by SM Reine
Lilith wrinkled her nose, getting a whiff of unwashed flesh, spilled beer and the ripe stench of a garbage bin. “Don’t you have better things to do?”
“My Lilith, so predictable.” He sighed and set the lyre aside. “You’ve been ignoring me lately, so I went after you this evening, but,” and here he paused to burn her with an angry look, “you got lucky. That thing distracted me. If not, we would have been having an entirely different conversation.”
Lilith shivered, despite the comforting warmth of her fury.
“What do you make of it?” Gaebryl asked.
The lump rolled over and let out a massive burp. It was a human male, his short, chubby legs encased in dirty tan trousers. His red plaid shirt had hiked up to reveal his round white belly sprinkled with dark hairs.
As she’d expected, he was the same man she’d seen sitting on the park bench before the demon attack.
“It is a human being,” Lilith said. “What do you want from me?”
“I wanted you to have a look at the thing,” Gaebryl said. “Before I put it down, of course.”
“You’re going to kill him?”
“I believe that’s what to put down means,” Gaebryl said mildly.
“Killing humans is your new hobby? Oh wait, I forgot, it’s your old hobby.”
Gaebryl laughed. “Hardly. Look closer, my dear. I can’t believe you haven’t noticed by now.” He frowned. “Sloppy, that. Makes me wonder if you’re slipping.”
“I’m not slipping,” she snapped.
She crossed over to the supine man and knelt next to him. The smell was the most distinctive thing, and it was identical to the noxious gas that had puffed from the demons. Closing her eyes, she narrowed her awareness to a fine point and called power from the earth. It was easier here inside the mountain.
When she opened her eyes, she could see the man’s aura in fine detail. To her horror, it had the same gray shadow at the edges as Tasha’s friend, along with similar dark markings that resembled a pattern of wires. Only the lines in this man’s aura were more clearly formed than in Erin’s. Instead of a random pattern, it looked like one thing, one being.
And it moved. It slipped and slithered through the aura like a fish in a bowl.
They’re out there, and they want in.
“He won’t last long,” Lilith said.
“I only waited because of your tardiness. Do you think I’d be doing this creature any kindness by allowing the fehin to continue to suck the life from him?” The seraphim huffed his indignation.
“Why are they called fehin?” Making conversation helped give her more time to draw power.
“I’ve no idea. It’s their proper name.”
“I’ve never heard of them before.”
“That’s because they’re not from this realm,” Gaebryl said. “Or any realm, really. They were been banished from most of the worlds of light and spent the last eon or two wandering the abyss between the worlds. Can’t blame them, really, for wanting to come in, but still, it cannot be permitted.”
Banished. Worlds of light. Abyss between the worlds.
This wasn’t like the Gaebryl Lilith knew to share and talk of other worlds as if she were his equal. He also sounded genuinely mystified by how the fehin had appeared. But it could also be a show. He was a consummate liar.
“If he’s going to die anyway, why not try to remove the fehin?”
Gaebryl shrugged in a show of nonchalance, but his fingers had tightened their grip on the arm of his chair. “Be a lot of work for nothing.”
“Will you allow me to try?”
He waved a hand. “Go ahead.”
This was the dangerous part. Once the fehin was free, she would be vulnerable.
“We’ll need a container for it once I get it out. Some way to corral the demon.”
“No doubt.” Gaebryl said sourly. He reached into the pocket of his white trousers and pulled out a clear quartz crystal mounted on a silver chain. “Try this.”
“That’s not an ordinary crystal.”
“I took it off a dead mage, so while it has been used, it will serve.”
Right.
Lilith looped the delicate chain over her fingers, allowing the crystal to swing back and forth. Slowly she lowered it until it dipped into the outermost layer of the sleeping man’s aura.
Immediately, the fehin reacted, swimming faster through the murky aura, going round and round and back again in a jerky, erratic pattern. The unconscious man moaned.
“Gently,” Gaebryl crooned.
He took up his lyre again and began to sing in a rich baritone. The fehin’s movements slowed. Lilith was able to find the glowing bit of orange she thought of as the demon’s heart. She moved her hand, pacing the orange glow, focusing on the thing, moving closer, then pulling away. Teasing and luring until the demon’s attention was well and truly caught, and then, just then, she swiftly inserted the crystal in the glowing heart, and it was captured.
The man in the red shirt convulsed and died.
Lilith shuddered and closed her eyes. She wanted to mourn this life, but she had not known him. So many deaths and all lay at the seraphim’s feet.
“Don’t tell me you’ve taken up prayer, now?” His voice was a lazy drawl.
She opened her eyes. “No, but perhaps you should, because I was calling power.”
She lifted the crystal high. Within the facets, something that looked like smoke swirled. What the seraphim didn’t seem to realize and what she had suddenly understood when she’d watched poor, doomed Erin cavort in the clearing, was that a fehin, fat and full of the life energy of its latest victim, was a source of untold magickal power.
A weapon, indeed.
She turned that weapon now on Gaebryl. Focusing her power through the crystal and spoke the words she’d been longing to say for three hundred years.
In darkness, light.
In death, life.
Fear is the spike that binds me—
I feel no fear.
Truth is the blade that frees me—
I seek only truth
I will not turn from it though I pass the gates of death.
I renounce you.
The silver rune she’d worn since childhood burned for the last time and then vanished.
She was free.
She didn’t know how she’d expected Gaebryl to react. Slow, arrogant clapping was not one of the options.
“You can’t control me any longer,” she said.
He smiled. “I haven’t for some time, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still mine.”
She glanced over her shoulder then back at Gaebryl and the crystal. Shock soured the triumph she’d felt at finally winning her freedom from this monster.
He’d wanted a new weapon, and he’d created one, just not the one she’d thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The reason Remy found the cave entrance was because Lilith had left a glowing trail only an idiot could have missed. Which meant every were in a five mile radius would be converging on this spot shortly. He concluded it was what Lilith had intended, that or she’d lost her mind.
Trust me, she’d said.
Well, he’d delivered.
Gently, he lowered Tasha to the ground. He’d untied her bonds and released her from the quilt that had been tightly wrapped about her before heading up the mountain. She held on to his arm for a moment to steady herself.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded. There were huge dark shadows under her eyes. She was frighteningly pale, exhausted and pushed beyond her ability to cope, but as far as he could tell, untouched by the fehin. She wore a baggy sweatshirt, gym shorts and sneakers that looked like they were a size too big. Shivers racked her body. She wrapped her arms around her middle and hunched her shoulders.
“I’m sorry about your friend.”
Tasha sniffed, and tears welled in her brown eyes.
A powerful roar broke the silence. Gideon Black, in human for
m, strode out of the shadows like a force of nature. Behind him loped an army of weres, big and deadly.
Tasha gasped and clung to Remy. He backed into the entrance to the cave dragging a terrified Tasha with him.
Gideon commanded the middle of the clear space outside the opening while his warriors formed a half-circle, blocking any avenue of possible escape. With relief, Remy saw no sign of the Lost Legacy alpha. But that meant one of two things: either they hadn’t found him yet, or they had, and he was dead.
“Thank you for finding her for me,” Gideon said, “but you’re going to have to explain why you brought her up here.” He looked around and spread his hands wide. “I can’t imagine coming here was her idea.”
“We need to talk about the situation,” Remy said, “but not now and not here.”
Gideon whistled. A large white wolf broke free from the pack and trotted to Gideon’s side. “Owen disagrees.” He scratched behind the wolf’s ears.
“His eyes,” Tasha said softly. “They’re blue.” She looked up at Remy. “That’s not… that can’t be…”
“Yeah, it is. Owen.”
She broke into tears. Remy collected her against his chest and glared at Gideon. There were a few choice things he wanted to say, but not in Tasha’s presence.
He jumped when a hand touched his shoulder. Lilith. He hadn’t heard her coming. Her eyes were wide and dark in the pale oval of her face. The silver rune he’d never seen her without had vanished from the silver chain, and in its place she wore a crystal that went light and dark by turns as something moved within the facets.
“Let me take it from here,” she said softly.
He moved aside. Tasha started to speak then seemed to think better of it.
Lilith paced out of the cave and stood about ten feet away from Gideon. She was not a small woman, but she looked slight in comparison to the alpha.
“I’ve come to make good on my promise,” Lilith said. “But there are some things you don’t know, my lord. Factors that will influence your decision.”
“Decision? There’s no decision,” Gideon said. “The woman is mine.”
Tasha shuddered again and huddled closer to Remy.
Lilith turned around gestured at Remy. “Bring her here.”
“No,” Tasha said, “I’m not going out there.”
“How about if I go with you?”
She hesitated, her eyes liquid, then nodded.
He walked slowly with Tasha on his arm feeling like this was some bizarre wedding ceremony and he was about to give away the bride. Before he released Tasha, he whispered in her ear, “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Remember that.”
Lilith took Tasha’s hand in hers. “What Remy said. The choice is yours.”
Tasha shook her head. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Turning back to Gideon, Lilith said, pointing, “But he does. In the bar, you knew what she was. The minute you kissed her hand, you knew. That’s why you kept mentioning Gaebryl later when we were in the banquet room.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Gideon protested. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A rush of wind blew through the clearing, kicking up dried pinecones and pebbles. The weres whined and pawed at the ground. Remy looked up, fearing to see the ghostly forms of circling fehin above and then the weres quieted. The silence shredded his last nerve. It was as if even the breeze was afraid to move.
Sweat prickled his brow.
The massive wingspan blocked the moon as the seraphim descended.
Remy blinked to make sure what he was seeing was real.
He’d never seen a seraphim before, not outside of books and movies. It was one thing to know that a witch belonged to one of them and quite another to see one touch the ground and fold his majestic wings gracefully behind him. Lilith never even glanced in the seraphim’s direction, but kept her gaze trained on Gideon.
Some of the weres rolled on their bellies. Gideon snarled and snapped, but it did no good.
The seraphim—Gaebryl—towered over Pacific Range alpha. They made an odd pair: a were and a seraphim facing Lilith like recalcitrant schoolboys.
Lilith turned Tasha’s hand over so the were mark blazed neon red. “This mark has been the source of a great deal trouble along with the hex I placed upon it.” She hit Tasha with a level stare. “If you desire, I can remove them—the mark and the hex.”
“No!” Gideon shouted.
The seraphim rested a hand on Gideon’s shoulder. “If she can remove a were’s mark and a hex at the same time without damaging the woman…” He paused and looked at Lilith. “I assume it’s your intent to do so without harming her?”
“Yes,” Lilith said flatly.
“Well then,” Gaebryl continued, “if I were you, I’d think twice about challenging someone like that.” He waved a hand airily. “But do as you see fit.”
Gideon snarled but remained silent.
Lilith faced Tasha. “Once the mark is removed you will be free of the weres. However, you can never be free of who and what you are. You are a witch. Unconscious and untrained, but a witch you are, nonetheless. That’s why my hex didn’t work properly.”
Tasha tried to pull her hand away from Lilith and mumbled a steady no, no, no under her breath, but Lilith held firm.
“By the terms of the Kinraven Charter, all witches belong to the seraphim,” Lilith said quietly. “Someone hid you when you were a child.”
“But I don’t remember,” Tasha said.
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“So why do you keep saying I have a choice?” Tasha’s voice was small and tremulous.
“Owen marked you, but after he submitted, that right passed to Gideon as his alpha. Gideon has indicated he will take you. If that is your choice.”
“You said you could remove the mark?”
“I can,” Lilith said, “but then you will be subject to the seraphim.”
“That’s not really a choice,” Tasha said bitterly.
“Look at it this way,” Lilith said. “Gideon wants you because you’re a beautiful woman, but also because you’re a witch, and he’ll own something that should, by right and title, belong to the seraphim.”
“You make it sound like I’m some expensive piece of art.”
“More than that,” Lilith said. “Should another war break out between the weres and the seraphim, having you on the side of the weres would be a great advantage.”
“What does it mean to be subject to the seraphim,” Tasha asked.
“It means,” Gaebryl said, “you will come into your power. You will become the woman and the witch you were meant to be.”
Tasha pinned Lilith with her gaze. “Is that true?”
“Yes. I can’t tell you one is better than the other because this is a choice no one should ever have to make.”
Lifting her hands helplessly, Tasha said, “I don’t know how to decide. This is impossible. I don’t have enough information.”
Remy stepped foreword. “There’s another way.” All eyes turned to him. “With your leave, my lords Gaebryl and Gideon, we are all tired and overwrought. This is not a small thing, but a woman’s life at stake. Allow a set period of time in which Tasha can learn more.”
“She’s already chosen,” Gideon thundered. “She allowed Owen to mark her.”
“Not when she doesn’t remember,” Lilith said, and then added in a silky tone. “Are you certain you want to welcome an unconscious witch to your bed? All that power and not under control? Think of the mayhem she could cause.”
Gideon’s face turned red, but he backed down.
“I propose the lady spends one month with me and one month with the cur,” Gaebryl said. “I doubt she’ll last that long with him, but fair is fair.”
Remy took Tasha’s hand in his. “What do you say?”
“I need time,” Tasha said, “so my answer is yes.”
Gaebryl bent on one knee. Remy passed T
asha to him. The seraphim gathered her in his arms, spread his wings and leapt into the sky.
Gideon lunged at Lilith. Remy whirled, ready to strike, but before he could move, a beam of light shot from the crystal, hitting the big were. He fell back, a hand clutched to his chest and a look of astonishment on his face.
“Try that again,” Lilith said, “I might not miss the next time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Lilith had never invited a man to her cabin before, so when she opened the door and Remy walked inside, she felt an odd urge to bustle about, fold the rumpled quilt and pick up the discarded clothing from the floor. But she did none of those things, choosing instead to stand aside and allow him to look around. This was her home—the one place in the world where she felt safe.
She had invited him into her world.
For no apparent reason, she remembered his words from the banquet room: I’m trying to protect you.
She was reasonably sure he was the first man to attempt to do so in a very long time. It had been so long, in fact, that she hadn’t recognized his actions for what they were.
But she was different now.
Free.
Free of the old fears that forced her to keep her distance, and yet it made her oddly shy with him.
“Take me on the grand tour,” he said.
She laughed. “There’s not that much to see.”
He wrapped an arm around her and steered her toward the back. “Unless I’m mistaken, this would be the kitchen.”
“Correct.”
Hugging her close, he gently closed her eyes with the tips of his fingers. “I want you to imagine we’re at the finest hotel.”
“Not in Paris.”
“You have something against Paris?”
She sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Okay, no hotel then. Imagine we’re in a beautiful cabin in the woods.”
“That easy.” She put her head on his chest.
“And a dashing stranger opens the door and climbs the ladder to your bed.” He moved against her, his hips swaying in gentle motion. She moved with him.
