Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,85
less. A warden’s child, Ares.” Her tone was clear and crisp, her voice as hard as that amethyst, and as serious as the shards it had become. “He doesn’t just subsist on sex, Ares. He takes the power offered to him through that act, an ability he perfected long ago, and he turns around and uses that power to save lives.”
“The same day I was fated to die, a warden’s family in another state was going to be attacked.” She sighed. “He wanted to warn them of course. Over the years I knew him, I watched him do this time and again. But too many times, either no one believed him or his vision came to fruition anyway or, worst of all, it came to pass because he warned them. After a while, he learned that fate was called fate for a reason. He stopped trying to warn people about what was going to happen and just tried to fix what went down once it did.”
She took a final drink from her bottle, emptying the last of its contents. Antares waved it away as well. “Anything else to drink?” he offered.
“Water?” she asked. “And maybe a toothbrush?”
He grinned. Again, he could have done all of this without speaking or moving, for the most part, but sometimes it was nice to put on a little show. He raised his hand, finger pointed upward, and made a circular motion with it. Anna’s eyes went wide. She straightened. He watched her run her tongue over the front of her teeth, and he had to fist his hand and press it into the cold, hard marble underneath him.
“You cleaned my teeth!” she exclaimed when she was done checking them out.
“It’s a beginner’s trick,” he told her. “I’m surprised you haven’t learned it yourself.” It was one of the basic survival-in-the-field spells the clan heads normally taught their wardens.
“Oh, I do know it! But I didn’t think I’d be able to cast any magic in your house.”
He blinked again. Come to think of it, she was right. She probably couldn’t have. Damn. She was ahead of him again.
“Thanks for the cleaning,” she said as she grinned with her newly cleaned, white and adorably crooked teeth and twisted the top off the bottled water he’d also set beside her leg. “According to Sterling’s vision, the warden’s family would be attacked around ten to twelve hours after my car accident. Give or take. It was a tight fit, but that gave us just enough time for… well, for me to die and come back from the dead, and for Sterling and I to clean up the mess that would inevitably form because of what I’d become.”
She took a long drink of water before continuing. “I can’t tell you much about the death itself. I can’t even… I can’t even begin to describe it. It was absolute, mind-boggling nothing. Like a giant white-out, peaceful, spectrum-filled but blank... It’s impossible to put into words except that I can tell you I had no fear, no pain, no nothing. I don’t even know if I was fully aware. And then… there was suddenly the real world again, the noise, the cold, and Sterling.”
She unfolded her legs and leaned back on her elbows, re-crossing her legs at the ankles. “He had to get to work immediately when the accident went down. He must have been there watching the whole thing because like I said, he was there when I woke up. He made sure no one interfered when I came back, and he pretty much stayed with me every step of the way from then on. I think… he almost worked himself to death that day casting magic. He used charms and memory spells to get us into the ambulance where my mom’s body was rushed. He had to maintain control of the EMT’s and the driver while I brought her back. And then he had to plant false memories in everyone’s heads.”
Antares watched her gradually become more restless as the sugar took over her small form. As he did, he mulled over everything she was telling him. The image of the accident was disturbingly clear in his head. He could taste the cold and wet, smell the blood, hear the radio communication and voices of hurried emergency workers. He could see the flashing lights – and feel the covert magic being used.
“We were only half done, too. Sterling still had a life of his