Misery Happens (3 page)

Chapter Three

Fragile bones and delicate skin slammed into the gritty ground, not to mention the effect that impact had on my poor internal organs. Shoulders then legs, hands and head—I didn’t know how the asphalt and I met. I just knew it fucking hurt.

My bike had vanished, and I was surprised my conscious awareness hadn’t too. Honestly, I wish it had because every part of me felt broken. My tongue tasted blood. How could I not be dead? How could I be thinking semi-clearly?

I shifted my legs, and though my muscles shrieked, they moved. Whimpering to control the pain, I pulled my arms toward my chest, trying to maneuver into a position so I could sit. My head swam and so did the parking lot, and I managed to remove my helmet though I almost vomited from the intensity of the pain.

Yet through it all, my heart continued to beat. My lungs continued to fill. And the magic connecting me to Raj continued to override every other concern. The ground vibrated with the hum of his bike’s engine, confirming he was as close as I sensed him. Bastard. I might be bleeding to death internally, but as long as I could move, I could take him with me.

I tossed my helmet aside and discovered my hands were covered in blood. No matter. If I could twitch a finger, I could press a trigger. But the gun turned out to be far more uncomfortable to hold than my helmet, requiring a far greater range of motion to grip. I inhaled sharply, causing additional searing pain in my rib cage.

Raj approached, a pair of kickass boots in my peripheral vision. My arm shook as I attempted to raise the gun, but I had no chance of shooting anything except his ankles. Even as I tried, I realized he must have been watching me struggle for a while. To confirm it, he snatched the gun from my hand, and I couldn’t stop from screaming as the action further abraded my palm.

Raj kneeled next to me, and I hissed as he used the gun barrel to push hair out of my face. “You are something, soul swapper. Just look at you. Still fighting. Someone obviously covered you in some impressive charms for you to be moving and breathing, but being able to move is not half as fascinating as willing yourself to do it. There’s so much anger in you that it must power you nearly as strongly as it does me.” He made his point by inhaling deeply with an expression of disturbingly erotic satisfaction.

“Go to hell.” My words were mushy. Shit. How many teeth had I lost?

Raj chuckled. “No need for that. We’ve brought hell to us. With your assistance, of course.” He sighed theatrically. “I did warn you back in France that if you came with me, you’d be well treated, but if you refused, we’d get you one way or another and not as friendly-like. It’s simply unfortunate that I can’t take you with me this time. In your condition, throwing you over the back of my bike might kill you regardless of the charms holding you together, and if I wait for assistance, your friends might get here first. I have more important things to deal with than them.”

Raj tossed my gun aside and to my surprise, pulled a handkerchief from his inner jacket pocket. While I tried scooting away unsuccessfully, he wiped blood from my face. It was almost gentle, but I understood why he did it, and it wasn’t out of concern for me. The only reason Raj wanted to take me with him was for the unique magical properties I contained, some of which were in my blood.

He stuffed the handkerchief away and stood. “It’ll be interesting to analyze this and see what it’s useful for. Heal well, soul swapper. I know there are two others biologically similar to you, but there’s no one half as fun. It’d be a shame if you died.”

I considered cursing him again, but it took far too much energy to form words. All I could do was sit there, trembling with rage and sweating in agony, and let him walk away. Watch him climb on his damn Harley and listen to the engine roar before he disappeared.

A swarm of imps that had been dancing around a nearby streetlamp flew my way, attracted by the magic in my blood. Just what I needed on top of everything else—an imp attack. But the anti-imp charms I had, courtesy of Lucen, forced them to keep their distance. Finally, one small positive for the night. And yet as they hovered in an effervescent cloud above me, I couldn’t help but think they looked like vultures guarding their carrion.

Praying my phone hadn’t been damaged in the crash, I felt for it in my jeans. Thank dragons it was on the side of me that hadn’t hit the ground at full force. Clenching my jaw against more pain, I reached into my pocket with my shredded fingers and retrieved it.

Lucen picked up on the second ring. “Are you okay?”

“Um, no.” I expected to hear gunfire in the background, but his side of the line was quiet.

“Are you wearing your pendant? I’m coming for you.”

I groped at my neck and touched the silver fox. The pendant he’d given me was both pretty and functional—a tracking charm. Although I’d resented the idea of being tagged, this was the second time Lucen’s gift was coming in handy.

“Bring a doctor,” I managed to say before my hand gave out and the phone slipped through my blood-slicked fingers.

* * * * *

Lucen wouldn’t share anything about what happened at the terminal after I left. He simply fussed over me and told me not to worry. For possibly the first time in my life, I was feeling crappy enough to take his suggestion, at least for a short while.

When the EMTs arrived, all anyone wanted to tell me was how lucky I was to be alive, and since no one else rode in the ambulance with me, I was further deprived of news. The Gryphons were too busy, though I had no idea with what, and Lucen didn’t want to stay in such close proximity to the EMTs while they were treating me in case his power distracted them. I supposed that made sense, but it irked.

Worse than that, it meant I had to wait longer to get information about what happened with the satyrs and the furies. By the time I reached the hospital, the pain medications I’d been given had kicked in enough that I was no longer able to
not
worry.

Additionally, without Raj so close to me, my irrational anger faded until I could think straight. Now, however, I could detect him in my head, and I suspected he’d been in there the whole time. I simply hadn’t been aware of the thin bond connecting us. With effort, I might even be able to follow it again. It was a hopeful thought, although that sort of concentration was currently beyond me.

I flopped against the sturdy hospital pillow as the ER doctor finished reviewing my injuries. “So when you say ‘miraculous’, does this mean I can go?”

The doctor frowned. “Under the circumstances, it might be wise for you to stay for more tests. We don’t know yet whether—”

“She’ll be fine.” Lucen appeared around the sheet that separated my narrow section of the room. “You said nothing’s broken.”

The doctor took a step back. Lucen had his horns disguised, but she must have detected something was off about him. Most likely, she was feeling flustered by an intense arousal that would have seemed to come from nowhere. “Nothing appears broken, but with the extent of bruising—”

“She’ll be fine,” Lucen said more firmly. He smiled, and I understood he was purposely working his mojo on the doctor to gain her compliance. “Why don’t you draw up the release paperwork or whatever you need to do so she can leave?”

“If that’s what you want?” The doctor turned her concerned face toward me.

It was what I wanted. Since Raj was no longer distracting me from our plans, I needed to get back to them. To find out what happened after I lost it and went chasing him and to see what I could do to help if what happened was bad.

On the other hand, I sure didn’t feel up to walking out of here yet, and what if there was internal bleeding? Trust Lucen, I told myself. If my normally overly protective satyr was pushing for my release, my condition couldn’t be that bad.

I nodded at the doctor, who didn’t appear entirely convinced. However, she pressed her lips thin and left. After she did, Lucen pulled a chair up to the edge of my bed, and another satyr followed him into the pseudo-room.

“Azria?” So this was why Lucen was insistent that I’d be fine. He’d brought one of the satyrs’ own magical medics.

Like Lucen, Azria had her horns hidden. She tucked her pink-dyed curls behind her ears and began retrieving several items from the bag she carried. The first one she handed me was a pain-relief charm, which I took gratefully. The hospital had offered me potent painkillers, but I’d refused everything except the extra-strength Tylenol. I didn’t need my head getting cloudy again. Alas, Tylenol had only taken the edge off.

Lucen squeezed my hand as I draped the charm around my neck. “Kassin wanted to send a Gryphon healer in to tend you, but I convinced him to let us have a go at it first.”

“Um.” I bit my lip, not wanting to offend Azria’s healing skills but feeling it necessary to point out the obvious. “Will your medical charms work since I’m not a normal satyr? Ouch.”

Azria had taken a sample of my blood while I was looking at Lucen. The satyr medic stuck the drops in a bowl and added what appeared to be some pre-mixed spell ingredients to them. “Lucen tells me that when you were turned, your eyesight corrected itself. To his knowledge, you haven’t even come down with a cold in the last ten years, and you’ve healed very quickly from prior injuries.”

“And to top it off,” Lucen added, “the protective glyphs we gave you did far more than they should have if you were human. You don’t have so much as a concussion or a broken rib from your accident.”

“To be fair, I’m covered in the glyphs you gave me
and
the ones the Gryphons gave me. I’m wrapped in magical Teflon. I’m surprised I didn’t bounce off the pavement.”

After fighting with the furies in the Alps, Dezzi had insisted the satyrs add their own spells to the many the Gryphons had already covered me in. I didn’t know what all of them did, but I was pretty sure there were tattoo artists out there who were covered in less ink. Except my glyphs weren’t permanent. Once the magic was used up, they’d disappear.

On that thought, I inspected my arms, unsurprised to learn the marks on them were noticeably lighter. Definitely some of that power had been burned.

“Little siren, as far as I can tell, you went flying off your motorcycle at high speed. The fact that you’re in one piece is a testament to those charms, yes, but also to the fact that you’re physically a lot tougher than any human. More like one of us. I thought you were okay with that.”

“I am.” I took the vaguely acidic-smelling concoction Azria handed me and drank up as she indicated. It was hardly the foulest-tasting thing I’d ever had in my mouth, and with a wrinkled nose, I returned her cup. “I’m just not sure what it means.”

Azria was busy mixing up something new, and she didn’t glance at me as she answered. “It means magical remedies are likely to work more effectively on you than human ones. Now show me where the worst of your bruising is.”

“That would be my whole body.” Moaning, I lifted the scratchy blanket covering my hospital gown. While Azria spread some cooling paste on my thighs, I turned to Lucen again. “Speaking of my bike, where is it? And is the you-know-what safe? And how’s Tom and Dezzi and everyone else? For that matter, why hasn’t Tom checked in with me yet?”

“First, how about you tell me what you were thinking taking after Raj by yourself?”

In spite of the drugs and charms, I winced as Azria smeared yet a third remedy on my abraded wrists. “Later. Can we focus on what’s important?”

Lucen leaned back in his chair, looking weary. “All right. Least bad news first—your bike has been carted away.”

“What do you mean by carted away?”

Lucen smiled sadly. “Let’s just say it’s far more damaged than you are. I expect it’s totaled.”

“What?” I jerked forward, almost knocking the bowl from Azria’s hands, my heart sinking. “No. No, no, no—not my Dragon’sWing. Come on. I love that bike. I will never be able to afford to replace it with something half so nice.”

“Sorry, little siren. The bike is a wreck.”

Whimpering, I flopped back, though I was aware how ridiculous I was being.
It’s a bike, Jess. Not the end of the world. The real end of the world should be your concern.

Damn it. I forced myself to put aside my misplaced angst. “You said that was the least of the bad news. This doesn’t make me hopeful.”

Lucen rubbed the day-old scruff on his cheeks. “Yeah, about that. We lost the Vessel.”

I gaped at him, too horrified to speak. A hole opened in my gut, and I thought I might be sick yet again. “The furies got it? Oh, shit.” An unhappy silence followed, broken only by the sound of Azria packing away her supplies and a couple nurses talking down the hall.

Lucen cleared his throat. “After you took off, the fighting died down. Most of the furies got away, but we did manage to take one alive. The Gryphons took him to their headquarters for questioning. Meanwhile, they’re blocking off the city.”

“Blocking it off?” I flexed my fingers, which weren’t nearly as stiff as they’d been a few minutes ago. Azria’s spells must be working. Thank dragons. I was not sitting out the rest of this fight. “How long can they do that for?”

“I’m not sure, but as long as we know the Vessel in is the city, we have a chance to track it. If Raj smuggles it out, we might lose it for good.”

I closed my eyes and searched for that thin thread connecting me to the fury Dom. It was there, for whatever good it would do. The Vessel could be anywhere already, and there was no sense in going after Raj if the Gryphons had a lackey in their possession who we could question.

“I want to talk to this fury,” I said. “I have a suspicion. Something about being ambushed tonight stunk.”

Lucen dumped my torn and bloody clothes on my bed. “Yeah, it did. That’s why I was able to convince Kassin to let us tend to you, even though he’s suspicious of our magic. He wants you on your feet ASAP. He’s holding a strategy meeting at the damn Gryphon building in…” Lucen checked his phone, “…thirty minutes.”

Warily, I slid out of the bed and tested my legs. They held, and I sighed with relief. “Let’s go then before this night gets any worse.”