“Root beer.”
“Organic.” He lifted his bottle so she could see.
Her mouth twitched. “Yes, thank you. I would love toast and root beer.”
In the kitchen he discovered he was out of butter, which was bad but not a disaster. But when he opened the bread to take out a couple of slices, a cloud of green dust wafted out of the plastic. The rest of the fridge was empty except for the root beer, which he happened to know was still drinkable. He brought her a bottle and when she took it from him, he said, “I decided it would be better if I ordered a pizza or something. Unless you want Chinese.”
She looked down the mouth of her bottle of root beer. “Pizza’s good.”
“Or Indian. I know a good place that delivers.”
“Pizza is fine.”
Iskander ran his fingers through his hair again. He pulled out his phone, but didn’t call out. Did she expect him to sit here in his own house being polite and good and sane when she knew he wanted her flat on her back with him on top? To start.
He needed to get a grip, and it wasn’t easy when he was thinking that if he were normal or Kynan Aijan, he’d know what she was here for and it wouldn’t be for any goddamned pizza.
“I guess I should call Nikodemus.”
She gazed at him and didn’t say a word and the silence and the fact that he didn’t know what she was thinking got him seriously bent. “Christophe has located a boy.” She frowned. “Not his own, but I’m sure this one passed his test. He can’t be any older than four or five.”
That about took the planet out from under his feet. “Shit.”
“I don’t know whose child it is. He’s hiding him someplace in the city for now, I don’t know where yet. From what my sources tell me, he’s getting his documents in order so there are no legal questions.”
He grimaced but opened his phone and punched one of his speed dials. The assassin answered the phone on the second ring. Iskander resisted the temptation to tell Durian he was an asshole and instead gave him Maddy’s news.
On the other end of the conversation, Durian cursed softly, and Iskander got the feeling his information wasn’t unexpected and that pissed him off. That was something the magekind did that he just didn’t understand. Take a kid before his magic sets in and over time, block off the magic so the child could never use it. The mage could, though. The kids never lived much past twenty-five or -six. The drugs needed to block off the magic were eventually fatal. Magellan had done that to Carson. And now Christophe was going to do the same to some other human child.
He disconnected the call when there wasn’t anything more to say, and there he was. Staring at Maddy again.
“Maddy.” He forced himself to let go of his hair and take a step toward the couch. “Why are you here?”
“I told you.” She blinked at him with her big black eyes. Her shirt was white with skinny green stripes and he couldn’t stop thinking about unfastening all the rest of those little buttons. She had a body to make a man cry, and he was fully grown, damn it all.
“You want to talk about dit Menart and some sick plan to kill all the magekind around here until he’s the only one left?”
“Mm.” Some of her black, black hair fell over her shoulder when she shook her head. “Is Harsh coming back anytime soon?” At one time, Harsh had been Fen’s lover and so, of course, his too. When Fen betrayed him to the mage Rasmus Kessler, she’d betrayed them both. Until Nikodemus and Carson came along, Harsh had been Kessler’s mageheld. Iskander had just been insane. Now Harsh, like Iskander, was sworn to Nikodemus. Harsh was traveling the world for Nikodemus, contacting the remaining warlords and even, if you listened to rumor, some of the magekind. He didn’t envy Harsh that job.
“Still in Mexico.” He didn’t know what the fuck to do. The small talk was killing him.
Maddy looked up. “You know what?”
“What?” He looked down. She’d given him the cold shoulder or just plain misunderstood him so many times he wasn’t going to assume a damn thing.
“I don’t want to talk about magehelds right now,” she said.
“Football?”
“Iskander,” she said. “Really.” She put down her root beer and walked over to him. Without her high-heeled pumps on she was a lot shorter than he was. She stopped about six inches from him, past the point where a normal person would have stopped.
He gathered some of her hair in his fingers. Thick, silky strands the color of onyx. And her skin was silky, lovely, brown. Nothing at all like Fen’s pale skin and red hair. He was sad that, at a time like this, he was still thinking of Fen.
“All right then. Why me?” he managed to ask.
She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. “Why not you?”
“You know I’m fucked up.” He made a fist with the hand that wasn’t still holding his phone, trapping her hair in his fingers, and she had to take a step toward him. Her hands ended up on his chest, and she didn’t try to free her hair, either. “Why me when you’re all fucked up over Kynan? And he’s fucked up over you.”
She slid a hand under his shirt. He got an unintentional shot of her thoughts. He didn’t mean it, but he was not in a safe place, and she wasn’t blocking him and there he was in her head. Only maybe that little slip wasn’t his fault because she smiled when it happened. “Kynan and I… We’re very bad for each other, that’s all.”
“He’s an idiot, Maddy.”
“Thank you for saying so.”
“He is.” He let go of her hair and touched his thumb just beneath her lower lip. Maddy, beautiful Maddy the witch, turned her head to the side and caught the pad of his thumb between her teeth. She nipped him. Not enough to hurt. “Maybe,” he said, “we can talk about Kynan afterward.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.” With one hand, she took his phone, closed it, and slid it back into his front pocket.
And then, she reached to the top of his head and put the tips of her first two fingers on the first two of the stripes that went the length of his body and she ran her fingers downward. She took her time doing it, too.
And swear to Jesus sitting on a hill, for a moment he thought he was with Fen again, and his heart gave a lurch that was part joy and part fear and he thought for a minute that he was going to split in two all over again.
But she wasn’t Fen.
Somewhere in the loss of separation between them he knew she wasn’t Fen and that Maddy hadn’t been the one to betray and destroy him.
But it was a close thing.
CHAPTER 28
Baker and Broadway, San Francisco
From the look on Durian’s face when he put away his phone, Gray could tell he wasn’t happy. She sat up on the futon and crossed her arms around her bent knees. She wasn’t naked, but then again, she didn’t exactly have on a lot of clothes. Before the phone rang, it had been her intention to get Durian into a similar state. “Was that Nikodemus?”
“No.” He drew in a long, slow breath. He wore gray tonight. Dark gray trousers, charcoal shirt, a dark gray coat, and he looked too gorgeous for words. “We need to talk.”
“Okay.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair and let out an exasperated sigh. “Somewhere other than here. With you looking like that.”
“Wherever you want.”
“Downstairs, then.”
She dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and a sweater because this was San Francisco, after all, and they went downstairs. The living room was still being renovated and since the owner of the house was expected back from Mexico soon, there were kin she didn’t know working at the repairs. A pile of broken furniture made a heap in the middle of the room. The windows had already been replaced. What was left of the doors still hung from shattered frames.
They bypassed the living room for the kitchen. He got two bottles of water from the fridge then quickly made and stacked four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a plate with two apples. Between the two of them, they carried the food outside to the te
rrace. One flip of a switch and floodlights came on that illuminated pink stonework and an infinity pool that overlooked the bay.
Gray sat on a padded wrought iron chair facing the pool. Durian was the kind of man who looked like he lived someplace like this house. If he were human, he’d be from old money. A fifth-generation lawyer or maybe someone who simply managed the family fortune. He sat across from her at a glass table with a huge fabric umbrella over it. He was limiting his connection with her and that meant he had something big on his mind. It made her nervous.
“Eat.” He took one of the waters and one of the sandwiches and pushed the rest to her. She was hungry, actually. While she ate, he leaned over and rested his forearms on his thighs. His hair wasn’t as long as Iskander’s, say, or even Kynan’s; it barely touched his shoulders because not so long ago Álvaro Magellan had shaved his head. “I have a proposition to make you.”
She swallowed her bite of sandwich. “Let’s hear it.”
He shook his head. The light had to hit his hair just right for her to tell it was brown instead of black. She polished off the first sandwich, then drew her eyebrows together. The breeze felt good. Wouldn’t it be bliss to lie out here by the pool someday and just let the sun soak into her skin? Gray went for another PBJ.
While she ate, Durian remained leaning over, now with only one forearm on his thigh. He stroked the midline of his chest with his other hand, then pressed his fingertips to his sternum. He frowned. His thoughts came back from whatever unpleasantness they’d been to visit. When he looked at her, his irises were violet and she still didn’t feel even the slightest hint of his magic.
He grabbed one of the waters and opened it. Just the sound of the cap twisting off made her thirsty. He handed her the bottle. Water condensed around her fingers. She tipped back her head and drank.
“First, there is the matter of your father.”
Her heart set off banging against her chest. “This is going to be bad news, isn’t it?” She squeezed her water bottle. But no, he didn’t look like he was going to tell her that her fears for her father’s safety had come true. “Is he all right?”
“Well enough. Considering.” He told her about the reasons for his second visit to Piedmont, his encounter with her father, how he’d known about Christophe and Emily and how Christophe was now threatening him.
She could tell from his curt recitation that he hadn’t liked her father. He was a mage, she thought; it stood to reason Durian wouldn’t like him. But this seemed like something more to her. She thought about that and with a chill realized that Durian must believe her father had lied to him. “Sounds like Christophe,” Gray said.
“Very much so.”
She pushed away her empty plate and picked up one of the apples while she stared out at the pool and imagined how cool the water would feel on her skin. What the hell had her father done? “What do you need from me?”
“Your soul?”
She took a bite of the apple. “Besides that.”
Durian stood and took a step toward the impossibly blue pool. He faced her. “That was Iskander on the phone earlier.”
Distant sounds of traffic floated on the air. From where she sat she could see lights reflecting off the dark, dark waters of San Francisco Bay. Her chest tightened, and she had to concentrate on her breathing. “About?”
“The witch, Maddy, has learned that Christophe has plans to take a young boy. A child.”
“A mage?”
“Uncertain. His mother is a witch. His father, however, is kin. It’s possible he has both talents.” His forehead creased. “That would be rare, indeed, but not unheard of.”
“Shit.”
“This is perhaps another reason he married your sister.” Durian’s expression hardened. “If the boy is a mage, Christophe will probably poison him so he can use the boy’s magic. I expect he intends for your sister to raise him until he is of no more use to Christophe. If he manifests as kin, I expect him to take the boy mageheld as soon as practical. He won’t be a boy, of course. We do not manifest until our twenties. In human years.”
“It just gets better and better, doesn’t it?”
“According to Maddy’s information, he intends to take the boy sometime in the next few hours.” He paused. “Álvaro Magellan had Carson’s family killed when he took her for the same purpose. Christophe will, I am afraid, kill this boy’s parents.”
“In other words, if we’re going to do something, we need to do something soon.”
“Yes.” Durian licked his lower lip, and she followed the movement of his tongue. “If we are to prevent this, I need something of you, Gray.”
“What?” She shivered even though she wasn’t cold. He was more grave than she’d ever seen from him before.
“Do you know what a blood twin is?”
“No.”
“Two of the kin who share a bond at such a basic level that, magically speaking, they are one and the same entity. Their twinned magic makes them that much more powerful. What one can do, so can the other. They share their magic and their lives completely and for that reason they tend to be solitary. With that bond in place, they don’t have the same need for contact with other kin.”
“What do you mean share everything? Toothbrushes? Bathroom towels?”
“I gain access to your abilities.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “And you gain access to mine. Permanently. There would be few kin who could match us. Nikodemus could. Kynan. Possibly Iskander.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Nikodemus bonded with Carson, a witch. She has the ability to sever magehelds and Nikodemus, since then, has become even more powerful. Carson, too. Alexandrine, a witch, is bonded to Xia, who was once a mageheld and is now free and sworn to Nikodemus. Now, like Carson, Xia can sever a mageheld. He and Alexandrine have also gained new abilities since they formed their bond.” He gazed at her steadily. “You, Gray, are also magekind now.”
“These others, they’re blood twins, too?”
“Not blood twins. Though perhaps they have become something close to that. Carson was cut off from the magic she was born with, but Nikodemus is able to access it. Likewise, through a different set of circumstances, Xia controls Alexandrine’s magic. Carson would have died had Nikodemus not acted. Alexandrine and Xia found themselves faced with a similar predicament, so I am given to understand. In neither case was the result entirely equitable. What I propose is that we attempt to combine our magic. We relinquish nothing of what we are and yet, if it works, you will share what I am as I share in what you are.”
“So, theoretically speaking, you’d be able to sense magehelds, too.”
“Quite possibly more.”
“Jesus.” Her body flashed hot. He was talking about something that would bind them far more intimately than her fealty to him. She leaned back, heart beating hard. “Is it dangerous?”
“Every ritual has the potential of going wrong.”
“Sure. But I’m getting the feeling there’s more to it.”
“Blood twins share their lives.” He hesitated, and she was pretty sure he flushed. There wasn’t much that unsettled him.
“Spill, Durian.”
He nodded. “Iskander was once a blood twin.”
She frowned. “Was once. But not now.”
“No.”
“I thought you said it was permanent.”
“His circumstance was extraordinary. His twin became entangled with Rasmus Kessler. She was mageheld while Iskander was not. It is remarkable, actually, that he was able to maintain his independence from her.” He stared at the pool for a while. “Ultimately, Carson Phillips severed him to preserve what remained of his sanity. But as I’ve said, his was an exceptional case.” His attention shifted back to her. “What his situation tells us, however, is that when we have dealt with our situation, Carson or Xia can sever the bond.”
“Not without risk, I assume.”
“No, of course not.” He gazed at her. �
�I understand your desire to rescue your sister, and I assure you we will do whatever is required for her safety and well-being. But, Gray, understand this. The kin do not leave our children behind. There are no tests to pass. They are not abandoned to the streets. If it happens they do not know what they are when they manifest, we do what is necessary for their survival. This boy is kin, and we watch over our own.”
She pushed herself out of her chair. “Let’s do it.”
Durian stood up, too. She didn’t think she was wrong that he looked relieved. “Not here.”
CHAPTER 29
In less than four minutes Gray had her things packed in the battered leather satchel Durian gave her. Used to be she had to decide what to pack for a trip. Now, she could dump all her clothes in one carry-on-sized bag and it wasn’t even full when she was done. A quick check of the bathroom confirmed she hadn’t overlooked anything. She glanced in the mirror and ran a hand through her hair. Her dark roots were showing even more.
“All right, then,” she said to the woman in the mirror, impressed with how calm she looked when she was shaking inside. She was intimately aware that Durian was putting himself on the line for her and it made her heart feel too big for her chest. He could have proposed that she allow him to take control of her magic as Nikodemus and Xia had done for the witches they were bonded with. But he hadn’t because he knew she had not been given any choice with Tigran. He did not share himself easily, but he was offering her an access to him that she knew he’d never allow anyone else.
Even without her oath of fealty, she’d follow him to hell and back if he needed that from her.
She picked up her borrowed satchel and joined Durian. He was waiting in the doorway of the bedroom, leaning against the jamb, arms crossed over his chest. Her heart lurched. She smiled but it felt fake. “Let’s go.”
Very casually he took her hand, and Jesus, it made her want to cry, that he’d hold her hand like that. Her heart misgave her and she looked up, blinking to clear her vision. “Is this going to get you in trouble with Nikodemus?”
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