He snapped his fingers. “My eyes are up here.”
“Yeah. Not really interested in that feature right now.”
Rohan tackled me and I squealed. “Just because I’m the hottest lay you’ve ever had,” he said, “doesn’t mean you can objectify me.”
I beat him with the pillow until he rolled off me. “One of these days,” I said, “your arrogance will outweigh your use in providing orgasms.”
“With you? Not if you had three lifetimes.”
I reached for him, fisting my hands in his shirt. Pulling him close, I kissed him. “Let’s test that theory.”
He groaned. “Drio’s waiting for me. Rabbi Abrams got us a meeting with Mischa.”
Sighing, I let him go, smoothing out the wrinkles I’d put in his shirt. “All right. Go confirm his twin is still alive.”
“What are your plans?”
“I gotta talk to Leo. Then I’ll check in with Gelman, see if she got hold of Tessa.”
I lay in bed a bit longer after hearing the front door close and the Shelby drive off. I texted Leo asking if I could come over and got a thumbs up emoji. Got my word of the day as well: indomitable. Why yes, I was, thanks.
As I hopped out of bed and grabbed my headboard, the room swung sideways, my vision blurring at the edges. I’d stood up too fast. Coffee would fix that. Hmm. Since I was going downtown to Leo’s anyways… I sent her another text and grabbed a clean towel for the shower.
If I was going to convince my bestie to dump the best sex of her life, a Belgian waffle bribe was in order.
21
Leo stabbed her Liege-style waffle in the pool of syrup on her plate. “Was this supposed to be a bribe?”
“Think of it as an offering. Well? Ready to cut loose from the Italian Stallion?”
“For the last time, and I do mean last, I’ll take my chances.” She chowed down, oblivious to how much danger she was in.
I gripped her hand. “I don’t think you understand. He’ll find out at some point and then he’ll kill you. Very slowly and painfully, because he hates people who betray him only slightly less than he hates demons and you’re both.”
Leo tried to pry herself loose but I had to impress on her how serious this was. I tightened my hold.
“Are you insane?” she hissed. “Let go of me.” She picked up a fork, raising it over my forearm.
“Stab me. I’m not walking away until I get your promise.”
“Then you’ll shrivel and grow old here. I’m not ending things with him.” She pressed the fork into me until I released her. “The sex is phenomenal.”
“He wants to date you. This is getting serious.”
A small smile tugged at her lips. “I’m worth being serious about.”
“No shit, but that isn’t the issue. I’m sorry, Leo, and I wish I was wrong, but there is no happily-ever-after for you two. For whatever reason, he won’t be able to get past this. Please, please break up with him. It might hurt, but at least you won’t be dead.”
Leo flung her fork down. “Back. Off.” She pushed her plate away and marched out of the restaurant without a look back.
I called after her, but she ignored me. This was a disaster of epic proportions. Leo had fallen for him. Fuck.
I called for the bill. My Eggs Benny quivered uneaten on the English muffin, all of it drowned in Hollandaise sauce. Poached yellow vomit. My stomach twisted and sweat beaded my neck. I dragged myself to my car, fanning myself with the front of my shirt, wobbled into the driver’s seat, and lay my head on the steering wheel, ignoring the honks of the car wanting my parking spot.
Driving home was a bitch. I swear my brain was stuffed with cotton. I pretended I was in a video game and had to exactly follow the car in front of me, because I kept veering sideways.
What a time to get sick. How long would it take my healing to knock this flu out of my system? My entire body ached, my skin hot and itchy. I’d have taken an oshk drug freak-out over this, but the flop sweats that punctuated my drive home, while extreme, hadn’t ever been a side effect of Sweet Tooth. Plus, my generous tip back at the restaurant had been the opposite of punching the waitress and wrestling her for the maple syrup jug to drink from until I fell into a sugar coma, so this wasn’t caused by the drop of oshk secretion I’d gotten on my skin.
I blacked out briefly waiting for the scanner at the chapter house gate to identify my car and let me onto the grounds, barely managing to throw the car in park, and stagger up the front stairs into Ro’s bed, where I passed out into a restless sleep.
“Nava.” Drio shook me. “Wake up!”
Wincing, I sat up. My stomach muscles screamed in protest. “Was I doing ab curls?” Why was Ro asleep next to me? “Is it night?”
“Are you drunk? Look at him.”
Ro’s face, the one part of him not wrapped in blankets, was blue. His eyelids were closed, fluttering madly, his jaw was badly bruised, and he had an angry red scrape across his forehead. Ice crystals dotted his hair, melting and running in tiny pearl droplets down the side of his head.
My heart slammed into my throat. I burrowed my hands under his covers, frantically searching for a pulse.
Drio pulled me off. “He’s breathing.” He lay his hand on Ro’s head. “He’s breathing,” he said, quieter.
I beat on Drio’s chest, lost to the wild fury whipping through my blood. “Why didn’t you have his back?”
“Cosa?”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I snarled. “You and him. You screwed up with him before and he got hurt.”
Drio grabbed my wrists and pushed me away. “You–” He dropped his head, almost deflating, then shook himself off and picked up one of the hand warmers that he’d thrown on the bed, kneading and cracking it to activate it. He tucked the warmer inside Ro’s blanket.
Magic flared off my skin, flinging Drio sideways. “Don’t. Touch. Him.”
I didn’t hear him leave, busy inserting the rest of the warmers in key points between Rohan’s skin and his blankets and checking every few seconds that he was still breathing. When that was done, I reswaddled him, needing something to keep busy with, to keep my choking panic at bay.
I couldn’t tell. Oh, God. I couldn’t tell if he was getting better.
I rubbed my hands together to warm them, then placed them on either side of his head. I’d made the azalea sprig bud; I could heal Ro. I visualized a bright white light emanating from my palms, burning away all other magic in his system.
My hands tingled and even though I kept it up until I shook with the strain and my vision fogged, I didn’t feel any magic pouring out of me. I grabbed the lamp on his bedside table, thrusting it close to his face to check. He was so cold. So still.
Time blurred. I changed the IV that Dr. Sousa had set up, sleeping in fits and starts between my repeated attempts to heal him, terrified I’d miss him waking up, or worse, him taking a turn for the worse.
Rabbi Abrams brought me food and water. I think I drank a bit. Food held no appeal.
Drio darkened Ro’s doorway. He was shirtless, gauze taped over some white ointment smeared on his side. “How is he?”
I gave up trying to wrestle Ro out of his shirt myself to sponge him down. “Make yourself useful and then get out.”
We stripped him. I fished in the bowl of warm water for the sponge, gently wiping away the sweat glistening on Ro’s forehead.
“You need to hear me out,” Drio said. “Ilya’s alive. Ferdinand ambushed us when we left Mischa’s.”
“Yet here you stand unscathed.”
Drio flashed up, grabbing my throat. The sponge hit the floor with a splat.
I jutted my chin up, meeting his eyes. “Try it.”
“Rohan is the last person I’d ever hurt,” he said, his expression pleading. He stepped back, raking a hand through his hair. “The fight was nothing. Barely started. Ferdinand hadn’t used his magic on us yet, but we were swarmed by shedim.”
If Gollum had gotten drunk and fucked the
monster in the original Alien movie, their spawn would be the prettier version of these demons.
I wrung out the sponge, cleaning under Ro’s chin and along each arm, my fingertips lingering over his palpitating pulse.
“Ferdinand was their main target, but we were caught in the crossfire.” Drio’s hands balled into fists. “That betraying Rasha fuck caught Ro right as one of the shedim pinned Ferdinand down. The demon sent his magic into Ferdinand, Ferdinand’s ice flowed into Ro and…” Drio glanced at the bed, then cleared his throat. “Ferdinand is dead, but that attack wasn’t random.”
He tossed a pointed leathery ear onto the bed. A purple pointed leathery ear. Shedim were burnt-orange.
I dropped the sponge in the water, wiped off my hands and reached for the ear. It had been cleanly severed. “You did the signature spell?”
“Being attacked right after learning what we had about Ilya? Ro didn’t think it was a coincidence. He’d sliced the ear off for us to test so I tested it. I want the witch behind this.”
“What will you do to her?”
“If he doesn’t pull through? It’s going to be war.” He glanced at Ro one last time and left.
Rohan was going to pull through, but Tessa had to pay for what she’d done.
I whipped out my phone. “Where is she?”
My eyes were glued to every twitch of Ro’s, constantly checking him for fever, for an improvement in color, for his continued breathing.
“Who?” Gelman said.
“Tessa. Don’t give me any bullshit about her being in Santa Barbara. She’s here. She attacked Rohan.” My voice cracked.
Gelman dragged in a breath. “Tessa’s dead.”
“Impossible.”
“Her burned body was found.”
My hand tightened on my phone. “Murdered?”
“Burned from the inside. Black magic. The Los Angeles coven was trying to keep it a secret.”
“When?”
“Nava.” Gelman sounded wrung out.
“When?” I growled.
“Last week.”
If that was true, then Tessa wouldn’t have been able to bind the shedim. But if it wasn’t Tessa, then every lead we had just came to jack shit. I hurled my burner phone at the wall with a screamed curse.
My attempts to wake Ro up yielded nothing and more nothing. I kept at it until I was lightheaded and my whole body ached. Every breath was energy I resented expending on myself.
Finally, deep inside me, a faint bloom of magic unfurled. That same primal silkiness as when I’d portalled. I caught my breath, barely daring to hope. Eyes screwed tight, I visualized stoking that bloom from a pale pink nub to a deep red bloom, the flower growing and stretching, pushing into every inch of me and flowing out into Rohan.
“Nava.” It was a whisper and his eyes only fluttered open for the briefest millisecond, but my heart soared.
“I’m here.”
It was like a fever breaking. He didn’t wake up, but he became warm to the touch, his color turned normal, and his breathing evened out, deep and steady.
Exhausted, I crawled onto the bed beside him and let myself sleep.
“Nee?”
I rubbed my eyes, but Leo wasn’t a hallucination. “You shouldn’t be here. You’ll get sick.”
“I’ll be okay for a short period.” She already sounded strained from being on this side of the wards. “Rabbi Abrams helped me across.”
“You told him?”
“Old news.” She stood at the edge of the bed. “Ro’s okay?”
Rohan stirred and rolled over, the first movement he’d made.
Tension ebbed out of my body. I motioned for her to follow me out of his room so we didn’t wake him.
“He will be.”
“And you?” she said.
“What about me?”
Leo grabbed my hand and pulled me up the stairs into my room. She planted me in front of my mirror.
Daylight highlighted my every flaw better than HD. My hair was a snarled mess and my eyes were bloodshot with dark circles under them.
“Have you showered?” she said.
“I was busy.”
“You didn’t eat or leave his side for two days. You gave Drio third degree burns. Not to mention how weird you were at breakfast with me. Something’s wrong with you.” Leo shoved me onto the bed, snagging my arm in a death grip.
“Ow!”
“Hold still,” she snapped. She screwed her eyes shut, face scrunched in concentration. “You’ve been poisoned.”
“I had the flu.”
“It’s poison and it’s making you crazy worrying about the people you love. Was it the oshk?”
“Impossible. It was only a drop and it didn’t behave like Sweet Tooth.” I tugged but was held fast. “Naomi and Jake with the drug, Ro touching the oshk, the effects hit them immediately. They got a happy high followed by this intense darker moment when they were denied the object of their desire, and then, well, they either died or came out of it. Mine was more groggy, sleep for a week sickness. It wasn’t the secretion.”
“It most definitely was. You absorbed a drop in its pure form,” Leo said. “You can’t use humans or Rasha as a template for the secretion’s behavior when affecting someone with witch magic. Come to mama, you little bastard,” she muttered, twisting my arm like she was wringing out the poison.
I curled double, panting. Her touch had woken the venomous snakes in my veins, hissing and snapping and not wanting to be pulled out from my skin into the light of day. I let out a low moan.
“The poison is in deep.” Leo’s voice was reedy, sweat dripping off her brows.
“Leonie?” Drio stepped into the room. “What are you doing here?”
My head snapped up and I prayed he wouldn’t understand what he saw. I tried to jerk free but Leo hissed for me to stay still, that she wasn’t done.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“I’m just… I’ll come find you later,” she told him.
He didn’t budge, brows furrowed, his gaze locked on her hands doing their poison-removal.
“She has her industrial first aid,” I said through gritted teeth, racked with tremors from the de-poisoning process.
Leo gave a pained laugh. My forearms, Leonie’s hands, all were slick with black goo.
Drio grabbed one of her hands, forcing it against my iron bedpost.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said, returning her hand to my arm. That little amount of iron wouldn’t hurt. She ate salt, too. No, the only thing hunching her head deeper and deeper into her neck and bowing her spine were the wards.
Drio recognized the effects on her. “But you crossed the ward line.”
“I’m a riddle.”
“I’m good now,” I said brightly. “That first aid certification really came in handy.”
“Nava.” Leo sighed. She pulled the poison away from me, stretching it like taffy before condensing it into a small, hard ball and crushing it to dust between her hands.
“No. No.” Drio was a blur, flash stepping up to Leo and away again. He came into focus, ramming his fist into the doorframe on the other side of the room hard enough to splinter the wood.
I flinched.
Leo got to her feet, pale, her still-coated hands planted on her hips. She sneered at him. “You’re a smart man, Drio. Did you really not put it all together before now? Or did you know deep down and not want to admit it?”
“You’re a PD.”
“Yeah. I’m also the woman you’ve been sleeping with and the person who just healed her best friend. If you can’t reconcile all those parts of me, then fuck you.”
Drio scrubbed a hand over his face, half-curled over like he’d been punched.
I crossed my fingers that I was wrong about him. That when faced with the truth, he’d choose the reality of Leo over his prejudices.
He snapped straight up and jerked a finger at her. “You have two minutes to get out of my sight. After that, I see you?
I’ll kill you. Clear?” he snarled.
Leo didn’t back down from the menace rolling off him. In fact, she looked a breath away from taking out her silver eyebrow ring and stabbing him with it. “Crystal.”
He flashed out.
She dragged in a breath, her hands trembling. “Guess you were right about him. I thought…” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now.”
I pulled her into a fierce hug. “I didn’t want to be right. Do you have somewhere to go?”
“Yeah. You good?”
“Only because of you. It’s out.” I stepped back, searching her face. Clear-headed once more, I didn’t regret my efforts to heal Ro, but my behavior over the past couple of days had been crazy messed up.
I practically strong-armed her out to her car. “Go. I almost lost Ro. I can’t lose you, too. Get out of here and go away for a few days. Hide.”
One more hug and a promise from her to call me if she needed me. I jogged down the drive, following her car, standing guard until she’d turned the corner at the end of the block. Leo had been forced into hiding and I couldn’t be there for her lest I risk the Brotherhood finding out about her.
I locked down any telltale emotion and went in search of the massive loose end.
Drio, still in his street clothes, was in the Vault laying into the bag with murder in his eyes. He pounded on it bare-fisted, his knuckles split and bleeding. “You let me be with that–”
The hits intensified.
“Not a ‘that.’ Leonie. Beautiful, wonderful Leo.”
“She’s a demon.”
I swallowed, inching closer, my hands up. “She can’t help who the sperm donor was. And you know how amazing she is. Why does it change things? Why are you acting like it’s personal?”
“Because it is!” he roared.
I tensed but he just stood there, head bowed, one hand pressed over his eyes. He slid down the wall onto the padded flooring.
I’d given up on this conversation continuing when he spoke.
“You know how I met Ro?” he said.
“You were paired up for a mission?”
“I was fifteen.” To Rohan’s thirteen. I blinked. He’d known him ten years? “My father is a civil engineer, specializing in water conservation. He was transferred to L.A. for a year, so I had to train at that chapter house.” Drio gave a faint smile. “I took one look at Rohan’s emo bullshit and thought ‘fuck, no’ but the only other initiate was this eight-year-old brat called,” his voice went flat and unimpressed, “River.”
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