Sighing, I snuggled deeper against him. He was pretty good at defensive magic, but honestly, for as well as we worked together, it was sometimes easier without him. Now I’d be worried about him twenty-four/seven. “So, how are the girls?” I said to change the subject. The deckhands had come back up, standing with impeccable balance as they untangled a long length of docking rope though we were nowhere near the shore yet.
Trent’s head shook ruefully. “Fantastic,” he said, surprising me. “I doubt Lucy will ever be the same. Everyone dotes on her, treats her like a little princess.” A frown crossed him, his focus going distant. “Unfortunately.”
“And Ray?” I pressed.
“Making waves in her own way.” He hesitated. “You look cold. Do you want to go belowdecks?”
I shook my head, not knowing how the deckhands could stand there between Pike and us, totally at ease with the bouncing boat.
“Ellasbeth is driving me crazy,” Trent muttered. “I know I’ve said this before, but thank you for preventing me from making the biggest mistake of my life.”
I grinned. “So smacking my head into a tombstone no longer tops the list?”
Trent chuckled and held me closer. “The Goddess help me, I was such an idiot. I’m so sorry about that. No. I swear, I’m going to spell her, Rachel. If I have to spend one more dinner party with her and her dad and listen to their back-and-forth slights at everything from Cincinnati art to the color of my tie, I’m going to spell her with chicken pox.”
I laughed because I knew it wasn’t true. And I needed to laugh. Mary’s gaunt form and Ralph’s slow humor haunted me: one starving herself to avoid the magic-stunting amino acids the coven laced the food with, and the other lobotomized for trying to escape. I needed to talk to Vivian. She’d said she was going to stop their practice of magically neutering their inmates.
“We can be back in Cincy before sunup,” Trent was saying, and I pulled my wandering thoughts back.
“If we can get a flight, sure,” I said, rubbing at the blue staining my cuticles. “And then a car rental from Dayton. Can Jonathan come pick us up?”
Trent’s expression went positively smug. “No need. We can land at Hollows International. My car is in the lot. It’s only the big carriers that are being diverted.”
I pursed my lips, trying to figure that out—until I remembered his earlier remark about being on the Jetway when he got my call. “You still have your private jet?” I said.
“Of course. Why would I sell it?”
“Because—” My words faltered. “Because you’re trying to be more environmentally conscious,” I said instead, but I was pretty sure he knew where my thoughts had been.
“Pike, there’s a seat for you as well,” Trent said, and the vampire opened his eyes, peering at us from between the two deckhands coiling that rope. I didn’t like his smirk, not knowing where it stemmed from.
“No, thanks!” he shouted over the roar of the engine. “I’ll find my own way home.”
Ah, innocence, I thought smugly. I had zero concern that he’d walk away when we reached land. I’d once escorted Trent across the U.S. with a price on his head. Pike wouldn’t get twenty feet from the dock before an assassin tried for him and he decided he’d be better off with me until he got back under Constance’s protection.
“I don’t trust him,” Trent said, the words a whispered breath on my ear.
“Me either,” I said. “But he’s got my kind of problems, and he won’t do anything until he gets to Cincy. He’ll take you up on that flight home. Guaranteed.”
“What makes you so sure?”
But my expression emptied when the captain turned from the wheel, nodding sharply at the two crew members.
“Rachel?” Trent prompted.
Pulse fast, I lurched to my feet when the two deckhands snicked the ends of the ropes through their hands and, with an assassin-like quickness, twisted them into snares.
“Pike!” I exclaimed, and his eyes flew open. Gasping, he flung a hand up. One noose landed about his neck cleanly, but the other caught his wrist, pinning it to his neck.
The ropes hissed and water jumped as they snapped them in a neck-breaking yank.
Pike hit the floor of the boat, red-faced. Spinning, he braced himself and pulled.
Both his attackers lurched, yanked off-balance. The captain stepped forward, the boat on autopilot, presumably. His expression held no remorse, and a knife was in his hand, long and thin for gutting fish.
“Stay back!” Trent shouted over the roar of the engine, and a wave broke over the bow, soaking us. “You can’t tap a line!”
Damn it back to the Turn. I’m wet again.
No, I couldn’t tap a line, but I could slam my foot into the captain’s gut, and I sent him staggering back to the wheel.
Pike was scrabbling on the floor of the boat, one hand pinned to his neck, the other trying to reach that knife in his ankle sheath. He wasn’t going to make it, and the two crewmen held him steady, unmoving between them like a lion staked for the kill.
“Leave off!” I shouted, hammering my foot into one of the crew members’ kidneys. He never even felt it, shoving me away as Pike got to his knees. The captain had regained his feet, his eyes on Pike and only Pike. Their intent was obvious: gut him and throw him overboard.
I’m not taking the blame for this, I thought, teeth clenched. But if I was honest, I just didn’t like someone trying to kill Pike, even if he had been told to kill me. Maybe it was because his vulnerable confidence reminded me of Kisten. Maybe it was because he didn’t freak out when I yanked him into the ever-after and then got us dumped in Alcatraz. Maybe it was because I’d been there myself and knew how it felt. Jenks would say it was the vampire pheromones, but I liked him. I didn’t want to see him dead.
“I said leave off!” I exclaimed, ignored as the two crew members held Pike, red-faced and choking, between the ropes as the captain advanced. Son of a bastard! Spittle came from Pike’s mouth, his eyes unfocused as he tried to breathe and reach that knife in his ankle sheath.
“Stay out of it, Rachel!” Trent yanked me back when I made a lunge for the captain.
Peeved, I shoved Trent’s hand off me and dove at one of the men holding the ropes.
I tackled him, slamming him into the low wall. Heavy hands gripped me, and I gasped, wishing I could vanish into the ever-after like a demon when his thick fist slammed into the side of my head. I went sprawling, and then I was alone, facedown on the deck.
Another wave soaked me and, head shaking, I looked up at the savage shouting over the engine’s roar. Only one rope was taut. Pike held the other, still around his neck as he flicked the free end at the men like a whip. His knife was in his other hand, and he fended them off until the two deckhands ganged up on the one rope and yanked him off-balance.