by Lisa Edmonds
I’d already expended a lot of magic in our earlier fight and used more to block her bullets and create the whip, and I hadn’t been at anything close to one hundred percent to begin with. What was left of my air magic would do little to protect me against what was about to happen.
Malcolm’s terror seared my skin. I wondered if he thought he was about to watch me get blown to smithereens. I had one chance to survive, and it meant revealing a literal ace up my sleeve I hadn’t told anyone about, not even my ghost.
I reached for the magic held in the dragon tattoo on my right arm. “Draco,” I breathed.
The protection spell ignited, displacing the air with a snapping sound like wings unfurling. Magic flared and formed a cocoon around me at the same moment that the blast hit.
The air mage’s bomb-like blast of air magic blew my whip apart and made her stagger. The targeted burst propelled me backward at breathtaking speed. My cocooned body blew a hole through the wall behind me and sailed across the kitchen. I hit a second, much sturdier wall, and the impact sent me spinning off into oblivion.
I drifted in and out of consciousness for what seemed like a long time. I was aware on some level of familiar voices, flashes of magic and pain, and movement, but every time I started to break through the fog, the darkness dragged me back under.
When I finally woke, I seemed to be sitting upright and belted into the passenger seat of a car. My first thought was that I felt very, very sick.
“Going to barf,” I mumbled, hoping someone would hear me.
The vehicle immediately swerved sharply to the right and screeched to a halt. I heard the sound of a seatbelt unfastening, a door opening and closing, and footsteps running around to my side of the car. Someone opened my door, released my seatbelt, and scooped me up. I couldn’t quite get my eyes open yet, but I recognized the feel of Sean’s arms and his unmistakable scent as he carried me a few feet before lowering me to my hands and knees on what felt like grass.
I would rather have walked blindfolded across a field of dog poop and broken glass than vomit in front of anyone, even—or maybe especially—Sean, but the situation left me no choice.
He held me up with an arm around my middle as I threw up what little I had in my stomach and then dry-heaved miserably.
A vicious headache made my eyeballs throb and my brain felt like it was filled with sand, a sure sign that someone, presumably Malcolm, had used a healing spell on my head—hence the nausea.
Finally, I got my eyes open and found myself on the lawn of a closed bank a few miles from Jana’s house. We were on a side street and mostly hidden from view of passing vehicles by my car, which was parked at the curb with the engine still running and the passenger-side door hanging open.
Sean handed me a couple of paper napkins he’d somehow had the presence of mind to grab from the center console of my car.
I took them gratefully and wiped my mouth. “Sorry,” I rasped.
“Please don’t apologize,” Sean said firmly as I hung my head and concentrated on just breathing. “Malcolm warned me this might happen. It’s my privilege to take care of you when you’re sick or injured. Plus, I’m so glad you’re alive that I’d do this a hundred times over.” He pressed a kiss to my hair. “Other than sick, how do you feel?”
Memory returned in a rush. My stomach lurched violently in a spasm that had nothing to do with healing spell-induced nausea. I pushed his arm away. “Where’s Jana? Where’s Malcolm?”
“Malcolm’s fine. He drained himself healing you and jumped back to your basement to regenerate and stay protected behind your wards. I’m sorry, but Jana’s gone. Nora Keegan, the air mage from Bell’s cabal, took her.”
“Oh, no.” I struggled to rise despite my dizziness.
Sean started to lift me up. I pushed him back and lurched to my feet. I took a couple of unsteady steps to put some distance between us. “Why didn’t Malcolm stop her?”
“There was a third person with them, the driver of their vehicle.” Frowning, Sean stayed where he was, giving me some space as I stumbled around on rubbery legs. “Nora had him carry Jana back to their SUV. She held Malcolm back with her blood magic and threatened to discorporate him if he interfered. Since that might kill you outright, he had to let them go. Then he jumped to me to tell me what happened, jumped back to Jana’s house, and nearly burned himself out trying to heal you.”
I struggled to clear my head and keep up with what he was saying. “So you came to Jana’s house to get me?”
“Yes.” He crossed his arms. “When I got there, I found a hole blown through the back wall of the house and you lying unconscious and beat to hell in a crater in the backyard. You were wrapped in some kind of glowing magic cocoon and neither of us could get through it. Finally, you opened your eyes, saw us, and broke whatever spell was protecting you before you passed out again.”
I didn’t remember doing that at all, but obviously I had because the protection spell was gone. I pushed up my sleeve to examine my right bicep.
Sean leaned forward to get a closer look at my arm. “Whoa. What happened to your dragon tattoo? It used to be dark greenish-black and now it looks gray.”
Gingerly, I touched the tender skin and winced. “That tattoo held the protection spell that saved my life today.”
Sean didn’t seem surprised by that news. “I suspected your tattoos hold magic. Sometimes they shimmer. At first I thought it was just a trick of the light, but after a while I realized they weren’t just for decoration. Are all of your tattoos magical, or only the dragon?”
“They’re all magical,” I admitted. “Different purposes, but all magical. I don’t use them unless I have no other choice because they require a ton of power and a visit to a mage tattoo artist to regenerate. The dragon was my strongest protection spell, my last line of defense when it’s either that or adiós Alice.”
“But if that was a protection spell around you, why did you get banged up so badly?”
“Even the strongest protection spells have limits. Its job was to keep me alive, not to keep me unscathed. It did what it was supposed to do and that’s what counts.”
The dragon spell was a version of the protection spell that kept me alive the night I’d escaped from my grandfather’s compound five years ago, courtesy of an explosion that blew me through the exterior wall. While everyone assumed I had died, my only real injury had been a broken arm, thanks to the spell.
He glanced at the car. “I want to hear more about it and tell you the rest of what I know from Malcolm, but we need to get moving. I don’t want you out in the open like this.”
“Let’s go to my house.” I headed for the car, still a little unsteady. “I need to check on Malcolm and figure out what my next move will be.”
Sean went ahead of me to hold the passenger door open while I got in. “I’d rather take you to my house,” he said carefully.
I paused with one foot in the car. “Why? The safest place for me to be is my house, with Malcolm, behind my wards.”
A muscle moved in his jaw. “The safest place for you to be is with me. Bell and his people know who you are now. They know you have Malcolm and they want him back. Your connection to me and my pack is one of your best protections against them. If they come after you, they’re coming after the whole pack and the Were Ruling Council too. Bell would be a fool to do it.”
I took my foot back out of the car. “I am not going to cower behind the pack and the Council.”
“No one said anything about you cowering.” His eyes turned golden. “That was your word, not mine. We stand beside you, not in front of you.”
“If I go to your house, it’s like I’m hiding out. You’ll call on members of the pack to help guard me. That sounds more like cowering to me.”
He growled. “If it were me who was threatened by Bell, my pack would join me wherever I was to face the threat. Would you say I was cowering behind them or that they were there to fight at my side?”
“That’s not
the same thing. The pack recognizes you as their alpha and so does everyone else. They know you stand front and center. I don’t have that status. I’ll be there to be protected, not to protect and fight.”
“What makes you so sure? You know the pack senses your strength and power. Do you think anyone in my pack believes you’re a helpless human who needs protecting? Because I don’t think so. In fact, I know no one sees you that way, not even Jack or anyone else who would prefer my mate be a shifter. You may not be a werewolf, but you are a force to be reckoned with and they know it.”
He moved closer, forcing me to take a step back to avoid touching him. “I know you hate needing backup and you don’t want anyone believing you’re a coward. I think this is more about your aversion to the idea of anyone putting themselves at risk on your behalf. You know you’re a target now and you don’t want Bell’s people coming at me or my pack.”
“Of course I don’t want to put you in danger,” I said, irrationally irritated at how well he understood how my mind worked.
“We’re well beyond that now, Alice. Our relationship is not a secret. You are the lover and potential mate of the alpha of the Tomb Mountain Pack. Anyone who comes for you will come for us as well. That’s how being part of a pack works. I know you know that—you’ve been around shifter packs before. You don’t want to put us in danger; I get that and I’m grateful for it. But when our pack accepted you as my consort they accepted responsibility for you as well, just as they did the mates and spouses of other members of the pack. You’re my partner, in good times and bad, in peace and in war.”
My shoulders sagged. “I’m sure your people didn’t think they might be facing a cabal when they made that decision.”
“Give them more credit than that,” he said gently. “I promise you it was discussed. I won’t say no one voiced concerns, but very few pack members even balked at the prospect. Those who did, did so based on their preference that I date a shifter, not because of possible cabal conflicts. We aren’t afraid of Bell or his people, Alice.”
I’d always known I might bring danger to the pack’s doorstep because of my grandfather, but the Storm Girl incident had turned that distant threat into an immediate danger and doubled it by putting me in the crosshairs of not one but two cabals. I didn’t doubt Sean’s word that the pack had taken possible cabal conflicts into consideration when discussing me, but it was difficult for me to accept that they were willing and able to face that kind of danger on my behalf. Since Moses murdered my parents when I was eight, no one had ever been willing to do that until Sean and Malcolm entered my life. Even now, knowing they would and had fought for and with me, I found it hard to accept. Twenty years of cabal captivity left deep scars.
Sean must have sensed the little stab of pain thinking about the cabal caused. His face softened. “I’m going to ask you a question. I want you to really think about your answer and be honest with both of us. Where do you feel safer: at home behind your wards or at my side?”
When it really came down to it, that was the question at the crux of my internal debate over moving in with Sean. The argument in my head wasn’t really about the size of our shared space or whether I’d struggle to get used to pack members always coming and going and feeling the alpha’s home was also their den. The real question was, if my home was where I felt safest, was that behind the wards I’d spent the last five years building, or with the alpha werewolf who’d made a place for himself in my heart?
Not long ago, my immediate answer would have been behind my wards. I wouldn’t have even had to think about it. My home was my fortress—a fortress of solitude, Sean had called it once, half-jokingly, comparing it to Superman’s famous lonely lair. My house was the first thing that was ever truly mine after I escaped from my grandfather. After being a prisoner in his compound for twenty years, I felt that I had to have my own home if I was to ever have a chance at finding out who I was. I’d lived under his rule for almost my entire life. My home was my own compound in a way, where I made my own rules and took the first cautious steps toward making a new life for myself.
I opened my mouth to say I felt safest in my home, then closed it. I thought about how I felt when I was next to Sean, whether it was cooking dinner at his house, sleeping in his bed, or walking down the street—all activities far from my house and its wards. Didn’t I feel safe at his side? Had I ever felt afraid when we were together, unless it was fear for him?
Sean watched me, his frown deepening. “Are you all right? Are you still hurt?”
I realized I’d wrapped my arms around my abdomen and hunched over. I couldn’t tell if it was still nausea from the healing spell, my worry about Sean and his pack being pulled into my conflict with Bell’s organization, the question Sean had asked me, all three, or something else entirely.
“I’m still sick to my stomach,” I admitted. I took a deep, shaky breath. “I feel safe in my home, behind my wards, but I also feel safe when I’m with you. You want me to say where I feel safer and I can’t, not right now. If you and your pack are in danger as a result of me or my actions, then my place is with you and them, to fight back.”
He smiled. “That’s an honest answer I can live with. Let’s swing by your house so you can pick up what you need and then we’ll figure out what the next step is.” He reached for my hand.
My stomach cramped painfully. I winced and avoided him, lowering myself gingerly into the passenger seat. He shut my door and hurried around to the driver’s side.
As he pulled away from the curb, I noticed my messenger bag in the back seat and my phone in the cup holder. “Thanks for grabbing my bag and phone. What else did you find in the house when you got there, besides the hole in the wall?”
“A demolished living room and a second Alice-sized hole through the living room wall,” he said dryly. “Assorted bullet holes and broken furniture. Also a pile of ash in the shape of a human body, which was all that was left of the man Nora Keegan shot. Malcolm said she torched his body with a burner spell before she left. She shot her own partner?”
“Rather than risk leaving him behind as a prisoner, yeah. Malcolm put him to sleep, so he went from asset to liability.”
“And so she disposed of him without a second thought.” He sounded grim. “Malcolm told me a little about this Nora Keegan. Apparently, she’s one of Bell’s top lieutenants.”
That news didn’t surprise me. Someone with those skills and psychopathic tendencies would move quickly up the ranks in a cabal. “I’m guessing she’s who Bell sends out when he needs to make an example of someone, or when he needs something done and doesn’t want to worry about whether it gets done right.”
He paused. “Malcolm also said she was there when he died.”
If I’d had a lick of magic left, it would have flared. I clenched my fists. “Was she the blood mage who killed him?”
He shook his head. “No, but she was an enthusiastic witness.”
I had to take several deep breaths to calm myself. “The next time I see her, she’s dead.”
“Malcolm told me what you did to try and get information about Aden.” He glanced at me. “For the record, I didn’t find a hand. Apparently, she took it with her.”
I made a face. “Damn it. She’ll probably get it reattached. Hey, what about your truck? Did you leave it there?”
“I asked Ben to get it and drive it back to my house. I thought it was more important to get your vehicle out of the area.”
“Thanks.” I wrapped my arms around my stomach and wondered why the nausea and abdominal pain from the healing spell hadn’t abated.
Several times during the drive to my house, Sean started to put his hand on my leg or arm, but after I leaned away slightly each time he stopped trying to touch me.
As we turned onto my street, he said, “You don’t want me to touch you right now while you’re feeling sick and worried, is that it?”
That seemed like as reasonable of an explanation as anything. I nodded and rubbed my
stomach.
“You’re more anxious than I’ve ever seen you, I think.” He turned into my drive and parked in front of the carport. “I can’t tell you not to worry, but try not to let it make you sick or want to push me away. I won’t crowd you, but you’ve been avoiding touching me since we got back from brunch and it’s making me uneasy.” He turned off the car and faced me. “Just tell me if there’s more to it than the case and you not feeling well.”
“It’s just the case and my tummy acting up.” I opened my door and got out. At least my legs were steady and my hands had stopped shaking. Now if my stomach would stop churning, I would be a lot less miserable. “Let me pack a bag or two and grab Malcolm and we’ll be ready to go.”
Sean followed me to the front door and waited as I unlocked it. We went inside, passing through wards keyed to let us come and go freely but would incapacitate or kill anyone else who tried to cross them.
The familiar sensation of my house wards was like a warm blanket and suddenly I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do more than take a hot shower and curl up in my bed. Rest wasn’t on the agenda, however—not even close. I sighed, my shoulders drooping.
Sean shut the door and locked it. “Let me know what I can do to help, okay? Don’t overdo it right now. You won’t be helping anyone if you act like a hard-ass because of your pride.”
I snorted and rubbed my queasy stomach ruefully. “Nice bedside manner.”
“You want coddling, find yourself a candy striper,” he said with a smile. “I’m a werewolf. We tend to call it like we see it.” He gestured toward the stairs that led to the second floor and my bedroom. “Now, Miss Magic, let’s get your stuff and your ghost and get gone.”
6
I still felt dirty from last night’s wallow in the mud and now I was covered in drywall dust and dirt, so I showered and scrubbed myself from head to toe before dressing quickly and braiding my wet hair.
