Page 15 of Magic Betrayed

He’d been trying to fix it. The grumpy, inflexible, rules-loving dragon had been looking for a way to change the law. For me.

“And have you found one?” I asked carefully.

“No.” His jaw clenched and a flicker of fire flashed in his eyes. “But I’m not done trying.”

“Thank you.” I took a few more steps towards the kitchen and then had to pause until my balance reasserted itself. “Sincerely, thank you.” For the second time in the last twenty-four hours, I was forced to fight back tears. Not a habit I wanted to get into.

“So does this mean…” I paused. Not sure how to phrase what I was thinking without incriminating myself or revealing feelings I wasn’t ready to talk about. “Have we established that I’m not mad at you, and you’re not mad at me?”

The dragon’s jaw unclenched and his entire body seemed to relax once more. “Seems that way.”

“Then what are the chances of you letting me leave and not telling Faris?”

The impossible dragon took another sip of his coffee and smiled. “Somewhere between zero and… less than zero.”

Ugh. “Callum, I can’t be stuck here. My family is missing. With every minute that passes, it gets less and less likely that they’ll be okay, and I can’t just sit here and wait for news.I can’t.”

He finally stepped out from behind the kitchen island, setting his coffee down before moving in my direction. When he stopped in front of me, there was only an arm’s length between us. His hands flexed for a moment before he stuffed them in his pockets, then his head tilted, and his eyes softened sympathetically.

“Don’t think I’m not hearing you, Raine. Believe me, I understand the urgency of knowing your family members are missing.”

It was true. If anyone understood, it was Callum, who’d spent so many years hunting for Kira after she disappeared.

“But right now, you can barely stand up, and shapeshifter healing—if you have it—can only work so fast if you don’t actually shift.”

Even if I wanted to shift, with Kes gone, I couldn’t risk it. Without her help, I might end up stuck as a fox, just as I had the first time.

Somehow, that memory made the tears well up again, sudden and shocking, and this time I wasn’t strong enough to stop them. “I can’t just do nothing,” I whispered, as the first tears spilled over, leaving scalding tracks down my cheeks. “What if they’re scared or trapped or hurt? What if they think no one is coming? No one ever came for us before. They must be feeling so hopeless and…”

I was really crying now. I didn’t do crying. Especially not in front of Callum-ro-Deverin. But here I was, standing in his living room, wearing his pajamas, with tears streaming down my face and no way to stop them.

“I promised,” I told him shakily, tilting my chin until I could look into his eyes. Pleading for him to understand. “I promised I would always find them. That they would never feel lost or alone again. And every moment I wait… every moment I’m not looking… I’m breaking that promise.”

One of his hands left his pocket, lifted, as if he might reach for me, and then stopped. Unsure.

“I think you’ve forgotten,” he said softly, as his hand fell back to his side, “thatyou’renot alone anymore either.”

I wasn’t alone.

Faris had implied the same thing when he referred to Kes and the kids as his people. His words meant the world to me, but we’d been here for barely three months. Not all of Faris’s employees trusted me, nor was I willing to trust all of them without reservations.

Not to mention, so far I’d brought them nothing but danger and destruction. How could I ask them to keep helping me when I had nothing to offer other than a murky past and mediocre waitressing skills?

“I know Faris said I’m a part of the Shadow Court now,” I acknowledged. “But Kira’s wedding is less than two weeks away. Everyone has more than enough to do just to get ready, and I refuse to ruin this day she’s been looking forward to for so long. And it’s possible… Kes may have just been frightened and run. Maybe the phone battery died, and she can’t call, but she’ll come back when it’s safe.”

I wanted to believe that. Wanted to cling to the possibility of an innocent explanation. But in truth, the evidence against it was too strong. And I kept hearing the echo of Shane’s warning. He might have believed that no one knew where she was yet, but what if he was wrong? I couldn’t afford to ignore the likelihood that someone had taken Kes as a result of that contract.

Still less could I afford to tell anyone why that contract existed.

“If it turns out that someone did take them”—I swallowed the surge of fear that accompanied that admission—“they may not even be in Oklahoma anymore. If they’re somewhere outside the Shadow Court’s territory, I can’t ask Faris to step on another court’s toes for me.”

Callum just looked at me steadily. “Is that all your objections?”

I had no doubt I could think of more. “For now.”

“Then you can stop worrying,” he said, with an irritating calm that made me want to shake him. “First of all, in case you haven’t noticed yet, Faris has zero problem stepping on toes. I think he enjoys it. And he’s been way less worried about ticking off the other courts since Elayara kidnapped him and stole his magic.”

Wait,what? “I had no idea.”

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