by Dean Murray
He pushed me back against the edge of the pool, hard enough to draw a gasp out of me before he covered my mouth with his. I could feel the rough texture of the rock against my back, pressing against nearly the entire length of my body, nothing between it and me but a few strings around my torso and neck, and the board shorts that felt like they might finally lose their battle and fall at any moment.
The rock against my back was the only distraction I had against the feel of Jace's muscular, naked chest pressing against my mostly bare skin. Jace pulled away from my mouth and pressed his mouth against my neck, even lower down than he had the last time, and once again my knees collapsed.
The stakes were higher this time. I wasn't going to just fall to the ground, I was going to drown, but that still wasn't enough to keep the strength from draining out of my limbs. I should have fallen immediately, but the pressure of Jace's upper body against mine slowed my descent enough for him to realize what was happening and lift me back up out of the water.
"Are you okay?"
"Shut up and kiss me."
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled his head back down against my neck.
The feel of his tongue against my collar bone sent little shaky tremors through my entire body. It was like my body was so topsy-turvy that it didn't know how to react to what was happening to me.
Kat's warning echoed through my brain, but it was a small, distant thing and at that moment I didn't care what the possible consequences might be. I didn't want Jace to stop, didn't want anything to break the spell he was weaving around me.
I ran the tips of my fingers down Jace's spine and drew a tiny moan out of him. It was like a sensual symphony. I could feel the sound vibrating out of his body and into mine. He drew back from me and then suddenly his eyes went wide.
His head whipped around at precisely the same instant that a green, glittery blur headed towards us from the trail that we'd taken up from the RV earlier. I opened my mouth to scold Bethany for interrupting, but Jace's hand was suddenly over my mouth.
"Someone is coming, Selene. Another Awakened. They were trying to mask their signature, but I can feel them now."
The languid, trembly feeling that I'd been swimming around in was instantly flushed away by a surge of adrenaline.
"What are we going to do? If there's just one of them, can you and Kat beat them?"
"I don't know. It depends on who we are up against. Kat and I had our signals masked as well, but the fact that I can feel him from this far away probably means that he's very powerful."
Jace was already towing me back over to the other side of the pool. As he lifted me out of the water and set me down next to my shoes, I heard Kat swear.
"Jace, do you feel that?"
"Yeah, get Ari out of the water and into her shoes."
"Holy sh—"
Ari's expletive was understandable given that Kat had just casually lifted her out of the water as if she weighed no more than a child, but it was cut short as Kat set her down on the edge of the pool and covered her mouth.
"You need to be very quiet and do exactly as we tell you. Someone very bad is coming this way and if you don't cooperate all four of us could end up dead."
The sun was so far behind the mountains that it was basically gone, but the moonlight was strong enough for me to see Ari's eyes go impossibly wide. Ironically, it was seeing her sitting there frozen in place that made me realize that I'd stopped moving too.
Jace was out of the water too, sitting next to me as he started rooting through his backpack. "What do you think, Kat? Do we have time to get them dressed?"
I took the towel that Jace handed me and automatically began drying my feet as Kat considered his question.
"If we don't and we end up having to make a run for it, they are going to get scratched all to pieces and probably end up with hypothermia too. We aren't going to have any extra bandwidth to waste on anything but the essentials."
Kat was already out of the water and she was toweling off Ari like my sister was a toddler she'd just finished bathing. I could tell that neither Jace nor Kat had any effects up, but Kat was moving as fast as I'd ever seen her move before. She looked up at Jace and me for a second and then reached for the ties to Ari's top.
"You're going to want to turn around now unless you're hoping to get an eyeful."
Jace turned around and then helped me to my feet. "We don't have much time, Selene. You're going to need to hurry—the only thing worse than having to make a run for it cold and wet while wearing nothing more than you are now would be to be partway through getting dressed when that other Awakened shows up."
I was shaking, more from fear than cold, but I managed a nod as I stepped around to the other side of Jace and tugged on the ties to my bikini top. I was starting to see the wisdom behind Kat switching her default emotion around to fear. The strength of the terror I was feeling in that moment felt like it could power any conceivable effect I could ever need.
The urge to just stand there frozen in place was still intense, but now that I was moving I was able to force myself to remain in motion. The rest of my wet clothes hit the rock shelf we were standing on a split second later and then I was drying off my body and reaching for the dry clothes waiting for me in the pack.
I could feel Jace just inches away from me, back turned to me as he mirrored my actions, stripping off his clothes and then drying himself. It should have been sensuous. Having him on the other side of a thin wooden door while I was naked had been enough earlier to get me all hot and bothered. This should have sent me shooting over the moon, but I was just too terrified for the presence of his hot naked body just outside of my field of vision to affect me like that now.
I heard Jace slip on a shirt, and felt him tense up. He was dressed and the urge to turn around and face the threat he knew was coming towards us had to be intense, but we girls all had an extra article of clothing to put on.
I pulled on my bra and then reached for my t-shirt with trembling hands as Jace shifted back and forth from one foot to the other.
"Are you three dressed yet? I can feel them getting closer, we're almost out of time."
Kat looked at me as she pulled her pants on. She was the furthest behind because Ari was still frozen in shock and she'd had to dress my little sister like a child.
"Ari and Selene are dressed. Go ahead and turn around."
Actually I wasn't dressed, but as Kat turned so her back was facing Jace I realized it didn't matter—all of my important bits were covered up and he wouldn't have been able to see anything from back there even if I hadn't managed to get my bra on.
I pulled my shirt over my head as Jace grabbed both of our suits and stuffed them dripping wet into his bag.
"We can't afford to leave anything behind, not with the bad guys this close. It will be a few hours before the link between us and the clothes dies enough that they won't be able to use them to track us."
"I didn't know that was even possible."
"Yeah, there's still lots you don't know. Think of it as magical DNA."
Kat was fully dressed and pulling on her shoes. I dropped down to follow suit, cursing myself for getting distracted and wasting time. Kat was already done with hers and had switched to getting shoes on Ari.
"What's the plan, Jace?"
Bethany had been streaking back and forth between us and the other Awakened, presumably trying to keep an eye on whoever it was, but Jace reached up and grabbed her around the waist just before she could shoot back in the other direction.
"You need to stop that, Bethany. You're just telling whoever is out there exactly where we are. Stay with Selene. You're still too small to go up against an Awakened right now, but if you keep your eyes open and think fast you may be able to help keep Selene out of trouble."
Bethany sketched a hasty salute and then as soon as Jace released her she spun around twice and then bounced over and landed on my shoulder. Jace was still searching the darkness, muscles tensed up a
s he tried to think his way out of the trap we could all feel closing in on us.
"I can't believe that it's just one out there, Kat. The number of people who can stand you and me both off at the same time isn't very big and the odds are that most of them are still back in China somewhere."
Kat frowned for a second and then reached out and rested a finger on Ari's forehead. My sister's eyes rolled up into the back of her head. Kat grabbed Ari before she could hit the ground. "You're thinking they have some Unseelie Court members along to help out?"
"Yeah. Whoever is over there will either keep their signature masked until they are right on top of us, or they'll flare their signature in an effort to scare us into running into some kind of ambush."
"So if they flare we charge them, but if they stay masked we make a run for it?"
"Yeah, unless they flare and it turns out that they really are powerful enough to take both of us on at the same time."
"You really do look at the bright side of everything."
Jace shrugged. "It's probably just the result of spending so many years with you."
"Any chance that Kregor will show back up and give us a hand?"
"Nope. I told him to keep an eye on Mr. Jenkins until we got back into town."
Kat nodded, but the gesture had an air of distraction to it. She already knew the answer to her question, she'd just asked it as a way of trying to hide her fear. I wanted to tell her that it was okay to be scared, but if Kat lost it I would probably come completely unglued.
"You'll time-bend and carry Selene, I'll lug Ari along?"
A hint of the terror she was feeling made it into Kat's voice and for the first time I realized just how badly she wanted to leave Ari there. Kat had spent too long running, had been in too many situations where it had been all she could do to make it out alive. She was worried that bringing Ari along would be too much, that she wouldn't make it out this time.
Despite that, she was going to do her best to save Ari.
Maybe some people would have been mad at Kat for wishing she could abandon Ari, but not me. I was nothing but proud of my old friend. I wasn't angry with Kat, but I was furious with whoever had tracked us down and threatened three of the four people in the entire world who meant the most to me.
Less than an hour ago I'd been so pissed at Ari that I hadn't been able to think straight, but seeing her now, unconscious and vulnerable, awoke a protective instinct in me that made me want to hunt down whoever was out there threatening us.
"No."
My voice came out sounding remarkably calm considering just how close I was to losing control. "Kat, you get Ari out. I'll amp myself and then put myself at double or triple speed and follow you out. Jace is the free agent. He keeps himself ready to run interference or go offensive if the opportunity arises."
"You promised me you weren't going to do that, Selene. It's too dangerous."
Kat's words came out as a hiss. She was obviously worried that the other Awakened would overhear us, but her anger was starting to come to the forefront. That was good, I felt a lot more comfortable with an angry Kat trying to get my sister out of here than a scared Kat.
Jace held a hand up, stopping Kat before she could say anything else. "You're sure, Selene? It's dangerous, but it would give us a much better chance of getting out of here."
"Yeah. I'd rather die from oxygen debt than let whoever is out there get their hands on me."
"Okay, do your effects, but get them up as fast as you can. I don't think that they've sensed you yet, but as soon as you start they'll know that there are actually three of us here. Newly awakened individuals are always valuable prizes. Some pantheons pride themselves on being able to corrupt people like you and turn them into virtual slaves."
I was shaking now, and it wasn't just the anger. The fear was back, but it was being forced out to the periphery of my being, bouncing off the solid core of anger that was going to allow me to work all of the effects I needed to work.
I took a deep breath and then held onto that feeling, forcing it to become a more pervasive part of my reality. Between one breath and the next a stream of memories flowed out of my mind, but I didn't wait to double-check that I was properly amped before I reached out to the pulse of my surroundings.
The water flowing from one pond to the next was the first thing I noticed, followed quickly by the sound of Bethany's wings humming in my ear as she used them to steady herself. It felt like I was missing an ingredient and then suddenly I remembered what I still needed. My heart was hammering away in my chest, more felt than heard this time, but it would be enough. I grabbed ahold of the pulse around me and willed it to slow down at the same time that I sped myself up.
The first sign of success that registered for me was the way that the sound from Bethany's wings had dropped an octave. I turned around, looking for other signs, and my breath caught in my throat as I took in the water falling over the edge of the closest pool like taffy. Even now, surrounded by the imminent threat of violence, there was still so much beauty in the world.
I forced my mind back onto task and started the next amp. The feeling of strength that flowed through me a heartbeat later was all the sign of success I needed. I amped my skeletal system and then checked my anger. I found a roaring inferno still capable of supporting one final augmentation as long as I didn't overdo it.
I strengthened my skin and then turned to find that Jace was bouncing from one foot to the other, obviously running at double speed as compared to me. Kat had just finished picking up Ari, and then ran over to me, moving easily despite the added weight.
"Let's go, ladies."
Jace took off, heading deeper into the forest. Kat looked for a second like she was going to insist that I run in the middle, but I shook my head at her. She was carrying Ari, I would take the rearguard.
Jace zipped along ahead of us, using his superior speed to check a corridor of terrain on either side of the direction we were running. We'd made it less than a hundred yards before I felt a surge of power from behind us that made my blood run cold.
"He's trying to flush us out, Jace."
"I know, but whoever is back there is much too powerful for us to tangle with. We're going to have to just try to outrun them and hope we can make it past the ambush that they've got waiting for us."
The next several minutes went by in a blur. On the way into the hot springs I'd probably averaged ten miles an hour. I seemed to be operating at about triple normal speed, which meant that in theory I could do thirty miles an hour, up the side of the mountain, through some of the worst terrain I'd ever seen.
The reality though was that my circulatory amp wasn't quite good enough to sustain that kind of effort. Early on in the run I'd nearly put myself into dangerous levels of oxygen debt until Jace had appeared at my side and forced me to slow down.
Once I slowed down, I was only doing about twenty-six miles an hour, which we all knew wasn't going to be fast enough.
"Kat, go on ahead."
"I'm not falling for that again, Selene. The last time you did that I ended up having to explain to Jace that you'd gotten yourself killed."
"I can feel him gaining on us, Kat. You and Jace need to take Ari and the journals and get out of here. I'll run for as long as I can and then I'll throw myself off of a cliff. In eighteen years you can find me and we'll try again."
"Still not happening. You'd better run your little heart out, because I'm not leaving you behind. If that piece of crap back there catches up to you, then he catches up to all of us."
Jace stepped off to the side of the trail, letting first Kat and then me pass and then falling into step just behind me.
"Keep running, Selene. I'm going to drop back and try to slow down whoever is back there."
"No, Jace, I'm not worth it."
"You're forgetting, I have the journals—there's a chance if he takes me down that he'll chalk it up as a win and let the three of you get away."
Jace's hand snuck up and
clasped my hand for just a second. The iron bands around my chest loosened up as he temporarily amped up my system to clear out the lactic acid that had been building up in my muscles and flushed a burst of oxygen into my bloodstream.
"No matter what else happens, know that I've loved you for as long as I can remember, Selene."
Jace turned and sprinted back the way we came, gone so fast that I couldn't stop him. I used the strength that he'd given me to catch back up with Kat and Ari, and we temporarily pushed the pace back up to something around the thirty miles per hour that I'd started out at.
We made it another twenty steps and then the sky behind us lit up with a light that rivaled the noonday sun and the ground shook, nearly knocking me off of my feet. I thought for a second that was it, that Jace had been killed, but then the ground shook again three more times in rapid succession, as though a giant was trying to crush a fly with a hammer the size of the space shuttle.
Kat looked back at me for just a second and nodded. "As long as whoever is back there keeps launching those attacks we know that Jace is still alive and kicking. That sounds like a relatively focused attack, Jace is amped up enough that he should be able to avoid that kind of stuff. It's the really big area-damage effects that are the most dangerous for someone who's bending time."
The next attack didn't just make the ground shake, it was accompanied by a blast of light and heat that dried the sweat on my back. I spared a glance over my shoulder and found that the entire mountainside back by the hot springs was on fire.
"Kat!"
"I know, I can see it too. Just remember that nobody can be strong everywhere. The bigger the area of effect they try to hit Jace with, the less absolute strength they'll manage to land on him. Jace is fast and smart, he can deflect most effects."
"So the bad guy has to spread out his attack enough to offset Jace's superior speed, but not so much that Jace will be able to parry the attack."
"Yeah."
"What aren't you telling me, Kat?"
"That attack wasn't actually designed to kill Jace directly. That was all about changing the terrain. Jace needs room to move. Dodging burning trees is going to make that a lot harder. Hopefully he's smart enough to beat a fighting retreat."
