Consort of Pain Read online

  “You’re all okay now?” I asked.

  “If they’re still throwing stuff at us, I don’t feel anything,” Damon said.

  “All good here,” Gabriel added.

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I’ll just have to keep working that magic as they wear it down—if they keep at us.”

  Seth glanced back at me, his expression even more solemn than usual. “What are the chances they won’t?”

  “Not very high,” I had to admit. I brought my hands to my face. “I don’t know how they even found us. There isn’t any spell I know that should reach that far and that accurately across that much distance.” Unless they’d done something to me or the guys back in the prison that I hadn’t realized? I had no idea. This illicit faction of the Assembly might have all kinds of magical strategies they kept to themselves for their malicious purposes.

  “I vote we don’t hide out anywhere near here, anyway,” Ky said, somehow managing to sound cheerful even now.

  I couldn’t stop a halting laugh from slipping out. “No, I guess not.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Seth asked.

  “Whatever you need us to do, we’re on it,” Damon said. “Just say the word, angel. You know that.”

  I did. I pushed my hands back into my hair and then dropped them to my lap. What could they do? I didn’t even know what I could do. But like Jin had said before, we had to start someplace. One step at a time.

  “We keep going,” I said. “Change up our route. Zigzag a little, maybe. Damon, any evasive techniques you’ve got, pass them on. And then…” I sucked my lower lip under my teeth. “If they’re going to come at us with magic I’ve never seen, then I guess I’m just going to have to get creative right back at them.”

  Chapter Seven

  Jin

  The town we’d stopped in was large enough to have a big box store on the outskirts where Kyler found his charger and we all got a couple fresh changes of clothes—but small enough that I got a few stares as I ambled through the grocery store. I’d bet they didn’t see a whole lot of Korean guys with blue-streaked hair passing through here. I just smiled and grabbed the best non-perishables I could find to fuel our stomachs on this little road trip.

  Maybe I’d open their minds a little. Or maybe they’d just mutter about that weirdo and his strange grocery shopping habits when I was gone. I was fine with it either way. I’d learned to let other people’s opinions roll off my back a long time ago, growing up in our much smaller town back home.

  The cashier seemed totally unfazed, even when I dug out a wad of cash to pay for my stack of groceries. The Assembly people had confiscated our wallets, but Rose had done her magic on a bank machine a while back to get us into our accounts—and to increase our daily limits by a substantial amount. We’d taken out all the cash we had on hand, since we didn’t want to leave an electronic trail any farther than that. For all we knew her witchy enemies could shut those accounts down now that they knew we were on the run.

  Rose was waiting by the SUV when Seth and I hauled the bags of groceries back there. She took a couple from me to help us arrange them in the trunk. As soon as my hands were free, I had to restrain myself from pulling her to me and getting lost in a kiss, just for a minute or two. We were trying not to draw too much attention.

  But it was hard not to want to touch her, to remind myself how real she was, when just yesterday I hadn’t known for sure whether I’d lost her forever. Whether any of us would see each other again, or anyone else, for that matter.

  We were all here—here with her—and every now and then when I remembered that little white room and the chains and the pain in my head, that fact felt like a miracle.

  I settled for taking her hand. “Where did the other guys get to?”

  “Gabriel’s seeing if he can buy some extra gas so we can fill up on the road if we decide we don’t want to risk even going into a station,” she said. “Damon went with him to help carry. And Kyler spotted a pawn shop with some tech stuff in the window—he ducked in to take a quick look. They should be back in ten or so.”

  “Do you think the Assembly’s ‘enforcers’ will be following us on the road as well as with their magic?” Seth asked.

  “Probably,” Rose said. “It’ll be a lot harder for them to stop us from a distance. But I didn’t get much sense of them through their magical attack, so I don’t think they can be very close yet.”

  My gaze settled on a craft shop farther down the main street. My fingers itched with the familiar urge for a paintbrush or a lump of clay. The impulse brought to mind another use I’d made of my art.

  “Hey,” I said. “You said you were going to need to get creative to stop these assholes. Could we put together another merging of art and magic? You had me make that necklace to repel your fiancé. Would something like that work to hold off these attacks?”

  Rose’s eyes brightened. “It should. And it couldn’t hurt to add a new strategy into the mix.”

  “Well, then, I’ll be right back.” I gave her a grin and a salute, and jogged over to the shop.

  Ten minutes later I had myself some leather string, acrylic paint and brushes, and several wooden tokens that weren’t exactly ideal pendants, but would have to do. I’d also grabbed a roll of canvas and a pack of small gesso-coated boards in case we could find some use for those too. When I got back to the car this time, the rest of the crew was already waiting.

  “I guess you can’t really paint while the car is on the move, right?” Rose said. “Too many vibrations?”

  “Not ideal for fine detail work,” I agreed.

  “Let’s get some more distance from the last place they were able to hit us and then find somewhere off the beaten track to stop for a little while,” Gabriel said. “I’m sure we could all use some more rest when we can get it. We’ll all think clearer that way too.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “I’ll try to figure out where they are when they send more magic after us,” Rose said. “As long as we stay far enough ahead of them, they can’t hurt us that much anyway.” But her face was drawn as she said it. I had the feeling she was more worried than she wanted to let on.

  Well, why not? We’d done everything we could to keep our secret safe from her Assembly, and they’d found us out anyway. If we could actually have any kind of life now that wasn’t constantly on the run, that would be a miracle.

  But we’d have a better chance if I could help make it happen.

  Not long after the country road we’d been driving down had shifted from pavement to bumpy gravel to bumpier dirt, Gabriel pulled the SUV over by a small clearing off to the side. The sun was heading back down the sky, a late afternoon stillness settling over the landscape. I sat up straighter where I’d been dozing in the middle seat. My mind immediately started drifting over the possibilities.

  “This is the spot we’re taking our break?”

  “We’re pretty far from any habitation,” Rose said. “No one around to notice us. And the enforcers have let up on their attacks for a while. I think this is the best we’re going to get.” She glanced around the car from where she’d taken the front passenger seat to navigate. “Seth and Gabriel, I think you guys should get the first chance to really sleep. You two have done most of the driving so far.”

  Seth looked like he was going to argue, but she gave him a look so firm he shut his mouth. From the way he rubbed his eyes, he had to be feeling some fatigue. It wasn’t like a big guy like him could get the best sleep sitting cramped in a car anyway.

  “I’ll take the back seat,” Gabriel told him, clapping him on the arm as he clambered past. “You take the middle.” With three seats, it was the longest section.

  Kyler hopped out, his gaze glued to his stolen phone. “I’m making some progress with this. I’ll keep at it for the time being.”

  Damon followed him. As his feet hit the ground, his head swiveled to take in our surroundings. “I’m going to keep watch,” he said, nodding to a s
tand of trees near the side of the road where he’d be able to see down a long stretch of it. “Maybe they stopped using magic because they’re trying to sneak up on us.”

  “Thank you,” Rose said to him, giving him a quick kiss that left his eyes bright. Then she turned to me. “Time to get painting?”

  I grabbed my bag of supplies and checked the clearing for a good spot to set up shop. There was a log lying beside a short row of trees at the opposite end. I walked over to it, my shoes rustling through the long grass. The sharp scent of the scattered dandelions reached my nose. They might be weeds, but I’d always loved the contrast of that stark yellow with the deeper green of their leaves.

  Sitting on the log gave me a twinge low in my gut. It was on a different log that I’d first made love to Rose—in a headlong rush after the consort ceremony in the forest on her estate’s grounds, when we’d all collided in a blaze of magic and passion. I suspected that now I wasn’t ever going to be able to take a walk in the woods without getting a little bit turned on.

  I handed a pencil and six of the wooden tokens I’d picked up to Rose. “Sketch the glyph you need me to work with. Will I need to hide the symbols in the rest of the image like before?”

  “I guess not,” she said. “Since anyone who comes after us will already know I’m doing magic. The spell might work even better if you emphasize the lines of the glyph. We’ll just want to keep the pendants tucked under our shirts in case we cross paths with anyone else from witching society who wouldn’t recognize us otherwise.”

  The tokens were about half the size of my palm, so that seemed doable. I nodded and started laying out my paints while she sketched.

  “Maybe there are other ways we can combine art and magic,” I said. “You’ve only just come into your powers, and you’ve had to keep them secret the whole time… You should experiment, stretch yourself, find out what you’re capable of.”

  “Like you do with your art?” Rose said with a smile.

  “Why not? Creating spells looks kind of like art to me. Like a dance—or a martial art.”

  “Okay, I can see what you mean with the forms.” Her smile turned crooked. “I did experiment a little when we were in that prison. I managed to cast with barely any motion, just imagining the forms. But that took at least twice as long and three times as much energy as a proper magicking. It doesn’t do me any good to burn myself out that fast unless it’s that or not cast at all.”

  Her brow furrowed in concentration. She handed the first token to me. “You know what I’d really like? I’d like to make them all forget they ever knew me or the rest of you, or cared what happened to us, forever and ever. I think that might be a little beyond any one witch’s powers though.”

  My heart squeezed at the longing in her voice. I’d only known the pressures and restrictions of the witching world for a couple of months and mostly just through her. She’d had to live with them hanging over her for her entire life. It was because of those pressures and restrictions that she’d been torn away from our friendship and her home in the first place.

  I got to work painting the first token, letting the colors bring the lines of the glyph to brilliant life instead of obscuring them like I’d needed to before. Rose finished her sketching, set the rest of the tokens on the log between us, and stood up. She stepped tentatively into the deeper grass as if testing the ground. Then she really started to move.

  It did look like a dance, the motions of her magic. I looked up to catch glimpses as I worked, and when I’d finished the first one I stopped for just a minute to take it in.

  Her arms swept through the air, and her feet glided across the ground. Her whole body undulated with the power she could channel through it. My breath caught with awe, just watching, not even knowing what she was creating with that energy.

  She stopped, her own breath coming a little short, just as I started on the fourth token. “You know, I think I did find something else I can use, exploring those feelings,” she said. “I protected you all before using the consort bond, that magical connection we already have in place. I might be able to tie another spell to that and each glyph. Make it personal, and stronger that way—and let the energy of the bond enhance the spell. That way I wouldn’t have to keep ‘recharging’ it with more power.”

  “That sounds brilliant,” I said. “There you go. That’s why I’m a firm believer in experimenting.”

  A short laugh spilled over her lips. She pushed back her dark hair, which was gleaming under the late afternoon sun. Then her smile faltered. “Except with Gabriel. Because we don’t have that connection yet.”

  “You could try the consort ceremony with him.”

  She shook her head. “He only just started to feel comfortable opening up to me. I can’t ask him to make a decision like that just to make things easier for me. I wish I hadn’t needed to turn to the rest of you the way I did, and there was a lot less pressure on you then. At least, the way things are now, he’d still have a chance of going back to a normal life.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her. “Do you really think for one second he’d ever agree to that?”

  “Well, maybe not. But who knows, if things get a lot worse… I just wouldn’t feel right taking away that option. Asking him to do it. When we’re safe, when things have settled down, then we can have that conversation.”

  “I hope you know that I’ve never regretted committing myself to you and the rest of this,” I said as I set down the fourth token. “And I think I can say that none of your other consorts have either.”

  Her smile came back, soft but bright enough to light me up inside. “I know, Jin. And you can’t imagine how amazed I am that I managed to get this lucky.”

  She bent to kiss me, and this time I could give in to that urge without any fear of spectators. I kissed her back with all the adoration I had in me until I knew I had to get back to the task at hand.

  “Just two more,” I said. “I think the first one, at least, is dry now. You could start adding the spells to them.”

  “Perfect.” She picked that one up. “They’re beautiful, as always.”

  “You inspire me,” I said with a wink. But it wasn’t just flirting. I meant it. I couldn’t imagine what I might come up with if I had a chance to really settle back into my art now that she was in my life so fully.

  I finished the last two tokens and then sat back to watch Rose do her casting. Somehow, I could tell that her movements now were more focused, with a clear purpose instead of tentative exploration of the possibilities. She was just dipping low over the fifth token, her hands swirling in the air, when a shock of a different sort of magic walloped me across the head.

  Thanks to Rose’s earlier protections, the impact only made me reel for a second, like a strong blast of wind had hit me. I hated to think what I’d have felt if she hadn’t put a shield around me. Rose went still, standing over the token, her eyes widening. She murmured a few words and whipped around in a different, more frenetic casting.

  “They’re close now,” she said, ducking to scoop up the tokens. “We don’t have time to stay and do the rest. I think they’ve almost caught up with us.”

  Shit. I tossed my remaining supplies in the bag and ran with her back to the car.

  Chapter Eight

  Rose

  The SUV swayed as Damon took it around a sharp bend in the highway. I wasn’t sure whether letting him drive had been a smart move or a stupid one, but he definitely knew how to speed.

  “Well,” Philomena said, appearing briefly beside me. “This is certainly exciting.”

  I rolled my eyes at her and then called to Damon from the back. “Hey! We left them behind hours ago. The last time they sent any magic our way, they were so far away I couldn’t get a sense of them anymore. Fast is good, but let’s not overdo it and end up in a ditch.”

  “I’ve never put a car in a ditch yet,” Damon said. I could hear his smirk in his voice.

  Phil fluttered her fan in front of her face. “I
’m not sure I believe that.” But she didn’t look all that put out. She’d been involved in a carriage crash in the novel I’d imagined her out of—but it had ended with a rather passionate encounter that she hadn’t minded at all.

  “I think we should take a right up here,” Jin said beside Damon, squinting at the map in the fading sunlight. Evening was turning into dusk outside. “Better to keep changing direction regularly so we’re harder to track, right?”

  “That’s the theory,” Ky said from the seat in front of me. The glow of the phone he’d grabbed hazed the area around him. Next to him, Seth had fallen back asleep with his head tipped against the window. He’d stayed reasonably alert for the first frantic race away from the clearing, but as the danger had appeared to retreat, exhaustion had caught up with him again. I wasn’t sure he’d slept at all yesterday.

  I swiveled my hand, sending a little more magic to the barrier around him. Since I’d only had time to finish the full spell on four of the pendants, I wasn’t wearing one. Seth had insisted that he could go without until I had the time and space to finish the others. I wasn’t going to let him regret that decision. He might have more muscles than the rest of us, but that hardly made him invulnerable, especially when it came to magic.

  My reinforcing spell came not a moment too soon. Another jittering wave of probing, jabbing energy rushed over us. I made a quick gesture to deflect more of it from me, reaching out through it for any impression of our attackers at the same time. Philomena faded away as my concentration shifted. Then I noticed Gabriel’s wince where he was sitting by the opposite window.

  “Gabriel.” I grasped his elbow. His painted glyph hung beneath his shirt from the leather string Jin had bought, but it didn’t have a consort bond’s energy to draw on. I’d tried to bolster it as well as I could despite that, but obviously I hadn’t shielded him enough.