Crimson Cove (20 page)

Joe continued to watch me and that same pitying frown exaggerated the longer he stared at me. I felt sick “Sam?”

“Big brother caught on early. Figured out what Ronan was doing, that he was helping me. Of course, he had no idea what my end game was. He thought I was interested in getting a little revenge on the Grants. Thought I just wanted to come out to the Cove and take Bane’s place.” Joe looked around the wood, the stretch of acreage and territory that technically was his and I almost felt sorry for him. “I do that then Bane would be free to be with you. And after all your poor brother has gone through, who could blame him for wanting his little sister to be happy?”

Sam had undergone the most horrible tragedy. Losing his wife, his unborn child…I couldn’t image what that pain was like, but would all that heartache make him betray the Cove? Everything we fought to protect? “I…I don’t believe you.”

“Why in the hell would I lie? There is no reason for me to lie, Jani. I want the Elam destroyed but my magic isn’t strong enough to contain it.” He stood closer, looking down at my hands as though he itched to touch my fingers. “Yours is. It wants you. Can’t you hear it?” Joe stood behind me then and I stiffened my spine, uneasy with him so close. “Grant blood created it. Grant blood is attracted to you. It’s calling you. It’s gotta be you.” Joe moved my hair off my shoulder and rested his hands on my neck. I could hear the Elam singing to me. Its call was overwhelming. “You help me destroy it and you can leave the Cove. Walk away like you always wanted and Bane will be free to go with you once I take over the coven. Everyone gets what they want.”

“My family…”

“Your family, what?” he said, jerking me around to look up at him. “Your family who lied to you? Your family who changed your memories, kept you from what you wanted? Abandoned you? Help me, Jani and you’ll be free from them. All of them.”

Joe wasn’t wrong. Oh, my god, if what he claimed was true then everyone knew about what had been done to keep me and Bane apart. My parents had known and my father had made certain I stayed away from Bane. My brother, even my twin, had kept me in the dark likely because they thought it was for my own good. Looking at Joe, I understood his anger. He’d been betrayed, too. He’d been abandoned by his blood. We weren’t that different when it came right down to it.

There must have been some resignation in my features, something that made Joe pick up on my hesitation because he came closer and let his voice lower, soften. “Your father cared more about the bloodlines and the Cove than his own daughter’s happiness. Mine wouldn’t even acknowledge me. They both need to pay, Jani. They both deserve a little vengeance.”

There was too much sensation, too much happening too quickly for me to concentrate. The Elam hummed louder and it filled my head, clouded it from the smell of the woods, the honeysuckle...  Sirens continued to wail and cry in the Cove, below.

“All those lies, Jani. We can bury them in the past or bring them forward. The mortals would know about us. We’d be free to be who we are, whenever we want. No more hiding, no more lies, and your father and mine would be held accountable for all the things they tried to keep hidden.”

Joe stood too close, becoming part of the crowding noise in my head that made it impossible to focus on anything for very long, but he was too impatient, too eager to have me agree to his manic, mad plan.  When I didn’t respond, when I kept my face covered in my hands as that noise grew louder and louder, the shifter lost his patience.

“Fine then, if you won’t help me, then I’ll have to persuade you.” There was a rustle from the woods and one of the trackers I’d seen following us appeared, dragging a gagged but still straggling Mai behind him.

“Son of a bitch.” As soon as I moved towards my sister, the burly tracker shook his head, sliding a knife from his belt to hold it against her throat.

Behind him came three more equally brutish minions. They congregated behind Joe and watched me, looking like they could easily thwart whatever hex I threw their way. Outmanned, but not outsmarted. Not just yet.

“Decision time, Jani.” Joe stepped next to Mai, looking her over before he glanced back at me and for a second his features returned to the sweet, charming man I’d met in Bane’s kitchen. “I wasn’t lying about how beautiful you two are. It really isn’t fair.”

Blinking once allowed me a second to take in a calm, focusing breath and catch another scent on the breeze, this one thicker than it had been just seconds before.

“No,” I told Joe as I opened my eyes to look at him. “It’s not fair at all, but then not much ever is.”

“How do you mean?”

“You got left behind by Grant.” I glanced at Mai, winking once and my twin grinned back at me. “I ended up in the middle of a plan that had nothing to do with me. Shit is unfair, but we adjust and we deal.”

“I don’t adjust.” Joe grunted when I stepped toward the Elam.

“Maybe that’s your problem. Conflict resolution, Joe. We all need a game plan when life throws a hurdle in our way.”

“Oh? And what’s yours?”

I stood, looping the leather cord the Elam was connected to between my fingers. “Back up, asshole.”

In films, when the big bad gets a little too cocky, the hero typically takes advantage. She uses their lapse of attention, the point when the villain thinks he’s won, to withdraw her ace in the hole, to bring out the dupe that shocks the bad guy and gives her the upper hand.

              Joe wasn’t Voldemort and I wasn’t Harry Potter. He didn’t look remotely like Ultron and my butt was too big to be The Vision. But I did have something that the half shifter, half wizard was either too stupid or too unaware of to notice. Bane Iles could read me.

              “Decision time, Jani.” Joe had said, getting a little too close to my sister for my liking. But my mind hadn’t been on him or even her at the moment. It was otherwise entangled with Bane and the silent conversation he’d started with me just as Joe had produced Mai from the woods.

             
We’re here, Jani.
I’d heard.
We’ve got your back.

             
That allowed me a moment of confidence, something that rarely happens, something that gave me the idea of distracting Joe while Bane and his crew circled us.

“I wasn’t lying about how beautiful you two are,” Joe said, looking between me and my twin as Bane instructed his crew deeper into the woods, circling stealthily. “It really isn’t fair.”

“No. It’s not fair at all, but then not much ever is.”

Keep stalling. It’s working.

“How do you mean?”

I wouldn’t think of the tone he used when he spoke to me. I didn’t think of the hurt I’d caused him and how I could hear the hint of it even in my mind. Instead my focus went to Joe, to baiting him, distracting him so he would not notice my brother just a few feet behind him in the woods or Trevor and Bane directly behind the tracker holding Mai.

“You got left behind by Grant. I ended up in the middle of a plan that had nothing to do with me. Shit is unfair, but we adjust and we deal.”

“I don’t adjust.”

When you’re ready, tell him you’re not alone. That’s when we’ll charge. Get Mai and get to the lines. We need you to get the Elam back to town before the feds arrive.

How the hell am I supposed to do that?
A quick glance over Joe’s shoulder and I caught Bane’s gaze. There was no warmth in that expression.
              Aren’t you a witch? Ride the damn lines, Jani.

“Maybe that’s your problem,” I told Joe, avoiding the glare Bane gave me. “Conflict resolution, Joe. We all need a game plan when life throws a hurdle in our way.”

“Oh? And what’s yours?”

One glance at my twin and I knew she’d caught my hint.
Duck,
it said and
move quick.
We were twins. We knew each better than we knew ourselves. It was all right there in glance and I knew it, the second Mai’s smile flirted on her lips.

“Back up, asshole.”

              One small grunt and Mai stepped back, twisting out of the tracker’s grip just as Sam, Bane and the rest of the covens emerged from the woods.

              All was chaos, the wild rush of hexes and spells, bodies transforming into animals—wolves and panthers, eagles and ravens all twisting from skin and bone to fur and feather—the small congregation of fighting building to a cacophony of violent sounds that gave me pause, had me stumbling as I dragged my twin away from the melee.

              “What are we doing?” Mai screamed, dodging spell fire and leaping wolves as we ran from the fight.

              “Getting to the lines and getting the Elam back to town.”

              But Mai stopped me, pulling out of my touch behind a large cropping of trees where Sam fought with a large tracker. His nose was bloody and there was a wide cut on his bottom lip, but my brother kept fighting.

              “You can’t ride the lines, Jani. They’ll absorb you.”

              “We don’t have a choice.”

              “You’ll die!”

              “I won’t…”

              “What’s wrong?” Sam asked, rushing toward us as the fighting continued. “What do you need?”

              “This crazy witch wants to ride the lines back to town.”

              Both my siblings stared at me, eyes wide and I could feel the thick wave of fear coming from them. Around us the fighting continued and the Elam throbbed in my palm.

              “It’s the only way to stop the lines from flooding the town with magic. It’s the only way to keep the mortals from knowing anything is wrong.”

              “They already know, Jani. Beckerman has called in the feds and…”

              “They aren’t here yet. I can stop this.”

              “At what cost?” Sam shook his head and I could just make out the glassy flicker of his eyes in the mid-morning sunlight. “I never wanted any of this…”

              “It doesn’t matter what you wanted, Sammy. It’s done. You helped Ronan…”

              “You did what?” Mai asked, jerking on his arm so he had to look at her.

              “Mai, it doesn’t matter.”

              “I only wanted the truth to come out,” he told Mai before glancing at me, “about you and Bane.” He exchanged a glance with Mai and by her expression I knew for sure she’d kept the truth from me as well.

              “It doesn’t matter now.” My siblings had done what they thought was best. They’d done what they could to protect me. None of that mattered anymore. Not when everything we’d fought so hard to protect was threatening to unravel. “Bane knows and he hates me for it.”

              “Oh, Jani…” Mai started, grabbing my hand, but I waved her off, not willing to let my emotions cloud my thoughts. That’s not what I needed at moment.

              “This,” I nodded toward the forest, in the direction of the lines just beyond the ridge, “is the only way to save the Cove. It’s the only way to keep the mortals from finding out."

              “Then I’ll help you,” Mai said, taking my hand.

              “What? No!” Sam said, stepping between us.

              But as she offered, I knew Mai was right. She could center me. She could be the peak of realization I needed so that the lines would not overtake me. She could tether me to who I was and how I wanted to remain.

              When we stood, inching away from the fighting, Sam grabbed tight to my arm, twisting us both around. “I am damn well not going to lose both of my sisters for this fucking town.”

              “You won’t, Samedi. We’ll be fine.” Mai kissed his cheek, taking my hand as we ran toward the line, letting the pulse and buzz of its song wash over us.

              Behind us Sam called out a thousand warnings, then a thousand oaths when Joe sucker punched him in the jaw. One quick glance over my shoulder and I saw Sam tussling with Joe as he clamored toward us. Both men rolled around on the ground, arms flaying, fists flying and then my brother went still.

              “He’s going to try to jump with us,” Mai said, tightening her arm around my waist.

              “Let the asshole try.” Mai’s skin was cool to the touch when I rested my palm against her wrist. In front of us the ley lines hummed like an electric fence and their energy signature glowed bright. We need only step into the streams that ran perpendicular to each other—one shooting toward town, the other moving toward the back of the ridge and into the groves.

              “Beautiful,” Mai said, resting her face against my shoulder. “So beautiful.”

              “Don’t let it absorb you,” I told my twin, pinching her hand when she hummed.

              “Right. I’ve got you.”

              “You ready for this?” Mai nodded, gripping me tighter and we both stepped into the lines. But we weren’t alone.

              Just as the brilliant energy coated us like a second skin, Mai shouted, pulled back from me as Joe grabbed her arm.

“Get off my sister!”

              The tussle of strength was unbelievable. Joe shouldn’t have the power to battle me and Mai, not to mention the current that flowed from the lines, but he fought it, shooting hexes that looked dark, that the lines both absorbed and exaggerated the moment they left his fingertips.

              “You idiot, you’ll kill us all.”

              “Fine with me,” he growled, shaking Mai like she weighed nothing. My sister kept reaching for me, but my fingers ached against the current vibrating from the Elam and the struggle it made to drop into the lines. “As long as that damn thing is destroyed in the process,” he said, nodding toward the Elam.

              Mai continued to struggle with Joe and it took all my focus to keep the Elam from bouncing out of my grip. All the time we were moving; around us, the forest slid past, a zip of trees and limbs and ground that became a big blur, the whiz of animals and rock all zooming past us as the line shot us forward on the surface of arcane energy. It was like walking on a half erected stone bridge with pavers that slipped and tottered with each step you made.

              “Nearly there, Mai,” I shouted over my shoulder, glaring at Joe when he pulled my sister against his chest.

              “You had better drop it before we reach the Cove.” Joe slipped his arm around Mai’s neck and she widened her eyes, immediately grabbing at his large arm to put her fingers between it and her neck.

              “Stop it!”

              “I’m not messing around, Janiver. Drop the fucking Elam or I will kill her.”

              “You wouldn’t.”

              “Are you stupid?” He jerked Mai closer to emphasize his point. “I killed my own blood when he overheard me talking to my trackers.”

              “Wyatt…”

              “Was too damn nosey for his own good.” Joe moved his gaze to my hands, to the glowing turquoise stone resting in my palm. “Now drop the Elam or I will choke the life out of your pretty twin.”

              Behind Joe the lines rippled and I knew someone else had hopped them, but my attention stayed on Mai’s face, on the rounding of her eyes and the blue cast of her skin as Joe squeezed the breath from her.

              “Please,” I told him, making myself seem small, wishing he knew what this pain was, to have an impossible choice. “I can’t choose between them.”

              “Then you will lose them both. Your sister and your town. Either way,” Joe said dragging Mai closer as he stepped toward me, “the Elam will be destroyed.”

              It felt so heavy in my hand. That beautiful stone, the small tortoise face blinking up at me, as though it could read me, see me, tell me how important I was, how pivotal it was that I restore it to its home. And then there was my twin, eyes wide, shining with fear as Joe choked her. The choice should have been so simple. It should have been something I needn’t give any thought to. My blood, my twin, she was what mattered most to me. But the Elam protected thousands. It kept us all safe. Millions more would be affected if it were destroyed. Life as we knew it, life as everyone knew it, could change. Disintegrate. Come to an end.

              Who was I to make that choice?

              “Save the Cove, Jani,” Mai spit out, her voice hoarse, raspy and I needed to only look at her expression, see that complete trust, that utter confidence in her eyes that she’d always shown me. I wouldn’t lose that and I wouldn’t let Joe take that from me.

              “Fight like hell,” I told my twin, grinning back at her before I jumped from the line and rolled right onto the ground just two blocks from the town center.

              Mai would fight, I knew that. She was the scrappiest witch I knew. I heard the fight in her, that scream and shout of “you rotten bastard,” she cried at Joe as I took off. I bypassed the quick looks I received from the mortals hovering around the silhouette of smoking structures that had once been Batty’s and several other buildings but now looked like black, ashen skeletons.

              A group of firemen glanced at me running away from the crowd, and a cop watched me as I dodged through traffic, but they all were already overwhelmed by what they were already tasked at doing. I kept running, weaving around parked cars and numbed spectators, toward the gazebo in the town square, running along the small picket fence that secured the town square and small courtyard.

              “Hurry, Jani, he’s right behind you!” I heard Mai shout and my breath came out easier as I jumped the picket fence, hoping the small crowd of mortals would pay more attention to the smoldering buildings than to me or Joe, whose heavy breathing I could hear behind me.

              The gazebo came into view as I ran around two large cypress trees. Just feet from me and I’d be able to climb the trellis and refasten the Elam to the amulet that secured us. Grant blood would be handy just now, and it hit me that I would have to face Joe if I wanted to use his blood to secure the Elam back into place. I didn’t need Bane’s strength as Joe had. I had my own.

              But I had not anticipated on his shifting, not with so many mortals around. Joe did, however, stripping off his shirt just as I stopped to face him in front of the gazebo, stepping back when all that expanse of olive skin transformed into inky black fur. Panther and massive. His square jaw smoothed out, elongated and then recessed into powerful jaws, and the man’s small capped teeth stretched and reformed into fine, deadly points that snapped at me the closer he came.

              “Figures you’d be a giant pussy,” I said, jumping when the panther growled and pounced toward me.

              Behind me Mai was joined by Sam and Bane and a small crowd of curious mortals. No, they couldn’t see this, not the mortals. It couldn’t be explained. I glanced over at my twin, at my brother, shaking my head when they both advanced.

             
What are you doing?
Bane shouted inside my head and I managed one quick jerk of my gaze at him before I smiled.
You watch my family’s back.
And then, I lifted my hands, throwing up a shield hex that would keep them back and leave Joe the panther and me to settle this without the intrusion of wizards or the knowledge of mortals.

              He came fast and brutal, growling, snapping at me, and in the advance he caught the cord holding the Elam in his snapping mouth, twisting it around his tooth.  Flinging his head back, Joe threw the Elam across the ground.

              “No! I don’t think so.” And I charged, toppling him as I jumped on his back with my arms around his neck. The big cat’s growl and the rebuking sound vibrated against my hand as I gripped his throat. It sounded like the whip of lightning cracking across the sky.

              “Jani! Please!” I heard Mai crying but her words or Sam’s cursing didn’t do much to encourage me, and Bane pacing outside the perimeter of the shield only annoyed me.

              “You cannot have it!” I shouted at the panther when he charged toward the Elam lying near the steps of the gazebo. My focus, my energy came quick and sharp and with an effort borne of adrenaline and pure nerve, I moved my mind beyond the block Bane had constructed. It was hindering me.

             
Release it,
I shouted at him.
Release it now so I can beat this bastard.

              I do that and you open yourself to me completely.
When I merely grunted, he added,
It’s the price you pay, Jani. I want to see everything.

              Fine,
I told him, closing my eyes to concentrate on the writhing cat in my grasp.
Just do it.

             
And then, Bane’s block crumbled inside my head. There was no barrier protecting me from the raw, open flow of the lines. There was nothing protecting me from its angry magic. Stunned for a split second, Joe took advantage and threw me off his back.  I sprawled there on the ground outside the gazebo, on my back, and when I looked up I saw the great black cat preparing to strike.  I barely had time to think, to focus—I only had time to react.

              The lines flooded into my skin, absorbing every pore, coating every cell and when my eyes flashed open and I caught the gaze of that big black cat, every bit of red energy and seeping power flowed right into him.