"Yes, dear," she says, rolling her eyes. "We're Facebook friends, and I have a photo of you and me posted, from before you left. Still a little slow, aren't you?"
"I'm so sorry." I'm overwhelmed with grief and remorse. "I'm so sorry I left you."
"Yes, well—I was looking forward to a mother-daughter chat, but as luck would have it, we ran into those Patronage fools right after they took the Madstone from you, so our paths never crossed. I'm glad to have this second chance to see you."
Her lips smile, but her eyes are cold and dull.
"But you're here, at Eisuke's house," I say. "I thought you'd be long gone by now."
Her smile fades. "Not that I need to explain myself to you, but we've been having a tiny bit of trouble getting the Madstone to work. I thought your father's magical lackey could help us with that. And I've been meaning to pay him a visit for years. He has so many pesky little charms and spells around here, though. Without the Duke's help, I couldn't have managed it."
Eisuke might be dead at this point, if he refused to help them with the Madstone. But his death doesn't matter to me. Nothing matters except her.
My mother's eyes drop to the black panther crouching at my side. He hasn't stopped growling since I called her "Mama."
"Who's this?" she asks, pointing.
I glance at him. "No one special."
"Shifter?"
"Yes. He transformed because his cat is afraid of the storm."
"Well, we can't have those nasty claws interrupting our chat, now can we? I'll calm him down so we can all converse like human beings."
She focuses on Ryden for a moment, and within seconds he shifts back to human form, rising tall and beautiful and naked beside me. He looks calm, but the fire in his eyes tells me that she hasn't interfered with his emotions beyond removing the fear of the storm.
"Good gracious." My mother surveys his body slowly, as if she's savoring the sight of him. "He's a dish, isn't he?"
Something tugs inside me, and I turn to look at Ryden.
He's pretty, like a vase of flowers is pretty, and powerful, like a magnificent racecar is powerful—but I don't feel a connection to him. There's no joy, no love, when I look at him. There is simply—nothing.
"He's all right," I say.
"Cilla. She's messing with your emotions," he says, taking my shoulders and turning me toward him. "Fight it, please! Remember that I love you."
"Oh, this is priceless," says my mother. "Such fun. Cilla, you love your mama, don't you?"
"Of course." How can she ask me that? She is my world.
"Bind the boy to the spot. I assume you know how to use your powers now, since you've obviously been working with the Patronage?"
I've done as she asked before she has even finished speaking. Ryden twists, his feet gravity-bound to earth, my magic hampering his ability to shift. "Cilla, don't listen to her."
"She's my mother," I tell him. "I love her."
"But you love me, babe." His eyes, muddy-green in the odd storm-light, plead with me. "And I love you."
I cock my head, frowning. He loves me. And my brain, my rational, conscious mind, tells me that I do love him—that I'm supposed to love him. But I don't feel it anymore. And is it really love if I can't feel it?
"Come with me, Prissy," says my sweet mother. "I want to take care of you. We'll go to the storm shelter together. And then you'll help us with the Madstone. Did Eisuke bind it to you?"
"Yes, but the Patronage team broke the bond."
"Apparently they didn't do the ritual properly," she says. "Well, well. Seems that Fate intended all this. Your blood may be what we need to reset the stone." Raising her voice, she calls into the house. "Bring the wielder to the shelter, Paul. I think I have a solution to our problem."
"Cilla!" Ryden's voice breaks into my mind, disturbing my calm slightly. "I love you, baby. Please let me go, so I can save you."
Unease throbs through my soul, but my mother calls to me, her voice flooding my heart with peace. I return her smile, angling my back to Ryden, oblivious to the pleading words that pour from him.
A minute later the farmhouse's screen door opens, and the skinny cowboy appears, hatless, with a bleeding Eisuke draped over his shoulder. "Curse this wretched wimp," hisses the Duke, hauling Eisuke down the steps. "Where's the storm shelter, you filthy bitch?" He kicks Eisuke's shin with a boot.
Eisuke groans, pointing to a scrubby stand of trees in the side of the hill. Nestled between them is something that looks like half a building sticking out of the ground. Cursing, the Duke drags him toward the spot. "Hurry it up, Amanda!" he yells. "If you're bringing her in, get on with it."
My mother's eyes narrow even further. She doesn't like being ordered around by anyone. And I love her, so it's my job to remove anyone who makes her unhappy. I lash out with my power, hurling a pulse of energy at the Duke—enough to send him sprawling in the dirt. Eisuke crumples beside him.
Enraged, the Duke leaps up, gripping one of the amulets at his neck. A red glow sparks beneath his fingers.
"No!" shouts my mother. "We don't have time!"
"She's going to pay for that," spits the Duke.
"You can do anything you want to her later. For now, we need to get under cover."
A fierce roar echoes through the still air, like a massive engine churning toward us. My mother glances anxiously at the approaching funnel, and I feel a flare of her panic reflected in me. The next second she has control again, and I'm perfectly calm, happy to stand here as long as she needs me to.
The Duke throws open the heavy door to the storm shelter, grunting with the effort. I'm not sure why he isn't using magic. Maybe he doesn't have any of his own, only what he borrows from the trinkets hanging around his neck and the rings clustering over his fingers. He kicks Eisuke into the cellar and disappears into its dark mouth himself.
The roaring is louder now. Calmly I observe the tornado, swollen to immense size, whirling through the windbreak two fields away, tossing trees aside like popsicle sticks.
"Prissy!" My mother stretches out her plump hand, pudgy fingers waving me forward. "Come to the shelter, before the tornado hits. I want to keep you safe."
I take a step. "What about him?" I jerk my head toward Ryden.
"He doesn't matter," she says. "You don't care about him. He's meaningless."
I nod. "Of course. I love you. I'll do anything to make you happy."
As I stride confidently toward her, she smiles triumphantly—not at me, but at Ryden.
Something flickers through me when I see that look on her face.
I pause.
Frowning, backing toward the storm cellar, she beckons again. "Come to me, Prissy. We'll be together. I'll forgive you. You'll be so happy, my sweet girl! And so will I."
Yes, urges my heart. Yes, she makes me happy. She is my blood, my family, my reason for existence. I will go to her.
But if I go to her, if I leave Ryden here, he will die.
Ryden can't die. You love him, says my brain. You love him.
I want to be happy, yes. But love—real love—does what's best for the other person. Love is more than a feeling. Love is a choice.
I don't want to go to Ryden. I want to run to my mother.
But no matter how powerfully she moves my emotions, she cannot touch what I know. And I know—I remember—what she did to me for all those years. And I know what Ryden is to me. He is more than my happiness. He is my soul.
I shut my eyes. I force myself, mind over matter, intellect over heart, to turn around. And I walk, step by step, until Ryden's hands collect me and he gathers me to himself. As I breathe in the scent of him, my mother's control shudders—a sliver in the ice at first, and then a web of crawling cracks until it bursts and my emotions surge back into their proper places.
I love Ryden, and as for my mother—well, I hate her.
"You're an evil bitch." I throw the words at her, releasing the gravity bond that holds my shifter in place. Ryden leaps f
orward, pulling me with him toward the storm shelter. We race together, hand in hand, through the acrid air, feet pounding the grass, straining to reach the black maw of the cellar.
When I glance back, I see my mother jogging toward the entrance too, her breasts and stomach bouncing, all thoughts of control gone as the roar of the tornado swallows the world. It screams across the field, tearing up earth and stalks and fences. A churning mass of darkness and debris swirls around its tip.
Ryden and I reach the cellar well ahead of my mother. We stumble in together, but the Duke yells with fury at the sight of Ryden, sending a blast of purple lightning at his chest. Ryden dodges, panther-quick, and grapples with the Duke while I tug at the ponderous door.
My mother is several steps away, struggling, fighting against the sucking power of the wind, buffeted by broken sticks and chunks of fence. The tornado's force shears the corner off Eisuke's house, splintering it into toothpicks. Its outer edge catches the red car and smashes it into Eisuke's car.
"Close the door!" screams the Duke.
"Cilla!" Ryden's shout is a plea and a warning.
My mother's foot slips in the mud and she falls, striking earth with a heavy smack. She looks up, eyes wide and wild. She won't make it.
Ryden has the Duke pinned to the wall near me. I reach out, more by instinct than intent, and seize the red stone around the Duke's neck, ripping it free. It pulses in my hand.
I rush out of the cellar, narrowly avoiding Ryden's desperate grip.
"Cilla, no!" he screams.
Shielding my eyes with the arm that holds the Madstone, I step between my mother and the tornado.
For a panicked, frozen moment, I face the screaming force of the funnel.
Oh hell. I'm going to die.
The storm is one whirling mass of kinetic energy, and I inhale as much as I can take and more, siphoning its power while the Madstone pounds in my fist like a second heartbeat. Then I blast all of the stolen energy, everything I have, straight at the oncoming funnel—a huge disc of transparent force. The largest pulse I've ever done.
The pulse strikes the side wall of the tornado and shatters it. The funnel lurches, shuddering and reforming, still coming. Bits of bullet-fast gravel skim my face and arms, slicing my skin, and dust clogs my lungs.
Furiously I thrust outward with my power again. This time I hold the pulse like a shield, pressing, fighting, pushing against a force so immense, so mighty, that I will surely be engulfed and torn apart. Power flows out of the Madstone, through me—surge after surge of it, a deluge of pent-up magic. I let the power gush from my body, billows of it, until the tornado is ripped and unraveled, collapsing in on itself.
From the sky the wreckage falls—trunks of trees, fence posts, barbed wire, branches, a car bumper, hubcaps—each one a deadly bomb hurtling through the sickly air to crash around us. I send out pulse after pulse, directing each new missile away from my mother and me, away from the cellar door.
The Madstone vibrates in my fist as the last eddies of its power drain away.
Dust and dirt settle slowly over everything, coating my hands, my hair, the back of my aching throat. I must have been screaming. I couldn't hear it over the sound of the storm.
When I look up, the clouds are shredding, dissipating, the greenish tinge fading to gray.
My mother scrabbles in the dirt, her fingers grabbing at my ankles. "My sweet girl, you saved me! You are magnificent!"
I shake her off. "Don't ever touch me again."
Ryden and the Duke are watching me open-mouthed from the cellar doorway. I stalk toward them, and the Duke recoils, clutching his tokens.
I stretch out my hand. "Give them to me. All of them."
"All of what?" he asks.
"Your amulets. Talismans. Anything you have that holds magical power. Give them to me, now."
His face twitches, eyes panicked.
"Don't even think about using any of it," I say. "You just saw me stop a tornado. Do you want to be next?"
He hurls a foul word at me and Ryden backhands him in the mouth. The Duke spits blood and a broken chunk of tooth.
I take one step closer, curling my fingers tighter around the Madstone. It's practically useless now, but the Duke doesn't need to know that.
"I will kill you," I say. "I wouldn't let her die because she's my blood. But I have no qualms about killing you. None at all."
Mutely he removes all the chains and strings from around his neck and hands them to Ryden, who passes them to me.
"And the rings," I say. "Sweetheart, would you check his pockets for me? Actually, go ahead and strip him."
Without his clothes, his talismans, or his hat, the Duke of Demons is nothing more than a scrawny, pale-skinned man in his fifties, with a pair of embarrassingly saggy pecs. We leave him his underwear, but nothing more.
My mother has a few relics, too, and I take those off her as well, after gravity-binding her to the spot where she fell. Ryden carries our haul to his car, which was thankfully far enough away to avoid being wrecked. It has a few dings and dents from the debris, but otherwise it's intact and functional. After stowing the magical items and pulling on a pair of boxers, Ryden helps a shivering, bleeding Eisuke into the back seat.
"Well," I say, looking at the Duke and my mother. "I think this has turned out really well—for me and Ryden, anyway. We're taking Eisuke to the hospital now. I suggest you get busy walking out of here, and don't even think about coming back to bother Eisuke. If you do, you'll have to answer to me. Got it?"
The Duke curses under his breath and I flatten him with an energy pulse and bind him to the earth. "What was that?" I say.
"I got it," he mumbles.
"Prissy, darling—" my mother begins.
"No!" I snap. "You don't speak to me again. Don't bother Dad, or Eisuke, or anyone that we know. You hear me? I may have saved your life today, but you are dead to me. Dead." My hands are shaking, and my voice trembles even though I want to sound firm and fearsome.
Warm hands cradle my shoulders. "Babe, I got this."
I spin away from the pair on the ground, keeping their gravity bond in place. It will snap as soon as we drive away, but I want to immobilize them as long as possible. I suppose we could tie them up, but we really need to get Eisuke to the hospital for some medical help.
As I walk toward the car, I hear a guttural snarl, then a blood-curdling, otherworldly scream, followed by two very human screams.
I can't help a small smile, especially when Ryden catches up to me, his entire gorgeous body on display.
"Naked again?" I raise my eyebrows.
"Come on, you like it." He grins. "And I had to put a little extra fear into their hearts, you know. I've got clothes in the car, if you really want me to cover up all this." He gestures to himself, particularly his abs and lower regions.
My laugh sounds more like a sob, and he slips an arm under my shoulders. "Hey, you okay?"
"Am I okay? No. Not really."
"You were—amazing—no, that isn't the right word. Something bigger than amazing. Godlike. Goddess-like? Anyway, it was incredible."
"Well, you probably won't see that again." I hold up the Madstone as he grabs his jeans from the car. "This baby is toast."
"It's empty. It could be refilled." He hitches up his pants, eyeing me as if to gauge my reaction.
"I think it's safer for everyone if I pitch it into a lake or something." I rub my thumb over the smooth red side of the stone.
"Awesome. Plenty of lakes in Colorado."
"Colorado?"
"Beautiful state—mountains, forests, lots of nature preserves and centers where a guy like me might be able to get a job." He winks at me. "And I'm pretty sure there are messy homes out there, too—people who could use the services of a sassy professional organizer."
He leans a forearm against the car, grinning at me, his lean torso glowing bronze under the sun that shines through the tattered clouds. His eyes sparkle golden-brown, emerald flecks shot
through them.
I'm overawed by his beauty, conscious of my dust-coated hair and my lacerated cheeks and arms. But the warmth in his eyes thaws my self-doubt. He wants me. Wants me to come with him, to be part of his life as he is part of mine.
His grin widens, growing cockier by the minute as if he knows the effect he has on me, so I sneer and say, "You think a pretty smile is going to convince me? You'll have to do better than that."
"Oh, I will."
I dart around the car to the driver's seat and start the engine. "You coming with me or not?"
"It's my car," he protests.
"Is it though?" I flash him a smile. "Get in. We'll take Eisuke to the hospital, and then we'll talk about Colorado."
-20-
Whatever It Takes
I step out of the sliding glass doors onto the balcony of our tiny Colorado Springs apartment. We found a cute modern complex with a pool and reasonable rates, not far from Ryden's new job at the nature center.
When we first applied for the place, one of the office staff—a smiling blonde with a clipboard—walked us through the model apartment, babbling about amenities and utilities. I barely listened until she said, "Do you have pets?"
"What?" My attention snapped back to her.
"Any pets?" she repeated, still smiling. "Dogs, cats, birds, hamsters? Anything at all?"
I exchanged glances with Ryden, but he only grinned, crossing his arms, and waited to see what I would say.
"We, um—we have a cat." Laughter bubbled up inside me and I forced it down, but the corners of my mouth twitched.
The office girl seemed confused by my smirk. "Well, there's an upfront pet fee, and then a bit of pet rent to cover any damages caused by the animal."
"Like what kind of damage, for instance?" Ryden asked with a perfectly straight face.
"Chipped paint, pee on the carpet, that sort of thing." The girl brightened her smile encouragingly. "It shouldn't be a problem since you only have one cat. The major damage is usually from large dogs. As long as they've got a nice litterbox and a scratching post, most cats are perfectly happy, am I right?"
The Panther and the Thief Page 17
