“Another thing I did not expect angels to do. Then again, if you’re half human…” Killian guided him until Maddox could lean against the counter on his own. “I’ll be outside,” he said as he backed away and shut the door.
Taking the few minutes to himself, Killian strode over to the closet. It had been stocked with clothing that fit him perfectly, and he chose a fresh shirt in a light blue and eased it over his aching shoulders.
What the fuck was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t leave Maddox alone if the man couldn’t even get himself to the bathroom and back. Sparks danced across Killian’s fingers, landing on his black pants and burning holes in the material.
Patting his thighs to put out the smoldering embers, Killian strode over to the ice bucket and shoved both of his hands inside. The frigid, mostly melted water made his fingers ache, but at least his magic couldn’t escape and burn down the entire hotel.
Beatrix would know what to do. Why the fuck hadn’t he thought to call her the previous night?
Because you were preoccupied with the angel in your bed.
She understood Killian’s unique…challenges. And though she’d never been supportive of him hiding away from the world, she hadn’t insisted he join the coven for their weekly meetings either. She’d help.
But just as he pulled out his mobile, Maddox emerged from the bathroom, a little unsteady but otherwise upright. “Where’s the vial, Killian? I need it back. Right now. Then I have to get out of here. Back to the celestial realm or Azrael will murder me himself.”
Killian lifted the broken vial off the table and held it up to the hint of light streaming through a break in the thick curtains. “This?” His palm landed square on Maddox’s chest as the angel tried to lunge for it and Killian lifted it over his head. “You practically begged me to take it from you last night. Which leads me to believe you are not supposed to have it.”
“Of course I’m not supposed to have it, you idiot. It’s celestial sand. No one’s supposed to have it. It belongs back on the shores of the Sea of Redemption in the celestial realm. The question you should be asking is ‘Why did the witches have it?’”
Before Killian could answer—or remind Maddox that he was, in fact, a witch, something tugged deep inside him, a compulsion he couldn’t ignore. “Fuck. Not now.” He was being summoned. And he had no choice but to go. The phone fell from his hand, and like back in England, his entire body started to compress, and he met Maddox’s terrified gaze. “Don’t leave—” he managed as his entire body was sucked into the void, the vial included, and he flew.
“Killian?” Delphine, the New Orleans Coven’s High Priestess, sat in a plush, leather chair in an alcove with a curved, leaded glass window, her dark hair highlighted by the gentle rays of sunlight streaming in.
“Bloody hell. I was all of a ten minute walk away, High Priestess. Perhaps a phone call would have been easier than a summoning?” Killian angled his body and tucked the vial into his pocket. He didn’t trust Delphine. Not after last night.
Delphine’s smooth skin marked her as early forties, but Killian believed her to be much older. It was in the endless depths of her brown eyes, the way she seemed to be able to look right through the witches in her charge. And those who weren’t.
“Perhaps. Had I been summoning you. I was not.” She extended her palm. “Hand over the vial, Killian. Do it quickly and I might not have to consign you to the dungeons for the next fifty years.”
The dungeons?
Killian dipped his hand into his pocket, upended the vial, and hoped this celestial sand wasn’t so fine-grained it would end up on his socks. For fuck’s sake, he hadn’t put on shoes or even had a chance to button his shirt.
“You mean this?” He held up the empty, broken glass tube. “I found this last night outside the mansion. There was nothing inside. I assumed whoever cursed the lot of us dropped it.”
Delphine snapped her fingers, and the vial appeared in her hand. She sniffed it, then held it up to the light. “By the goddess, one grain left. You will answer for this, Killian.”
“Answer for what? Your bloody invitation summoned me here—a place I’d hoped never to see again—then you send the one person in the world with more reason to hate me than I do to greet me, subject me to a curse, the effects of which I still have not been able to figure out, and now, you’re going to make me ‘answer’ for a crime I did not commit? That’s rich, Delphine. I believed you to be fair and just, if not a bit loony. Clearly, I was wrong.”
He was almost desperate enough to lob a spell at the High Priestess, but two burly men stepped from the shadows, slapped iron manacles on his wrists, and locked them behind his back. The iron had to be spelled, because he felt his magic drain, and he glared at Delphine.
“What is the meaning of this?” he snarled.
“Tell me who sent you to steal the celestial sand. And what you know about Thea and the curse.” Delphine stood, striding over to him and jabbing at his chest. The new marks flared, and Killian thought he could smell his skin burning.
“I had nothing to do with that bloody vial, I don’t know any Thea, and I was cursed along with the lot of you. If you don’t believe me, just look.” He nodded down at his bare chest. “Do you think I would do that to myself? Are you that daft?”
Delphine tugged the shirt away from the marks and narrowed her eyes. “I think it is very possible these are the marks of someone burdened with guilt. Perhaps over stealing that which does not belong to them. Take him to the dungeon and put him on the rack. That should loosen his tongue.”
She vanished in front of Killian’s eyes, and before he could call her name, one of the men holding him forced his jaw open and shoved a leather bit between his teeth, then tied it behind his head.
“Finally,” a sing-song voice said from the corner of the room. “You’ve been hobbled.”
Jezebel.
The two guards muscled him around to face her, and Killian glared, wishing he’d thought to ward the hotel room the previous night.
“Delphine didn’t call you here, Killian. Thea did.” Jezebel stepped close enough Killian could smell her perfume, something floral and harsh. “It seems she and I had a common enemy in you.”
“What did I ever do to her?” His words came out garbled and unintelligible, but Jezebel appeared to understand him. With a laugh, she cupped his cheek, then reared back and slapped him, hard.
“The werewolf you killed? He was a dear friend of hers.” After a pause, she shook her head. “Don’t look at me like that, murderer. I knew nothing of Thea’s plan and I was cursed along with the rest of you. My heart is gone. I feel nothing but anger now. Before, I might have gone easy on you. Not now.”
“For every moment you do spend, bound in iron to the end, you will suffer endless pain, find no rest, from sleep abstain. Until you wish to leave this life, for which you’ll beg me for the right.”
Dark wisps of magic curled from Jezebel’s fingers and wound around Killian’s throat, all along his chest, and down his arms and legs. Fire and ice warred for dominance inside of him, each burning in their own way, and his knees buckled as tears burned his eyes.
Please, he begged his enemy as the men dragged him from the room and down three flights of stairs to the mansion’s basement, past an open crypt, and through another heavy wooden door to the dungeon.
In the third cell, they bound him to a horizontal iron rack, his arms over his head, his ankles locked in heavy manacles. When one of them turned a crank, his entire body stretched, and he groaned as the pain worsened, each breath more difficult than the last.
“The High Priestess will return for you this evening,” one of them said as he slammed the iron bars and locked Killian’s cell. “If you last that long.”
Bound, spelled, and with a pile of celestial sand in the pocket of his trousers, Killian screamed obscenities at them through the gag, but the two of them only laughed as they left him alone.
Fuck. What was he supposed to do now?
Chapter Six
Maddox
He had to be seeing things. Or…not seeing things. Killian had just vanished before his eyes. With the vial. Where he’d once stood, only his scent lingered. His phone still rattled on the floor where he dropped it.
Maddox scanned the room. Killian’s wallet rested on the nightstand. If there were ever a time to pry… Maddox flipped open the billfold and pulled out Killian’s driver’s license.
“England?” Well, that explained the accent. The very sexy, very addictive accent. As he rifled through the rest of the wallet, he found a couple of credit cards, a handful of bills—British and American money, he thought—and a folded image. Saying a silent apology for the invasion, Maddox spread the picture out on the bed.
Two young men stared back at him from in front of a darkened hearth. One, obviously Killian, and the other, well, he was perfection preserved in technicolor. Long, wavy brown hair, piercing green eyes, a strong jaw. Muscular, with his arm around Killian in a way that was definitely more than friendly. Despite how happy the two looked, when Maddox dragged his fingers over Killian’s smiling face, an intense wave of sadness hit him. Regret. Pain.
He couldn’t invade Killian’s privacy any more than he already had, so he folded up the picture and tucked it back into the man’s wallet.
“Don’t leave…”
Killian had been clear about his wishes. Not his reasons. And from the look on his face, he hadn’t wanted to be summoned. Was Maddox in danger if he stayed? He couldn’t simply wait around for the witches to come for him. And if they had summoned Killian, it wouldn’t be long before Killian told them Maddox had stolen the vial.
Maddox glanced down at his shirt on the end of the bed. Bloodied and ripped in several places. His pants were stained with dirt. He couldn’t go out like this. Killian was taller and thinner than he was, but perhaps…something in the closet would fit him?
He had to find the witch. And the vial. He prayed the talisman Azrael had given him would still let him back into the celestial realm. He’d already missed his appointed time to return. But he knew one thing for certain. If he did not return with the sand—his immortal life would be over, and he, like his brother, would be banished forever.
After a cold shower to help shake off the last bits of his broken sleep and injuries, Maddox stood naked in front of the closet. His various bruises and mending bones still pained him, but they’d mostly healed overnight, and after he’d hidden his wings, Maddox found a v-neck t-shirt in deep purple that would stretch enough, he thought, and managed to get it over his head with only a minimal amount of grunting.
A pair of briefs from the dresser were snug, but not uncomfortable. The pants, on the other hand, those were a lost cause. Too tight and too long.
Shaking out his stained white trousers from the previous night, he slid them on, along with his shoes, and tucked Killian’s wallet and phone into his back pocket. First stop, somewhere that sold pants. Second? Wherever the fuck Killian had gone.
Killian
Jezebel’s magic ate away at his strength. The iron burned his wrists and ankles, and he couldn’t move beyond thrashing his head about trying to remove the gag. What in the bloody hell was he supposed to do now? The dungeons were spelled, so even if he could get free from the iron manacles that dampened his power and held him down, he couldn’t use his magic.
The gag was bloody painful, though. He rubbed his head harder against the iron and wood rack, trying to loosen the damn thing, and finally, the leather cord slipped, and he was able to push the bit free so it hung around his neck instead.
Just how long was Delphine planning on leaving him down here? He had no phone, no shoes, and no hope of escape. From the rumors over the years, Delphine Perdue didn’t believe in barristers or trials. She was judge and jury.
“Delphine!” Raising his voice to a shout, he continued, “Let me out of here! I did nothing wrong.”
His curses echoed off the walls, but the High Priestess either wasn’t within earshot or didn’t give a damn.
“You’ll never see daylight again,” a woman said from another cell. Her voice was weak, and Killian heard the rattling of chains as she moved.
“Who are you?” He strained to raise his head a fraction, and as he did, searing pain lashed across his chest again and he stifled a groan. Looking down in the dim light, he struggled to breathe as another long, curved black burn mark appeared underneath the first.
Fucking curse.
“I don’t remember my name,” the woman said. “I only know it was stolen by dark magic. Magic I helped Thea bring into this place.”
“Thea? Who the fuck is she?” Killian could barely get the words out. Between the pain of Jezebel’s magic and the weakness from the iron, he desperately wanted to pass out, but feared he’d be unable to.
The woman—the witch—coughed, wet and rattling, and then the chains scraped across the stone floor. “She’s the reason Delphine will never let you go. The curse…it plays on your deepest fears. Mine was not being remembered. By anyone. Now, I can’t be. No one knows my name. Or anything about me, other than what I’ve done.”
“Why does the curse mean I will never get out of here?” Killian stopped fighting his bonds, unable to muster the strength any longer.
“Because I know Delphine’s greatest fear.” The witch coughed again, and her next words were faint. “She fears admitting her mistakes. Even if you did nothing wrong, she’ll still keep you here forever.”
“Witch? Witch!” No further noise greeted him. The nameless woman had either passed out or no longer wished to speak to him. With nothing to distract from the constant agony of the spell eating away at him, Killian sank into the pain. The dungeons were cool and damp, and the rack hard. His entire body ached, and he needed food and water.
He floated from memory to memory, Oliver screaming, the stench of burnt werewolf fur, his would-be lover’s last breath, the fear as Jezebel and the townspeople came for him.
Every time one of the marks on his chest flared, he snarled and jerked against his bonds, but it was no use. Even at full strength, he’d be unable to escape them. Squinting in the dim light, he managed to croak, “Fuck me,” as he glanced down at his shirt. Wherever it had been touching the marks, it had burned, half a dozen arcs and whorls now clearly evident on the light blue material.
What had Delphine said to him? The burns were marks of someone burdened with guilt? Was this his curse? To relive the worst day of his life while trapped in iron and Jeze’s spell? Alone and powerless?
Closing his eyes, he called up the memory of Oliver’s face, trying to focus on his smile. “I’m so sorry. I was careless. A complete tosser. And you…you were everything I was not.”
If this was his fate, he would accept it. He’d done the unforgivable. Killed the one man he was supposed to protect above all others. The first and only man he’d thought he just might…fall in love with.
Despite the burning in his chest, he was so tired, and the iron weakened him every minute it touched his skin. A burst of pure agony washed over him, but it wasn’t Oliver’s name he screamed...he could utter only one word.
“Maddox!”
Chapter Seven
Maddox
In the middle of the menswear dressing room two blocks from the hotel, Maddox’s head exploded in pain. Something was very wrong. Not with him. As he sank down on the little bench in the corner and closed his eyes, he saw Killian. Bound to a rack. Writhing in pain. Deep, blackened burns across his chest. Where this morning, Maddox had only seen three or four odd lines marring Killian’s sculpted muscles, now, there were more than a dozen.
A wave of dizziness overtook him as he tried to stand, but Maddox fought it off long enough to zip up the new pants, yank off the tags, and thrust a handful of bills at the confused human behind the counter. He’d probably just overpaid by half, but he didn’t care. He had to get to Killian.
Maddox lurched down the street with no idea of where
he was going. More than once, he pulled out the celestial token, so desperate, he was willing to ask Azrael for help. But after almost an hour, the pain in his head muddling his sense of direction, he felt a pull so strong, it was like someone had tied a string to his heart and yanked on it.
He had to go back to Magnolia House. Maddox tried to stop, but his feet had a mind of their own, and soon, he found himself outside the fence, hiding behind a row of bushes.
A group of three witches exited the mansion, one obviously in charge. She was beautiful. Long, dark hair fell over one shoulder, and she walked with an air of superiority while the other two flanked her.
“How long will you leave him down there, Delphine?” the witch on the left asked.
“Until midnight. If your spell permanently damages him, you will find yourself in the dungeon with him. I have indulged your desires too often, I think, for your own good.”
“But my brother—“
“Your brother drained that werewolf’s mate. Killian was reckless and wild, but Oliver would have died that night no matter what he’d done, witch. Now focus. We have to get into Killian’s hotel room. Perhaps the sand is there.”
Maddox took off around the corner as the witches exited the gate. A few moments later, he approached the same door he’d used the previous night. Only this time, it hung open.
The kitchen was deserted. Broken glasses littered the floor and his shoes made odd sucking sounds as he crept towards the hall.
The whole manor felt…wrong somehow. As if whatever had happened the night before had left it stripped bare. Maddox knew little of curses and even less about the one leveled the previous night, but he had vague memories of a large crowd running and screaming all around him as he’d fled.
Sending a quick burst of his celestial power to swirl around him, cloaking him to all but those specifically searching for him, he made his way down the same grand hallway as the night before. Velvet wraps, coats, purses, and the occasional shoe were strewn about the rooms.
Wicked Omens (Cursed Coven Book 5) Page 4
