by Eden Butler
“Well hey to you too, little sister.”
A quick glance at my cell phone to cut off the insistent text I knew Sam had sent me and I caught the time. Shit, someone was probably dead.
“Who died?” My brother’s small chuckle was the only thing that made me relax enough to leave the bed and tug on my jeans.
“No one yet, though I’m pretty close to killing your brother-in-law.” My brother always blamed me when shit hit the fan and from his tone, I’d guessed that this time the shit had slammed into the preverbal fan in buckets.
Still, that wasn’t my fault. “Ronan is your brother-in-law too, Samedi.”
“Yeah.” The frustration was heavy in his voice at my using his full name. “Well Mai is your twin, Janiver, and since it’s her husband that started all this shit, it should be you that gets us out of it.”
Mai was younger than me by only four minutes, but somehow we were years apart. I always picked up the pieces when she let her world fall apart—like it was now, with her in the middle of a bad breakup with her lazy, perpetually cheating husband. Still, it wasn’t my fight. “You’ve got the wrong twin.”
I cut Sam off from whatever excuse I knew he was going to use when he cleared his throat by shaking my head, and reaching out to grab the bottle of bourbon that had been sitting on the table beside my bed. I took a deep pull on the bottle, despite the glare my brother gave me. “Ask Mai to work out this mess.”
“She can’t. She’s gone off the rails.”
That meant trouble. It was habit, something my twin did when she couldn’t handle the messes she’d made for herself.
“What…” a small exhale and I readied for the bad news I suspected was coming. “What do you mean?”
“She’s back at Papa’s and won’t come out of her room.”
“Ah, balls.”
The bourbon didn’t burn when it went down, despite the long swig I took. My throat had grown nub to the sting of liquor a long damn time ago and the small little noise of judgment Sam made got completely ignored. When you numb yourself in order to forget, something that had become one of my more practiced habits, you tend to get used to both the bite and the judgment, no matter where they come from.
Mai’s hiding away—my twin’s way of forgetting—wasn’t the worst of the situation. Not by a long damn shot.
“She caught him with that same stripper from last year.”
“The one with the pixie cut?”
“Yeah, whatever, but this time he didn’t bother begging Mai not to kick him out.” Sam leaned on his arm, rubbing the back of his neck. “Papa thought giving Ronan a job would maybe keep that asshole from running off for weeks at a time.” Sam looked tired, like he hadn’t bothered with sleep in days. My stomach tightened at the thought and I couldn’t quite ignore the weight in my chest that settled there. My brother had enough to deal with. He didn’t need Mai’s jackass of a husband doubling up his anxiety.
“Bet that was pointless.”
“You got no idea.” Sam rubbed his hands over his face, letting one long exhale move the messy brown bangs that fell into his eyes. “He’s totally fucked us over.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
“If Papa hadn’t let Ronan take care of so many clients when they came calling, none of this would have happened. He just botched up too many jobs, was too sloppy and I was too busy to notice that his haplessness had become a serious problem.”
The whole time he had been talking to me, Sam had kept looking at his cell phone. It wasn’t like him to let a text distract him and I actually found it kind of funny that he kept focusing on the string of beeps that came from his phone.
“The whole damn town is talking about it, Jani. Papa says if we can’t pull in a big client, our name will be ruined.” Another heavy sigh and Sam threw down his cell. “Not to mention all the damn attention we’ve been getting from the mortals.”
Watching Sam, seeing the tension bunching up his features, I suddenly realized that this conversation was the longest we’d had in a year. In the past, we simply fought all the time. Even after our mother died five years ago we hadn’t managed a civil conversation. But then last summer, his wife, Rae and their unborn child had died in a freak accident—killed by a falling tree during hurricane season—and our conversations had simply become short and to the point. But this was different.
“Has Ivy or his men been snooping around?” I’d held my breath after asking that question. Ivy Beckerman was Crimson Cove’s chief of police. We all suspected he wouldn’t blink twice if he caught any weres shifting into their animal forms or spirits haunting the edge of the cemetery, never mind any chance encounters of a wizard doing something beyond human comprehension. There was something about the man that made him different from the other humans. They only saw what they wanted. But Ivy was smart, observant; he saw things that the others didn’t. But so far, he’d kept his questions to himself.
“No, not so much,” Sam said, once again focusing on his phone when it beeped, offering only a glance my way when he spoke, “but he did come by asking who busted in the store window.” Sam waited for that to make an impact.
“What the hell happened to the store window?”
“Some asshole pissed off that we hadn’t done our best to hide whatever bullshit they didn’t want the mortals to see, we think. Thanks to Ronan, we got a sledgehammer through the front window.”
That was unnerving. My father had managed to keep up the façade of running a respectable antiques store for decades. It was a decent way to front his real business—making sure the mortals never caught wind that a good majority of the Cove’s residents weren’t mortal at all; Papa was what the supernatural community called a “fixer”.
“How bad is it really, Sam?” That question came in front of a small, silent prayer that I could help my family from the comfort of my fifth floor walkup in Brooklyn.
I should have known better.
Another of Sam’s breath came out slow, this one with a labored drag of frustration, maybe the small hint of defeat in that exhale. “Carter Grant has pulled his coven’s contract with us. He doesn’t want to be involved in any accidents we can’t quite cover up.”
“Shit.” That revelation warranted another swig, and another disapproving shake of my brother’s head. If the Grants, a founding family and one of the oldest covens—and a friendship my father had kept for decades—cut ties with us, then things were about as bad as they could get.
“We’ve asked a couple of Finders to help out, Jani, but none are as good as you. Papa says you’re our last resort.”
Whatever I was ten years ago—Finder of Lost Things, twin of a mighty healer, daughter to a man who swept our lives away from mortal eyes—I’d packed up in a steamer trunk my father swindled from a Tulsa antiques dealer and hopped a bus to New York. I was eighteen, and thought Crimson Cove had seen the back of me. I hated being wrong.
It probably was tearing Papa up to know Sam was going to ask me to come home. He’d always maintained that once you left, that was it. No need to drag up the past with a trip down memory lane. Besides, he’d always tell me “nothing but heartache for you here, Janiver.” But after the bomb my brother dropped, I had little choice.
“I’ll take the red eye.”
“About that, Jani…” Another alert. This time Sam read the message then immediately snapped his eyes back up to the Skype screen. “You don’t need to worry about getting a ticket.” My brother swallowed, shifting his gaze away from the camera like he’d rather do anything than explain himself.
Dammit. This definitely required more bourbon.
“Thing is, someone is coming for you.”
“Who?”
“In a few minutes, actually.”
“Samedi, who?”
“Should be there. Now.”
“Son of a bitch.”
Please don’t let it be him, I prayed.
I wanted to handle this issue my family had and be done with it. I
had no intention of reconnecting.
Please, please, don’t let it be him.
“He was already in the city.”
“What are you talking about, Sam?”
“Look, Jani, something happened, with the Elam.”
The Elam? The talisman through which all the magic in Crimson Cove converged, which kept us hidden from mortal eyes, and in check?
“Someone attacked and took it…” Someone had stolen it? This was bad. Very bad. No wonder my family was on the edge of panic. I emptied the bottle but kept it between my legs as Sam hurried with his explanation. “And look, we really, well, we tried finding anyone else to help find it, but shit, sis, you’re the best and there is so little time and he was there in New York and…”
Three loud drums of a knock on my door had me almost jumping out of my skin. The temperature in the room suddenly shifted, and on the other side of the door, I picked up two signatures: elemental magic that identifies a witch or wizard like a thumbprint. Unbidden, my pulse started racing, and I found it hard to breathe.
“Jani…” Sam’s warning was too little and way too late. Nothing would save him from the shit storm I’d level at him as soon as I landed back home.
“Not another damn word, big brother.”
One of the bodies out in the hallway radiated heat and a familiar spicy, rich smell that made my mouth water.
“Jani…let me explain.”
Sam’s voice was rushed, muddled as I left the bed and stood in front of my door, my hand hovering over the handle. I didn’t need to look through the peep hole to know who stood out in the hallway.
“Whoever stole the Elam used old magic. They needed an old bloodline to make the hex work.” I squinted, looking over my shoulder toward the laptop as I twisted the handle, then didn’t blink or breathe at all as my gaze lifted to see Bane Illes. He stood on the other side of the open door.
“Yes,” he said, as if he had been listening to our conversation. Just as shocking as his appearance at my door was the fact that his face was bruised, and there was a cut along his bottom lip —injuries that shouldn’t be there at all. “And that blood was mine.”
Chapter Two
Bane Illes had ruined my favorite subject.
Senior year at Crimson Cove Regional, we’d started the semester with the Romantics—reading Shelley and Lord Byron, forgetting our town, the weird dichotomy of our lives among the mortals by integrating into their schools. The language, the love of literature made me forget that I was the only girl in the small class of fifteen that wasn’t mortal. Cherrie Miles, a bottle blonde who wore her t-shirts torn at the neck and frayed to her chest, always asked how I got my hair to curl so perfectly, while Samantha Riley gave too close a squint at the smooth flick of my eye liner. They weren’t my friends, hadn’t bothered to make me feel as they wanted to be, but even back then, at eighteen, I’d known the importance of tolerating their daily examination of my make-up and outfits. That took less effort than diverting the lewd cat calls I got from the boys the second I walked through the doors of that school my senior year.
Ricky Morris had no problem grunting at me like a wolf when I passed him in the hall. Evan Ames liked to call after me, mutter my name in a way that seemed somehow disgraceful and inappropriate. But all that stopped when Bane came down the hall after me; one glance and an angry glare sent those mortal boys scattering.
We were meant to mingle, to fit in. We were supposed to act like them, disappear within a crowd of them to pull attention away from ourselves. But mortals and magic did not mesh. Ever.
Percy Bysshe Shelley distracted me from those curious stares. Lord Byron annoyed me just enough that I was too worked up over his personal history to notice how often Cherrie and Samantha gawked at me or how Ricky and Evan kept silent around me, ducking Bane’s gaze when he caught them watching whenever he happened to pass by. The first few days, I thought the material would keep my focus from those curious stares. And they had. I’d barely noticed those shrewd, critical—or leering—looks. Then, with one schedule change, that big beautiful bastard walked right into the classroom and my attention on Romantic literature went the way of the land lines and printed phone books.
The moment he stepped into the class room, days into the beginning of the semester, Bane held the attention of every person sitting stoically still at his approach. One step, two more, and with each tousle of his thick, dark hair, with every click of his boots against the tile floor, the air seemed to evaporate a bit more. The room had gone soundless and cold like the wind stilling before a storm, readying for a torrential onslaught that flirts in the heavy clouds far above. Bane entered that room ten years ago with a casualness I’d never seen anyone else repeat. He’d been a boy too grown for his body with limbs and muscle threatening to break through all that taut skin; as though another creature pulsed beneath his bones, something fiercer that would rattle everything boring and mundane about Crimson Cove. Just like the hurricanes that disturbed the cove and broke the pines and maples from their root beds, Bane Illes came into my world ready to rip it apart.
He did that with one slow look my way.
And now he was doing that yet again as I stared at him standing outside of my big city door.
“Janiver Benoit.”
It wasn’t a greeting, not something Bane uttered to make me feel welcome. He spoke my name like a forgotten memory. One that maybe he should feel guilty about recalling but enjoyed too damn much to let that guilt settle in. At least, those cool, steel eyes, that not-really-there smirk, said that’s what my name off his tongue meant.
It was like seeing a beautiful caged animal behind bars; one that wasn’t really trapped, like it had sorted out just how to escape and wanted to toy a little with his keeper. But I had never kept Bane Illes. I doubted anyone could.
Bane had been beautiful—a silent, grumpy heap of maleness that made others back away whenever they caught sight of him. Girls ignored their schoolwork or the attention of any other boy whenever Bane walked down the hallway. He turned heads because he was massive, well over six feet tall. He kept those heads turned because he was beautiful. Skin like the color of a tawny hawk’s feather, eyes the palest blue I'd ever seen; they almost looked like bright silver. They’d shone like crystal whenever he slipped into our English Lit class just seconds before the tardy bell rang.
Still, that easy calm that he’d pulled off as a kid—his face turned toward whatever lecture Mr. Matthews was giving yet his eyes slanted down at me—had strengthened with time, had leveled into something so smooth and effortless. I would have sworn it was instinctual. His limbs were too relaxed. His fat, tempting bottom lip dented just slightly in the center as though he couldn’t keep from tucking it just a bit between his teeth was just too perfect.
Everything about him—those mammoth arms barely concealed beneath that brown leather jacket, the long, slim fingers and thick veins along the backs of his hands, the endless stretch of his legs in those dark jeans and the relaxed cast of his body, the threat of violence pulsing behind those crystal eyes—was a giant contradiction of strength, violence and sensuality.
“Ah, excuse me, sir, but the plane is waiting.” A smooth glance at the guard standing next to him and Bane nodded. Ah, right, there was a second signature. I had forgotten.
“You packed?” he asked me, moving to step over the threshold until I stopped him. Bane wasn’t a wizard accustomed to people getting in his way and me, with my arm blocking him from entering my apartment, gave him just enough pause to glance down my body, that gaze lingering a bit too long at my braless chest and unbuttoned jeans. “Red?” he grinned, catching a glimpse of my underwear.
I refused to let it show that he had thrown me. “This isn’t the Cove, Bane. You don’t get to come and go as you please.”
He leaned against the door, ignoring his guard as the man nodded and walked toward the elevator at the end of the hall. “You know, Jani, I think you’d like how I come and go.”
“Thanks,
not interested.”
It took him exactly three seconds to smirk. It was more than a grin this time, but not an expression that a stranger would take as friendly. That’s generally about all Bane could manage in the way of a friendly or even mildly flirty grin. “Pity,” he said, still giving me the once-over.
“I’ve had about a two-minute warning that you’d be here. Give me twenty minutes.”
“You gonna let me in?”
“Let the man in, Jani,” I heard my brother call from the laptop. I had totally forgotten that he was still there. “He’s taking you back in a private jet for free.”
“Nothing is free,” I tossed over my shoulder, relenting enough to not slam the door in Bane’s face before I turned back into my apartment and slipped into my bedroom.
“Is this the part where we discuss your payment?” Bane asked, resting against the door leading into my bedroom as I tugged out my suitcase from the closet and started throwing clothes into a messy pile in the center of it.
“You mean you two haven’t discussed that without me too?” One glance in his direction was all I offered and I tried not to get too annoyed at the way he moved his gaze around my place, looking over his shoulder into the tiny kitchen and sparsely outfitted living area. There was only one bathroom and one bedroom and every wall in the place was a beige-gray with thick, pre-war molding, original lead paint and all. Only my bedside table held anything personal—a picture of me and my siblings two years ago, back before Sam lost his wife and Mai’s marriage went into the toilet.
The barren landscape of my apartment was by choice. The sterile wall color and vintage appliances and bathroom fixtures weren’t, but I usually only stayed here long enough to pass out or lock myself in my bedroom with my laptop in front of me as I worked.
“Would we do that, sis?” Sam asked, his voice a little too chipper for my liking.
