Magic Unchained Read Free

voice so it would carry to her second in command, who stood below her on the ball court.
    Zane nodded without taking his eyes off the pyre. “We should move this along if we want to beat the rain.” The ex-marine was at parade rest, though she wasn’t sure whether he was standing guard, awaiting orders, or a little bit of both.
    He had been one of her first recruits, and although he had carried serious rank out in the human world, he had zero problem taking orders from an inexperienced, pint-size woman ten years his junior. Rather than joining the others in complaining about how she’d wound up as their leader, he had done his damnedest to squelch the discontent and help level things off among the rebels, traditionalists, and Nightkeepers. And thank the gods for that, because she didn’t know how she could have gained even a semblance of control without him.
    Touching the high-tech bracelet she wore on her right wrist, over the place where she had once been markedwith the glyphs that tagged her as a servant to the coyote bloodline, she murmured into the bracelet’s audio pickup, “Rabbit? It’s time.”
    The magi had paid their respects already, leaving the
winikin
to conduct their own ceremony, as was proper. Cara had decided to break with tradition, though, in having the Nightkeepers’ sole surviving fire starter light Aaron’s funerary bundle—both for the symbolism and because it would ensure a complete burn.
    To her surprise there hadn’t been much of a protest, even from the trads. Then again, it wasn’t the first change she’d made, and it sure as heck wouldn’t be the last. Her predecessor, the royal
winikin
Jox, hadn’t chosen her to do more of the same; he’d picked her precisely because of who and what she was: a half human, half
winikin
who had been born after the massacre that wiped out their numbers and been raised by one of the most traditional of the trads, but who had no interest in serving the bloodline as Carlos did.
    I want someone to shake things up,
Jox had written in the sealed letter that named her the
winikin
’s new leader, and she had done plenty of that. But the countdown to the end date was down to its last three months and a few days now, which meant there wasn’t much shaking room left. At some point they were going to have to go with what they had.
    “Here he comes.” Zane tipped his head toward the open end of the ball court nearest to the mansion.
    Rabbit approached at a ground-eating jog. Although at twenty-three he was the youngest of the magi by nearly a decade, he looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, having been aged prematurely by the strange and powerful hybrid magic given to him by hismixed heritage. Pale eyed, sharp featured, and back to sporting a short Mohawk, Rabbit could’ve stepped right out of central casting for
Last of the Mohicans,
even though his jeans, black tee, Goth-chained boots, and MAC-10 machine pistol were thoroughly modern.
    Many of the
winikin
—and not just the newcomers—were wary of Rabbit, who was a mind-bender and telekine in addition to being a fire starter. Cara, though, felt a certain nonconformists’ kinship. They were both half-bloods, both prone to making waves. He had the advantage, though—he had more magic than all the other Nightkeepers put together. She just had herself, and the illusion of control.
    She came down the steps while he took his place at the foot of the pyre. And, as she hit the ground, she pretended not to see Zane’s outstretched hand. Guilt stung, though, along with a fleeting wish that things were different between them.
    Zane was a good man, clean-cut and handsome in a blocky, bench-pressed sort of way, and it would’ve made practical and political sense for them to get together. But two days ago, when he’d surprised the hell out of her by showing up at the door of her suite with a bouquet of cactus blooms and feelings she hadn’t realized he’d been percolating, he’d put it exactly