by Anise Rae
Keeping her.
Fuck that.
She belonged to him. No one else. If that was too possessive for his little syphon’s taste, then she didn’t need to know about it. But he’d damn well make sure everyone else knew.
He rubbed his hand over his face and tuned back in as the general droned on. His boss recapped what they knew about DW to his warriors, most of them deflectors, like Vincent, but of varying degrees of power. He eyed them from his spot against the wall. They’d all gathered in the front parlor of the old farmhouse, sprawled out on chairs and couches, resting up while they could. Energy wafted around the room, one deflector after the other bouncing it away, but there wasn’t as much as usual. Bronte’s effect.
Wilen’s speech continued. Not a single man here needed the recap, but they were all accustomed to the general’s chatter. The man would wind down soon. Surely. If not, Vincent would walk out. He had a good excuse. Who knew what Bronte would try next if he wasn’t timely enough?
She’d scared him.
He’d dropped his guard. Vincent couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so deeply he couldn’t hear his front door open. How had he not sense her syphon powers disappearing into the horizon? His heart had stopped when he’d woken to find her gone.
He’d known instantly that she was far, far away. No hint of their connection had been left to his sixth sense. He’d had no idea how long she’d been gone. All he knew was that he’d slept for hours. Of course, now he knew her fear outweighed her trust in him. After all, it wasn’t the sex that had scared her away. She’d wanted him as much as he’d desired her.
Though what did he know?
Obviously he couldn’t trust his gut to predict her reactions. He’d thought she was as connected to him as he was to her. Maybe she never would be. His vibes flowed into her; her syphon power gave him peace. But she did not share anything of herself. It was the nature of her power.
Even now, she grounded him with her presence, her stubborn heart. She refused to let him do the same for her. Refused to accept his influence, which could clear a safe path to her dreams.
She wouldn’t get a chance to run again. The moment they got home, Vincent would bar Allison from the gatehouse. If his cousin wouldn’t abide by their security plan, then she’d have to stay away from the exits to the property. Or she could move out.
Allison had told the gate guards they could have the night off. She’d wanted a little private time with the doctor. She hadn’t even watched the whole scene play out as Bronte was taken, telling the entire family, whom he’d gathered in the senator’s office, that the enforcers had arrested her. Vincent had brought the wrath of the Rallises on Masset’s force before Gregor had managed to make the correct connection on the landline to the big house.
The general’s silent pause grabbed his attention. The dozen men in the room shifted in their seats, recognizing their boss was finally ready to deliver the pertinent information.
“Now, about last night’s incident,” the general said. “Peter Leggert’s car was bombed at oh-one hundred. He’s the conductor of the symphony, for those of you not up on your cultural arts. DW has claimed responsibility via their usual MO of letters to major newspapers. A couple interesting details from the explosive guys: the size of the bomb was smaller than normal. Also, it wasn’t plastic explosives. It was a potion.”
The implications raced through Vincent’s head.
It was what they’d long suspected.
There was a mage in Double-Wide.
Vincent could see the pieces of this case start to come together. They’d been stumped trying to determine how a bunch of Nons could travel to different targets occupied by mages, get in without anyone noticing and set the bombs. No Non-mage had that kind of freedom of movement.
“We’re hoping a little time in the basement with Claude Hines will help shed some light on the identity of our traitor. I’ll keep you posted. Dismissed.”
Vincent pivoted and headed toward the kitchen, flipping through the memory of whom he’d seen at the symphony last night.
“Rallis!” Wilen hailed him. “You’re recovered?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you’re back on duty at fifteen hundred.” Wilen spun back toward the front room. He shouted orders for updates from the analysts working in the dining room.
Vincent kept strict control over his face and hid the dread those words brought. He needed time to secure Bronte’s future. But his duties here had always been priority. He exited the house and marched briskly to the truck, reviewing what to delegate to others when he had to leave her.
Gregor sat on top of the hood. He gave Vincent a wary nod as he slid off. “She hasn’t moved. Quiet out here.”
Vincent nodded back. “Be at Rallis Hall at eleven hundred. Bring Dane with you.” One problem solved—they’d guard Bronte in his absence. Those two owed him.
“Yes, sir.”
Unlocking the door with a whiz of vibes, he climbed behind the steering wheel. She huddled in the passenger seat, her arms over her chest. He pushed enough energy around her to warm her and reached behind his seat to the blanket he always kept there. Half afraid she would reject his offering, he gently draped it over her. He let go of his breath as she gathered it around herself and shifted to her hip toward him, like she was settling in for a nap, but too much tension lingered around her for that.
He pointed the truck home, his gaze on her more than the road. He knew the route and could sense the energy of the road and the utter lack of life around at the early hour. He could afford to stare.
His beautiful girl was completely bedraggled. His t-shirt hung crookedly around her shoulders, too big for her small frame. Beneath the blanket, her bare feet stuck out, a mix of purple and white. The white worried him. He should have made her wait in the house, but she’d insisted on the truck. He sent a spiral of energy at them and held it there. She grimaced. He knew the pain of rewarming frozen digits. She bore it without complaint. His girl was tough. It took longer than he expected for her toes to turn pink.
“Why?” The word burst of out him. “Why did you leave?” He had to know, unable to wait any longer. Maybe the conversation would go better after they had a little distance from it, or when Bronte was more rested, but he didn’t have the patience for it.
She sighed with a quick glance up at him, but she wouldn’t hold his gaze. “There is no future for us, Vincent.”
His chest clenched at her hard stab to his heart. He had to take a breath, two breaths, before he could get control of his tongue. “Without you, my future is more of my very recent past.” He reached out a hand. He could almost see his vibes flowing into her. “I want this. I want what you and I are together.”
She didn’t say anything, just looked at him from under her tired brow.
“You want me, too. I know you do. You may think leaving me is a step toward your future, but it’s not. You’re running away from it. Blasted hells, Bronte, of all the syphons I’ve studied, you’re the only one who’s run away from her match. Not once, but twice. And if I gave you the opportunity, you’d do it again.”
“Are you implying there’s something wrong with me?”
He’d offended her. Good. He was offended too.
“Well, go find yourself a new syphon then,” she said.
He ignored her outburst. “You left without saying goodbye! Snuck off like we’re some quick fuck!”
“You never would have let me go!”
“Damn straight! And you wouldn’t have been kidnapped by the enforcers or by my boss.” He stared at her, let her see the fear in his eyes. He watched her recognize it and grow wary. And then fear lit her eyes as well.
“Vincent, I am leaving. Don’t let me break your heart.”
She already had.
13
Bronte’s cheeks burned for the remaining of the drive back. Anger, hurt and guilt all vied for space inside her. She turned her eyes to the window. The sky brightened, a stark contr
ast to her dark mood. Orange and pink glowed over the flat horizon of the shorn fields. A new day.
The day she was supposed to leave.
A sliver of dawn’s light lit the woods. The road narrowed, leaving barely enough room for two vehicles to squeeze past…and only if they had skilled drivers behind their wheels. Mage drivers. Driving was something mages did quite well for all their highbrow aversion to creating machines themselves. Even creating mage engines was considering dirty work, left to dark mages.
They pulled into the gates, Vincent opening them with his vibes as they neared. Her syphon power absorbed the hitch in his energy. She wondered if she’d ever get used to it, ever stop noticing it.
“I want to drive my car back.” It sat beneath the archway of the gatehouse.
“I’ll have someone take care of it for you.”
“Vincent, stop the car.” Her order was clear and firm. With a heavy exhale, she turned to him.
He yielded.
She pulled the door handle. It was locked. “Vincent.” A one-word warning.
“Bronte,” he countered, “you scared the vibes right of me when I realized you weren’t here this morning. So please. For me. Let’s go back together.”
She flipped the lock up. She swore she saw his soul hanging in his eyes. She stayed tough.
He sighed.
She won.
“Go to the big house,” he ordered. “Park in the front. Go straight to the senator’s office. Everyone is waiting for us. I’ll follow you.”
“Why?”
“Meeting about the newspapers. Do not stop. Do we agree on this?”
She nodded, weary of everything. “Straight to the senator’s office. I’ll see you in a minute.” Bronte tiptoed to her car. Her feet were in desperate need of a hot bath. At least they weren’t frozen, thanks to Vincent, but the aftereffects of the cold lingered in them. They were stiff and tired.
The car keys hung in the ignition, her purse on the seat. Vincent waited as she backed away from the gatehouse and did a six-point turn that he probably could have done in two. She drove between the stark trees now visible in the early morning light. The far reach of their branches hung over her like the long arm of the Rallises’ power. She lifted her chin, determined. She would stand among this family as an equal. Or she’d leave.
The stone house rose in front of her. A grand, black car sat in the curve of the driveway. Apparently more people than the Rallises were attending this meeting. She slowed.
Vincent honked loud and long behind her as he sped his truck around her Volvo, forcing her to brake. He cut her off, screeching to a halt in front of her and blocking her from going farther. Her heart pounding, she put it in Park.
She jumped out of her car. “What was that? I told you I’d come straight here.”
He stepped right up to her, swung her around to his left, slammed her car door shut and hustled her up the steps.
“What are you doing, Vincent?”
“Just please get into the house.” He moved to swoop her up, but she sidestepped away.
“My shoes are still in the—” She looked back and saw for herself.
Her mother waited at the bottom of the steps. Her father stepped out of the dark chauffeured sedan. She hadn’t seen them in thirteen years.
A hard knot rose in Bronte’s throat. Hate. She swallowed it back down. It would only end up hurting her. She knew this from experience. Though she was tired, and it had been a terrible morning, she wouldn’t turn it into an excuse to wallow in lazy emotions that would smother her soul.
Ten stairs separated them.
Her mother looked the same—trim figure, smooth face, and sleek, dark hair. Her pale gray suit fit appropriately for a Mayflower matriarch. Pearls adorned her ears, visible with her hair pulled back into a bun. By comparison, her father’s hair was pure gray. The wrinkles around his eyes were deep enough that his eyelids drooped slightly. Time had not been as friendly to him.
Phyllis Casteel looked her daughter up and down. Bronte knew what she saw—a disheveled mess wearing a man’s undershirt. Her bare feet were the icing on a cake turned upside down.
She didn’t care.
Vincent leaned down to her ear. “Don’t stop for anything. Remember? I thought we agreed to the plan.”
“We did,” she whispered back, not taking her eyes from the pair in front of her. “But this is such a remarkable sight I had to change the plan.”
“A remarkable sight, indeed,” Phyllis sniffed. Her mother’s hearing outshone that of any mage Bronte had ever met. “You look quite the worse for the wear compared to the last time I saw you.”
Bronte put a hand on Vincent’s arm, a silent message to keep quiet.
He growled in resignation.
She tilted her head at them. “It’s a surprise to see you after all this time, Mother.”
“Don’t call me that.”
The past leaped through thirteen years and landed on Bronte in one fell swoop. But she wasn’t sixteen anymore. She looked up at Vincent. She’d stared at him then, too…behind that garden shed…as her mother yanked her away. Phyllis had screeched a bushel of insults on her for daring to tryst with a noble son. Bronte remembered her own confusion. She’d thought the boy she’d held hands with, the boy she’d kissed and cradled in her lap as he slept…she’d thought he was an overworked, disrespected servant. Not a firstborn son.
How could she ever make that mistake?
Regardless, her mother couldn’t yank her away this time.
Phyllis climbed the steps. Her husband followed. “You still haven’t learned to keep your head down, have you? Too late now. But don’t worry. You won’t have long for regrets.” Her smug smile glowed in the early morning light.
“Dear.” Her father rubbed his hand against Phyllis’s back. “Now is not the time.”
“Of course. It will wait until after this pointless sponsorship hearing.” Phyllis gave an evil, satisfied smile. “But we all know what we’re really here for.”
“This isn’t a judge’s chamber, Mother.”
Phyllis laughed sharply. “I see the Rallises have kept you properly ignorant. Well, good for them. It’s highly inappropriate to keep one such as you in the family’s circle.” She gestured gracefully to Rallis Hall. “The Rallises have kindly offered to host the hearing in their home.” She sidled closer to Bronte until they could have reached out and touched. With a sneer at her daughter, she spoke. “Husband, your ancestors must have greatly displeased the goddess somewhere down the family tree to have produced such defected daughters.” She lifted her hand.
Bronte froze, every muscle flexed hard, a worthless shield against the coming spell.
Vincent’s energy spiked with a rush into her syphon.
Her mother jumped back.
“Ahh!” Phyllis looked down at her hand as if she expected to see damage. From the energy pouring into her, Bronte expected to see smoke rising from scorched skin, but her mother was unmarred.
“You dare to spell me?” Anger morphed her mother’s face into a dark cloud of hate, but Vincent’s fury outmatched hers by a dozen of the bombs he deflected.
“Watch where you step, lady.” His soft tone was the minor chord before the booming crescendo unleashed its destruction. “Those who encroach upon a Rallis do not live to do so again.”
Though Bronte could never be the target of his energy, chills ran along the back of her neck from the prickle of his menacing warning.
Her mother was wise enough to retreat. Phyllis clutched at her injured hand and swallowed down her retaliation, cowed in the face of a superior mage. It was a temporary defeat. Her mother never gave up. Behind her mother, the future senator of Casteel scrambled down three stairs before he seemed to reign in his fear of the famous colonel.
Vincent wrapped his arm low on Bronte’s back and guided them up the steps, steering her in front of him. His power hovered at the forefront, ready, yet contained.
The door opened. Jasper stood on th
e other side. “Miss Casteel.” A genuine smile lit his face. “We are so relieved the colonel found you. Welcome back.” He bowed slightly.
“Thank you, Jasper.” She sounded like she’d claimed the role of lady.
Jasper looked down the steps, curling his lip at her mother.
It was good to have allies.
Safe inside the walls of Rallis, she contemplated her mother’s words as they walked through the grand foyer of Rallis Hall. “It’s not going to be a sponsorship hearing.”
“No.”
“She wants me dead.”
“Never going to happen.” He reached for her hand as they sauntered along. “Your mother is no one. Not compared to Wilen. Not even Masset. And you’ve survived both.” He lifted a sardonic eyebrow. “So what’s your plan for this?”
Bronte took a breath. “Well, I don’t have a plan, to be honest. Do you?”
He smiled, the first smile she’d seen on his face since…since she lay in his bed, a few short hours ago. Hours that had tumbled her life to pieces.
He chuckled. It had a wicked edge. “I have an army at my disposal.”
She gasped. Her bare feet squeaked against the shiny floor as she came to a complete stop. She put her hands on his chest to hold him back. “You would go to war over this? Vincent, no. You can’t do that.” She could envision the blood of the bounder mages, the borders guards loyal to one family, spilling into the land as her parents refused to surrender. The bounders were simple farmers nowadays. The last territory dispute had been over a hundred years ago. They no longer even trained for battle. They didn’t deserve an army descending on them. Even if her parents did.
“I’d like to.”
“But you’ll use a different tactic instead?
He sighed as if she were taking away his favorite toy. “For now. I’d request a hearing with a wise judge instead. You know, if I were coming up with a plan.” He placed his hands over hers where they rested against his chest.
“A judge who would rule in favor of a syphon?”
Vincent nodded. “A judge who would rule in favor of what is best for her people and their society.”
