Blood of the Sorceress

by Maggie Shayne

  “Don’t do it!” Lilia screamed. “He’ll kill me anyway. Don’t let him kill you, too! Think of Tomas and Ryan. Think of our mother, of Ellie.”

  But they came anyway. Demetrius saw them rushing forward, leaving four thugs picking themselves up off the ground in their wake. Damn, no, seven. Three more were straggling in from behind some rocks.

  Demetrius did his best to keep pressure on his bleeding thigh and tried to come up with a plan to save the women. But he was sorely afraid he was out of ideas.

  17

  Lilia stood beside her sisters on the edge of the cliff. A man in black stood at her back and another was behind each of her sisters, awaiting Sindar’s command to push them over. Her hands were tied behind her again. As were theirs. Her love lay on the ground bleeding, straining to help her, suffering more than she was. And she understood why. It would be easier to die herself than to watch him murdered at the hands of a madman. She was sorry for his pain, and even more sorry that they hadn’t had the chance to be together as they should have been.

  Goddess, she couldn’t believe it had come to this...again.

  “Cast a circle,” Lilia said. “Cast it around all of them. Maybe we can break the spell he put on his minions.”

  “I don’t think there’s time,” Magdalena said, and closed her eyes. “I love you so much, Ryan,” she said, just as if he were standing right there. “I wish you were here so I could tell you how much.” Her voice broke on a sob, but she forced herself to go on. “Take care of Ellie. Don’t let her forget me. I love you. I love you both so much.”

  “I love you, too,” Ryan said softly. Lilia gasped and almost turned her head, but he added in a harsh whisper, “No, don’t look back and give us away.”

  “No, don’t do that,” Tomas said from her other side. He was the masked figure standing behind Indira.

  “No matter,” said a raspy voice in Lilia’s ear. “I’m gonna give us away right now.”

  “Gus?” she whispered, feeling him undo the ropes around her wrists.

  “The hour is at hand!” Sindar shouted with delight. “Push them over on my word.”

  “Ladies, get away from the edge, and do it now,” Tomas said, and he wasn’t bothering to whisper anymore.

  “Now!” Sindar cried.

  Tomas and Ryan turned around to face Sindar, yanking off their masks.

  Sindar’s eyes widened as Lilia clasped hands with her sisters and they raced away from the edge, toward Demetrius. He was on his feet. He’d somehow managed to undo the knots binding his wrists and tie the rope around his leg to staunch the blood flow. But the wound in his belly was still seeping.

  Three men stood now against Sindar and his four remaining thugs, though Lilia thought Demetrius looked as if he would collapse at any minute. And one still stood near the cliff with his back to them all.

  Gus.

  “Kill them all!” Sindar commanded, and the fight was on.

  Demetrius, Tomas and Ryan fought side by side. Just as Lilia and her sisters were about to jump into the battle, Gus joined them, his mask still on, and took Lilia’s hand. “Come with me,” he told them. “Trust me, this is about to end. Come.”

  They frowned at each other but followed as he climbed up on top of the boulder Demetrius had been leaning against, then bent down to offer them each a hand up. When they were all standing there with him, he took off his mask at last. Lilia caught her breath, because he looked very different.

  His hair was darker, gleaming, and his face had lost its wrinkles but kept its fine chiseled structure, strong jaw, proud nose. His salt-and-pepper brows were jet now, and thicker. He didn’t look old anymore. He looked...

  “Oh, my Goddess,” Magdalena said. “He looks just like—”

  “Balthazorus?” Indy asked.

  He smiled at them, then shouted in a booming voice that rang from the rocks and seemed to fill the entire gorge with its power. “Sindar! Heed the words of thy King!”

  The fighting ceased as everyone below stared up at the spectacle on the rock. Demetrius’s jaw dropped, and he took a few halting steps forward. “Gus?”

  The King smiled warmly, but his smile died when his gaze fell on the gaping high priest.

  Sindar fell to his knees beneath the power of that gaze, then prostrated himself. “My King, oh, my King! I avenged you once, my liege, and now I do so again.”

  “I never asked you to avenge me, Sindar.” Gus—Balthazorus—told the women to remain where they were, then leapt nimbly down from the boulder. He walked right up to Sindar and, staring at him sadly, shook his head. “When my friend and trusted soldier slit my throat, and the life spilled out of me, my final thought was—”

  “I’m sorry I betrayed you. I’m sorry I...I killed you, Gus,” Demetrius said, lurching forward, but the King held up a hand to stop him, never breaking eye contact with Sindar.

  “My final thought was that it was no more than I deserved. I had overreacted. Demetrius was my best friend. I should have given him Lilia with my blessing. But I was an arrogant man with an enormous ego, and I couldn’t overcome that. At least not in time.”

  “B-but, my King, these witches betrayed you.”

  “They fell in love. That had nothing to do with me, Sindar. But you...all this evil you’ve done in my name. On my behalf. That has everything to do with me. And it ends now.”

  “You said you would never know peace until things had been made right!”

  “Which is what I’m doing right now.” Balthazorus nodded at the four thugs, and then at three more who were coming into the clearing from the brush nearby, wearing Tomas’s, Ryan’s and Gus’s former clothes. “Release these men from your thrall, dark magician.”

  “B-but—”

  “I command it.”

  Looking stricken, Sindar waved a hand, and the thugs started blinking and looking around as if they had no idea where they were or how they’d gotten there.

  “That way,” Gus told them, pointing down the trail. “Go.”

  They hustled to obey, looking as puzzled as if they’d awakened on another planet.

  “I thought I was doing what you wanted,” Sindar whimpered.

  “You knew me, Sindar. I was a good king, a decent man. I never would have condoned the evil you’ve done in my name. Never.”

  Sindar began backing away, but Gus kept right on talking. “You killed innocents. You menaced a baby. You stripped a man of his soul. You need to revoke the spell you cast on Demetrius, the spell that has kept you trapped in this darkness all this time. You need to let go, Sindar, and move on into the afterlife your dark magic has kept at bay. And you need to do it now.”

  Lowering his head, Sindar took one last step backward and went over the edge. The only sound came from his robes flapping in the wind—until the splash when he reached the shallow stream at the bottom.

  Lilia didn’t feel even a hint of sorrow for him.

  Then Gus went to Demetrius and wrapped his arms around him in a powerful hug. “I wronged you, my friend,” he said.

  “I wronged you far more,” Demetrius told him. “I never meant to love her. I never meant to kill you. I’m sorry, Balthazorus.”

  The King clapped him on the back heartily, then stood back and looked him in the eye. “You saved me from the fire. That put you ahead on good deeds. This one makes us even. And please, for crying out loud, call me Gus.” A smile split Demetrius’s face as Gus released him and turned to Ryan. “My son,” he said. “I’m so proud of you.”

  The two men embraced, and when they separated Gus waved a hand toward the women, who still stood atop the boulder, high above the gorge. The wind lifted their hair, and they gazed down lovingly at the men in their lives. In their hearts.

  “Are they not the most beautiful women in all the land?” Gus asked.

  “And the most powerful,” Demetrius said.

  “And the most loving,” Ryan put in.

  “And the most amazing,” Tomas said.

  “Ahh, that they
are. And they are yours. Take good care of them, my friends.”

  And with that Gus turned away and started walking down the trail.

  “Wait, Gus! Where are you going?” Lilia shouted, as she and her sisters jumped off the rock and ran after him.

  He turned and smiled at her, at all of them, looking more like the old Gus again. “I am going to live like the king I am, thanks to Demetrius.”

  He continued on his way. Tomas came up and wrapped Indira in his arms. Ryan swept Lena up for a passionate kiss.

  Demetrius and Lilia stood facing each other for a long moment, lost in each other’s eyes. And then, together, they moved closer. She lifted tentative fingers, to touch his face. “I—”

  He stopped her with a soft, light kiss. And then he said, “I think it’s my turn to say it. I love you, Lilia. I’ve loved you for thirty-five centuries. Maybe longer. I lost myself for a while, but I never lost that. It’s what made me rage and rant in the Underworld, though I didn’t know it at the time. It wasn’t being imprisoned that was driving my fury. It was being kept apart from you. You never held a piece of my soul in your heart, you know. You held all of it. You still do. And you always will.”

  Her tears flooded over. “I’ve waited so long...so long for this.”

  “The wait is over, my beautiful Lilia.” And then he kissed her the way he’d been wanting to. Long and deep and passionately.

  Epilogue

  “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” Selma asked, after hugging them one by one and confiscating Ellie from her adoring daddy, right there by the baggage carousel.

  “More than you even want to know,” Lilia told her. “But as you can see—” she gazed up at her beloved, who was holding her hand “—it all worked out perfectly.”

  “Wait till I tell you, Mom. You won’t even believe it.” Magdalena picked up Selma’s carry-on, which was bursting at the seams.

  “Hmph, and I missed it all. Still, I brought back a few surprises of my own.”

  “Souvenirs, right? Is that why this bag is so heavy?”

  Ryan got the hint and took it from her.

  “Well, yeah, that, and... Lena, remember those storybooks you used to write all the time about your past-life adventures? Lena and the Prince and the Evil Bad Guy, Lena and the Prince and the Little Slave Girl, and all the rest?”

  “Of course I remember. We read them to Ellie every night.”

  “Well...it’s such kismet, I can’t even tell you. My seatmate on the place was this lovely woman, a children’s book editor, and we got to talking, and she’d really like to see your stories.”

  Lena sighed. “We’ve talked abut this before, Mom. Those stories aren’t for public consumption, and besides, I was eight. How good can they be?”

  “I know, I know, I just want you to meet her. I have a feeling about this. I just...” She turned to look at the other passengers, and then she spotted someone and waved. “There she is.”

  The woman, an olive-skinned brunette, came rushing forward, accompanied by her husband, who wore a military uniform. But her eyes were not on Selma. They were on the sisters, and they were oddly intense. As she reached them, she said, “You must be Lilia. I’d know you anywhere.” And then her gaze shifted. “And you’re Magdalena, and you’re Indira. I can hardly believe it.” Then a big tear slipped slowly from her eye and down her cheek.

  The sisters looked at their mother and then at each other. Selma shrugged, as baffled as they were.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I’ve just...waited so long. And you’re finally here. You’re really here.”

  “I’m just...confused,” Magdalena said softly. “Do we know each other?”

  The woman nodded and looked to Indira, who shrugged. “I’m so sorry. I don’t remember you.”

  Lilia moved closer, though. She stared deeply into the woman’s eyes, and then she smiled. “Yes, you do. You just don’t remember her being older than us. She was younger then. Slave girl to the slave girls.”

  “Amarrah?” her sisters both shouted at once. “Oh, my Goddess, it is! It’s Amarrah!” The women hugged and bounced and danced and laughed.

  When they finally parted, Amarrah introduced them to her husband, Captain Harry Brockson, U.S. Army. Lena invited them to follow them back to Havenwood for dinner, and they accepted with a smile.

  * * *

  The joyous celebration lasted long into the night. But eventually Amarrah and her husband were on their way. Indira and Tomas returned to their cabin, Bahru to his cottage, and everyone else took to their beds, leaving Lilia and Demetrius alone in front of the fireplace. He was lying on the sofa, staring at the flames—when he could take his eyes off her, at least. She was stretched out on top of him, her head resting on his magnificent chest, listening to the steady pulsing beat of his heat.

  “We need to get a place of our own,” he said softly, and she loved the way the words vibrated beneath her head. “But first we have to figure out how to make a decent living. I have no skills to offer.”

  “Oh, I beg to differ.” She turned to kiss his neck just underneath his chin, and he laughed with her. But then she grew serious. “Maybe we should sell the chalice and the blade. They’re worth a small fortune.”

  “We could do that.” He shrugged. “Or not. It doesn’t matter. As long as we’re together, it doesn’t matter at all.”

  “I know. I could live in a tent and be happy with you, Demetrius.” She shifted so that she could kiss his mouth. It grew from playful to passionate in a matter of seconds, and when he trailed his hand up and down her spine, over the tender skin of her lower back, where the tattoo had been, she shivered.

  The mark had vanished, as it had from her sisters’ backs. They’d discovered it on Beltane night, when they’d been celebrating their victory.

  He kissed her more deeply and pulled her blouse up over her head. She sat up and looked quickly at the stairs. “Someone could come down,” she whispered.

  “Then let’s sneak up to the guest room.” He lifted her off him and set her on the floor. Holding her blouse in front of her, just in case, Lilia started up the stairs. She got halfway before she sensed he was no longer behind her, and stopped to turn and gaze back at him.

  His eyes were stunned.

  “My love, what is it?”

  “The mark on your back...it’s there again.”

  Her frown was fast and hard. “It... What?” She twisted her head, trying to see, but she couldn’t. While she was still making the effort to see for herself, Magdalena’s bedroom door burst open and her sister stood there wide-eyed.

  “Look at this!” Lena said, turning to showing her back to Lilia.

  “Me, too!” Lilia cried, showing her own back. Seconds later the front door flew open and Indy was standing there, staring from one of them to the other.

  “You, too, huh?” Indy asked, and, turning, she pulled up the back of her shirt to reveal the mark of the witch.

  “Maybe we’d better not get rid of the chalice and blade just yet,” Demetrius said.

  “But what can this mean?” Lilia asked softly.

  Her sisters shook their heads slowly, neither of them having any clue at all.

  “I guess time will tell,” Indy said, and she went back to her waiting husband.

  “I guess it will,” Lena said, and went back into the room she shared with her husband.

  Lilia and Demetrius walked in silence into the guest room they would occupy until they found their own place. Inside, Lilia turned to him, running her hands up and down his powerful arms, gazing up into his dark eyes. “What do you think it means?” she asked softly.

  “I think the Gods only grant special powers when they are needed,” he told her softly. “If this means, as I think it does, that our powers have been returned to us, then it must be because they are needed. Somehow. Somewhere. As your sisters so aptly put it, time will tell.” He pulled her close, holding her against him and rocking her in his arms. “I hate to think of y
ou having to go through any more battles like this last one, though.”

  “Small price to pay for the bliss of having you back in my arms, my love.”

  “I feel the same,” he told her. “If the Gods demand our service in return, then I’ll gladly do whatever they ask.”

  “As long as we’re together, Demetrius. As long as we’re together, I honestly believe we can do anything.”

  “We’ve already proven it. You have, anyway.” He cupped her head in one big hand and tipped it slowly back so he could gaze down into her eyes. “You’re an amazing woman, Lilia. Have I thanked you yet for saving me from the abyss?”

  “Once or twice,” she said. “But you can thank me again if you want.”

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled slowly. “Actions speak louder than words, Demetrius.”

  His soft laugh was like music to her ears as, bending over her, he kissed her as if there were no tomorrow. Even though she knew there was. There would be many tomorrows. And they would be together for every single one of them.

  Finally.

  * * * * *

  Keep Reading for an excerpt from Twilight Fulfilled by Maggie Shayne

  Don’t miss the first two titles in the Portal series by New York Times bestselling author Maggie Shayne.

  Legacy of the Witch

  Mark of the Witch

  “Maggie Shayne has a talent for taking characters born in fantasy and making them come alive.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  For more thrilling paranormal romance try the Children of Twilight series, also by Maggie Shayne. Available wherever ebooks are sold!

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