by Alyssa Day
A profound silence fell, as if even nature herself were holding her breath, and then a spiraling wave of pure golden light danced through the opening of the cave and surrounded them, at first wrapping itself around their bodies in a gentle caress and then clamping on to them like a giant’s grip. The world expanded and contracted in time with Serai’s pulse, and she closed her eyes, only to see that the vortex had entered her mind.
Daniel was working hard at remaining calm, but the vortex magic was more powerful than anything he’d ever encountered, and it seemed to be trying to swallow them whole. He fought against it as it tried to consume him, tried to swallow his mage powers whole and spit him back out as a hollow shell of a man. Serai’s grip on his hands was unbreakable and he didn’t know what she’d done or how to save her.
He’d promised to save her, and now he was already failing. No. Not again.
“Not again,” he shouted, and her eyes flew open.
She stared at him from eyes gone fully dark blue, again, and he was afraid the magic had already swallowed hers, but her voice, when she spoke, was still her own.
“Daniel, it’s fine. Trust me. Open yourself to the magic, and to me. Open yourself to the power of the soul-meld and we will be stronger than even this ancient vortex magic. You have to trust me.”
He looked into her incredibly dangerous, insanely beautiful eyes, and he realized he did.
He trusted her.
He’d gladly and willingly step into the sun for her and with her.
“Yes,” he said, and he opened his soul to the magic.
It took him down with a knockout punch, funneling into him like a whirlpool of hot, bright, old—so very old—power.
“Daniel, trust me,” she said again, and he leaned forward to kiss her, because she was the only thing that had ever made sense in his entire long, hideous, immortal life. He kissed her because he had to kiss her; because kissing her was his only reason for living.
She kissed him back, and the power exploded through them, between them, roared its way into every dark place in his heart and soul and purified them as it bound them together even more tightly than they had been before. He laughed and she cried and then they both laughed while the power soared through them, amplifying their emotions, intensifying their magics, and expanding their understanding of the universe.
When she finally nodded, he closed his mind to the onslaught, and the vortex energy gracefully surrendered, not a ravaging conqueror after all, but a healer, a magician, a wizard come to play and depart. A lifetime encapsulated into a handful of minutes, and he would never, ever be the same.
He looked at Serai, and her eyes were pure, glowing blue fire.
“Your eyes,” they said simultaneously, and she laughed and touched his face with her hand.
“Your eyes are glowing like sea sapphires,” she said, awed. “But where did the red go?”
“Yours are glowing, too, mi amara, and I am in awe of your beauty.”
She kissed him again, and this time the kiss was more than just a kiss, since the magic in each of them resonated, one with the other, and he could feel what she felt, even as the Emperor itself decided to join in the fun and send a bolt of its power driving through Serai.
“The women—your sisters,” he said. “I can feel them.”
“Yes. Yes!” She tightened her grasp on his hands and concentrated, hard. He could feel her focus, and together they somehow channeled a beam of pure energy across the land, down through the ocean’s depths, and into the three maidens waiting in their crystal cases in Atlantis.
Serai cried out, but it was a joyous cry, and she threw her arms around him. “We did it! Did you feel that? We strengthened them! They’re better, Daniel, oh, they’re stronger now, and we did it. They’ll be safe for a little while longer, until we find the Emperor. We are better together than apart. There will be no more talk, ever, of us leaving each other or being better off without the other. Agreed?”
He hugged her back and started to answer, but an unexpected sound, a harsh grinding noise, scraped across his eardrums, and instead he held a finger to her lips and listened with his vampire senses on high alert.
It was—It couldn’t be. He listened harder, instinctively pushing Serai behind him.
It was the sound of tramping feet and the roar of helicopters. He had a crazy flashback to another invading army, eleven thousand years ago, and then shook his head to clear it of those images.
“It sounds like the army is on its way, and we’re still trapped in here by the sun for a little while longer,” he told Serai. “This isn’t good.”
Her face drained of color, but she squared her shoulders and nodded. “It wouldn’t be fun if it were easy,” she said, and he started laughing.
“Oh, Princess. You are absolutely the right woman for me.”
Chapter 32
Nicholas heard them first, long before Ivy’s human ears picked up any disturbance. It was barely dusk, and the apprentice had finally arrived, dragged by his ears all the way, one would think from the way he was sniveling. Ivy had tried to comfort him at first, promising him he wouldn’t be hurt, but she’d finally given up in disgust.
Even Ian had rolled his eyes after the first ten minutes or so and told the witch to “man up, dude.”
“We’re in trouble,” Nicholas said. He pointed to the man, Phillips or Phelps or whatever. “Shut up, now, or I’ll kill you myself.”
Phillips shut up, cramming his fist in his mouth to do it.
Ian shot Nicholas a hard look. “He’s a clerk in the New Age shop down by Tuzigoot, not exactly a hard-ass. Scaring him even more isn’t going to help.”
“Shut up and listen.”
Ian, astonishingly enough for a thirteen-year-old boy, actually shut up and listened. Five seconds later, he ran to his mother and took her arm.
“Mom, it’s gotta be the army. Holy crap, it really is the army coming to rescue us!”
Ivy and Nicholas shared a grim look over Ian’s head. If the army were on its way, the last thing they’d have in mind would be rescuing a witch from a vampire. More likely, they were after the power source of the King stone and would kill all of them to get it. Nicholas had heard rumors that the P-Ops Division was corrupt all the way to the top, and now he might be soon to gain confirmation firsthand.
“Hey, I lied, Phil,” Ivy said tiredly. “You’re probably going to get hurt.”
The man started wailing again, so Nicholas strode across the cave and casually backhanded him to shut him up. Phil’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped to the ground.
“That’s better. Now maybe I can think.” Nicholas walked over to the box that held the gem and stared down at it as if the amethyst itself would give him a clue as to what to do next. They’d been on the verge of trying one final experiment to see if they could learn what the King stone really could do, when the stone had begun glowing on its own, shooting out a beam of light so strong that Nicholas was surprised it hadn’t cut straight through the stone cavern wall. Ivy told him that it wasn’t just light, either; the stone had been projecting magical energy at a level far more intense than anything she’d seen from it thus far.
“What can we do?” Ivy asked now, holding tight to Ian’s arm. “You promised to keep my son safe, vampire, and it’s dark enough that you can escape with him in a few minutes. I’ll stay here and deal with the army.”
“I won’t leave you, Mom,” Ian protested, and she ignored him as if he’d never even spoken, still staring steadily at Nicholas.
“I won’t leave you, either,” Nicholas said, leaving her to interpret it as she would. “We’ll all get out of here. The members of my blood pride should be here any minute to assist us.”
“Why did you send the guy away who brought Phil? He was human. The sunlight wouldn’t have bothered him.”
“More witnesses I didn’t need. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”
The voice that shattered the silence, transmitted by some kind of el
ectronic device, carried a weight of authority and command that didn’t bode well for their plans.
“This is Colonel Brig St. Ives of the federal P-Ops Division speaking. We have you surrounded, and we have captured your vampire associates, twelve in total. Please come out, sending Mr. Smithson out first, and nobody will get hurt.”
An even dozen had been all the members of his blood pride on this mission with him. This could be a slight problem.
“Whoops,” Ian said, grinning and almost jumping out of his skin with adrenaline and a sick kind of excitement. “Wonder if they’d accept parts of him? His spleen might be around here somewhere.”
Ivy pulled her son closer, her wild eyes fixed on Nicholas as if he were her savior instead of her killer. In spite of everything, he wanted to do just that. Save her. Protect her. Try again later. Forget the damn King stone and everything it might be able to do.
He focused on Ivy so intently that he missed it when Phil, who’d apparently been feigning unconsciousness, made his break, and by the time he realized the man was running out the entrance, it was too late to bother.
“Thank goodness you’re here,” Phil screamed. “I’m a hostage, I’m here, help me, help me—”
An explosion of gunfire cut off the rest of Phil’s plea for help, and Ivy screamed. Nicholas flashed over to the cave entrance and peered out into the gathering dusk, only to see Phil’s nearly disintegrated body.
“Interesting interpretation of ‘nobody will get hurt,’” Nicholas said. “Maybe we should rethink our options.”
Ivy picked up the Emperor and smiled, a wild glee darkening her eyes. “They’re wrong if they think nobody will get hurt. They’re a danger to my son. I’m going to bring them a world of hurt.”
Nicholas bared his fangs and snarled his agreement, and then he smiled. “You, beautiful witch, are my kind of woman.”
Chapter 33
Daniel shot out of the cave like a bat out of the worst of the nine hells the second the sun finally hid behind the horizon. Now that he and Serai were connected by the soul-meld and the vortex magic, he could feel the Emperor almost as intensely as she could.
Which meant he could leave her safely behind while he went after it.
Unfortunately, she had no intention of letting him do anything of the kind. By the time he turned around, she was already down the carved stone side of the cliff and standing on the ground, hands on her hips, staring up at him.
“You can forget that idea right now,” she informed him.
“Did the soul-meld give you psychic powers? And if so, can you snoop in everybody’s brain or just mine?” He landed next to her and stared her down with his fiercest glare.
Also unfortunately, she wasn’t intimidated in the least.
“You know, you’re kind of sexy when you scowl like that,” she said, flashing a seductive smile, and then blinking innocently when he growled at her.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Was that meant to frighten me into staying here, cowering in the corner like a good little princess?”
He shook his head and gave it up as a lost cause. “I’ve been around long enough to know defeat when it smacks me in the face. Let’s go. We need to find out why the army or P-Ops or who-the-hells-ever is heading in the same direction as the Emperor.”
“I have never believed in coincidence,” she said, braiding her hair back from her face.
“Neither have I.”
She bent to retrieve the backpack and he stopped her. “No need for it now. If we succeed, we can stop back and retrieve it if we need to hike out of here. Do you think you could be up for flying—no pun intended—if we have to do it to escape?”
She frowned but then nodded slowly. “You know, I have your magic inside me now, as well as my own. That should surely sustain me long enough to fly away from danger with the Emperor. And I have no time to harbor childish fears.”
“It’s not childish, mi amara, but I respect your courage,” he said. “It’s time to go, and we need to go fast.”
She threw her arms around him and kissed him, and then the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked shattered the early evening stillness.
“Going fast shouldn’t be a problem, sir,” a voice said. “Stand down and be prepared to surrender, or it will go very badly for you.”
Daniel cast a quick, reassuring glance at Serai, but he needn’t have bothered. She was perfectly calm, smiling out into the velvety blue darkness of twilight.
“We’re willing to come with you peacefully,” she said. “We’d certainly hate for things to go badly.”
Daniel held up his hands in the universal sign for “I surrender,” but he started laughing. He just couldn’t help it. He was still laughing as the very polite soldier—P-Ops according to the insignia on his black uniform—held a scanner up to Serai and then to him. As soon as he realized Daniel was a vampire, the soldier stepped quickly back and then motioned to one of his underlings to bring the silver stripcuffs. The silver was on the outside of the hard plastic cuffs so it wouldn’t burn him but would keep him restrained and helpless to break free of them.
Or so it would have been, under usual circumstances. He had soul-melded with Serai, and he had tasted her Atlantean blood. Twice. For the first time since he’d been turned, the proximity to silver wasn’t hurting him.
Not the slightest bit.
Things weren’t going to go badly at all.
Serai remained silent while the soldiers took her and Daniel to a large vehicle and politely escorted them inside. But when the men conferred outside the vehicle’s closed windows, evidently to gain privacy for their conversation, she took the opportunity to do the same.
“They are far more civilized than I expected,” she said. “More like the king’s personal guard than invading soldiers. What is this force? What does the lettering ‘P-Ops’ on their jackets mean?”
“Paranormal Operations. They’re a federal police force that deals with all things supernatural. That’s why they’re so nice to you. They must think you’re a plain vanilla human.”
She tried on her most seductive smile and glanced at him through her lashes. “Plain vanilla? Really?”
He blew out a long, slow breath and his eyes darkened. “Only you could get me hot when I’m handcuffed in a P-Ops transport. Let’s talk about what we do next, instead, maybe, sex kitten.”
A thrill of pleasure tingled through her at his reaction, but she quickly stifled it for more urgent matters. “They want to take us to the center of the action, I would anticipate. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” He stared out the window at the men, whose conversation seemed to be wrapping up. The one in charge was heading to the driver’s side of the vehicle.
“That’s where we want to be, also agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Then this is perfect. Saves wear on our boots.” She leaned back in the seat and folded her hands demurely in her lap, the picture of civility, prepared to unleash the full extent of her beautiful court manners on the young soldier.
Gun or no gun, the poor man didn’t stand a chance.
Chapter 34
Daniel watched the scenery fly by at five times the speed he and Serai had been traveling on foot, and tried not to laugh out loud as Serai, sitting up front in the passenger seat, charmed the soldier. He was a young guy, not that it mattered, with short hair, freckles that he probably hated, and ears that stuck out just a little bit. Daniel couldn’t imagine there was a straight human male alive, old or young, who could resist Serai when she was being enchanting. She’d already elicited the guy’s family details (mom and dad still alive, very proud of their boy Rob), pet’s name (Izzy the cat), and favorite hobby (an obscure sport by the unlikely name of cornhole).
“You toss the small bags into holes in the wood, while drinking ale?” Serai tilted her head and smiled encouragingly at Rob, whose head almost visibly swelled.
Daniel would have been a little annoyed by the whole thing if it weren’t so damn funny. At least, i
t was funny until he remembered the day he’d first met Serai, and she’d asked him a similar set of questions, with the exact same smile on her face.
He, too, had been dazed that such a beauty was so interested in him.
Hmmm. He scowled at the driver in the rearview mirror, in spite of the armed guard sitting next to him in the backseat. Rob continued on, blithely ignoring the angry vampire sitting behind him.
Foolish young man. Very foolish.
“Are you from England? Your accent is beautiful,” Rob stammered.
“Thank you. I’m from all over Europe,” she replied, smiling shyly at him. “Do you enjoy traveling there?”
“I’ve never been out of the country, except to Mexico—well, and Canada, ma’am,” he said, abjectly sorrowful that he’d never been to Europe, just because Serai claimed to be from there.
Damn, but she was good.
“Please, call me Serai,” she said, daring to lightly touch his sleeve, just for the briefest of seconds, nothing to alert the guard in the back with Daniel who was actually paying attention to his job instead of to the beautiful woman in the front seat.
The driver actually blushed, if the way the tips of his ears turned red in the lights from the dashboard was any indication, and Daniel had to stifle a groan. If they didn’t get there soon, he was going to have to step in and put loverboy out of his misery.
It would be a public service.
The guard next to him said something into his radio and then leaned forward. “The colonel wants us to stop around the next ridge.”
“Roger that,” the driver said, suddenly snapping to attention. The colonel must be someone with enough authority to make a young soldier remember his duty, even in the presence of his dream girl.
They slowly rounded a corner and pulled to a stop in front of a barrage of lights and a large vehicle like a trailer on wheels. The front door of the trailer slammed open, and an older man stepped out. He was dressed simply in the same black uniform as Rob’s, with no special insignia to indicate rank, but the way the two soldiers in the truck snapped to attention told Daniel that this must be the colonel.
