Jessica Andersen - Magic Unchained

“Christ, Cara.” He glanced at the sky as if expecting a bolt of lightning, which might have been funny if it hadn’t made her chest ache.

“Wrong religion.” She took a deep breath and pressed a hand to her stomach, where a sudden churning suggested she wasn’t as comfortable with heresy as she’d first thought.

The winikin might not get messages from the gods, but they prayed to them all the same. And it wasn’t like these were mythical figures; they were real. Three months ago, when several smaller members of the Banol Kax had broken through the barrier and attacked the Nightkeepers’ summer solstice ritual, she had watched in awe as Strike, Leah, Alexis, and Sasha had summoned the gods they were bound to. The plumed serpent Kulkulkan, the firebird Kinich Ahau, and the rainbow goddess Ixchel had combined forces to drive the demons back to Xibalba. Then, as the solstice waned, they had returned to the sky in trailing comets of light and color.

It had been beautiful. Moving. And scary as shit, because it had driven home to Cara just how far off she was from the reality she’d grown up with, and just how dangerous this new reality was going to get over the next bunch of months.

The gods were real, they were part of the war, and the Nightkeepers were their servants on earth. That was powerful stuff. But at the same time, it just wasn’t in her to follow blindly.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said after a moment. “Maybe we’re part of some big cosmic plan, and maybe the gods are trying to team us up. But if the Nightkeepers have proved anything over the past four years, it’s that we’ve all got free will even in the face of a full-on prophecy… And this isn’t anywhere close to being a full-on anything.”

Her skin cooled where it had been heated by the warm press of his body, but inwardly the heat remained. If anything it ramped up when sparks kindled in his eyes and he leaned closer to say, “It is for me.”

“Stop it.” She slapped a palm on his chest and shoved. It was like trying to push over a building, but he obliged by backing up a step. “Just… stop playing me, Sven. I need to think this through.”

His expression tightened. “This isn’t a game.”

“Isn’t it?” Suddenly she saw part of what had made the warning bells go off inside her from the very beginning of his confession, though she’d been too wrapped up in other things to see it clearly until now. “What do you want to have happen here?”

He took another step back, this time without the shove. “What do you mean?”

“Spell it out for me. And be specific.” Part of her quailed at the idea that she was talking to a mage—to Sven—like this. But another part ached at the hint of what the hell? in his expression. Because with him, “What the hell?” was almost always followed by, “I’m outta here.”

But his lips firmed and he moved back into her space. Took her hand. And said softly, “I want you, Cara. I want us to be lovers, teammates.” He didn’t quite say “mates,” but it was more or less implied.

More or less. “How?” she asked, and the single word echoed in the silence.

“What do you mean?” It was the second time he’d said it, making her wonder whether that was his fallback, his way of making the other person do most of the work when the conversational going got tough.

“When I was ten, I wanted a pet dolphin, but I couldn’t make the logistics work. The way I see it, finding a way for the two of us to be together without totally screwing up the balance of power here wouldn’t be any easier than keeping a bottlenose on a Montana cattle ranch. So what’s the plan? Should we go to Dez and get his take on it? Just stand up in the middle of dinner and announce that we’re a couple and everyone else has to deal? Sneak around and hope that nobody figures it out? What?”

His eyes slid away from hers. “The gods—”

“I’m not asking the gods. I’m asking you.”

Mac whined low in his throat, looking between the two of them with an anxious doggy expression. Cara knew exactly how he felt, but she couldn’t back down now. Maybe she would have a few years back, but not anymore. Not when she was responsible for a broken army that badly needed to be mended.

“What do you want from me?” The question was low, sounded almost dragged out of him. Yet he was still trying to turn it back on her. She didn’t think he knew he was doing it, really. It was just the way he was wired.

Like a coyote, she thought with an edge of bitterness that hurt to feel. “I don’t think there’s any way we could keep an affair casual, not under the circumstances. So I want to know exactly how much I would be risking, what I’d be giving up if I decided to be with you the way you want. And I want to know what you’d be giving up in return.”

His head came up; his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

And there it was: not just the third repetition of his favorite question, but the shock and oh, hell, no expression of a golden boy who had gotten what he wanted all along, too often without any cost. Well, not this time.

“If you want to be with me, then you’re with me, no holds barred.”

He nodded cautiously. “I don’t want anyone else. I haven’t in a long time.”

Part of her took those words deep inside, held them close. “That matters, Sven. It does. Truly. But it’s not what I’m talking about.” She paused and took a deep breath, knowing they were on the tipping point. “I need to know that if we start this and I take the hit with the winikin, that you’re not going to take off and leave me to clean up the mess.”

He exhaled like she’d gut-punched him. “You want me to promise to stay.”

“In blood. With witnesses.”

White edged the rims of his eyes, though his face had otherwise gone to the neutral, reserved expression he wore in battle. Another fallback. “I don’t… I think… Shit. Can’t we just keep things casual?”

Her heart cracked and bled a little, though she had known what his answer would be. He might be unreliable in some ways, but she trusted many other things about him, including his honesty. Granted, he’d been known to lie to himself, but that wasn’t the problem here. He knew what she was asking… and he wasn’t going to promise it to her.

She sighed and rubbed the heel of her hand across her sternum, over the achy spot. “If it were just the two of us on a beach somewhere, then hell, yes, we’d keep it casual.” She tried for a smile. “I’d probably just be using you for the great sex anyway.”

His grin was equally weak. “Too bad we’re not on a beach.”

The ache intensified. “Yeah. Too bad.”

He hesitated, then closed the small distance between them and kissed her forehead, murmuring, “If I could promise to stick around for anyone, it would be you, Cara. Only you.”

Tears prickled, but she closed her eyes and willed them back. “Shit. Don’t say that.” Part of her, though, had needed to hear it. “Just go, okay? I need some time alone.”

After a long, drawn-out moment, he said, “You’re armed?”

“Yeah. Got my wristband too. I’ll be fine.” She tensed, expecting him to say something more and both needing and dreading it.

But all he said was, “Mac. Protect.” And then, with a scuff and the sound of boot steps, he walked out.

It was a long moment before she opened her eyes, another before she swiped away the moisture that clung to her lashes. She looked at Mac, then away, because she couldn’t stand the sorrow and sympathy in his pale green eyes. Which left her looking at the now deserted training hall, empty and dispirited with the leftovers of a party that felt like it had spanned two lifetimes, maybe three.

“Guess that means the next step is picking up the pieces and doing some damage control,” she said to the coyote.