The gods were real, they were part of the war, and the Nightkeepers were their servants on earth. That was powerful stuff. But at the same time, it just wasn’t in her to follow blindly.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said after a moment. “Maybe we’re part of some big cosmic plan, and maybe the gods are trying to team us up. But if the Nightkeepers have proved anything over the past four years, it’s that we’ve all got free will even in the face of a full-on prophecy… And this isn’t anywhere close to being a full-on anything.”
Her skin cooled where it had been heated by the warm press of his body, but inwardly the heat remained. If anything it ramped up when sparks kindled in his eyes and he leaned closer to say, “It is for me.”
“Stop it.” She slapped a palm on his chest and shoved. It was like trying to push over a building, but he obliged by backing up a step. “Just… stop playing me, Sven. I need to think this through.”
His expression tightened. “This isn’t a game.”
“Isn’t it?” Suddenly she saw part of what had made the warning bells go off inside her from the very beginning of his confession, though she’d been too wrapped up in other things to see it clearly until now. “What do you want to have happen here?”
He took another step back, this time without the shove. “What do you mean?”
“Spell it out for me. And be specific.” Part of her quailed at the idea that she was talking to a mage—to Sven—like this. But another part ached at the hint of what the hell? in his expression. Because with him, “What the hell?” was almost always followed by, “I’m outta here.”
But his lips firmed and he moved back into her space. Took her hand. And said softly, “I want you, Cara. I want us to be lovers, teammates.” He didn’t quite say “mates,” but it was more or less implied.
More or less. “How?” she asked, and the single word echoed in the silence.
“What do you mean?” It was the second time he’d said it, making her wonder whether that was his fallback, his way of making the other person do most of the work when the conversational going got tough.
“When I was ten, I wanted a pet dolphin, but I couldn’t make the logistics work. The way I see it, finding a way for the two of us to be together without totally screwing up the balance of power here wouldn’t be any easier than keeping a bottlenose on a Montana cattle ranch. So what’s the plan? Should we go to Dez and get his take on it? Just stand up in the middle of dinner and announce that we’re a couple and everyone else has to deal? Sneak around and hope that nobody figures it out? What?”
His eyes slid away from hers. “The gods—”
“I’m not asking the gods. I’m asking you.”
Mac whined low in his throat, looking between the two of them with an anxious doggy expression. Cara knew exactly how he felt, but she couldn’t back down now. Maybe she would have a few years back, but not anymore. Not when she was responsible for a broken army that badly needed to be mended.
“What do you want from me?” The question was low, sounded almost dragged out of him. Yet he was still trying to turn it back on her. She didn’t think he knew he was doing it, really. It was just the way he was wired.
Like a coyote, she thought with an edge of bitterness that hurt to feel. “I don’t think there’s any way we could keep an affair casual, not under the circumstances. So I want to know exactly how much I would be risking, what I’d be giving up if I decided to be with you the way you want. And I want to know what you’d be giving up in return.”
His head came up; his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
And there it was: not just the third repetition of his favorite question, but the shock and oh, hell, no expression of a golden boy who had gotten what he wanted all along, too often without any cost. Well, not this time.
“If you want to be with me, then you’re with me, no holds barred.”
He nodded cautiously. “I don’t want anyone else. I haven’t in a long time.”
Part of her took those words deep inside, held them close. “That matters, Sven. It does. Truly. But it’s not what I’m talking about.” She paused and took a deep breath, knowing they were on the tipping point. “I need to know that if we start this and I take the hit with the winikin, that you’re not going to take off and leave me to clean up the mess.”
He exhaled like she’d gut-punched him. “You want me to promise to stay.”
“In blood. With witnesses.”
White edged the rims of his eyes, though his face had otherwise gone to the neutral, reserved expression he wore in battle. Another fallback. “I don’t… I think… Shit. Can’t we just keep things casual?”
Her heart cracked and bled a little, though she had known what his answer would be. He might be unreliable in some ways, but she trusted many other things about him, including his honesty. Granted, he’d been known to lie to himself, but that wasn’t the problem here. He knew what she was asking… and he wasn’t going to promise it to her.
She sighed and rubbed the heel of her hand across her sternum, over the achy spot. “If it were just the two of us on a beach somewhere, then hell, yes, we’d keep it casual.” She tried for a smile. “I’d probably just be using you for the great sex anyway.”
His grin was equally weak. “Too bad we’re not on a beach.”
The ache intensified. “Yeah. Too bad.”
He hesitated, then closed the small distance between them and kissed her forehead, murmuring, “If I could promise to stick around for anyone, it would be you, Cara. Only you.”
Tears prickled, but she closed her eyes and willed them back. “Shit. Don’t say that.” Part of her, though, had needed to hear it. “Just go, okay? I need some time alone.”
After a long, drawn-out moment, he said, “You’re armed?”
“Yeah. Got my wristband too. I’ll be fine.” She tensed, expecting him to say something more and both needing and dreading it.
But all he said was, “Mac. Protect.” And then, with a scuff and the sound of boot steps, he walked out.
It was a long moment before she opened her eyes, another before she swiped away the moisture that clung to her lashes. She looked at Mac, then away, because she couldn’t stand the sorrow and sympathy in his pale green eyes. Which left her looking at the now deserted training hall, empty and dispirited with the leftovers of a party that felt like it had spanned two lifetimes, maybe three.
“Guess that means the next step is picking up the pieces and doing some damage control,” she said to the coyote.
Problem was, she didn’t know which pieces of the damage she was supposed to be controlling, which ones she was supposed to be letting loose… and, damn it, there wasn’t anybody left that she trusted enough to ask for advice.
Or was there?
“Shit,” she said on a sigh, staring down at her forearm mark while her chest went hollow and funny-feeling. Because whether she liked it or not—and she really, really didn’t—she needed to talk to her father.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
September 16
Five days until the equinox; three months and
five days until the zero date
Sven awoke to the smell of bacon and an inner sense of discontent, and couldn’t immediately place either of them.
For a second he flashed back to lying in the Mexican highlands, sprawled restlessly half-off a folding cot, staring up through gauzy bug netting at the ceiling of a pop-up tent pitched in one of a hundred temporary campsites. There, the smell would’ve been the stink of charred bodies, the discontent the residue of his work. Now, as he blinked up at the white-painted ceiling and slowly turning overhead fan, he got that he was in his room at Skywatch, and the smell was definitely bacon. It took him another groggy, magically hungover moment to place the discontent.
Cara. Oh, shit.
His heart gave a painful squeeze and part of him wished he were back down south breathing xombi dust. Because he’d really fucked things up this time.
; So much for being a better man. A better man wouldn’t have said anything unless he knew for real what he wanted and that he could get it without screwing things up even more than they were already screwed. Which, as she had pointed out, was impossible.
At the time—in the cave, in the aftermath—it had seemed utterly imperative that he tell her he had feelings for her. Now, though, in the light of day he knew that even though he couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t wanted her, he could’ve made it another three months without saying anything. And he damn well should have, because he couldn’t promise to stay.
Everyone she had ever cared about had left her: him by running away, her mother by dying, Carlos by being more winikin than father. She deserved someone who would stick by her and put her first and foremost, always. And that sure as shit wasn’t him.
He tossed an arm over his eyes. “Cocksucking hell.”
“Good. You’re awake,” Carlos’s voice said from the doorway.
Shit. The bacon. Dragging his arm off his face and his body upright, Sven faced his winikin, who was a familiar sight standing in his bedroom door with a tray of food and a half scowl. What wasn’t at all familiar, though, was the twinge of unease brought by the sight.
He’d never before broken a promise to Carlos; and while Cara’s age wasn’t the factor it had once been, he knew damn well that Carlos would still be pissed at them for crossing what he considered a sacred line. Not to mention, Sven realized with a kink of fatalistic amusement, he’d never before faced off against the father of a girl he’d hooked up with, and sure as hell not the morning after, naked.
Carlos was all business, though. “The king sent me to get you moving. He wants to see you in his quarters as soon as you’re up and functional. He’s talking to Cara now.”
Oh, hell. “How long have they been at it?”
“Half hour, maybe.” Carlos gestured with the breakfast tray, which smelled of grease and salt, and for a human would’ve been a heart attack special. “You want this in here?”
“I’ll get dressed and come out.” And eat fast. He didn’t like the idea of Dez and Cara closeted away together, not because he was afraid of what she would say about the two of them, but because he was afraid of what she would say about everything else. She was too brave for her own good, and so determined to prove that the winikin deserved to be independent that she lost track that they were vulnerable in ways the Nightkeepers simply weren’t. And that scared the crap out of him.
He was out of bed in an instant, and three minutes later shrugged on a faded green T-shirt to go with his jeans and boots as he walked into the kitchen, where Carlos had laid out the goods on the breakfast bar. Sven couldn’t quite place the winikin’s expression; he wasn’t sure if there was a new disturbance in the force there, or if it was a continuation of the same distance they had been dealing with for years.
As he started shoveling calories on board, he asked around a mouthful, “How much do you know about what happened last night?”
Turning on the hot water to suds up in the sink for washing—which for him was a kind of therapy—the winikin leaned back against the counter, eyes sharpening. “Nothing, really. I was out back at the library helping Jade and Lucius with deciphering Anna’s latest prophecy and tracking down some lead on a cave in the middle of nowhere, Guatemala. I spent the night, caught a nap here and there, and worked straight through. I’d barely put a foot back in the mansion when Dez sent me to get you moving. Why? What happened?”
Shit, Sven thought. Carlos didn’t know Cara had been in trouble, or that the two of them had been the source of the lead, never mind that Zane and Lora were under arrest, and the rebels undoubtedly pissed, maybe worse.
But it also meant that Dez had somehow squelched the rumor pipeline… and probably had a plan for how he wanted things let out in public. “Hm. You should probably hear it from Dez or Cara.”
Sharp gray eyes got way sharper. “I’d rather hear it from you, right now.”
But Sven’s fealty oath said to keep his mouth shut, so he said only, “There was an incident. She’s fine, but there’s going to be some fallout. Let me take this meeting with Dez and find out where we stand.”
The winikin didn’t ask, not even about his daughter. He just nodded. “The king will tell us what we need to know, when we need to know it.”
It wasn’t the first time Sven had done the stop-and-blink thing over Carlos’s acceptance of—and, hell, defense of—the hierarchy. Now, though, there was a spark of frustration. Okay, more than a spark. “Don’t you want to know what happened to Cara?”
“You said she was fine. And she’s made her choices.”
“Some of them, maybe.” But she hadn’t chosen to take her marks in the first place, and yesterday she hadn’t chosen to once more wear the coyote glyph. They just kept getting handed to her. And even though Carlos wasn’t doing anything out of his norm, it suddenly pissed Sven off far more than usual. “It really gets you that she’s trying to find a middle ground with the rebels, doesn’t it?”
The winikin’s lips turned down. “There shouldn’t need to be any compromise, no need to rewrite traditions that have served us for centuries. Especially not now.”
“And you’re sure all of the traditions are right?”
“I don’t think she should be the one deciding which ones to set aside.”
“Who, then?” Sven pressed.
“Jox wouldn’t have—” Carlos shook his head, scowling. “It doesn’t matter, does it? He put himself ahead of the winikin, ahead of the war.” He didn’t quite say the words “selfish bastard” aloud. “And he chose Cara as his successor… why? Four years ago she refused to do her duty and took off. Why would he figure she’d be any more reliable now?”
Leave it alone, Sven told himself. She doesn’t want anyone fighting her battles for her. Or was it more that nobody had ever offered before? Either way, he couldn’t just let it go. Not when he’d spent the past few days—and, hell, the past twenty-four hours—seeing her strength and resourcefulness, and her dedication to the winikin. So he said, voice low, “She’s your daughter, Carlos. Yours and Essie’s.”
A dull red flush said he’d scored, but the winikin’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t go there. You have no right.”
“Maybe not, but nobody else is going to call you on it, are they?” Breakfast forgotten, Sven glared at the man who had raised him. “She’s your daughter, Carlos, your flesh and blood. If you don’t think you owe her some love—or at least some damn respect—because of that, then how about a little guilt for not giving her a choice, or, hell, some basic training, before you grabbed her, blooded her, and went, ‘Poof, there you go. Congratulations, I’ve made you into a servant!’”
“I made her into your servant, you fucking ingrate,” Carlos said through gritted teeth.
“I never asked you to. I didn’t want any of this, but I sure as hell didn’t want her waiting on me. For chrissake, that’s why I sent her away.”
“Bullshit. You sent her away because you were afraid you couldn’t keep your hands off her, but you knew damn well there was no place for that sort of a relationship here at Skywatch with war on the horizon. You still know it.”
“Then why the hell did you make her my winikin?” The question came out in an unintended roar. “Why did you warn me off her and then throw us together like that? Was it a test? Some sort of punishment? What? Jesus, Carlos.”
“Language,” the winikin reprimanded, and for a second Sven was ten years old again and headed for the naughty corner.
Only for a second, though. “Fuck my language and answer the question. Why did you do it?”
“Screw this.” Carlos grabbed the tray of uneaten food and headed for the door, sloshing coffee on the floor as he went. “I don’t answer to you.”
Sven didn’t point out the obvious contradiction. “Damn it, Carlos. If you didn’t want me around her, then why bind her to me?”
The winikin stopped, slammed the tray down on th
e side table next to the door, and spun back. “Because it was the only way to get you back here, godsdamn it. When Jox called us all back to Skywatch, I had to be sure you would come. I knew if I asked you would tell me you were on your way, and keep doing whatever you were doing in the first place. Sure, I could have had them send someone out after you, but that would’ve meant… Shit, I couldn’t do that.”
He hadn’t wanted to look bad, Sven realized. So he had sacrificed his daughter instead. He leaned back against the kitchen counter and felt the hard edge press into his kidneys while disgust coated his mouth. “You used her.”
“Desperate times.”
“You didn’t trust me to man up once I understood what was going on.”
“Do you blame me?” The winikin’s raised eyebrow reminded Sven of his big apology and all those good intentions. Granted, he hadn’t repeated his old mistakes by doing a vanishing act when things started getting complicated, but maybe that would’ve been the lesser sin.
“Yeah, damn it, I do blame you. I… Shit.” He paused, trying to rein in his bubbling temper, because he owed Carlos his life. But he didn’t owe him unquestioning acceptance, especially when it came to Cara. Not anymore. “You could’ve talked to me, told me the truth about the Nightkeepers and the situation. I would’ve come back with you.” He wanted to think he would have, at any rate. “You could’ve tried that first, at least, before using Cara.”
Carlos’s eyes flared. “Do you think it was easy for me? Do you think I wanted to do it that way? For fuck’s sake, we were finally starting to get along. With Essie gone, we were eating together sometimes, riding out together. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. And then Jox called, and I didn’t have a fucking choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“Fine.” The older man lifted his chin to glare. “Then I made the choice. I ruined things with Cara, maybe even ruined things for her, in order to guarantee that the Nightkeepers got their coyote mage. Live with it. I know I do.”
Magic Unchained Page 20
