Chapter Seventeen
Once I wiped the tearsaway, Fin pulled back to stare into my eyes. “What happened? Tell me.”
No doubt he already had a feeling considering how Esteban had been using my dreams to contact me before, but it meant a lot he asked me instead of letting himself get dragged into the possibilities that might leave us fighting things out.
I sighed and threw myself back into his soft pillows, closing my eyes at the scent of him surrounding me. “I was going to take a nap. When I fell asleep, he was waiting for me in like a harem fantasy.”
Fin snorted at the disgusted look on my face and waved at me to continue.
“It didn’t feel like the forest dreams, so I was pretty confused at first. I waited for someone to say something and then when I was about to use my power to bring me out of it, he appeared out of nowhere. He knew we’d had sex and called me out on it. You know me, and how well I take men giving me shit because of their own hang-ups. I set him in his place and told him to leave me alone.”
Of course, I left out some important details about Sol, but I still hadn’t worked my way through everything regarding her yet. I didn’t want to get Fin’s hopes up if she was alive out there somewhere.
He would throw himself into finding her, whether she wanted to be found or not. Which was an entirely new obstacle to consider. If Esteban didn’t have her, then why didn’t she come home? Why not come back to Fin, her loving older brother?
My reasoning so far worked out that she wasn’t able to because she didn’t trust the people here, or she feared something. I even wondered if she’d become a mage and didn’t return because she knew, or thought she knew, how Fin felt about our kind.
Our kind? I let that thought barrel through me. When had I started thinking of myself as a fae, or a mage?
The bedroom door opening brought me out of my reverie.
The Captain crossed the room and stared down at us from the edge of the bed.
“So what happened now?” His tone was clipped and professional.
The easy-going friendship we’d formed was stripped away. It made my chest ache. Fin reached out and squeezed my hand, no doubt feeling the ache that took root in my chest.
I shook myself to business and shoved past him toward the door. “I’ll let Fin fill you in while I get dressed. Basically, Esteban is being a creepy dick and we should head to his mansion to see if we can turn anything up.”
Before I closed the door behind me, I hesitated and faced them again. “He feels wounded, striking out and hoping he hits something just to make others feel his pain. I can’t explain it, but something is off with him.”
The Captain and Fin shared a glance I didn’t have the stomach to try and unravel right now. I walked out and headed toward my room to hunt down some real clothes and retrieve my weapons. I wasn’t facing Esteban without my black steel knives. Not when they longed to feel his blood coat their sharp points.
I dressed in a pair of my favorite worn in skinny jeans. While leather kept me from getting cut up, I wanted to feel like myself right now. A black t-shirt, black boots, and my new jacket completed the look. After I stuffed my hair up into a messy bun, I strapped on my knife sheaths and sighed as the weapons sang through me. They seemed to say welcome home.
I gave them a fond little pat, piled up my dirty clothes, and stared at the bed. Would Fin want me to stay with him now?
I shook my head. I couldn’t let myself get into the details without talking to him first. We hadn’t discussed our relationship post sex, but by the way I’d felt in his arms, through the bond, I’d assumed he wanted more of me than just my vagina. But hell, men were men.
With a sigh, I ran the crystal necklace along the chain and considered my choices. Stay here in the house with Fin, have lots of really hot sex, and what? Live happily ever after? As a bounty hunter, I’d never even entertained I’d get a fairy tale ending. I always assumed I would go out in a blaze of glory, hopefully taking down a bastard or two in the process.
With Fin in my life, I felt differently. I wanted to wake up with him in the morning and see him roll on top of me with a smile. I wanted to take showers with him, and eat breakfast with him, and fight with him, both real ones and sparring matches.
I hunched over and sat on the edge of the bed.
For fuck’s sake Zoey. One round with a dick and you’re picking out wallpaper samples.
No, I couldn’t be this girl. Not now, not until Esteban couldn’t rip apart a happy ending before it even began.
I shifted to push off the bed.
An arm caught me around the middle, a knife edge point thrust against my windpipe.
I reached down to pull out my knife when a familiar voice whispered in my ear.
“Don’t do it. If you so much as breathe wrong, I’ll cut you open from ear to ear and watch as every drop of your blood pours out of your body.”
I sighed and held my hands up. “Not moving, but thanks for the graphic description, you asshole.”
“My, my, haven’t we grown bold with our magic,” Esteban whispered in my ear, curling his open thighs around my hips, so he sat with his chest pressed into my back.
I cringed away from him, but he only edged in closer to my body.
“I’ll make you an offer, Zoey. Give yourself to me now, willingly, and I won’t kill you or your friends.”
Somehow, I didn’t roll my eyeballs out of my head. “Oh, let me think. No. Why would you think that would work?”
He sighed, his breath skating along my ear and I shuddered.
“I hoped I could convince you. That you might be receptive given our bond, but I see I was wrong.”
“Bond? What the hell are you talking about?”
Esteban jerked my head back by my hair, so I stared up into his unhinged eyes.
“What do you mean?” He demanded. “Are you playing another game with me?”
“Dude, I don’t know what you’re sputtering about, but I’d really prefer you take your hand out of my hair before I stab you in the throat. I’d really hate to ruin this new jacket I just got.”
His hot breath against my cheek unnerved me, as did the clutch of his fingers. He touched me like he owned me, and I wanted his hands off my skin so badly I considered the risk of his blade on my throat.
Instead, knowing I would never hear the end of it from the Captain or Fin if I didn’t call for help when I actually needed it, I tugged down the bond with Fin, opening myself up to him, hoping I did whatever I needed so he could see my predicament.
“Ah,” Esteban whispered. “He’s coming. Good. I’d like a word with your boyfriend too. We have much to discuss. But while we wait for his heroic arrival, tell me, where is my watch?”
I’d left it in Fin’s room, intending to find a safe for it. For some reason, it reacted to me. I knew if I called it to my hand, it would appear. The same way I’d made it disappear in the jewellery store. For now, I would leave it where it was. I doubted Esteban intended to search every room in the palace to find it. Not when he had plenty of people to threaten into helping him.
“I’m sure it’s around here somewhere,” I said, watching the door, feeling Fin coming closer and closer to me.
Esteban shifted the knife against my throat, not cutting, but dragging the point along my skin. “Not up to your usual standards of wit, my dear. Am I not interesting enough to rile your keen mind?”
Fin and the Captain raced through the door at the same time. They skidded to a halt and stared slack-jawed at the pair of us. If it weren’t for the knife, our position could definitely be described as intimate.
“Let her go,” Fin said.
Esteban and Fin locked eyes over my shoulder, and Esteban vibrated with tension behind me. “You stole something from me.”
Fin dragged his gaze to mine for a heartbeat and then back to Esteban. “No, you forfeited that the moment you allowed your power to be corrupted. I saved it the only way I could think of.”
I tried to follow the conversation, since obviously, they weren’t talking about the pocket watch. The Captain edged around Fin to stand on a diagonal with Esteban. For the first time since he’d grabbed me, something like fear took hold, turning my stomach in knots.
Unable to take it anymore, I interrupted. “What’s going on?”
Esteban answered first. “Tell her, Fin.”
Fin met my eyes now, his gaze softening as we stared at each other. “The knife he’s holding is a mage blade. A famous one. It can deliver an unhealable wound.”
I seized in Esteban’s arms and he clutched me tighter against his solid chest. “Ah, ah, ah. I wouldn’t make too many movements. Not while my control is a little shaky.”
Fin took a step forward. “What do you want? Take it and go.”
Ugh. Not the thing to say, as I knew exactly what Esteban wanted right now: me.
Esteban nuzzled the side of my face with his own. His breath smelled of mint and tobacco. I would have felt better if he wasn’t so pretty, so appealing to the senses. Not that he drew me in, but he would be many a female’s downfall because of his rakish good looks.
Fin realized his mistake as he watched us. A slow roll of horror rolled through the bond between us. “You can have anything else. Take it and go. Leave Zoey out of this.”
“But she’s been in this since the very beginning,” Esteban yelled, and my ear rang.
It was becoming clear to me Esteban had gone off the deep end. Worse had to be the fact that I couldn’t figure out why.
“I’ll give you the watch if you just leave us alone,” I said, my voice coming out breathy and more scared than I wished it did.
He nuzzled me again, trailing his lips down my cheek. “Oh, love, this was never really about the watch. It doesn’t matter, because when I walk out of here, I’ll be taking you both with me.”
I locked eyes with Fin, but he appeared frozen, staring at us. I shifted my focus to the Captain who had zero qualms about staring between us all in disgust and horror.
I didn’t think I could wiggle out of his grasp before he slit my throat with his knife. However, I’d learned my lesson, and I refused to be the reason either of my two friends died.
I needed another tactic. I shifted in Esteban’s grip, but toward him, arching my back into him. He groaned in my ear and I had to keep the bile from rising in my throat.
I kept my voice soft and neutral. “Esteban, there is no way I’m walking out of here with you. I won’t go voluntarily, and these men won’t allow you to take me. So, let’s try to reach a compromise so no one has to die today.”
He tipped the knife down to trail between my breasts, right over my heart. Any tiny shift in movement and he could plunge the blade into my chest and end me in a second. I shivered in fear and I hated him for it even more.
“Oh, I think they will make a deal, if it means keeping you alive,” he told me, his gaze eating up my expressions and every twitch of emotion I displayed to him.
“Is there anything else you want? I’m sure this place is full of treasures a man like you could appreciate.”
He scoffed, and I realized I’d said the wrong thing.
“You know nothing about this house, or this family,” he said. “Who are you to offer up such wealth to save your own skin?”
He vibrated with anger, the edge of his knife forgotten as he snarled in my face. I tried to pull away just enough so he wouldn’t nick me with the blade, but he’d lost all reason.
As I inched my hand down to my thigh sheath, the Captain rushed Esteban from his other side. Esteban slashed the knife out and slit The Captain’s throat in one long thin stroke.
Fin’s sorrow hit me first like a solid blow to the sternum.
I gasped and scrambled out of Esteban’s arms to rush to the Captain’s side. Using my magic, any and all sources I could find, I tried to throw it into him, heal him.
Nothing happened.
The wound stayed an open gash as he stared up at me. All I could do was hold his hand despite the shouting from behind me. He met my eyes and tugged me toward his face.
I leaned in and he whispered, “It’s the bond. You deserve the truth.”
Blood burbled out of his mouth and down the sides of his face. I stared in horror as the life left his eyes. A wave of anger swamped me. It wasn’t Fin’s but my own. It brought my magic to the surface in a smooth wave of power, bringing both my fae magic and my mage magic online together.
I couldn’t think about losing the Captain right now, nor about how our friendship was snatched from me before we’d even had time to grow into it. Right now, my fingers itched to feel Esteban’s blood coating them. My knives sang through me, urging me on.
I dragged the blades from my thighs and spun to face Esteban. He and Fin grappled on the bed, and I froze in horror as Esteban arched the knife overhead to plunge it into Fin’s back.