Champagne, Misfits, and Other Shady Magic

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  A future unmade …

  The vision Chi Wen had shared with me in the phoenix’s tomb …

  That vision was the reason the far seer had manipulated events — or, as he’d put it, simply tightened the timeline in which I was fated to claim the instruments of assassination and become the dragon slayer.

  Feeling a little unsteady without my necklace and knife, I reached back and brushed my fingers against Warner’s forearm. He caught my hand and squeezed reassuringly, leaning forward to whisper in my ear, “We don’t have to wait here —”

  “Hello!” A perky voice sounded out from behind us. “What are you looking at?”

  Haoxin, dressed head to toe in black flexible body armor, shouldered past us to peer across the chamber before I could turn around. Finding the room empty, the petite blond guardian turned back and grinned at me. “Dowser! I didn’t recognize you without …” She waved a hand in a gesture that encompassed me from head to toe instead of finishing her sentence.

  “Guardian,” I said politely, despite the fact that she had somehow managed to sneak up on me, and that her mere presence was oddly increasing the nauseating sense of deja vu I was fighting. “I’ve been summoned to trial.”

  “What? When? Yesterday?”

  I fished the summons from my back pocket.

  But Haoxin shook her head at my offering. “How long have you been in the nexus? Pulou sent you another notice. We’ve exonerated you, though I still really don’t see why there was a trial set at all. But then, I’m only one voice among nine.”

  My brain stuttered over the information the guardian had just casually dropped on me. “Exonerated?”

  “Then why the summons?” Warner’s tone was pissy, but he quickly softened it. “Guardian?”

  “There’s no need to growl at me, sentinel. Wires must have been crossed. The far seer spoke. Showed us the vision he’d been concerned about. We voted.”

  Haoxin stepped closer to me. But she was eyeing my necklace on the table behind me, staring as if it might have been a poisonous viper. Which, from the perspective of a guardian, it was. Her hair was braided tightly against her head, and the hilt of her sword protruded over her left shoulder. The guardian of North America was prepared to kick ass.

  I struggled to quash an immediate and intense need to ask her about what she was preparing to face, to offer my own sword, to run into battle at her side.

  A wicked smile spread across her face, revealing slightly turned-in eye teeth. A tiny imperfection that somehow only highlighted her otherworldliness. She raised her blue-eyed gaze to meet mine, and the taste of spicy tomato and basil magic flooded my mouth.

  I steeled myself for whatever request was about to accompany her look, reminding myself that Haoxin’s secondary title was ‘reckless and adventurous.’ Reminding myself that I had no idea what powers — above and beyond practically being a demigod — accompanied that designation.

  “I like the T-shirt,” she said, nodding down toward it.

  I stared at her dumbly, completely thrown.

  “I want one. Except sub espresso for the cupcakes … or something along those lines.”

  “Oh, ah … my friend Kandy designs them. I’ll let her know you’d like one.”

  “The werewolf? With the Herakles cuffs?”

  I nodded, not certain that Haoxin had ever spoken to Kandy — other than the time the guardian had found her, Warner, and me all floating in the ocean off the Abaco Islands before we collected the first instrument of assassination. Just hours before Kandy almost drowned … for the second time.

  Haoxin’s smile waned as her gaze once again fell upon my necklace laid across the table. “Take up your weapons, Jade.”

  Something terrible lurked underneath her command, but I eagerly stepped forward. I made a show of lifting each artifact from the table, rather than showing off and simply calling them to me.

  The guardian’s shoulders settled as I twined the necklace around my neck three times. “Better. It was making me itchy.” She reached up and touched her neck.

  And then seeing her framed there in the doorway, the nine throne chairs behind her, the sense of having been in this moment or a moment just like it hit me so hard that it took every other thought with it.

  “I … I … I’ve been here before …”

  I wove my fingers through the wedding rings on my necklace, feeling the magic of the braids writhe underneath my hand as I did so. Blinking, I forced myself back to the present. Trying to recall the vision Chi Wen had shown me was somehow warping my actual sight.

  Haoxin was watching me too closely.

  The magic of the instruments of assassination subsided, melding with the general tenor of the necklace’s power.

  I inhaled, realizing that I’d been holding my breath.

  Haoxin nodded. “Chi Wen said he’d shown you, but that you might not remember. He had to bring a oracle from my territory into the chamber to relay the vision himself.”

  The guardian’s words sank in like a body blow. “From your territory … Rochelle?” A fierce wave of anger rushed through me. “The far seer snatched up Rochelle, who is under my protection, and dragged her here … to be … used as a …”

  Hearing what I was saying, I clamped my mouth shut. A little too late.

  Haoxin narrowed her eyes. “Snatched up? While in service to the guardian dragons? How is that possible?”

  I shook my head, not at all certain how to mitigate my blunder. Any of the guardians would have thought that Chi Wen had bestowed a great honor upon Rochelle, not realizing how terrifying being brought before the nine of them might be.

  Though since I’d heard nothing about it, apparently Rochelle hadn’t been terribly upset. And the far seer acting as the oracle’s mentor was actually a relationship formed at my behest — though I was pretty sure that Chi Wen would never do anything that didn’t ultimately benefit the guardian nine.

  In any case, I had to get my protective instincts under control. Vancouver was witch territory, though ultimately within Haoxin’s purview, of course. But either way, it wasn’t for me to take exception to guardian business. I wasn’t interested in going toe-to-toe with any of them.

  Haoxin stepped closer. “I’m not certain how the far seer held on to the vision after … the future shifted.” The something terrible that had lurked beneath her words before was now reflected in her expression.

  Calling my knife to me, I clenched the hilt of the weapon, unable to stop myself from doing so.

  Haoxin reached out as if to brush her fingers along my necklace. But then she paused.

  The taste of Warner’s magic intensified, as though he had tensed, ready to move.

  I felt trapped, suspended on the edge of chaos. My mind was warring with memories that weren’t my own. Images of Drake, looking not much older than he was now. Standing over Haoxin, who was arrayed on the altar that I remembered having seen set down before the nine ornate chairs. The thrones that currently stood framed in the doorway of the chamber behind the guardian, who was standing before me alive and well.

  In the shared vision, I had seen one of the instruments of assassination — the five-colored silk braids — coiled around Haoxin’s neck. Except she couldn’t have been a guardian anymore, not if her death had manifested in Chi Wen’s vision. Not if Drake was set to take the mantel of Haoxin, though he was the far seer’s apprentice.

  The recollection was hazy and disconcerting, though. Something I wasn’t meant to remember but could never really forget. A future unmade.

  “You hold my death, dragon slayer,” Haoxin whispered. “Twined there, around your neck …”

  I swallowed, moistening my lips in order to speak. “Like a pretty trinket.”

  “Yes,” she hissed.

  Warner shifted in my peripheral vision. His knife was in his hand, his hooded gaze on Haoxin.

  I raised my hand to the side, releasing my grip on my knife and holding him off with a gesture.

  “That’s a future
the far seer thwarted, guardian. Isn’t it?” My voice wasn’t as steady as I would have liked.

  “For Drake, perhaps.” She dropped her hand, raising her fierce gaze to meet mine. “But we may still meet, wielder. I will not be as easy to kill as a deranged, power-hungry dragon.”

  “There was nothing easy about killing Shailaja.” My tone edged closer to steely than was likely advisable when dealing with a guardian dragon.

  “But you’ve been training since, haven’t you? With the instruments? You didn’t have them at your disposal then.”

  I didn’t answer. Haoxin’s gaze flicked to my katana where it rested on the table.

  Then she stepped back.

  “It would be foolish not to train to wield what is yours to command. Wouldn’t it, sentinel?” Haoxin threw the question at Warner without looking at him.

  “It would,” he said calmly, slipping his knife into the sheath built into the right thigh of his dragon leathers. The deep slash that had marred his face just a few minutes before had almost completely healed.

  I knew that I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t let Haoxin’s veiled accusation go unanswered. “I have no reason to want you dead, guardian.”

  “Your ability to absorb magic might yet turn into a need, Jade Godfrey.”

  Warner opened his mouth angrily, but I cut him off. “We don’t know each other very well, guardian.”

  Surprise flashed across Haoxin’s face. “Do you hope to woo me with cupcakes, dowser? As you have Drake, Suanmi, and Qiuniu?”

  “I don’t think it’s the cupcakes that interest the healer,” Warner said snidely.

  Haoxin threw her head back and laughed.

  And just like that, the tension that had been constricting my chest and weighing down my shoulders eased.

  “The healer flirts with danger. We all do,” the guardian said, still chuckling. “First you were the warrior’s daughter, then you were the beloved of the sentinel, and now you are the wielder of the instruments of assassination. To flirt with you is to flirt with our own mortality.”

  “Plus the cupcakes,” Warner said dryly.

  “Exactly. You owe me an espresso, Jade. And now a T-shirt, if your werewolf provides. I shall come to collect.”

  “Fantastic,” I said, trying for honest exuberance and completely failing.

  Haoxin chuckled. “We’ll agree to leave the future where it lies. For now, the sentinel and I have some incursions to clean up.”

  Warner inclined his head dutifully. “The warrior has given me leave for a few hours. A reprieve.”

  Haoxin glanced between the two of us, smirking. “Fine. Have Pulou open a portal for you when you are ready to join me. After your reprieve.” She hit the last word with all the snark she could muster. “I’m certain the cupcakes will be invigorating.”

  “I believe we’ve already decided I’m more than simply a treat,” I said.

  That gave the guardian pause.

  I kept my gaze locked to hers.

  “I apologize, Jade,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. “I’m apparently still disconcerted by the vision the far seer shared. I should be thanking you. Even if the future is only forestalled, your claiming of Shailaja’s magic at Chi Wen’s behest has only benefited me.” She smiled tightly. “We are dragons of an age. You, Drake, the sentinel, and me. We are the future of the guardians.”

  Haoxin stepped around me, suddenly appearing before, then opening, the door to North America without another word.

  As the guardian disappeared into the portal magic, I glanced over at Warner, letting out a relieved sigh.

  “An apology from a guardian,” he said. “Unprecedented.”

  “We are dragons of an age,” I murmured. “Suanmi said the same thing, though she didn’t include Haoxin in the group.”

  “When you were wooing the fire breather with cupcakes.” The sentinel curled his lips, amused.

  I snorted. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I was the one being seduced.”

  “And yet it was me you fell into bed with,” he said huskily.

  I smiled. Warner had skillfully skipped over the arguments, the tears, and the declarations that had come between those two points, and I had no need to recall them either. “Take me there now?”

  He had me up over his shoulder with his hand firmly planted on my ass before I could finish the question. I was laughing madly, my curls brushing the back of his knees as he carried me effortlessly through the portal to the bakery.

  There would be time to analyze the conversation with Haoxin and the exoneration of the charges Pulou had brought against me later. Hopefully after a couple of hours of mindless pleasure with a man, a dragon, who adored me — cupcakes, deadly magic, and all.

  Warner set me down on the dirt floor of the bakery basement. The portal magic snapped shut behind us, leaving us in the dark. But before I could turn away, climb the stairs to the pantry, and pull my dragon into bed, he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me softly.

  “Jade …” He kissed me a second time, and a shudder of relief ran through him.

  A sharp pinpoint of pain shot through my chest. He’d been worried about the trial — and then the possibility of having to protect me from Haoxin.

  Mimicking him, I pressed my hands to his face, brushing my thumbs across his cheeks. Smiling with my heart so full that it actually felt heavy in my chest, I kissed him back. “I don’t make it easy for you, sixteenth century.”

  Warner let out a shuddering laugh, his fingers slipping back through my hair in a slow caress.

  I nibbled on his ear teasingly — but once again, my dragon didn’t want to be playful. He ran his hands up my back, slipping my katana off and dropping it to the floor. Then his right hand was up under my T-shirt, opening my bra and flicking my nipple while he unhooked my belt and unzipped my jeans with his left hand.

  I moaned at his sudden escalation, but I had no time to get my breath back as his mouth crashed over mine and his touches grew more intense.

  He took a half step back, loosening the closures on his leather pants. But when he tried to remove my jeans, they got caught up on the sheath strapped to my right hip. So instead of fiddling with the strap and removing my knife, he simply tore my left pant leg off, leaving the right in place.

  I started to protest, teasingly. But then he did the same to my underwear, had me up against the brick wall, and was buried deeply within me before I could find the words.

  “Warner …” I groaned.

  As if satisfied by being as close as humanly possible to me, his grip on my hips eased. He pressed another soft kiss to my swollen lips. “I’ll replace the jeans. And the pretty panties.”

  “You’d better believe you will.”

  “I’ve missed you.”

  Again, I stopped myself from asking where exactly he’d been. Or what he’d been doing. Or why his hair was longer than it should have been after the three days that had passed for me. Instead, I tightened my legs around his waist.

  “You have me, Warner. You’re back, and you have me.”

  “Jade,” he whispered, slowly picking up the pace of his thrusts. “My Jade.”

  I laughed breathlessly. “I guess we aren’t going to make it to the bed?”

  “That’s next.”

  “After cupcakes, yes?”

  “Oh, yes,” he groaned.

  I smiled into the heated skin of his neck, then just hung on for the ride. Even if it meant I didn’t get a wink of sleep before my baking shift, I most certainly didn’t mind letting Warner steer on occasion.

  Normally, I didn’t believe that cupcakes belonged in bed, with the risk of crumbs and all. But for Warner, I made an exception. Or maybe it was him making the exception to my own appetites. And satisfying those appetites.

  Multiple times.

  With snacks in between.

  Whatever the case, I found a half-dozen of my newest creations in the fridge in the bakery on our way up to the apartment — Elation in a Cup, a dens
e but moist peanut butter cake with a swirl of chocolate buttercream, and Delirium in a Cup, a chocolate-peanut butter cake generously topped with creamy chocolate-peanut butter icing. I then proceeded to tear each cupcake in half, eating the top half myself while feeding the bottom cake half to Warner.

  Sixteenth century didn’t utter one word of protest over my hogging all the buttercream to myself.

  Of course, the fact that we’d switched positions — with me on top and moving achingly slowly — might have been slightly distracting for him.

  And it wasn’t like I was a total monster. When I halved the final cupcake, I went top to bottom.

  When Warner finally succumbed to the exhaustion that I was fairly certain had slowed his healing, falling into a deep sleep sprawled across my bed, I took a moment to simply watch him. Then I dozed, curled up against his warmth.

  I was woken abruptly about an hour later by a strange tickling sensation on the bottoms of my feet.

  I sat up, carefully lifting Warner’s hand off my hip. Whatever had disturbed me hadn’t affected the sentinel. He continued to breathe deeply beside me.

  Stirring my hand in the pile of ripped jeans and leather beside the bed, I called forth my knife. I stepped into the center of the dark room, naked except for my necklace.

  Then I waited.

  Magic tickled the bottoms of my feet again. I curled my toes on the worn hardwood of my bedroom floor as I tried to identify the power touching me. But it tasted of nothing. Almost as if …

  … it was my own magic.

  “The grid,” I whispered.

  Warner slid out of bed. One moment, he’d been deeply asleep. The next, he was standing beside me in the dark with his wicked knife in hand. Also naked.

  I took a moment to leer at this display of manly prowess. “Nice look, sentinel.”

  He chuckled quietly. “You are wanton, woman.”

  “For you.”

  He scanned the bedroom, serious again. “What woke you? I felt …” He trailed off.

  He meant the instruments. He would have felt my magic shift and the instruments responding. Though Pulou had removed the spell that had once tied Warner to the map that revealed the instruments of assassination, he was still the sentinel of the instruments. And since the magical artifacts and I were one, Warner was therefore my sentinel. The sentinel of the wielder of the instruments of assassination.