Arms?
Strong human arms held me around the waist as I floated toward the street below. Gasping soundlessly, I turned my head and met a pair of almost-human, midnight-blue eyes.
My bare feet lightly touched the ground, then the hands released me, sliding along my arm and gently grasping my fingers instead. A fae hovered beside me, dark wings arching out from a humanlike body. His face was beautifully androgynous, his eyes huge and bottomless, his skin like flawless porcelain. His black hair with shimmering streaks of blue and purple was pulled into a loose plait that hung past his waist.
“Echo?” I whispered.
The dragon’s wings, the dragon’s tail, the dragon’s claws—they adorned his new shape. Delicate horns poked out of his hair and his ears were sharply pointed. Draping garments more exotic than anything I’d ever seen clothed his lean body in shades of blue.
He smiled, revealing carnivorous teeth. “You are home?”
I shivered. His rolling, lilting accent didn’t hide the otherworldly quality of his voice. Dragging my stare away from him, I looked around. I was standing in the middle of a quiet street, and across from me was an unassuming three-story cube of a building, its black door beckoning. The Crow and Hammer. I was back.
Okay then. That had been way too easy.
“This seems too little,” Echo murmured, mirroring my thoughts and drawing my wide eyes back to his alien features. Human-ish, but obviously not human at the same time. “For the blood of my blood’s life, I will aid you again—but only once.”
“You … you will?”
Turning my palm up, he touched a clawed fingertip to my inner wrist. A dark blue rune the size of a quarter appeared on my skin, then faded to an almost invisible shadow.
“When you have need of me, touch this mark and speak my name. I will come.” With another disturbingly predatory smile, he drifted higher above the ground, lifting my hand with him. “Farewell, brazen one.”
His wings swept down, and with a rush of wind, he shot skyward. With my hand tingling in the absence of his strange touch, I craned my neck back, but the air was already rippling. As leaves fluttered back to the pavement, he vanished.
Examining the faint rune, I shook my head. It was hard to believe a wyldfae like him was related to the green twig-head faery in my new apartment. I frowned. Come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t my apartment. I’d been missing for two weeks. Who knew what had happened with my lease?
I tiptoed—literally—across the pavement and onto the sidewalk, careful not to tread on anything sharp. Downtown streets and bare feet did not mix well. Stepping into the shadowy entryway, I stared at the black door of the guild, the painted crow glaring in return.
With an oddly nervous twist in my belly, I pushed the door open.
Girard folded his arms. “You’re saying you can’t tell us anything about your capture or escape?”
With my lower lip caught between my teeth, I nodded, trying not to wilt under his critical assessment. Felix leaned against the desk beside the seated first officer, his expression equally grim.
We were sitting in Darius’s office, but the guild master wasn’t present. He was out of town—on my account. He’d gone to the Seattle MPD office to speak with a special investigator. Clara had already called him, and between bouts of hysterical weeping, she’d called Aaron and Kai too, who were out hunting for clues about my whereabouts. I wished I could go back downstairs and tell her again that I was fine. The poor woman had thought I was a goner and probably spent the last two weeks blaming herself for hiring me.
“Tori,” Girard said, drawing my attention back to the present. “If the Ghost has threatened you, or if you don’t feel secure revealing what happened, I assure you you’re safe now. You can speak freely.”
I pressed my lips together. I couldn’t reveal anything about Zak, his ranch hideout, or his collection of runaways. Nor could I reveal the existence of the binding oath that prevented me from talking about it. I had no idea what to tell Girard and Felix. I wasn’t even sure whether I could disagree with his statement about speaking freely.
“I’m safe now,” I agreed. “But Nadine isn’t. You know about Nadine, right? The girl we tried to rescue? She’s in danger.”
“She’s the Ghost’s prisoner?” Felix asked.
“Not anymore. A dark sorceress called Varvara Nikolaev abducted her.” Pressing my hands to my thighs, I gave them a brief rundown of Nadine’s past and Varvara’s involvement. I skipped over the details of how Varvara had snatched Nadine from the Ghost’s clutches and focused on how Varvara would soon whisk her new apprentice far from anyone’s reach. “We don’t have much time. We have to find her before they disappear.”
I wasn’t sure how I’d expected the two officers to respond to my explanation of the danger Nadine was facing, but I figured they would at least, you know, react. Instead, their expressions remained stonily ambiguous.
Girard cleared his throat. “That’s crucial information, and we’ll look at it more closely once we’ve discussed your abduction and escape.”
“But I can’t tell you about that stuff.” Frustration burned through me. “I’m back and that’s what’s important, right? We need to worry about Nadine.”
Girard and Felix exchanged looks.
“We’re beyond relieved that you’ve returned unharmed,” Felix said slowly, “but we still need to know what happened. Not only for your safety but for the safety of everyone at the guild.”
My gaze flicked between them as I realized what he meant. They didn’t trust me. They didn’t believe me. The scariest dark druid in the city had imprisoned me for two weeks, then out of nowhere I’d walked through the guild’s front door like nothing had happened. I’d refused to tell them anything—except a wild story about an evil sorceress they needed to fight.
Though I tried to hide my devastation, Girard was too observant. His face softened. “Sweetheart, we want to trust you, but without the whole story, we can’t know if the Ghost is setting an elaborate trap for us.”
“He’s not,” I whispered hoarsely, unsure if I wanted to scream or cry. Damn Zak and his stupid oath spell! If I lost Nadine because I couldn’t explain anything, I would kill the stupid druid myself.
“We need to know everything, Tori,” Felix murmured.
“I can’t.”
Girard and Felix exchanged looks again, and my hands clenched. Should I test the boundaries of the oath spell? If it was the only way—
The office door flew open and hit the wall with a bang. Aaron hung in the threshold, his copper-red hair a mess, stubble covering his jaw, and dark circles under his eyes. His stare fixed on me, then he swept into the room.
He dropped to his knees in front of my chair, his hot hands grasping my upper arms. “Tori, are you okay?”
For the first time since I’d walked into the park to meet the Ghost, I felt safe—and something close to hysteria swelled in my chest. The long days and even longer nights trapped in an unfamiliar place, helpless and unsure if I’d ever escape, piled on me until my shoulders trembled from the weight.
“I’m good.” My voice cracked but I managed to smile. “Not even traumatized, I promise.”
His gaze darted over my face like he didn’t believe me, then he pulled me half off the chair, arms wrapped around me and face pressed against my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Tori. We should never have involved you.”
I hung on the edge of my chair, clutching his shoulders for balance. Another hand touched my back. Kai crouched beside us, relief softening his dark eyes. He, unlike Aaron, had found the time and energy to shave, but otherwise he looked equally exhausted and unkempt.
Resting my cheek against Aaron’s shoulder, I closed my eyes, pretending they weren’t stinging with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, guys. I was stupid. I never should’ve gone with him.”
“Damn right,” Aaron muttered, loosening his hold. He sat back on his heels. “Let’s hear it.”
“Hear … what?”
> “What happened! Where he took you, what you’ve been doing for the last two weeks, how you escaped.”
I scooted back onto my chair, unable to meet his anxious blue eyes. “I can’t tell you.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I can’t say anything about him.”
Aaron glanced questioningly at Girard and Felix. When they said nothing, he shifted closer and gently massaged my arms. “Tori, he can’t hurt you anymore. You can tell us.”
Haha, no. Zak could kill me anywhere, anytime. All I had to do was let slip a single detail. “I can’t.”
A painfully awkward silence settled over the room. I stared at my lap, unable to meet anyone’s eyes.
“Girard, Felix,” Kai said, his smooth voice startling me. “Tori has been through a lot. She needs rest and recuperation more than anything. I’d like to take her home with us.”
Felix folded his arms. “You know why we need answers, but I don’t want to force her to talk.”
Girard nodded. “Take her home, then. When she’s ready to discuss it, bring her in—or we can come see her if that’s easier. Until she’s comfortable talking, she needs to stay at your house—under your supervision.”
“Yes, sir,” Kai agreed.
Relieved they wouldn’t question me anymore, I sagged against Aaron. He put an arm around my shoulders.
“Go get some rest, Tori,” Felix said gently.
Aaron drew me out of the office and we headed down the stairs. A dozen guild members swarmed us on the main level, but Kai fended them off while Aaron ushered me out the door. As happy as I was to be back, I couldn’t handle another million questions about what had happened.
When I started tiptoeing again, Aaron stopped and frowned at my feet. “Where are your shoes?”
“I … lost them.”
He arched an eyebrow, then scooped me up and carried me around the building to the parking lot. Hanging in his arms, I was suddenly so exhausted all I wanted was to be home in PJs, wrapped in the fuzzy owl blanket Ezra had given me.
Kai jogged into the parking lot and took Aaron’s keys. After unlocking the car, he climbed into the back, and Aaron tipped me into the passenger’s seat before hurrying around the vehicle.
Buckling himself in, he started the engine, then peered at my face. “Hey Tori. Is it just me, or do you have a tan?”
I pressed my lips tightly together.
“If you spent this whole time on a beach, I’m gonna be ticked.”
“I wasn’t on a beach!”
A grin cracked his serious expression. He backed the car out of the parking lot and turned onto the street. The warm afternoon sun blazed into the vehicle, warming my face. Had it been sunny all week in the city too?
As we stopped at a red light, Kai leaned over the center console. “Tori, do we need to worry about the Ghost coming after you?”
I snorted. “Nope. He’s so done with me.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could think, and my eyes went wide in panic. But I didn’t keel over dead, so that must not have counted as revealing information.
Kai studied me as the car rolled into motion again. “Can you tell us anything about him?”
“I can’t.” I met his eyes as best I could at the weird angle. “But I swear it’s not a trick or a trap. I just can’t explain where I was. There are … special circumstances.”
“Hmm.” Kai sat back. “Okay.”
As he pulled out his phone, I blinked in confusion. “What are you doing?”
His thumbs sped across the screen. “Just texting Ezra with a heads-up so you don’t have to go through the same round of questions again.”
“But … don’t you …” I trailed off, not sure what question I was asking.
“You can’t talk about it,” Aaron murmured, his eyes on the road. “We get it. Secrets are a part of life for mythics. They keep us safe, even when it means hiding things from people we care about.”
“I’d tell you if I could,” I mumbled miserably.
“We know.” Kai stuck his phone back in his pocket. “Some secrets aren’t about trust, Tori.”
My eyes burned with tears and I blinked rapidly to clear them. Fingers curling against my thighs, I exhaled shakily. They understood. They realized I wasn’t withholding information because I didn’t trust them, but because I had no other choice.
“You know what really sucks though?” Aaron said abruptly.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m never going to find out how you lost your shoes, am I?” He threw his hands up. “How does a person lose their shoes? How did you make it back to the guild barefoot? It makes no sense!”
I slapped at his waving arm. “Hands on the wheel, Aaron!”
Grabbing the steering wheel again, he cast me a tortured look. “This is going to drive me insane, you know that, right?”
“How is it that you care more about how she lost her shoes than how she escaped a notorious rogue?” Kai asked dryly from the backseat. “Priorities, Aaron.”
Aaron flashed me a grin and I couldn’t help my smile. Damn, I’d missed them.
Chapter Nineteen
I didn’t know who was a bigger idiot. The three mages or my brother.
While I’d been missing, Aaron, Kai, and Ezra hadn’t wanted to involve the police. So Kai, genius that he was, hacked into my phone—which I’d left at the guild for our Ghost-capturing mission—and between the three of them, they convinced Justin via text messages that I was super busy with my new apartment and that’s why I wasn’t around.
Leaning against the counter in the bathroom, I scrolled through the messages, rolling my eyes so much I was getting dizzy. None of these texts sounded anything like me! In what twisted reality would I ever use cat emojis? The only thing more embarrassing than the impersonation attempt was the fact my brother hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.
I closed the message app and set my phone on the counter, then held my hand up. I could still feel Zak’s phantom grip as he’d written across my palm.
With the whole “catching a ride with a dragon fae” thing, I’d forgotten that he’d written on my hand. I hadn’t remembered until I was in the bathroom with a towel and an armful of clean clothes so I could shower while we waited for pizza to arrive.
Two incantations were scrawled across my palm in neat, masculine handwriting. And beneath them were ten digits. A phone number.
Zak must be serious about wanting to take Nadine back—so serious he’d given me a direct method of contacting him. I didn’t know how to feel about that. For starters, I’d thought he was too much of a hippy to have a phone. I should have searched his room while he was sleeping. If I’d found his phone, I could have called in the cavalry and saved myself a black-magic oath spell.
I saved his number in my contacts and made a note about the incantations. With a final glance at his handwriting on my palm, I turned on the faucet, grabbed the soap, and scrubbed until there was no sign that ink had ever touched my skin.
After showering, I dressed in my favorite PJ pants and a tank top. Did I wear a bra? Nope. Should I have put on a bra? Probably, but I wanted to be comfortable. The guys could just avert their eyes.
Conveniently, all my stuff was at their place. To support their bullshit story about how I was relishing in newfound brother-freedom at my apartment, they’d gone to Justin’s place while he was at work and picked up my four whole boxes of belongings. Using my keys. From my purse. Which I’d also left at the guild.
I was only slightly annoyed. They’d done their best to keep my regular life from falling apart while they tried to find me.
By the time I joined them, the pizza had arrived. If not for the irresistible allure of pepperoni and green peppers, I might have stopped to hug Ezra again. Hugging was sort of our thing, so I was free to throw myself into his arms whenever I wanted. Which I’d done, with enthusiasm and maybe a single tear of relief, the moment I’d walked through the front door.
&n
bsp; While we ate—or I should say, while they nibbled pizza and I gorged myself, having eaten exactly one apple in the last twenty-four hours—they filled me in on their efforts to find me. Most of the guild had dropped everything to investigate the Ghost and where he might have taken me. Even Darius had tapped into his formidable resources as a guild master.
Despite that, none of them had made significant progress. If Zak hadn’t released me, I’d still be his prisoner—or dead.
Stuffed with cheese and delicious doughy crust, I waddled into the living room and collapsed in the middle of the sofa. Aaron sat beside me and Kai perched on the opposite sofa arm. Ezra wandered in last, eating a final slice.
Closing my eyes, I leaned against Aaron’s side. The evening sun cut across the south-facing window, filling the room with warm orange light. All I wanted to do was sit here with the guys. Listen to them talk. Play silly video games with them. Just be here, safe again. But there was a reason I’d come rushing back.
“Nadine needs help,” I told them, feeling Aaron’s muscles tense. “I tried to tell Girard and Felix, but they won’t act on it until I explain everything. They think it’s a trap, but I swear it’s not.”
I opened my eyes to find them watching me. Ezra crossed the room and sat on the floor beside my legs, using the sofa as a backrest.
“Tell us,” he murmured.
“Nadine explained why she ran away from home.” I repeated as much of her tale as I could remember, describing the envelope she’d received with all the information about her real parents. “She also mentioned her neighbor, a woman named Varvara Nikolaev. Have you heard of her?”
Aaron shook his head.
“Who is she?” Kai asked.
“A dark sorceress. We figure she murdered Nadine’s parents, brought her here as a baby, and put her in the care of a human couple to hide her, all while planning to make Nadine her apprentice when she turned sixteen.”
“Her apprentice?” Aaron repeated. “Why would she want the child of this British couple as an apprentice?”
“The Emrys family is famous,” Kai added. “Seems like an unnecessary risk.”
Dark Arts and a Daiquiri (The Guild Codex: Spellbound Book 2) Page 17
