Warrior Enchanted: The Sons of the Zodiac (6 page)

Drake left it alone, unwilling to push any harder. Grey knew how to take care of himself. And if the ram had developed a glaring blind spot, well…Callie would suss it out soon enough and give him shit about it.

All that said, Drake was just raw enough from his own evening to poke the lion once more in his den. “You want it to be more?”

Grey pulled his attention from the window. “Come on, we may be human, but immortality has a way of skewing things.”

“Doesn’t mean she’s not willing to cooperate with your stubborn brand of Aries charm as so many other women have blindly done. I don’t get it”—Drake
forced an exaggerated lift of his shoulders—“but there’s no accounting for taste.”

“There’s nothing going on between us and nothing’s going to start. And, for the record, fuck you.”

Drake couldn’t stop the bark of laughter. Not only did it feel good, but it was nice to be in his own element. Preparing for battle with one of his brothers while slinging bullshit at each other.

Not spying on a woman in his backyard. Or falling squarely in the middle of her family drama he had no business taking part in.

Focusing on the bullshit once again, he couldn’t resist ribbing Grey a bit more. “She does have a sweet pair of legs.”

The harsh set of the ram’s jaw confirmed he’d hit the mark.

“I suggest you keep your gaze on the enchanting Ms. Carano and off my ADA.”

Drake had stood beside Grey for a long time and hadn’t ever seen him remotely bent out of shape. If this woman had managed to get under their Aries’s skin, she was worth another look.

“What the hell’s happened to us, Grey? Time was—not that long ago, I might add—when it was just fun. And easy. No strings attached.”

“Emerson’s putting strings on you?”

“They’ve sprouted on their own accord.”

“Blame it on Brody. He started it.”

Drake took another drag on his bottle of water. “Kane and Quinn had no problem following suit. It’s like something’s in the air. What’s happened to us? We were an elite fighting team.”

“Speak for yourself. And last time I checked, we were still an elite fighting team, with a few more fighters to the good. Ava and Ilsa have been kicking ass and taking names.”

Drake nodded his head. “That’s fair.”

Ava and Ilsa had embraced their new lives along with their new spouses. And to Grey’s point, both had been invaluable in recent battles.

“So what happened with the enticing witch this evening?”

An image of Magnus Carano roving around the back alley behind their row of brownstones reared up in his mind’s eye. “I nearly beat the shit out of her brother. Thought he was a thief trying to get in through the fence.”

“You catch him on Quinn’s equipment?”

Drake couldn’t have stopped the heat from creeping up his neck if he’d tried. “I was up in the observatory. Saw it from there.”

It didn’t take millennia of knowing each other for Grey to smell blood in the water. “And what, pray tell, were you doing up in the observatory?”

“Relaxing.”

“Sure you were. So tell me, was she naked? I’ll cut your lovesick ass some slack if you tell me she was naked.”

The heat flushed again and Drake fought the urge to roll down the window. Shit, the way Grey made it sound, he came off like a fucking pervert. “Why’d you think that?”

“Come on, Drake. Where the hell have you been all these years? It’s no secret our neighbors like to go naked under the moon. They have for generations.”

“Somehow, I’d missed that bit of news.”

“Sucks for you.”

“So you going to tell me anything else I need to know about tonight’s adventure? Any reason we haven’t already ported in instead of taking the limo?”

“Nice deflection, Fish. I’ll take that as a yes. You’re also off the hook since we’re about three blocks from the meet. The limo’s a practical choice. We go porting in there and we may fall into something we’d rather observe.”

“And that would be awkward.”

While their gift of teleportation was one of their most useful assets, they needed to know where they were going to do it successfully. Landing on an unsuspecting enemy or straight into the middle of a wall had a funny way of ruining a stealthy op.

At Grey’s direction, the limo dropped them off about three piers down from the one they wanted so they could approach at their own pace.

“You want me in the water?”

“Not yet. Let’s see what we can find out up here.”

Drake pointed out a couple of thugs standing guard as they got nearer their destination. “Eight o’clock. See them?”

“Yeah. See any more?”

“Nope.”

“Probably not trying to draw more attention out here than they need to. Besides, things have escalated so far, they’re risking their people if they put too many of them out here and make them targets.”

Drake stopped, opening his senses to see if he could catch any other noises. No matter how long he worked
for Themis, the things he’d learned in battle so long ago for Alexander still served him well.

And taking a quick moment of calm to assess and prepare properly was invaluable.

“How do you want to handle them?”

“Quietly,” Drake said.

“You take all the fun out of it.”

“Let’s rock and roll.”

Grey’s eyes sparked with mischief. “Before we do, tell me one thing.”

“What?”

“She was naked, wasn’t she?”

On a sigh, Drake nodded. “As the day she was born.”

Emerson snatched the whistling teapot off the stove and poured steaming water into two mugs. The tisane she’d prepared a few days earlier to sleep seemed like a good choice to calm the nerves she couldn’t shake.

When it had become obvious Magnus wasn’t going to lose his mood to pick a fight, Drake had kindly excused himself from their burgeoning family drama. She had thought it would make things easier with her brother, but so far, their conversation had only gotten more uncomfortable.

Setting both mugs on the table, she took a seat opposite Magnus and studied his face. Fine lines bracketed his eyes and mouth. They were faint, but visible. It wasn’t the lines, though, that had her taking a second look.

It was the hard, unyielding set of his brown eyes that had her nerves jangling again.

What had happened to him?

The large, tough body. The readiness to battle Drake that wouldn’t seem to calm. And then the eyes.

He looked like a warrior.

The thought caught her off guard, but as she considered it further, it seemed like the exact right word. She’d lived with a gang of Warriors next door—had even been on a mission with them—and she knew the look.

How had her brother come by the very same?

He’d taken their mother’s disappearance hard. They all had, the lack of knowing an unimaginable pain. But it was the resulting changes in him that were unsettling. And it wasn’t simply because she hadn’t seen him in four years. Realistically, she could acknowledge that time had aged them all.

But this…
hardness
? It wasn’t Magnus.

She clenched her fingers in the material of Drake’s T-shirt where it pooled over her thighs. She’d added shorts but couldn’t bring herself to change into another shirt. The smell of him—like the fresh tang of the grass at midnight in August—was a source of comfort as she searched for the right words to deal with her brother.

“Who was that guy, Em? And why the hell did he think he could put his hands all over you?”

“He’s a…friend.”

“You let all your
friends
touch you while you’re naked?”

“Stay out of it, Magnus. It’s none of your business.”

“You’re my sister. That makes it my business.”

She refrained from beating her head on the table and took a sip of her tea instead. “What’s brought you back?”

“It was time to come home.”

“Time? It’s been time for four years.”

“Not for me. Why can’t you understand that?” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Or at least try to.”

She didn’t miss the underlying insult. He’d said something similar years ago in the midst of them all dealing with their grief. The moment hit her so swiftly, she could only be grateful she was sitting down.

“She’s gone, Em. So don’t act like you can replace her.”

The blow carried a fierce sting, like a battle-ax to her grief. She’d never even think of trying to replace their mother. No one could.

“Magnus! I’m trying to understand you. You’ve been gone for three days and the rumors are running hot that you’re somehow involved in that mess in the park. Tell me you weren’t there. Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with the vandalism and the drugs and that homeless man who lost his life.”

“If that’s what you want to hear, then fine, I wasn’t involved.”

Oh sweet Hecate, was it possible he actually had been involved? That her fears hadn’t been misplaced?

“What has gotten into you?”

“I’m a grown man. I can make my own decisions and go where I want to go.”

“You’re my brother. My family. I have a right to know if you’re involved in things you shouldn’t be. Please tell me you’re not that stupid.”

“Leave it alone, Em. Why do you assume you can fix everything?”

A deep well opened in her stomach. She’d recently dubbed it the “pit of despair” since it had manifested itself the day
the police showed up informing them of her mother’s disappearance. Not only hadn’t it closed; her brother’s increasing forays into trouble had only made it wider.

Deeper.

“It’s not trying to fix things to care about your family. To want to see them on the right path in life.”

As she stared across the table at her brother, she couldn’t help but wonder about the path he’d taken.

“The last we heard from you, you were in Europe. Is that where you’ve been the whole time?”

“Pretty much.” Magnus stared down at his tea, then stood and headed for a cabinet on the far side of the kitchen. Before she could blink, he had a large bottle of whiskey out on the counter. Mere moments later, he had fresh ice clinking in a glass and his whiskey poured.

“Looks like you haven’t forgotten everything.”

“You have a problem with my having a drink?”

“No.”

Magnus resumed his seat, but not before downing half the glass of liquor he’d poured.

On a sip of her tea, Emerson tried for a different tact. “I’m glad you’re home.”

“Not much has changed.”

She followed his gaze as it traveled around the kitchen. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Magnus drained the rest of his glass on a sneer. “There you go, putting words in my mouth again.”

“Well, how would you have me take your comments?” Emerson tried to hold her tongue. Knew she’d get nowhere pointing out to him what an asshole he was being, but damn it all if she could stay silent.
“Need I remind you once more? You’ve lost the right to comment.”

“I have every right to comment. What the hell is this place? A museum? Life changes, Em. People change. Times change. And if you don’t change with it, you’re nothing but a dinosaur.”

And just like that, she was a teenager again, desperate to be understood and especially hurt because her siblings couldn’t understand her. Or couldn’t be bothered to.

“Just because I haven’t chosen to go gallivanting around the world doesn’t mean my life is stale. This is freaking New York City. I could live here my whole life and still not see everything there is to see on this island.”

“It’s more than that. Don’t you want more?”

“More of what?”

“Just more. More out of life. More out of your talent?”

What was
this
?

That same sense of unease that had gripped her so many moons ago when she’d worried if he was involved in the park incident nipped at her with iron teeth. “I use my talents every day, Magnus.”

“For what? So you can go out in the yard at night, dance a few rituals and draw a bit of fire in your hands? You’re better than that, Em.” He leaned forward, his large body pressing on the edge of the table and his eyes alight with a vivid, evangelical fire. “So much better than that.”

“It’s a gift, Magnus. It should be treated as such.”

“Damn it, Em. Why won’t you use it?”

The teeth clamped harder, a vise she couldn’t escape. “Use it how?”

“For yourself. For gain, Em. Don’t tell me you’re so bound up in all that white witch bullshit you can’t see you’re entitled to some benefits.”

The mug shook in her hands and she laid it down on the table before she cracked the handle. “Bullshit? Is that how you see my life? Grandmother’s life? Your heritage?”

“And there you go blowing it all out of proportion. Look, why don’t I just turn in? There’ll be enough time to catch up in the morning.”

“Emerson?” Her grandmother’s voice carried down the hall as she walked toward the kitchen. “Who are you talking to?”

Emerson wanted to argue and demand answers from Magnus, but the sight of her grandmother’s face had her holding her tongue.

“Magnus?” Hippolyta’s voice exhaled on a rush as she caught sight of her grandson. “Is it really you?”

Magnus laid his glass of clinking ice cubes on the table and stood, turning bright, welcoming eyes to his grandmother. “Grandma!”

Emerson watched as he swept their grandmother up in a fierce hug, the large lines of his body dwarfing her withered frame. The hardness she’d witnessed earlier vanished as if it had never been as Magnus hugged their grandmother.

Could he really turn it off so easily?

Or were there some people you couldn’t resist, no matter how hard you tried?

In a moment of frightening clarity, Emerson thought
back to her evening with Drake a few nights before. He’d asked her to stay and she’d not only ignored the offer, but she’d cut him off at the knees. Despite doing the same for nearly a year now, he’d not grown tired of her or her attitude.

Why was she so intent on pushing him away? Or, more to the point, so afraid of letting him get close?

Mom
.

The thought whispered across her senses, that ever-present pain swelling like high tide. She could usually keep it at bay. Could usually let it simmer as a dull ache in the background of her mind.