Stone Cold Lover

by Christine Warren

  When it came, she nearly ran back to the truck. Well, she would have, but by then dusk had well and truly settled around them, and she could barely see the trees five feet in front of her. Knowing her luck, she’d have run face-first into one and given herself a concussion.

  Spar gripped her hand. “I can see perfectly clearly,” he said to reassure her. “Just follow me.”

  Fil clung, and she had no shame in admitting it. She hadn’t liked this patch of woods in daylight; she certainly had no intention of changing her mind now that everything looked dark and creepy and sinister in the twilight. She turned back to urge Wynn to stick close. Her eyes picked out the witch’s pale features just in time to see her eyes go wide and her body seemingly levitate three feet above the forest floor.

  “They set a trap!” Wynn shouted, struggling against the invisible force that gripped her. She tried to pull something out of her bag, but how she could find a single item in the huge sack eluded Fil. “Run!”

  Fil’s instincts screamed at her to obey. Oh, how her cowardly heart joined the cheer, but her mind wouldn’t let her abandon the other woman. She couldn’t tell if she dropped Spar’s hand or he dropped hers, but all at once both of them turned on their heels and sprinted back toward Wynn. The bag the witch carried tumbled to the ground just outside the clearing.

  “Wynn!” Fil cried out, but the harder her legs pumped, the farther away the witch appeared, as if she was being dragged backward through the trees.

  Spar surged forward, shedding his humanity like an ill-fitting disguise. Their surroundings forced him to keep his wings furled, but his muscular stag’s legs ate up distance in great bounds. Fil had to pour on every ounce of speed she could muster just to keep him in sight. Of course, when she broke through the brush into the small clearing, her vision filled with the picture of Wynn, now hanging limp and still in midair. The tendril of sick energy that had hugged the ground earlier now rose up like a malignant version of Jack’s beanstalk, tall and broad and glowing with evil power. The thick stems supported Wynn’s body from beneath, while the viney ends curled around her arms and legs to hold her in place.

  “Holy shit,” Fil panted, skidding to a halt. “Spar, what the hell is that?”

  “Dead,” the Guardian snarled and launched himself into the heart of the growth.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The chill hit him first, the clammy cold at the center of the dark energy clinging to his skin and threatening to leach the warmth from the very heart of him. Spar ignored it. He had fought demons and their minions for centuries, and he would not fall prey to their puny scare tactics. He simply reached for a tendril of power and yanked it away from Wynn’s still form.

  The trouble with magic was its resilience. Each tendril he touched and snapped off seemed to re-form almost before he could blink. Realizing he was making no progress this way, he reached directly for the human witch to tug her free of the spell.

  Behind him he could hear Felicity shouting. He just hoped she had enough sense to stay out of the way, because he couldn’t concentrate on freeing Wynn if worry kept him too busy protecting his mate.

  Spar wrapped his arms around the unmoving human and tried to yank her free of the Dark magic. It stretched briefly like a rubber band before springing back into place, dragging Wynn with it. The evil here was strong, but Spar was stronger.

  He cursed the surrounding trees that hemmed him in and made it impossible to spread his wings. Their huge span would never clear the encroaching trunks, but if he could get above the human, his power would give him greater leverage to tear her free. Working from the ground gave the plant-like spell an advantage.

  He could have used the witch’s help, too. Guardians might be magic, but they couldn’t work magic the way a Warden or a talented human could. Spar could disguise himself from curious eyes and accomplish physical feats that no human could manage, or summon himself clothing or weapons, but he couldn’t cast a spell, or uncast one that held another imprisoned. A witch just might be able to.

  Reaching for Wynn again, he shook her this time and called her name, trying to wake her, to get her to talk to him, to help his fight. He couldn’t tell if she had been injured during her struggle and knocked unconscious, or if her sleep was a side effect of the spell. Either way, it didn’t matter. She failed to respond to any of his attempts to get her to open her eyes.

  An ominous cracking sound reached his ears, and the ground trembled at his feet. Cursing, Spar looked down and saw the earth split open as more tendrils of Dark power pushed up through the soil. This time, the vines reached for him, as if they intended to surround him the same way they had with Wynn. They would find the Guardian not so easy to ensnare.

  Summoning his spear to him with a thought, Spar brought the wickedly sharp head down and around like a scythe. The honed edge sliced though the creeping vines, but unlike live, growing plants, these screamed audibly in pain before they withered back into the dirt. He felt a brief surge of triumph until a new wave of tendrils pushed up, even more than before. They moved faster this time, twining around his limbs almost as quickly as he could cut them back.

  He was managing to keep himself free, but Wynn still lay in the grip of the spell. Risking a glance in her direction, he could see the vines growing up and over her body, encasing her in a greenish-black cocoon of Dark energy. He swore and swung his spear faster.

  * * *

  Oh. Hell. No.

  Fear had gripped Fil when she’d seen the Darkness grab hold of Wynn, but when those nasty, cancerous excuses for Audrey Two the carnivorous plant began attacking Spar, she’d had enough. Fil might not be a Guardian, and she might not be a witch, but she also wasn’t a coward, and she wasn’t about to sit back and watch while her new friend and her lover were devoured by the Darkness. Not on your life.

  She glanced around for something to use as a tool, wondering where a nice sturdy flamethrower was when you needed one. Or maybe she was just looking for inspiration; Fil couldn’t be entirely sure. Either way, the first thing her gaze landed on was Wynn’s fallen bag, lying in the leaves at the edge of the clearing.

  Witch or not, there had to be something inside Fil could use. As far as she could tell from watching Wynn, the witch carried everything she owned in there, possibly including her kitchen sink. It wouldn’t surprise Fil at all to learn the thing had a spell on it like Hermione’s purse in the last couple of Harry Potter movies.

  She contemplated dumping everything out and sorting through it on the forest floor, but she didn’t want to take the chance that it contained anything Wynn would absolutely refuse to leave behind. If they could get free but had to make a mad dash to safety, she didn’t want to have to stop and repack everything. Instead, she took a deep breath, offered up an even briefer prayer, and stuck her unmarked right hand into the sack. No reason to take chances, right?

  Her fingers closed over something fat and cylindrical. At first Fil thought she’d grabbed a candle and started to drop it right back inside, but something stopped her, some niggling in the back of her throat. Biting her lip, she pulled the item out of the bag and looked at it. In her hand she held a jar about seven inches high and three inches in diameter, made of clear glass and stoppered with a thick cork. Inside, she could see a dark, crystalline powder, and in the faint darkness she could just make out a white sticker bearing the neatly printed words DRIVE AWAY SALT.

  Shit. At this point anything was worth a try.

  Clutching the jar, she jumped to her feet and strode toward the center of the clearing. The green-black vine things had nearly engulfed Wynn’s body by now, but Spar seemed to be doing a decent job mowing them back from himself with his flashing spear. Either way, she could see that all of the tendrils came from roughly the same area, the three-foot patch of ground around the base of the fallen tree.

  Spar had explained to her how Wynn had chanted incantations over her sleeping form while trying to sever the bond with the demonic energy in her hand, but Fil was personally f
resh out of chants. She didn’t know any incantations or any spells, and all her life she’d sucked at rhyming poetry. No, she would just have to take care of this in her own fashion.

  A quick twist popped the cork from the jar. Tilting it to bring the salt to the opening, Fil reached in and grabbed a hefty pinch between her thumb and first two fingers. Her arm came back like a pitcher on the mound and she bared her teeth at the twining mass of Dark power.

  “Let go of my friends and go back where you came from, you nasty-assed piece of shit!” she roared, and she flung the salt hard at the base of the Darkness.

  The night filled with shrill, throbbing screams as the mass seemed to draw back on itself, like a living creature touched by flame. Several loops of vine fell off Wynn’s still form, loosening their hold on the witch. Excitement rushed into Fil’s chest, and she hurried to pour a handful of salt into her palm.

  “I said begone!”

  This time, she flung a whole pile of the black salt on the earth where the tendrils had emerged. The shrieking grew louder, and the vines dropped Wynn to the earth with a thud. Fil winced and hoped to God the woman hadn’t been seriously injured by the fall. Wasn’t being relaxed and lying down supposed to help distribute the impact? Still, falling twelve feet onto a bunch of rocks and tree roots couldn’t have been comfortable.

  Spar roared and darted forward to scoop Wynn up into his arms. “Felicity! Come!” he shouted, turning back toward the path. “Hurry!”

  Like she planned to stick around. First, though, she wanted to make sure that this time nothing followed them. Shifting the jar into her right hand, she pointed the opening at the base of the retreating Darkness and threw the remaining contents of the jar onto the earth.

  “And fucking stay there!” she ordered, right before she flung the jar after the salt and bolted after the Guardian.

  She barely slowed down to scoop Wynn’s bag into her grasp. Opening her inner vision, she let the magical glow that emanated from Spar’s body light her way back to the parking lot. She saw the way he hesitated at the head of the trail and groaned.

  “Šūdas!”

  Even now that dark had fallen and the park had officially closed, they couldn’t take the chance of Spar being seen.

  “I would fly her home, but I will not leave you unguarded,” he snarled, his eyes glinting with an almost feral light. Battling to save two humans had apparently gotten her Guardian all stirred up.

  “Give me two minutes. With your night vision, you can keep an eye on me from here.”

  Spinning on her heels, Fil ran the remaining distance to the parking lot and hopped in the van. She practically left skid marks as she maneuvered the big tank of a vehicle until the rear cargo doors backed up as close to the tree line as possible. She bumped her knee on the center console as she scrambled into the back to open the doors from the inside. Leaning her head out, she put her fingers to her lips and whistled.

  Within seconds Spar appeared to lift Wynn into the empty cargo area. “Stay back here with her,” Fil ordered, after checking to make sure the witch still had a pulse. Thank God, she did. If she looked closely, she could even see her chest rise and fall with shallow breaths. “I’ll take us straight home.”

  She did, managing the trip down off the mountain in record time. She didn’t bother returning Wynn to her apartment, just drove the unconscious woman, the Guardian, and herself directly to Fil’s building in Montreal’s Latin Quarter, maneuvering the van through the narrow alley to the garage in the rear.

  Once she cut the engine, the van’s headlights blinked off and the building’s small rear courtyard plunged into relative darkness. Lights from the neighbors alleviated the gloom somewhat, but Fil had neglected to leave any of her own lights burning, so it was dark enough not to worry about Spar making the short trip to the back door in his natural form. Between the lack of illumination and the high wooden privacy fence closing off the yard, being spotted was pretty unlikely. Fil hurried across the open space to unlock the back door, then waved for Spar to follow. It looked like this time, she got to play nurse for the unconscious witch. It was funny how quickly fate had turned the tables, right?

  Yeah, Fil wasn’t laughing, either.

  * * *

  Spar laid the witch down on the sofa where Felicity had stretched out only days before and fought back the urge to howl. At every turn, he found his mate threatened, and if the Darkness didn’t kill her, she appeared to be doing a fine job trying to kill herself.

  When he thought of the risk she had taken, charging at the Darkness with nothing more than a jar of salt for a weapon, he could feel his heart turn to ice in his chest. He had barely believed the sight, convinced that she knew enough to keep herself back, out of danger, while he battled for their safety. But no, not his little mate. She had thrown herself into the fray, bellowing like a madwoman, hurling profanities and black salt in nearly equal measure. If he had been human, the sight would have caused him a stroke.

  Seeing her now, kneeling beside the sofa, her concern clearly for the unconscious Wynn and not at all for her own well-being, threatened to drive away what little remained of his sanity. Tugging her to her feet, he turned her in the direction of the bathroom and shoved her none too gently toward the door. “I will see to the witch. You will check to ensure you have sustained no new wounds and that the old one on your side was not reopened during our encounter. Go.”

  He could hardly be surprised when she dug in her heels and turned to face him, her expression a study in confusion and stubborn will. “No, I’m fine. For God’s sake, I’m standing right here in front of you, walking, talking, and acting perfectly normal. Don’t worry about me. Wynn is the one who’s been unconscious for nearly an hour. And did you see that fall? She could be seriously injured, and we wouldn’t know because she can’t tell us. I really think we should take her to the hospital. Get her checked out.”

  “Getting her to safety was the most important thing. If she requires medical care, we will see that she gets it. After you assure me that you yourself were not harmed or reinjured.” He crossed his arms over his chest and ruffled his wings impatiently.

  Felicity’s mouth dropped open as she stared at him. “Really? My God, you’re an idiot sometimes!” She shrugged out of her jacket with jerky movements and flung the leather to the floor. Reaching for the hem of her shirt, she yanked the material over her head and tossed it after the jacket before flinging her arms out to the sides. “There. See for yourself. The cut is fine. It’s been two weeks, for fuck’s sake. All that’s left are some itchy scabs. Satisfied?”

  That she could ask that question while she stood before him half naked, with nothing more than a scrap of lacy satin covering her beautiful breasts, told Spar she lacked a certain basic understanding of his nature. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he had her pressed flat against the nearest horizontal surface while he buried himself inside her sweet flesh. Just the thought of her in danger reduced him to his most primitive instincts: protect, defend, claim. He’d done the first two, so maybe it was time for the third.

  Eyes narrowing, he took a step toward her.

  “Um, guys?”

  The words came weakly, but the sound of Wynn’s voice had both Spar and his mate snapping to attention. Felicity hurried back to kneel at their friend’s hip and laid a hand over hers.

  “Hey,” his mate murmured with a smile. “Thank God you’re awake. I was starting to get worried. How do you feel?”

  The witch grimaced. “Like I just got hit by a truck. Or half devoured by a nasty nocturnis spell. And for some reason, my right ankle feels like someone tried to twist my foot off my leg. In fact, I almost wish they’d succeeded. It might hurt less that way.”

  Felicity reached down and carefully raised the hem of Wynn’s jeans. From the swelling of the joint, it was clear the ankle was injured. “Crap. It could be broken. We should get you to the hospital. I bet it happened when the plant from hell dropped you.”

  “No, I’m pretty sure
it’s just sprained,” Wynn said. “All I need is an Ace bandage and about seven billion ibuprofen. I’m more interested in hearing how you got the spell to let go in the first place.”

  “Was that a spell? I don’t get why it didn’t go after us when we first entered the clearing, if it was.”

  “It was a trap, probably set to go off if anyone with magical ability entered the area. Most likely the nocturnis have a password that lets them go in and out without setting it off, but when we tried to leave, it tripped the trigger. I should have seen it, but I wasn’t looking. I was so intent on finding something to trace back to the ritual site that I didn’t even look.” She made a face as if disgusted with her own oversight. “So really, I just got what I deserved.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Felicity snapped. “None of us bothered to look for traps, and we should have. I’m the one who asked you to come along in case you picked up something I missed. We all saw the energy on the ground, and we all wrote it off as leftover Dark magic schmutz. You don’t get to play the martyr on this one.”

  Wynn appeared to disagree, but she let it drop and looked up at Spar. “I’m in your debt, Guardian. Thank you for rescuing me. The Darkness had me overwhelmed. Without you, it probably would have devoured me whole.”

  Spar shook his head and shot a pointed glance at Felicity. “You owe me nothing. Even had I saved you, to do so would have been no more than my duty, but Felicity is the one who freed you, not I.”

  “Really?” Wynn’s eyes went wide, and she fixed her gaze on the other woman. “How did you do it?”

  Felicity’s mouth twisted in a wry half smile. “Sheer dumb luck, mostly. You dropped your bag of tricks when that thing grabbed you. Spar ran right past it into the fray, and he did a pretty good job hacking away at the tendrils, but it just kept growing and growing. I figured you must have brought something with you for emergency defense against the Dark arts, what with your Harry Potter vibe going on, so I decided to check. The first thing I grabbed was a jar labeled DRIVE AWAY SALT, which I figured sounded worth a try.”