Must Be Magic (Spellbound) (18 page)

“We’re both hurt.” She voiced the same conclusion he’d come to.

No one on the Tribunal would be able to sense them clearly if their magic was compromised by injury. That left the homing beacon on the plane and traditional search-and-rescue avenues that would take time. Darby’s arm needed to be reset now.

She raised her chin. “How much is it going to hurt?”

“It’ll feel better soon.” He took his shoe off, stretching out his good leg closer to her, then reached for her hand. His own fingers trembled, and he clenched his fists a few times, willing the unsteadiness away.

“That’s not an answer.”

With a sharp exhale, he took hold of her wrist. “You know that part in
Empire Strikes Back
where Luke loses his hand?”

“Jesus,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“It won’t be that bad.”

Even hurting, she still managed to look exasperated.

“But it’s going to take a little time.” And hurt like hell, but he was sure she already knew that.

He braced his foot between her arm and torso for leverage. Without two people to do this, he needed to keep her body still while he gently pulled on her arm.

More tears ran down her cheeks as he carefully leaned back.

“Almost there.”

She started to speak and ended up smashing her lips together before crying out.

“Just a little more,” he coaxed, hating how much it was hurting her. Every second seemed to last an hour, the drizzle thickening to a steady rain that threatened to sabotage his grip.

Another yell of pain and he finally felt the pop of her shoulder sliding back into place.

“We need to put it in a sling.” He pulled his shoe back on, then headed for the plane once more. He dragged their bags outside, digging through them for something that would work. He settled on one of his T-shirts, ripping the material.

“Is the pain better?” He worked the material around her arm and knotted it at the shoulder.

“Could be worse. I could be hanging upside down from a floating city.”

He might have laughed if he could have put off looking at his own leg any longer. He felt Darby’s eyes on him as he ripped the hole in his pants wider. The angry slash across his thigh wasn’t as deep as he’d feared and had already started to clot. Reaching for the first aid kit he’d found, he dug through it until he found what he was looking for.

“Miles?”

Meeting Darby’s eyes, Bryce shook his head.

I need to tell you about our baby.
Her confession moments before the plane went down came crashing back. What baby? Darby had been pregnant?

No, she would have told him something like that. That was too important to keep from him. Wasn’t it? Or was that why she’d been so determined not to talk to him for weeks after spring break? Had she found out she was pregnant after they got home and hadn’t wanted him to know?

Forced to focus on his leg, he dumped some of the bottled water from his bag on the wound.
Fuck.

“How bad?” Her face was still pale, and her eyes kept drifting shut.

“I’ll live.” The words came out sharper than he’d intended. He started to apologize then found himself staring at her stomach. She’d never had a baby. He would have heard about that long ago.

“What happened to the baby?” It was a badly timed question, under the circumstances, but her dropping that kind of information as their plane was about to crash hadn’t been well thought out either.

Her lashes fluttered open, her gaze finding his before sliding away. “I lost it.”

His stomach clenched, but he made his fingers keep working to finish bandaging his leg. “When?”

“I was almost twelve weeks along. I—” She tried to move and hissed out a pained breath.

Three months? She’d known about the baby for weeks and had refused to see him? To tell him?
Christ.

When Darby refused to look at him, he pushed himself to his feet. He needed to breathe, to move, something…

Everywhere he looked he was reminded that their plane had crashed. They were both hurt, in shock and stranded in the middle of nowhere. He glanced back at her, saw her shivering.

They had to get out of the rain. That had to come first, then he could try wrapping his mind around the fact that she’d been pregnant with his baby and he was hearing about it ten fucking years later.

The rain thickened, and he glanced at the wreck. He didn’t want to go back in the plane. Miles’s body…

Miles had a satellite phone.

Hurrying, he hobbled toward the plane door.

“Where are you going?” Darby’s voice was nearly extinguished by the sound of the rain.

“I need to check something.” Why hadn’t he remembered that Miles always carried a sat phone in his bag?

He tried to ignore the sight of the pilot’s body as he searched the area for the carry-on Miles always had with him. He’d have to move or at least cover the body soon. It couldn’t be left like that.

When Bryce didn’t find anything inside, he moved back outside, wandering a short distance from the plane, hoping to spot it.

“It’s not here.” Exhausted and getting wetter by the second, he gave up on searching for the phone for the moment. They both needed to get out of the rain. “Darby?”

No response.

He limped back to Darby’s side of the plane, and found her unconscious.

“Where the hell is my son?”

Alex cringed as the sound of the slamming door reverberated down the length of his spine. He’d already killed the lights in his room in the main building of the resort. It was easier to keep his eyes open without the piercing light threatening to split his brain in two.

Thomas Lancaster scowled from just inside the door, his volatile emotions chafing Alex’s already heightened awareness.

“Lower your voice,” Danny Calder advised, rising from his seat to Alex’s right.

Dante was already halfway across the room, looking ready to throw Thomas out on his ass.

Alex ignored them, focusing on the glass of water in front of him.

“I warned you something like this would happen,” Thomas continued. “You know better, goddamn it.”

“Dante.” Danny moved to intercept his son before he reached Thomas. “He’s upset too. We all are.”

“Upset? My son’s plane never reached its destination, and you think I’m
upset
?”

“Maybe if you hadn’t been such an ass Bryce wouldn’t have taken off the first chance he got,” Dante challenged. “Although, that is his style.”

“Do not talk about my son like you have any idea—”

“I know much more than I ever wanted to—”

The glass of water shattered, and all three men turned toward Alex.

“How am I supposed to concentrate when there is more bitching going on in here than on
Desperate Housewives
?” Ignoring the puddles of water and shards of glass, Alex grabbed another bottle of water from the minifridge, poured himself another drink and sat back down.

Exhaling slowly, he briefly closed his eyes, then focused on the water once more.

“What’s with the glass?” Dante sat opposite him. “Does it help you channel stuff better?”
Stuff
being Dante’s favorite way of describing the Tribunal’s ability to know what others were thinking.

“Nope.” Alex took a long drink, then set the glass aside. “Just thirsty.” He exhaled slowly.

“Are they dead?” Thomas voiced the same question the other two men had been afraid to ask.

“No. But that’s about all I do know.” And the more he tried to concentrate, the less he felt from Darby or Bryce.

For the fifth time in the last two minutes he glared at his cast. One stupid, little mistake was preventing him from finding his friends right now. One colossally stupid mistake.

“So what is the plan?” When no one answered Thomas right away he dropped onto the edge of the sofa.

“We’re working on it.” Dante went back to his laptop. “So far there’s been no signal from the plane’s emergency-locator transmitter.”

“I already know that. What I don’t know is what you’re doing about it.” Thomas glanced at Alex. “Can’t you narrow the search area down?”

“You’re free to give it a shot if you think you can do better.”

“I called Shane—”

“Then you know he’s not having any more luck than I am.” And Shane, the third Tribunal member, didn’t have a cast slowing him down.

“And Tate?” Thomas pressed.

Alex shook his head. “That’s like expecting the rookie to win the World Series.” Tate had been just as frantic since she’d felt the same static charge that signaled two witches joining magic.

With the Calders and Lancasters at each other’s throats and the Hastings giving them all a wide berth, there were only so many people who could be responsible. Throw in the fear and panic that accompanied the static charge with enough force to take Alex to his knees, and he’d narrowed it down pretty quickly.

Unable to tap in to either Darby or Bryce, he’d been forced to do things the old-fashioned way and reach them by phone. When that hadn’t worked, he’d called anyone who would know where they were and found out Bryce had taken his father’s plane home. Darby, too, as it turned out, surprising more than a couple Calders.

Thirty minutes ago they’d received confirmation that the plane never arrived, and Alex had been trying ever since to get some kind of a vibe from Darby or Bryce.

Silence fell between the men again, even more tense now that Lancaster had joined them.

Dante pushed to his feet. “I can’t just sit here.” He made it only halfway across the room before his cell phone rang, stopping him.

“It’s Tate,” Alex said. “Tell her not to try anything.”

Arching a brow, Dante glanced at him. “Since when can Tribunal members predict the future?”

“Since the age of text messaging.” Alex held up his phone. “She texted me a couple minutes ago, said she was calling you.”

Dante scowled, not impressed by Alex’s attempt to lighten the mood.

Any other time, Alex might have been amused by a front-row seat to the Tall, Dark and Broody show, but he had other things on his mind.

Like Dante did.

The only thing Dante worried about, besides how he was going to give Reece Prescott a hard time, was his family. Darby in particular.

To say he was overprotective, especially where Bryce Lancaster was concerned, was putting it mildly.

Dante slipped out of the room, his voice fading as he closed the door behind himself.

Alex felt Thomas staring at him.

“So we just wait.”

“That’s the gist of it.”

“And if you do find them—”

“When,” Danny Calder interrupted.

“—how will we explain how we located them if the rescue team is looking in the wrong direction?”

“Magic,” Alex offered, tongue in cheek. Although how was he supposed to find anyone if he had to keep stopping to play Twenty Questions?

“You think to expose us?”

Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. “And if I do you’ll make me stand in the corner and recite ‘I will not do magic’, I get it.”

“You’re a member of the Tribunal. You took a vow to protect our secrets—”

“I know what I vowed better than anyone,” he snapped. He let out a slow breath. “You’re scared. I get it. So am I. Two of my friends are out there somewhere and they’re hurt.” There was no point sugarcoating it.

Witches who took off their amulets fell off the grid. There was no way Bryce and Darby would have done that—not at the same time and not for this long—without telling someone. Meaning they were both in serious trouble.

Thomas Lancaster gave him a somber look that might have passed for an apology. “What can I do?”

Alex pushed his once-more empty glass across the table and went back to concentrating on getting a lock on his friends.

Pillows don’t hug back.

It was the first thought to drift through Darby’s mind. She forced her gritty eyes open to find Bryce sitting up. Gone was the comforting warmth of his arm across her waist.

Moments ago she’d burrowed closer to his side, half-convinced he was the pillow she’d clutched hours after he’d walked away from her bungalow. Half-asleep, she’d argued with herself to go after him.

And then he’d wrapped an arm around her, waking her.

Now faced with the reality of lying on her side beneath…an inflatable raft?…with the wrecked plane snagged by her peripheral vision, she wished she could go back to sleep.

“How’s your arm?” Seated with his back to her, Bryce stared out at the rain.

Night had fallen, and with that realization, Darby shivered.

She sat up, grateful the throbbing in her shoulder wasn’t the screaming pain it had been right before Bryce had popped it back in place. Her head was another matter. She gingerly explored the side of her head, finding a bandage covering the tender spot on her forehead.