Master of Smoke

by Angela Knight

  Sadist.

  When he’d commented on her choice of magic wear, she’d told him he could always leave. Damned if he would, though, with her working some kind of potentially dangerous spell.

  So Tristan made a point of leering at her until she was so far gone in the magic that she didn’t even see him anymore. Then, and only then, did he pull up a chair and sit down to keep watch.

  The floor beneath her floating backside was covered with an intricate pattern drawn in golden light on the blue hotel room carpet. Apparently, the pattern was designed to act like a lens, gathering and focusing whatever magic Belle could pick up from the cat statue she cupped in both hands.

  She looked like she was having really good sex. Her glowing eyes were wide, her full mouth parted and glistening under a coat of that gloss stuff she wore. Tristan was getting a hard-on just looking at her.

  But then, he’d basically kept a hard-on the entire time he’d been working with her. When he didn’t want to strangle her, anyway.

  Tris hated to admit it, but he was actually enjoying himself. The Majae he’d worked with before had tended to fall into two camps: the hard-core professionals who acted like they had Excalibur up their butts, and the party girls who wanted to do him solely because he was a Knight of the Round Table. Maybe while lying on it.

  No thanks, he’d had that with Isolde.

  Unlike all the other witches, Belle took his crap and dished it right back with a sarcastic twinkle that made him want to laugh. Or smack her. She ...

  Belle screamed, the sound deafening and shrill. Her slim body flew out of the pattern as if hit by a cannonball. She slammed into the wall behind her, and the wallboard cracked with the impact, the floor shaking under Tristan’s chair.

  “Shit!” He leaped to his feet as Belle fell on her face, plaster dust and bits of Sheetrock raining around her.

  “Belle!” Tristan dropped to one knee beside her. His first instinct was to jerk her into his arms, but he’d been in enough fights to be wary of internal injuries. Instead he bent to look into her face and cautiously touch her slender back. Her skin felt like fine Chinese silk. “Belle?” His heart was hammering, and his mouth tasted metallic with fear. “Belle! Wake up, dammit!”

  She groaned. “Jesu, stop yelling.” The words came out as a rasp. Bracing her hands on the floor, she tried to push herself upright.

  “Stay down! I’ll call a healer ...” He reached for his belt, where a cell phone rode a clip. It was spelled to reach Arthur or Morgana at a word.

  “No, that’s ...” Belle swallowed and rolled onto her back. “Not necessary. Bastard just took me by surprise, that’s all. Threw me for a loop, but I’m not hurt. Much. I’ll have some nice bruises, though.”

  Sitting back on his heels, Tristan studied her. She looked too damn pale for his peace of mind, and he decided if she didn’t start looking better in a minute, he was calling Morgana anyway. “I gather whoever the hell it was you contacted, it wasn’t Smoke.”

  “No. I think ...” She swallowed and closed her eyes. “I think it was Warlock. And he was not happy to be pinged.”

  Tristan frowned. “What’s he doing responding to Smoke’s communication spell?”

  Belle started to sit up. He slid an arm around her back and steadied her. She gave him a what-the-hell-are-you-doing look, but he stubbornly refused to back off. He didn’t want her eating carpet again.

  Bracing herself back on her arms, Belle sighed. The deep line between her blond brows suggested a ferocious headache. “He must have usurped Smoke’s powers. God knows how.”

  Tristan frowned. That didn’t sound good. At all. “So was it Warlock you sensed when you thought you felt Smoke?”

  “No, it was definitely Smoke. I’ve touched his mind before.”

  She had? When the hell had she ... Shut up, Tristan.

  Unaware of his flash of jealousy, she continued, “Or at least, it wasn’t the same person whose mind I just touched. Warlock felt ... well, evil. And paranoid.”

  “Really? I never would have guessed,” Tristan drawled.

  She ignored him. “There was such chaos in his thoughts. I only touched him for a moment before he blasted me out of his mind like a feather in a leaf blower.” Raking her blond hair out of her eyes, Belle frowned. “Where did that pewter cat go?”

  Tristan glanced around before spotting it under a straight chair sitting at the opposite end of the room. “There it is.”

  He got it for her, and dropped it into her palms. She was sitting up again, her legs bent and crossed at the ankles, tailor fashion. She no longer looked quite so pale, much to his relief.

  “Thanks.” Belle eyed the cat thoughtfully. “I wonder if I could use it to break Warlock’s grip on those stolen abilities.”

  Tristan stiffened. “Only if you can avoid getting your skinny little butt blown across the room again. And somehow I doubt it.”

  “Skinny?” She snorted. “Hardly.” Scrambling to her feet, Belle erased the designs on the carpet with a sweeping gesture and a wave of magic, then started redrawing them again.

  Since her attention was now safely diverted, Tristan leaned a shoulder against the wall and closed his eyes in relief.

  That had been too damned close.

  David had disappeared.

  Her heart in her throat, Eva galloped down the stairs of the apartment complex, frantically scanning for him. Still nothing.

  Her mother spoke from the landing. “Oh, damn. I’m sorry I let out your cat. You want me to help you look for him?”

  Eva ground her teeth to keep from screaming, Just go! Instead she managed a relatively sane “Don’t worry about it, Mom. I’ll find him. You just go take Dad his prizes.”

  Charlotte sighed. “Yes, he’s probably going to be pawing at the ground by the time I arrive. I’ll see you later, darling.” Her heels clipped down the stairs.

  Eva gave her mother a wave, eyeing the shrubbery as Charlotte got in the car and drove off.

  “David!” she hissed when the coast was finally clear. “David, where the fuck did you go? Don’t do this to me! Somebody’s going to eat you!”

  Which was when she heard a sound that sent terror sliding down her spine on a river of ice: a growl. Low, rumbling, and savage.

  It was definitely not a house cat, and it was coming from the other side of the building.

  “Shit!” Eyes widening, Eva raced through the breezeway toward the sound. There was a strip of grass, a few spindly trees, and still more bushes between her building and the back of the next one.

  Right in the middle of all that stood a dog the size of a pony. It looked like a Great Dane with thick red fur, but the wind blowing past told a different story.

  It was a werewolf.

  Another snarl brought her head whipping around.

  A black Doberman eyed her with drooling malice, next to a German shepherd larger than any dog she’d ever seen. They were flanked by a muscular pit bull with a curly steel gray coat. All three were downwind, but Eva didn’t have to smell them to know they were werewolves. The vicious intelligence in their eyes told the story.

  Eva was changing before she was even consciously aware of calling her magic, pain exploding in her awareness as her body transformed. Damn you, David, she thought. I’m screwed now.

  David stared in horror from the shadow of one of the shrubs that stood against the building. Sable fur gleaming in the moonlight, Eva stepped back, her head swiveling frantically as she watched the four werewolves move closer.

  They transformed in a fur-ruffling rush of magic, each dog shooting upward and outward as it grew to full, powerful Dire Wolf form. If anything, they were even bigger than the werewolves he’d faced the last time.

  And David was much, much smaller.

  Magic, he thought desperately. I have to change. I have to defend her, or she’s dead.

  Panic soured his stomach, but he pushed it down. He couldn’t afford fear now. He had to be calm. He had to open a psychic path to Smoke, or
at the very least to Cat.

  “Where’s your friend, bitch?” demanded a tall, red-furred werewolf who stepped out in front of the others. “We know he’s around here somewhere.” He made a show of sniffing the air. “I can smell the little fucker.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eva said, lifting her chin in a gesture of defiance. Unfortunately, the scent of her fear came to David’s nose as sharply as a scream.

  She was terrified, and he was hiding under this bush like a coward. Yet until he could transform, emerging would only put Eva in more danger, because she would try to defend him. It just wasn’t in her to do anything else, despite the odds, despite her fear. And her courage could get her killed.

  Sick with fear, he watched the werewolves move toward Eva in a slow stalk. “Smell that, boys?” the leader purred, making a show of inhaling. “She’s scared shitless.”

  “I like ’em scared.” This from a wolf whose muscles lay in thick slabs under his black fur. “Makes me horny.”

  The leader raised his voice. “Don’t you think you’d better come out, Cat? Otherwise, we’re gonna fuck up your scared little girlfriend. And then we’ll just track you down and tear you apart anyway. But if you grow a pair, we’ll let the girl go.”

  Eva spoke up in a surprisingly deep growl, glaring at the werewolves in contempt. “Bet you feel like real men, huh?” Her voice shook, but now there was as much rage as fear in her scent. “Four of you against one woman. You sure you don’t want to go find a few more friends to back you up? I might hurt you.”

  The leader glanced at her, anger sparking in his hot red eyes. “We can handle you just fine, bitch.”

  For God’s sake, Eva, shut up! David thought in despair.

  She curled her lip. “You want me, asshole? Come get me.” It was the same doomed defiance that had led her to tryaagroin punch on the werewolf who’d transformed her. She thought she was finished, and she wanted to spit in her enemies’ faces.

  But he couldn’t let her die. Wouldn’t. There had to be something he could do. Yet he’d fought all day to reach out to both Cat and Smoke with every ounce of his will. Nothing had worked.

  “You need to learn a little respect, bitch.” The werewolves’ leader lunged at Eva, swinging out with one clawed hand. She ducked, but not fast enough. Blood sprayed from the raking blow across her lovely breasts. Striking out in rage, Eva caught the leader across his muzzle with a hard, clawed swat.

  “Oh, that’s it! You’re done now, cunt!”

  They all jumped her at once, grabbing for her wrists as they dodged her snapping jaws. A fist hit her head with a meaty thump, and their combined weight forced her to the ground. She cried out.

  Anguish knifed through David’s chest, a searing psychic pain. Unable to suppress the sound, he snarled. At that, the leader’s gray-furred head came up. Yellow eyes speared through the sheltering leaves of the bush. And found his.

  FIFTEEN

  A universe away, a creature of pure energy swirled like smoke within the spell that caged it. For endless hours Smoke had battered at the cage, fighting to escape fighting to reach the powers Warlock had stolen.

  Nothing worked.

  Smoke had called for his spirit brothers out beyond the spell cage, begging them for help. He could feel himself eroding without the body and wills of his spirit brothers to give him form.

  Warlock was trying to transform the elemental into nothing more than a power source for his own magic, and Smoke knew he wouldn’t last much longer.

  So of course that was when the pain hit—a sheering agony that tore at his soul.

  The girl. They were killing the girl.

  Both Smoke’s spirit brothers cried out in ringing rage. In that instant, the elemental realized he could use their pain as both conduit and power source. With a cry of mingled victory and fury, the creature began to craft a spell to shunt his stolen magic back to his brothers. Perhaps he couldn’t escape Warlock’s cage, but once they had the power, the brothers could rescue themselves—and him.

  It was the only chance any of them had.

  At last the spell was complete. He could feel how weak it would leave him, how helpless, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was saving his brothers. And Eva, their precious Eva.

  So with the last of his strength, he cast his spell, ripping the energy from Warlock and sending it flying back to his brothers. The sorcerer’s psychic scream of fury made him smirk.

  There, you bastard. Reap what you’ve sown.

  The werewolf leader smirked through the leaves of the bush as he spotted the cat. “Well, what have we here? Is that you, Cat? No wonder you hid.”

  “Leave him alone, you bastard!” Eva shouted. A hand cracked hard against her head, and she yelped.

  The werewolf pulled away from her, rising to his full seven and a half feet. Turning, he stalked toward the bush. Eva screamed and threw herself against the hands that gripped her arms and legs, but the wolves held her down easily.

  The leader bent down over the bush, grabbed David by the scruff, and hauled him out. Fanged jaws gaped in a grin. “So much for—”

  The magic hit David in a breath-stealing electric surge that convulsed his black-furred body. The wave was so powerful, its nimbus slapped the werewolf like a fist. He dropped the cat and staggered back to fall in a heap of stunned fur.

  David grew. Grew past man size, grew past the size of the big-cat form he’d so often assumed.

  Grew to nine feet of muscle and claws and fangs, his body given the shape of his rage by the power surge from Smoke.

  He leaped over the unconscious leader to grab Eva’s nearest captor by the mane, jerking him up and around. Claws flashed, and the werewolf howled, gutted. David grabbed the monster’s long muzzle in one hand and clamped the other over a brawny shoulder. He jerked in opposite directions. Crunch.

  The werewolf fell dead.

  With a howl of fury, the sable wolf flung himself off Eva and barreled into David’s powerful cat thighs. The two went down in a chorus of chain-saw snarls.

  Which was why David didn’t see the remaining were jump to his feet, fist buried in Eva’s dark mane as he hauled her up to use as a shield.

  David had turned into a furry Incredible Hulk—more than a head taller than any of the werewolves and half again as broad, his shoulders massive, his fangs like blades, big hands tipped in claws the length of a man’s fingers.

  And he was really, really pissed off.

  “Get him, David!” Eva screamed as he buried his fangs in the werewolf’s throat with a savage snarl.

  “Shut up, bitch!” the gray werewolf yelled in her ear as he dragged her backward. “You’re coming with me. And you’re gonna keep your fuckin’ boyfriend off my ass.”

  Oh, screw that, Eva thought, and used the move David had taught her for just this situation.

  Her clawed hand shot backward to grab the werewolf’s dick and balls, curling into a vicious fist. Testicles squirted like an overripe tomato.

  The werewolf howled, agony loosening his grip on her hair. She snapped around in the second part of the move, slamming her elbow into the creature’s sternum. He bent double with a wheeze, unable to breathe, much less scream.

  Eva promptly grabbed his muzzle in the third move of the sequence, and jerked his head up with all her considerable werewolf strength.

  There was that crunch again. When she let go, he fell, dead before he hit the ground.

  Her stomach twisted in nauseated triumph as Eva looked around just in time to see David rising from the body of the werewolf he’d just slain. Nearby lay another one who was just as dead.

  Which left the leader, still out cold from the blast that had transformed her lover.

  David grinned at her, distinctly smug. She flinched only a little at the sight of his bloody jaws. Then a sudden motion out of the corner of her eye made her whip her head around.

  The werewolf leader reeled to his feet, shaking his head, obviously still half-stunned.
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  David snarled.

  “Oh, fuck,” the werewolf said, his eyes going wide as he realized every one of his men were dead. He whirled to run.

  Eva looked away, wincing as David shot after him. The two disappeared around the corner. She heard a yip, cut off by a rolling feline roar.

  From somewhere overhead came the sound of a glass door sliding open. “What the fuck is going on down there? Do I have to call the cops?”

  Shit. Eva dove into the concealment of the Building Five breezeway. “Sorry! My dogs just killed a coyote.”

  “Well, hold it the hell down!” The door slid closed again.

  “Eva?” A voice came out of the dark, a full octave deeper than normal, but unmistakable.

  “David?” she whispered.

  “Here.” He came around the corner of the building, an immense dark silhouette.

  She went into his arms hard enough to thump, her hands closing tightly around his waist. His body felt huge—and wet, but she wasn’t in the mood to quibble over a little blood. “Oh, God, oh, God, I thought we were dead! I thought they had us for sure.”

  “Yes, well, they didn’t.” He sounded grimly satisfied.

  “I did just what you told me to do,” she said, dimly aware she was babbling and not giving a damn.

  He pushed her back a pace. “No, you didn’t, because what I actually told you to do was run like hell if we were ever in this situation.”

  “And let them eat you? Not fuckin’ likely.” Pulling out of his arms, she looked around. Dead werewolves sprawled in the dim light of the moon, blood-splattered, heads and limbs at unnatural angles. It made for a sickening sight—until she remembered that if the creatures had had their way, she and David would be the dead ones.

  “Well,” she told him, “we made one hell of a mess.”

  When Belle and Tristan stepped through the dimensional gate after she’d finally gotten the cat spell to work, the first thing they saw was a dead werewolf. The creature’s throat had been torn out, and his neck was broken.