“No one bothered us before you started screwing her,” she hissed at him.
“But now the secret’s out,” he said. “All those other witch-people will turn on their twin-dar or whatever. I think we should stay here where we’re safe—relatively—and figure out what the hell we are.”
The bizarreness of their situation kept hitting her; she was beginning to feel like a punching bag. “So, if we do stay, what about the real world? Do we just drop off the face of the planet?”
“No one will miss me. You’re a different story. You actually have a life.” He didn’t sound bitter the way he usually did. He was excited. This was a battle, maybe a war. What he once had lived for.
She stopped walking. When she turned around, Marica beamed at Colin and Leo smiled at her. The smug bastards already knew.
“Thank you,” Leo said.
“Whatever. I need a phone,” Bridget said. “And some peace and quiet so I can make some private calls.”
Damn it.
CHAPTER FIVE
Magic could actually be pretty awesome.
Leo had added a “push” to her phone calls and everyone she’d talked to—landlords, her employer, and Jack Stone—had accepted her news that she was taking time off without asking even a single question. She hadn’t even had to lie.
Then Leo and Marica had escorted Colin and her to a lower level of their base, and Leo had conjured a balcony overlooking the ocean, beneath a serene night sky filled with stars. In reality, there was no ocean, just more concrete bunker, but she supposed that for people—witches—who could grow back eyes and legs, an ocean was a cinch. At a table for two, the Flynns savored a steak dinner. There was red wine for Bridget and beer for Colin. Marica and Leo were nowhere to be seen, and Bridget could see how relieved Colin was. She did not let herself wonder if Leo was married.
While she and Colin had eaten, Leo had cleared out a space to serve as their training facility, which could also double as Bridget’s karate dojo. Then sky and ocean had had to go, because all magic spells took energy, and Leo told her that the Amayas were threatening to declare war. A declaration of war would bring in allies on both sides.
“We anticipated that,” he concluded, then gave her a karate uniform—a gi—and a padded dummy to smack around. For someone who was about to go to war, he seemed awfully calm.
Palm strikes, side kicks, jump kicks. Breathing, feeling her energy deep in her abdomen. Becoming a weapon. She tried to still her monkey brain as panic threatened to overtake her. She kept listening for more explosions, for an invasion. This was not her life, her world. What would have happened if she hadn’t gone to Shadow Island?
She tried to work out her anger and her fear. In her mind’s eye, she kept seeing Xavier, and the fire, and the dead things in the cemetery. And she shook.
She worked herself into a state of exhaustion, but she was still unable to shut down. She went into the shower room and tore off her gi. She turned the water on very hot, remembering as she stepped in that there had been a bathrobe on the outside of the door, and she had neglected to snag it.
She was too tired to get back out. Eyes closed, she leaned naked against the back of an elegant granite shower enclosure and let the hot water sluice over her. Her mind began to race again, but she tried to push everything away. But the questions finally won and she let them parade through her consciousness. How many people were here in this bunker? Could they all use magic? Were the Amayas really the bad guys?
What would a witch war be like?
Where was Xavier now? There must be an afterlife. She had always wondered if someday she would see her parents again—her mother had died when she and Colin were babies, their father when they were twenty-one. Had they known their children had some kind of magic powers? Had they had them, too?
There was someone in the room. She could feel a presence, and she opened her eyes and slid her glance to the side, peering through the steam and conden-sation on the glass door. She half-expected Leo—or did she hope it would be him?
A pale, ghostly figure seemed to hang in the air. Human-shaped, it hovered about six inches off the ground. Something magical, she tried to tell herself, but her mind screamed ghost.
She slid open the door and faced it squarely, fists up. Chills ran down her spine and despite all her years of training, she lost her fighter’s stance as her hands came slowly down.
Dark eyes blinked at her in a bone-white face.
Xavier’s eyes.
He was looking straight at her, but they looked dead, unfocused. He seemed even more lifeless than after he had died in her arms, if that made any sense.
She licked her lips and raised her fists back up. She tried to speak but no sound came out.
“Get out.” His voice was hollow, lifeless. “Danger.”
She didn’t try to speak again. She just stepped out of the shower and attempted to inch around him. But the bathroom was too small and as she brushed near him, her skin burned as if she’d touched dry ice.
She grabbed the thick white towel off the towel rack and retreated back to the shower stall. As she wrapped the towel around herself, she put as much distance between Xavier and herself as she could, inching into the back corner. She heard the dripping of water and the thundering of her heart.
“Why am I in danger?” she forced out.
He didn’t speak. She was about to repeat the question when he said, “Kill you.”
Her face prickled as she sucked in a breath. She was way past scared.
“Who?” she asked.
He was silent. He simply floated in the air, looking at her without seeing her or so it seemed. She thought about yelling for Leo, or even pushing Xavier out of her way, as she had the dead people in the graveyard. Marica had told her Xavier wouldn’t be able to leave the cemetery. Had she lied? Or was she wrong?
“Who will try to kill me?” she asked impatiently. “You, Xavier?”
This time the answer came faster.
“Them.”
“The Caracols?”
He didn’t react.
“Listen, I’m sorry for what happened to you. I didn’t do it. Please tell them that. Tell your family. Tell them I’m here and if they keep attacking, I might get hurt.”
He still made no response.
“I tried to save you,” she insisted.
He took a step toward her. She jerked hard. When he had leaped into the fire, she thought she’d been as terrified as she could ever get. Then the zombies had come. But this was a whole new level of fright. She wished she could scream or do something—anything—to make him disappear. But she wanted him to tell his family that she was an innocent in all of this, if he could. And if he believed her.
He didn’t move again. He hung suspended, as before, only closer. His eyes were so black the sockets looked empty.
The air in the bathroom began to cool. She shivered. Then it grew so cold that she could see her breath. Tossing modesty out the window, she hastily dried herself off as best she could. Then she took a step toward Xavier. The cold surrounding him was unbearable, and she moved back.
“Let me get out of here,” she said. “I didn’t hurt you. I didn’t do anything to you.”
She tried to pass him again, and this time she got so cold she was afraid her bones would crack. All she could think of to do was shut the shower door.
The temperature kept plummeting. Ice crystals formed on the glass. Shaking, she slid down the wall to the base of the shower, woozy, losing focus.
“Please,” she said, but she didn’t hear herself. The room was a blur of white. All she could see were his eyes, steady, unblinking.
I wish to live, she thought. Colin, find me. Find me.
And words and thoughts and even fears slid away from her. There was warmth in the blackness settling around her and she responded to it like an animal, burrowing deeply into it. At some level she knew she was freezing to death.
Then Leo Caracol’s face—not Colin’s—rose in her
mind like a beacon. Even though she wanted to sleep, she saw herself going to him. Opening her eyes. Getting on her hands and knees. Going forward.
Getting close to Xavier Amaya’s ghost.
Branded by cold. Everything burned.
Going through his ghost.
Screaming.
*
Then she was staring into the face of a zombie, about to let out a shriek, when it held up a glow-in-the-dark bag and shouted, “Trick or treat!”
She was wearing her black tank top and cropped khaki pants, and she was standing in the doorway of her condo. The room behind her was packed with people in costumes. “Fog” from the machine she’d bought at the party supply store was trailing over her bare feet. And Dr. Kool, her DJ, was spinning Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
“It was some weird dream,” she said in a rush. The zombie was confused. She let out a laugh and reached out a hand to the huge bowl of candy she’d put out before she’d left. He really was too old to be ringing doorbells in search of sugar. “Take as much as you want.”
“Whoa, sick,” he said appreciatively, and turned on his heel.
Bemused, she shut the door and turned. Jack Stone was there, beer in hand. He didn’t have on a costume, just a white T-shirt and low-slung jeans that clung to all the right places. His light brown hair was tousled. She loved the freckles across his nose, always had. She had still never kissed those freckles, even though she’d fantasized about it a hell of a lot.
“I’ve had the weirdest night,” she said. He held out the beer to her, and she took a sip. “I didn’t call you earlier, did I? Tell you that I was taking off for a while?”
“Is that a trick question?” he asked, his Texas drawl more pronounced than usual. His grin was loopy, tipsy. “A trick-or-treat question?”
“Is Colin here? Did he bring a date? Dark-haired?”
“Nope.” He held the beer up to her again, and she shook her head.
“What time is it?”
She saw the watch on his wrist and held it up. Five minutes to midnight. It hadn’t happened. None of it.
“Oh, my God,” she cried, and she threw her arms around him. “This is amazing! This is great! It must have been the orange juice!”
“Yeah,” he said, crushing his mouth down on hers. He wrapped his free arm around her back and eased her lips apart with his tongue. Delicious skyrockets of pleasure shot through her and she responded, giving as good as she was getting, which was better than she’d ever dreamed. Jack was a great kisser.
She laughed with sheer relief and bounced on the soles of her feet. It hadn’t happened. None of it.
“Nice to see you too,” he said. He pressed the tip of his nose against hers and set his cup of beer on her breakfast bar. “So, I’m wondering. Does this mean you want to give it another shot?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”
She kissed him again, full bore, and he threw himself into it, body and soul. It was the best kiss she had ever had in her entire life, and it blew the top of her head off.
“This so beats freezing to death in a shower in a bunker,” she said, and then he was carrying her into the bedroom just like a cowboy. Clothes flew off and Jack flew in and it was the best it had ever been. Fingers and lips kissed and licked and caressed and entered; she was nothing but a huge, rolling orgasm and then another and then it was Jack’s turn and then she had another. It was a record. It was off the charts.
Finally she was spent. She flopped over on her back and moaned with delight. “Jack, I had the weirdest dream.”
He looked at her and light glimmered in his eyes and then somehow, she knew.
She rolled back over and slapped him.
They were not in her room. There was no party outside her door. Leo Caracol was lying beside her among black satin sheets in an enormous, ornate golden bed. And both of them were naked.
And they’d been having sex.
Bridget was sorry she hadn’t put her full strength into that slap.
“I did it to save your life,” he said. “You were dying. Frozen.”
Her fury and disappointment were almost too great to bear. With as much dignity as she could muster, she wrapped the end of the sheet around herself and slid out of the bed. He made no effort to stop her. His mission had been accomplished, she supposed.
“I tried to give you your fantasy,” he continued. “To give you as much pleasure as possible.”
She kept wrapping the sheet around herself, which would soon leave him naked. A metaphor for her current situation if there ever was one.
“Jack Stone is not my fantasy.” As if she cared what Leo thought.
He was silent. Then he said, “I didn’t create a fantasy of Jack Stone for you. I have no idea who that is. I used Robert Downey, Jr. You must have rejected him, and replaced him with this Jack. Your perfect fantasy.” He cracked a small smile, then let it go when she didn’t smile back.
“Xavier’s ghost came into the bathroom,” she said. Then she added a bit daringly, “To warn me.”
He shook his head. His forehead was beaded with perspiration and the muscles of his arms were slick. His sculpted chest was sprinkled with hair. She caught herself following the curve of the sheet over his butt and looked away. She felt the good soreness between her legs that was the afterglow of a marathon sexual encounter. She didn’t remember doing it with him, and she was incensed. Mortified.
“This is Samhain. There is no Xavier left, only a shade,” he said. “A phantom, desperate to feel life again. Warmth. So it took yours. It would have killed you.”
No, she thought, but something told her to keep the details of the ghost’s visit to herself. Let him think what he chose to. All the Caracols had done was lie and manipulate people—first Xavier, then Colin, then her.
“We need to check on my brother.”
“He should be all right.”
“He’s not safe here,” she countered. “Neither one of us is.”
He frowned as if she had personally insulted him. Men. She looked around for something to wear and saw a black silk bathrobe. How convenient. And there were her clothes neatly folded, with her fanny pack on top.
The bathrobe was closer. As she slipped it on, she watched him debating with himself. Finally he swung sinewy, long legs over the side of the bed. She turned her head. Weirdly, even though she had probably seen him naked, she didn’t remember it. There was a lull, and when she looked again, he was wearing a black bathrobe like her own.
“No one has ever been able to penetrate our defenses like that,” he said. “Not those explosions, or that shade. Maybe it’s your power. It could be you’re breaking down the barriers because you don’t want to be here.”
“Of course I don’t,” she said savagely, humiliated by all the climaxes she had reached in his arms. Despising him for slipping her the magical equivalent of a date-rape drug. “But if that’s all it takes to break your barriers, then they’re pretty flaccid.”
He didn’t take offense. He looked very worried. A shiver ran through her. From fire into ice—the world of these “Favored” didn’t seem like a fortunate place to be. It was violent and dangerous. She was going to learn how to protect herself as fast as she could, and then if anyone tried to mess with Colin or her she was going to kick their ass.
She crossed to her fanny pack and turned on her phone. She knew he could make it work underground.
“I want to speak to Colin,” she said. “If you’ve done anything to him…”
“I haven’t touched him. I swear it,” Leo said, and she didn’t know if he was trying to be funny. He gestured to the phone. “Please. Call.”
Colin answered on the first ring. His voice was muffled, and she heard a woman’s laughter in the background.
“Yo, sis,” he said. “What’s up?”
Oh, my God, they’re having sex. She rolled her eyes. This was not the time. He was such a dog.
“I was attacked by Xavier’s ghost,” she said. “I nearly
died.”
“Jesus!” he cried. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay now. Leo...dealt with it. I’m coming to your room. Where are you?”
There was a beat. Then he said, “Um, not a good time, okay? Later?”
She was thunderstruck. “You did hear the part where I almost died, right?”
“Yeah, um, well.”
“Did you lose your keys?” she asked, dropping her voice. That was their code for when he was in a tight spot and couldn’t talk.
“In a way.” Another beat. “You’re okay now, right?”
He was blowing her off. She couldn’t believe it. Their situation was unbelievable and he was sleeping with the enemy.
“Call me later,” she ordered him. “As soon as you can.” She hung up in a fury.
“Would you take me to my room?” she asked Leo. “I don’t know the way.”
“I think you’ll be safer with me,” Leo said.
She raised her chin and looked at him stonily. “And yet.”
He paused, and then he inclined his head. “Of course.”
Masking her soreness, she picked up her clothes and walked across the room, forcing him to follow after in order to make a point. When they reached the door, he moved around her, and went first, making his own point, she supposed. Although he’d probably saved her life, she wasn’t going to allow herself to feel beholden to him, ever. It was as much the fault of his House as the Amayas that she was here, and that she’d nearly died. They could have their sphere and their war. It had nothing to do with Colin and her.
As he led her down the passageway, she kept looking back over her shoulder. She was spooked. She looked for phantoms floating in the shadows. Then as she turned face-front again, she thought she saw Xavier floating in front of Leo. Without thinking, she stretched out her hand toward her escort, to warn him.
And Leo went flying as if he weighed nothing and she had carelessly tossed him out of her way. Colors wobbled around him and then he smashed against the wall, sliding down onto to the floor the way she had in the shower.
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