Blood Spells

Moving silently, they approached an irregular opening that had been disguised as a water-worn depression in the tunnel wall. Brandt motioned for Wood to go low while he went high, and together they swung through the doorway.

The room was empty, save for a pile of greasy makol ash.

Woody gave a low groan. “They were sitting right there when Iago came for me.” He indicated a scuffed spot. “There was one guard.”

One guard. One ash pile. Which meant Iago was still out there, in search of the sacrifices he needed as the equinox approached.

Brandt jerked his head at the door. “If they’re not in here, they’re further up the tunnel. Come on.”

They returned to the tunnel and started up in the direction of the cave-in. He tried to gather fireball magic as he ran, but he was tired, his power drained, and he managed only a weak gleam that quickly winked out. He stumbled on his bad leg and nearly went down.

Wood grabbed him, steadying him as they kept going. “Screw the fireball,” the winikin said, voice rough with pain and exhaustion. “We’ll use the guns.”

“The jade-tips barely dented the regular makol down below,” Brandt argued. “They’re not going to do shit against Iago.” They needed something stronger. Far, far stronger.

Like the Triad magic.

Despair slashed through him. “Wood, I—” He cut himself off, refusing to let the oath be the answer.

Gunfire split the air, coming from up ahead.

“Fuck!” Adrenaline hammered and Brandt took off at a dead run, with Woody right behind him. At the sight of torchlight around a corner, they got up against the wall. Taking high and low again, they looked around the edge.

“Give it up.” Iago’s voice rattled and slurred. He had his back to them; the torchlight shone on waxy, misshapen flesh that not even the makol’s regenerative magic had managed to heal. Blood-

spattered and ragged, he gathered dark magic with jerky movements, holding on to a shield spell while he built a thick, greasy churn of fighting magic.

Opposite him, Patience bared her teeth. “I. Don’t. Give. Up.” Her dirty face bore the evidence of tears, but her chin was up, her eyes fierce. Behind her, Hannah and the boys were huddled together against a section of rockfall, protected by a shield spell that flickered and spat red-gold as it cut in and out. Patience stood guard in front of them with an autopistol in one bloodstained hand, her knife in the other, and shield magic crackling in the air around her.

Relief hammered through Brandt. They were alive. Whole. Thank fuck.

Braden’s eyes locked on him and widened.

No, Brandt thought as loud as he could, hoping against hope that something would get through the bloodline link. Pretend you don’t see—

“Daddy!” The word rang out over the crackle of magic.

Shit. Brandt threw himself around the corner with Woody half a breath behind him. He tore magic from somewhere deep in his soul and launched a fireball just as Iago let rip with his bolt of dark energy.

The opposing powers collided and nullified each other. Magic detonated, the backlash slamming Brandt aside. He hit the wall hard and slid down.

The world tried to gray out, but he didn’t let it. He dragged himself to his feet, surprised to realize that the magic had blasted him and Woody toward the rockfall, Iago away from it. The enemy mage lay farther back down the tunnel, protected behind a shield of dark magic that blocked off any hope of escaping while he was down.

But Brandt had ended up where he belonged: with his family.

“Daddy.” Braden lunged at him.

He barely got his arms up in time to make the catch, almost went down under the impact, but he didn’t care. He hugged his son tight, aware that Patience had cast a sputtering shield spell around the six of them. A second body thudded against him as Harry followed, clinging to his thigh, face buried in his body armor. He was shaking.

Brandt got an arm around him. “I’ve got you. I’m here. It’s okay.” The words poured out of him, promises he couldn’t guarantee, but meant with every fiber of his being. He reached out blindly and caught Patience’s hand, latching on. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

And they were running out of time.

“Go help Hannah,” Patience urged the boys. Once she had their attention, the winikin herded the boys to the farthest corner of the rockfall, where a tongue of debris created a bit of protection. There, they started piling rocks into a barrier. Woody was searching the area, scrounging the last of the autopistol clips.

Iago was still down and out, but the strong shimmer of dark magic surrounding him warned that the bastard wasn’t dead.

As the clock ticked down in his head, Brandt took his wife in his arms, surrounding her, holding on to her, filling himself with her. “Thank you.” Gratitude hammered through him. “Thank you for saving them. For not quitting on me.”

“We’re not out of this yet.” But she turned her lips to his. “You’re welcome. And thank you for trusting me.”

Beyond the torchlight, Iago twitched and then stretched. Moving. Regenerating.

I can’t take him. Brandt held her tighter, hating the truth. He was shot, with barely enough magic left to feed the faltering shield spell. There was no way he could muster an attack, or defeat an opponent who wouldn’t stay down.

But then he caught Woody’s eye, and the winikin’s voice whispered in his head. You’re not a fucking island. Suddenly, though, the words resonated far more than they ever had before.

He’d been trying so hard to get everything right with Patience— for her—that he’d forgotten to be part of their team. “I do trust you,” he said, pulling away to look into her eyes. “What’s more, I need you.”

Wariness flared, but she squared herself into a businesslike fighting stance. “For an uplink.”

Something tore inside him, but the pain was followed by a strange sort of peace. “Not just for an uplink. For everything.”

Faintly, below the level of hearing, deep inside his soul, he sensed the faintest hum of the magic that was special to them, to this place.

He tightened his grip on her hand. “I lost my parents and brothers, my two best friends. I don’t want to lose you too. But if the gods take one of us, I don’t want it to happen without me having said that I need you, and my life isn’t right without you . . . because I love you.”

Love. Her lips shaped the word, but her expression stayed wary.

“I’m not just saying that because we’re cut off, because we’re in El Rey, or even because it feels like we’re a family again. This is real.” He lifted their joined hands to his lips, then let go of her hand to pull his knife and freshly blood his palm. Magic flared through him and the hum in the air intensified. He held out his hand. “Link with me. Fight with me. And whatever happens next, believe that I love you. I loved you before as my wife and the mother of our sons. Now I love you as my mate and partner too.” And to a mage, that was so much more.

Eyes misting, she took his knife, and bloodied her palm. As she returned the knife, she lifted up on her tiptoes to touch her lips to his in a soft kiss that brought equal parts heat and magic. “I love you too.”

Then she took his hand, matching blood to blood . . . and the jun tan link opened wide.

Magic poured through Patience, coming from lust and love, from the feeling of being fully joined once more, after so long, with her husband. Her lover. Her mate. Her heart filled with the soaring power of it, the mad joy of it.

The shield spell protecting them from Iago solidified, shimmering red-gold and opaque.