Mother May I (Knight Games Book 4) (16 page)

I wasn’t the only one who noticed the conch. Polina placed her hands on her hips and shrugged her shoulders with a huff. “Mother was the one who gave Grateful permission to kill Tabetha. She opened her up to this and now doesn’t want to live with the consequences.”

“You might think you’ll be on her good side if you kill me,” I said. “But don’t be fooled. You’ll be the next on her hit list.”

Kendra removed her hand from the conch. “I’m not going to kill you.”

A collective sigh of relief came from the four of us.

“But I’m not going to help you. Whether or not your intentions are pure, no witch in her right mind would help you.” She stood and smoothed her dress. “It’s too risky.”

I frowned but nodded. “I appreciate your honesty. If you could give us a ride back to our motel, we’ll be on our way.”

“Of course. Simply leave the human as a gift to me, and I’ll have my frogs return you to your room.”

Logan, who’d been passively listening to this point, perked up. “Excuse me? The human is not theirs to give.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Polina beat me to it. “He’s with us,” she said.

Kendra shook her head and pointed at her chest. “I should be compensated for my time. You came into
my
ward. I had to bring you here. The least you can do is leave the human.”

“Does anyone care what the human thinks of this plan?” Logan yelled.

“No!” Polina and Kendra said together.

Logan’s mouth dropped open, positively stunned.

Kendra hooked her arm under his. “Come, my pet. You’re mine now.”

“I said no!” Polina yelled, and the walls shook and cracked with her anger. A trickle of water ran down the interior.

“What are you doing?” Kendra snapped.

“High mercury content in the water,” Polina said through her teeth. “Return the human.”

“I don’t think so. I think I’ll keep him.” Kendra pulled Logan toward her.

“He’s ours.” Polina pulled him back.

“You know, I do remember you, Polina. You pulled this same shit with that boy by the river in 1849.”

“That boy wasn’t interested in you, Kendra. Not to mention he was useless with gold fever. Believe me, he wasn’t a catch. He made a choice and I just followed through. You were better off—”

“Spare me. You knew exactly what you were doing. You cast a love spell on that human boy. He didn’t stand a chance.”

Logan glanced between the two witches. “No need to fight over me. The human can make up his own mind.” He jerked his arm away from Kendra and stepped to Rick’s side, as if to gain masculine solidarity.

Rick cleared his throat and said, “The human has made his choice. We thank you for your time.”

I flashed a smile at my caretaker and followed his lead. We had definitely overstayed our welcome. “Goodbye, Kendra.” I turned to leave the way we came, one eye on Kendra.

“How do you plan to get out without my help?” she said evenly.

“We’ll figure it out.”

Polina walked faster toward the corridor, urging us forward.

Kendra shook her head and reached for the conch. “Oh, I couldn’t be so rude. Let me show you out.”

My eyes widened as she lowered her fingers to the shell.

“Run!” Polina said. Rick grabbed my arm and pulled me forward, pushing Logan and Polina ahead of us into the hallway. We weren’t fast enough. A tsunami roared down the cavern behind Kendra, a mighty rush of water that moved around her as if she were protected inside a bubble of magic, and powered into us. I had just enough time to take a breath of air before ten thousand gallons of ocean sent me shooting through the corridor.

My head slammed against the barnacle-encrusted wall, and I was washed away into total blackness.

Chapter 20

New Growth

S
trong arms lifted me from the blackness, out of the cold, wet, deep, and dark. I sputtered and coughed, as my savior laid me out near the waters edge, tipped me on my side, and patted between my shoulder blades as I cleared my lungs of water. My eyes fluttered open. Still in a fit of coughing, I rolled flat again, sharp stones poking into my back and head.

Rick’s face hovered above me. “Thank the goddess.”

I raised eyebrows. “Believe me, if it were up to the goddess, I’d be dead. Thank you.
You
saved me.”

He pulled me into his lap as if I weighed nothing and cradled me in his arms, stroking my hair and pressing his lips to my cheek. I shivered, my teeth clanking together noisily. “You need my blood.” He raised his wrist to my mouth.

I kissed it gently. “No… no, I’ll be okay. Just give me a minute.” I didn’t want to waste his strength, especially if he needed to shift to protect us. I sat up in his lap and looked around. We were alone on the Oregon beach at night. I was frigid, and the full moon gave off just enough light to see his outline in the dark and fog. “Where are the others?”

“I could only hold you,” Rick said sadly. “It was all I could do.”

I placed a hand on his cheek and pecked him on the lips. “It’s not your fault. Polina can take care of herself.” Privately, I hoped Polina had taken care of Logan as well. I braced myself on Rick’s knee and shoulder and allowed him to help me to my feet “Polina! Logan!” I stage-whispered toward the foggy water.

“Relax, Grateful,” Julius’s voice came from a distance, somewhere within the fog. “I have them both.”

“Where are you?”

“Down the beach. To your left.”

Rick sidled up to me and took my hand. “I see them. Come.”

A few hundred feet down the beach, I kneeled by Logan’s body and assessed his vitals. He was alive and breathing but had a nasty bump on the head. Polina had it worse. Her outer arms and back were shredded.

“Fortunately, vampires don’t need to breathe.” Julius brushed a wet lock of hair back from his pale forehead, his blue eyes giving off their own light. “It took me some time to track you here. I couldn’t have done it without our bond, but when I woke I heard your blood call out to me. And then, when it was clear you were unharmed, I decided you’d be displeased if I didn’t rescue these two.”

“Very displeased,” I said, bristling at his cold demeanor. “You did the right thing.”

He flashed fang. “Good enough for a reward?” He shifted closer to me, his large nocturnal eyes raking my shivering flesh.

“What kind of reward?”

“I am hungry, Grateful.”

Rick growled, a low, menacing rumble from the center of his chest.

“Sorry, Julius. No.”

He hissed. “I should have let them drown.” He thrashed toward Logan’s throat.

I placed a hand on his chest to stop him, and he instantly calmed at my touch. He lowered his nose to my inner arm and inhaled. He was starving. His skin was chalky white, and he couldn’t close his mouth completely over his extended fangs. I had to offer him something.

“I’m, uh, injured, and I need all my blood,” I said. “But this is a forest preserve. Go hunt. Come back when you’ve drained a deer or two.”

He scowled but obeyed me, racing across the beach and into the tree line.

“He’s bound to you?” Rick asked.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“The same as I am bound to you?”

I met his gray eyes. “No. Nothing like that. Our connection is purposeful because we love… loved each other.” I smiled weakly. “Julius was an accident. As soon as magically possible, I plan to sever the bond.”

Rick gave a curt nod. I leaned toward him and kissed him gently on the mouth. A fit of coughing from Polina separated us.

“Polina, are you okay?”

She opened her green eyes and sat up abruptly, holding the bodice of her shredded top to her chest. “Logan!”

“He’s right here,” I said, pointing to his unconscious body beside her.

She raked her gaze over him, then patted her bodice and pockets until she found her wand tucked into the top of one boot. “Will he live?”

“I think so. Just knocked out. Pulse is strong. Respiration’s normal. He might have a concussion.”

“Good,” she murmured. With a flick of her wrist, the decorative buttons on her corset melted and oozed to stitch up the torn cloth. In no time, her outfit was whole again, and her skin had begun to mend itself.

I sat back on my heels. “I thought you weren’t concerned with the fate of a simple human.”

She snorted. “I’m not, but hell if I’m going to let that bitch have him—dead or alive. Besides, we need him to channel the beyond and find the angel who helped Rick.”

“Right.” I had a feeling there was more to Polina’s interest in Logan than thwarting another witch or helping me. She couldn’t keep her eyes off him. But then, I had some experience with Logan’s magnetism. Immune to it now, I had no feelings for him other than friendship, but I could not deny that there was something about him that set witchy senses aflutter. I assumed it was the supernatural recipe that gave him the power of a medium, the power to touch that area of spirituality we couldn’t. Whatever it was, I was willing to bet Polina was more affected than she let on.

A groan parted Logan’s lips, and he raised one hand to rub the bump on his head.

“That’s it. I officially hate witches,” he said as he sat up between us.

I must have made a face because he tacked on, “Except for you two, of course.”

“Of course,” I murmured.

Polina ignored the comment. “We should get out of here.” She eyed the ocean’s lapping waves. “We’re too close to the water.”

I nudged Rick, and he helped me get Logan to his feet. We each supported one of his arms and limped toward the forest.

“Julius,” I called toward the trees. He emerged, mouth covered in blood, holding the broken body of a doe under his arm like a football.

“Ugh,” Logan said with a wince. “That guy has issues.”

“Where’s the car?” I asked.

He pointed to the right. “About a mile west.”

“Meet us when you’re finished. We need to implement plan B.”

Julius nodded and melded back into the shadow of the woods.

“What’s plan B?” Rick asked me.

“I have no idea.”

* * * * *

We didn’t return to the room in Astoria. Instead, once Julius was finished, we called Poe and Hildegard to us, loaded everyone into the hearse, and drove east. Rick made himself comfortable in the passenger’s seat as the miles drifted by.

“Where will we go now?” he asked, playing with the radio.

“I thought we’d head into the Rockies, maybe try for an earth witch there. I need a break from the water for a while.” I smiled at him, but he didn’t find anything funny about my comment.

“Why do you need an earth witch? I thought I held the earth element.”

“You might… or you might not. If Tabetha’s spell rolled back my caretaker spell to the point where your memory ends, then you never received the magic from the angel. We’re not sure exactly how it works, but since you haven’t fully accessed your power, I’m not sure you’ll work in the ceremony.”

He adjusted himself in the seat beside me. “I’ve shifted now, and been strong enough to save you twice.”

“Thank you. Rick, you’re amazing. Considering everything you’ve been through, I can’t believe how gracefully you’re taking all of this.”

“But I don’t remember caretaker magic, and you’re afraid my power won’t work,” he said.

I sighed. “Yes.”

His head rolled against the headrest to look out the window. “Our time would be better spent securing a water witch’s alliance,” Julius said from the backseat. “We could attempt the spell with Rick if we had to and only waste the energy on another witch if it didn’t work.”

Logan was asleep next to Julius, a state that concerned me given his blow to the head. Still, I couldn’t bear to wake him up. He was exhausted.

Polina leaned forward until her face was next to mine. “The vampire is right. We should try Hilo or maybe one of the witches of the Great Lakes.”

My eyelids drooped and a weight formed over my chest, making it hard to breathe. At once, I felt both torn in two and compressed, the problems ahead of me piling into an insurmountable mountain. With a jerk of the wheel and a pump of the brakes, I pulled over to the side of the road and parked the car.

“What are you doing?” Julius asked.

“I’m sore and tired and I need to think,” I said.

“I can drive,” Polina offered.

I opened the door and slammed it behind me. “Give me a minute. I need some air. I just…” I faced Rick, Polina, Julius, and Logan, all of them waiting for direction from me, waiting to risk their lives again for me, and shook my head. “I need to be alone.” I turned away before the first tears fell and rushed toward the trees.

The forest off the side of the road was a refuge, a dark tangle of vegetation that seemed to hum to the wood witch in me. It was a cold night, but I took off my shoes and walked barefoot. Night air circled me, a soft breeze that warmed at my request. I’d seen Tabetha do this, call the spring with every step. It was already spring, and it didn’t take much to warm the grass under my feet and bring the temperature around me to a pleasant seventy degrees.

Into the trees, I escaped. It was less of a stroll as a full-out run. I leaped into the arms of the dense patch of forest and breathed deeply of pine and spruce. I stroked my fingers over needles and bark and nestled into a womb of giant sequoias. Moss grew under my feet, and ferns brushed my calves. When my legs grew tired, I lay down on my back in a soft cradle of moss between two massive roots. The roots belonged to a type of tree I could not name in the dark. My magic had brought me here. It felt safe.

I stared up through the branches at the starry sky and let out a deep contented breath.

“How may I serve you, forest queen?” I jolted at the sound of a woman’s voice and saw a dark, curly head break from the bark above me. A tree sprite, old and gnarled, glowed subtly green in the moonlight.

“Oh! I don’t need anything. I’m sorry to disturb you. Just wanted a place to rest. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. The magic coming off you is fertilizer for an ancient soul like me.”

A rogue worry struck me. “Am I in the territory of another wood witch? I don’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“Heavens no. No humans out here to protect. The closest Hecate is twenty miles east, and she’s not a wood anyway.”