Spellfire by Jessica Andersen Read Free Book Online Page B

through him and he took a step toward her. “Myr?” There were a dozen questions in that one word, but he couldn’t articulate a damn one of them, not when she was staring at him the same as he’d stared at his old man, like he had come back from the dead and wasn’t all that welcome. And when a gesture from her had severed his link to the magic.
    What was he supposed to do now? What was he supposed to say? An apology would be a good place to start, but there was really no way to apologize for what he’d done to her. Still, he wiped his freshly healed palms on his grubby rag-pants and started toward her, holding out his hands in a gesture of
no harm, no foul,
and hoping to hell that was the truth. He had harmed her, he knew, had fouled their relationship beyond repair. But if he could just—
    She flicked the wand up and a shield spell slammed into place an inch from his nose.
    He froze as another shock piled up on top of the others. “What the
hell
?”
    The force field was clear, but threaded through with an almost imperceptible gleam of the same green he’d seen in the flames that had killed the
camazotz
. And suddenly things started lining up, sort of. His magic had come back when he got near her. He had sensed her emotions, felt a connection. Green fire magic—like his own, only not—had taken out the ’
zotz
. And his magic had cut off with a flick of her magic wand.
    Holy shit. Had he somehow transferred his barrier connection when he traded his life for hers, linking their energies and giving her some of his magic?
    Impossible
.
    “Not. One. More. Step.” Her eyes were hard now, implacable. “In fact, how about you just back the fuck off?”
    He started to say something—anything—but then she pushed up her right sleeve and the air vacated his lungs with a quick
sayonara
at the sight of four marks in stark black on her forearm: the warrior, the fire starter, the telekyne and the mind-bender.
    They were Nightkeeper marks.
    More, they were
his
marks. All of them, save for the dark-magic trefoil.
    “Holy shit, Myr,” he blurted, forgetting himself, forgetting the situation in the sheer impossibility of it all. “You got my magic!”
    *    *    *
    Myrinne hated how her nickname came out differently in his voice somehow, becoming more important, more intimate than it should’ve been. Hell,
everything
was too important and intimate all of a sudden, because—damn it—the magic had reached out to him. And now, even though she’d cut the connection, she couldn’t stop herself from looking at him and feeling an unwanted pang.
    He was filthy and ragged, his hair grown out from its usual buzzed Mohawk to punkish spikes. The magic had healed him and kept his broad frame covered with a warrior’s muscles, but whip marks formed an X on his bare chest, as if a single arm had wielded the lash in an unvarying pattern. His back was even worse. More, the deep creases beside his mouth and the haunted strain in his pale blue eyes said that he had suffered over the past two months, and badly.
    Part of her—dark and vindictive—whispered,
Good, I’m glad
. But the rest of her knew there was nothing good about any of this.
    She wanted to tell him to fuck off, wanted to walk away. Unfortunately, she knew damn well that the magic was going to force her to deal with him. More, she didn’t want the others to see her wimp out. So, keeping her voice level, she steeled herself and said, “After you disappeared, I was unconscious for almost three days. When I woke up, I was wearing the marks and hearing voices in my head, reading minds.” It had been terrifying, yet illuminating, as if a whole new world was opening up in front of her. “The other talents came online soon after. Our best guess is that the gods wanted to keep the crossover’s magic with the Nightkeepers, and somehow managed to shunt the power into me when you went bad.”
    The new lines beside his mouth deepened, but whatever pain she’d just