Chaos (Kardia Chronicles) (Entangled Teen) (37 page)

Marigold nodded, and Rafe groaned softly from his forced slumber before going quiet again. She glared at him in disgust. “We should have him dispatched immediately.”

Bryony talked right over her like she wasn’t even there. “Once we’ve unraveled this mess, we will see to him and decide what is to be done from here. There are other things to consider.” She waved a hand and one strapping guard decked out in chainmail stepped forward, tossed Rafe’s limp body over his shoulder, and carted him out in silence.

“As for you, young Maggie, there is still the matter of your lack of restraint that caused us to investigate you in the first place. I don’t believe the revelation of Rafe’s misdeeds changes the fact that you are entirely too powerful and entirely too ill-equipped to handle it for us to let you walk away.” Her gaze was gentle and her tone almost apologetic. “It is my belief that if we leave you with your powers intact, you would do serious damage and call unwanted attention to our race. You’re one bad day away from—”

I cut in, my annoyance and the basic awfulness of the day getting the best of me. “Killing somebody. Yeah yeah, I know. Is that in the job training manual here or something?”

Bryony’s brows collapsed into a thunderous frown and Mac cleared his throat, pinching my finger none-too-gently ala s
hut the fuck up
.

Roger that
.

“Esteemed Council, I would ask that Maggie be released into my care.” He released my hand and smiled at me reassuringly before pushing himself to his feet with a groan. “As I stated in my latest report, her mother and grandmother have been bound for almost a decade and not only was she not given any training, up until last spring, she didn’t even know she was a semi. Since I’ve been training her, she’s improved greatly and shows no mal-intent. I believe in her.”

It would have been a hella-inappropriate time to smile, but his words sent a flush of joy through my weary, battered body, and I rose to stand next to him.

“And I have every confidence that she can be a valuable asset to the semi race. You’ve seen what she can do. Reading memories is a rare and powerful gift in someone who would be willing to use it for good. Surely, that’s a commodity the Council can use in some positive way, maybe even to assist in future hearings?” Bryony’s magic must have been pretty gangster because Mac was getting better by the second and had turned on the charm like a salesman selling his wares, hardcore. “Give me until her seventeenth birthday to prep her for testing. I’ll submit regular reports in the interim and will keep a close eye on her.”

Bryony seemed to consider that, her gaze drilling into me. Then, she leaned toward Floryn and they pressed their heads together to converse in a hushed tone while Marigold sat on, looking left out and pissy.

The sisters broke apart, and the eldest met Mac’s gaze. “And if someone else gets hurt during this experiment of yours?”

“I take full responsibility and agree to have any sentence imposed on her imposed on me as well.” Mac’s tone was cemetery grave, and I wanted to kick him. What if I couldn’t do it? What if I hurt someone by mistake and he had to take the fall with me?

“Maggie, what say you?” Bryony’s sharp eyes held mine, and I resisted the urge to look away. She was a tough nut.

What say I? I
say
I wanted to get the hell out of that crazy place ASAP. But even with Mac squeezing my hand in warning…

“I don’t want Mac to be punished for something I might do. I have faith in myself. I know I’m a good person. Or at least, I want to be. But if I’m not strong enough to control this, he shouldn’t be held accountable.”

Bryony nodded slowly and sent a questioning glance to Floryn who nodded as well. Marigold opened her mouth to speak but seemed to think better of it. Probably still pissy that the boss had shut her down earlier in front of company.

“It’s exactly that answer, child, that makes me want to give you the benefit of the doubt and gives me the confidence you have some goodness in you as well.”

Mac slumped beside me, his relief palpable.

“It does not release you of your promise, young Cormac, unfair though it may be. We take protecting the human race, and therefore our own very existence, very seriously. If we call attention to ourselves we’ll be hunted like dogs. There are too many of them for us to win a war against, and you know how cruel they can be.”

Most of the semi’s I’d met hadn’t exactly been a treat either so far either, and the human side of me wanted to argue, but she continued on.

“That said, you may take her now and go. While you’re training, be careful, Maggie, or there will be no more mercy shown to you or your new champion, girl. You might be powerful, but you’re a spring chicken, and I could squash you with my boot if I so chose.”

I nodded, nervous about Mac’s agreement with the Council, but grateful to be alive. He took my hand and pulled me toward the exit. I broke away and ran to the corner, nearly bursting into tears again when I saw my ring…Mac’s ring, glinting in the sunlight. Only now, instead of silver, it had turned to a brilliant gold. I sent a puzzled glance in Mac’s direction, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. I shrugged and picked it up, then slid it onto my index finger, sighing in relief at the warm hum that seeped into my body. It might look different, but it felt the same and that was all that mattered to me.

“Cormac,” Bryony called to him as I straightened. “Once you are back to yourself again, contact me directly. There is private matter I wish to speak to you about.”

Mac nodded. “Yes, of course.”

I returned to his side and he took my hand again, leading me out, through the tunnels away from the Sacred Grove. As we walked, every step sending another jolt of welcomed pain through me, I tried to process everything that had just happened. We were alive. Were we really going to get out of this whole, in one piece?

Maybe Mac had soaked up my ability to read thoughts because he murmured, “It’s going to be okay now, Mags.”

Part of me believed him. But the other part knew it would never be totally okay. Because even though his hand was in mine, I could already feel him pulling away from me. And because, as I replayed everything that had happened in my mind, I’d remembered something else about the Gilded that I’d read in Gram’s book.

They descended from Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire and forge, of precious metals and stone. Hephaestus was also husband to Aphrodite. Zeus had forced the marriage upon her and she resented it bitterly. Her doting husband didn’t give up on her, and tried to make her love him back, crafting the finest jewelry in hopes of winning her favor. Instead, she treated him terribly, taking one lover after another and making no effort to hide it. Too lovesick to leave her, but unwilling to watch his descendants bear the pain he’d been subjected to, the god forbade—for all of eternity—any from his bloodline from mating with a
kardia
Aphrodite.

And that meant?

Mac and I could never, ever be together.

Epilogue

Mac and I didn’t talk for most of the ride back home, and that was okay.

I had a million questions, but no room in my brain for the answers, and my emotions were all over the place. I was just grateful to be alive and have him with me, and he seemed lost in thought. Maybe he was trying to figure out how we were going to fix all the things that were still broken.

Like me, for example.

My powers needed some serious reining in, and I didn’t have a whole lot of time to do it.

The silence stretched on, but once some of my strength returned, I couldn’t stand the distance between us anymore. I reached out to take his hand but pulled back at the last minute and settled for resting my hand on the console next to his. He’d saved my sanity. He’d saved my powers. And most importantly, he’d saved my ass.

“What was that? The thing that Rafe hit us with?”

He shook his head grimly. “Dunno. Never felt anything like it.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. Mac was my go to for all things semi. If he didn’t know, I sure as hell didn’t.

“What is he?” I asked, remembering his stone fist coming at my face very clearly.

“That’s the odd part,” Mac sounded bothered, and that bothered me. “He’s
kardia
Hephaestus, like me, but another class.”

“So not Gilded?”

Mac shook his head. “Golem, I think. He can turn to stone. Hephaestus is the God of blacksmiths and metals but also of artisans, sculptors, fire, and volcano. There are a several different ways his power can manifest in semis. That said, I’ve never seen a Golem do that.”

I digested that information, shivering as I recalled how it had felt. I’d never experienced such bone deep terror and whatever that power was, it was pure evil. “It’s a good thing Bryony was there.”

“It was. But it’s more than just the odd powers. Golems. They’re…” he shook his head, like he was struggling to find the right words. “Grunts. Lackeys. Semis like Rafe don’t think for themselves. Which means we’ve got to find out who is at the bottom of this. Jesus, it was a close thing.”

He didn’t need to say anything else. I knew exactly how close it had been for both of us. And the thought that this wasn’t over? That, once we re-grouped, we might realize that this was just the beginning? It scared the shit out of me. But right then, all I felt was grateful. Grateful to be alive. To be with Mac. . “Thank you,” I murmured, racking up the nerve to grab his hand and squeeze, hoping my tone conveyed even a tenth of how indebted I was to him.

He shrugged stiffly. “No problem.”

It stung, but not as much as it might have before. Because he couldn’t lie to me now. It
had
been a problem. A huge problem. He’d ignored a thousand year legacy of horror to cut into his flesh and give me a piece of himself. A piece that had led him to me in time to save my life. Again. He might try to call that nothing, but to me, it was everything. After all he’d done for me, I wouldn’t ask. At least not now. I’d give him some time to get used to the fact that I knew. About him, about his family and his pain, and about his feelings for me…

Well, maybe not that last part.

“Soooo, you like me, huh? Like, you realllly like me…” I said in a sing-song voice. “The emo, know-it-boyfriendless teen—”

His jaw clenched, and he pulled his hand away to turn on the radio. Loud. Raucous country music blasted over the speakers for a few seconds, but I wasn’t about to let him off that easy.

I twiddled the volume button down to the lowest setting and leaned closer to him until my chest was pressed against his shoulder. “I know about the rule. The one saying we can’t be together.”

He stiffened and nodded curtly. “I’m glad. I didn’t want to have to tell you, but it’s best if you know.”

“Funny.” I ran a hand down his muscled chest. “You don’t look glad.”

His jaw clenched and his battered knuckles bleached white on the steering wheel. “Look, Maggie, there’s a reason the law is in place. A reason a lot bigger than the two of us. There’s a right way to handle things and a wrong way. Protectors are critical, both to our race and to the safety of humans. The Gilded are the only ones who can do the job. We can’t afford to get our heads turned around and all distracted by your kind. It’s too easy to get lost in you. Let’s not make this—”

I leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth, and he groaned, his throat working up and down before he continued. “Harder than it needs to be.”

Denying us should be hard. We’d both almost died today, and I for one wasn’t about to spend another second fighting how I felt because who knew how many more seconds any of us had? Funny. I’d just started getting used to the idea of being a semi and I never felt more aware of my humanity than I did in that moment.

“Sorry, but I’ve never been the kind of chick to take the easy way out. You should know that by now.” This time, I went in for the kill, dipping my head into the crook of his neck and pressing my lips to the cord of muscle there, sending a little pulse of needy energy outward.

He muttered a curse and jerked the wheel to the right. A second later we rolled to a stop and he threw the car into park. “If you know how this has to end, then why are you pushing the issue?” His eyes blazed like pools of mercury as he glared at me, but there was an edge to his voice that said more than his words ever could. He was on the brink of cracking. “What I want, what you want, it’s meaningless. Rules are—”

“Made to be broken,” I finished for him, liking my version of the sentence a lot better than I was going to like his. “Haven’t we proven that? I wasn’t supposed to fight you, you weren’t supposed to train me, I wasn’t supposed to survive my meeting with the Council, and you weren’t supposed to show up and put your life on the line to save me.” I closed my fingers around his biceps and squeezed, willing him to listen…to hear what I was saying. “I’m not saying I want to be your baby mama and have your god smite us, or for us to exchange vials of blood and make forever promises or anything. I’m just saying right here…right now, I want to be with you. Everything else we’ve done up to this point has been against the rules, and it’s worked for us. I don’t know about you, but I have no plans to break a winning streak. Just give it a chance.”

Seconds dragged by, the silence only broken by the sound of our breathing. I’d just resigned myself to losing the battle—but not the war—when he spoke.

“You can’t steal anymore.”

My heart sped up, and I nodded. “Okay.”

“And you can’t use other guys to try to make me jealous. I don’t fucking like it.”

I bit back a smile and nodded again. “Sure. Agreed.”

He reached out and tugged the deep V-neckline of my ragged, bloody shirt. “And you seriously need to go back to your old clothes.”

I slapped his hand away and laughed, the weight pressing on my chest lightening. “Now you’re pushing it, buddy.”

“Guy’s gotta try.” He shrugged and leaned toward me, sliding his fingers into my hair. My temple ached with the pressure but I didn’t give a rat’s ass. Mac was touching me and I was in heaven. The teasing grin slid from his lips and the look on his face was so intense it stole my breath.