Raze pushes right in front of me with a fierce expression. “No, you can’t. You’re going to collapse if you push yourself any harder. You need a break before you do any more work.”
The winter fae scowls. “If this stuff wasn’t so tough to budge…”
In his frustration, he whips out a lance of ice aimed at nothing but the clotted shadows. It pierces through the darkness—and my bonds with my men shudder.
My posture goes rigid. “What was that? Did you all feel it?”
All three of the men around me are frowning now. Hail looks down at his hands. “I didn’t know—I didn’t mean to do anything that would hurt us.”
I peer into the murk. “We don’t want it to attack us. I guess we’d better not attack it either. Something about doing that rattles our own powers.” Or at least whatever power binds us together.
We felt similar effects before—when one or another of us reacted to the rift’s energies in a more aggressive way. It doesn’t like being forcefully rejected, and the backlash shakes us up too.
The growl of an engine distracts me from my pondering with a hitch of my nerves, but the vehicle that pulls into view is familiar. Jonah parks the van at the curb and gets out, taking in our stances—and my emotional state through our connection. “Is Peri all right?”
“I’m just a little tired,” I mutter, though his concern sends a warm flutter through my belly. “Are you finished working with the other sorcerer?”
Jonah’s grimace matches the grapefruit-sour tang of his emotions. “Yes. Today’s meeting wasn’t all that productive, but… hopefully we’ll get somewhere eventually.”
He doesn’t really want to talk about it, which maybe Mirage can pick up too even though he isn’t tied to Jonah directly. The fox shifter bounds toward the van. “This is perfect! We can all take a ride. Peri needs a mini vacation.”
Hail’s eyes gleam. “Didn’t you mention you found a nice spot nearby in case we wanted some privacy?”
Mirage laughs. “Yes. It’ll be perfect!”
“Wait,” I protest. “We can’t go off vacationing when the city is still such a mess.”
Raze gives me a firm look. “You can’t fix the mess when you’re exhausted. You’ve been doing more than anyone.” He pauses, and his expression turns slightly sly. “If you let us pamper you, maybe you’ll recover faster.”
He does know how to make an argument.
As I waver, Mirage tugs me toward the van. “You need to take care of yourself first. Put on your bicycle helmet before securing anyone else’s, isn’t that what they say?”
Jonah chuckles. “The saying is for oxygen masks, not bike helmets, but the principle is the same. Come on, Peri. I’d like to see this special place Mirage found.”
“Oh, all right.”
I let them escort me into the van. I end up cuddled up on the bench between Raze and Hail while Mirage gives directions to Jonah from the front passenger seat. “Turn left here. No, more left.”
“That’s not a road, Mirage.”
“It’ll take longer following the roads. But if we have to…”
It doesn’t feel like very long before we pull to a stop near a patch of forest bordered by farmer’s fields. The nearest buildings are at least a mile distant.
With a spring in his step, Mirage leads the way between the trees. He points out the babbling stream and the flowers blooming on bushes here and there in the underbrush. Then he stops at the edge of a grassy clearing that borders the stream with a wall of densely packed saplings all around it.
He spreads his arms. “Look at it. Like a room just for us.”
Jonah considers the scene. “Very comfortable. And I think we can make it even more so. Just a minute…”
He lopes back to the van and returns with a rolled blanket that he spreads on the ground. “So our mate doesn’t get her clothes dirty.”
As I sit in the middle of the blanket, a giggle slips out of me. Jonah knows perfectly well that if the dress and leather jacket I’m wearing did get mussed, I could fix them as easily as blinking in and out of the shadows. But there’s something sweet about being taken care of this way all the same.
Raze hums. “She could use a foot and ankle massage. All those sore spots she shouldn’t have to deal with.” A hint of a growl comes into his voice with the reference to my former captor’s torments.
Hail smirks and sinks down by my feet. “I think I should handle that honor. A little chill can help chase the aches away.”
