“What the hell? How did you access that?” Josh began. He didn’t suddenly yank me back and tell me I couldn’t enter.
“Jason, check the front door. Someone is following Max,” I stated. It wasn’t a guess. It was the kind of knowledge that burnt through you with the certainty of your own name.
This time, Jason didn’t question. Out of my peripheral vision as I hauled Max into the sitting room, I saw Jason start to mutter spells under his breath as he bolstered the security of the front door.
Josh rushed behind me into the sitting room. There was one old-style couch and two sitting chairs in the room, and I muscled Max toward the couch. I finally allowed Josh to help me. We reached the couch, Josh grabbed up Max’s legs, and together we hauled him on top of it.
I instantly dropped down to one knee, terror pulsing through me. I knew Max wasn’t dead. He hadn’t said a word to me since he’d collapsed into my arms, but I felt his breath brushing against my arm as I’d dragged him forward.
“What the hell is going on here?” Josh said as he stood beside me, his hands shaking.
I stared at Max. There was a massive crackling gash in his brow and huge cuts down into his neck and along his torso. There was blood everywhere.
He wasn’t wearing his standard suit. He was in a hospital gown.
There was so much damn blood….
“Jason!” I found myself screaming. “Get in here. You have to save Max. He’s bleeding out.”
I didn’t hear the pound of Jason’s footfall.
I jerked my head toward the door.
A deep frown marked Josh’s lips, then he tipped his head hard to the side and half closed his eyes.
I got the unmistakable impression that he was tuning into the defenses of this house. A few seconds later, his eyes blasted open with obvious fear.
I took a sharp step toward him. “What is it?”
“Someone’s attacking the magical defenses of the house, trying to gain entry. Shit!”
It was Jason’s turn to scream at us. With a pitching bellow that arced through the room, he screamed, “McIntosh, help me bolster the door.”
What the hell was attacking us? Who was trying to make it through the front door that a trainee sorcerer couldn’t stop them alone?
Josh didn’t move immediately. He stared from me to the blood covering Max.
Then I felt Josh twitch. He jerked his head to the side, obviously connecting to the house once more.
I’d never been able to connect to the house before. The magic that dictated the layout of this three-story townhouse was very much controlled by Josh.
Now? Now that didn’t seem to matter. I half ground my eyes closed, and I swore I picked up what Josh was sensing. There was something right outside the front door, some kind of spell, and it was as powerful as all hell.
I came to a quick decision. I locked a hand on Josh’s shoulder and pushed him toward the door. “Go help Jason. If the house is penetrated, Max dies anyway.”
Josh shot me one last terrified look, then nodded and ran to help Jason.
That left me alone with a badly bleeding finder.
I… every inch of me needed to save him. Every cell. Every memory. It didn’t matter that I’d really only known Max for a little over two months. It didn’t matter that only this morning I’d been so angry at him that I never wanted to see him again. What mattered was that he was injured, and I had to save him.
I got down on my knees beside him, my hands shaking.
He was bleeding out. There was such a massive gash in his chest that, even though I wasn’t a doctor, I could tell he really only had a few minutes to live. Unless the bleeding could be stopped.
I caught sight of my own hands in my peripheral vision and realized that Jason had used magic to heal me.
… So couldn’t I use magic to heal Max?
There was every reason to believe it wouldn’t work. There was every reason to believe I didn’t have enough magic and that even if I did, only a sorcerer of Jason’s quality would be able to use their power to heal another.
But I chased those negative thoughts away. Instead, I latched hold of my finding magic. I grabbed it like you would a bird you didn’t want to fly away.
I forced my eyes shut until it felt as if I would squeeze them from my skull.
I centered my breath, and I concentrated on a single question. I needed to find a way to heal Max.
I needed a way to heal Max, I repeated over and over again.
Usually my finding magic – no matter how desperate I was – would take a while to kick in. Now I felt my hands shifting up and locking on Max’s chest. The hospital gown he was wearing was sliced right down his chest, revealing his skin below. It was so splattered with blood, I….
I force my eyes closed again. I told myself I would find a way to save him. I would find a way.
I would find a way.
My hands settled either side of the cut.
I… became aware of my heart. To be specific, I became aware of the same door Jason had told me about. When he’d held me in his arms and begged for me to release my power to him, he’d told me all sorcerers had a door in their hearts.
I thrust it open now. And it required precious little concentration. For in the past, that man in my vision had opened it for me.
I found myself concentrating on him now, and the memory of his tender kiss was the only thing that could tear my mind off the horror of this situation.
I… started to feel something flowing from me. It was not power in the ordinary sense. It wasn’t my blue sparks of magic. It was… lighter than that. More precious, too.
It felt like a trapped love that was finally allowed to go free.
Max had fallen unconscious when he’d fallen into my arms on the doorstep. Now, for the first time, he started to stir.
I didn’t stop. I kept pushing the magic into him, focusing my attention on that kiss from the past until it almost felt as if I was back there. But that storm of chaos wasn’t threatening to crush me from above. All my universe currently consisted of was my hands on Max’s chest, and that man in the past as his lips were locked against mine.
Time… ran away. That isn’t to say that I lost it completely. That isn’t to say that the world around me crumbled. That isn’t to say that Max succumbed to his blood loss and died.
I just… I went to a place where time was irrelevant. A place where I appeared to appreciate that this lifetime was just another iteration of a long quest. A place where that forgotten destiny of mine made itself known. A place where everything I had faced and everything I would face yet made sense.
It all made sense….
Just before I could become lost in my reverie and drawn backward through time once more, I felt a soft hand on mine. It was cold and clammy, and the grip was weak, but none of that mattered.
It drew me back from the past, pulling me into the future, and I almost fell forward onto Max’s chest as I opened my eyes.
He was staring up at me.
“Max!”
He didn’t shift, and he didn’t say anything. He continued to stare at me with… I don’t know. My heart automatically wanted to tell me that it was adoration, but now I’d been pulled from the past, my connection to it had broken. That serene understanding I’d felt where I’d known what would come next and what I would have to do simply ebbed away.
I shuddered a little, but before I could draw my hand off Max’s chest, he held on tighter.
I looked down into his eyes once more, then the enormity of the situation hit me. “Max, what happened to you? How did you get here? Who is after you?”
“Firstly, thank you,” he said, his voice broken and staccato with pain and weakness. Nonetheless, there was still a broad, warm, inviting smile on his lips.
The kind of smile that begged for me to plant my lips on his.
He was injured, and the situation very much did not call for it, and yet… my body still wanted to try. Because my mind still wa
nted to find out if his lips would match the man from my vision.
“I was attacked in the hospital. Two metal elementals,” he said as he crunched forward and stared at his chest.
It was the first time I’d looked at it since I’d begun the healing process, and I was surprised to find that he was no longer bleeding.
Max ran his free hand up his torso, and his once massive cut had closed. “You’re turning out to be an exceptional healer,” Max managed. “Nobody taught you how to do this – you found out how to do it on your own, didn’t you, Beth?”
He… I swore he seemed to know something as he pointed that out. Almost as if he understood more about what was happening to me than I did.
It took me a moment to answer, but I managed a nod. “I… found a way.” As answers went, it wasn’t an answer but essentially a reframing of the question. But from the look in Max’s eyes, he understood.
Once more I had to fight the desire to plant my lips against his.
As tempting as it was, my desire to protect Max was stronger. I shook my head. “Are you saying the two metal elementals tracked you down at the hospital and tried to assassinate you?”
Max looked away on the term assassinate, then finally looked back. “Though I haven’t had the time to process this… I guess you’re right. I guess they tried to assassinate me.”
“Max, did the elementals back at the restaurant try to kill you, too? Do you remember exactly what happened?” I pressed, realizing this was key.
“Originally they ported in and appeared as if they were headed out of the dining room. But then they saw me,” he managed.
“They must’ve ported in because the symbol had been activated,” I said with a low, excited breath. “But when they saw you, they mustn’t have been able to pass up the opportunity. But I don’t understand? If somebody wanted you dead—”
“Why didn’t they try to assassinate me earlier? I’m usually under a constant level of threat, Beth. But since Olivia disappeared,” he clenched his teeth tightly, and it appeared to take a few solid breaths to unhinge them, “the attempts have increased.”
I blinked wildly. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“You mean why didn’t I tell you?” he rephrased the question.
Though it made me blush – and it was a surprise I could blush considering how terrifying this situation was – I didn’t look away.
He took this as a yes. “The reason I didn’t tell you, Beth, was because you have no place offering me protection.”
I reacted to this. Boy did my body react to this. It felt like my heart was going to pop. I even pushed forward, even though I was already close enough.
At the wild look in my eyes, Max pressed a curious smile over his lips. “Considering our argument this morning, I wouldn’t have predicted you would act like this.”
I didn’t know how to react to that comment, so I shook my head. “I get to feel about you however I like,” I found myself saying. As soon as the words were out, I could hardly pull them back.
Though I’d already ostensibly admitted to my affections for Max back in the kitchen after the fight with Constantine, this was different. This was a hell of a lot more direct. And considering my hand was still locked on his chest, I was a hell of a lot closer, too.
Meaning there was nothing to hide.
I expected Max to look uncomfortable, or at least surprised. He was neither. He held my gaze as if looking into my eyes was the only thing that had ever mattered to him. “Beth,” he said softly. “I can look after my own security. Plus… with the Zero Prophecy hanging over your head,” he suddenly switched his gaze away and solidly would not look at me, “you—”
“What?” My voice became constricted as my emotions finally got the better of me. It was like I could feel my inhibitions slipping away. All the reason I usually hid behind suddenly became as thin as gossamer. “I’ve been promised to another?” I said.
Again once the words were out I couldn’t pull them back. But I didn’t want to. Being here with Max, this close with my hand pressed against his chest, made this… unavoidable.
All the pressure of the day, all the confusion of my visions – none of it mattered anymore.
None of it—
Max’s expression changed. His emotions did, too.
While his expression became controlled, his emotions were the precise opposite. I could feel his longing as if it were a hand reaching toward me. But at the same time, he shook his head. “Beth, it’s not only—”
“That some dumb prophecy has promised me to your brother. You’re about to tell me you don’t care for me, right?”
Max opened his mouth.
“Don’t bother,” I said through a shaking breath. “I can feel your emotions, Max,” I revealed quietly.
He looked away.
In fact, he looked away with a rigid, stiff neck that told me he didn’t intend to look back.
I’d… just ruined everything, hadn’t I? I’d laid my cards on the table only to have somebody else ignore them.
I tried to pull my hand back, but that’s when I felt it. The confusion in Max’s heart. The confusion and yet sense of duty that were apparently pulling him in two opposing directions.
But while his mind was confused, his body obviously wasn’t. He held onto my hand tightly.
“Max?” I managed.
He was trying to come to a decision – desperately trying to come to a decision.
I couldn’t help him decide. But I could show him how I felt.
I didn’t press forward and try to kiss him. I opened up a little more of my healing magic, letting it spill from my palm as it was still locked against him.
Max looked at me sharply. And finally the most controlled man I’d ever met let it all show. He also shifted forward and kissed me.
And instantly I was back there in that vision. Back there with my skirts whipping around my legs. Back there with the storm. And back there with him.
As the man from the past kissed me, I opened my eyes. I stared straight into his stone-grey irises. Then I stared past them at Max.
For it had always been him, not his brother.
This time my vision was not complete. I was aware of my body back in the future. My attention was perfectly split between the Max of the past and the Max of the now.
And there was me, the sorcerer, between them both.
As the Max of the present pressed his warm lips harder against mine until tingles of pure pleasure traced down my jaw, across my neck, and into my chest, I finally understood.
Jason wasn’t the sorcerer of the Zero Prophecy, and I wasn’t his finder. I was the sorcerer, and Max was my finder.
Chapter 13
I wanted to stay locked against Max’s lips forever. Because while they were pressed against mine, everything made sense. But we weren’t given that opportunity. I heard the soft sound of footfall behind us, then a jolt as somebody stopped in the doorway.
I watched as Max flicked his gaze toward the doorway. Then he pulled away.
And all the reassurance and understanding I was experiencing through his kiss went with him.
Somebody cleared their throat.
It was Jason.
I was very much not the kind of woman who went around kissing different people in one day – especially brothers.
It was Max’s turn to clear his throat.
“Finished?” Jason said pointedly.
Yes, I’d just kissed Max – or he’d kissed me. Yet Max had been on death’s door minutes before, and Jason didn’t seem to care.
I pushed up, finally pulling my hand off Max’s chest.
I resisted the urge to redden.
And the reason I resisted the urge was… that for the first time since I had become a witch, everything made sense.
I now realized what I was, who I was, and exactly what the Zero Prophecy wanted for me.
I wasn’t the pathetic damsel who was meant to be protected by the sorcerer as she was shepherded
toward the future. I was the sorcerer who was meant to keep Max safe so that he could find the Hidden Grimoires and, most importantly, discover a way to destroy them.
My head was reeling.
I could see Jason out of the corner of my eyes, and he was looking at me with utter confusion. And jealousy. But the jealousy wasn’t necessarily directed at me. His anger was centered firmly on his brother.
“Why did you come here?” Jason snapped as he took a harsh step into the room, his footfall ringing out even as it thumped against the soft rug.
Max didn’t shy away from Jason’s ferocious glare. “I could ask you the same thing. How did you get into my house? And most importantly, how did you get into this room?”
I was so attuned to Max’s emotions now that even if we were separated by the length of the city, I fancied I would still be able to feel the contents of his heart. And right now he shook with suspicion.
I looked between both brothers. “… I entered this room,” I managed. “I… wanted to find a place where you would be safe.”
Max glanced at me for half a second, then he tore his gaze away as he apparently appreciated that staring at me for too long would stir up too many complicated emotions. And considering just how fiery his feelings were right now, for all I knew, he could pull me into another kiss.
Though my body wanted that – I certainly didn't want to do it in front of Jason again. Plus, there was too much going on here.
“How did you get into my house, brother?” Max managed once more.
“I was let in,” Jason said.
“Don’t lie,” Max growled. “You found out I was in the hospital and took the opportunity to try to find my mother’s diaries.”
I watched as Jason stiffened. Though he was clearly trying to control his expression, he wasn’t doing a good enough job.
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