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“You can punch me later, wild card. But right now, we need to focus on getting you out of here.” He moves on to the ankle restraints. “Where’s the shadow?”
I blink at him, trying to focus. “He’s… They took him somewhere. I’m not sure where. I haven’t seen him.”
Cohen nods. “Okay, call him back. He’ll come. He’ll have no choice.”
“Call him back?” I’m not sure what he means by that.
Cohen uncoils to his feet, and tugs me up after him, wrapping an arm around my waist as he does to keep me from falling on my ass, which I was totally about to do. “He’s bound to you, Rosalind. He’ll come if you call.”
My forehead presses against his chest and I just breathe him in. God, he smells good. And he feels good too. “I don’t know how.”
I feel his fingers slip into my hair, stroking, soothing. “As much as I love this, wildcard, we need to move.”
He uses a gentle grip to tilt my head back. “This is important, so listen.” I nod. “They have wards in place that prevent most spell casting inside this building. We won’t have access to magic until we get outside. Kohaku is not bound by those wards because his power is his own. Not witchcraft. Call him to you.”
Before I can ask how exactly I’m supposed to do that, the door slams open. Cohen moves, twisting so that I’m behind him, and he’s protecting my body with his. I whimper as the fast motion makes my entire fucking body ache. I don’t even want to know what I look like right now, probably all covered in bruises from too many hits.
A growl rumbles out of Cohen, and I realize I said that out loud.
All the lights flick on, illuminating more than just the chair I’d been in, and I blink against the bright assault.
“Cohen?” asks a female voice that is not me. There’s a familiarity there, and a hurt, that speaks of an entire relationship. The man in front of me tenses as he reaches back and grips my hip with one of his hands, squeezing gently. But I have no clue what it means.
The good news is I appear to have stopped spouting everything I’m thinking out of my mouth.
“No, baby, you’re still doing that,” Cohen mutters, no longer sounding amused.
Shit.
“What the hell are you doing here?” The blond woman asks.
“Well, it’s lovely to see you too, Suzie.” Cohen removes his hand from my hip and all the tension eases from his body. I take that as a sign to peek around him, to see what we’re dealing with, but then I duck back behind him when I do.
It seems like every single witch hunter in the state is there, pointing some kind of weapon at me. At us.
Or, I guess, at Cohen, since he’s the one I’m cowering behind.
“So, this is what you did? Went out and find the first slutty witch you could and fuck her?” Venom laces those words directed at me and Cohen.
Oh, ouch.
Cohen tilts his head to the side. “You tried to kill me, Suzie. Do you remember that?”
“I tried tosaveyou,” Suzie says, and she sounds like she means it. “Removing your power would have saved you. We… You wouldn’t have left then. We could have stayed together as a team.”
The tension is back. “You think binding my magic wouldn’t have killed me, Suzie? Really?”
I’m trying to follow what they’re saying, trying to get a full grasp on their relationship and what exactly it means, but my brain is still foggy and stupid from whatever they gave me. “Is now really the time to go over this?” I mumble to Cohen. “Because it kind of doesn’t feel like it.”
I swear I hear him snort out a laugh, but I can’t be sure. “You’re right, wildcard. It’s not the time. It’s old news, and we don’t need to rehash every aspect of our relationship, Suzie.”
I feel Cohen scratching at my mind, and let him in, slamming my hand over my mouth so if I say anything, it will be muffled. Hopefully, they won’t be able to make out the words.
Call Kohaku, wild card. We need him.
Okay. I’ll try.
I’m vaguely aware of Cohen and Suzie conversing, but I can’t focus on it. Or at least I can’t until I hear Suzie say in a snarl, “You broke my fucking heart, you asshole.”
