Magic Bleeds

by IIona Andrews

  “My father was the best fighter I ever knew,” Curran said. “Even now, I’m not sure I could take him.”

  “We have that in common,” I murmured.

  “We lived on the edge of the Smoky National Park, in the mountains. I don’t know if it was North Carolina or Tennessee. Just mountains and the four of us. My dad, my mom, my younger sister, and me. My parents didn’t want to deal with any shapeshifter politics. We’re older than most shapeshifters. Different.”

  Worry crawled up my spine. The First were there first, Erra said in my head. “What happened?”

  “Loups,” Curran said. His voice was devoid of any emotion. “Eight of them. They caught my sister first. She was seven and she liked to climb trees. One day she was late for lunch. I went looking for her. Found her up in a maple about a mile from the house. I thought she fell asleep and called out. She didn’t answer, so I climbed up, right into their trap. They strung a silver wire and it caught my throat, like a noose.”

  He leaned back, exposing his neck, and I saw a pale hair-thin line across his throat.

  “As I flailed, trying to keep from suffocating, they wrapped me in silver mesh. I remember hanging off the tree, burning up from silver poisoning my skin, and I could finally see Alice. They had eaten her stomach and her eyes and her face, all the soft parts, and leaned what was left on the branch to snare us.”

  Oh, God. “How old were you?”

  “Twelve. My dad was next. He’d tracked me down by scent and he came into the clearing roaring.”

  The loups were stronger and faster than People of the Code. Eight against one, even Curran would have no chance.

  “My father killed three,” he said. “I watched the rest tear him apart. I learned then that you can’t survive on your own. You need numbers. After they ate, they went after my mother. The wire on which I hung cut through the branch and I fell. By the time I got free, she’d stopped screaming.”

  I shifted closer to him. “And then?”

  “I ran. They chased me, but I knew the mountains and they didn’t. I lost them. They set up camp at our house. For about four months I lived on my own in the woods, trying to get stronger, while they tried to catch me. I’d come up the crags to watch their camp, waiting for an opportunity to pick them off one by one. Never got it. They were always together.

  “In the fall, Mahon found me. His cousin made money guiding hunting parties into the mountains. The loups found one. Left nobody alive. Mahon took it personally and brought twenty shapeshifters with him, most family, some from other clans who owed him a favor. I watched them comb the woods for four days before I let them see me. Mahon offered me a deal. If he gave me a shot at the loups, I’d come with him out of the woods. I agreed.”

  “Did you get your shot?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I got one of them. Bit his neck in half. It was my first battle kill.”

  Mine was at ten. Voron had paid a street tough half a grand to kill me. I killed him instead and I was sick after, and then he brought out the second guy.

  Curran’s eyes looked into the distance. “People think I built the Pack, because I’m the guy who has the welfare of all shapeshifters in mind. They’re wrong. Everything I built, I did so that when I mate and have children, nobody can touch my family.”

  “That’s why you stabilized the clans. No infighting.”

  He nodded. “That why I built the damn castle. I fight for them, I deal with their petty politics, I make them play nice with the Order and PAD and every other asshole with a badge. I do it all so my children won’t have to see their sister’s half-eaten corpse.”

  My heart squeezed itself into a tiny painful ball. “And here I thought you were only pretending to be insane.”

  Curran shook his head. “No, I’m the real thing. Paranoid, violent, not happy unless things are my way. Right now I’m back in that damn tree watching loups feed on my father. I promised myself I’d never feel it again, but there it is, right there. I built all this so I can protect you. I need to know that you want it. I need to know if you will stay.”

  I sat up straighter. “There are some papers in the pocket of my jeans.”

  He reached for the jeans and fished out several torn book pages, folded into a small square. I’d ripped them from a ruined book after Erra trashed my place.

  Curran unfolded the pages.

  The first showed a tall man in a cloak marching down the road to the city. Tendrils of smoke, made with short ink strokes, stretched from the man outward, like a foul miasma. Before him animals galloped through the fields, cattle, sheep, oxen, horses, dogs, all caught in a terrifying stampede. The caption below it said, Erra the Plaguebringer.

  Curran looked at it for a long breath, wet stains spreading through the paper from his fingers, and dropped it on the floor of the bathroom.

  Second page. The same cloaked figure walking through the street as people fell before it, their faces disfigured by boils. He discarded it, too.

  The same figure with seven others crouching in the fog before him.

  The fourth page, Erra again, depicted as a man, laughing, his arms held wide, as a temple burned behind him.

  “Erra,” I said. “Drawn as a man, but really a woman. Over six thousand years old. Roland’s older sister.”

  Curran was looking at me.

  I swallowed. Breaking twenty-five years of conditioning was a lot harder than I thought.

  I pointed to the page. “What do you see?”

  “An enemy.”

  Thank you for making it that much harder, Your Majesty.

  I had to say it. He put his cards on the table and he had a right to know what he was getting into. You can’t smelt happiness out of a lie. The world doesn’t work that way.

  I unclenched my teeth. “I see my aunt.”

  It took him a moment. Understanding flared in his gray eyes. Yep, he got it.

  “She won’t stop until she or I are dead,” I said. “There is no place I can hide, and even if there was, I’m not running. You saw what she does. If I don’t fight, she’ll go after everyone I’ve ever known. She’s my family and my responsibility. It’s to the death now.”

  My throat was so dry, my tongue turned into a dry leaf in my mouth.

  “If I lose, I die. If I win, Roland will want to know who nuked his sister. Either way I’m screwed. There are consequences to being with me. This is one of them. By my presence, I’ll endanger you and your people. I know I said things before about wanting warmth and a family, but the truth is that I’m alone for a reason. Once we’re together, you and everyone you know will become a target.”

  I couldn’t read his face. I wished I knew what he was thinking.

  “I’ll never sit demurely by your side. I’ll tell you exactly what I think and you won’t always like it. I won’t be your princess all snug and safe in the tower you built. That’s just not me. And even if it was, no army in this world could make me safe. If I choose to have children, they may never be safe. That’s the kind of mate I’d make.”

  He said nothing. I was rambling. This was important and I was mangling it all to hell.

  My fingers had gone cold. All this hot water and I was freezing. My voice came out flat. “Being without you makes me very unhappy. I don’t have enough willpower to walk away. I’ve tried. So, if you want to break it off, I need you to use whatever it is that made you Beast Lord and leave. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear, unless you really mean it. No hard feelings. Climb out of this tub, get Derek to find me a separate room, and I’ll never bring it up again.”

  I looked at Curran. He still wore his Beast Lord face: flat and about as expressive as a stone statue. I was a hair from punching him in the jaw just to see some emotion. Any reaction would do at this point.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Curran shrugged and pulled me back to him. “You don’t pick the family you’re born into. You pick the one you make. I already chose my mate and glued her ass
to the chair to make sure she knew it.”

  He didn’t care. The stupid, stupid idiot.

  “This gluing thing won’t keep me put,” I said.

  “Maybe I’ll chain you to it next time.”

  “Is that werelion humor?”

  “Something like that.”

  I kissed him. He tasted like Curran and it made me absurdly happy. Everything took a step back: Erra, the dead, the guilt, the fear, the pain. I shoved it all aside. If one of us died tomorrow, at least we would have these few hours. We would make the best of them, and no force on earth, not even my bitch of an aunt, would interfere.

  I brushed my hand through his blond hair. “You’re a fool, Your Furriness.”

  Tiny gold sparks flared in his irises. “You’re in my rooms in my bathtub naked and you’re still mouthing off.”

  Did he expect something different? “Hey, I didn’t kick you or punch you in the throat. I consider this progress. And you haven’t choked me again, which is some sort of record for you . . .”

  He grabbed me with a growl. “That’s it. You’re in for it.”

  “Very scary. I’m shaking in my—”

  He locked his mouth on mine and I decided it was a good incentive to shut up.

  CHAPTER 25

  I AWOKE BECAUSE CURRAN SLIPPED OUT OF BED. HE did it in complete silence, like a ghost, which was impressive considering the bed was four feet tall.

  He strode out of the bedroom. A door swung open with a soft whisper. A barely audible voice murmured something. I couldn’t make out the words but I recognized the rasp—Derek.

  A moment later the door swung shut. Curran entered the bedroom and stopped when he saw me looking at him.

  He looked . . . at home. His hair stuck out at a weird angle, probably dried odd, since we went from the tub straight to bed. His face was peaceful. I’ve never seen him so relaxed. It was as if someone had lifted a huge weight off those muscled shoulders.

  And dumped all of it on me.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “A little past five.” He paused in midstride and leaped on the bed.

  I rubbed my face. I dimly recalled getting out of the bathtub, wrapped in a criminally soft towel, and letting him convince me that we needed to lie down and rest for half an hour. We slept for a solid ten hours at least. “I meant to go and talk with the old woman and to call Andrea. Instead I passed out here with you.”

  “It was worth it.”

  It was totally worth it.

  “No more tubs for me.” I jumped off the bed and pulled on a pair of Pack sweats. “They make me lose all sense.”

  Curran sprawled on the bed with a big self-satisfied smile. “Want to know a secret?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s not the bathtub, baby.”

  Well, aren’t we smug. I picked up the corner of the lowest mattress and made a show of looking under it.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “A pea, Your Majesty.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  I jumped back as he lunged and his fingers missed me by an inch.

  “Getting slow in your old age.”

  “I thought you liked slow.”

  A flashback to last night mugged me and my mind executed a full stop.

  He laughed. “Ran out of snappy comebacks?”

  “Hush. I’m trying to think of one.”

  As long as we kept sparring, I could pretend that surviving today would be a breeze.

  Curran slid off the bed, presenting me with a view of the world’s best chest up close. “While you’re thinking, Raphael and Andrea are waiting for us downstairs. Nash doesn’t matter, but if I keep the scion of Clan Bouda waiting for too long, I’ll have to smooth his feathers, and I don’t feel like it.”

  “Feathers?”

  “Yes.” Curran snagged a white T-shirt from the drawer. “B’s precious peacock. Strutting around and making sure all the ladies faint in his wake.”

  I arched my eyebrow at him.

  “He’s not a bad guy.” Curran shrugged. “Spoiled, arrogant. Good in a fight, but thinks with his dick. When things don’t go his way, he throws a tantrum. Andrea is perfect for him—unlike his mother, she doesn’t buy any of his bullshit.”

  “So if I invite him over for tea and cookies . . . ?”

  “As long as it’s in public, it wouldn’t be an issue. Just don’t expect me to show up. I’ll be indisposed. If you invite him into our rooms, I’ll rip his head off.”

  “Is it because you’re jealous or because it would be a breach of Pack protocol?”

  “Both.” The muscles along Curran’s jaw tightened. “He handed you a fan so you could fan yourself while watching him. If he steps a hair out of line, he won’t live to regret it and he knows it.”

  I slid Slayer’s leather sheath on my back. “Now is probably a good time to mention that I made a deal with his mother.”

  Curran stopped. “What sort of deal and when?”

  I sketched it out for him while putting on my boots.

  Curran grimaced. “Typical. She picked a moment when you were at your weakest.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a good deal for me.”

  “It is. But then she tried to feed you. That’s my privilege.” Curran held the door open. “B will always push you to see how far she can make you bend. I won’t interfere with the way you handle her, but if it was me, I’d call her to a meeting once this is over. Somewhere public where the two of you would be on display. Make her wait. Half an hour ought to do it.”

  “Are you actually holding the door for me?”

  “Get used to it,” he growled.

  I bit my lip so I wouldn’t laugh, stepped through the door, and Mr. Romance and I went down the stairs to the conference room.

  RAPHAEL PACED ALONG THE WALL, FLIPPING A knife. Andrea leaned against the table. Her face was grim.

  Raphael nodded as Curran and I walked through the door. “M’lord. M’lady.”

  Andrea blinked, her eyes opened wide. “Kate? What are you doing here?”

  “She’s his mate. Where else would she be?” Raphael’s voice dripped bitterness. Something had happened between them and it wasn’t good.

  “It’s not the same for her,” Andrea said without turning around.

  “No, it’s not. She actually came through when our people were dying.”

  “She had a choice. I didn’t.”

  Raphael’s eyes shone with red. “She had the exact same options you did.”

  “Enough,” Curran said.

  Raphael turned around, spinning his knife, and resumed his pacing.

  Curran glanced at me. “You quit the Order.”

  “Ted made it a choice between Brenna’s SOS phone call and keeping my ID on my neck.”

  “So you picked the shapeshifters over the knights,” Raphael put in.

  Andrea shot him a look of pure fury.

  “No,” I said. “I picked people in danger over a direct order to ignore them.”

  Now things were clear. I went to help the shapeshifters and Andrea stayed, and now Raphael wanted to bite her head off for it.

  “I have your dog,” Andrea said.

  Thank you, Universe. “Has he barfed anywhere?”

  “He ate my bathroom rug, but other than that he’s okay.”

  “I owe you a rug, then.”

  She nodded.

  I perched on the table. “What’s the Order’s plan for dealing with Erra?”

  Andrea grimaced. “Ted’s brought in some female knights from Raleigh and they’re setting a trap for her at the Mole Hole. Tamara Wilson is here. Master-at-arms, blade. She’s supposed to be out of this world good and immune to fire. Ted’s going along with your plan to directly challenge Erra. They’ve put her name on a flag and are flying it over the Mole Hole.”

  The Mole Hole used to be Molen Enterprises until it exploded. The slender glass tower once belonged to the Molen Corporation, owned by one of the
richest families in Atlanta. Rumor said the Molens had gotten a hold of a phoenix egg. The plan was to hatch the egg, so the young phoenix would imprint on them, giving them a superweapon. The phoenix did hatch, but instead of going “Mommy!” it went boom. Took out the Molen tower and the three city blocks around it. Phoenix didn’t squat once they hatched. They rose, like ancient rockets, straight into the sky.

  Eventually the dust cleared, revealing a perfectly round crater. About a hundred and forty yards across, it gaped almost fifty feet deep and full of molten glass and steel. When the crater cooled two weeks later, a foot-thick layer of glass sheathed its bottom. Enterprising citizens cut steps in the crater’s earthen wall, turning it into a makeshift amphitheater. All sorts of legal and illegal events took place in the Mole Hole, from skateboarding competitions and street hockey to dog fights.

  “The Mole Hole is in the middle of the city.” I frowned.

  “Fifteen minutes from the People’s Casino, twenty from the Witch Oracle in Centennial Park, twenty-five from the Water and Sewer Authority,” Andrea said.

  “How badly was the Order trashed?” Curran asked.

  “It was still smoking when I left at the end of the day,” Andrea told him.

  “Then Moynohan needs to administer severe and very public punishment,” Curran said. “The Order must save face.”

  “He’ll get plenty of spectators at the Mole Hole,” Raphael said. “The last time I was there, the buildings on the edge of it were packed full. At least three thousand people, maybe more.”

  I felt an urge to hit my head against a wall. “You were there when I told him that Erra loves to panic crowds, right?”

  “I was there,” Andrea confirmed. “I refreshed his memory. He told me to shove it.”

  “And that’s the person for whom you will put yourself in harm’s way.” Raphael shook his head. “But you won’t do the same for our people.”

  “He’s one of many knights,” Andrea said. “He’s not the Order. His views are outdated and don’t reflect the attitudes of the majority of the Order’s members. I didn’t swear allegiance to him. I gave my loyalty to the mission.”

  “And that mission is to clean you and me off the face of this planet!” Raphael growled.