Devil's Frost, Spellspinners Series #3 (The Spellspinners of Melas County) (4 page)

I shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

He stared at me intently, like he’d uncover the truth or die trying. “And you were able to conjure up that spell to clear Orchid.”

“Oh, that was Camellia and Iris,” I said, trying to blow it off.

“No. They didn’t know what to do. I was watching you. You led them to the spell. The spell that saved her.”

I fiddled with a stick in the water, avoiding his eyes.

“So, tell me—how’d you spin all that hard-core magic?”

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. Again. “It was just an instinct.”

“You shouldn’t be able to do that. That kind of magic far surpasses where you are. Or where they
say
you are…”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He leaned closer, his knees almost grazing mine again. Again, I scooted away. I wouldn’t let him glean any of my energy, or indulge in the “close connection” he kept implying we had. “Come on, Lily. I know you’re all dead convinced Logan is the ‘special one.’” Jude made sarcastic air quotes in the fog-damp air. “But really, I’m guessing there’s a lot you don’t know about yourself as well.”

Was this another one of Jude’s manipulations? Someone as dead sexy and charming as Jude was used to getting what he wanted—especially from girls. I wasn’t going to fall for his tricks. Not this time. Though…he was right about something. I felt strong. Energized.
Different.
After everything I went through physically in the Stones, I was able to run here easily enough.

“Is there something you aren’t telling
me,
Jude? It’s not like you to play white knight and rescue a witch, either. So now
you’re
in the hot seat. What was that back there? Why’d you save me?”

Eyebrows pinched, he picked up a stick and spun it between his fingers.

“Did I actually render the great Jude speechless? Is such a thing possible?”

The stick, now sparking with flame, twirled between his fingers on its own. I had gotten a rise out of him! He looked almost genuine. “I couldn’t just let you die, now, could I?”

“Ah. But you would let me fry before admitting the truth to Congression about what you know?”

“Would you’ve rather I let the rock crush you?” The vulnerability from a moment ago vanished and was replaced by a cocky lift of a wicked, angry smile. “Like I’ve said ad nauseam, beauty like yours can’t be emulated so easily.”

“Unless, of course, you use dark magic to create a doppelganger. In that case, it’s all too easy, right?”

I tossed the accusation out there, and he said nothing. Not a thing. Was his silence his confession? Was Jude involved with Orchid’s betrayal? She had to be partnered up with someone on the dark side of magic. Camellia and Iris both said the spell she used was incredibly dark…and powerful. Jude’s glowing stick fell into the creek, fizzled out, and washed downstream. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he watched it go.

“Everything comes with a price.”

“Orchid’s paying a price. But you seem unscathed. How did you manage that?”

His eyes were glass again. I couldn’t see a thing past what he wanted me to. “Why would you think I’m involved at all? And besides, who says I’m unscathed? The Gleaning went terribly awry tonight. Two of my brothers have fallen.” He placed his hand dramatically across his damp T-shirt and rubbed a small circle on his heart. “I’m deeply crushed by it all.”

“Oh, please.” He sure didn’t look like he was upset. In fact, per usual, Jude was the portrait of Abercrombie model–perfect health.

“Some scars are interior, you know.” A shadow crossed over his features and in a blink was gone again, replaced by his bright smile. “Besides, I don’t think it’s right, divulging all my secrets. And before a proper date even. But if you’d ever like a closer look…” He nudged toward me again. I shoved him back and moved farther away while rolling my eyes.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“That’s what they all say…until they can’t find words at all.” He eyed my lips, licking his own bottom one—the pig!

“And you and Orchid found each other exactly how?”

The pelting rain had faded into light mist that smelled like soda and looked like its fizz. He brushed it off his hairless forearms without answering my question, tilted his chin back, and looked up, letting the wetness fall on his chiseled features.

“We should go. I wouldn’t want a team of Congression thugs to find me fraternizing with a witch in the woods, now, would I?”

“So that’s where you met Orchid, in the woods?”

He blinked. Guilty as charged? “Isn’t that where we all meet, love?”

With his face dusted with sprinkles of rain, I flashed to that moment in the dungeon when, pretending to be Logan, he kissed me. When he lured me into the cell with Logan’s voice and then, when I was in his arms, smothered in his embrace, morphed into Jude. Like he could read my mind, his lips rose all the way up, displaying a full, flirty grin.

He was such pond scum! Despite myself, I felt a flush crawl up my back and into my cheeks. Quickly, I tucked my head.
What is wrong with me?
I should be livid. I
was
livid. Logan was in who knows what shape, Orchid too, and it was all Jude’s fault! Yet here I was exchanging words with him in the forest like we were the cohorts.

“Fine. Don’t tell me what you know. I’ve been in the dark long enough; one more day isn’t going to kill me. I mean, it will kill everyone I care about, but I seem to be just fine. For now anyway.” Tears bit behind my eyes as Jude scanned my face: my eyes, my lips, back to my eyes as if he was trying to figure me out, and then finally nodded slowly in agreement.

“Just go,” I said, my voice low and raspy, desperate to get him out of my personal space.

Instead of backing off, instead of listening to my weak command, he came forward, his energy oppressing, seducing.

Go, Lily. Go.

Why wasn’t I running?

Leave now.

What is wrong with you? Go! Don’t you see what he’s doing?
Ignore the cotton shirt sticking to his chest with rain. And sweat. Ignore the fact that he saved your life—twice—and might be about to save it again. Just go.

He reached out and gently touched my shoulder. I flinched, but didn’t back away. Why wasn’t I backing away? It was like everything that repulsed me before was now drawing me to him.

Jude cocked his head as if he was also a bit surprised I wasn’t bolting. When he did, a swatch of blond hair covered one eye, but the blue of it was so blue, the color shone through. He lowered his voice. “Look, Lily. If Chance is dead, you’re going to need to disappear. Truly disappear. Leave Melas County.” The same hand that was touching my shoulder rose and gently tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.

Snapping to reality at his words, I pushed him back, just a few inches.

“What are you talking about
leave?
Leave my family? Leave Logan? I can’t do that. I won’t do that!”

“At least agree to hide for now. You can’t go back home. It’s not safe. I’ll figure out a way to get word to you. Let you know Chance’s condition.” He radiated dark energy; his chest rose and fell, still so close to mine. If he moved one step closer…if I did…but what he said worked some lock open in my chest, and instead I didn’t move at all. “Look, Lily, here’s how I see it. Witches and warlocks are matched against one another. That’s the purpose of the Stones, to balance our energies. If I were you, when they catch up to you—because you know they will—I’d deny the charges about Chance and put that on Orchid, too.”

“What? But Orchid was already off being interrogated by Congression when it happened—and we don’t know Chance’s condition yet—”

“She spun the doppelganger spell somehow, didn’t she? Orchid’s clearly been dabbling with some pretty powerful dark magic. Certainly she could send Chance after you.”

“So blame Orchid for Jacob’s crime? Why would I possibly do that?”

“She betrayed you time and time again, didn’t she? She pretended to be you and was with Logan in the clearing—” He stepped closer to me slowly. “Yes, I know about that, too. Don’t ask me how. She betrayed you. Lied. Then poisoned you with the lipstick and made you sleep while she tried to kill Logan. Don’t you think she should pay for what she’s done to you?”

I swallowed back angry tears. The weight of her betrayal was heavier than that falling stone threatening to crush me into the bloodstained dirt, but I was also clued into Jude and the fact that his motives were never pure. What was it in for him?

“How do you know about the lipstick?”

“Huh?”

“How did you know she gave me poisoned lipstick? We were the only ones in the clearing.”

Jude blinked. For a second, his face was a giant confession before he straightened it out and braced himself for more cover-ups. More lies. Too late. He was caught.

“So you and Orchid
were
partners in crime, huh? For how long?”

He looked away. I beat my words into him.

“You ruined my friendship! All this blood is on your hands even if you aren’t the one who issued the blows.”

“Sometimes certain sacrifices must be made.”

“These certain sacrifices are my boyfriend and my best friend! And if you two were partners, why would you throw her under the rocks like this?”

He shrugged. “The question is why should
you
throw her under the rocks. Because it’s simple. Because it works. Because you need an alibi, and Jacob would never fess up to hexing his own warlock in an effort to steal your amulet.”

“You’re an asshole.” I slugged him hard in the shoulder. He fell back into the dirt and then stood back up, quickly brushing off his pants and approaching me, slowly, like a wildcat. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t confess. He didn’t know when to quit.

I held up my hand. “Stay back, Jude. I can’t deal with you right now. I have to get to my mom.”

“I’m not supposed to be talking to
you
about any of this, you know,” he said, staring at me intently, almost desperately. Again I felt the annoying magnetic pull to move toward him and bolted myself in place. “Divulging all my secrets and the hand I played in it, and I doubt anyone will appreciate me helping you escape the Stones instead of delivering you to Congression. But I’m risking punishment for you.”

“Tell me, then. Tell me what you know, Jude.” I felt my face softening with want. Want of answers. Then I simply said, “Please.”

He blinked, resting his hand on my shoulder. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

When I touched Jude’s hand with a mind to flick it off my shoulder, planning on standing tall, telling him I didn’t need his help—not now, not ever—he surprised the crap out of me by squeezing my fingers, enclosing the space between us, and pressing his chest against mine. His kiss was quick, but passionate, square on my stunned lips.

It happened so fast, I couldn’t—or didn’t—stop it. “If you need more of my help,” he whispered into my ear, “just call upon me…I mean it, Lily. I’m here. And think about what I said about Orchid. It’s a way to get out of all of this.”

“Lily! Lily!” Iris’s voice, moving on the wind, interrupted our startling moment.

Blue eyes widening, Jude backed away from me, palms up and with a comically frightened frown on his face. “I don’t play well with parents…I’m afraid you’re on your own, love.”

“Saved by the bell, then.” I glared at him, catching my breath, mad at him, even madder at myself. I dusted off my shirt, sweeping Jude away along with the creek bank’s dirt.

“Ding-dong.” He raised his eyebrows playfully. “But I will leave you with one final thought as you ascend onto this next adventure.”

“And what’s that?” I spat.

He cocked his head, his eyes blazing into mine. “What a shame it is.”

“What?”

“That in a world where you exist and I exist, there isn’t more overlap.”

I blinked. I expected another obnoxious, crass comment, but instead his words and tone sounded completely genuine. I hated that he was able to chip away at my hatred with his smooth moves and philosophical charms after all the pain he’d caused me.

“Hey, Jude?” I stopped him before he disappeared all the way into the forest.

“Yes?”

“I didn’t clean your water.”

But he just smiled. “I figured as much. I spun my own spell after yours to be sure.”

I rolled my eyes. “Figures.”

He took a step toward me—his energy palpable—his eyes never leaving mine. “But just so you know…I would’ve purified yours.”

“Quickly. Quickly. It’s almost time.”

Mom repeated that sentence over and over—squeezing my hand hard, kissing my cheek repeatedly—as she led me away from the creek through fields of yellow-flowered mustard plants and sweet-smelling eucalyptus trees that for some reason nauseated me. The scratchy brush nipping my ankles kept me going. The newly fallen rain on my back encouraged me on such a gray, desperate day.

Finally, when we were miles away from the ring, at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean, Iris grasped my hand harder than before and looked out at the sea before speaking in an urgent voice.

“What happened after I left you in the Stones?”

“Chance attacked me. Eventually, I had to take him down.”

“Okay.” She nodded, as if something made sense now. Her wrinkles deepened with her frown. “I’m just relieved it wasn’t the other way around.”

“When I left, he wasn’t moving, and later in the forest, I spun a spell to detect a heartbeat…a pulse. I couldn’t detect anything.”

“Was he breathing?”

I shook my head sadly. “The ground quaked and one of the stones came loose and threatened to squash him after he fell. I stopped it with my weight, but when it almost crushed me, Jude—and strangely, Jacob—came to my aid.”

“Jude? Jude from the nightmare Jude and Jacob?”

“Yeah.” My face flushed as I remembered confiding in Mom about the dream I’d had, and I hated myself for it. I flashed on Jude’s kiss in the forest. “I thought Jacob was there to get the amulet, but he didn’t even try. Why would Jacob try to help me escape?”

Mom looked at me funny, as if wanting to tell me something, but then stopped herself from doing so. “How did you injure the young warlock so badly?”