THE DREAM WAS NOT A DREAM. IT WAS A KIDNAP-ping.
Max struggled. She hung pendant and weightless in the abyss between worlds. Tatters of magic swirled like bright jewels in the black. They shimmered and billowed like silk rags, and they sliced like razors wherever they touched.
She twisted to avoid a swooping cluster that bunched and spiraled like a deadly flock of birds. A gauzy wisp of purple slid along Max’s hip, and she wrenched away from the liquid curl of acid that reached intimately down inside her, causing a fierce ache in a place beyond flesh and bone.
Max did not scream. She had done it just once, the first time Scooter had dragged her here. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction ever again.
A force shoved her insistently toward the right. Scooter. The fucker. She yanked away from the pressure, tumbling in the darkness and into a cloud of gray magic. It clung to her with tenacious eagerness. It melted into her. Her heart pounded frantically as her healing spells kicked into high gear, drawing on her shallow reserve of calories from the food she’d eaten before bed. It wouldn’t be long until they began feeding on her flesh. If she couldn’t wake herself up, she was going to die.
She hesitated, tempted to let herself stop fighting. He wanted her bad, and she was worthless to him dead. She’d love to see his face if he killed her.
But he wasn’t the only one who needed her. The thought spurred her. She resumed her struggle.
Again the demanding push. She snarled and hauled back against it. She couldn’t keep Scooter out—she couldn’t keep him from attacking her every time she fell asleep—but she didn’t have to let him push her around while he had her trapped here. She didn’t care if he probably was a half-breed god.
Something like fear quivered deep inside her. She ignored it. She could panic later. And there would be a later. She’d make sure of it.
She felt his frustration like an explosion of quills drilling through her insides. They curved like hooks and ripped through her. Pain burned like nothing she had ever felt. She opened herself to it out of habit, letting herself relax into the boiling cauldron of agony. It filled her, drawing her down into its depths. Far away, her body twitched and went as still as death as Max embraced the pain. Her breathing slowed, her heart beat evenly. She felt her spectral self smiling with vicious triumph as she drew perverse strength from the hurt. It was a skill she’d mastered the hard way. She refused to ever let anyone use her body against her, not if she could help it. And today she could.
Scooter hovered out of sight, waiting for her to capitulate. He prodded her again. It felt like she’d been Tasered. Max snarled, wishing she could pummel him to bits. But there was no fighting him here. She didn’t know how. But that didn’t make her helpless.
With slow deliberation, she reached out to her body. She told herself to kick and thrash. On her bed far away, her physical self responded, sluggishly at first, then began to jerk and convulse. She redoubled her efforts, evading Scooter as he sought to shatter the connection. It was a race. If she could wake herself first, she’d win.
Pain streaked from her hand to her arm, and Max woke. She lunged to her feet. Her ribs bellowed as she panted. Blood ran from a ragged three-inch gash that seamed across her palm. She closed her fist around it with a grim smile of triumph. For the last two weeks, every time she went to sleep, Scooter came for her, and every time, it was harder and harder to wake up and escape. This time, she had planned for it.
Max glanced down at the tack strips on the floor surrounding her mattress. Four-inch twenty-penny nails spiked from the wood in a six-inch-wide moat. She’d known that sooner or later as she struggled to wake, she’d impale herself and the pain would give her the means to wake up. Above on the wall was a dream catcher. Or it had been. The center of it was shriveled and twisted, and the smell of burned leather and feathers filled the room. She grimaced. It had been a long shot. The shaman who made it was powerful but nothing like Scooter.
She opened her hand. The wound had mostly closed, thanks to her healing spells. Her stomach cramped sharply, and she wobbled dizzily. The spells were sucking more out of her than she had to give. For days, she’d been eating enough to feed the entire Pittsburgh Steelers defensive line, and it still wasn’t enough.
She stepped over the tack strip and grabbed a power bar from the stack on her nightstand, left there for just this purpose. Her hand shook, and she steadied it with an effort. She gulped the bar in two bites and then ate another dozen in quick succession. She grabbed the lukewarm bottle of flat Mountain Dew and chugged the entire thing, making a face at the foul taste. The bars and drink would give the spells some fuel to work with until she could calorie-load in the dining commons. Which, if she had any sense, she would do right now.
She ran her hands through her short blond hair, annoyed at the way they still shook. She clenched them as anger seared through her. She was getting really fucking tired of this. What she ought to do was go deal with Scooter once and for all. The only trouble was that seeing him might be the last thing she ever did in this world.
Max drew a sharp breath and blew it out as her compulsion spells jerked tight. Tears burned in her eyes, and she staggered, sagging onto the box spring of her bed. Her legs felt like syrup. She drew deep, ragged breaths, bracing her elbows on her knees and pressing her hands against her face. Her compulsion spells didn’t like the idea of her dying in a Scooter confrontation. She doubted Giselle had even thought what would happen when the witch-bitch promised to give Max to the bastard. If just thinking about going to him set off her compulsion spells—she was supposed to protect Horn-gate and Giselle, not abandon them—actually going to him might kill her. But then, so would he if she kept putting him off.
Max snarled. Trust Giselle to make her the center of a game of magical tug-of-war and never think what it might do to Max.
Giselle held the anneau of Horngate—the knot of magic at the heart of a covenstead’s territorial power. She was a powerful and smart witch, as she must be to hold an anneau, as well as ruthless and cruel. Max’s mouth twisted. She knew better than anyone just how ruthless and cruel Giselle could be. The witch had taught Max everything she knew about pain. Max had spent uncountable hours being tortured on her altar as she was bound to Giselle’s service, then thousands more as those bonds were strengthened and increased.
The memories were as fresh as when they were brand-new, and familiar fury swirled up inside Max as hot as on the first day she’d woken up to find herself no longer human. Giselle had turned her into a Shadowblade, one of two castes of warriors that every territory witch created as her own personal army. Shadowblades were creatures of the night—the magic that made them was fueled by the elemental force of darkness. They could not go into the sunlight without burning or melting—it was a swift and nasty death. They were preternaturally fast and strong, and many had other talents, depending on what spells the witch layered into them. Max was Giselle’s Prime, the strongest of the Shadowblades and thus their leader. They answered to her, and she answered to Giselle.
She ground her teeth together and swallowed, forcing down the foul taste that rose on her tongue as the memories of those first years of enslavement played vividly through her mind. Quickly she thrust them away. No. That was history now. Four weeks ago, she and Giselle had called a truce, and as bitter as it was, Max was going to stick to it. She had agreed to put aside her hate and thirst for revenge and work with Giselle to protect Horngate. It was a sacrifice she was willing to make, as was giving herself to Scooter. Horngate meant more to her than almost anything else. Almost. She still had something important to do, and come hell or high water, she was going to get it done before she tied a red bow around herself and hopped under Scooter’s Christmas tree.
Now she just had to tell him so.
She thrust to her feet. No time like the present. It was only about noon, so her Blades would still be asleep, and the Sunspears would be on patrol. No one would be around to try to talk her out of it.
As she crossed to her dresser, her compulsion spells coiled around her like razor wire. She panted shallowly. Usually she could think around them, twist her logic so that they loosened up and let her do whatever stupid thing she wanted to do. Not today. Compulsion spells didn’t care if Giselle had traded Max away to Scooter. All they cared about was making sure Max protected the witch-bitch and Horngate. Committing suicide by visiting Scooter didn’t cut the mustard.
She laughed softly and let the pain feed her resolve. One good thing about it was that it helped keep the predator Prime inside her from rising. If it did, all her Blades would come running, and she really didn’t need to explain herself. They should just obey her orders and quit harassing her to be more careful. She rolled her eyes. Like there was any safety to be had anymore. Like there ever had been.
She stripped off her clothes and tossed them in the direction of her hamper, then dressed in heavy black cargo pants and a long-sleeved black T-shirt.
Next, she went to the spacious closet. Two walls were devoted entirely to weapons. The third was stacked with ammunition, grenades, flash bombs, whetstones, reloading supplies, cleaning paraphernalia, and boxes of power bars, jars of peanut butter, cases of Gatorade, and several jugs of Mountain Dew. Several one-pound bags of M&M’s rounded out the cache. A scattering of boots and running shoes was strewn across the floor, a...
