“You mean to enslave us,” Raphael said bitterly.
“That, too,” Nick agreed. “But not all of them. Some were designed only to rip away your power and leave you helpless.”
“Your point?” Raphael demanded.
Nick could feel the hatred rolling off of the vampire and knew he was in greater danger than he’d been in a very long time. “My point,” he said carefully, “is that Marshall might have one or more of those devices. If he knows who Cyn is—and he might, you’re not exactly unknown in certain circles—he’ll know you’ll come for her. You’re the ultimate collectible, Raphael. A matched pair for his collection, a vampire lord and his mate.”
“You think he can overpower me?” There was more than a little arrogance in that question.
“I think Mathilde did,” Nick said, taking his life in his hands. “And Marshall has the manacles.”
“He also has my Cyn,” he growled.
Nick nodded. “I love her, too, vampire. Not like you do,” he was quick to add, when Raphael bared his fangs in a snarl. “But I’ll do whatever I can to see her safe.”
Raphael grunted his agreement, turning to look out the window as the SUV swerved off the parkway and onto surface streets. It wouldn’t be long now. He could almost feel sorry for Isaac Marshall. Hell was about to descend upon him. And he was just an ordinary human with a lot of expensive toys.
Chapter Eight
CYN SAT ON THE floor of the vault, her head hanging low as she leaned forward over her legs, which were crossed yoga style in front of her. Talking mind-to-mind with Raphael had been exhausting. It seemed to have drained what little warmth she’d retained, leaving her colder than she could ever remember being. But even her muddled brain understood that this wasn’t an ordinary kind of cold. It was like having a block of ice lodged in her chest, freezing her from the inside out. A fire could have been burning right in front of her, and it wouldn’t have made any difference. She was tempted to try anyway. There were matches in her backpack. But Marshall’s stupid room was filled with nothing but glass and steel, and she wasn’t foolish enough to try burning any of the wooden magical artifacts. Who knew what sort of hellish reaction that would create?
But even as the cold deepened with every minute, her mind was raging. She was so angry. Angry at herself, first of all, for being stupid enough to get caught. She’d let that asshole Marshall walk right up behind her. But even more, she was angry at Marshall for thinking he could add her to his collection like one of his crystal balls. She was also scared and not afraid to admit it. Not at the possibility that Marshall would actually manage to keep her contained. She never doubted that she’d be breaking out of here soon enough, by either her own efforts or Raphael’s. He’d tear down the building if that’s what it took to free her. What scared her was how long she might have to be trapped in here before that happened, because some of the things that were locked in here with her were bound to be malicious. She couldn’t forget that strong stench of evil she’d picked up earlier. Who knew what that was coming from, or what it could do?
She couldn’t take the chance. She had to move while she still could, had to break whatever spell, or artifact, or whatever the hell was working on her, trying to freeze her in place, and she had to do it now. Before whatever Marshall had planned for her became a reality.
“You don’t know who you’re m-messing with,” she muttered, hearing her words stutter through chattering teeth.
“Oh, I think I do,” Marshall’s smug voice answered.
Cyn’s eyes shot open in surprise. She could see the closed door from where she sat. He wasn’t inside the room with her, which meant the freak was listening, maybe watching her.
She wanted to taunt him, wanted to tell him Raphael was coming, and that he’d be sorry. But she didn’t want to give him any warning. So, she ignored him, focusing her energy instead on freeing herself. She lowered her gaze enough to see that she still held her Glock. If she could only get her fingers to move, she could simply start shooting. Even from her position on the floor, she’d hit something on the shelves, something she was sure Marshall wouldn’t want to lose. Maybe something that didn’t react well to being shot.
That was a risk, but one she was willing to take. Because Marshall would have to open the door to stop her. And once the door opened . . . she was pretty sure that action alone would break whatever hold the room seemed to have on her. Like cracking a seal, or rupturing a spell. She didn’t know anything about spells, but that imagery made sense to her. Of course, there was also the possibility that Marshall would come in shooting, but she had absolutely no doubt that she was the better shot.
A long sigh escaped her lips. Despite her body telling her that the air was freezing, her warm breath was invisible, which only confirmed her belief that this paralyzing cold was unnatural, something other than physical. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on her right hand, the one that held the gun. She forgot her aching chest, the cramps in her thighs, the fear choking her throat. Everything came down to her right hand.
Her finger twitched. She wanted to shout out loud in triumph, but even if she could have, she wouldn’t have wasted the breath. It happened again, one finger curling into her palm, and then another. She smiled. Isaac Marshall thought he’d already won. Boy, was he going to be surprised.
RAPHAEL WAS PURE rage by the time they approached Marshall’s address. It was only by sheer force of will that he didn’t tear the door off the SUV and storm his way into the house, killing everything and everyone who stood in his way. He could sense Cyn getting closer with every minute, could feel the very beat of her heart. But there was something else at work, something that kept him from using his telepathy to touch her mind. He was one of the most powerful telepaths on earth, and she was his mate. What kind of magical device did Marshall own that he could block him from reaching her?
“You’re certain Marshall has no power of his own,” he confirmed tightly, his gaze riveted on the very conventional two-story house that came into view.
“None,” the sorcerer said. “But I’d wager he doesn’t know half of what his collection can do. His ignorance is more dangerous than if he did have power of his own.”
Raphael absorbed the words, but had no comment. It was the damn sorcerer’s fault they were here in the first place. If anything happened to his Cyn, the fucker would be the first to die.
“Do I stop, my lord?” his vampire driver asked. The gate was flimsy. They could simply blow through it and be done with it.
“A stealthy approach would be better, Sire.” Juro’s deep voice rumbled from the front passenger seat. He was the only one in the vehicle who’d been with Raphael long enough to tender advice without being asked. And he was right.
“There’s a guard at the gate. Persuade him,” Raphael told the driver. The ability to manipulate the thoughts of ordinary humans was a skill possessed by every member of his security team. It would take precious minutes, but there would be no warning for Isaac Marshall.
The driver nodded and made the turn, stopping in front of the gates and rolling down his window to speak to the lone guard. Raphael didn’t listen to what he said; it didn’t matter. He focused his energy instead on seeking out the woman who held his heart and soul in her slender hands.
She was there, and she was not. That damn barrier of ice still stood between them, but there were fissures in the wall, and he smiled proudly. His Cyn was not so easily contained.
He glanced up as the wrought-iron gate glided open, and they rolled up to the house. There were no lights in the upstairs windows, and only a pale gleam from downstairs. That argued for Marshall being alone in there, but rather than leave it to guesswork, Raphael drew on his powers and searched the house for signs of life. It was a quick task. The house wasn’t that large and it was mostly empty.
“Two humans in the house. One is my Cyn, t
he other . . . it doesn’t matter who it is. If they’re between me and my mate, they’ll die.” Next to him, the sorcerer remained very quiet. Raphael didn’t trust him, but he would use him to save Cyn.
He was out of the SUV before it was fully stopped. Juro jumped out ahead of him and, placing his bulk in front of Raphael, grabbed the front door knob and twisted. The sound of the shattering lock was buried under the scream of an alarm system. Before Raphael could do anything about the alarm, he felt a wave of magic roll over him and the alarm cut off. He spun to see Katsaros moving his hand as if writing on the air. Fucking sorcerer. But in this case, it served his purpose, so he gave a sharp nod and entered the dark house, his senses wide open, searching.
“The basement,” he said and started down the hall, scanning for the right door. “Here.” He pulled the door open before Juro could stop him, but he’d barely taken a single step when the air filled with Cyn’s furious scream.
CYN SQUEEZED THE trigger on her Glock. Once, twice. It took far more effort than it should have, but the results were magnificent. Glass shattered and metal crashed as her bullets took out stainless steel supports, and five shelves of glass and magical crap smashed to the ground. Almost immediately, something changed in the atmosphere of the room, and she found she could lift her Glock a little farther. She shifted her aim and fired a second time, two rounds into the shelf next to the one that lay in a pile on the floor.
The hidden speaker gave an electronic squeal, and then Marshall’s voice came over it. “You bitch! Do you know what you’ve done? I’ll kill you,” he sputtered, and the next thing she knew, the door was opening and the spell holding her frozen lifted. Blood roared through her veins, powered by Raphael’s rage. He was close. He was here. But so was Isaac Marshall.
She stood and spun to face the door. Her limbs were clumsy and reluctant, but once more hers to control, as Marshall stormed into the room, a big Dirty Harry-style .44 Magnum held in his two pale hands. He swung the weapon in her direction, but he was far too slow. With a defiant scream, Cyn raised her Glock and started firing. Five bullets, center mass, in a nice cluster. She took a moment to admire her work, before collapsing to the floor.
“Cyn.” Raphael was there a moment later, scooping her cold body into his strong arms, crushing her against his chest. “You’re freezing.”
She smiled weakly. “I know. But it’s not real.”
He gave her a look that doubted her sanity, but he didn’t waste any time discussing it. With Juro leading the way, he carried her out of that cursed room, past Isaac Marshall’s bloody corpse, and into the main room of the basement, where she was shocked to find Nick waiting for them. He cast a worried look her way, his gaze scanning her from head to toe.
“Cyn,” he said, then turned his attention to Raphael instead. “Let me scan her. Just to be certain he didn’t do anything.”
Cyn felt almost drunk as warmth seeped back into her body, fueled by the energy Raphael was feeding her, like a transfusion of hot blood coursing through her veins. “I’m okay,” she said, practically slurring the words. “It was just all that stuff.”
“Raphael,” Nick repeated.
Her sluggish brain noted the intensity in his voice. Which was weird, she thought. Nick was usually such a playful guy. But wait. She frowned. Nick wasn’t Nick at all. He was a sorcerer, and that’s why . . . oh, right.
“They’re in there,” she said, having to really focus to put the words together. She flopped a hand in the general direction of the other room. “I can show you.” She grabbed Raphael’s shoulders, as if to brace herself to stand, but Raphael and Nick both protested at once. She started laughing. She’d done all of this because those two couldn’t get along. And here they both were, working together. She was fucking incredible.
“I’m taking her out of here,” Raphael growled, then paused. “You can scan her later.”
She saw Nick nod, then glance in the direction of the magical collection. “I can’t leave all of that to fall into the wrong hands. Marshall’s dead. There’s no telling what his heirs will do, or who’ll learn of his death and come after what’s in there.”
Her entire body moved as Raphael shrugged. “Take what you want, destroy the rest. I don’t care. But you have ten minutes to decide.”
Nick shook his head. “That’s not enough time. Go ahead. Take Cyn home. I’ll call a car when I’m finished and get back to the city on my own.”
“And Cyn?” Raphael asked.
“I’ll take care of her—”
“She is mine to take care of, sorcerer. Don’t forget that.”
Nick shook his head. “She’s yours. But I love her, too,” he added, almost angrily. “Get her out of this place, and I’ll take care—” His lips tightened with irritation. “I’ll scan to make sure she’s okay before you leave.”
Raphael nodded sharply, but Cyn just put her head on his shoulder and went to sleep.
RAPHAEL CARRIED CYN up the stairs, fighting against the urge to hold on to her so tightly that it would hurt. He needed to feed her, to let the magic of his blood wash away the poisonous taint that Marshall had exposed her to by trapping her in that room. Even he knew that the man had been a fool to confine all of those artifacts in a single room. And then, to trap Cyn in there, with her sensitivity to magic. She would have been like a sponge soaking up all of the stray energy coiled in that prison. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that much. He wasn’t a sorcerer, but he was a creature of magic, and he knew it when he felt it.
Striding over to the SUV, he climbed into the back seat with Cyn in his arms. Juro stood guard outside the open door as Raphael lifted his wrist to his mouth and sliced into his vein. Blood welled instantly, hot and dark red against his skin. “Drink, lubimaya,” he murmured, and held his wrist to her pale lips. She smiled in her sleep, and his heart wrenched. He loved her so much. “Drink,” he repeated and twisted his wrist to spill a few drops into her mouth.
She swallowed instinctively, gasped, then made a hungry, growling sort of noise that made him smile as she grabbed his wrist and latched on. Every pull of her mouth as she drank from him squeezed his heart. He lowered his forehead to touch hers, listening to the small sounds she made as she sucked his blood, drawing strength with every mouthful.
“My Cyn,” he whispered. She was safe, she was his. And she was stronger than anyone knew. She hadn’t needed him to escape that place. But rather than making him angry, it only made him proud. Proud that such a woman was his, that she loved him the way he did her. And that she needed him now. It was enough. It was more than he’d ever thought to find.
“The sorcerer,” Juro said quietly.
Raphael lifted his head. Cyn’s sucking had slowed, becoming more comfort than need. She moved his wrist away so she could lick the trail of blood from his skin, making sounds of pleasure deep in her throat that were making him hard. She shifted suddenly, pressing her breasts against his chest and stroking the straining erection beneath the thick denim of his jeans. Shit. He needed to get her back to the city right now.
Juro moved and the sorcerer appeared in the open car door. “How is she?”
“Recovering,” Raphael managed to growl.
He leaned into the car, and Raphael knew the moment he saw the blood. “Oh,” he said softly. “That’s good. Can I—”
“Do what you need to. But if you hurt her, you die.”
The sorcerer gave him a look so filled with hatred that Raphael actually found it reassuring. He could deal with Nick Katsaros’s hatred. It was honest, at least. “Hold her,” Nick said.
Raphael wanted to point out that that was exactly what he was doing, but he understood what the sorcerer meant. He tightened his grip on Cyn, both physically and mentally, anchoring her to him with the strength of the mate bond. The sorcerer held out his hand and Raphael braced himself.
He
didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t the wave of warmth that passed over and through him in a soothing caress. His eyes were on Cyn so he knew the moment she felt it, and in that moment, Raphael was so overwhelmed by raw possessiveness that he nearly struck without thinking. It took every ounce of his formidable will, of a self-control honed over nearly five centuries, for him to rein in the lash of power that would have reduced the sorcerer to a fine dust. It was only Cyn’s soft cry that finally cut through the killing instinct and focused his attention on her instead.
“Raphael?” She opened her eyes and reached up to touch his face, her fingers stroking his cheek as if he was the one who needed soothing.
“Lubimaya,” he said, not even trying to hide the concern he’d been feeling.
She smiled, or tried to. “I shot him,” she said proudly.
“You did,” he agreed, smiling back at her.
“She’s fine,” Katsaros said, then repeated it to Cyn. “You’re right as rain, darling.”
She briefly shared her smile with the sorcerer, but when she looked back at Raphael, her expression had sobered. “He wanted to add me to his collection, to keep me in that room like a stuffed doll. Fucker. I showed him.”
Raphael’s rage was too close to the surface to conceal. He really needed to kill someone before this night was over, but the sorcerer had disappeared back into the house, and unfortunately, Marshall was already dead. Too bad, that. He could have made the man’s death last for days.
Cyn gripped his hand hard enough to hurt, holding his gaze when his eyes focused on her, forcing him to remain rooted to the here and now. “I never liked dolls,” she told him intently.
“Can we go home now?” he asked her.
“Please,” she breathed, and her eyes closed. But it was simple exhaustion this time. Settling more securely on the seat, he nodded at Juro who closed the door, then signaled for the rest of Raphael’s vampires. The two who’d been in the third row on the drive out climbed in through the cargo hatch to avoid discomfiting him and Cyn, while the driver slid behind the wheel and started the engine almost before Juro had finished giving the order.
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