Crimson Cove

by Eden Butler

  “That right?” He stopped me, held me back while Bane slipped down the hallway. “Then why was that boy looking for all the world like you were something he’d misplaced and only just remembered he’d lost?”

  “It’s not like that at all, Batty.” But the Oracle knew things that I didn’t. He saw the truth no matter how deeply anyone tried to keep it hidden.

  A twist of his lips and those scrutinizing, narrowed eyes watched me close. “I suppose you’ve your reasons for keeping things to yourself.”

  “I do.” I couldn’t shake that look or ignore altogether the way Batty tried to unravel the knot I’d made of my past. He was simply too observant, too aware. “It’s not important.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, nièce,” Batty said, all the teasing, all the humor leaving his expression. “No matter what his folk lay before him, Iles has an obligation to the lines, the heartbeat beneath us. He has an obligation first to the one that claims him.”

  “Yeah and that’s Cari, not me.”

  “Horse shit.” Batty stepped closer, his eyes lit bright and a quick swirl of green edging around the irises. “There’s only one who’s claimed Bane Iles and we both know who that is. Don’t we?”

  But before I could answer, before my old uncle could finish his disapproving lecture, a crash sounded outside of the door and Bane’s loud voice growled into the nearly empty bar beyond the office.

  “Shit,” I told Batty, running from the office.

  “What is it? Can you see?” His regular eyesight was horrible, but seemed to pick up the screech of my twin sister’s yell from across the bar. “Ah. It’s that rotten Ronan come after Mai again.”

  “Good,” I said, walking away from the Oracle. “I’ve got several choice words and one mean hex for my brother-in-law.”

  Chapter Five

  The second Mai had braved the outside of her bedroom, I’d know about it. The plane hadn’t been on the tarmac for more than ten minutes, and I could feel my sister shaking off what remained of her isolation caused by her husband’s betrayal.

  That had been two days ago, so my brother had relayed, and since that time she’d tidied herself up, returned to work at Batty’s bar and spread the word around the Cove that she’d be selling the little bungalow she bought less than a year before. It seemed it was that particular decision that had hacked Ronan off. Seeing how he still happened to live in the place.

  “You got no rights, Mai. None whatsoever.” My brother-in-law tried using his size, his height to intimidate my twin, but it didn’t work. She was over a foot shorter than him, but that glare, the snarl on her mouth made her seem a damn sight more vicious.

  “Yeah, you rotten, dead-bolted scullion?” Mai smiled at that insult, seeming proud she’d reached back into the old coven slang to abuse her husband. “I got every right.”

  “It’s my house!”

  Her laugh was loud, mocking and Ronan slammed his fist on the bar as though he didn’t like hearing it. But Mai wasn’t frightened of him. She wouldn’t back down again, not like she’d done so often in her marriage just to keep the peace. After his repeated infidelities, the shoddy handling of my father’s business had been the last straw. “Funny how my name is the only one on the mortgage. You’re gonna move out or I’ll have you kicked out!”

  Mai was a romantic, given to quick bouts of lust and passion. Any combination of the two would suit her fine but put those inside a criminally handsome but lazy wizard like Ronan, and you’ve got the makings of a not so happy ending.

  “Isn’t that the case?” she’d told me the night before when news of my return had my twin calling my cell at four a.m. I was still a little drunk and prone to blunt honesty.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s always the good looking ones. They’ve the biggest heels to stomp your hearts.”

  “Then maybe, little sister, next time you should pick an ugly man.”

  But I doubted an ugly man was the answer and just then with Mai letting loose her fury at her soon-to-be ex sauntering into Batty’s and demanding that she take the bungalow off the market, I realized the glass mugs and array of dishes being flung right at his head was the sort of catharsis my sister needed.

  Bane, however, didn’t seem to agree.

  “Aren’t you gonna do something?” There was still cool calm in his tone but beneath those crystal eyes was the clear swell of irritation.

  “I am.” I pulled Bane out of the line of a flying mug. “I’m staying out of the way. You might want to do the same.” I wasn’t worried about any real damage those two might cause. They couldn’t hex or spell each other. That was a funny little aside to a coven marriage—witches and wizards were bound from hurting one another with magic. But damn if Mai didn’t know how to fling a glass or toss a plate right across the room. I almost felt sorry for Ronan, but just almost.

  “Damn Benoit women.” I heard Bane’s mutter, caught that disbelieving head shake but only had to glare at him before he noticed my frown. “What?”

  “You wanna repeat that?”

  “Not if it’s gonna keep that look on your face.” We ducked again and when a third mug flew too near my head, Bane pulled me behind the bar. “This is fucking stupid.” He grunted, seeming annoyed when I rolled my eyes at him. “Busting up Batty’s place isn’t going to do anyone any favors.”

  “Sure it will.” I edged around the side of the bar, smiling when the plate Mai leveled at her husband zinged him in the shoulder. “It’ll make her feel better.”

  “Come on. We’ve got shit to do.” He pulled me back, grabbing my shirt in his fist until we were nearly nose to nose. One slip of my eyebrow arching and Bane exhaled, following my glance at my shirt crumpled between his fingers, and released me. “Your nex is all sorted. The dens will be showing up tonight and we’ll head out at two a.m. sharp. There’s shit to settle before we leave.”

  Behind us, Mai continued to scream and I rubbed my temples wondering how much energy, how much rage she needed to release before she was sated. If my twin was anything like me—and God knew she was— then her little catharsis could go on and on. I wouldn’t begrudge her the release of the anger she had pent up for months, but Bane did have a point. Still, I wasn’t worried that we’d lose trace of the Elam. I had a feeling that with my nexus centered again and the lines being unhindered, that my abilities would be wide open and very sensitive.

  “The trail isn’t going to go cold, Bane, and my sister is only defending what is hers.”

  “To hell with this.” He barely listened to my explanation before he left the safety of the bar. Rising up, he waved his hand in the air, and both Mai and Ronan froze in their spot, captured in a suspension spell that made their movements slow and disjointed. But Bane’s spell had caught Mai in mid-wince, just as Ronan’s released mug split her bottom lip.

  “Son of a bitch!” I yelled once I followed Bane from behind the bar. All I saw was the pain scrunching my sister’s face and the wild glee of pleasure that lit up Ronan’s features. Bane caught me before I could get my hands on my brother-in-law, with his large arm pinning down my hands.

  “Jani, no.” He held me back, strong arms barely loosening as I moved against them. “You wanna end up in front of the board of covens for attacking a spelled wizard? Calm down.”

  Mai and Ronan fell in slow movements, their bodies, their reactions distilled by Bane’s release of magic and I nodded, let him move me away from Ronan as my brother-in-law slowly fell to the floor. I reached Mai, threw the immobile mug away from her face and caught her around the middle before she fell, my touch completely ending Bane’s spell, and we both landed to the floor in a whoosh of breath.

  “Shit, that hurt.” Frowning, Mai cupped her bottom lip and I tugged the rag from her apron, holding it against her mouth in an attempt to get the bleeding to slow.

  “Hey, asshole,” Bane said, bringing both our attention across the room as he knelt in front of Ronan, shoving him back down when the jerk tried jumping off t
he floor. “What’s it gonna take to get you out of that house?” Seeming disoriented, Ronan looked around the room, glaring over at Mai, then back at Bane. “Answer me.”

  Again Ronan tried to move off the floor and Bane held him down. “You can’t throw money at this shit, asshole.”

  “Pretty sure I can.”

  There was a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach, one that reminded me of the time Sam roughed up Michael Little after he and his friends threw spitballs at me in Miss Deaton’s P.E. class. I hadn’t needed Sam scaring off anyone. Not Michael anyway, since he spent the next week with a chronic case of chicken pox, and my mother made me clean out the attic and rearrange her canning equipment when she realized I’d spelled a mortal. Point being, I could handle myself despite the consequences I faced. I could handle this as well if Mai couldn’t get through to Ronan. Benoits settle their own debts. Bane had no business speaking for us.

  Patting Mai’s shoulder, I left her on the floor and stood next to Bane. “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t look at me when I spoke and that only annoyed me further. “There’s a problem that’s keeping your attention.” Finally, Bane glanced at me, his face expressionless and that same fire making his eyes appear gray and glowing. “I need all of your attention, Jani. Hence me throwing money at said problem.”

  “We don’t need you to fight our battles.” I wouldn’t budge on that one. He didn’t know me anymore, but he knew my brother. He knew my father, and if Bane had spent more than a few hours with either of them he’d have sorted out that the stubborn streak was evident in everyone in my family.

  Still, a quick look at Mai’s bloody mouth and whatever Bane’s experience with my family seemed irrelevant. He certainly didn’t look altogether fussed about me being annoyed. “Maybe not, but as I’ve already said, we don’t have time for this.” He looked at Ronan again, but spoke to me. “Bastards like this don’t care about anyone. They get by on their connections, their looks and when those don’t work anymore, they resort to blackmail, sabotage.”

  The subtle pop of Bane’s knee sounded when he stood and fit his hands into his pockets. His face had cleared a bit more since yesterday, but it was still slow to heal. Whatever dark magic his attackers had used on him, it worked perfectly to keep him roughed up and I assumed his injured leg still needed more time to heal.

  But watching him glower at my brother-in-law like he was pathetic, nothing but a nuisance, with that cool, scary calm keeping his features even, I realized that Bane would be intimidating no matter how injured he was. Hell, the bruises likely helped that menacing air along.

  “Ronan here thought that your sister was weak. He thought that your father was stupid.”

  “You got no clue what I thought, Iles,” Ronan said, spitting out a line of bloody spittle when Bane refused to look at him.

  The wizard shook his head and looked as though he fought to keep a smile from twitching across his mouth. “It’d be very easy to be rid of him, but I’m not a murderer. Neither are you,” he said, glancing at me as an afterthought. “So we have to resort to basics for a very basic wizard.” The doorway creaked behind us and I thought maybe Batty had exited the building, likely not eager to see what Bane would do in his bar, but then I smelled the familiar scent of Lennon’s cologne and another new scent, this one like pine needles. Looking around, I saw that Lennon had been joined by another wizard who rivaled Bane’s height and stature.

  They weren’t here to usher us back to Bane’s territory. From the slow movement of their eyes around the room, then back at their boss, I understood that they were there to handle whatever it was Bane needed. At that moment, Ronan needed handling.

  “He wants money so he doesn’t actually have to work for a living. That’s why he latched onto your sister and, if memory serves, to Widow Aldridge when we were in high school. Remember that, asshole?”

  “Bullshit,” my brother-in-law argued, flashing his gaze at the two guards and putting as much space between himself and the threat that loomed. Slowly, he edged back with his hands and feet like a crab, but didn’t manage to get very far.

  “Bled her dry and the poor thing ended up in the mortal homeless shelter until she died.” Bane reminded me of a tiger, pacing around Ronan with a relaxed, calm expression on his face. He looked almost bored, a little unsettled, but I think that cool demeanor made him even more threatening. Ronan would not take his gaze off of Bane, not when he walked around him, not when that blank expression twisted into a smile that was not friendly at all. “So, the best bet is to send him some place where he can’t return.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t a murderer?” Ronan shouted, shuffling up onto his feet.

  “You don’t deserve an easy death.” Bane still kept his hands inside his pockets and tilted his head, looking at Ronan as though staring would make the ideas and possibilities in his mind arrange themselves into a logical solution. “And you’re right, I'm not a murderer, but you damn sure won’t be staying in the Cove.”

  “You…you can’t do that.” Ronan didn’t sound convinced. “You don’t own the Cove.”

  “Yeah,” Bane said, laughing, moving his shoulder into a shrug. “I kind of do.” He nodded and the guards cornered Ronan, holding his arms.

  Bane wasn’t exaggerating and from the way Ronan shook his head, to how he didn’t bother fighting to get loose from the guards, I suspected he knew the truth of what Bane said. Bane’s coven was large, and although he was only a cousin to the Grants, he was still in line to lead them when his uncle Carter passed away. But the resources, the businesses, hell even the little league team started up ten years before when the covens wanted to integrate with the mortals were all fronted with Grant cash. Bane oversaw most of that, and what he didn’t, the Rivers coven did. The Rivers coven who were Caridee’s people. So yes, Bane did, in effect, own the Cove. Ronan had little choice.

  The Grant coven’s reach and Bane’s acquired power may have silenced my sister while he threatened her husband. It was definitely the very reason Ronan’s arguing had silenced and why that wild, open fear collected in his eyes. But it meant nothing to me. No matter who he’d been to me once upon a time, no matter that the guilt I had felt at blocking his memories and how it had sent me fleeing and, on the worst days, climbing into a bottle, I no longer cowered to the social order in the Cove. I was free of that. Bane would soon be a higher coven leader and I was a lower coven witch, who would no longer be a concern of his when I went back to New York. His clout meant shit to me.

  “You own the Cove, Mr. Iles, not my family,” I said evenly, and everyone paused.

  Ronan glared at me when I approached, but his fear seemed to ease as I looked into his undeniably handsome face. Poor jackass. He was too stupid to worry about me, too arrogant to fear me and he didn’t even blink, didn’t shy away when I rested my fingers along his forehead and whispered “awendan” so only he could hear me. The hex shifted his features, made him stare at nothing, eyes unfocused and glassy.

  “You will go to Easton Williams. Try working a grift on some of those Nevada witches. Their graves are deep and their deserts are endless. You will fail, Ronan, and will leave the Cove and my sister alone.”

  I didn’t like Ronan. Never had. Hell, since he was a kid he’d been a pain in most everyone’s ass, and if I was being honest, I wasn’t sad to see him being escorted out of Batty’s and out of our lives forever. I didn’t care.

  Bane didn’t watch his guards escorting Ronan out of the room. He seemed more interested in my profile. But when I glanced at him, expecting a reprimand, maybe a reminder that I was expected to abide by that shitty social order, Bane kept silent, giving me a nod and the slightest hint of approval with the dip of his chin.

  “Now that you’ve handled that,” he said clearing his throat, “can we get back to business and prepare for the arriving covens?”

  “Jani,” Mai said and her voice muffled. When I reached her, I realized that her bottom lip had swollen and the c
ut still bled.

  “Here.” My twin didn’t fight me when I dug a balm out of my bag and dabbed a bit of it onto her lip.

  “Wouldn’t it be faster to just work a charm on her?”

  “It would, but Mai is a healer. They’re the hardest to treat.” I barely glanced at Bane when he grunted and met my sister’s worried eyes. “It’ll be gone in the morning.”

  “Papa will still worry.” Mai adjusted herself on the floor to lean against the bar as I rubbed more balm into her split lip. “And you know, with his heart, damn, Jani I shouldn’t go home.”

  “Don’t you have a house?” Bane asked, his frustration evident in that clipped tone.

  “Hey,” I told him, standing, “this isn’t’ your business. None of it.”

  Grunting, Bane glared at me, squaring his shoulders so that his shadow stretched over mine. “It is when I hire someone to do a job and they’re too distracted by family drama to do the work they’re being paid to do.”

  What a smug asshole. None of this was my fault, but to Bane that didn’t matter. He didn’t have much family to speak of—no siblings, no parents left alive—so I guessed all that isolation, especially when you’d been left to be raised by your wealthy cousins, had made Bane a little less understanding of familial bonds. Especially when it came to siblings. Still, I didn’t care about how rough his childhood was. That still didn’t entitle him to being an asshole.

  I stepped in front of him, managing to move only my eyes in order to look up at him. “I haven’t seen the first dime on this job, and besides, you’re the one stepping in and trying to take over. Trying to work out our problems, warding your property so I can’t even protect myself.”

  “I was protecting you.”

  “Yeah and I didn’t ask you to do any of that, did I?”

  “Jani, it’s fine,” Mai said, but I kept my attention on the beast glaring down at me. “Bane’s right, I can go back to my house and…”

  “Didn’t you tell me when I got here that you’d had the power cut off so Ronan would leave?” I interrupted, glancing at my sister.