Must Be Magic (Spellbound Book 4)

by Sydney Somers

  “I need to put down on that island,” Miles choked out.

  Through the rain slashing the windows, Bryce could just make out the narrow land mass in the distance. Something thumped up front and Bryce leaned to the side, saw Miles grab at something on his chest.

  Christ. Was he having a heart attack?

  The plane dipped again and was tugged upward, but moved as though it were fighting itself the whole way.

  They were too far away. The island was at least another couple miles out and they were dropping too fast.

  Between the jolts, Bryce could hear Miles panting for breath. “Can’t… Shit.”

  The island grew closer, the turbulent colors of ocean, sand and trees blurring together through the rain. On instinct, he reached for Darby’s hand.

  Her fingers locked around his, squeezing tight. “I need to tell you something,” she blurted out. “I need to tell you about our baby.”

  There was no time to process Darby’s words, the plane dipped left, and Bryce got his first glimpse of the beach Miles was aiming for. “We’re going in too fast. He needs help slowing down.” Their magic wasn’t enough to stop a plane in midair, but together maybe they could slow it down enough to give them a chance.

  Darby jerked her head in a nod, her gaze falling to their linked hands as their voices joined. “Subsisto.”

  His chest burned under the heat from his amulet, but he didn’t break the connection until the plane slammed into something and everything went black.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Son of a bitch.

  The hangover from hell pounded across the back of Bryce’s head. He knew he’d poured himself one too many drinks after leaving Darby at her bungalow, but not enough to do this.

  And what the hell was dripping onto his face?

  His hand tingled as he lifted it to touch his face. His fingers came away wet. Through blurred vision he glimpsed red.

  Forcing his eyes open, he winced at the hammering pressure across the back of his skull and found his view of the plane’s interior cream walls shredded with gray and gaps that allowed the drenching breeze to hit him in the face.

  The plane.

  “Darby?”

  He fumbled for the seat belt and freed himself, almost sliding out of his seat because of the sharp slanting of the floor to the left. Across the aisle Darby remained buckled in, her eyes closed. Blood stained her white T-shirt and her arm…

  Gripping the sides of his chair, he pushed himself up on shaking arms, collapsing back when the world spun around like a carousel on crack. His stomach twisted, nausea burning the back of his throat.

  He sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth. “Darby.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Miles?”

  No answer came from up front—if there was still a front of the plane left. All Bryce could make out were trees, broken like matchsticks, beyond the ripped-open plane.

  Needing to check on Darby, he tried again to stand, making it to his feet this time before the dizziness hit. He didn’t close his eyes, afraid he might pass out if he did. Pain radiated up his leg, but he didn’t let himself look down yet. The warm trickle of blood running down the inside of his leg told him he was bleeding.

  “Darby.”

  She made a sound caught somewhere between a murmur and a whimper.

  He half inched, half slid toward her, each wave of dizziness passing a little faster as the pain in his leg worsened. Keeping as much weight off it as he could, he reached Darby, relieved that the superficial cut on her forehead had caused most of the blood on her shirt. Her left arm, however, hung at the wrong angle.

  Dislocated. Shit.

  “Darby?”

  She groaned again but didn’t open her eyes. Maybe it was better that way.

  Leaving her for a moment, he limped forward to check on Miles. He didn’t even reach the cockpit before spying the shattered windshield. Shards of glass and debris littered the area. The left half of the cockpit looked as though it had been hammered in then sliced open.

  The vacant look in the pilot’s eyes confirmed he was dead. Had the impact killed him or had his heart given out?

  Leaving the speculation for later, he returned to Darby. Her shoulder would need to be reset and he wouldn’t be able to do that inside.

  Getting the door open would have been impossible if the impact hadn’t half wrenched it off the hinges. Even then, it took him a while to force it open. Frequent stops as the world continued to spiral dragged the process out far too long.

  Once he was satisfied the door was open enough, he set about looking for a first aid kit. The throbbing in his leg pulsed with every step, and he knew he couldn’t ignore it for much longer. Once he had Darby outside, he’d take a look.

  Half hoping she would remain unconscious, he undid her belt. As carefully as he could, he slid one arm around her back and his other under her knees.

  She stirred in his arms, crying out when he lifted her up, the sound almost as loud as his own curse as his injured leg screamed in protest from the added weight.

  “Shhhhh. Quiesco.” Sleep.

  Usually only more weak-minded individuals could be swayed so easily by magic, but her injuries left her susceptible. Or they would have if his own magic weren’t compromised for the same reason. Damn.

  He was sweating even before he made it to the door, leaning against the warped frame to catch his breath. The hard part would be getting her over the threshold and down the short distance to the ground. As hard as it was to maneuver with the plane so slanted, it saved them from having to jump. Far.

  Teeth gritted, he made the small drop, but his injured leg crumpled beneath him. He kept her close to his chest, but she cried out as they pitched forward. He managed to twist, landing them on his good side, but Darby yelled again, her eyes fluttering.

  He released her long enough to roll away, positive he wasn’t keeping anything down for a moment longer. The muddy earth sucked at his fingers as he stared down at the ground.

  “Bryce?” Darby’s panicked tone punched through his nausea.

  “Right here.”

  Her eyes opened, disorientation giving way to confusion as her gaze darted around before returning to his face.

  “Our plane went down.”

  She swallowed. “What’s wrong with my arm?”

  “I think it’s dislocated.” He glanced at the broken plane and knew they were lucky to be alive.

  Darby licked her lips, a tear leaking from the corner of her eye. “Tell me you’re going to be sure of that before you fix it.”

  “Unfortunately I left my x-ray machine in my other pants.”

  Her pained murmur would never have passed for a laugh. “You’re going to have to pop it back in, aren’t you?”

  That was the plan. “Yeah.”

  She pressed her lips together to silence another cry. “And you’ve done if before. Right?”

  Once. Sort of. “You remember Danny Boyd? The guy who kept telling you how nice your ass was on spring break?”

  “That douche bag?” She panted her next few breaths. “Tell me you don’t keep in touch with him.”

  He smiled despite their circumstances. “No.” He kneeled on the ground next to her as best he could. “He dislocated his shoulder the day before you and I met.”

  “And you popped it back in?”

  Not exactly. “Things like that you never forget.”

  She let her head fall back to the ground. “I’ll take that as a no.”

  He wished he could tell her yes, but all he’d done was hold his drunk friend while their med student buddy did the work, but he hadn’t been joking about remembering every detail. “We don’t have any other options.”

  “They’ll know something is wrong. Someone will come.”

  Blinking through the light drizzle of rain, he glanced up at the gray sky. “If they knew where we were, someone would have come by now.” Although there was no hint of the sun, it was getting darker out, mea
ning they’d been unconscious for a while.

  “Alex—” Darby began.

  “Couldn’t reach us even if he wanted to.” Alex’s broken leg would prevent him from teleporting directly to them.

  Tate, Darby’s cousin, had only recently taken over Libby’s position on the Tribunal, the governing witch council, and was still struggling to teleport to places she hadn’t been. That left only Bryce’s own cousin, the third member of the Tribunal, to come for them, and so far he was a no-show.

  “We’re both hurt.” She voiced the same conclusion he’d come to.

  No one on the Tribunal would be able to sense them clearly if their magic was compromised by injury. That left the homing beacon on the plane and traditional search-and-rescue avenues that would take time. Darby’s arm needed to be reset now.

  She raised her chin. “How much is it going to hurt?”

  “It’ll feel better soon.” He took his shoe off, stretching out his good leg closer to her, then reached for her hand. His own fingers trembled, and he clenched his fists a few times, willing the unsteadiness away.

  “That’s not an answer.”

  With a sharp exhale, he took hold of her wrist. “You know that part in Empire Strikes Back where Luke loses his hand?”

  “Jesus,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

  “It won’t be that bad.”

  Even hurting, she still managed to look exasperated.

  “But it’s going to take a little time.” And hurt like hell, but he was sure she already knew that.

  He braced his foot between her arm and torso for leverage. Without two people to do this, he needed to keep her body still while he gently pulled on her arm.

  More tears ran down her cheeks as he carefully leaned back.

  “Almost there.”

  She started to speak and ended up smashing her lips together before crying out.

  “Just a little more,” he coaxed, hating how much it was hurting her. Every second seemed to last an hour, the drizzle thickening to a steady rain that threatened to sabotage his grip.

  Another yell of pain and he finally felt the pop of her shoulder sliding back into place.

  “We need to put it in a sling.” He pulled his shoe back on, then headed for the plane once more. He dragged their bags outside, digging through them for something that would work. He settled on one of his T-shirts, ripping the material.

  “Is the pain better?” He worked the material around her arm and knotted it at the shoulder.

  “Could be worse. I could be hanging upside down from a floating city.”

  He might have laughed if he could have put off looking at his own leg any longer. He felt Darby’s eyes on him as he ripped the hole in his pants wider. The angry slash across his thigh wasn’t as deep as he’d feared and had already started to clot. Reaching for the first aid kit he’d found, he dug through it until he found what he was looking for.

  “Miles?”

  Meeting Darby’s eyes, Bryce shook his head.

  I need to tell you about our baby. Her confession moments before the plane went down came crashing back. What baby? Darby had been pregnant?

  No, she would have told him something like that. That was too important to keep from him. Wasn’t it? Or was that why she’d been so determined not to talk to him for weeks after spring break? Had she found out she was pregnant after they got home and hadn’t wanted him to know?

  Forced to focus on his leg, he dumped some of the bottled water from his bag on the wound. Fuck.

  “How bad?” Her face was still pale, and her eyes kept drifting shut.

  “I’ll live.” The words came out sharper than he’d intended. He started to apologize then found himself staring at her stomach. She’d never had a baby. He would have heard about that long ago.

  “What happened to the baby?” It was a badly timed question, under the circumstances, but her dropping that kind of information as their plane was about to crash hadn’t been well thought out either.

  Her lashes fluttered open, her gaze finding his before sliding away. “I lost it.”

  His stomach clenched, but he made his fingers keep working to finish bandaging his leg. “When?”

  “I was almost twelve weeks along. I—” She tried to move and hissed out a pained breath.

  Three months? She’d known about the baby for weeks and had refused to see him? To tell him? Christ.

  When Darby refused to look at him, he pushed himself to his feet. He needed to breathe, to move, something…

  Everywhere he looked he was reminded that their plane had crashed. They were both hurt, in shock and stranded in the middle of nowhere. He glanced back at her, saw her shivering.

  They had to get out of the rain. That had to come first, then he could try wrapping his mind around the fact that she’d been pregnant with his baby and he was hearing about it ten fucking years later.

  The rain thickened, and he glanced at the wreck. He didn’t want to go back in the plane. Miles’s body…

  Miles had a satellite phone.

  Hurrying, he hobbled toward the plane door.

  “Where are you going?” Darby’s voice was nearly extinguished by the sound of the rain.

  “I need to check something.” Why hadn’t he remembered that Miles always carried a sat phone in his bag?

  He tried to ignore the sight of the pilot’s body as he searched the area for the carry-on Miles always had with him. He’d have to move or at least cover the body soon. It couldn’t be left like that.

  When Bryce didn’t find anything inside, he moved back outside, wandering a short distance from the plane, hoping to spot it.

  “It’s not here.” Exhausted and getting wetter by the second, he gave up on searching for the phone for the moment. They both needed to get out of the rain. “Darby?”

  No response.

  He limped back to Darby’s side of the plane, and found her unconscious.

  * * *

  “Where the hell is my son?”

  Alex cringed as the sound of the slamming door reverberated down the length of his spine. He’d already killed the lights in his room in the main building of the resort. It was easier to keep his eyes open without the piercing light threatening to split his brain in two.

  Thomas Lancaster scowled from just inside the door, his volatile emotions chafing Alex’s already heightened awareness.

  “Lower your voice,” Danny Calder advised, rising from his seat to Alex’s right.

  Dante was already halfway across the room, looking ready to throw Thomas out on his ass.

  Alex ignored them, focusing on the glass of water in front of him.

  “I warned you something like this would happen,” Thomas continued. “You know better, goddamn it.”

  “Dante.” Danny moved to intercept his son before he reached Thomas. “He’s upset too. We all are.”

  “Upset? My son’s plane never reached its destination, and you think I’m upset?”

  “Maybe if you hadn’t been such an ass Bryce wouldn’t have taken off the first chance he got,” Dante challenged. “Although, that is his style.”

  “Do not talk about my son like you have any idea—”

  “I know much more than I ever wanted to—”

  The glass of water shattered, and all three men turned toward Alex.

  “How am I supposed to concentrate when there is more bitching going on in here than on Desperate Housewives?” Ignoring the puddles of water and shards of glass, Alex grabbed another bottle of water from the mini fridge, poured himself another drink and sat back down.

  Exhaling slowly, he briefly closed his eyes, then focused on the water once more.

  “What’s with the glass?” Dante sat opposite him. “Does it help you channel stuff better?” Stuff being Dante’s favorite way of describing the Tribunal’s ability to know what others were thinking.

  “Nope.” Alex took a long drink, then set the glass aside. “Just thirsty.” He exhaled slowly.

  “Are
they dead?” Thomas voiced the same question the other two men had been afraid to ask.

  “No. But that’s about all I do know.” And the more he tried to concentrate, the less he felt from Darby or Bryce.

  For the fifth time in the last two minutes he glared at his cast. One stupid, little mistake was preventing him from finding his friends right now. One colossally stupid mistake.

  “So what is the plan?” When no one answered Thomas right away he dropped onto the edge of the sofa.

  “We’re working on it.” Dante went back to his laptop. “So far there’s been no signal from the plane’s emergency locator transmitter.”

  “I already know that. What I don’t know is what you’re doing about it.” Thomas glanced at Alex. “Can’t you narrow the search area down?”

  “You’re free to give it a shot if you think you can do better.”

  “I called Shane—”

  “Then you know he’s not having any more luck than I am.” And Shane, the third Tribunal member, didn’t have a cast slowing him down.

  “And Tate?” Thomas pressed.

  Alex shook his head. “That’s like expecting the rookie to win the World Series.” Tate had been just as frantic since she’d felt the same static charge that signaled two witches joining magic.

  With the Calders and Lancasters at each other’s throats and the Hastings giving them all a wide berth, there were only so many people who could be responsible. Throw in the fear and panic that accompanied the static charge with enough force to take Alex to his knees, and he’d narrowed it down pretty quickly.

  Unable to tap into either Darby or Bryce, he’d been forced to do things the old-fashioned way and reach them by phone. When that hadn’t worked, he’d called anyone who would know where they were and found out Bryce had taken his father’s plane home. Darby, too, as it turned out, surprising more than a couple Calders.

  Thirty minutes ago they’d received confirmation that the plane never arrived, and Alex had been trying ever since to get some kind of a vibe from Darby or Bryce.

  Silence fell between the men again, even more tense now that Lancaster had joined them.