Page 14 of Magic Betrayed (The Shifter of Sheridan Avenue #2)

FOURTEEN

How did one go about finding a single specific house within a six-hour radius?

Six hours encompassed a half-dozen major cities, plus a significant stretch of largely empty territory, particularly to the west. Directly to the north was mostly rural, which would be even more difficult to search. So we needed to narrow it down, but our only clues were locked in the mind of a capricious six-year-old.

Kira produced a pencil and paper and suggested Ari draw what she remembered, but my sprite was not an artist. Her house was a black square, with four widows and a roof, and the surrounding area was “scary trees.” She’d spent so much of her life below ground that trees were still an oddity that sometimes frightened her in the dark.

In desperation, I borrowed a tablet from Seamus, started searching house styles, and showed them to Ari.

“Like this?”

She didn’t react to craftsman, mobile, ranch, farmhouses, or cottages. I tried chateaus and Neo-classical and didn’t get so much as a pause until I pulled up a picture of a stately Victorian bed-and-breakfast with a turret on one corner.

“Like that.” She pointed at the turret with wide, excited eyes. “It had one just like this.”

A jolt of energy shot through me. It was our first real break. Turrets weren’t particularly common around here, so that should narrow our search considerably.

“Could you see any other houses when you looked out the window?”

She shook her head. “Just trees. Cars.”

So it wasn’t in a neighborhood. Somewhere set back from the main road.

“Could you see a road?”

“Like this.” She drew two parallel lines on her paper. A dirt road? “And the road was orange .”

And the road was orange…

“Does that mean they’re still in Oklahoma?” I murmured, and surprisingly, it was Seamus who answered.

“Chances are good that they are. There’s some red dirt to the south, and a bit in Missouri, but nothing like here.”

A sudden thought struck me.

“Ari. How many jumps, love? How many jumps did you make when you were in that house?”

She beamed at me. “Just one!” She paused. “Maybe two. I was good!”

It was like asking how many cookies she’d eaten. Not eating them all was the only victory to be hoped for.

“And how many did it take to get home?”

Her finger tapped her lips adorably as she considered. “One to go outside. One to go home.”

Cue the silent, internal fist pump. Not only were they in Oklahoma, they were probably somewhere within an hour or less. We weren’t sure of Ari’s actual range, but even the most powerful sprites couldn’t teleport over a hundred miles in one jump, and Ari had no training.

We were down to homes with a turret somewhere within a hundred miles.

“Too bad those turrets have made their way back into modern home styles,” Seamus grumbled. “Otherwise, this would be easy.”

Almost too easy.

According to Shane, Ari had known the people who kidnapped them. Which meant they knew her, too. They would have known she could teleport. But they hadn’t bothered to sedate her like they had Logan.

So why? Why had they allowed her to escape with this much vital information? Information that could lead us right to their door?

Unless they wanted us to find them.

No… not us . Me.

I had to consider the possibility that Kes hadn’t fooled anyone with that text. They’d allowed Ari to escape because they knew about me, and they hoped to lure me in. Believing I would be acting alone and easy prey.

“They might know we’re coming,” I said heavily, and Kira hummed in agreement.

“I think they’re counting on it,” she returned briskly. “Which is why you should go nowhere near them.”

There was approximately zero chance they could keep me away, but I didn’t bother to argue with her.

“If it’s true, it probably means they’re somewhere isolated. Not in town. Somewhere they can set up a trap without alerting any of the neighbors and without using any magic.”

But that got me thinking again. If they knew who I was and knew they needed me, why hadn’t the kidnappers taken me when they had the chance? I’d been essentially helpless after they hit me over the head, but they’d seemed terrified and simply run away.

So why were they so confident that they could take me now?

“Ari?”

She was still drawing—her mouth twisted a little and her tongue sticking out with the intensity of her effort—but she tilted her head and looked at me quizzically.

“Was there anyone there with magic?”

She nodded solemnly and seemed to shrink back into her seat.

I went cold all over at the change in her expression.

“Who was it, Bug?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was he a prisoner, like you?”

She shrugged. “He sleeps a lot. Screams sometimes. And I heard him crying. So I told him it would be okay. That you would come and save us. He said…” She paused. Thinking. “He said I had to go away. He didn’t want to hurt me.”

That didn’t sound like another prisoner. Or did it? Nothing about this was adding up quite right, but I had to remember that all of it was being filtered through Ari’s six-year-old eyes. In many ways, she was far too old for her age, and in others, a total innocent. She’d seen almost nothing of the world, had few memories outside the fae prison, and had never made a friend. Her first toys were the Lego bricks we’d bought her at a thrift store…

Oh. Oh, heck yes.

“Kira,” I breathed. “Have someone go to our apartment and bring back the tub of Lego bricks.”

My sprite might not be able to draw what we needed, but she was startlingly good at building things.

“We’re about to help Ari build us a house.”

* * *

As predicted, Ari took to the project with squeals of delight, and was soon stretched out on the floor of The Portal with piles of bricks spread around her in every direction. In short order, she had Shane, Rath, Callum, and Seamus down there with her, taking her orders and sorting through the piles for whatever she asked for.

The foundation had just been laid when Faris walked in through the door from the kitchen and took one look around the room.

“What in the…”

Kira’s hand clapped over his mouth before he finished that sentence.

“I’m sure what you meant to say is, ‘Hi, Ari, welcome back.’” Her glare practically dared him to disobey.

It took him another moment to realize who was at the center of the chaos, and when he did, my boss had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed. And also deeply relieved.

“How did you find her?” he asked me quietly.

“She teleported out,” I told him, and saw his skepticism quickly rival my own. “How is everything with the city government?”

He muttered something about bureaucracy and vengeance. “We managed to reach an agreement with the health department. They’ll allow us to reopen in one week, provided we pass their ‘safety inspection’ and I agree to pay an utterly unreasonable fine.” He shrugged, but I could tell he was relieved it hadn’t been worse.

Kira caught him up on everything we’d discovered so far, while I moved across the room to join the brick builders, taking a seat on the floor next to Callum. I had no gift for building myself, but I loved to watch Ari, so I sat cross-legged, elbows on my knees and chin in my hands as she directed her crew with a natural confidence I couldn’t help but envy.

As I sat there, still worried, but also oddly hopeful, I felt my eyes begin to droop. Apparently, I had yet to recover from the swift healing I’d done the day before.

“There’s that couch in Faris’s office,” Callum reminded me. “If you need to sleep.”

I shook my head. Now that we’d found Ari, I didn’t want to leave her. I knew she was safe, but some irrational voice in my head insisted that I couldn’t take my eyes off her or she might disappear again.

Though with Ari, that voice was probably less irrational than usual.

“I can’t. I know you’ll protect her, but…” I didn’t think I could explain it.

Somehow, he seemed to understand anyway.

“When we found Kira after all those years, we didn’t want to let her out of our sight, either.” He grinned at the memory. “A little harder with a nineteen-year-old who was raised to hate us and too stubborn to be bossed around.”

“At least she couldn’t teleport,” I muttered, blinking slowly and wondering why my head was so heavy.

Before I could say anything else, Callum shifted towards me, scooting across the floor until his shoulder was touching mine.

Sleepy as I was, the motion quickened my heart and yanked my eyes to his face. What was he doing?

“Pillow,” he explained, and nudged me with his elbow. “It’s okay if you want to fall asleep right here. I’ll catch you.”

I’ll catch you.

The king of the shapeshifters had just casually invited me to fall asleep on his shoulder.

I heard the pause in conversation, and could tell everyone around us was watching and listening with a fascinated sort of shock. Kira was probably cackling under her breath, and Faris… Well, who even knew what my boss might think.

I was too sleepy to care. Too tired to think very hard about whether everyone would make fun of me when I woke up. And the real trouble was, I wanted this. So desperately. Wanted this man I knew I couldn’t keep. Wanted the feelings of closeness and belonging and caring. Someone who saw me, saw my burdens, and came alongside me so we could carry them together.

So, for just that moment, I decided to let go. To stop worrying about who was watching or what anyone would think or what the future might be. I closed my eyes, rested my head on his arm, and let myself drift off to sleep.

* * *

I woke to the sounds of cheering and clapping—muffled, but somewhere nearby. I was lying down on something relatively soft. My eyes flashed open. I was in Faris’s office, on his couch, and when I turned my head, I saw I was not alone.

Callum was sitting on the floor beside the couch, head leaned back, arms crossed, staring contemplatively at the ceiling. His hair was ruffled, his jaw tense, his lips slightly quirked, and I suddenly wished I had the right to reach out and touch him. To run my hands through his hair, feel the roughness of his jaw beneath my palm, and brush my fingers across his lips.

I saw when his breath caught. He turned to look at me—every muscle poised and eyes aflame. Focused solely on me.

Oh no. I’d forgotten. The man could practically hear my thoughts.

“I…” Crap. “Callum, I’m so sorry if you heard that. I didn’t mean…”

“Too late,” he murmured, shifting suddenly closer, making no move to touch me, but leaning in with a hint of a smile on those perfect lips. “It’s far too late for that, Raine.”

“What do you mean?” My voice was a strangled whisper.

“You already told me that you can hear my dragon.”

“So?” I could hear my voice shaking, but I wasn’t scared. I was… I had no idea what to call this feeling. Heart pounding, breath coming too fast, every nerve in my body crackling, every muscle tense and trembling.

“So there’s two things you should know.” Callum sounded entirely matter-of-fact, but my magic insisted he wasn’t nearly as calm as he looked.

“First of all, I talked to Faris and Morghaine.” He hesitated, as if what he was about to say next was something I might not want to hear.

I felt a little too vulnerable laying down, so I sat up, rolled my neck, and tucked my legs under me. “Just say it, Callum. Whatever it is, I promise I won’t freak out.”

His lips quirked wryly. “You may want to rescind that. They said that the fact we can hear each other means that we’re probably…” He glanced up at me, almost hesitantly. “Well, it seems likely that we’ve formed a…”

“Just tell me,” I insisted.

“…a mate bond,” he finished in a bit of a rush.

The world seemed to stop for one eternal moment as I broke my promise and completely freaked out. Eyes wide. Mouth open. Heart hammering in my chest. Terrified, elated, confused, panicky. There was a weird buzzing in my ears and I felt lightheaded.

“Raine.” Callum shifted closer, reached out, and gripped my hand. “Don’t forget to breathe.”

“It’s fine,” I said, uttering the lie in a slightly strangled tone. “I’m fine. Totally fine. A what, now?” Surely I’d heard wrong. He could not have said what I thought he did.

“A mate bond,” he repeated calmly. “Not all shifters experience them, but a small percentage form a telepathic or empathic bond with their partners. All gryphons have them, but with dragons, it depends on the individuals.”

“I’m… not a dragon,” I said, not even sure how I managed to find the words, given that his hand was still holding mine .

“Considering the nature of your magic, it makes sense that you wouldn’t conform to any particular expectations.” He didn’t sound disappointed or upset about that. Just calm. So stinking calm, I wanted to smack him.

“So what does it mean?”

I could do calm too. I absolutely could.

“It means,” he said, while carefully avoiding my gaze, “that we may be at a bit of a crossroads. One where we can choose to accept or reject what our magic is offering.”

I immediately decided that I didn’t care for the sound of “reject.” But I needed to understand what he meant before I said anything else utterly embarrassing. “So, whatever this is, it’s just our shifter magic reacting to each other. Has nothing to do with…” I wasn’t sure I could say the word.

“Feelings?”

Yep, that word.

“It has everything to do with feelings.”

Oh.

He wasn’t avoiding my eyes anymore. His face was tilted up towards mine and it felt as if he looked directly into my heart. “And that’s the second thing you need to know. Just in case you’ve somehow missed it? Raine, I do have feelings for you.”

I hoped Faris had a defibrillator somewhere close at hand, because I was about to need it.

The king of the freaking shapeshifters. Had feelings. For me .

“And before you suggest that those feelings might be confused, or something other than what they are, let me be clear.” His amber gaze snared mine, and I couldn’t have looked away if the world was ending around me. “I like you a lot, Raine Kendrick, and if I’m not entirely mistaken, I think maybe you like me too.”

Well, that might be the understatement of the century.

“I know this is a weird time to bring it up, with all that’s going on, and I hate that this might make things more difficult for you. But with the mate bond, I knew I needed to say something. Before it formed too strongly to break. If you don’t want it, all you have to do is say so. It won’t change the promises I’ve made. I’ll continue to help, but I’ll keep my distance as much as I can, and the bond will eventually fade.”

“And if we don’t… keep our distance?” I asked.

“Then, at some point in the near future, the bond will become irrevocable.” He said it so calmly. As if he were entirely nonchalant about the outcome.

I took a long breath and then let it out slowly. “You’re right,” I said. “This is not great timing.”

Because on the one hand, I knew exactly how I felt about him. Callum-ro-Deverin was everything I’d never dared allow myself to hope for. Powerful, but also kind. Dedicated, protective, but also completely supportive. He would never make me feel small to bolster his own ego. Never abandon or betray me. He had the power to destroy cities, but he used it to protect, never to divide. And he could be devastatingly gentle, despite his stubborn nature.

But I also couldn’t forget all of the reasons this would never work. His position in Idrian leadership, the laws against stolen magic, and my essential humanity—none of those things had changed, nor were they likely to anytime soon.

To have him for my own felt like an impossible dream. One that could only come true if I were willing to be deeply selfish.

I was a no one, with nothing to lose by choosing him. But Callum? He stood to lose everything. Everything except his family, who I knew by now would stand by each other unto death and beyond.

“I feel like I may have pushed you too hard,” Callum said carefully, removing his hand from mine and leaning back, as if giving me space. “I’m sorry if I scared you, or if this comes as a complete surprise. And I apologize for adding so much pressure at a moment when you’re already anxious. I would never have mentioned it if it hadn’t seemed urgent.”

“I’m not afraid,” I said quickly, reaching out almost by instinct and catching his sleeve, tugging him towards me as if to call him back. “Callum, it’s not that.”

I didn’t expect him to take my hand again and stare at it for a moment. Didn’t expect him to set his palm against mine, then lace our fingers together, so slowly that I felt it with every wild beat of my heart. It felt so… right, the way they fit. And I knew he would feel my hand trembling, but I didn’t want to let go.

“Was I wrong?” he asked quietly.

I couldn’t lie to him. “No,” I admitted. “You’re not wrong. But Callum, I…”

The door burst open and Kira flew in. “You guys, we did it! Seamus said…”

She paused. Her wide eyes landed on our hands and she froze, mouth hanging open, looking so utterly gobsmacked that I would have laughed had I not been floundering so badly.

“This,” she announced with a crooked grin, “is rotten timing, I’ll have you know. I’ve been shipping the two of you for months, but now this is only the third best thing to have happened today.”

I assumed finding Ari was the first. “What’s the second?”

Her expression shifted to grim satisfaction. “Seamus thinks he knows where they are.”

I shared a quick glance with Callum, and he simply mouthed, “Later.”

We would have to talk later. And I was going to have to make some decisions before that happened.

So it was with reluctance that I pulled my hand from his and rose on unsteady feet to follow Kira from the room. Because as long as we were in that safe, protected space, I could pretend that there wasn’t a world outside, waiting to tear us apart. Waiting to explain why I was the worst possible choice. To remind me of how short I fell of what Callum needed. Of what his people expected of him.

But just before I passed through the door, he caught my hand again and drew me up short.

“Raine, promise me you aren’t going to walk out there and worry about this on top of everything else.”

Hah. That was such a guy thing to say. “That’s a promise I can’t make.”

“I hope you know that no one is going to be angry with you if you reject me,” he said softly.

“I don’t want to reject you,” I blurted out. “But I also can’t jump in blindly without thinking through the consequences. For both of us.”

His gaze turned worried, but he let go with a nod. “Fair enough. But as I said, this changes nothing about my promises to you. I will help you. I hope you’ll allow yourself to lean on me when you need to. With no added pressure, no expectations. Just… don’t give up before we have a chance to talk.”

Drat him for being basically perfect. Double drat him for making me feel like crying—for happiness, for fears, for all the hopes and dreams I was afraid to acknowledge.

“Thank you,” I whispered, then turned away to hurry down the stairs after Kira.

I had enemies to confront. My family to rescue. And then—only then—would I have the space to consider my future.

And in that moment, I truly couldn’t tell which one terrified me the most.