Chapter 22

 

Magnus found Zara in the kitchen a few hours later, half buried in the fridge, eyeing the color-coded containers stacked along the shelves. She didn’t glance up when he stopped on the other side of the island, but he knew she knew he was there. He could see the tension rising along her spine, the white bumps of her knuckles as her fingers tightened around the handle.

“Hungry?”

She shook her head and closed the fridge doors. “The others will be returning soon. I thought they might be.” She turned away from the appliance and faced him. “I don’t recognize any of the items inside.”

Magnus rounded to her side of the table. He opened the fridge doors and peered inside.

Randomly, he pulled out several of the ones with the green lids. He placed them on the counter.

“Always the green lids,” he told her, tapping one with the tip of his finger. “Gorje uses the others for things you don’t want to know about.”

“Green,” she mimicked, watching his finger.

He pried the top off one and nudged it over for her to see the thick layer of fat coating the surface of the stew.

“Stew?”

She shook her head. “We had stew yesterday.”

He didn’t have the heart to tell her they had stew most nights. It was a habit from their lives in Ireland when there wasn’t much else to eat.

He put the lid back on and reached for the next one.

Three more contained stews in various stages of expiration, and were rejected. The fourth one had Magnus scrambling to refasten the lid, but not before the sickly sweet stench of near decay plumed into the space between them.

“Oh my!” Zara gasped, hand flying up to shield her nose.

“Jesus!” Magnus breathed, eyes watering.

The container was set gingerly in the sink. He made a mental note to take care of it later.

The final container opened to a lump of ground beef. A quick, cautious sniff assured him it was still fresh before he presented it to her.

“What is it?” she asked, eyeing the brain looking blob.

“Hamburger. Have you ever cooked before?” he wondered when she continued to stare in utter bafflement.

She shifted slightly. “Not directly.”

Magnus frowned. “You cooked indirectly?”

“I prepared the ingredients,” she explained.

“Well, hamburger is the easiest thing in the world to make. I’ll show you. Grab the eggs from the fridge.”

He left her to follow his instructions while he gathered the other necessary ingredients and set them in a row on the counter. The meat was dumped into a large, metal bowl and topped with spices. He set it aside and reached for the cutting board and a knife. He diced the onions quickly and added them to the meat.

“You might want to roll up your sleeves for this part,” he told her, following his own advice and bunching his sleeves up to his elbows. “Put your hands in and knead everything together.”

“My hands? In there?”

He took her hips and guided her forward to take his place in front of the bowl. He reached around her from behind and pulled her hands into the cold, sticky mess.

Zara squeaked, but didn’t pull back. Her small hands bunched and folded the meat, mirroring the motions of his hands.

“There you go,” he murmured gently into the side of her head.

Their fingers thick with clumps of raw meat and onion bits tangled together, slippery and warm. With her in the confines of his arms, he was surrounded by her scent and the tickle of her hair against his jaw. He turned his face into the heavy curtain draped over her ear and breathed her in.

Zara shivered. Her fingers trembled between his. She paused in her task and turned her head to him slightly, aligning his lips to her temple.

“Be patient with me, sweetheart,” he murmured to her. “I’m trying.”

He felt rather than heard her sigh. “I’m not angry with you, Magnus.” Her chin tipped up over her shoulder to peer up at him. “I’m angry with myself for being so lost. I see other people’s future, but I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Impulse had him lowering his head and brushing a kiss to her upturned lips. She tasted like fresh strawberries. The sweetness exploded across his tongue, making his mouth water for more, but he stopped. That single kiss had stolen his breath away and he couldn’t trust himself not to take her right there on the island.

“I haven’t known what I’m doing since I met you,” he confessed softly. “I keep fucking up.”

The meat made a squishing sound squeezing between the fingers they laced together inside the bowl.

“I can’t do it again.”

Her sudden confession caught him off guard.

“What?”

She faltered, making him think maybe she hadn’t meant to reveal that much.

“My parents. The monster who bought me. The other girls. The gods.” She bit her lip. Her big eyes pleaded for him to understand. “I have been used for my powers my whole life. I can’t be bought or sold again.”

“Hey.” He tightened his arms around her. “You’re not going anywhere, understand? No one’s taking you away.”

“I can’t be used, not by you.” A tear slipped down the corner of her eye. It left a wet track along the side of her nose to pause at her upper lip. “When I think about it, I can scarcely bear it.”

It was the mess clinging to his fingers that kept Magnus from touching her, from wiping away the moisture.

“I don’t want your powers,” he told her evenly, gaze never wavering from hers. “They mean nothing to me.”

“And my body?”

Magnus never hesitated. “I want your body. I’ve wanted it from the moment I first saw you. I won’t deny that. But I would never hurt you to get it.”

It was hard to tell if she believed him. Her expression was so pain ridden, as though her very heart was breaking.

“What do you want?”

“I never wanted you,” he murmured with a quietness that surprised even him. “I never wanted to be weakened the way my brothers were. I didn’t want to be so lost in another person that the very idea of them hurting was unimaginable agony. I still don’t. I’m a warrior. I can’t afford to go into battle worried about you. I can’t afford to knot up inside every time I sense your pain. You are death.”

Another tear followed the first, but all he saw was the hurt and anger bursting to life behind her eyes.

“Then release me!”

His arms tightened when she tugged to be free. He pulled her closer, fusing her to him. He took her salty lips in an unyielding lock, ignored her struggling, and kissed her harder. He didn’t stop until her lips had softened under his, until she began to return his assault with her own. Only then did he draw back and peer into her damp eyes.

“I will never be perfect. I will never deserve you, but I will never lie to you and I will never hurt you.”

The others returned just a little after dusk in a state of disarray. They trudged into the diner, a small flock of wounded, black birds, tattered, tousled, and bloody. The battered sight of them had Reggie and Magnus scrambling from their seats. Both pieces of furniture crashed to the floor and lay forgotten as their occupants tore across the room.

Reggie took Kyaerin’s hand and helped her down the steps to the nearest chair, her face a mask of alarm even though there wasn’t a scratch on her.

“Mom?”

She patted his hand lightly. “I’m all right, darling.”

Magnus believed her before Reggie did. He spun to his father.

“What happened?”

Liam shuffled to the table occupied by his wife and dropped into the chair nearest her.

His jacket was torn. There was blood on his hands and splattered over his face. His hair stood in erratic points, slightly damp from the snow, sweat, and whatever else, but he seemed unharmed.

Gideon had a bloody lip. The cuffs of his white dress shirt were soaked crimson. He was limping slightly and he simply sat, right there on the steps like he had no energy to make it the four steps to a chair. Valkyrie joined him. Her pale hand settled lightly on his arm in comfort. Magnus didn’t miss her busted knuckles. Skin had been torn nearly clean off the bones. Some were still leaking fresh blood down her fingers. She didn’t seem to notice.

Behind them, Imogen and Akilah, and the boy entered, as unharmed as his mother. The boy looked mildly spooked, but he crawled into a seat when his mother pulled one out for him. Imogen, on the other hand, had a green tinge to her complexion that made Magnus snatch up a waste basket and stuff it into her shaky hands.

She said nothing, but clasped the basket to her chest and bowed over it.

“Holy shit!” Reggie’s exclamation of horror had Magnus whirling back towards the doors.

Octavian stepped through, clothes rumpled, hair a matted clump falling over his eyes. A gash ran along his left cheek and lengthwise across his chest, tearing the front of his coat in a perfect slice. It must have been a shallow cut, because there wasn’t much blood … unlike Riley who was drenched.

She reminded Magnus of Carrie after being doused in pig’s blood. It dripped off her in rivulets that stained the floor. Her hair hung matted around her shoulders, the red becoming a mucky brown. With her glowing red eyes and fangs, she could have just come back from massacring an entire village. The fact that she had a little boy clinging to each hand only seemed to add to the disturbing sight.

“Jesus!” Magnus breathed, not sure if panicking was in order, or paper towels.

“It’s not mine,” she muttered, resigned. She took Otis and Alec to a table and set them down. “But this dress is ruined.”

“What happened?” Reggie cried.

“There was an attack during the trial,” Valkyrie mumbled, her words slightly slurred as if she were too tired to properly form them. “They tried to kill Serinda.”

“Who?” Reggie and Magnus blurted in unison.

Imogen took that moment to throw up. The sound of sickness plopping to the bottom of the wastebasket momentarily ceased the conversation.

Akilah clucked her tongue sympathetically and hurried to scoop the girl’s hair off her neck. She held it as Kyaerin stuffed tissues into Imogen’s bunched fists.

The rancid stench of vomit and blood perfumed the air, masking the succulent scent of frying meat still wafting from the kitchen where Zara was frying the last of the patties.

“Let’s get you upstairs,” Akilah soothed gently.

She tucked hands beneath Imogen’s arms and hoisted girl and bucket out of the chair. The boy scrambled after the pair when they shuffled in an unsteady wobble out the door.

No sooner had the kitchen doors clacked shut after them when they flew open and Zara hurried out. Her beaming smile vanished at the sight of them.

Her reaction surprised Magnus. He would have thought she’d know when the others arrived and in what state, yet she seemed genuinely stunned by their ragged appearance.

“Is everyone all right?” she asked.

“No one was hurt, thankfully,” Kyaerin said, rubbing at her brow with the tips of four fingers.

Zara took a step forward, the cautious shuffle of someone confronted by something they didn’t understand, but feared.

“Did something happen?”

Now, Magnus did frown. He started towards her, no longer sure just how concerned he needed to be.

“You okay?”

Zara lifted her eyes to him, the violet pools dark with puzzlement. “I don’t know. I didn’t see an attack.”

Magnus narrowed his eyes warily. “Would you have told us if you had?”

To her credit, she shook her head. “No, but I would have known. Up until this moment, they hadn’t existed in my mind.”

“What does that mean?” Gideon asked, speaking for the first time since their arrival.

“It means, somehow, you were shielded from me.”

“Is that possible?” Valkyrie piped in.

Zara lifted a single shoulder. “Apparently.”

“Could it have been the distance?” Liam asked. “Maybe you can only see the futures of those in your immediate circle.”

Again, Zara shrugged. “I’m not sure. This hasn’t happened before.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Kyaerin interjected. “What’s happened has happened. I think what we all need now is to clean up and have a hot meal. I’ll prepare something once I’m out of this dress.”

“I’ve made supper,” Zara cut in hesitantly. “With Magnus’s help.”

Kyaerin blinked. “You did?”

Zara nodded. “I hope that’s all right.”

His mother was silent for a moment, thirty seconds of awkward tension that smothered the room. Magnus had never seen his mother so still, so blank. Even he couldn’t tell what she was thinking, and understood even less when a flicker of something like anger, or annoyance darted over her face.

“Mom?” Magnus dared a step forward.

The look was immediately gone and Kyaerin smiled. “Of course. That was very kind of you, Zara.”

Zara didn’t smile back. Her smile had vanished. It was replaced by the same blankness his mother had worn, right down to the stiffness in her spine. A muscle flexed in Zara’s cheek, just once, before she averted her gaze.

“We should all clean up,” Liam announced, pushing to his feet. “Whatever Zara has made smells incredible and I am starving.”

He set a palm on his wife’s lower back and propelled her towards the kitchen at a brisk pace. No one moved. Glances were exchanged, awkward tension pulsing in the air.

“What was that about?” Gideon voiced the question to the whole room, but his gaze was on Zara.

Everyone’s eyes were on her, waiting for an answer.

“Zara?” Magnus reached for her arm.

His fingers closed on air. Zara had already turned on her heels and was hurrying towards the kitchen. The doors clacked loudly behind her.

Gideon groaned loudly and scrubbed a hand over his face. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Why won’t this night end?”

Valkyrie squeezed his arm once before pushing up to her feet. She extended the same hand to help him up.

“Come,” she said. “We’ll deal with it later.”

Gideon didn’t argue. He accepted his wife’s long, bloody fingers and let her tug him up. Neither said a word when shuffling out of the room.

Magnus followed them, but stopped in the kitchen while they continued towards the back of the house. The door closed quietly behind them, leaving behind an absence of their footfalls. The hiss of meat frying over oil resumed where they left off, barely audible beneath the slow snick of a blade running over lettuce.

Zara didn’t glance up when Magnus joined her on the opposite end of the island. Wispy fringes obscured downcast eyes, but did nothing to conceal the tight coil in her shoulders, or the piercing grip she had on her bottom lip.

“What is it?”

A long ribbon of hair tumbled over her shoulder when she started to shake her head. It dangled down her front, a sleek strand to her thigh before it was dismissed with the flick of her wrist to join the others down her back.

“Your mother hates me.”

Magnus started. “What? No—”

“I have been in her mind,” Zara muttered with a ting of annoyance. “I know exactly what she thinks of me.” She scooped the lettuce into her cupped hands and dumped the blades into a bowl. “She hates me. She can’t stand the sight of me after what I did.”

“What you did?” Magnus frowned. “What did you do?” But the moment he asked, he already knew. “She’s upset. She’ll be fine in a few days.”

Zara shook her head again. “No, she will never accept me. I betrayed her.” She rubbed the back of her hand over her brow. “I betrayed the mark.”