Jessica Andersen - Magic Unchained

“They…” Damn it. “You’ll be undermining me, crippling me as a leader. Worse, you’ll be running the risk of losing the rebels. We need them, damn it. They’re the younger generation, the fighters.”

“So you’ll find a way to spin it so they stay,” Reese put in. “Make this into a positive, not a negative, maybe even a concession you’ve squeezed out of the king.” That got a grunt out of Dez, making the queen’s lips twitch. She stayed focused on Cara, though, with eyes that weren’t unkind, but said simply, Deal with it.

“Not him.” She turned on Sven, teeth bared. “Not you.”

He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness belied by the smooth shift of his bulky muscles and the aura of leashed wildness that surrounded him. “Think it through. Now that you’re wearing my mark, the winikin are going to put us together in their heads no matter what you say. Rather than trying to ignore it, let’s use it instead.”

It didn’t help that he had a point. “How long have you known this was a possibility?” Tell me you found out this morning, that it was a surprise to you too. Except that she’d been closeted with the king for an hour and Sven had just gotten out of bed. Maybe Carlos told him. Maybe…

“Since right after I came back.”

Fury pounded through her. “Five days ago. He talked to you about being the liaison five days ago, and you didn’t say anything?” Not even after they hooked up, after he’d told her he cared about her. Which made her wonder how, exactly, he defined caring. Was it when he was horny? When things were convenient? What?

“Originally, Dez asked me to take a good, hard look at the winikin right after Aaron’s funeral went so wrong. He was afraid it was an inside job.” When she did a double take, attention caught, he shook his head. “I didn’t see anything that made me think it was… but then again, I didn’t catch wind of what Zane and Lora were up to, either, partly because I didn’t like him to begin with, and partly because I refused to use you or Carlos for information.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. But Dez asked me to keep things under wraps.”

Which had to trump her feelings, damn it. But that didn’t make it okay that he’d gone behind her back, or that he and Dez had been making decisions about her winikin without her knowing there was even a discussion going on. And Sven? Gods, she couldn’t work with him on a day-to-day basis. It would be… impossible.

“It’s a good offer,” Dez put in. “What’s more, it’s the only one you’re going to get, so I suggest you take it.”

In other words, she was getting a liaison whether she liked it or not; it was up to her whether it happened smoothly and with a prayer of spinning it to the winikin as a positive, or happened with her kicking and screaming, and making things even worse on the solidarity front.

“We can make it work,” Sven said quietly. “We know how to get along… we just haven’t had much practice over the past bunch of years.” And the damn thing was, he didn’t seem at all uncomfortable with the idea. He was acting like their teaming up was the most logical solution, like it should be on some late-night top-ten list of great ideas, despite their having all but agreed last night that they should steer clear of each other.

“For how long?” she asked, hating that the answer mattered too much. “A week? A month?”

“As long as you need me.” Which wasn’t really an answer, because undoubtedly he’d be the one to decide when that ended.

“I don’t need you. That’s the point.” Go away, she thought almost desperately. The longer you stay, the harder this is going to be. She didn’t want to get used to having him around, because it would only hurt worse when he left. She didn’t want to have him filling the shadow Zane’s absence would leave, didn’t want him beside her at meetings and strategy sessions, didn’t want him going over all her plans, arguing with her, throwing his weight around and making her defend decisions that should’ve been hers alone.… And if a small part of her wanted exactly those things and so much more, she stuffed it deep down inside where all her other stupid fantasies lived. Shaking her head, she turned to Dez. “This isn’t going to work. We’re going to spend so much time butting heads and contradicting each other that we’ll never get a damn thing accomplished.”

“Who else did you have in mind as second in command?” Sven asked unexpectedly.

“I… Shit. Natalie, I guess. She’s got ties to the rebs through JT, but she’s also got a huge appreciation for the traditions. And the others understand why she’s working with Lucius, so there wouldn’t be a problem there.”

“And she doesn’t have an iota of combat experience,” he countered. “Not to mention that it doesn’t make any sense to take one of our few trained Mayan scholars out of the library. I’m not assigned anywhere right now, though, and the winikin might not like me all that much, but they like me better than most of the magi.” He rose from the chair so they were standing facing each other, with the carved coffee table between them. “I don’t need to be in charge, and I’m not going to challenge you or make you look bad. I just want to help you.” His eyes softened slightly. “Call it payback, call it guilt, call it whatever the hell you want, but let me do this, okay? I won’t let you down this time.”

He was right, she realized; she didn’t have an obvious choice for Zane’s replacement, and she’d proven all too well the day before that she didn’t do her best thinking when she was under pressure and didn’t have someone else backing her up with a reality check. Maybe the answer would have been obvious… if it hadn’t been for what had happened in the coyote cave.

It wasn’t just the sex—she thought they could have chalked that up to the magic and the moment, and walked away from it. But all the things he’d said after, and then their argument last night… that had been them, not the magic. At least, it had been for her, and that’d had her reacting from emotion rather than logic. As for him… well, she didn’t actually know where he was coming from. It didn’t make any sense to her that he would be spouting words of almost-love one night, and then the next morning be ready to work side by side with her like it was no big deal. There wasn’t any trepidation in his eyes, no silent plea that she go with it and he’d explain later. Had he pushed his emotions behind the wall of his warrior’s talent? Or had he set them aside that quickly? If he had—

“How about you give it a chance?” The suggestion came from Reese. “Just the two of you on a trial run outside of the compound, a two-person op you can work without feeling like your every move is being scrutinized.” She shot a meaningful look at Dez. “Sometimes things get simpler when you take some time away.”

“I don’t want…” Cara began, but then trailed off, because this wasn’t about what she wanted, hadn’t been in a long time. If she agreed to this, she’d be buying Zane’s and Lora’s lives, not because she sympathized with them, but because they had become political currency. She didn’t think Dez understood just how much they mattered, or how much resentment would be stirred up if they were executed, spell-frozen, or even simply imprisoned. With the wounds of the massacre still too fresh in many of the winikin’s minds, they needed to know that there was a way out of Skywatch somehow. So finally she said, “I take it you’ve got an op in mind?”

It was Dez who nodded and said, “You know the screaming skull the nahwal mentioned? Well, Lucius tracked it to the Playa Maya Museum in Monterey. We want you to steal it.”