Jacob's Trial [Forbidden Legacy 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (14 page)

The words collided together in her brain. She couldn’t make sense of it, but the urgency in Helcyon’s tone combined with Jacob’s thrashing body pushed aside the confusion. Jacob was dying.

Shifting, she tugged his head onto her lap. Her heart squeezed, and she bent her face to his, catching his cheeks in her hands and ignoring the slivers of pain digging into her skin. His lips were cold, white ice and fire mingling in his breath as she slanted her mouth across his and sucked.

Jagged splinters cut into her gums, but she pulled until spots danced before her eyes. Lifting her head, she stared at Helcyon. He thrust his fingers into her hair and dragged her mouth to his. The softness of his lips bruised her, his tongue thrusting against her teeth, forcing her mouth wide, and then the hot pain poured into him.

Breaking the kiss, he pushed her back toward Jacob.

“Again.” His voice was hoarse, riddled with need and something darker, indefinable.

Cassie didn’t hesitate, kissing Jacob hard and repeating Helcyon’s motion of pushing her tongue into his mouth to open it wider. The smoke coiled out of him, like a striking cobra, spitting pain at her throat, but she fought the urge to inhale. When oxygen deprivation threatened, she lunged up to meet Helcyon’s brutal kiss and gave him the smoke.

The world tilted around her as she repeated the motion three more times. Each time the pain of kissing Jacob eased and the bruise of Helcyon’s kiss grew less. The wicked, blood-colored tinge staining Jacob’s face receded. Hands shaking, she sucked at his mouth again, exploring, lapping up any remnants of the wicked poison. Through it all, Helcyon remained stoic, drawing the poison from her mouth as though supping at a banquet.

The air around them shimmered with Helcyon’s every exhale. Swaying, determination coursed through her as Jacob’s color returned to normal, the pain stabbing her ebbed, and his lips warmed under hers. But still, she didn’t stop, repeating the process until the spots dancing in her vision blacked out completely.

Awareness raged across his senses, ripping away the Band-Aid of sleep. Jacob blinked his stinging eyes. They were grainy and sore. He lay flat on his back. The muted sandstone texture of the ceiling accompanied by the lazy
swish-swoosh
of the fat, leaf-shaped ceiling fan told him he was in Cassie’s room.

A soft, warm breath whispered against his side, and with agonizing slowness, he tilted his head down. Cassie lay on her side, her round bottom pressed against his thigh while her head tucked against his arm. That explained why he couldn’t feel his fingers.

Beyond her, Helcyon reclined on one arm, cradling one of her hands between his. “Welcome back to us.”

“Thanks.” His hoarse voice barely croaked above a whisper. The echo of the word thudded inside his skull. “I think.”

“Water.” Even though the Elf said the word, Jacob blinked twice before seeing the glass he held out to him.

With caution, he rose on one elbow and took the glass. It was either a testament to how bad he felt or to how far they’d come, but he drank the water without checking it. The cool liquid went down his throat like so many bits of glass.

“Son of a bitch.” Jacob grimaced but forced himself to take another swallow. The shattered glass scraping his throat raw blunted, and by the third swallow, he actually tasted the water.

“Death curses are no laughing matter.” Helcyon regarded him with a solemn gaze. “You should lie back down.”

“Don’t have time to lie down.” The blur of events in Cassie’s office tumbled around in Jacob’s head like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Carefully, sliding his arm from beneath Cassie’s head, he forced himself to sit up. The abrupt action cost him. He leaned painfully against the headboard, sucking deep breaths into his bruised lungs.

“Gently, Wizard. Gently.” Helcyon plucked the glass from his hand and returned it to the nightstand. He picked up a pitcher and refilled it, carefully holding Cassie’s hand the whole time.

“Is she okay?” Jacob frowned. She was very pale and very still. Her breathing, however, remained even.

“She exhausted herself. Keep touching her.” Helcyon offered him the refilled glass, and he took it. At least until he could get a beer.

An ice-cold beer.

With ice in it.

“I caught the curse before she did, right?” He could only hope. That sliver of memory faded at the edges. He saw Michael’s contorted expression, felt the impotent fury in his eyes, and heard the words summoning the death bringer whispering off his lips.

“You took all of it, drawing it into you with a breath when it threatened to roll past.” God, he must be addled from the spell, because Jacob could swear there was a trace of admiration in the Elf’s tone.

Helcyon’s mouth twisted into the barest hint of a wry grin. “You did well, Wizard. Very well. I was able to pull you both out of there while Vanagan pursued his true objective.”

“Gustav.” Breathing grew easier, as if the thousand-pound elephant using his chest for a balance chair eased back.

“Precisely. The inquisitor general made himself a target at her office. A foolish decision, considering that the Brotherhood cannot be the only order among the Wizards moving to consolidate its power base. Drink.” Helcyon nodded his head toward the glass.

“I need to get up.” He had to alert Paul and the others. This was a hell of a lot worse than they’d imagined.

“I called Paul up here after I settled the two of you. He is already alerting your men. He stayed long enough to make sure you still lived and warned me that he’d fly my scrotum on the front gates if you passed.” Another dry smile.

Jacob snorted, but an actual laugh required too much air. He’d have paid money to see that conversation. Instead, he simply said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” If the Elf was surprised by his gratitude, his expression barely shifted. Instead, he continued to rub Cassie’s hand between his slowly.

“Why did you do it?” The hell with gratitude, Jacob needed to know.

“Why did I do what?” Helcyon’s green eyes were unfathomable as they lifted to meet his gaze.

“Why save me? You could have let me die. You could have told her there was nothing you could do. Then she would have been yours, free and clear with no Wizard baggage.” Jacob set the half-full glass down on the nightstand next to his side of her bed. His jaw ached, but his hand only encountered the stubble of a five o’clock shadow as he rubbed it.

“Wizard, I understand your distrust of all Fae. You have been raised in a culture that despises your fathers. You have been given little evidence of another way, a better way, the way it was long ago. So I will forgive you that question and the insult you offer by asking it.”

The gravitas in his words wrapped around Jacob, scratching his pride and revealing a layer of shame. He regretted asking the Elf the question but not the need to know the answer.

“And it is because I do understand that I will answer your question. Lying to Cassandra is not an option. She loves you. She needs you. She needs us both. But beyond that, you acted with honor and without regard for your own physical safety. You stepped into that spell, understanding that your kind can offer death with their last breath, and you saved her. I could do no less for you.” Every syllable rang with the clear bell of truth.

Jacob sighed. “My apologies.”

“Unnecessary. Trust takes time.”

Again, the Elf shamed him. Jacob scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know if we have that kind of time.”

“Need will overcome. We will do what must be done in the coming battle.”

“She wants to have my kid.”

“She isn’t sure what she wants.” The Elf corrected him gently. “She wants to be with you, perhaps to have the opportunity, perhaps not. You are afraid that your child will be human. You are mourning a possibility when you should be grateful for the chance.”

“I can live with it if the kid is yours. He or she would live…a hell of a lot longer.” The conversation verged on the bizarre, but he had a feeling the Elf understood him. Better than anyone else at the moment.

“Or they could grow ill from a sickness, be killed in battle, or die in an accident. Even Fae die, Wizard. A painful reality that we are too intimate with. All of life is a risk. Loving her is a risk. Having children with her is a risk. But with that risk comes the possibility of great reward. I would rather risk a few fleeting moments than lose the joy to the ‘safe’ path.”

“You make it sound easy.”

The Elf shrugged. “It is what it is. I am too old to worry about trivial things like time. Time is only valuable while we have it. Once it is gone, it can only become a cherished memory or a bitter regret.”

Jacob glanced down at the woman he’d barely met, whose time on the earth was a bare fraction compared to his and smaller yet when compared to the Elf’s. She’d come to mean so much, so fast. It was as though he’d waited all his life to fast-forward through an endgame he barely understood.

“Destiny is a creature that governs even the Fae, Wizard. We love her because we have been meant to love her since we were born. She fills a place in us that we have been missing. As she fits to you, so she does to me, and through that we are joined. We can continue to dance in our battle and risk tearing her asunder, or we can embrace the gift she brings us and let it make us stronger.”

She did fit him. She fit him everywhere. His magic. His work. Even his brooding temper. She brought sunshine and softness into a world made hard and static. She shined the light on the black, muddied the waters of the white, and represented the first true neutral he’d ever tasted.

She brought peace.

But war wanted her.

“You should probably call me Jacob.” He brushed a hand over Cassie’s hair and held out the other toward Helcyon. He wasn’t just the Elf anymore. He hadn’t been since the battle at the lakeside, but Jacob fought that almost as hard as he’d struggled against the change Cassie brought out in him.

“It would be my honor, Jacob.”

They clasped hands, the grip firm. Something shifted inside him, the world snapping into brilliant focus. The colors deepened, the texture of Cassie’s breathing sounded almost musical, and the last vestige of pain faded from his chest. He took a long, deep breath.

The first in more years than he could count.

The air tasted cleaner.

“What the hell was that?”

“That was possibility.” Helcyon grinned.

“Okay, if you two are going to start sucking face, just let me know so I can get out of here without needing brain bleach.” Paul leaned against the doorframe, arms folded. Despite his words, Jacob saw an unusual emotion in the man’s normally dead features.

Amusement tinged with just an edge of hope.

Paul lingered only long enough to check on him before retreating to let them rest.

“Shouldn’t she be awake by now?” Jacob’s muscles still protested his being upright, but he’d eaten, caught up the reports from his men, and managed to drink more water. He’d upgraded his own status from death’s door to just puking tired.

He could function at puking tired.

“Maybe.” The crinkle of Helcyon’s brow decried any confidence in that assessment. “I think she drained herself completely. Just keep touching her. She’s absorbing minute amounts of magic, but the connection is still alive.” His green gaze cut upward to meet Jacob’s. “You?”

Frowning, Jacob sorted through himself. A trickle stretched away, dripping down a pathway she had previously proved wide enough to manage the torrent. “I can feel her. You’re right, it’s just a trickle. But she should be getting more.”

Helcyon pressed his lips to Cassie’s forehead, his expression thoughtful. “She’s sleeping. Deeply. The problem with young Wizards is they thrive on success, and success drives them to make foolish mistakes.” Exasperation mingled with affection in his voice. “I do not sense illness or cause for worry, but we’re still learning what she can do.”

“Do you think she’s a Wizard?”

“It is all that we have to go on, for now. In all my years, no Changeling was allowed to breed several generations. In fact, many Changelings weren’t able to breed at all. Marcus’s accusation of the inquisitor general brings out another issue.”

Leaning back against the headboard, Jacob stretched his legs. His muscles seemed too tight, bruised and cramped. “Yeah, I caught that little gem along with his title for you.”

“Vanagan Marcus is the son of my brother.” Well that cleared things up.

“I take it there’s no love lost there.” Jacob was good at reading people. It served him well in his human occupation at the DHS. It served him well in Wizard politics. Helcyon was neither human nor Wizard, but he was getting a feel for his facial cues and tics.

The blank expression curtaining his earlier concern was one such trick. It could mean he knew more than what he was sharing or that he wasn’t comfortable with the knowledge. Considering the topic was Vanagan Marcus, Jacob imagined it was both.

“You have a brother?” Cassie’s quiet voice yawned into their conversation.

Helcyon’s face tipped down to hers, and Jacob held his breath as her lashes fluttered open. Warmth squeezed through his chest at the golden eyes blinking sleepily up at them.