by Eva Chase
I leaned into his embrace. “I guess he wouldn’t have gone to those lengths if I hadn’t been so stubborn about insisting I couldn’t do anything magical.”
The devourer was silent for a moment. “That scares you. That you could influence fire in some magical way?”
Okay, so he could understand more than I’d given him credit for. It was fair to say I was scared. Possibly even terrified, not that I wanted to admit that out loud.
“And that there might be other powers I don’t know about. Just… not knowing what I might be capable of, what I even am, and what else from my past must be either a lie or a total mystery.”
“I think it’s amazing that you have a force like that in you. You’re even more special than I already realized.” He pressed a light but possessive kiss to the top of my head. “But not knowing if you can control a power, one that could also hurt people… It feels pretty horrible, doesn’t it? I believe Omen only wants to help you learn how to find that control. Or I could help, if you’d rather that. I’m not sure how to, but I’d try.”
The lump in my throat returned with a pang of affection. I hugged him even tighter. “I appreciate that. I’ve never been scared of you, you know. No matter what power you have that you’ve decided you shouldn’t use, it’s obvious you can control it. I’ve never worried that you’ll hurt me.”
“I’m glad,” Snap said, “but I hurt people before, and I can’t forget that. That’s how I make sure it doesn’t happen again. I don’t think you would in the first place, though.”
His faith in me made my heart ache even if I couldn’t say he was right. There’d been plenty of people I’d wanted to hurt over the years. In the heat of the moment, if I knew I could with barely any effort at all… but then, that was all the more reason to learn what the hell I was doing from beings who were experienced in the supernatural arts, wasn’t it?
Maybe dealing with this puzzle wouldn’t be so bad with Snap by my side. And Ruse… and Thorn…
My thoughts slipped back to the delicious dream Omen had woken me from, and then to last night when I’d been ready to give myself over to Ruse yet again. Was my greediness fair to the guy holding me right now and all his passionate devotion?
“Snap,” I said. “Does it bother you that I might hook up with Ruse again, or even Thorn? It’s not that I don’t want you—I do, a hell of a lot. I just…”
I wasn’t sure how to explain it. But Snap seemed to already understand that too. He shifted against me, fitting me even more perfectly against his body.
“I’ve seen you with them,” he said. “And I can tell—the energy you have with them is a little different than with me. There’s something you get that’s different.” He paused, his embrace tightening. “I wish very much that I could give you every conceivable thing, but I’m not sure that’s possible. And if it’s not, I don’t want to take anything away from you. That would be incredibly selfish, wouldn’t it?”
“For a lot of people, wanting to keep a lover to yourself would be a pretty normal feeling.”
His hum reverberated from his lean chest into me. “I’m not a person, and I don’t want to be like those sorts of humans. What I like the most when I’m around you is seeing you happy, and if they bring extra happiness that I can’t, then that’s a good thing.” He ducked his head, his lips grazing my forehead. “As long as you’re still mine.”
I wouldn’t have thought I’d ever agree to that kind of claiming, but who was I kidding? The possessiveness in his tone only set off a warm glow around my heart. The devourer had made an indelible mark there, one I suspected no supernatural voodoo could ever erase now.
“You’ve got me, all right,” I said.
I felt his smile against my skin. “At least I know the two of them—I know they’re worthy of having you too.”
A better question would be whether I was worthy of any of them. Snuggled up against Snap, I wanted to be. I wanted to be a woman who could not just stage jailbreaks and sway fire to my will but also handle the hearts of those who cared about me with the care they deserved in return.
That kind of cherishing might be hard, like Ruse had suggested last night. It might even be impossible. But an hour ago I’d thought it was impossible that a human being like me could manipulate fire with my mind, so maybe I shouldn’t draw any conclusions just yet.
If I was going to be that woman, I knew where I’d need to start. Hiding under a blanket wasn’t going to cut it. I couldn’t stand by my lovers properly if I was denying who I even was.
“Let’s hope you’re right about that,” I said, tugging Snap upright with me. “I’d better see what Omen thinks he can teach me.”
17
Sorsha
Saying my first official training session didn’t go well would be like saying the Pacific Ocean was a teensy bit damp.
Omen marched me out into the deserted yard next to the funhouse, where a stray Ferris wheel car had been pummeled almost out of recognition. I guessed that was how Thorn had produced the crashing noises I’d taken as part of a Company attack earlier this morning. A rusty old delivery truck parked nearby seemed to hold a look of relief that it’d been spared in the slant of the dust smears on its windshield.
Omen clapped his hands together. “All right. We know you can work this power. Let’s see if we can get you working it on purpose.”
I thought of last night’s failed experiment with the popcorn bag. “I’m not sure I can, at least not out of the blue with no real reason to. Didn’t you say it’s activated when I get ‘worked up’? I can’t make myself panic over nothing.”
The hellhound shifter’s expression suggested he thought I’d been pointlessly overwrought plenty of times already, but he managed to keep at least a little of his disdain to himself. “You’ll need to get familiar with the specific feeling of manipulating—or producing—fire until you can summon it up without a bunch of panic around it. But for now, we’ll start by triggering it first.”
He gave me a thin smile, and then he started pelting me with beanbags he must have found at an abandoned game stall.
Having the bags smack into my chest and legs—oh, and that was the side of my head—definitely pissed me off. I snatched one out of the air and flung it right back at Omen. It clocked him in the nose.
“That’s not what we’re looking for,” Bossypants snapped. “Focus on the projectiles, not on me. They’re what’s hitting you. If you light one up, I’ll stop.”
“Promises, promises,” I muttered, not really believing him, but it didn’t matter anyway. I squinted at the beanbags as they whipped toward me until I thought I was going to go cross-eyed, but my irritation didn’t come with the rush of energy that’d coursed through me a few times in the past. If that even was the feeling I was looking to stir up. I hadn’t exactly been meditating on my inner state while I was dashing to save Pickle’s life.
After a while, Omen gave up on that tactic and ushered me back to the funhouse rooftop. He shoved a slip of paper into my hand and motioned for me to get up on the low railing that circled the roof’s edge. “Walk along there and see if you can get the paper burning.”
I took a brief glance at the ground a couple dozen feet below. No biggie. With nimble steps, I crossed from one end of the building to the other in less than a minute. I looked back at Omen, my heartbeat barely elevated. “This is supposed to work how?”
He was glaring at me, a few tufts of his tawny hair poking up from the smooth surface he’d slicked it into. He swiped his hand back over them, failing to tame them, and stalked over. “Most people would be a little unnerved walking along up there.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You watched me pilfer that flower pot for you, and you still thought I might be afraid of heights?”
“Come on then, Disaster,” he said in a growl. Apparently that was my new nickname—oh, joy.
After several more exercises that all seemed to involve battering or tripping me in some way, Omen resorted to getting into the
camper van and roaring toward me at full speed. I watched him come with a slight hiccup of my pulse, but even as my body tensed, nothing supernatural woke up inside me.
He hit the brake just in time to screech to a halt a foot from where I stood. I waved my hand with the slip of paper that was now grayed and creased, and it proceeded to remain as unburnt as it’d been when he’d handed it to me.
The shifter threw open the van’s door and loomed on me. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I stared right back at him, my jaw clenching. It wasn’t as if I’d been having a ball with what he’d put me through over the past several hours. “I thought we’d already determined that none of us has any idea.”
“That’s not what I— For fuck’s sake, can’t you get a little nervous even with that thing barreling toward you?” He waved toward the van.
I shrugged. “I knew you weren’t going to actually run me over. That would kind of go against the whole ‘use Sorsha to turn the tables on the baddies’ plan, wouldn’t it?”
An inarticulate noise of frustration spilled from his mouth. “How are you so fucking aggravating?”
The retort shot from my tongue automatically. “Because you’re fucking infuriating and it’s contagious?”
But this wasn’t just some annoying jerk at the office. This was the highest order of shadowkind with multiple centuries of honing his might. He really did growl then—the sort of dark, grating sound I’d have expected his houndish form to emit, with a flare of his eyes from blue to scorching orange and a baring of his teeth to reveal fangs that hadn’t been there a moment before.
I’d almost forgotten just how much coiled power that compact human frame contained before it hit me. A slap of otherworldly heat lashed my skin, and my pulse really lurched for the first time since I’d leapt to save Pickle.
So naturally, I did the thing any sensible person would have done: I set Omen’s shirt on fire.
It was only a little fire—a flicker of flame that shot up from the hem and disappeared the second he’d whacked it with his open hand, leaving only a tiny scorch mark on the maroon fabric. It happened so quickly, like always, that I couldn’t have said what exactly I’d been feeling when I’d done it, other than both incredibly frustrated and abruptly sure the guy was about to rip my head off, grand plans thrown to the wind.
When Omen raised his head from examining his shirt, his shoulders had come down, though they were still rigid, and his eyes had returned to their usual piercing blue. His voice came out tightly controlled. “I don’t suppose you have any idea how to do that again, preferably to something other than me.”
I splayed my hands in a helpless gesture. “It just… happened.”
Running his fingers over his hair, which was now utterly ruffled, he let out a brusque huff of air and turned away. “Take a breather. I suppose you need to eat something by this point anyway.”
I had wolfed down a few snacks here and there in between his various torture sessions, but I wasn’t going to argue with the chance to indulge in a proper meal, even if I didn’t totally understand his decision to retreat. Maybe he’d decided I was hopeless after all.
I clambered into the back of the van in its new location, murmuring a few soothing words to Pickle, who scuttled back and forth with his wings trembling. What did I have left in the stash I’d grabbed during our last gas station stop?
As I dug into the bags, Ruse appeared by the open door, a box balanced on one upturned hand. A pizza box. The second the combined smells of melted cheese, rich tomato sauce, and spicy pepperoni hit my nose, I was salivating. I could have jumped him in gratitude, except I was hungry enough that I’d rather jump the pizza.
I hopped back out, Pickle at my heels. To no one’s surprise, Snap materialized out of the shadows a second later, his eyes eagerly intent on the pizza box. “What is that?” he asked.
Ruse chuckled. “And this is why I got a large. The mortal realm has plenty of fantastic food beyond fruits and sweets.” He caught my gaze. “I’d have gotten you a spread of Thai, but that would have been much more unwieldy.”
“No complaints here! Pizza is my second favorite.” And definitely much more suited to digging into when you didn’t have much in the way of furniture… or utensils.. or, well, anything.
Ruse stacked a couple of crates into a makeshift table and opened the pizza box there. Soaking up the fading rays of the late-afternoon sun while chowing down on a crisp slice gooey with mozzarella was the perfect combination. From the speed with which Snap downed his first slice and his euphoric expression as he reached for his second, he agreed.
“While you and the boss were busy playing, we heard back from our hacker,” Ruse said. “She traced that address your friend got to a shell company—and some of those photos are buildings that company or some connected shell owns. We’ll have to scope those out.”
“Great, I’ll pass the info on to the Fund too so they can make their own inquiries.” I swallowed another tasty mouthful and glanced around, not wanting to exclude the third member of my trio from the meal. “Where’s Thorn?”
The incubus waved his hand dismissively. “He got one of his ‘feelings’ and went off patrolling, as if he doesn’t feel the need to patrol every second hour regardless. They’ve never attacked us by daylight before, but try telling the lunk that.”
I glanced toward the funhouse, where the final member of our larger quartet was looking at something on the cellphone he’d picked up during our recent travels. I didn’t feel particularly inclined to invite Omen over to our impromptu dinner, and anyway, if he’d wanted a piece of it, he’d have marched over and demanded it. Still, as I took in his frown at whatever he was looking at, some of my lingering irritation faded.
He was a hard-ass and a beast—literally—but it was mostly in the service of saving all shadowkind, something most of the rest of his kind weren’t willing to put in any effort to accomplish at all. And… as much as my trio had glommed onto me and become fond of me, none of them had picked up on the hints of powers even I hadn’t been ready to acknowledge. Probably because they couldn’t conceive of a mortal having that kind of power.
Omen had noticed when he’d barely even known who I was. For all his disdain of humankind, he’d been open-minded enough to keep me around and push me—however obnoxiously—toward uncovering those powers further. He’d spent all day doing whatever he could think of to help me control them. It might not have been fun, but I doubted he’d considered it a laugh riot either.
With a little less generosity, he could have written me off as a hopeless mostly-human being. It wasn’t as if the four shadowkind didn’t have plenty of supernatural voodoo between them without me contributing.
Omen raised his head as if sensing me watching him, and I jerked my gaze away—just in time to see Thorn leaping out of the stretching shadow of the camper van.
The warrior strode toward us, his voice ringing out with a force that thrummed through my nerves. “We’ve got to go! There’s a squad coming this way—it looked like they were—”
Before he could finish that thought, something shrieked through the air behind him to crash into a side window of the camper van.
Ka-boom!
An explosion shattered the van’s other windows with a burst of fire that rocked the tires. Another one biting the dust. Sweet scorching salamanders, these people really meant business now.
For a second, I stood frozen, stuck in the uncertainty of where to run when our expected means of escape had just gone up in flames. One frantic thought hit me—Pickle!—but at the same moment, the little dragon brushed against my ankle with a quavering squeak, having followed the pizza brigade over here. Then a volley of shouts and the rattle of gunfire from the direction the missile had flown from spurred me into action.
I scooped Pickle into my purse—which I’d picked up out of habit, thank God—and whirled toward the only other vehicle I’d noticed anywhere nearby: the rusty old truck by the funhouse. My backpack with
my cat-burglar equipment was still in the van, but it’d be ashes in another few heartbeats if it wasn’t already. Losing the scorch-blade I’d spent three robberies’ worth of ill-gotten income on hurt, but not as much agony as if one of those missiles hit me going back for it.
My feet pounded across the pavement. Snap vanished into the shadows, as Omen appeared to have too, but Ruse dashed alongside me in physical form so he could speak. “I already checked it—there are no keys. So unless you’re as good at hotwiring as you are at breaking and entering…”
“Nope.” But I did have some idea. My thoughts had slipped back to the winter years ago when Malachi’s car battery had kept dying and we’d gone to a guy down the hall to jump-start it four or five times. I’d watched them hook things up; I had a basic idea of where the power needed to flow. A little jolt was all it needed.
A little jolt like a flash of fire.
I had no idea whether it would work, but jumping on a carousel horse wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I sprinted faster, hoping Snap and Omen would head to the same destination too in their shadowy way.
Just as I reached the truck, Omen appeared in the driver’s seat. He groped along the dash in search of a key, clearly not prepared to rewire the thing either. I turned as I yanked the passenger side door open—and my stomach flipped over with a surge of horror.
Thorn was charging after us across the lot. He’d stayed in his physical form too, no doubt expecting he could fend off any attacks that came his way and shield the rest of us from them at the same time. But the mercenaries who’d just come into view back by the burning van weren’t looking to capture any shadowkind they got their hands on this time. No, from the size of the machine guns they raised, we’d made enough trouble that they were perfectly happy to wipe us all off the face of the earth now, even if it was a waste of experimental subjects.
