Rockwell Agency: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Hannah leaned down and whispered into Liam’s ear. “I want you to know that I love you,” she said, realizing it even as she said the words. She hadn’t known they were going to come out of her mouth, but there they were, between them. “I know you don’t feel the same way, and that’s fine. I just want you to know that I’ve fallen in love with you—before I do what I’m about to do.”

  His hand tightened on her arm. “Hannah—.”

  “Don’t,” she said, as he turned to look up at her face. “Don’t say anything. I just want you to know, that everything I’m about to do is for you. Okay? Because I love you.”

  “Hannah …”

  She shook her head. “Please, Liam. Don’t say anything.”

  Agnew grew impatient, growling his words. “Enough. I’m not interested in standing here listening to you two profess your love to each other. My game—my rules. What’s it going to be, Hannah?”

  Hannah got to her feet, ignoring Liam’s protests. She faced Agnew down, her eyes locked with his. “How about we make this just between me and you? You said yourself that you want to know what I’m capable of. I could tell you, yes, but anyone can spin a story. How about I show you? Unless you don’t think you can compete with me?”

  Smirking, Agnew circled her, slowly positioning himself between her and Liam. Hannah turned with him, every muscle in her body tensed and ready to spring into action if Agnew made any move to strike out at Liam—physically or magically. “You’re baiting me,” Agnew said, eyeing her up and down, as though the secret to her mysterious power might be written on her skin. “You’re confident that you can beat me, and you don’t want to give away all of your secrets, so you’re going to bait me into a match that you’re sure you’ll win. And in the meantime, you’ll distract me from taking out my anger on Liam.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but Hannah wasn’t going to tell him so. “Maybe I just want to see what you’re capable of. I’ve never met anyone more powerful than me. Maybe I still haven’t, even after meeting you. How will we find out?”

  Agnew scoffed. “You’re bluffing. If you had that kind of power, you’d have used it against my grandmother. You’d have used it against me already.”

  “Maybe I’m a cautious person,” she said. “Maybe I’m not sure what my move is yet. Why don’t you test me?”

  Liam pushed himself to his feet. “Hannah, don’t bait him—don’t. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  “Your boyfriend is worried about you,” Agnew said. “Isn’t that sweet. Perhaps he should be worried.” Agnew thrust a hand up into the air and bared his teeth. “From birth to death, blood gives life. Blood flows, and churns, and seeps. Seeps from your pores, until life is no more.”

  Hannah felt pain, like little pricking sensations all over her body. It didn’t take much imagination to think of what he had meant to happen to her. If she hadn’t been a shifter, then her blood would no doubt have started pouring from her skin, and she would have bled out in seconds flat. But instead, Hannah stood, looking at Agnew. She smiled. “Well, that didn’t work, now did it?”

  Agnew’s eyes flashed with anger. “What are you?” He stalked towards her as if to grab her. “There is nothing that I don’t have power over.”

  Reaching for the hem of her shirt, Hannah pulled it over her head and tossed it to the floor. Like a typical man, Agnew stopped in his tracks, shocked by her swift motion and stunned by what she’d revealed. He gaped at her full breasts, covered by just a sunshine-yellow bra.

  “What are you doing?” Agnew asked. “You think you can seduce a man into action? Women mean nothing to me. I’m not your boyfriend here, who has made his way in the world by seducing beautiful women.”

  Hannah’s eyes darted unbidden towards Liam. He looked unhappy, and wary, and offended all at once.

  When Liam’s eyes met hers, he shook his head. “Hannah, be careful.”

  It was sweet that he was worried for her. But Hannah knew what she was doing.

  Before Agnew could decide what to do next, Hannah stripped off her pants and tossed them on top of her shirt, standing there in just her bra and panties. Agnew gulped, despite his protests that women had no hold over him. But if he thought that the sight of her in her underwear was amazing, he was in for another whole level of shock.

  “You wanted a battle,” Hannah told Agnew. “You’ve got one.”

  Then she jumped into the air and shifted.

  Chapter 33

  Liam

  Liam had known as soon as Hannah had started to undress that she was going to shift. There was more than enough space in the room for her to do it, and he knew why she thought that was the best course of action. Maybe it was. But Liam was worried—not because he doubted her strength, but because he remembered that she’d told him that one of Agnew’s greatest skills was bending space to improbable proportions. And while his spells might not land on her and affect her, he had trapped her in glass and kept her there, so Liam knew that Agnew could work spells around her that could harm her. He didn’t know what would happen if Agnew managed to close the space so that Hannah was trapped, perhaps underground with no way out.

  But despite his worry, Liam couldn’t help but stare in amazement as Hannah lifted up into the air, her sleek, black wings sweeping outward, as she stretched out her long body and thrashed her tail back and forth. She was majestic, and incredible, and stunning, and he couldn’t look away from her. He couldn’t believe that this was the woman who had just told him that she loved him. There was no way for her to know that he loved her back—she’d been trapped behind glass when he’d said it. But she was brave enough to bare her soul to him, believing, it seemed, that he would never feel the same way about her. And now she was flying above both Agnew and Liam, arching her neck in a long, elegant curve, as she looked down on Agnew with yellow eyes filled with confidence and anger.

  She was incredible, and she knew it, and if Liam hadn’t loved her already, there would be nothing to keep him from falling for her now. Not when he saw her this way.

  Agnew, however, didn’t seem to be falling in love with her. For once, the cocky wizard was taken aback and thrown off his game. He stumbled backward, his mouth dropping open at the sight of Hannah. When her tail swished by him, Agnew threw his arms over his head and ducked, scrambling away to avoid her.

  “Holy shit,” Agnew said, repeating the curse over and over again. “Holy shit. Holy shit. What is happening? Oh my God.”

  Liam watched as Hannah landed in front of him and lowered herself down. She jerked her head towards her back, and he knew what she wanted him to do. Without hesitation, he scrambled onto her back, feeling safe and powerful, as he settled himself between the ridges of her scales and held on, as she lifted herself into the air. He would be better off with her, and this way Agnew couldn’t use Liam against Hannah. He suddenly felt more confident, and he slid forward, gliding down the arch of her back to her neck and straddling it, one hand on either side of her neck.

  She hadn’t given him a chance to respond to her declaration before, so he took it now as she lifted into the air again. “I love you too,” he shouted up to her. “Hannah—I love you so much.”

  Her head whipped back around, and her yellow eyes stared into his. He hadn’t known that a dragon’s expression could turn soft. Her face was so hard, and rigid, and lined with scales and her mouth was filled with sharp teeth and fire breath. But it still went soft when she looked at him, and she nudged his cheek with her nose. His hand rested on the side of her face, and he pressed a kiss to one sleek black scale.

  “Did you ever doubt that I would fall under your spell?” he asked, being purposefully cheesy, especially given the situation they were in, with a wizard below them.

  Hannah smiled, then snorted at him. If she could have spoken, he was sure that she would have teased him for being so sappy.

  The moment was sweet, but it was over before he had settled into it. Below them, Agnew was muttering, and the space that they were in began t
o tremble. The stone walls shook, and the floor began to crack.

  Liam’s heart leaped into his throat as his worry that Agnew would simply collapse the space they were in resurfaced stronger than ever. He gripped Hannah hard, with both his knees and his hands, holding on tightly, so that she could move however she needed to without having to worry about dislodging him.

  Even though the walls continued to tremble, they didn’t start to crack. Hannah swooped down, opening her mouth and breathing fire down onto Agnew—so much fire that it would surely consume him in seconds.

  “Water above, water below, water around me in throes,” Agnew said, his hands throwing up walls of water around him as he spoke. Hannah’s fire broke against the walls of water, flickering and streaming to the sides where the flames floated harmlessly above the stone floor.

  Agnew smiled, the grin wicked and dark. “Oh, this is a battle that is actually a challenge. Only one of us is coming out of this alive—maybe none of us. This is a battle worth dying for.” He threw his hand into the air again, shouting out, “Lighter than air!” His body lifted into the air.

  He was suddenly eye-to-eye with them, spinning around them in a slow circle that Hannah didn’t follow. But Liam did, turning on Hannah’s back to keep both eyes on Agnew. “You won’t beat her,” Liam shouted. “She’s stronger than you are, and you’re going to run out of power eventually. How long can you sustain spell after spell?”

  Agnew grinned at him. “We’re about to find out, aren’t we?” Still suspended in the air, Agnew lifted his hands again and laughed with a sound that was far more like a cackle than anything else. “You think you’re special because you can breathe fire? Lakes of fire, from the sky. Rain on those who must die.”

  Fire burst into existence, floating at the top of the open stone space for a brief moment before pelting down like a thunderous rainstorm. Flames flew through the air, and the heat that filled the room was almost suffocating. Smoke billowed, and Liam found himself coughing as he darted away from flame after flame that fell down on Hannah’s back.

  She lifted her tail, sheltering him by holding it over his head, and he clung to it, looking out from underneath, as Agnew floated in the midst of his firestorm. He was singed, but he didn’t seem to care. It was as though everything that he had been holding inside of himself for so long was pouring out now, and it was a release that he hadn’t even known he’d needed. Nothing was going to stop Agnew, and they couldn’t count on him acting to preserve his own life. Clearly he didn’t value his life any more than he had valued his sister’s or his grandmother’s—or anyone else’s.

  Liam darted backward, avoiding a bomb of fire that landed near his feet, flaming against his pants. Another singed his arm, and yet another came flying towards him so fast that he fell backward, starting to slip off Hannah’s side. Unaffected by the fire herself, Hannah flew, and darted, and shielded him as much as she could, keeping him out of the way until the fire started to recede.

  He was burned all the same, the hair on his arms gone, and red marks slicing across his flesh where the fire had licked against him. Liam knew that he was by far the most vulnerable person in the room, and he knew that Hannah would put protecting him above whatever else she needed to do. And he wasn’t going to let her do that. He needed to help protect himself. It was the most he could do as the one human in a room with a wizard and a dragon shifter, so he would at least do that.

  Liam darted a remaining fireball, as Hannah turned and breathed her own fire at Agnew again. Water flew up between Agnew and the fire, but Liam wasn’t watching it. He carefully made his way over to Hannah’s side, towards her back end, and he looked down below his feet at one of her four legs. Her leg was as big as he was, and there were talons at the end of it—sharp and dangerous. Liam took a deep breath, and he jumped off Hannah’s back, sliding down her leg and grabbing onto one of the talons to catch himself before he fell all the way to the ground.

  Hannah jerked, looking down at him, as he clung to her and hauled himself up into a position that he could maintain, on the inside of her leg, sheltered from whatever elements Agnew might throw at them next and standing with each foot on a different talon to brace himself. He wrapped his arms around her leg and nodded to her. “I’m secure, Hannah. Nothing is going to get me here. Do what you have to do. Kill the bastard.”

  She craned her neck around and brushed her nose against his cheek lightly. He reached his hand out to her, but she was already moving her head away. She spun her body around, and Liam gripped her hard, bracing with his arms and his feet. Hannah flew upward, then downward, and he knew she was testing him to make sure that he really was secure. He was perhaps a bit dizzy, but his position was the safest one he could possibly have. He pressed his cheek to her leg to minimize the chance for wind to sweep between their bodies, and he took a deep breath, ready for anything.

  Chapter 34

  Hannah

  Hannah had decided that Liam was a genius. He had somehow found a place to position himself where he was both shielded and secure, and he had jumped off her, leaving one place of safety to try to find another but without any guarantee that he would make it. That took guts, and clearly Liam had plenty.

  She could feel him holding onto her, which meant that she would feel if he did end up being dislodged. Then she would be able to catch him before he fell to the floor.

  But he wouldn’t let that happen. She had faith in him that he would keep himself safe, and what she needed to do was put an end to one murderous wizard. Hannah whirled on Agnew. He looked like he was becoming more maniacal with every spell that he cast. She was troubled, because although she was immune to his spells directly against her, he was immune to her abilities as well, by default, because he could block every one of her attacks with another spell.

  Hannah was going to have to use brute force and hope that he didn’t have the magical strength to outlast her—and that she would be able to find a way to get out of this underground prison that he’d trapped them in. If he died, would the effects of his spells die, too and leave them crushed, underground?

  She could only think about one thing at a time, and right now she had to stop Agnew.

  Hannah dove low, sweeping beneath Agnew, as he started to generate another spell. She couldn’t hear the words he was saying, but rocks began to break out of the stone wall and hurl themselves across the room, crushing into the opposite wall and shattering into shards. She dodged two of them, flying up and then down again until she was directly beneath Agnew. He tried to spin around to dodge her, but Hannah flew upward, crashing into him from below and propelling him upward. She moved faster and faster, ready to crush him against the ceiling with such speed and force that he couldn’t evade her.

  But he rolled off her back and tumbled down towards the ground, righting himself with another spell just before he landed on his face.

  Agnew appeared delighted, laughing wildly as he soared higher again. “That was clever!” he said. “Clever! But I’m better—I’m much better. I’ve studied for so long. I’ve hidden it for so long, too. I’ve gone unnoticed for so damn long, and look at me now. Look at what I can do.”

  He thrust his hands towards her, sending punch after punch of air that knocked her backward at first and then prevented her from flying forward. She struggled against the blows, making sure to keep Liam sheltered beneath her, and she managed to stop herself from going backward any further, but she couldn’t advance on him.

  And then a rock flew by Hannah’s head, and she acted on instinct. Reaching for her power that allowed her to move things without touching them, she grabbed the rock out of its path, and she hurled it with all of her mental force at Agnew.

  He wasn’t expecting it, and the rock hit him, sending him flying through the air at first and then plummeting towards the ground as his spell lost all of its force. He landed on the floor with a cracking sound that could have been the stone cracking or could have been his spine.

  Hannah didn’t care, nor d
id she stop to find out. She grabbed another stone out of the air with her mind, and she threw it down towards him, ready to crush him beneath it.

  One of his hands lifted weakly, and he whispered something she didn’t detect. The stone stopped, held aloft by an invisible force, but it didn’t stay there. It rolled weakly to the left, then fell the rest of the way to the ground, harmlessly landing beside Agnew.

  Hannah wasn’t deterred. She threw another and another at him, now that she had him on the defensive instead of the offensive. He could only block her for so long, and she was more than able to outlast him. Stones still flew, though there were fewer now, and each time one came near her, she sent it hurtling down at him.

  Agnew lay there, clearly in pain and just as furious as ever. He glowered up at her, holding a rock aloft. This time, though, he didn’t drop it down to the ground. He threw it back at her, and it knocked against her underside. Hannah tensed, knowing that Liam was there, but she still felt his arms locked securely around her leg, and she knew that he hadn’t been hit—at least not badly.

  She breathed fire down at Agnew, more out of anger than out of any hope that it would actually touch him. He blocked it, as she had known he would, but then, with his wall of water around him, he slowly got to his feet. Where there had been insane joy before, there was now anger. It was as though every emotion that he had ever bottled up was now pouring out of him. His chest heaved with rage, and his eyes flashed with fury, and it got personal—very personal.

  This time when he lifted his hands, there was no big display of physical magic. Nothing broke, or flew, or rained down.

  And he shouted the words, so she would know exactly what he was doing. “Take what she loves and crush it,” he said, staring her down, as he widened his stance and braced himself for the power that was about to surge through his hands. “Cut out his heart. They will forever be apart.”

  Hannah felt fear like she had never experienced before, and she realized how foolish she had been to think that Liam was safe just because he was sheltered from falling rocks and bursts of flaming fire. Winnifred had cursed him personally again and again, and there was no reason that Agnew couldn’t do the same. Now he had. He’d cut out the heart of the thing that she loved, and Hannah was terrified that he had meant it literally. She felt Liam’s arms loosen from around her leg, and she roared with fear and agony, already imagining him dead. He fell beneath her, and Hannah swooped downward, catching him with her wing and lightly laying him on the ground before he could land there and hurt himself further. She rolled him over, shifting out of her dragon form to bend over him, pushing his hair out of his face and running her hands over his neck to feel for his pulse.