He took his garment from the wizard, but he didn’t place it between his teeth. The other man shrugged. “Suit yourself. Let us begin.”
“Wait,” Jorandil said. “One other thing.”
“The deal is struck.”
“I cannot waste time trying to locate the woman. I need you to send me directly to her.”
“Of course. You need merely focus on her—with as much detail as you can employ.” The wizard let a smile crawl up one side of his face. “The warmth of her breast, the silk of her hair brushing your cheek, the scent of her womanly charms. Immerse yourself in the same essence that has bewitched you into racing to her rescue. You should emerge quite near her.”
“Should?”
“It is, of course, not an exact science. Your ability to hone in on her will decide how close you come out.”
Easy enough, considering he’d spent a fair amount of time recalling every nuance of his time with Cadence.
“No more delays,” the man said. “The time is now, or not at all.”
Jorandil nodded, and Costeros wasted not even one moment more. His hands came up, facing Jorandil, and he circled to the rear of him. This time, Jorandil stayed put.
The heat is what he noticed first, growing and spreading out from the base of his wings. Without him doing anything, without Costeros’s insistent prodding, the wings lifted, searing with fire, ligaments stretching unnaturally. Now would be a good time to focus on something else, and Jorandil called up an image of Cadence.
The sleek, damning edge of a nonexistent blade drew against his flesh, and Jorandil gripped the tunic tighter in his fist, fighting off a grunt of pain by clenching his jaw. He saw her, whispering to him in the night, her hair wild around her, gleaming in the light of his power. He recalled the feel of her clutching him to her as they united, bound by something inexplicable, a joining that had penetrated him as surely as his cock had penetrated her. They had become one in that most intimate of moments, when it was no longer just an act of drawing power from a stranger to seal the veil, but an act of union between two spirits, a male possession of female as his body laid claim to hers.
The magical knife circled the spot, slicing shallow at first, then deeper, layer by layer, mystically detaching skin and sinew the way a hunter would skin and butcher a fresh kill. Sweat poured from Jorandil’s brow as he clung desperately to the image of Cadence. He tried not to move, but he lost control of his knees and sank down, winding up on all fours on the stone floor, heaving, trying not to retch, lost in a whirlwind of blinding agony. The memory he tried to hold slipped, lost to pain. The tunic wound up between his teeth at some point, he didn’t know how, and with every part of him shaking with the onset of shock, he let out a yell that was barely muffled by the cloth. When bursts of white flashed around him, threatening unconsciousness, it was over.
For the first wing.
Sometime during the procedure on the second wing, Jorandil reeled and went face down into the welcoming black nothingness.
***
“Tom,” Stella said to the man glaring at them both through the doorway. The gun quivered slightly in his hand, but not enough to ruin his aim. “Let’s put that down so we can talk about this calmly.”
There was a soothing, yet authoritative quality to the words, but he clamped his jaw tight. “What’s getting put down is that cell phone. Put it on the floor and kick it over here. Now.”
She bent down and used the toe of her shoe to slide the phone across the wooden floor.
“You too,” he said, nodding to Cadence. “Let’s have your cell phone.”
She considered lying, but what if he checked? Her hand slid into her pocket. Before extracting it, she depressed the power switch, cutting off the call. If he saw she’d already dialed police, he might flip out and do something terrible.
“You have our phones now,” Stella said once Cadence had complied. “So let’s talk about this.”
He stooped to retrieve the phones, keeping the gun—and his eyes—trained on the psychic. “Fuck you and your talk.” His gaze flicked to Cadence. “That’s all it is, you know. Talk. She’s just a fraud who squeezes money out of you and then doesn’t deliver.”
“I’m sorry, Tom,” Stella said. “Sorry I couldn’t help you contact your wife.”
“I had to talk to her.” The gun waved to emphasize the words. “I had to find out what happened. I didn’t kill her, I know I didn’t. She was fine when I stormed out that night.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Stella said, and Cadence’s eyes widened. Good god, the man had killed his own wife? The two of them would surely be next.
“So what if we fought?” he replied. “You didn’t hear the shit she said. We struggled, I admit that. But she was still alive on the floor when I left. Someone else must have come along later. I left the door unlocked because I was angry. That must be how someone got in. It wasn’t me.” He shut his eyes, but the gun didn’t waver. “It wasn’t. And you screwed me over by lying about your abilities.”
“The dead don’t always want to be found,” Stella said. “I told you that.”
The wild eyes hardened. “Well isn’t that fantastic for her? She floats around paradise while the cops think I’m the one who did it.”
“But even if you talked to her again, it wouldn’t prove anything,” Cadence said. “A judge wouldn’t accept the word of a spirit from beyond.”
The gun shifted enough to bear straight at her chest. “It’d be enough for me.”
“Except it isn’t really the police who need convincing,” Stella said. “You don’t want to believe you could have hurt her that badly.”
“She was alive.”
“But there was internal bleeding?”
His nostrils flared. “In the brain, they said.” He stepped closer. “But I didn’t hit her head against the wall that hard.”
Cadence’s hand flew to her mouth. That poor woman, bashed into a wall by a man too insane to even see how wrong he was.
“Don’t you give me that look,” Tom said, glowering at her. “That look that says I’m guilty. I already said I didn’t do it.”
“None of this will bring her back,” Stella said. “And if you’re no killer, then pointing a gun at us won’t help your case with police.”
“There isn’t going to be any case. I’m not going to stick around to get locked up for something I didn’t do. But first you’re going to contact her, now, and she’s going to admit what really happened.”
“And if she doesn’t want to reveal herself?” Stella asked.
“You’d better hope she does.” He cocked the trigger with an ominous click. “You better do whatever mumbo jumbo gets her right here.” He used the muzzle to jab at the space in front of him. “You have two minutes or two bullets.”
Cadenced gasped and hugged herself. How was this happening to her? She’d felt insecure the moment she’d gotten off that train. She should have followed her instincts. She should have turned right back around and gone home.
“Now,” he spat. “The clock’s ticking.”
The women traded glances, and Cadence didn’t need to hear a word to see in Stella’s eyes that they’d already lost. Even if she could contact the dead, even if she could focus herself enough to reach out into the beyond, what wife in her right mind would show up at the behest of the husband who murdered her?
Maybe so it wouldn’t happen to someone else, she thought.
Cadence shut her eyes. Please help us, she thought, pulling up an image of Jorandil. Please materialize.
“One minute,” Tom said, taking a step forward.
“I need to concentrate,” Stella said, and this time, there was a thin, raspy tone that made it clear her calm was slipping. “Your countdown isn’t helping.”
“Come on in, Beatrice,” he called out toward the ceiling. “Don’t make me do something else we’ll both regret. You know what happens when you do these things. Face me now and nobody gets hurt.”
Cadence
gripped Stella’s hand, which was damp. Stella’s fingers quivered as she gave Cadence a squeeze.
“Guess she’s not coming,” he said, his expression darkening.
A flash lit up the room, and for a brief moment, Cadence thought Tom had fired his gun. A loud thud hit the floor, and all three in the room jumped back away from the middle. There, lying face down, was a man.
“What the hell?” Tom said, his face turning ashen.
With a groan, the man rose. He wore no shirt, just dark, clingy pants with matching boots. Powerful muscles flexed in his back and upper arms as he got to his feet. His hair flowed in a silvery cloud along his shoulders, and Cadence’s heart drummed at it. From behind, that hair could only belong to one man. But it couldn’t be him, not Jorandil. The being who had just been dumped into the middle of their crisis had no wings.
Stella squeezed her hand tighter. “It’s him,” she whispered.
“It can’t be,” Cadence whispered back.
When fully upright, the newcomer towered over Tom, who Cadence could only see by craning her neck around the other guy. His gun shook in his hand now, but it was pointed at the other man.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” Tom asked with a stutter. “Who are you?”
“Leave,” came the reply. “Now.”
That voice. Cadence stiffened. “Jorandil?”
The man’s head turned to the side a fraction, and even in profile, there was no doubt it was him. He had come back.
“Fuck you,” Tom said. “I have a gun that says who stays and who leaves.”
Jorandil stretched out an arm, but Tom took a step back, his eyes wide. “Stop.”
Jorandil kept coming.
Tom steadied his aim with the other hand and fired. The deafening pop roared through Cadence’s ears, and Jorandil’s body jerked as the bullet hit.
“No!” Cadence cried out.
Jorandil didn’t fall, however. He closed distance, yanked the gun from the man’s hand, and placed two fingers against the man’s forehead. Tom’s eyes rolled up, and then he dropped like a stone.
“Jorandil,” Cadence said. “Oh god, you’ve been shot.”
He turned toward her. Blood streamed down from a hole in his chest. With weary steps, he crossed part of the room, stopped, and put a hand out to grip the back of the same wing chair she had sat in earlier. He shut his eyes, his brow furrowing in apparent concentration that brought out beads of sweat. In moments, something shiny appeared in the middle of his wound. It backed out until she saw it was the bullet, silvery and flattened on both ends. He was pushing it out somehow. It hit the floor, but she was still staring at the wound, which was closing up. Soon, the blood streak was all that remained.
“What happened to you?” she asked. “They’re...gone.” Or had she been crazy after all? Maybe he never had any wings. Maybe she’d imagined it.
“I can see them,” Stella said, her voice reflecting the mirrors of awe in her gaze. “There’s an outline—an aura—around where they were.”
“I still feel them,” he said, obviously aware that she knew what she was talking about. “They tingle, and I still feel the heat and their weight.” He flexed his shoulders, and Stella nodded.
“I don’t see them,” Cadence said.
“They are here.” He held up the end of the pendant around his neck, and Cadence stepped closer. The pendant was a vial, and something was inside. She got close enough to feel his body’s warmth and peered inside the tiny, corked glass. The wings were tiny and fluttered like her lashes. She gasped.
“How?” she asked. “Why?”
“You have paid a great price to come back here for her,” Stella said. “Higher than you know.”
“You came back for me?” Cadence glanced up into his eyes, glittering in palest silver-blue, assessing her closely. Her heart skipped.
“I saw you were in danger.”
“You’ve been watching me?”
He shook his head. “The Fates showed me the grave trouble awaiting you. I could not let harm come to you because of me.”
She blinked. “This wasn’t your fault.”
“You came here to find me. So I bear the blame.”
She wanted to stroke his cheek, tell him it was all right. It was all she could do not to step forward and rest her head against his chest. He cared about her, he must. He wouldn’t have come to save her if he didn’t.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I second that,” Stella said. “What about Tom?”
Cadence threw a quick glance at the man still crumpled on the floor. “Is he...?”
“He’s not dead,” Stella replied. “But I’m wondering if he’ll wake soon.”
“Not until I release him from sleep,” Jorandil replied.
She’d almost been killed. A trembling began in Cadence’s limbs, first noticeable in her arms, but soon her entire body was shaking with violent tremors. “Oh, god,” she said. Her eyes blurred with the fast rise of moisture, and she tried to blink it away. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He gathered her in his arms, pressing her to his chest just as she’d wanted him to do again since the moment they’d parted. The quivering increased, tears fell, and part of her felt as though she would come apart. She might fall to the floor too, collapsing under the weight of realization. She had narrowly escaped death, rescued by the man she had been seeking. Her guardian angel.
His warmth surrounded her, not just the considerable heat from his muscled body, but an energy that infused her being. Her tears dried, the shaking ceased, and she slid her hands around his back, pulling him closer. His power drove deep, stirring something in her belly, and just that fast, her thoughts shifted direction to something far more erotic and pleasant than the truth of what had just happened. She was aware of Stella still standing nearby, so she did not give in to the urge to slide her hands lower and lift her face to his.
Such an immediate reaction she had to him. Did he feel it too?
Spreading her hands around his taut muscles and squeezing him gave her an intriguing answer. His grip also tightened, and with no space between their bodies now, she felt a twitch from his cock that made it clear he had missed her too. Her hands roamed upward, seeking the spot where his wings had been. There were lumps there, but they were only shoulder blades. Nothing suggested that he was now, or ever had been, an angel, except for the power that radiated from him.
Tipping her head back let her gaze into his eyes, and he took advantage. He leaned close, slowly, and brushed her lips with his. A flood of emotion and longing crashed into her, and she swayed off-balance.
He released his hold and cleared his throat, taking a small, but significant step back. “I’m sorry.”
When she glanced up, there was a glimmer in his eyes that mirrored his regret. Sorry for what? Kissing her? Sleeping with her in the first place?
If they had been alone, she might have drummed up the courage to ask. She swallowed hard and folded her arms. A glance at Stella revealed yet another curious expression. There was an awe there that was unsurprising, all things considered, but a darker current flowed beneath. Concern. Or Fear.
“What’s wrong?” Cadence asked, thinking she was more prepared to hear an answer from the psychic than from the angel beside her.
Stella gave a slow shake of her head. “Something bad.”
“It’s over now,” Cadence said. “We’ll just need to come up with a story for police. They’ll jail Tom and he won’t ever try to hurt you again.”
“He will not,” Jorandil said. “It was not only consciousness that I took from him. When he wakes, he will no longer remember what he did or the rage that consumed him.”
Cadence’s mouth fell open. “You can do that? Take someone’s memories? Their feelings?”
He looked at her. “Is that what you want?”
She jerked backward. How could he honestly think she wanted to be rid of thoughts of their night together? “Of course not. Do
you?”
He blinked, seeming surprised by her reaction.
“They do not normally remember,” he said. “Nor even feel. Not their part in the ritual. Not me. None of it.”
They eyed one another, and she felt a small wrenching in her stomach at the mention of “they”. She knew who he meant. Others before her. Others who would come after. Women he had slept with and left behind, just as he had done with her. Except she was an anomaly, apparently. An inconvenient fact.
Heat washed up from her gut. “And you’d rather I be more like the rest, is that it? You’re sorry I remembered you.”
“That is not what I said.”
She closed the gap between them. “Is that why you really came here?” Her voice went up, both in volume and tone. “To erase my memory?”
He stared down at her. “I told you. I came to spare you harm from the man who would have shot you.”
“You two,” Stella began, but no one paid attention.
“Why bother, if my remembering what we did together is such a problem?” Cadence asked.
“Guys,” Stella said.
He took her by the arms. “What we did is not the problem. I am the problem. I am a god of the sabbat, sworn to carry out a duty to safeguard our worlds. Few humans even know life exists outside their own realm. Normally, you would have awakened from your Beltane sleep thinking our ritual nothing but a dream. One you would have soon forgotten except in your deepest subconscious.”
“Jorandil,” Stella said in a stern tone that finally got their notice. They glanced over to find her staring elsewhere in the room. She nodded that direction. “Friends of yours?”
They spun around, and Cadence gasped.
Three women made largely out of some kind of inky, viscous mist floated in the room, their hair wild and flowing, their eyes black and yet seeing much. Seeing everything, Cadence thought.
“Son of Herne,” their voices said in a tandem that echoed through the inside of her head. “You have done a foolhardy thing indeed.”
He took a step that was more of a slight shift, placing himself partially between the floating creatures and Cadence. “I did what was necessary because you would not.”
Jorandil: God of Beltane (Sons of Herne, #4) Page 7
