Flamebound (27 page)

“I don't know yet. I'm tugging on a few strings, waiting to see how they unravel.” His hand strokes gently up and down my back as we talk. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I plummeted twenty feet through a wall to the floor below.”

“Then you're right on track.” He lowers his forehead to mine in a gesture I'm coming to love. “I'm sorry.”

“Me, too.” I reach for the lamp on the nightstand, flick it on. Then turn to look at Declan. His skin is still red and blistered in spots—particularly on his hands and arms—but he looks better than he has any right to, especially considering that he nearly self-immolated not very long ago. “And you? How are you?”

“Better now that you're safe.” He sits up, presses soft kisses to my right shoulder and the side of my neck. “You frightened me.”

He pushes the last words out from between gritted teeth and I know it took a lot for him to get them out at all. For a warlock like Declan—so strong, so powerful—admitting fear is akin to slicing off one of his limbs and then dousing the wound in alcohol. Only about a million times more painful. But he's done it. For me.

I can do no less. But there are many ways to be strong and the last thing he needs right now is to catch a glimpse of my utter vulnerability. Not when he has to concentrate on recovering. And not when I'm so screwed up inside that I can barely tell which side is up.

“How are you feeling?” he asks after the silence stretches too long between us. This time, I know he doesn't mean the physical stuff.

“I'm okay.”

He twists so those crazy onyx eyes of his are looking straight into mine. “Yeah?”

No, not even close. But he doesn't need to hear. Nobody does right now, not when we're all drowning in our own shades of grief. “I'll be better once I find out who's doing this to my family.”

“We'll find out. I promise.” He eases me back down onto the bed. “Rachael stopped by while you were sleeping. She says you need to get as much rest as possible. She worked on your concussion for a while, made sure there wasn't any dangerous brain swelling or bleeding, but she says you need a lot of rest for the healing to take effect.”

“I don't think I can sleep any more.”

“Try.” He pets my hair, my cheek, silently urging me to relax.

“How are we going to find the people responsible for this mess?” I ask after a long pause. “If it's not the ACW, if it's someone playing us off against each other, how are we going to find them? There are hundreds of thousands of witches out there. Any one of them could be trying to mastermind a coup.”

He strokes a hand over my hair. “Why don't you get some more sleep and we'll talk about this in a few hours?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “That sounds remarkably like ‘Don't worry your pretty little head about this, little lady. The big boys will take care of it.'”

“Don't be ridiculous. You'll worry you're pretty little head no matter what I say.”

I gape at him. “Good answer,” I tell him sarcastically.

He leans down, brushes his warm lips against my own. “Xandra, much as I'd like to take care of this for you, I am well aware that you should be involved. That you
need
to be involved.”

And just that easily my annoyance abates. In its place is the sorrow I've been holding at bay through sheer force of will. Declan sees, and the impartial mask he's been wearing for the last few minutes melts away. “Oh, baby, it's okay,” he tells me as tears seep silently down my cheeks. “It's okay.”

“It doesn't feel okay.”

“I know.” He presses soft kisses against my forehead, my eyes, my cheeks.

“I loved her so much.”

He shifts so I'm cuddled up against him, his entire body wrapped around mine in his effort to shield me from my pain.

Somehow his care only makes the agony more acute. I start to cry in earnest now, huge, wracking sobs that feel like they're going to tear me apart from the inside out. I can't believe Hannah's gone, can't believe I'll never get to hear another one of her lame jokes or listen to her recount some ridiculous thing that happened to her when she went to the bank or the supermarket or the zoo. Hannah had a gift of seeing the absurd in everyday situations, and more often than not, she used that gift to keep the rest of us in the family from taking ourselves too seriously.

I can't imagine what we're going to do without her. Don't want to imagine it.

Just the thought has me crying harder, until I'm all but gagging under the onslaught of pain. Declan tenses against me and there's a hitch in the soothing sounds he's making as he tenderly rubs my back. I know I'm worrying him, just as I know that my agony is also causing him pain. I regret it, but there's nothing I can do to stop the tears.

It just hurts too damn much to keep them in.

I'm not sure how long I lie there in his arms, weeping. Long enough for my eyes to swell under the onslaught and for my head to start pounding with renewed vigor.

But somewhere in the middle of all that bawling, I become aware of a warmth spreading through me. It starts in my back, in the exact spots where Declan's burned and battered hands are resting. Continues up to my shoulders, across my chest before running down my arms to my own hands. From there it spreads to my stomach, my legs, until every part of my body is filled with the comforting heat.

It's Declan's magic; I know it is. Instead of arrowing it into me like he usually does, he's taking his time, letting it seep in and slowly,
slowly
, comfort me. My own magic rises up without my bidding, tangles with the shimmering strands of his until the warmth turns to flame.

Instinctively, I shy away—I've had enough experience with fire to last a lifetime—but Declan won't let me go. He wraps his power all around me until I can't feel anything but safe, anything but loved. Then he uses those feelings to coax my own power back out from behind the hasty barrier I'd slammed into place.

Part of me wants to resist—on some levels, this sharing of our magic is a million times more intimate than sex. And while I've felt Declan's magic inside me before, it's never been like this. Never been so much a part of me that I feel it in my every nerve ending, my every cell. Never been so overwhelming that I can't tell where his power leaves off and mine begins.

There's a part of my brain screaming for me to shut this down. That it's too intimate, too dangerous. That it will only speed up everything that comes with being soulbound—the bad parts as well as the good.

I ignore the warning. There's no way I'm giving this up. Not when I have a direct pathway to the fiery beauty of Declan's soul. For once, the darkness that seethes between us is nowhere around and I'm grateful. I want to relish every second.

Time passes and still he doesn't withdraw. Neither do I. Instead, I savor the heat rippling through me, touching me in places I never imagined another human being would ever be able to reach.

My headache—nearly blinding in its intensity just a little while ago—is all but gone. My eyes feel much less swollen and gritty. Even the pressure in my chest, partly from crying and partly from grief, feels lighter.

I'm not sure how I feel about that last one—my sorrow over Hannah's death is an intensely personal thing, one I'm not yet ready to share with anyone else. And yet I can't deny that I feel more able to see clearly, more capable of moving beyond my own emotions to see the big picture.

Feeling a little drunk on all the power that's still bouncing around inside me, I open my eyes slowly. And stare in wonder at Declan's face.

In just the last few minutes, his skin has lost most of the red burns. I glance down at his hands, realize the blisters are gone as well. “Did you . . . ?” My voice trails off, as I don't even know what it is I want to ask.

“Actually, you did,” he tells me.

“I don't understand.”

“It works both ways. I can heal you, partly because I have some talent for it and you can heal me—at least partially—because of the binding. The stronger your magic gets, the more you'll be able to do. It's how I got out of that inferno with only second-degree burns. Once you started pumping your magic into me, the flames couldn't do that much damage.”

Astonished, I touch his face with soft fingertips. Trace the wicked curve of his lips and the tiny little dimple to the left of his mouth that few people ever get a chance to see. It took me forever to get a glimpse of that dimple—smiling is not something Declan does on a regular basis—but now that I have, it's become one of my favorite places to kiss and touch and lick. Partly because it makes him look sexy as hell, but mostly because that dimple means Declan trusts me in a way he trusts almost no one. He opens up to me when normally he goes out of his way to be as closed off as possible.

Because I can't help myself, I lean forward and press a light kiss directly over that dimple. And think about just how much my life has changed since this man found his way back into it.

Long minutes pass in silence, both of us locked in thought. But eventually the corners of my mind start to crumble in on themselves and I know that I've tackled too much. Hannah. Declan. The ACW. A concussion. The pain comes back, as agonizing as ever.

Declan shifts, stretching out on the bed before pulling me into the curve of his arm. His hand tangles in my hair, his fingers massaging my scalp until my eyes drift closed despite myself.

Before I go under completely, I force myself to ask, “What's our next move?” I need to be prepared.

He kisses my shoulder, lingering on the gold seba tattoo that sprang up a few days ago—and that marks me as his as surely as his new tattoo marks him as mine. Then, in a dark, hard voice I haven't heard since our first days together, he answers, “We find the people who did this to you and then we set their world on fire.”

Exhausted or not, headache or not, after that revelation, it takes me a long time to fall back asleep.

X
andra!
The scream rips through my sleeping psyche like an explosion.

“Shelby!” I sit straight up in bed, shoving the strands of my still-mutilated hair out of my eyes. Beside me, Declan stirs and wraps an arm around my waist. He doesn't wake up, though—my first clue that Shelby's scream was all in my head.

For long seconds I wait in the dark, heart pounding and terror coursing through my bloodstream.
Come on, Shelby,
I urge her mentally.
Give me something to go on here.

Silence is my only answer.

I glance at the bedside clock. It's four in the morning and though I should probably try to get some more sleep, I know that's not going to happen. After disentangling myself from Declan, I push out of bed. I grab my robe and Declan's tablet, then quietly slip out of my room and head down the hallway. I don't want to take a chance on disturbing him. Though he's definitely recovering, he needs as much rest as he can get to help speed the healing process along.

I'm almost to the sitting room at the end of the hall when the shout comes.
No! No! No! Xandra!

I freeze, terrified of losing the nebulous connection between us.
I'm here, Shelby
.

Make it stop!

Is the woman hurting you again?

An image of Shelby burying her face in a stained sheet, sobs wracking her little body.

Talk to me, Shelby. Tell me what's going on.

The man. She's going to kill the man.

Who?

I don't know. He's screaming and it's scaring me. Make it stop.

I want to, honey. But I can't sense anyone else there with you.

They're here. In the next room. She's cutting him.

Damn it.
You can hear what's going on?

I can feel it. Inside me. I can feel what he feels. It hurts. Xandra, it hurts.

Impotence burns inside me as I realize what she's suffering. This poor baby, this poor little girl, can somehow connect to the victims in much the same way I can. That's why they want her blood, why they need her. Because in connecting to the dead, especially the Councilors, she's capable of amassing great knowledge. Knowledge that they need.

The thought of her suffering nauseates me. I'm a grown woman and can barely take it—how horrible, how utterly vile, must it be for Shelby to have to experience something like this without understanding any part of what's going on.

Xandra!
Another panicked scream.
Are you still there?

I'm right here, baby. Do me a favor. I know you said you couldn't see anything before, that there were no windows in your room.

There aren't.

I know. But can you look around anyway? See what's in the room with you? Maybe describe it to me?

Whatever she tells me won't be much, but maybe it'll give Nate something to go on anyway.

It's dark.

I know, Shelby. If you can't see anything, that's fine. But if you can, you need to tell me what it is. Maybe it will help me find out. Maybe—

The walls are blue. Dark blue. And there are funny pictures on them.

Funny pictures?

Yes. Some look like birds. Or cows. And there's a cross with a kind of circle on top of it—

Hieroglyphics?
My heart starts beating double time.
Are there hieroglyphics on the wall?

I don't know what those are.

I tamp down on the surge of impatience that rolls through me. She's just a little girl, after all. How can she be expected to understand what she sees?

They're pictures, sweetheart, just like you said.
I concentrate really hard on forming an image of my marks in my head—the symbols of Isis and the sebas that decorate the different parts of my body.
Do any of the pictures look like these?
I ask her.

For long seconds she doesn't answer and my fear grows.
Shelby!

I'm here. I'm looking.
More silence, then,
Yes, Xandra! Yes! There are a bunch of symbols like that on the wall across from me. Only they're bigger and there are more of them.
She must be concentrating really hard, because suddenly a picture comes back to me—one of midnight blue walls covered in hieroglyphics in varying shades of gold and silver.

My first good look at them has the tablet tumbling from my suddenly lax fingers and crashing to the hardwood floor. I stare blindly at it for long seconds as more and more images bombard my brain. Some of them come from Shelby, but the majority come from my own memory.

I know that room. I know that room. I. Know. That. Room.

I clutch at the wall for support as everything realigns in my head, all the jagged puzzle pieces shaping and reshaping and fitting together in a whole different way.

Close doesn't count.

Curly black hair.

Green eyes.

Witch.

Blood magic.

Smells like chewing gum.

Close doesn't count.

The words echo in my head, the cruel female voice that I first heard say them replaced by another tone. One that's just as hard, but less psychotic sounding.

Close only counts in horseshoes.

No prizes for close.

Close doesn't count.

No, dear goddess, no.

I start to run then, flying down the two flights of stairs and into the kitchen. The Peg-Board near the garage door has a bunch of keys on it and I grab for my dad's. Then I'm out the door and flying through the huge garage, looking for the car that my dad keeps exclusively for use on the ranch.

I climb into it, fumbling the keys into the ignition before I've even got the door closed.

I'm in a panic now, so freaked out that I barely remember to open the garage before putting the car in reverse and backing out.

Then I'm speeding down the ranch road that will let me out onto the main highway in about seven minutes.

It can't be. It can't be. It can't be.

The words run through my head like a mantra, one that picks up speed and urgency with every repetition. I'm flooring the gas pedal, which is making the SUV bounce like hell over the rugged dirt road. But I barely feel the bumps. I'm too caught up in my fear that I'll be wrong about all this—and my absolute terror that I might be right.

I'm so lost in thought that I nearly plow straight onto the highway without looking. At the last minute I slam on my brakes, and narrowly avoid being creamed by an eighteen-wheeler blasting past.

Heart in my throat, I tell myself to concentrate. To slow down. But in only a couple of minutes I'm back up to ninety miles an hour. Right now the only thing that matters is getting there. Finding out the truth.

Please, goddess, let me be wrong. It can't be her. It just can't be.

And yet, there's a part of me that already knows it is. The sorrow is a crushing weight on my chest . . . and on my soul.

I press down harder on the gas pedal. The SUV growls, but the needle on the speedometer continues to climb.

I'm about halfway to Ipswitch when a blinding surge of heat flashes through me, the power of it slamming me back against the car seat so hard that I give myself a headache. The blast of heat is followed almost immediately by the shakes—a precursor to the convulsions I can already feel building at the base of my spine.

Horror works its way through me, along with the insidious knowledge that I'm too late. Someone's already dead—either Shelby or the man being tortured in the next room. I'm so scared, so empty, that I don't even try to reach out to Shelby, to connect. If she's dead—if I didn't make it in time—I don't want to know. Not yet.

The first convulsion hits me and I start to seize—which is pretty much the worst thing that can happen when I'm speeding down a dark, winding road in the middle of the night. But I can't stop. One person might be dead, but that means that one person is still alive. I can't let her kill again. I can't fail again. I just can't.

Using sheer will alone, I battle back the convulsions. Flat-out refuse to give in to them. It's a million times more painful than seizing on my kitchen floor was—and that was no picnic—but somehow I manage to do it. Flames ripple under my skin, but they never actually break out, and slowly, torturously, I get them—and everything else ripping through my body—under control.

At least until the compulsion hits. It wraps itself around me, pulling me forward. Faster, faster. Pulling me into the abyss of darkness that waits for me at the end of this rabbit hole to hell that I've fallen into.

Finally, I'm there. I pull into the driveway and stumble out of the car, punch-drunk on the powerful vibes that fill the air all around me. I'm so wrapped-up in getting into the house, I don't even bother to close the SUV's door behind me before I'm lurching up the front walkway.

The closer I get, the more the power hums over me, through me. The compulsion is a live wire now, shocking me with every step, every breath, I take.

I stumble on a rock, fall flat against the door with a resounding thump. The powerful vibes in the air around me stutter and for a moment, it's like the whole world around me is holding its breath. Then the magic surges hotter and higher than ever.

That's when I know for sure. This isn't a bad dream, isn't a mistake. Murder has just happened here. Dark magic. Blood magic is happening still.

It's been under my nose the entire time and yet I'm still shocked, still traumatized, when the front door swings open and I meet my aunt's eyes, gleaming with an unholy light.