Page 4 of Magic Betrayed (The Shifter of Sheridan Avenue #2)

FOUR

Ow.

It was my first and only thought upon regaining consciousness—just one all-encompassing sensation of unrelenting yuck.

My head throbbed. Breathing hurt. My back hurt, too. I was warm, at least, and that counted for something. But why did everything hurt so much?

Last night… Kes. The kids. Gone. The attack… My eyes flew open and then slammed shut with a groan. When I flexed my fingers, they curled around something soft. It didn’t feel like my blanket…

This wasn’t my bed.

Which of my fragmented memories were real and which were a pain-fueled dream?

More slowly this time, I peeled my eyes open, squinting against the light filtering through narrowly open shutters. I was in an unfamiliar bedroom, one with dark sage green walls and wood floors. When I turned my head to the side—not without a wince—I could see a bookshelf, a wingback chair, and a rag rug on the floor. Two doors, probably one for a closet.

My final memories from last night began to play, but with gaps and static, like damaged film. I’d been looking for a phone. The Portal was closed. So I’d crossed the street, picked the lock, and broken into Callum’s empty apartment.

Except it wasn’t empty .

Maybe I’d dreamed that part. Maybe I’d dreamed it all. But this room, this bed, suggested otherwise.

Someone had found me. But when and where? Had Kes and the kids been found, too? Were they okay? Or had Shane’s warning come just a few hours too late?

The door to the bedroom flew open without warning. I flinched from the sound, as a brown-bearded mountain paused in the doorway, his green eyes glowing with fury as he scanned my face.

“Faris.” I sat up, too quickly, and gasped as pain stabbed at my ribs and my skull. My hand darted to the side of my head and encountered a thick bandage. When had I been seen by a medic?

“Did you find them?” My voice cracked and trembled. “Are they okay?”

He looked back at me, and I saw the answer in his granite-hard expression.

“We tried tracking the phone, but it seems to be turned off. And we searched the building.” His voice rumbled ominously, but in circumstances like these, it was a comforting sound. “They aren’t hiding there, and even if they were at the start…”

If they were in hiding, they would have come out by now. If they were safe, Kes would have found a way to send me a message. Even if she’d turned off the phone so our enemies couldn’t track her, she would have called someone first.

And she would never have just left without telling me.

“I will find them,” Faris promised in an iron-hard tone—the sound of unstoppable elemental rage. “And if they were taken or hurt, I will find whoever dared kidnap my people and I will end them.”

His gaze sharpened on my face. “After I obliterate whoever did this to you.”

It was possible my attackers were the same ones who had taken Kes and the kids. But then, why had they been lurking in an empty apartment, only to run away at the first sign of my magic?

“I don’t know who attacked me,” I croaked. “They didn’t even use magic.” They’d defeated me with good old-fashioned human means, and I was honestly a little humiliated by how badly I’d been beaten.

“They still hit you pretty hard.” His jaw seemed to clench for a moment before he continued. “At least they didn’t…”

Didn’t what? Kill me? Capture me?

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry and parched as that half a sentence took me back to the attack. It had happened so fast that I couldn’t quite be sure what their goals had been. If they’d been waiting for Kes, they might have realized I wasn’t their target and run away. But surely they would have noticed my identity after that first blow to the head. The boot to my ribs had seemed like a deliberate attempt to inflict damage.

Had they wanted to kill or capture me? Or possibly just to frighten me? I recalled the two dark figures bending closer, but then my magic had flared and they’d run. As if terrified by my power.

That suggested humans. Could it be Blake’s people, after all? Maybe they’d chosen not to use their magic artifacts to throw us off the scent. But then, why hire mercenaries if he still intended to do the work himself?

The trouble was, I couldn’t think of any other reason for humans to be breaking into my apartment. Unless it was a simple case of theft… They’d broken in, seen we had nothing, and been trapped there when I came home unexpectedly.

But that also made no sense. Out of all apartments in that building, why choose to rob one on the fourth floor? Not to mention that we probably had the least worth stealing. Also, the theory of mundane thieves did nothing to explain Kes’s disappearance. It would mean that two separate groups had decided to break into our apartment last night, which stretched the bounds of credulity even farther.

The facts simply didn’t add up, and I couldn’t think my way through the problem while I was still in this bed, in an unfamiliar room. I needed to get out of here. Get back to my place. Look for clues. Look for…

“You’re not going anywhere,” Faris ordered gruffly, eyeing me as if he could see every thought running through my head. “Yes, you have shapeshifter healing. I don’t care. Those bastards gave you a concussion last night, and you’re staying here until the medic clears you for action.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” I muttered, knowing full well both that he actually was , and that I was being absurd. “I need to be there in case they come home. Or call. And if they don’t come home, I need to look for clues. Figure out who took them. You… have a wedding to plan. Family in town. This isn’t your problem, it’s mine.”

One terrifying eyebrow lifted and those green eyes pinned me in place. “Nice try, Raine. But I think you know my answer.”

I did. And I was in equal measures grateful and frustrated. Because even though I knew he was right, I also could not imagine staying in this bed even one second longer.

“I’m heading back over to West Village to scan the area for anything we might have missed. If you remember anything relevant from last night, tell Callum and he’ll pass word on to me.”

I froze with my mouth still hanging open as that one word echoed around my aching head.

Callum.

So I hadn’t dreamed it. He really was here. My former boss was staying in Oklahoma City, and he’d made no attempt to contact me. Which meant he probably never wanted to see me again, and I’d ruined it by showing up on his doorstep and practically throwing myself at him.

My panic must have shown on my face, because Faris looked almost sympathetic.

Almost.

“You did say you’d have to face it eventually,” he reminded me. “You just got your chance sooner than you thought.” And then he disappeared, leaving the door open, and leaving me to an unenviable confrontation with my regrets, my embarrassment, and the dragon who’d caught me breaking and entering last night.

Oh joy.

* * *

Except the dragon didn’t appear. My heart was racing, my stomach insisted it was going to be sick, and I could barely swallow. But after four or five minutes of anxiously waiting and watching the open doorway, I felt like I’d been kicked in the ribs yet again.

Fine. I would go find him. Teeth gritted firmly against the pain, I swung my legs out of bed, set my feet carefully on the floor, and stood up. The world swooped crazily, and I caught myself on the corner of the headboard, clinging to it for a moment until the room stopped spinning.

This stupid head injury wasn’t going to win. Not today.

But as I stood there, I caught sight of my pajama clad legs and suffered a fresh attack of horrified embarrassment.

I hadn’t come in here last night wearing pajamas.

The thought was enough to stiffen my spine (ouch) and send me marching out of the bedroom on only slightly rubbery legs, in search of the insufferable dragon who couldn’t even be bothered to talk to me.

Of course, regret set in the moment I set foot in the living room, but it was too late. The apartment was an open concept, and he was standing in the kitchen.

Callum-ro-Deverin. King of the Shapeshifters. My former boss and probably the last person in the world I wanted to see me looking like a complete and utter disaster.

He was even more gorgeous than I remembered. Six and a half feet of amber-eyed dragon shifter, his broad shoulders and trim waist accentuated by a soft, close-fitting gray sweater. His auburn hair was gently tousled, as if he’d just woken up or towel-dried it after a shower, and everything else about him seemed… tired. He was staring at his phone and sipping coffee out of a stoneware mug—his “King Callum” switch in the off position.

He looked up and saw me, and for the barest instant, I thought I glimpsed a flash of raw vulnerability. Of relief. Even of welcome. But it was gone so fast, I immediately began to second guess what I’d seen.

“Tell me these aren’t your pajamas.” Oh good grief, were those really the first words out of my mouth?

I saw his lips twitch ever so slightly. “Those aren’t my pajamas.”

“Whose are they?” Apparently, I was now committed to the pajama question.

“Well, since you’re wearing them, I guess they’re yours now?”

Not an answer, Your High and Mightiness. “Callum-ro-Deverin, did you or did you not change my clothing last night while I was unconscious?”

He set down the coffee mug. “I did not.” One eyebrow arched in my direction. “I know you don’t think much of me, but I hope you don’t believe I would ever take advantage of you.”

I didn’t. But…

Wait…

“What do you mean, I don’t think much of you ?” That was absurd. He was the one who hated me .

His expression shifted slightly. “After the way our last meeting ended, I assumed you never wanted to see me again.”

What was he… oh.

During the final battle with Blake and his people, I’d realized that Callum knew all along someone was using stolen magic artifacts. He’d hired me to be a distraction for his enemies—a wild card for the mole in his organization to focus on while he went on investigating behind all our backs.

I understood why he’d done it. I even understood why he felt he had no choice. But I’d also had to pretend to be angry with him, to distract Blake and buy time for Faris to arrive.

And I’d never told him that my anger was a feint. I’d walked away after the battle—too much of a coward to stay and face the consequences of my revelations.

“I was pretending , you idiot,” I growled. “I needed Blake to think we were at odds. If he still believed he had a chance to recruit me, I thought it might give Faris time to show up. Once Blake’s people used earth magic, I knew it was only a matter of time before Faris figured out something was wrong.”

My brain gibbered at me to shut up . Had I really just called the king of the shapeshifters an idiot?

Callum’s eyes widened a little. “Then… But you disappeared. You never called or tried to get in touch. Faris said you needed time, so I waited.”

His words staggered me. He’d been waiting… for me?

Also, Faris said what ?

“I thought you’d want nothing to do with me,” I blurted out. “I’m not even Idrian, Callum. And I hid it from you. From you! ” I waved a frustrated hand at him. “You’re basically the poster child for law and order, and I’m now in violation of who knows how many of those laws—laws that you literally helped write. I can’t even leave the Shadow Court because the minute I do, I’m a wanted criminal. So why on earth would I think you were waiting for me to call?”

The king of the shapeshifters slid his phone into his jeans pocket. Picked up his coffee, took a sip, and set it down again—every movement a study in careful control.

“Raine.” His sigh seemed to release a world of tension from that imposing frame. “I’ve spent the last three months feeling like I betrayed you. I promised I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you, and then I turned around and hurt you in the worst way possible.”

His gaze turned haunted. “I’m the one who pushed for those laws. And in the end, they turned out to be horrifically unjust to the most desperate of Elayara’s victims. So I thought the only thing I could do was wait until I’d found a solution.”

He’d been trying to fix it. The grumpy, inflexible, rules-loving dragon had been looking for a way to change the law. For me.

“And have you found one?” I asked carefully.

“No.” His jaw clenched and a flicker of fire flashed in his eyes. “But I’m not done trying.”

“Thank you.” I took a few more steps towards the kitchen and then had to pause until my balance reasserted itself. “Sincerely, thank you.” For the second time in the last twenty-four hours, I was forced to fight back tears. Not a habit I wanted to get into.

“So does this mean…” I paused. Not sure how to phrase what I was thinking without incriminating myself or revealing feelings I wasn’t ready to talk about. “Have we established that I’m not mad at you, and you’re not mad at me?”

The dragon’s jaw unclenched and his entire body seemed to relax once more. “Seems that way.”

“Then what are the chances of you letting me leave and not telling Faris?”

The impossible dragon took another sip of his coffee and smiled. “Somewhere between zero and… less than zero.”

Ugh. “Callum, I can’t be stuck here. My family is missing. With every minute that passes, it gets less and less likely that they’ll be okay, and I can’t just sit here and wait for news. I can’t .”

He finally stepped out from behind the kitchen island, setting his coffee down before moving in my direction. When he stopped in front of me, there was only an arm’s length between us. His hands flexed for a moment before he stuffed them in his pockets, then his head tilted, and his eyes softened sympathetically.

“Don’t think I’m not hearing you, Raine. Believe me, I understand the urgency of knowing your family members are missing.”

It was true. If anyone understood, it was Callum, who’d spent so many years hunting for Kira after she disappeared.

“But right now, you can barely stand up, and shapeshifter healing—if you have it—can only work so fast if you don’t actually shift.”

Even if I wanted to shift, with Kes gone, I couldn’t risk it. Without her help, I might end up stuck as a fox, just as I had the first time.

Somehow, that memory made the tears well up again, sudden and shocking, and this time I wasn’t strong enough to stop them. “I can’t just do nothing,” I whispered, as the first tears spilled over, leaving scalding tracks down my cheeks. “What if they’re scared or trapped or hurt? What if they think no one is coming? No one ever came for us before. They must be feeling so hopeless and…”

I was really crying now. I didn’t do crying. Especially not in front of Callum-ro-Deverin. But here I was, standing in his living room, wearing his pajamas, with tears streaming down my face and no way to stop them.

“I promised,” I told him shakily, tilting my chin until I could look into his eyes. Pleading for him to understand. “I promised I would always find them. That they would never feel lost or alone again. And every moment I wait… every moment I’m not looking… I’m breaking that promise.”

One of his hands left his pocket, lifted, as if he might reach for me, and then stopped. Unsure.

“I think you’ve forgotten,” he said softly, as his hand fell back to his side, “that you’re not alone anymore either.”

I wasn’t alone.

Faris had implied the same thing when he referred to Kes and the kids as his people. His words meant the world to me, but we’d been here for barely three months. Not all of Faris’s employees trusted me, nor was I willing to trust all of them without reservations.

Not to mention, so far I’d brought them nothing but danger and destruction. How could I ask them to keep helping me when I had nothing to offer other than a murky past and mediocre waitressing skills?

“I know Faris said I’m a part of the Shadow Court now,” I acknowledged. “But Kira’s wedding is less than two weeks away. Everyone has more than enough to do just to get ready, and I refuse to ruin this day she’s been looking forward to for so long. And it’s possible… Kes may have just been frightened and run. Maybe the phone battery died, and she can’t call, but she’ll come back when it’s safe.”

I wanted to believe that. Wanted to cling to the possibility of an innocent explanation. But in truth, the evidence against it was too strong. And I kept hearing the echo of Shane’s warning. He might have believed that no one knew where she was yet, but what if he was wrong? I couldn’t afford to ignore the likelihood that someone had taken Kes as a result of that contract.

Still less could I afford to tell anyone why that contract existed.

“If it turns out that someone did take them”—I swallowed the surge of fear that accompanied that admission—“they may not even be in Oklahoma anymore. If they’re somewhere outside the Shadow Court’s territory, I can’t ask Faris to step on another court’s toes for me.”

Callum just looked at me steadily. “Is that all your objections?”

I had no doubt I could think of more. “For now.”

“Then you can stop worrying,” he said, with an irritating calm that made me want to shake him. “First of all, in case you haven’t noticed yet, Faris has zero problem stepping on toes. I think he enjoys it. And he’s been way less worried about ticking off the other courts since Elayara kidnapped him and stole his magic.”

Wait, what ? “I had no idea.”

Callum nodded. “He spent some time in the dungeon at her personal estate, with no magic and no way to fight back. So I think it’s fair to say that he takes kidnapping very personally.”

There was a lot there to explore, but only after Kes and the kids were safe. “I still can’t ask him to dedicate time and attention to this when he has so much else going on.”

“Then don’t ask Faris.” He looked at me calmly, almost challengingly. As if nudging me towards an inevitable conclusion. “Ask someone else. Someone who isn’t busy with a wedding and isn’t responsible for any Shadow Court business.”

Was he suggesting…

“I will not !” Horror at the idea drove me a step back. “Callum, don’t be ridiculous.”

“How is it ridiculous?” He didn’t look even remotely scandalized. “I’m right here. I have literally years of experience with looking for missing persons. And most importantly, I don’t have any wedding-related tasks for you to worry that I’m going to miss.”

“No.” I shook my head firmly. “You can’t be involved in this and you know it.”

“I don’t know it,” he retorted. “So you’re going to have to explain to me why you won’t let me help when you clearly need it.”

I wanted to growl at him for being so obtuse.

“Look, it would never work,” I insisted. “I know how much you value rules. Doing things by the book. It’s why you’re so good at your job. So I can’t let you run over that part of yourself just because you think I need help. You’re the king of the shapeshifters, and you need to be able to say that you’ve upheld your own laws, not trampled on them for the sake of someone you barely know.”

His mouth opened slightly, as if I’d actually surprised him with my argument. “You… That’s…”

“Yes, I know I’m right. Thank you for noticing.”

His side-eye held copious amounts of sarcasm. “Not what I was going to say,” he responded dryly. “I can admit that you aren’t entirely wrong—it’s true that I value laws, rules, and order. But not for their own sake.” His amber gaze burned fiercely, refusing to allow me to misunderstand him again. “What I value more is keeping my promises, and I promised you that your family would come to no harm because of your connection to the Symposium, or to me.”

Except he’d made that promise to a liar and a fraud, and I would never ask him to keep it. Not anymore.

“This has nothing to do with you or the Symposium,” I protested.

He tilted an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Let’s review. Even if your family is safe, whoever broke into your apartment clearly either believes you have something they want, or they’re out for revenge. Which means they know your secrets, and the only reason you revealed your secrets is because of the Symposium. Because you needed to distract Blake and explain his goals. You made yourself vulnerable in order to protect me and all the other delegates, and saved us from a far worse outcome. In the process, you and your family became targets—for greed, for revenge, for research, and for hatred. All very possible reasons for whatever happened last night.”

Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that he would see it this way. And I was still fairly certain none of the other delegates would share his views.

“And what if your fellow sovereigns learn that you’re here? That you’re personally helping me, in defiance of the laws you pushed so hard to create. Won’t that drive a wedge between you? Make it even harder to gain their cooperation in the future?”

Callum scrubbed a weary hand over his face and offered me a rather grim smile. “I’m not sure our ‘cooperation’ can get any worse, to be honest. I’ve spent the last few months trying to field their complaints and deal with the damages. I’m only here because…” He fell silent, as if unwilling to tell me the rest.

“They didn’t fire you, did they?” I murmured in horror.

“No,” he admitted wryly, “but sometimes I wish they had. I just… It was a lot, and I needed some time away from it all. So I guess you might say I’m on administrative leave.”

Whatever they’d done to him, it was so bad that the dragon who hated cities had come here to recover. Here to the scene of what he probably saw as his worst failure.

“So basically,” he added, his face softening, “if you let me help, you’re actually doing me a favor.”

Now he was just babbling nonsense.

Also, if I accepted his help, there was no way he wouldn’t find out the truth about Kes. No way that he wouldn’t eventually learn about the contract and start asking awkward questions.

But… how could I say no? I had no money, no phone, and we’d given the stolen SUV back to the Fae Court, so I didn’t have a car either. Ari, Logan, and Kes were counting on me, and I refused to let them down, which meant I did need the help. So even if finding them meant being in debt to a dragon?

That was a price I was willing to pay.

And if it eventually meant revealing the truth about Kes? I would have to hope my new friends trusted me enough to accept her in spite of her past.

“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “But there have to be rules. You like those, right?”

Callum’s head tilted as he looked down at me. “Let me be very clear about this, Raine. I do like rules. I like to know what to expect, and I like to be in control. And for a long time, I pursued those things for their own sake. But when we found Kira again?” He shook his head. “I realized that I like those things because they keep my people safe . That’s all. So if I have to throw them aside for the sake of those I’ve promised to protect?” His smile was all dragon—toothy, predatory, and filled with the promise of vengeance. “I will set the rules on fire myself.”

Our eyes caught, and I shivered involuntarily at the intensity in his gaze. He meant every word.

“Understood. But I still want them. And once you agree to them, you can’t just break them because you feel like it.”

He nodded. “Go ahead.”

“The most important thing to me is my family’s safety. So rule number one is, no one else gets involved in this search without my approval. Rule number two… I won’t let you do anything that endangers your position. That means if we find out this investigation takes us outside the Shadow Court? You’re out. Also, we share information equally and don’t try to hide things from each other. And”—this might be the most important one of all—“anything you learn in the course of helping me cannot be used against me or my family at a later time.”

Did that cover it?

“I agree to rules one, three, and four,” he said promptly. “Rule two is open to negotiation.”

“Callum…”

His phone buzzed urgently, and with a bit of a wince, he fished it out of his pocket. Glanced at the number and answered.

“What is it?”

I heard muttering on the other end that sounded like it contained more than a few expletives.

“Understood. We’ll be there as soon as it’s safe.”

He hung up.

“We?” I demanded. “Was that Faris?”

He looked at me thoughtfully. “It was. But if I agree to take you with me, you have to promise to take it easy and not go charging off before you can even stand up straight. You lost a fair amount of blood from that head wound, and I don’t think you want to wind up back in bed.”

I scowled in annoyance, but Callum had the advantage here. I wanted desperately to know what Faris had discovered, but I wasn’t recovered enough to walk that far and had no way to drive. For now, I was dependent on the dragon, and I was pretty sure he knew it.

“Okay,” I muttered. “I promise. Now, where are my clothes?”