by Donna Grant
And for the few minutes on the ride up to the penthouse, Elle let herself daydream. It was delicious, too. In her daydream, she was a woman that Roderick wanted for his own, a woman he had gone to great lengths to procure. She would give herself fully to him and find a man that knew how to treat her like a lady and give her excitement and love like no one ever had before. And since it was her daydream, the sex would be the most explosive she had ever experienced. The passion would consume them both, and the need for each other would grow each time they shared their bodies.
She had to admit it was even better than a romance novel if she did say so herself.
The elevator chimed their arrival, jerking Elle out of her daydream. She took a deep breath as the doors opened. Just as she was about to step out, Val put a hand out to stop her.
She watched as he went ahead, and Roderick kept the elevator doors open. When Val had made sure no one lurked in the hallway, Roderick took her arm and led her out of the elevator. There was tension about them that let her know absolute quiet was necessary for survival.
“Stay behind me,” Roderick whispered as he raised his flail.
Elle glanced at the two wicked looking spiked balls about cantaloupe sized hanging from chains attached to a thick wooden bar with grooves for his fingers. On the handle were the most beautiful Celtic knotwork she had ever seen. There was something different about it, magical almost. Her eyes went to the spikes and noticed they were varied sizes, some as long as three inches.
She would hate to encounter that weapon if it came at her, and by the way Roderick handled it, he was a master at it. Her feet took her a step back to put more distance between her and the ferocious weapon.
Val walked into the apartment first, his boots soundless on the marble. Elle peeked around Roderick’s wide shoulders and saw Val motion for them to enter.
Elle wasn’t one of those people that liked danger. When she visited the Six Flags theme park, she didn’t even ride anything. She liked her adrenaline to stay just the way it was. And yet, here she was walking behind two warriors from another time and realm to see if any evil lurked in wait for them.
A shiver raced down her spine, as though to warn her that her life was about to change.
Glass littered the floor, and furniture was overturned. Elle couldn’t believe the damage to everything as she glanced around the apartment.
“What a mess,” she mumbled as she picked up one of the glasses she and Roderick had drank from just the evening before.
Val disappeared into the hallway while she and Roderick stayed in the front rooms. Roderick went onto the south balcony and looked around. The wonderful part of having the penthouse was the four balconies on each of the four corners of the building.
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Elle, not knowing what else to do, stood in the center of the living room and watched Roderick walk from the south balcony to the east balcony.
Her eyes followed the flow of his muscles as they bunched, stretched, and flexed.
It should be against the law for a man to look that good, she thought to herself.
“Nothing and no one is here,” Val said as he returned from the hallway. “They found the hidden doorway.”
Roderick closed the balcony door behind him and nodded. “I assumed they would. They followed the stone.”
And suddenly it hit Elle. “If they came after me because of the stone, wouldn’t they go after Jennifer?”
Roderick’s
eyes
stared
hard at her. “Aye.”
Elle sank onto the sofa, her head in her hands. Jennifer wouldn’t survive. Alex might be good sized, but he was no Roderick.
Her best friend and the only family she had was going to die.
“This can’t be happening. Jennifer won’t know that the necklace controls them.”
“The Harpies will tell her,” Val said as he came to stand at the end of the sofa.
She looked up into his pale green eyes, his long, light brown hair pulled away from his face in a ponytail. He didn’t try to hide the condemnation in his gaze.
“What are you saying?” she asked him as she rose to her feet.
Roderick walked until he stood beside Val. “Have you ever thought that she might have something to do with them?”
Elle laughed and shook her head. “Why would she? Jennifer only thinks about her career and Alex. Trust me, I’ve known her for nearly fifteen years.”
“The stone does odd things to people,” Val said. “It can turn a good person bad.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” she told the warriors. “Alex, her boyfriend, found that necklace and picked it out as a birthday present for me. They bought it in Galveston.”
Roderick took a step toward her. “Where?”
“I have no idea. You don’t ask someone that when you receive a gift.”
“Val,” Roderick said.
“I’m going,” Val replied and dashed for the door.
Elle was becoming more confused by the minute. “Where is he going?”
“To see if that necklace was indeed purchased in Galveston.”
“He’ll be searching for days.”
“Nay. He’ll return in a few hours with an answer.”
“And until then?” she asked. “Do we wait around here?”
He turned his dark blue eyes on her. “There is no place I would rather be. Our weapons are here, which means this is our best defense.”
“All right,” she agreed. “But I can’t just sit around. I need something to do.”
For the first time that morning, she saw a hint of a smile on his wide lips. “How good are you at research?”
“The best. It’s what I do at the museum.”
“Great,” he said and took her hand as he led her into another room.
Elle tried to ignore the ripple of pleasure he caused by holding her hand. She kept telling herself it meant nothing, but she couldn’t help but wish that it did as her eyes A KIND OF MAGIC
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soaked up his naked torso.
“We will be able to find information in here on the Harpies,” Roderick said as they entered the library.
Elle stared in shock at the fourteen foot ceilings that were lined from floor to ceiling with rows upon rows of books. “Good grief,” she mumbled and ran her hand along the spines of the books.
“It’s impressive,” he admitted. “Aimery thought it best we have this library to help us locate anything we might need.”
“There are a lot of books here, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be the right ones.”
“It’s a start though.”
Elle turned to him and smiled. “Aye, ‘tis.”
She thought he might have chuckled, but she was too far away to tell. “Let me know if you need anything,” he said as he headed toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To gather our weapons and change. I’ll just be down the hall.”
After he closed the door behind him, Elle let out a loud sigh. Light shown from two windows on the wall where the books only went up halfway, the other half was all windows. She could get used to living like this.
As she scanned the books, she noticed most of them pertained to ancient monsters or creatures that were told of in myths and legends. She decided her first place to start was looking up Harpies in a text dedicated to the monsters in Greek myths.
By the time Roderick returned two hours later, Elle had discovered quite a lot about the Harpies.
“I see you have found some information.”
She nodded as she glanced up and saw him in black leather pants, but not the shiny leather she was used to. These were soft, almost like suede, and what looked like a dark padded jerkin for a shirt. A quick look down showed her boots that she had only seen from Medieval times.
“I took a Greek/Roman mythology class in college, but there is stuff in her
e they never covered.”
“Such as?” he asked as he sat opposite her in the large leather chairs in the middle of the room.
“Mythology calls them daughters of Electra and Thaumas. They were most often sent by the gods to punish people.”
“I don’t suppose you found anything on how to kill them?”
She shook her head. “Not so far. From what I’ve read their wings are made of metal, but I don’t recall hearing that sound when they attacked.”
“It was hard to hear anything over their screams.”
She shifted books around until she found what she was looking for. “This book says their screams are semi-human and gives warning to their victims only at the last moment,” she read and then handed the book to him.
Once he had read the passage and the notes she had made, he sat back and locked his fingers behind his head. “The Harpies are near impossible to kill when all three are together. If we can separate them, we might have a chance.”
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“There are three of us.”
He shook his head. “You couldn’t hold them longer than a heartbeat. What we need are more Shields.”
“Can’t your Fae friend bring more?”
“I wish it were that easy, but there are only a handful of us left, and we are needed elsewhere. Only Val and I could be spared to come here.”
“Then I’ll have to do the best I can.”
Roderick had the almost uncontrollable urge to reach over and pull Elle into his lap to ravage her lips. She had no idea what she was talking about facing, but she was willing to face it to kill the Harpies.
“Thank you for being so brave,” he said as he scooted to the end of the chair, “but you will be needed once all of you are found.”
“For what purpose?”
“’Tis been said that you hold a key to the entity distributing the stones. You and the others are the means to ending the evil.”
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Chapter Ten
“But I don’t know anything.”
Roderick could feel her fear and uncertainty. “Together you all will. Until then, it is imperative that you stay alive. Originally, there were twelve infants sent to Earth, six boys and six girls. All the boys and one of the girls are dead. Only five of you remain, and we are unsure with only five of you that we will discover the answers we need.”
“And if we don’t know the answers?”
He rose to his feet and put his back to her. “Let us think about the Harpies for now.” He had no wish to think what it would mean to his realm if Elle and the others didn’t have the answers. They had to have the answers. He had lived with his sin for too long, and his people had suffered for too long for there not to be a solution.
“Roderick?”
He jerked at his name and turned toward her. “I know this is hard for you, but I need you to trust me and Val. We will keep you alive.”
Before she could respond, he heard the door to their home open and close. A moment later the door to the library opened, and Val and Aimery stepped inside.
“What did you find?” Elle asked as she came to stand beside him.
“No one in Galveston ever sold that necklace,” Val said.
“You must not have checked every store.”
“We did,” Aimery said softly.
Roderick glanced at Elle to see her face crumble.
“No,” she cried, unconvinced. “Jennifer told me Alex found it in a shop in Galveston, and they went to buy it.”
“They could have lied,” Roderick said.
She turned her pale blue eyes on him, and the anger and confusion tore at his gut.
He remembered seeing the same look in his sister’s eyes, a look he had hoped to never see again.
“Jennifer wouldn’t lie to me.”
Aimery stepped forward. “Tell me, Elle, has Jennifer never lied to you before?”
Roderick wanted to punch Aimery for crushing Elle like he had just done. Her face fell as her eyes shown with tears, but she held them back.
She was much braver than he gave her credit for.
“With the stone now missing, I think I should take Elle with me to keep her safe,”
Aimery said to Roderick and Val.
Roderick knew it was a wise decision, and it would be one less distraction for him and Val, but he felt responsible for Elle now.
“I won’t go,” Elle said loudly. “I lost the necklace, and I will get it back.”
Aimery’s brow furrowed. “Haven’t you listened to anything Roderick has told you? There are only five of you left. We need you to survive.”
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“Roderick will keep me alive.”
It surprised him how her words pleased him, and the fact she had such faith in his abilities. It had been a long time since anyone had put that much devotion and trust in him.
Aimery shook his head. “Roderick needs to concentrate on finding a way to kill the Harpies, not worry about keeping you alive.”
“I’m not going,” Elle declared.
Roderick watched her walk from the library, leaving him with Aimery and Val.
He returned Aimery’s stare, knowing the Fae commander was about to give him a piece of his mind.
“Is there something going on between you two?” Aimery asked.
Roderick crossed his arms over his chest. “Why ask me when you can dig through my thoughts and discover for yourself.”
“I already have. I want you to answer me.”
His words stunned Roderick. If Aimery had already seen the answer to his question, why then did he ask?
“Nay.”
For several heartbeats Aimery didn’t move. Finally, he gave a small nod of his head. “I will leave her, but only because I cannot shift her through time without her agreement. Convince her to come with me, Roderick.”
And with that, Aimery vanished.
“Nice mess we’ve found ourselves in,” Val grumbled.
“It always is.”
* * * *
Elle stared out over the city she had called home for seven years. It wasn’t because she loved the city, in fact, she preferred a nice quiet small town, but she had needed to escape after high school, and Houston had been the closest place.
She couldn’t complain. She had gotten a decent job to work her way through college at the University of Houston and had managed to land a job at the museum, which she loved. The job supplied her with a nice income, which allowed her to buy her house. It wasn’t much, but it was better than an apartment.
And despite her home and her job, she could easily leave this town and not look back. It was crowded, noisy, and could be downright dream crushing on occasions, much like any large city.
“Elle?”
She jerked slightly at hearing Roderick’s soft timbre. She hadn’t even heard him enter the living room.
“Don’t try to convince me to go with Aimery,” she said before he had a chance to open his mouth. “I need to fix this.”
She felt more than saw him stand beside her. “I understand,” he said.
“You do?” she asked as she turned to look at him.
He nodded. “There are times in a person’s life when they need to take a stand and mend a wrong. I suppose now is your time.”
“And if I die?” She didn’t want to think about it, but she was curious as to why A KIND OF MAGIC
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he had given in so easily. “You and Aimery keep telling me it’s imperative that I stay alive since there are only five of my kind alive.”
“True,” he said and looked out the large two story windows. “I cannot promise that you will live, but I will do everything I can to make sure you do.”
She studied his profile a moment. “That’s all I can ask.”
“Aimery isn�
��t going to like this,” Val said from the hallway.
Elle turned to him. “I need to do this, Val. Will you help us?”
He smiled, a smile she was sure had melted many hearts. “Of course. I just had to say the obvious. There is no way I would allow Roderick to do this alone. We are brothers, warriors.”
Val looked from Elle to Roderick. “’Tis time to go ahunting.”
