Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic Page 18

  “I invoke my blood right to retribution for the death of my brother, witch,” Mory said. Her hands were spread wide at her sides. I could feel the power rolling off her … almost as if she was feeding something with it.

  Sienna twisted to look behind her, but she couldn’t keep both Mory and me in her field of vision with her hood up. So she knocked it back. Mory winced at the sight of her face.

  “Sienna, you’ve met Mory, right?” I asked.

  “Rusty’s sister,” Mory added. “You remember Rusty, don’t you? Because he sure remembers you.”

  The dumpster to Sienna’s left shifted. I stared at it in shock. Though I couldn’t feel any magic moving it, it spun sideways as if pushed, clipping Sienna as she tried to jump out of its way. Sienna hit the far wall and stumbled, but managed to stay mostly on her feet.

  Mory sagged and swayed as if exhausted. Jesus. Was she somehow transferring her energy to the shades she’d seen in the alley before Hoyt showed up?

  Sienna raised her hands, but not at me. At Mory. Fuck. That spell would kill the fledgling.

  I lunged for Sienna, knowing it was too far, knowing I wasn’t going to be able to protect Mory. But at the last second, with a black-lipped smile stretched across her face, Sienna pivoted and hit me with the spell right over my heart.

  I fell.

  The night got even darker around the edges. The spell burned through my heart and into every vein and artery that came and went from it. I was vaguely aware I was arched back on the filthy, garbage-strewn concrete, with only my head and heels touching the ground.

  Sienna’s face came into my field of vision. All the veins and capillaries that connected to her eyes were black. They stood out on her pale skin as if drawn in permanent marker. Same for her lips. That wasn’t lipstick.

  I collapsed on the ground, the pain easing much quicker than the first two times.

  I licked my lips and tried to speak. Sienna’s smile widened. Jesus, her gums were black flesh as well. She leaned over me.

  I stabbed her in the gut.

  “That’s one,” I croaked. “For payback.”

  Sienna shrieked and tried to pull away from the blade.

  “Get her, Rusty,” Mory said. She was only a few feet behind me.

  Sienna twisted away. She clutched one hand to her belly while the other batted at something that appeared to be attacking her. I couldn’t feel any magic but Sienna hissed and scrambled backward. Small scratches appeared on her face.

  Mory touched my hand and then felt her way up my arm. I wasn’t sure until I caught her in my peripheral vision, but she was crawling along to sit beside me. Her eyes locked to Sienna fighting with her invisible demon. I couldn’t move yet.

  “You bound him,” I croaked.

  “He came when I called,” she answered. “She was going to kill you.” She swayed, struggling to keep her eyes open.

  “That’s not why you did it, Mory.”

  Mory smiled at me. Death was gnawing on her bones. “You’re not the only one who gets to take care …”

  “You have to let him go, Mory. He’s draining you.” Rusty. She’d called Rusty and he’d come to fight Sienna for her. Except ghosts have no form, so he was using Mory’s magic — and maybe even her life force — to attack his murderer.

  “I can’t let him go now. I gave it all to him.” Mory collapsed forward over my chest and belly. Her eyes, when they managed to stay open, were still locked to Sienna, who was shrieking and clawing at her own face.

  I looked away from my sister’s struggle and focused what little strength and energy I had on Mory. I wrapped my fingers through my necklace where it was still around the fledgling’s neck. I gathered all the magic I found there, then I pushed it out and around Mory like a shield, like a ward of sorts.

  The edges of the alley blurred. Pain lanced through my brain and down my spine. I thought I might be passing out but I only pushed harder, adding my magic through the necklace and then up and over Mory.

  Sienna stopped shrieking and clawing at the air. She straightened, shaken and bleeding but intact.

  “No,” Mory moaned. Then she slumped into a full faint.

  “You’re such a bitch, Jade.” Sienna was holding her stomach again, looming over me.

  “Come closer, Sienna,” I whispered. “I owe you another.” I raised my knife but it was just a show of bravado. Sienna hesitated. I wondered if she had another of those spells in her.

  As if she had come to some decision, Sienna reached for Mory as if to pull her from me. But before I could slash her with my knife, she screamed and snatched her hands away from Mory as if burned.

  I laughed again, like a gurgling monkey. “You never learn, sister. Don’t take my stuff.”

  Sienna snarled and raised her hands to cast another spell. But then I felt more magic speeding in from behind her.

  “You better run, sister. The good guys are coming.”

  Sienna looked around distrustfully, but then I felt a ping of magic from a medallion she wore around her neck. Perhaps she’d set up perimeter warning spells.

  The good-guy magic was closer. Sienna stood. Stumbling, I was pleased to note. And she walked away. Just like that.

  I guess we’d already said our goodbyes for this lifetime.

  I released the magic of the shield I’d woven around Mory. As I felt that power settle back into the necklace, it glowed with a gold-blue hue. Well, that was a new trick.

  I sat up and gathered the tiny teenager into me as best I could. I wasn’t capable of standing and carrying her.

  Sienna’s magic and the oily patch she somehow traveled with to cloak her presence moved away. Behind me, Scarlett, Kett, Kandy, and Desmond approached from two different directions.

  It was from this half-propped-up vantage point that I watched McGrowly burst into the alley. He tossed the dumpster that Mory — or rather, Rusty — had moved, hard enough to dent the concrete building. Then he leaped to land on two massively clawed feet one step in front of me.

  He reached down with clawed hands, tearing the back of my silk gown to shreds as he scooped Mory and me up in his arms.

  A gray wolf with blazing green eyes shot by us, fixed on Sienna’s trail as McGrowly turned back the way he’d come. He began to close the gap between us and Scarlett, who — even with a vampire at her side — still traveled at human speed.

  “I was hoping for the transformation,” I said, whispering into McGrowly’s furry shoulder. “You have the best ass ever.”

  He growled something that might have been a chuckle.

  “I’m going to sleep for a bit now,” I said. Then I blacked out.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I became aware of a set of cold hands touching my arms. Kett.

  “Leave her,” Desmond said. His voice sounded human again. By the feel of the magic burning into my skin everywhere I was touching him, I was still in his arms. I couldn’t open my eyes.

  “At least let him take the fledgling, alpha,” Scarlett’s voice was melodic and filled with magic.

  Desmond grunted as the weight on my chest shifted. Mory.

  Is she all right? I tried to speak but then I was pulled under by sleep again.

  ∞

  The second time I woke, I was indoors — the lighting was low and the sounds muted — but still, to my pleasure, in Desmond’s arms. He was seated with me draped over his lap. His very naked lap.

  I snuggled my ass further into his groin, pleased at the immediate quickening response I got. I curled my fingers through the pelt of hair on his chest.

  “We’re not alone.” His low voice rumbled in his chest.

  I opened my eyes to confirm that I was nestled in Desmond’s lap in an armchair. The green flecks in his eyes were doing their crazy kaleidoscope thing. He smirked, oddly painfully, at me. He nodded over my head, which I turned only to be rewarded with shooting pain up my neck. “Oh, God,” I said as I blinked past the tears that had
rushed to my eyes.

  “You and me both,” Desmond said, resting his head on the high-backed, plush chair. The light bronze fabric looked familiar. We were in one of the guest rooms at Desmond’s place.

  I tried turning my head again and was rewarded with a smile from Scarlett, who was perched on the edge of the bed and dressed head to toe in black.

  “You hate black,” I said.

  Scarlett’s smile widened. “When you want to blend into the night, black is necessary.”

  I was getting quicker at putting two and two together. “You were out hunting Blackwell.” Hell, Mory and I hadn’t escaped that stuffy dinner. We’d been set up and let go.

  “You could have waited until after dessert,” Desmond said. His tone was almost teasing, but in a tired way. “My guests were displeased.”

  “Kandy totally played me,” I said. “Mory?” My chagrin whiplashed into concern.

  Scarlett shifted to the side, and I saw Mory curled on her side sleeping on the bed.

  “Okay, so it looks like there is more room on the bed … and, though I’ve made it fairly clear I don’t have an issue being in your arms, my mother is, like, right there.” I mock-whispered the last part to make it clear I was neither whining nor complaining.

  “I, too, have no issue with holding you,” Desmond said. His murmur was pitched low for my ears only.

  “But …”

  “There was some issue with putting you down, Jade,” Scarlett said. “Have you been intimate with the alpha, sugar?”

  “Mom?!?”

  “Exchanged bodily fluids?”

  “I know what being intimate means!”

  Scarlett sighed. I shifted my legs to the floor, not that they wanted to move, and attempted to sit up in Desmond’s lap. He helpfully wrapped his hands around my waist to steady me. His thumbs almost touched at the small of my back. God, I could really get used to a set of male hands that could make me feel slim like that.

  “What was the issue?” I asked, pausing to absorb the pain twisting through my joints and bones.

  “Same issue when we tried to remove the fledgling,” a cool voice said from the deep shadows by the door.

  I flinched. Kett stepped into the moonlight filtering in through the open window. He was dampening his magic so much that I hadn’t tasted it underneath Scarlett’s and Desmond’s.

  “Stop doing that!”

  “His presence was agitating the alpha further.” Scarlett was using a tone that one might normally reserve for a rabid dog. “But I felt it necessary for him to be nearby, just in case.”

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked. “Give me all the information at once and quickly.”

  “You bound the fledgling’s magic,” Kett said.

  “No. Yes,” I answered. “For her own protection.”

  “We cannot remove her from the room without her going into convulsions.”

  “What?” I shot to my feet without another thought of my pain.

  “I believe you need to remove the necklace,” Kett continued.

  I raced around the bed to Mory, aware of Desmond rising from the chair and stretching behind me. My dress was hanging off me in shreds of purple silk. Thankfully, I was wearing a good bra and matching underwear.

  “I used the necklace as a shield. A personal ward for Mory,” I said.

  “Yes, ingenious,” Kett responded.

  “Her brother Rusty, or his spectral energy or whatever, came to her call. But the connection was hurting her, draining her.”

  “She is young.”

  I reached for the necklace, which was still glowing with juiced-up magic. Kett cradled Mory’s head in his hands, and together we got the necklace untwined. As I pulled it from Mory, the taste of the fledgling’s magic filled the room.

  “Toasted marshmallows,” I said.

  “Yes?” Kett asked. “I have never tasted such.”

  I brushed the hair from Mory’s forehead. She was still too thin, but she looked healthier than she had in the alley.

  I looked up at Desmond, who’d — unfortunately — pulled on some track pants. His chest was still a welcome sight. He was watching me. I looped the necklace around my head and he inhaled a long breath, then exhaled in relief.

  “The bond?” I asked. He nodded, then he ran his hand through his hair and over his face as if trying to wake himself up.

  “Where’s Kandy? I saw her in the alley, and —”

  “Fine,” Desmond answered. “Healing, but fine.”

  Scarlett spoke up. “We were tracking Blackwell from the festival with Kandy on point. And suddenly Desmond was … hurt.”

  “Practically incapacitated,” Kett added.

  “I was never off my feet, vampire,” Desmond growled.

  “Sienna’s spell.”

  “What was it?” Scarlett asked.

  “Fire in my veins. I couldn’t move.”

  “A fireblood spell.” Scarlett murmured, pulling her spellbook to her lap. She flicked on the side-table lamp, not noticing the three of us reel back from the sudden light. Some warning would have been appreciated. She was making notes. That wasn’t weird at all.

  It was also interesting that no one seemed shocked that Sienna was alive. While I was relieved to not be bombarded with questions before I’d had a chance to sort through my own feelings, I was also a little put out imagining that they’d had discussions and — obviously, by their outward calm — made decisions that they were once again keeping from me.

  “Were you wearing the necklace then?” Kett asked. I shook my head.

  Yep. They were putting something together. A puzzle that I didn’t even see the pieces of yet.

  “Kandy, Kett, and I continued after Blackwell, but Desmond turned back to track you.” Scarlett didn’t look up from her spellbook. “The alpha assured me you weren’t dying.”

  Yeah? Thanks, Mom.

  “I had to transform to shake off the second hit,” Desmond said. “It helped that you dealt with it more easily.”

  I nodded.

  “We lost Blackwell,” Scarlett added. “He turned the corner and disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Magic and all,” Kett said. If the user was powerful enough, the vampire could feel magic like I could. Not the glimmers and residual energy I could pick up, but anything strongly imbued.

  “He wore an amulet. Called it his most precious possession. He seemed put off that I noticed it on him. It tasted, just a little, like the portal.”

  “A transportation device,” Kett said, practically gushing — in his icy, offish way — over the idea. “Did it bear a ruby?”

  “A red stone, yes. So let me get this. Desmond feels what happens to me through the life debt bond?”

  “We already established that via the skinwalkers.” McGrowly was back in pissy mode.

  “Excuse me?” Scarlett interrupted. “Skinwalkers?” Her voice was as steely as I’d ever heard it. Her eyes were on Kett, who oddly and actually appeared to avoid her gaze. “You said you were seeking some sort of treasure.”

  “And we found it,” Kett answered smoothly.

  “Off topic,” Desmond said.

  Scarlett actually pointed a finger at Kett. Then, as if nothing had interrupted, she continued her conversation with me. “The bond has intensified. Which is why I questioned you about …”

  Yeah, yeah. Intimate relations.

  “The necklace seems to dampen it.”

  Okay, good to know. “But I don’t feel anything. I mean … do you think I’m … pushing the spell, or fear, or whatever into Desmond through the bond?”

  “Perhaps,” Kett answered.

  “But I don’t feel … I mean, I can feel the magic of the actual bond, but I don’t feel Desmond specifically.”

  “It must be connected to how your magic works,” Scarlett said.

  “Yes,” Kett added. “You’ve said you visualize it as solder or mortar
when you’re making the trinkets?”

  Yeah, and while draining the skinwalker spells into the jade rocks, and making my knife, and so on. That would mean that the bond, though active until I fulfilled its parameters — namely to bring Hudson’s killer, Sienna, to justice — only went one way. And I couldn’t blame the bond for my practically attacking Desmond twice.

  But I could blame him for returning the advances so enthusiastically on the life debt. Damn, that was a sour twist.

  “So each time I … we …” I couldn’t finish the thought. Couldn’t look at Desmond. My cheeks flushed with mortification. Had I inadvertently been compelling Desmond to kiss me? Jesus, that kind of coercion was damn close to assault.

  “It could have been the necklace, Jade,” Scarlett said as she crossed the room and gestured Kett toward Mory. “The necklace might block the intensity of the bond. You’re usually never without it.”

  Kett picked up Mory and exited the room with Scarlett trailing after him. Her head was bowed to her open spellbook, her look thoughtful. She seemed to remember something, turning back at the door to blow me a kiss. Then she shut the door behind her leaving Desmond and me alone in the room.

  I looked at my feet. My pretty shoes were scuffed. I felt like crying but I wasn’t going to cry over my shoes. “Just what every girl wants to hear about the boy she’s been kissing,” I finally said.

  Desmond sighed. “Don’t be dramatic, dowser. I’m the alpha of a large pack, all of who are tied to me with fealty bonds. Their magic is my magic, otherwise the bond between you and I could never have existed in the first place. I’m not easily compelled.”

  He crossed to me. I tilted my head to look him in the eyes, but he was looking at the necklace. “Just keep the necklace on, yes?”

  I nodded.

  He crossed by me to the door, opened it, and stepped out.

  My stomach churned, but I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or anxious.

  “You haven’t forced anything on me, Jade,” he said over his shoulder. “I extracted the life debt from you. I was angry, and frustrated, and you seemed uncooperative. Any man would give his left arm to kiss you, dowser. Don’t go thinking otherwise.”