by Eva Chase
“It’s not your fault,” he broke in sharply. “None of this is your fault. They’re the fucking villains.”
“Okay,” I said, although his words didn’t quite make the guilt go away. “We’ve got some fucking villains. Is that what you’d want to see me do—‘go ballistic’ on them? Would it make you feel better?”
Damon opened his mouth and hesitated. He wet his lips. “Rose… I’d gladly see those fuckers dead. You know that. Do I want you to be the one who does it? Not, like, defending yourself, but planning it out, calculated murder?” He groaned. “I don’t know. I want them to come at you and give you a reason to blast them to smithereens. I want a proper fight like when we were on the road, not this sneaking around.”
“We don’t have that,” I said. “We have this. But I can still fight.”
“You are fighting,” he said. “You have been fighting.” He was silent for a moment. “I don’t for one second think you’ve done anything wrong since this whole thing started, angel. I love the fire you get when you’re angry—I love you fierce. But I love the part of you that stopped to ask me this instead of burning them all down to begin with too.”
He stopped for a moment, his head bowing. “You’re a good person, Rose. You’re the kind of person who goes out of her way to see the good in other people. I’m damned lucky you are, or I probably wouldn’t be here with you right now.”
His words yanked at my heart. “Damon…”
“You know it’s true,” he said, meeting my eyes again. “I was a bastard to you when you first came back, but you’ve never held that against me. I don’t want you to lose that side of who you are. You do what you feel you have to do. I’d never stand in your way. I’m never going to leave, not unless you tell me to. But maybe one person aiming to burn everyone to the ground is enough? Maybe you should leave that approach to me, and you be you.”
I swallowed hard. He was right. I wouldn’t have asked him in the first place if I’d really been sure I should give in to that rage.
He leaned in to kiss me, and I melted into his embrace. There was a tenderness I wasn’t used to under his usual intensity. He kept his head close when our lips parted, his hand cupping my face.
“Thank you,” he said. “For asking me. For caring enough to be that angry. For letting me be a part of this crazy, fucked up, incredible life with you.”
A different sort of lump filled my throat. I kissed him again, hard. “I wouldn’t want to be doing this without you.”
“You’ve got me, angel. All the way to the end.”
We finally got out of the car and walked up to the house. Damon slung his arm around my waist, knowing there’d be no staff around at this hour to notice. I didn’t expect anyone at all to be up, but when I opened the door I found the hall light on. A murmur of laughter carried from the sitting room.
Lesley, Imogen, and Thalia were sitting around the card table there, playing rummy from the look of the table, glasses of wine interspersed with the cards. My assorted witch guests glanced up at us with smiles that were a little tipsy, probably both from the alcohol and the late hour.
“You’re back!” Imogen said. “We waited up for you. To make sure you were okay and all.”
“We were prepared to rush to your rescue if need be,” Lesley informed us in an over-serious tone, and then giggled.
Thalia’s gaze was a little more solemn. “Nothing’s changed since you called? She’s still recovering?”
“It looks like she should be fine in a few days,” Damon said.
“And if you all want to be fine, I think you should get to bed after this hand,” I added, raising my eyebrows. But nothing could have stopped a grin from crossing my face. They looked like they belonged here. Like they were happy here. I’d accomplished something if I’d been able to give them that. Maybe I should remember to count my victories as often as my failures.
Damon trailed after me upstairs. He waited for his turn to wash up, leaning against the counter in the en-suite bathroom while I used the sink.
“I don’t know how you can be so sexy even when you’re brushing your teeth,” he said.
I waggled the toothbrush at him. “This is turning you on, is it?”
“I’ll turn you on,” he muttered, tugging me to him. I turned to face him—and my gaze caught on a dark shape darting around the sink.
A spider. Black with long spindly legs. The shape of it triggered a reflexive flinch before I’d consciously identified it. What in all that was lit and warm was a black widow doing in my bathroom?
I jerked back, pulling Damon with me, and more of those black bodies raced across the floor, along the walls. A yelp burst from my throat.
They were everywhere. Dozens of them, everywhere I looked.
As I fled to the bedroom, a shriek carried from downstairs. It was the whole house. Spiders were scrambling all over the bedroom, not just on the walls and floor but across my mirror, over the sheets on the bed. A shudder rippled down my back.
As I spun around, trying to decide where to go, one dropped from the ceiling onto my arm. Before I could swat it off, its fangs dug into my skin with a jabbing pain.
Damon swore and kicked at the ones on the floor. Another scrambled up my pantleg. The bite on my arm burned. How long did I have before the major symptoms started?
Downstairs someone was babbling frantically, and someone else cried out. I sucked in a breath and threw all my focus into a spell.
A stomp of my feet. A whirl of my arms. The spark inside me sputtered and flared. I slammed my arms out straight from my sides with a force that rattled my bones and radiated through the entire house.
The spiders shot away from us as quickly as they’d appeared. Another jab seared through my calf where I must have been bitten without even noticing. Damon was clutching his shoulder where one had gotten him. A few more spiders skittered across the walls, and I hurled myself into the magicking one more time for good measure. Gone. We needed them all gone. Before—
Before they hurt anyone else? From the sobbing filtering through the floor below, I didn’t think I could hope for that anymore.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing Damon’s hand. “The others might need help.”
“You need help,” he protested, nodding to my arm.
“Not yet. I have to look after them first.” They’d come to me for shelter… and they’d gotten this instead. With a ragged breath, I ran for the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rose
It killed me to let this latest attack slow me down, but the next afternoon my muscles were still throbbing, my head still aching dully, as I spun out one more piece of the protective spell around the front yard and the back gardens. The magicking that had normally taken me about an hour each morning had stretched almost to dinner time as I’d had to stop and rest after every few minutes of casting.
It didn’t help that I was adding another piece to dissuade any potentially dangerous creatures I could imagine the Frankfords sending toward us next. I wouldn’t put it past them to encourage a herd of rattlesnakes onto the property. Maybe some imported fire ants?
Under that grim humor, my anger continued to smolder. I had no idea how they’d gotten around the oath not to harm us this time, but they were getting closer and closer to me and the people I cared about most with each loophole they opened. The Hallowell estate was mine now. And they’d dared to break even that boundary, to attack me and my guests in the one place I should have felt secure.
Thalia had managed to escape being bitten before I’d sent the black widows off, so she’d used whatever magic reserves she had left to stem the poison and ease its effects in those of us who hadn’t been so lucky. There’d only been so much she could do, though. Even more spiders had come through downstairs. Lesley had suffered two bites and Imogen three. They’d spent most of the day in bed, sleeping the effects off.
Damon’s one bite hadn’t hurt him too badly. It’d made me nervous seeing him off to bring his mothe
r home from the hospital, but he’d looked steady enough on his feet.
“I’ll convince her she needs to take a few days off to rest,” he’d said. “To stay in her apartment. They shouldn’t be able to get at her again while she’s there, right?”
“I don’t think so,” I’d said, but it’d been with an uncomfortable pang in my gut. I didn’t actually know, because I didn’t know what our enemies might try next. I hadn’t been ready for a flood of poisonous spiders.
I was just coming back into view of the front gate when it swung open. Kyler ducked in, his face brightening when he saw me. He hurried over, his hands slung in the pockets of his khakis.
“How are you doing?” he asked. He, Seth, and Jin had already checked in a dozen times today. Seth had swung by earlier bringing fresh scones his mom had baked, and Jin to collect a couple of canvases. I knew they were torn between staying to look after me however they could and keeping an eye on their parents, but really it was their parents who needed more protection. I’d been able to defend myself at least partly.
“About the same,” I said. “I’ve finally got the protections all reinforced.”
I wiped my hands together, and his gaze dropped to the reddened mark on my arm where I’d taken one of the bites. He winced. “They’re really pulling out every dirty trick in the book, aren’t they?”
“I just wish I had the same book so I knew what to ward off next,” I said with a crooked smile.
“No kidding.” He dragged in a breath. “Are we okay to talk here? Should we go in the house?”
I motioned him closer to the manor. “We should be good here. What’s up?”
He grinned. “I’ve got his number. Frankford’s. Literally, I mean, although I guess it applies in the figurative sense too.”
It took a few seconds for his words to sink in. “The number?” I said, my eyes widening. “The private one he’d use to call meetings with his colleagues? Are you sure it’s the right one?”
“About as sure as I can be. I got into that account last night and started recording the texts in- and out-going. Earlier today he texted your dad reminding him of some restaurant where they talked last and then asking him to come to a different café. As soon as your dad replied, Frankford deleted both of the messages. The whole account is pretty much blank.”
My pulse kicked up a notch. “It sounds like he’s still using it then. The number and the code. Even though Gabriel knew we were looking for it.”
“Frankford might figure there’s no way I could ever ferret it out in the first place,” Ky said. “Arrogance tends to be the downfall of a lot of villains. Or they are working magic on Gabriel somehow, and they haven’t managed to get that information out of him.”
“Or Frankford knows and he switched codes, and he’s just periodically sending dummy messages as a trap,” I said.
Ky hesitated. “Yeah. That’s possible too.”
“And there isn’t really any way to know, is there?”
“Well, I can check whether your dad really does go to that café, or at least near it, at the right time,” Ky said. “Portland has lots of traffic cams. Although I wish they had a few more. It looked like Frankford and that Gwen Remington from the Assembly who we’re hoping will be on our side headed out around the same times the other day, but I couldn’t narrow down where they might have met up or if they definitely did.”
“And we’d still need a plan for getting through all that security around the Cliff before we could use that information anyway.”
“Hey.” Ky stepped closer and wrapped his arms around me. “It’s a start. We’re getting there. These people have been doing what they do for decades. It’s amazing how scared you have them after just a few months.”
I hugged him back, ignoring the throbbing that spread through my muscles as they flexed. “I know. But amazing doesn’t really matter if it’s not amazing enough to protect all of you.”
“We’re making it through. We’re building up our defenses. It’ll be easier to launch some kind offensive when we’re not scrambling to stop their next attack so often.”
“Right.” I made myself inhale and exhale slowly, sinking into his embrace even more. Something he’d said tickled deeper into my head. I’d scared them. The Frankfords were doing some pretty crazy things trying to destroy us or at least convince us to leave them alone, and they’d started before I’d ever retaliated. “If I unnerve them enough, they might slip up more.”
Ky rubbed my back. “What are you thinking, Rose?”
“I’m not completely sure yet. But can you give me a list of all the businesses and other buildings the Frankfords own? And their allies who seem the highest up too?”
“Of course.” He gave me one last squeeze and stepped back. “I can go through the files and then the internet databases right now. It shouldn’t take me more than an hour to get a pretty thorough list.”
“Perfect.”
When we came into the house, Imogen was standing in the hall. From her unusually meek posture, my first guess was that her aunt and uncle had been on her case again. Or maybe it was just the lingering effects of the spider bites dampening her energy.
Ky gave me a peck and headed upstairs. I waved the young witch over to the sitting room. “You look like you need to talk. Are your symptoms getting worse? I can try to help with that.”
Imogen shook her head. She came into the room, but she didn’t sit even after I’d closed the door behind us. She looked down at her hands and then at me.
“I’m going home,” she said.
I blinked at her. “What? You don’t mean—not to your aunt and uncle’s house.”
Imogen dropped her gaze again. Her red curls hung limply on either side of her wan face. An angry red blotch marked the side of her neck where she’d gotten one of the spider bites.
“I don’t know everything that’s going on,” she said. “But there’s obviously a lot going on, and you can’t tell me, but someone is very, very angry with you, and… It seems like I’m in more danger here than I was back home. I can say no to my aunt and uncle. I can turn down suitors. I can’t defend myself from massive spider attacks.” She rubbed her elbow, where one of the other bites was.
“I’ve just laid down fresh protections,” I said. “They’ve only managed to breach the spells I put in place here that once.”
“But whoever’s against you, they’ve hurt other people. I know from hearing you talk with your consorts. They’re going to keep trying.” She bit her lip. “And, I don’t mean this as an insult, but I don’t really know you. I don’t know what you’re messed up in. You’ve been really kind to me, and I’m grateful for that, but it just doesn’t seem smart to completely throw myself in here when I don’t even know…”
She trailed off as if hoping I’d take that cue to fill her in. I even opened my mouth, willing the words to come out. But the full truth of it, the nitty gritty details that would make her believe, were locked in my throat.
“They want to use you,” I said. “They want to...” Spark help me, the specifics wouldn’t dislodge from my throat. “I wish I could show you everything I know.”
“But you can’t. I get it.” She let out a huff of breath and raised her chin. “I’ve got to look out for me just like you’re looking out for you. As long as I don’t take a consort I can’t trust, I’ve got no magic for anyone to exploit anyway, right? I can hold my own back home.”
A faint tremble ran through her voice. She didn’t sound completely sure. How could she be, when her family’s pressure had gotten so bad that she’d come running out here in the first place?
I groped for something more I could tell her, something that would convince her, keep her here safe. Once she was back with her aunt and uncle, who knew how they might persuade her to go along with their plans? How they might threaten her?
“We’re getting closer to shutting them down,” I said. “If you just wait a little longer…”
“They’re going to fight you ha
rder if you’re getting closer, won’t they?” She bit her lip. “I already made up my mind, Rose. Thank you so much for letting me stay here as long as I have. But I can’t—I can’t look anywhere without seeing those spiders, how they were crawling everywhere. I can’t relax in this place anymore. It doesn’t feel safe. So I have to go. I promise I won’t tell anyone anything I overheard here, not that I think I know much that could hurt you anyway.”
I hadn’t even thought of that, I’d been so focused on how those people might hurt her. My lungs constricted. I didn’t know how much of our planning she might have overheard. She couldn’t know what details the Frankfords or their allies could use.
My fingers closed into my palm. I could have forced her to stay, said that was for the safety of everyone else here. Locked her in a room. Set a magical barricade tuned to her at the gate.
Like my stepmother had done to me once when she’d wanted to ensure I did what she wanted.
I forced my hand to relax, willing the tension clamped around my chest to loosen. I was not going to be that kind of witch. I was not going to trap Imogen like her family meant to.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll say one more time that I think you’re still safer here, but I’m not going to stop you. Just… If you go back, please be careful. And you’ll always be welcome here if you change your mind.”
Imogen swallowed audibly. She gave me a quick squeeze of a hug. “Thank you,” she said again. Then she was hustling out of the room. I watched her go, an even tighter hopeless feeling winding through me.
Every time I thought I’d gained a little ground, I lost more.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Seth
“This stretch of land hasn’t been used in almost twenty years,” I said, nodding to the overgrown field on the outskirts of town as Rose and I drove past. “I looked up who the owner is, and they’re open to selling. They just haven’t had the motivation to really look into it.”
