Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle #3)

Chapter 42

42

THE RAIN IS still heavy and relentless when I eventually climb into my bed. Nick is already asleep—this time on the floor, I notice, in a pile of pillows and spare linens. Apparently he’d given up on trying to make the chaise work. The white noise of the storm nearly sends me to sleep—until I hear a low, rhythmic scratch coming from the wall behind my head.

I wait a beat. Still my own breathing. Wonder if Nick’s awake, if he heard—

The scratch sounds again, and then the room is blasted into illumination by two palms of mage flame, Nick’s and my own. The blue and purple bounce off the mirror on the wall, then shape-shift as we each get out of our bedding. Nick’s standing at the head of the bed before my feet even hit the floor.

The scratching stops. The room goes quiet.

Beside me, Nick’s face is lit by blue-white light. He brings a finger to his lips to signal for quiet. Unlike last time, I don’t roll my eyes. If this were Zoe, she would have pushed the door right in or called our names.

Which means whoever’s in the secret passageway on the other side of our wall is not Zoe.

I’m tempted to whisper this to Nick when he abruptly pivots away from me—and the light catches the outline of the defined muscles along his torso beneath his fitted white T-shirt.

When he leans closer to the source of the scratching sound, I decide the ratio of his broad shoulders to the “V” taper of his waist above his sweatpants should be some sort of illegal proportion. Banned math. Criminal musculature. I suddenly don’t know whether to curse our nighttime intruder or thank them. The best I can manage as I carefully slide out of bed is to drop my flaming hand by my side so my ogling won’t be quite so obvious and my stunned expression won’t be so embarrassingly well lit.

After a long beat without any sound, Nick turns to me with a furrowed brow. I shrug back at him. Maybe we were both spooked by a rodent in the walls? I mouth, “Mouse?” to him.

He considers but doesn’t look convinced. He looks as if he might rotate his wrist to extinguish his mage flame when the wall panel he was just inspecting blows outward, sending him flying back onto the rug.

I’m already moving, backpedaling into the middle of the room, where I’ll have more space to move.

The attackers that leap past the door are dressed in black, faces fully covered by dark balaclavas. But I don’t need to see them to know that they’re warlocks. The sour scent of pact magic fills the room—aether and ichor bonded to human flesh.

The button-down pajama top and pants I chose are easy to move in but not stretchy. If the strings come untied, the pants will be a pain. Better make this quick.

There are three of them—no, four. A large number for just two people. Or it would be if those two people weren’t Scions.

Nick is up and on his feet before I block the first punch. Out of the side of my eye, I see him whirl, sending one man into the heavy bedpost with a roundhouse kick.

Then, I’m consumed with my own fight. Dodging one strike, then a second, in the shadowy bedroom lit only by the faint moonlight streaming in from the window. One of the warlocks mutters something in a guttural tongue—and a long, curling imp’s tail emerges from behind him.

“How’d you even make that bargain? Imps don’t talk much, my guy,” I taunt, hoping to buy time as I consider my options. There’s the heavy pewter teapot and silver serving tray at my knee on the glass coffee table. There’s the glass coffee table itself. There’s also just my fists.

The warlock doesn’t go for my bait. Instead, he responds by sending his borrowed tail whipping out from behind him. I throw myself to the floor—and the tail strikes the teapot, sending the antique item clattering to the floor, and whizzes over my head before returning to its place behind his hips.

A glowing hoof stomps down—I roll. Another comes down on the floor beside me—catching my bonnet and tearing it free. When I pop up to a crouch, my curls flow down over my face.

Not good.

I ignite both fists as I flip my curls up and back. Command my root into two long daggers. The ends of the weapons have just finished forming when the second attacker, whose fists look like the hooves of unholy Clydesdales, comes swinging. I duck the first swing, swiping a blade at his belly before retreating. The tail sneaks into my opening, dragging its tip along my upper arm. It leaves a trail of fire behind, and I can already hear Erebus telling me to go faster .

I hate that with all he’s taken from me, he’s still so much in my head, but he is—and right now, I’m grateful for it.

Two things at once, Briana.

I drop into a low spin, kicking out with one leg and dragging my right blade through the air as I go. The leg connects with the hooved warlock, sending him tumbling. The blade drags against flesh—and a low, pained hiss tells me the strike was good.

Spiraling out and up lands me face-to-face with my first attacker. He’s hurt and angry—and sloppy.

Good.

He pulls back for a punch—I duck under his arm to land an uppercut. His jaw snaps up and back—a pained grunt.

Probably bit his tongue. Very good.

Before I can celebrate, thick arms wrap around my forearms from behind and squeeze them hard into my chest. I’m jerked up from the floor—my back arches painfully. “Gotcha.”

Second dude, with the hooved feet, is back for more. He’s stronger and smarter than the first with the tail.

Imp Tail dives for my feet, catching me before I can kick. Bundling my ankles tight together with his hands.

Doesn’t matter how strong I am. I don’t have any leverage like this—bent back, arms pressed into my ribs, feet off the ground. I struggle and twist, using Arthur’s strength to loosen their holds, but they tighten their hands, pressing into the small bones of my wrists and ankles until there’s a sharp pain in both.

“Let. Go.” I twist again, wiggling my torso like a fish in the air.

“Come on!” Imp Tail shouts, and then they’re moving me, trying to rush me past Nick and the other two men into the opening in the wall.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nick take one attacker out with a heavy punch to the side of his temple.

I relax as soon as I know how close we are to the door. Let them think they have me. Stop struggling. Let them think they’ve succeeded.

As soon as Imp Tail shifts to lift my feet up and into the waiting, empty corridor, I twist my hips and kick a foot into his face. My heel catches his nose in a satisfying crunch, and he falls back, into the opening of the wall. My feet fall where he drops them.

Leverage.

I push off the floor, shoving myself and the warlock behind me back faster and harder than he anticipated. He stumbles and falls, hitting the floor spine-first—and I land with my head and back on his wide chest. We’re both stunned for a second, then before I roll away, I take a knee by his elbow and punch him in the face before he can recover.

He’s out.

The guy in the corridor looks up at me just as I look up at him—and makes a break for it into the darkness.

I jump to my feet to join Nick’s fight—and quickly see I don’t need to. Not at all.

His attackers are more skilled than mine, and bigger. Their footwork is more precise, more fluid—but so is Nick’s. He circles them, barefoot, with both hands up and loose. If the two warlocks notice the spark of amusement in Nick’s eyes or the slight, upturned tilt to the edge of his mouth, they don’t take it as the warning that it so clearly is.

The first warlock darts in with quick fists—and Nick meets and deflects each blow as if the other man is moving in slow motion. Nick rotates his assailant as if he’s leading the older man through ordered steps. Positioning him where he wants. Herding his opponent into his own destruction.

By the time the warlock realizes Nick has trapped him in a corner, it’s too late. The man lets frustration drive his attack—a mistake.

The warlock’s wild cross is met with Nick’s forearm—and deflected.

A second cross flies. Nick deflects again—then answers with a viper-quick punch to the man’s chin.

The warlock’s head pops back. He staggers. Falls—and Nick’s eyes slide to his second opponent.

The other warlock is younger. More prepared. He rushes Nick with a pact-magic-enhanced blade.

His first jab gets knocked to the side.

The second is met with the back of Nick’s hand against the flat side of the blade, pushing it down.

A third attempt ends when Nick grasps the warlock’s blade hand, yanking the man closer—twisting him at the elbow until the man yowls in pain and drops the knife.

Nick forces the warlock upright only to punch him into the heavy wooden bedpost.

The first attacker has recovered. As his partner falls, the older warlock leaps for Nick’s turned back. I shout a warning, but it’s not necessary.

Nick is a blur of motion while the man is airborne. He jumps to meet him—and knocks the man down with a quick strike to the face.

The small, wild grin tugging on Nick’s mouth is short-lived. As I watch, a shadow of disappointment crosses his face instead.

This was so easy for him.

It hits me then: this was fighting, not dancing. Not like what Nick and I found with each other in the basement. To Nick Davis, every fight could be a dance, but only if he has the right partner. An equal one.

Nick surveys the attackers on the ground with barely a hitch in his breathing. “There’s magic in them.”

“Yeah, they’re warlocks—”

“No, not pact magic.” He kneels to examine their bodies closer. “Something else. Something faint. It’s… fading now.” He squints. “Almost like it was temporary. Set on a timer.”

“A construct?” I move closer but don’t see or smell anything other than the acrid smell of pact casting.

“No,” he murmurs. “It’s gone. I can’t see it anymore.”

“All warlock magic is temporary,” I say. “When their bargain runs its course, their magic disappears.”

He doesn’t look convinced. He stands, shaking his head. “We should move them. Before somebody comes. Asks us too many questions.”

Except there really isn’t any place to move the unconscious warlocks… other than the hidden passage through which they came. Nick and I carry the three unconscious bodies into the dark corridor, then drag them through the dust with mage flame at our fingertips.

There is a main path that dips down, then up again, and spills out into a small, tight staircase with a landing. After we move the masked warlocks into a loose pile at the top of the landing, I look down the staircase—only to see more swirls of dust. “What do we do?”

“Leave them all in one place. Get back to our room. Act like none of it ever happened.”

“But—”

“ Now, Bree,” Nick says, already turning. “Before they wake up and we have to knock them out all over again.”

I frown at the tone of his voice but follow him back to our room. Once I’m through, he closes the door behind me. It disappears in the wall with a quiet click.

He stands back from the wall. “They won’t come back.”

“How do you know?”

“Would you come back for seconds after getting your ass beat by two teenagers in borrowed pajamas?”

“Well,” I say with a shrug, “no. But—”

“Whoever sent them here wanted to abduct you. Once they find out that we didn’t let that happen so easily, they’ll have to think of a smarter plan. But I’m more worried someone sent these warlocks to rattle us into slipping up and exposing our real identities. If anyone was really looking at us closely the first night, they’d have already seen the calluses on both our hands, the definition in your back and arms, the way we move.” He moves to one of the chairs by the fireplace and gestures for me to join him. “Help me with this?”

I lift one end while he lifts the other, and we walk the chair back over to the passageway door, setting it tight against the panel. “It’s bad enough that we have to face communion. We can’t draw any more attention to ourselves.”

I sigh. He’s right. The best thing to do is to act like this didn’t happen. “What if they send more warlocks next time? A chair isn’t going to stop them.”

He dusts his hands off once the chair is set in place. “We sent one of their warlocks running and left the other three in a pile of twisted limbs and fresh concussions.” His hair flops into his eyes as he regards me wryly. “I think they’ll get the message.”

“Fair point,” I mutter.

He reaches for my arm—then stops himself. I follow his gaze to the scratch left by the warlock’s pointed imp tail. “We need to clean that quickly, or it will get infected.”

I groan, thinking of Erebus’s sessions in the warehouse. “I was too slow.”

Nick’s eyes flick up to mine. “You were plenty fast. You fought smart. Kept the destruction of your environment to a bare minimum. I think that teakettle over there took more damage than you did.”

“You’re not hurt, are you?” I ask, and immediately flush at the sight of the Adonis belt at his hips peeking out from his low-slung pants. Banned math, Bree. Banned math.

When he shakes his head, it sends his hair flying. “Nah.” He runs a hand through it, smiling slightly at some internal memory. “I grew up fighting Selwyn Kane on a regular basis—and that was before my abilities manifested. I could have beaten those guys when I was twelve. On a bad day.”

“You must have gotten injured?” I ask. “Back then, I mean. Merlins are so much stronger than humans.…”

I trail off because the slight smile has disappeared and his face has drawn tight, closed down. “The injuries Sel inflicted weren’t…” His smile attempts to reinhabit his face, but fails. “Weren’t the bad ones, believe it or not.”

Before I can ask what he means by that, he bends over to pick up my satin bonnet, brushing it off as best he can. When he’s done, he hands it to me. “I’ll take watch. You rest.”

The bonnet is a little torn and dirty, but nothing a quick round of soap and water in the sink won’t fix—and it’s better than nothing. “I thought you said they won’t come back.”

Nick’s mouth quirks as he walks away to settle onto the window seat. “They won’t, but Sel would draw and quarter me if he found out I went back to sleep after someone attempted to kidnap you.”

“He was that protective?”

Nick studies me as though he is choosing his next words carefully. “He’s a Kingsmage… and you’re his king.”

The next day greets me in slow fragments.

The slant of light stretching across the room, bouncing back at me through the dresser mirror. The muffled sound of voices drifting up from the gardens outside our window. The low creak of a door opening down the hall. The press of an errant curl slipped free from my bonnet and tangling against my forehead.

The warmth of a broad hand curled across my hip.

My breath catches. Even without looking, I recognize the weight of Nick’s palm. Even through the thin layer of my pajama pants, his touch feels familiar. I hold still, memorizing the sensation of him sleeping next to me and the feelings that sensation elicits. I breathe through them one at a time, slow and steady like the heartbeat against my spine. There is curiosity. Amusement. Wonder. I feel protected. Safe.

Warm air blooms against the nape of my neck, tickling my skin until I squirm. The hand on my hip tightens—then freezes.

“Shit.” Nick releases me with a gasp, rolling back and away to sit up. “Sorry!” he says in a voice hoarse with sleep.

I flip over, preparing to tell him not to worry, until I see his disheveled bed hair sticking up in every direction, the shocked, guilty expression on his face, and both of his hands hovering awkwardly in the air like he’s just been caught stealing something. I try not to laugh—and immediately fail.

He watches with wide, blinking eyes as I snicker into my pillow. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because you look ridiculous,” I gasp, “and I have no idea why you’re apologizing.”

“This—” He points helplessly at my offending, pajama-clad hip, then back at himself. Then me, then the entire bed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen!” He drops his head in his hands with a deep groan. “Sel would kill me. I was supposed to be keeping watch.”

“You couldn’t have gotten good sleep on the floor, and we fought off warlock kidnappers last night,” I say, shifting until I’m on my back. “You needed rest.”

He shakes his head in his hands. “You’re the Crown Scion of Arthur,” he mumbles. “Sel wouldn’t even bother killing me, actually. He’d do worse. Hang me upside down by my toes and lecture me to death.”

I grin. “He sounds fun.”

Nick groans again. “I should have been more careful.”

“We’d have woken up if there was another intruder,” I say, giggling. “I’m sure Selwyn the Kingsmage would be impressed with your extremely cutting-edge upholstered-chair alarm system.”

“Haha.” He drops his hands to stare at my pajama pants and the hip he’d grasped. “And… I don’t just mean I should have been more careful about the warlocks.”

Oh.

I cross my arms over myself. He means waking up curled around me. Touching me. “You were asleep. We both were. It’s fine.”

“It’s risky.”

“What’s risky?” I exclaim. “I don’t understand—” The next words are ripped away from me in a gasp, because Erebus chooses this exact moment to call my bloodmark.

It’s my turn to groan as the glowing red branches erupt along my skin beneath my button-down shirt, pulsing bright crimson beneath the thin fabric. The familiar aroma of Erebus’s power fills my nose and mouth. Rich and ancient and suffocating . I scowl at the light.

To my surprise, Nick crawls closer, brows furrowed as he studies the mark growing brighter, then dimming, then brightening again. “It’s your magic, but it’s… it’s his, too. Wound together.”

“As if I can forget,” I mutter.

He leans over me, careful to keep our skin from touching, as his eyes trace the thinner branches that extend down my shoulders, dip into my elbows, and wrap around my forearms. “It’s not sitting on your skin the way a tattoo would. It’s deeper than that. Embedded. Like it’s following your veins.”

“You can see all that?”

His eyes flick to mine—and I see the deep blue flash across his irises. “Yes.”

“How?”

He squints, making a decision. “The Line of Lancelot inherits… enhanced vision.”

“Enhanced how?”

His jaw works back and forth as he shifts his focus back to my bloodmark. “It’s never the same. The inherited sight manifests differently with each Scion who receives it. I don’t know what the previous Scion of Lancelot before me saw, but I see the inner workings of magic. How it’s put together. How it was constructed. Aether is an element, but like any element, it has its constituent parts. Its molecules, for lack of a better phrase.” He nods at the mark. “I can see how a construct was made, and sometimes, I can see how to… unmake it.”

I push up to sit across from him. “That’s how you—”

“Deforged your constructs?” He smirks. “Yes. Although, with other constructs I’ve tried, it’s taken a lot of work. A lot of focused study of the crafting before I can attempt to take it apart. Like your magic? It’s rich. Layered. Anything that complex is usually difficult to unravel, but with you, it was… instinct. Like breathing.”

I feel my brows draw tighter. “I don’t know if I like that you can unmake what I create so easily.”

“I’m not sure I like it either.” His eyes drop back down to my bloodmark, more exposed now with the shifting of my collar. “I definitely don’t like that he can do this to you. Not just here, where it’d be dangerous for anyone who happens to see it, but anywhere. You’re a king too. Just because the Shadow King bloodmarked your family doesn’t mean he gets to terrorize you whenever he pleases.”

I gape at him. Nick speaks the complexity of my life into simplicity so easily, so frequently. The conclusions I fumble around to find he just… states out loud. And he speaks those truths half to himself and half to me, as if this perspective on my bloodmark is obvious and easy, and not an elusive clarity that I keep chasing and chasing.

Suddenly, I can’t tolerate keeping this secret from him.

“It’s Erebus,” I blurt out.

He blinks. “What’s Erebus?”

“The King,” I say quickly. “Erebus Varelian is the Shadow King, in disguise.”