spit out, her voice hoarse, raspy, and I needed to only look at her expression, see that complete trust, that utter confidence in her eyes that she’d always shown me. I wouldn’t lose that and I wouldn’t let Joe take that from me.
“Fight like hell,” I told my twin, grinning back at her before I jumped from the line and rolled right onto the ground just two blocks from the town center.
Mai would fight, I knew that. She was the scrappiest witch I knew. I heard the fight in her, that scream and shout of “you rotten bastard” she cried at Joe as I took off. I bypassed the quick looks I received from the mortals hovering around the silhouette of smoking structures that had once been Batty’s and several other buildings but now looked like black, ashen skeletons.
A group of firemen glanced at me running away from the crowd, and a cop watched me as I dodged through traffic, but they all were overwhelmed by what they were already tasked with doing. I kept running, weaving around parked cars and numbed spectators, toward the gazebo in the town square, running along the small picket fence that secured the square and small courtyard.
“Hurry, Jani, he’s right behind you!” I heard Mai shout and my breath came out easier as I jumped the picket fence, hoping the small crowd of mortals would pay more attention to the smoldering buildings than to me or Joe, whose heavy breathing I could hear behind me.
The gazebo came into view as I ran around two large cypress trees. Just feet from me and I’d be able to climb the trellis and refasten the Elam to the amulet that secured us. Grant blood would be handy just now, and it hit me that I would have to face Joe if I wanted to use his blood to secure the Elam back into place. I didn’t need Bane’s strength as Joe had. I had my own.
But I had not anticipated on his shifting, not with so many mortals around. Joe did, however, stripping off his shirt just as I stopped to face him in front of the gazebo, stepping back when all that expanse of olive skin transformed into inky black fur. Panther and massive. His square jaw smoothed out, elongated, and then recessed into powerful jaws, and the man’s small capped teeth stretched and reformed into fine, deadly points that snapped at me the closer he came.
“Figures you’d be a giant pussy,” I said, jumping when the panther growled and pounced toward me.
Behind me Mai was joined by Sam and Bane and a small crowd of curious mortals. To them, they’d see a wild animal, circling me. They couldn’t make out the awareness in the creature’s eyes or the calculating way he sized me up, like a villain anticipating his enemy’s every move. Bane lifted his hand, shooting a concealment charm across the crowd and the mortals around us stood still, unmoving, frozen and unaware. I glanced over at my twin, at my brother, shaking my head when they both advanced.
What are you doing? Bane shouted inside my head, and I managed one quick jerk of my gaze at him before I smiled. You watch my family’s back. And then I lifted my hands, throwing up a shield hex that would keep them back and leave Joe the panther and me to settle this without the intrusion of wizards.
He came fast and brutal, growling, snapping at me, and in the advance he caught the cord holding the Elam in his snapping mouth, twisting it around his tooth. Flinging his head back, Joe threw the Elam across the ground.
“No! I don’t think so.” I charged, toppling him as I jumped on his back with my arms around his neck. The big cat’s growl and the rebuking sound vibrated against my hand as I gripped his throat. It sounded like the whip of lightning cracking across the sky.
“Jani! Please!” I heard Mai crying, but her words or Sam’s cursing didn’t do much to discourage me, and Bane pacing outside the perimeter of the shield only annoyed me.
“You cannot have it!” I shouted at the panther when he charged toward the Elam lying near the steps of the gazebo. My focus, my energy came quick and sharp with an effort borne of adrenaline and pure nerve, but still I hesitated, my fear holding me back.
Open yourself completely, Bane shouted in my head. You can do this.
When I merely grunted, he added, Let me see the rest and I’ll give you my strength. I want to see everything.
Fine, I told him, closing my eyes to concentrate on the writhing cat in my grasp. Just do it.
Anger and fury filtered from Bane and landed straight into my chest. It fueled me. Centered me and left me even more raw and open to the lines. Stunned for a split second, Joe took advantage and threw me off his back. I sprawled ther
e on the ground outside the gazebo, and when I looked up I saw the great black cat preparing to strike. I barely had time to think, to focus—I only had time to react.
The lines flooded into my skin, absorbing every pore, coating every cell and when my eyes flashed open and I caught the gaze of that big black cat, every bit of white energy and seeping power flowed right into him.
Twenty-One
He’d fought to the end.
The lines shot out from me, flooded from me as the panther pounced, but there was too much pent-up magic, too much aggression and frustration from the lines to stop me from shooting hexes and spells and crippling injuries at the beast as it came at me.
“Leave, Joe,” I warned, and still he continued, scratching at me with weak, ineffective grazes against my arms, my legs.
Every step he made, every charge was deflected, weakened by the force of the lines that pulsed and vibrated through me. They shot out wicked, old magic that the shifter could not take, that I, honestly, could barely manage to control. Perhaps I never really did control it.
He stopped fighting once I reached the Elam, and when I picked it up, when I managed to crawl toward the trellis with Joe’s blood coating my fingers and smeared across that beautiful tortoise face, Joe stopped moving altogether.
“Cumaisc,” I muttered, pushing the Elam back into the amulet.
The effect was immediate. Beyond the shield the Cove went still. The approaching mortals froze mid-trot. The firemen and emerging feds that slipped from their cars paused, eyes stopping in blinks, breaths held as the surge of magic waved over the town and the lines were once again tempered by the strength of the Elam.
Birds in midflight overhead went still, the water from the hoses stopped in mid-stream and all the mortals around us simply ceased doing whatever it was they were involved in, pausing where they stood. Wizards, witches, and shifters, however, watched it all unfold, caught the quick flow of magic tempered and resettled once again as the Elam fixed itself right and took in that ley line energy.
Papa looked around the crowd, nodding, before he moved away, likely heading back to see to Carter and sort out what came next. My sister smiled, shoulders lowering. My brother ran his hands over his fade, scrubbing the back of his neck, his features relaxing as Mai touched his arm. The tension left them quickly, easily, and I offered them both a smile of my own until I shifted my gaze to Bane and knew, with one glance, that he saw everything now.
It was all there shifting beyond the block he’d lowered, part of my memories. It came back in a flash and passed just as quickly.
Bile rose quick in my throat and my father stumbled when I jerked against his hold. But he wasn’t wrong. Some part of me knew that, saw it in the fear and frantic way Carter held Bane. There was desperation in the old wizard’s features that I had never seen before.
And Bane. I could not take the fear working in his eyes. I could not let that shock, the horror that etched into his features settle too deeply. It was bliss when our nexuses melded. It had been safe and home and secure, but who was I to take all of that and leave none for anyone else? My home was wherever my family was. My safety, my happiness would come only when theirs did. Who was I to take that from them? From everyone in Crimson Cove?
“Don’t be greedy,” Carter said, letting Bane come to me.
I glanced at the old wizard once, hating him, despising everything about him. “Leave us.”
“Janiver…”
“Papa, if you want me to take his memories, I’ll do it in private.” My father came to my side, stood next to Carter as both men glared at me. “Leave us,” I repeated, keeping my attention on Bane. Finally, they did.
“Come here,” I told Bane, and he obeyed, his head likely still compromised by whatever manipulative hex his uncle had done to him.
But Bane still kissed me, looping his arms around me, his mouth wide and eager against mine. For a few more moments, I let myself enjoy the taste and feel of him. He was mine, no matter what they’d make him do, who they’d make him marry, I would keep Bane in my heart, claim him. She, whoever she was to be, would never have him, not all of him.
And as he pulled me close, I flitted through the memory of the day, grabbing the mark of our melding, taking from him the touch and taste and feel of me against him.
There was a moment, small, microscopic, where Bane’s hands fell away and I stayed close to his chest. It was like watching him wake up…slow, confused until he blinked, his expression shifting from worry to alarm and then reorganization when his gaze landed on my face.
He lowered his eyes, until they stopped on my hand resting on his chest. I could still taste him on my tongue. My scalp ached where he’d pulled on my hair. My mouth was still swollen from his kisses. And now I had to pretend that none of these things were real. I had to ignore them completely.
“Jani?” he asked, frowning when he looked back up at me. “What’s happening?”
Hell, I’d never see him again, and I would not walk away completely without him remembering at least something about me.
“I’m sorry, Bane.”
“For what?”
I exhaled, relaxing when he didn’t try to fight off my hand on his face. “For this,” I told him and kissed Bane. I poured into that kiss everything that I’d felt for nine months, everything I’d keep safe in my memory from the afternoon we’d spent together in that classroom.
He didn’t fight me, didn’t pull away, and I tried not to smile or think too much about how fiercely he kissed me back. I pulled away before Bane could reject me, taking three steps back with my gaze planted firmly on his features.
“What was that?” he asked, smirking.
“That,” I said, picking up my bag from the floor, “was me saying ‘have a good life, Bane Iles.’”
He frowned, disappointment and confusion keeping him immobile, and I turned and left him in that classroom, alone with only the scent of my perfume and the memory of one single kiss.
The movement around us shifted and my shield dropped as the time sped back up. Before I could blink, before I could walk to Bane and explain why I’d let my father and his uncle convince me to take his memories, my sister and brother were at my side, hugging me, holding me, and Bane left the crowd as several Board of Coven members passed along explanations of a missing panther from the parish zoo as they left the town center.
Bane paused only for a second, glancing back at me, and I hated the expression on his face. It looked like anger. It looked like pain. It looked exactly like goodbye.
Twenty-Two
The house was a hundred-year-old Victorian that sat on the edge of Crimson Cove. Outside what had been my childhood bedroom on Lake Pontchartrain, the shoreline dipped close to Mandeville and dotted along the horizon. Even as October ended and the cool snap of fall brought the drop in temperatures and the holiday season, the Cove shone like something picturesque—a Thomas Kincaid wet dream of perfection that had nothing to do with good fortune and everything to do with the pixy dust and fey charms planted in the ground and along the Cove over two hundred years ago.
Charmed herbology or not, I’d always loved the view from my old bedroom window. That had not changed since I’d been gone.
“I wish you’d stay.” Mai’s voice carried from the door where she leaned against the frame. She looked pretty that morning, with her hair around her heart-shaped face and the light breeze from the window in front of me blowing her bangs against her forehead. My twin walked into the room, pulling her sweater tight around her thin waist, and reached for the opened window. “You don’t have to worry about Papa. You can stay with me.” Mai closed the window, locking it before she sat on the seat in front of the white frame. “I had the electricity turned back on and took it off the market.”
“Not selling?”
She shook her head, shrugging when I smiled at her. “It’s a nice little place, just big enough for me and, you know, anyone else who might come along.”
“Anyone like…�
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“No one in particular.” But I caught her shy grin and heard her talking until three a.m. on her cell just outside the ledge that joined her room and mine. The name Lennon and a few giggles had flowed frequently from her mouth.
“You’re a terrible liar, Mai. Just gods awful.”
“It’s not serious,” she promised, stopping me when I tried walking away from that view. “And you didn’t answer me. Stay with me. Don’t go back to New York just yet.”
She let me pat her hand but didn’t stop me when I returned to the bed and the open suitcase sitting on top of it. “There’s nothing for me here or there, sis.”
“We’re here.”
“And you’re wherever I need you, Mai.” The bed shook when I sat on it and let my sister watch me fold and unfold my socks. “Me not being in the Cove doesn’t stop me from having you or Sam in my life.”
“And Papa?” Mai’s voice was low when she asked that, as though she knew she shouldn’t but still needed to. “He’s your father, Jani, and he loves you.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Almost on cue, the creak behind me at the door brought my attention away from socks to the old wizard who stood at the threshold with his hands deep in his pockets, looking between me and Mai.
Papa looked a good deal older that morning than he had when I’d returned less than two weeks before. He seemed to walk slower, take steps that were more cautious, and I didn’t know if that had anything to do with the drunken phone calls or half-attempted visits Bane had made a few days after the Elam was restored. Bane had made threats, I’d heard a few myself and, according to Sam, they were all leveled at Papa.
“Chérie,” Papa said to Mai, “let me speak to your sister for a little bit.” And the little coward left me alone with the old wizard, not bothering to shoot an apologetic smile my way as she left. It didn’t matter. I’d be gone in the morning and wouldn’t have to bother with hearing his excuses again. They’d come, I knew, but I’d make certain this would be the last of them that darkened my ears.
