FoM02 Trammel (2 page)

“You’re going,” Rose said softly.

“I know.” Noah got to his feet. Nathan had come to do what Mama and Alice couldn’t, to make him fit for the world again. “Thanks, sweetheart. Tell Daddy I’ll be right there.”

“You’re going?” Ruthie didn’t move, her small brown hand white-knuckled on the doorknob. She’d been stricken when he left the first time. “You can’t go. Who’s going to take care of you?”

“It’s important,” Rose said gently. “That’s how we survive, Twiglet.” She got up, shaking out her skirt in a gesture so much like their mother that it was eerie. “That’s how we make our families.”

“Noah’s sick, though.” Ruthie’s lower lip pushed out and her eyes glistened.

“His new home will make him better than his old one.” Rose looked over her shoulder at Noah, and he could feel the words she didn’t say:
If he lets it.
“Besides, they need him. He’s running late, this one.

You know what they say.”

“I know.” Ruthie sucked it up and rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. “Born by chance, bound by choice. It’s the way of it.” That sigh was their mother’s as well.

“Go get Kaylene for me, baby,” Rose said. “I hear her waking.”

“Okay!” Just like that, sorrows forgotten, Ruthie was gone with the flash of a smile and the thunder of bare feet. She was no end of proud about being allowed to take charge of Rose’s first, who was turning two.

Babies were a good cure for sadness, Mama always said. Noah never asked what it meant that she had so many.

“You look like shit,” Rose said matter-of-factly. “Let’s hope Nathan can do something for you, or whoever gets you is going to send you back with a complaint.”

“Shut up or I’ll tell Dad you’re knocked up.” Noah tried to stifle his terror and emptiness and the yawning dark that whispered about it being easier to lie down and not get up instead of facing the world.

“Oh, I’m already a ruined woman. It’s only a shock once.” Rose came over and kissed his cheek. “It’s good that Nathan came to help you get ready. You need to go.”

“What?” That felt like betrayal, that she hadn’t told him he was ready to leave. He couldn’t see it from inside his unhappiness.

“Oh, Noah.” Rose stopped in the doorway and laughed at him. “You’re burning the carpet. Try not to do that in your new house.”

Fire was dripping from his fingers, and Noah swore as he stamped out the smoldering carpet and shook off the flames. The old bracelet he wore—the
barre salvetet
—was supposed to stop the magic leaking out, but nothing was quite enough.

Noah didn’t blame his father for sending him away; Abram couldn’t have his oldest son cluttering up the house. It wasn’t seemly. People might think Abram was hoarding his children, what with Rose still living here. Besides, all the common wisdom said Rose was right. He needed to go, if he was going to keep living. Here, he had too much time to hate himself, and too many reminders of all the reasons he should—

no one could heal with the wounds pulled open every morning.

Lindsay’s heart pounded, and adrenaline surged through his veins. The few seconds he took to glance behind him were wasted; he couldn’t see past the mass of people moving in and out of the casinos.

Line of sight didn’t matter to the hunter on Lindsay’s heels. He was coming, whether Lindsay could see him or not. Lindsay couldn’t wait anymore, trying to catch a glimpse of him.

He turned and ran, losing himself in the crowd. The boardwalk was packed, a midday rush of bodies seeking sustenance away from the blackjack tables and the slot machines, and once his magic settled into place, he fit right in. Panicking was the worst thing he could do. Predators could sense fear. He wasn’t prey anymore.

He slipped past a rickshaw and into the Taj Mahal, through the entrance lit with bright red neon even during the day. The inside was as crammed with tourists as the street out front. Lindsay wound his way through, between slots and poker and men saying, “Hit me,” like they knew what they were doing. The sea of anonymity gave him a moment to catch his breath and figure out where to go next.

There was no way to tell time in here, and Lindsay didn’t wear a watch, but he knew he’d stayed too long when the urgency of Dane’s hunting instincts began creeping into his mind. Even the thick scents of smoke, cologne and perfume wouldn’t mask him much longer. Out on the boardwalk, the wind would sweep his smell away into the mélange of salt water and seaweed and popcorn and hotdogs and sweat.

He took the stairs by twos, dodging women in stiletto heels and tight dresses and men with comb-overs and potbellies. He couldn’t risk getting caught in the elevators. Dane was close, and if Lindsay didn’t make it to Steel Pier first, he’d be back at square one. Again.

He’d been practicing using magic to hide himself for months now and, every time, Dane had been able to find him. This time, he’d done more than change his appearance, though. He’d altered his scent, and he’d been careful not to speak to keep from giving himself away that way either. Now, he had to make it to

the carousel before Dane found him. There was no time to enjoy the view from the skywalk. He raced across as fast as his legs and lungs would allow. Dane wasn’t far behind.

It had taken Lindsay weeks to master the skill of running full tilt through a world that couldn’t see him coming. Vaulting over a toddler, Lindsay hitched himself up on the rail of the stairs and slid down, catching himself at the bottom just before he fell. If nothing else, all this practice had made him an excellent sprinter—he was hardly even winded.

From the base of the stairs, he could see straight out onto Steel Pier, where the white horses of the double-decker carousel stood ready to carry their next riders. Almost there. Lindsay kept going, letting the momentum of the trip down the stairs carry him. It felt like his feet hardly touched the ground when he ran.

Arms, legs and hair flying, he came to a complete stop as an arm as strong as a steel bar wrapped around his waist and took him off his feet.

“Almost, little bunny,” Dane rumbled in his ear. “But not quite.” Dane bit his ear and growled. “Tasty bunny.”

Fueled by adrenaline, Lindsay struggled at first, heart pounding and elbows flying. That voice, though... That voice got him every time, and the bite left him shivering with more than thwarted energy.

“Would’ve made it if that kid hadn’t been in the way,” he said, throwing up a token protest. He hadn’t made it, and that was what mattered. Dane must have cut around and hidden in a shadowed alcove under the stairs. “Next time.”

Dane purred and licked the hollow under his ear. “Maybe.” His voice had a raw, predatory edge to it.

“Even when you don’t smell like you, you do.” He pulled Lindsay out of the way of oblivious tourists passing around them, into the alcove, and trapped Lindsay against him with both arms. “Good.”

He snuffled in Lindsay’s hair with another growl. There was no telling when he’d be done making sure Lindsay was all his all over again. Sometimes it was brief, a kiss and a snuggle. Other times, Lindsay ended up more than a little disheveled and—if the circumstances were right—quite a bit ravished. Putting Dane in hunting mode had its benefits.

Lindsay wriggled in Dane’s arms, turning to face him. He wanted real kisses, a reward for making it as far as he had. Farther than he’d ever gotten before. Dane’s teeth were sharp against his lips, but that only made the kisses more intense.

Dane’s next growl was louder and deeper, a rumble that went right through Lindsay. He spun them both around, pushing Lindsay up against the wall, one hand in his hair, the other working up under his shirt.

Dane’s teeth were sharp and slick on Lindsay’s throat as he kissed his way down. He never asked Lindsay to hide them, or asked if they were hidden. It was up to Lindsay to maintain decorum. The ability to become less feral hadn’t changed Dane at all.

No one could hear them, but Lindsay swallowed down his moan anyway, and tangled his fingers in Dane’s hair, dragging him back up for a kiss on the mouth. As much as he would’ve liked to win their game, losing had its own rewards.

Something popped in Lindsay’s ear, and a puff of air blew their hair in all directions. “Training?” The voice on the wind was arch and as chilly as the wisp of breeze that tickled past Lindsay’s cheek. Cyrus. The wind could find him from time to time, if Lindsay weren’t careful. He wasn’t sure how—Cyrus couldn’t, from what he could tell. Just the wind.

He slumped against the wall and fought down the annoyance that bubbled up inside him. “I failed.

Again.”

“Are you sure you’re trying to succeed?” the wind wondered. “No matter. We will find out how successful you are when it is not you alone who fails. Come now.”

For all the years that Noah could remember, up until the day he’d married Elle, he’d prayed, wished, hoped, and done anything he could think of to get one thing. Magic. It ran like water in his family. It ran like water from some artesian well that went so far back into the past that the magic would never run out.

But he’d been born dry. Drier than the dead.

Now, he was drowning, drenched in magic, leaking tears and flames at random. He was out of his depth here in a new country, in a house that had never known magic until the last few months.

Behind him, the old man and the woman were talking. Cyrus and Vivian. He’d known who they were long before he was sent to this listing house in the salt marshes. His family knew everyone of consequence, by reputation. By the nature of their magic.

Cyrus can handle him. Cyrus follows the old ways.

They’d sent him down and across the border to Cyrus, with his wounds still raw and his magic still wild.

It made sense. Noah’s mother and brother couldn’t fully heal him, so there was no reason to keep him close. Cyrus had need of another mage in the house, and was willing to take Noah when even his blood relatives were waiting for him to take everything up in flames. He should count himself lucky he wasn’t somewhere in the Amazon right now. Noah knew his father’s pride and how much it cost Abram Quinn to go begging for someone to take his first-born in.

Cyrus and the woman were talking about him, and he didn’t care to listen. Listening would make him angry. Anger would make him burn, would feed his gnawing fire and put everyone at risk. Feeling anything would, he thought. It was better not to take his chances here, without Rose to slip in between his thoughts and carry away the worst of them.

Noah watched the wind in the gray salt grass and the birds in the gray salt sky, and felt nothing as much as he could. It was hard, knowing they were deciding what to do with him like he was a stray dog. He really needed a drink. Another drink to make him care even less.

Abram didn’t allow drink in the house, but Noah had started as soon as his father and brother had left him at the airport. It had worked when he’d left the first time—before Elle had picked him up and made something of him—and it worked now. Not quite as well, but nothing worked like it should anymore, so Noah couldn’t complain.

Part of him wondered if he was really here to learn, when it would be safer for anyone and everyone to have him put down. Cyrus could do it, and quickly. Without his reasons for living—his mother and his siblings—there in front of him every day, the thought that someone ought to finish him off loomed large in his mind.

Noah wouldn’t be the first mage to meet that end, by someone’s swift and painless hand. Not even the first in his family. He’d wished for it without fail, up until some morning when he began to falter in that resolve.
Weak
.

He clenched his fist to feel the pain in the half-healed wound there. He could do this. If he redeemed himself a little, he could go home someday when Cyrus could spare him and see his mother and his sisters.

At least, after the baby, Rose might come.

The door creaked open and two sets of footsteps followed, one lighter than the other.

Noah turned to look enough to decide whether or not he should be worried. The first one through the door was a wisp of long hair and wide eyes, almost obliterated by the massive presence of the feral coming behind.
Dane
. Noah had known he would be here. He wondered what the big creature would think of him.

He didn’t know what he thought of being in the house of mages his father considered to be stronger—or at least more resilient—than the Quinns.

“My apologies for interrupting your...training.” Cyrus didn’t sound sorry, nor did it sound like training had been happening. So, that was how it was. Noah turned back to the window.

“You know we were finished.” The voice was too light to be Dane.

The creak of a suffering chair and a leonine grumble was definitely the feral. Over the years, a number of ferals had made themselves known to the Quinns. Rose had a way with them, even before she came into her magic, and some had trusted Noah’s mother to heal them. Noah knew better than to think that human form meant human ways.

“I can never quite tell,” Cyrus said sharply. “It seems I forget there are more things to do than to keep all of us safe. But someone has to remember.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Vivian said. She sounded on the verge of laughing. She made Noah’s skin crawl, with her bright voice and her mild temper. “Neither has Dane. We just have a different perspective.”

“Something that is the bane of my existence. If either of you had my vantage point, you wouldn’t take things so lightly. There is work to be done. Sooner than later. And apparently I must maintain the niceties all the while.” Cyrus meant him, Noah knew. Taking him in. “I have no time for it. Neither does Vivian.”

“Neither do I. I sure as hell don’t want another one,” Dane rumbled. “I told you not to give me the one I have.”

“Don’t remind me.” Cyrus’s voice was icy. “I regret daily my failure to take your desires into consideration. All of them.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the little one put in, sounding more amused than offended, “I think your decision worked out rather well.” The voice was definitely male, but young and full of sharp edges.

Noah should have known he wouldn’t be left to learn from the old mage. It was better that he didn’t.