She backed away, hands clenched behind her back. He’d never seen her like this, so fragile it triggered his promise to keep her safe. “I don’t want to touch it.”
“Nikodemus will send Durian after us. Durian.” He pitched his voice low. “His best tracker. Better than me, Winters. The minute he starts looking around and doesn’t see this”—he held up the vial—“and when he sees you haven’t touched this, everything else will have been a waste. He’ll know something’s wrong. Fucking do it. I have too much shit to clean up here to make this work any other way. As it is we’re going to be late getting to Bodega. Don’t make it worse.” He lifted his fist with the vial inside. “Do it, Winters, and we will stop the kind of thing that happened here today.”
“Kynan.” Her voice shook.
“You and me. We find out who else thinks they can fucking walk into Nikodemus’s territory and pull something like this.” His entire core lurched because what he’d done to their bonds had haunted her dreams for years, and he’d been right there for every one of them. “If it’s Sessani, I’m going to rip out her beating heart.”
“You are insane.”
“No kidding.” He grinned at her. From her reaction, it wasn’t a friendly grin. “I promise you, the two of us will demolish whoever it is from the inside out.”
“You better be right about this.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “Kynan Aijan. I will never forgive you if you’re wrong.”
He softened his smile. “I won’t forgive you either.”
“Fair enough.” She bent and took his chin in her hand. He met her gaze and kept himself open to her. He didn’t bother hiding anything from her now. Not the power, not the madness that still flickered at the edges of him.
“One day,” he said, “I’m going to strip you naked and fuck you so hard you won’t remember your name. And I won’t be human when I do it.”
She brushed her mouth against his. Once, then again, and she caught at his lower lip. “One day, maybe I’ll let you.” She touched his fist. “Now. Do it.”
He thumbed off the gold wax seal. A sweet, acrid smell wafted between them, stomach turning. His sworn screamed loud enough to deafen them both. She mimed the act of forcing him to swallow the contents, but the magic was real. The physical actions had to be there as well, or any reasonably competent tracker would know it hadn’t happened. He shuddered once, again, and his throat convulsed.
With him unable to move or breathe, she ran a palm over his head. A pulse of magic, and he had the buzz-cut hair that was a signature of a newly taken mageheld.
He touched her chest, finishing off the layer of magic meant to mimic the mageheld bond.
Dreadful joy spread through him through that bond.
CHAPTER 9
Seeing as Vahid was in the trunk, Kynan threw Winters’ bag into the back seat of his car. Nikodemus’s cherry red Mercedes was a sweet ride, and he couldn’t bear to leave it behind. He didn’t care whether the color was a bonus or a detriment. Besides, Cifai would piss his pants when he found out Kynan had brought Nikodemus’s car.
The lingering effects of the poison cycled up again, and, just like that, he was hurting bad. He limited his reaction to a grimace. He didn’t want to think about what had happened after Winters had forced him to swallow, the blackness of those interminable seconds while he was paralyzed, frozen in his physical form. All he could do was listen to the screams in his head and suffocate from panic. The worst part might actually have been Winters holding him the whole time and whispering—crying, for fuck’s sake—that she would never ever let anything happen to him because he belonged to her now.
The binding magic he’d used to create the appearance of enslavement had some harsh side effects. Ever since taking it, he’d been constantly flashing back to his time with Magellan. Worse, every now and then he was convinced he really was her mageheld, and he lost himself in horror and despair.
Patience.
Eventually, he’d end her the way he had Magellan. Better yet, he’d kill her the way he’d originally planned.
Not mageheld.
Reality boomeranged back. His gut twisted up, and the back of his throat tasted like acid. Another wave of pain hit as the poison worked its way through him.
That was Winters, not Magellan, walking toward the car. She was part of him now. The mageheld bond that was fucking with him so badly wasn’t real. He had all the internal markers of a mageheld, real or not, and he was jumpy as hell from the river of anger flowing through him.
He slapped a palm on the top of the car to keep his balance. For several seconds, he couldn’t move. His memories of Magellan tore him up, they were so real. Too real. He watched her continue toward the car and concentrated on the times he’d been with her, making love to her when she didn’t even know that was what he was doing. He was going to remember the way her eager smile gave way to desire whenever she welcomed him into her body. Him. She welcomed him.
He broke free of the pain. He stayed by the car, frozen, while his dead sworn whispered that he needed to take her out before she screwed them over.
Winters headed past him like she couldn’t see him holding the rear passenger door open the way any good mageheld slave would do. She headed for the front driver’s side. He leaned over the top of the car. “You aren’t driving.”
She was cool as ice. You’d never think a few minutes ago she’d been crying over him and swearing she’d never hurt him. Now she was the same woman who’d calmly severed Ashley’s arm. “Yes, I am.”
He kept his tone even. “Get in the back, Winters.”
“I don’t—”
“My witch.” Wasn’t that a rich irony? She was his. He’d been broken free of his promise to Nikodemus, and whatever the future price turned out to be, she belonged to him because that was what the bonds had become. She was his. That was him living in her. He snarled then forced a servile smile that made her blanch.
Some of the fight left her, and she walked to the passenger-side door like any trained-up witch would do. Maybe he’d only layered that perverted magic over real bonds, but he could feel the effects working on him. He fucking hated the magekind. He hated them for shit like this.
She got in and looked up at him. From the moment he first saw her, he’d been enthralled by the magic encased in the killer body. His. His. His. Oh, yes. He’d wanted her then. He wanted her now. His sworn boiled up, screaming at him to kill the witch before it was too late. He leaned in, knowing she could hear them, and said, “Buckle up, honey.”
“Drop dead.” Perfect reply. Just fucking perfect.
“You aren’t getting that wish.” He closed the door harder than necessary. Not enough to be over the top, but enough to make his point. All the old reflexes were right there.
When he was in the driver’s seat starting up the car, she said, “Where in Bodega are we going?”
His bonds with her shifted in ways that made him tense up. Maybe he’d done too good a job. He needed not to be so aware of her, but he didn’t see how that was possible. “Not far from Infante’s old place.”
“Coincidence?”
“Hell, no.”
Winters fell silent, but he knew exactly where her mind was headed. She put her thoughts to words. “Infante was running a breeding program, too.”
He put the car in gear. “I know.”
She slumped down. Under different circumstances, he might have felt bad about how tired and stressed she looked. This was a woman who ironed her jeans, wore fancy pointy-toed shoes, and always had on makeup. Right now, she looked rumpled and goddamned fuckable. But maybe that was just him.
He put his foot on the gas and bit back the urge to tell her to fuck off. Once he was out of her driveway and heading for 101 North, he watched her in the rearview mirror. He’d never been much for women like her until he was rooting around in Alexandrine Marit’s head and came across her impressions of Winters. Then he did want her. Bad. He went and got her. That incident was one of the main reason
s Nikodemus had started laying down explicit rules.
She was staring out the window now, all icy-hot beauty. Untouchable. “I thought we leveled everything connected with his operation.”
“We leveled Infante’s place. We never found whoever else was working with him. I’m pretty sure one of the mages who’s been watching your house was involved with Infante in San Diego.”
She scrubbed her hands over her face. “Lovely. Just lovely.”
He headed the car downhill. “He was harassing Addison. She described him to me. I found him, and what do you know, he was some bullshit apprentice of Infante’s. We came to an understanding about the importance of him leaving her the fuck alone.”
No sound from the back seat. She always got quiet when the subject of his relationship with Addison came up. He was fine with that. He didn’t like hearing her talk about Iskander.
He said, “Maybe Infante and Sessani met in San Diego.”
That got her attention. “Interesting if they did.” In the rearview mirror, he saw her lean toward the door like she’d propped an elbow on the armrest. “There had to be someone else. Deeper pockets. More resources in general.”
“Better magic, too.”
She sat back. “What a nasty piece of work he was.”
“True.”
“I knew he had to have help. He just wasn’t good enough to be running that operation on his own.”
He flexed his fingers. The poison was knotting him up again.
“I’ll bet you anything Sessani is running a breeding program, too.” She gripped the top of the passenger seat. “No. Not, too. Infante wasn’t doing that on his own. Sessani is source. She’s running everything.”
“I think it’s likely.”
“If she’s the one who’s been taking the street witches, I’ll kill her with my bare hands.”
“If she is, we’ll stop her.”
They didn’t say anything more until they were at the coast, and he was driving along the narrow asphalt road toward where the late Giuseppe Infante’s house had once been. There was no point looking at what was left. Ashes maybe. Dirt. Not much else. About five miles past the remains of the compound, he turned down the dirt road at the address he’d pulled from Vahid’s head. The house turned out to be an early 2000s McMansion with a view of the Pacific.
Interesting. If you didn’t mind walking through the fields and hopping a fence or two, Infante’s compound was less than a mile away. The Bodega Bay area didn’t have a lot of permanent residents. There were fishermen and marine companies, and people who ran businesses that catered to tourists. Houses that weren’t falling down the cliffs into the surf tended to be from large parcels on the other side of the road. Houses like this one.
After he parked and escorted her in, he went back outside to get the supplies they’d bought in case the house wasn’t stocked. Definitely a defensible location. Open fields surrounded the house with no trees near enough or big enough to provide cover. Nobody human was going to sneak up on them.
He dumped Vahid in an office in the back part of the first floor and got a better look at the house. Like most houses used by the magekind, no detail was too small to overspend on. Hardwood floors throughout, open floor plan with vaulted ceilings, a high-end kitchen. Despite the house being too big, he liked the place. Go figure. The interior was the kind of modern style he preferred.
Last trip was their luggage. He returned to the entryway where she was waiting for him. “Stinks like mages here.” He dropped her duffel in the entryway. The woman was wearing four-inch heels, and he was still taller than her. “Why’d you bring a sack of bricks?”
She smiled like she was thrilled to fucking pieces that he was so helpful with her crap. “Spoken like someone who doesn’t know anything about women.”
“Everything I need is in here.” He poked the backpack slung over his shoulder.
“You wear flip-flops and jeans. How many T-shirts did you buy on the way here? Three? Or was it four?”
“I did my time in suits. I’m not going back. Not even for you.”
Something like chagrin flashed over her face, quickly replaced by anger. He figured she’d heard the story about him burning every piece of clothing Magellan had ever forced him to wear. A walk-in closet full of custom Italian suits, handmade shoes, shirts, and ties, and he’d set every single item on fire and burned them to ashes. The heat of that fire had left permanent scars on the driveway of the Tiburon house.
“Did I ask you to?” She stooped for her duffel. “No. I did not.”
He dropped his backpack on the floor and settled in. When it came to wards, he preferred to work from a blank slate. This place was definitely that. With a deliberate intent to offend her, he turned his back to her and started setting a ward. Fuck the silence and the way she was working it. He started another ward, but he was way too aware of her. When she left, he watched her head up the stairs and admired the muscles in her arms. Her duffel wasn’t light.
He pushed Maddy Winters out of his head and concentrated on his wards. They needed to be strong and resilient no matter who showed up here. The no matter who put Winters right back into his head where he didn’t want her. He just couldn’t catch a break.
CHAPTER 10
Maddy threw together dinner while Kynan continued his warding of the house. He’d been working nonstop since their arrival three hours ago while she had sat alone in the living room watching the sun set over the Pacific. She wasn’t going to let him work into the night without any food.
Say what you would about Kynan Aijan, his work was impeccable. His power was woven through the house now, and each and every focus point was weaponized art. Among the kin, wards usually took shape as discs formed from the surrounding material and infused with what amounted to magical sentience. By tradition, there were faces in the wards, though there were infinite variations possible, from plain to ornate to camouflaged. The work he was doing here was far beyond anything she’d seen from him at the Tiburon house or at her home.
She’d always been sensitive to his magic and from experience knew he could make wards imperceptible to all but the more powerful demons. Even his most innocuous-looking wards killed in horrifying ways. It was possible he could make wards none of them would notice until it was too late.
Downstairs, he’d formed tiny gargoyles and predators for the wards he meant to be seen. He’d finished in here too, and more than once while she cooked, she caught movement from the corner of her eye, a shimmer of light that signaled a previously unseen ward. Some looked flat and uninteresting until she saw them at just the right angle. Then they danced with tiny figures: demons, animals, or a flower transforming from bud to full bloom. He’d made wards in the window panes, too. Those were almost impossible to see. Every time she caught sight of one, the center of her chest shifted.
For several seconds, she stood with her head bowed in front of the sink, hands braced on either side. This couldn’t work. She was coming apart because she couldn’t shake the idea that their facsimile of the mageheld bond was becoming real. The corruption spread with every second that passed.
Deep breaths, she told herself. Deep breaths.
She wasn’t going to give in to panic. She could deal with him. They’d been managing for years, hadn’t they? He was avoiding her exactly the way he should. When this was over, and if she was still alive, then they’d go to Nikodemus and beg him to break those newly closed bonds.
The hiss of water boiling over distracted her, and with a yelp she pulled the pan off the fire. Dinner was mac and cheese from a box, fancied up with a few tips she’d learned from her friend and colleague, Paisley. Unsalted butter, cream rather than milk, and the addition of more and better cheese. Undercook the noodles so they weren’t overcooked by the time the cheese melted.
Since Paisley had come on board with Nikodemus, the results of Maddy’s efforts in the kitchen had improved from marginally edible to sometimes not bad. Paisley was good at dropping tips about how to cook
without doing a lot of work. Unlike Paisley, Maddy didn’t do anything kitchen-related that wasn’t heinously basic. In the kitchen, she was survival mode only.
A search of the drawers and cabinets uncovered dishes and silverware. Good. They wouldn’t need the paper plates and plastic utensils they’d picked up. She grabbed an Arrogant Bastard beer from the fridge and put that in front of one of the chairs. Then, without the aid of technology, she walked to the bottom of the stairs and called him to dinner like it was 1815 instead of the digital age.
No response. Because he was ignoring her. She was, ironically, unutterably relieved and grateful. It meant he was able to resist any compulsion to obey. Halfway up the stairs she stopped, struck by the absurdity of her reluctance to talk to him and her paranoia about the state of their bonds.
Their boundaries were firmly in place, and he had never crossed them, not in all the years since he’d promised Nikodemus he would not allow the bonds to close. He wasn’t going to cross lines now. She called up the stairs again.
“Five minutes,” was his shouted answer.
Ten minutes later, he strolled into the kitchen. She couldn’t stop the sharp twist in the center of her chest. He’d been drawing power for hours; he practically crackled with the residual effects.
“Warlord.” She only just stopped herself from pressing three fingers to her head. That gesture couldn’t possibly be safe, and she wasn’t inclined to give him the satisfaction. She gave a perky smile. Maybe a little too perky judging by his snort of amusement. “Dinner.”
“Thanks.” He grabbed the beer she’d set out for him and took a long drink.
“You’ve been busy.” She spooned macaroni into one of the bowls.
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