Authors: Anise Rae
Another gust of wind blew. Its icy fingers sank beneath her coat, stabbing at her skin as if to freeze her very core. Perhaps its cold caress might numb her heart and make it quit yearning for the impossible. She hunched over. Not even winter’s blast was strong enough to do that. At least the frigid wind had cut the persistent ties of last night’s dreams...Justin Wasten tossing a metal heart like a grenade, the explosion destroying everything she loved and Edmund lying about it all.
Despite her exhaustion, she broke into a stiff jog. Hot coffee beckoned a half block away. She closed the distance, leaping over the cracks in the sidewalk, an old habit. Though the towers had prevented trash vibes from accumulating in cracks and corners for over 150 years, the superstition prevailed. There were too many cracks to risk it in the Drainpipe.
“I would have picked you up.”
She jumped. The uniformed city worker leaning against the corner of the building lifted his chin from his turned up collar to reveal his face.
“But I don’t know where you live.” Edmund strolled toward her.
Her heart skipped, racing at the sight of that deceiver. She lifted her chin. “I didn’t realize you were looking for employment, Lord Rallis.” She searched the chest of his white jumpsuit for his title. Inspector. “What do you inspect?”
“Enchantresses.” He stopped inches from her. His blue eyes were dark and hooded…too intense to hold. “It’s a tough job. First off, there aren’t very many. Second, once you find one, she’ll lead you on a chase through forbidden forests where her secret home is.”
“I do not live in the forest.” She stuck to the truth though the declaration that no one lived there and no one ever went in lay on her tongue. Lies. She bit them back.
Despite his teasing words, his smile was absent. “She’s even tougher to keep in line. Bucks the law and flaunts society’s rules.”
She swallowed hard and lifted her chin. “And, you, Mr. Inspector, are a liar.”
He flinched.
“A liar whose stories make the newspaper and destroy men’s reputations.” She tightened her hands into fists, arms locked. Her father’s reputation was in tatters simply for being a metallist, but the Rallises’ lies about how he’d died made it so much worse.
He held his hands out to her. “I didn’t know he was your father, Ror. I keep finding out one secret after another about you.” He stepped forward, closing in. “The eye. Your vow to Noble. Your father.” He stopped toe to toe with her. “Nine months ago, I told you everything about me. You gave me nothing about yourself.”
“Then maybe you should take a hint.” She poked a finger into his work suit.
“Really.” He bent down close. “If I’d taken a hint and quit caring about you, someone would have tracked that eye back to you.” A rough whisper. “And I can’t let my mind go there.”
She couldn’t either. She dropped her head, but he wouldn’t let her hide. He cupped her face and pulled her back up.
“Bronte was in a mess.” His voice was soft. “And I had to get her out. I can’t change that. Telling the truth then, and now, would hurt her…and my brother. But it’s hurt you, too, and for that I’m so very sorry, Ror. I only want to bring you happiness.”
She’d thought about it all night. Her father had left this world on a medallion’s power. It was a macabre thought, but he’d probably gained some satisfaction from that. “Are you sorry she told me?”
“No.” His voice was firm. He stroked the edge of her cheek. “I don’t want there to be secrets between us.”
She stepped back. There would be secrets between them forever if she wanted to survive.
His gaze hardened as if he’d read her mind. “We’ll work on it.” He put his arm around her and guided her down the street. “In the meantime, we have a job to do. The truck is around the corner.”
She dug in the heels of her boots. She could not afford to get more involved with him. “I don’t have time for this, Edmund. I’ve barely slept. I’ve had exactly zero coffee, and I have to get to work.”
“The coffee’s covered. I’ll call your boss and explain that you’ve been enlisted by the Rallises for Important Work. Better yet, I’ll have the senator call. No one says no to Pops.”
“I am the boss.” She refused to be pulled into a first family scheme.
“I know my grandfather would love to chat with you.” He steered her around the corner. “I love to chat with you.”
She glared up at him, ready to brush him off with a harsh phrase she’d yet to think of, but she stopped, noticing the circles under his eyes, as well as the tense lines on his brow. “What’s the matter?” Best to ask and figure this out head on.
He opened the door of a white truck with the city’s emblem on the side, along with the Rallis crest. He held out his hand for her to get in. She didn’t cooperate.
He dropped his hand, his swagger cracking. Uncertainty peeked through. “I need your help.”
Bewilderment rippled among her common sense. Founders didn’t need help from anyone. It probably wasn’t an easy phrase for the Rallis heir to say. Still.... “You could try asking instead of impressing me into service.”
His confidence mended with a seductive smile. He reached for her hand and pressed it against his heart. Temptation beckoned with a steady rhythm. “Rora, I find myself in need of your shining soul’s light to cast away the dark shadows that plague my land.” His smile dimmed. “Could you find it in your heart to help me? Please. I’ll tell you everything in the truck. Your coffee’s waiting for you in there. Creamed and sugared.” On cue, the aroma of morning caffeine drifted out of the truck’s cab, warm and smooth. He couldn’t have chosen a more effective enticement.
Still, her wariness lingered. “How did you know I’d be here?”
“I got lucky. I remembered your coffee habit and that you never make it for yourself. I figured this diner was your closest source.” He tapped the end of her nose. “Ten more minutes and I was coming to your shop.”
She was caught either way. Caution and yearning twined within her. She hesitated for another moment and then slid inside the truck. He closed her door and strode around the front of the vehicle, or so she assumed. She’d closed her eyes with the first sip of coffee and kept them that way for the second and third. Its creamy goodness drifted down ready to fuel her through the morning.
The mage engine purred to life beneath the touch of his vibes. He guided the truck out of the tight space and down the street. With a decent start on caffeinating herself, she shifted to look at him, but her boot squished against something soft. A vibe violet lay on the carpeted floor of the truck—stem, leaves, roots, and dirt.
“Did you pick this?” She leaned down and snapped the stem, leaving the roots behind. She lifted the flower to her nose.
The creases in his forehead doubled. “You like the way they smell?”
“Yes. Like nighttime dew.” She held it to his nose.
He hesitated, glancing at her, and then gave one small sniff, then another. “Never smelled one before. It kind of reminds me of you.” He sat back in his seat, lifting his right hand high on the steering wheel, forming a barrier against the flower. “I picked it out of someone’s flower pot in German Village this morning. Figured they wouldn’t want it there.”
If she wasn’t so cold, she would have unbuttoned the top of her pea coat and threaded it through the buttonhole in her lapel. But warmth ruled. She placed it on the bench between them. “Where are we going?”
“Just down the street.”
“Because of the dark shadows plaguing your land?” She pressed when he didn’t answer right away. “You said you’d tell me in the truck.”
“It’ll be easier to show you.” He sped down two blocks and then turned into the driveway beside the gravestone shop, stopping in front of the old, brick garage that matched the house.
Her suspicion turned to concern. “Did someone die?”
“Not yet.” The tight words held a promise. He turned in his seat. “What’s it like, not having a claim on you, not being bound to the land?”
She squinted, trying to find a connection between that question, gravestones, and a city inspector—three points that scattered about, refusing to coalesce into an answer. “Are you thinking of leaving? Dissolving your bond to Rallis and....what? Crossing the Mississippi in a raft at midnight?” That was the only way a founding family’s heir would ever get out of the Republic…or any other mage for that matter. “The Wild West wouldn’t know what hit them.”
“Would you miss me?” His somber gaze searched hers for a long moment.
She recognized the yearning in those blue eyes.
“
Did
you miss me?” he pushed gently.
She looked away. She’d run without a word. It still sickened her heart to picture him waiting for her in the forest. She’d hurt him, one of the few people who’d lightened her soul during that long vow to Noble. Edmund, with his smile and his touch, had sparked her soul brighter than anyone. Abandoning him had been the most dishonorable thing she’d ever done.
“Why’d you leave?” His question was soft, thoughtful, but she could hear the hurt beneath it. “I was sure you were coming back.”
She sucked in a breath and let it go. It fogged up the cold window. She watched it slowly dissipate. What did it matter if she told? He already knew the worst of this story. “I was vowed to Noble.”
He waited in silence as she paused, collecting her thoughts.
“They didn’t let me leave the capital much. But my father wasn’t well, physically or mentally, and that spring, I convinced Senator Noble to let me go. My father and I were estranged. Still, I wanted to try one more time. When I got here, he refused to see me, so I spent my week in the forest, and then you showed up. But my father got hurt.” His former apprentice, his would-be murderer, had made a play for power. She shivered at the memory. That man had been rotten down to his last vibe. No one wanted him ruling the junkyard.
“He almost died.” She glanced down at the vibe violet. “You might think that would have been for the best.” After all, he wouldn’t have been alive to hurt Bronte. “But I couldn’t let him go. I enchanted him back to health. Not very well.” She’d gotten better at it since, though her power was not for healing. Merida did that part.
“You gave him a new eye, breaking one hell of a law. So you ran.”
She’d carried the memories of their forest nights to bed with her for months. But memories were all she could afford. She had too many people relying on her, too many secrets to share any part of her life with him. She grasped for a safer topic. “As for being unbound to the land, I don’t know how to describe it. Enchanter mages can’t be bound. You know that. I don’t have anything to compare it to.”
All mages, except enchantresses, were bound to their birth land from the moment they took their first breath. If a mage wanted to move to a different territory, he had to apply to the ruling family and if accepted, the senator or one of his heirs bound the mage to his new home’s land. Most mages moved only by direct invitation.
“I can tell you what a vow feel likes to me,” she offered. Perhaps that was an apt comparison. “Vows weigh down my vibes. My mage energy doesn’t flow as easily. It’s like my vibes are moving through a smaller pipe. It does make my energy easier to control. I rarely glittered under stress when I was living under a vow.” Then again, she’d never encountered stress like she lived with here.
“You leak when you’re stressed? Like fairy dust?” He eyes turned hungry.
“It’s not fairy dust.” Her voice pulled tight. The common childhood taunt was meant to belittle, as if a mage wasn’t powerful enough to control the goddess’s gift. Mages were the goddess’s children. Fairies—the gray—were not.
“I would eat that up.” He reached out and stroked the air around her as if he could see her glitter right now. She looked down just to make sure. Her stress levels were definitely high, but the air was sparkle-free.
He curled a lock of her hair around his finger.
She turned into his touch, seeking more without thought.
“I didn’t mean to offend you. The fairies are a bit like the dark mages in that they have a bad reputation that they don’t deserve. Well, not entirely. I wouldn’t want the fairies living here. My mother used to read some of their stories to Vin and me. One of the books had the hottest fairies drawn in them. On the bottom of page fourteen, there was a redhead. Her hair was like a fiery sun.” He smiled, wistful and adoring. “She almost spilled out the top of her dress.”
She frowned. “How old were you when you saw these pictures?”
“About four. But don’t think badly of my mother.”
Oh, no. Who in the entire territory would dare such a thing?
“The rest of the pictures weren’t as interesting. Just the one. But the story made it obvious that fairies were powerful in their own right. I wanted to be a bounty hunter. Find a fairy, catch it.”
“Strip off her dress?”
“And finally get to see those nipples.” He sounded as if he’d been deprived for years. “How’d you know?”
His energy tickled over her skin, building until his vibes tingled like nerves inside her. She sucked in a breath to tell him to stop, but the sensation ceased before she could get the word out. She looked down, expecting to see a fairy’s dress pushing up her breasts into a pile of awesome cleavage. Instead, she wore a white jumpsuit that matched his.
She glared at him. He opened his palm to reveal a gold coin. Another charm.
Clothe.
She grabbed it from his hand, though it was expired now. “Never change my clothes again.” She looked down at her new outfit. It was loose and clean but wrinkly. Her nametag read
Princess
.
She sprinkled her energy toward him.
Now his tag read
Peasant
written in glitter.
He gave her that wicked grin. “Let’s go, Princess. Your peasant needs your royal touch.”
He exited the truck and made his way around. She stepped out before he could reach her door, but he took her elbow and guided her to the first stone, one of many tumbled about the grave carver’s backyard.
They stood in the cold air side by side. She tugged her hat down. At least he’d let her keep it when he’d charmed her into the jumpsuit.
She eyed the backdoor of the small house-turned-shop to see if the grave carver would come out to investigate, but all was quiet and still. “Edmund? What are we doing?”