“Distract, distract and then distract some more. Preferably with lots of blasty, fiery magic that makes him lose his cool.”
Priest cupped the side of her face. “You’ve met my brother, mihara. Don’t underestimate what he’s capable of.”
“Oh, I’m not underestimating him. I’m just ready to give him some of his own medicine and enjoy myself doing it.”
“I’ll second that,” Alek said.
Shaking his head, Priest’s mouth quirked in a wry smile...until his gaze settled on Naomi, still silent and motionless. His expression sobered. “Give me a minute.” With that, he squeezed Kateri’s shoulder and stalked to Naomi.
“Whatever she knows, I have a feeling we’re not going to like it,” Sabina said.
“I already don’t like it,” Alek said.
Katy lowered her voice back to a whisper. “Did she tell you something?”
“Not a thing, but you know Nanna. When she sets her mind to something, she doesn’t budge, and she’s more tight-lipped on this than she was about our heritage, so you know it’s gotta be bad.”
If Alek’s words weren’t enough to confirm it, the solemn way Priest spoke to Naomi and the way he reverently cupped each side of her face and touched his forehead to hers would have cinched it.
“Garrett won’t let anything happen to her,” Tate said. “He’ll keep her safe.”
Alek stared at his grandmother, his wolf’s sharp eyes acutely focused. “Maybe from Draven, but I’m not sure how he’ll keep her safe from herself.”
“What do you think she’s up to?”
“No clue.” Alek met his gaze. “But with her there’s no telling. She’s the bravest woman I know.”
Stepping away from Naomi, Priest motioned Vanessa and her guards forward. As soon as he could speak without projecting his voice too far, he dipped his head toward the open center of the warehouse. “Naomi says it’s almost time. Elise, show everyone what to do. Vanessa, you’re behind this line at all times unless someone goes down.” He looked to the three men around her. “You keep her safe.”
They each nodded.
The rest of them moved out from behind the towering crates.
It was all the same space, but somehow moving out from behind the makeshift wall and the wards Priest had built made the moment seem more poignant. As if, in stepping into view, they were making their declaration and facing a turning point in their destiny. The air felt more stagnant, too. Thick and charged with energy like the eerie calm before a violent storm.
Elise stopped at the southern point. “Sabina, this is you.” She faced Sabina, opened the messenger bag slung crosswise over her torso and tugged the slender box covered in scarred black leather free with trembling fingers. Crouching, she motioned for Sabina to do the same. “Give me your hand.”
Sabina glanced at everyone gathered around her then back at the door they’d come in through over an hour ago. Finally, she kneeled in front of Elise and held out her hand, palm up. “Have I mentioned I’m not fond of this part?”
Surprisingly, it was Alek who moved in for moral support, dropping to one knee beside her and steadying her hand with a firm grip at her wrist. “The dagger’s sharp. Sharp enough you won’t feel the cut. Only the sting after and it’ll pass.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him like she either thought he was nuts or wanted to argue.
Elise took advantage of the distraction and sliced quick and deep along the tender stretch at the back of her forearm.
Sabina’s hiss ricocheted through the building, but to her credit held mostly still, cringing as her crimson blood dropped to the dirty floor.
“The blood of one lost, given to hold the one accused.” How loud she was supposed to project her words, Elise didn’t have a clue, but the moment seemed to call for solemnity more than pomp and circumstance, so she opted for going with what felt like a prayer on her lips. Using Sabina’s blood and her fingers, she drew the seer’s symbol on the concrete. A pear-shaped top with a long stem and a crisscrossing pattern running through it all.
Elise stood and stepped back.
Alek helped Sabina to her feet and motioned her and her three guards back behind the crates. “Keep her protected until Priest and Katy get Draven contained, then bring her out.”
From there they repeated the pattern, once for Alek at the west, and once to mark her own symbol in blood opposite him in the east. Once done, she stood and eyeballed the still open spot for Jerrik on the north point. “I’m still not sure this will work with us marking the corners out of order.”
Tate pulled her around and urged her back behind the crates. “We all talked about it. You told everyone what you were concerned about and we decided together to go with your gut. Now, let it go.”
Elise might have argued, but the intense attention Vanessa had aimed on the two of them scattered every retort. With her head cocked just a fraction to one side, Vanessa’s brows formed a sharp V and her eyes were narrowed in a way that seemed to imply a whole new set of information had just come online at once. To ignore her and keep her distance probably was the smarter move given the circumstances. The last thing any of them needed right now was a distraction, but her gut told her to try one more time. To see if she could at least start to mend the bridge between them, even if their connection proved to be nothing more than something used to the benefit of their clan.
She veered off the course Tate had set for them and stopped in front of her. “Are you okay?”
Vanessa’s eyes widened, and she glanced between Elise and Tate like she hadn’t even been aware of their approach. “Me?” She blinked a few times and shook her head as though to clear it. “I’m fine.”
No bitterness.
Just confusion.
Not exactly the response Elise had hoped for, but it was better than what she’d gotten to date. Elise nodded to the guards around her. “They’ll keep you safe. Just listen to what they tell you to do and do your best. Though, I’m hoping there’s nothing for any of us to do.”
Vanessa dipped her head, the acknowledgment so minute Elise suspected she didn’t even realize she’d given it.
Rather than create the safe distance between them as she had before, Elise turned and peered out at the open space on the other side of the crates. Tate moved in slightly to one side and behind her, his heat and his possessive hand at the curve of her hip a silent show of support.
“You brought me for him, didn’t you?” Vanessa said. There was no way she could couch her voice low enough for Tate not to hear, but she murmured it anyway, keeping her gaze locked straight ahead. “Not because you wanted to, but because you wanted to have someone to look out for him.”
She could lie. If nothing else, pointing to Vanessa’s strength as a healer would undoubtedly go further in her goal of peaceful coexistence. But lying never helped anything. Only delayed the inevitable. “I have to be prepared to help the primos and Priest. I knew you’d put everything you had into it, if for no other reason than to prove you could. Not just for him, but for everyone.”
Silence stretched out between them, broken only by the steady inhalations and exhalations of those close to her.
“You love him,” Vanessa said, her voice thick with the weighted realization Elise had glimpsed on her face. “And he loves you.”
Love.
Things had moved so quickly. So naturally she hadn’t really stopped to try and put a label on it. From the day she’d seen him, everything between them simply was. A light turned on in a room that had stood empty for years and a whole new range of emotions untapped. “He’s my mate. I’m not sure love is an adequate word to describe what’s between us, but someday you’ll know. You’ll feel it and you’ll understand.”
A low rumble sounded beyond the warehouse’s metal walls, an engine closing in.
“I’m sorry,” Vanessa whispered. Nothing more. N
othing less. But the delivery was genuine.
Tate tensed beside her. No doubt wanting to rub her apology back in her face and remind her what a bitch she’d been.
But bitterness only brought more bitterness and they’d had plenty of that already. “What you feel right now...if you heal from that place, harness it and let it change you...your life will be so much different.” She turned enough to meet Vanessa’s gaze. “I hope you can because I need someone to help me. Someone to guard our secrets and keep them safe.”
Her gaze shot to Tate then back to Elise, clearly realizing the position she referred to. “Why would you pick me?”
“I haven’t yet. I’m only saying I think you have the potential. How you choose to let that lead your decisions is up to you.”
The rumbling grew louder, idled just beyond the walls, then stopped.
The soft warning chuff of Priest’s panther filled the warehouse and the room went eerily silent.
A car door slammed.
Then another.
Heavy footsteps crunched against thick gravel and the heavy metal door at the farthest end of the building opened with a squeaky groan. Jerrik marched through a second later, a body slung over his shoulders and his gait measured and weighted as though his purpose wasn’t his own.
But then, that made sense. Outside of Draven’s attempt to overtake Priest the day he’d come with Katy and Alek to introduce Elise to her heritage, Jerrik had likely had little freedom from Draven’s presence, if any.
And therein lay the biggest risk of all. It’d been nearly three months since Jerrik’s parents had been found murdered in Blacksburg and no one had any clue what kind of impact such prolonged exposure to Draven’s dark magic would have on Jerrik’s psyche.
At nearly the center of the room, Jerrik paused, scanned the perimeter and seemed to scent the air.
Tate tensed beside her and the prickling energy she’d first experienced the day she’d tattooed her name above his heart washed over her in a warm, rippling wave.
His magic.
Protecting her. Engulfing her in warmth and comfort even as he braced for the worst.
More slowly than before, Jerrik finished his trek to the center of the room and slung the body off his shoulder. He caught the person’s head just before it hit the concrete, each movement as he finished arranging the body stiff. Fatigued and forced. As if a battle for control raged beneath the surface.
Jerrik snapped upright and spun to the back of the room. In an instant, the air around them sparked with energy. An uncomfortable electric charge that warned of danger.
Priest prowled out of the darkness. Dressed only in loose black pants, everything about him promised an all-out war. His mystic gray eyes glowing with resolve. His muscles taut and the ancient markings along his collarbone, shoulders and arms pulsing with a luminous power she’d never seen before. “Another life to add to your growing tally? How many have you taken now? Do you even know anymore?”
The evil laughter that came out of Jerrik’s body was all wrong. Deep and warped with a malevolence that raised goose bumps along Elise’s arms. “I’m not plagued by conscience like you are, brother. That’s your downfall, not mine.”
Tate squeezed her hip, a silent nudge to prod her toward her first and most important task.
She wanted to close her eyes. To feed the words with all of her healer gifts, but with Draven’s hostile spirit growing in intensity she didn’t dare. “The body is sacred. A gift of the Creator given to one spirit.”
Jerrik twisted side to side, scanning the crates for the source of her voice.
He wouldn’t find it. Not without significant work. Kateri and Priest had spent too much time on the wards that hid them and, in a few more seconds, he’d have his hands too full to focus.
Elise focused on Jerrik’s face and poured everything she had into her words. “Your spirit does not belong. It has no rights. No place inside the physical haven it’s seized.”
With a roar that echoed against the metal walls, Jerrik struck, unleashing a deep amethyst bundle of energy the size of a bowling ball into the crates along one wall.
Tate moved in front of her and murmured, “Keep going.”
Her heart pounded, and her lungs hitched at the stench of smoke and Draven’s ugly magic. “By the power given by the Keeper, you are banished. Forced to surrender the body you’ve taken and present yourself. Relinquish your hold. Form your true self.”
Jerrik spun. “Where is the little bitch? I’ll kill her, too.”
“You’d have to get through me first,” Priest said.
“And me.” Katy strolled from behind the crates opposite those Draven had destroyed with his attack, for all appearances the epitome of casual confidence. “And I’ve learned so many new things since we last met.”
Jerrik struck, unleashing another bolt directly at Katy’s head.
She dodged and volleyed with her own, Priest adding another that collided from the other direction in nearly perfect timing.
And then it was on. Magical warfare on an astounding scale. Lights flashing. Bodies moving at preternatural speed. Grunts and moans as some impacts landed and the splinter and crash of wood as others didn’t.
Tate backed up a step, bringing his back flush against her front. “Elise, finish it.”
This time she did close her eyes. Opened her hands and surrendered to the power flowing through her. Pulled on the frenetic energy swirling around them and repeated the command. “The body is sacred. A gift of the Creator given to one spirit. Your spirit does not belong. It has no rights. No place inside the physical haven it’s seized.”
Own your magic.
Own and direct it.
Feel it.
Guidance from her companion, or perhaps the Keeper, but shared with the strength of an ocean’s wave against the shore at high tide.
She used it. Channeled it. Let the magic pour through her. “By the power given by the Keeper, you are banished. Forced to surrender the body you’ve taken and present yourself. Relinquish your hold. Form your true self.”
A long, grated shout rang out. The agonized wail of a man being torn apart. The tortured sound hung in the air for all of a second, and then she was in motion, Tate tugging her forward with one hand in hers as the others rushed into place.
At either side of the building, Priest and Kateri stood with hands outstretched. Streams of deep plum magic poured from Kateri’s palms while the silver of the Otherworld beamed from Priest. The combined power swirled around a dark cloud hovering high overhead. A cage containing Draven’s dark spirit.
“Elise!”
Tate’s sharp command yanked her out of her stunned stupor. She grabbed the dagger and dropped to her knees beside Jerrik’s unconscious body. Whether it was the warriors standing guard who’d dragged him to his position on the northern side of the rite, or Tate as he’d all but hauled her across the open space, she couldn’t say. “Someone hold his arm.”
Tate was there in a heartbeat, his focus and calm burning through the shield he kept around her.
“The blood of one lost,” she said, drawing the sorcerer’s symbol in the blood that streamed to the concrete floor, “given to hold the one accused.”
As soon as the words died off, the thrashing cloud contained inside Priest and Kateri’s combined power stilled and a brilliant white light superseded the combined silver and purple of Katy and Priest.
“It’s working.” Tate heaved her upright and urged her to her own place.
Sabina stood shell-shocked in the southern position, her wide eyes locked on Draven’s dark spirit.
Alek waited opposite her in the west. Unlike Priest and Katy who had their attention trained on Draven and stood ready to intercede at a moment’s notice, his focus was solely on Elise. He jerked his head in a sharp nod, a silent command to get a move on.
&nb
sp; Her voice rang out, surprisingly clear and steady despite the ragged, thrumming pulse in her ears. “Draven Rahandras, you’re called to the Keeper by Judgment of Blood. Bound by all four corners of the Earth and by the ancestral blood of those whose lives you stole. Four souls taken. One executioner. Stand now and face the consequences of your actions. The sentence for the forbidden path you’ve chosen.”
The dark cloud shuddered and wavered, but otherwise nothing happened.
Elise looked to Tate.
He shook his head and squeezed her shoulders. “Don’t doubt it. Focus.”
She studied the cloud. Opened her gifts and let her intuition guide her. Recited the words she’d studied almost nonstop for the last five days again in her head.
The darkness lightened, then slowly took shape.
A man, the form more that of a ghost than one of flesh and blood. His arms were outstretched to the side as though bound by unseen rope and his body completely naked. Vulnerable.
Draven.
The likeness to Priest was there. The same powerful body, skin tone and nearly black hair. But anger and resentment permeated his being. Twisted what could have been a wholesome, peaceful countenance.
Draven shook his head. His body. Every movement as though desperate to dispel a swarm of insects crawling on his flesh. “No!”
“Oh, yes.” The Keeper. There was no body to go with it. Only the mildly spoken feminine voice from the Otherworld delivered with a fierceness that promised fathomless strength. “Harm done and damage inflected will not go unanswered. You willingly trespassed against the law of ultimate good. Defaced the gifts you were given and stole from me and my clan those who are precious to me. You will stand judgment.”
A low hum vibrated through the building. A living presence that imbued everything around them. The concrete. The walls. The very air in her lungs.
Draven’s back bowed, his head dropping back and the veins along his neck and shoulders popping out in stark relief. “I will not be held. My power will match yours. Surpass yours.”
“You made a sacrifice,” the Keeper said, still calm in her response. “An innocent given to bridge your journey into the darkness. One willing to offer their own sacrifice negates your powers. Will sever you from the dark. And then, Draven, you’re mine.”
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