TEN
They kissed slowly, a delicate mutual sampling of lips and teeth and tongue. Somewhere in the middle of it, Reece cupped her breast, savoring the soft, satin weight, thumbing and stroking one nipple. Sighing, she threaded her hands through his hair and nibbled her way along one cheek. Her soft mouth made him shiver as he imagined what it would feel like when she finally worked her way down his body.
She stopped at his ear for a sampling bite, then swirled her tongue around his earlobe until he moaned. Hungry to discover if she was as aroused as he was, he slid his free hand under her from behind. He was delighted to discover that thick, rich cream as he quested between her lips, dipped into her opening, and began to stroke.
“Mmmm,” she purred in his ear. “Not that I’m complaining, but you do realize the idea is for me to give you a blow job, not for you to get me all hot and bothered?”
“Yeah, but unfortunately”—he turned his head to give her ear a little nip of his own—“I find myself pathologically unable to leave your magnificent body alone.”
“Magnificent.” She licked one of the thick cords of his neck. “I like that. You’re not bad yourself, Slick.”
“Glad you”—he caught his breath as she nibbled her way lower—“approve.”
“Oh, I definitely approve.” She discovered one of his pecs and paused to sample it with her tongue before working her way down to his nipple. He gasped.
“Like that?” she purred.
“A little too much.” He was in danger of coming outside her if she kept it up.
But she gave him no mercy as she continued down his body, planting alternating licks and tiny bites down the ridges of his ribs and abdomen. Reece felt his balls tighten as his driving arousal increased. The heat rose until all he could think about was grabbing her hair and shoving his cock into her mouth.
But when she reached the thick stalk, she continued past it along his abdomen in a series of tiny, taunting nips. At the same time she slid her body slowly, sinuously down his thighs.
“Has anybody ever told you you’re an evil woman?” Reece gasped. He’d stopped stroking her in favor of digging the fingers of both hands into the mattress as he clung to his self-control.
She lifted her head to give him a wicked smile. “Who, me?”
“Yes, you.” He groaned, flexing his hips until his straining cock bobbed pleadingly.
“Li’l ole me?” Erin ran her tongue over the tight flesh of his groin, missing his balls by a millimeter.
“Sadistic goddess you, yes.”
She gave him another tiny lick and looked up. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Do you want me to hold you down and bang you like a screen door?”
She closed her fingers around his cock, turning his growl into a choked gasp. “Don’t threaten the sadistic goddess, Reece.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Erin grinned. “Good.” And she engulfed the flushed head of his cock with a single, mind-blowing swoop.
Engulfed in sweet, wet heat, Reece groaned helplessly at the sensation of her velvet lips sliding over his shaft. When she rolled her tongue across its sensitive head, he had dig both hands into the mattress, fingers curled into claws.
He’d had more than his share of blow jobs over the years, but Erin turned it into an art. She explored him with her mouth, her lips, her teeth, her hot little tongue, slowly, as if worshiping his cock like a supplicant at an altar. Despite his jaded sensibilities, despite the ugly situation, he found himself utterly focused on her, on every tongue flick and suckling pull. He could feel the hot pressure of his climax building in his balls. Reece knew he was seconds from spilling into that hot, luscious mouth.
And he didn’t want to do it.
Because when he came, her Gift would trigger. He wanted her to feel his arms wrapped around her, holding her when the Mageverse slammed into her mind for the first time.
With a groan of effort, Reece reached down, grabbed her by the shoulders, and dragged her luscious mouth off his straining cock.
“Reece, what are you—!” she protested as he pulled her up over his body to straddle his hips. He caught her waist in one hand, lifted her, and aimed his aching erection at her core with the other.
And drove himself to the hilt in one frantic thrust.
Erin gasped as Reece began shafting her in long, driving strokes that shook her body, both big hands gripping her bottom. The gentle arousal that had bloomed while she suckled him suddenly burst into roaring blaze. Each jolt of his body into hers stoked it hotter.
Finally he rolled over with her, covering her with himself in a gesture that seemed more protective than possessive.
Then, as he rammed in a particularly hard thrust, a starburst exploded behind her eyes. At first she thought it was the first onslaught of the orgasm she could feel building, almost within reach.
But the next entry brought another flash, even more blinding than the first. Then two exploded as he drove into her again, spangling her vision with purple afterimages.
She came with a strangled cry as he convulsed over her with a bellow of tortured pleasure. “Erin!”
And the universe went insane, like a thousand flashbulbs going off around her all at once. Her next scream held a note of horror and inevitability as she realized her transformation had begun.
The energy slammed through her in a wave of molten heat—directly into Reece’s body. He bellowed in mingled astonishment, pain, and pleasure as his face began to glow like heating metal. The light was so blinding she had to look away.
Then the force came rolling back out of him again. And slammed back into her.
Erin screamed.
Reece had never Gifted a Maja—that was a job for Court Seducers like Sebille and Lancelot. His own vampire transformation had been a far different process.
Like all Magi, Reece was Mageverse energy in human form. That first, signaling pulse from Erin triggered an explosion in his as the Mageverse poured from him into her, forcibly transforming them both into pure energy. For a fiery instant they fused into a single consciousness.
The first thing she felt was the sheer, blunt-force weight of centuries of experience blazing into her mind. Faces flashed through her memory, thousands of them, some famous, some not. She felt the jolt of a sword blade driving into a man’s heart, the erotic slide of fangs sinking into a woman’s throat. She felt his hunger and his intelligence and the loneliness he could never quite shake. She knew his grief for lovers lost and his satisfaction at battles won. And beneath it all, she felt his bedrock belief in his Great Mission, in the utter necessity of what he was doing.
And she felt his fear that he’d have to look into her eyes as he killed her.
She was so damn young. That was the first thing that struck him—how short her life had been next to the length of his own. Yet even so, there was a fire in her, a burning thirst for justice planted when she’d watched David sacrifice himself. Nothing would satisfy her but Geirolf’s destruction. Even her fear of madness was no match for that relentless drive.
But there was more to her than a need for revenge.
When he’d touched Sebille’s mind, Reece had found dedication, intelligence—and a profound refusal to let any man get close, even him. He’d known then that he could never make her love him.
Erin was just as intelligent, just as dedicated to her cause, but with those qualities burned both a fierce passion for life and an awareness of how quickly and easily death could wipe it all away.
He wanted her. Something in him recognized her, responded to her as if she was some missing part of his soul he’d always sought. She must have felt the same; he felt her flowing around him, welcoming him, blending with him in some sweet alchemy he’d never known before.
But even as they reached for each other, an opposing force dragged at them, hauling them apart. They fought to hold on, but it was too late.
The connection snapped. It felt as if something had torn her out by the roots. He yelled a protest….
Their simultaneous cries of anguish ringing in her ears, Erin opened her eyes.
Champion looked down at her, his green eyes dazed and vulnerable as he lay over her, his weight braced on his arms, his cock still seated deep inside her.
“Oh,” she said softly, a note of wonder in her voice as she remembered the touch of his mind.
“Yeah,” he said. As if his trembling arms could no longer hold him, he rolled off her and lay on his side, breathing like a marathon runner in deep, shaking gasps.
For a long moment they simply lay still, gazing at each other, remembering the stunning moment when they’d fused.
“I touched your mind,” Erin told him. After a pause, she said, “It was…you are…” She stuttered to a halt. No words she could think of did him justice.
His green eyes looked impossibly deep. “So are you.”
“Have you ever—?”
“Linked with somebody like that?”
“Yeah.”
“When I turned. But it wasn’t the same. She wasn’t anything like you.” A lock of sable hair tumbled over his brow. Erin focused on it, entranced by its silken gleam. Within each strand, infinitesimal patterns of energy swirled around larger clumps of energy, each tiny system jostling against the next. Dimly she heard him continue, “You’re so…”
“I can see the atoms in your hair,” Erin interrupted dreamily. “All the little electrons and neutrons, and whatever the hell those other things are. Little glowing things.”
Reece began to lose the look of dazed wonder. His eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened. “How do you feel?”
“High.” She blinked. “Somebody slipped me some acid once when I was in college. Like that. I didn’t like it.” She shivered. It seemed the room was growing colder by the second. “I don’t like this.”
Helplessness flashed across his face. He reached for her. “Come here. I’ll hold you.”
Shivering harder, she went gratefully into his warm arms. It felt as though the temperature in the room had dropped ten degrees in as many seconds. Her teeth began to chatter. “Cold. I’m so cold.”
Suddenly a blazing fire leaped up in a stone fireplace in the wall beside the bed, spilling heat across the room. Both of them jumped at the sudden crackling roar.
Erin stared uneasily at the leaping flames. “Was that fireplace there before?”
“No,” Reece said grimly. “And did you create a flue?”
“A flue?” Smoke began billowing into the room. “Oh, a flue. No. How do I do that?”
“I have no idea,” Reece said tightly, letting her go and easing back from her.
The fireplace vanished. “I’m not sure how I did that, either,” she told him, dropping back to the mattresss, “but it was probably a good idea.”
“Maybe you should try getting us out of here next.”
“Right.” That was the next logical step. “How?”
“You need to create a gate to Avalon.” He rolled off the bed and onto his feet. As he moved, he left a glowing trail of swirling energy behind him.
“Damn, that’s pretty.”
He looked down at her, those fine lines tightening around his mouth again. The muscles in his sculpted abdomen rippled as he braced his hands on his hips.
“You know, you’re naked,” she told him. “Maybe I should try to do clothes before I try this gate thing.”
“That probably would be best.”
An image flashed through her mind, and in the next blink he was wearing the tuxedo he’d had on when she’d met him. He looked down at himself. “Not the best choice for running like hell.”
Erin frowned at it. “Good point.” An image flashed through her mind, something she’d seen once in a movie.
A fur loincloth rode his hips, along with calf-high leather boots and jeweled bracers. A sheathed great sword hung from a baldrick between his shoulder blades. He laughed, a surprised male boom that made her own lips twitch. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Yeah, I guess Bond the Barbarian is not your best look.” Another image flashed into her thoughts, and he was wearing a black T-shirt, black jeans, and black running shoes.
“That’s good,” Champion told her hastily. “Stop right there. I don’t want to end up looking like one of the Village People.”
Erin giggled and thought of her favorite worn jeans and cross trainers. For vanity’s sake, she imagined a little white crop top that showed off the flat belly she’d been honing with countless trips to the gym.
As she scrambled off the bed, she saw male approval in Champion’s eyes as he caught sight of her outfit. Then he frowned. “I thought Geirolf said this cell was magic tight. How are you able to make this stuff?”
She shrugged. “Hell if I know.” Something zipped across the room, trailing sparks. Erin jumped and stared after it nervously. “Maybe he meant you just can’t send magic out. There’s sure as hell plenty of it in here.” She jerked a thumb in the direction the mini-comet went. “I don’t suppose you saw that?”
“Saw what?”
Erin sighed. “I didn’t think so.”
Now that she was beginning to think again, she could feel energy swirling around her like a hot soup, ready to become whatever she wanted to make of it. A fireplace, clothing, anything. All she had to do was think, and her wish became reality.
It was a seductive concept.
“This is easier than I thought it would be,” she told Reece, as some of the fear drained out of her. “Damn, I wish I’d had this kind of power a year ago. Could have saved David and killed Geirolf and avoided this entire mess.”
“Speaking of whom, we need to get out of here as soon as possible,” Reece said, looking worriedly toward one of the windows. “We don’t know when that bastard will come back.”
“Let him come,” Erin said with a reckless baring of her teeth. “He’s not going to find me easy pickings this time!” She envisioned a broadsword—something big and impressive, like she imagined Excalibur must be.
She almost dropped the massive weapon as it instantly appeared in her hand. Tightening her grip on it, she examined its gleaming length in satisfaction. “Oh, yeah. Devil Boy’s in for a nasty surprise.”
When she looked up, she found Reece staring at the blade in her hand. He paled and stepped back a pace.
Frowning, Erin looked into his eyes—and saw a series of flashing images. Lizzie, the sword in her slender hands. Westlake, dying with a froth of scarlet blood on his lips, the sword buried in his belly. Lizzie’s scream of fury as she’d turned on Reece.
And the horrible, gut-searing jolt as Champion had driven the sword into her chest and watched the life drain from her eyes.
A cold chill rolled over Erin as she tore her gaze from his, knowing he was wondering if he’d have to kill her the same way.
He was afraid she was going mad.
And in a moment of raw, black terror, Erin found herself fearing the same thing.
No. She couldn’t allow this. She had to hold on, retain control of the power she’d been handed. Her life hung in the balance. And so did everyone else’s.
Erin remembered that brief, painfully intense moment when she’d touched Reece’s mind, seen the courage and intelligence and strength in him. She hadn’t been able to save David, but she could, by God, save him. Assuming she could get them both out of here before Geirolf came back.
Despite the feeling of invincibility her new powers had given her, logically she was no match for an other-dimensional alien who’d once been worshiped as a god.
Erin made the sword disappear. “What do I do? How do I get us out of here?”
He relaxed slightly at the evidence she was beginning to take this seriously. “You need to open a gateway into Avalon.”
Erin licked her lips, feeling a trickle of sweat work its way down her spine. Something was shimmering over in one corner, but she was damned if she’d look at it. “What’s Avalon again?”
“The home of the High Court. Come here, I’ll show you.” He moved toward her and took her hand in his. His fingers felt so warm, she knew her own must be ice cold. “Look into my mind,” he said softly.
Looking up, she met his green gaze—and saw fantastic buildings jumbled against a shimmering skyline of alien stars. Then there was a single room with a long bar surrounded by clusters of tables, all in dark wood with accents of gleaming brass. Massive leather chairs sat around the tables, and on the walls were paintings in thick, intricate frames. Some depicted battles ranging from the medieval period to the second Gulf War, while others showed women, often nude, in various erotic posses.
In a place of honor near the bar stood a huge tome of a book, lying open on a stand.
“You want me to take you to a bar?” Erin asked, amused.
“Actually, it’s the Lord’s Club.” He shrugged. “I need to talk to Merlin’s Grimoire. It would know about Geirolf if anyone does.”
She frowned. He must be talking about the thick book. “Isn’t a grimoire a book of spells? How do you talk to…” She trailed off as she saw the answer in his mind. Merlin’s Grimoire was, in fact, sentient. “Wow. A talking book.”
“Sometimes you can’t get it to shut up,” Champion agreed. “With luck, it’ll be able to tell us how to defeat the demon. While we’re at it, I’ll request an appearance before the High Council. We’ll need to explain ourselves before somebody puts out an order of execution on us.”
Erin winced, seeing his various memories of what had happened to others who’d Turned a Latent without permission. “Yeah, we definitely need to make that a priority.” She swallowed and released his hand to rub her damp palms on the legs of her jeans. “So I gather I’m supposed to just will us there?”
“Well, yeah, but I’m not sure it’s going to be that easy. Not if this cell was built to hold Geirolf, who was presumably pretty damn powerful when Merlin put him into it.”
And if she couldn’t do it, Reece was going to have to kill her. Or she was going to have to kill herself, though she wasn’t even remotely sure she could pull it off. Where’s a good suicidal depression when you need one, huh? She drew in a breath and blew it out as her stomach knotted around itself. She fumbled for his hand, grabbed it in a death grip. Can’t forget him. “Okay, concentrate on your bar.”
And he did. She could see it there in his mind, could almost smell the leather, hear the rumble of masculine laughter and the taste of the bottled blood the Majae donated. Okay, there was a detail I didn’t need, Erin thought, swallowing hastily as her stomach lurched.
Then she reached out for it in some way she didn’t even understand herself, squeezing her eyes shut as she focused ferociously on their need to stand in that bar, safe, among all Champion’s vampire friends. Now!
She opened her eyes to see Reece looking down at her patiently. They still stood in the cell. “Fuck.” She shut her eyes again. Do it, dammit, she told herself grimly. Do it or you’re dead.
She reached again.
This time she felt it. Felt the universe stir under her like some huge animal waking. Felt it lift…
SLAM!!!
Something picked her up, jerked her hand from Reece’s, and slapped her all the way across the room. Her back hit the stone wall hard enough to knock the breath out of her. She saw stars as her head smacked into the wall. The world spun, and then she felt another bruising impact as she hit the floor on her belly.
“Erin!” She heard Champion’s shout only distantly through the ringing in her ears.
A tender hand explored her back. “Are you all right?”
She realized she couldn’t breathe. Panicked for an instant before her chest finally started working with huge, desperate gulps. “Oh, Jesus,” she gasped.
“Lie still! Did you break anything?” His long fingers gently worked through her hair, evidently searching for bumps. They paused, probed. “You’ve got quite a knot there.”
“Not surprised.” Dazed, Erin pushed herself onto one elbow and took stock. Everything ached viciously, but all the relevant parts seemed intact. “’M okay,” she slurred, wishing for an aspirin.
A bottle instantly appeared on the floor.
“It would be quicker to magic the pain away,” he told her.
“Good point.” She closed her eyes and managed to concentrate despite the throbbing in her skull. Assorted aches and pains—including the one from the knot on her head—instantly disappeared. “Damn,” she said, and got to her feet easily. “If I could bottle that, I could put the entire pharmaceutical industry out of business.”
“Which is why we’re not allowed to do it,” Reece said. “What happened?”
Erin snorted. “The cell did not like me trying to leave.”
She looked up to meet his gaze. She didn’t even need to read his mind to know what he was thinking. “No,” she gritted. “I’m not done yet. I’m not going to just give up and die.”
He frowned heavily. “If you keep this up, you won’t have to. The cell’s going to kill you first.”
“So we try something else.” Erin turned and stalked toward the nearest window. Kneeling, she started examining it. “Demon Boy got out of here, so it has to be possible.”
“Yeah, if you’ve got somebody willing to make human sacrifices on your behalf.”
“But didn’t he say he’d done something to the cell?” She touched the glass and concentrated, willed herself to see the molecular structure of the glass.
And just like that, she could. The glass dissolved into a tight latticework of particles and energy that, unfortunately, was all too sturdy. She growled a soft curse and went on to the next. “Maybe he didn’t try to create a gate directly out of here,” she explained to Reece. “Maybe he tunneled through the wall, and then made his gate. And if I was going to try to break through—”
“—the windows are the logical place to do it.” Reece shook his head. “But I tried that, and it didn’t work.”
“You tried brute force.” Erin was moving more quickly now, touching each of the windows in turn. “I’m going to try—Ah!” She stopped. There, in the second-to-the-last window, was a tiny gap in the molecular structure. “This was the one he broke,” Erin said, smoothing her hands over the glass.
Suddenly she could feel it—the spell slamming into the glass, stinking of death and despair and evil.
Erin jerked back, shivering. “Yeah, this was it, all right. Jesus, does death power every spell that bastard casts?”
Reece moved up behind her. “Probably. Remember how Parker killed Avery before he called Geirolf?”
“Yeah. And somebody’s going to pay for that.” Cautiously she rested her fingertips on the glass again, ready to jerk away in case of another ugly jolt. “Geirolf repaired the glass before he locked us up, but there’s still a weakness in the structure. If I can pour enough power into it, maybe I can break it.”
“Okay.” Champion stepped up behind her and wrapped his brawny arms around her in a warm, secure hold. “Try it. I’ve got you.”
Assuming she could actually concentrate with all that delicious masculinity plastered against her.
Well, might as well make the best of it. Erin settled herself against him, braced her feet, and flattened her palm against the cool pane.
No, she thought suddenly. What I want is something like a laser. Something tight and focused. She took her hand away and pressed one fingertip there instead.
Then she hesitated. What am I doing? This shit is impossible. There’s no such thing as vampires and demons. Maybe I’ve already gone nuts. Maybe I’m actually locked up in some psych ward somewhere.
“You’re not crazy,” Reece murmured in her ear.
She took a deep breath and blew it out. “You started reading my mind, Champion?”
“Reading, hell. You were broadcasting so hard, I’m surprised they didn’t pick you up in Avalon.”
“Don’t I wish. Then maybe they’d come rescue us.”
“’Fraid we’re going to have to get out of this one all by ourselves, darlin’.”
“Yeah.” Erin closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and focused her full attention on the fingertip touching the cool, hard surface of the glass. She imagined a beam of force shooting out to bore into the smooth, hard crystal, eating it away layer by magical layer.
She felt it first as pressure on the inside of her skull, like the beginning of a vicious headache. The tip of her finger began to heat. The sensation spread slowly up the finger, into her hand, then up her forearm and biceps and shoulder, spreading and intensifying as it went until it felt as if her entire body was blazing with pain. She heard Reece gasp softly in her ear, and knew he felt it, too.
But she didn’t stop.
Time unreeled slowly, in white-hot increments. She was distantly aware of the sensation of sweat rolling down her face until it dripped from her chin. Still she refused to stop.
They had to get out of here. That was all that mattered. Not the pain. Not the heat. Nothing but escape.
Staying meant death.