CHAPTER 17
Isadora launched her hand forwards, a silver ball of magic bursting from it with barely a thought from her as the need to protect Rook seized hold of her. She followed it with another and then another, hurling them at the witch. The brunette dodged them all with ease, deflecting them with spells of her own and sending them flying in all directions.
Rook swept his hand down his blade and it grew in size, becoming a sword more worthy of his demonic stature. He growled and lumbered forwards, his heavy footfalls shaking the ice as he set his sights on the woman.
Still as reckless as ever.
“Go,” Apollyon barked and she nodded, didn’t hesitate to chase after him as the witch noticed Rook and smiled, as if her victory had just been assured and the spell was already within her grasp.
Spanish Inquisition hurled three smaller spells at Rook. They hovered above his hand for a heartbeat, illuminating the harsh planes of his face and casting white light over his dark violet dress shirt, and then shot towards Rook. They twirled and zoomed around each other, forming a spiral of light as they closed in on her angel.
Isadora focused on them, conjuring a counter-attack.
Twin blue orbs shot past her and collided with them, knocking them off course, sending them whizzing towards Bitch.
“We can handle him,” Serenity called and Isadora shifted her focus to the woman.
The brunette raised her hands before her and a black-purple barrier formed in front of them just as the rogue spells reached her. She grunted as they slammed against it, the force of the blow sending her staggering backwards and skidding across the ice of the lake.
Rook ploughed into her before she could recover, his shoulder slamming into her gut and lifting her off the ice. He growled and thrust with his blade, but she swept her hand down, moving the barrier spell with it, and blocked him.
His sword connected with the spell.
Isadora’s eyes widened as he went flying in a tangle of limbs and wings that made it impossible to tell which end of him was which as he spun. He shook his head and snarled as he finally managed to unfurl his wings and beat them, heading back towards Bitch.
Black vines shot up from the ground, snaking towards him.
Rook growled as he hacked at them, trying to stop them from reaching him, and snarled as one latched around his leg and yanked him down, slamming him into the ice.
Isadora growled with him, her gaze snapping to the witch.
Bitch would pay for that.
She lifted her hands and shards of ice burst from the snow, racing in a line towards the witch. A grin curved her lips when the witch kept her focus on Rook as she waved her hands around before her, commanding the vine that held Rook, lifting him back into the air with it.
The spikes of ice closed in on her.
Rook suddenly crashed into them like a wrecking ball, shattering them and sending them shooting across the lake.
Towards Apollyon and Serenity where they were locked in a battle with Spanish Inquisition.
“Look out!” she called and the blonde twirled to face her, her hazel eyes going round as she spotted the long javelins of ice rocketing through the air towards her.
She held both hands out in front of her and a barrier flickered in front of them. Isadora’s heart lodged in her throat. It wasn’t going to solidify fast enough.
She called on her own magic and hurled her hands forwards, preparing to unleash a wave of fire in Serenity’s direction and praying it would reach her in time.
The spell died on her lips as a dazzling beam of golden light swept across the lake between Serenity and the shards of ice, the heat of it so fierce that the water steamed as it gushed upwards and over the frozen lake.
Serenity staggered backwards, breathing hard as her head whipped up, her eyes locking on the sky.
Isadora looked there.
Apollyon hovered above her, his blades crossed before him and golden light crackling around them. The beam stuttered and faded, leaving a long gash in the lake.
The blond witch looked as if he was having second thoughts as he stared at Apollyon, his face pale and grey eyes enormous.
Serenity didn’t give him a chance to run. She thrust her hand towards him, sending three spears of blue at him. He hurled himself to his right, narrowly evading them, and they ploughed into the snowy forest, sending a plume of white up into the air.
Apollyon swept down, landing beside Serenity, and furled his wings as he advanced on the male.
Rook grunted, snagging Isadora’s attention. He hacked at the vine and Isadora ran over to him, reaching him just as Bitch tried to use the black roots to take hold of him again. Isadora planted her hands against them and let the spell that had been building inside her loose on them instead. Green light zoomed along their lengths, and they rapidly withered, turning to ashes before her eyes.
The witch screamed as the fire reached the roots, the point where it connected her to the spell, and green light swept over her. She lifted her hands before her and stared at them as her skin lost some of its colour, the spell affecting her as it had the vines, sapping the life from her.
“Enrique,” she muttered as she sank to her knees, her dark eyes enormous, flooded with fear.
The male pivoted to look at her, his face a black mask. “Damn you.”
Isadora wasn’t sure whether that was aimed at her for hurting the witch, or at the witch for using his name, giving it to her.
Serenity leaped on it before she could, wove it into a spell and tied it to him before she launched it in his direction. He tried to evade it, ran and dodged, fired spells of his own, but it chased him, zigzagging whenever he did.
Isadora wanted to grin when it finally slammed into him, exploding in a bright flash, but her smile faltered as the air cleared, revealing the male where he lay prone on the ice, his black jeans and dark shirt flecked with snow.
Down but not dead.
“Sorry… I…” Serenity muttered in French, her voice dripping with apology.
Isadora helped Rook onto his feet and shot her a look she hoped conveyed that she wasn’t going to hold it against her. Not everyone was cut out for killing. She had been like that once, so long ago that she barely remembered those days.
She wasn’t as forgiving now, had been forged into something harder by her years and experiences. She knew better than to leave an enemy alive.
She didn’t have to worry about the male though.
Before she could raise a finger or utter a single syllable of a spell, Apollyon had landed hard beside the male and driven one of his blades right through him.
Bitch shrieked at him and launched to her feet, and swept her hands out in front of her, bringing them together before her. Black stilted ribbons burst from them in a swift beam heading straight for Apollyon’s back.
“Mon ange!” Serenity screamed, her fear washing over Isadora together with her magic as it rose in response to the sight of her angel in danger.
Apollyon looked at her and disappeared, reappearing beside her, out of the path of the spell. Serenity cursed him and threw herself into his arms, and he wrapped her in his wings as he held her.
“I am harder to kill than that,” he murmured and brushed his lips across her golden hair.
Isadora’s eyes widened as Bitch grunted and slowly turned on her heel, shifting the path of the beam. It snapped at the ice as it cut through the air, closing in on Apollyon and Serenity.
“I’m getting bored of all this long range hocus pocus,” Rook growled, dipped down towards the ice, and kicked off, causing the sheet they were on to rock violently as he launched into the air.
She struggled for balance, staggering towards the melted strip of lake that separated her from Apollyon and Serenity. “Move it you two.”
Apollyon swept Serenity up into his arms and shot into the air with her, carrying her above the path of the beam.
Leaving it coming directly at Isadora.
“Shit.”
She turned, skidded on the wet ice and slammed face-first into it, knocking the air from her lungs.
Her heart hammered against her chest as she looked over her shoulder.
The beam reached the edge of the ice on her side of the lake.
She tried to teleport, but the spell failed as fear combined with the drain of battling with her magic. She kicked off instead, cursing when she couldn’t get any traction on the ice. The wave of power surrounding the spell reached her and she made the mistake of looking back at it as she finally found her feet.
She wasn’t going to be fast enough.
She muttered a barrier, the strongest one she knew that could be conjured quickly, twisted and held her hands out in front of her, bracing herself for a direct hit.
The black beam fizzled and died.
Isadora stared at where it had been, shock rippling through her as she struggled to make sense of what had just happened and her fear flooding from her, leaving her legs weak beneath her.
She shifted her gaze to her right.
Rook looked at something in his left hand, shrugged and casually tossed it over his shoulder.
It skidded across the ice to stop a few metres from her and she baulked when she realised what it was.
A hand.
Rook’s solution to stopping the witch from being able to use magic was sound in a way.
His own little way.
He saw magic as something that came from hands, and so he was going to remove them from the witch to stop her from using spells on him and the others, giving himself an opening to land a killing blow with his sword.
She cringed as he sailed through the air to land a few feet from her, copper sparks leaping from the front of his breastplate as he slid through the snow. It bunched around his shoulders, burying his dragon-like wings, and he almost disappeared beneath a bank of it as he finally stopped near her.
He grunted, growled and flashed fangs as he scowled and clawed his way out of the mound of snow.
“You know magic comes from inside us, right?” She hurried to him and offered her hand to him. He just glared at it and continued to fight his way out alone. She sighed. “Hands are just a way of directing the magic.”
She proved it by hurling a spell at the bitch without looking at her or moving a muscle, sending the gold and blue orbs rocketing towards her at a speed she couldn’t dodge. They struck her hard, knocking her flying, and she shrieked as she hit the ice, the vibrations from her impact reaching Isadora where she stood over Rook.
He huffed, lumbered onto his feet to tower at least three feet taller than her and snarled at her, exposing all red teeth as his crimson eyes narrowed on her.
“Fair enough.” She wasn’t going to argue with him, not when it was clear he wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. “You do your thing, I’ll do mine… like a team.”
He paused, his expression twisting in a way that looked like a grimace but she presumed was his thinking face when he was demonic.
He nodded and held his hand out to her.
Expecting her to shake on it?
She shrugged and placed her hand in his big black one, shrieked like a damned girl when he hauled her into the air, twisted her and planted her bottom on his wide shoulder. She gripped his black hair in her right hand and wobbled, struggling to find her balance as he stomped towards the witch.
When she had talked about working together, she hadn’t meant in such close proximity. She preferred a little distance when she was fighting, room to manoeuvre.
She certainly hadn’t imagined she would be riding into battle on his shoulder.
He grunted and flexed his fingers around his broadsword, and she almost slid off his shoulder. She grabbed his chest plate to stop herself from falling and leaned into him, smothering the side of his head with her own breastplate.
He slid her a look as she righted herself, regaining her balance.
“Later,” he grumbled, voice deeper than before but somehow still managing to hold a teasing note.
She cuffed him around the back of his head. “I’ll give you later.”
“You’ll give it to me later?” He grinned at her and avoided her second blow.
Bright blue light burst out of the corner of her eye and she looked there.
A dome formed over the witch as she clutched the arm that was missing a hand to her. Blood spilled down it, matching the colour of her top. It dripped from her elbow and soaked into the snow and ice. Her lips drew back in a grimace, the power that flowed from her darkening as she glanced off to her right, towards the dead man.
Isadora refused to feel guilt over what had happened, just as she refused to feel guilt over what she was going to do next. It was this witch or her, and while she knew it wouldn’t stop others from coming after her, she was going to put an end to this right here and right now.
And she wasn’t going to feel an ounce of regret about it.
Rook rapped his knuckles against the dome, causing a hollow ‘thunk’ to echo around it, and looked up at her. “Portal?”
“No need.” She leaned forwards, stretching towards the barrier, and pressed her palm against it as she took hold of Rook’s nape with her other hand. Not to keep her steady, but to steal a little of his power.
It was stronger than expected, lit her up like a thunderbolt as her magic connected with him. Fire flowed into her, a raging torrent that had her feeling as if she might burst if she didn’t find an outlet for all the power zinging through her.
She focused it on the barrier and ran through all the reversal spells she knew. They were quick to come, eager to devour the power she was feeding them. She barely had time to think about them before they were bursting from her, hitting the barrier like a barrage.
It crumbled before her and she wasn’t sure which spell had been the right one, was left dazed and stunned by what just a small hit of Rook’s power could do for her when he was fully demonic.
She had always been of the light, but damn, the dark was powerful and she could see why some witches went down that route.
The feel of Rook’s strength flowing through her was addictive.
Incredible.
A little arousing.
He grinned up at her, as if he knew her thoughts. Or maybe he had felt it in her.
She pushed off from his shoulder to land squarely on her feet and focused as Bitch conjured more spells, smaller barriers that Isadora easily defeated, keeping her open as she advanced on her with Rook at her side.
The woman tossed another glance at the dead male and suddenly broke right as she hurled five golden orbs at her and Rook. Isadora sent two spells flying, one that formed a shield that curved before her, and another that chased after the witch.
That spell she hadn’t needed.
Flakes of snow swirled in the air around her as Rook beat his wings and shot after the witch, skimming low above the ice. He was breathtaking as he banked right, revealing the full breadth of his black dragon-like wings, swept around behind the witch, coming out of the move on the other side of her, and rose before her in one fluid motion.
His hands moved so fast she couldn’t track them, a crimson blur slicing through the air between him and the witch.
For a moment, Isadora was convinced he had missed.
The spells Bitch had cast at her detonated on the barrier protecting her, sending a shockwave blasting outwards across the ice. They struck the witch and buffeted Rook, but he remained standing, his sword still held out at his side.
Bitch toppled.
Rook casually flicked his wrist, sending blood splattering across the snow from his blade.
Isadora pulled a face as the brunette’s head rolled away from her body, landing face up, her dark eyes locked sightlessly on the sky.
Some things were definitely different about her angel.
“You were always more of a stick them in the chest kind of man.” She lowered the barrier, letting the magic fade.
The darkness washed from his skin, leaving it golden, and he shrank back to his normal size. Feathers sprouted on his wings, black at first, but slowly turning crimson as they grew.
He swept his hand over his blade, transforming it back into a short sword, and sheathed it as he shrugged. “Call it years of rising through the ranks in battles. You learn to be more efficient and make sure your enemy dies fast so you get noticed.”
Isadora moved past him and he turned, the feel of his eyes on her as he tracked her heating her.
“What are you doing?” he said as Apollyon landed with Serenity.
She swallowed the bile that rose up her throat and crouched near the witch’s severed head. “Serenity… can you help me?”
Serenity moved towards her but hesitated a short distance away, her eyes on the head. “It’s risky to steal her magic.”
And it was one she was willing to take.
She looked up at the blonde. “I don’t know much in the way of dark magic, and there’s a chance that some of her knowledge could help me with Rook’s curse.”
“No… I don’t want you to do it.” Rook swiftly closed the distance between them and took hold of her shoulder, his grip firm. “I don’t need my memories, Isadora. We can make new ones.”
She knew that, but she still needed to do this. “I want to get them back for you. I know it bothers you, Rook. It bothered me when I couldn’t remember you.”
He huffed and it became a sigh as she looked over her shoulder at him, right into his eyes, daring him to deny it. “Fine… it bothers me a little… but not as much as the thought of you risking yourself for my sake.”
She placed her hand over his and gently squeezed it. “I’ll only take a little knowledge… the spells that come easily… but it will mean it might take me longer to free your memories because I held back and didn’t take it all.”
He kneeled beside her, bringing his eyes level with hers, and twisted his hand beneath hers, so he was holding it as he gave her a slight smile. “We have all the time in the world… I’m not going anywhere. I’m right where I want to be.”
She would have smiled at him for that, but Apollyon made a low noise in his throat that sounded distinctly like faux retching.
She glared at him at the same time as Rook growled and bared his fangs.
“Ignore him.” Serenity took hold of her hand and placed it on the head, her face twisting in disgust as they both made contact.
Isadora closed her eyes and focused, let her magic pour into the witch’s dying mind and burrow deep. She plucked the spells from it, the ones that were lured to her magic, desperate to escape into a living host, and snatched a few others, ones that put up a fight and she wasn’t going to tell Rook about.
Ones that could prove dangerous to her.
She wouldn’t attempt to use them until she had a grasp of dark magic and was able to control them, and then she would find a way to tame them so they wouldn’t turn on her.
She broke contact with the witch and sat back, loosing her breath in a long sigh as fatigue swept through her and she struggled with the new spells, trying to get them to settle within her mind. One or two wanted to be used immediately on their former host. She quietened those but it took effort that left her drained, and she didn’t resist Rook as he helped her onto her feet and held her close to him, banding one thick arm around her waist to support her.
“What will you do now?” Apollyon looked between her and Rook. “The Devil can’t command you… Isadora is clearly your master… but he can find you.”
And that meant he could try to get the location of the talisman and the one it protected from her again.
“We’ll run,” Rook said.
Surprise washed through her and her eyes leaped to his face.
He frowned down at her. “What?”
“We talked about running away once.” Had he remembered that?
His gaze grew heated, and she could see in it that even if he didn’t have the memory of that moment, a part of him that was buried deep recalled it.
It had been after they had made love and had been holding each other, utterly spent, and she had traced patterns on his chest and had asked him whether he would ever leave his duty behind for her.
He had told her that he would. He would run to the ends of the Earth with her. For her. He would do anything to be with her.
After that, she had bound them with the spell, a sign of their eternal love.
They had planned to run that night, but she had foolishly gone to meet with the people, wanting a clear conscience when she disappeared with Rook. She had needed to know the one she had crafted the talisman for would be safe, and had ended up falling into the Devil’s hands.
She looked up at Rook, deep into his turquoise eyes. “Will you run with me now? We could have that quiet forever after together.”
He framed her face, gently holding her cheeks in his warm palms, and nodded as he gazed down at her. “I would do anything for you, Isadora.”
She tiptoed and kissed him, savoured the warmth of his lips against hers and how he wrapped his arms around her, pinning her to him.
It was hard to convince herself to let him go, but she managed it. She broke the kiss, pressed against his chest and stepped back from him. He released her but kept one arm around her waist, keeping her close to him.
She focused on her hands, on a spell, and cupped them, one above the other. When she opened her hands, a small silver pendant of angel’s wings sat on her palm.
“If you ever need us… use it to call on us.” She offered the talisman to Serenity.
Serenity took it, nodded and smiled. “I will listen to the grapevine in Paris… will do my best to turn the rumours about you and the binding spell into just that… a rumour. One I hope will fade with time so you’ll be free again.”
She slipped out of Rook’s grip and hugged her. “Be careful.”
“If you ever need us, you know where to find me. You do not remember, but we are brothers of a sort, bound by our pasts… a time when we had been a team. All of us worked to protect Isadora back then, and all of us will work to protect her, and you, now. You are not alone. Myself, Einar and Lukas will always be there for you. It is good to have you back again.” Apollyon clutched Rook’s shoulder, and she hid her smile as Rook looked as if he either wanted to punch the angel or shed a manly tear.
She couldn’t decide which it was as he nodded and stiffly patted Apollyon’s shoulder.
He was quick to gather her into his arms as soon as the angel released him though, cradled her to him as he held his left hand out and darkness swirled in the air, gathering speed before it suddenly burst into white flames and formed a portal.
She barely had a chance to wave at Serenity and Apollyon as Rook swept her up into his arms and carried her into it. They appeared in a desert, and then he stepped into another portal, and then another, until she grew dizzy and focused on him instead of the places they passed through.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him, studied his profile as he focused on making it impossible for anyone to track them, protecting her in his own way, one that told her just how much he loved her and wanted to keep her safe.
She was safe, for now, and when they finally found a place to settle, she would use all of her power to make sure they were safe forever. She would shield them from witches and the Devil himself. She would protect them in her own way.
And she wouldn’t let anything part them again.
Because that forever they had promised each other finally started now.