by Eden Rivers
The threefold link dragged them under and pulled them past the boundaries of ordinary release, their bodies still twitching long after they’d been sated, carrying things to the point where it just plain hurt. Came too hard. Breathed too hard. Gasping for air and grabbing at each other, as if they were drowning in the hot tub and not safe on a satin-covered bed.
At some point Zach collapsed on top of him, and he grunted as his bruised ribs pressed into Sky’s spine. And through it all, they laughed like maniacs. Laughed so hard that disentangling themselves became three times as difficult.
“Come on, you big oafs. You’re squishing me.”
Sky’s pronouncement precipitated another round of helpless laughter, days of stress unraveling and letting go, until all that remained were three sweaty, sated bodies on wrecked sheets. Somehow, Zach managed to roll off him, and Alec grunted at the tug of separation. Rolling to the other side of Sky, he lay on his back staring at the white ceiling and waiting for blood to find its way back to his brain.
When it did, he cupped Sky’s hand in his and wondered if he could manage this with some degree of grace. Here with Zach and Sky, damp and drowsy, he felt about as safe as safe could get lately, with his life turning upside down at every turn. Like it or not, Zach had been right when he’d tried to get him to talk about Linda.
Seemed wrong, bringing so much hurt into their quiet, sweaty nest, with their hearts still racing and breath coming in drowsy stutters. But he needed Sky. Needed her like blood and air. And bless it, if she didn’t understand why he went into a crazed fury every time he thought of losing her, more likely than not, he’d end up driving her away.
Stroking her arm, Alec took a deep breath for courage. “What Zach wanted me to tell you earlier… No easy way to talk about this, but years ago my wife, Linda, died in a car accident. In my arms. She’d been driving late at night and missed a curve.” The pain surfaced, but this time he didn’t try to push Sky and Zach away. Didn’t try to hide.
“How many years ago?”
“Forever. I was so young. Didn’t know one of my youthful encounters had led to Matt’s birth at that point. Had hardly started my political career.” Alec wiped the back of his hand across his face. “Getting back to Linda ‑‑ she was human. Knew about my gifts, but couldn’t really understand. Bless it, I loved her, though. The part you need to know is I never let myself get close to anyone after that. Hurt too fucking much to lose her.”
“Zach?”
“I was faithful while Linda was alive. She didn’t understand witches’ ways, how power pulls at us, how complex our relationships can get. Afterward, Zach was around to help me piece myself back together. Damn fool’s too tough to kill, so with him, I didn’t feel so ‑‑” Vulnerable. So fucking vulnerable.
Oh, gods, this hurt. “With you, with what Jaimis did to you, what I saw, and someone out there trying to kill you ‑‑ it’s so hard to let myself love you.”
Sky’s breathing slowed, and she rolled onto her side, facing away from Alec with her knees drawn up close to her chest. But she didn’t bring her shields crashing down, and he felt his own fears reflected back at him. Her hesitance to let anyone get too close and risk the kind of loss that could split someone in two with no chance of picking up the brittle pieces left him cold and empty. He sighed and let her be.
Don’t we just make a fine pair?
* * * * *
Rain lashed against Sky’s face as she headed back from the forest cemetery. With Alec striding ahead and Zach lagging back with the other mourners, she felt isolated and weary. Farther up the path, Matt carried the bandaged child. Despite Laura’s efforts, the bites hadn’t yet healed completely, and Eric’s face was about the only part of him not bundled in gauze.
“You okay?” Lena pulled up beside her, touching Sky’s elbow.
Serena had been escorted back to one of the guest houses after Scott’s funeral, accompanied by Dane, the witch who composed the third part of their former love triangle. But Lena had remained with Eric, comforting the child as he said good-bye to his parents.
“Been better.”
Eric’s inner voice wound its way through her thoughts like grief itself, the psychic tendrils twining her heart in a stranglehold. Laura had declared him sound enough to attend his parents’ funeral, and though the boy was still groggy from pain meds, without the sedating herbs his thoughts raced through Sky’s mind, a miniature whirlwind of gaping loneliness.
“You and Matt have your work cut out for you with Eric. Can you hear him, the psychic chatter? He’s so frightened. Alone.”
Lena nodded, her sodden blonde hair clinging to her shoulders and water beading off her black jacket. “You’ll stay and help, won’t you? When Eric mentions you, it’s ‘my friend Sky,’ or ‘when Sky and Nikki saved me from the rats.’ With what he’s been through, I’d appreciated any extra help…”
“I’ll be around. For a while, anyway. Anything I can do, just let me know.” Picking her way along the muddy path, Sky sighed as they came into view of Sorren’s impressive estate. The small family cemetery where they buried the three witches had been filled with sadness, but for some reason, she’d felt safe there.
“Whatever happens, it’s going to be at Sorren’s house.”
Realizing she’d spoken that last bit aloud, Sky winced. No use worrying Lena, with her sister grieving hard and Eric still trying to come to terms with recent horrors. “Forget I said that. Funerals make me morbid. I’m feeling like shit that Scott didn’t make it, that I didn’t push back at the death magic just a bit faster.”
Up ahead, the sound of sobbing joined the steady patter of rain, and Eric’s distress echoed through Sky, fierce and bewildered. “Go, I’m fine. The little guy needs you.”
Before she saw it coming, Lena embraced her and kissed her full on the lips. Standing numbly in the downpour, Sky tried to make sense of the gesture.
“Thank you ‑‑ for what you did for Eric. I don’t think I could have gone into Jaimis’s place alone like that.” Lena wiped rain away from her eyes and grabbed Sky’s hand. “As for Scott, don’t blame yourself. Eric needs me, but we’ll talk later.”
Jogging to catch up with Matt, Lena left her wondering what just happened, trying to make sense of the kiss.
Just seemed to me you needed a friend, witch. I could use one, too. Lena slipped in and out of her thoughts as easy as sunshine on water, shrinking the distance of years and betrayals between them down to nothing.
“Sky?” Alec doubled back to join her and cupped his palm under her elbow.
Light filled the room, and at the center, a point of blackness threatened to swallow them. Sky felt the floor under her shoes, smelled roses, heard Zach cry out…
“What’s wrong?” Zach joined them, urging her forward on the path and breaking her concentration.
“Not sure. Something ahead, but no details. Scary, though.”
They walked the rest of the way to Sorren’s mansion in silence, and the soft leather dress shoes she’d borrowed from Laura skidded on the wet cobblestones. Everything about the day felt heavy. Ominous. The skirt she’d borrowed clung to her legs, hampering her movements, and she cursed under her breath.
Finally, Zach threw open the double doors, and once they stepped past the threshold the cheerful interior surrounded them, and the air carried the scent of baking bread. Her earlier sense of foreboding seemed unfounded amidst the calm security of Sorren’s home, and she wondered if perhaps she needed more practice separating out anxiety from genuine premonitions.
“What I saw outside, something dark swallowing light and air, how do I tell if it’s real?”
Zach took her hand and led her toward the stairs. “If you feel the need to ask, more likely than not you just got a glimpse ahead. Trust your instincts. They’ll guide you true.”
Alec maintained his silence as he tromped up the stairs beside her, lost in heavily guarded thoughts. Well, funerals never made anyone cheerful. But the heaviness of the day s
eemed to arise from something more than either weather or grief. Eager to get into dry clothes, she quickened her pace, leaving the men lagging behind.
“Don’t go in until I get a chance to check the room.”
Zach’s reminder got her hackles up, but it wasn’t like she could check for spells with her magic still off center. She paced in front of the door to their suite, and when something whizzed past her ear, close enough to touch her hair on the way by, she didn’t process what had happened until the men shouted “Knife!” and “Get inside!”
A second blade flew by as she threw open the door to their suite and stepped to the side, pressing her back against the wall. Her blood roared in her veins, and fear tightened her throat until she could hardly swallow. The metal might be ordinary enough, but no blade could soar that fast and true without the aid of a spell.
Oh goddess, please don’t let them go after the witch who threw those blades unarmed and unprepared.
Chapter Fourteen
Shaking more from the onslaught of adrenaline than the chill of her rain-damp blouse and skirt, Sky crouched low and whispered a plea for aid to any god or goddess who would listen. The men were out there with whoever had made the death threats, and that witch had been damn clear that Alec and Zach would die first, leaving her horribly alone.
Please, please, please let them be okay.
The hallway remained eerily silent, though she felt fierce anger as the men hunted for the witch who threw the knives, and echoes of malevolence from the dark lord swamped her senses. After what seemed like years, Alec and Zach dove into the room and slammed the door behind them.
“Fucking witch got away. Nearly clipped Alec with another knife. No choice but to take cover.” Zach raised his hand to set wards.
Before Zach could complete the warding, Alec whirled toward the center of the room. “Heads up!”
Oh, shit! Evil pulsed obsidian dark from a marble-sized ball at the center of the white carpet, clouding out light with dusky waves of energy. Panic rooted her to the floor as she felt death welling up from the spell, but she retained enough presence of mind to realize they couldn’t face this kind of power alone.
Sorren!
“He’s down at the clearing talking to the other mourners. No time.” Alec took a wary step forward, his hands extended in front of him, and she sensed his struggle to understand the waves of power crashing through the room.
Alec’s approach triggered a backlash of chaos, and he staggered back as wind tore through the room, upending lamps, tearing pictures from the wall, and stirring the scent of roses from the bathing room beyond. What had smelled like paradise during their joyous ménage took on the cast of death and funerals. The scent grew stronger, and Zach cried out when a chair tipped over and flew against his shins.
What the fuck good was the curse of Sight if she’d foreseen this, but not gained so much as an inkling of information on how to survive?
“Doesn’t work that way. Fickle gift.” Zach shoved the remnants of the chair aside and rubbed his shins. “Alec!”
Alec ducked as a large vase took flight and hurtled by his head. As Sky shielded her face with her hands and crouched so low her hair whipped against the sea of wood splinters and broken glass covering the carpet, she opened herself to the men. Her fledgling Sight might not offer any help, but Zach had been going on about clinging together to survive since this whole mess started.
“Never felt something that strong before.” Leaning into the unnatural wind, Zach limped across the room, dodging flying pillows and shards of whirling glass on his way to the door. When he reached the exit, he tried to turn the doorknob, and then delivered a vicious kick to the wood. “Sealing spell. Room’s locked down tight. We’re trapped.”
Fear sliced along Sky’s spine as she flashed back to Jaimis locking the door behind him and bearing down on her, whip in hand. She hadn’t been trapped in a room since the rogue witch had held her prisoner. Despite the tumult around them, other images, surfaced through the chasms Jaimis had carved in her memory. The pain of the whip. The taste of her own blood. The violence with which Jaimis dug his nails into her skin as he forced her…forced himself inside her.
Trembling, she fought the memories she’d sought so desperately to reclaim for the past year. That thing in the center of the room stank of death, and her life depended on staying calm and present. Here. Now. The obsidian sphere shimmered and pulsed, growing to the size of an ebony ball, then doubling again, until a swirling, boulder-sized chunk of death graced the center of the room. The scent of roses grew so thick, she gagged. Not just the scent from the potted plants in the bathroom, but a perverse manifestation of the spell itself.
Sky whimpered when a splinter of wood pierced her calf, but when Alec tried to make his way over to her, she shook her head and yanked the barb free herself. “What in the name of the gods…”
Alec knelt as close as he could get to the pulsing mass and not be blown over backward, and though she felt his fear and fury ripping through her like a scream in the night, he was too wrapped up in evaluating the spell to answer.
“Larger version of what killed Scott.” Still walking with a limp and bent double to fight the wind, Zach paced like a wounded bear, angry and desperate. “My guess is we don’t have long before it sucks the air out of the sealed room.”
Alec got down on all fours and inched closer to the pulsing, raven-black sphere, now almost as tall as he was. His hair whipped around his head as he circled the area, his face set in a mask of strain and fury. As the death magic took hold, color leached from the room, and Alec’s black funeral suit and starched white shirt seemed to fade to dusky gray.
When no more than a couple feet separated Alec from the throbbing mass of darkness, he beckoned to her. “Sky, come here.”
Reluctant, she forced herself forward, creeping on her belly to avoid the debris whirling above her, until she stood beside him.
When a hurtling picture frame almost clipped his shoulder, Zach dropped to his hands and knees and crept toward the windows. But when he stood and tried to press against the glass, he yelped and pulled his hands back. “Sealing spell’s got a vicious kick to it. Hope you’ve got a plan, friend, because I’m fresh out.”
“The concealing spell.” Alec crept closer to her and grabbed her arm to make sure he had her attention. “Haven’t had time to show you yet, but you can weave it around a space, with something else at the center. Hide an object or person other than yourself, as long as you’re close by.”
“Right, so if we hide the damn thing, it can’t suck the air out of our lungs.” Zach crawled back to the door, and Sky winced as she felt broken glass pierce his hands, but he didn’t even slow down. When he reached the door he launched a spell, but the sparks of energy fell away half a foot shy of striking their target, deflected by whatever spell sealed the room.
The breathlessness of Zach’s voice amplified the pain in her own air-starved lungs, and she couldn’t tell if the blue sparks in front of her eyes heralded the onset of panic or the beginnings of oxygen deprivation.
“Watch me, Sky!” Gasping, Alec gave up the attempt at spoken language. Focus!
Beyond terror, she meshed her thoughts with Alec’s as he spun silvery mist outward, streaming away from him to surround the huge obsidian sphere. More an absence of light than the color black, chilling in its ability to swallow space, horrifying in its power to create a whirling vortex, the death magic gobbled oxygen as the speed of the winds increased. With no time to request an explanation of his plans, she offered Alec blind trust, hoping he’d found a way to get them out of there alive.
Like spun silk, or fog, but you can shape it as if you’re handling clay. As Alec continued to shroud the sphere in mist and Zach struggled to break out of the room, Sky added the silvery magic she’d gained from their power-sharing rite. She felt their lungs constrict along with her own, their lightheadedness magnifying her own nausea and fatigue.
The mist clung to her at first, an
d she cupped her hands around empty space, urging it outward. Thought reduced itself down to disjointed bits of sound. The crunch of glass. Tearing wind. Fluttering cloth as the curtains tore from their rods. And always, the cloying scent of roses.
Fighting the urge to lie down and surrender to sleep, she marshaled her nascent magic, and soon her own silver web joined Alec’s. Bit by bit, the obsidian sphere disappeared, swathed in the combined effects of their concealing magic. As the mist buffered the spell, the room quieted, and bits of torn cloth fluttered to a rest across Zach’s back. But the air remained thin, and she didn’t know how long they’d be able to maintain consciousness.
The magic mutes things ‑‑ light, noise, power. A cushion of sorts, like wrapping the spell in cotton. Now here’s the tough part. Alec paused, pressing his hands to his mouth as he gave in to a wracking cough.
Zach picked up where Alec left off. We cast a circle so fucking tight, it’ll hold when the implosion comes. The concealing spell will absorb some of the backlash when the death spell detonates, and our circle…
Will do the rest. Still coughing, Alec staggered to his feet and motioned for Zach to stand opposite him. Sky forced herself to stand and, swaying, fought to put one foot in front of the other until the three of them formed a triangle, with the concealing sphere centered between them, its presence marked by faint glimmers of light.
This is where we take the ‘perfect love and perfect trust’ of spell craft to a whole new level. Alec’s face looked ashy gray, and her fear ratcheted up a few notches as she watched his chest heave. It won’t work if we don’t act in perfect unison.
As counterintuitive as it was to strip away her psychic defenses in the face of death, Sky joined the men in dropping her shields. Racing against time, they raised their hands and gasped out “north” together.
She felt fear drop away at “East,” replaced by the stubborn hope that their bond could get them through this. As the three of them called, “South,” pulling the circle tighter around where she and Alec had woven the concealing spell, something furry brushed her ankle.
