by Tessa Cole
Sebastian still fought hand-to-hand with the shadowy fae, with two more growing blood patches staining his sliced shirt and a black tattooed glyph near his neck glowing with icy-blue light.
Cassius was a few feet away, his flames dancing around him and the demon-vampire, who lunged in with a quick jab. Cassius started to sidestep, then froze, the angelic light glowing in his eyes flaring. The blade plunged toward his chest and my pulse tripped. If I was still locked on Titus, I might not be able to save Cassius if he took a serious injury. But at the last minute, with a burst of fire around his hands and a scream, he heaved to the side.
For a second it looked like he’d managed to avoid getting cut, then the firelight shimmered in the blood soaking into his black T-shirt and the fabric parted revealing a laceration slicing across his upper chest from shoulder to shoulder.
“Don’t make eye contact with the nightmare,” Cassius gasped. He shot a ball of fire into the trees directly across from him as he scrambled out of the way of another sweep of the demon-vampire’s katana.
A demon with hellfire hair licking around tall thick horns that protruded from his forehead burst from the shadows. He was, without a doubt, a nightmare, a demon who, in both his human and horse form, could paralyze you with fear.
“Amiah, can you run?” Cassius asked.
“Not even to get away from your fire,” I snapped back. The flames now burned my patient’s shoulder and the pressure of my magic surged.
“How long until he’s stable?” Sebastian asked, slapping his ribs and activating another tattoo, although it didn’t seem as if anything magical had happened.
“I—” I scrambled to hold back my rushing power, but with a scream, Titus jerked awake again, and his eyes flew open revealing striking golden irises that stole whatever I was going to say. For a second there was just him, his predatory gaze boring into me, seeing straight into my soul.
Then pain twisted his expression. His breath turned into ragged gasps, and he grabbed the front of my suit jacket and shoved me to the ground, impossibly rolling on top of me and pinning me with his still mostly broken body, his weight crushing me. The movement, with the strength and power rushing out of me, made my head spin.
Blood from his wounds splattered on my face and clothes, and he snarled, revealing pointed elongated canines, suggesting that maybe he was a werewolf.
“You can’t have it,” he growled, his eyes wild as he clamped a huge hand around my neck and squeezed.
Chapter 3
Amiah
I gasped, clawing at Titus’s hand with my weak still-glowing fingers, my other hand still pressed against his chest. I tried to tell him I didn’t want whatever it was he was protecting, but couldn’t draw enough breath to speak. Without a doubt all he needed to do was tighten his grip and he’d crush my windpipe.
“I won’t let you have it,” he growled, but for some reason his grip didn’t tighten, and his body trembled, his strange golden eyes wide with fear and pain.
“Amiah, is he stable?” Sebastian asked, either not noticing I was in trouble or not caring.
Help me!
I whimpered, the most noise I could make, but knew the moment the pathetic sound came out it wasn’t loud enough to draw anyone’s attention.
Please, look at me.
The forest grew darker. I was going to pass out soon.
I heaved against Titus’s massive weight but couldn’t move him.
“Doesn’t matter, we have to get out of here,” Cassius said, also not looking my way or he definitely would have come to my rescue. “Teleport us.”
I dug my short nails into Titus’s wrist. His gaze never left mine, his expression more dangerous beast than logical man.
Help.
The trembling in his body increased. “You can’t have it. I won’t let you.” Now it sounded like he was begging.
“A teleport is not happening,” Sebastian said. “We have to run for it. I can put them down long enough to get to my car if you can carry Titus— Oh, fuck. Titus. Let her go.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sebastian leap toward me, and Titus’s attention jerked to the fae.
“Seireadan?” Titus gasped, and his eyes rolled back. He collapsed on top of me, stealing what little breath I had left and sending agony screaming through my chest.
My magical compulsion to heal him until he was stable finally released me — thank goodness for that! — leaving me weak with miniature convulsions racing through my muscles. I struggled to push him off, even just enough to squirm free, but I’d used too much magic too quickly and barely had the strength to breathe against his weight.
Cassius shot another fireball at the demon-vampire, tossing him into the nightmare although not dropping either of them, and heaved Titus off me, as Sebastian slapped two more tattoos and hissed a sibilant — probably fae — word.
Another force-wave shot from his hand, this one stronger than before, picking up rocks, fallen branches, and flaming weeds. It put out all the fire and slammed into the fae, the demon-vampire, and the nightmare, tossing them deeper into the forest.
Sebastian jerked to face us. “I wove a bit of sleep in with that blast but that won’t keep them down for long.” He held his hand out to me and I batted it away and scrambled to my feet.
The forest darkened and lurched, and my legs shook, but I gritted my teeth. There was no way I was going to let Sebastian see how dizzy I was. It would just give him more to make fun of and the dizziness would pass… eventually.
“I’m parked down the path,” Sebastian said, and Cassius hefted Titus over his shoulders.
We crashed through the underbrush and back down the path. Sebastian ran straight to the small, sleek silver two-door sports car parked at the side of the road and opened the passenger side door.
“Are you kidding me?” Cassius asked. “You came here in that?”
“If I’d known you were coming, I would have driven a bigger vehicle,” Sebastian said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “You’re welcome to run with him all the way back to my place.”
Cassius’s eyes narrowed and the muscles in his jaw flexed. “We’re not going back to your place.”
Oh, my goodness.
The street darkened and whirled and I fought to keep standing.
Were they really having this conversation right now? “You’re all bleeding. Those men could catch up with us any minute. Get in the car!”
Cassius stiffened and Sebastian’s eyes widened and I realized my tone had been a lot sharper than I intended. But I wasn’t going to take it back. I didn’t need them to like me. I just needed them to not get hurt any worse than they already were, because I was already running low.
“You heard the lady,” Sebastian said, gesturing to the open passenger door.
Titus was too big to fit in the back with someone else even if Sebastian pulled the front seats all the way forward, so Cassius set the big man in the front passenger seat and squeezed his not-nearly-as-big but still pretty-big frame into the barely there back seat.
I squished in beside him onto the soft black leather, grateful that I was about average size and build, and grabbed Titus’s shoulder, easing more healing magic into him, and assessing his condition. Yes, he’d been well enough to be moved, but that didn’t really mean much. Most of his organs and some of his bones had barely been stitched back together while other bones were still broken, and he still bled profusely. At least most of the internal bleeding had stopped.
Sebastian hopped into the driver’s seat, drew in a shuddering breath, and activated another glyph along his right ribs. Icy blue-white light flared from the tattoo, turning his white shirt see-through, revealing the dark swirling lines covering his torso but also accentuating the large patches of blood soaking the fabric. He was going to need medical attention, if not my healing magic — which I could give him now that I’d been released from the need to heal Titus even though I didn’t have much left — then certainly stitches, and Cassius would as well.
With another shuddering breath, and a grip on the steering wheel that made the tendons in his forearms flex, Sebastian sped away from the curb, the wheels squealing against the asphalt.
“Okay,” Cassius said, his voice low. “What was that?”
Sebastian swerved around a corner, putting a three-story building between us and the entrance to the park then took a hard left and raced down the road.
Cassius bit back a strangled grunt. “And that was a red light.”
Titus moaned, my healing magic starting to pull him out of unconsciousness even though it would be better if he didn’t wake. The agony of his broken body would still be overwhelming, and given his strength and violent reactions, it would be best if he didn’t lash out while we were all crammed into Sebastian’s tiny car. Except there wasn’t anything I could do. My magic knitted broken bodies back together. It didn’t sedate or dull pain.
“He needs a sedative and more medical attention. All of you need medical attention,” I said, forcing my words to be firm and professional, and not letting my increasing dizziness and weakness affect my tone. I didn’t want an argument. And I didn’t want either of them to see how surging that much magic into someone affected me. Knowing Cassius, he’d get all worried and treat me as if I was fragile. He hadn’t looked at me as if I was fragile in a long time and I intended to keep it that way. Because no one took a fragile woman seriously and I wasn’t going to let anyone take my control away like that. “You’re taking us to Operations.”
“No.” Sebastian’s gaze jumped in to the rear-view mirror and caught mine, his expression deadly serious. “You saw what happened. I’m taking Titus to my apartment.”
“You don’t think we can protect him?” Cassius’s eyes narrowed. “Or will I find out the truth and have to arrest him?”
“Neither,” Sebastian said. “I can only keep the protection spell I cast on Titus going for so long, and Operations doesn’t have the kind of protections my apartment has. Those men will still be coming after him.”
“What kind of protection?” Cassius demanded.
Sebastian snorted. “A glyph witch never casts and tells.”
“So an illegal spell,” Cassius huffed.
“Go ahead and prove it.” Sebastian sped around a corner, going through another red light and making the muscles in Cassius’s jaw flex.
With a scream, Titus jerked in his seat and slammed his knee into the dashboard, cracking it.
I pushed more magic into him, repeating my mantra in my head over and over again.
Just keep looking strong and calm. Just a little longer. Strong and calm.
But the speeding car did little to ease the growing whirl in my head, and my hunched forward position to maintain contact with Titus made it painful to draw each breath. That and my neck where he’d grabbed me was starting to hurt, which meant he’d squeezed hard enough to bruise. “He needs to be properly sedated. He’s dangerous in this condition.”
“He’s dangerous in any condition.” Sebastian pulled into a short driveway leading into the underground parking for a four-story office building. The heavy metal door rolled open, and he drove down the steep ramp, past row upon row of mostly empty parking spots, to the back of the garage that I was pretty sure was now in the basement of the next building over.
“This is none of your business, angel.” Sebastian parked between an expensive looking SUV and another sleek sports car, this one black. He shoved open his door and got out, revealing that the whole left side of his button-down was soaked with blood.
Cassius climbed out after him. “A fight between supers makes it my business. I could bring you in for running those red lights.”
“No you can’t. You can only write me a ticket. Call a cab and go home.” Sebastian shoved past Cassius, limped around the front of the car, and opened the passenger door. His breath was too fast and his expression tight. Even without my magic telling me, I knew he was in pain.
Titus moaned again, and Sebastian turned his attention to me. “Can you revive him? It’ll be easier if I don’t have to carry him.”
“His broken legs are barely knitted back together, and even if I could revive him, given his injuries and his violent outbursts, that’s a bad idea.”
“Right. Of course. Dangerous in any condition,” Sebastian said, his tone clear he thought he was stupid for having forgotten what he’d just said. He pressed his forehead against the doorframe and squeezed his eyes shut. “You God damn fucking idiot.”
“Bane—” Cassius growled, but I cut him off before he could utter whatever he was going to threaten Sebastian with.
“Pick him up, Cassius, and let’s get him cleaned up and in a bed.” I glared at Cassius. There was no point in Titus bleeding out in Sebastian’s fancy sports car when it would be more comfortable for him and me to finish what I could in Sebastian’s apartment. “You can arrest Sebastian, or both of them after all of you have stopped bleeding.”
Cassius huffed but pulled Titus out of the car and hefted him over his shoulders again as Sebastian led the way to a plain, cinderblock wall. The fae pressed his palm to one of the bricks, and the illusion shimmered then vanished revealing an elevator door.
The door slid open and the guys marched in as I clenched my hands and squared my shoulders, struggling to not show how weak I was, then I joined them. Sebastian hit the top of two buttons and the door slid shut. Guess the elevator only went to two floors. The garage and up to wherever we were going now.
Tense silence broken by sharp breathing from all the men and punctuated by moaning gasps from Titus filled the elevator. Darkness danced at the edge of my vision, and I tightened my fists, determined not to grab the side of the wall to keep my balance.
I will not look weak. I will be strong and calm. I wouldn’t ever be weak again.
A moment later, the door opened to a long opulent hall. I’d only been to Sebastian’s apartment once before, but I didn’t think I’d ever forget the white marble floor or the complicated gilded frescoes on the walls and ceiling of the hall outside his door. All that money wasted on decorations when it could have been spent on medical attention for those less fortunate.
The elevator had opened at the end of the hall. A quarter of the way down stood a heavy door with a large frosted blue and white stained-glass window, and at the far end were the stairs leading up to the roof and directly down to the ground level without any doors to the three other floors in the building. The soft thump thump of music from the nightclub below filled the silence, but wasn’t nearly as loud as I’d have expected this close to midnight, which suggested Sebastian had enspelled his floor to mute the sounds below.
Sebastian unlocked his front door, flicked a switch turning on a shimmering crystal chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling, and limped across his stunning white-on-white with hints of blue and silver living room toward his kitchen, leaving a trail of blood droplets on the white marble floor.
“Put him in a bed,” Sebastian said, “then go. I can take it from there. He’s a pretty fast healer so he’ll probably be fine soon.”
I huffed. No one healed that fast.
“Are you going to tell us who he is?” Cassius asked, adjusting his grip on Titus, and I realized Cassius didn’t know where the bedrooms were. “And who were those men who tried to kill you?”
The last time we’d been here— or rather the only time was when Cassius had been magically poisoned and we, along with the main JP team, had been running for our lives. He probably didn’t even remember arriving, and he certainly hadn’t been conscious when we’d left. At the time, I been terrified I was going to lose him. Without Marcus, all I had were Cassius and my fellow healer, Priam. I didn’t make friends easily and I’d thought I’d found my soul mate and hadn’t needed anyone else. Even if Cassius did always take assignments out of town, he’d been my one constant for almost a century.
The room started to tilt and I dug my nails into my palms. I’d been conscious the last time I’d left, I’d
be conscious this time, too.
“I’ve already told you,” Sebastian called from the kitchen. “His name is Titus and that’s all you need to know.”
“Not good enough, Bane. There are three dangerous men in my city.”
“It’s not your city,” Sebastian said. “It’s your brother’s. And there are lots of dangerous men and women here. Three more you’re never going to see again are not your concern.”
“They didn’t look like the kind of men to give up. If they know anything about angels, they’ll know Am—” The light in Cassius’s eyes blazed. “They’ll know all angels live in the JP Operations building. We left with their target. You or Titus. They’re going to show up at Operations looking for you whether we like it or not.”
Sebastian limped out of the kitchen with a small red first aid kit that I doubted had much of anything helpful in it. “They know Operations doesn’t have an area concealment spell. They’ll know Titus isn’t there.”
“You don’t know that,” Cassius said.
Titus moaned and jerked, forcing Cassius to shift to keep hold of the big man, the movement sliding his foot into the growing blood pool at his feet.
“The protection of everyone in that building and in this city are my responsibility right now.”
“Then put Titus in a bed and go fucking protect them.” Sebastian limped around his conversation area of two couches and a coffee table, past his grand piano to the hall with the apartment’s other rooms, and threw open the first door on the right.
Cassius glared after him.
“Just follow him.” I wasn’t going to be able to remain standing, not with the whirling lightheadedness threatening to steal my consciousness, and I certainly wasn’t going to be able to hide my trembling for much longer. I didn’t want either Cassius or Sebastian to see me give in and sit. Or worse, pass out. “You can argue while I heal you two then finish with Titus.”
With a grunt, Cassius marched to the door and pushed past Sebastian. Inside was a clean, elegant bedroom done in the same white, blues, and silver as the rest of Sebastian’s apartment. The room was lit by another, smaller, crystal chandelier, had a king-sized bed with a pristine white duvet, and an en suite bathroom with marble countertops and a standup shower.