“Oh, that’s going to go over well,” Pia muttered.
By the time Eleanor got done chewing out Brother Ailwin, everyone was snappish.
“Right, we got off track,” I said, trying to look as badass as Alec. “But the fact remains that I will not let Bael’s power pass through me, so you might as well just give it up.”
Unhappily for my plan, Ailwin looked anything but worried. In fact, he shrugged and, with a petulant look at Alec, smoothed out the collar of his shirt. “You would destroy yourself if you were to try that.”
Alec—
No ! I forbid you to even try that. Now we will do this my way. “Let go of my Beloved and I will not destroy you,” he said in a conversational voice to the monk holding me.
“Brother Godwin would not be so foolish as to do that,” Brother Ailwin said, nodding to the spotty man who held me. “Perhaps a little demonstration of how serious I am to possess the Tool is in order. You may use her to destroy the Dark One, Brother.”
“Jesus wept!” I swore at the same moment Alec lunged toward me.
The same sense of standing in a river swept over me, and I knew the monk was pulling on the power of Bael. I also know that it was directed at Alec, and that I absolutely could not allow.
You will not sacrifice yourself for me! he yelled into my head.
I’m not going to let you suffer any more, Alec. You’ve done enough of that. I wrapped my arms around myself as the power built and built within me, wanting to escape me, wanting to flow out of me and nail Alec in the chest. I fought it, spinning it around and around inside me, trying to contain it, but knowing in my heart that I hadn’t the strength to do so for long.
Brother Godwin dropped me as I curled up on myself in an attempt to hold back the power, and sneered, “You will only destroy yourself, Tool. Release the power!”
“Never!” I panted, writhing on the ground with the agony of the still-building power. Alec reached me just as the second monk threw himself on his back, sending both men to the floor. Kristoff started forward to help, but Brother Ailwin screamed something about Pia, his dagger glinting as he jumped over the ottoman toward her.
Eleanor yelled god alone knew what, dancing around on the fringe, waving a vase and threatening pretty much all of us.
Inside me, the pressure continued to grow, pain lacing every breath as I struggled to hold it back. I felt like a stuffed potato in a pressure cooker, my entire body twisting upon itself as I screamed in anguish.
Corazon! We must Join! Now!
This is not really the moment for this!
If we don’t, you’ll die!
Jesus wept! It hurts, Alec! I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to hold it. Get out of here! If I lose control, it’ll destroy you!
Alec, whom I could barely see through the tears that blurred my eyes, was fighting like a madman with the monk. In the middle of clawing desperately at the floor to reach me despite the monk trying to bash his head on the floor, he did something that boggled what was left of my mind—rather than biting the monk and draining him of his blood, he bit his own thumb, then with a tremendous effort dragged himself and the monk toward me. Take my blood, Cora. You must take it to complete the Joining.
I didn’t argue the point. I didn’t question my need to obey his command. I didn’t even debate with myself the wisdom of taking a step that I knew would change the course of my life forever. I’d already made that choice. I rolled over toward Alec, kicking out at Brother Godwin as I did so, every last atom of my body in torment with the need to fight the power. My control started to slip just as Alec’s hand loomed before my blurred eyes. I opened my mouth, praying the few drops of blood on his thumb would be enough.
As the blood touched my tongue, the power surged within me, spelling certain death to Alec. I screamed an oath of vengeance as I made one last, desperate attempt to turn it back onto myself. “Hide!” I yelled at Alec. For the love of the saints, hide from it!
My back arched as the power broke free, pouring out of me, slamming into the man in front of me before sucking me down into an ebony pool of oblivion.
Chapter Twelve
The words came through to me as if through a dense fog.
“—think we should get a doctor. She’s been out for two hours now. Maybe she’s seriously hurt.”
“I’m not hurt,” I said, amazed that my mouth was working even before my brain was. I opened up my eyes, even more amazed that I was still alive. My last cognizant thought before my brain had shut down had been that Bael’s power must surely have burned me up and left me nothing but a crispy shell of my former self.
Former self . . . for some reason those words wiggled around in my mind until I sat up, clawing at the blankets that covered me, gasping, “Alec!”
“Is out with Kristoff dumping Brother Ailwin in the river. At least that’s what they said they were going to do. I don’t think they really would, but there are times when I just don’t want to know, and this is one of them,” Pia said, smiling at me. “How do you feel?”
“Groggy.” I put my hand to my head, surprised to find it intact. Alec?
You’re awake? Good. Are you sitting down?
Yes, I’m awake, and why on earth would you want to know if I’m sitting?
Because I intend on lecturing you for a very long time, and it would be better for my peace of mind if I knew you were comfortable during it. For the love of the saints, Beloved, do not ever do that to me again ! If I had been mortal, you would have stripped at least twenty-five years from my life span!
I giggled. Pia raised an eyebrow. “Is he giving you hell? ”
“Yes, I think he’s about to.” I laughed again.
“It’s probably best if you let him work it out of his system. I’ve found that the vampires may look all urbane and in control and stuff like that, but they get grumpy if you don’t let them have their drama queen moments. I’ll be downstairs when he’s through. I should probably check that Eleanor hasn’t gone on a rampage while I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”
All right, I told Alec, sitting on the edge of the bed. What happened? How come you escaped being fried to a crisp, or blasted into kingdom come, or whatever would have happened to you if Bael’s power had hit you?
You told me to hide. As soon as I realized we had been Joined, I threw myself out of the window.
But I saw someone get nailed.
It was the other lich the dark power struck. He is no more.
Poor guy. Should have been his boss. Hey, you went into the sunlight? Oh Alec! How badly are you burned?
I’m not now. I wasn’t much burned then, either, because the Joining was complete. How are you feeling?
I took stock of myself. Arms and legs seem to be moving OK. I’ve got a bit of a headache, though. What happened to Brother Ailwin, and are you really dumping his body into the river?
He’s not dead, although that thought is very tempting. When you collapsed and he realized that he couldn’t use you again until you were conscious, he tried to carry you out to his car. I stopped him.
There was a distinct tone of satisfaction in his voice that I knew I should protest against, but honestly, I felt Brother Ailwin had it coming to him. You beat the tar out of him?
That’s one way of putting it, yes. Kris helped a little because he threatened Pia. But he let me have most of the fun.
So now you . . . I stopped, feeling awkward and suddenly a bit shy. After all that protesting I had made about Alec being a vampire, it was a bit too much like eating crow to admit that I was willing to bind myself to him for the rest of our lives.
Yes, now I have my soul back. Thank you, Corazon. I know you did not want to do this. I know you did not want to share my life.
You know, if you were anyone else, I’d say you were fishing for a compliment, I said somewhat testily. And if you were any sort of a gentleman, you wouldn’t make me eat my hat.
He laughed.
Fine, have it your way, you obnoxious man, you. I
did it because I wanted to, not because I felt I had to. And I know you’re not really a murderous bloodsucker. Happy now?
With regards to you? Beyond your imagining.
His words, and the emotions behind them, warmed me for the next hour as Pia and I waited for the two men to return.
“Well, if this doesn’t just take the rat’s ass and make it into a hat!” Eleanor snarled, stomping into the room with Pia’s cell phone in hand. “I just called the lord in charge of the hour where I live, and he says I can’t come back. He says liches are not allowed into the Underworld.”
“Uh . . .” Pia blinked a couple of times at Eleanor.
“So now what am I supposed to do?” Eleanor demanded. “Alec would rather shack up with her than me, and I can’t go back home, where at least I had a life and a friend with benefits, and roses who loved me, not to mention the class I was thinking about starting on how to spin yarn using a drop spindle and dog hair, and now I can’t!”
“Er . . .” I said, at a loss. “What’s an hour? And there really is an Underworld?”
Eleanor sighed and slumped into a chair. “The Underworld is divided into twelve hours, each ruled by a lord. I live in the seventh hour. It is very pleasant. The lord there is English, so the hour looks like a quaint little English village with thatched cottages and digital cable TV and high-speed Wi-Fi Internet access. I won’t tell you how many of my favorite shows I’m missing on the Home and Garden TV channel, but you can rest assured that I am not happy about it!”
“Since Kristoff and I were responsible for bringing you here, we’ll be responsible for getting you back,” Pia said after a moment’s thought. “I’m not sure how we’ll do it, but there must be a way.”
“No, Alec and I will do it,” I said, turning back to Pia’s laptop, where I had been trying to find a phone number for the Guardian Noelle. “Ultimately, she’s our responsibility.”
“I really dislike being spoken of as if I’m not here,” Eleanor said with a surly look to both of us. “And I really don’t care who fixes things, I just want them fixed.”
“Want what fixed?” Alec asked as he and Kristoff entered the room.
I quickly explained the situation with Eleanor before she could unload yet another tirade.
“Ah. Yes, we’ll find some way to get you home if that is what you desire,” Alec reassured her.
She gave him an injured sniff, and kicked her heel idly against the chair.
“I won’t ask you how it went because I can tell by the looks on your faces that you got rid of Brothers Ailwin and Godwin. You didn’t do anything really bad to them, did you? ” Pia asked, immediately moving over to her vampire, her hands all over him as if to check he was OK.
Kristoff looked cranky. “Alec only let me have a couple of shots at Ailwin, so no, I didn’t.”
“I owed him more than you,” Alec replied, cracking his knuckles and looking very pleased with himself as he came over to see what I was doing, his fingers trailing across the back of my neck in a caress that had me shivering with arousal. “All we did was rough them up and hand them over to the watch with a complaint of assault, Pia. I don’t expect them to be held for long, however, so we will have to be on our way soon.”
“You’d have to leave anyway with Julian hanging around,” Pia said.
I slanted a look up at Alec, warmed to my toenails by the passion in his eyes. You can’t possibly want to—I almost killed you, Alec! How can you want to make love to me when I could be used to destroy you?
Pia is a Zorya, and wields the power to destroy Kristoff—and every other Dark One, for that matter—but it doesn’t stop him from indulging himself every opportunity he gets. Why would you being a Tool of Bael mean I should do likewise?
I shivered again at the things he was thinking. “What’s a Zorya?”
“Huh?” Pia, who had been gazing into Kristoff’s eyes, blinked at me a few times. “Oh, Alec told you about me? I’m a reaper.”
“You’re a former reaper,” Kristoff said.
“Zoryas are a group of women who have the power to call down the light of the moon. They’re next in line to the Zenith. I’m also a Zenith.”
“A former Zenith.” Kristoff was back to looking cranky as he allowed Pia to lead him over to the love seat.
“It’s all part of a wacky religion called the Brotherhood of the Blessed Light,” she said, cuddling up to him. “Better known as the reapers. They booted me from the group a month ago, which I have to admit was a bit of a bummer, because I seriously enjoyed light binding people. But all in all, it’s better that I not be the Dark Ones’ most hated enemy.”
“Merciful Mary,” I said, wondering how on earth she had ended up that way.
It’s a long story. I shall tell it to you sometime when you have exhausted me with your lustful demands.
I’ll hold you to that. Both the story and fulfilling all my lustful demands, that is.
He smiled, a long, slow, sultry smile full of much promise.
“Oh, for the love of the saints . . . if you four are going to sit there making googly eyes at each other, I’m going to go see what passes for the Home and Garden channel in Italy,” Eleanor said, stalking off to another room. “Call me when I can go back home.”
“So if Brother Ailwin is in jail—and stop looking at me like I’m insane, Kristoff, because I wasn’t going to suggest that we have him summon Ulfur after the events of this afternoon—but since he’s out of it, how are we going to get Ulfur?” Pia asked.
“We’ll find another lichmaster,” Kristoff told her, looking toward where I sat.
“I’m almost done. I found a Web site for something called the Guardians’ Guild that lists a contact number.” I scribbled down a phone number and relinquished the laptop. “Evidently you can hire Guardians through them. I wish I knew Noelle’s last name.”
“It wouldn’t do you any good if you did,” a tired voice came from the doorway.
Kristoff was across the room before I could blink, Alec right there with him. Kristoff pinned a slight, balding man with dark hair and dark eyes to the wall, Alec leaning in with a wicked intent.
“Who are you?” Kristoff snarled.
“My apologies,” the man said in a choked voice. Literally choked, since Kristoff held him up by the neck just as Alec had done with Brother Ailwin. “I should have known better than to startle Dark Ones with Beloveds in the same room.”
“Yes, you should have,” Alec said. “Answer the question.”
“I’m not sure he can,” Pia said, tapping Kristoff on the arm. “His face is turning red, Boo. You should probably let him down before he passes out.”
Boo?
It’s Pia’s love name for Kristoff. She said he scared the hell out of her when she first met us.
That’s fitting. You scared the crap out of me, too.
Your first sight of me was when I killed the woman who decapitated you. That hardly counts.
“Who are you?” Kristoff repeated, releasing the man. He was a good foot shorter than Alec and Kristoff, balding, dressed in a brown suit, but with a pleasant face despite the fact that he’d just been throttled. “And how did you get in here?”
“What did you mean about it being of no use to call the Guardian?” Alec added.
I moved over to where he stood, telling my inner devil to stop attempting a new career as a matchmaker. Unattached Beloveds were not my problem. “Just out of curiosity, do you know Noelle?” the devil forced me to ask nonetheless.
“My name is Terrin,” he said, answering Kristoff first. “I walked in. Mortal doors have never been a problem for me. It’s of no use to contact the Guardian—who I do not personally know, by the way—because she couldn’t get Diamond out of the Akasha.”
Mortal doors? So this guy is one of you?
He’s not a Dark One, no. But he is immortal. Alec considered him with interest. The name seems familiar to me, but I can’t place it, or him.
“Why couldn’t Noelle spring D
iamond?” I asked at the same time that Kristoff, in a growl, asked Terrin what he was doing there.
“I would be happy to explain both if you would allow me a glass of water?” Terrin rubbed his throat, grimacing when he hit a tender spot.
Pia gestured toward the couch. “Of course. Please come in and sit down. Do you drink tea? The water’s fairly hot still, I think.”
“Tea of any temperature would be most welcome, thank you. I have had a long journey to get here.” Terrin held up a hand, giving Kristoff a watered-down smile. “I see you’re about to object to such civilities. Would it relieve your mind if I told you that I am a member of the Court of Divine Blood?”
The who of what, now? I asked Alec, moving over to the couch to sit with Pia opposite Terrin.
“It might,” Kristoff allowed.
It is what the mortals think of as heaven. Or rather, the mortals based their notion of heaven upon the Court.
So he’s a good guy?
Presumably so.
“Heaven?” Pia said aloud, looking startled. I had a feeling she’d been asking the very same thing of Kristoff. “You’re from heaven? Are you an angel or something?”
“The Court is not heaven, although we are frequently confused for it, and there are no angels there, simply employees. Thank you, I’ll take it black if you don’t mind.” Terrin gratefully accepted a cup of tea from Pia, who gestured at me with the teapot, setting it down when I shook my head. “In answer to both questions, I am here because I have been sent by the mares to seek the help of Corazon. You don’t mind me calling you that, do you?” he asked me.
“No, I don’t. You don’t work for Bael, by any chance?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. Why would someone want me to help them if not to use my Toolness? “And how do you know about Diamond?”
“Who are the mares?” Pia asked at the same time. “More importantly, just how did you know where to find Cora?”
“So many questions,” he said, sipping his tea. “And so little time to answer them. I will explain as quickly as I can. I am unarmed,” he added to Kristoff, who lurked next to him, watching him with a suspicious expression. “And I intend no one here any harm.”
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