by Lisa Daniels
“There’s such a thing as unreal water?” Morgana said, a little shivery from her exorcism.
“I mean like natural rivers. Lakes. Not all this stuff bubbling through a tube with such a slimy feel to the skin!”
“That’s the minerals. Healthy bathing times.” Morgana stripped down to her bra and black panties. She might not have the proper attire, but by god was she going in that water. Whatever it took.
“It’s not right,” Theon reiterated, scowling, before shifting into his ginormous bear form, making Morgana gape in surprise. Although Morgana was somewhat used to the bear form by now, it was still intimidating to suddenly be sharing a bath with something that could probably kill her with a swipe of its baby claw. Or sit on her and crush her by sheer accident. All he wanted to do, however, was float on his back, but because of his size and the bath’s volume, he ended up taking most of the space, leaving Morgana squeezed in on the side. She turned on the Jacuzzi to full blast, just to make him snuff and grumble at her in his bear language.
Well, it was shit like this that made everything worthwhile. Theon didn’t seem to mind when she rested her cheek against his furry chest. His snout pointed toward the ceiling and his eyes closed, skull resting against the edge as he gave into the warmth. She forced herself to move eventually, and roasted out in the sauna instead, really struggling to stay awake in its heated confines. The image of a gigantic bear attempting to squeeze through the narrow door amused her enough to stay awake.
Honestly, it felt wonderful to stay here. Like a proper date, a proper time together with the person who was becoming not just her protector, but someone perhaps more important in her life. She didn’t want to think about the part of the future that ended their interactions together, when they would need to go their separate ways. She also didn’t want to think about the next deadring, or everything the police department was piling on her to make life more difficult.
She deserved some time out, right?
So when she went to bed that night with Theon, she did so feeling secure in her own safety, in the moments they shared together.
She had no idea of the danger she was in.
Chapter Ten – Theon
Creak. Theon’s eyes snapped open. He lifted his head from the pillow, nose bathed in the scent of Morgana’s hair, noting for one brief, happy second that his arm was draped over her stomach, before submitting to his instincts of caution. Slowly, he slid out of the bed without waking her up. He cautiously advanced toward the source of a second creak to occur within that timeframe, his senses on high alert. Listening.
Tasting danger, he prowled, nostrils flaring to try and take in more scent, and there was one that didn’t match with the rest of the room. The scent of an intruder.
Another creak. He hid behind the door, steps as soft as moss, and watched as someone walked beyond, making a beeline for the suitcases of bones left in the suite’s lounge. Was that the glint of a weapon, too?
He padded after the intruder, who seemed to be too intent upon his goal to notice the presence of someone there. He slowly morphed, keeping his jaw clenched as he blossomed into bear form. The intruder glanced around furtively, looked behind, and uttered a curse when Theon lumbered toward him, moving with the force of a steam roller.
Cursing again, the man lifted a handgun to face Theon, and popped off three noisy shots, which landed in Theon’s chest as he reared. Murder was on his inner ursine’s mind as he swept a gigantic paw at the intruder, swatting him aside as if he were a fly. He smacked the wall with a resounding thud, but instead of falling limp like a normal human would, the intruder shook himself, steadied his aim, and popped off a few more shots. Pain blazed through Theon, and his healing was already trying to compensate, to deal with the increased levels of trauma. With a roar, he hurtled himself onto the shooter, pinning him down with superior strength. The intruder kicked and squirmed beneath his paws, but was unable to wrest himself free.
Theon growled and snapped his teeth inches from the man’s masked face, but the man squirmed harder, as if he actually wanted to die. Morgana stumbled into the room, her eyes bulging as she registered the sight. Theon kept the man thoroughly pinned as Morgana approached.
“Who are you?” she demanded, which didn’t get any response at all. “Look,” she said, stunned at this display of reckless disregard for his own safety, “we can just kill you and I can interview your spirit afterwards. I don’t care if you live or die. So what’s it going to be? Talk to you, or your spirit?”
This threat caused the man to instantly stop wriggling. It was a validly scary threat, in Theon’s opinion. Even death couldn’t stop you from confessing. Instead, it made it easier for a necromancer to wring out the answers they needed.
“Paid to take the bodies,” the man gasped, eyes bulging, teeth bared like a cornered animal’s.
“Both of them?”
The man nodded from his position under Theon’s paws, though he seemed wild and frantic, eager to agree to anything at this point. Blood dripped from Theon’s chest onto him, and a bullet spat out of his wound as it healed.
“Is it Regal who paid you?”
“Someone in a mask,” the man said. “He didn’t share an identity or nothing. Just wanted whatever you got. Said to—said to kill you if I could.”
Morgana inhaled audibly, and Theon turned to give her a reassuring nose bump. He couldn’t speak any human tongues in bear form, but he could approximate body language.
“What on earth are we to do with you, then?” she said, folding her arms.
Moments later, the police had come to take away the man. He’d go for at least voluntary attempted manslaughter, since the evidence was in Theon’s flesh, but the man yelled at the police to check their bags, that they had bodies, that they were filthy necromancers.
When the police did investigate those claims, Morgana had to reveal her role to them, and they needed to verify this in turn. Theon had long since returned to human form.
Needless to say, they didn’t stay in the hotel for the rest of the night. Within the police station, Rosen Grieves, working a late shift, paced up and down in front of them. “In possession of an illegal corpse in normal layman’s terms would have you arrested for at least a month and released on bail. A harsher sentence depending on the nature of the situation. So to release you now would be very suspicious… unless we claim one corpse off you, and you pretend you got it for the reward money that was being offered.”
“There’s reward money for the corpse?” Theon said, wincing as he clutched at his chest. Morgana winced with him, clearly wanting to touch, concerned to hurt him more.
“Yeah. Five thousand.”
Underpriced compared to the auction. But it didn’t seem like they had an awful lot of choice if they wanted to stay above suspicion, because of the way that intruder had squealed like a pig. Should have finished him. Given into my instinct to kill.
Perhaps his kindness might be his downfall one day.
Rosen Grieves left to sort out the transfer, and Morgana huddled up by his side.
“I can’t believe you got shot like, what, six times?”
“Something like that,” he agreed, glancing at first down at her, then at his injuries, now swabbed up from the first-aid kit available in the station, once they confirmed he wouldn’t need to go to the hospital to get patched up. “We’re pretty resilient.”
“Six times...” Morgana shook her head. “I was terrified you were going to die. You’re trying to reassure me when you have that huge cluster of wounds in your chest. Jesus.”
“I’m just lucky I wasn’t hit in the head,” Theon said. “I can heal from those, but it takes longer. And I’d be out of action for it. It’s sustained trauma—too much damage in a short length of time to heal will kill me. So if someone threw a grenade at me, that’d do it.”
Morgana half-laughed, half-sighed. “I really thought...”
“Come, now.” He reached an arm around her shoulders, though it hurt him
to move the muscles. “Everything’s okay. Whoever was after you won’t get another chance.”
“Right,” she whispered. “They wanted me dead. They even gave the order to kill me.”
Theon continued to comfort her, but he was troubled. If Regal had been the one to order the hit, then it seemed to him that her safety was clearly in jeopardy. Especially since that confession from Eleganza, who said that her father had been waiting for a guardian angel long enough.
It also didn’t make sense why Regal would do such a thing. Unless he hoped to pin the blame on someone else. Either way, Morgana needed to mention something to him so that it wouldn’t be suspicious. Even if he was the one to order her death.
Maybe… maybe they shouldn’t go. They’d already thrown the police toward two prominent bodies. The only one remaining out of their most wanted was Iretha One-Eye, and that belonged to Regal himself.
Holding Morgana’s hand, seeing the knotted concern in her brow and the tension in her body, Theon vowed that he would do everything in his power to make sure she came out of this whole, sorry situation okay. He didn’t want to harbor any hopes that things might continue after the whole business was done, but at the same time… depending on what he chose to do afterwards, whether retire from bodyguarding in general or climb up the ladder—maybe they’d have ample opportunities together.
Or maybe it would all be over soon.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t get shot up in front of me again.”
“Can’t make any promises on that,” he growled, keeping his pain to himself, focusing entirely on making sure that she wasn’t worried. If he had to reassure her one more time, however, he might just throw something.
She was still suspicious, but he did everything to prove her wrong, blithely eating food, drinking without issue, walking around with a controlled expression and being careful not to strain himself.
When released, it was early morning, and they went for the institution to slump into a weary sleep in each other’s arms.
They kept a relatively low profile over the next few weeks, waiting for the new match, and Morgana at one point informed Regal that the police had taken one of the corpses, that she had to pretend she had it to get the reward money after the break-in and attempted robbery and murder.
Regal’s response was to tell her to cover her tracks better. There were those who preyed on the buyers and sellers in auctions, preferring to steal the body rather than buy it. He claimed no responsibility, though neither of them dared pushed Regal further.
“I don’t think he did it,” Morgana said slowly, after that call had finished. “There were a lot of people at that auction. Some of them didn’t buy anything. I think I can believe that people try to rob the buyers.”
Though shooting her doesn’t add up, Theon thought. And it might mean her secret identity was no longer so secret. People would know Morgana Hargraves was Crimson.
In those weeks of waiting for the match, they spent almost every waking hour together, and many sleeping hours, too. They played card games and binge-watched streaming TV, though Theon wasn’t big on movies or shows in general. He liked the ones she introduced, which were mostly true crime documentaries detailing everything from accidental to heinous.
It was nice to be able to share such time together. Nice to treat this beyond a job, though he knew if word got out with his agency what he was doing, he’d be fired on the spot. And rightly so, to be honest. He didn’t quite have the balls to admit the affair, though. It was forbidden, but tasted so sweet upon the tongue.
She was a promise of what a relationship could actually be like. A promise of two people who connected regardless of the origins of their meeting, and it was all too soon that the deadring day loomed over them like a monstrous shadow.
Driving her to the deadring location, his heart felt as if it were in his mouth. Just last night they’d spent a good few hours forsaking everything else just to continue that gentle exploration of each other’s bodies, to have her shatter beneath him, again and again, until all the pleasure was squeezed out of her, and she panted there with her lovely pink, kiss-swollen lips open to take in more air. That memory burned strong, as did the others he had with her. He cradled them as if they were the Olympic flame, ever-burning and vital.
The full, throat-blocking sensation came from worry. It came from the deep conviction that they were driving toward a trap, but they had no choice but to stroll right into it smiling, acting as if they knew nothing. Morgana was silent and stiff, with the expression of someone heading to their own funeral. Partway there, her cellphone rang, and she lifted it up to place on speaker. Theon focused on driving as best as he could, when Rosen Grieves’ voice rang out, clear and purposeful.
“My Korean counterpart, Jiwon Sung, he’s confirmed that the spirit you have is of the same quality of a Tennyo, a female heavenly spirit in Japanese folklore. Unlike popular descriptions of them, the Tennyo are formed when someone performs an ultimate sacrifice to protect another—and if that sacrifice results in a violent death for them, it causes their soul to form an oath upon death. That oath usually constitutes protecting the person they saved once more. Then afterwards, they vanish. In some Shinto shrines, there are Tennyo that people pray to or consult, ones that were unable to fulfill their oaths one way or another—though it’s said if they form an attachment to a single individual, they can reshape their oath and fulfill a new one instead.” Rosen took a deep breath. “Pretty cool, huh?”
“Right,” Morgana said. “So a guardian angel and a Tennyo are the same thing?”
“More or less,” Rosen confirmed. “He also says that they are immensely powerful, and dangerous in the wrong hands, since in their benevolence, they tend to go above and beyond the call of duty to appease.”
Well, that explained things, Theon thought. The spirit did fight without explicit instructions, after all.
“One last thing—if the spirit doesn’t remember how it died, that usually means that the person it protected most likely died within ten minutes of the sacrifice, before they had a chance to fully become a guardian angel. Jiwon says it happens out of a need for self-preservation. Sad, if you ask me. But that’s all the info we have on your girl. Be careful with her. Maybe in time, we can study her in peace.”
“Thanks,” Morgana said, licking her lips as if her mouth had gone dry. “Wish me luck.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do…” The call ended.
Morgana slumped back in her seat and groaned.
“Okay, so I get why Regal wants her.”
Theon, however, slipped into melancholy thought. A person that sacrificed themselves for someone… only to have that person die anyway. Like diving in front of a bullet, but the shooter kept firing until everyone was dead. Something awful like that. The sadness reached deep inside his soul, and never quite let go for the remainder of the journey.
When they parked the car, he faced Morgana properly. “Make sure you don’t lose. Make sure no one gets a chance to steal that soul.”
“I won’t,” Morgana said, all solemn. They took Beverly’s bones out of the trunk, and there was a certain reverence in the way Morgana held the bag. “Do you think that means we shouldn’t talk to Beverly about the person she failed to protect? If she deliberately forgot?”
“I don’t know. You’re the expert, not me,” he said, though privately, he thought, No. Don’t say anything.
The location was the same as the last one, with the overly decorated room full of Halloween props, giving them a sinister mix of darkness and black humor, all of which served toward the fights and atmosphere. Morgana had on her demon mask, and her entrance caused a stir.
Crimson was becoming well known, respectable, a force to be reckoned with. It was almost a shame on a level that this was all a grand deception, because she really could make it big with her spirit. That, or get murdered horribly, and the spirit stolen at the first opportunity.
Sure enough, when they studied the sc
oreboard, the worst possible thing was on display. Crimson was against Regal, and a tag-team duo called Disillusion.
Three people.
Regal sauntered up to her among the crowd’s mutterings, and he said, quite lightly, “The fight today means everything. Three is the maximum number our events permit against a single fighter. Do you accept the rules?”
Morgana glared at him from behind her mask, though Regal’s golden eyes remained impassive. “What if I don’t?”
“Do you forfeit?” Regal said.
Eleganza appeared beside him in that moment, not wearing a mask, looking incredibly bored. “If you forfeit, he gets to keep your spirit, FYI. That’s the special rule of a three-way bash.”
Regal’s face twitched in slight annoyance.
“Is this true?” Morgana demanded, and he was forced to agree.
“It is. If you choose to fight, and also lose—”
“He also gets to keep the spirit,” Eleganza added helpfully. “But you get to keep the loser’s as well if you win. It’s not all bad.”
“Do you insist on sharing all the information I have?”
“You were planning on telling them up front, weren’t you, Father?” Eleganza’s blue eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t possibly consider hiding anything until it’s too late, would you?”
A vein seemed to tick in Regal’s jaw. “I wouldn’t,” he said, though there was little conviction behind it. “It’s a shame you don’t have your second spirit,” he said to Morgana then. “The competitor is allowed to fight with up to three if they wish.”
“Well, if you’d had another auction, I might have been able to procure one more,” Morgana said, putting on the perfect haughty voice. “Since I refuse to use those rags you call fighting spirits in the corner.” She then paused. “Your rules seem extremely unfair. What would stop you forcing everyone to do one-versus-threes and then take their spirits?”
