Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,97
could do was picture her smiling up at another man.
“Oh, fuck this shi –”
Antares had begun to spin around to confront the clan leader when suddenly his mind, and his mouth, stuttered to a strange, deeply silent halt. His body followed suit, slowing in its spin until he was standing still and feeling as though he were fully inside his body for the first time in full, long minutes if not longer.
All at once, his thoughts cleared. A haze was wiped off his mind, and everything came into focus. He felt the portal tunnel more solidly around him, saw the colors more vividly, even felt the temporal wind through his hair and against his skin where he hadn’t noticed it before. He blinked a few times as if clearing his eyeballs of residual muck and mildew, and then he straightened to his full height and unclenched his fists.
At least, he unclenched the fist not holding the small black pill Cain had given him.
Behind him, he heard Cain’s approaching boots stop. He turned to face his leader, terrified of what the man must be thinking – only to find him smiling in that truly legendary way Cain was known to smile at you when you knew damn well that he was aware of everything you’d been thinking and doing – and he found it a little bit funny. “Feeling better?” Cain asked, one eyebrow raised. His impossibly blue eyes glittered with amusement.
Antares blinked a few more times, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said simply. “I am.”
Cain had the decency not to mention any of the shit Ares had been feverishly thinking as if he had brain diarrhea. He even had the decency not to laugh. Instead he said, “Good,” then gently bumped his knuckles against the fist in which Antares held the anti-mind-control black pearl. “Bottoms up, soldier,” Cain told him. “Let’s make sure you don’t go down that yellow brick road again.”
Ares cleared his throat, wondering why he’d suddenly gone so haywire inside. He popped the pill and dry swallowed it, and as he did, Cain leaned forward. In a covert tone, he said, “That’s nothing. You should have heard what was going on in your girl’s head.”
Then Cain straightened and moved away, leaving that little gem with Ares, probably as punishment. And Ares had to admit it was effective.
“Maze’s influence hit you that hard and fast because the transport spell magnified it,” Cain told him.
That made sense. Transport magic was strange that way. Casting spells from inside portals was well known to be an exceedingly dangerous venture. There was something about them that took magic and twisted it. Maybe it was the fact that they defied the laws of physics to their very core.
“We’ve held this transport much longer than we normally hold them,” Cain continued, talking to both of them. “You would have noticed if you hadn’t been so fully under the effects of Maze’s chaos magic.” He shrugged. “Or whatever you choose to call it. We did this because we’ve needed to move you both repeatedly from location to location to make certain the transport couldn’t be traced back to your home, Mace. We assume this is one of the things Maze had planned on doing when he sent that note. He knew you’d come running and no doubt he figured he’d get a leg up on the competition by hitting you at home later.”
Damn, thought Ares. That hadn’t even crossed his mind. When Maze wasn’t screwing with his head – Annaleia Faith was. It wasn’t exactly her fault and she wasn’t doing it on purpose. But she was so vital to him, it was happening anyway.
Tighten it up Mace, he told himself. Leia needs you. “Let’s go over the plan again,” he said, nodding at Leia, who was looking a little pale.
“I still think I need to physically show up,” Anna insisted. Their protectiveness was like a chokehold on her. Conall had orders she was supposed to follow, and Cain had orders she was supposed to follow, and Antares was just plain obsessive about her safety so she was supposed to follow his orders too, and in the end all Annaleia could think about was her two friends in the hands of the psychopath who was carving women up across the Midwest.
“No,” both men said at once.
Anna’s teeth ground together painfully. “If I don’t show up, they’re as good as dead,” she told them. Then she tried to compromise. “What about an illusion spell?”