From Jennifer Ashley, With Love: Three Paranormal Romances from Bestselling Series

by Jennifer Ashley

  Made sense from what Jamison had told me, and what I’d experienced. “How do you know all this?” I asked Elena.

  “Bear told me.”

  I blinked. “She told you? Why didn’t she tell me?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she likes my cooking.”

  Elena shut off her stream of information then and walked away to be with Grandmother, leaving me with Mick and Ansel, Mick still holding my hand.

  Elena’s irritability aside, I agreed with her and grandmother that Bear shouldn’t have the pot until we understood more what she’d do.

  Ansel unfolded his arms. “I’m only here because one of these people has Laura. I’m not leaving until I find her.”

  He moved away from us and the rest of the group, his Nightwalker speed carrying him out of sight into the shadows before I could ask him to stay.

  I squeezed Mick’s hand. “We could go,” I said softly.

  We could fly away from here, to another continent or a remote island to lie in the sun or in a cool-sheeted bed together. We could leave god magic, ancient pottery, and power-hungry mages to themselves.

  Mick wanted to. His eyes flicked from black to the deep blue I’d fallen in love with.

  I looked from him across the space of ground to Grandmother and Gabrielle, in a cluster with Elena, taking themselves apart from Emmett. My family.

  As a child, my grandmother had been hard on me. I realized much later she’d been hard because she’d known I possessed powerful magic, more powerful than the earth magic she’d inherited from her shaman ancestors. She’d been afraid, I understood now, that I’d turn out to be an evil being like my mother, or at least arrogantly powerful like Emmett.

  Now Grandmother had taken in Gabrielle, born of our goddess mother and an Apache man who’d been weak and cruel. Gabrielle was a handful of trouble, but Grandmother was teaching her and protecting her as she’d taught and protected me.

  They were my family. Vulnerable. Here because of their own stubbornness, but here. To help me.

  I swung Mick’s hand. “Afterward? You and me? Beach?”

  He sent me a sinful look that licked heat through my body. “I have the perfect place in mind.”

  Knowing Mick, it would be remote, quiet, and romantic, and we wouldn’t resurface for days.

  I let out a sigh. “Let’s survive this first. We need a plan.”

  Mick grinned. “You brought us here without a plan? What am I going to do with you, sweetheart?”

  “My plans always screw up. You know that. I hoped you’d have some ideas.”

  Mick studied the group with cool calculation. “Kill Emmett, kill Pericles if he comes. Tell Nash how to destroy the pot and have him do it for us.”

  “That sounds easy and dragon-y. What about Bear? She’s insisting we bring the pot to her. I’m betting she’s responsible for making my motorcycle carry me out here in the first place, so I’d get curious. Or maybe she planned to talk to me, but Officer Yellow got in the way. The mirror said a person hadn’t been responsible, but Bear’s not a person, she’s a god.” I let out a breath. “Would you fight her? I don’t think we can.”

  “I’ve fought gods before.” Mick studied Bear, who still stood patiently in the moonlight, the bearskin around her looking almost alive. “But with Bear, I was thinking about using reason.”

  “Good luck with that.” Gods would listen to reason, true, but you never knew how they’d twist your reason to their own purpose. They might nod and agree with you, then walk away and carry on with whatever they’d planned in the first place.

  Headlights broke the night, a vehicle winding down the canyon road. I couldn’t tell at this distance what kind of vehicle, but I knew that Nash had come.

  “We’d better decide fast,” I said.

  “We defend Nash from physical attack,” Mick said. “He’s our primary objective. When the others exhaust themselves trying to keep each other from the pot, then we disable them and decide what to do with it.”

  “What about if dragons join in?” I asked, looking up.

  Mick snapped his attention to the sky. Two giant silhouettes blotted out the starlight, both with wings spread. One dragon was midnight black—Drake—the other fiery red—Colby, still under compulsion to obey.

  Drake’s fire streaked down and caught Nash’s black F250. The impact lifted the truck a few feet into the air before dropping it again, the entire truck engulfed in incandescent flame. Dragon fire was magical, so it couldn’t hurt Nash directly, but it could incinerate the truck he was in, or push it over the edge of the road into the canyon.

  I started running. Mick didn’t follow, and before I’d made it halfway to Nash, Mick shot into the air on colossal wings. He headed for Drake, his cry of challenge splitting the air.

  Nash kept on driving, despite the fire dancing through his pickup. He was not going to be happy about this. He loved that truck.

  Once Nash was on flat ground, he pulled onto empty dirt, leapt out, and started squirting the pickup with a fire extinguisher. Gabrielle broke away from Grandmother and ran for him.

  I doubled my speed as Beneath magic glowed around Gabrielle, but when she reached the truck, the wash of Beneath magic she released only put out the fire.

  Nash shut down his compact fire extinguisher and stood with it hanging from his hand. Perspiration streaked his face, and his jeans and sweat pants were singed and soot-stained. “Thanks,” he said to Gabrielle.

  “Where’s Maya?” Gabrielle asked.

  “Not here,” Nash answered curtly. Maya was not a fan of Gabrielle, who had once taken Nash hostage. “I wasn’t going to bring her to a meet like this.”

  “Did you have to lock her in a cell?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I grinned. “Can I watch when you let her out? Please?”

  Nash gave me a withering look. “Why the hell did you ask me to bring this thing to you? The dragons followed me the minute I left town.”

  I should have figured Drake was clever enough to realize that Nash was the logical person to watch over the artifact. Drake had probably commanded Colby to keep tabs on him.

  “It’s time to decide what to do with it,” I said.

  Gabrielle looked puzzled. “You’re not going to destroy it, are you? Something like that would be useful.”

  “That’s exactly why.”

  Gabrielle pretended to pout. “What, you still don’t trust me?”

  “No.”

  She laughed and put her arm around my shoulders. “You are so smart.”

  Grandmother was hobbling toward us, Elena at her side. Emmett continued to face Bear, who stood calmly, waiting.

  Except that now two men faced Bear. The second was Pericles McKinnon.

  How he’d gotten here, I didn’t know, but he was a good mage, and I’m sure he had plenty of tricks in his repertoire. Emmett adjusted his glasses to look the other man up and down.

  “They won’t wait long,” Grandmother said. “Whatever it is you’re going to do to stop this, you’d better do it now.”

  “I’m not going to do anything,” I said.

  “You can’t let either one of them touch that vessel. They’ll unleash forces too large to handle, not to mention they’ll try to kill every one of us. Yes, the pot will drain them, but they can do a world’s worth of damage before then.”

  “I don’t intend to let anyone grab the pot, Grandmother. I’ll protect it with everything I have.” I lifted my hands. “But if so many people want it, they can fight it out. I’ll be over here protecting my friends and family.”

  Grandmother’s eyes narrowed. “What about Bear?”

  “I think she can take care of herself.”

  Bear hadn’t moved. She watched the two mages size each other up, but she did nothing, said nothing. She, like me, waited to see what happened.

  Above us, the dragons circled one another, shooting warning jets of fire whenever any of the three got too close to the others. Dragon battles were so deadly, Mick
had told me, that dragons didn’t fully engage unless they had to. For now, they were watching, wary, Mick keeping himself between the other two and Nash.

  The clouds on the western horizon slowly moved our way, coming down from the Chuska Mountains and thickening as they went. The thunderheads drove dust before them, lightning curling under the clouds. I felt the storm’s fiery tingle awaking the earth magic in me.

  “Letting the mages and dragons fight each other might release powers this valley can’t contain,” Elena said. “We’ll be caught in the backwash.”

  “But we are four of the most powerful women I know,” I countered. “Between us, we can protect ourselves and Nash from anything they do.”

  In theory. I knew Gabrielle was strong, but I didn’t know how close Elena had to be to her pool of shaman magic to use it, and I still had no idea how Grandmother’s magic worked. She had a vast well of earth magic in her, which is where I’d come by my Stormwalker ability, but I had never seen her in action.

  “I like this plan,” Gabrielle said, sliding her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Whoever wins the free-for-all will be weak, and we’ll just kill him.”

  “You aren’t killing anyone,” Grandmother said. “We talked about this.”

  Gabrielle shot me an appealing look. “See what I have to put up with?”

  “Could everyone please shut up and let me think?” I stuffed my hands into my own front pockets, finding the chamois-wrapped piece of magic mirror. “Nash, will you bring it out?”

  Nash looked up from checking the ammunition in his Glock. “Why?”

  “You don’t have to hand it to me. In fact, please don’t. But uncover it.”

  Nash scowled, but he reached into the truck’s cab and retrieved the leather-wrapped pot from the seat. He set the bundle on the hood, opened the drawstring, and peeled back the bag.

  His null magic so absorbed the pot’s field that Emmett and Pericles, still eying each other, didn’t look our way. The dragons didn’t break their focus on one another either. Even I couldn’t feel anything from the pot, which was fine with me.

  Moonlight picked out the sharp outlines of the bear, the tortoise, and the jagged lightning. I wondered why Bear had chosen the tortoise and lightning. I’d love to sit down with her and ask her how she’d designed the pot, and even more importantly, why she hadn’t told me she’d made it.

  The light danced on the figures, which seemed to move themselves. Around and around they went, bear chasing tortoise, chasing lightning, chasing bear.

  I blinked. The background now showed new figures, emerging under the moon’s silver glow. I couldn’t quite make them out, but they interspersed with the others, adding to the chase, the motion making me dizzy.

  “Janet?” Gabrielle asked. Her tone didn’t so much hold concern as it implied, What are you going crazy about this time?

  I shook myself. The figures on the pot abruptly stopped, again becoming the still outlines of bear, tortoise, and lightning.

  I took the shard of magic mirror from its bag. Even in the white moonlight, it was dark, holding secrets in its heart.

  I moved as close to Nash as I dared, then I tossed the shard of magic mirror directly into the pot.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Nothing happened. I hadn’t thought it would. If Nash could cancel out something as powerful as the artifact, he’d cancel out the mirror, and any magical interaction between talismans as well.

  Nash peered into the pot. “Why did you do that?”

  “Keep it in there for me, will you?” I said. “And let’s go have a talk with our mages.”

  As soon as Nash stepped away from the pickup, pot wrapped again and tucked under his arm, Drake peeled away from Mick and went for Nash.

  He didn’t care that the rest of us were two feet away from him. Dragon fire boomed around us, and Drake came down at our little group, huge talons curled and ready to strike. Dragon fire might not be able to hurt Nash, but Drake could always pick him up and drop him somewhere out in the desert, then pluck the pot from his dead, broken body.

  Elena grabbed Grandmother and dragged her out of the way of the flames. The two women ran back to Nash’s truck, diving inside the cab. Gabrielle ran after them, scrambling into the truck’s bed to stand, Beneath magic in her hands, to defend them.

  Mick charged for Drake, forcing the black dragon to roll away and climb again, but as soon as Mick and Drake were out of the way, Colby attacked.

  I knew Colby didn’t want to, but under his sentence to play slave for the dragons, he went for Nash.

  I pushed my awareness at the gathering storm, grounding myself with it while I drew on the Beneath magic within me. Without the pot trying to enhance me, I might be able to deflect Colby without hurting him too much.

  Colby came on. I saw his huge dragon underside, giant wings, talons as large as my body, as he dove for Nash. Nash ran and then dropped and rolled, trying to reach an outcropping of rock for cover.

  As Colby passed over me, I let fly my Beneath magic, right under his wing.

  Colby screeched as he fell sideways, batting the air with the wing I hadn’t zapped, the other one sweeping crookedly in reflex. He burst out with dragon fire, which I deflected with a Beneath-magic shield. Colby jerked, trying to rise into the air, but his injured wing caught the ground.

  Dust boiled upward as the dragon hit, the fine grains of dirt flying through my shield to slice at my face. The Beneath magic kept out the magical, not the physical.

  I ran for Colby. He raised his head, fury in his eyes. The anger was not for me, but for Drake, who still held him in thrall. Colby didn’t want to attack me, and I didn’t want to attack him, but neither of us had a choice.

  “Colby!” I cried. “Turn human.”

  Colby had tricked Drake out of his chains once before. If Colby put himself under the sphere of Nash’s null influence, Nash’s negating field might be able to unbind him. It had worked the last time.

  Colby gave me another look of pure rage. He got to his dragon haunches, his wings sliding out smoothly despite the hit they’d taken, and he launched himself into the air.

  Damn. I wouldn’t put it past Drake to have added a compulsion spell that kept Colby away from Nash. Drake wouldn’t let Colby trick him a second time.

  Nash made it under the rock outcropping and scooted as far back under its shelf as possible. If Colby couldn’t squeeze a talon inside there, Nash—and the pot—would be safe.

  Colby decided to dive at the rock itself, spitting fire. I countered with my Beneath shield, and Colby shot for the sky again.

  I didn’t want to hurt him. I wished Mick had gone after Colby, because I wouldn’t have minded pounding Drake a little. I was still pissed at him about my hotel.

  High above, Mick and Drake tangled. Drake and Mick were matched in size, and both were experienced fighters. Fire streaked through the air, followed by dragon cries of fury and pain.

  “This is your spectacular plan, Janet?” Nash yelled at me.

  “You have a better one?”

  Colby dove at us again, dragon fire bursting around the rocks and charring clumps of vegetation in a wide ring.

  He came down for another pass. I stood up, balls of Beneath magic dancing in my hands, ready to stop him.

  Spikes of light descended from the black of the sky like bolts of golden lightning. Colby shrieked and flapped out of the way. I looked up in amazement as a dozen tubes of light slammed into the ground like railroad spikes, enclosing me and Nash, still under the outcropping, in a golden cage.

  Crackling power surged out of the tubes, making the hair on my arms stand up. Colby swooped down to study them, but he kept his flames to himself. Good thinking. No telling what these things would do if we threw more power at them.

  Nash peered out at me. “What the hell?”

  The fact that the magical lights didn’t instantly disperse meant that Emmett had calculated exactly how far from Nash’s field of influence he had to place
them. Colby was still above us—if Nash moved beyond the rocks to negate the spikes, he’d still be vulnerable to the physical threat of Colby.

  More tubes surrounded the pickup with Grandmother and Elena inside, Gabrielle now sitting cross-legged on the top of the cab. Her laughter floated to me. “Wish I’d thought of that.”

  Emmett Smith looked at me, lenses of his spectacles shining in the residual light of the tubes. “Sorry, Stormwalker. I need you contained for a while.”

  He turned away without waiting for my answer and faced Pericles again.

  Pericles was shorter than Emmett and squat of build, but as I’d learned when he’d lifted me over his head, his body was mostly muscle. Moonlight gleamed on his bald spot, and also on his eyes, which had gone white.

  I never saw the fight begin. One moment the two mages still assessed each other, the next, Emmett was enveloped in a dense black cloud. I felt the edges of Pericles’s spell twenty yards away, choking death meant to squeeze every ounce of life from its victim.

  A glowing shaft like the ones that surrounded us slammed straight through Pericles. Pericles screamed, and the blackness lightened enough for me to see Emmett’s glasses gleaming behind it.

  The spike went right through Pericles, leaving a giant, bloody hole in the middle of him. But as the spike and darkness dispersed, Pericles’s body closed with an audible snap, and the blood vanished.

  He gave Emmett a vicious smile. “That all you’ve got?”

  “I was going easy on you,” Emmett said. “If you like, I’ll let you live. We can meet to fight another day.”

  “Screw you. I’m not letting you get your hands on that pot.”

  “Ah, well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Another shaft of light shot toward Pericles. Pericles deflected it this time, then the air around the two mages became thick with darkness, then mist, light, and blood—as they threw spell after spell at each other.