Chapter 12
I text Rick a few times to keep him updated on the transport of the deceased horses and the progress of the protective wards around the property, but he doesn’t reply. Too busy, I guess. He won’t have a second to breathe until the end of the day, and by then he’ll be exhausted.
Is it selfish to hope that he’ll still come out to my place, even if he’s tired?
Probably. Am I becoming dependent on him much too quickly?
Yeah. But at the moment, I don’t really care.
I’m a tough girl. I’ve been strong for years, and I’ll be strong again later.
For now, when my heart feels like it’s missing some pretty vital chunks, I’m not going to guilt myself for leaning on the broad shoulder of Rick Thane when it’s available.
His witch friend Jareth is a delight. I’ve seen him in town, just in passing, but I’ve never really spoken to him.
Rick didn’t tell him much about the situation, but over the course of the day I find myself confessing more and more, until I reveal everything.
Jareth needs the information anyway, in order to cast effective protection spells around the house and stables.
These wards are not as extensive and durable as the ones around Crescent Cove. They’ll only last a few weeks, and they can’t keep out everything, but they’re strong enough to repel my sister if she comes around again within the next month. And really, that’s all I need.
Shortly after eight, Jareth walks toward me where I’m standing by the fence, watching Atreides graze.
I was afraid the tragedy of last night would set him back, but oddly enough, he seems fine.
More comfortable than ever, actually. Maybe Rick’s presence this morning reassured him that even when bad things happen, someone who cares will be there to help.
Maybe that’s the reassurance I need, too.
“I checked everything again.” Jareth props his forearms on the top rail of the fence.
“Thank you. You should head out and have some fun in town tonight. You’ve done more than enough.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Go enjoy the festival. You got a date?”
“I do, actually.” He grins, his happiness shining through before he shutters it, out of deference to my loss. He touches my shoulder lightly. “You gonna be okay?”
Nope. Not at all. Both of the new rescue mares, Carrie and Miranda, are gone. I think it would have hurt more if it had been two horses I’ve known for years, but it’s still agonizing to lose them when we were just getting to know each other.
Even so, I don’t want Jareth to feel compelled to stay, so I lie. “I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t wanna leave you alone here.” Jareth glances around. “You’re protected from your sister as long as you’re on the property, but sadness and isolation aren’t great for the soul. Personal experience.” He smiles again, ruefully this time.
“It’s all good. Rick said he’d come out tonight when he’s done at the diner. Thanks for everything you did today.”
“It was a pleasure. Let me give you my number in case you need anything else. Call anytime, Marlowe. I mean it.”
I like his earnestness and his protective brotherly energy. When he’s gone, everything seems too still and quiet once.
Why haven’t I heard from Rick? The diner was supposed to close at eight, and it’s half past the hour now.
I’m being silly. He’s probably got a shit-ton of work to do, cleaning up, dealing with receipts, ordering supplies, and doing all the other things a diner owner would do at the end of the day.
I put the horses in for the night, then wait another hour while pretending to watch the desperately angry and jealous housewives of something-or-other on TV.
At nine-thirty, I finally break down and call Rick.
I squeeze the corner of the sofa pillow in my fist while I wait for him to answer. But when a breathless voice replies, it’s not Rick.
“Hey sis,” says Valeria. “Sorry, had to shift back. Took me a few seconds. What’s up?”
I sit there, stunned. Then I look at my phone, just to make sure I called the right number.
“Hello?” Valeria prompts innocently.
“Why do you have Rick’s phone?”
She chuckles. “You already know the answer.”
A great black void opens up inside my soul. I feel as if I’m turning inside out, becoming that hideous emptiness. My teeth begin to elongate in my mouth.
“Hellooo…” croons Valeria. “You still there?”
I can’t speak. I can’t do anything except breathe fast and furiously as I get off the couch and stalk to the front door.
“You can chill out with the heavy breathing,” Val says. “He’s alive, okay? But how long he stays that way will depend on you. Took you forever to call. I’ve been waiting all day.”
“I texted,” I grit out.
“But I wanted to hear my dear sister’s voice.”
“Where is he?”
“Where are we, you mean. You know the lighthouse? We’re on the far side, a mile or so up the beach. There’s the cutest little rocky inlet and this pool… it’s picturesque.”
“I know where it is.”
“Of course you do. Hurry up, Marlowe. Your baby sister’s getting weally hungwy.”
The baby voice she fakes is so cloying I want to gag. I end the call and tear off my clothes, springing from the top of the porch steps and transforming into a horse in mid-air.
My hooves spit gravel as I race down the driveway.
I thunder along the beach path, snarling deep in my throat.
The night breeze streams through my mane in a way that I’d usually enjoy, but my heart is shredded and swollen, bleeding streams of fear and anger, and I can’t focus on anything except Rick.
Valeria must have gotten to him before he reached the safety of the Crescent Cove wards.
Which means she intercepted him as he was driving into town this morning.
He wasn’t at the diner all day. And since our relationship isn’t public yet, no one would have thought to call me to ask where he was.
Did they close the diner, or did they manage without him somehow?
Why am I thinking about diner logistics?
It doesn’t matter in the least, not when Rick is in my sister’s clutches.
She said he’s alive, but she didn’t say what condition he’s in.
She used to love teasing and torturing her victims before she ate them.
Sometimes she didn’t have the time, but whenever the opportunity presented itself, she always preferred to play before feasting.
I shouldn’t have let him stay overnight outside the wards. But I knew I could protect him. If she’d attacked while he was in my house, she wouldn’t have stood a chance. That’s why she waited until he left. She probably did some damsel-in-distress routine on the beach road, and he fell for it.
I should have warned him, or he should have been smarter, or something.
No use fretting over what I should have done. This is the reality now. Rick is Valeria’s hostage, and I suspect I know the price she has put on his life.
Even if I say I’ll return to the herd, Valeria won’t take my word for it.
She’s trying to force me into a glashtyn vow, the unbreakable oath of our people.
There’s actual magical weight to such a vow, and if it’s broken, the oathbreaker becomes a regular horse—not a kelpie, not a human, just a normal horse who grazes and shits and snorts.
I love horses more than most people, but I don’t want to be one permanently.
If Valeria forces this vow, I’ll have to keep it.
Which means I’ll be giving up Rick either way.
But at least he’ll be alive, even if I never get to see him again, even if I spend the rest of my life being rutted by the lead stallion of our herd and supervising a bitchy collection of desperate house-mares.
How did things go so wrong?
My flying hooves devour the sand until the ground becomes too rocky for running. I climb the slope, racing through the moonlit, wind-torn seagrass at the top of the bluff and galloping past the lighthouse.
I slow down, picking my way through rocks, patchy grass, and tough, salt-bitten shrubs, toward the inlet Valeria mentioned. I can’t afford to snap my foreleg here—it would take too long to heal. Val might lose her patience and decide Rick would be better as a meal than a hostage.
Finally I descend to the rocky lip of the inlet, decorated with tufts of tall grass. A few long-dead beech trees stand like leafless sentinels nearby. They’re blasted bare and white, the skeletons of their former selves.
Rick is chained to one of them, his arms wrapped backward around the trunk in what looks like a painful position. The rough metal of the chain digs into his bare chest so tightly that I can smell the raw flesh and the seeping blood.
He’s just wearing his boxers, and his entire body is covered in bruises and cuts from my sister’s hooves.
Blood has dribbled from his lips into the scruff of his jaw.
His head hangs forward, tousled hair falling over his face.
He looks like he’s on the point of passing out.
My bright kelpie eyes can see as well in darkness as daylight, and I can tell that his tanned skin has a red flush to it, thanks to the sun exposure he got today.
If he survives the night, he’ll have a nasty sunburn.
My sister is in kelpie form, swimming in the water, her neck arched with pleasure at the sensation of the cold liquid. She probably smelled me a while ago, but she pretends not to notice until I’m standing right at the brink of the inlet. Then she tosses her head and whinnies a greeting.
I’m tempted to spring toward Rick and break his chains with my hooves. But Valeria is closer to Rick than I am. She could slit his throat in a second and spill his life’s blood on the stone. So I don’t move.
Val submerges herself from muzzle to tail, and when she rises again she’s human.
Water streams in glittering rivulets from her dark hair and pale shoulders.
Her rose-red eyes are hooded, glowing, and her teeth are still sharp.
The scarlet strands in her hair illuminate the surface of the water in bloody light.