by Anna Abner
David drew a circle and knelt in it. “Tony?” he whispered. “Are you there, buddy?” The overhead lights flickered before the boy appeared behind Dani and sulked.
“You promised,” Tony said. The lights went out for a full two seconds. The woman with the flowers whimpered.
“I’ll help you,” David assured. “And your sister.”
“Right,” Tony scoffed. “All you want to do is take from me.”
That couldn’t be further from the truth. David didn’t want any of this. If he had a choice, he’d leave magic behind for good and return to his ordinary life without a backward glance.
“Tony, look at me. I’ll help you,” he stressed. “I said I would, and I will. I’ll call her again. I’ll go to her house. I’ll track her down at school.” The boy began to look appeased. “I promise.”
“Will you shut up?” the old man in the first bed grumbled. “I’m trying to sleep.”
Tony ignored the interruption. “Don’t screw around with me. Emi’s all I’ve got, and I’m all she’s got. Had.” He shook his head. “She’s alone now. You don’t know what that’s like.”
Yeah, he did. He’d had a newborn son to worry about after the accident, but that didn’t mean David hadn’t felt alone every moment of the day after Jordyn passed away.
“My wife died. When our son was two days old.” He glanced at Dani to catch her reaction. David very much wanted her to understand the pain he’d felt, and still did. It was an important part of his life, and he wanted to share it with her. “I have been alone. I have been depressed. All of it. I know what it’s like. He’s alone right now.” He nodded toward Cole lying motionless in his bed. “We are all he’s got. Help him and then I’ll help you. Deal?”
Tony paced within the narrow confines of Cole’s curtained area, and part of him disappeared behind the pink- and blue-checked fabric.
“When did your wife die?” Tony asked.
It still hurt, after all this time. “Four years ago.”
Tony nodded once. “Okay. Get ready. Here it comes.”
Oh, shit. David shuffled on his knees, sore from all their practice, and anticipated the coming pain. “Pass me a little bit,” he said to Tony. “Let’s see what happens.”
He’d done it before. Sort of. He’d used a spirit’s power to put Dani to sleep, and then more to wake her up. This was a little different. This was a nightmare spell, and he had to break another necromancer’s magic to free Cole.
Power surged through him. David tried to focus, but it burned. “Expergo,” he stuttered.
Nothing happened, but he hadn’t honestly expected it to. He had no experience and no skill. Dani might as well ask the sick lady with all the flowers to cast the spell.
“Picture Cole waking up,” Dani coached. “Visualize.”
David closed his eyes and imagined the guy in the bed sitting up with a big smile and a “thank you” for saving his life.
“Expergo.”
Nothing.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Dani.” He’d never cast magic. He’d never believed it was possible. He’d never met a witch, and he’d never spoken to a spirit. Except his wife, but he’d convinced himself that had been a hallucination. David didn’t know how he’d gotten to this point, let alone how to help Cole. He was useless.
“You’re supposed to wake him,” Dani whispered. “Stop fretting like an old woman and just do it.”
He intended to snap at her with some witty comeback, but then he met her stare and was trapped by her warm, dark gaze. She cared. About everyone around her. Without a doubt, if he was lying on that bed, Dani wouldn’t give up on him.
“Turn it up,” he said to Tony. If he fried his frontal lobe, at least he’d know he’d given it his best shot.
An electrical current sizzled along his skin and crackled through his bones. “Expergo,” he said, focusing all that pain outward like a beam of light from his chest and into the prone figure.
Cole sat up gasping and flung himself off the bed. He landed hard on the cold tile floor and then scuttled under the curtain and into the far corner. The woman in the bed nearest him cried out and pounded the call button.
Holy shit. He’d done it. He’d used real magic. David stood up, a goofy grin on his face.
“Cole?” Dani whipped the curtain open and approached her friend, hands out where he could see them. “Can you hear me? It’s Dani.”
Cole pushed farther into the corner like he might at any moment disappear through the drywall.
David didn’t like the crazy look in the guy’s sunken, unfocused eyes. Cole sucked in air like he’d never breathed before. His creepy gaze ping-ponged from Dani to David and back. David stood shoulder to shoulder with Dani, just in case.
“Get away from me!” Cole screamed. “You can’t make me. I’m in charge of me!”
“Whatever you say.” David yanked Dani behind him and edged them both toward the exit and possibly a doctor or a security guard.
But Dani refused to be led anywhere. Too brave for her own good, she ducked around David’s arm and approached Cole. Reckless, foolish girl.
“It’s Dani,” she said again, hunching down as if she faced a wild animal. “You’re safe now, Cole,” she said. “You were under a nightmare spell, but it’s over—”
Cole struck so fast David could only watch in horror as the man grabbed Dani by the throat, slammed her flat on the floor, and climbed onto her chest.
Dani didn’t even have time to scream.
Chapter Eleven
David leapt forward and cranked a forearm under Cole’s chin, but the guy wouldn’t budge his chokehold on Dani. Her face went bright red and then pale white.
If he didn’t do something, she was going to die in front of his eyes.
David pulled harder. “We need help in here!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Hurry!”
David gave one final wrench, twisting Cole to the right, and Dani jackknifed onto her side, gasping for air. A pair of nurses in scrubs and a lady in a white lab coat rushed into the room.
“He tried to kill her,” David told them, his voice high and shaky.
With a feral snarl, Cole turned all his strength on David. He pounced, pinning David to the floor by the face. Like he was going to squash his skull. David’s vision went wonky. And then Cole was gone, pulled off him, and David’s sight cleared.
The young female doctor stood over Cole with a used syringe in her hand.
“Don’t hurt him,” Dani said, her voice a scratchy whisper. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“What the hell is going on in here?” The doctor knelt and checked the pulse at Cole’s throat. “He was comatose twenty minutes ago.”
I cast a necromancy spell and woke him up. I’m a necromancer. So’s Cole. And Dani’s a witch. David’s head spun. Somehow, without his consent, his life had become a drama on the CW.
Anger overtook his good sense, and he cursed under his breath. She wasn’t his to care for and protect, but he was furious at Cole for daring to put his hands on her and furious with himself for not defending her better. God, if Cole had squeezed a little harder or for a little longer…
“He came to,” Dani hissed, clutching her throat, pink marks already visible on her soft skin.
David hopped up to help her stand—the least he could do after not preventing the assault—but she shied away. Was that rejection number eighty? Or eighty-one? He tried not to take it personally, but Jesus, he wasn’t contagious.
“No shit,” the doctor snapped. Then to the nurses in the doorway she said, “Get Tommy. We need to lift Mr. Burkov into bed.” Because Cole was out cold from whatever the doc had pumped into him. “You two stay where you are,” she ordered.
While a pair of hospital staff got Cole tucked into bed, the doctor turned her angry gaze upon David and Dani.
“What happened?” Pointing at the spell circle, she asked, “And what is that?”
David scrubbed out his hastily drawn ma
rks with the sole of his shoe. “I must have tracked something in. Sorry.”
“We’re friends.” Dani gingerly massaged blood back into her throat. “He sat up and freaked out.”
If Cole wasn’t already unconscious, David would knock him senseless. Some friend he’d turned out to be. They should have left him asleep.
David said, “I thought he was going to kill her. And then he attacked me.”
The doctor narrowed her eyes at Dani. “Do you want me to look at your throat?”
“No.” Dani nodded at the bed. “Will he be okay?”
“He will receive the best medical care available.”
“Can I have a minute alone with him?” Dani asked.
Reckless, reckless girl. Wasn’t one assault enough for today?
The doctor actually took the question seriously. “Give us about ten minutes or so to settle him down. He needs a new IV and a vitals check.”
“Thanks.” Flustered, Dani turned and fled.
Not ready to let her out of his sight, David chased her from the room and down a long hallway to an alcove set up with coffee, tea, and vanilla wafers. She poured herself a cup of coffee and stirred in sweetener. But her hand shook so badly only about half the white powder reached her cup.
“Let me see your throat.” David palmed her shoulder, but she flinched away, spilling pitch-black coffee on the white tile floor.
“Damn it,” she hissed. “No touching. I’m trying to calm down from getting jumped by my friend, okay?”
Because he understood her hang-ups a little better, he refused to be wounded by her rejection. “Shut up and let me see your throat,” he said, but he wasn’t mad. He was scared. “You’re not going to hurt me.”
Her lips parted to, no doubt, give him a verbal lashing, but she must have thought better of it because she snapped her mouth closed.
He tilted her chin to see the full extent of her injury while she held herself stiffly. His fingers probed the delicate flesh, feeling for anything out of the ordinary. Apart from the red splotches, she seemed fine.
But more importantly, Dani was letting him touch her again, and it excited him way more than it should. He brushed her thick, wavy hair off her shoulder and smelled her flowery shampoo. He imagined he could smell the spicy sent of her skin, too.
Behind his button fly, he stiffened like a sex-starved teenager.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, shifting his weight to try to disguise his arousal.
“Yes.”
“You can breathe all right?”
“Yes.” She blinked her bottomless black eyes, and he was caught fast in her snare, unable to look away.
He forgot to remove his hands, and they came to rest lightly on the junction between her shoulders and her throat. Her skin was cool and soft, and suddenly he couldn’t think straight.
“David,” she whispered, a warning in her tone.
Did she ever think about redoing their disastrous first kiss? Because he thought about it. A lot. This time he’d do everything right, and she’d come to life in his arms.
Did he imagine her leaning nearer a fraction of an inch? No, he wasn’t imagining things. Like a pair of magnets they were drawn to each other.
“I wish our first kiss had never happened,” he said softly.
Dani’s brow puckered as she withdrew from his touch. Crap, he’d said it wrong.
“I mean,” he yanked her back into his arms, and she slammed into his torso, “I wish we could start over. Our first kiss would be…” He swooped in and pressed a quick, gentle kiss to her lips. “Sweet.”
She clasped her hands around her middle like she was slamming a gate, but he didn’t take offense. She was scared, not disgusted. That was a huge distinction.
“And soft,” he said, pulling her lower lip between his teeth and sucking. “And so much better.” He captured her mouth with the goal of redeeming himself, but he soon lost all thought process in the feel and taste of her. She was honey and summer and tropical fruit.
He pinned her to the wall beside the coffee alcove. Her breasts flattened against his chest, and he moaned into her hot little mouth.
A throat cleared.
David reluctantly broke the kiss, dirty mental fantasies popping like soap bubbles.
The young doctor from earlier scowled at him, one eyebrow raised, from the other side of the coffee alcove. “This is a hospital.”
“Sorry.” Dani wiggled out of his grasp. He let her go, but he kept her within arm’s length. “Is Cole okay?”
“He’s resting. If you want to see him, take five minutes, but then you both have to go.”
Dani rushed down the hall and disappeared into Cole’s room. David didn’t mind her rapid escape. He took a moment to compose himself. Maybe she wasn’t as affected, but he had a hard time calming his pulse and shaking the cobwebs from his brain.
Damn, that girl was addictive. She kissed like it was her first time, hesitant but excited. Passion lurked under the surface, begging to be let loose. And he wanted to be the man to release it.
* * *
David’s kiss hadn’t been anything like the dry-mouthed, fumbling pecks Bailey Haas had plastered against Dani’s mouth in a hall closet ten years ago. Oh, no. David kissed like a guy who took his time.
She sidestepped the first hospital bed, her heart rate pounding in her ears like ocean surf, and slipped inside the curtain surrounding Cole’s bed.
The fabric barrier rustled, and David joined her in the tight space.
That quickly her emotions took off on a roller coaster ride from hell. Up. Down. Loop-de-loop. She couldn’t get her bearings.
“Can I be alone with him, please?” She didn’t need a bodyguard at twenty-four.
David set his jaw. “Absolutely not.”
She wanted to fume and shout. But she’d been on her own for so long with no one particularly caring one way or the other whether she ate healthily, got enough sleep, or felt safe in her own skin, it was surprisingly nice to be around someone who cared.
Cole was the guy she talked to about magic, and Georgie was her friend. They cared about her in their own ways, she supposed, but there was something different about David.
“Fine,” she said.
A soft, warm light glowed from the medical machines along the wall, illuminating the restraints on both Cole’s wrists and ankles. He was drugged. Even unconscious, though, he was uneasy, his breath whistling in and out as if he faced a monster behind his bruised and swollen eyelids. Permanent insanity was the worst fate, save death, she could have imagined for her friend.
Rapidly, all the pleasurable sensations David had aroused in her evaporated.
This was her fault. Somehow, if she’d done something different in that basement, or before then, even, Cole wouldn’t have lost his mind.
The staff had left the overhead light on, and it cast a spotlight on his torso. The bruises on his face were vivid purple and darker than she remembered, and there, above the collar of his hospital gown, peeked the top of an old scar.
“Do you see this?” Dani tugged the gown lower. The faint pink scar ran down his entire chest like a flesh zipper. “Did the Dark Caster do that, too?” Her voice broke, and she swallowed thickly.
“It looks like my dad’s bypass scar,” David said, edging around her to get a better look. “Before he passed away. Did Cole have heart surgery?”
“If he did, he never told me.” Suddenly feeling like she was intruding too much into her friend’s personal business, she smoothed his gown back into place, folding it under his chin.
One last favor. She couldn’t do much without her magic, but maybe she had one blessing left tucked way under her skin. She draped herself over her friend’s chest, wedged her hands under his shoulders, and pressed her cheek into the warm crook of his neck.
Dani squeezed her eyes shut and visualized her power passing into him. “If there is any magic stored up in my cells,” she whispered in Cole’s ear, “then heal. Come back to us, Cole
.” She hugged him tight and prayed a little witchy goodness got through the binding spell. “Heal.”
“It’s getting late, y’all.”
Dani jerked away, nearly tripping over David, who’d been looming behind her.
A quiet, kind-faced night nurse stood at the break in the curtain. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Maybe this lady knew how Cole’s chest had been sliced open. “What’s this?” Dani peeled down the neckline of Cole’s blue hospital gown.
“He had heart surgery, most likely.”
She and Cole had had many long heart-to-hearts over the years. She’d trusted him enough to tell him all about Bailey Haas, but he’d never once mentioned having his chest cracked open.
“He never told me.” Dani pulled the gown back into position under his chin.
“With meds, diet, and exercise you’d never know a person had the procedure done.”
“Is his heart okay?” Dani asked.
“Definitely.” The nurse patted Cole’s foot through the thin blanket. “Did you two get to say your good-byes? I gave you a few extra minutes because he’s being moved to a long-term care facility tomorrow.”
Dani winced. He had family somewhere. A sister. Parents. They should know what was happening. He had friends. Oh God, his comic book shop. Who would run it now?
“Have you called his parents?” she asked. “I think they’re in Boulder.”
The nurse lifted a clipboard off the end of the bed and flipped two pages. “Yeah. That’s where the long-term care facility is. Boulder, Colorado.”
* * *
David didn’t say much on the drive home, which was fine because Dani couldn’t have carried on a rational discussion just then. Her mind, not to mention her body, was rushing in fifteen different directions at once.
He’d kissed her. And he’d done so with gusto, as if he’d been thinking of it the entire year since their last one.
She’d had no idea he’d thought of her at all except to deny her business license, which she was beginning to doubt he had anything to do with.
Dani had thought of him quite a bit. Even dreamed of him a couple of times. David Wilkes had come to represent every unattainable goal she’d ever foolishly wished for. Get a boyfriend? Impossible. Have a child of her own? Lunacy. Open her own business? Keep dreaming, dummy.
