by Tessa Cole
“We have to get you to Amiah.” He pulled up his shorts and grabbed a throw blanket off the back of his couch.
God, I didn’t want to go back to Amiah, and certainly not naked in Marcus’s arms. Tears leaked from my eyes and I convulsed.
Marcus grabbed me before I fell off the desk and sat me up, leaning me against his chest.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, but his fear swept frost across my cheeks and up my arms.
Find it. The key was going to manifest. I had to get ready— No, Logan had to get ready.
I shuddered with cold and fear. Marcus wrapped the blanket around my shoulders.
Free me.
“No,” I gasped. But somehow I knew he couldn’t hear me. It was the compulsion from his spell, set into the magic he, Ibizual, had given to Logan. That had been his demon-deal to gain more power.
Secure the key tonight. Break the seal tomorrow.
“Essie, you need help.” Marcus lifted me, cradling me against his chest, and headed to the door.
The agony released my muscles but still burned in my head. I sagged into his embrace, my skin stinging with the frost of Marcus’s fear. “The key is starting to manifest.”
Marcus froze, his hand on the door about to open it. “What?”
“I can feel the spell.” I shuddered, sending agony slicing through my head. “I can feel him.”
“I’m still taking you to Amiah.”
“She won’t be able to do anything.” This wasn’t the kind of injury Amiah could heal. It wasn’t actually an injury. I pressed my palm over Marcus’s heart, feeling his pulse race. “We—” I stopped myself. I wasn’t part of the team any more. “The team needs to get ready.”
Marcus’s grip on me tightened, conflict pinching the corners of his eyes. He had a job to do, and yet he didn’t want to let me go.
“You were convulsing,” he growled. “ You have frost on your cheeks.”
“And you guys are going to get slaughtered if you don’t come up with a plan,” I snarled back and pushed against his hold on me, trying to break free. My throat tightened as my fear clenched my chest. I couldn’t lose him—
No, I couldn’t lose Gideon—
Jeez, I couldn’t lose either of them.
Shit.
“Ibizual can’t be allowed to escape.” He’d consume everything and everyone.
“Fine.” He set me on my feet, and I clutched the blanket to my chest, unable to get warm. “Can you tell where it’s going to be?”
I sucked in a ragged breath and concentrated on the sensation inside my head. Thick, consuming darkness. It was a lot like the clinging, suffocating smoke from the archnephilim, but a thousand times stronger. It enveloped me, pressing against my senses, but there was no sense of location, or direction or anything. Only the knowledge that the key was coming. Prepare. Find me. Free me. The darkness squeezed tight. Agony sliced across my skull, and I convulsed.
Marcus pulled me back into his arms before I collapsed. The frost from his fear thickened on my face. His expression pinched tighter, and his wolf darkened his eyes. “Anything?”
“Not yet. Maybe Jacob knows. This is supposed to be his connection with Logan.” And I could only assume the strength of his claim was the reason I could feel the power building to manifest the key.
Marcus leaned me against the door and grabbed his phone from inside his boot in the pile of gear he’d dropped the moment we’d entered his apartment.
I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders, my teeth chattering, and focused my attention on my clothes a few feet away by his desk. His gaze followed mine as he dialed Jacob’s number.
“Marcus,” Jacob said after the third ring, his voice clear thanks to the enhanced hearing from his claim. Question and uncertainty filled his tone as if he didn’t know what kind of reception he was going to get.
“Do you know where the key is going to form?”
“No, I—”
Marcus retrieved my clothes and dropped them in a pile beside me. “Are you sure?”
“Shit. It’s less than eight hours until dusk. I should be feeling something now.” Tension tightened his tone. “I’m coming in. We need to figure out how to get eyes on Logan so we can stop him from getting the key.”
Marcus’s gaze locked with mine. “Essie can feel the key.”
I sank to the floor and opened my duffle bag to grab my dirty bra, which was now better than my sliced-in-half bra.
“You heard me, right?” Marcus growled. “Essie can feel the key.”
More like it was tearing into my brain. I dropped the blanket from my shoulders and shrugged out of my ruined bra.
“How can she—?”
“Jeez, Jacob. It’s your claim on her. It so fucking strong she’s bite-locked.” He clenched his jaw, his wolf now more than just darkening his eyes but pushing through into his expression and body language with dangerous ferocity.
A blast of agony sliced into my brain, seizing my muscles as I tried to secure my bra clasp behind my back.
“I know the claim is strong, but she can’t be bite-locked,” Jacob said. “That only happens when a super is claimed or—”
“Or when your claim on the human is unnaturally strong. I know, it’s rare, but she’s bite-locked and you left her hanging.” He jerked away from me and stormed to the far side of his living room to glare out the window. His frost vanished, replaced with sudden blazing rage.
“Marcus, I didn’t know.”
“How can you not know how strong your claim is? How could you do that to her?”
But Jacob didn’t know I was half super, and I hadn’t known there was a difference between claiming a human and a super. This was my fault, and now Jacob wasn’t going to survive without me.
“I swear, I thought the strength of the claim was just a problem for me. I know your wolf has claimed her.”
“He has,” Marcus growled.
“My claim isn’t an emotional bond. I’ll keep my distance from her. I’ll—”
“You’ll fucking starve to death. Don’t be an idiot.”
“Marcus—”
“But if you leave her like that again,” Marcus said, his voice low, dangerous, his wolf barely contained, “I’ll rip your fucking throat out.”
I managed to clasp my bra and pull on my T-shirt.
Marcus wrenched back to face me. “Now, what do we do about this key?”
“We have to wait until dusk to know which direction to head.”
“Until dusk?” I had to deal with this agony until dusk? Realization made my stomach drop. Just because the key manifested didn’t mean the pain would go away.
“How the hell did you function enough to find that key the first time?” Marcus asked, helping me stand so I could put on my pants.
“What do you mean?”
“Essie is in so much pain she can barely stand.”
“Last time it hurt, but it didn’t hurt that much. It’s either because she’s human, something to do with the claim, or something about the key manifesting that’s different this time.”
“So you have no fucking clue.” Marcus blew out a heavy breath. “Wonderful.”
“I’ll call Gideon and Kol, and we’ll meet in the lounge.”
“Good. You can explain to Gideon why Essie is still involved.”
Jacob groaned. “If she’s the one who can feel the key, we need her. Are you going to fight me on this?”
I slid back to the floor to put on my runners.
“Essie handled her own in the nest.” Marcus knelt and helped me with my shoes, his piercing green gaze capturing mine, the heat of his anger turning sultry. “And I’ve been reminded that I’m an idiot.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in ten.”
Marcus hung up as another blast of agony seized me, making me convulse.
Find it. Free me.
I had no idea how I was going to last until dusk, or God, even longer. Gasping, I tried to stand.
“Stay there while
I change.” He stood and glared down at me. “You don’t need to prove how tough you are right now.”
I raised my hands in defeat. “Fine.” Besides, I wasn’t sure if I could stand.
He hurried into his bedroom, changed into jeans and a T-shirt, and returned to the door to pull on his boots. Then he picked me up, and he stepped out into the hall.
A few doors down, Kol stepped out of his apartment, and his attention jumped to us. A sultry smile lit his face, billowed desire through my chest, and stole my breath. God, he was so beautiful. He hurried to catch us, his gate not nearly as smooth as usual, as if he were trying too hard to be steady, and his eyes were glassy. If I hadn’t known better, I’d guess he was drunk or high.
“Really? We’re in the middle of a crisis and you over-indulged?” Marcus said as we headed to the elevator.
Kol glared back at him. “Well, the next time you and Essie have magically enhanced sex, warn me. The first round burned through all my shields and I had no defenses for round two.”
“We didn’t have magically enhanced sex, we—” Marcus frowned.
Heat rose to my cheeks. “Would Jacob’s bite count?”
Kol’s eyebrows rose.
“Well, shit,” Marcus said. “Releasing Jacob’s bite-lock does count. But round two wasn’t magical.”
“I would beg to differ,” Kol said.
I playfully slapped Marcus’s chest, feigning anger. “So you’re saying it wasn’t magical for you?”
He rolled his eyes at me. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” I pressed, making Kol snicker.
“Essie,” Marcus growled.
“Marcus,” I growled back, and a blast of agony slammed into me.
I managed to gasp in a quick breath before all my muscles clenched, but the first convulsion pushed it out of me, and I was suffocating with agony and darkness, all of it threatening my consciousness.
“Holy shit.” Kol’s eyes grew wide, all playfulness gone. “What the hell is that?”
The pain released my muscles but continued to throb in my skull. I clung to Marcus, fighting to get my breath back. “The key is starting to form.”
And every cell in my body was screaming that I had to get to it first. I couldn’t let Logan release all that evil.
Chapter 18
We headed down to the first floor to a lounge near the back of the building. It was a comfortable space, decorated in tans and creams with two over-stuffed couches and six matching armchairs. An enormous panel TV hung on the wall and past that, deeper into the room, stood a floor-to-ceiling shelf filled with books and puzzles and games near a large pale-wood table with half a dozen matching chairs. At the back wall, patio doors opened to a small patio enclosed with a tall privacy fence and two small wrought-iron cafe tables and chairs.
“This place has everything,” I said, trying to distract myself from the agony pounding in my head.
“All essential JP team members live here, along with the almost dozen angels living in Union,” Kol said. “We have a variety of amenities since we can’t spend all our free time working out in the gym.” He shot a hard look at Marcus.
“Says the demon whose body will never change.” Marcus set me on the couch. “How about you put your extra juice to good use so Essie can concentrate?”
“It is yours.” Kol flashed a wicked smile, making Marcus stiffen.
His wolf darkened his eyes until he clenched his jaw and forced his beast back down.
“Well, mostly.” Kol shrugged. “I guess round one is partially Jacob’s and round two… whoever cast the spell you two used.”
Kol settled in beside me, within reaching distance and not closer.
“There was no spell,” Marcus said, sitting on my other side, also not touching me. Which was good, because if I understood what Marcus was asking, Kol was going to use his magical enthrallment to help me think past the pain by making me focus on other sensations. And I had no idea how I’d feel while turned on again by the incubus with Marcus’s body brushing against me.
“You need to be careful with that. Sex magic can be dangerous.”
“There was no spell.” Marcus glared at Kol.
“What spell?” Gideon asked as he entered the lounge. His attention jumped to me and the icy look in his eyes grew harder.
“Nothing.” Kol grabbed my hand and a hint of heat swept up my arm, muting but not eliminating the pain and making my mind jerk back to the memory of climaxing with Marcus inside me.
My pulse picked up, and I shuddered. So did Kol. Marcus’s glare deepened.
“Sorry,” Kol mumbled, and the heat dimmed until I almost couldn’t feel it.
Gideon leaned against the side of an armchair and frowned, his attention on Kol. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” But Kol’s grip on my hand tightened. “What’s the plan?”
“We have to wait until Officer Shaw can tell us where the key is,” Gideon said, not sounding happy about that at all. “Then we go get it. We should be prepared for more ferals.”
“We’ve killed a fair number already. How many more do you think Logan made?” Marcus asked.
“Assume there’s more,” Jacob said, striding into the lounge. He still wore his dirty pants from the fight with the ferals, one leg with a wide blood-encrusted gash mid-thigh, but he’d put on a shirt. I could see the question, the need to talk in his eyes, but his glance at Marcus beside me told me he wanted to talk in private.
And yeah, we had a lot to figure out, now that everything was completely complicated.
“There’s always more.” Jacob sat in an armchair and turned his attention to Gideon. “And Essie won’t be able to tell us where the key is. It doesn’t work that way. She has to lead us to it.”
“Of course she does.” Gideon pinched the bridge of his nose. “So we know the key won’t form until dusk, we know Logan will have more ferals, but we have no idea how many or where they are. Do we know anything? What about Bane and information on hellfire princes and their cages?”
“I haven’t heard from him yet,” Marcus said.
“Victoria said she can’t sense Logan, but she did gift me with a little extra magic, so hopefully it will be harder for him to control me.”
“Do I want to know what that cost you?” Gideon asked.
“The terms are reasonable,” Jacob said. “I’m to pay it when this is over.”
“How long will I lose you for?”
Jacob glanced at me then jerked his attention back to Gideon, the movement so fast I would have missed it if his claim hadn’t attuned me to him. “Just one full twenty-four-hour period.”
“I see.” Gideon gave a tight nod. “I’ll make sure the kitchen is stocked up so you can recover quickly.”
That meant Jacob was going to get hurt. I jerked forward, and the throbbing in my head swelled, overcoming Kol’s enthrallment, making me wince. “We’re not letting her torture you. We’ll find another way to protect you from Logan’s magic.”
“It’s not intended as torture,” Jacob said.
“Not intended as torture? What’s that supposed to mean?” Perhaps I couldn’t understand because of the pain in my head.
“Sex, Essie,” Kol said, sending a shiver of need through me. “Victoria likes a lot of blood with her sex.”
“Jeez, Jacob—”
“The deal’s been made. Don’t worry about it,” he said, emphasizing the command.
The claim twisted, and I fought the compulsion and managed to resist it. I gave him my driest look, letting him know he couldn’t command me any more.
“The decisions of my team are no longer your concern, Officer Shaw.” Gideon crossed his arms, and a hint of heat whispered around me. “They never were. Do you understand?”
“I—” The agony exploded in my head again, stronger than before, as if avoiding it with Kol’s magic only made it more powerful. Whatever I’d been about to say vanished as the pain blazed through my skul
l and down my neck, searing into my heart. I fought to draw breath, fought to relax my muscles, but I was locked tight, worse than being hit with a Taser, worse than Gideon’s brand shooting lightning through me.
Marcus and Kol grabbed my shoulders as I convulsed. Jacob jerked forward and knelt before me, bringing a bracing cold with him, while Gideon looked frozen, trapped, horror in his eyes.
The agony released me and my muscles went limp. Marcus and Kol caught me, and Kol pulled me into his arms, wrapping them around my waist and pushing soothing heat into my freezing body.
The frost was back on my cheeks, and Marcus scraped it away with his thumbs, making my pulse pound in fear. They were going to learn the truth. They were going to discover what I was.
I fought to focus on the bone-melting thread of desire curling from Kol’s hands. I couldn’t let my fear or the pain consume me. Please, God, let them think the frost is because of the key. Please.
“Tell me it goes away or eases up or anything,” Marcus said to Jacob. “That it won’t be like this once the key forms.”
“I don’t know.” Jacob’s fear was clear in his eyes. “It was never like this for me.”
“We can’t let this distract us,” Gideon said.
Marcus glared at him and growled.
I grabbed Marcus’s hand to keep him by me. “Gideon’s right.” Jeez, it even hurt to breathe now. “You need to figure out if there’s a better way to deal with ferals and zombies, or whatever it was Logan made in that nest, and if there’s anything you can learn about Ibizual, the key, and his cage.”
“Marcus, get a hold of Bane again and anyone else who might know anything about hellfire princes. Jacob, Kol—”
“I’ll stay with Essie,” Kol said, his arms tightening around my waist. “I can search the JP’s online records and let you know as soon as she can sense the key.”
“Fine. Jacob and I will head to the archives and search the books.” Gideon shoved away from the chair. “Come on. Maybe we’ll get lucky and stumble across something useful.”
He marched out of the lounge. Jacob gave my knee a squeeze then followed. Marcus grabbed my hand, his gaze capturing me and stealing my breath, and brushed his lips across my knuckles.
