Hours passed, ticking by slowly. Finally, though, Laila cracked open her eyes. She moaned, tugged at her bonds, frowned. Realization jolted her upright—or rather, as much as possible.
“Relax,” Jane told her. “I haven’t done anything to you that you haven’t done to someone else.”
“You’ll pay for this,” Laila snarled.
“And you’re stuck here.”
A moment passed, then another. Then, suddenly, Jane could hear the woman’s voice in her head, as clearly as she’d heard Nicolai’s. What did she do to me? Why can’t I use my magic?
Jane smiled. Well, well. One blessing at least. “You can’t use your magic because you’re in my world now.”
Laila gasped. “How did you know that?” Oh, great goddess. She has my powers. She has my powers!
“No, I don’t. I am a vampire, though.”
“Stop that!” She’s reading my mind, the bitch. I hate her! Now clear your mind. How did she become like Nicolai?
“I drank his blood.”
“Stop doing that, I said.”
Jane chewed on her bottom lip. If she could read minds, she could go deeper than surface thoughts. Right?
She focused more intently on Laila’s thoughts…. Have to escape… How do I escape without my powers? I have to steal my powers back.
She probed a little deeper. Suddenly she was reliving the episode on her kitchen floor. Except, she saw and felt and heard through Laila’s senses. Waking up to untutored fangs in her neck, weakened, unable to use her powers. Powers she’d relied on her entire life. She had taken the princess’s powers, Jane realized. That was what fizzed inside her veins.
Nicolai could absorb other people’s powers, and when Jane had consumed his blood, she must have developed that ability just like the teleportation.
She probed even deeper. There seemed to be a thousand different voices, a thousand flashes from the girl’s life. She listened and watched for the things concerning Nicolai… There!
She watched, listened. Hated the princess all over again.
“You wiped Nicolai’s mind,” she growled as she came back to the present. She was shaking. “You told him—and he thought—a healer had done it.”
Laila paled. “I’m not saying anything to you.”
“You don’t have to.” Laila had wiped his mind and bound his powers, then planted a new memory, one of the healer doing so. She hadn’t wanted him to blame her. She’d also tried to plant suggestions of love and adoration, but while she had manipulated his thoughts, she hadn’t been able to manipulate his emotions.
And now I can do so, Jane thought. She wasn’t exactly sure how to use the ability, so she latched onto every memory she could, pictured a black box and stuffed them inside, hiding them away.
“What are you doing?” Laila demanded. “Stop… What…why…?”
Jane remained silent. She worked for hours, grabbing and stuffing, grabbing and stuffing. When she finished, the cabin was dark and musty, and her body so weak she had already slid out of her chair.
She met Laila’s gaze. A blank gaze. “Who—who are you?” Panic sprouted. “Who am I?”
“Tit for tat,” Jane said with a forced smile. When the sun set, she loaded Laila into her car, drove her into the nearest town and dropped her off. She was without powers, memory and money. She would have to place herself at someone else’s mercy.
Mercy she might not find.
Jane returned home, pulled on her robe and threw herself on her bed. She pictured the tent where she’d last seen Nicolai, but…nothing happened. She tried again…with the same result.
She tried for hours, the entire night. By morning she was a sobbing mess, weak, sick to her stomach. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t return.
The curse had finally kicked in.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THREE DAYS. WITHIN THREE DAYS, Nicolai’s full memory was returned.
And now, holding his timepiece, he knew exactly what had happened to his parents. The Blood Sorcerer had launched a sneak attack, going for the king and queen first, allowing his monsters to ravage them. The hideous monsters from Nicolai’s nightmares, the ones he’d seen on the castle walkway and inside his bedroom.
Laila had it right. As the pair lay dying, they had cast separate spells. The queen, to send her children away. The king, to spark a need for vengeance. Both spells had bonded with him—and his timepiece. A gift from his parents. All their children had one. Even Micah, the youngest.
Micah, just a baby.
Now, twenty years had passed. Micah was a man. Unless he’d been trapped in a time standstill like Nicolai. And if he still lived.
Nicolai knew Dayn lived. Now that his memory and abilities were restored, so was his mind connection to the other blood drinker in the family. He could hear the turmoil of his brother’s thoughts. Could feel the man’s desperation.
Breena was out there, too. Rumor was, she was living with Berserkers. An impossibility. Berserkers had been wiped out long ago. So…where was she really?
And Jane…his Jane. Sometimes he could hear her as he heard Dayn. Distantly, the words and emotions muted. Don’t think about her right now. You’ll collapse.
He’d never gotten to tell his beloved siblings goodbye. Nor had he gotten to tell his parents. His father had wanted so badly to see him wed. Betrothed at the very least, and Nicolai had agreed to bind himself to someone. Only, he never had. Not really. He’d finally settled on the princess of Brokk, but he had never made a formal offer. And, oh, how his father had despaired.
While he could not give his father a bride—if he couldn’t have Jane, he would have no one—he could at last give his father the vengeance he’d used his last breath ensuring.
Nicolai knew he was not too late, for the timepiece continued to tick. When the hands stopped, then and only then would it be too late. But the hands were moving more quickly than they should have, meaning time was running out.
He would return to Elden, kill the sorcerer and claim his rightful place on the throne. Nothing would stop him. Tomorrow, he added. Nothing would stop him tomorrow. He could not bring himself to leave Laila’s tent. Not yet. This was the last place he’d seen and held Jane.
Jane.
You aren’t supposed to think about her.
Beyond the tent, he could hear the rest of the camp rousing. Footsteps pounded closer and closer and he knew it was only a matter of minutes before someone ventured inside again. He pictured the Princess Laila, as he had done before, cloaking himself in her image.
Sure enough, the tent flap rose and two guards stepped inside, awaiting orders.
“Leave this place,” he found himself saying. “Gather everything and everyone else and return home.”
“What of you, princess?”
“I’m staying. Now go.”
They bowed and exited, used to her abruptness. He’d been casting illusions for years, and had once teased his brothers and sisters, pretending to be them—in front of them. They had laughed, and begged for more.
The memory had his chest constricting. He would have liked to tease Jane that way.
Jane, he thought again. Her blood flowed through his veins, heating him up, making him ache and tingle. How was he supposed to live without her?
He didn’t care what she’d done in the past. How could he? She had already confessed her past to him, when he’d been imprisoned, and she’d appeared to him in phantom form.
He knew she thought he blamed her and perhaps even hated her. Was that why she stayed away? Had he failed to convince her otherwise when they’d spoken in their minds?
There’d been no other way. He’d had to convince Laila he would kill her. So even though he’d wanted to hug and kiss her and tell her how much he loved her, how there was nothing she could ever do to earn his hatred, he had glared at her, snapped at her.
She’d returned to her own time. To save him. And now, enough time had passed that he feared she no longer possessed the ability to trav
el here. Or was the curse keeping her there? The curse he’d thought he’d overcome. Oh, yes, he realized. There was his answer.
He stalked to Jane’s bag and dug inside, withdrawing the book. He’d flipped through the blank pages a thousand times already. Each of those thousand times he’d imagined casting another spell, one to bring her back to him.
Yet, how could he make such a spell work? How could he circumvent the curse that separated them? So far he had not…thought of…
A way.
Heart galloping, Nicolai found a pen, sat on Laila’s lounge and started writing….
TWO WEEKS LATER, JANE returned from her midnight jog and found a box on her porch. The same box she’d found before. She knew what rested inside it and gulped.
Not a day had passed that she hadn’t thought about Nicolai, cried for him, prayed to see him again. She found herself racing up the porch steps, grabbing the box and shoving her way inside the cabin.
Every day she’d changed a little more. She still ate food, still needed it, but she also needed blood. Her midnight jogs, which she no longer needed to work the stiffness out of her muscles because her muscles didn’t get stiff anymore, had become snack time. The deer ran from her, but like a lion with a gazelle, she always caught one.
The biggest change of all? She was pregnant. She’d realized the truth only a few hours ago, and had been in a shocked daze ever since. She should have figured it out before now, having spent the past several mornings vomiting. More than that, Nicolai’s blood had healed her spine and legs, so why not her reproductive system, too?
She wanted to see Nicolai, needed to tell him. Had to make love with him, laugh with him, hold on to him and never let go.
The bookbinding creaked as she opened the front flap. There was a tattered pink ribbon—from one of her robes, she realized, her eyes filling with tears. Heart pounding against her ribs, she mentally read, her voice too wobbly to speak.
“My name is Nicolai, and I am the crown prince of Elden. I will become king the day I kill the Blood Sorcerer. And I will kill him. After I tell my female that I love her.”
She swiped at her burning eyes.
“I will always love my Jane, and I am miserable without her. She thinks I despise her, but for the first time in her life, my too-intelligent woman is wrong. I did and said what I had to only to save her life.”
“I know,” she managed to work past the knot.
“Her life is far more important to me than my own.”
The words swam. Again, she swiped at her eyes.
“But she is cursed. Cursed to lose the man she loves. And she has. She’s lost him. Absolutely. But now…now she can find him again. If not through magic or abilities, than with her mind.”
Jane wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist, trembling, hopeful, joyous, excited and scared. Scared, because Nicolai was offering her the world, but she had no way to tell him.
“Come back to me, Jane. Please. Come back to me. I await you. I will await you forever.”
The rest of the pages were blank.
Oh, Nicolai. I want to. I want to so badly. She stood on her shaky legs and walked, trancelike, into her shower. She sat and let the water pour over her, clothes and all. Nicolai wanted to see her, but she couldn’t return. Every time she tried, she destroyed a little piece of her soul.
And yet, she gave it another try.
She closed her eyes and pictured the tent. Just like before, nothing happened. Just as she’d feared. She tried again. And again. And again. Only when the water was cold as ice did she emerge from the stall. Don’t give up hope. There’s another way. Yes. Yes. With her mind, he’d said.
Her mind.
The next evening, she gathered all the necessary tools for transfer. Crudely, quickly constructed, but hopefully adequate. She donned her robe and placed the sensors of the machine along her bedposts. Trembling, she stretched out on her mattress, flipped the switch and closed her eyes. If she died because of this, okay. If she hurt herself, whatever. She refused to allow fear or anything else to stop her from doing whatever was necessary to reach her man. Refused to deny her baby the chance to know a father’s love.
A slight buzzing in her ears. Sickness in her stomach. Her machine could work, she reminded herself, and had worked with plastic.
I’m not plastic. Oh, God. Jane pictured her destination, trying to use Nicolai’s ability alongside the man-made appliance. Several seconds ticked by. Seconds that felt like separate eternities. Finally she felt her body begin to heat…heard the buzzing increase in volume…felt the bed disappear from beneath her… Heat…more heat…
Buzzing, gone. Nothing. She was nothing.
“JANE. SWEETHEART.”
Nicolai. There was his voice, so close. Panting, she pried her eyelids open, and she saw that she was lying on the floor of the tent, Nicolai looming over her, his hands wrapped around her arms as he shook her.
She’d done it. She’d crossed over. Traveled to him, her mind the guide.
“Jane,” he said on a sigh of relief. There was no need for more words. Not yet.
An instant later they were kissing and pulling at each other’s clothes. In seconds, they were naked and falling to the floor. No preliminaries. Nicolai shoved open her legs and thrust deep. Thrust home.
Jane cried out, already wet for him, needing him like she needed air to breathe. He pounded in and out, pushing her to heights she’d only dreamed about these past two weeks.
Her nipples rasped his chest, sparking a fire. An inferno. Spreading through her, consuming her, and she erupted, screaming, screaming, clutching at him, scratching his back. And then his fangs were in her neck, and he was drinking, and she was climaxing again, angling her head and biting into his neck.
He roared as she drank him down, bucking against her, going even deeper, and soon shooting inside her. Glorious, necessary, life affirming.
When he collapsed against her, she held on tight. She didn’t think she’d ever been happier. She was with her man, her love, the future bright.
“You got the book,” he said, planting little kisses along her jaw.
“Oh, yes. Thank you for sending it. I couldn’t get here. I wanted so badly to come back to you, but I couldn’t move from one location to another in a blink anymore.”
He propped his weight on his elbows and peered down at her. “Thank you. Thank you for coming back.”
“My pleasure.” She cupped his cheeks. “You’ll be happy to know Laila is now in the same position she placed you in.” She’d watched the news. Laila had been found, her image flashed, calling for anyone who might know her. And until someone claimed her, she’d been locked in a mental institution for the violently insane.
“I don’t care about her. How are you?”
“Good.” Now. “I have something to tell you.”
He lost a little of his good humor. “You look worried. Jane, you can tell me anything. I will never hate you. Never turn away from you.”
“I… Do you remember when I told you I couldn’t have children?”
He nodded, his brow furrowed.
“Well, I can.” A smile grew. “And I’m going to. I found out a few days ago. We’re going to be parents.”
His mouth fell open, snapped closed. Fell open again. “Jane…I… Jane!” With a whoop, he leaned down and kissed her again. “You are sure?”
“Yes.”
Another kiss. “Are you happy?”
“Yes.”
“Me, too.” His smile was radiant. “Oh, Jane.” He kissed her again and again, his hand constantly rubbing over her still-flat belly. “I love you, and want you with me. Tell me you’ll stay. Tell me you’ll live with me. Marry me.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” She laughed, hugging him tight. “In case you don’t understand, yes means yes.”
He chuckled against her lips. “I must still return to Elden.”
“And so you will. With me. I adore you, Prince or King or whatever you are!”
“A
s I adore you, Jane. My heart and my queen.”
“Good.” She cupped his cheeks, loving him more with every minute that passed. “Now let’s go to Elden and kick some ass.”
THE DARKEST ANGEL
CHAPTER ONE
FROM HIGH IN THE HEAVENS, Lysander spotted his prey. At last. Finally, I will end this. His jaw clenched and his skin pulled tight. With tension. With relief. Determined, he jumped from the cloud he stood upon, falling quickly…wind whipping through his hair…
When he neared ground, he allowed his wings, long and feathered and golden, to unfold from his back and catch in the current, slowing his progress.
He was a soldier for the One True Deity. One of the Elite Seven, created before time itself. With as many millennia as he’d lived, he’d come to learn that each of the Elite Seven had one temptation. One potential downfall. Like Eve with her apple. When they found this…thing, this abomination, they happily destroyed it before it could destroy them.
Lysander had finally found his.
Bianka Skyhawk.
She was the daughter of a Harpy and a phoenix shape-shifter. She was a thief, a liar and a killer who found joy in the vilest of tasks. Worse, the blood of Lucifer—his greatest enemy and the sire of most demon hordes—flowed through her veins. Which meant Bianka was his enemy.
He lived to destroy his enemies.
However, he could only act against them when they broke a heavenly law. For demons, that involved escaping their fiery prison to walk the earth. For Bianka, who had never been condemned to hell, that would have to involve something else. What, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he’d never experienced what mortals referred to as “desire.”
Until Bianka.
And he didn’t like it.
He’d seen her for the first time several weeks ago, long black hair flowing down her back, amber eyes bright and lips bloodred. Watching her, unable to turn away, a single question had drifted through his mind: Was her pearl-like skin as soft as it appeared?
Forget desire. He’d never wondered such a thing about anyone before. He’d never cared. But the question was becoming an obsession, discovering the truth a need. And it had to end. Now. This day.
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