by Lacy Danes
He could do little besides be with her to ensure that. She needed to embrace her power, and his support would allow her to. He could, however, hold her hand. He slipped his fingers into her grasp. Her energy swirled about their fingers and wrapped his wrist like a vine, then tightened. Damn, she was powerful. The scene with the boat should have solidified that in her mind, but for some reason, she still resisted.
They turned into the library. Jordan stopped short. Ferrous stood over the flame as he had when Jordan had left moments before. Madoc stood with his back to them as he and Ferrous talked.
“This entire day has been a bumblebroth.” Madoc spun about, and his great coat swirled with enough force to blow papers from a nearby stand.
“Good day, brother.”
“Good day, Jordan and Your Grace.” He bowed.
“Please do not call me such.” Celeste tightened her hold on Jordan’s fingers.
“What should I call you, then?”
“Celeste.”
“Very well.”
“Did you write the letter?” she demanded, a quaver in her voice.
“I write all the time. Which one do you refer to?”
Celeste broke from his hold and walked to Madoc. “Here.” She held out the parchment.
Madoc read the letter and then stared at Ferrous as he handed the letter to him. He turned back to them. “No, I did not invade your being and scribble those distressing words. I did bring your grandmum with me, and there is an issue, but…”
“She’s here?” Her voice squeaked with excitement. “Grandmum’s here? Where is she?”
“She is settling in the emerald room.” Madoc glanced back and forth between them. “What’s going on?”
“Hudson is joined with another entity or is transitioning.”
Jordan stepped forward. “Celeste had a vision that he killed her grandmum by biting her.”
“And the letter said she was injured.” Celeste stepped up beside him, and her energy spiked hotter.
“How did you know to come to the Isle, Madoc?” Ferrous walked around the table and stood next to Madoc.
“I stopped by Hudson’s to talk to him about our latest project. Your grandmum was in a fit. She said that you and the entire household had disappeared. Honestly, I had thought Jordan had taken you.”
Lovely. Jordan’s shoulder muscles tensed. His brother thought him a kidnapper of not only his mate but also an entire household. “Well, how capital of you, Madoc. Why would you think that?”
“You have new powers. Unknown powers. I thought maybe events had not gone as you planned. So I brought her with me to the Isle to figure this all out.”
“Enough with this.” Ferrous stepped between them. “This is not any of our faults. Hudson wants something. He has possibly achieved it. I believe he is in transition to becoming otherworldly. I have no idea what he is transitioning into.”
“A vampire,” Celeste stated as if that was a notion that perplexed her.
“How do you know?” Ferrous turned to her.
“In my vision, he attacked Grandmum from behind and then fed on her blood.”
They all looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“Well, there is folklore of this kind of thing. Novels too,” she said with purpose.
“Who is watching him now?” Madoc turned for the door. “He has always been a friend to us. I can’t imagine he would hurt us.”
“Madoc, wait!” Ferrous ran after him. “He bit me, and as far as I can tell, our blood had no ill effect on him. If he is transitioning to a vampire or other, I can’t stop that. But I know what I need to do to purge the energy from him.” Ferrous returned to the room and grasped a clear bottle filled with flakes of a gold glimmering mineral, then ran back out into the hall.
Jordan seized Celeste’s hand. “I will take you to your grandmum.”
“Thank you.” Her hand trembled as she placed it in his. They walked from the room and turned in the opposite direction from the silver room. At the end stood two large double doors. Jordan knocked.
“Come in.” Grandmum’s voice carried through the wall.
Celeste pushed down on the handle and ran into the room. She grasped Grandmum’s hands and shook them. “Are you well?”
“Yes, dear. Why wouldn’t I be? You, though, have caused me a fit of vapors. What happened this morning?” Her grandmum glanced past her to stare at Jordan, who had entered the room behind Celeste. “Oh dear.”
Jordan was relieved Grandmum appeared to be well. Quite well, actually. Her color was good, and the energy streaming off her was pleasant and powerful.
A rosy color appeared on Celeste’s cheeks. “Grandmum, this is Jordan. He—well, he and I—”
“We are arranging an arrangement, ma’am.” She would be his no matter what. “Your granddaughter and your family will always be protected by our arrangement.”
Grandmum’s eyebrows rose. “An arrangement of what sort?”
Celeste glanced at him, and he could feel her need for his presence there. “With Hudson, Grandmum. Though I admit it might all be moot at this point as his attic has gone a bit mad.”
“We all go a bit mad at times.” The lines around her soft brown eyes crinkled, and a concerned smile curved her lips.
Jordan needed to join his brothers. They were stronger together, and with Hudson acting so erratically, he needed to go now. “It is impossible to explain at the moment, and indeed, you are, of course, correct, ma’am. But I fear Hudson is more than a bit mad. He is simply no longer the same man.” What were they going to do with a duke who drank blood and…who knew what other powers he possessed? “Please excuse me. I have to check on my brothers.” Jordan bowed and turned.
“Wait.” Celeste’s voice held concern. “Are you going to check on Hudson?”
“Indeed.” He didn’t stop and continued out the door.
Celeste’s heart jumped into her throat. She couldn’t let him go alone. “Grandmum, will you be well for a bit longer without me? I would like to go with Jordan.”
“I am fine, dear, but some things are better left for men to negotiate.”
“Not this, Grandmum. Not this.” She headed for the door. Then she turned around and returned to the older woman’s side. “I love you.” She leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I am delighted you are here with me.”
Grandmum reached up and gently rubbed the side of Celeste’s neck. “Same, dear. Now shoo.”
Celeste grabbed a handful of her red skirts and ran to catch up with Jordan.
Chapter Nine
Celeste ran down the hall toward the silver room. She needed to be there to know what happened to Hudson and why she had a vision that held no truth. She was vexed, but she would do everything she could to protect Grandmum and Jordan. She could not deny the urge to help him.
When she turned the corner, Jordan stood before the silver room’s closed door.
“The door will not open.” Carmen’s voice rang like a bell in her head.
“Are you certain?”
“Try it.”
“What is wrong?” She approached Jordan.
“The door won’t open.” He jiggled the handle and then kicked the baseboard. The wood did not tremble on the hinge.
“May I try?” Celeste smiled.
Jordan laughed and motioned toward the door. “Sure, why not.”
Celeste walked up to the door and grasped the handle. Open. “Aben” came to her lips without thought.
The door glowed gold, and pain seared through her hand. She jerked back and stared into her palm. The shape of the handle had burned into her skin. The mark sparkled, and the sting slowly faded, but the door continued to glow.
Jordan grabbed her hand and gently rubbed the pad of his thumb over the glimmering brand on her palm. “Does it hurt?”
“It did. But no longer.”
“I have been meaning to ask you how you use the elements on your own.” Jordan wrapped his arms about her. “How did you learn that?”
<
br /> “I—”
The door blew inward, sucking them forward. The gray raven burst out into the hallway over their heads from the room. Within, Ferrous and Madoc stood frozen, imprisoned in a halo of iridescent light. Hudson perched on the bed. His eyes shone a solid black, and spiderlike orange lines spread from his eyes. He was a monster from a gothic novel.
Hudson waved his hand to encompass all of them. “You thought you were so smart. So strong and powerful. But see, I have power now too. I have them trapped.”
“Silence him,” Carmen screeched.
“I knew…” Hudson stared at the open door as if seeing something beyond.
“Luk munden på ham.” The words burst from Celeste’s mouth, and a shiver quivered through her in Jordan’s embrace. How had she known the words that would silence him?
Jordan’s arms tightened about her. “Luk munden på ham.”
Hudson wavered on the bed. The bedclothes tugged out from under his feet of their own volition, toppling him to the mattress. The blanket slithered around his legs and tightened, then wrapped about his chin, muffling his words.
Jordan stepped forward, forcing her to tread into the room with him. He walked up behind Madoc. “Celeste, wrap your arms about him and repeat the words after I do.”
She glanced at Hudson. He lay immobilized. She wrapped her hands about the glowing iridescent energy that surrounded Madoc.
“Løslad ham.” Jordan wrapped his hands about her and Madoc.
“Løslad ham.” Release him. Celeste repeated the words, and the iridescent light turned to blue and gold energy.
With a burst, the light that held Madoc exploded, tossing Celeste back against Jordan, who thudded into the wall.
Madoc widened his stance and tilted his head back. With a roar, fire burst from his mouth and hands. His body turned a glowing red. He spun about and charged at Hudson on the bed. “You will be purged of your daemon if I have to push it from you with force.”
Celeste rushed to release Ferrous from the energy as well. She wrapped her arms about him before Jordan could place himself behind her. “Løslad ham.” She repeated the words, and Jordan circled her with his arms. “Løslad ham,” they repeated together.
The glow around Ferrous changed from gold to blue and burst. The force knocked into her, slamming her back into Jordan. Jordan didn’t budge this time. He wrapped his arms tightly about her. “Are you well?”
She squeezed him tighter, relieved to have his strength behind her at this moment. Her mind spun from all the strange acts they’d just accomplished. “Quite. Are you well?”
“Quite.”
Ferrous rushed to the bed beside Madoc.
The bedclothes still held Hudson in place. Ferrous raised his hand above Hudson’s body. In his hand, he gripped a small glass bottle. He tipped the bottle and sprinkled a glittering gold substance onto Hudson.
Nothing happened. Hudson wiggled beneath the confining bedding.
Ferrous bit his own hand and squeezed. Blood streaked down his hand and dripped onto Hudson’s face.
Hudson turned his head away.
Madoc gripped his chin and turned his face back.
“Løs det fortryllede blod fra denne mand. Bræk obligationen fra underverden. Reparer hans menneskehed.” Ferrous squeezed his fist tighter and moved his hand, spilling his blood in the same path he had sprinkled the gold. “Reparer hans menneskehed.”
Hudson jerked.
Wind rushed in, and the candles flickered out.
“Repair his humanity,” she whispered. Is that what had happened? Had Hudson been infected with enchanted blood?
“You understood Ferrous?” Jordan whispered in her ear.
“Hmm. I suppose. Was I correct?” She glanced back at Jordan.
“Yes. What else did he say?”
“Absolve the enchanted blood, break the bond and repair the man.”
“Indeed. You have the speak at least.” His lips pressed to her cheek. He pulled away, and the warmth of his kiss settled there and stayed. Just like he would stay. Always. Needing only her. She knew that just as certainly as she’d understood the Nordic words.
A red glow came from by the bed. Madoc had shed his coat, and a large red circle glowed from his chest through his shirt. The single red crescent on his cheek glimmered brighter.
The sheets slowly unwound from Hudson, and he lay peacefully.
“He should be absolved of the presence now.” Ferrous walked to Jordan and Celeste and held out his hand to them. “We shall see if the otherworldly transition stopped as well. I fear it will continue.” Celeste wrapped her fingers about his, and Jordan encircled both their hands. Ferrous pulled them forward.
Jordan stood beside her as they stared down on Hudson.
Hudson’s skin remained snowy white and the lines around his eyes faded to brown, but the scars of their presence remained. This was her husband, a man her father had wished her to marry. A man she hardly knew. She wanted to feel something for him, but she couldn’t. She had no deep feeling for him beyond sadness. He struggled with the loss of a true love. Tears welled in her eyes and fell onto her cheeks. A love lost she could feel something for. Love was precious and had been taken from him far too soon.
“We will move him to the burgundy room, which has a door.” Madoc winked at her. “I will check in on him tomorrow, and one of us will be with him until then.” Madoc pushed Hudson’s fair hair from his face and stared down at him. He wrapped his fingers about the duke’s limp hand on the bed. They were still friends. It was evident in Madoc’s stare.
Madoc and Ferrous lifted Hudson and carried him from the room.
Jordan turned Celeste to face him and grasped both her hands in his. He smiled. She inhaled deep, and the scent of the sea hastened her breath. She truly enjoyed being with him, though she was still a bit unsure of all this elemental learning that she somehow just knew. How could that be?
“How did you learn to understand the language of the elements?” His eyes churned with the same desire they had when they swam in the water room.
How had he known she was thinking such? “I have a lot to learn, but Carmen, the woman in my mind, said she will continue to help me.” One thing she was sure of was that she could tell Jordan anything.
“As will I. But who is Carmen, Celeste?”
“I’m not sure. She told me she feels responsible for you, and that she had never envisioned what you all turned out to be.”
“The ebony woman in my visions.”
“Possibly. I never asked her what she looked like. Carmen?” she queried now.
“I am an exotic. Dark skin. Thick black curly hair.” Her voice was soft. “You did well today, Celeste.”
“Thank you.” A smile curved her lips.
Jordan regarded her. “Well?”
“Oh, pardon. She said she would be considered an exotic. Dark skinned with ebony hair.”
“She could be the woman in my visions. I saw a beautiful ebony woman with a box of stones. She performed a ritual in a great castle. Those stones could have been eggs.”
They walked from the room and down the hall toward the emerald room. “I wish to check on Grandmum. I thought I lost her…”
“Spend the evening with her, Celeste. I am not going anywhere. Not ever. To be honest, I want the next time we are together to be when you no longer fret about belonging to me while being married to Hudson.”
Celeste stopped walking and turned toward him. He was still worried she did not want him. She touched his face. His eyes were strained and tired, but the light in his eyes was not gone. He thought of her feelings and words. Her heart pinched, and she smiled all the way to her toes. She loved him. She wanted him and would not turn her back on the realization that no matter how strange this was, she had stumbled into her dream. “I do belong to you.”
He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “You do. I know that once this marriage to Hudson is annulled, your mind and energy will clear, and you will feel all that is us
.”
“I already feel that, Jordan. When we worked together to open the door and free your brothers, I felt the power of what we are. I also felt your protection and your love.” She pushed up onto her tippy-toes and placed her forehead to his. “Though I have only just met you, I am positive we are meant to be together.”
He pulled her body tight to his. “Oh, we have amazing things to teach each other, to discover and to enjoy. As soon as Hudson awakes, we will get the marriage annulled.”
Celeste pulled from his arms. “I shall see you tomorrow, then.”
He smiled down at her. “And for the rest of our lives.”
“You failed me. I should have known better than to trust a human with a task so delicate.” The deep, dark voice crept through Hudson’s mind.
“I didn’t fail you. They were all there. All of them.”
“No. Air was missing.”
“I am certain he was behind them in the open doorway. Did you not see him?”
“If he was there, the elements would have joined and immobilized them for my taking. He was not present.”
“He was! I didn’t get a chance to finish the words. That is why!”
The voice laughed. “Words are weak. Their power alone would have captured them.”
“Could you be wrong?”
“Never. There will be no second chances. You will fall asleep, and when you wake, you will remember me. I gave you this gift, and until you succeed, your manly pleasure is mine. When they ask you to nullify the marriage to the water’s mate…you may do as you wish.”
“You told me to wed her. You promised me if I did, you would take her and the brothers, and my involvement with her would end.”
“Promised?” The voice laughed. “Why would you believe me? You know what I am, as you searched me out.”
The madness in Hudson shook thin chills through him. He wanted to attack the being behind the voice. To show him that he could not deny a duke. He struggled in his bed, trying to move to no avail. Pain ripped through the roof of his mouth, and pointy teeth extended from his gums. He hissed and thrashed.
“Your transition will continue, and painfully, without my assistance. Such a shame, as I could have offered you pleasure like you have never known.”
