The spark of a dimensional gate appeared amid all that calm beauty, swelled outward. Kept swelling until it was the wide enough for an army.
Morgana Le Fay was the first one through, tall and slim in armor that cast blinding reflections in the morning light. For a moment, the witch’s face filled Alys’s sight, and a chill rolled over her. There was something wrong with Morgana’s eyes. Normally there was cool intelligence in her gaze, or at worst, a certain calculation.
But cruelty filled those green eyes now. Cruelty, malice, and a horrible anticipation.
That’s not Morgana. That’s Bres.
Bres/Morgana stepped aside, making way for the enemy army who marched through the gate after her. Ranks of armed and armored Fomorians, trolls, centaurs, giants -- even a huge green dragon. Thousands of enemy warriors.
A female voice shouted in alarm, followed by a pulse of magic as the Maja warned the city with a spell.
Or at least, everyone who wasn’t in the Daysleep.
Majae came running, hurling magical blasts, swords ready. The shadows of great wings fell across the square as Kel roared overhead like a fighter jet. The enemy dragon leaped to meet him, breathing fire.
Kel’s wife, Nineva, shifted to dragon form and hurled herself into the sky, obviously determined to help her husband.
Avalon’s Council of Majae gathered in a circle -- Guinevere, Grace, Caroline, Lark, Eva, and Miranda, along with the two Avalonian males who weren’t vampires, Smoke and William Justice. Smoke was in his warrior form -- nine feet tall, his thick ebony fur striped across the haunches in silver. He attacked the nearest troll, his roar thunderous. The troll roared back, swinging a mace at Smoke’s big feline skull.
Justice and Miranda shifted to Dire Wolves, almost as big, his fur midnight black, hers fox red, both of them lithe and deadly with their claws and fangs and magic.
As their defenders ringed them in a protective circle, Guinevere, Caroline, Eva, and Grace linked hands and closed their eyes, mouths moving in a chant. They cried out, and a huge shaft of magic speared skyward… only to splash against what appeared to be an invisible bowl high overhead: the great magical shield of Avalon, which prevented invaders from gating into the city.
They’re trying to polarize the shield so the vampires will awake, Alys realized. It was the spell created by Maeve, the Mother of Fairies, when Warlock and his Direkind had tried this a decade ago. Back then, the men had awoken with the artificial nightfall and had helped beat off the attack.
This time nothing happened.
Morgana/Bres stepped from among the Fomorians, her mouth curled into that vicious smile. Bres did something to the shield, Alys realized, her heart sinking. Of course. Though Merlin had created the magical barrier to begin with, Morgana had crafted the spells the Majae used to strengthen and improve it.
Once Bres gained control of her, he controlled the shield.
Terror and despair rolled over the faces of the defenders as they realized they were doomed. Then with cries of defiance and rage, every one of them lunged for the nearest Fomorian.
The dream dissolved into chaotic images of blood, blinding bolts of magic flying like lightning strikes, accompanied by the clash of swords, axes, and spears. Screams, curses, and battle cries rang out as buildings caught fire -- chateaus, villas, Gothic and Georgian mansions alike, blazing out of control.
The vision seemed to wrench, and Alys realized she was looking into Arthur’s sleeping face as he lay comatose in the Daysleep. She found herself screaming at him to wake up, even knowing he couldn’t. Couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t wake so long as the sun was up. That was the way vampire magic worked.
A three-fingered armored hand closed around his wrist and jerked him brutally out of bed. As his helpless body slammed to the floor, a sword rose and fell.
And the head of the Once and Future King rolled away from his body.
The image wrenched to Guinevere’s face in the frame of her visor, her mouth drawing into a silent rictus of agony. The sword tumbled from her hand as her magical shield winked out.
And she fell dead, slain by the wrenching shock of Arthur’s death. Killed by the Truebond, the psychic union she’d had with her husband for fifteen centuries.
Gwen wasn’t alone. More Majae dropped, slain as the Fomorians murdered their helpless husbands even as the witches struggled to hold off the invaders.
The women who were left fought on, outnumbered. Growing more outnumbered as the minutes passed. Doomed.
Nineva fell, burning, from the sky. Kel roared in anguish and agony, tumbling after her, dead from their psychic link before he hit the ground. The falling dragons crushed a group of Majae unable to gate away in time.
Alys saw a dark-skinned figure racing down a cobbled street, swinging Reaver in great flaming arcs. With a sick kind of horror, she realized the figure was herself, striking down every Fomorian in her way, merciless in her rage and terror. “Davon! Davon, wake up!” Alys knew even as she howled that he couldn’t wake, not with the sun up.
But they didn’t have a Truebond. His death wouldn’t cause hers. She sprinted up the stone walkway toward the front door, praying she’d get to him before…
A troll stepped out of the house, carrying Davon’s decapitated head by the hair.
* * *
Davon woke to the sound of Alys’s terrified screams. The house was dark. He catapulted out of bed, naked, his bare feet hitting the cool wooden floor as he lunged for his sword. He jerked it out of the scabbard that hung from the armored mannequin, then bolted from the room and across the hall. Throwing Alys’s bedroom door open with one hand, he spun to the side and snapped a glance inside. He saw no one. Davon charged into the room and stopped dead at the foot of her bed, staring in sick, growing fear.
Alys writhed under the quilt, staring at the stained-glass skylight, her face contorted as scream after scream ripped from her mouth. This was no ordinary nightmare. Her open, staring eyes were awash in inky black, stars glittering in the dark.
Davon froze in indecision. Grabbing her now would be a good way to get a fireball in the face. Besides, he didn’t want to interrupt the vision before she’d seen whatever she needed to see. Yet as her screams stabbed his eardrums, he longed desperately to wake her. Standing around while she endured such terror made his every protective instinct howl.
But if there was one thing a decade as Alys’s partner had taught him, it was the ability to ignore his own needs. She and her visions came first.
With desperate self-control, Davon put the sword aside on the bureau. Good thing she’s got soundproofing spells around the house. Otherwise every vampire and witch for blocks around would be banging on the door, trying to find out what’s killing Alys.
At last the black rolled away from her eyes. Her face contorted in anguished grief as she rolled over onto her side and huddled there, as if curled around a mortal wound. Davon moved to bend over her, laying a hand against her shaking back. “Alys.” He had to work to keep his voice steady, despite his own anguish. “Alys…”
She lifted her head, staring at him. With a tearing sob, she hurled herself into his arms. He caught her automatically and drew her close, realizing only then that he held a naked Alys against his equally nude body. But for once, even his self-absorbed cock showed no interest in sex. Not with her shivering in his arms, her nails digging desperately into his biceps as if he was the only solid thing in her drowning world.
Slowly, gently, Davon began to smooth one hand over her mass of springy curls. “What do you need me to do?” he asked, keeping his voice soft, calm.
“Hold me,” she whispered, her voice a raw croak. “I need you.”
He didn’t hesitate, drawing her closer until every inch of her silken skin was pressed against his. And thought a mental threat at his dick in case it got the wrong idea. He had never seen her like this. No matter how ugly things got, no matter how bad the future her visions predicted, she’d never… shattered.
True, this wasn’t the first time
he’d awakened to the sound of her screams. But once awake, her response was always to clamp down on her emotions while she decided how to prevent whatever her visions had predicted. What the fuck had she seen?
He couldn’t ask. If Alys didn’t tell him, it was because anyone else knowing could trigger whatever she most wanted to avoid. And in this case, whatever she wanted to avoid was obviously pretty fucking bad.
Davon held her until she abruptly pulled out of his arms. Conjuring a handkerchief, Alys wiped her nose and closed her swollen eyes. She spent several nerve-wracking moments just breathing, in through her nose and out through her mouth. The hand holding the handkerchief shook.
What the hell is going on? It took all his self-control keep the impatient demand from bursting from his mouth.
They stood quietly while she worked through the techniques she’d taught him to control an adrenaline dump.
At last Alys looked up at him. Her slight smile showed a hell of a lot of effort. “Thank you. I need my lab.”
She started from the room, only to hesitate in mid-step as she looked down at herself. “I’m naked.”
“Noticed.”
Alys glanced at him, and for a moment he thought she was going to give him a genuine smile. “So are you.” Her lips flattened and she threw up a hand. Magic sparked and swirled around her, leaving behind a white gown that seemed to glow against her golden skin.
The sparks streamed to him next, whirling around his body in a miniature glowing storm. When they vanished, he found himself wearing loose cotton pants and a T-shirt, both black. His feet, like hers, were bare.
Alys was already striding from the room. He hurried after her as she swung into the wrought iron spiral staircase and headed downward to the lab far beneath the house. Deep enough to protect the neighborhood if the wrong thing exploded.
The stairs rang and clattered with their footsteps as they descended past the library, down into the earth.
The lab was a huge stone room lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves that held books, magical objects, and neatly labeled jars of powders, liquids, and enchanted organic materials. She’d told him once that creating a powerful magical object required the physical act of making it with your hands and imbuing it with your magic over a period of hours, even days.
Now, as Davon watched, Alys moved to a section of the shelves packed with a huge selection of beeswax candles, many flecked with magical herbs and powders. She gathered fistfuls of them and loaded them into his arms. They made an awkward burden as he followed her along the aisle.
Next, Alys chose a golden orb from among a collection of assorted magical objects. Sinuous holes pierced its top, while its heavily engraved bottom was inset with gemstones in a rainbow of colors. Taking the top off, she cupped both halves in one hand and headed for a section of shelving lined with labeled glass jars. She spent the next several minutes adding assorted powders with measuring spoons hanging from hooks on each jar.
Davon’s brows flew up as he read the label on one. It was a Sidhe hallucinogen designed to intensify visions. The contents of the next jar were even stronger. He’d never seen her combine the two. “You sure about that?”
Alys shot him a cold look and snapped, “Yes.”
All right then. Not in the mood to be questioned.
“You can wait upstairs if you’d prefer.”
“Don’t be insulting.” It was his job to be her spotter in case something went wrong during a difficult spell.
She grunted and reached into a drawer to lift out a string of moonstones, then dropped them around his neck. “Charm against poisons. It will block the effect.” Her voice dropped. “Mostly.”
“That’s encouraging,” he muttered.
“Hey, at least you don’t have to inhale it.” She put the lid back on the incense burner and carried it into the next room.
Davon followed her slim back, his arms full of candles. This was her scrying room -- the chamber she employed when she needed to ride the currents of possibility, looking for a way to avoid some particularly black future that was bearing down on them like a nuclear cruise missile.
The walls were thick, smooth granite, the better to insulate her from random magic. The floor was a solid sheet of gleaming black onyx inlaid with a silver ring fifteen feet in diameter. Intricate glyphs, carved from gemstones, were inset in the floor within the circle, creating an amplification spell.
Alys stopped just outside the ring and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, black swirled within their depths. Lifting her voice in a soft, rhythmic chant, she began to walk around the circle, planting candles along its edge.
Davon retreated to brace his back against the nearest wall. Still chanting, Alys cupped the incense burner in both hands. Smoke began to pour through the holes in its lid, smelling of sandalwood, exotic Mageverse herbs, and magic.
She walked to the circle’s center and sank to the floor, curling her legs into the lotus position, each foot resting on the opposite thigh as she cradled the censer. The smoke wafted around her in long plumes.
Every breath he took smelled of that exotic, drugging incense. Once he thought he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye, but when he whipped around, there was nothing there. And that was with the moonstone charm. God knew what he’d be seeing without it.
In the circle, Alys’s voice edged toward a shout. It sounded ragged with despair.
Leaping to her feet, she dropped the censer. As it bounced on the floor, she screamed something, a cry of anguish. A great wind whipped through the room, extinguishing the candles and sending them rolling across the floor to the chiming ring of the tumbling incense burner.
For a moment Davon stood frozen in a darkness complete even to vampire eyes.
Then came a soft, strangled sound.
Alys was crying.
The candles ignited again with a soft phut, revealing her lying in a ball on the floor.
Help her, dumbass. Jolting from his paralysis, Davon hurried over to kneel beside her. “Alys?” He laid a hand gently on her shoulder.
She turned her head to look up at him, her huge, beautiful eyes swimming with tears. “Davon… God, Davon!” And she threw herself into his arms, hers wrapping tight around him. Her entire body shook, quivering like something small and wounded.
His heart sank as he lifted a hand to stroke the back of her head. “So, there’s no way out of it -- whatever you saw?”
She laughed, the sound bitter. It broke somewhere in the middle and became a sob. “Oh, there’s a way out. I’m just going to have to pay for it. So will you. It may not be death, but the price… God, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Davon’s arms tightened convulsively around her. Oh God, what the hell is coming? “There are no other options?”
“I searched every future I could find. I went as deep as I could. And in every case, it was the same. If we fail, the Magekind will die and that Fomorian bastard will grind humanity under his boot.”
“What do we have to do?”
“No, the question is, what do you have to do?” Alys looked up at him, her gaze steady and hard even as a tear rolled down her face. “Everything rests on you. You’re going to have to do it alone.”
His hands tightened around her upper arms as an icy blade of terror stabbed him. “Are you going to die? Is that what you’re telling me?”
There was that horrible laugh again. “I’d almost prefer that.” Her gaze slid away from his to fix on something impossibly distant. Fear contorted her face. He’d never understood the phrase “thousand-yard stare” until now. “I may die.” She shrugged. “Or I may just wish to hell I had.”
“Christ.”
“Tell me about it.” She wiped her eyes with angry, impatient swipes of both hands. “I do understand a lot of things I didn’t until now. Things I sensed I had to do without knowing why. Like why I couldn’t be with you.” Alys looked up at him, her gaze suddenly fierce. “I also know that reason doesn’t apply anymore. I need y
ou tonight. Please don’t tell me no.”
Davon stared down at her, his jaw dropping. “Wait. Isn’t all hell breaking loose?”
“It is. Just not tonight.” Her gaze softened, and she reached up to brush his curling locks out of his eyes. “We have an hour before we have to start getting ready. And I know how I want to spend it.”
“I…” She meant that. His heart began to hammer in his chest. God, he’d hungered for her, a craving that had grown stronger with every year he denied himself. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” The word seemed to hang there, naked.
It gave him courage. “I’ve wanted you from the first time I saw you.” He lowered his head.
“And I’ve wanted you.” Alys rose on her toes to meet his mouth. Her lips tasted salty as they trembled against his.
Hunger rose, sudden and hot, forcing him to grapple for self-control. Not like this. He was damned if he was going to make love to her in a frenzy of fear and desperation. They deserved better after a decade of frustration. He’d make it good for her, if it was the last thing he ever did.
Because it just might be.
Yeah, she thought they’d survive, but he’d learned things could go wrong that her visions didn’t predict.
Banishing his fear and doubt, he focused on Alys, on the feel of her body pressed tight to his as their lips met, pressed, pulled apart. Their tongues danced, the sensation jolting lust into his balls at the witchy taste of her he knew so well.
God, he’d wanted her for so long, it was all he could do not to throw her up against the nearest wall and rip her dress off. And yet at the same time, he felt an aching tenderness as he looked down into those cinnamon-brown eyes.
It seemed his entire life had revolved around Alys’s eyes. Watching them for visions. Watching them for cues as she taught him a parry or attack. Watching the play of emotion in their expressive depths. Now they were almost black with need, her pupils dilated until only a thin ring of the cinnamon remained. Each breath carried the scent of her arousal.
And Davon was every bit as turned on. His body hardened even more as she touched him, skating delicate fingertips along the line of his jaw, her thumb tracing the cleft of his chin.
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