Bewitched, Blooded and Bewildered (19 page)

“Why are we being tested?” I asked, bewildered.

“The challengers passed their final test. Now it is to be a face-off between you.”

“Great. Like we didn’t have enough problems to deal with,” I grumbled. “This is just stupid.”

“I am inclined to agree with you, but unfortunately the council has already made its decision.”

We turned down a hallway and I spotted the healer Amelia standing in the hallway, speaking with Zach. She didn’t seem concerned, but I hurried anyway.

“Your husband is resting,” she informed me. “If it is true that he still possesses a guardian’s constitution, he should recover quickly, but I still suggest avoiding strenuous activity in the meantime. No one should trifle with gunshot wounds.”

“Right, agreed. Thank you,” I said, and she smiled.

“You did a good deal of the work. Your quick thinking saved his life. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Amelia walked away, but Zach and Faust remained. I turned toward the closed door, my hand trembling as I reached for the knob. More like Faust’s quick thinking had saved Lex’s life. I’d been about to go to hysterical pieces. Then again, I’d had the good sense to know I was in over my head and call for help, so I wasn’t a complete mess.

I opened the door and walked into another bland room that looked like it’d come out of a photo shoot for homes of the rich and famous, circa 1940. The gilt-edged flowers in the wallpaper were obnoxious and somehow managed to exude an aura of disapproval. Though it was a toss-up what was more sensational—the injured ex-guardian in the bed, me the outcast witch, or Harrison the vampire who followed me into the room. I bet he was the biggest disappointment to the mansion—his father was a straight, and having a magician son probably gave the man his fatal heart attack.

Lex was drowning under a flowery comforter that was several shades of pink and edged in lace. He was pale, by far the palest I’d ever seen him, even after having witnessed him survive an Illinois winter, but he was breathing. I nearly tripped myself as I rushed to his side, and I placed my hands over his, which were folded atop the blanket. His skin was too cold, and I frowned as I glanced back at Zach as I felt for a pulse.

“She didn’t do something to him, did she?” I asked, suspicious.

“Such as?” Zach asked. He looked tired. Probably tired of me accusing him of nefariousness.

“‘Vampirifying’ him.”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You know it takes more than that to become a master necromancer. And to my knowledge, it’s not a transformation they teach witch healers. Unless there’s something you’ve been neglecting to tell me?”

“Real funny,” I muttered. Lex’s pulse felt strong enough, so that was encouraging at least.

“I promised he would not be harmed,” he countered.

“And your promises always come with a condition, or an unwritten
bonus
of some sort,” I said. Before I could start listing his crimes, Lex grabbed my wrist and held it in an iron grip.

“Ow! Damn it, that hurts,” I protested. I turned my attention back to Lex, expecting to see a glare aimed either at me or at Zach, but his eyes were still closed. Only a faint crease between his brows displayed any emotion at all, despite the fact that he was squeezing my wrist hard enough to snap something.

“Lex? Let go, honey, you’re hurting me,” I warned him. No reaction. Not good. I tried to pry his fingers off, and it was like trying to pry off steel handcuffs. Something creaked ominously in my wrist and I made a strangled noise like a startled bird. Zach appeared at my side, placed a hand over Lex’s forehead and muttered something in Latin. Lex shuddered for a moment and relaxed, his hand falling away from mine.

“What’d you do?” I asked. Now free, I snatched my hand back and cradled it to my chest.

“I put him into a deep sleep. He’s fine,” Zach assured me. “Let me see that.” He reached for my wrist, and I stepped back, keeping away from him.

“It’s fine. Nothing’s broken.” It’d bruise like all hell, probably be purple for a while, but it wasn’t broken. I backed into a fluffy reading chair and sat down. “I’ll just wait over here for him to wake up.”

Zach looked from Lex to me and back again, and then he nodded. “The three of us will need to talk once he’s conscious.”

“Yeah, I don’t doubt it.”

“Four,” Faust corrected from his spot near the doorway. “Five if your cousin Portia also wishes to be included.”

“Right. Maybe we should order some donuts,” I muttered. It’d be a good, old-fashioned, magician staff meeting. Maybe someone should come up with a PowerPoint for it, discussing the finer points of fighting the hunter problem.

“Would you like something to eat?” Zach asked. “I can have the kitchen bring you something while you wait.”

“Yes, please. Cheeseburger, fries, ketchup and a decaf beverage of some sort,” I said. Not the healthiest request, but I knew I could eat it. My good-food/bad-food list was in storage somewhere in Castle Silverleaf, thanks to Portia. Maybe we should just move there for now. My faerie relatives were always entertained by the impending birth of a new family member.

“I’m sure they can handle that.”

“Thanks.” I peered up at him, and for a moment it looked like he was going to say something further, but he walked out of the room. I turned my attention to Faust.

“Would you like me to sit with you?” he asked politely.

I shrugged. Was it a bad sign that I didn’t mind that idea? His evil faerie mind tricks had to be affecting my brain. “Don’t you have stuff to do? Like interrogate the hunters?”

“I will, in time. They aren’t going anywhere anymore.” He smiled despite his ominous words, and guilt twisted in my stomach.

“Are they all dead?” I asked.

“Quite. You did very well. Do you know what manner of demon it was that you banished?”

“No idea. Evil.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

Shrugging, I rubbed my eyes as nausea spiraled to life in my gut. It wasn’t comforting to know that I did very well at mass murder. Sure, we’d been attacked first, and these were obviously the bad guys, but from the little information we’d managed to scrape together, we knew this was some sort of government agency coming after us. Our own fellow Americans, come to drag us away to Manzanar or some shit, and they probably didn’t even know why. I wondered what they thought we were, or why they needed to stop us. Were we terrorists in their eyes? Demons, maybe? Some sort of subhuman, infected, genetically screwed-up threat to the species that had to be eliminated? Evil? Evil was the reason we’d been nearly wiped out before.

“Would you like to play a game?” Faust asked. When I glanced up at him, a deck of playing cards appeared in his hand, and he fanned them out.

“Sure.”

“Strip poker?” he suggested with a teasing grin.

I laughed, and it made me feel better. “Not a chance.”

Faust shuffled the cards and dealt out a hand of five-card draw. Again I was reminded of Tybalt, and how Lex and I spent an evening in my old apartment teaching Texas hold’em to my faerie cousins. Was Portia drawn to Faust because she saw Tybalt in him too?

“Can I ask you something?”

Faust quirked a brow. “You may ask. Depending on the question, I may choose not to answer.”

“Fair enough. What did you do to be cast out of Faerie? Portia said your entire family was cast out, but she also said I shouldn’t judge you because you might’ve gotten a raw deal like I did.”

“Did she, now?” The shadowspawn leaned back in his chair, his head tilted to the side as though pondering his reply. “A raw deal. That does sound accurate. I suppose you would say that I am guilty by association. I did not have a hand in the events that led to our clan’s expulsion, but I did not stop them or report my kin to the authorities. Helen, however, was certainly guilty.”

“Helen?”

“My sister, Zachary’s mother. Helen creates chaos wherever she goes.”

“So you were blamed for something she did?”

“I spent several centuries cleaning up her messes, and then she went too far. I believe you are familiar with being blamed for the crimes of your kin.”

I nodded. “Just a bit, yeah.”

“I never liked Dorian. He was…unreliable.”

“Put lightly, yeah.”

Faust chuckled. “Well, as they say, one can choose their friends, but not their family. Now, would you like a card?”

Chapter Thirteen

Lex slept long enough that it made me nervous and jittery. He shouldn’t need this much recovery time because he still healed like a guardian. They healed the fastest, with shapeshifters coming in a close second. It shouldn’t take hours for him to recover from a fight. The fact that he hadn’t only confirmed that he’d come within a hairsbreadth of dying. I really had saved his life. But I’d also endangered it by letting him out of the range of my shields. I’d lost it. I’d let my anger and thirst to see the hunters pay get the best of me, and because of that I’d nearly lost my soul mate. Lord and Lady. I’d come so far from my witch roots, and I wasn’t sure the growth was positive.

When Lex finally stirred, I leapt from my chair and dropped the cards I was holding. Instead of reaching for him again, I waited for Lex’s eyes to open—I didn’t want to risk another injury if he was having a bad dream. After a few long seconds that made my palms sweat, Lex opened his pretty blue eyes and blinked up at the hideous cloth that canopied the four-poster bed.

“How do you feel?” I asked. He turned toward the sound of my voice, and then frowned at Faust, standing next to me.

“Where are we?” he asked. Lex’s voice was rough with sleep and stress.

“You’re a guest in Zachary’s home in Oak Brook,” Faust informed him. “I will let you two speak now. Remember that we do need a conference later.”

“Right. Thanks,” I said. He patted my shoulder amiably and left the room. “Are you okay? You scared the hell out of me.”

“I’m better. Still not 100 percent.” He reached for my hand, and I hesitated. Lex frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“You did this last time I held your hand.” I held my wrist up and displayed the nasty bruise that had bloomed in the last few hours. His eyes widened at the sight of it.

“Oh, sugar, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“It’s okay. Nothing broken. Just tell me you’re sure you’re awake before I sit down again.”

Lex glanced at the room around him. “Honestly, not sure I am. Waking up in Harrison’s place is more like a nightmare.”

I winced and then gingerly sat down on the edge of the bed. “Sorry about that. It wasn’t my idea. I shouted out for help, expecting Portia, but I got Faust instead. He brought us here. I couldn’t argue with him because you were dying. The healer here saved your life.”

“Where is Portia?” he asked.

“She’s somewhere in Faerie lobbying on our behalf. They want to test us now because the tigers passed their third test. Portia’s trying to get us a few days’ rest.”

“I knew I liked her.” Lex smiled weakly, and I brushed the hair away from his face.

“Oh, you need to call Marie,” I said as I remembered. I pulled the phone from my pocket, hit her number, and held the phone up to his ear.

He took it from me and then held my hand with his free hand. “Hey, it’s me… I’m okay. Still kickin’… We’ll figure that out later. Where are you?”

I winced, knowing where she was. I hoped she wasn’t midcoitus with a chronicler. Lex would kill her for it and then kill me for not stopping her. But chroniclers weren’t evil bloodsuckers, so that was something, right?

Lex frowned. “You should go stay with Stone down in Alsip…because a guardian’s place is going to be safer.” He sighed, rolling his eyes. “Fine, just keep your eyes peeled. They came after me, no tellin’ who’s next now… Love you too.” He hung up and handed the phone back to me. “Did you know she’s at Dannaher’s place?”

“She mentioned it earlier. Why?” I asked with my best innocent face.

“I don’t like it. He’s a chronicler.”

“Yes, and? It’s not like she’s at Simon’s place. I’d be more worried about that.”

“Why? Mac could help look after her.”

“Yeah, but Simon’s handsy. I wouldn’t trust him.”

Lex snorted. “Marie doesn’t like men.”

“Yes, she does, she’s bi,” I corrected.

“What?” He looked surprised by this information, but I shrugged.

“We talked about it. She swings both ways. She just doesn’t talk about it with you because you’re her big brother, and you were all squicked out about her dating girls.”

He frowned, seeming to chew on that information for a while. “Guess I can talk to her about that later. If we’re gonna be arguing with Harrison or fighting shapeshifters, I need a shower first.” He started to sit up, and I pushed him back down.

“You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I don’t have time to rest. I’ll be all right.”

“You were shot. More than once. I have the bullets to prove it.” I pulled said bullets out of my pocket and held them in the palm of my hand. Lex stared at them with a grim expression. “I almost lost you. You seriously almost died in my arms. Don’t push yourself. I can’t handle losing you.
We
can’t handle losing you.” I rubbed my future baby bump for emphasis. “You can’t leave me to raise a baby guardian on my own. I don’t know anything about guardian stuff.”