Syphon's Song (11 page)

“Of course I can.” She sounded offended but then stumbled on the first step. “I’m fine.” Her reassurance sounded like a question. She cleared her throat and stepped up beside him.

He moved to stay in front of her. “Behind me. He cast enough power to kill us both three times over.”

“Oh.” She fell silent as they got their rhythm of walking together, her close behind him with their hands clasped at his back. “Maybe it was an accident?”

The gyre’s power could have added extra energy to the chief’s spell, but that wasn’t an assumption he could afford to make. If there had been a place to tuck her away, he would have, but there was nowhere to hide here. Besides, she was right. He’d be useless without her in the gyre.

“My shoes are back there.” She tugged on his hand.

He didn’t give her any leeway. “Later.” He kept his eyes on the one lump ahead that didn’t blend with the rest of the landscape. “I see him.”

He led them to the former edge of the gyre. The chief lay flat on the ground. His eyelids twitched, the only indication he still lived. The gyre’s power was too intense for Vincent to sense anything else about the other mage, even with Bronte’s syphon.

“I don’t want to look at him. I hate mage duels.” Her voice stuttered around the words. “Mother challenged the neighbor once. She caught the woman kissing my father. The poor woman didn’t have any lips after that. They were gone. She could hardly open wide enough to scream.”

He gave her wrist a tight squeeze at her nervous ramble. He felt the shivers passing through her but there was nothing he could do to help her right now.

Masset opened his eyes. Vincent held up his hand to show Masset he was willing to finish the job if necessary.

The chief stared at him with a scowl of frustration and pain. “This Non is evil. They all are. She’s gonna kill you, Rallis. Or worse.” His voice was hoarse, but even defeated and knocked down he wasn’t giving up. “Best to hand her over.”

Bronte shifted against his back and tucked herself farther away from the man. For once she was cooperating.

“Let me take her in before she affects you any more.” Dust covered his bald head, dulling his skin to a flat gray.

Vincent kept his hand in front of him. “You don’t quit, do you? You could have killed us both in there, Masset. Or was that the plan?”

“I was aiming for the Non. You stepped in my way on purpose. The law doesn’t care about mages foolish enough to get killed defending a Non. If you’d died protecting her, no judge would do anything about it.”

“His family would do something about it,” Bronte said.

Masset ignored her. “I’m gonna get a warrant. I’m coming back for her.”

Bronte peeked out.

Masset stared as if his eyes could pin her in place until he got that warrant. “This country never should have let weaklings like you in.”

Bronte stepped beside him and faced the chief. “Take it up with the goddess! I was born here!”

His syphon had a spitfire button detrimental to the state of her health. “It’s alright. I’ve got this.” Someday she’d be able to stand up to fools like the chief all on her own, but it wasn’t today.

“It most certainly is not alright!”

Footsteps crashed through the woods. Vincent heard them long after he should have sensed the person’s vibes. He needed to get out of the gyre before someone else crept up on them, although if another enemy walked onto Rallis land, massive security overhauls would be top priority for everyone on the estate.

“Sir!” Gerald’s voice came from right. The former lieutenant was Vincent’s right hand man around the estate. Edmund was right beside him.

“Sir, are you alright?” The ex-soldier’s eyes went wide at the destruction of the white trees.

“I’m fine. Have the sentries escort Chief Masset all the way to the property line. He went in the wrong direction as he was leaving.”

“Yes, sir!” The young man saluted yet again, despite Vincent’s continued orders to cease. Gerald relayed the command into the amplifier wired to his throat. The man had little mage power left. Even sending sound waves was difficult for him. “We’ve been combing the estate when he didn’t exit through the gates.” He bent down to the chief, flung the older man over his shoulder, and stomped off. Gerald’s mage sense may have been permanently fried on his first mission out, but he was stronger than an ox.

Edmund surveyed the scene. His hands in his pockets, he nodded absently. “I like what you’ve done with the place. You two have added your own touch to the gyre. Your first undertaking as a couple. Makes a statement. Even the goddess approves. We can use this. She’s definitely one of ours now.”

“I am not one of yours. And Masset is coming back to arrest me! Why?” Her voice lost its strength with the question. “Does he know…what I am? How could he know?”

Edmund shook his head. “Who knows what he thinks? But Masset will never be able to arrest you.” He squinted and took a step back, his hand squeezing at his forehead. “How can you stand it in there? You two are alright, aren’t you? Because if you need help, please tell me you can get out on your own. I’d rather not come in.”

“We’re fine.” Vincent was quick to reassure him. “Get out of here before you get sick.”

Edmund nodded and jogged off through the trees.

He squeezed her hand, though he wanted to put his arms around her. The scared, prickly anger in her tight brow and flat lips told him such a touch was unwelcome. “Trust me on this. Masset cannot go up against my family and win.”

“You want me to trust you? Then get me out of here! I should never have come in the first place.” The tipsy, happy effects of the gyre’s energy on her were long gone. Another charge to lay at Masset’s feet.

“I should have told my mother no for once in my life. Masset is going to realize what I am!”

“He can’t get you here.”

“But I’m not staying here forever.”

He slipped his hands toward the nape of her neck. “He’s not getting you. Period. Do you think I’m going to let him—anyone—take you away?” He swallowed hard against the regret burning in his gut. She had suffered for thirteen years because he’d been too weakened to protect her. “I would have come after you. But I didn’t even think you were real. When we met, I was…”

“Hurt. By a spell.” She nodded. “I wondered. Afterwards.”

Not quite right, but close. “You were here and gone before I could wake up enough to realize you weren’t a dream. If nothing else, then trust that I’m not going to let anything happen to my only lifeline to living without pain.”

Her gaze dropped to the ground.

He dared to pull her into his chest.

She went willingly.

He wrapped his arms around her small frame.

“This doesn’t change anything,” she muttered against his chest. “Masset is coming back for me.”

He sighed. Bronte was a practical girl. She wouldn’t have survived otherwise.

“And we’ll stop him again.”

Obtaining a warrant would keep Masset occupied. He’d never find a judge who would sign an arrest order for a Non residing within the senator’s estate. But she was right. Outside the boundaries of the estate was another matter, though Edmund would be whispering in every judge’s ear the moment he got back to the big house.

Because of the chief’s bigotry, Vincent needed to act faster than planned. But he’d make it work. Quietly though. Bronte was sure to object to his plan. He’d spring it on her as gently as possible. Now wasn’t the time.

He’d change the world for her.

* * * *

The trek back through the woods hurt. Her feet wobbled and blistered inside her grubby heels. The hike out was impossibly longer than the trip in. After the duel between Vincent and Masset, the mass of energy inside her weighed her down. How could something as ephemeral as mage vibes weigh so much? She didn’t want to take another step, not in these shoes, though Vincent had retrieved them for her.

They passed a fallen tree; its long trunk lay parallel to their path. She halted. Tree after tree clogged any hint of the horizon or her car. With no end in sight, she would at least have satisfaction for her feet. Right now. Bronte plopped down on the log, jerking Vincent to a stop with their connected hands. She hadn’t let go of him. She’d kept her promise.

The rough bark snagged her skirt. She shifted and a few threads popped. She toed off one shoe with an achy grimace. Vincent knelt, dropped her hand, and pulled off the left shoe.

He looked up at her, his hand firm on her ankle. She turned her head the other way. It would be so easy to fall into the rhythm that existed between them. And impossible to stay.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him reach up to her hair. He pulled back with a small stick in his hand and tossed it into the brush. He leaned in and scooped her off the log. It happened so quickly that her arm automatically went around his shoulders.

He held her high against his chest, their eyes inches apart. They spent a silent moment studying each other. She supposed he was giving her a chance to object. Though she had many protests bottled up inside, being denied a chance to walk all the way to her car was not one of them. She was the sensible sort.

With exhaustion as her silent excuse, she relaxed against him. His sigh of relief pressed against her body. At the same moment his mage energy released with a gentle, controlled push. The complete opposite of the way his energy worked against the chief, this was a gentle stream, not to deflect a spell but to deflect her weight. She wrapped her other arm around him, her head falling naturally into the crook of his neck. He continued through the forest, carrying her as if she was no more burden than walking out by himself.

His scent filled her. It was all Vincent, no hint of cologne, just a trace of sweat that wiped away the sophisticated veneer that had surrounded him in his family’s home. The short whiskers on his jawline grabbed at a few strands of her hair from the top of her head. She let them cling, the rest of her hair already a sweaty wreck.

Vincent’s steady rhythm gave her a touch of peace and allowed her to think. Her choler unwound thread by thread. She took a breath and lined up her thoughts. If she disappeared from Rallis Territory before Chief Masset could return, he couldn’t follow her home to Locke Territory. There was little cooperation between founding families. No Southern Alliance family would assist the enforcer of a Central Coalition territory. For once, mage politics were on her side. She just needed to get home.

To keep her here, Vincent had crimped every pseudo-freedom she’d enjoyed for the past thirteen years. Though his vibes made her feel like she finally fit in her own skin, it wasn’t worth dying over.

The edge of the woods came into view. Her car waited in the middle of the gravel road. She took another breath of him, one last inhalation of his essence.

He stopped in front of the old Volvo and reached for the handle of the passenger door. She slid out of his arms and into the heat of her car.

She grabbed his wrist as he started to back away. “You have to let me go before he comes back. You know this. Get my pass changed. Let me leave.” She looked into his blue eyes as he crouched down before her. His broad shoulders took up almost the entire width of the door’s opening. Even if she had his strength, she would still be afraid to take on Masset.

“Masset can’t win against a Rallis. The family rules this territory.”

She tilted her chin. “It seems Chief Masset and I are in the same boat. I can’t win against you either.”

“Bronte, you and I are on the same side. You’re just too stubborn to admit it.” He reached under her knees and tucked her legs into the car, shut her door and walked around to the driver’s side.

“I am not being stubborn,” she began as soon as he sat down behind the steering wheel. “Case in point, I am letting you drive. I just want to be free to go about my life.”

“Hiding isn’t much of a life.”

“Neither is having your choices taken away. Vincent, you have all the power. I have none. I’m stuck following your commands.”

He dared to smile. “Sweetheart, going into the gyre was not following my commands. You are freer here than you ever have been. You don’t have to hide who you are. Not here. You have choices. You just have to find the courage to make them.”

“I’m not that brave. Nor am I that stupid.”

“You stood up to Masset in the house and in the gyre. That was brave.”