Rasmus backhanded her. After all these years, her survival skills remained intact. She went down but didn’t make a sound. She knew how to keep quiet when she was hurt and how to fight dirty, despite her desperate, stomach-killing need to have the talisman back. She kept moving, raising a cloud of ash. Eyes closed and breath stopped against the choking dust, she threw her leg up and caught Rasmus in the side of the knee. She heard and felt a satisfying crack. The mage roared with pain, but he headed for the talisman. Relentless bastard, wasn’t he? Alexandrine rolled and pushed to her hands and knees in one motion. She tackled him around the ankles. Rasmus went down, and Alexandrine kept moving through a billowing cloud of stinking, gritty dust. Her compulsion to regain the talisman worked in her favor. She wanted it more than Rasmus did.
To her left, Rasmus staggered to his feet. The air around her turned to ice. She was frozen there on the ground, breathing in the dust, choking on the stench. Her last sight of the world was going to be of her father about to kill her. “Go ahead,” she said, connecting with his eyes. “Kill me, Dad.”
“Durian,” Rasmus called, “the woman is yours when Xia is mine. This must be done. End it now.”
Across the room, there was a horrendous crash. The floor shook. Dust rained from the ceiling.
Rasmus bent for the talisman. When he came up, he held it clenched in a fist. Alexandrine screamed and clapped her hands to her head. Her eyes burned like hell-fire. From the corner of her eye, she saw a shape moving toward them. She didn’t know whether it was Xia or Durian, because they were all covered with ash by now—her, Rasmus, Durian, Xia.
The energy coming from Rasmus’s ring shivered her bones. He was saying something she couldn’t make sense of. A moment later, she couldn’t breathe. Even as she struggled to draw air that wasn’t there, she saw deep into Rasmus, connecting with him in a visceral, terrible pulse that was nothing but raw emotion. She saw his magic as if it were a living thing. She also felt his rage at having lost Xia and his utter conviction that Xia was a danger to them all if he remained free. And under that certain belief there was also greed. He wanted Xia’s power under his control.
Every word Xia had said about him was true. Rasmus Kessler, a killer many times over, was now intent on reenslaving Xia. She could feel it happening. The sheer ugliness of his intent made her sick.
Xia collided with Rasmus, knocking him to the ground. She heard the clink of the talisman hitting the floor, and at the same time, her connection with Rasmus ripped away. Burning white heat blocked her vision and, bam, she was in Xia’s head, looking out of his eyes at her, on her knees, gasping, and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it. She didn’t know how to make her body move when she wasn’t inside it. The pain coursing through her belonged to Xia, and she didn’t see how anyone could survive it. Someone shouted, and then she fell out of Xia’s head and back into her own body. Xia had the amulet now, the thong clutched in one hand so he wasn’t directly touching the carving. Her burning need to have her amulet back overwhelmed everything else. Something in her chest went pop, and just like that, the amulet was back in her hand. She clutched it hard.
“Alexandrine!” a woman cried out.
She pried open her eyes and saw Maddy standing in the doorway with two plastic bags of food and a bottle of sparkling water tucked under one arm. Maddy dropped her bags but, absurdly, not the bottle of water and rushed to Alexandrine. “Are you all right?”
“Maddy, get out.” Alexandrine got to her hands and knees and shook her head, trying, ineffectually, to push her best friend away. Pain streaked through her. She pushed herself upright in time to see Xia get blown off his feet. A gash across his shoulder bled profusely. Horrified, she saw Durian put Xia in a headlock while Rasmus advanced on him, touching the ring on his thumb. The room sizzled with magic that sent her stomach into revolt.
“So, Xia,” Rasmus said, “it seems you’re to come back to the fold.”
“No!” Shit, but her head burned like it was on fire. She tried to pull but got nothing. Magic never worked for her when she tried. “Xia!” She stretched out a hand, but she was too far away and too late. Rasmus had reached Xia and was touching his chest. Her throat choked with panic. She didn’t have the kind of magic that could stop this from happening. She headed for Rasmus, intending to do something. Anything. But Maddy grabbed her arm and brought her up short. She whirled on her friend and shouted, “Maddy, do something! Stop this, please.”
Her best friend stared at her, eyes big. “All three of them?” she asked.
“Stop the blond guy,” she said. Then she grabbed the bottle of water from Maddy and went after Durian, because if magic failed her, then all she had left was a plain old physical fight. She felt Maddy pull, and that diverted Rasmus’s attention. She heard him say, “Subdue the fiend, witch,” and then Alexandrine was behind Durian and swinging hard.
The water bottle smashed into the back of Durian’s head at the same time Xia kidney-punched him. With a grunt, the mageheld crumpled over. Xia clasped his two hands into a hammer and swung at Durian’s spine. He was doing his best not to kill Durian, but it was compromising him, just like his promise to protect her had compromised his ability to protect himself from Rasmus. His knife was on the floor, the blade glowing as it disappeared under a layer of ash.
Rasmus shouted again. “Witch!” He plainly meant Maddy. With Durian in a heap on the floor, Rasmus retreated from Xia. “It’s the fiend we need taken down,” he told Maddy. “Before he does irreparable harm, please.”
“I’m trying,” Maddy said. She sounded calm, but then she always did when the pressure was on. Alexandrine felt Maddy’s magic flowing from her, distinctly, if not completely, different from Rasmus’s.
Xia whirled in Maddy’s direction. His eyes flashed from neon to blue-streaked white. He looked ready to spit fire.
Alexandrine lunged for the spot where Xia’s knife had landed. Low to the floor, the ash was still hot. She swept her hand through the stuff until she had the knife. One of the edges of the blade sliced her palm, but she ignored the pain. By the time she had the weapon safely in hand, a river of ice formed down her back. Xia’s eyes were now pure white.
Rasmus stumbled and then slowly dropped to his knees. His eyes bulged while Maddy turned pale with the effort of whatever it was she was doing to the mage. It didn’t last long. Rasmus whispered to himself, and the air exploded over their heads. Xia threw Alexandrine to the ground, landing so he covered her with his body. Sparks fell, hissing and popping as they landed all around them. One burned into the back of her exposed calf. The floor rumbled beneath them and knocked Maddy off balance.
Alexandrine rolled over when Xia let out a howl. Maddy crouched on the floor, her hands covering her bowed head. Durian was on his feet, the back of his head dripping blood. With a snarl, he launched himself at Xia, who brought up a leg and gave the mageheld a thundering kick in the chest. In the same motion, Xia whirled and shoved Rasmus hard enough to send him sailing through the air. The mage hit the wall with a crack.
“Come on,” Xia said. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He grabbed Alexandrine’s hand and hauled ass for the exit.
Maddy followed them into the outside hall, where she turned and slammed the door closed. She pressed her palms flat to the surface and muttered to herself. “Maddy,” Alexandrine said. “Come on!”
Maddy turned her head and looked directly at Xia. “Get her out of here. Now.”
Beside Alexandrine, Xia nodded and yanked on her arm.
“Maddy!” Alexandrine cried.
As Alexandrine and Xia ran for the stairs, Maddy called out, “If anything happens to Alexandrine, fiend, I will find you.”
Xia laughed while they hauled ass away from her destroyed apartment. She tried to put on the brakes when she got a look at his back. His T-shirt was bright red with blood. “Oh, my God, Xia.” She still had his knife clutched in one hand. He wasn’t slowing down at all. “You’re hurt.”
“I’ll live,” he
said.
They kept running.
Chapter 13
At the second flight of stairs, Xia headed for the back stairs, where their footsteps banged on the wooden steps. Alexandrine’s brain wasn’t fully cooperating with her body yet, but Xia had a firm grip on her upper arm as they raced through the laundry room. Someone had left clean laundry in a basket on top of the dryer, and as they flew past, she snagged a black shirt from the top.
They kept going until they were in the building’s underground parking garage. Only then did Xia stop moving. He stood at the entrance, scanning the vehicles. Alexandrine grabbed the hem of his ruined T-shirt and yanked up. Xia looked at her like he thought she’d gone insane, but she flapped the black shirt, and he got what she was going for. He stripped off his shirt in favor of the one she’d “borrowed.”
“Thanks,” he said. During the shirt transition, she got a good look at his back; it was covered with tiny pinpricks of blood. But, call her crazy, they seemed to be healing before her eyes. The slash in his shoulder didn’t look as bad as it had upstairs, but that didn’t mean it looked good.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” she said.
“I’m fine, baby.” He draped his uninjured arm over her shoulder and started walking toward a beat-up red Toyota Corolla. “This should do.”
“What should?” she asked. Xia was radiating some strange vibes that sent prickles up and down her arms. He put a hand on the car door, and the back of Alexandrine’s head got cold. There was a click as the locks disengaged.
He opened the passenger side. “Our ticket out of here.”
She stared at him while he walked around to the driver’s side and got in. “We’re stealing this car? We can’t steal a car.”
“You stole a shirt.” Which, by the way, was on the small side for him. He slid the driver’s seat all the way back, put his hands on the steering wheel, and ducked his head enough to give her a look so hot she just about melted. She was pretty sure she wasn’t imagining that his eyes were changing colors.
“I didn’t steal it,” she said. “I borrowed it.”
“Get in, Alexandrine.”
“Xia. Stealing is wrong.”
“Staying here to get killed is even more wrong. Get in.” He grinned at her. “Besides, we’re not stealing. We’re borrowing.”
Somewhere inside the building, someone roared. She got in, closed the door after her, and snapped in her seat belt. “Feels like stealing to me.”
Xia grabbed the steering wheel. “God, I love these old cars.” He patted the dashboard. “We’re only going far enough to make it past Rasmus’s magehelds. Then we’ll ditch the car someplace the police will find it, okay? No harm, no foul.”
She shivered once—right before Xia started the car without the key. “Nice trick,” she said.
“Nothing to it.” He backed the car out of its space and tuned the radio to a classical station. A song from Bach’s Anna Magdelena Notebook came out of the speakers. At Alexandrine’s look, Xia scowled. “I hate this classical crap, but it’ll help with the illusion that it isn’t me.”
“What music do you like?”
“Vampire Weekend, all the way.” He headed the car out of the garage. “One more thing before we go.”
“No more crime. Please.”
“I saw Nikodemus do this thing once.”
“What?”
He braked and looked at her. “Chill, okay? I need to try hiding your magic, which means I need in your head.” He lifted both hands from the wheel. “Just long enough to get you past the magehelds, all right?”
A scream of rage reverberated from the interior of the apartment building. Shit, she hoped Maddy had made it out. “Do it.”
He was there before she was ready. Just a tap of pressure on her temples and he was alive in her head. The sensation was similar to what she’d experienced before, but she felt even more cut off from the world this time. Inside, she was turning into pure ice.
“It’s okay,” he said in a low voice. “You’re fine. We’re fine. Doing good.” He released the brake, and they drove out of the garage to the sound of Bach. She was surprised to see the sky was dark. Had that much time really passed while they were dealing with Rasmus? A couple of times as he maneuvered in traffic, she got a prickle of ice along her arms. Xia invariably reached over and patted her leg. “We’re cool, baby. Totally cool.”
At South Van Ness Avenue, he merged onto the main thoroughfare and draped an arm along the top of her seat. They drove vaguely north and west until they ended up in Presidio Heights. Only then did he release his hold on her. She slumped on the seat afterward, taking deep breaths while she readjusted to being alone in her head. “That wasn’t so bad,” she said.
“Baby,” Xia said. He put a hand on the back of her neck and massaged her tight muscles. “You fucking rock.”
They left the car parked on a street near the Presidio, the former military base with million-dollar views now converted to residential and commercial uses, and they started walking. With the fog in and a bitterly cold wind whipping past them, she was shivering enough to be more than happy to keep close against Xia’s body. He ran hot, and right now she was glad.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“My place,” he said. Xia had his arm around her shoulder. Yes, it was true they had completely different strides, but still, he was surprisingly uncoordinated as they walked. He stumbled once, and Alexandrine had to tighten her arm around him to keep him steady.
“You okay?” she asked. They were walking downhill at the time, nothing too bad for San Francisco. Even though this wasn’t her neighborhood, she knew the area well enough to know eventually they were headed for a steeper downhill.
“No,” Xia said.
They passed a streetlamp, and she got a good look at his face. He looked like shit, pale and haggard, and that terrified her. “How much farther?” she asked.
He stopped walking. His arm tightened around her, and she threw her hip toward him so he wouldn’t fall over. “I was going to borrow another car, but I think we need a cab.”
“You go to jail if you get in a cab without the money to pay,” she said.
“I have money.”
“Okay, then.” She swallowed hard. She didn’t like the thought that something was wrong with Xia. “Then we need off this street and on to one with more traffic. Can you make it?” He nodded, and they started walking again. She got the third cab she hailed. She and Xia climbed in, and he gave the driver an address in Sausalito before he went limp against the seat, with her holding his hand and keeping a finger pressed against his pulse.
Sausalito was the first town on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge, and she held her breath while they drove, praying he’d be all right. She kept expecting something would prevent them from getting there, but nothing did. They made pretty good time. Traffic was light on the bridge, and thirty-five minutes later, they pulled up to a blue house right on the water. Alexandrine tugged Xia’s wallet from his back pocket and was relieved to see enough cash to pay the amount on the meter plus the tip. Barely. Oh, unfair. Xia’s driver’s license photo was fantastic. He looked like a cross between a rock star and a movie star. He wasn’t smiling, not Xia, but he could have sent this photo to a modeling agency and gotten callbacks.
“He all right?” the cabby asked as Alexandrine fished out bills. She had to fork over extra money because of the dust that still covered them when they’d gotten in the cab. A layer of grit now covered the backseat. The driver wouldn’t have let them in if she hadn’t promised him a whopping big tip.
“What? Oh, him? Sure.” Halfway to Lombard Street and the approach to the bridge, Xia had passed out completely, and she’d gotten what felt like a lightning bolt to her head. “Jet lag,” she told the driver. She had the talisman back around her neck, which was why she was better off than Xia at the moment. He was better now, too, but she viscerally understood what fevered eyes meant. He was burning up. “We just g
ot back from Japan.”
“That’s a long flight,” said the driver.
“It’s murder, I tell you.” She leaned over Xia. “Look,” she whispered without handing the driver his money yet. “I really think you need to go to the ER.”
Xia’s eyes went wide open. His hand gripped hers. Hard. “No.”
“There a problem?” the cabby asked.
“No,” Alexandrine said. “No problem.” She handed over the promised fare before she opened the street-side door. She got out while Xia peeled himself off the seat. He shuddered when they stood outside. The taxi drove off, and Alexandrine couldn’t help feeling like she was alone in a world she didn’t understand anymore. “This the house?” She nodded in the direction of a 1960s structure with no front yard and stairs that led down to the front door. The water looked to be about twenty feet away. Gulls wheeled overhead, flapping their wings on air that smelled like the ocean. Sausalito was on an inlet of the bay, so this wasn’t the Pacific proper. Still, the ocean wasn’t far, and the view of the bay from here was spectacular. Multimillion-dollar homes around here.
“So?”
“Great.” Her stomach was queasy from the attack at her apartment, not to mention the effect of having the talisman yanked off her. Ever since she’d put it back around her neck, she’d been feeling heat coming from it, a constant tingle of magic that made her tense and antsy. She ignored it and headed for the front door.
Xia grabbed her arm and steered her away from the stairs. “We go in the back.”
“Like tradesmen?” His palm was hot on her skin. To be honest, she wasn’t feeling so great herself. At least they weren’t switching back and forth between minds anymore. That was enough to make a girl barf. “What, I’m not good enough to go in the front door?”
My Forbidden Desire Page 13
