“I didn’t feel anything.”
“That’s because it only goes one way.” She tipped a thumb from her chest to his.
“Not from where I’m standing.”
“Tell that to the magic,” she said, her voice threatening to crack.
“Cara—”
“Not now. We need to stay focused.” She held out the bag. “Let’s get this bad boy headed home, okay?”
He hesitated, then went for the knife he’d hidden in an ankle sheath. “Hand it over.”
The carving was heavier to hold than it had felt in the bag, and oddly warm to the touch, the stone slick and smooth. Her heart thudded in her chest as Sven blooded his palms and said the spell words that jacked him into the barrier’s power. Then he took the artifact from her, held it in both hands, and closed his eyes in concentration.
The skull vanished with a huge thunderclap and lightning flared overhead in a jagged slash that broke the sky. Which shouldn’t have happened.
Cara choked off a startled scream and spun, then gaped at the sight of dark, angry storm clouds where there had been a clear sky and stars only moments before. Oh, gods. Had the
Banol Kax
tracked his magic? Were they somehow using the weather to attack?
Sven shouldered in front of her, using his body to shield her from a sudden whip of wind. “What the
fuck?
Where did that—
Get down!
” He pushed her back into the lee of the wall, crowding her into a small, sheltered space. Heat raced through her in a magical backlash, and suddenly the air around them sparkled faintly red-gold. She didn’t have time to marvel at being able to see his shield spell, though, because the sky suddenly flared with another huge bolt of lightning.
It ripped straight for them and slammed into the ship, making the huge vessel lurch and wreathing the observation deck with an eerie blue-white glow. There were shouts and screams from below, where the main decks had gone dark, with emergency lights springing to life here and there. A lone siren began to blare.
Sven cursed and went for his armband, which he’d folded into the shape of a phone and stashed in the pocket of his tux. “Fuck. Nothing!”
Suddenly, horribly, the glow started to draw in on itself, rising up from the deck, taking on shape and details, becoming… “Oh, shit,” Cara breathed. “Do you see…”
The blob was stretching and elongating, growing ears and a long tail even as it darkened to shadows and two burning eyes that glowed gleaming red. It was the hellhound that had attacked her at Aaron’s funeral!
“Get ready to run when I say the word.”
“I can’t.”
“Cara—”
“No!” She wouldn’t risk leading it down to the others. “We need to stop it here!” She scrabbled in her bag for the gun, though jade-tips had barely made a dent the last time.
As if spurred by the sight, the beast roared and charged.
“Leave her alone!” The air turned suddenly scorching as Sven lunged upright, summoned a huge orange-red fireball, and unleashed it with a yell.
The magic slammed into the creature, encircling it with fire and driving it back and down. The thing gave a hideous mewl of pain and collapsed as the flames flared higher, growing so bright that Cara had to squint and then turn away.
Sven stood planted in front of her with his hands balled to fists as if he would’ve fought the thing with his bare hands rather than letting it get to her. But before she could think about the spreading warmth that ran through her at the sight, new horror kindled. “It’s regenerating!”
Lightning lashed the sea around them, bringing thunder and wind, and letting them see that the creature wasn’t just regenerating. It was getting
bigger
.
“Motherfucker,” Sven said. And braced for the fight.
We’re dead
. That was all Sven’s brain could cough up at the realization that they were out in the middle of the fucking ocean without backup or additional weapons. His shield was good for now, and he would try again with the fireball spell, but already he could feel the drain on his magic. He had burned too much of it sending the skull back to Skywatch.
The hellhound snarled as lightning flickered behind it, painting the scene with St. Elmo’s fire.
Gods help us
.
Cara came up beside him with her puny little pistol, eyes hard and determined. Her dress glittered in the blue-white lambency of the storm, her hair trailed from its twist in tendrils of white and black, and his magic haloed her with sparks of red-gold. In that moment, she looked like a goddess, and so damn beautiful it made his chest ache.
He wanted to hold her, have her, protect her. But he couldn’t—
Join. You are more powerful together than apart. This is as it was meant to be
. The
nahwal
’s voice echoed in his head, followed by her soft gasp. She turned to him, eyes
wide and scared, even as his pulse thudded with mingled shock and excitement.
“You heard that?” he grated.
She snapped her mouth closed and nodded. Then she held out her hand, palm up, to offer her scar. “Do it.”
There wasn’t time to weigh the options; hell, there weren’t any options. He needed the kind of boost that came only from another mage… or a lover.
He took her hand as the beast struggled to its feet with a gurgling roar that called thunder and a howl of wind. He scored her palm and drew blood as the creature started stumbling forward, its eyes locked on his faltering shield. Then he took her hand in his, aligning them blood-to-blood, and hoping to hell this wasn’t a huge mistake.
He felt the jolt of a low-level blood-link, but needed more than that. Way more. Calling his magic, he reached for the barrier and whispered, “
Pasaj och
.” But nothing changed. It was just the two of them and his nearly tapped-out magic.
“Hurry!” She gripped his hand, urging him on. “Kill it!”
He called a fireball, but it wasn’t much, wasn’t enough.
“It’s not working!” she cried, voice cracking.
He shook his head. “I don’t know—”
You to her and her to you. The bond must form or all is lost!
And for a nanosecond—the briefest of instances, there and gone so quickly he almost missed it—pounding restlessness flared through him and he flashed back on a hot, baking desert floor burning his feet as he raced along, searching for the one who would complete him. Those were the dreams he’d had last year, the ones that he hadn’t realized were coming from Mac. But how… “That’s it!”
His magic wasn’t searching for a mate; it wanted a familiar. He was a coyote, after all.
Heart banging against his ribs, he tightened his grip on her and concentrated, not on his magic or the barrier connection, but on his bloodline mark. He focused on it, poured his magic into it, and opened himself to the soul bond he shared with Mac, even though the coyote was too far away for it to function. The magic pooled, searching for a target, then zeroing in on her.
His magic found her, recognized her, wanted her. It arrowed from him to her and back again, and his body convulsed as something tore inside him. Then blazing heat fired in his veins, burning down to his soul and then outward again, shooting down his arm to his bloodline mark.
“No!” he shouted, afraid the magic would burn her, hurt her, but he couldn’t call it back, couldn’t shut it down. Then the power raged through him, coalesced into a huge fireball that hung in the air, bleeding flames. And for a brief instant he saw double, perceived double—hell, he
was
double, sensing things not just with his own faculties, but with Cara’s as well.
Connection
. It burned through him, forging new pathways in his soul. He could feel her terror, but also the determination that was overriding it to put her at his side, facing the creature with nothing more than a Glock nine. Through her senses, he could feel the heat and sizzle of his Nightkeeper magic, which she shouldn’t have been able to sense. And through both of their eyes, he saw the hellhound gathering for a leap.
“Now!” she shouted, or maybe he did. It didn’t matter as he launched the fireball with a tremendous heave, straight at the onrushing creature.
Boom!
Magic detonated on impact, wreathing the beast in flames. The hellhound screeched and reared up, snapping. But this time the fire raged higher and hotter as Sven poured more magic into the fireball, keeping the attack going. “Die, damn you!”
The magic kept coming and coming—from him, from her, from the greater power they somehow made together. He didn’t question it; he used it, searing the beast, charring it. On one level there was dull horror and the too-familiar stench of burning flesh. On another, he knew only that he had to protect Cara and the humans below. Nothing else mattered… and if deep down inside he put her ahead of the masses, and went against the writs in doing so, he was fucking fine with that.
The creature struggled horribly, resisting death with keening cries until it finally collapsed with a shudder. Still, he kept it burning, holding on to the magic while lightning lit the night sky, and the wind whipped around them, pitching the huge ship from side to side. He burned the beast to cinders, but before he could call it done, the noise of the storm changed, rising to the scream of an unrushing funnel cloud.
“Hang on!” He grabbed Cara and shielded them both, but the twister didn’t head for them. It went for the creature’s ashes instead, sucking them off the deck and back up into the storm. The wind howled and lightning flickered, but even as the answering rumble of thunder trailed off, the storm was breaking up, dissipating.
Between one eye blink and the next, it vanished, leaving no sign of disturbance save for a slow roll beneath their feet and a rising clamor coming up from the decks below.
“Gods.” Cara let out a shuddering breath. “The creature got stronger.”
“Yeah, but so did we.” And it was only just beginning to hit him how much stronger they had gotten together… and what it meant.
She looked at him then, and her eyes held a gleam that stirred his already stirred-up blood even more. But before she said anything more, shouts sounded from the staircase just as his armband pinged, doubly interrupting.
“I’ll stall,” she said. “You answer.”
Without waiting for his nod, she stashed her gun in her bag and ran to the stairwell with a cry of, “Did you see that? What’s happening?” Her tone notched up with each question, ending on a wail of, “Are we sinking?” That stalled the human tide that had rushed up thinking there was something going on up on the observation deck. Her near-sobs of “There’s a
fire?
Where?” and “Oh, God, are there enough lifeboats? Sven, for the love of all that’s holy, stop trying to upload that to YouTube and come on!” completed the turnaround.
Most of the looky-loos headed back down, while a few stalwart souls—all male, big surprise—stuck around to calm her down and shoot him dirty looks.
“You there?” Dez said the moment Sven answered the phone. “What the hell is going on? The skull arrived hotter than hell, and with a blast of magic like I’ve never felt before. And then your dog went nuts.”
“He’s not— Shit, never mind. Here’s the deal.” Sven rattled off a quick rundown of the attack, ending with, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but there’s got to be some connection between the storms, the creature, and Cara.”
“And between the two of you.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t want to make a big deal about that yet, though. Not until he and Cara had a chance to talk about it. It might not make any difference, really.
Or it might change everything.
“You want us to try a midocean pickup?”
“No, don’t risk it.” When Cara called his name, Sven looked over and saw her and a couple of cruise employees waiting by the stairs. “I’ve got to go. They’re sending us all to our cabins while they turn the boat around and head in. If we disappear now, there’ll be questions.”
“We can handle it. The credit card won’t lead them anywhere if they try to trace you.”
“Still. I’d rather stick it out.” Cara could use a few hours to process what had just happened. Hell, he needed the time too.
“You think it’s safe?”
“We can take care of ourselves,” Sven said, and clicked off. It wasn’t until he had tucked the communication device back in his pocket and was headed over to rejoin her that he realized he’d meant it—not just that he would take care of her, but that they would take care of each other.
Holy shit.
He missed a step at realizing that he was suddenly part of a “we.” How had that happened? His gut fisted. He might not have liked it when she said the
winikin
magic went only one way, but that was because it wasn’t fair to her that the gods and circumstances had conspired to take the choice away from her, not because he’d wanted a two-way magical bond with her—mated, familiar, or otherwise. Yet now the choice had been taken away from him too.
Or had it? He had promised to watch her back, after
all. And their new connection had given him the power to do it. That couldn’t be a bad thing.
Right?
“Hey.” She caught his hand as he reached the small crowd at the stairwell. “Did you get through to your parents and let them know that we were hit by a storm, but we’re fine?”
“Yeah, I talked to them.” He slid an arm around her waist. To the two crewmen who had stayed behind, waiting to herd them to their stateroom, he said, “Did the boat take any damage? Are there more of those squalls coming?”
“Everything’s fine, sir, but you really need to get under cover.”
They joined the flow of humanity down below and headed for their stateroom in a silence that seemed out of place amid the babble that surrounded them, a mix of, “Did you see that lightning?” and, “It looked like something was on fire there for a few minutes!” and, “Are you sure we’re not sinking?”
When they reached their room—an exterior cabin with an ornate door and a key-card slot designed to look like old ship’s brass—he swiped his card and held the door for her, and then stepped through and closed and bolted the door. Shutting out the din was a huge relief, but the pressure inside him skyrocketed again as he took a look around what proved to be the sitting area of the two-room stateroom.