by Anya Bast
Yet Theo had never managed to successfully maintain a relationship in his life. His mother had fled, and Colleen and Ingrid had been killed. Theo knew he wasn’t responsible for any of that — not really — but it still made for a hell of a bad track record.
Sarafina was too precious to gamble with. Theo couldn’t bear the thought of investing all of his heart in her and then losing her.
Gods, it would kill him.
And of course he would lose her. He simply wasn’t equipped to do anything but fumble a relationship with a woman like her.
She deserved someone like Darren or even Eric. Someone who had lived a normal life, who hadn’t had the love and compassion tortured and beaten out of him. His scars went deeper than his flesh and they weren’t easily healed. Sarafina had to realize that.
He was just trying to keep her from being hurt.
He might love her and she might love him — there was little question of that — but sometimes love just wasn’t enough.
Theo indulged himself a moment longer, gazing at her silhouette through the foliage, then melted back into the shadows to keep watch over her until she decided to return to the apartment.
When she finally stepped though the door, he was moments behind her.
She rounded on him in the living room as Grosset trotted into the kitchen to look for food. “Did you follow me?” Theo shut the door behind him. “Of course I did.” “Why? Why do you even care, Theo?”
“Sarafina.” He walked to stand directly in front of her. “Of course I care.” “I thought I was just sex to you.”
“Fuck,” he murmured under his breath. “We’re not right together, you and I. I’m not the best man for you. You need someone who can make you laugh, who can—” She made a hand gesture to cut off his words. “Stop right there. I can’t listen to these lies you’re telling yourself a moment longer. I’m going to bed.” Theo watched her stalk to her room.
She turned in the doorway. “I need you, Theo. I want. . need the intensity of your love and your protectiveness. It’s true we’re different enough that most people wouldn’t think we’d fit together, but sometimes jagged edges fit just right, puzzle pieces falling into place. That’s how I feel about us.” He shook his head. “You don’t understand, Sarafina.” “I understand more than you think I do. In fact, I understand even more than you do.” She paused, looking sad. “And you need me, too, Theo. More than you realize.”
SARAFINA WASN’T GOING TO THINK ABOUT THEO. She’d decided that right after their conversation the previous night. He didn’t want her, so she shouldn’t want him.
If only it were that easy.
Instead, after uneasily falling into a fitful sleep, she’d awoken to find Theo in the armchair in the corner of her bedroom, slumped over in an uncomfortable drowse. He’d watched over her all night long. Grosset was snoring in his lap, the traitor.
Her gut reaction had been to go to Theo and help him into bed, so he could get at least a couple hours of worthwhile rest, but she’d stopped herself. The stubborn man. She wasn’t going to show him how much she cared for him.
Not when he was being such a slave to his fears.
Anyway, she’d opened her heart to him once and he’d made it bleed. She certainly wasn’t going for a twofer.
Now it was midmorning and she wasn’t going to worry about him and how tired he looked, standing up against one of the library walls, away from the group as usual, while Thomas conducted a meeting.
She wasn’t going to think about Theo at all, let alone care about him.
Yeah, right.
It seemed that Theo wasn’t the only one good at lying to himself.
Sarafina pulled herself back from the quagmire of her own mind and emotions and tried to concentrate on what Thomas and the others were saying.
“We’re organizing another raid, this time on Duskoff International.” Whoa, now Thomas had her full attention.
“We’ll leave in the morning. Darren is already there, preparing. Once the workday is done, the warlocks remain. That’s when we’ll enter.” “What about the wards on the thirteenth floor?” asked Sarafina. They were of daaeman make, according to Mira. They couldn’t break them.
“That’s still a problem.”
“Are you sure all the non-magickals will be out of the building?” asked Mira.
Thomas hesitated, then shrugged. “No.” “What are we going—”
“Je suis arrive!” The voice came from beyond the open door of the library, from roughly the area of the Coven’s foyer.
Sarafina froze in her chair. It was one of the voices that haunted her dreams and stole all the sweetness away. She knew that voice well.
“What the—” Adam bounded to his feet across from Sarafina.
“Maybe we don’t have to raid Duskoff International, after all,” said Theo. He’d taken about three steps toward her from his place across the room. “Maybe the raid has come to us.” Thomas bolted from behind his desk toward the door. “How did he get through the wards? The daaeman would be able to get through, but Stefan should be barred.” “The Atrika probably just broke the wards so he could get in,” answered Claire. “That would be nothing but child’s play to them.” Sarafina stood, a cold, hard knot of tension in the middle of her stomach. If Stefan was here, that meant Atrika were here. If Atrika were here, that meant Bai was probably here, too.
Theo caught her hand. She wanted to pull away from him, even as she pulled him closer. Right now Sarafina was so hurt by him that even the touch of his skin on hers made her want to cry. At the same time, there was no one else in the world she wanted at her side right now, no one she felt safer with. How ironic.
“You don’t leave my side, got it?” he said. It wasn’t really a question.
Together they followed the rest of the witches who’d been gathered in the library for the briefing out into the foyer. The other inhabitants of the Coven had begun to filter here as well. Word of Stefan’s arrival had spread through the building quickly.
Stefan stood in the middle of the large area, his feet planted comfortably and firmly on the marble floor of their home. He was surrounded by a contingent of Atrika, who guarded him like his own personal force of bodyguards. Warlocks also surrounded him, all looking cocky and pleased with themselves.
Rage at the sight bubbled inside her. She couldn’t imagine what Thomas Monahan must be feeling.
“What are you doing here?” asked Thomas. He sounded controlled and calm, but Sarafina could see his fists were clenched at his sides and rage clearly sat in the stiffness of his shoulders.
“What the hell did you do to Rue?” Claire yelled, lunging toward the ring of Atrika. Adam caught her and held her back, trying to quiet her down.
Stefan laughed. “I let that slip in Gribben, didn’t I? Of course I could hardly hold it back under the circumstances.” He glanced at Thomas. “Thomas holds the Cae of the Ytrayi to task for torturing him on Eudae, yet Thomas tortures as well. That makes Thomas a hypocrite.” “I do what I need to do in order to protect my people.” “As Rue might say, too, yes?” Stefan raised a pale eyebrow. “So I also do what I must to protect my people. I do what I need to do to protect the Duskoff way of life and to improve upon it. Any action I take against the Coven is a step toward that goal, since the Coven seems set against preventing us from living the way we see fit.” “Harm ye none.” Thomas ground the words out. “The Duskoff crushes that principle under its boot heel.” “Harm ye none.” Stefan made a raspberry. “How about to each their own?” “You really care that much about the well-being of your people, Stefan?” Mira shook her head. “I don’t buy it.” “Ah, Mira, just the witch I wanted to see today. I cared about my father, but you ended that for me, didn’t you?” Mira’s mouth snapped closed. Everyone knew that William Crane had been seconds away from sucking all the magick and life from her when she’d retaliated and killed him. Stefan made it sound like she’d done it in cold blood.
Stefan pulled something from his pock
et. Sarafina couldn’t see what it was, but it fit in the palm of his hand. “I came to finish the job my father started, although with a slightly different ending.” He motioned to the daaeman surrounding him and gave a careless one-shouldered shrug. “I’ve already pulled through all the demons I could possibly ever have a use for. I have different priorities that are a bit more personal.” Theo’s grip tightened around Sarafina’s hand. The tension in the room ratcheted upward. They’d ambushed Stefan twice, and now he’d ambushed them. No one had their swords. No one but Sarafina even had any syringes. She only had one because of Bai’s interest in her, kept in a special leather sheath on her hip at all times.
All they had on hand to fight the Atrika and whatever Stefan had just pulled from his pocket was their elemental magick and their determination.
Coven witches from all over the building had now converged in the foyer. They stood behind the core group of nine — Mira, Jack, Thomas, Isabelle, Claire, Adam, Sarafina, Theo, and Micah — lining the massive curving staircase that led to the second floor and crowding the corridors leading off from the foyer.
Sarafina had the gut reaction to turn and tell them to go — to run — even though she knew they’d come to fight. They stood there like a bunch of moths drawn to a flame. Whatever Stefan held in his hand had to be deadly.
“Do you remember what it was my father tried to do to you, Mira?” Stefan said with a hard smile. His blue eyes glittered in the light. “Right before you pushed him out the window?” “It’s kind of hard to forget,” Mira responded, her voice edgy and thin sounding.
“He set you in a demon circle and almost squeezed the power from your seat. But my father failed. He underestimated you and underdrugged you. He didn’t take into account the love you shared with Jack McAllister and the fact that nothing could prevent him from coming to your aid.” Stefan paused. “Here’s how I succeed where my father failed.” Stefan’s hand moved.
“Everyone hit the floor,” Thomas yelled.
Theo pulled Sarafina down and covered her body with his. From beneath the protection of his chest, she could see Stefan standing triumphantly in the middle of his bitterest enemy’s lair. A smile had spread across his face — the beaming smile of a man who finally had victory within his grasp.
Stefan threw the small glimmering object up into the air and murmured a few words like an earth witch would.
But this was not elemental magick. This was daaeman magick.
The small ball of alien power crackled and pulsed for a moment, hanging suspended in the air above Stefan’s head, glowing like a tiny blue star. Acridness filled the air, burning their noses, tinged with the scent of both familiar and strange plant life. The very molecules around them seemed to pulse and expand, like the object drew the essence from everything around it, growing pregnant and swollen with power.
And then it exploded.
THE ONLY THING THEO COULD THINK ABOUT WAS keeping Sarafina safe from whatever that blue egg of death had hatched in the air.
A bolt of sizzling light blue magick whizzed past his head and exploded on the floor near him. It did nothing, only evaporated on the marble in a shower of sparks.
Near him one of the bolts hit a brown-haired earth witch Theo thought was named Brian. Brian gasped and hit the floor, grasping fistfuls of his shirt near the center of his chest and curling into the fetal position.
Dragging gulps of air into his throat and his eyes bulging, Brian reached out to Theo with one hand. “My magick, it’s gone. It’s completely gone.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
“COME ON, BABY, WE GOTTA GO.” HE PULLED SARAFINA to her feet, shielding her body from the scattershot and made his way toward one of the corridors. The rest of the Coven had also figured out the score and were doing the same thing, trying to dodge the magickal shrapnel.
They found no refuge in the corridor. The bolts from the daaeman magick found them there, too, ricocheting off the walls and sparking on the floor and ceiling. Theo and Sarafina were too busy dodging the bolts to even think about raising power.
And the Atrika were coming.
To his left, Miranda, a fire witch, took a stand, raising power to fight the Atrika who were charging her like a freight train. A shot of the blue daaeman shit hit her straight in the chest and the flare of power she’d poofed into existence fizzled like a candle doused by a tidal wave.
Miranda gasped in shock and fell against the wall, grasping her seat with both hands, a look of utter despair transforming her features to shocked ashen gray. The Atrika who’d been gunning for her before simply passed her by. She wasn’t a threat anymore.
“Theo!” Miranda yelled, her eyes wide. “Get out of here. Get out!” What an awesome idea.
“Come on,” said Sarafina, seeing an opening in the throng. They were all edged into the corridor like cows ready for slaughter.
“Watch out!” Miranda yelled.
A bolt of daaeman magick sailed toward them. He and Sarafina leapt apart, each going in different directions to avoid the projectile. This was like some fucked-up, deadly dodgeball game.
When Theo rolled back to his feet, Sarafina had been swallowed up in the crowd and was nowhere to be found.
SARAFINA STRUGGLED BACK TO HER FEET AND IMMEDIATELY had to duck to avoid another bolt of blue. The damn bullets of despair didn’t always explode harmlessly on the wall or floor; sometimes they bounced and changed direction, aiming for another witch.
All around her people were being hit. The sounds of grieving met her ears and tightened her chest and stomach in empathy. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose her power, not after she’d just found it.
It wasn’t going to happen to her, goddamn it.
She looked up from her place on the floor and couldn’t see Theo anywhere. Their only chance was to get out of the Coven, away from the spell that Stefan had unleashed. She glanced past the throng in the foyer and saw that the Atrika and warlocks were guarding the exit. Of course. They’d probably been ordered by Stefan to hem everyone in, the better to hit them with the alien magick.
Near her Annie was hit in the shoulder by a bolt of blue. The diminutive brunette spun from the impact and then sank to the floor, hands covering her face and keening in grief.
“Annie!” Sarafina cried out, crawling toward her.
Annie either didn’t hear her, or was too in shock to answer. She remained on her knees, face hidden in her hands. Sarafina couldn’t get to her in the throng and could only catch a glimpse of her from around the panicking witches.
Moments later, in absolute horror, Sarafina watched Annie calmly stand up and put herself in the way of an Atrika barreling toward her. It looked like a pure act of suicide.
“Annie, no!” Sarafina lunged toward her from her kneeling position on the floor, but to no avail. The Atrika just ripped out Annie’s throat as he went past and her lifeless body collapsed.
Just like that.
Numb at the sight of the once vibrant witch on the floor, eyes sightless and her blood pooling on the marble, Sarafina rested against the wall behind her for a moment and closed her eyes in anguish. Somewhere in the distance she heard things crashing above the din of terrified witches on the verge of losing all they held dear.
Things crashing. Yes. Somewhere out there Claire and Mira were kicking some demon ass with air magick.
Again she scanned the throng for Theo but couldn’t find him. In the foyer, her gaze seized on Thomas, Isabelle, and Micah. The three were trying to get to Stefan, who still controlled the magick blue ball of death.
Stefan.
Sarafina scrambled to a crouching position and made her way toward him. Their best hope was to take Stefan out and stop the alien magick filling the Coven. Then they’d have to deal with the Atrika, which was another issue.
Just as she reached Thomas, Isabelle, and Micah, a shot of blue came streaming right toward Thomas. Sarafina paused in mid-crouch, her breath catching in her throat.
Oh, God. . no. Not the head
of the Coven.
“Thomas!” Micah lunged toward his cousin, knocking him to the side and out of the way of the bolt. It hit Micah in the side.
Micah rolled on the marble floor of the foyer, holding the center of his chest, his face contorted in agony.
“Micah!” Thomas grabbed Micah by the shirt and yanked his cousin toward him on the floor, Isabelle coming down on the other side of him.
Sarafina reached them just in time to see Micah staring up with wide, glazed eyes. “Oh, my Gods, it’s gone. I’m empty inside.” Sarafina looked up at Stefan who stood with the spinning, spitting ball of light above his head, looking down at the scene with a smile on his face.
Her jaw clenched in a surge of rage, she stood and threw a huge volley of white-hot fire at him, only to have her blast blocked by an Atrika. One bat of the huge daaeman paw and it evaporated into the air as if it had never been.
Stefan fixed his gaze on her, his lip curling in disdain. Without Stefan even lifting a finger, a shot of blue came right at her forehead. Sarafina ducked as the bolt whizzed past her, hit the floor, and ricocheted into a nearby witch. She closed her eyes for a brief moment as a sob clenched her gut, listening to the witch’s cry of anguish.
Isabelle stood near Micah’s side and pulled a lot of magick fast and hard. Water coursed from the pipes, down the hallway, everywhere and anywhere she could call it from.
The other water witches in the foyer caught on fast and called water, too. Soon Sarafina lay in an inch of it, then another inch. Rising fast, the water all made for Stefan, forming a conical wave around him and his Atrika bodyguards, who had difficulty staving it off.
Even better, the contingent of daaeman guards were now distracted and busy.
Seeing an opening, Claire, Mira, Thomas, and Sarafina all mounted an attack. They tossed all they could at the now struggling and preoccupied Atrika. Sarafina caught one in the side of the head with a burst of fire that sent him reeling back, howling.
