“And maybe you wouldn’t have been alone in abandoned church searching for her when you went into shock.”
He shrugged.
“Either way, you still have maybe two or three hours left in you. It will be a slow and agonizing death. The poison, you see, doesn’t cause sepsis or its symptoms, or the symptoms of any disease really. That all happens after the fact. I can’t really explain how it works. All I can tell you is that I will be far away from here—killing two annoying little Gods when you finally breathe your last.”
Either I couldn’t open my eyes any longer, or the poison had made me blind.
Two Gods?
“I pity you, Geoffrey. You could have been someone truly great.”
His feet shuffled down the aisle toward the exit.
The man in the pew.
Could he be Air?
“Grab the God and let’s get out of here.” Toren called to some guards I hadn’t noticed. “They did well hiding the brat of Air, but not good enough. Especially when he takes matters into his own hands. I want that broadcast up and running as soon as possible. I want to be at Lake Wakonahe with plenty of time to set up.”
Toren’s voice drifted away like dandelion seeds in the breeze.
I could barely feel my body let alone my magic.
Odds were I was going to die here.
Odds were Zara and that boy would, too.
The only thing I had left in my arsenal was one antiquated idea I’d once considered foolish.
I prayed.
32
Zara
“Welcome to Wisconsin,” Ryder called cheerfully, pointing at the sign beside the building. “I need to stretch my legs, and we have to gas up. Finn, be a doll and fill her up while I peruse the offerings of this fine establishment.”
Ryder flicked a credit card and popped his door open.
“Think he’d notice if we ditched him?” Finn asked rhetorically and turned the card over in his fingers before flipping his own black card out of his wallet. Existing for thousands of years must give you plenty of time to establish a solid credit score, I supposed.
He groaned as he stretched his long legs for the first time in hours. Despite the long drive, the kelpie still looked fresh in his light blue polo and factory-worn jeans. I, however, looked a mess. I peered at myself through the rear view mirror, and attempted to untangle some of the hair framing my face. No dice. I reluctantly popped the lock and stepped outside. Finn was meticulously cleaning the windows with dirty gas station water, a squeegee, and a spare paper towel.
A bell dinged overhead as I pulled open the door to the convenience store. A sticker pasted to the metal siding showing the height of everyone that walked in was peeling at the edges. The scent of day-old coffee and lukewarm pizza teased my nose. Definitely a gas station. The female attendant glanced up, her eyes darting from me to the peeling sticker, then returned to flipping the glossy pages of her magazine.
Good to know that even with my hood up I didn’t appear to pose much of a threat.
I snagged some toothpaste and a brush before high-tailing it to the restrooms in the back-left corner of the store where I immediately attacked my hair. Large knots caught in the bristles, but eventually it smoothed enough for me to tug it back in a tight braid. I ran the toothbrush over my teeth and tongue, then attempted a smile in the mirror and grimaced. Yeah. I definitely did not look like a girl without a care in the world.
Better to go with the resting bitch face.
I pushed through the door, intending to pay for the items I’d grabbed, when my shirt snagged. I twisted, thinking it had caught on a shelf, and found Ryder. My feet moved of their own volition, carrying me back toward him. He dropped my shirt and his fingers curled into my hair instead, pulling my head back as his face dipped closer. My lips parted in anticipation as we moved, stopping until our faces were about an inch apart. Those eyes were intoxicating, drunken, easy to get lost in. Mine fluttered closed as he shifted closer and whispered against my skin, “Where are you going so fast?”
My eyes opened half-mast, lost in the sensation of his body against mine. His lips brushed my cheek, enough to send tingles dancing delightfully across my skin. “I picked something up for you.” He pressed a t-shirt with a screen-printed moose and a clever phrase about Wisconsin into my hands. “It reminded me of you.”
I nodded mutely. I felt drunk, my head light, and my body pliant. Everything about him felt good, from the muscles smashed under my hands to the way he hungrily held me close. I fumbled for the handle to the door only to find he’d already opened it. Ryder pushed me back into the small room and locked the door with a click of the button, his eyes hot and wild.
I was all about what was happening here.
I shrugged out of my jacket and hung it on a hook reserved for purses next to the sink, not once breaking eye contact. His Adam’s apple bobbed as I reached for the hem of my old shirt, and I saw his hands clench as he stepped back to lean against the wall, not once looking away. Hell, he was barely blinking. Slowly I worked the shirt over my head, breathless as the crumpled fabric dangled from my fingertips.
It should have felt awkward, standing there under Ryder’s intense scrutiny as he leaned back against the wall. But I felt empowered standing there before him in my plain black bra and jeans. His eyes melted, his breath audibly catching in his chest.
His throat worked.
“Gods you’re beautiful.” The words were honey dripping from his lips. They were spoken so softly I wondered if I was even meant to hear them. “You don’t know how beautiful you are. You can’t possibly understand.”
He took a step toward me, then two more until our chests were flush once again. His eyes were dilated, the blackness pulsing outward so the gold was but a sliver around the rim. Fingers brushed my bare sides, over the jut of my hips. Lightning raced in my blood.
A corner of his mouth quirked as if he could feel its zing before his face dipped low. His breath teased my cheeks in a subtle warning before his lips captured mine in one breathless move. I sank into that kiss and wrapped my arms around him, feeling him pull me impossibly closer as his tongue touched my lips, asking entrance. I opened to him, feeling my magic sing as it intertwined with his.
Somewhere behind us, a faucet gushed. I was eons past caring. All I could feel was heat and fire and energy as he pulled me tight, his tongue probing my mouth, sparks flying around us. Our magic collided, at first resisting in a fury of cool water and intense darkness, and then accepting, swirling and clinging and morphing into something deeply sensual. Something so deep it rattled my soul. I embraced it, diving my fingers deep into hair now tinted with sparks of orange and purple, shuddering at his groan.
No. That wasn’t my soul rattling.
The hinges of the stall to my left were shaking, everything was quaking, and someone was banging on the door. Ryder pulled back, his hands cradling my face carefully, like I was something delicate and breakable.
Something other than what I really was.
His breathing was harsh, uncontrolled, his chest heaving as he forced himself back.
“I’ve existed for thousands of years. I’ve wooed queens and tasted emperors. I’ve been besotted with fair maidens and danced with young men. I’ve sucked the souls from the pure and laid waste to the weak. And somehow, some way, I’ve always been waiting for you.” He pressed another soft kiss to my lips, gold swirling in his eyes, mixing tenderly with the deep blackness. “What are you doing to me?”
“That’s my line.”
The room stilled around us.
The rushing water stopped.
The maddening knocking on the door finally ceased.
“You should put on your shirt.”
Reluctantly, carefully, I extracted myself from his arms, and I tugged my old shirt over my head. No way was I wearing that moose. The jacket quickly followed. I brushed his chest, not quite sure what we were to each other, what this moment meant. Ryder didn’t seem to know what to say
either.
I was OK with that.
With one last look back, I pushed the door open again and all the warm and mushy feelings flooding my body vanished. My body went rigid as I stared at the television screen and the anchor talking over a photograph of young man police called armed and dangerous. A young man finally in custody, a suspect in a number of terror plots, a man to be wary of.
I knew that man.
I’d never met him before in my life.
I’d never seen his face until now.
I’d never known his name.
But I knew in that moment, that heart-stopping moment, that Joseph Windrunner was the God I was looking for. The God I was desperate to find.
The God of Air was no longer hidden.
And the Order wanted me to come out of hiding.
33
Zara
“Calm down and start over. Chronological order this time.”
Finn’s large hands squeezed my shoulders. I’d sprinted from the gas station the second the news report had ended. Shaking, trembling hands had thrown open the passenger door, reaching past the wide-eyed kelpie, scrambling for the creased red and blue streaked map.
Panicked when I couldn’t find it.
I had to find Lake Wakonahe.
Finn slipped out from the passenger seat, hands flipped up, palms flat in a universal gesture for surrender. I’d spotted the map tucked haphazardly in his back jeans pocket and had gone crazy, streaks of red and spots of black dancing across my vision. My panic so all-encompassing that I completely forgot to reach for my abilities.
Forgot that I could fling him halfway across the parking lot with a thought.
Luckily for the stupid kelpie, Ryder had snuck up from behind, wrapping me in his arms and a blanket of some sort of magic. Magic that made my nose itch and eyes water. Magic that danced and swirled and tickled the back of my throat. Magic I hadn’t known he possessed. But he was an incubus after all. It only made sense that he’d have gifts to draw people in, entice them, even calm them.
It was that logic that punched through my panic.
I went limp, cheeks burning as I realized how insane I probably looked to everyone around us. Sure enough, people were moving to and from the convenience store, sneaking glances out of the corners of their eyes, lips tight in disapproval.
“They have him. The God of Air. They have him. And they’re going to hurt him. Hurt him. They want me. Will have me.” Sentence fragments, fragments of fragments, dripped from my lips as I struggled to make sense of everything. Finn dipped his head to my level, hands still gripping my shoulders, and he looked me in the eye. Ryder shoved more of his rich, chocolaty magic into the air, into me, and I shuddered.
“You’re not going batshit crazy on us, hear me?” Finn took a deep, calming breath. “We aren’t going to let you. But we do need you to start making sense before you even think we’re letting you back inside that car. Now. From the beginning.”
I sucked in a breath, then another, clenching and unclenching my fists as the haze cleared from my eyes, evaporated from my thoughts. I stood straighter, swaying against Ryder’s grip. His answering growl rumbled against my back. Yeah, didn’t think I would get away quite that easy.
“OK. OK. I’m good. But something snapped. Like part of me broke away, seeing and knowing that he was in danger.” Finn cocked an eyebrow and opened his mouth to say something but I interrupted. “Joseph Windrunner. He’s the God of Air. Don’t ask me how I know that, don’t ask me how I can be certain. I just know. I know it like I know the color of my eyes.
“His face was on the news, his picture on the TV. The anchor was calling him a suspect, an accomplice in the Kansas City tragedy, the chaos that I caused, and a suspect in additional terror plots. He said that Joseph was being held in a secure location by the Order, and that the Order was still searching for the true pretender, the real perpetrator. Me.
“They showed the footage of me blowing up that helicopter and the haze of blackness on the ground that was you, Ryder, that you created. They called it smoke and mirrors. They called me a Godly pretender. That there’s no way the Gods have returned. They said it was treason to pretend to be one of the Gods, that I’d broken one of the cardinal, holy rules, and I need to pay for my crimes.”
My blood pressure was spiking and I drew in a trembling breath, squeezing Finn’s fingers so tight they appeared bloodless.
“A map came up next. A map showing the reservation and other areas where Joseph allegedly committed crimes. But I didn’t see that. It was like the map was made for me. All I could see was Lake Wakonahe. It was lit up like an emergency room in the dead of night. Impossible to miss, impossible to look away.
“Text that I know wasn’t there, text that I shouldn’t have seen but it was meant for me rolled across the screen. The Order told me to show up there or else they’d start cutting him apart, piece by piece. I have an hour. An hour to get there.”
Panic clawed up my throat but I shoved it back down.
Ryder released me and I sagged against the car, mentally exhausted and physically drained. I feebly rubbed my eyes with the backs of my fingers and blinked grit from my lashes.
“You didn’t see any of that,” Finn said, eyeing Ryder.
“I saw the guy’s photo but that’s it. I might have seen the start of that footage from K.C. roll, but honestly I can’t remember. Her magic started fizzling and made it a little difficult to concentrate.” Finn rolled his eyes and Ryder stepped forward, fists clenched. “You think I’m kidding, but it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Like being jolted by a live wire and you can’t pull away. You don’t want to. But you know you have to.”
What was he talking about?
“Anyway, let’s find this lake. If we only have an hour, we should hurry it up.”
Finn was already unfolding the paper, laying it flat on the hood of the car. He pinned it down with his thumbs on the corners to keep it from blowing in the breeze. He jerked his head, giving me space to look. I leaned across it, examining the surface, waiting for the lake to stand out as clearly as it had on the television screen.
Nothing happened.
My brow wrinkled and I folded my bottom lip between my teeth, worrying the cracked and dry flesh. I touched the paper, finding the small town we were stopped in on the edge of the border, but where was the lake?
Also, why would they want me to come to a lake knowing I was the God of Water?
Was it poisoned?
“It’s not here. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I’m not finding it. I can’t even feel him like I could earlier.” I pressed on my stomach.
Finn rubbed between my shoulder blades and pushed me lightly to the side, before also shaking his head. He also couldn’t find the mystery lake.
I felt Ryder’s hard gaze prickling the back of my neck and turned. Gold swirled with black as he contemplated my words. A few beats passed and his lips curled in a wicked smirk.
“OK. It’s not on a map. It’s probably called something else, then. I’ll figure out what the locals have to say. Give me a minute.”
And he strode back to the gas station, arrogance in every cocky step.
The second the door closed behind him, Finn pounded. “Really, Z. Him? An incubus?”
Yeah. I’d totally expected to have this conversation today.
Right now.
Because we didn’t have enough going on. Emotions already on edge, my anger stoked hot and burning bright. I turned from the building where I could see Ryder through the glass, leaning on the counter shamelessly flirting with the clerk, and crossed my arms across my chest. “And this is your business…how again?”
Heat flooded his cheeks. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“I’m perfectly aware of what I am and what he is. I know that he doesn’t have a gold star past, but I also know that he isn’t that person anymore. And I’m good with that. I managed to somehow get past you almost killing someone in front of me,
didn’t I? Someone who wasn’t actively trying to kill one of us, anyway.” I dragged a tip of my boot on the asphalt, rubbing some loose gravel under the worn rubber. I missed my Converse. My temper sharpened again. “Also you’re one to pry into my life, my secrets. You’ve hardly been forthcoming.”
Finn’s eyes flared hot, and he spiked his hands angrily through his dark hair, turning from me. A second later he spun back, eyes wide and hot with guilt and frustration and fear. “Fine. You really want to know why the Kraken picked me as your guide? You really want to know? It’s because I need to atone for my sins. I want, no, I need forgiveness. Your forgiveness.”
I tripped in my haste to back away from his outburst of emotion, heart clenching in my chest.
“You already know I’ve sworn my vows to the Temple of Water. But what you don’t know is I was a member of the inner circle. I was part of the elite, part of those who protected the secrets of Water no matter what, sworn to save my God no matter what the consequences.”
I pulled my arms tight around me at his harsh tone, the venom in his voice.
“It’s a tradition of kelpies, part of our heritage, to bind ourselves to the Gods of Water. And we’re always met with favor, always let in without hesitation. We’re hated by just about everyone for what we are, for what we have, for that connection. But we are devout. It’s all we have.”
He looked at me now, eyes bright and pleading. “I was in the control room that morning, the morning the boats came. It was a beautiful day—bright and blue and perfect. I was joking around with a few of the other guys about stupid plans we had later, and then we spotted the Order’s boats on the horizon. They didn’t have the flags or markings like they typically do. It was odd, but I’d seen the Order’s ships often enough to know what they looked like.
“We stopped them at the border and I recognized the captain of the lead ship. I’ll never forget his name or his face. Not as long as I live. I asked him why he was there. I was in charge of the control room, in charge of security, and I hadn’t gotten any instructions, any notes about the Order stopping by.” His hands smacked his chest as I sank to a crouch, my back pressed against the car.
Walk on Water Page 26
