by Cherry Adair
When would he learn that violence never solved anything?
She spared a quick glance to check on Trey. He was still on the ground, surrounded by half a dozen terrifying Fire Ghouls kicking and punching the crap out of him.
Serena stopped running toward them before she ran straight into the same problems the two men were experiencing. She didn’t know what the heck to do. She wanted to help both of them, but if they couldn’t defend themselves, what did she think she could possibly do?
As far as she knew there was only one way to prevent both men being killed in the next few minutes.
The Council had to pull the plug on this Test. Now.
“Stop this!” she shouted, her temper and fear making small whirlwinds whip up, swirling dust and sand around her. She reined in her temper until the fine grains sifted back to the ground. “Stop it now,” she shouted at the spark-filled black sky. “Can’t you see you’re killing hi—them.”
Lark had told them they could die during one of the Tests.
Duncan and Trey were in grave peril—
Was that what this was about? They wanted her to win Henry’s seat? The egotistical thought horrified and appalled her. Were they willing to kill a powerful wizard like Duncan to ensure she got the job? And if so, why? Oh, God.
“I don’t want your damn job. Do you hear me? I don’t want the job. I abdicate. I resign. Oh, shit. Whatever it is. I do it.”
If anyone was listening to her running around, screaming at the top of her lungs like a madwoman, they weren’t speaking up. Frantically she looked around again for something to use as a weapon. A rock. A branch…Like either of those would work, she thought with disgust. There was nothing but dark dirt, black sky, and every shade of red, orange, yellow, and blue inside the greedy inferno. They might as well be on the face of the sun.
Trey’s lungs were on fire. The heat was unbearable, the power of the blows and the high temperature of the superheated air had robbed him of air. Whatever the fuck was kicking him had on steel-toed boots, and they weren’t giving him a moment’s respite to catch his breath. Drenched in sweat, he attempted to roll out of the way, but the flaming images were all around him. Jabbing, shoving, kicking, punching. The attack was fierce and unrelenting. He rolled into a ball to protect his body as best he could.
Goddamned wasn’t fair. Fire, for Christ’s sake. That was Duncan’s power. How the fuck was he expected to fight it? He couldn’t Charm a quick-start log!
His clothes weren’t burning, but he could feel intense, dry heat stinging his skin through the fabric and real or imagined, he smelled the sweet, sickly, stink of burning flesh.
He remembered Lark’s warning that one of them could die during Testing. It wouldn’t fucking well wouldn’t be him.
“Duncan. God. Help me. Help me!” If Duncan came to help, these creatures would turn on him. Trey put every ounce of terror in his voice. Duncan could handle it. Fire was his power after all.
He squeezed his burning, dry eyes closed and tried to find a way into Duncan’s mind. He’d tried a little illegal mind entry earlier. To discover what Duncan’s greatest fear was. Just to level the playing field. But like every other effort Trey had made to gain a little insight into his friend over the years, Duncan had firmly slammed the door to his probing.
But Duncan did have an Achilles’ heel and her name was Serena. Now that was something Trey could definitely use to his advantage.
“We’ve been friends all our lives. Don’t let us die like this. Save us, Duncan. Save Serena and me.”
The Fire Ghouls were strong, determined, and not human. Duncan, blocking a blow to the head with a raised arm, found there was nothing solid inside the leaping, dancing flames attacking him with such intensity. Nothing to connect with when he lashed out. Which was apparently a one-way street, because when these suckers connected, it sure as shit felt like being hit by a semi.
Trey was screaming, begging for help. Duncan tried to get closer to him, but a ghoul blocked his path, scarlet eyes spewing streams of flame. Narrowly avoiding a direct hit to the face, he covered his face with a bent arm and zigzagged, changing direction. The too-close encounter of superheat burned along his nerve endings. Jesus, that was close.
Fuck the rules. If he could have reached Trey, Duncan would’ve done what he could to help him. Thank God Serena was well back out of the way. His extensive T-FLAC training wasn’t worth a damn bit of good here. Even his powers didn’t hold any weight with these creatures.
His exposed skin felt as though someone were holding a blow torch to it. All the oxygen was being sucked out of his burning lungs. He willed away the pain, and forced himself not to think about Serena facing these flaming monsters with superhuman strength and no substance.
Serena realized that until one of them retrieved that scroll, they would all have to continue fighting the fire. And the Fire Ghouls. The only way for this to stop was to find and retrieve the artifact. She had to slip past the Seventh Level Fire Ghouls, nasty creatures she’d thought a myth, something her father had told her as a bedtime story. She teased the long-ago memory to the surface, her lips barely moving as she whispered in a singsong five-year-old’s voice,
To trick a ghoul, stay nice and cool.
Show your measure, snatch the treasure.
To kill him dead, bash his head.
She ran back and picked up the thick fur-lined coat she’d been wearing. Serena knew she was probably going to die a hideous, agonizing death, but she had to try something. Duncan and Trey were in battles to the death. They weren’t capable of going anywhere near the fire cave while under attack.
If she didn’t do something quickly, getting the scroll would no longer be an option. They’d all be dead.
Before putting on the coat, she doused it, and herself, with water. The cool liquid felt fantastic on her too-hot skin. Envisioning ice cold Atlantic ocean water, she shoved her arms into the sodden sleeves and drew the hood up to cover her soaking hair, letting it fall forward to cover most of her face.
Generating her own personal rain cloud with a perpetual supply of large, fast-forming drops, Serena engulfed herself in water, then pulled the cloud around herself, covering her entire body. Girding herself for an extra second, wondering if she’d lost her mind relying on a half-remembered nursery rhyme, she teleported inside the cave. And into the center of Hell itself.
The heat was like nothing she’d ever felt before, yet she stood in the middle of the flames without being burnt to a cinder. Her personal rain cloud blanket was working overtime to keep her wet. She might not be getting burned, but it was hard to draw a breath, and the heat was almost unbearable.
Cocooned inside the living flames, she looked around. If the scroll had survived intact she saw no sign of it. “Okay. Where are you? Show my measure, steal the treasure.” She shut her eyes. Brilliant color flicked, ebbing and flowing behind her lids.
“Ancient scroll come to me, let this end, so mote it be—”
She was back in London, standing in the middle of Duncan’s flashy bedroom, holding a rolled scroll and dripping water on his carpet. “Holy crap! Ask and ye shall receive.”
“Thanks. I’ll take that.” Lark Orela was seated at the foot of Duncan’s bed. She rose in a lacy swirl of purple-and-black skirts and plucked the scroll from Serena’s lax hand. “Good job, knew you’d win that one,” she said with satisfaction.
She was the most extraordinary looking woman, Serena thought. The younger woman’s hair was fuchsia and black, she had the body of a centerfold, a mind like a computer, and dressed like a Goth princess—piercings, tattoos, and all. On the few occasions that Serena had met her at Council meetings, Lark dressed as a cross between a rocker and a top fashion model. Not one or the other, but both fashion statements together. On her it worked.
She was a member of the Council, and from all accounts she and Duncan had some sort of relationship, but Serena wasn’t sure exactly what that entailed. She tamped down a bite of jealousy.
> “We work for the same organization,” Lark answered the unasked question, amusement in her husky voice. “There’s nothing romantic between myself and Hot Edge.”
Hot Edge? Now that was an apropos name for him. Serena quickly put up her mind shields, having momentarily forgotten that Lark was clairvoyant. “I couldn’t care less. How come I didn’t have to bash a ghoul over the head?”
“Great visuals. Really, I commend your imagination.”
“Thanks,” Serena said, feeling out of sorts.
“You’ve won the first Test, Serena. You thought outside the box. Instead of reacting physically, you drew your strength from something you knew. A rhyme. What will you do if you win the seat?”
She guessed that they hadn’t heard her shout herself out of the running when she’d been so scared. “Run the Council as best I can.”
“What about Duncan?”
“What about him? He has just as much of a shot at this as I do.”
“Which of you would be the better Head?”
“Duncan,” Serena answered automatically. “Me,” she switched immediately. “Honestly, I think I would be better in many ways. I’m more logical than he is, I’m better dealing with the minutiae of everyday problems, more reasonable in disputes because I empathize with both sides.” She felt compelled to be fair. “But Duncan makes faster decisions. He’s stronger physically, too. Where I would allow disputes to run their course, Duncan would intervene and force the sides to resolve the problem more quickly.”
“Duncan solves his problems with violence?”
Blocking her thoughts, Serena frowned and said cautiously, “It appears so, yeah.” It didn’t appear so. It was so. Duncan used his fists instead of his wits every time.
“And you believe there is no instance where violence should be used?”
“Reasoning always works best.” She was certain.
“Are you going to allow him to break the Curse?”
Serena’s head shot up at the change of subject. “There’s no reason to.” It didn’t surprise her that Lark knew about Nairne’s Curse. Lark seemed to know a lot about everything.
“Scared?”
“Down to my bones,” Serena admitted with a small shudder. “Fortunately I don’t have to do anything. Duncan doesn’t want the Curse broken.”
Lark’s ring-pierced brow rose. “He told you so?”
Serena shrugged. “He told me he never wanted to get married. And I know he doesn’t want to risk losing his powers.”
“He told you he’d never marry when you were both sixteen,” Lark said dryly. “Things have probably changed since then.”
“I sincerely doubt it. The Curse is still in effect. I’ve watched him over the years. He doesn’t get emotionally entangled, so he does everything else he does whole hog. Duncan isn’t a man who does things half-assed, you know that. He would never risk loving a woman who he knew beforehand was destined to die. And I think that he feels that giving up one thing to keep the other is worth it.
“He and his brothers made a promise to each other years ago. Duncan takes that promise very seriously.”
Lark cocked her head. “What promise was that?”
“That the Curse would end with the three of them.”
The other woman raised a multiple pierced brow. “Duncan told you this?”
Serena half laughed. “No, actually. It was Gabriel.”
“Is that so? And why would Duncan’s overprotective older brother warn you off?”
“He wasn’t warning me off. He was just—Hmm—I’m not sure why he told me.”
“Maybe he saw the way you watched Duncan.”
Serena stared at her. “How do you know how, or even if, I watched him?”
“I don’t. But you were a teenage girl, and he must have been hot, even back then.”
“One smoking hot Edge,” Serena agreed. “Even if Duncan ever did go back on his promise to his brothers, he’d never risk breaking the Curse and losing his powers.”
“Even you don’t know if breaking the Curse would cause the Edge brothers to lose their powers.”
“True. The important thing is that Duncan believes it.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Lark said enigmatically, before disappearing.
“Thank you,” Serena muttered to the empty room. “That was really enlightening. Not. I think I would have preferred a handshake and a gold star for my win.”
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected when she won a round, but it sure as hell wasn’t standing alone in Duncan’s bedroom. She caught a peek at her image and grimaced. She looked like something the cat had dragged in. Glancing at her watch, which was now working perfectly fine, she groaned. She had exactly one hour to pull herself together both physically and mentally before she presented herself to the courts in Ian’s sons’ ongoing battle to gain control over the Foundation and all the money.
If Serena had anything to do with it, they would spend the rest of their greedy little lives working soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Ian had good reason to exclude those spoiled bastards from involvement with the Foundation. And it wasn’t as if her late husband had left them penniless. They’d each received a million, but apparently, that wasn’t enough. Well, if Paul and Hugh wanted a fight, she’d give it to them. Then maybe for fun she’d turn them both into toads.
Invisible, Duncan leaned against the wall of the New York city courtroom a few feet away from Serena and her attorney.
Wearing a stylish amber-colored suit, her vibrant hair twisted up in a knot that left her vulnerable nape bare, Serena sat with both white-knuckled hands clasped on the table in front of her. Her makeup was subtle, but her color was high.
Duncan quickly cast a restraining spell around her before shit began to go flying. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy seeing the judge’s gavel knock some sense into Serena’s two middle-aged stepsons, but she had enough things to deal with right now without that.
Fifteen minutes into it and the plaintiffs’ attorney still droned on and on in a too-long, myopic opening statement. Christ. What an asshole. How could anyone believe the bullshit the attorney was sprouting about Serena? Duncan presumed they were hoping that some of the shit would stick if they threw enough. He gritted his teeth as he listened to the short, bald attorney with the pricey suit tell the judge how the defendant was nothing more than the gold-digging second wife of an ailing old man who had married him only to get her hands on his vast fortune.
The attorney omitted all the good Serena had done, and was still doing, with the Foundation. He conveniently left out that she’d raised matching funds from various fund-raisers throughout the years. Both before and after she was married to Ian Campbell. And that she could squeeze money out of donors like nobody’s business.
Campbell’s smug, useless sons sat calmly at the plaintiff’s table, listening as their highly paid tiger shark bloodied Serena’s character and motives. He explained to the court that after Mrs. Campbell’s parents were killed in a boating accident, she was taken into the home of Henry Morgan, who worked for Ian Campbell at his Foundation. The attorney carefully suggested that Serena and Henry had had an “unnatural” relationship.
Thank God for the restraining spell. The shit that should have gone flying around the courtroom stayed put. Barely. Serena casually pressed the flat of her hand on her attorney’s briefcase, which was wobbling on the table while her attorney shot up and protested. The judge agreed, sending the sons’ attorney a scathing warning.
By the time their attorney was finished, Serena was white-faced and rigid in her seat.
Duncan wanted to pummel the useless bastards. The judge called for Rhonda Butler to stand. Concerned as hell that the petite blond lawyer might not have enough muscle to go toe-to-toe with Ian’s sons’ attorney, he pushed away from the wall. He wasn’t sure what he thought he could do in this situation, but if her attorney couldn’t stand for Serena, he sure as hell would.
Fortunately, the minute Serena’s attorn
ey opened her mouth, Duncan’s opinion began to change. For a small woman, she had a commanding, pleasant voice. She was assertive, but low key. And if the sons’ lawyer was a tiger shark, Ms. Butler was a great white.
Tugging at the hem of her tailored navy suit jacket, she politely greeted the judge. “I’d like to make some additions and,” she paused and sent a withering glare over her shoulder to opposing counsel, “corrections to the plaintiffs’ recitation of the underlying facts that are the basis for this motion.”
Kind blue eyes turned to steel. “Actually, the only part of the plaintiffs’ argument based in fact is the fifty-year age difference between my client and her late husband. Mrs. Campbell worked for the Foundation, but contrary to plaintiffs’ claims, she was not over-ambitious, she was committed to the causes supported by the Foundation. In fact, referring you to defendant’s Exhibits A through K, Your Honor will see that during her late husband’s illness, death, and to this day, Mrs. Campbell has raised more than seventeen million dollars in funds for the Campbell Foundation.”
“Objection!” The sons’ attorney practically leapt out of his chair.
“Basis?” the judge demanded, clearly annoyed with the interruption.
“Defendant’s exhibits show donations to date. They do not attribute said donations to Mrs. Campbell.”
Serena’s attorney smiled. “Apologies to the court,” she said. “May I approach?”
The judge motioned the two attorneys forward.
Butler carried a two-inch-thick stack of papers. “At this time, defendant wishes to enter these notarized letters from the donors in question attesting to the circumstances of their contributions to the Foundation.” The judge scanned the papers. “As you can see,” Serena’s attorney said smoothly, “all the letters confirm Mrs. Campbell solicited the donations and all monies were properly deposited in the Foundation’s accounts.”
“Objection overruled,” the judge motioned them back to their seats. “Continue, Ms. Butler.”
“Respectfully, Your Honor, defendant requests that you dismiss the motion with prejudice on two grounds. The first being, plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden. They have offered no evidence to prove Mrs. Campbell is unfit to run the Foundation. Secondly, the plaintiffs in this action had ample time to file objections to the will in probate court. Since no fraud has been proven, we respectfully request that this court remand this matter to Probate Division. In addition, defendant requests that based on the complete lack of evidence offered by the plaintiffs in this matter, plaintiffs be ordered to pay all costs and reasonable attorney’s fees to the defendant.”
