ELEVEN
“Maybe you should take a break.” Erin heard Reece’s voice through red-hot waves of agony, like heat radiating from molten steel.
“No.” She had to push the word out through teeth tightly clenched against the need to scream.
“How much more of this do you think you can take?”
He was right. The structure of the glass was weakening, but not as fast as the flow of her power.
She was running out of energy.
No. She couldn’t fail. She couldn’t fail David. And she wouldn’t fail Reece.
Gathering everything she had left—every last erg of will, magic, spirit, whatever the hell it was she had—Erin flung it from out of her body with a raw, hoarse shriek of effort. She felt it slam into the window the instant before her legs went out from under her.
But she didn’t fall. Reece’s warm, strong arms held steady around her. She felt him lower her limp body to the floor. Saw his lips moving, though she couldn’t hear the words. He wore an expression of fear and desperation. She tried to reassure him, but she couldn’t manage to shape words. Her entire body felt boiled, as if one wrong move would make the skin drop away like meat from the carcass of a chicken that had cooked too long.
Slowly, with infinite effort, she turned her head.
The window still stood in its frame, without so much as a single crack.
Reece looked from Erin’s drawn, exhaustion-dulled eyes to the window—and hissed in a breath of pain. “Ah, hell.” She’d poured so much power into it, he’d suspected she’d given it part of her very soul.
And still it stood.
Goddammit, it wasn’t fair. He’d never seen anything or anyone as heroic as Erin Grayson fighting to break that window, her lovely face contorted with suffering, her blue eyes burning with raw will.
She’d awed him.
“Do it now.” Her voice was so faint, even Reece’s vampire hearing barely picked it up.
He looked down at her and felt his heart clutch. She was staring at the window, a lone tear wending down the curve of her cheek. Her face was blasted with desolation, the skin drawn tight over the bones, as if she’d suffered weeks of starvation in a matter of minutes.
Reece recoiled, knowing what she was asking for. “No. Forget it. Just wait. Rest. You’ll feel better in a few hours.”
Then he winced, realizing he was suggesting she go through this all over again.
He wasn’t sure she’d survive.
Her dry, cracked lips moved again. “Nothing left. Used it all.”
His heart sank as he realized she was right. The live-wire feeling he’d had in her presence just a half hour before was gone. In fact, he’d never encountered a Maja with so little power. She almost felt like a mortal.
“Burnt myself out.” Her eyes closed and she drew in a breath. “Like a lightbulb.”
Reece pressed two fingers against the pulse beating in her throat. It felt much too faint. “You’ll be okay,” he told her, and hoped he was right.
“Kill me.”
“No!” Reece shot to his feet. “Forget that. It’s not happening.” Not after watching the way she’d fought for them. He’d rather rip out his own heart. It would hurt less.
“You can’t let him sacrifice us.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. Weak as she was, he could feel the power of her will. “Don’t let this be for nothing.”
“I’m not killing you,” he said fiercely. “If it comes down to it, I’ll commit suicide.”
“Don’t be melodramatic.” She let her lids close again. “You don’t have a magic blade. I got rid of it.”
Goddamn it, he should have made her hand it over instead. Now what the hell was he going to do?
Frustration and fear roiling in him, Reece looked away from her ravaged face. His gaze fell on the window.
Before he knew what he was doing, he flung himself at it, driving his shoulder into the glass. It rang like a bell, almost throwing him back, but he dug in his feet and rammed it again. And again, and again, each impact jarring his body.
“Reece!” Erin actually managed to lift her voice enough to be heard over the reverberations. “Stop it!”
“No!” Savagely he drew back a fist and slammed it into the window with every last bit of his boiling rage and frustration.
Glass exploded out into the night in a rain of glittering shards.
Reece froze, staring at the fist-sized hole he’d put in the glass. “Damn,” he breathed. “Erin, you did it!”
“What?” Hope made her voice a little stronger. “What did you—? You broke it!”
“You bet your ass!” He reared back on one foot and pistoned the other into the remaining glass, intent on enlarging the hole enough for their escape. More glass flew. “Oh, yeah! Here we go!” He kicked again, furiously. The hole widened. Another vicious kick and one last punch, and he had an opening large enough to fit his body through.
Which was when he suddenly became aware of a crawling sensation along the base of his neck. “Oh, shit!” Whirling, he bent and picked Erin up, then, careful of the jagged shards, bent to maneuver her out the window. “Can you stand?” he asked, putting her onto her feet.
“No, but I can sit,” she said, and hissed as her legs gave under her, collapsing her slowly to the ground. As Reece crawled out after her, she looked up at him, her brows furrowed in worry. Her face was far too pale, and her lips were blue. “Something’s coming.” She had to stop to pant. “Something big. Powerful.”
“Yeah, I sense it, too,” he said, wincing as a jagged shard raked a furrow across his shoulder. “The window was warded.” The minute he had both feet on the ground, he bent, picked her up, and eased her across his shoulder into a fireman’s carry. There was no way she could walk, let alone run. “Geirolf must have set a spell to warn him if we escaped. Hold on, baby. We’re going to have to run like hell.”
As he wrapped his arms more securely around her and took off in a ground-eating lope, neither of them noticed the small, glowing figure watching from the concealment of a rose.
It was a good thing she’d kept watch on the cell, Janieda thought grimly. She’d had a feeling the woman inside would find a way to escape, and she’d been right.
Of course, she hadn’t expected there to be a vampire in there as well, but that hardly mattered. The two still stunk of Geirolf’s death magic, which meant they were either in league with him or part of one of his spells. Either way, they had to be stopped.
She was going to have to tell Llyr about this. He wasn’t going to be happy about it, but once she told him about the vision she’d had, he’d know what had to be done.
Concentrating, Janieda aimed a spell at the fleeing couple. The vampire didn’t even look around when it hit, too busy trying to escape to notice. She nodded in satisfaction, knowing she and Llyr would be able to find the pair now, no matter where they went.
With a flick of her wings and a shower of sparks, she lifted off the rose and flew off toward the palace.
The Cell
Steven Parker concentrated on standing very still, hoping to escape his raging master’s notice.
“I’ll rip them apart!” Geirolf snarled, pacing across the cell, his cloven hooves clicking on the stone, his black, curving horns almost brushing the ceiling. He’d taken a form suited to his fury. “I’ll spill their guts and burn them in front of their living eyes as they shriek for mercy!” He stopped in the center of the room and threw back his head to howl.
Instinctively Parker hunched his shoulders and lowered his head as the sound made his rib cage reverberate. He relaxed only slightly when the demon god began pacing again.
“Dammit, couldn’t the horny bastard wait until I’d finished gathering my army?” Geirolf spat. “The spell I put on him was just enough to dull his appetite.” He stomped one cloven foot in frustration. “I was certain he’d stay away from her after what happened with that first Maja bitch. He must have wanted Grayson more than I expected.”
More likely, Champion had simply yielded to the logic of the situation and realized he had to take a chance. Geirolf had underestimated both of them badly. Not that Parker was stupid enough to point that out.
Restlessly Geirolf stalked to the shattered window and stuck his horned head out. “And she used the same window I did. But I repaired the glass myself. It should have held against anything a Maja could do to it.” He snapped off a shard of glass and glowered at it. It was, Parker saw, tipped in blood. “She must have a great deal more power than I anticipated.”
The demon god flicked out his forked tongue and took a sampling lick. He blinked at the taste, and a speculative expression grew in his eyes. He licked it again.
A terrifying grin spread across the monstrous face. “And she used every bit of it up.” He threw the shard against the nearest wall, where it shattered spectacularly. Geirolf pivoted on a cloven hoof and aimed that bloodcurdling smile at Parker, who managed not to cower. “She’s burned herself out. She’s got nothing left. Find her for me. Find them both, and quickly.”
“Me?” The agent swallowed and looked at the dark, alien landscape beyond the window. “Out there?” It was one thing to take on the vampire in the flush of power from a murder, but quite another to track him through some accursed magical universe at night.
Geirolf shook his horned head. “I can’t stay here. I put out too much power—the witches will sense my presence and come to investigate. It’s all I can do to hide from them even in Realspace. If I stay here much longer, they’ll sense me.” He looked around the cell with a mixture of loathing and appreciation. “Luckily even broken, these walls provide some shielding. Which no doubt accounts for the fact that they’d forgotten I was here.”
“But once I step outside, won’t they sense me? Not to mention the vampire and the witch?” If Geirolf feared the Majae so much, Parker was damn sure he wanted nothing to do with them.
Geirolf shrugged his massive shoulders. “There are so many magical beings out there, the three of you will be lost against the general background hum. Track them down. Call me. I’ll take care of them.” He glanced outside at the moon. “In the meantime, I’ve got to make sure the Majae don’t break the spell on Merlin’s Grimoire before it’s too late to do them any good.” His red eyes flashed toward Parker’s face, and his voice dropped to a menacing hiss. “Which means I’d better have my sacrifices back by then. I will, won’t I?”
Parker swallowed. “Yes, my Dread Lord.”
Geirolf smiled, showing a mouthful of razored teeth that would have put a Rottweiler’s to shame. “That’s what I like to hear.”
The Forest
Reece leaped over a bush and skidded to a halt. Erin’s limp arms swung against his back with the motion. She’d blacked out during their run, but he hadn’t dared stop. Now they were finally far enough out into the wilds of the Mageverse to have a few moments’ breathing space.
Tenderly he lowered her into a patch of softly glowing bracken. “Erin? Erin, baby, wake up.” He caught her cold little hand. Her skin was tinged with gray.
Reece felt his own heart stop, until he heard the faint thump of hers. She was still alive. Barely. But how long would she stay that way?
He lifted his head and scanned the surrounding forest. Massive trees that had never known an ax towered against the alien starfield overhead, and magical wildlife rustled and called in the darkness. Here and there, he thought he saw a flash of red eyes or the sparks of a magic trail. He had no idea where they were.
Yet it was painfully obvious he didn’t dare carry her another foot. She was too weak to take any more jarring.
Dammit, he’d never heard of a Maja using her own life force to power a spell. He hadn’t even known it was possible. Yet he wasn’t surprised Erin had found a way to do it. She’d been utterly determined to free them no matter what it took.
The question was, how was he supposed to save her?
A Truebond, maybe? Reece reached down and smoothed her tangled blond hair away from her face. He winced at the chill of her cheek.
If he could just link their minds, he could lend her his strength. He could save her. Of course, once made, the Truebond could never be broken. They’d be united mentally for all time. She’d be able to reach into his thoughts anytime she wanted. As he’d be able to reach into hers.
Secretly, Reece had never liked the idea of a Truebond. Never liked the thought of giving a woman—or anybody else, really—that much power over him. He’d been astonished that Lancelot had been willing to Truebond with Grace, even given how much they loved each other. Of course, at the time Grace had been dying, and the bond had been the only way to save her, but still…
Now looking down into Erin’s pale, drawn face, Reece understood why Lance had done it: The rest of his life would have been a wasteland without her.
Reece remembered the way Erin’s blue eyes went dark and mysterious when he touched her. The cool drift of her silken hands on his skin. Her laughter, deep and throaty. That wicked wit and razored intelligence.
And the hot, dogged determination on her face as she poured everything she had—literally—into breaking that window. She’d destroyed herself to free them so Geirolf could be stopped.
He remembered her explanation of why she’d slept with him, even believing he was working with the death cults: “Those cultists are killing people, Reece. There’s nothing I won’t do to stop that.”
And there was nothing Reece wouldn’t do to keep her alive.
Merlin’s Gift, he thought, I’m in love with her.
The thought carried a sweet pleasure. And an equal terror. He was so damn close to losing her.
So, yes, he’d Truebond with her. Hell, he wanted nothing more than to be able to reach out and just…touch her. Wherever she was. Wherever he was.
But did she love him? Would she thank him for chaining her to him in a bond neither of them could ever break?
Not that he had a choice. Regardless of her feelings for him, being Truebonded was better than dying, and he had no intention of letting her die. If he had to live with her resentment, so be it.
“Erin.” He took her face in both hands. “Erin, wake up.” If he could get her conscious, he could use the remnants of the psychic link that had formed when she’d Changed to build the Truebond. But he couldn’t form it alone. She had to open the way for him. “Erin, baby, you’ve got to wake up now. I don’t want to lose you. Please, Erin. Please.”
She didn’t move. He felt her heartbeat weakening.
“Erin!”
The Cell
Parker flinched from the sonic boom and the stench of brimstone as his master returned to Realspace. The bang of collapsing air couldn’t be avoided, but he knew the brimstone was purely for effect, a silent warning he’d better not fail.
As if he needed one.
Bloody hell, how was he supposed to track one vampire and a depowered witch across Mageverse Earth? “Talk about needle in a haystack,” he grumbled.
He was about to turn around and start pacing in agitation when he sensed something he hadn’t been able to feel in Geirolf’s overwhelming presence: a lingering energy in the air, a delicious miasma of female agony that made his dick harden.
The girl.
His master was right. She’d fried her idiot self escaping. And it had hurt. A lot.
Eyes narrowing thoughtfully, he considered the afterimage of her pain. It wasn’t a death, but he could use it. All he needed was a little something more of hers to complete the spell.
He moved to the window, looking for the spot where Geirolf had found the shard of glass with her blood. Sure enough, snaking, red trails marked two of the chunks. He put out a finger and touched each of them. Evidently the vampire had cut himself, too; one was from Champion, judging by the faint, psychic signature.
Perfect.
Carefully Parker broke off fragments of glass smeared with blood from each of the escaped captives, then carried the pieces to the center of the cell. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a piece of red chalk, then knelt and began drawing an inverted pentagram on the floor. The design wasn’t really necessary to the spell, but he’d found making it helped focus his concentration.
After putting the shards in the center of the star, he sat back on his heels and concentrated on the swirls of residual magic floating in the room. As Geirolf had taught him all those months ago when he’d made his first sacrifice, he mentally captured one of the skeins of energy and drew it in. The taste of agony lingering in it made him shudder in pleasure.
One by one, he absorbed each of the skeins. His cock throbbed at the pain in them.
Not as good as killing her, Parker thought, but she’s so close to death, it doesn’t matter. Then, when the power pulsed, he shot a stream of it at the bloody glass fragments on the floor. The blood steamed and hissed as it boiled instantly away.
Concentrating with his inner vision, Parker watched a ten-dril of white smoke rise from the glass and waft toward the shattered window. He rose to his feet and followed in long strides.
He knew he’d better hurry if he wanted to find the little bitch before she died.
The Forest
“Erin!” Reece’s demanding shout rang out. All around him, the creatures of the Mageverse went still at the agony in his voice.
Only Erin herself failed to respond.
Too late. He was too late. She was too far gone. If only he’d thought of this when she’d still been conscious…. But he’d been too focused on escape.
What the fuck was he supposed to do now? She was so damn pale, her lips bloodless, bruised shadows lying under her eyes. Worse yet, he could hear her heart laboring in that ugly way he knew from watching too many people die.
And he had no idea what to do for her.
Of course, a Maja could probably cure her with a finger-snap. The problem was, Avalon was thousands of miles away.
As if the situation wasn’t dangerous enough as it was, daybreak was all too close. He’d used so much of his own magical reserves freeing them, he knew he’d be unable to fight his vampire compulsion to sleep.
Reece was terrified he’d wake to find her dead.
Something made a questioning sound out in the brush, and he looked up warily. Glowing yellow eyes looked at him before their owner vanished with a rustle.
A flicker of hope ignited in his chest.
That was it.
Mageverse Earth was full of magical beings who could help. A unicorn, a fairy, a kindly dragon—any of them would be able to save her. He just needed to find one of them. And he needed to do it fast. If he changed to wolf form, he’d be able to quarter the area at full speed.
Still, he didn’t like leaving her alone. Geirolf and Parker were looking for them by now, and if they found her…
But if he did nothing, she was going to die anyway.
Hell.
He had no choice. Finding help was the only option he had.
Mentally cursing Geirolf, Reece took one last look at Erin’s too-pale face, concentrated, and slid into wolf form. Wheeling, he took off at a lope.
And prayed Erin would still be alive when he got back.
The Grand Palace of the Cachamwri Sidhe
King Llyr Aleyn Galatyn stared at Janieda in narrow-eyed disbelief. “You knew someone was being held captive in Geirolf’s cell, and you did not tell me? Why?”
She jumped as he rose from his throne. Even though she’d returned to her full height, the top of her head barely came to his heart. She twisted her hands together in agitation. “I told you, I had a vision. Given the chance, she’ll be your destruction.”
“So you took it upon yourself to protect me,” he said in a low, silken voice. “How fortunate I am.”
“Llyr, I love you!” Janieda burst out. “I could not simply stand by—”
“But you did stand by,” Llyr snapped in the cold tone that meant his temper was seriously tried. “You kept me in ignorance. Had I known there was someone in Geirolf’s cell, I could have taken action to thwart whatever scheme that creature has at work. Now it seems this Maja is dying, and I may have lost the opportunity.”
“But Llyr—”
“Silence!” he roared.
“I placed a tracking spell on them,” Janieda dared in a tiny voice. “I can find them for you.”
Llyr’s anger eased. “Well. Perhaps it will be possible to salvage this after all.” He lifted his chin. “Show me where she is.
The Forest
Nose to the leaf-covered forest floor, Reece quested along, breathing deep of the scents that lay in snaking patterns on the ground. He caught a trace of direbeast here, there a hint of something acrid that was probably some kind of troll, but no dragon, no fairy, no unicorn. And certainly no Maja.
He lifted his furry head and looked around, frustrated. He had to find someone who could help. And fast, or Erin would be dead before they even made it back.
She deserved better. She’d fought so hard, given their escape literally everything she had. He had to save her.
Reece had known many amazing women over the centuries—Avalon was full of them—but Erin was something special even among that rarefied company.
He remembered the feel of her long body rising against his, silken and strong. Remembered the taste of her mouth as she’d kissed him back with starved intensity. Remembered the fire in her eyes as she’d committed herself to defeating Geirolf.
And he remembered her dogged determination to free them, even at the cost of her own life.
He began to run, all his senses open for the scent of fairy on the wind, for the phantom brush of magic against his mind.
As he flung himself through the night, he found himself remembering the last time he’d loved a woman.
He hadn’t been able to save her, either.
Rebecca Champion had died in childbirth before Reece had become a vampire. He’d been just seventeen when they’d married. Rebecca had been sixteen, a rawboned farmer’s daughter with a razor wit and a wicked laugh. He’d loved her with all the ferocity of the boy he’d been.
And all these centuries later, he could still remember the anguish of listening to her scream as she’d struggled to give birth to their only son, Caleb.
Unable to stand it any longer, Reece had rushed into the room and stood over her, helpless, despite the midwife’s outraged demands that he leave.
He’d been unable to do anything for her but hold her hand as she died. He’d been all of nineteen, but the anguish of that moment had branded his mind so deeply he still felt its echo.
Unable to face bringing another woman to Rebecca’s home, Reece had never married again, though it had meant raising Caleb alone.
His son had been nineteen, a man grown and gone, when Sebille had seduced and Changed Reece. Even then, however, he had never stopped loving his son, never stopped worrying about him. He’d used his new skills to start the shipping firm that would eventually become Champion International, largely because he’d wanted to make sure Caleb and his children and his children’s children would always be cared for.
Thanks to CI, Rebecca’s descendants had never known want. It was all he could do for her.
Yet now he realized that as much as he’d loved her, he loved Erin even more. It made no sense. He’d met the girl only two days before. How could her loss scar him worse than the death of the wife he’d loved for two years?
What was it about Erin that had sunk into his soul so deeply? Was it the link that had formed between them when she Changed? Or was it something about Erin herself—the intelligence and courage and humor he found so appealing?
Oh, hell, did it really matter why he felt this way? All that mattered was finding someone to heal her.
He was damned if he’d let Erin Grayson die.
Erin was floating.
She felt oddly like a balloon, tethered to her body by a fraying ribbon. Any second now, the knot would slip and she’d go bobbing slowly away.
The only reason she hadn’t let go already was that she’d heard Reece calling for her, his voice shaking with need and helplessness. For a moment, she thought she’d felt the touch of his mind again. She’d tried to get back to him, but the effort seemed beyond her.
Now she floated in cool darkness and wondered how long it would take her to die.
It was too bad. She’d really wanted to kill Geirolf. For David, of course, but also for Reece, so grimly determined to save the world. And for herself, snatched away from a perfectly good life. All Geirolf’s fault.
He really did deserve to die.
Though dying wasn’t as bad as she’d expected, all things considered. It didn’t hurt. She wasn’t even scared, really; didn’t have the energy for it.
Maybe she should just let go now and float….
“Come back.”
The deep male voice rang through the fog. Reece?
“You’re needed.”
No, that wasn’t Reece. It wasn’t Geirolf, either. She’d never heard that voice before. “Who’s there?”
“Ahhhhh, there you are.” Just like that, something snagged her, like a fist closing around a balloon’s string. She felt a jerk.
And her eyes popped open.
There was an angel leaning over her.
Hmmm. Evidently she’d already died and just hadn’t noticed. “’M ’n heaven?” she asked. That was good, if she’d gone to heaven. She hadn’t been at all sure they’d take her.
The angel smiled, a flash of perfect white teeth. “No, I’m afraid you’re still earthbound. More or less.”
She regarded him dubiously, taking in the exquisite lines of his face. It didn’t seem possible that something that beautiful could be so thoroughly male. “Not an angel?”
“An angel? Me?” He threw back his head and boomed out a laugh. A curling lock of his long blond hair teased her nose. She found herself studying it woozily, fascinated by the iridescent gold highlights dancing along the fine strands.
“He is His Highness King Llyr Aleyn Galatyn, you igno-rant Maja wench,” a female voice spat impatiently. “Lord of the Cachamwri Sidhe.”
With an effort, Erin looked for the source of all that anger. Her blurring eyes slid in and out of focus before they locked on a tiny figure hovering just above her head. A woman, barely the height of her hand, with elegant butterfly wings that shed sparks of energy with each slow beat, and hair as pink as cotton candy.
Erin’s failing brain suddenly produced a meaning for the tiny woman’s sentence. She returned her attention to the angel. “So you’re—?” But her vocal cords couldn’t seem to manage the rest.
He smiled. “King of the fairies. Yes, I’m afraid so.”