I tried to twist my head to the side, but my neck was stiff. I tried to open my mouth to talk to the man, but I couldn’t use my lips.
“They lead to too much greed. Any who touch them always want more. They must be destroyed. Never give in to their siren call,” he warned suddenly. “Only ever trust your own magic – not their promise.”
I almost managed to gain control of my lips – just long enough to ask who he was.
Then I felt the storm starting to press down from above.
It sent an unholy wind slamming across the parapet, and my skirts picked up, flaring around me as my hair whipped hard into my cheeks and neck.
Suddenly I felt the man close his arms around mine as he rested his chin on my shoulder.
His warmth was unmistakable. But more than anything, his presence anchored me. It was almost as if his presence had been uniquely calibrated to do just that. As if this man existed to keep me together.
He breathed softly by my ear, and despite the violence of the storm above, I was drawn into that tender move. “You will be born again. And next time, you will face it. You will find the seven sets, and I will help you destroy them.”
I needed to talk to this man. With all my heart, I had to find a way to control my lips, to find my voice.
But I couldn’t, and the storm was still pressing in from above.
The man’s tender touch could only protect me from so much, and I started to feel an unholy power pick up across the parapet. It felt exactly like the magic back in the future when it had tried to tear me in two.
The man tightened his arms around mine and pressed even closer, as if he were trying to hold me to the spot.
I was running out of time. I realized that.
I had to take the opportunity to talk to him. There was no reason to believe I could – if this was a vision, then it should be nothing more than an unalterable scene.
But I wanted it to be more. I needed it to be more.
So I would find a way to make it more.
As I settled my consciousness on that possibility, I felt a charge of magic escape into my chest, expanding through my heart.
It reminded me of Jason’s lesson. Open my heart.
Open my heart….
I concentrated on my chest, letting my attention sink in until I swore I felt doors inside me. Just as the storm threatened to completely consume us, I thrust those doors open.
My lips suddenly jerked open. “Who are you?” I turned.
“I’m your finder,” he said. Then he kissed me.
As the storm consumed us both, ripping apart our power, he placed his lips against mine and offered me the only thing that could distract from the horror.
I’d never felt a kiss like it. If I’d chosen to open the doors of my heart, then this kiss thrust them open forever.
His lips were soft and warm, and they stayed that way as our bodies were ripped asunder.
The storm swallowed us whole.
Chapter 11
I woke screaming. I jolted up from the couch, moving like someone ejected from a pilot seat.
Before I could body-slam Jason, he shifted in and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, hauling me back onto the couch.
I started to shake.
“What’s wrong with her?” Josh asked breathlessly.
“She’s reacting to my healing spell. It’s working. Her skin’s gone back to normal – or at least it won’t scar permanently,” he added.
I… had no idea where I was.
My mind was still trapped in that storm as it completely obliterated my body. But my lips?
I brought up my shaking hand and collapsed it over my lips.
“Are they burning?” Jason asked.
Slowly my vision resolved enough that I could make him out. His sleeves were rolled up, and the once white fabric was singed. His arms were burnt here and there, too, the skin blistering.
His hair was in disarray, and there were black marks on his cheeks. But his eyes?
Pulled me in.
They made me remember the man from the past.
And that memory did the rest.
Before I knew what I was doing, I kissed Jason. I thrust forward, pushed up, and planted my lips against his.
Jason jolted with shock, but he didn’t pull away.
“What the hell?” Josh spluttered.
I pressed my lips hard against Jason’s, my body searching for the same sensation – the same relief that had washed through it in the past.
Though Jason had been surprised at first, now he leaned in as if he wanted more.
But that’s when I pulled away.
That’s also when my mind caught up with me.
… I’d just kissed Jason.
And I was burnt.
I looked down at my hands. They were red and raw.
Jason still hovered above me, as if he expected our kiss to continue.
“I think she’s very confused,” Josh commented with the kind of voice that told me I must’ve gone crazy. Then I heard him shift forward.
Jason was still standing above me, and I could practically feel the heat of his gaze.
I wouldn’t look at him, though. With a shuddering hand, I touched my cheek.
My skin felt as if it had scarred.
Before I could grind the fingers into the scar, Jason softly grabbed my hand and pulled it down.
This time I couldn’t help but meet his gaze.
… It was longing. Longing in a way I hadn’t seen Jason show before.
Though he’d always technically acted as if we were fated to be together – it’s almost as if now he actually believed it. “Don’t touch them – they’re still healing. You don’t want to interrupt the process. Why—” he began.
Josh cleared his throat. “Are you okay, Beth?” He artfully gave me the space to dodge Jason’s question.
Jason had obviously been about to ask why I’d kissed him. And Josh knew enough about me to realize I really didn’t want to answer that.
It had been a mistake… right?
A reaction to the vision of the past. Or….
Jason opened his mouth again to insist, and it was my turn to save myself. I tried to stand.
Both men freaked out.
“Beth, you have to stay still,” Josh demanded.
I reluctantly let my legs fall out from underneath me, and I sighed again. Then I stared at my hands.
Jason hovered over me, obviously getting ready to stop me in case I tried to pick at my skin. I didn’t; I stared at it in confusion. “What happened back there, anyway? And why didn’t anything happen to you, Josh? And,” a deep frown marked my lips as I stared at Jason in complete confusion. “Why—”
“Why is he here? Yeah indeed,” Josh said sharply as he stared directly at the back of Jason’s head.
I watched as Jason pressed his tongue against his teeth. “I really don’t think you deserve the privilege of questioning my actions, considering what you did to her.” I could hear the menace dripping off Jason’s tone. It was a surprise it didn’t set fire to the room.
I’d just kissed Jason several minutes before, but now I stared at him in confusion, my brow dropping with suspicion. “Why are you here?” I demanded. “What were you doing in this house when no one else was around?”
Jason looked at me. It was a… searching look. The kind of look you gave someone to see if they would believe you if you told them the truth.
I could tell Josh looked pissed. I could equally tell considering how easily Jason had just snapped at him that he wouldn’t be brave enough to talk back to Jason. Or maybe I was wrong. Josh practically growled. “What Jason is dodging around telling you is that while his own brother was in the hospital, he broke into this place to search through his stuff.”
Jason turned hard over his shoulder, and I watched as he gripped his hand into a fist, the tendons plain white against his knuckles. “I told you—”
“Don’t you snap at him again that this was h
is fault. This was very much my fault. From me being injured, to every single frigging thing that happened today. Josh tried his hardest to keep me safe, and I kept putting myself in danger. So it is not his fault,” I said, and boy did my voice ring down low. It shook with the kind of anger that hopefully told Jason I would not hear another word about this.
He pressed his lips together. He didn’t look happy. But at the same time, I could tell he wasn’t paying attention to me, either. He was acting compliant. I’d never bothered to read Jason’s emotions before. Because usually, as a sorcerer, he had a pretty fine hold of them. Now I could feel anger, and it was all directed at Josh.
“Like I said,” emphasizing my words with a sharp, frustrated burst of breath. “Josh didn’t have anything to do with this case. From the get-go, it was all me. I was looking into Olivia’s disappearance, and we ended up in the courtroom.”
“… Is that it, Beth? Aren’t you forgetting something?”
I stopped. I felt it. He was using emotion-sensing magic on me, wasn’t he? And that meant if he could sense me using it—
He nodded his head sharply. “There are usually rules of propriety dictating how much emotion scanning you can do on unwitting civilians – then again, neither you nor I am civilians, are we? But both you and I,” his tone dropped until I thought it would sink through the earth, “have a unique destiny. And as such, we have a unique responsibility,” he said, and with every word, his voice arced up more and more. Jason was getting angrier than I’d ever seen. “I thought you understood that, Beth. I thought you understood that together we have a unique future—”
“What do you think I understand?” I managed, even though the argument was already making me breathless through confrontation. Call it leftover bitterness from my similar argument with Max this morning, or blame it on the fact that Bethany Samson no longer cared about diplomacy. Diplomacy was great when everything was going right. When the world was crumbling out from underneath your feet, however, you had to get your hands dirty.
So I looked right up at Jason, not mollifying my angry expression at all. “You’ve avoided me for two weeks. You haven’t told me a thing. You keep me in the dark until you need me for something,” I said, clenching my teeth. “Then when you don’t need me, you threaten my friends. So tell me, Jason, what do I understand?”
Jason actually twitched as if I’d just slapped him.
“At the end of the day, Jason, we both work for the government. I was contracted to be a bounty hunter, and I have an obligation to fulfill that contract. Which means looking into every case that comes across our table, regardless of whether you want me to or not.”
It must’ve been quite a shock for Jason to see me go from kissing him to pretty much punching him verbally.
He took a step back, his cheeks slack. “There’s only so much—”
“That you can tell me? I’m sick of that excuse. You see, every time people hide things from me,” I stopped myself from looking at Josh, “it just gets me in more trouble down the track. You cannot protect me from the prophecy, Jason. And trying will only get everybody else in trouble. Stop treating me with kid gloves,” I added.
This comment seemed to get to Jason. “You mean you don’t want to be protected anymore? Would you have preferred that I let those magical burns run their course?” His tone was bitter and sharp and gave me the impression that Jason never liked to lose an argument.
“That’s harsh—” Josh began.
“Stay out of this,” Jason growled.
“And that there is your problem,” I said as I crossed my arms. Bending the flesh sent niggling pain pushing through my biceps and up into my back and made me feel as if I was now covered in melted shrinkwrap, but that didn’t matter. Nothing stopped me from staring at Jason defiantly. “We’re meant to save each other,” I said point-blank.
“What?” Jason began.
“This prophecy is meant to be about a finder and a sorcerer helping each other to find the truth and ultimately destroy the hidden sets. I am not a passive piece in this game, Jason. Without me, you’ll fail.”
“So what are you saying?” Jason sounded exasperated, and one of his hands was still curled into a frustrated fist.
“She’s saying that you need to work together,” Josh interrupted.
Before Jason could snap at him again, I nodded. I looked from Josh to Jason, and I momentarily didn’t care about the pain filling my body. I tilted my head back and stared with utter defiance into the sorcerer’s gaze. “He’s right. We need to work together. But we also need to rely on everyone else.”
Jason stood there stiffly.
He didn’t tell me to shut up, so it was time to hammer the message home. “The only reason I became a competent finder in the first place was because of Josh and Max’s help. No man is an island, Jason. And we all need to work together to destroy the hidden sets.”
Again Jason said nothing, but on the term destroy the hidden sets, I swear he stifled a twitch. Though he was doing a better job of keeping his emotions hidden, without scanning him too deeply and alerting him to what I was doing, it was plain he was hiding something.
Jason looked down at his feet then up at me. “Fine,” he said stiffly. “But Josh—”
“Without Josh’s sacrifices today, I’d be dead. He’s the man who was given my protection order, and he has been fulfilling it diligently ever since my witch powers were discovered. Now—” I really did stand this time.
Jason didn’t bother to push me back down to the couch. Instead he got the kind of look in his eyes I recognized from the infinity tunnels. The look that told me that if I wanted to stand, he wouldn’t stop me.
… And that look threatened to draw me in, just like it had back then. But I was still too angry at how Jason was acting.
How could I be so pushed and pulled toward and away from one man? My feelings for Jason seemed to change like the weather.
But wasn’t there something far more important to do now?
Now I was standing, I looked at Josh and began to open my mouth, intending to ask if he’d found anything in the case files. That was when he cleared his throat pointedly.
Jason turned over his stiff shoulder to look at us. “What were you two doing in the courtrooms, anyway?”
So Jason had no idea that we’d retrieved that case file? Either Josh hadn’t had the time to reveal why we’d been in the courtroom, or he’d judiciously decided not to tell Jason. Knowing Jason, he would just confiscate the file for Internal Affairs.
“Tracking down our latest bounty,” I said smoothly. “Now it’s my turn to ask you a question.” I looked right at him.
I didn’t even need to say it. His shoulders deflated. “I was simply looking for something in this house, that’s all.”
Jason lost his fine control of his emotions once more, and they became confused like a gale blowing in every which direction.
I opened my mouth to tell him that he had no legal right to simply look for something in someone else’s house, then I heard a thump from the front door.
I made a face. “Do you think that’s Max knocking?”
Both Josh and Jason stiffened.
Josh whirled on his foot and headed for the door. “What the hell?” His voice shot down with confusion. Angry confusion.
My hackles started to rise as I realized that once more, we’d been thrust into danger.
“I’m gonna go check it out,” Josh snapped as he nodded at Jason. “You stay here and keep her safe.”
For once, Jason didn’t retort to one of Josh’s comments. He nodded tightly and took up a defensive position in front of me.
Usually I was good at sensing danger, but right now I was either still coming down from the effects of the healing spell Jason had cast on me, or….
I suddenly felt it. That connection. That same connection I’d felt since the day I met Max. The one that told me where he was in my dreams, and the one that had always hinted that our relationship could be mo
re. Suddenly it screamed at me.
Josh hadn’t reached the door yet. Before I knew what I was doing, I thrust forward and shoved it open before he could get there.
“What are you doing?” Josh spat as he tried to grab me back.
Despite my injuries, I was quicker. I pushed out into the landing and threw myself at the front door just as Josh came thundering up behind me, Jason at the rear.
Though both men screamed at me not to open the door, I ignored them. I thrust it open.
Maximus C. Knights fell into my arms.
I was ready for him. My arms were open, and I caught him easily.
Because something inside me? Something inside me had always wanted to protect this man. And that something was about to rise to the forefront.
Chapter 12
“Max,” I screamed as his body became limp, a few crackles of portal magic discharging down his arms. Though they burnt into my already scolded flesh, I ignored them as I wrapped my arms around him harder and tried to guide him down to the doorstep.
That’s when something within me twitched. No. I had to get inside. I had to keep him safe.
Showing strength I didn’t think I had, and without even having to call on my warlock magic, I hauled him in through the door and kicked it closed with my foot.
Josh had reached me, and he stared in horror at Max’s unconscious form.
He also shifted forward to help me with Max. For a second, I wanted to shove Josh off, as if my body was trying to convince me that I was the only person who could keep Max safe.
I had never felt protective like this over anyone in my life. This wasn’t the kind of protectiveness you felt for family and friends. This was on a completely uncontrollable, frenzied level. It felt like someone had reached in and now had full control of my body.
“Open the door,” I snapped at Josh, indicating the first door in the hallway. It was a magical door and sometimes led to Josh’s sitting room, and sometimes my bedroom.
When Josh didn’t shuffle forward quickly enough, somehow I kept an arm hooped around Max’s back, steadied him against me, reached forward, and opened the door myself.
I didn’t have the ability to force the doors in this house to open to any of Josh’s forbidden rooms. Yeah, apparently now that didn’t matter. Maybe it was the desperation, maybe it was something else, or maybe it was the knowledge that I had to get Max somewhere safe. I felt a trickle of magic escape from my hand into the handle, and the next thing I knew, the door opened to Josh’s private sitting room. The same secret sitting room he’d never allowed me to enter, and the same sitting room, to be exact, that Max had explicitly told me Josh could keep private.
Forgotten Destiny Book Four Page 13
