And then another horror dawned on her. Was her father truly going to execute these three people in front of her? If he did, would she feel it? And what about the rest of the coven? There were new vamps here with no control. It could start a frenzy.
She swallowed hard and swayed on her feet. Her father stopped what he’d been saying and reached behind him to slide his hand into hers, offering her a reassuring smile. He had this under control. He would never put her in any danger. She squeezed his fingers.
All at once, a sharp pain hit her between the eyes. She winced, her attention drawn almost magnetically to the shaman. He couldn’t be using magic, could he? His bindings were enchanted against it. Unless, of course, the witch they’d hired to cast the spell had only taken into account their shifting abilities and not anything magical. The wolf’s gunmetal-gray eyes cut into her and the pain throbbed anew. He was causing the pain, she was sure it. Well, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting to his little trick. He’d be dead soon enough, and the fear and ache he was pumping into her head would be gone with him.
An image appeared in her mind, four wolves running through the snow. They were free, wild. Four friends in perfect connection with nature. These three friends… and one more.
“Would you care to do the honors?” Her father whispered in her ear, breaking her out of the vision.
Sabrina blinked rapidly, clearing her head. She motioned at her dress. “It’s Armani.”
“You truly are a princess.” He laughed and turned away from her. “Tristan, if you please.”
Tristan drew a dagger from his black leather boot and gave Sabrina a knowing smile. Without breaking eye contact with her, he brought the blade to the alpha’s throat. Sabrina tensed. The wolf image came back full force, flooding her mind until she could feel the snow on her skin. Now she saw herself running with the wolves, the cold in her nose, the soft powder under her feet. Her forehead throbbed and she rubbed her temple. She wanted to scream.
She composed herself, refusing an urge to look at the shaman again. No way. She squared her shoulders and ignored the wolf.
Tristan sliced the alpha’s throat, throwing him to the ground by his hair. The female beside him screamed, her shrieks stopping when they turned to sobs. Sabrina felt it all, the grief barreling into her heart and tearing it in two. She would not cry. She would not—
She was in the woods again with the wolves but she was covered in blood, the alpha’s blood. She blinked and the white female flopped on her side, her neck gushing. At least that ended the ache in her chest. She no longer felt like her own mate had died. But she was still locked in the vision, unable to see or hear her own coven at all. The snow felt cold. The wind blew through her hair. The air smelled of pine and ice. Everything white was splattered in red.
Another blink and it was just her, the shaman, and a single black wolf standing in the snow.
He opened his mouth, snow catching on his eyelashes and bottom lip. “You will never be the same as them. If you try, you will lose your soul.”
A wound opened in his neck, a crimson tide staining the white at her feet. The wave of nausea that crashed into her almost made her double over. Almost. The image faded from her mind fast enough for her to remain standing. The last thing she saw before it faded completely was the black wolf running into the woods. She came back into reality to find all three wolves bleeding out on the stone, the last twitches of life rippling through their dying bodies. Thank goodness. The pain in her head was gone.
Beside her, her father leaned toward the microphone. “It is said that werewolf blood is intoxicating to vampires. This is my gift to you. Feed, my children. Don’t waste a single drop.”
As if the coven were a tightly coiled spring that had been released, the vampires surged forward, swarming the three werewolves until Sabrina couldn’t see them at all. She could smell them though. The scent of their blood filled the space, and the sound of their tearing flesh echoed above her clawing brethren.
After saying a few closing words that were largely ignored by the frenzy of vampires, her father led her back to his suite. Her well-practiced smile was still in place, but whatever the shaman had done had left her exhausted. She planned to say good night to her father as soon as possible and go to bed early.
“I know what’s bothering you,” her father said.
“Nothing’s bothering me. I’m so proud of you. You’ve avenged my mother.”
He shook his head. “You think you missed out on the wolf blood. Don’t fret, Sabrina. I had them put some aside for us before the wolves were ever brought forward.” He poured two shot glasses of blood from a decanter on the small credenza in his living room and handed her one. The vessel was enchanted to keep the blood fresh and the glass felt warm in her hand. Raucous growls of vampires feeding in the main hall echoed in the tunnels outside his front door as he raised his glass to her. “Here’s to you, future coven master. It won’t be long now. I hope you’ve been taking notes.”
“Oh, I think I have time.” She shook her head. “You’re more powerful than ever. You’re not going anywhere.”
“But that’s where you are wrong, daughter. Now that the werewolves are conquered, someone needs to take over the Racine territory. That someone is me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Only I have the experience to start a new coven there. And that means”—he grinned like he was handing her the world on a spoon—“you, Sabrina, will become the new Lamia coven master.”
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.
He laughed and nodded his head. “It’s okay. This is overwhelming. Give it time to sink in.”
“It’s… so unexpected,” she said breathlessly.
He clinked her glass. “Congratulations, darling, you deserve it.” He tossed back his drink while Sabrina tried her best to steady her shaking knees. She wasn’t ready for this. Not by a long shot.
Chapter Six
Tobias pulled his coat tighter around his bare chest as he walked from his Land Cruiser to the back door of his house., His shirt hadn’t been salvageable. After he’d left Sabrina’s, he’d tossed it in the dumpster before returning to Maverick’s to pick up their coats. At times like this, he was thankful dragons could make themselves invisible.
It had started to snow again, big fluffy flakes that turned the world white and covered the cars in the parking lot with a thick blanket of the cold stuff. Gabriel’s car was gone, but he hadn’t left long ago based on the thin film of white where it used to be. So they’d returned to New Orleans as planned. Good. That was for the best. He rushed inside, kicked off his snow-covered shoes, and placed them in the utility sink before wiping the excess snow from the floor with a towel. He removed his coat and hung it on the hook. Shirtless, he veered from the mudroom into the kitchen.
“Oh!” Raven raised her hands to shield her eyes. She was sitting at the counter, Artemis curled in her lap. “What happened to your shirt?”
“What are you doing here?”
He jogged past her and to his room, grabbed a T-shirt from his drawer, and pulled it over his head. When he returned, Raven looked confused.
“I’m sorry I caught you off guard.” Her cheeks reddened. “Gabriel went to the store for some hot-chocolate mix. This weather makes me crave it, and you didn’t have any. I still haven’t adjusted to the cold, so he offered to go to the store without me.” She trailed her fingers over Artemis’s back and bit her lip.
Tobias shot her a pitying look. “No one ever adjusts to Chicago cold. What I meant to ask was, why are you still in Chicago at all? Gabriel told me you were going home today.”
She frowned. “Why would he say that? We haven’t even had a chance to talk to you.”
“About what exactly?”
Raven stared at him for a long, assessing moment. “About what happened in Paragon. I think it would be better if Gabriel were here for this conversation.” She stroked the cat again. “I’m uncomfortable saying anything m
ore without him present.”
“How diplomatic of you,” he said stiffly. “I think my brother has failed to mention that we’ve already discussed this, and as I told him, I’m not interested in getting involved.”
He crossed to the refrigerator and looked inside. No wonder he felt like a bent twig about to snap. Not only had he missed dinner, but he was still a little drained from his ordeal at Maverick’s. He opened the meat drawer and grabbed the salmon fillets inside.
“You don’t like me very much, do you?” Raven asked from behind him.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Don’t take it personally. Dragons and witches are not meant to be… related. I realize you are not familiar with our customs, but your mating to Gabriel breaks one of our most sacred laws. I can’t condone it.”
He preheated the oven and then tossed the fish into a pan with some lemon slices and fresh dill from his windowsill herb garden.
He glanced back at Raven to find her staring at him. Even though he was hungry enough to eat every ounce of fish he was preparing, he wasn’t a monster. “Have you eaten yet? There’s enough here for two.”
“Thank you, but I’m set. Gabriel and I ordered burgers earlier.”
He nodded and slid the fish into the oven.
“You’re very comfortable around the kitchen. You don’t have oreads to help you?”
Tobias chuckled. “No. Unlike my brother, I prefer to cook and clean for myself. It makes me feel human.”
“You said that before, that you live as a human. No treasure room. Why do you want to be human?” Raven cleared her throat. “What I mean is, why aren’t you happy being what you are?”
He looked at her over his shoulder. “When in Rome. The best way to disguise oneself as a human convincingly is to become convincingly human.”
“Oh.”
He poured himself a glass of white wine and pointed a finger toward an empty glass. When Raven nodded, he poured her one too. “I’ve accepted that I will be living on this Earth for a very long time. Maybe forever. I’d just as soon live like the natives do.”
She nodded, but he hated the hint of pity he saw in her eyes.
“It doesn’t surprise me that Gabriel keeps oreads. Even in Paragon, my brother wouldn’t walk somewhere he could fly,” he sniped.
Raven accepted the wine and took a small sip. “Did Gabriel ever tell you that he saved my life with his tooth?”
“He told me he healed you but not what he healed you from.”
“Brain cancer. Glioblastoma.”
He leaned against the counter. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
“That’s a harsh diagnosis.”
“It was a harsh condition. I was sure it was the end until your brother came along. He saved me and I agreed to work for him, to help him break Crimson’s curse. That bond, though, was not why I fell in love with him.”
“Why did you?”
She stared straight ahead for a minute, focusing on nothing in particular before answering. “I kept hearing about this bond, about how Gabriel could force me to do things. I’d agreed to it when I was ill. I didn’t know I was a witch at the time. If he had threatened me, I would have done what he’d asked. But he never did. In fact, he freed me, time and time again, at his own peril. Gabriel won me like a flower wins a bee; he held very still and offered me love and kindness like nectar. I came willingly, starving for my soul’s nourishment. I couldn’t resist. I kept coming back again and again until I never wanted to leave.”
Tobias snorted. “I bet my brother loves being compared to a nectar-filled flower.”
“Cancer is a prison. He broke me out. There isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for him, Tobias. You have a rule in Paragon that dragons and witches cannot mate because they’d be too powerful. I get that. But I’m not the same kind of witch that rule was made for. I’m not from Paragon. I’m a human girl who was dying in a hospital bed less than a year ago. I don’t want power or to rule Paragon. I just want a simple life.”
“You may want a simple life, but it is said your offspring will be monsters with uncontrollable power.”
“I can’t have children. The chemo took that from me. I’m barren.”
Tobias frowned. He was aware of the type of chemo she must’ve been on. What she said rang true. “I’m sorry,” he said genuinely.
“Well, with my condition it wasn’t like they were worried about preserving my fertility. I wasn’t going to be around long enough to bear children.”
He stopped himself from saying he was sorry again and instead blew out a deep breath.
She continued, “So you see, what you call a witch and what I am are two different things, and Paragon is an entirely different world. I love your brother, Tobias, with my whole heart and my whole soul. I just want us to be a family.”
At last she stopped talking. He wasn’t sure he could listen to any more. She was breaking his heart. The truth was he liked Raven. He had liked her since the first day he’d met her. But Tobias was a male who believed in the law. There was a right and there was a wrong. Rules existed for a reason.
He reached into the fridge and retrieved some leftover tabbouleh salad while he was thinking what to say to her. “Look. You seem like a nice person, Raven. It’s nothing personal. I know you guys thought you saw something in Paragon that made you believe our mother was partly responsible for the coup. But I wasn’t there. And I know our mother. She told us to stay apart in order to keep us safe. She saved us. Whatever you saw, it couldn’t be what you thought it was. I plan to keep doing what she told us to do, and that means staying away from Gabriel. I’m sorry.”
“Okay.” She played with the cat’s ears.
Tobias retrieved a plate from the cupboard and stared at the oven hungrily. Ten more minutes.
“I’m not buying it, you know.”
He looked at her over his shoulder. “Buying what?”
“The ‘I never break the rules’ crap. You wanted Gabriel’s healing amulet for a reason. I bet you’ve already used it.”
He stared at the empty plate in his hand, his teeth clenching. True or not, the severity of his infraction was minuscule compared to an interspecies mating like hers. Interspecies mating. The memory of Sabrina’s tongue coasting over the back of his shoulder filled his mind. He stiffened.
“Can you honestly tell me that in all your five hundred years you’ve never been with someone who wasn’t a dragon?” Raven asked pointedly.
“Sexual relationships with humans are acceptable for dragons. Humans are considered a harmless distraction.”
“And you’ve never been with any other species? Never even been tempted?” Raven crossed her arms, the wineglass cupped in her right hand. “I find that hard to believe.”
Tobias’s mind lingered on Sabrina. No, they hadn’t slept together yet, but he wanted to. Oh hell, if he could woo her into bed, he’d have the feisty redhead right now.
“Your silence speaks volumes,” Raven said.
“I’m not mated to anyone.” He took a long drink of wine.
“Yet.” Her intense gaze cut right through him, and one corner of her mouth curled. “I see you with someone, and she isn’t a dragon.”
“What does that mean? Are you reading my mind or something?” Tobias scowled.
Raven shook her head. “I can’t read minds. Just a hunch. You walked in here tonight shirtless and smelling of blood and perfume.”
He thumbed the stem of his glass. Perhaps he was a bit of a hypocrite. Could he blame Gabriel for Raven if he planned to pursue Sabrina? Vampires weren’t forbidden like witches, but the relationship would never have been sanctioned in Paragon. Dragons and vampires didn’t commingle much in that realm. He gave his head a shake. Who was he kidding? There was no relationship to speak of, not yet anyway. At this point all he could claim was a permanent erection with Sabrina’s name on it.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Raven, but as soon as I finish eating this, I’m going to bed.
Today has been, in a word, draining, and this conversation isn’t helping.”
Raven gave him a warm smile. “Okay. I just want you to know I’m not the enemy. I’m here because I love your brother. Nothing more. You have nothing to fear when it comes to me.”
“Understood. But what you have to understand—” The timer cut him off, and he spun around to retrieve his dinner from the oven. When he turned back to finish his sentence, she’d left the room and taken the cat with her.
Chapter Seven
New Orleans
A crack and a flash of light, not unlike thunder and lightning, heralded Scoria’s arrival. He landed in a crouch in a grassy area that smelled of animal dung, the marble-sized orb Aborella had given him gripped tightly in his gloved fist. As the captain of the Obsidian Guard, he was among the strongest and fastest of his kind, capable of wielding all manner of Paragonian weapons, but that didn’t stop his knees from shaking. Traveling between dimensions under any circumstances could be a dicey affair. Following the echo of a weak tracking spell rather than opening a portal was like feeding your body through a sieve.
But the empress wanted the girl.
Once, centuries ago, Scoria had prided himself on his devout adherence to the law of the Mountain, handed down by the goddess at the birth of Paragon. He’d learned the stories on his grandfather’s knee and had believed every word of them. Now there was only one law. Her law. Eleanor was the most powerful dragon who’d ever lived, and she was now Paragon’s high ruler. If she wanted the girl, it was Scoria’s duty to retrieve her. He’d sworn his life to the crown, and he had every intention of following through.
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