Jessica Andersen - Magic Unchained

“No!” he shouted, afraid the magic would burn her, hurt her, but he couldn’t call it back, couldn’t shut it down. Then the power raged through him, coalesced into a huge fireball that hung in the air, bleeding flames. And for a brief instant he saw double, perceived double—hell, he was double, sensing things not just with his own faculties, but with Cara’s as well.

Connection. It burned through him, forging new pathways in his soul. He could feel her terror, but also the determination that was overriding it to put her at his side, facing the creature with nothing more than a Glock nine. Through her senses, he could feel the heat and sizzle of his Nightkeeper magic, which she shouldn’t have been able to sense. And through both of their eyes, he saw the hellhound gathering for a leap.

“Now!” she shouted, or maybe he did. It didn’t matter as he launched the fireball with a tremendous heave, straight at the onrushing creature.

Boom! Magic detonated on impact, wreathing the beast in flames. The hellhound screeched and reared up, snapping. But this time the fire raged higher and hotter as Sven poured more magic into the fireball, keeping the attack going. “Die, damn you!”

The magic kept coming and coming—from him, from her, from the greater power they somehow made together. He didn’t question it; he used it, searing the beast, charring it. On one level there was dull horror and the too-familiar stench of burning flesh. On another, he knew only that he had to protect Cara and the humans below. Nothing else mattered… and if deep down inside he put her ahead of the masses, and went against the writs in doing so, he was fucking fine with that.

The creature struggled horribly, resisting death with keening cries until it finally collapsed with a shudder. Still, he kept it burning, holding on to the magic while lightning lit the night sky, and the wind whipped around them, pitching the huge ship from side to side. He burned the beast to cinders, but before he could call it done, the noise of the storm changed, rising to the scream of an unrushing funnel cloud.

“Hang on!” He grabbed Cara and shielded them both, but the twister didn’t head for them. It went for the creature’s ashes instead, sucking them off the deck and back up into the storm. The wind howled and lightning flickered, but even as the answering rumble of thunder trailed off, the storm was breaking up, dissipating.

Between one eye blink and the next, it vanished, leaving no sign of disturbance save for a slow roll beneath their feet and a rising clamor coming up from the decks below.

“Gods.” Cara let out a shuddering breath. “The creature got stronger.”

“Yeah, but so did we.” And it was only just beginning to hit him how much stronger they had gotten together… and what it meant.

She looked at him then, and her eyes held a gleam that stirred his already stirred-up blood even more. But before she said anything more, shouts sounded from the staircase just as his armband pinged, doubly interrupting.

“I’ll stall,” she said. “You answer.”

Without waiting for his nod, she stashed her gun in her bag and ran to the stairwell with a cry of, “Did you see that? What’s happening?” Her tone notched up with each question, ending on a wail of, “Are we sinking?” That stalled the human tide that had rushed up thinking there was something going on up on the observation deck. Her near-sobs of “There’s a fire? Where?” and “Oh, God, are there enough lifeboats? Sven, for the love of all that’s holy, stop trying to upload that to YouTube and come on!” completed the turnaround.

Most of the looky-loos headed back down, while a few stalwart souls—all male, big surprise—stuck around to calm her down and shoot him dirty looks.

“You there?” Dez said the moment Sven answered the phone. “What the hell is going on? The skull arrived hotter than hell, and with a blast of magic like I’ve never felt before. And then your dog went nuts.”

“He’s not— Shit, never mind. Here’s the deal.” Sven rattled off a quick rundown of the attack, ending with, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but there’s got to be some connection between the storms, the creature, and Cara.”

“And between the two of you.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t want to make a big deal about that yet, though. Not until he and Cara had a chance to talk about it. It might not make any difference, really.

Or it might change everything.

“You want us to try a midocean pickup?”

“No, don’t risk it.” When Cara called his name, Sven looked over and saw her and a couple of cruise employees waiting by the stairs. “I’ve got to go. They’re sending us all to our cabins while they turn the boat around and head in. If we disappear now, there’ll be questions.”

“We can handle it. The credit card won’t lead them anywhere if they try to trace you.”

“Still. I’d rather stick it out.” Cara could use a few hours to process what had just happened. Hell, he needed the time too.

“You think it’s safe?”

“We can take care of ourselves,” Sven said, and clicked off. It wasn’t until he had tucked the communication device back in his pocket and was headed over to rejoin her that he realized he’d meant it—not just that he would take care of her, but that they would take care of each other.

Holy shit. He missed a step at realizing that he was suddenly part of a “we.” How had that happened? His gut fisted. He might not have liked it when she said the winikin magic went only one way, but that was because it wasn’t fair to her that the gods and circumstances had conspired to take the choice away from her, not because he’d wanted a two-way magical bond with her—mated, familiar, or otherwise. Yet now the choice had been taken away from him too.

Or had it? He had promised to watch her back, after all. And their new connection had given him the power to do it. That couldn’t be a bad thing.

Right?

“Hey.” She caught his hand as he reached the small crowd at the stairwell. “Did you get through to your parents and let them know that we were hit by a storm, but we’re fine?”

“Yeah, I talked to them.” He slid an arm around her waist. To the two crewmen who had stayed behind, waiting to herd them to their stateroom, he said, “Did the boat take any damage? Are there more of those squalls coming?”

“Everything’s fine, sir, but you really need to get under cover.”

They joined the flow of humanity down below and headed for their stateroom in a silence that seemed out of place amid the babble that surrounded them, a mix of, “Did you see that lightning?” and, “It looked like something was on fire there for a few minutes!” and, “Are you sure we’re not sinking?”

When they reached their room—an exterior cabin with an ornate door and a key-card slot designed to look like old ship’s brass—he swiped his card and held the door for her, and then stepped through and closed and bolted the door. Shutting out the din was a huge relief, but the pressure inside him skyrocketed again as he took a look around what proved to be the sitting area of the two-room stateroom.

The place was decorated like a damn French bordello.

There was gilt and red velvet practically everywhere he looked, and in the nearby bathroom, brass and marble picked up the theme and promised hot tub action and all the slippery bath salts and massage oils he could ask for. Come on in, get comfortable, and get busy, the decor practically screamed. Get naked. Get it on. Or maybe that was just him, he thought. But then Cara turned back from taking her own long look around, and he saw an answering heat in her eyes, along with a disquieting click of connection. It felt almost like he’d jacked into the barrier, but it was faint and far away, just a buzz of magic in his blood, a stir of echoes in his soul.