Crimson Cove

by Eden Butler

  Just one small movement and it would be done.

  Bane tilted my chin, held my face between both hands now and I felt him come closer, waiting, making my mind up that I would only take a taste…

  A taste that wasn’t mine.

  A touch that belong to someone else.

  Eyes shut tight to clear away Caridee’s perfect skin, her perfect hair—the flawless Rivers coven regalia that Bane deserved. The one taught over and over to us as expectation. Certainties that had never been changed. The way the Cove existed so that there was no upset, no chance of shaming all of the Cove by letting the mortals know what we are and how we lived.

  Expectation.

  Certainty.

  Things that had been constants for everyone in the Cove. Each coven depended on the other. Each den, every pack, all connected.

  The way of things.

  The things I’d left behind.

  The things Ronan had tried to topple.

  The things I was there to recapture for my family.

  Before I realized I’d uttered a sound, the word came out, my hands pushing against that wide, wonderful chest and “Parley!” echoed around the kitchen.

  Bane steadied my hands when I tried to push at him again, holding me by the shoulders so I wouldn’t leave. Eyes wrinkling as he squinted at me, the expectation was evident. He wanted clarification. He wanted me to explain why I’d used the most antiquated, passé respite possible in our world.

  Parley? Had I really said that?

  “What…did you just?”

  But the black flag had been lifted and measures were maintained even in such…personal matters. Bane was the incumbent leader for the most powerful coven in the Cove. Even he had to mind the rules we all lived by.

  “I did.” Damn. An inhale to push back the tension crowding between my eyes and I glanced up at him, grateful that I hadn’t spelled him to back away. “Parley. Back off. Don’t…don’t touch me. Talk only.”

  “Why in the hell would you…”

  “I have reasons.” I waved my hand so he’d step back. “Please, Bane, I need to do a job and I can’t have you being a distraction.”

  “I’m the distraction?” He moved his gaze over my body.

  “Didn’t you say we’re on a time crunch here?”

  He nodded, reluctantly agreeing. “Fair enough.” He stepped back, pulling on the neck of that bottle fisted between my fingers. “We have to get this search going.” He set the bottle on the counter next to the sink. I nodded, started to walk away, but Bane tugged on my arm, his fingers touching right on my skin. Shuddering in my limbs, in his and his eyes grew wide, he twisted his head to the side like he needed to shake the sensation away, then jerked his gaze up at my face. “What…what the hell was that?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  He stared at me a long time, then at his fingers still gripping my arm before he dropped it.

  “The search?” I said when Bane had stayed too quiet. “I’ll see you out there in ten minutes.” Before I left into the hallway, Bane called my name. Stopping would be stupid. Not stopping, though, might tell him I couldn’t control myself alone with him. He’d already gotten enough of my fear in the past few days. I wouldn’t hand him anymore.

  Eyes, chin twisted toward him, I didn’t dare stare right at his face. I can admit that I was a coward when it came to him. But Bane didn’t seem to care that I wouldn’t look directly at him. He clicked back into control mode. “We find the Elam, get it back into the amulet and stop the lines from flooding as quickly as possible.”

  “That’s fine with me.” A little more relaxed now that he was back on task, I turned around. “I’ve got somewhere to be in two weeks.”

  “That’s not why I want to hurry.”

  “Why then?”

  Two long strides put him back in front of me and I immediately cursed myself for stopping. Bane’s mouth was tight, eyes narrowed as though he needed to concentrate on anything other than the rip of energy that bubbled between us. The lines feed off anger, passion, lust. All of those things, with a few other emotions permeated the room. It made the lines pulse square into us.

  “The sooner the job is over, the sooner we can discuss what the hell that was and what you’ve been running from for ten damn years.”

  He didn’t wait for me to answer. He didn’t want to see me huddle against the counter or try like hell not lean across the granite just to get my skin to cool. It didn’t matter that Bane was curious, that he wanted answers. I was there to do a job. I was there to save my family’s name. None of that would include a conversation with Bane Iles about what had happened to us when we were kids. I’d be long gone before then. Again.

  Chapter Seven

  Midnight was behind us along with five miles of woods, and the forest whispered like it knew something we didn’t.

  “Another half hour and then we rest. We’ll reach the spring by then.”

  The spring. That was what Bane thought had kept me quiet the entire hike into his coven’s property. The deeper we got into the woods, the greater my senses aligned with traces of the amulet left behind. Familiar. Ancient. Part of my brain recognized that faint hint of magic not coming from the ley lines. The Elam had been gone three days and since my arrival in Crimson Cove, those faint whispers had grown louder, but only marginally so until we entered the deep woods. The spring was some three miles ahead and as we neared it, the Elam felt closer.

  We walked single file with several feet separating Bane, behind me, and two guards I didn’t know, along with Joe, Wyatt and his sullen-looking cousin, Hamill, leading us through the thick woods. Clover Springs rested near a small settlement of Bane’s folk, fourth or fifth cousins by my estimation, that Bane hardly knew.

  “They are quiet, only two or three families large and we never see them at the yearly coven gatherings. They always send their regrets and my cousins never have anything but grief to spit about them.”

  “Isn’t that the case with everyone they don’t know? Blood or not?”

  “True enough. But this sort,” he nodded as we came to a clearing and could hear the faint rush of water up ahead, “they are odd to say the least.”

  “Maybe they just like keeping to themselves.” Bane grinned as though he’d half-expected my reaction. And when he kept smiling I stopped walking. “What?”

  “You, Jani.” The laughter held just a second longer and then Bane sighed, giving up the idea about keeping things to himself. “Never once have I heard you say something hostile about anyone. Well, save Ronan, but even his mother talks shit about him.” That grin moved a little but didn’t disappear when he glanced back at me. “How is it you’ve lived for ten years in the city, with mortals, no less, and you still don’t speak ill of folk?”

  I shrugged. “What good is ill speak? Isn’t there enough wrong in this world? Why add to it?” The smile left his lips and they went soft, easy. Not quite a grin, nowhere near to a frown. And then came that long, aching look of his again. There’d never be a time when that look felt usual to me. “Come on, Bane. We’re getting close.”

  “Jani Benoit,” he started, ignoring my little demand as I passed him. Bane didn’t move, but I heard his words as he watched me walking away. “Jani Benoit and that sweet, sweet tongue.”

  “What?” I stopped, scared that he might try to pick up where things had come too close to losing control in the kitchen. Surely he couldn’t remember what had really happened ten years ago. My block had worked. I knew it. But that didn’t keep the worry from my mind or ease the burn of anxiety in my gut.

  “You think I’ve forgotten the last I saw you?” The familiar teasing glint came back into his eyes and some of my worry lessened to see him lighten up.

  “You mean last night when you and your fiancé were screaming your heads off at each other?”

  Bane worked his jaw as though he needed a second to keep from glaring at me. “No, not then.”

  “Oh,” I teased back, standing above him on
a small bolder near the spring, “you mean when you decided to drop in uninvited into my Brooklyn apartment?”

  He stepped closer, looking up at me without a single shred of hesitation. “I meant the day in Matthews’ class when you came at me like you wanted to climb inside.” My eyes widened and he laughed. “Didn’t think you had it in you Jani, but one minute I’m standing there watching Matthews talking to you about some mortal career advice, and the next thing I know you’re all around me with your mouth on mine.” Bane was large, primal and it took only his approach and that smooth, slick look in his eyes to have me retreat, looking for some purchase that would keep us from touching. How is it he was remembering even this much?

  I found myself backed up against a large oak, clawing at the bark to keep myself from touching Bane when he came close. Suddenly, I didn’t hear and see anything but his approach and that low, earthly whisper of the lines singing to me.

  “Funny how I didn’t mind you clearly subduing me with a spell, but damn if I didn’t care.” He looked at me like he’d never seen my equal. “For the life of me, I don’t know what it is about you.” His gaze lifted along with his fingers, skimming along my forehead. “Anytime you’re around me I go a little stupid.” He narrowed his eyes, dropping his hand as though something had just occurred to him. “You twisting a hex on me?”

  My small laugh took the glare from his expression. “After all this time? Really?”

  “Hmm.” Whatever Bane wanted from me—and I had suspicions it was more than the return of the Elam and the safety of our town—the look he gave me then felt clear. There was the slow, cautious rake of his gaze down my body; the hesitation of that look over my chest, to the small curve of flesh barely visible beneath my thin shirt and heavy scarf. Still, Bane looked as though it was his right to take whatever he wanted. And exactly like he wanted every square inch of what he saw.

  “You know, Mr. Iles, when a man looks at me the way you are now, I generally ask that he buy me dinner first, at least say please.”

  Bane licked his lips, the bottom of his mouth twitching between a smile and the fight to hold it back. “I’m not most men, Miss Benoit.” He stepped closer, close enough to kiss me, fast enough to make it a threat. “And I damn well don’t say please.”

  Behind him Wyatt cleared his throat and I offered the were a relieved smile, but Bane didn’t let me pass, not completely. He treated me to another of those long, dark looks, this one promising how eager he was not to say please.

  The covens came from every region within a thousand miles. Some from even further away, and as we ventured through the forest, bypassing small encampments made up of tidy cottages and solitary cabins barely noticeable if you weren’t really looking for them, the realization hit that Bane’s coven and the influence it held stretched throughout most of the Gulf Coast region, if not all states south of the Mason-Dixon line.

  There had always been this unspoken knowledge about the Grants: of the fifty or so covens in Crimson Cove, theirs was the oldest. They held the deciding vote when the board could not reach a unanimous decision; they sorted out the most delicate squabbles among the lower covens—they oversaw, but didn’t judge—supposedly. They counseled, not controlled and if the vast acreage and reach of the neighboring covens was anything to go by, the Grants were wealthier, more powerful, more important than I had ever understood.

  This stuck in my mind as we settled for the night near a small pecan grove. The trees had begun to lose their drying leaves and most of the nuts had been gathered or eaten by the squirrels who jumped from limb to limb above us.

  “Feel anything yet?”

  That was the third time Hamill Donaldson had asked me that question within an hour. He was a tall, lanky wolf shifter from Birmingham, a third or fourth cousin, I’d gathered, to Wyatt. Hamill had the look of a man not well suited for company, someone who wasn’t altogether unpleasant looking, but he frowned just enough to seem unapproachable. Where Wyatt was friendly, maybe a tad too flirty, Hamill was distant and kept glancing at me as though I didn’t warrant much more than a passing thought.

  “No,” I told him yet again, settling closer toward the fire on my side of the encampment. There were several pallets of sleeping bags and small, flat pillows made up beyond the tree line, for privacy, Bane promised, but I noticed his spot kept guard between where I was to sleep and the others in our party. I wasn’t sure if it was the others he didn't trust, or me.

  Hamill stood across the fire, looking as though he expected me to elaborate, and when I only sipped from the thermos of warm Yorkshire tea, spiked with whiskey that burned just a bit, the shifter made a small noise that I supposed might have been a threat.

  “Is there a problem?”

  He didn’t answer and rocked on his heels, looking as though he might strip and shift into his wolf right then and there. But I wasn’t some simpering coward completely neutralized by a decade in the big city. I knew who I was, what I was capable of doing.

  His low warning growl deepened as my gaze swept over his face, to the tight snarl of his top lip and the twitch that moved his cheek just below his eye. In the breath I took, there was a hint of his pheromones, thick and earthy, but I knew they had not been released to entice me. Any witch with half a brain knew that shifters and even some wizards let arguments and certainly violence wake some primal beast within. Just then, it seemed that Hamill wanted to fight or fuck and only one of those options were open for me, as far as he was concerned. There was definitely no “let me have you” vibe coming from the shifter.

  He stretched his neck, that growl muting his words when he spoke. “Hadn’t you best do your job?”

  Another sip of tea and my gaze stayed right on his face. The warning was still there and I got the feeling that whatever it was that had made the shifter irrationally angry had little to do with me. At least, I hoped that was the case. Still, I wouldn’t sit around waiting for him to strike.

  “Back off.”

  But my angry quip only induced a deeper growl from the shifter, and as he began to transform—the crackle of bone twisting and the smooth, fine sheen of fur emerging from his skin—my thermos hit the ground and I absorbed a touch of the lines in the distance. It took little effort, barely a call to the lines at all, for the funnel of strength, of blind, raw magic to come right at me.

  Big damn mistake.

  I was too near it. There was no buffer, and my anger, and my fear bubbled up and shot out of me, made my body a conductor, feeding on emotion as my arms lifted, fingers pointed right at Hamill’s morphing chest. A blinding, swift flash of light, a swirl of heat and the shifter yelped, a wolfish squeal of pain, and then I heard the familiar rumble of a curse behind me and someone or something clamped down against my arms, taking me to the cold ground with a thud.

  “Is he dead?”

  It wasn’t me asking the question, and the fear that had me rushing to grab hold of the lines morphed into something ancient and ugly. Worry, remorse—two things that tended to control my stupider decisions—came at me like a wave I could not swim away from.

  “Wyatt, check him,” the voice above me said and it was only then that I realized it was Bane pinning me to the ground, pressing my cheek against the dirt with his chest planted against my back.

  I shuddered, and the air came back into my lungs, then out again with a ragged cough. “Off,” I ordered Bane and he shot up, releasing my body, but his attention remained focused on my face.

  “Jani…”

  “Did I kill him?” No need in delaying. If I’d let the lines consume me and the full force of my power came out of my fingertips then there was no way Hamill could have survived.

  Bane knelt beside me as I lay prostrate on the ground and if I wasn’t much mistaken, he covered my body with his shadow, guarding me from the small crowd that hovered near Hamill’s downed body. He looked up, seeking out an answer.

  “Good.” Bane only spoke, only exhaled when Wyatt nodded at him, a wordless acknowledgement that
I hadn’t killed anyone. “He’s fine,” he confirmed as I sat up. But he didn’t move, kept his back to me and his elbows out as if he anticipated a reaction from the crowd as Wyatt and the other shifters carried Hamill off.

  Finally, the worried conversations, the theories on how to treat a half-transformed, fully unconscious shifter died beneath the crunch of dried leaves and the faint sound of the river running past the grove returned. “You going to be okay?” Bane glanced over his shoulder, but didn’t look me directly in the eyes.

  “I was protecting myself.”

  “Which is why they didn’t demand any recompense from you.”

  “I didn’t expect…”

  Bane stood then, still not looking at me as he watched the fire blaze bright. “Untethered lines, unsecured lines, Jani, will kill you, take you over if you let them.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you?” He spun around, expression twisted and angry. “We’ve been walking for hours, trying to get you as close to the Elam’s signature as possible. You telling me that you haven’t heard the damn lines buzzing all day? Hell, Jani, even the shifters are having trouble fighting the call.”

  “You’re not struggling.”

  “Yeah, well, I can handle myself.” He stared off toward Wyatt and his group, head shaking. “I thought you could too.”

  “I can.” When Bane only frowned at me, I got a little bold, stepping closer than I intended. I didn’t notice until Bane’s jaw worked and he ground his teeth together that being close to me was too much for him to stomach. “I didn’t realize it would affect me like that, but I can damn well handle myself.”

  “Jani, you’ve been away a long time.”

  “You thinking of sacking me, Bane?” He stepped back, but I held my ground in front of him. “No one can find it but me. You know this.”

  “The lines are too volatile.”