by Liz Schulte
I rolled my eyes. “Neither the bond nor my leaving is public knowledge. You two obviously can’t keep secrets.”
Holden gave me a withering look. “I don’t think Liv or I know anyone who would care.”
Olivia shook her head. “No, I think what Holden means is we’re sorry you’re in pain.”
Holden didn’t look like he meant that at all. I laughed. “Actually I appreciate his candor. Reminds me of my coven.”
“Well, your secret is safe with us.” Olivia smiled sadly, studying the area around me. “I might be able to do something. Do you mind?” she asked, her hand hovering over me. I shook my head. She pressed her palm flat against my chest, just above where it hurt, and a lovely white light poured from her and blanketed me. Katrina gasped and started whispering furiously to Sy. Any remaining tears dried and my mind eased, but her effort did nothing to help with the deep festering pain.
Olivia frowned. “Hmmm. I don’t have any experience with magical bonds.” She looked over her shoulder at Holden. “What do you think?”
Holden came up behind her and looked at her hand just above my breasts. “What exactly do you have in mind, Liv?” A slight smile ticked his lips.
Olivia rolled her eyes and stayed focused on me. “He can manipulate emotion—I can’t. If your bond is emotionally based, he might be able to tweak it. It wouldn’t be a permanent fix, but it could help.” She looked back at him. “You can do that, right?”
Holden’s face turned serious as he studied me with a detachment that made me want to squirm.
“I feel a lot calmer now. That’s enough. I can deal with this. Thank you,” I told her and she released me.
Holden sat down on the stool beside me. “I might be able to do something. I know nothing about magic, but emotions are emotions and yours are running high. But this isn’t a decision you should make lightly. You need to be sure you want me to meddle with your feelings.”
My stomach twisted, and I fought against the nerves. “What exactly would you do?”
The door slammed against the wall. “I love the smell of stale beer in the morning,” Femi proclaimed loudly. “So team, what do we know?”
“Just a sec, we’re fixing Selene,” Sy said, winking at Femi.
“Is she broken?” Femi walked up and stood next to Olivia while Holden inspected me again. “What’s wrong with you, Hermione?”
“Nothing.” I crossed my arms over my chest. I tried to ease the irritation boiling up inside me—these people were helping me—but it simmered and popped inside of me. “I just need to figure out how to break this stupid bond.”
“Who brought the human?” she asked.
“This is Katrina. She’s in my coven.”
Femi tilted her head and eyed Katrina. “You’re in my seat.”
Katrina shifted. “I guess you’ll have to find a new one.”
Femi smiled. “You might be all right.” She looked back to me. “Why do you want to break the bond?”
I gave a quick rundown of the fight Cheney and I had, and Holden scoffed. “We told you to keep doing what you were doing, not confess everything you know. Did you even find out where they’re holding his father?”
“No, I didn’t have chance. And I didn’t tell him everything, but I had to tell him this. I didn’t mention Jaron by name, but I did tell him that the rebels aren’t responsible for my studio or Michael. You don’t understand. He hates them and blames them for everything. Cheney would have come after them and I could prevent it. I saved lives.”
“So the human’s life is worth preventing an attack that may never have happened?” he asked.
I ground my teeth together, stunned. I hadn’t even considered the danger I’d put Michael in. Why hadn’t I thought things through better?
Holden continued on in a flat, emotionless voice. “If Cheney’s responsible for Michael’s abduction, he now knows you don’t believe his story. That makes the human worthless unless Cheney confesses his involvement and holds his life over your head for cooperation.” Holden gave me a cold glare. “Did you want the human to die? If so, why are you wasting my time? I have other matters to take care of.”
I looked over at Katrina, who was staring at her feet with a contemplative expression.
“Hey,” Sy said. “She’s had a rough morning. Don’t be a dick.”
“We all make questionable decisions when it comes to the heart,” Olivia said, raising an eyebrow. “Even you.” Holden looked at her and nodded.
“Sorry,” he told me in a stiff way that made me think he didn’t apologize often.
I didn’t want his apology. If he was right, then I’d royally messed up and needed to hear what he had to say. I let my past confuse my present and I’d made another bad decision. “Don’t apologize. You’re right.”
“So what have you found out?” Femi asked, and I was grateful for the subject change.
“There wasn’t much at the studio. But we did find this at your house.” Holden produced a letter and handed it to me. “Basically it says blah, blah, blah, do what we want or we kill the human.”
“What do they want?” My hands shook too badly to read the letter. Sy took the paper from me, studying it. “Who sent it? How long has it been there?”
“There was nothing at your house the night I called you,” Femi said. “Jaron has been hard to follow with all the transporting shit you people do, but as far as I can tell, he goes to one of three places: here, his home, and a church.”
“What church?” I asked.
Femi shrugged. “I think it’s where the rebels meet, but I could be wrong. I haven’t gone inside yet. What does the letter say?”
“They want her to give Jaron to Cheney for a public execution as punishment for leading the rebellion.”
It didn’t help me trust Cheney more that the note’s demands worked in his favor. It mirrored his plan for defeating the rebels a little too closely to be a coincidence. “Does the note ask for him by name?” I asked.
Olivia shook her head.
Did Cheney know about my involvement before I told him? Did he think I confessed to starting the rebellion to save Jaron? I tugged at my lip, not wanting to believe what my mind was thinking. If it wasn’t Cheney, then perhaps the letter wasn’t referring to Jaron at all. Perhaps the letter was meant to get me to expose myself. “I’m not killing anyone on either side. Has Baker found out anything about Alanna?”
Holden shook his head. “Not yet. Who else are you supposed to kill?”
“Jaron wants me to kill Cheney and take the throne.”
“Huh,” Sy said. “So they both want you to kill the other one.”
I shook my head. “Cheney never asked me to kill anyone.”
“Unless he wrote this letter,” Holden said.
“So you’re definitely thinking Cheney is behind all of this?” My head immediately shook. “It isn’t possible. That isn’t who he is.”
“We don’t have enough information to make judgments,” Holden said. “Right now we’re just working out the possibilities.
“What about you, lover? Have you found us any more suspects?” Femi asked Sy.
“Actually, no. Elves aside, the rest of the fae seem to like Selene more than they like Cheney. I’m actually surprised he let you leave him.”
I resisted the urge to lay my head down. “He couldn’t even look at me when I left. Sebastian is the one who told me I still have to perform my queenly obligations. Whatever the hell that means.”
Holden rubbed his jaw. “It means you need to be careful. Cheney might have let you go so he can keeps tabs on you and on who you’re meeting now that he knows you don’t blindly trust him. Making you keep up appearances leaves him as a hero in the public eye. He still has all the appearance of forward thinking while gaining information on his enemies. It’s actually an elegant plan. He gets public sympathy, the appearance of good will, and the traitor exposed all without lifting a blade or spilling a drop of his people’s blood.” He cracked his
knuckles. “Jaron should watch his back if he’s going to keep meeting with you.”
“He’s supposed to come here tonight. I’ll warn him,” I said.
“I found something else.” Olivia grimaced and looked away as Holden pulled a severed finger in a plastic baggie from his jacket pocket.
“You cut off someone’s finger?” Katrina squeaked.
“Not recently.” Holden winked at her and tossed the bag onto the bar. I glanced over at Katrina. She was staring at Holden with a slightly dreamy expression. “I’d be willing to bet it’s the human’s.”
“That’s … oh, God.” I couldn’t look away. Once I swallowed down my revulsion, I had an idea. “I can find Michael with that.” I reached for the bag, but Sy pulled it away from me.
“What if they know that? If all of this is a trap to draw you out? Burning down the studio got you out of the castle, and now a finger any witch could use to cast a tracking spell. It seems too convenient.”
I snatched the bag from him. “I’m not going to let them kill him because he had the bad fortune to think he was in love with me,” I snapped.
“You’re not running head first into traps.” Sy plucked the baggie back from my fingers. “I’ll put this on ice until we’re ready for it.”
“Why are we waiting?” I demanded. We finally had a lead.
“We need information,” Femi said. “If we charge in there now, we might save him and learn nothing. Then we’ll have to start from the beginning when your next friend is kidnapped. You’ve already tilted our hand to Cheney enough. Until we have a pretty good idea that Michael is in real danger or who is behind this and what they want, we aren’t doing anything.”
“Did they give a deadline?” I asked Holden.
He folded his arms behind his back. “No. They also didn’t give a way to reach them.”
“So they want a public display,” Femi said.
“But what if Cheney isn’t involved? Maybe he would help us fake an execution. That way he would have his justice in the public eye and whoever is doing this would release Michael.”
“That’s putting an awful lot of faith in two people you don’t trust,” Olivia said softly.
“I hate doing nothing,” I said, matching her tone.
“You aren’t doing nothing. You still have access to the castle. You’re our eyes and ears inside,” Femi told me.
“We could help too,” Katrina said and charged on before I could object. “Sy’s place really isn’t big enough for both of us. I can talk to the other girls and get them all to move into the castle with me. Cheney would have to let us stay because if you have to keep up appearances, so does he. With four of us snooping around the castle, surely we can discover something.”
“I don’t know—”
“Sebastian might be willing to talk to me, too.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sy asked.
I didn’t like the idea of them snooping around, but Katrina was probably right that they’d be good at it. “What about breaking the bond? Can we do that?”
“We don’t know that you need to. He might be innocent,” Olivia said.
“Even if he is, I want it broken. I need space. I need to figure out what I want and how I feel without being magically influenced.”
“Okay, we’ll get back together in a couple days.” Femi went to the bar to talk to Sy and Katrina. Olivia and Holden, judging by their distant expressions, were talking silently with one another. I was alone with my thoughts and the pain in my chest from missing Cheney.
“I’m going to go lie down. I have a headache,” I told Sy and headed for the back.
Holden caught my arm and pulled me over to him and Olivia. “I might be able to redirect your feelings. It would be a very temporary fix, definitely not a solution. And it could backfire. Magical bonds are a pain in the ass.”
“I don’t think you should break it. If Holden can ease the effects so you can wait this out, that’s what I recommend,” Olivia said. “Let Holden try.”
Holden frowned at her. “I might not be able to do anything. I told you this isn’t the same as that. You’re thinking with your heart. Magic has nothing to do with souls. You and I are bonded on a molecular level; she is bonded by a spell. It’s more like the arrangements the jinn have with demons. But instead of having her soul, Cheney has her life. If she dies, he dies and vice versa. That’s why no one gets married in the Abyss.”
My eyebrows shot up. No one had explained this to me before. “So that’s why he came to help me when the bounty hunters were after me? If I die, he dies.”
Holden nodded. “Probably. Breaking this bond might actually fix a lot of your immediate problems.”
“You don’t know that,” Olivia argued, frowning right back at him. “If they love each other, Holden, why break them up.”
“Who says they’re in love?” he shot back. “Not everyone thinks with their heart.”
I looked back and forth between the two of them. How on earth did they ever end up together? “Why would he bond himself to me? I won’t live as long as him.”
“Exactly,” Olivia said with a triumphant smile.
Holden rolled his eyes. “You will so long as you’re bonded.”
Again, that was news to me. “And had I decided to stay a human?”
“Cheney would have a very short life expectancy.”
I shook my head. I had a lot to consider. “I’m going to tough this out until I can break the bond, but thank you for your offer to help.” I looked at Olivia. “The problem I have is the more I remember, the more I doubt I ever loved Cheney. I don’t know if the pull I feel toward him is my true feelings or the side effect of whatever plan I had. And I don’t want to decide the rest of my life based on manufactured feelings. And then there’s Jaron.” I looked toward the door. “I’m not indifferent to him.”
Olivia smiled. “That’s very logical.” She looked at Holden out of the corner of her eye and placed a gentle hand on my arm. “But love isn’t logical. Even the strongest magic can’t make your heart lie. Only you can know what you truly feel.” She released me and took Holden’s hand. He kissed the back of hers.
“If you change your mind …” he said absently, no longer interested in me as he watched Olivia glow.
I went back into Sy’s apartment and lay on the couch. All I had to do was break an impossible bond, steal Michael’s finger back, save him, and swear off men for the rest of my life and the world would be perfect.
“That was the craziest meeting I’ve ever been to.” Katrina plopped down by my feet. “Femi is sort of hilarious. What the hell happened when you and Olivia disappeared?”
“What? I didn’t disappear.”
“You did too. She put her hand on you and poof you were both gone.”
“They weren’t gone,” Sy said from the doorway. “Olivia is a guardian. She was healing Selene. That generally makes them invisible to mortals.”
“Oh, and Holden. Is he a guardian too?”
Sy laughed. “Are you okay, coz?”
“I’m great,” I mumbled. “Can you cancel my meeting with Jaron tonight? I’m not up for another memory. I already have too much to think about.”
“Sure. If you need anything, let me know.”
I sat up. “Are you really going back to castle?”
“It’s already arranged. I spoke with Sebastian and the girls. Selene, I want to help. We all want to help. We’ll be fine and figure all of this out. Besides, I don’t think Cheney’s guilty. I like him and I like the way you are when you’re with him—less cautious and more alive. I think the two of you will work things out.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Now I say we get some ice cream and wine and watch chick flicks.”
It was hard to argue with such a solid plan.
I walked into the gym right on time but with heavy circles under my eyes. Sleep was a fickle lover, taunting me, but never taking me all night long. And while I’d tossed and
turned, a new question had assailed me. Why hadn’t the bond affected me before I knew about it? Sebastian looked up and gave his typical greeting. After I sat, he said, “So are you going to tell me the details?”
I shrugged.
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “One of you has to. Cheney won’t say anything, but he paced the hallways all night. All Katrina said was that you’d be staying with Sy for a while—wouldn’t tell me why. What can be so bad?”
I bit my lip and shook my head. If Cheney didn’t tell him, then I wouldn’t either.
Sebastian sighed.
“I do have a question though. Why didn’t our bond affect me my whole life?”
“The bond was with your elf half, which was dormant. Whatever spell you were under was strong enough to suppress the bond along with your memories.”
“So if Cheney died while I was a human, would I have died too?”
He frowned. “I honestly don’t know.”
I chewed on my fingernail. Interesting. “But if I had died, he would have as well.”
“Are you so angry that you’re thinking about becoming human and killing him?”
I gave a one-shouldered shrug. If he killed Michael to scare me into staying with him, I might consider it.
Sebastian laughed. “Let me know if I need to look for a new job.”
“It’s not funny.”
“Selene, you and Cheney fight. It’s what you do, but neither of you are bad people. You’ll work through whatever happened.”
Though I had my doubts, he was missing the point. “It’s not about our fight,” I muttered.
He looked back at me, his expression serious again. “Care to elaborate?”
I shook my head.
He gave me a strange look and his expression softened. “You can trust me.”
“Of course I can, you’re only Cheney’s advisor.”
And like that, his face was back to normal. “Well, if you aren’t staying here, then you better be able to transport yourself.” He knelt across from me. “Elf magic is different from human magic in that it’s innate. A part of you. You don’t need words or circles to cast a spell.”
