That meant I could pay the price of casting the spell to charge the disk—probably something little, like a runny nose, or itchy scalp. But Zay could then use that magic to burn down a house—something that would usually carry a high magical cost.
It was an amazing advance for magic and technology.
And scary as hell.
Zay held out a leather cuff for each of us, and then gave us each an amulet. I snapped the amulet into the circle carved in the leather cuff and it fit into place with a heavy thunk I felt at the back of my teeth. The faintest scent of moss filled my nose. I strapped the cuff to the inside of my right wrist, snug against my pulse.
Everyone else did the same, but I felt only two other heartbeats. Terric and I both looked at each other. We’d never hunted together before, so I, at least, needed to touch him once to attune the cuff so I could feel his heartbeat too.
I stepped over to him. “Mind?” I held my palm out toward his chest.
“Help yourself,” he said.
Charmer. I pressed my palm against his chest and concentrated on the rhythm of his heart. Strong, a little fast. I also caught the faintest hint of his emotions. Anger. Sorrow. I looked into his eyes, and he gave me the convincing, friendly smile. But behind that were a lot of emotions. Emotions I knew were for Shame.
“Thank you,” I said.
He nodded. At the edge of my peripheral vision, Shame stood smoking, his back toward us. If I focused on him, I would feel his emotions too.
One look at his body language told me how he felt.
Terric placed his fingertips lightly in a small circle just below my collarbone, and above my heart. One of the bullet scars I carried was right there, and even though he couldn’t feel it through my thick coat, it still made me a little uncomfortable to have him touch me there.
He smiled, a real smile this time, something that looked a little like an apology, and drew his fingertips away. He’d probably gotten a sense of my discomfort.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Just twitchy about my scars.”
“I know the feeling,” he murmured.
Right, that was more of the issue stuff we weren’t going to get into right now. “Shame,” I said, “give me your keys.”
“What? No.” He turned. “Wait—let me rephrase that. Hell no. I’m driving.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Terric said. “You were unconscious less than ten minutes ago.”
“And you were a dick. One of us got better.”
Terric the nice killer smiled. “A man with a concussion should not drive.”
“And you think a woman who’s having fainting spells should?”
“Wow. Could you two give it a rest?” I asked. “I’m driving.”
Shame looked over at Zayvion like calling the ref in for a replay. “Are you seriously going to let her drive?” Shame asked.
“No.”
Shame flipped his hands out in a told-you-so gesture. “Terric’s going to drive,” Zay said. “Give him your keys.”
At Shame’s look, Zay added, “We don’t have time. Just get in the damn car—your car—and let Terric drive.”
If his words didn’t clue Shame in, Zay’s heartbeat, pounding strong, impatient, would.
Terric held his hand out to Shame.
You would have thought Shame was removing his own spine for the look on his face, but he finally dropped the keys in Terric’s hand.
The keys hit his palm, and Terric glanced down. I caught a glimpse of a man’s ring, gold and silver and glyphed, on Shame’s key chain. Terric’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. He looked up at Shame.
Okay, maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was more between them. Shame said he wasn’t gay, but that ring could mean something else. A brotherhood-of-magic or class-ring sort of thing.
Shame just gave him a steady stare. The kind of look that started bar fights.
“Okay,” Terric said softly, as if he was trying to regain his breath. He closed his hand over the keys. “Where are we going?”
They all looked at me.
“Seriously? How were you people going to track him down if I wasn’t here?”
“Through a process of elimination,” Zay said.
“Why doesn’t anyone in the Authority Hound?” I asked.
“Huh,” Terric said. “She’s right. Why is that?”
Shame just exhaled smoke.
Zay shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s probably a part of the history.”
“No,” Terric said. “There used to be Hounds. A couple of them. Remember? Theo and Kaida? Back when Mikhail was the head of the Authority. What happened to them?”