by Carmen Caine
The moment I arrived, he snapped the lid shut and the delicious scents vanished, all except one. It was tantalizing, inviting, reminiscent of a fresh rose wet with morning dew. A ring lay in the palm of his hand, a gold-filigreed setting with a ruby that sparkled with its own light. I peered at it closer. Mana infiltrated the precious stone to the core.
“Ah, a moment,” Lucian’s voice startled me.
I drew back, realizing then just how much my fangs had extruded.
He waved his fingers over the stone. The enticing scent vanished. “There,” he grunted in satisfaction. “Maybe you can control yourself better now. Can’t have my future bride sucking her ring in public.”
I scowled up at him, but he ignored me to murmur a few unrecognizable words, waving his hand over the fake diamond ring he’d conjured up in the Fringe.
It exploded in a shower of sparks. They burned.
“Hey!” I snapped, yanking my hand back.
Brandishing the heirloom, he captured my hand. “This belonged to Lady Elizabeth Rowle,” he said, his dark brows gathering into a stern line. “She was—”
“I know who she is,” I interrupted with a growl. My finger still smarted from the sparks.
“Is?” He arched a curious brow. “Lady Elizabeth lived during the Middle Ages—”
“Yeah, I know. Met her in a portrait in Venice,” I grumbled. My finger already felt better, but my mood was degenerating. It had been a long night. My stomach growled.
At Lucian’s prolonged silence, I glanced up into his stunned face.
Right. He clearly didn’t know his great-to-the-something grandmother was still snooping in his business. “You didn’t know she talked from portraits?” I asked, jumping to the point.
“No,” was all he said.
He stood there a moment, still holding the ring, and then with a shake of his head, he continued, “This is her wedding ring. Guard it well.”
Lady Elizabeth’s ring. She’d appeared in her other favorite items, like the cup. I hesitated, wondering if her face would pop up in the gem.
He didn’t notice my hesitation as he snagged my hand and slipped the ruby over my finger, murmuring unintelligible words all the while. “There,” he said when he was done. “That will ensure it never comes off. I’ll not permit you to lose it.”
So, what was all that bluster about Strix and shipping me off to the Nether Reaches if I couldn’t lose it, after all? I stared up into the complex warlock’s clear blue eyes.
“Well, I can’t imagine this engagement lasting for long,” I said, truthfully enough.
“Nor I,” he replied.
He towered over me, distant, arrogant. Yet, deep in his eyes, I saw something else. Something that betrayed the fact that he’d just spent the last few minutes goading me on purpose. Could he understand me that well, to provoke strength in me when I needed it the most and in just the way I preferred it? He’d claimed he didn’t have a heart. Was that a bald-faced lie?
“No, Cassidy,” I heard him whisper. “This is a slippery slope—”
Yanking his head down, I cut his protest short with a kiss.
Slippery slope?
Well, he didn’t know the half of it. My emotions were caught in utter chaos. And even though my thirst for revenge was alive and well, and even though I knew I was still going to betray him by freeing Dorian given half the chance, I knew just as well that I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of this. No. Not anymore.
I wanted him. And I was going to have him.
Now. This very night.
As I ripped his shirt open, his resistance melted. He plundered my mouth, his hands sliding up my back, leaving a scorching trail on my bare skin.
But then the worst happened.
All at once, his wards went down.
It was too much for me. The frenzied lust, the unleashing of the bottled passion, and the full scent of him.
I didn’t have any control, really.
I was a thing possessed.
There was horror in his eyes as I went for his heart chakra.
Help from Whom?
I stood in the mists. I recognized them now. The Nether Reaches. My body was whole this time, solid. Not one filament of light to be seen.
“They call lasses like you banshees,” Dorian’s Scottish burr sounded from behind me.
I whirled.
He stood, not five feet away, wearing the green kilt that made his eyes look like emeralds. He’d braided his auburn-tinted brown hair at the temples, allowing the rest to flow loose over his broad muscular shoulders. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and the way his kilt slung low over his hips only drew more attention to his six-pack abs.
“Banshees. Jaggers. They’re one and the same,” he continued with an easy shrug.
I cast a quick glance around. “I thought jaggers never walked the Earth,” I replied.
“Aye, and they haven’t,” he answered easily enough. “But they came close enough once. ‘Twas when the Mindbreaker opened rifts to the reaches and let the humans catch a wee glimpse of things better left hidden.”
So, Dorian was talking about the Mindbreaker, too, now?
“You shouldn’t be here, Cassidy,” Dorian warned gently, stepping closer. “Aye, your specter heart is wild and reckless and ‘twill beckon, call you like a siren to the mists. But do not heed the call, lass. ‘Tis perilous if you do.”
As he spoke, I could feel the dark and powerful specter waking within me. Images fled across my mind, filling me with yearning, the desire to float, to glide in the cool mists surrounding me, to dance with the flutes and to sing with my kind.
There was a slap. My cheek stung. “You hit me,” I accused, my mouth dropping open.
“Ach, only a wee bit of a blow,” Dorian acknowledged with an unapologetic bow. “Already, you were beginning to fade. I had no choice.”
“Just like when you pinned me to the wall?” I retorted.
He brushed my comment away with a wave of his hand. “The greatest danger lies in the warlock’s puppet curse, ‘tis woven deep into your soul,” he said. “Things walk these lands, creatures of the dark, and they’ll hither to your side should you beckon them, lass. If you haven’t a care, they’ll follow you back like a puppet dancing on a string.”
He was sounding remarkably like Strix now. “Do you mean the Fallen Ones?” I asked pointedly.
There was a crack of thunder.
The highlander of a vampire flashed to my side. “Nay, do not call them here, Cassidy,” he commanded me urgently, gripping my shoulders with his large, strong hands. “’Tis time you returned. Go back and find me. Release me. With what’s coming, I need to be free, to fight at your side.”
I shook my head. “I’m not that stupid. You hate me,” I said. “So what, I’ll free you and then you’ll get even because I helped Lucian turn you into a doll.”
Laughter filled his green eyes, and his lips split into a wide grin. “I’ll never hate you, my bonny wee fool. I can’t.”
I frowned at him. I wasn’t so sure.
The expression in his eyes turned earnest as he delivered his final warning. “Have a care of the path you tread. The dead are trickier than the living, inclined to play as a cat does with a mouse.”
There was a shriek, something unholy. Something that struck fear into every fiber of my being. Something far worse than I’d ever heard before.
Was it following me?
Suddenly, I was ripped away.
I woke up with a loud gasp, sucking in a huge lungful of air. Sitting bolt upright, I took in my surroundings.
I’d been dreaming. But what? I frowned, concentrating on the fleeting images of mist, but the harder I fought to remember, the faster it slipped away.
I expelled a sigh and glanced around.
I was in Lucian’s bed. Again. It was becoming a habit.
And also again, I didn’t possess the slightest inkling of just how I’d gotten there.
The late afternoon sun slanted th
rough the windows.
Déjà vu … all over again.
Growling, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I’d obviously been spelled. My lack of memory proved it. I didn’t like having an on-and-off switch that Lucian could just flip whenever he pleased.
But at least I didn’t smell like garlic this time.
And Ricky, well, I couldn’t see the little rat anywhere, and right now, with my raging headache that was a definite plus.
A paper shopping bag of clothing stood at the foot of the bed, next to my cellphone. I smiled as I slipped on Heath’s new outfit, a combo of black leggings and an unusual navy tunic with a multitude of hidden pockets. Not something I’d have picked out myself, but once on, it worked astonishingly well. I was really going to have to take that werewolf shopping.
Voices from the kitchen below interrupted my thoughts.
Right. Time to confront Lucian. Scowling in preparation, I slipped my phone into a back pocket and was halfway down the spiral staircase when the sun caught the ruby on my finger.
Lady Rowle’s engagement ring.
It all came back with a rush, down to the last gritty detail—including my lunge for Lucian’s heart.
I paused mid-step.
Oh.
Well, I guess self-defense could be considered a legitimate reason for knocking me out. Subdued, I skipped down the last few steps and, executing a pirouette at the bottom, altered course for the kitchen.
It was just Heath and Lucian, standing next to the stove. Something was wrong. Dreadfully wrong. Apparently, the tides had shifted, and not in a positive way for Lord Rowle.
I’d never seen Heath upset before. He looked tired, his green Hawaiian shirt torn and stained—was that blood? A scratch ran down the side of his cheek. He didn’t even acknowledge my arrival as I stepped up to the granite counter and placed my hands, palm down.
“Not a hint, man,” the werewolf said, his shoulders sagging in defeat. “We didn’t see it coming. Whoever this witch or warlock is … well, they’re powerful. Lost four of my kind. Four.” His voice shook on the last word.
Lucian moved to clasp a hand on his shoulder. “I am sorry,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “I will hold them in the highest of honor. I will list their names in the House of Rowle. And I will make this right.”
Heath closed his eyes and bowed his head.
Unsure, I just froze by the counter and waited.
A grieving silence fell, one of those kind that make you supremely conscious of just how loud your own breath can be when suddenly, my phone chirped.
The sound buzzed through the kitchen, louder than a jet engine.
Lucian grimaced in displeasure as I slapped my hand over the offending source.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, as softly as I could, flipping on silent mode.
The warlock didn’t respond. Verbally, anyway. But the muscles in his jaw announced that he was irked. Royally.
My phone vibrated.
Lucian’s clear eyes zeroed in on mine. “Take that call elsewhere, spellfinder,” he snapped. “Or better yet, use that phone to buy yourself a one-way ticket to Tahiti. We’re on the brink of disaster. In less than 48 hours, I won’t be able to protect you anymore, not even from a Terzi witchling wanting to practice her homework.”
My eyes widened. “What happened?”
The warlock tossed his head in disgust. “What hasn’t happened?” he asked the ceiling acidly. “The shipment arrived from Venice. Heath’s pack sustained fatal injuries whilst trying to secure it from the Terzi. They are wielding some unknown, unholy power.”
I cast a quick glance at Heath. He hadn’t moved. “I’m sorry, Heath,” I said.
He didn’t open his eyes, but he responded with a microscopic nod.
When Lucian didn’t continue, I prodded, “What was in the shipment?”
“Crates of squid ink,” he responded tersely. “It was a trap. Samuel played right into the Terzis’ hands. Gloria’s got my collection now and who knows where? We’ve lost all leads. Even Culpepper has vanished, sending us back to square one with no time to restart. And now that she’s got both the dolls and my ward … when those marionettes wake en force …” he paused and took a deep breath. “Let’s just say that even I won’t be able to hide. None of this should have happened. None of it! We had the upper hand!”
He was only getting angrier by the second. No doubt he’d bring up the Fringe and how Ricky and I had ruined his master plan to turn Samuel into a doll.
Maybe Tahiti was a grand idea.
My phone buzzed again. Crud. Even on vibrate, it still sounded obnoxious. I coughed, attempting to conceal it.
Lucian threw his hands up in the air with a sarcastic chuckle. “Why not answer it, Cass?” he mocked. “There’s nothing else left to do. Might as well fill your last remaining hours with social chit-chat.”
“Grow up,” I snorted as my phone buzzed again.
Irritated, I yanked it from my pocket. Who would be calling me? I only had the thing to access the web.
The display blinked on.
1,582 text messages from an unknown number. Curiously, I tapped on the icon and blinked in surprise.
Ricky’s eyeball.
Scowling, I slid my finger across the screen, scanning the messages.
Same eyeball. Hundreds of different angles.
I could feel Lucian’s heated gaze burning holes through my head.
“Well?” the warlock queried in a tone colder than ice. “What’s the emergency?”
His boots rang loud on the wood floor as he stalked around the countertop to join me.
I cringed, zooming through the messages. The pest was apparently playing with someone’s phone, and the never-ending onslaught of images revealed more of Ricky than I ever wanted to see again. He seemed inordinately fascinated with his nostrils.
“Beyond ridiculous,” Lucian breathed in outrage over my shoulder.
But then a different image flitted across the screen.
“Wait,” I heard my own voice say in shocked surprise.
I thumbed the picture back.
The imp had sent it about ten hours ago. A picture of a street sign. West 52nd Street. And the next image, the outside of a building, a gray-bricked theater.
A couple more pictures of Ricky eyeballs. Five of his left nostril before the more compelling image of the white-haired, baseball-capped Templar sitting on the edge of a desk, casually swinging his leg next to a man squinting at a computer screen.
The man was Culpepper.
And then, the most astonishing image of all. A zoomed-in photo of the computer screen. It was fuzzy and hard to read, but three words were obvious enough: FedEx, Venice, and Arrival.
Lucian’s hand zipped over my shoulder to touch my phone.
The arrival date enlarged, forming out of the gray fuzz on the display.
A small package, briefcase-sized. Arriving at the airport tonight. At midnight.
The Thing
Before we left his apartment, Lucian spelled our appearances, dipping his thumb into a small mana vial and tracing a symbol onto each of our foreheads. I gasped as an electrical current jolted through me, like I’d just stuck a wet finger into a light socket—a high-voltage one.
As the warlock headed for Heath, I glanced at my phone curiously. To my surprise, I only saw a scowling version of myself glaring back up from the tiny screen.
“Hey, don’t I get a disguise?” I challenged with a frown.
“You did,” Lucian responded curtly. “You’ll always only see yourself. It’s by design, prevents a host of Charmed identity disorders and such things.”
Charmed identity disorders? I formed a silent ‘o’ with my lips and watched him morph Heath into a painfully thin teenage boy with red freckles, a nose ring, and at least a dozen tattoos. A moment later, Lucian himself appeared as a distinguished bald man with a gray-speckled goatee and silver-rimmed glasses.
I didn’t see Tabitha, but then, being invisible wa
s her specialty. But no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than her tiny green head poked up from Heath’s shirt pocket and her unblinking beady eyes locked onto mine.
Yep. She still hated me.
“Right.” Lucian surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction. “With my wards as weak as they are, these effects won’t last long. We’ve only a few hours left to find the rest of the shipments, so let’s not waste time.”
“Roger,” Heath replied, his tone still subdued.
Lucian shrugged into a black trench coat and clapped his hands. “As a rule, Templars rarely stay in one place long, and when compromised, I’ve seen them evacuate even hi-tech laboratories in less than an hour. Let’s hope they haven’t yet noticed anything amiss.”
I winced at that one. Ricky had sent those messages almost ten hours ago. What were the odds he’d laid low since then?
Of course, Lucian had the eyes of a hawk. Noticing my expression he grunted in sarcastic agreement, “Precisely.” Waving his hand at the door, he resumed his spat of orders. “Remember, there’s no room left for error. Not one misstep. Not a single one. Focus on finding the shipments. I’ve got teams already in place and standing by at the airport and other shipment facilities, but they need to know what they’re looking for if we’re going to outwit Gloria. She’s no doubt got the Terzi deployed as well.”
I nodded.
Heath responded with a half-hearted, two-finger salute and another, “Roger.” That was it. No ‘it’s all gonna be good’ or any optimistic, encouraging words. He was obviously deeply affected by the loss of his pack mates.
I sent him a sympathetic look. We were going to need Heath at the top of his game in order to succeed. Right now, he wasn’t even playing, but I wasn’t sure how to help him.
“And you, Cass.” Lucian deliberately mangled my name. “Ricky is your imp, and as such, you are held responsible for each and every one of his actions. But I’ll grant you the courtesy of reserving judgment until after this lead plays out. For now, do your part. Keep that nose of yours alert. And by that I mean the very highest of all highest alerts.”
