I felt my eyes go round.
He laughed softly, his gaze appreciating my naivety a little too vigorously.
I nodded, accepting the fact that people hadn’t often found my gullibility humorous. My dads said it made me adorable. I disagreed. “That was mean. After everything I’ve seen lately, a shapeshifting truck is well within the realm of possibilities.”
We sat idling for a solid thirty seconds before I raised a questioning brow.
“Seatbelts,” he commanded.
“Oh.” We scrambled to get them on while then I gave him the address. He knew the area.
Annette crossed her arms over her chest. “I still can’t believe you went on a mission and almost got killed without me.”
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“That’s so incredibly lame.”
Brutal honestly had never been an obstacle for her.
The question of how Roane knew where to find me hadn’t even occurred to me until that moment. “Did Percy tell you?” I asked him.
“Tell me what?”
“Where to find me?”
“He was there, too?” Annette asked, now thoroughly miffed.
I smiled. “In wolf form.”
Roane cast us a sideways glance, then another when we both gazed at him dreamily. “No, I was . . . already out.”
Annette gasped. “Running with your pack?”
“Something like that.”
“Wait.” A thought occurred to me. “Do you have, like, a wolf mate?”
One corner of his sculpted mouth slid up. “Jealous?”
I snorted. “No. Maybe. How’s her hair?”
“Furry. And, no. I do not have a wolf mate.”
Relief flooded my chest cavity. I would never be a homewrecker. Or a den-wrecker as it were. Either way. I sucked in a soft breath when something else occurred to me. I turned to Annette and whispered, “I wonder if he can have cubs.”
She pointed at me and nodded.
“Wolf,” he said, reminding us. “Excellent hearing.”
Wincing, I shut up as he turned onto a side road.
“It’s just up here.”
I felt it before we stopped. Cold. Pain. Fear.
Roane pulled onto a dirt drive. It was so dark, the narrow column of foliage seemed to go on forever, but a few seconds later, we pulled up to a rustic house.
I didn’t wait. I unbuckled my belt and was over Annette and out the door before he’d stopped completely.
“Defiance!” she yelled.
But I took off, tripping on the uneven ground as I went. After fumbling with my phone, I finally managed to get my light on and held it out as I followed the pain. It stole my breath.
“Defiance,” Roane said, following behind me. He caught up easily, took my arm, and pushed me behind him. “I smell blood.”
“Oh, my God. He’s hurt.”
We eased around an old detached garage that had probably been a barn at one time. An old muscle car sat out back next to with a small crane that lifts engines.
“Can you see?” I asked him.
“Everything,” he said.
“That’s so cool.” Annette joined us in the dark.
I took her hand. We stole around the car, and there he was, Mr. Leonard Quinn, lying unconscious on the ground with a seven-hundred-pound engine on his leg.
I rushed over and knelt beside him. He was unconscious. “Mr. Quinn?”
His eyelashes fluttered open. Though his cinnamon hair was indeed thinning, he was much younger than I thought he would be. Stocky with a boyish face, he was maybe in his late thirties.
I quickly assessed the scene around me as Roane examined the motor. The chain on the small lift had broken and somehow the motor had ended up on top of him. I could see by the disturbed ground on his left that he’d struggled, possibly for hours, to get to a phone that lay nearby, a phone just out of his reach. It must have been beyond frustrating.
I pointed. “Annette, his phone.”
She took her hand from her mouth, grabbed the phone, and handed it to me, then took out her own phone, and said, “I’m dialing 9-1-1.”
“Thank you. Mr. Quinn, can you talk?” I took his icy hand in mine.
He smiled, clearly in shock. “I knew an angel would come for me, but I had no idea she would look like you. Makes it . . . all worthwhile.” His voice was hoarse. It had to be from the cold or from the fact that he’d probably been yelling for help for hours.
After pocketing his phone, I wrapped both of my hands around his. “Sadly, I’m no angel. How long have you been here?”
“I—I’m not certain. What time is it?”
“It’s a little after four in the morning.”
“Then a long freaking time. I’d only been . . . been working a couple of hours when this happened. Maybe . . . maybe ten?”
“This morning?” I asked, shocked.
He nodded.
I was amazed he was even still alive.
“First responders are on the way,” Annette said, getting on the ground. She knelt beside me.
“I was rebuilding my motor.” He pointed to the massive hunk of metal on his leg.
“I can lift it off him.” Roane kept his voice low. “I can lift it off him, but I don’t know the extent of the damage. This could be the only thing keeping him from bleeding to death.”
“I can see that.” I nodded to him, then spoke to the backyard mechanic as his lashes drifted shut. “Leonard—”
“Leo,” he corrected, blinking back to me.
“Leo, stay with me, okay? Can you stay awake until rescue gets here?”
“As long as I get to look at you I can.”
Having given up on lifting the motor off him safely, Roane knelt on Leo’s other side.
Annette brushed a lock of hair off his brow, fibers from her fingerless gloves grazing his nose.
He reached up and rubbed it. The fact that he had the strength to move at all was a good sign.
“We need to cover him,” she said.
He glanced up at her. “Wow. Two angels for the price of one. This must be my lucky day.” He flashed a nuclear grin.
She offered him her best grin in return. “Damn straight it is. Can I get into your house? Grab some blankets?”
“Are you trying to get in my bed?”
“You’re feisty,” I said, trying not to giggle. That was a good sign too.
A thought seemed to hit him. He tried to rise but sucked in a sharp breath of air through his teeth and laid back.
“What is it?”
“Work. I was supposed to be to work at three. I need to call in.”
“How about I call for you tomorrow?”
He answered, but his words were garbled.
“We need to cover him,” Annette repeated, worry lining her face. “We need to get him warm.”
“Isn’t there a thing about warming someone too fast if they have with hypothermia too fast?”
“Yes, but it’s just blankets. I don’t think he’ll—” She stopped herself, but I could imagine what she was going to say. She didn’t think he would survive much longer.
“What’s that?” I pointed into the trees that acted as a barrier between Leo’s house and his neighbor’s.
Annette looked over while I raised two fingers and summoned the spell for warmth.
The symbol I drew sparked to life, light exploding out of the lines to draw heat from above and below. Not a lot. Just a steady flow to keep the cold at bay.
“Wow,” he said, gazing up at me. “How did you do that? Are you really an angel?”
Annette gaped at me.
My gaze shot to Roane’s. Only powerful witches, supernatural beings, and a segment of the population with certain mental illnesses could see the light from my spells. The everyday mundane could not. Leo Quinn just got a lot more interesting.
Annette continued to gape. “You did a spell and tried to hide it from me.”
“Did not,” I said, throwing in my be
st scoff for good measure. I’d bought it in a little shop in Sedona, so I knew it was good. They sold quality stuff there.
“You totally did too.”
“I totally did not.”
“Are her spells like staring at the sun?” Leo asked, not helping at all.
She glowered at me. “They are exactly like that. Well”—she looked down at him—“to certain people, they are. Say, you’re not a homicidal maniac, are you?”
The last guy who could see one of my spells had tried to kill us, so her question was legit if not poorly timed.
He laughed softly then coughed, the act causing pain instantly. He bit down and threw back his head.
I twirled a finger out of nosy britches line of sight. Just a little spell to ease the pain a bit. His blood pressure had to be either dangerously high or dangerously low. It could go either way.
He relaxed and tried to go to sleep on us.
To keep him awake, Annette launched into started telling him a monologue of stories of her childhood—no idea why—when a police cruiser pulled up, followed by fire and rescue and an ambulance.
“You ordered the whole cavalry,” I said to her.
“Yes, I did.”
It took them a while to tourniquet his leg, get the motor back on the chain, and lift it off him.
Roane helped with that, making sure the cold metal didn’t break again. His muscles bulged in places I didn’t know they could bulge, like this one muscle behind his biceps that looked really handy if he should ever need to support a woman’s weight while . . . helping her change a lightbulb . . . and it took a lot not to drool.
“He wouldn’t have lived much longer,” an EMT told me after they got Leo loaded. “I can’t believe you found him.”
“That’s her specialty,” the chief said, walking up and shaking his head. “Didn’t I just drop you off?”
“You did,” I said. “But there was a glowing message and then Percy wouldn’t let me out so I had to sneak down to the cave and follow the water out then he almost caught me when I tried to get in the bug but Roane and Annette showed up and I’m pretty sure I dented Roane’s truck.” I looked at him. “My bad.”
The chief just shook his head. “How about you go get some rest and try to stay home for a few hours. Let me catch up with my paperwork.”
“You got it, Chief. Can we ride with Leo to the hospital?” It felt wonderful. Doing good. Saving a life. I felt much like the EMTs must have and only a little guilty that I didn’t listen to the glowy thing sooner.
“Yeah,” Annette said. “Make sure he’s okay.”
“We’ve got room for one,” the EMT closest to us said.
Annette deflated. “You go then. Do your non-existent magic on him if you need to.”
I did a tiny sample of my non-existent magic, twirling my fingers behind my back, and the EMT said, “You know what? We can fit you both. Hop in.”
She clapped her gloved hands, her curly hair bouncing with joy, and climbed inside. With some help. Her legs were not what one would call lengthy.
I looked at Roane. “We’ll, um, meet you back at the house?”
He leveled a knowing smirk on me, which was so much more than the average smirk, because it was filled with, well, knowing. Appreciation. A little come-hither to soften the edges. And a shimmering dose of desire that shot straight to my nethers. He nodded and watched as I, too, tried to climb into the ambulance. So much harder than it looked on TV.
“What are you?” As we drove to the hospital, Leo looked over his oxygen mask, and asked, “What are you?”
I leaned forward and whispered, “The real question is, what are you?”
Eleven
Some days even the devil sits back
and admires my work.
-Meme
It was almost eight in the morning when we got home. Hopefully, Roane was sleeping, but I knew Ruthie would be up. I marched straight down the basement stairs and knocked on her door to tell on Percy.
Annette followed, only to tell on me instead.
Ruthie was dressed in her usual angelic gauze dress, this one a soft gold with midnight blue edging.
We sat at the high table in her arts and crafts room. It was only then I realized there were a couple of doors in the room, and I wondered if one was a bedroom. Surely, she slept. Unless she really was a zombie.
For a moment, I thought I heard a soft whimper come from one of the rooms, but Ruthie didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she made tea and insisted on the low down.
And the lowdown she would get. “First, he wouldn’t let me do a spell to unlock the bar on the basement window.”
“Which I wouldn’t know about,” Annette said, “because someone went without her sidekick. And I thought you lost your powers.”
Busted. “I was trying to get them back, and Percy blocked me.”
“Sweetheart”—Ruthie placed her cup in her saucer just so—“Percy can’t possibly block your magics. You’re simply too powerful. Was it iron?”
“Iron? I have no idea. Why?”
“Witches can’t manipulate anything with a lot of iron in it.”
“Like that iron bar,” Annette said “Not that I would know since I wasn’t there.”
“I just assumed with your charmling status,” Ruthie continued, “that rule wouldn’t apply to you.” She bowed her head in thought. “Interesting.”
Annette and I looked at each other. “Did you know about the iron thing?” I asked her. She was much more knowledgeable about all things witchery than I was.
She put down her cup. “Yes and no. I mean, there are a ton of myths surrounding different metals with different preternatural beings.”
“Like werewolves and silver,” I said.
We exchanged glances again.
Her gray irises glistened. “You totally have to test Roane.”
“Yeah, but I can’t shoot him with a silver bullet. That just seems wrong after everything he’s done for us.”
Annette nodded. “Okay, well, how about stabbing him with a silver letter opener?”
“Oh, hey, that might do it.”
“Like just a little poke. Don’t go in all the way.”
“That’s what she said.” My BFF so walked into that.
We burst out laughing. And at some point in the conversation, I realized I was delirious with all the adrenaline dumps and a general lack of sleep. I needed to state my case quickly and find my bed. So, back to the complaining. “Second,” I said, “he tried to stop me from leaving the house. That’s called false imprisonment, by the way, and it’s illegal.” I glared at Percy, wherever he may be.
Ruthie laughed softly. “I believe he was doing what he does best.”
“Kidnapping?”
“Trying to keep you out of harm’s way.”
“Ruthie, I am not a child.”
“Then act like it,” she said, seeming to get irked herself.
“Wow,” I said, taken aback. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“You should never have left this house alone if you knew it could be dangerous. You are not immortal, Defiance.”
“It was late.” I regurgitated the same excuse I’d been using all night. “I didn’t want to wake anyone. How could I have known it would be dangerous?” And what kind of tea had she made because I was feeling a bit woozy.
“Your magics will guide you in all things. You must learn to trust them.”
“Well, it was still late. Percy didn’t have a right to wake people up on my account.”
She wasn’t buying it. “Do you know why Roane is here?”
“Because I turned him into a shapeshifter so he could escape his murderous father?”
“No, after that.”
“Because he ran away from home, and you found him?”
“No. I found him for the same reason he’s here.”
“Is this spiked?” I pointed to the tea, getting sleepier.
“He’s here to protect you, Defiance. That is literally
his job.”
“I thought his job was to fix Percy’s pipes?”
“That sounded so kinky.” Annette giggled.
I giggled, too, and felt more than a little loopy. “Is there something in this tea?” I asked again.
“Of course not,” Ruthie said. “It’s just chamomile.
“You dosed me?” I asked, appalled.
Her expression flatlined. “You haven’t slept, and you used your powers.”
“I knew it!” Annette said.
“Naturally, you’re going to feel a little woozy.”
“I don’t have any powers,” I insisted, stubborn to the bitter end as my dads would say. “So, you pay Roane to stick by my side?”
“Yes. Well, no. That’s not what I meant.”
“He’s a gigolo?” I asked, double appalled this time.
Annette rested her head on her arm. “Have you guys done it already?” Her words were slurred.
And I was the lightweight. Either chamomile worked way better than I thought, or Ruthie had tossed in a little rum for good measure. Except, usually, my BFF could drink me under the table. I would have to talk to Percy about him waking everyone up for no reason. It was taking a toll.
“Deph.” Nette looked up from her arm and made a crude gesture.
“No, we haven’t done it.”
“Then he’s not a very good gigolo.”
“Ha!” I laid my arm across the table, too, rested my head on it, facing her, and whispered, “He’s spectacular.”
That hit her like a shot of espresso. She jerked upright. “You did him?”
I straightened, too, only slower. “Not exactly. More like he did me.”
“I probably shouldn’t hear this,” Ruthie said, then stayed right where she was and listened intently.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Annette draped her body over the table again. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.” Her last words faded out as her eyes drifted shut.
“For real, Ruthie, did you dose her?”
“Defiance, a lady never doses unless that lady intends to kill, and she’d better have a very good reason.”
“Good to know.” I started to take another sip then thought better of it. Still, the allure of sleep called to me. My eyelids felt thick and scratchy.
Ruthie cleared her throat and asked from behind her cup. “How was Houston?”
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