by Laura Hall
“You’re not going to die,” said the Prime, still in that vaguely amused tone. “Not by my hand, at least. And you certainly aren’t going to be shipped off to a prison cell.” He paused. “Really, Adam, we need to do something about those rumors. It was only the one facility years ago, and we shut it down.”
Adam sighed, robes rustling as he stood. “We can’t blame her for being afraid. Our nation doesn’t have the strongest track record of tolerance.”
The Prime made a noncommittal noise.
I tried to think of nothing, which only opened the door for a confusing jumble of images. Witches burning at the stake. Lab rats and the furry, mutilated body in that photograph.
The fact that the Prime had access to my every thought made me twitch with discomfort. Especially when the damned image of him in gladiator finery popped up. My mortification was complete when I heard his low chuckle.
Steeling myself, I dragged my gaze back to him. He’d taken the Omega’s seat. The mage now paced near the bedroom doorway, fingers tapping on his cell phone.
“Hello, Fiona. I’m Connor.”
My name in his mouth was unsettlingly intimate. Ignoring the reactionary heat in my face, I stared at his nose, which looked like it had been broken once or twice in his human years.
“Nice to meet you, Prime Thorne. How long are you going to keep me like this?”
He ignored my question, instead leaning forward to brace elbows on his knees. His gaze trailed down my arms, exposed without the light jacket I’d been wearing earlier.
“Fascinating,” he murmured, a banked glow flashing in his eyes. He glanced up, focusing on the white streak in my otherwise dark hair. “Tell me of your Ascension.”
There was no point in lying.
“I was struck by lightning.”
He sat back, sending a quick glance across the room. Adam looked up from his phone and said, “There were several hundred reported cases of lightning striking people at midnight. None in which the affected survived, though.”
The thought of Michael was instinctive. I couldn’t stop it any more than I could will myself to stop breathing. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the Prime’s expression as I thought of my dead fiancé.
There was a heavy moment of silence, then cool fingertips grazed my forehead.
“Sleep,” said the Prime.
I did.
4
The sun blazed merrily in an azure sky, showering the world with heat and light and refracting off the pale sand beneath my feet. Shading my face with a hand, I gazed through watering eyes at my dreamworld.
It was the Roman Colosseum. Not as it was today, an impressive shadow of former greatness, but whole. The hundreds of elegant travertine arches, richly engraved columns, and rows upon rows of tiered seating were a feast of geometric beauty.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” asked a low voice.
As I turned, clouds moved over the sun and dappled shadows raced across the sand. I regarded the Western Prime, standing some ten feet away, and realized two things. One, if this were my dream, he’d be wearing a loincloth instead of his fancy suit. And two, the detail around me was much too involved for my imagination to have conjured.
“What is this place?” I asked and immediately wanted to slap myself.
“The Colosseum,” he said with a twitch of lips. I flushed, dropping my gaze to his feet. “If you’re wondering whether you’re dreaming, the answer is no. But you are unconscious. Do you see the haze in your peripheral vision?”
Only when he mentioned it did I see it—a white radiance, dense and sparkling.
Magic.
I swallowed thickly. “The Omega is doing this?”
“Not exactly.” Prime Thorne shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it to the sand, then began working to loosen his tie. “You’re in my mind. But Adam is near, as is your uncle. They will prevent any spillover that might occur as I test you.”
“What do you mean, test me?”
Fingers paused on the button at his neck. His head came up, revealing an expression I associated with teachers the world over: long-suffering patience.
“Don’t be afraid. This is a simple exercise to test the scope of your ability. Your uncle underwent a similar trial during his training.”
Don’t be afraid.
Strangely, I wasn’t afraid. Or not so strangely, given that the king of mind-fucking was standing ten feet away. He stopped after two shirt buttons, which I found disappointing, and subsequently unnerving. Hell-bent on ignoring the swath of golden, toned skin from his throat to chest, I stared avidly at his bare feet.
Bouncing lightly, he gave me a come-hither gesture. “I’m ready, Fiona.”
I shifted my weight, wondering what I was supposed to do. Did he seriously want me to zap him? I wasn’t sure I could. For the first time in recent memory, I didn’t feel a charge trying to escape my skin. Maybe it was because I wasn’t physically here.
“Stop dallying.”
His voice came from behind me. Right behind me. I yelped and spun, backpedaling away from him. My heart pounded in my chest, sending furious Flight! Flight! messages to my legs. My muscles bunched.
“Do. Not. Run.”
The words froze me where I stood, my body poised on the brink of launching into a sprint. It wasn’t the authority in his voice that got me—it was the hunger.
The sun rained down its sweltering heat. Sweat beaded on my face and chest. Fear prickled across my scalp as I realized that, pseudo-dream-state or not, I was alone with a predator.
The predator.
Top of the fucking food chain.
“Shit,” I whispered, turning slowly to face him.
Pearly fangs glinted as he smiled slightly. “Good girl,” he murmured.
Then, like the prey I was, I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. They weren’t beautiful anymore, the irises no longer green but glistening obsidian. The sight was too much. Talons of fear pierced my brain. Adrenaline surged in my limbs.
I ran.
I made it maybe five feet before fingers seized my shoulders. My back slammed against a hard chest and my head was wrenched to the side. I screamed and thrashed and swung my legs, none of which did anything except invite a thickly muscled arm around me, trapping my arms to my waist. I was lifted from the ground, all five-foot-seven inches of me. Like I was a doll. Or dinner.
Cool lips traced my jugular, unfazed by the storm of tiny electrical currents erupting from my skin. His strength was inviolable. Barring a miracle, I was going to be bitten by a vampire.
I stilled, quivering, and cursed Fate, the bitch who’d decided that the first lips to touch me in fourteen years would belong to a bloodsucking fiend.
The sudden absence of his grip had me falling forward. My knees slammed into dense sand. Momentum carried me onto my hands, where I stayed, heaving, until the urge to vomit passed.
“Please accept my apologies, Ms. Sullivan.”
I almost didn’t hear him over the rush of blood in my ears. When the words registered, and I understood that he had been privy to my thought—and released me like a leper because of it—a rush of shame overtook me.
“Screw you,” I said and shoved to my feet.
Dark brows rose in surprise over eyes that were green again, though darker than their usual shade. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Anger was accomplishing what fear had failed to. My arms pulsed with heat, the snaking ribbons of scar tissue writhing with silver luminosity. For once, I didn’t try to dampen the rise of power. There was no need to ground the charge, only direct it.
At him.
“Do it,” he said.
“With pleasure.”
I lifted my hands and lightning erupted, arching brilliant white across the sand and striking the Western Prime in the center of his chest.
Heat.
Light.
Darkness.
And in the darkness, low voices murmured.
“…ne
ver seen anything quite like it.”
“That was supremely foolish, Connor. What if it had happened in truth?”
A low chuckle, full of genuine mirth. “I might risk it. Such an extraordinary feeling…” The sound of footsteps moving away, then, “And the spell we talked about?”
“Almost done.”
When I next opened my eyes, I was in my own bed. I sat up fast, then flopped back down as nausea gripped me. A strange pulse of heat in my body was followed by a wave of cold that made my teeth chatter. Groaning, I lifted a hand to my face, which was flushed and damp with sweat.
“Hey, kiddo.”
“Mal,” I whispered. The bed depressed by my hip and something cool and wet covered my forehead. It was such a relief that tears stung my eyes. “What’s happening to me?”
“You have a fever, but it’s passing. You did well. You held your own against two of the scariest fuckers out there. Proud of you.”
My chest squeezed with mingled pride and humiliation. “Couldn’t stop him.”
“Honey, there’s a good reason why you’ve been kept unconscious all day. Now, I need you to listen carefully. I’m going to find your father, but in order to do that, I need to know you’ll be safe. I made a deal with the Prime. My help for your safety.”
“No,” I breathed out. “Staying with you.”
Mal lifted the washcloth and gently wiped my face. “I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you, Fiona. This isn’t a negotiation. You’re leaving for Seattle with the Prime.”
My skin prickled all over. Fever or fear, it was hard to tell. “Not going.”
“I’m sorry,” whispered Mal, and then more loudly, “Go ahead, Adam.” I jerked, but Mal’s hand pressed against my chest, holding me down. “It’s for the flight, kiddo. Just relax.”
“Wha—”
Something sharp pierced my arm.
Darkness.
5
Crossing the bridge from sleep to waking, I first noticed the scent of flowers. Gardenia, if I wasn’t mistaken. Another minute and my heavy eyelids parted on a new ceiling, this one white and vaulted with a thick, rustic beam down its center. A cool breeze caressed my face, diluting the sweet floral with air that smelled of rain and earth.
Definitely not Los Angeles.
“You’re awake,” said the Omega.
I turned my head on the pillow, blinking groggily. “Déjà vu.”
Adam looked every inch an All-American college boy in jeans and a dark, hooded sweatshirt. His eyes, however, showed his age, and more than that, his deep fatigue. Thinking of the needle he’d stabbed me in the arm with, I hoped he was tired because of me.
“How are you feeling, Fiona?”
I sat up carefully but to my surprise, I felt fine, if hungry and weak. “Okay, I guess.”
The newest bedroom in my twisted game of musical beds was by far the largest. Done in tones of pale blue, dove gray, and white, it was hands down the most beautiful living space I’d ever seen, and easily the square footage of my entire apartment.
Before an elegant stone fireplace was a cozy seating area that begged for lazy afternoons reading and drinking tea. Plush cream rugs were strewn in intervals over dark, rustic wood floors, and huge bay windows displayed a dim, overcast sky with a canopy of green forest in the distance.
“Is it morning or evening?” I asked, turning back to the Omega.
“Evening,” he said haltingly.
Now fully awake, my mind churned. “Is it still Saturday?”
“No, Sunday.”
Which meant I’d been unconscious for the better part of two days.
“Wow,” I whispered, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes to subdue a sudden urge to cry. Or scream. Potentially both. But since neither was an option, I used the classic standby, “I need to use the bathroom.”
Adam stood immediately and gestured to an open doorway not far from the bed. “Of course. It’s through there. You’ll find the bag your uncle packed for you inside.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“You might feel a little light-headed, perhaps experience some blurred vision. It will fade as your body acclimates to my spell, but you should take it easy for a few hours.”
I swallowed the sudden pulse in my throat. At the sight of my face, Adam’s eyes narrowed.
“Your uncle didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
His gaze flickered to my arms, and mine followed. At first, I didn’t see anything amiss. Glistening, narrow ribbons of scarring—Check. Then it hit me. No longer did black script obscure the scars. Mal’s spells were gone. Instead, encircling my wrists were delicate woven bracelets. Tight enough to not slip off, and with no visible catches for removal. One was white, the other black.
Breathing a little faster, I lifted my hands and clenched them. Nothing. No electricity at all.
“The bracelets are positive and negative,” said the Omega. “To equalize your charge.”
I took a deep, slow breath. Logically, I should be relieved, even grateful. Shouldn’t I be grateful? It was extraordinary magic, a true testament to Adam’s skill.
But I wasn’t relieved. I felt like the most vital piece of me had been sawed off, the wound cauterized.
“You neutered me,” I said through numb lips.
“For your protection,” he countered firmly.
I touched the bracelet on my left wrist, the black one, then looked up at him. I was suddenly, immensely angry.
“Don’t you mean his protection?”
Adam stared at me for a considering beat, then nodded sharply. Gone was the unassuming youth—here was the Opal Mage. Sparkling power formed a pale corona around his shoulders and head. The sight of it was actually comforting; at least I hadn’t lost the ability to see magic.
“I don’t know you, Fiona Sullivan,” he said flatly. “You have a tremendous and dangerous power, and very little discipline. Must I remind you that in a fit of temper you threw a lightning bolt at the Western Prime?”
I bristled further, teeth clenching around the words, “I only did what he wanted! And what about him? He almost bit me. You want to tell me that was part of the test?”
Brown irises bled to white and I recoiled against the headboard. “That is exactly the problem,” he said darkly. “The Prime has not drunk from a human vein in more than a hundred years. Because of you, he nearly broke his most sacred vow.”
I almost bit my tongue in half. “Wait—he was going to bite me for real? Not in a dream but in real life?”
“Yes,” he snapped. “And I wouldn’t have been able to stop him. You have zero understanding of your own power. Are you even aware of the physics of a lightning strike? The massive particle disruption that occurs prior to and because of it?”
A soft voice spoke from the doorway, “Leave her be, Adam.”
The Omega glared at me another moment, grunted in disgust, then stalked across the room. He brushed past the Prime like the vampire, too, was intolerable.
“Don’t take his words too much to heart. He’s worried.”
I looked anywhere but at the man leaning in the doorway. Possibly the oldest vamp in the world, who’d almost broken a century-long fast on my jugular.
“It’s not a fast so much as a test of endurance.”
I shook my head helplessly. “How do you sound so amused? This isn’t funny. Any of it.”
“No, it’s not,” said the Prime in a grave tone, for once devoid of humor. “I would like to try teaching you discipline, Fiona, if you’ll let me.”
I said nothing, overwhelmed by the way my life had been upended, and still reeling from the back-to-back confrontations. First with the Prime in the Colosseum, and now with the Omega.
Two of the scariest fuckers out there.
Curling into myself, I lifted my knees and hugged them to my chest. I wasn’t too proud to admit I was a million miles outside my comfort zone. I was scared, worried about my dad and Mal, and still partly convin
ced I was going to end up in a mad scientist’s laboratory. And without my lightning I was now a null, completely at the mercy of supernaturals.
The Prime took a step into the bedroom. “I promised your uncle I would keep you safe, and I will.”
“Stop reading my mind,” I whispered. “Please, stop. I can’t take it anymore.”
The events of the last forty-eight hours hit like a freight train, the impact forcing a whimper from my chest. I’d been cut up, slammed into a wall, almost bitten, bespelled, drugged, threatened, and power-neutered.
And my dad was missing. Maybe hurt, or worse.
I was helpless to stop the first strangled sob, or the second. All at once the floodgates opened, and I was crying in front of the Western Prime. Not a contained, feminine sniffling, either. No—I was slave to a full-blown, horrendously loud sob-fest.
When arms came around me, lifted me, and settled me against a solid chest, I was too far gone to care who they belonged to. It had been so long since I’d been held. So damned long.
“Hush, mo spréach. All will be well. I will keep you safe.”
Against my better judgement, I believed him.
6
Reality crashed my pity-party fast. Before the Prime’s shirt could absorb more than a few of my tears, I jumped from his arms and raced into the bathroom. Locking the door behind me, I cranked on the water in a massive, glass-enclosed shower, tore off my smelly clothes, and inserted myself into the scalding flow.
I let the water rinse the final tears from my face, breathing in short bursts until the wall around my emotions was rebuilt—a familiar exercise that didn’t take long.
Growing up with a single male parent, a police detective to boot, hadn’t afforded me much leeway for feminine hysterics. From a young age, I’d recognized the deep sadness my stalwart father concealed and modified my behavior accordingly.
The older I grew, the more my role evolved. As soon as I arrived home from school, I started cooking a healthy dinner for the two of us. I did the laundry, cleaned the house, and made sure his favorite magazines were stocked beside his recliner. I was too busy for teenaged tantrums, moping, or lovesickness. By self-appointment, I was his rock.
