Reliquary (Reliquary Series Book 1) (25 page)

The sight focused my thoughts and steadied my hands, which rose to pull that poisonous jewelry over his head. He ducked his head and allowed it, bracing his palms against the wall like he was trying to hold himself up. “I thought they’d gotten you,” he said.

“One of them did.”

“Ekstazo.” His nostrils flared. “How the hell did you get away? Did that motherfucker—”

“No.” I put the necklace over my head, glad he couldn’t see the color of my burning cheeks. “Stop underestimating me.”

He smiled, still trying to catch his breath. “You’d think I’d know better by now.”

I touched one of the welts on his neck, and he winced and pulled my fingers away. “Sorry,” I said. “I guess the relic worked, though? Long enough for you to get away.”

“Yep. Gave me enough of a head start.” He grimaced and his back arched abruptly, and I stepped to the side as he retched.

I moved deeper into the corridor, giving him space. “Is it the relic? It didn’t make you that sick before, once you’d stopped wearing it.”

“Not the relic,” he said, doubling over to dry heave. “Reza’s here.”

“What? He’s working for Zhong?”

Asa wiped his mouth on his bloody T-shirt and shook his head. “No. Brindle’s people are all over the fucking place. That’s the shooting—Zhong and Brindle’s people are firing at each other.”

“Hasn’t someone called the police?”

“Sure, but Knedas agents were waiting for them in the parking lot. Anyone who gets close thinks they’re hearing construction sounds.”

“At night?”

“Doesn’t have to make sense for people to believe.”

So we were in the middle of a mob war, and no one was coming to help. “Who’s winning?”

A piercing scream split the night, and Asa groaned and sank to his knees. “One guess.”

Reza’s arrival would have changed things. “Does he need to touch people to hurt them?”

“If he’s close enough, all he has to do is be able to see them.”

But he could hurt Asa without any of that. He was hurting Asa just by being in the vicinity. “You have to get out of here. When they’re done fighting each other, they’ll come for you.”

It didn’t matter which side caught him. He was sunk either way.

Asa pushed himself up to his feet, using the wall for support. “Come on. We’ll head for those hills behind this development.” He stretched out his long arm and grabbed my hand. His grasp was cold and clammy and trembling.

I pulled my hand from his. They were chasing him, but they were also chasing the relic. The thing we’d promised to give Frank Brindle in exchange for Ben’s life. “Asa, this could end here.”

He leaned against the wall, gritting his teeth as another scream rent the air, closer this time. The gunfire had stopped for the time being. Maybe Zhong’s people were too terrified to shoot, scared that it would lead Brindle’s Strikon assassin straight to them.

“This is our chance, Mattie,” Asa said in a tight voice.

“This is
your
chance. We had a plan. There’s no reason not to stick to it now.”

“You expect me to leave you behind?”

“I expect you to do what we agreed on. I’ll give them the relic. You get as far away from here as you can.” I smiled, though it was really hard. The sharp pain in my chest had been replaced with a terrible ache. My fingers rose to touch his rough cheek. “Go get Gracie. She’ll be so happy to see you.”

Asa cursed and folded his arm over his stomach as a piercing shriek resounded only a few stores down from our hiding place. Reza was getting closer. “We can leave the relic right here for them to find. They’ll let Ben loose. You don’t have to stay.”

“You don’t know that. If I’m here, I can explain what we had to do. I can tell them you said you were on your way to South America or something. Send them in the wrong direction.”

He raised his head and leveled me with the look in his eyes. I’d never seen it before. It was somehow ferocious and pleading at the same time. “Come with me, Mattie. We’re a good team. We can figure this out. Together.”

Together.
Suddenly, all my confused, tangled feelings for him pushed their way to the front of my brain, overwhelming and terrifying. I needed to get away from him. “I can’t, Asa.”

Asa’s lips curled into a snarl. “Ben doesn’t deserve you.”

“Stop.”

He swallowed hard. “Mattie.” It looked like he was struggling with his words, like they were as painful as the Strikon magic all around him, like he was trying to summon the will to let them go. “When Ben told you I was jealous of him . . .”

“You said he was wrong.” My heart was thrumming and my stomach was tight, and somehow the assassins all around us seemed much less threatening than what lay between me and Asa.

“That was the truth.” Asa’s jaw clenched. “Until—”

“Good-bye, Asa,” I blurted out, my voice cracking. I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to shut the ache inside the supposedly powerful vault I carried in my chest. If I could hold the most powerful pain magic in existence, why couldn’t I contain this kind of hurt? “Give Gracie a hug for me, okay?”

Asa chuckled, that dark, dry, humorless sound he made only when he was in pain. He caressed my cheek, a quick brush of his calloused fingertips across my skin. “
Dammit
, Mattie,” he whispered.

And then his touch was gone, and so was he. I listened to his footsteps fading into silence.

I sank to the ground, the relic necklace clinking softly as my chest convulsed with a sob. I pulled my knees up and curled around the ache, covering my head with my arms as tears streamed down my face. I knew I shouldn’t be crying. I was so close to getting exactly what I wanted. But my body thought differently, I guessed.

“Mattie. I’m glad we found you in time.”

My head jerked up. Reza had knelt before me, looking dapper and smooth, as if he’d just been on an evening stroll. His dark eyes were bright. “Are you hurt?”

“N-no,” I said. “I’m not hurt.”

He reached for me, but I cringed back, whimpering, wishing I could control my tears. But it was all too much, all at once, and the pressure and pain in my chest were overwhelming. Reza pulled his hands back. “I won’t hurt you. If I’d wanted to, I could have done it the moment I laid eyes on you. You understand that, don’t you?”

I glanced at his gorgeous face, his wavy black hair slicked back from his forehead, his gaze gentle. “Please let me help you,” he murmured. “That’s what I was sent here to do.” He offered his hand.

I took it. There was no pain. I wondered how hard he was working to control it, but I was grateful for his steadiness as he helped me to my feet. “What happens now?”

He put his arm around me, and his eyes traced the gaudy pendant nestled between my breasts. “I’m going to take you back to Las Vegas, where you will have the chance to clean yourself up before meeting with Mr. Brindle.” He gave me a hypnotic smile. “And then you will be reunited with Ben, who is desperate for a report on your well-being and safety.”

“What about Asa?” I asked in a broken whisper.

Reza’s eyebrows rose. “What of him?” He made a show of looking around. “It seems Mr. Ward slipped away before I had the chance to greet him.” His smile widened. “Another day, perhaps.”

The predatory glint in his eye sent a chill through me, but it was gone so quickly that I wondered if I’d imagined it. Reza tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow and gestured toward the square. “Shall we?”

I nodded, and he led me out of the corridor and into the dusty, smoky night.

EPILOGUE

It was easier than I’d thought it would be. Frank Brindle was as good as his word. He actually seemed a little hurt that Asa would believe he’d ever intended to take him by force, though I could have sworn his friendly smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Ben and I left Las Vegas on a first-class flight a few days later, with the assurance that we’d been granted safe passage by Zhong Lei. After the firefight in the desert had killed off dozens of agents on each side, the two bosses had negotiated some kind of truce.

Our return to Sheboygan was triumphant and full of lies. With Frank’s help—and probably serious nudging by some of his Knedas agents, who had been sent forth to “gather” witnesses—a story had been constructed. Ben had been kidnapped after a case of mistaken identity. He’d been locked in a trunk and transported cross-country, where, badly dehydrated and suffering from the removal of his pacemaker, he’d nevertheless managed to escape. He’d awakened in the hospital, where he’d spent several days as a John Doe before the police realized who he was.

As for me, I’d immediately emerged from my self-imposed exile at the spa to fly out to Vegas and be by his side as he recovered. We were all over the news. We smiled for the cameras. We were interviewed on the
Today
show.
Good Morning America
, too. We held hands, my engagement ring glittering bright. We didn’t talk much, though. I think both of us knew we were headed for a reckoning, but neither of us felt strong enough to face it just yet.

I refused to let myself think of Asa.

I wondered if the lingering shard of pain inside my chest would ever go away, or if it was just the mark magic had left on me, how it had changed me.

A few days after the media circus died down, I went to visit Grandpa. I’d tried to steer clear of my parents’ house, because I didn’t want the stress of the news trucks and the reporters on the lawn to affect him. He was in his bed in the library when I arrived, and he smiled and stretched out a frail, shaking hand as I approached. I took it in mine. “I told you I would come back,” I said quietly, my throat already going tight.

“That’s some story you’re telling,” he said weakly as I pulled a chair over and sat at his bedside.

“It’s more believable than the truth.” I bit my lip as I took in his sunken cheeks and sagging skin. “I met someone you used to know. Jack?”

His eyes lit up. “You met Jack! How is he?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “We wouldn’t have gotten Ben back without him.”

The light in his eyes faded as he took in the look on my face. “Don’t tell me. Not today.”

I nodded and lowered my head to the bed rail. I wanted to tell him everything that had happened. He was the only one who understood. But maybe it was just something I needed to let go.

“Now that you know what you can do,” he said after a few minutes of heavy silence, “will you go into the business?”

I shook my head. “I turned down a job, actually.” Frank had taken it with a jovial smile and told me the offer would stand if I ever changed my mind. “I belong here.”

Grandpa looked me over with surprise. “Are you sure?”

I bit my lip and nodded.

“Then at the very least, you be proud of who you really are, and what you’re capable of.”

A smile found its way to my lips. “I guess I
can
do some pretty cool stuff.” Not all of it was about magic, either. I had survived. I had fought. And I’d won. “I’m actually kind of a badass, now that I think about it.”

“And don’t you forget it.” Grandpa patted my hand. “But I’m so glad you’re home safe. I was afraid . . .” He looked away, directing his gaze at my father’s collection of travel magazines.

He was afraid I wouldn’t make it home before he died. We hadn’t made it back in time for Barley, after all. Ben’s golden had died quietly in his sleep a few days before we made it home, in this very room. We’d missed our last days with him. I was so glad the same hadn’t happened with Grandpa.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, my voice thinned by sorrow. A shuffling in the doorway made me turn my head. Ben was standing there, waiting for me. I’d told him to come pick me up at six, and it was nearly half past. “I’ll be back tomorrow, all right?”

Grandpa nodded, and I rose and kissed his cool forehead before moving to Ben’s side.

“You okay?” he murmured, putting his arm around me as we walked to his RAV4 in the driveway.

I nodded. “I just feel bad for the stress all this has caused him.”

Ben sighed and ran his hand through his sandy hair. “The stress I caused, you mean.”

I turned to him as I heard the hurt in his voice. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not blaming you.”

His eyes met mine. “But shouldn’t you?”

“Do you want me to?”

He put the car into gear and turned onto the street. “I want you to come back to me, Mattie. It feels like you haven’t yet.”

I watched the scenery go by as he made the short drive back to our little cottage. As he pulled into the drive, I looked up at the house that I’d decorated with all my fantasies of how my life would be. “I’m trying.” I got out before he could open my door for me and headed up the steps.

“Mattie, talk to me,” he pleaded as we reached the entryway. “I can’t live like this.”

He took my face in his hands and tilted my head up. I focused my gaze on the round edge of his jaw. “I’m sorry,” he said with a bitter laugh. “I should be thanking you, not asking you for more.” He touched his forehead to mine. “Please look at me, Mattie.”

I forced myself to look into his eyes, my chest aching at the sight of their honey color. His smile was pained. “I betrayed you,” he said quietly. “I violated your trust. And instead of leaving me, you saved me. You traveled halfway around the world for me. I have no idea what kind of danger you were in, but I know it must have been terrifying, and I know you did it because you love me. I don’t deserve you.”

Ben doesn’t deserve you.
I pulled out of Ben’s grasp, desperate to escape Asa’s voice in my head. “You made mistakes,” I murmured. “I’ve made plenty of my own. I just . . . I want to forget about all of that.”

Ben stared at me, the surprise evident on his face. “Shouldn’t we talk about what I did?”

If we do, will we have to talk about what
I
did?
It was the last thing I wanted to do. “Maybe we should just let it go and move on.”

“I can’t.”

I looked up at him. “I’m offering you a free pass, and you’re not going to take it?”

He shook his head. “Not if it means we’re going to be like this. Two strangers in the same house. I want what we had before, Mattie. It was magical.”

I flinched, and he cursed. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly, then reached out to take me by the arms. “I just meant that what we had was amazing, and I think we could rebuild it if you’ll allow it.”

I leaned on his chest, inhaling his familiar, clean scent. “I want to, Ben. It’s just . . . a lot, all right?”

Ben’s grip tightened. “Does any of it have to do with my brother?”

I tensed. “What do you mean?”

“I shouldn’t have ever let you travel with him. I can’t imagine how he treated you. The places he dragged you into. What he made you do.”

“He did it all to save you,” I said slowly. “Do you have any idea what he risked to get you back?”

Ben bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Someday, you need to thank him. And I think you should apologize to him, too.” I ran my finger down the straight slope of his nose.

Ben’s cheeks darkened. “He told you.”

I nodded. “You hurt him more than he’ll ever tell you.”

“I didn’t want to,” he whispered. “My dad . . .”

“I know. He told me that, too.”

“Dad was trying to protect me,” Ben said. “He was tough, but that’s all he ever wanted to do.”

“Maybe he should have protected Asa, too.”

Ben shrugged. “Maybe he tried. I don’t really know. Asa never was easy. You have to know that, Mattie. He pushed Dad pretty hard.”

“No, Asa’s not easy.” I opened my mouth to say more, about how Asa was the easiest person to misjudge I had ever met. At first glance he was mercenary and rude, callous and arrogant. But the longer you looked at him, the more you could see who he really was, the person he’d managed to become against all the odds. That person was scary and complicated and deadly . . . but also brave and decent and compassionate, even when he wasn’t willing to admit it to himself. There were so many things I wanted to say about Asa, but the more I allowed his quietly thoughtful gestures and protectiveness to float into my conscious thoughts, the more my chest hurt. So I settled for “I actually don’t think you know him at all, Ben.”

He nodded, still staring at the ground. “Maybe that’s true.” He raised his head. “But I know I owe him my life. And I owe it to you, too.” He pulled me close, and his eyes were shining with tears. “Will you let me spend the rest of it paying you back?”

I’d already made the choice. I’d made it in a corridor in an abandoned mall, when I’d closed my eyes so I didn’t have to watch Asa walk away from me. “Yes,” I whispered.

Ben let out a choked laugh. “Thank you,” he said, lowering his head to kiss me.

I welcomed it. I needed it. Nothing else could erase the memories that slipped across my skin, an echo of sensations past, forbidden and confusing. I held on tight as Ben lifted me up and carried me into our bedroom. With fierce urgency, I undressed him, needing the sight of his muscular body, the weight of him pressing me into the bed. I paused to run my hand over the scar where his pacemaker had been removed. In all the chaos, lost in my own stormy sea of emotion, I’d completely forgotten about it. “Oh my God! We have to get you to the doctor,” I said. “I can’t believe you haven’t already done that.”

Ben smiled and shook his head, holding my palm over the scar. “I’m healed, Mattie,” he said quietly. “Forever.”

I blinked up at him. “What?”

He grinned as he pulled my shirt over my head and deftly unhooked my bra. “Frank let me have that relic. I won’t ever need a pacemaker again.”

I lifted my hips to allow him to unzip my skirt and slide it off. “But I thought he would only give it to you in return for Asa joining him.”

Ben shook his head, his eyes focused on my body as he pulled my panties down my legs. Then his gaze met mine. “He said you had risked so much to bring him the relic that it was the least he could do.”

My brow furrowed. “Really? That’s kind of hard to believe.”

“I know, but I wasn’t going to say no.” He began to kiss his way up my stomach and parted my thighs. “So I owe you my heart, too. But it was already yours.”

I ran my hands up his strong back as he pushed himself into me, as we moved together. Our familiar rhythm was comforting, and I focused on it, using it to pull up the simple, easy memories of how it used to be, how we both wanted it to be again. It would take some time, but I knew we could find our way back. We were too good together not to. We were perfect for each other.

Always had been.

Always would be.

I repeated that to myself over and over until it felt automatic. I fell asleep in his arms, our naked bodies pressed together, my head on Ben’s chest, clinging desperately to the normal, predictable
safeness
of our life, of him, of us.

The pain wrenched me to the surface of my easy dreams, though. I sat up, my heart hammering, each beat feeling like the slice of a scalpel. Ben was sacked out next to me, moonlight on his handsome face. Still dreaming.

I pulled a blanket around me and headed to the backyard, where he wouldn’t be able to hear the little squeaks of my breath.
Panic attack,
Asa had called it. That must be what this was. I sank down on a lounger, bundled in my blanket in the cool summer-night air, and stared up at the stars, concentrating on slowing down my breathing. Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes, and I fought like hell to hold them in.

I tried not to wish for that angular face to appear above mine, crooked nose and dark hair, belonging to a man who was ready to chase away anything that threatened me. I had sent him away, because the alternative was totally unthinkable. Unmanageable. Ridiculous. It made no sense at all.

That didn’t change how much I missed him.

“
Dammit
, Asa,” I whispered, running my fingers across my throat.

I stayed out there for a long time, building a fence around my memories of him. He didn’t ever want to be in a cage, but in my head, there was no other safe place to keep him. So I built the walls high, with razor wire along the top, trapping him along with everything else in the strange world of magic I had discovered. It didn’t fit with the future I’d chosen.

By the time I was finished, the needle of pain in my chest had dulled to an ache. My breathing had slowed, and my tears had dried. Once I’d contained my sadness at what I’d lost, gratitude—for having experienced it at all, and for the man who’d gotten me through all of it—had welled up in its place. We weren’t headed in the same direction, but I would always be glad our paths had crossed. And as the sun glowed weakly at the tree line, preparing to emerge and dominate the day, I got up and headed back inside.