by Ann Gimpel
“You cannot win, Shifter,” pounded into her head from all sides. Along with the words came an inexorable pull toward the pulsing, roiling mass ahead.
Ketha diverted power into wards, but it didn’t help. She felt herself slipping forward. Viktor hooked an arm around her and his other around Aura, dragging them back a few inches. Even with him hanging on, holding her ground wasn’t easy. Ketha had to add more and more power to her warding before her footing stabilized.
The voice that had begun by telling her she couldn’t win kept up a steady patter about how nice and warm and restful it would be inside the Cataclysm. “Let go,” it suggested, its voice—sometimes a seductive male, sometimes a maternal female—silkily hypnotic. When it got around to, “You’ll like me once you get to know me,” she rebelled.
“Shut up!” she screeched. “Just shut up.”
“Glad I’m not the only one,” Aura yelled from Viktor’s other side.
“Finish this!” Viktor shook both of them. “Drain me dry if it’ll help. I can’t do a fucking thing on my own. I’m not the one with magic.”
Ketha was breathing hard, and she heard Aura’s gasping pants through the Cataclysm’s perennial roar. “On my count of three,” she told Aura and hoped the Cataclysm hadn’t heard. The thing was impossibly strong.
Ketha wound her magic in with Viktor’s and felt Aura do the same. Anchored in Vampire energy, the women loosed destruction right into the heart of the Cataclysm. If this didn’t work, they were done. She and Aura wouldn’t have enough magic for another try.
Tears streaked her cheeks, and bone-deep hopelessness churned through her. How could they, puny magical beings, ever dream they could conquer something as potent as the Cataclysm?
Anguish surrounded her, its strands like sticky, ominous spiders’ webs. She recognized the Cataclysm’s hand in her despair. Anger boiled from her guts.
Ketha squared her shoulders, latching onto her fury like a lifeline. “We can destroy you because we’re who made you in the first place,” she cried as another blast of destruction rolled through her, targeted right at the heart of the Cataclysm.
Booming crashed around her so loud it ruptured her eardrums. Pain battered her. Fluid ran down the sides of her face, but she was too busy shaping spells to brush it aside. Forked black lightning joined the thunder. The ground they stood on rolled in the throes of the mother of all earthquakes.
The booming intensified until she felt consciousness slipping. Worse, the spell still flowing through her, anchored to Viktor and the earth, was ripped away, siphoned into the Cataclysm. Once that happened, the world went black.
Despair ate at her, a strong acid that made the ache in her hands and ears pale by comparison.
They’d lost.
If they weren’t dead yet, surely the Cataclysm would claim them soon, just like it had claimed her spell. Viktor still had an arm around her. Presumably his other arm circled Aura, holding her safe from the Cataclysm’s maw.
The earth bucked harder, but the incessant drag toward the Cataclysm stopped precipitously, as if someone had cut a cord. Still holding onto her, Viktor staggered backward, his balance destroyed by the shuddering earth. Ketha fell to her knees with Viktor and Aura beside her.
Rocks cascaded from somewhere, but it was dark, so she couldn’t see them until they crashed down. Viktor threw his body on top of hers. She tried to wriggle from beneath him, tried to tell him to save himself if he could, but she was too tapped out to manage words. Her last thought before darkness took her was how much she loved him. It didn’t matter if he was a Vampire and she was a Shifter. She saw through to his essence, and it was everything she’d ever longed for in a man.
Epiphanies. Always too little and too late.
Her mind voice might have gotten the last word, but even it was too tired to follow the barbed observation with a longer lecture.
Chapter Nineteen: When Magic Isn’t Enough
Viktor saw the Cataclysm fold in on itself right before the world went black. At least the hideous pull, the one that came within a hairsbreadth of dragging all three of them into the maelstrom, had ended abruptly. So abruptly, it threw him backward. He staggered and then gave up on remaining upright. They were probably safer close to the ground, anyway.
A house-sized boulder plummeted from somewhere—probably the nearest cliff face. He dragged Ketha and Aura out of its path and threw his body over both women, but Aura wriggled free and placed her mouth near his ear. “Protect Ketha. She’s in far worse shape than me since she carried the brunt of our magic.”
“Stay close,” he warned. The Shifter looked gray-green in his augmented Vampire vision.
“Nah. I’m making a run for the caves. I might not make it, but it’s better than being flattened by something like that.” She played her mage light over the massive boulder only a few inches from them. “Thanks to Ketha, I have some magic left.”
More rocks crashed down. Aura rolled to her knees, clearly fighting for balance.
“Wait.” Viktor snaked out a hand and touched her leg.
“What?” Aura tried to rise but fell on her ass, the pitching, heaving ground too much for her.
“Were we successful?” Viktor glanced at the churning blackness where the Cataclysm had been.
“I have no idea. I don’t know what was supposed to happen afterward, but none of this looks particularly auspicious to me. Shit! No sky. No world. Maybe we killed everything along with the Cataclysm. Powerful spells like the one we loosed are unpredictable.”
“Has your bond animal had anything to say?”
Aura shook her head. “It’s a mountain lion, and it’s been quiet for months now. It’s like a part of me died.”
Viktor didn’t know what to say. The Shifter sounded so desolate, he was sorry he’d brought it up.
The ground quieted, and Aura shot to her feet, running hard while the getting was good. Viktor didn’t hesitate. It was as good an opportunity as he’d seen to move Ketha to safety. Even if their spell had worked and whatever made him a Vampire was on its way out—or changing him into a Shifter—he hoped to hell his supernatural strength and speed were up to one last task.
He sprang to his feet, snatched up an unconscious Ketha, and sprinted for the cave with water and fish on the mesa’s distant edge. The cliff face wasn’t quite as high, nor as rock studded there, which might mean less chance of a falling boulder blocking the cave’s entrance and trapping them inside.
At least so far, his superior physical ability was holding up. He scanned the mesa as he ran, looking for other Vamps and Shifters, but didn’t see anyone. He heard the disconsolate squawking of condors long before he bent to enter their cave. Viktor stopped at the entrance and took one last look at the mesa. The ground wasn’t pitching and rolling anymore, but that might only mean a small break in the action. Earthquakes normally came in waves. The sky remained an unremitting black. The ocean pounded against rocks in the distance, crashing far more aggressively than usual.
Was Aura right? Had they killed Earth along with the Cataclysm? He wished he knew more about supernatural phenomena. Depending on how tightly the Cataclysm had integrated itself with Earth’s warp and weft, he supposed it was possible.
The ground he stood on trembled. Might be aftershocks, or the forerunner of an even deeper quake that could collapse the whole damned mountain. He toyed with trying to leave the mesa, but the expanse of steep, exposed hillside between there and the trail was a huge deterrent. His chances of making it through earthquakes and rockfall, carrying Ketha weren’t good. Besides, the trail could be blocked by boulders.
He might be strong and fast, but he was scarcely invincible.
The cave was their best bet. He ducked inside. Condors dive-bombed him, pecking with their sharp beaks. Viktor didn’t blame them. The sound and fury bombarding the mesa had to have riled them, and they had chicks to protect. He focused a hypnotic, soothing spell their way, drawing on one of the few magics Vamps possessed. It was useful
for quieting prey—or luring them to their deaths.
The birds fluttered to the ground, no fight left in them. A shudder racked Viktor as evidence that Vampire power hadn’t deserted him reverberated in his guts. If he was still a Vamp, surely that meant they’d failed.
Ketha stirred in his arms, moaning softly. He carried her deeper into the cave system, past nests of young condors until he found an unoccupied side cavern with a sandy floor. Moving well past the entrance, he sank to the ground, still cradling Ketha close.
“You’re safe, love.” He kissed her forehead.
She opened her eyes, squeezed them shut, and opened them again. “Where are we? I can’t see anything.”
“One of the condor caves. I can see, but it’s my augmented vision.” He stopped shy of connecting the dots. She could do that on her own.
A wavery, violet mage light formed near her, and she cupped the side of his face in one hand. “What happened after I passed out?”
“Do you remember when the suction from the Cataclysm stopped?”
She nodded. “It’s almost the last thing I do remember. An earthquake rolled through. Really bad one. Everything went black, and we ended up on the ground—” Her eyes widened, and she struggled in his arms. “Aura. What happened to her?”
“She’s safe. At least I think she is. She made a run for the caves on the other side of the plateau.”
Ketha sagged against him. “Thank the goddess. Everyone else?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t pass anyone on my way here, and I did look.” Viktor knew he should let her rest, but she was the one with the book, the one with knowledge—and hopefully answers. “Your spell. Did it work?”
She closed her teeth over her lower lip. “Doesn’t seem like it. A black sky can’t be a good sign. Did it lighten at all?”
Viktor shook his head and shifted her in his arms so that he cradled her head in one hand. “I love you, Ketha. If we’re teetering at the end of everything, I didn’t want to die without telling you how much you mean to me. You taught me to believe in myself again. Gave me courage to stand up to Raphael. Something I should’ve done a long time ago.”
Her golden eyes sheened with softness. “My last thoughts out on the mesa were about you.”
“I hope they were good ones.” He smiled.
Instead of answering, she wrapped both arms around him and closed her mouth over his. Warmth and caring flowed from her, and he kissed her back, sinking his tongue inside her mouth and drawing her as close as they could get. She tasted sweet, and her wildflower and Antarctic beech scent eddied around him.
She nipped his lower lip, and he nipped back, sucking a droplet of blood off her full mouth. The taste of her blood ran hot in his veins like fine, aged whiskey. He wanted more of her blood, but his cock raged, demanding attention. Thick and burning with desire, its need outplayed his thirst for blood.
Ketha broke away from his questing tongue and tugged the sash of her robe until the garment fell open. He pushed the sides apart, and the sight of her body seared him. Perfect globes of breasts tipped by peaked golden nipples rode high on a sculpted rib cage. A narrow waist gave way to flared hips, and dark curls nested between her long, well-muscled legs.
His bloodlust receded, replaced by a far more familiar heat, and he buried his face in her breasts, laving her nipples and moving from breast to breast. She moaned and arched into his touch. The movement against his cock was excruciatingly erotic. Without letting go of the nipple in his mouth, he repositioned their bodies so she lay on dry sand, and he knelt above her.
Ketha wrapped a hand around the hardness jutting from between his legs, and a low, guttural growl rose from him. He wanted the woman splayed before him with a ferocity that defied reason. They should be outside hunting for the others. The last of their time before Earth vanished into the solar system should be spent doing their damnedest to find some kind of antidote to whatever they’d loosed, but he didn’t care. Nothing shy of a tsunami could’ve dragged him from Ketha’s side.
Her fingers dug at the lacings holding his trousers in place. He pivoted to give her better access and moved his mouth lower until it hovered above the enticing mysteries between her legs. She bucked her hips, and he fastened his mouth over her nub while trailing a hand between her legs, seeking her core.
Scorching heat surrounded his cock as she took him into her mouth. He hadn’t orgasmed in forever. Vampire blood fests had been his substitute for human release, but they’d never come close to filling the empty places within him with anything beyond sick resignation.
Her nub swelled in his mouth, and he forgot about everything but pleasuring the woman in his arms. Nothing mattered but her, and he teased her with his tongue, rolling it around her sensitive places and plunging into her with his fingers. Concentrating on her made it possible not to come himself as she licked and sucked the length of his shaft.
He felt the shift as her muscles tightened around him in rhythmic release. She worked him harder, faster as she came. Once her spasms quieted, he pulled away from her mouth and fingers and moved until he knelt between her legs. Words felt beyond him as he seated himself at her entrance, hoping she’d welcome him into her body.
Any doubts he’d had fled as she wrapped her legs around his waist and drew him inside, inch by inch, until he was fully encased in the wonder of her slick center. The heat of her was enticing, alluring, impossible to resist. He balanced on his arms so he could drink in the sight of her body spread beneath his. He wanted the lush moments to last as long as possible, wanted to savor the feelings streaming through him. He’d been taught congress with Shifters was forbidden, but what could that matter, now? Any damage to their world had been done long since, ten years ago in Siberia.
“Viktor.” Her magic rose around him, intensifying her heady scent.
“Yes, love?”
“Just that. I love you. I want you. When you’re inside my body, there are no differences between us. We’re only a man and a woman saying with our bodies what our hearts already know.”
“That’s beautiful, but not as beautiful as you are.” Bending, he brushed his lips over hers, and she tightened her body around his shaft.
Detaching her mouth from his, she murmured, “Make love to me.”
“I’ve never wanted anything quite so much.”
She smiled, and desire raced through him, igniting every cell with determination to claim the woman beneath him as his—and his alone.
“I already am,” she said, having clearly been inside his mind, but it didn’t matter. He had no secrets, not from her.
“Good, because I fear you’re stuck with me for however much longer the world lasts.”
A smile began in her eyes and made its way to her mouth, slow, languid, filled with needing him. Evidence of her caring smote him to his heart, and longing for her spilled over, cracking his reserved places wide open.
“You never know.” Her voice was soft, barely there. “We couldn’t save the world with magic. Maybe we can save it with love.”
It was an enticing thought. Because he was too far gone to do anything else, he ran with it.
He unwound her arms from where they gripped him and pinned them above her head with one hand. Withdrawing slowly, he teased her entrance before delving her depths again. She moved with him, thrusting and withdrawing until the margins where he stopped and she began blurred, and they became one being careening toward ecstasy.
It might have been a trick of her magic, but he felt her arousal alongside his own. Sensed her body surrounding his cock but also knew how his cock felt inside her. His heart hammered, and his balls tightened. An orgasm spooled deep in his belly, but he rode herd on it until her climax blasted into his mind. Her body heaved beneath his, breasts splotched with evidence of her passion.
Viktor drove into her, letting go of all his boundaries. Semen juddered from him in white-hot gouts that bound him to Ketha, and she to him. He’d never seen sex as a spiritual joining, yet coming insid
e her united them as surely as if a minister had pronounced wedding vows.
He let go of her wrists and gathered her close, kissing her lips, her forehead, her cheeks as their breathing slowed.
“We should try to find everyone,” he said at last. “I’ve been feeling guilty. Like I checked out on our companions.”
Ketha nodded solemnly. “I feel the same, but making love was important in ways I can’t explain.” After a final nuzzle, she rolled to a sit and set her robe to rights.
He tucked himself back inside his pants, grappling with his laces with fingers that wouldn’t cooperate. Flowing to his feet, he held out a hand to help her to stand. “What do you mean?”
“Shifters rely on instincts. We’re attuned to the natural world, so we’ve learned to listen to it. Not that I haven’t fantasized what you’d feel like in my arms, but what we just did felt preordained somehow. Like it had to happen exactly when it did.”
He grinned crookedly. “I felt the same thing but chalked it up to being overcome by your considerable charms.”
She crooked a finger his way. “Keep the schmaltz coming.”
“It’s not schmaltz,” he protested. “You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever known.”
“You’re pretty incredible yourself. Shall we?” She started toward the portal leading to the main cave system, mage light bobbing next to her.
Viktor hurried after her. “I want to try to locate Juan and the others. Glenn particularly. He was a last-minute add-on and probably ended up with a much fuller plate than he anticipated.”
Ketha was well ahead of him, but the condors didn’t squawk even once to protest her incursion into their nesting ground. Her muffled shriek brought him at a run past birds that barely glanced his way.
Daylight streamed through the cave’s entrance. Hope jabbed him hard, and he ducked his head to step outside. Ketha stood in bright sunlight, looking up at a blue sky studded with white, fluffy clouds.
She raised her arms above her head and spun in place.
