Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

A shiver tried to crawl its way down Rabbit’s vertebrae. “So what does that make me?”

“Either a hero, or somebody’s fucking dinner. You figure it out.” With that, Red-Boar shoved through the door and stumped down the short stairs, leaving Rabbit sitting there staring after him and feeling like . . . shit, he didn’t know what he was feeling right now. All he knew was that he was glaring at the kitchen door with his stomach tied in fucking knots in a way it hadn’t been in years. Not since the old man died.

Fuck. Don’t go there.

He wasn’t that pissed-off, lonely kid anymore. He didn’t think the world owed him an explanation or even a break. He had to think this through. What had the Xibalbans wanted from him back when he was born? What did the gods want now? A little help here?

“Shit.” Shoving away from the table, he surged to his feet and stood there for a moment, seeing the long-gone oinking cookie jar and fridge magnets that’d been in Red-Boar’s old cottage when he and Rabbit moved back in twenty-four years after the massacre. The boar-themed dust collectors were long gone, just like his old man should’ve been, but suddenly Rabbit couldn’t stay there one second longer. But he didn’t want to be in the mansion, either, and the thought of heading back up to the pueblo made his stomach lurch.

Suck it up. Don’t be a pussy. Just fucking deal. The words trickled through his mind, maybe in his own voice, maybe in the old man’s. But for the first time in a long time—maybe ever—they didn’t resonate. Instead, they chimed faintly wrong, like some part of him was saying, Been there, done that.

Yeah, he’d sucked it up, he’d dealt, and he’d ended up wound so fucking tight that it hadn’t taken much for him to implode. And maybe what had happened before would happen again, but that didn’t mean it had to happen exactly the same. He could do things different, do them better. Which meant finding someone to talk to, someone he trusted to give him a reality check.

Except there was really only one person he trusted like that . . . and she didn’t want anything to do with him.

“Leave her alone,” he said, the words echoing in the kitchen he and Myr used to share. “She’s better off without you, and you need to learn to deal with that.” Wasn’t like he had much time to make the adjustment, either.

He couldn’t do it in the cottage, though—there were too many memories there, too much old stuff pressing in on him from all sides. So he headed out, not following his old man toward the mansion, but turning the other way instead.

If the pueblo was where he’d always gone to embrace a state of temporary amnesia, the cacao grove was where he went to find some approximation of peace. He’d always felt at home in the rain forests and Mayan highlands. Maybe it was because he’d been conceived there, born there, but he didn’t want to think about that right now. And as he paused at the edge of the cacao grove, it didn’t matter why; it only mattered that his brain slowed down somewhat and the anger dulled as he inhaled the soft, tropical air.

Yeah. This would help.

Exhaling, he entered the grove, pushing past shrubby cacao trees that reached to touch him with leafy fingers. The sense that the sunlight was warmer here came from the power of suggestion, he knew, as did the phantom cry of a parrot and the smell of vanilla.

Except the scent of vanilla wasn’t his imagination, he thought, pausing as his instincts went on alert. The smell was really there. More, there was a faint crackle coming from up ahead, along with a skim of magic.

He told himself to walk away. He followed the sound instead, and when it led him to a small grove he hadn’t realized was there, he hesitated in the shadows, and stared.

Myrinne sat cross-legged at the edge of a circle of stones that danced with flickering green flames. She was wearing wide-legged jeans, a woven green belt that sparkled in the light, and a green T-shirt that moved with her body as she gestured and then whispered a chant he couldn’t quite hear, but that sent the blood thrumming through his veins and made the air around him sizzle with Nightkeeper power.

She stilled suddenly. Maybe he had made a noise, or maybe she had felt the answering surge of his magic; he didn’t know. But her head came up, her hand went for the pistol that lay beside her, and she said softly, “Hello?”

“It’s me.” He moved out of the shadows. “I didn’t know you were here. I was just . . .” He trailed off, because it didn’t matter why he’d come, or that he suddenly wondered whether some part of him had known she was here. “Never mind. I’ll go.” He took a step back.

“Wait.” The word was low, ragged.

He froze in place as her eyes softened and—incredibly, impossibly—he saw a glimmer of warmth, an echo of the way the girl she used to be had looked at the guy he’d been.

“Sit.” She pointed to the opposite side of the fire. “We need to talk.”

Myr cursed herself as he crossed the grove. She should’ve told him to get lost the moment she sensed him, should tell him that now. Things would be a whole lot easier if they stayed away from each other. Problem was, easier wasn’t necessarily better. Especially not now.

As he took a seat opposite her, she murmured a few words and cast a handful of salt into the fire.

Tendrils of darker green threaded within the flames and the scent changed, making her think of the sea. Leaning in, she breathed the salted smoke and felt the sharp edges smooth out. “It’s a cleansing ritual,” she told him, though he hadn’t asked. “It’s supposed to help you cast out doubt. The salt represents us anchoring ourselves to the earth, while the flames are the way we move through our fear.”

He leaned in and took a deep breath, then held the scented smoke for a moment before he let it out on a sigh, and said, “You don’t need to doubt me, Myr, or be afraid of me. I’ve learned my lessons when it comes to the dark magic.” His voice was low, his eyes intense, and even though they were no longer linked, she could sense that he was telling the absolute truth . . . at least as he saw it, right here and now.

But she shook her head. “It’s not just about me doubting you, Rabbit. It’s more about us doubting ourselves, and each other.” She paused. “I was going to come find you later today.”

“Oh?” The word carried a note of wary surprise.

She knew he must think she was afraid of him. Why wouldn’t he? She’d run away from him. She had been more overwhelmed than anything, though, and she’d had the night to think it through. And when she came down to it, their past didn’t matter right now. The kiss didn’t even matter, really. It couldn’t. What mattered was that he’d squelched the dark magic rather than give in to it. She didn’t sense it in him anymore, didn’t see it in his eyes. And he needed to become the crossover.

So she said, “I owe you an apology.”

“You don’t owe me a damn thing.”

“Maybe not on balance, but this needs to be said.” She couldn’t smell the salt anymore, couldn’t taste it at the back of her throat. Her senses had gotten used to it, she thought, just like the two of them had gotten so used to how things were between them that they hadn’t noticed when the dynamic had gradually changed. “Yesterday, when I saw you with the dark magic, I remembered something you said to me that morning.”

His eyes darkened. “Myr—”

“No. Let me get this out.” She wanted to forget about the attack—of course she did. But maybe this was a necessary sacrifice. “You said I kept pushing you to try the dark magic, and you were right. I was pushing you back then. Hell, I was nagging you, even though Dez had made you promise not to experiment with it anymore.”