Chapter Three
Audrey tumbled from nightmare to worse nightmare. She dozed fitfully, feverish and expecting to open her eyes and find herself still wrapped in that goddamn straightjacket. What other explanation was there besides some drug-induced slip from reality? There was certainly no way she’d actually been through the past few hours as she remembered them, though her body felt the punishment as if it had all been real.
Absolutely none of that could be real.
She blinked her one good eye open. Lights from the chandelier overhead starred in her bruised vision. Her head was throbbing so hard she wished she could just pop it and release the pressure. Her jaw felt as if it had been dislocated and then put back in place. Her throat had clogged with dried blood. She wheezed, then coughed, and then groaned as the coughing moved her ribs. Yep—broken.
A shadow blurred her view, and she shrank back, almost passing out again.
“Water,” said a low, gravelly voice. Not soothing, but not threatening. She rubbed at the eye that wasn’t swollen shut, blinked a few more times, and saw that the lumpy shadow was holding out an expensive-looking glass.
She accepted and drank a few careful sips before swishing the taste of old blood out of her mouth. The thought of swallowing made her almost gag, so she spit it back into the glass and set it aside to investigate her newest nightmare.
The lumpy shadow was actually a very large, very mean-looking tower of rock-solid muscle. Heavy jaw, tight mouth. A salt and pepper buzz-cut and bushy eyebrows framed a bone-grey stare as lifeless as I-80 over the Bonneville Salt Flats.
Trouble, no question, but Audrey was distracted by the argument brewing at the other end of the room. Though it went against principle, she turned her back on the Unfriendly Giant and keyed in to the discussion taking place before the room’s large windows.
Large enough to jump through, if I had a running start…
“With all due respect, Councilor,” the man facing away from her said, “we both know this is well outside the duties prescribed to my post.” His hands were locked behind him, shoulders relaxed, but Audrey could see the muscles in his back bunch beneath his black robe with each word. Yet somehow, when he spoke, he sounded calm and completely in control. He had a nice voice. An honest voice.
On the other side of a desk with more square footage than Audrey’s last few residences, a petite brunette, also draped in black robes, gazed through the beveled glass, as if she could actually see something through the haze of fog. “Your post is irrelevant. It is high time you start earning your keep and contributing to our cause.”
“Your cause,” he corrected.
The woman’s mouth turned down into a deep frown. She was beautiful, in a fairy-tale queen sort of way. As if she’d heard the thought, her eerie lavender gaze swiveled directly to Audrey. “We can speak of this later, Corvin. Sleeping Beauty awakes.”
Audrey wished as hard as she could to be invisible. She yanked and yanked on the panic cord inside her, but nothing happened. Desperate, she lunged to get up, only to have Gigantor shove her back onto the plush sofa. A thrust of power that would normally send him flying into the bookcases produced…absolutely nothing. She was just waving her hands and squinting like an idiot.
What? No!
“I’m afraid it was necessary after your antics earlier.” The woman stalked toward Audrey like a sable-haired cat, looking almost bored. Though her body was small, there was no question who was in charge here. “Your powers have been bound, Audrey Helen Taylor. An ancient sanction that is quite unbreakable, though not irreversible.”
Audrey dug her nails into the cushion under her legs and spoke through gritted teeth. “Who the hell are you?” How do you know my name? Where are my powers?
The lady blinked those startling purple eyes, and her smile turned feral. Audrey amended her earlier impression to evil fairy-tale queen. “You can keep no secrets here. Not from me.”
Audrey wondered how much time throwing the heavy crystal cup in the woman’s face would buy her. She scanned her periphery for anything else to use as a weapon. The fire poker looked promising.
“Mother, this is ridiculous. Look at her… she’s not fit. Just wipe her memory and let her go.”
“Well—”
Audrey sucked in a hard breath to prop her voice up and pressed her moonstone to the hollow at her throat. “No one’s taking another goddamn thing from me.”
The man frowned at her, tucking a strand of jet-black hair behind his studded ear. “Sounds like we’d be doing you a favor. You could have a fresh start.”
“Who the hell are you to say I need a fresh start? Fuck off. I don’t know you.”
His shoulders seemed to be slowly crawling up his neck as he regarded her, his eyes black chips of ice under the heavy ridge of his brow. When he spoke, it was in the same low, careful tone. “If you would cooperate, we could keep it that way.”
“Fuck you,” she spat.
“Yes, we’ve established the extent of your vocabulary. Do you do any other tricks?”
Audrey tried to stand but the giant guard held her totally immobile with one hand and stood there like he could—and probably would—do it all day. She angled her chin up, fixing her steadiest glare on Mr. Bossy Robes. “Yeah, I do. Call off Mountzilla and give me back my powers and I’ll knock you flat on your ass.”
The man’s eyes glittered for a breath of a moment, like a blade flashing silver under placid, dark water. She blinked, and it was gone. But one corner of his bow-shaped mouth twitched. “You already did that once today.”
Audrey stared at his face as scraps of her last nightmare ground into place like gritty gears. There had been a man in black robes… but the look in his eyes had burned her. This couldn’t be him.
“You can’t tell me you feel no sympathy, Corvin. Roderic told me how you fought the Hohlwen off of her. I may have a rogue immortal on my hands thanks to that little territorial display.” The lady paced back to her window, arms crossed over her chest.
The man, Corvin, pulled his gaze—empty of any spark of heat—away from Audrey’s. She took the opportunity to look at him more closely. He was the one who’d rescued her from the creepy shadow-thing wielding that wicked-ass staff? She quickly scanned the room and found Exhibit A propped beside the door. She frowned and looked back at her wayward hero.
He’d crossed his arms too, revealing leather armor up to his elbows as he faced off with his mother. Who was this guy? And why did Audrey have to get caught in the middle of their family drama?
He sighed, his brow furrowed. “You can’t make me do this.”
Queeny issued a velvety laugh and slid into the armchair behind her desk. “Yes, I most certainly can. I’ve given you other options and you’ve denied me. If you want the Synod to keep your post and fund your sanctuary, you will mentor one initiate per cycle from now on and assist with classes. You can start with her. Audrey, dear…”
Audrey flinched at her name, glaring at the woman, who looked so comfortable in her fancy office with all the chips on her side of the table. She had real balls to call her dear. Made Audrey want to spit on the nice Persian rug.
I need my powers. She started to shiver. She had never felt that place inside of her completely hollow. She’d always had an ace hidden up her sleeve. Now she was not only weak but completely vulnerable. All thanks to these people. She was going to figure this out, and then they were gonna pay for messing with her.
“You’ll be briefed in seminar tomorrow, but for now, let me explain the basic rules.”
Rules. Right. She was very concerned about those. She sighed and settled into the sofa. The guard eased out of her personal bubble. She studied Corvin, wondering whose side he was on, but his pensive gaze quickly flitted away. He couldn’t even look at her? Not that she could blame him. She felt like shit warmed over and probably looked worse. Obviously there’d been some sort of mistake—he hadn’t meant to actually help her. He didn’t want her there at all.
At least we agree on something. She didn’t need his help.
And she’d had enough of other people deciding where and how she could live her life. She was going for that fire poker… in just a minute. She tensed to spring for it, and a sharp pinch zapped up her side and exploded behind her eyes, making the room go dim. She leaned her head back and took shallow breaths until the squeezing pain subsided.
“Audrey, please pay attention. I will only say this once.” Queeny seemed anxious to get rid of her too. She shuffled sheaves of paper and began opening and closing drawers in her puzzle box of a desk, not quite concealing her irritation. “You will remain here for the next three moons. During that time, you will train in the Zyne arts under the supervision of either your seminar instructors or your mentor.”
Corvin was doing a startlingly good impersonation of the grim guard. He stared at the floor between them, and it was clear from his posture that he’d grudgingly given up his side of the argument, which didn’t inspire much confidence in his usefulness. Unless she wanted directions off the nearest cliff.
Queeny finally found what she’d been searching for and fit a dainty cigarette into the corner of her mouth, slamming the last drawer closed. The flick of her lighter sounded loud in the thick silence of the room. She took a deep drag and exhaled slowly. Smoke twisted in a sinuous crown around her head. Her lavender gaze swirled with silvery white. “Any more incidents like the one today, and you will not be granted another pass. Corvin will fill you in on the rest.”
She waved her wrist dismissively. The mountain of muscle beside Audrey rumbled back to life. His hand felt like sun-warmed stone as it circled her arm and hoisted her to her feet. She swayed, pretty sure the pitiful amount of water she’d drunk was going to splash back out of her achingly empty stomach. Once she had the ground steady underneath her, she stared at the mystic queen on her smoky throne and once again hoped all of this was just a manifestation out of her demented mind. Even a drug-induced stint at Parkview would be better than losing all her powers or her memories.
Who do these people think they are?
A million insults and demands sprang to her tongue, but when she opened her mouth, what came out was, “Why?”
Another drag. “I thought we’d established this—he needs to contribute and he’s already claimed responsibility for you.”
Audrey blinked, fighting the fuzz encroaching from all corners of her brain, pain and exhaustion weaving heavy webs over reason and logic. “No. Why me? Why am I here? Why don’t you just let me go?” What else do you know about me?
“Patricia, she can barely stand. Can you not put her mind at ease?” the looming guard rumbled.
Corvin’s mother issued the guard a warning look as she dashed out her cigarette, then smiled at Audrey. “Because you are Zyne by birthright, my dear. If you pass our tests, you can keep your powers and become one of us. If you fail, we will return you to the mundane world, without your powers or any memory of them, and you can scratch out a living however you choose.”
Audrey sneered, and it made drool spill out where her bottom lip was too swollen to close properly. The words almost snarled out of her. “Sounds like I’m fucked either way.”
If it was possible to convey disdain without a single crinkle of skin, Patricia pulled it off. “We shall see.”
The guard yanked her forward. It took all of Audrey’s remaining focus to keep from collapsing or running into something as she was dragged from the room and into a marble-walled corridor so long it gave her vertigo. The floor twisted beneath her feet. She lifted her head to see Corvin standing before her, staff in hand. He was looking over her shoulder.
“Deliver her to the healers. I’ll come to retrieve her later.”
Audrey shivered with the effort to stand on her crunched knee. The shivering just made her breath catch, which made her ribs cry bloody murder. Her eyes watered with unshed tears, but she gritted her teeth and kept quiet. She was in no shape for another fight now. If they had healers, she’d take them. She was stubborn, not stupid.
“She’s your charge,” came the guard’s low reply. “You take her. I have other duties to attend to.”
Corvin’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t say a word as he grabbed Audrey’s other elbow. The guard released her, and more of her weight sank onto her bad leg, which gave out. She swayed toward Corvin, too slow to balance, and started to tip over.
He caught her and lifted her into his arms as his staff clattered to the floor.
Audrey wanted to shove him away, to walk on her own with her head held high, to make it clear she may be a prisoner but she was not helpless. Not pitiful. But then she felt his body pressed to hers. He was not the cold marble of the shadow creature or the super-heated rock of the giant guard. He was warm. Soft in the right places. Human. Breath. Heartbeat.
For the first time in months, for a few infinite seconds, she was okay. Alive. She wrapped her hands around his neck as a rush of exhilaration pulsed through her, chasing back the pain.
Corvin turned to face the guard and spoke in his even, careful way. “If you would be so kind, see that my staff is waiting for me at the kitchen entrance.”
The guard cracked a hint of a smile. “My pleasure. Perhaps the boys will be up for a game of fetch first.”
“A piece of your hide for every nick,” Corvin grumbled, and then he swept Audrey down the endless hall with long, gliding strides. Marble patterns and gas flames streaked her vision, making her dizzy. She closed her eyes and rested her head in the crook of Corvin’s neck. He held her tight in his strong arms, but with…tenderness. Every adjustment he made for her comfort spoke to reassure her—he would not drop her, would not let her go, would not give her up without a fight. She felt safe, and the irony of that did not escape her notice. It had to be that he was the first non-aggressive human body she’d been in contact with in months. The idea that she could be that desperate for such simple kindness was disturbing all on its own.
Still, she tightened her hold. All she could do was hope that when they got wherever they were going, she would have the strength to let go.