Misery Happens (27 page)

Now,
I yelled at myself.
Just let go.

The glowing line hovered in front of me, and I hurled the key into it. My aim was less than perfect, but sharp strands of light shot out from the gateway, snatching the key and sucking it inside. I had a second to revel in the idea that we’d won then my ears popped. The air pressure changed, and a horrific screech reverberated off the walls.

A wing slammed me in the back, and I tumbled to the ground. As I flipped onto my back to see what hit me, my jaw dropped. The gateway hadn’t merely sucked the key in. It was now sucking the demons in with it.

Afraid of another inadvertent beating, I stayed low as the furious and flailing monsters were dragged back to prison. Whoops of triumph and glee rose from the Gryphons, and I grinned. As the last of the demons disappeared into the void and the sky drained of its unnatural color, I jumped up, ready to throw my arms around Lucen.

Instead of moving forward though, I was jerked backward. The threads connecting me to the demons hadn’t broken, and I was being yanked toward the Pit with them. Panic constricted my chest. I reached out, but no one and nothing solid was nearby to grab. Frantically, I struggled to run forward, but the ground slipped out from under me. Back I went, soles scraping the stone. My emotional and magical highs were gone, and I flailed helplessly.

“Lucen!”

Everywhere I turned, Gryphons were hugging and high-fiving or collapsing to the floor and weeping in relief. Everyone was too busy celebrating our victory to notice me. Everyone but him. Lucen must have noticed my distress through the bond, and he sprinted toward me.

I held out my hands as I skidded, fearing that even if he reached me, it wouldn’t be enough. How could he hold me back? The magic was way too strong.

Inches separated me from the gate. His fingers grasped mine, then a hand closed around my wrist. I held on to him, my sweaty skin gliding through his grip. My throat closed, sensing this was the end. This touch would be the last I knew of him. The gate’s pull was making me double over. Another second and I’d be lost, condemned to die in the void at the hands of creatures who’d kill me in nasty ways.

“I have you.” Lucen’s face clenched, and the bond between us flared. I’d lost track of it amidst the threads tying me to the demons, but I’d been channeling his power all this time. He hadn’t been fighting me over it before since the intent had been to steal his magic, but he did now. I could sense him fighting the flow of energy between us, holding back everything he could.

Understanding that he was attempting to fight magically as well as physically, I stopped channeling his power. Pain flashed through my body as I did, but Lucen took it away. Slowly, the pressure on my back released and my feet stopped sliding, but I was being torn in two, magically yanked in both directions.

Lucen muttered under his breath, and sweat beaded on his forehead. Then one of the threads snapped. Grunting in frustration, I dared another step toward Lucen. My chest heaved, and I could smell the cinnamon of his pheromones. More, I needed more.

Another thread snapped, then another. Lucen stretched forward and took a stronger hold on my arms. All at once, the rest of the threads broke. I toppled into him, shoved forward by a burst of magic at my back. It blew through me, through the bond with Lucen, and into him too.

Together, we tumbled to the ground. I remembered my head landing on his chest, then I blacked out.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Two weeks later I gazed out the window in my new office at Boston’s Gryphon headquarters. My office. My office with a freaking window. It was surreal.

From this vantage point, downtown appeared back to normal. The sky was blue, and the rush-hour traffic was a nightmare, but this normality was all a trick of perspective. What I couldn’t see from my window was that the world was scarred. For many people, life would never be the same. My life certainly wouldn’t be, but it wasn’t just the many who had died or the cities and towns picking through the pieces of their devastation that had changed.

The anti-mager protests had died down, but the sentiment behind them—the fear of the unknown—had increased. Human opinions on the Gryphons, which had once been overwhelmingly and irrationally positive, had only become more split and extreme on both sides. They were saviors and threats, and no one embodied that dichotomy in the public imagination more than I did. When the story of what happened had been told, my name had been prominently featured in it despite my best efforts to prevent it. I didn’t know who was responsible for the leak this time, but my role in the events had been portrayed too positively for it to have been Xander.

On the good-news end however, the Gryphon-pred-magi alliance had sparked a grudging acknowledgment that maybe, just maybe, we would all be safer if we were willing to communicate more and in a less hostile manner. The city magical councils of the past had grown dysfunctional when they bothered to function at all. It was time for a change, and naturally heads had turned to me to implement it. The woman who didn’t fit in anywhere could therefore walk among everyone as an equal. Who else had a chance to make all sides listen?

I didn’t have an answer to that, but I sure did have my doubts about success. After some hard contemplation though, I’d decided taking the job the Gryphons had offered was worth a shot. They’d asked Mitch too, but he had declined. Although he was staying with the Gryphons, he was taking the opportunity to focus on becoming one of their healers. But he was doing so back in Phoenix. He’d left for home last week.

My laptop finished shutting down, and I stuffed it into my backpack. Without it, my office was pretty barren because I’d moved in just yesterday. Besides the laptop, my desk and a mostly empty bookshelf, the only items it contained were a little red pin and a ceremonial dagger bearing the marks of
Le Confrérie de l’Aile
. They’d been Tom’s, and I’d accepted them from Ingrid at his funeral.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat and lugged on my pack. I’d attended too many funerals these past weeks. Yet for all my differences with Tom, his had been the hardest emotionally.

One last time, I checked my pockets for my keys and shut the office door. Not next week, but the week after when I got back from World Headquarters, I’d have to decorate so I wasn’t staring at blank walls. I did enough of that at home, and since I’d negotiated to be based out of Boston instead of Grenoble, it was time to indulge in some decorating there too. Maybe even some furniture.

After stopping by Bridget’s and Andre’s offices to wave goodbye for the weekend, I fought the crowds on the subway to get home. I received a few funny looks as I got off at the Shadowtown T stop. Not many people in Gryphon uniforms did that sort of thing, and I felt horribly conspicuous as I hurried to Lucen’s apartment. I was being silly since most people around here already knew who and what I was, but some habits were as hard to shake as some memories.

The eighteen-year-old Academy flunky chasing after a purpose, and the twenty-eight-year-old woman who’d been framed for murder chasing after unlikely help, lingered close to the surface of my thoughts these days. I was still struck dumb sometimes by how I started there and ended up here.

The Lair was back to its usual crowded self, as were most businesses, and music poured onto the street. I cast a quick glance at the people hanging out on the patio as I climbed the steps to Lucen’s apartment and let myself in. I recognized most of the faces but didn’t see any friends, which wasn’t too surprising. Friday was a busy night for everyone. Lucen would be working the bar, Devon would be at Purgatory, and Angelia probably would be too. I wasn’t sure I’d call Gi or Melissa friends, though I’d certainly spent enough time with them over the past month, but I assumed they’d be returning to whatever they usually did when they weren’t babysitting me.

I dumped my key on Lucen’s kitchen table and grabbed a couple wood chips from the bag by his deck door. In his cage, Sweetpea bared his teeth at me and banged his head against the bars as I passed.

“I get it,” I told the dragon. “You hate him as much as you hate me. Get used to it, you scaly rat.”

I got another bang in response as I stuffed the woodchips into the mini troll’s cage. Yes, that mini troll. After she’d caught him in The Feathers, Steph hadn’t been able to part with him. She’d named him Marvin, but she was afraid of her landlord discovering an illegal pet. So she’d passed him to me.

I’d threatened to toss Marvin out on the street, but the bugger seemed to like me. Since no pets ever liked me, I felt guilty and couldn’t do it. I couldn’t keep him either though because of my impending travel, so I’d passed him to Lucen. Lucen had renamed him Potato and said he expected me to keep the cage clean.

I couldn’t tolerate the thought of naming the little guy after food with Sweetpea nearby, so I’d dubbed him Sir Francis Marvin the Incorrigible and feared he was going to suffer from an identity crisis if Sweetpea didn’t eat him first. But Lucen could call the mini troll whatever he wanted. The idea of sharing a pet with him made me weirdly happy.

After a shower, a change of clothes and some food, I considered my evening’s options. It had been so long since I’d had the ability to relax, I was forgetting how to do it. Obviously, going down to The Lair was a given, but I had plenty of time for that. Meanwhile, Steph had finally responded to the text I sent her before showering.

Can’t do Fitzpatrick’s tonight. Got plans.

I wrinkled my nose.
What plans could possibly be more important than hanging out with me?

She wrote back a minute later.
Geez. You save the world once and your ego knows no bounds.

Bitch. My ego is in perfect proportion to my importance.

Sticking my tongue out at her, I tossed the phone to the side. Fine, maybe I’d go to Purgatory later and mooch off Devon’s goodwill after I mooched off Lucen’s free booze. Or maybe I’d just stay here and read a book. But no, my books were at my apartment. I’d have to go get them and come back if I wanted to spend the night.

It was such a simple, frivolous dilemma that I indulged in angst about it for longer than it deserved. Damn, I loved non-life-threatening decisions.

I’d about decided on the book when my phone rang. Lucen had quit with the apocalyptic ringtones but not messing with my phone. His current irritatingly popular choice left a lot to be desired, but it sure beat “Highway to Hell”.

Speaking of the horned devil, he was the one calling. “Little siren, are you coming down soon or what?”

Though I could tell he was speaking loudly, the noise in the background was defiantly louder. The Lair must be bursting at its newly repaired seams. “I was debating it.”

“Stop debating it and get your perky ass down here. I have something for you.”

“First, my ass might be fine but nothing about me is perky. Second, what?”

“You’ll find out when you get here, and many things about you are perky. Just not your personality.” He hung up.

I stuck my tongue out at him too.

Sighing, I checked that my hair hadn’t frizzed too badly and went down to the bar via the back stairs that led from Lucen’s apartment. As I stepped out of the kitchen and into the bar itself, a cheer went up from the room. A crowd of satyrs raised their glasses. So did Steph.

I did a double take, bewildered. I could pick Steph out easily among the crowd since she was one of the few humans and was clearly uncomfortable being here. But she grinned when she saw me anyway.

“You… What is this?” The bar was stuffed with those friendly faces I’d been searching for earlier. Aside from Steph, Devon was here and Dezzi, Angelia and many others.

Lucen stepped out from behind the bar and handed me a glass of beer. “This is called a party. We’re celebrating.”

“Celebrating what?”

“You’re a real Gryphon now,” Steph said, raising a beer of her own. “A hero living her childhood dream.”

“And…” Devon worked his way forward. “We like you anyway. In fact, politically speaking, this is a brilliant move for us.”

I rolled my eyes. “No more nonsense about how it’s good to have a spy in enemy territory. I deliberated about accepting this job, and I’m going to take it seriously.”

Lucen wrapped an arm around me, almost sloshing my beer out of the glass. “We expect nothing less of you.”

“Unless, you know, you feel particularly charitable and want to tip us off before any Gryphon raids,” Devon said.

Dezzi poked him in the arm and gave me an exasperated look. “We all want this new partnership to succeed. We’ve seen what can happen when we do not work toward a common goal.”

“All right, all right.” Lucen let me go. “Enough with the serious talk. Let’s get back to the celebrating.”

Over the next several minutes I was surrounded by people, mainly satyrs, who wanted to wish me well, thank me for what I’d done, and—of course—proposition me. They were satyrs, after all, and apparently I’d gone from being an interesting curiosity to a highly coveted partner. I did my best to deflect the attention and politely decline the offers, but I did kiss Angelia to a few good-natured hollers. She’d earned it for the magical kiss she’d given me.

“You’ll come around to me yet.” She planted an extra kiss on my cheek, making my nose tingle with her hyacinth scent. “You can’t let the men have all the fun.”

“Sure she can.” Devon ambushed me with a delightfully clove-scented kiss. We’d already had our own celebratory reunion, at which he’d told me he was so relieved that I’d made it back alive with Lucen that he forgave me for destroying Purgatory.

When I finally made my way over to Steph, she was leaning so far over the bar that she was practically lying on it. I knew she was making her best attempt to be here for me and no doubt putting dubious trust in Lucen to protect her. Not that I thought she was in any danger. None of the people Lucen had invited were going to mess with my best friend.

Steph gestured with her beer toward Angelia. “I learn more about you each time I see you.”

“Just getting into the spirit of things.”

“Very into it.”

I pretended to punch her.

Unsurprisingly, Steph didn’t want to hang out at The Lair for too long, and she really did have other plans. Specifically, a date with her boyfriend who had an unexpected Friday evening off work. I watched her go, amazed at her change in attitude. Sure, she’d been anxious about coming, but she’d braved a bar full of preds for me. In her own way, Steph was making as much progress in dealing with our situation as I was.

“So.” Lucen stepped up behind me and nudged me off the barstool. “We need to talk.”

I followed him into the corner by the kitchen door. “This does not sound celebratory.”

“Oh, don’t be so sure.” He slid his arms around my waist, pressing me against him. I did the same and rubbed my fingers against the smooth muscles in his back.

Our bond had shattered from the blowback when the Pit closed, and although I didn’t want to be his addict, I kind of missed that magical connection. I was having a more difficult time than usual keeping my hands off him as a result. Even now, I couldn’t stop myself from tugging up his shirt in the back so I could touch his skin.

“When do you fly home from France?” he asked as though he didn’t notice what I was doing. It was a lie because I could tell he very much noticed.

I frowned. “Friday morning. Why?”

“Can you change it and meet me in Paris for the weekend instead?”

My curiosity was too piqued to continue removing his shirt, and I let the fabric fall back into place. “You want to meet me there?”

“It’s you. It’s Paris. Why is that so surprising?”

“I don’t know.” I let go of his back and slipped my arms between us, resting my hands against his chest. It was such a classic defensive move on my part that I couldn’t avoid noticing and becoming annoyed at myself for it. “I was under the impression that it’s challenging for you to travel far because you have to arrange for addict company. Unless you were thinking you’d just rebond with me when you got there?”

Lucen clasped my hands in his. “About that, there’s something I need to tell you. I let go of my last addict today.”

“What?” I gave him a slight push in my surprise and looked him over head to toe. He appeared quite happy to be so close to me and in no way suffering the effects he had in the Pit. “And you’re calmly standing here, telling me this? How is that possible?”

“I should rephrase. I let go of my last addict today who isn’t you.”

Okay, we were getting somewhere. But where? I shook my head, wondering which of us had drunk too much and thinking it couldn’t be me unless he’d slipped something in my beer. “You’re not making sense. I’m not your addict anymore. There’s no bond connecting us.”

“See, I think there is. I think it’s just not that kind of bond.” The mischievous smile slipped from his face, and his voice turned serious. “We were bonded when that magical blast hit. I felt it travel from you into me, and I’ve felt different ever since. Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been testing things out, releasing addicts one by one, and I haven’t noticed a huge change in myself. You, on the other hand, seem to be a bit more, shall we say,
amorous
than before?”

“You’ve always had that effect on me.” But as I said it, I remembered thinking just seconds ago how much more so I’d been lately. Lucen had a point. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. The magic involved in that spell was far beyond anything I’ve studied, but I’m convinced the surge had some lasting effect on me. You too, maybe. It’s almost as if it transferred some of my satyrness to you. I’ve been spared the unquenchable lust but at your expense. It equalized us.”