Free Fall by Carolyn Jewel Read Free Book Online Page A

with Michael. He’d been nanoseconds from breaking the one rule he knew Nikodemus enforced ruthlessly. No harming the magekind. He sat up straighter. “Thanks.”
    Like thanks even began to cover it.
    “Thanks? For what? God, Khunbish, I am so sorry.” Her voice shook.
    “Slow down.”
    “I know what he’s like. I never should have brought you when there was even a chance he’d be there. Never.”
    Rubbing his chest didn’t relieve the ache from Michael’s attempt to take him, but he did it anyway. Now that he was calming down, recovering, he was reacting to Fensic’s unshielded magic. He was turned on. He couldn’t help it. His kind reacted to human magic that way. The magekind counted on it.
    “I hope his eyeballs are melting in his head.”
    “Amen, sister.” He risked a brush of his finger along her arm because he knew from how she’d reacted before that touching her helped calm her down when her control frayed. One touch and her magic blasted through him hard enough to bring on a partial transformation to one of his other forms. He got that stopped before she noticed. “Get us out of here without getting pulled over, would you?”
    Mentally, she closed up. Shut just about everything down, and it scared him to think she could do that to herself. She eased up on the gas, and it was awful seeing the ice queen back. An elegant, ice-cold bitch. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. She focused on the road, but her fingers on the steering wheel were bone white. “Where are we going? Anywhere or do I just drive?”
    “For now, just drive.” He kept an eye out for cops. Or a tail. As soon as Michael recovered, he was going to send magehelds after them, no question about that. And not just for him. A trained mage was likely to have at least one mageheld demon skilled at tracking. Even a tracker with mediocre talents could follow the residue he and Fensic had left—were leaving now. If they were lucky, they had a day or two before the next set of magehelds found them. If the tracker had some talent, they might have half that. Telos allowed himself a private smile. Either way, he was going to be ready for the rat bastard mage. Fuck Nikodemus and his rules.
    The back of the car shuddered again. “Have you always had a lead foot?”
    She slowed to forty-nine. “I have a perfect driving record.”
    “How many cops let you off because you smiled pretty?”
    “My appearance has nothing to do with the fair and equal administration of justice.”
    Telos snorted. “Speed limit here is thirty-five. You’re doing forty-three. Slow down.”
    “Fine.” She slowed, but not enough. Two minutes later, the speedometer was back to forty-five.
    “Do you have any idea how much a speeding ticket costs in this city? I don’t care if you don’t have a job, I’m not paying the fine.”
    “I won’t get a ticket.”
    “No, instead you’re going to get us killed. Pull over and let me drive.”
    “Forty.”
    He looked at the speedometer. “Seven. Forty-seven and this is my fucking car. You wreck my ride and you better be prepared to write me a check.”
    She bowed her head and over-corrected after the car drifted because she’d taken her eyes off the road. “Fine.”
    They made the switch at the first gas station they came to. They didn’t say anything for several minutes, and he was fine with that. He drove, heading west.
    She broke the silence. “Those men at my house.”
    He signaled for a turn. He didn’t see any reason to pretend about anything. “They weren’t men.”
    “Demons. They were demons, is that right?”
    “Magehelds. Your ex-boyfriend’s slaves.”
    Her shoulders climbed toward her ears, and he got flashes of her mental state: unsettled, determined, and still on the edge of a psychic crash. Why the hell wasn’t she insane?
    “He’s not kidding about killing you,” he said.
    “You either.”
    “He doesn’t necessarily want me dead.”
    Her phone rang, muffled since it was