Page 8 of Blood & Ice

“I guess what I’m saying is that Aurea’s painted me into a tight corner here. She’ll expect results quickly, and she’ll want me to prioritize this case over my work. How the hell do I explain to my deputies that I’m going to be on another case that’s completely out of my jurisdiction? I can’t even mention it’s a murder case, or they’d insist on joining the investigation. It means I have to do this off the books, and you know I hate that.”

“Aurea,” he said.

The word came out a strangled whisper, a sound so raw that it hurt to listen to. His hands clenched into fists around the edge of my desk. The wood groaned under the strain, and I watched cracks form in the cheap wood. Police departments in small towns could rarely afford good office equipment. It would be easy for him to take chunks away from the desk if he was trying.

“Mav?” I asked tentatively.

“Au-re-a,” he repeated, lips peeling back from his teeth in a snarl as he enunciated each syllable. “Threatened to kill you and your kids.”

“Yes, but that’s no excuse for you to manhandle my desk. Mind taking your hands off it? I don’t want to have to replace this one for at least a few years.”

Maverick didn’t reply. He didn’t move. Hell, he was barely breathing. The intensity of his gray eyes was blistering.

No... no, it reallywaswarm in here. Sweat popped along my brow and the nape of my neck, and it wasn’t because someone had bumped against the thermostat. There was a subtle charge in the air, power vibrating the molecules around us so quickly that vapor actually curled into being. More alarmingly, shadows loomed from beneath my desk, smoky fingers forming, grasping desperately at the air, before rejoining the rest of the black oozing across the walls and ceiling.

I stepped into him, turning his head so he’d be forced to look at me. But it wasn’t Maverick glaring black at me. Instead ofhis dark, penetrating gaze, I saw only crimson. Blood had burst in his eyes, blotting out his pupils and irises before spreading rapidly to cover his sclera. There was someone in those eyes, but it wasn’t Maverick.

“Shit,” I hissed. “Damn it, no, Mav! Fight it!”

His face didn’t twitch. I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me, or if he was too far gone to the blood madness to pay attention. I had to do something fast. But what? My usual tactic was to hit the enemy with wind and snow or encase them in ice. But what was I supposed to do if the danger was coming from a friend? I couldn’t hurt him. I couldn’t shake him out of it. What the hell could I do to reach him?

A thought occurred to me a moment later. It was so absurd that I would have laughed at myself if the situation had been less dire. I’d never applied fairy tale logic to my magical problems before, but there was a first time for everything, I figured.

So, I pushed up on tiptoe, seized his chin, and dragged Maverick’s lips down to mine for the second time in the last ten minutes.

Chapter Five

Maverick

Red.

Red earth, tumbling onto a redwood coffin lined with red silk. The magic was threatening to bury me alive. When I tried to open my mouth to scream, no sound came out. The bitter grains of dirt scraped over my tongue, and I spat, flailing to escape the oversized box that held me captive.

How in the hell had I gotten here?

By the time the wood buckled, my knuckles had been scraped raw, oozing scarlet.

I gasped in a breath when my head breached the surface of my grave. The only consolation I found was that I hadn’t been buried deep, so the earth on top was loose and fell away like sand when I sat up, whipping my head this way and that to get my bearings. I couldn’t remember when I’d been hit, let alone when someone had buried me in a shallow grave. Did that make this my afterlife? A rusty red hellscape? There was only flat earth and distant hills for as far as the eye could see. Was this where those corrupted by vampire blood went when they died?

“Not quite,” a man said. The languorous southern drawl he’d affected might have been soothing if it hadn’t been whispered into my ear without warning.

I tried to spin, but with one foot still in the grave, I only managed to flop weakly to the ground. The dirt felt like sandpaper under my cheek, rubbing my skin raw with just one brush against the ground. Eventually, I managed to prop myself up on one elbow and craned my neck to see the speaker.

He didn’t look like much at first glance. He was a stretched, matte black shadow that looked almost cartoonish against the crimson backdrop. But when I tilted my head and squinted, more details came into focus. The haughty slant of his featureslent his face a somewhat sinister look. The swirling ruby of his irises didn’t help either. His skin was as pale and bloodless as a corpse. As I watched, he pulled a cigarette from his lips and blew a perfect smoke ring in my direction.

I scrambled out of the grave, coming up on my knees. It wasn’t a good fighting posture, but it was better than remaining flat on my back and flailing like a turtle. I still had no idea where I was or how I’d gotten here.

The man flicked ash at me disdainfully when I raised my hands, drawing upon the energy around us to fuel my spell. Except... there was nothing to access. The land stubbornly refused to budge, leaving me with very little to work with.

“Now, now, none of that,” the man drawled. “Attacking me before I’ve said my piece is just rude. I don’t like disrespectful people. Understand, son?”

“I’m not your son,” I muttered, pushing off from the ground so I could tower over the creep. “Where the hell is this? The afterlife? Am I dead?”

Last I remembered, I was in Tally’s office with her… standing so close to her…

The man rolled his eyes and began ticking down his fingers. “To answer the questions in order, this is my dimension. No, you are not in the afterlife. And your physical body is still alive and well in Haven Hollow.” I just shook my head because I had no idea what in the hell he was talking about. Or who he was.

“I thought I’d take the opportunity to introduce myself,” he continued. “We’ve been together long enough, and yet we’ve never truly spoken.”

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