by Cherry Adair
“But since I know how important this blanket is to you, too, and your judgment has always been sound, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Joanna bit her lip as her eyes welled. “I love him, Serena. I know I should have asked permission to bring him here, but I was scared you’d say no.”
Joanna was right. She would have said no to having any unauthorized person on the premises at this time. Still, she was pleased her friend had met someone she cared about, and no harm had been done. “Frankly, I’m thrilled. Nobody deserves a man who loves them to distraction more than you do. I was kind of hoping you and Denny would hook up,” she laughed and waved her hand dismissively, “but as long as this guy worships at your feet, I’m ecstatic. Tell me about him. Who is he? Do I know him?”
“He’s a full wizard,” Joanna said almost shyly as her cheeks pinked. “His name is Grant Cooper, and I’m crazy about him. And yes, before you ask, he’s just as crazy about me, and Case.”
“He’s a full? Well, that explains his mode of transportation, then. He can shimmer in and out. I’m happy for you.”
Suddenly animated with sparkling eyes, Joanna smiled. “I’ve never had a relationship like this. Oh, Serena! He’s so handsome, and he’s as nice inside as he is outside, but—”
Ah. The but was the problem, and probably what had created the dark circles. “But?”
Joanna’s shoulders slumped and knuckles went white as she clutched the mug in both hands. “When I’m with him it’s almost as though—I don’t know. I can’t think of anything else. Nothing else is important, or relevant. Not even things that I know are important or relevant. Am I losing my mind?”
“I can relate,” Serena told her dryly, feeling the exact same way about Duncan. “And the answer is: you’re in love—Uh—”
“—Oh.” Serena suddenly found herself standing alone, somewhere cold and dark.
The average depth of a stair tread was about twelve inches. The ledge Duncan suddenly found himself standing on was barely eight. Limited visibility was sufficient to orient himself without moving. Taking a minute to let his eyes adjust to the near dark, he realized that he was in some sort of large cavern. A wall of rough hewn rock scraped his back through his shirt, and the air held a chill.
Stalactites hung from the domed ceiling like the serrated teeth of some gigantic fossilized creature. Interestingly, they cast no shadows, despite the illumination. Scant though it was, the light had no visible origin.
The air smelled a little stale, and a lot damp. The sound of water lapping unevenly against stone echoed through the vast space. Echoing, then fading, only to be replaced by the next wash of water.
Turning his head, he observed the way each end of the uneven, rock-strewn ledge curved slightly to disappear into darkness. Casting his eyes down, he took note that the toes of his shoes projected over the sheer drop. Far below, distant slices of light caught ripples on the surface of the opaque black water, the source of the sound.
Long spears of jagged stalagmites protruded at varying heights from the inky, slightly choppy surface. Impossible to judge the depth of the water, not that it mattered. If he jumped from here, he had an 85 percent chance of being impaled on one of the dozens of cement-like formations.
Interesting that the Elders had chosen first fire, and now water as Tests. Fire was his power to call, and water was Serena’s. What next? Something applicable to Trey? Pestilence? Duncan thought drolly.
Cautiously, he dislodged a small stone with the side of his foot, then counted the seconds until it splashed into the water below. He calculated it was roughly a twenty-five-foot drop.
He wasn’t going to fall, he had good balance, but standing in this spot forever wasn’t an option. He wasn’t going down, not with those stalagmites so damned close together. The only option was a left or right strategy.
He knew Trey was here, and Serena arrived just as he was wondering where the hell she was. He heard her surprised intake of air. “Serena, get your bearings before you move,” he cautioned.
There was a long pause and he imagined her slender fingers familiarizing themselves with the rock wall at her back before she answered. “Did you just throw down a stone?” She sounded breathless. Duncan doubted she’d been running at the time the Council had taken her. Running had never been Serena’s thing. What was it? Excitement? Nerves? Stress? Hell. It was the water.
“Yeah.” Are you okay? Christ. Wanting to ask, but knowing he had to keep his concern to himself was hard. “Heads up.” He filled her in on what he’d learned about their surroundings. She let out little groans of displeasure when he ran down the trifecta—the size of the ledge, the dangers inherent with the stalagmites and stalactites, and his rough estimates on their position against the water. The latter elicited the loudest reaction.
“Great,” she muttered under her breath.
He smiled at her pithy tone, but hoped she hadn’t developed a sudden fear of heights to go along with her paralyzing issues with water. He figured that this wasn’t the time to ask. She wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t more than competent to handle whatever was dished out.
She was below him, maybe six feet down and to the left, if her voice was anything to go by. But he knew, too, that the acoustics of a cavern such as this could easily skew his mental calculations. The rocks started to vibrate. Instantly alert, he braced his body in preparation as the walls around him continued to shake and he got a strange feeling at the back of his neck. “Serena?”
The water below suddenly churned like the mysterious insides of a witch’s cauldron, a sure sign Serena was experiencing emotions she couldn’t control. She wouldn’t answer. Not until she got her emotions under lock and key.
Damn. His knee-jerk reaction was to teleport her away from the impending danger. He dared not act on those feelings. He’d disqualify them both if he chose to interfere, and she’d literally dump rain on his parade for being a controlling jerk. No. He wouldn’t voice his concerns for her, but that didn’t prevent him from experiencing a knot in his gut at what she was about to face.
What they were all about to face.
“Rein that in, Fury.” His warning was curt as the ledge beneath his feet started to crumble like a stale cookie. Jesus.
“Hey! Don’t blame me. I’m not doing anything.”
Duncan tried to levitate. No go. Tried to shimmer. That didn’t work either. Apparently the Council had banned the two powers that would have come in damned handy right now.
“Trey?” He sensed the other man was above him somewhere, but it was impossible to get an accurate read with the walls of the cave shaking and hunks of the ledge raining down into the water.
“What is this?” Trey’s amused voice came from above, his voice vibrating in sync with the shaking of the walls and ledge. “Roll cal—”
A green phosphorescent glow appeared directly in front of Duncan. The instructions floated out of the envelope and hovered two feet away, weightless over the black abyss.
An ancient scroll is the goal of this quest
Four pieces are torn and that is the Test
One fragment protected by water within
Retrieve the prize and you might win.
Ah, shit. Protected by water. Duncan imagined Serena’s nervousness.
The green glow blinked out, taking the instructions with it. Trey’s laugh echoed off the shimmying walls. “Start your engines, folks. May the best man win.”
“Best woman,” Serena taunted. But the bite was gone from her voice.
Duncan was edging to his right, moving as quickly as made sense. A chunk of the ledge was gone, and he almost vaulted headlong into the chessboard of rock and stone protruding from the water. He did a quick step, and crossed to more solid footing.
“Fuck! Try teleporting, Edge.”
Duncan already knew he didn’t currently have that ability. “We were told we’d only be able to use the ‘powers allocated’ to us, remember?” Keeping his arms spread and braced against the rough
wall, palms skimming the damp stone, he shifted his feet, moving right. He had no idea which way the scroll was, but he had a 50 percent chance of being right. Bits of rock and small stones splashed into the water as he cautiously and deliberately slid each foot along the edge, ignoring the movement around him.
“Don’t look down, Serena,” Trey said quietly, moving in the opposite direction from Duncan. “The footing is treacherous, and that water down there looks really deep. I’d hate for you to fall.”
“Shut up, Culver.” Trey knew Serena couldn’t swim. Duncan would bet his next paycheck on that piece of info. Did Culver know the intimate truth about her parents? That she was terrified of water in general? And if he knew, was it because he’d been told, or was he mining in Serena memories for something that would throw her off her stride? Son of a bitch. Was the win so important that Trey would use Serena’s terror against her, even if it meant she’d die? How could Trey be such an ass? Duncan banked his anger and concentrated.
The shaking and vibrating movement stopped as rapidly as it had started, leaving a throbbing silence interspersed with the clink and rattle of small stones tumbling in the aftermath.
Not one to let the grass grow under her feet, Serena started moving in the same direction as Duncan. “I’m not going to fall,” she told Trey. “Balance is my middle name. I was top of my class in gymnastics, remember?”
Yeah. Duncan did, now that she mentioned it. She’d been awesome on the balance beam. A balance beam that rose to the ceiling of the school gym at will. Yeah. Awesome. He felt marginally better as all three of them started moving in small, cautious increments.
The auditory enhancements in the cave were as good as at the Met. He could hear every step, every gasp, of both Serena and Trey as they all moved along their respective shelves of rock. At some point the ledges would either lead somewhere, Duncan speculated, or there’d be an opening in the rock that they’d need to explore. It was a humongous place. It could take days. Weeks. Months. Time was irrelevant to the Council.
He’d like to get to wherever the hell he needed to be before the place started rocking and rolling again. He didn’t like the look or number of those sharp rocks down below.
Too bad he and Serena didn’t have a psychic connection. He wanted to talk to her, make sure she was doing okay.
“Smells like seawater in here to me, how about you guys?”
“What difference does water salinity make?” Serena asked, tone clipped. “Think the scroll disintegrates in saltwater?”
“Just making conversation,” Trey said easily. “The sound of all that water sloshing around down there makes my teeth stand on edge. As bad as fingernails down a chalkboard. I’m just trying to block it out.”
“Talk quietly to yourself then,” Serena snapped, just as the ledge started shifting under Duncan’s feet. Serena’s too, since her voice cracked under the weight of her fear. Thankfully, it was mere seconds before the walls stopped shaking.
“We’re probably in some cave off the ocean, don’t you guys think? What with all that wave action down there?” Trey asked, sounding cheerful. “You don’t like the ocean, do you, Fury?”
“How—”
“It’s only logical. You were with your folks when they drowned, so I’m guessing the ocean isn’t your fav—”
“Jesus, Culver. Shut the fuck up. Some of us are concentrating here.” The son of a bitch was going out of his way to demoralize Serena. He’d zeroed in on the one sore point that could do the damned job, too. Duncan tried for a small bolt of lightning to shoot up Trey’s ass. Nada. Damn. “No more talking. This isn’t a group effort.”
“You know,” Trey continued despite Duncan’s warning. “When you came to wizard school, everyone said it was your fault your folks drowned. I never believed that. Did you, Edge?”
This was not a pissing match Duncan wanted to participate in. But by the same token he was damned if he’d let Trey get away with jerking her chain. Not here and not now. Not ever again. Especially when he knew how sensitive Serena was on the subject. “She was eight fucking years old, and nobody with an IQ over seven believed that crap.”
Had Serena told Trey about her parents? No, Duncan thought savagely, he knew damn well she hadn’t. She’d told him that she’d talked to her godparents about the incident, and she’d said she’d told Campbell. If she’d shared anything of the sort with Trey, she would have said so the other night.
Duncan, like the rest of the kids at school, had been told that Serena’s parents had died in a terrible drowning accident, and Henry and his wife, her godparents, had taken her in. They’d all been more sympathetic that she was stuck living with the most demanding teacher at school than they were about her being an orphan.
As far as he knew, nobody knew she’d been with her parents at the time they’d drowned.
Trey let out a loud and dramatic sigh. “Tough break, Fury. Just awful. You must’ve needed years of therapy.”
“I did. And you can damn well stop trying to freak me out. It won’t work.” Her voice was cool and even.
“Good girl,” Duncan said proudly.
“I’m the woman who’s going to beat both of you,” Serena said briskly, managing, God only knew how, not to let her fear bleed into her voice. “Both of you be quiet so I can concentrate.” God. How far down was that water?
Worse, how deep was it?
Cold sweat prickled across her skin, and her heart was knocking so hard it almost drowned out the threatening whisper of the waves beating against the rocks so far below her. Don’t think about it, she told herself, as she inched along the ridiculously narrow ledge an inch at a time.
She knew what Trey was trying to do, and it wasn’t going to work. While it had been almost half a decade since they’d dated, briefly, she wondered what she’d seen in him. Surely a man didn’t change this drastically in five years? Trey had always been charming, and fun to be around. He’d been careful never to show her this unattractive side of his personality.
It was almost shocking to discover how manipulative and self-centered he was. What a jer—Oh, my God, Serena thought with dawning realization. She almost slipped, and had to dig her nails onto the rough wall behind her for balance. She swore under her breath. This was the real Trey Culver. The reality of him didn’t match the man she’d known for years. He was freaking Jeckyll and Hyde.
He’d Charmed her. For years he’d used Charm on her to make her believe he was who and what she wanted him to be. Why? He was good looking, wealthy, and gave every appearance of being suave and intelligent. He could have, and had, dated some of the prettiest, most popular girls in school. He’d dated drop-dead gorgeous women over the years as well. Why had he needed to use Charm on her when he could have any woman he wanted?
The ledge shook, and she had to press her back hard against the rock face. Focus. Trey was a puzzle to solve—or not—later.
First things first.
She couldn’t look down, knew she shouldn’t look down. It was almost as though the black water was taunting her with a whispered siren’s song. Look. Closer. Jump. “Fuck you!” she whispered to the voice in her head, her words echoing through the chamber. The rise in her temper created an avalanche of pebbles and debris, sending it clattering and bouncing down the sheer rock face before splashing down into the waiting water below.
She gritted her teeth. The cave was doing its own thing without any help from her, damn it. If she had any hope of success, she had to get her emotions under control.
Deep breaths. Think clouds. Blue sky. Grass.
Somewhere above her Trey chuckled. “There goes that priceless temper of yours, Fury. Better get a grip on that or we’ll all go shooting off our perches. Man. I wonder how deep that water is? Fifty, seventy-five feet at least, don’t you think, Edge? Good thing I was diving champion three years in a row. It won’t be a problem for me.”
“Unless you’re wrong, and it’s only a foot deep,” Serena said sweetly. “And just as a btw—you were
diving champion two years in a row. It was Duncan who won that particular trophy three times.” It was interesting to note that Trey wasn’t making any attempt at Charm now. Either that, or because she’d realized what he was doing, it no longer worked on her, Serena thought, feeling her way along at a frustratingly slow pace.
“Culver,” Duncan said tightly, his voice echoing in the space. “One more word and you won’t dive off that ledge, I’ll toss your sorry self down and shove a stalagmite up your ass, got it?”
“Keep your chivalry to yourself,” she told Duncan smartly. “Keep screwing with me, Culver, and when this is over, I’ll give you incontinence that’ll have you wearing Depends into your golden years. Consider that a promise, not a threat.”
Glancing over the ledge, she shivered. Walking sideways wasn’t easy, but she found that if she slid her feet instead of stepping, she could push the loose debris out of the way as she went. One problem down, with more to go. The narrow ledge appeared to not only be getting more narrow, but there was a subtle decline, making it a real challenge to keep her balance—balance beam experience or not.
“Anything your way?” Trey called, not seeming to care that his companions were pissed.
“No,” Serena and Duncan shouted in unison. Trey, being Trey, immediately changed direction. Fine with her. There really wasn’t anyt—
Trey’s shout was almost lost amid the thunder and crash of rocks—big rocks—ripping loose from the ceiling high above their heads to splash into the water below with the impact of missiles.
Ridiculously, Serena sucked in her stomach as if, by doing so, she’d be a smaller target as huge chunks of stone and debris crashed and thundered past her precarious position, sending up sprays of water. The sound of rock hitting rock made a godawful noise as stalagmites were shattered by the falling debris.
With an inhuman scream, Trey’s body went cartwheeling over Serena’s head and into the water below.
Oh God, oh God. “Trey?” Serena pressed her back against the wall, digging her short nails into the uneven surface as the increasingly narrower ledge shook, dislodging more bits of stone and shale.
