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Derrick snorted a laugh. “They frown on burning things when the plane is in motion.”
“Drat,” I said and took the paper bag.
It was far too easy to like this man, so I turned away.
I managed to get the soiled garments into the bag and rolled the top securely. When I turned back around, Derrick was still there. He flashed a faint smile and reached for the bag, which I was more than willing to part with.
The plane dipped left and shuddered. I stumbled and might have bashed my head again if Derrick hadn’t grabbed me. His hands clasped my elbows, drawing me close enough I could feel his breath on my cheek. My eyes fastened on the hollow of his throat and I was washed in the scent of autumn leaves and soap. I hiccupped a breath, stiffening because some part of me wanted to lean into him, to feel if he was as solid to the touch as he appeared.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
My hand was on his side and yes, he was solid. I withdrew, flustered.
“Nora?”
“Yes, fine, just,” I scrambled for an apology but what came out was; “You smell good. I hadn’t expected…”
“For wolves to bathe?” he asked, with no small amount of amusement.
Mortified at my own words, I pivoted away and prayed I could make it through the rest of the trip without saying anything more. Just to be safe, I sat beside Mark and kept my eyes on my folded hands as Derrick went back to his seat.
There was a term for this, for when captives began to trust their captors, and I was not going to fall into that trap. It didn’t matter that Derrick’s mother was in danger, he was complicit in this abduction.
As Uncle Martin would say, better to assume that rattle is from a snake.
Chapter Five
When we arrived in New York, Derrick gave us the bad news that we still had another forty minutes of travel by car. It was at least a nice SUV with separate seats in the back and the interior smelled lovely as I slid inside. I was surprised when Derrick didn’t take the front, sitting instead just to my left in the back. Mark buckled into the driver’s seat and another wolf I’d come to know as Henry settled in the front passenger’s seat. Henry was bulky and broad, with a face that seemed chiseled from stone and a placid expression that I might have considered lazy if it weren’t for the way his gaze tracked my every move.
To be fair, there was an absurd little voice urging me to run at every corner. I probably looked like a rabbit about to bolt.
Leaning against the plush seatback afforded me a sliver of view through the window. The sky was a mesh of pink and red, with thin purple clouds scattered across the horizon. No stars yet, but with the lack of city structure around the night promised to be a spectacular sight. If, of course, I was allowed to wander.
I rubbed the base of my thumb, outlining the cursed runestone, and frowned. It took serious magic to cut a warlock from the aether, which meant there had to be at least one powerful sorcerer on the Leslie payroll. Which made sense, I supposed. The Leslies would make certain to employ the best.
Scowling at my hand, I tried to drum up the image of the rune that had been in the stone, but what I could remember was unfamiliar. A capsized Z with squiggly lines on either side, a small flick to one side, almost like an apostrophe, and an incomplete circle surrounding the thing.
Maker help me! I should have paid better attention in class.
For a moment I was back in father’s study, schoolbooks open on the desk. Sunlight warmed the nicked surface of my little desk, and I could almost smell the woody scent of my pencil as Bess prowled through the room in her old-fashioned black dress. When she first moved in after mother died, I thought the dress ridiculous, like something out of a pioneer film with its cinched wrists and frilled neckline, but as time wore on, I became accustomed to it. Nana Bess was eccentric, but at least she was there.
Her voice surfaced in my memory; a somber, unimpressed sound that never failed to make me self-conscious. “Halfblooded Bright are always warlocks, Nora. What are the types of warlocks?”
Summoner or wizard.
“And which one are you?”
Wizard. Empath.
“Yes, you are a low-level wizard empath. You specialize in emotions and the mind. This is different from a summoner because…?”
Because a summoner literally summons the elements: fire, air, earth, water.
“Exactly so! It’s nice to see you’re paying attention today, Nora.”
The underhanded compliment hadn’t been meant for me so much as it was aimed toward my father, who had paused outside the door. He forgot to shave that morning because a rough shadow outlined his jaw, and his eyes were sunken further than usual, his expression distracted. But he was always distracted, as though his studies were pulling his physical form away as well as his mind.
There was an ache in my chest and I took a breath. Trees passed outside the car window, tall and shadowed, their leafy tops blotting out the sky the further we went into the mountains. I couldn't see the stars, and as far as I could tell there weren’t many landmarks to go by.
