Magic Binds (Kate Daniels, #9)

by Ilona Andrews

“What?” Roman asked. “No altar?” Curran asked. “No bloody knives and frightened virgins?” “No sacrificial pit ringed with skulls?” I asked. “Ha. Ha.” Roman rolled his eyes. “Never heard that one before. I keep the virgins chained up in the basement. Do you want some coffee?” I shook my head. “Yes,” Curran said. “Black?” “No, put cream in it.” “Good man. Only two kinds of people drink their coffee black: cops and serial killers. Sit, sit.”

“You hungry? Do you want something to eat?” Roman wagged his eyebrows. “I have smoked brisket.” My fiancé leaned forward, suddenly interested. “Moist or dry?” “Moist. What am I, a heathen?” Technically, he was a heathen.

While Curran held the coiled promise of explosive violence, Mahon looked like if the roof suddenly caved in, he would catch it, grunt, and hold it up.

“You’re looking thinner. Trimming down for the wedding? Or she not feeding you enough?” “He eats what he kills,” I said. “I can’t help it that he’s a lousy hunter.”

“You should’ve let me twist his head off,” Mahon said. “You can’t let people insult your wife, Curran. One day you’ll have to choose diplomacy or your spouse. I’m telling you now, it’s got to be your wife. Diplomacy doesn’t care if you live or die. Your wife does.”

“Hey, Daniels,” Ella called out. “Bring us back some cookies.” “What makes you think there will be cookies?” “When I go home to see my parents, there are always cookies.” If Roland did have cookies, they’d probably make me spit fire. “I’ll see what I can do.”

he’d ordered him tied to the cross. So the death would take longer. “That’s barbaric.” Roland turned to me with a small smile. “No. Barbarism usually produces swift death. Cruelty is the mark of a civilized human. I still have a hundred Iron Dogs in this location. He’s an excellent visual aid.”

“After you.” The volhv nodded at the opening. Great. Come down to the witch forest, enter a deep dark cave. What could go wrong? Just once I would like to have an important meeting in a happy little meadow or an orchard.

“You’re letting him get to you. You’re like a walking mythological encyclopedia, Kate. You pull random mystical crap out of your head and figure out that a giant monster nobody has seen on the face of the planet for three thousand years is allergic to hedgehogs and then you find a cute hedgehog and stab the monster in the eye with it.”

“I love when you bare your teeth at me. All the shapeshifter living has been rubbing off on you. You’d make such a cute shapeshifter.” “I will fucking throw you off this tower.” “You and what army?” He spread his arms. “Give it all you’ve got, baby.”

“Every time I use my magic, everybody gets so concerned. I defend them, I bleed for them, and the moment the immediate danger passes, they let me know how much they disapprove. As if their fucking disapproval matters. As if I should ask their permission, like a servant, to do what is in my power.”

he doesn’t want me talking to my grandmother.” Barabas looked at Curran. Curran shrugged. “It’s a family thing. Sometimes your father puts your semidead grandmother into a really bad place and is ashamed of it.” “Yeah,” Barabas said. “We’ve all been there.”

“The day turned hot. Since nobody was around, they’d taken off their clothes to go swimming, when a ‘big gold horse’ with wings walked out of the woods on the opposite bank and started drinking. The two geniuses decided to try to catch it and made it partway across the river, when, according to them, ‘a winged devil’ landed on the horse and told them to run before he devoured their souls.” Well, that escalated quickly. Winged devil, huh. “And this devil rode the horse?” “Supposedly.” So the winged horses were rideable.

Holland stared at me, his eyes wild, his body dripping slime and blood. “You’re okay,” I told him. “You’re cool. Everything is okay.” “I quit.” “You’re okay. It’s shock.” “No. I’m done.” He waved his sword at me. “She swallowed me! I was inside her!”

It’s your life, Julie. You’re a person. As much as it makes me freak out, you have to be free to make your decisions, even the wrong ones. But I think it’s dangerous and stupid, and I will tell you so.” “In great detail. With a scary look on your face.” Julie sighed. “Yes. But in the end, they are your decisions. You’re not a baby.” “Sometimes you treat me like one.” “I’ll treat you like a baby when you’re fifty. Get used to it.” I looked at Baby B. “I didn’t do it to own you. I did it to save your life. I had no choice.” “I know. You knew I would hate it, but you did it anyway, because you love me.” Julie swallowed. “So did I. I talked to Roland even though I knew you would hate it. It’s your fault. You were my role model.”

That was how he got her. There were four main incentives that moved people to do things: power, wealth, knowledge, and emotion. He offered her power and knowledge, two out of four. She belonged to me, so he couldn’t take her outright, but he could poison her. He could push and shape her until he made her into another Hugh.

I sighed. “Are we flying?” “I’m flying. If you’re lucky, I won’t drop you.” “If you drop me, I’ll be very put out.” “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Father, you are sending mixed signals. You dispatched a woman to murder me today and now you’re upset about my wedding reception?”

I must’ve been more rattled than I thought, because when he walked into the bedroom, I woke up, grabbed Sarrat, and made it two whole steps toward him before I realized what was happening, which earned me a round of applause and calls for an encore.

“My father called me, all offended on my behalf that the wedding dinner isn’t sufficiently feastlike.” “Umm,” Roman said. “Curran is also now offended because my father referred to him as a pauper.” “Umm,” Roman offered. “And then you called over to the Keep and offended the dress designers, so they hunted me down this morning and invaded my house.” “You do need a dress.” “You’re not a wedding planner, you’re a menace. Stop planning my wedding.” “I’ll stop when you start.” “There is nothing to plan.”

“You have a weird life.” “Look who’s talking.” He shrugged. “It’s not that I’m that evil, really. I’m just beloved by evil things.”

“I didn’t mean to rope you into this.” “I didn’t mean to bring you into a scary swamp. Things happen.”

“What will you do now?” I asked. He smiled, baring vampire fangs. “When you fight your father, I will soar above you. I want to be the last thing he sees before he dies.” So far I had the god of evil and the god of terror on my side. My good-guy image was taking a serious beating. Maybe I should recruit some unicorns or kittens with rainbow powers to even us out.

Just another night in Atlanta. Sitting on my porch between a Greek god who was really a human and an angel of death who was having an existential crisis.

Life had tried to kill me in all sorts of ways lately, but falling off of a flying horse was a new and unwelcome development.

Curran was counting on me. I was counting on me. I didn’t have time for post-traumatic stress.

“It was a saber-toothed tiger,” Julie said. “It glowed silver.” Silver meant divine magic. There was no telling what that saber-toothed tiger was or where my dad had gotten him. “Snitch,” Derek said. She waved him off. “He killed it and then he ate it.” I looked at Curran. “You killed an animal god and then you ate him?” “Maybe,” Curran said.

The inside of the Guild had gotten a face-lift as well. The mess hall was back and the food was actually good this time, which made sense because nothing offended shapeshifters more than subpar dining options.

“Roman, if I don’t do this, Atlanta will be destroyed.” “Atlanta is always getting destroyed,” Mary said. “Eat some cake. It will make you feel better.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to find yourself some shapeshifter heifer and have a litter of kittens, rather than deal with all this?” I thought we were over this. “Well, if I’m banging a heifer, technically the kids would have an equal chance of being calves and kittens,” Curran said. “So it might be a litter or a small herd.” “If Curran and I have a litter of kittens, will you babysit?” Erra stared at me like I had slapped her. “They will be very cute kittens,” Curran said.

I’d had the balcony and the attic ladder installed two months ago. When Jim found out, he had called me. He worried it was a security risk. Jim wouldn’t worry about anything related to me anymore. When a ten-year-old friendship shattered, the edges cut you.

“If you remove adversity, you remove ingenuity and creativity with it. There is no need to strive to make something beautiful or better if it already is.”

You found another misfit with no place to go and were ready to protect her with everything you had.” “I didn’t . . .” “Yeah, you did. You’re like a crazy cat lady, but you collect killers instead of fluffy cats.” “I don’t collect killers.” “Yes, you do, and those who aren’t killers turn into killers by the time you’re done.

I leaned into Barabas’s office. “Do you want to come help pick out a suit for Christopher?” “No,” Barabas said firmly, tapping a stack of papers against his desk to even it out. “Why?” “Because I don’t need to see him in a suit.”

“Is your father riding a gold chariot?” Ghastek asked. “He’s a product of his times. It’s what he grew up with.” “There is nothing wrong with a gold chariot,” Erra said. “It’s meant to be symbolic.”

But true love, the one that endures through time, love that is pure joy, love that nothing in this world can shatter, that kind of love is rare. The two people standing before me today have it. They fought for it, they endured for it, and they earned it. Tonight we are privileged to celebrate their love with them.”

Roman waved his arm and a murder of crows shot out of the forest, flew above our heads and up into the sky. “I don’t do doves,” Roman said.