Page 36

Lach

She was nowhere to be found.

Every guard in the city was looking for her. Roark had torn through the three blocks surrounding the bridal shop.

Nothing.

Cate had gone to look at wedding dresses. She had tried to get out of it. And now… I shook the thought loose. It wouldn’t do me any good. I needed to find her.

“I can try to do a locator spell,” Willow offered, still looking queasy.

“How? I took your magic.” My heart pounded like a drum in my chest.

Another mistake. My sins were catching up to me.

But I would know if something was wrong, just like I’d been sure she was still alive after Oberon abducted her.

That begged a new question: Would I feel it if someone took her from me?

“I forget how faithless the fae are. Even without my magic, I still have someone watching out for me.” She flashed the triple moon tattoo on her wrist. “I’m not entirely powerless. Give me the map.”

I didn’t bother to defend myself. Instead, I laid the map back on my desk, smoothing out the crumpled paper. “Do you think it will actually work?”

It had to. I couldn’t live with the other option.

“Let’s hope.”

“That’s encouraging,” I muttered.

She chewed her lip as she dug into her purse and produced a crystal pendulum.

“Do you have anything of hers?” she asked me.

I hesitated before I reached into my breast pocket and pulled out her mother’s signet ring. “How about this?”

She frowned as she recognized the ring that had brought Cate to her shop and so much trouble to our door. “It should.” She snatched it from me, closing her fist around the ring as she began to mutter in an ancient witches’ tongue. She held the pendulum over the map, but it didn’t move.

“Should something be happening?”

Her scowl deepened. “Oh, so you’re one of those rush-the-magic types. I hope for Cate’s sake you’re more patient in bed.”

“Life and death, remember?” I didn’t have time to deal with her attitude. Moving behind the desk, I took out a loaded clip and put it in my pocket. Something told me I was going to need it.

“Do you solve every problem with bullets?” she asked with a sigh. The pendulum remained static over the map.

“Only the ones that need a bullet.” And if someone had taken Cate, that’s what they were going to get.

Willow returned to muttering, her voice growing louder and more insistent, but still the pendulum didn’t swing. Finally, she slumped against the desk. “It’s not working. How much of that shit did you give me?”

“Maybe it’s the spell you put on her?” I suggested. Maybe it was both our faults.

No. Somehow, I knew it was mine.

“No, the occlusion should be helping me,” she said with a shake of her head. “It blocks others from seeing the secret. Not the one who binds the spell. So it was definitely unraveled. If you’re right—if she’s fae…”

Whoever was with her would know, barring a miracle.

“I don’t understand.”

“I think I do,” she said grimly, “and you aren’t going to like it.”

I didn’t like anything about this situation.

“I tried to find the killer before I came to see you,” she admitted, “but I think they’re under protection of their own.”

And the hits just kept coming.

“Like the occlusion spell?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Different and more powerful. It’s like the bona fides spell, in a way. I couldn’t get close enough to see anything, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. If they had Cate…”

Every thought emptied from my head.

I strode toward the door before she had finished her sentence.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“I need to find her. Now.” If there was any chance that the killer had her, if they had discovered what I’d known in my heart even when that stupid ring had come off—that she was fae…

“You can’t just run around New Orleans hoping you run into her.” She planted her hands on her hips. “That’s stupid, and right now, we need to be smart.”

She might be right, but that didn’t change the facts. “Your magic isn’t working. I don’t have another choice.”

“Try tracking her phone?” she suggested.

I stared at her.

“Look, magic doesn’t solve everything.”

“It’s off,” I reminded her. “There has to be a more powerful spell.”

“There is, but it requires tapping into ancient magics and more power than I can muster on my own at the moment—thanks to you. We could go to the shop—”

But her tirade jogged something loose in my frantic brain.

“Wait,” I cut her off. “What kind of ancient magic?”

“Like old …can’t be tampered with…core-of-our-world-type shit. I have a few talismans that might help.” She screwed up her face, reaching for her bag again. “And I can call the coven.”

Something told me she liked that idea even less than I did.

“No.” I held up my hand. “We can’t involve anyone else. We have no idea who is behind this.”

And now more than ever, I was certain there was a snake in my garden. The Cabal wasn’t a group of strangers. They were close. Something told me I’d feel their fangs soon enough.

“Well, without something, I can’t help you.”

But there was one secret she didn’t know. A secret we had trusted only with those closest to us. “You said ancient.” I dropped the glamour I kept on my wrist, revealing the golden ribbons snaking over my flesh. “Would this work?”

Willow didn’t move. “Is this what I think it is?”

“We’re mates.” The magic sealing the mating bond wasn’t just old. It was pure. Magic that couldn’t be tricked or stolen or corrupted. Magic woven out of selfless love. Magic that tethered our very souls as one.

There could be nothing more powerful than that.

She finally blinked, bobbing her head. “Magic will see you as the same person.”

But she continued to stare.

“What?” It had to work.

But Willow screwed up her face. “I’ve been wondering what she sees in you.”

“You aren’t the first.” And she wouldn’t be the last, because we would reach Cate. We would save her, and I would never hide the mating bond again.

“Let’s see. Got a knife?” she asked.

Arming her seemed like a risky move, but what choice did I have? I opened the desk and pulled out a letter opener.

She swiped it from me. “That will do.”

“Why do you need—?”

She grabbed my hand and sliced open my fingertip, grinning broadly when I winced. “For this.” A bead of blood spilled onto the map and trembled.

“Come on,” she urged. “They’re mates.”

As she spoke, the drop split in two, each half gliding slowly across the paper in opposite directions. The first reached the Avalon and stopped.

“That’s you,” she whispered.

“I figured.” I couldn’t tear my eyes from the second drop.

It continued south toward the river, slowing as it reached the streets of the Quartier Enchanté. Willow shook her head. “It can’t be,” she breathed as it glided to a stop a few streets from the hidden magical district, right in the heart of the French Quarter itself. “That won’t form a pentacle. It’s too close to where étienne was killed.” She looked up at me, relief wiping the worry from her face. “I guess I was wrong.”

But she wasn’t. I stared at the map, at what should have been obvious all along, at the spot where the drop of our shared blood had landed. How could I not have seen it sooner?

“It’s not about the location. You were on to something, though,” I said, recalling what Roark had said the day I returned. The memory was a touch foggy, given the condition I’d been in. “The only way a spell as powerful as a bona fides ward could work is by weaving multiple forms of magic through it.” And those threads formed the heart of the shield that emanated from the covens. The covens who were the magical, beating heart of the city. I lifted horrified eyes to hers. “It’s not a pentacle geographically.”

“A werewolf, a familiar, a human, and a vampire,” Willow said slowly, her relief vanishing. “Who else is keyed to the spell?”

“Fae,” I said quietly. “The strongest magical line in New Orleans.”

“It’s a pentacle of our blood, and Cate…” She clapped a hand over her mouth before she shook herself into composure. “What’s there? Do you recognize that street?”

I did.

And we were—quite simply—fucked.

“I know who has her.”

“Who?” she demanded.

But I was already dialing Roark. He answered on the second ring. “Tell me you have something.”

“She’s at The Fontaine.” I didn’t bother telling him how I knew. “I think Ciara is with her.”

Roark cursed. “Wait for me.”

It was suicide to go in alone. Baptiste was well protected. She’d always been paranoid. Now I knew why. The Hunt might grab me, but that was a risk I no longer cared about. I needed to reach Cate before it was too late. I heard his engine rev through the speaker.

“I’m close. Wait ,” he repeated.

Our only chance was going in together.

“Hurry.” But the line had already gone dead.

“So, uh, what is the plan?” Willow asked as I opened the tracking app on my phone.

I clicked Roark’s name, watching as his avatar appeared on a map of the French Quarter. “Shoot first. Ask questions later.”

“That isn’t a plan.”

People kept telling me that, but you couldn’t plan for life and death. You couldn’t plan how to survive. You just had to do it. “Planning isn’t my strong suit.” I glanced over at Willow. “You should stay here.”

“I could be helpful.”

“Gods willing, only four of us are walking out of that restaurant.” And you didn’t bring magic to a gunfight. “Something tells me a lot of people are about to die, and no offense, I don’t think the Belle Mère would approve.”

She blanched. “What if they surrender?”

“They won’t.” My mouth pressed into a thin line. Baptiste would never bow to me. I should have seen her betrayal coming. Bad blood didn’t wash itself clean with time. It festered.

“If the wards fall, the Wild Hunt will come for you,” she reminded me.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I’m just saying that shooting the place up could mean hitting a fae. So when I ask what your plan is, I suggest you come up with one.”

“They’re going to kill her unless I kill them. So that’s the plan, like it or not.”

“What does Baptiste want?” Willow asked. “Why would she do this? I thought she agreed to the bona fides spell.”

“Revenge?”

Willow snorted. “Because you dated like a million years ago? Don’t think so highly of yourself. She isn’t just dropping the wards; she’s putting every magical creature in the city at risk. Why?”

“Before, when you told me about the icon—”

“Icons,” she corrected me.

I ignored her. “You said that they would come in a time of great chaos.”

She nodded.

“I’ve heard chaos mentioned before.” I just couldn’t remember where.

“I don’t understand,” she admitted.

Neither did I. Not quite. “Only the witches know about the icons?”

“In theory.”

Roark was nearly there. My fingers itched. “What does that mean?”

“How many secrets do you keep from Cate?” Willow asked.

“I try not to anymore.” I shot her a sharp look. “She’d kill me.”

“Exactly. Everyone trusts someone, no matter what they swear to keep secret. You always tell someone.”

She was right. Roark knew everything about my parents, about Cate, about the mating bond.

“You’re saying that it stands to reason that other creatures might know about the icons.” Something about that possibility chilled me to the bone. “Could you make an icon? Combine bloodlines?”

“It would be an abomination,” she whispered.

“Abominations are what happen when men try to play God.” I stared at my phone, watching Roark’s location on the map. I needed him to drive faster, needed to reach her before it was too late. We had been stupid to think we could outsmart fate. All we had done was lead ourselves to the slaughter.

“Congratulations, by the way,” Willow said softly.

I shot her an incredulous look. “On what?”

She gestured to the golden tattoo I no longer hid on my wrist. “Most people would kill to have a mate. It’s written about in the old book. It means you’re touched by destiny, descended from the gods.”

But I didn’t want destiny or divinity. I only wanted Cate, and nothing was going to stop me from getting to her. Roark’s avatar stopped at The Fontaine, and I offered Willow a final smile, knowing it might be my last. “Then let’s hope those gods are listening.”