“More than that, how did you do it? Sure, you can call more power, but that spell was awe-inspiring. You . . . what?”

“I just . . . I knew I needed to block the blast somehow. I didn’t have a physical shield or a wall to hide behind. It occurred to me that it was physics, that’s all magick is anyway. I just used energy to push back at the energy of the blast. The opposite of the wave from the explosion so it repelled. I don’t know if I could do it again in the same way, only that if I had to do something similar in the future, I could.”

“Can you teach me? Do you think it could stop a bullet?”

“I don’t know about a bullet. But I think I can help you visualize a wall of energy. I don’t know your gifts that well and like I said, it’s not spellwork, not completely. I knitted something together on the fly but that was to focus my power in one spot and keep it from feeding back and harming me.”

“You mean like bleeding from the nose and mouth?” Faine wanted to shake her and order her to never, ever do such a thing again. But he knew she would. And that she could was apparently a big deal. She was a warrior like he was. Just a few days ago he accepted it, but now the stakes were higher, and his feelings? Well, they’d adjusted and deepened, which made it far more difficult to accept that she’d put herself in danger.

“When I was young I got nosebleeds all the time. My dad says it’s because I have a poor sense of moderation.” Her smile was wry and he sighed, charmed.

“I think I can teach you to spool the power better. Still quickly, but with more control.” Gage nodded. “As for my gifts? They’ve been growing, as yours seem to have. I can sense intent. I knew there was danger in that crowd. Mortal danger. But I couldn’t see it as the cars.”

“You both chose the obvious dangers and focused, which is the way it should be. There are so many things to constantly be aware of, you can only examine so many at once.” Faine shrugged. It was true. Yes, they’d missed the cars being a possible threat, but in their place he’d have done the same. He had done the same.

“I need to check in with the people at the garage here. I instituted a policy and it’s been in place for months now. All vehicles are monitored in the garage and they’re examined on entry and exit for physical issues as well as spellwork that isn’t mine or anyone else’s from my team.”

Faine sighed; the female was flat-out insane. “Why don’t you take a shower first? Then you can eat out in the garden and sleep. You can call and bark orders at people and have them brought here while you eat.” She started to argue and he held a hand up. “I’m saying you’re the leader of this team. You will be needed again, as will your magick. You’re depleted right now, you said so yourself. So get back to 100 percent first and then get back out there. You can deal with the car and your people while you handle getting yourself taken care of.”

Gage nodded. “He’s right. Don’t make me go over your head and have The Gennessee overrule you.”

“Molly has to stay in for the rest of the day then. And I need you to call Tosh’s office to be sure he’s all right, as well as any Others who work at the capitol.”

Gage nodded. “We can do that.” He hopped down and headed for the door. “You amazed me today. I’ve seen some amazing magick—after all, I was there watching Meriel and her mother stop the Magister. What you did today ranks up there.”

Helena blushed as he left the room.

“Do you need help showering?” Faine asked.

One of her brows went up. “You offering?”

“Don’t poke at me right now. I’m not all right. My beast is more agitated than the man.”

She paused, he could tell, trying to figure out what to say. “I’m fine, thank you for offering. I can stand long enough to take a shower. But if you would ask the chef to make me something high in protein and green vegetables, I’d appreciate that.”

He sucked in a breath but didn’t stop himself from pressing a kiss to her forehead. When she asked for his help it always did things to his system. “I’ll be listening for you. Just yell if you need help. I mean it.”

She nodded and he left before he could say or do anything else.

Chapter 9

SHE knew Lark would call. The only surprise was how long it took. She’d showered, spoken with her team about the car, mourned two who’d been killed, eaten, been fussed over by Faine and Molly and escaped finally by going to sit out in the middle of the raised beds in the garden to recharge.

She’d scowled everyone away and finally had returned inside, finding a small sitting room and settling on a couch with a blanket, reading her mail and taking calls.

Helena answered her sister’s call with, “I’m all right.”

“The only reason I am not on a plane to you right now is because of that. Gage has been keeping me updated but I figured you’d had long enough and I needed to hear your voice.”

Helena smiled, touched at that.

“Christ, Hellie, what the hell? Car bombs? Do you think we should pull the plug and bring people home?”

“I’m going to take the next few hours to think on that. I ate some lunch and sat in the garden for an hour. My nose isn’t bleeding anymore and my teeth haven’t fallen out, so I’m counting that as a win.”

“Don’t joke. This is serious. You could have died.” Lark’s voice was stern, but the fear bled through.

“Yeah, like when you got shot. Twice. Saving the world.”

“Goddamn, we’re fucking awesome, huh?” Tension broken, Lark soldiered on. “What’s the situation with the cars? I know there is simply no way you didn’t have a process in place to check the undercarriage of any and all vehicles you use.”

“I do.” Though it was nice that her sister knew that of her. “There were two SUVs. Both were checked thoroughly before they left here. Both were in a secure garage. I went through the security footage for the last twenty-four hours and there’s nothing. No one approached either vehicle until this morning when we left and then when they came back they were checked and checked again when they left to retrieve us. There’s a checkpoint at the gates at the capitol too and the cars were clear.”

“What the fuck?”

“Somewhere between those gates and the drive near the building where we were at the hearing our drivers were stopped, shot in the head, left in a Dumpster and the attackers took over. There are cameras everywhere but, conveniently, several were out of commission for a few hours today.” The anger rushed through her again at the thought.

“Are you kidding me?”

“They don’t care. I wanted to hold out as long as I could, you know? A lot of humans are good people like Tosh. But this other stuff? Bombings and attacks and bills to put us in camps? That’s not right, damn it. Cameras being turned off so my drivers could be murdered? It’s like a movie plot, for god’s sake!”

Lark sighed heavily. “We receive death threats on a daily basis now. It’s . . . I’ve forgotten what it was like before.”

Helena understood. She nearly had too.

“Both those men, humans according to Anderson, were killed in the blast. The second car was also bombed, but half the vest he wore malfunctioned so the blast wasn’t as large. They’d moved to the passenger seat to get closer to us when we came down to load everyone in. I suppose we should be thankful they detonated before I reached the door.”

“I hate this. Hate it. Gage told me you pulled some mighty magick out of your tool bag today. He said he’d never seen anything like it and that you nearly fried yourself doing it.”

“Honestly? I don’t know where it came from. Only that it happened. I’m glad for it and a headache is a price I’m willing to pay for that result.”

“Yeah? And if you’d died?”

“It’s my job to protect people. If that means I die doing it, well, I signed on for that. You know you’d do better at this than me, but there’s no one else so I’m doing the best I can.”