Or a prayer.
The last card is the Ten of Swords. I’m shuddering before Lily even picks it up, the fear overwhelming now. It’s inside me, pinging around. Ripping at me until I can barely think, barely breathe.
There’s a part of me that recognizes this feeling. There’s no compulsion, no need to go tearing out of the house in search of something—someone—but the rest is the same. The sickness, the horror, the plea deep inside me for this to be something, anything, other than what I think it is.
The Ten of Swords is an ending, not a beginning, and now that I understand where it’s positioned, it seems so much more menacing than I originally gave it credit for. This is the warning, the finale. The card that suggests there is no more to know, no more to learn, nothing else to find. If this is the advice position—what we’re supposed to do to help find Shelby—then it’s pretty much as nefarious a card as I have ever seen. It implies there’s nothing else. No chance to save Shelby. No chance to set things right.
But I won’t accept that. I can’t. Otherwise, what’s the point of having power?
Lily intones a few words—ritual words in ancient Egyptian—as she closes out the spread. Then she turns to me, face white and eyes alarmed. “Xandra, are you all right?”
I try to tell her that I’m fine, but my teeth are chattering so badly that I can’t get the words out.
“Damn it!” she yells, reaching for the blanket off the back of the couch. “You’re freezing.”
She throws it over my shoulders, starts to wrap it around me, but before she’s done much more than close the two sides together, a powerful knock sounds against the wood of the front door.
Lily jumps and I can see the indecision on her face even through the pain wracking my body. Should she open the door or not? Normally, we’d let it go, but whoever’s on the other side sounds like he or she means business. She looks at me, but I’m in no shape to make the call. I’m a trembling, aching mess currently one step away from being scared of my own shadow.
Seconds later, the choice is taken out of our hands. There’s a loud pop followed by a wrenching noise. The door flies open to reveal Declan standing at the threshold.
And he doesn’t look happy.
Five
“What the hell have you done to yourself?” he demands, storming through the small foyer and into the living room. A careless flick of his hand has the door slamming closed behind him while a second flick has the tarot cards flying off the table like confetti.
He’s at the couch now, all tense and brooding and completely pissed off as he stares down at me. “This is what you blew me off for?” He picks me up as if I weigh nothing and starts to carry me down the hallway toward my room.
Lily runs behind us. “Is she okay?” my best friend asks anxiously.
“She will be.” Declan barely glances at her. “I’ll take it from here.”
Lily doesn’t argue. I think Declan intimidates her way more than she wants to admit. So I start to protest—he can’t just barge in here and take control whenever he wants—but the warmth of his body seeping into mine feels so good. So safe. Already the chills are calming down to a more reasonable level. And the pain, while not completely gone, is a lot better as well.
“What are you doing to me?” I finally ask. My teeth are still chattering, but at least the words are recognizable now. “How can you—”
“I’m taking care of you,” he answers. “Which I would have been doing all along if you’d told me what you planned to do.”
He sets me down on my bed without another word, crosses to my bathroom. Seconds later, I hear him turn on the bathtub tap.
Then he’s back, stripping off my jeans and shoes and sweater like I’m a child. Or an invalid. Again I think about protesting, but it feels good for him to be in charge, just feels good to let him handle the details when my brain and body are so overloaded I can barely remember to breathe.
When I’m finally naked, Declan picks me back up and carries me into the bathroom. The water hasn’t gotten very high yet, so he grabs a towel and wraps it around me. Then he sits on the thick edge of my bathtub with me on his lap, and starts to rock. He croons wordlessly to me as he does.
“I’m okay,” I tell him. Not that I want him to stop, but as we sit here, I realize that I’m not the only one shaking.
“I know.” He grinds the words out between clenched teeth.
I struggle against his hold a little, sitting up so that I can look into his face. It’s drawn and tight, cheeks hollowed out and eyes burning. He looks like a different man than the one I went to bed with this morning—he’s frazzled and worried and completely stressed out. It hurts me to see him this way, especially because I know I’m responsible. My magic, the way I live my life, is doing this to him.
“I’m sorry.” Now I’m the one holding him.
For long seconds he doesn’t answer, just presses me against him. He holds me tighter, then slips the towel from around me and lowers me gently into the bathwater.
It’s hot—really hot—and it feels good. The last of the achy, cold feeling leaves me, a strange, floaty lethargy taking its place. My eyelids want to drift closed, but I don’t let them. I need to talk to Declan about Shelby, need to tell him what I felt. What the tarot cards said. See if he can help.
But first I want to know how he knew that I was in trouble. We’re soulbound, yes, but I can’t sense him when we’re apart. I don’t know his mood or what he’s doing or if he’s in danger. So how did he know that I needed help, needed him?
I ask him, and his first response is a searing look and an even more searing kiss. “I felt your distress. I didn’t know what was causing it, didn’t know if you were in danger, if you’d found another body, if someone was hurting you.” He closes his eyes and shudders as his hands reach for mine.
This time, I do let my eyes close as I settle against the back of the bathtub. He needs a minute to regain his equilibrium and so do I. I hate how vulnerable I always appear to Declan. I want him to think of me as strong and smart and capable, not some damsel constantly in need of being rescued.
And yet I have to admit that it feels nice. Not the being rescued part, but the knowing someone cares, really cares, about what happens to me on a very different level than my family or my friends.
Declan shifts, slides over, and I open my eyes just in time to see his still-jean-covered legs slide into the water on either side of my shoulders. Then he’s leaning down, pressing kisses against my temple, over my hair. “I need a minute,” he says softly. “To convince myself that you’re really okay.”
I don’t move, don’t breathe, terrified of doing something to end this moment. Declan is never unsteady, never exposed, never vulnerable. Not in front of me or anyone else. The fact that he is now, and that he’s sharing it with me—even if it’s only because he can’t help himself—is a huge concession on his part. I want to savor it. Not because I enjoy seeing Declan shaken up and worried, but because I know this is another step toward intimacy, another step down the path Declan and I are destined to walk together.
I don’t know how things are going to end between us—though there’s a big part of me that is sure this will end badly—and for once I don’t care. Everything in me yearns toward him, wants to protect him. To share with him. To love him.
The word catches me off guard, freaks me out a little, so I shove it down deep inside me. I’m already feeling vulnerable and confused. The last thing I need to do is try to deal with feelings like that in addition to the others that are ricocheting around inside me like bullets gone terribly awry.