by Karen Chance
But however pathetic, our speed was constant, while it looked like the horses pulling Mother’s coach were getting tired. Because a moment later I spotted them, just up ahead.
Mircea must have seen them, too, because he floored it, taking us up to maybe a whopping thirty-five. But it was lucky he had. Because a second later, red lightning lit up the night, shooting just behind us to explode against a building, blackening the bricks and taking out a window.
I whipped my neck around and saw what I’d expected—three damn mages in a coach they’d stolen somewhere. It had two horses and a lightweight body, and damned if they weren’t gaining. And it looked like they held a grudge, because a lot of the bolts blistering through the air were aimed at us.
One took out a row of streetlamps, popping them one after another as a bolt leapt from light to light to light, burning through the night right alongside us. Another hit a swinging pub sign, appropriately named the Fiery Phoenix. The Phoenix went up in smoke and then so did we, as a spell crashed into the back of the car, picking it up and sending it sailing through the air, straight at—
I screamed and grabbed Mircea, shifting us just as he grabbed me back and jumped. The result was a confusing few seconds of shifting and then flying through the air, as his jump ended up taking place on the other side of the shift. And then we landed in a heap, half in the street and half in the gutter, before rolling onto the sidewalk and a lot of unhappy pedestrians.
I barely noticed, too busy watching the car smash into the front of a church. And wedge between two of the pillars. And explode.
And then the bastard mages zipped by us, splashing us with filthy water from a ditch in the street. The one we’d already rolled through. And the next thing I knew, we were clinging to the back of their vehicle as it pelted down the road, past the remains of the little car and into a street on the right.
Mircea must have done it, moving us with that vampire speed that sometimes seemed almost as fast as shifting. Because I sure as hell hadn’t. I wasn’t up to doing much, frankly, except clinging to the leather-bound trunk on the back of the coach and trying not to puke. And then it started raining.
Of course it did.
Mircea was making some kinds of signs at me, probably afraid the mages would hear if he said anything. Which would have worked great, except that my eyes kept crossing. But I guess he must have meant I’m going to leave you for a minute to go do something insanely stupid. Because the next second, he vaulted around the side of the coach, kicked in the door and disappeared into the small, covered area.
And then things started to get interesting. At least, they did if you consider cursing and kicking and a wildly rocking coach and a spell that blew off the roof to be interesting. It wasn’t doing so much for me, but I didn’t have time to worry about it, because a fist punched through the back of the coach, almost in my face.
Since it was a left one and wasn’t wearing Mircea’s OMEGA watch, I had no compunction at all about slipping off the one shoe I hadn’t yet managed to lose and using the stiletto heel to try to sever it at the wrist. It didn’t work as well as its namesake, but it must have been a distraction, at least. Because somebody cursed and somebody grunted, and then somebody went sailing out the side of the carriage to splat against one thundering along right next to us.
Which would have been great if it hadn’t happened to be Mom’s.
The mage grasped hold of the coach with one hand and flung a spell at me with the other, but it didn’t connect—thanks to the kidnapper, of all people. I could see him, because there was no covered area of the coach anymore, due to the fire. The rain had put it out, or maybe it had burnt out after it consumed all the cloth over the cab. But either way, only the wire frame remained in place, which didn’t hinder the kidnapper at all from slamming his heavy-looking suitcase upside the mage’s head.
That sent the spell flying off course, missing me but setting the hem of my dress alight. Fortunately, the mud puddle I’d just finished wallowing in had pretty much soaked the material, and that and the pelting rain took care of the fire before it took care of me. I was left with a ruined dress, a burn on my thigh and a serious case of Had Enough.
If my mother could shift seven people through most of a century, I could shift five a few hundred yards, like to the next street over. It would get them off her ass, and once Mircea and I shifted back, we’d have only the mage to deal with. I just needed to get the damn war mages all in one place in order to—
And then I didn’t, because Mom did it for me.
She slammed her coach into ours, almost knocking me off my perch. It did more than that to the mage, who had been trying to grab her while the kidnapper tried to grab him. The sudden movement sent him flailing back, and he fell through the missing roof of our coach, splintering the wood forming the back of it in the process. That left me looking at Mircea, who had a mage under one arm and another by the throat, and was trying to get a foot in the new arrival’s stomach.
He looked up at me and I looked at him, and then to the side, where a gap in the buildings showed a nice, broad street running parallel to this one. “Fair warning,” I told him. And shifted.
And immediately regretted it.
It felt like my body was coming apart at the seams, a searing, tearing pain that shot down every nerve. It hurt badly enough to have wrenched a scream from my throat, if I still had one. I didn’t, because it was streaming in molecules across space, like the rest of me, like my brain, which was nonetheless informing me that this was too far, too much. That maybe I should have remembered that the two horses would count as people, too; like maybe I should have thought about how tired I already was; like maybe this would be my last shift ever because my freaking head was going to explode.
At least, it would if I had the energy to rematerialize it long enough, which I wouldn’t if this went on much longer. What was going to happen instead was a quick unraveling of me and the horses and the coach and everyone inside it into particles blowing on the breeze that the rain would wash away, like we’d never existed at all. I knew it with the absolute conviction of someone who could already feel it happening, feel pieces and parts beginning to break away from their patterns, to jumble up, to distort—
And then I thought, No.
And then I thought, Stop.
And we did.
Really, really abruptly.
I hadn’t known it was possible, mainly because I’d never had reason to try. But somehow, I had aborted the shift. Right in the goddamned middle.
It had been that or die, so it had seemed the lesser of two evils. Until we rematerialized not a street over, but still on this one. Sort of.
The street was a posh-looking curve of neoclassical buildings fronted by pale stone that the gaslight turned gold against the black sky. Along both sides of the street ran a covered colonnade, which I hadn’t really noticed because I’d been kind of busy. I noticed it now since we landed up close and personal—as in, right on top of it.
That put us well above the street, flying along a narrow roofline barely wide enough to accommodate the coach, the horses and the heads that popped out of the side of the coach to look down at the street below. And then turned to look at me. And then one of the mages managed to get an arm up, and I had absolutely no doubt what he planned to do with it.
But I couldn’t stop him. I could barely even see him, wavering around in front of my blurry vision along with everyone else. Which was why it took me a moment to realize that he suddenly wasn’t there anymore. That Mircea had just bailed with him and the rest, throwing the whole kicking, fighting knot over the side of the colonnade.
Which would have been fine if I’d still been able to shift. But I wasn’t and I couldn’t, and the end of the colonnade was coming up and I was trying to bail, too, because falling from the back of a galloping coach wouldn’t be fun, but it was a lot better than the alternative. But my goddamned foot had gotten wedged behind the goddamned box and it wasn’t coming out, and I di
dn’t have time to figure out what was wrong with a brick wall staring me in the face and—
And then I was staring into a lovely pair of lapis eyes instead.
I blinked, stunned and confused and more than a little sick, as one of the mages ran up alongside the carriage. It was the one my mother was driving, in the middle of the road like a sane person, and which I was now somehow on top of. The mage grabbed for her and she broke eye contact with me long enough to glance at him, and then he was gone, popping out of existence like Niall had back in the suite. I knew that was what had happened, because a second later he showed up again in the middle of the street in front of us.
And then she ran him down.
“Damn, Liz!” the kidnapper said, staring up at her.
“Who are you?” she asked, turning those amazing eyes on me again.
And for some reason, I couldn’t answer. I stared into that lovely face, so close, closer than I’d ever thought it would be, and I couldn’t say anything at all. My throat closed up and my eyes filled and my face crumbled and I probably looked like a complete, blubbering idiot. But try as I might, I couldn’t seem to say anything—
And then the kidnapper answered for me.
“Agnes sent her,” he said harshly. “It’s a trap!”
“I don’t think so,” she said, her eyes never leaving my face. I don’t know what expression I was wearing, but she looked stunned, disbelieving, shocked. She put out a hand to touch my cheek, and it trembled slightly. “I don’t think so,” she whispered.
“I’m telling you, they’re working together!” he hissed. “She’s the one who helped that bitch drag me back—”
“Agnes is a good woman.”
“She’s a bitch!” he shrieked. “And this one’s just as bad. You have to—”
I never found out what he wanted her to do. Because four mages jumped on the coach at the same time, which was impossible, since at least two of them were supposed to be dead. But they all looked pretty lively to me, including the one who grabbed the kidnapper around the throat and jerked him back off his feet. I didn’t see what the others did, because the next moment we were shifting, flowing through time with an ease I’d never before experienced.
Shifting was usually metallic and electric and vaguely terrifying, like the thrilling ride of a roller coaster you suspect might just be out of control. But this wasn’t. It was warm and soft and natural, like breathing, a light caress that picked us up and gentled us along toward . . . somewhen. I didn’t know; I didn’t care. I just wanted to stay here, right here—
“But this isn’t your fight,” she told me simply, as the tide washed us toward an unknown shore.
I shook my head, trying to tell her that she was wrong, that it was my fight; it so very definitely was. But I still couldn’t talk, even as I felt her hand dissolve under mine, as the current washed us in two different directions, as I cried out and tried to hold on to something that simply wasn’t there anymore—
And the next thing I knew, I was standing on a street corner, surrounded by flashing neon lights and falling snow and shimmery, delicate nets of hanging stars, watching a Victorian coach veer across modern traffic lanes—for an instant. Before vanishing again into nothingness.
And just like that, she was gone.
Chapter Twelve
I stood on the street corner, swaying slightly, while bits of snow gathered in my hair. It’s a beautiful last view, I thought blankly, watching what looked like Christmas crowds rushing about. The stars overhead were banners of lights draped across the openings of each street feeding into the intersection. Other streets farther down had them, too, so that the whole from the air probably resembled a great, glittering wheel. Or maybe a wreath. That would be more Christmassy, wouldn’t it?
They look pretty against the black sky, anyway, I thought, as water dripped into my eyes from rain that had fallen however many decades ago. I didn’t bother to brush it away. It didn’t seem to matter now.
The lights on passing cars blurred together in long streamers of gold and red, appropriately festive. I watched them, feeling wobbly and cold and numb, and waited for oblivion. And waited. And waited.
And then I heard running footsteps coming up behind me, and before I even had a chance to turn around, hands grasped my shoulders, spinning me about. I stared dizzily up at Mircea, who was looking a little crazed. His hair was wild and so were his eyes, and there was a smudge of mud on his cheek. “You’re still here,” he said blankly.
I nodded cautiously, half expecting not to be at any second.
His fingers tightened on my shoulders, almost painfully. And then he picked me up and spun me around, heedless of my filthy dress or my dripping hair or the safety of the passersby. “You’re still here!” he said, laughing, and kissed me.
And either it was a damn good kiss or not fading away into oblivion was a hell of an aphrodisiac. Because after only a second, those lips melted the cold shock that had all but paralyzed me, and my hands clenched on his shoulders and my leg curled around him and the next thing I knew, I was climbing his body and doing my best to climb down his throat. Mircea gave as good as he got. His hands found my ass and he lifted, and my legs fastened around him and he spun us around again, as snow fell and cars honked and somebody laughed, and I didn’t give a damn because I was alive to experience all of it.
We broke apart only when it was that or asphyxiation. I clung to him, panting and light-headed from passion or relief or lack of air or all three, and the crowd we’d managed to collect applauded politely. Somebody donated a sprig of mistletoe, “not that you two need it,” which Mircea jauntily stuck behind his ear. And then he kissed me again.
I think he only stopped because I started shivering. We were both soaked and it was freezing, and I’d managed to lose his jacket somewhere along the way. Even with Mircea’s warmth, the cold, damp night air was already making its way in underneath my clothes, seeping down my neckline and slithering up my legs.
And there was no point even trying to shift back home. I’d be lucky to be able to do it in the morning, assuming I got some food and rest between now and then. But that posed a problem.
I looked at Mircea, who was staring up at the swirl of snow seemingly in fascination. “Mircea?”
“It’s beautiful, dulceață,” he said, his tone awed. “Do you see? Beautiful.”
“What is?”
“The snow. The night.” His arms tightened. “You.”
I eyed him warily. “Thanks?”
Warm lips found my neck. “You are welcome.”
“Mircea. It’s freezing.” “I will keep you warm,” he told me, those lips sliding down to my cleavage.
And, okay, it was getting warmer out here. “We can’t stay on a street corner all night,” I protested.
“Of course we can’t.” And before I fully realized what was happening, we were at the end of the street, my arm tucked in his as he looked this way and that, curious and bright-eyed and obviously delighted. With what I didn’t know, but a second later he laughed. “Oh yes. Yes, that will do splendidly.”
And then snowflakes falling around us were caught in headlights. They froze like crystals hanging in the darkness, a thousand tiny flashes of gold, as a limo pulled up at the corner. I looked at Mircea. “How . . . ?”
“I borrowed it from a friend,” he told me, bundling me inside. And then immediately covered my body with his own.
He kissed me slower this time, a tender movement of his lips and then his tongue against mine, deliberate, caring, and carnal. And for a few moments, I forgot everything, except the silky hair falling around me, the smoothness of the lips on mine, and the feel of his hands on my body. Their calluses came from handling a sword regularly, hundreds of years ago, but vampires stayed as they were when they died, so they had never softened. They were the only remnant of the half-barbarian prince he’d once been, except for the hair he refused to cut.
I took the opportunity to bury my hands in it now, a sp
ill of deep, silky mahogany, the color of oak leaves in autumn. And, okay, that was corny, but Mircea made a girl poetic. Only this so wasn’t the place.
“Mircea. We can’t,” I gasped, glancing at the driver, who was watching us unashamedly in the mirror.
Mircea didn’t even look up. “Drive,” he said, and smashed a hand down on the button for the partition.
By the time it was up, my top was down and things were progressing at a rather frightening rate. “People can see us through the windows,” I protested, as the soaked silk was unzipped and my bra unhooked, all in one smooth motion.
“Tinted.”
“But . . . I’m hungry.”
“So am I,” he growled, and pulled off my dress.
Somebody had left a fur coat on the seat, something black as midnight and soft as a cloud, and the sensation against my bare skin was a hell of a distraction. Although not as much as the warm hands smoothing over me, the hard-muscled thighs pressing against me, or the tongue sliding over mine, liquid and warm and increasingly demanding.
I came up for air, minutes later, to find that Mircea’s coat was off, his shirt was open and his tie was barely clinging to one shoulder. That was a little disturbing, because I couldn’t remember how he got that way, or how my panties had ended up flung against the opposite seat. All I knew was that I was naked except for that sinfully soft fur coat, most of which was trapped beneath me.
I tried to tug it around, to give me some possibility of coverage should any of the passing cars get too close, but Mircea had other ideas. “Leave it,” he said hoarsely. “I like the contrast with your skin.”
And then he proceeded to show me exactly how much.
“What’s . . . what’s gotten into you?” I gasped, as that dark head worked its way down from lips to neck to body. Not that Mircea wasn’t usually . . . affectionate . . . but he didn’t normally care for public displays—or even semipublic ones.
