by Faith Hunter
Mama shouted, her face frantic, mouth open wide in distress. Daddy ran from the shed in back also shouting. The wind picked up. It had been howling. So loud. Now was only silence. Daddy looked angry, and I remembered being afraid, not knowing what I had done to make him mad. Because I knew where to look, I could see myself, kneeling in the dirt beneath the lilac bush. I remembered the smell of it, lush and heady. And the roaring of wind and water, like nothing I had ever heard.
Tears trickled down my cheeks, my eyes aching, my chest so tight it might explode.
Over the storm’s roar, Mama screamed. The waterspout came right at her. Fast. Unearthly fast. Daddy—a stone mage like me—was in the midst of casting a shield when it hit the beach. The spout picked up Mama and spun her like a wheel, sucking her into the white roar, the serpent of swirling water. She was gone in an instant. The roof went next. The palm tree. And then Daddy. He was just gone. Gone.
My tears fell into the water, making small rings that circled out, distorting the surface. Mama and Daddy were gone. Even after all these years, I was empty, still shocked at the sight. I couldn’t react to their loss. Didn’t know how.
The waterspout fell apart, drenching the house and grounds with a solid deluge of seawater and rain. The lilac bush crashed around me and I fell forward in the water, instantly soaked. I pushed back to my knees, my bare skin in a puddle of water. The sun came out. Tiny fish darted through the puddle where I knelt, bright forms flashing. Silence settled on the entire world, broken only by the dripping and trickling of water as it ran off and away.
Mama and Daddy tumbled onto the ground, landing with horrid thumps and splashes I felt through my knees. I could see them lying on the wet grass. I knew they were dead. They lay so still, twisted and broken, blue and naked, even their visas gone. I stared, unable to move, frozen to the ground as the sun came back out and threw its warmth over my shoulders. A thing dropped from the sky and stood over them, looking at them.
It was like a man, but taller, with a blackened and twisted body, and a white head. It had wings made like Lolo’s drums. It kicked Daddy. Hard. And it laughed.
Rage woke in me, a blaze of white-hot fury. I stood and raced at the thing, hit it at the knee and beat it with my fists. It laughed again and picked me up, holding me, dangling down, above its beautiful face. I socked it with my fists, which made it laugh harder. “I have you,” it said, “body, blood, and spirit. You are mine.”
It spread those terrible wings; they beat at the earth. Suddenly we were aloft, racing for the clouds. I looked down through the missing roof of our vacation house. Looked into Rose’s eyes. She was saying, “No,” reaching for me, a hand extended. The image froze on a picture of her face, palm outstretched, perhaps the last thing my young mind could handle. I broke away from the vision and pulled back hard, the water in the scrying bowl murky.
I didn’t follow the vision into the next moments, into the dark, and the cold, and the pain of spawn claws. I shuddered so hard my teeth clacked as I stared at my last memory of that day. My sister’s face, viewed through the water, its surface uneven from my involuntary movements.
I hadn’t remembered the attack in any kind of detail. Neither had Rose; not even with the best psychiatrists and healers the Enclave had to offer. Now, I stared at my parents’ bodies tumbled in a pile on the shore. I was a lost little girl, helpless and broken. From somewhere, I heard a hopeless, helpless sound, a mewl of pain and terror.
I was choking, staring at the broken bodies, gray-blue in death. Staring at my sister. My hands were going numb, my muscles jerking with reaction as I sobbed, making waves in the water of the scrying bowl. Remembering. Remembering it all. A snap of pain slapped me, an electric jolt that burned across my skin. With a crack, the vision vanished into blackness and I fell forward, toward the bowl, toward the telescoping night of unconsciousness.
“Thorn?” My name brought me back, shouted, angry-sounding. My body shook like an earthquake, my head rolling. I opened my eyes to see Lucas, his beautiful face only inches from mine. “Thorn?” He sucked in the word on a frightened breath. I managed to raise a hand and placed it on his cheek. He needed a shave, black hairs prickling.
Ciana appeared over his shoulder. As if mimicking me, she touched my cheek and her fingers came away wet. “You screamed,” she said. “You were crying.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. The circle’s broken. I have her now.” Lucas’ voice was unsteady, filled with some emotion I didn’t recognize. Without taking his eyes from mine, he nuzzled his daughter’s shoulder with the side of his head. “Thank you for the use of your pin,” he said to her. He raised his voice, speaking to someone nearby. “Can you make Ciana some calming tea?”
“Sure. I’ll make enough for us all.” I recognized Rupert, and the tears started to fall again, burning my face. Forcas wanted him. Wanted Ciana and Lucas and Rupert for their blood. Wanted me. And I didn’t understand why. I heard footsteps and the door closing. Lucas slid an arm under me, lifting me, and carried me to the couch. It made a soft sigh beneath us and Lucas settled me on his lap, wrapping me in an afghan knitted of soft mist-green yarn.
I laid my head on his shoulder. “Forcas killed my mama and daddy,” I said, my voice shattered and crushed, like the little girl I had been. “It killed them with a waterspout and it took me.” Lucas said nothing, just tucked my head beneath his chin, tightened his arms around me, and rocked me while I cried.
As grief flooded through me, it occurred to me that Forcas might also have been the Darkness that attacked and killed my twin, Rose, leaving me the only member of my family alive. And Lolo sent me here. To its lair.
Chapter 20
I must have slept, because when I woke I was in bed, my head resting on Lucas’ shoulder. My mage attributes were blazing, mage-sight fully on in the soft light. I didn’t know if it was dawn or dusk or cloudy midday, but I was warm and cozy, limbs heavy with sleep. And I was safe.
Lucas glowed, a beautiful, soft blue touched with gold. His aura used to be yellow, I remembered, yellow banded with green and blue. It had changed after he came back from the Trine. And had changed again in just the last few days, deepening into a richer hue, like Gulf water on the horizon at sunset, just where it meets the sky to the east.
“Morning,” he said, his voice that soft scrape of sound that came after a long, silent night.
Warmth traveled through me, sleepy and contented. I reached up and touched his face, his beard softer than I remembered it from our marriage, but no longer than the night before. There was so much I should have said, wanted to say, but what came out of my mouth, in solemn curiosity was, “Your beard doesn’t grow much anymore, does it?”
His mouth quirked up on one side, but he answered the question as if it were of great import. “No. Not much.” His voice slid into a whisper. “Since I was a prisoner on the Trine, since I ate manna, it doesn’t grow.”
“Your aura has changed. It’s blue now.”
“I’m . . . different,” he agreed. He shrugged his shoulder, my head moving with the motion. “I don’t need much sleep. Don’t need much food.” He smiled and said, perhaps only half facetiously, “Even my clothes don’t seem to wear out.” His fingers followed the length of my jaw, feather-light, letting the silence speak.
Far off, a rooster crowed. Farther, the lynx called, a roaring cry. Not a warning, but a lonely sound. The warmth beneath the covers was soothing, part memory, part security, part solace. Part something more that I didn’t want to analyze.
With a forefinger he traced the hatch-mark scars on my cheek. “You’ve changed too,” he said. “You have old scars that you used to hide. You have new ones.” The smile died. “Lots of new ones. You glow. You can do magic.”
“Mages don’t do magic. We work with leftover creation energy.”
He shrugged again, the light returning to his eyes. “Whatever. You’re different now. You’re not human.”
Our forearms entwined, I stroked his jaw, finding his bear
d softer than down, the bones beneath sharp and distinct. “I was never human,” I said. “You just didn’t know it.” I was almost afraid to ask. “Are you? Human?”
A long moment passed. The pig clock ticked into the stillness. “I don’t know.” He skimmed a hand along my body, caressing, as if he stroked the length of an animal. I was still dressed in the soft, loose leggings and sweatshirt I had worn to scry for Lolo, the clothes bunched and out of shape, my body warm and languid beneath the covers. “I don’t really know.”
By increments his head dropped, as if giving me time to think about it, to stop him. He kissed my nose, my closed mouth, the scars on my cheek. Lips trailing to my hairline, he breathed in my scent, mouth pressed to my temple. When he pulled back, my fingers found his mouth, traced the curve of his lips, so well remembered. So greatly missed.
His eyes on me, he slid questing fingers beneath my shirt, to rest on my rib cage, tentative, waiting. When I didn’t pull away, when I just watched him, the expression in his eyes, the ripples in his aura, he deposited fluttery kisses, like butterflies, down my jaw. He touched his lips to my neck at my pulse.
“Oh,” I whispered. “Oh. . . .” And I felt his mouth smile against the tender skin there. His lips trailed slowly, so slowly, the length of my throat to my collarbone, which he kissed, mouth open, breath blowing. Even slower, he kissed back up to my left earlobe and paused. Mouth poised, one hand still on my ribs, he cradled my head in his other palm, his thumb tracing my windpipe, back up into the sensitive hollow where throat met ear and skull. His lips opened. He sucked my lobe into his mouth.
I arched up. His palm slid up my body, under my shirt. Covered my bare breast.
And I was lost.
His mouth followed the shirt as he pulled it over my head. Settled on my breast, teeth grazing the tight point. He gripped my waist, hands just above my hip bones, and slid down my leggings, tugging them from my toes with his own. The sheets were warm and silken below me, my skin roseate against the ruby silk.
As if we had all the time in the world, as if the world itself had never ended, I peeled off his jeans and shirt, tossing and pushing the clothes aside, movements indolent. I traced his naked back, skin like heated silk, muscles long and rigid.
Lucas breathed on my breasts, his breath warm until he licked first one, then the other, his tongue hot and rough on the sensitive points, the chill air making them even tighter in his wake. He pulled one whole nipple into his mouth, sucking it down, elongating it, creating an unbearable pressure on the deeper flesh that tautened low in my belly.
I trailed my hands up his body, over his shoulders, finding the indentations of bone and tendon. Wrapped my hands around his head, holding him close, hearing the whimper of my breath, my fingers tracking ridged fang scars beneath his jaw.
Shifting his torso between my legs, he balanced on elbows and knees to take away his weight. Kisses rained across my ribs, following a faint scar down my stomach, across my abdomen to the point of the hip on the other side. Cooler air followed the warmth of his mouth, the comforter sliding away to reveal me, covers caught on his body. His lips moved on my flesh at the jointure of hip and thigh, tongue trailing in circles. I heard my groans and his laughter, heated and satisfied. An almost dangerous sound.
He moved his mouth slightly slower, the circles continuing, his tongue pressing, the tissue beneath sensitive. My legs opened, and he paused, drawing down the covers so he could see me, all of me. I remembered that, that he liked to watch my body when it stole from my control, when it became some other thing, untamed and feral, needy and demanding.
Mage-heat, kept close to the surface by the presence of a kylen, blossomed and spread through me, beating in time with my heart, pulsing through me on a wash of need and want, scenting the air with cookies and almonds. Taking his shoulders, I pulled him close, but he held away, his eyes locked on mine as his mouth moved down my thigh to my knee. He lifted my leg and sucked the soft tissue behind it into his mouth, teeth grazing the tendons. I reached between us and clutched him, moaning, the timbre changing from want to demand, my fingers urging him up to me.
“Not yet,” he said, a hint of laughter in his tone, which was rough with his own need. He turned me, putting my cheek to the pillow. I struggled, trying to rise, but he held me in place with his stronger human muscles, pressing my body into the mattress. He stroked along my sides, the backs of his hands trailing from beneath my arms to my thighs, so very slowly. I shivered in want. He smelled like anise, nutmeg, and male, familiar and yet all new, different. I breathed him into me, tasting his scent. Wanting more, but unable to force my will on him.
I gave up resistance. His tongue touched just above the top of my buttocks. Swirled at the edge of the fissure and up, along my spine. Again and again, tasting me. My muscles were loose as warm oil when his hand slid between my legs. I wanted this. Oh, fire and feathers, how I had wanted this.
He lifted my hips and entered me, slowly, one hand holding my hips high, the other sliding to the front, teasing me. I shoved back against him, hard, pushing with my hands, raising my body off the mattress. Guttural breaths came from my throat as he rocked me, my hands gripping fistfuls of sheets. Mage-heat pulsed through me. I wanted. Wanted. And still he held back, moving his body so slowly, too slowly, his rhythm a bass drum beaten with a single club, vibrations pulsing out, his fingers moving only slightly faster. Heat built as waves surged and flooded through me. I could see his hand below me, his blue aura meeting and exploding against my own in tiny gold discharges, pinpoints of light.
When I thrashed, he withdrew, fast, leaving me empty. I ground my teeth, holding in a scream, reaching back to scratch him in anger. Mindless. He turned me again, all in one motion, dropping me on the mattress. I landed with a small expulsion of breath, one knee on a pillow, my head back, half off the bed. He plunged hard, slamming into me with his whole length, filling me up. I screamed then, throaty and breathless, head back, my mouth open.
Lucas rose above me, braced on his hands, elbows locked, eyes on my face. His strokes filled me and retreated, rapid, rhythmic, hitting the deepest part of me in internal blows of desire. I clawed at his shoulders, wanting him close, closer.
He settled to his elbows against me, stomach to stomach, grinding into me with a deeper, corresponding rhythm. I bit his flesh on the pad of muscle below his collarbone, sucking hard and tasting the anise and nutmeg in his blood. He pushed my head aside, and his mouth found a breast. Teeth grazed along the nipple, pulling, stretching. I arched up, following him, my heart beating like thunder. My legs wrapped around him, gripping his hips hard and, arching my body, I took his buttocks in my hands, fingers digging in.
Passion spiraled up from my depths, a swirling whirlpool of sensation. His eyes were open and watching, staring into mine. Waiting. Stroking. Knowing. Lightning shot from the center of my body, along my nerves. It coiled in my breasts in a sizzling surge of pleasure. My extremities curled up hard, clutching and wrenching, and I screamed. Something tore in my throat with a hoarse note of pain and pleasure. “Yes,” I breathed, the sound harsh. “Now.”
He thrust into me, brutally beating into my body. Electricity followed the swell of passion, crackling and burning, rolling through me, up through my bones, along my skin. Thrashing waves of passion gathered and folded over, tightening with surface tension. And fell. Exploded in an eruption of power from the center of my body. Through my skin, along each pore and out my fingertips. His hoarse cry echoed mine.
We lay there afterward, our bodies sweaty, heated, our breathing loud in our tortured lungs. Oxygen-starved, I sucked in air, wondering if what I had seen with mage-sight had been real, the light that burst out between us in that final moment, rose and blue, creating a lavender and purple haze that undulated out from our center. Wondering, but not really caring.
When he could move again, Lucas pulled the down comforter over us and settled more deeply against me, his weight a little to the side so I could breathe. We lay there, head
to head in the dark. Warmth gathered under the covers, a languorous, lethargic ease.
My stomach growled and Lucas laughed.
He fell to the floor of his cell, tripping on the shackles, overshooting the supple resilience of his wings and rolling into the far wall. He crashed into the stone, back-first, as they intended, his severed wing humeri hitting with painful thunks. Since he had killed three of them, they had been more cruel, less willing to place themselves in danger. He eased away from the wall, leaving his blood in a long tracery.
The key to the shackles landed on the stone floor and bounced with a snap and tinkle. “Open the cuffs. Toss ’em over here along with the key.”
“Scared to get too close, Ephrahu?” he taunted, breathless with pain.
“Too smart, Watcher,” the human said, moving a bit of straw from one side of his mouth to the other. He propped a shoulder against the wall outside the cell and relaxed, crossing his arms. “Move. Or I’ll put a mage in heat across the hall from you again. See how you like it two days in a row.”
He didn’t think he could withstand another day of that particular torment, but he didn’t want them to know how close he had come to succumbing once again. So he chuckled and bent for the key. The demon-iron spat when he touched it, searing his fingers. But the key was the only way to take off the shackles, and leaving the shackles on only meant more pain.
He inserted the key in each cuff, at the wrists first and then the ankles, and let them fall to the floor. He kicked them all to the cell door, close enough so the human could reach them. He tossed the key beside them. He’d learned the futility of rebellion. Whatever he did, they always had something worse they would do to him. And now, for the first time in too many decades to count, he had a reason to live.
