But when she blinked away the sparks, she saw only the spill of light from the stained glass as ’Von’s mouth worked her throat, drinking hard, cock pumping.
Gasping, Alys shivered as another wave of orgasm spilled over her, shaking her body and battering her nervous system. Followed by another, and then another, rattling her brain in her skull like a pebble in a Coke can, until Davon finally froze, his cock buried deep. He bellowed, the sound muffled against her throat as his bowing body lifted hers off the mattress. His cock jerked, flooding her with pulse after liquid pulse of come.
When he collapsed under her at last, she curled her shaking arms around him. His skin felt sweat slick, almost steaming against her body.
She grinned, more than a little smug. Well, it took us long enough to get around to it -- but by Merlin’s hairless chin, we finally did it right.
Davon pulled free and began to lick the little puncture wounds, healing them with his vampire saliva.
“Don’t stop…”
“I have to,” he muttered into her neck. “I don’t want to take too much.”
Alys considered protesting, but her spinning head told her he was right. She’d need a healing potion as it was if she was going to get through the rest of the night.
* * *
Davon lay with his arms wrapped around her, barely resisting the impulse to clutch. He could feel the stolen seconds ticking away as they lay listening to each other breathe. “God,” he murmured, “I’ve dreamed of this. Not just making love but… holding you.”
Alys swirled long tapering fingers through the curling hair on his chest. “Me too. I can’t tell you how many times I lay in bed waiting for the sun, wishing I could go to you.”
He looked down at her, blinking in shock. “Then… why didn’t you? You must have known I wouldn’t have turned you down.”
“I knew. But something in the back of my head told me I had to keep my distance.”
“And you don’t ignore that little voice.”
“No. Not even when I wish I could.” Alys sighed, warm breath gusting across his skin. “And now it’s telling me we’re running out of time. We’ve got too much to do between now and sunrise.” She rolled off the bed.
As he started to follow, magic rolled over him. He found himself wearing a long-sleeved Henley and blue jeans, a pair of low-heeled boots on his feet. He grinned at her, tossing the hair out of his face. “Thanks.”
She gave him a lazy smile. “Baby, that was pure self-interest. I’d never be able to concentrate with all that on display.” A wicked flick of her eyes from head to foot revealed what “that” she referred to.
“I could say the same about you.”
She glanced down at her glorious nudity, and her fingers moved one of those graceful weaving patterns. A heartbeat later, she wore a T-shirt and cotton sweats that hung low and loose on her hips. The iron steps rang under her feet as she started down. “We need to get to work. We have a hell of a lot to do and very little time to do it in.”
As Davon followed her into the lab, she conjured a backpack, of all things, then walked over to a shelf and pulled out four metal discs about the size of hockey pucks.
“What the hell are those?” He moved closer to eye them.
“Gate generators,” she said, dropping the discs into the pack.
Davon was familiar with the concept. Vampire agents used gate generators when they didn’t have a Maja partner so they could go back and forth to the Mageverse. You needed two for each gate -- one to create it wherever you were, and another for your destination. Which, now that he thought about it, sounded damned handy. “So I can just carry them around and jump where I need to go?”
“No, generators don’t work that way. They take time to establish a stable gate between points, so you need to set them up and give them plenty of time to create a wormhole.”
Which probably explained why the vampires who used them generally had one set up at their Avalonian home and another wherever they were working on Mortal Earth. He frowned. “What keeps mortals from wandering into them?”
“They don’t respond to mortals.” Alys headed for another set of shelves and spent several moments sorting through magical equipment. At last she pulled out a metal case only a bit larger than a shoebox. She carried it over to the lab table and flipped it open, revealing a pair of armored gauntlets far more elaborate than his current set. They were heavily engraved with Sidhe sigils, and the back of each glove was embedded with three huge fire opals. Smaller opals were inset along each of the glove’s fingers, also in sets of three.
Alys pulled the gauntlets out of the box and handed them to him. “Put these on. I have to key them to you, or you won’t be able to use them.”
He eyed him dubiously. “I doubt they’re going to fit.” They looked far too small for him.
She smiled. “They’ll fit.”
Surprisingly, they did. He had to struggle a bit at first, but then they seemed to expand to accommodate his hands until they felt made for him. “Will they work with my current armor?”
“With some adjustments.” Alys laid a hand on each glove. “Brace yourself. This probably won’t be fun.”
He sensed the pulse of magic -- and was instantly glad for her warning. A fiery sting ignited up and down his forearm, as if the gauntlets had bitten into him with tiny teeth. “The hell?”
Each of the gemstones flashed with a bright pearlescent glow, and his arms seemed to vibrate with a disturbing magic. It felt… alien somehow. And not at all friendly. The back of his neck prickled. “What the fuck is that?”
“Elementalverse magic,” Alys told him, her gaze going a trifle grim.
Davon stared at her. There were an infinite number of universes, and in each of them the laws of physics were a little bit different. In that of Mortal Earth, magic didn’t exist at all. If you wanted to work spells there, you had to draw on the Mageverse, where magic was a physical law.
Magic was even more powerful in the Elementalverse, where the physics were so different, nothing that evolved in the Mageverse could live there, and vice versa. The only life forms were non-corporeal energy beings. If Elementals tried to come here, they had to find a living host to inhabit if they wanted to survive.
Davon eyed the gloves and fought the impulse to snatch them off his hands. They’d probably eat him. “Where the hell did you get them?”
Alys shrugged. “Maeve.”
He digested that a moment. It made sense. Maeve, also known as the Mother of Fairies, was a Sidhe demi-goddess known for creating powerful weaponry. “And she gave them to you?”
“Maeve owed me a favor. I had a vision that an Elementalverse predator was going to possess her dog.”
“Bet Guinness loved that.” Despite his looks, Guinness was no ordinary Chihuahua. Like the rest of Maeve’s menagerie, he was inhabited by an Elemental who gave him enhanced intelligence and the ability to talk. He was also the most beloved of Maeve’s beasts.
“It got worse,” Alys told him. “My vision predicted the predator was going to kill Maeve and feed on her and her pets. I warned her, and she was able to capture the predator before it could attack Guinness. As a gesture of gratitude, she gave me Reaver and the gloves, which were supposed to let me use the sword without getting so drained.”
“Really?” His brows lifted. “I’ve never seen you wear them.”
“Something told me to save them. And it’s a good thing I never keyed them to myself, or you wouldn’t be able to wear them. Now you can use them to work spells as if you’re a Maja. Not for very long -- the opals will probably burn out quickly, considering the way you’re going to use them.”
“Which way is that?”
“In a minute. I want you to think of claws.”
“Claws? You mean like a werewolf’s?” As the image flashed into his mind, three-inch claws slid from the glove’s fingertips. Davon blinked down at them, impressed. “That’s convenient. I’m supposed to fight with these?”
&
nbsp; “Not… exactly.”
He flexed his fingers, watching the light slide up and down the gauntlets. “Then what do I use them for?”
“Getting to that. Besides the claws, the gauntlets will let you produce a magical shield. Don’t do it more than once, though, because you’ll drain power you’re going to need.”
He looked up, frowning. “What do I do the rest of the time?”
“Duck.” When he snorted, she grinned at him. “Between that and your armor, it should be enough.”
“Should be?”
Alys shrugged. “There are an infinite number of possibilities in the future. I can see the most likely ones, and I can see how to get to the one I want, but changes in timing and action affect the outcome.” She tapped one of his gauntleted forearms. “Focus on the gloves and will them to release your arms.”
He obeyed. Instantly the opals went dark, and the stinging faded. Gingerly, he pulled the gauntlets off and returned them to the box, then tucked it into the bag. Examining his skin, he saw that his forearms were covered with tiny pinpricks that bled sluggishly. They stopped a moment later.
“Now let me show you what we’re dealing with,” Alys told him, heading for the room she’d use to scry earlier that evening. “You need to know what to look for when it happens.”
Instead of stepping into the inlaid circle, she made a fluid gesture, pouring magic into the air. Mist swirled into a three-dimensional image of Davon and Alys, standing in some sort of moonlit room. “This is what I saw during my vision.”
The image widened, and he saw they were standing inside the garage of a thoroughly middle-class Mortal Earth brick ranch. In the yard in front of the house, a dimensional gate bloomed open. Four Fomorians stepped through it.
Future Davon and Alys immediately attacked.
At first the fight looked no different than their usual Fomo brawls. Right up until Future Alys went into a showy figure-eight stroke as she attacked two Fomorians at once.
The image froze as Alys pointed at her future self. “See that move? That’s your cue to run.”
“Run?” He stared at her, his jaw dropping. “Wait, what?”
Chapter Five
“Watch.” Alys flicked her fingers. The image rolled forward again. Future Davon broke off his fight with a Fomorian and raced away toward the woods that bordered the backyard. Even as he ran, more dimensional gateways opened, disgorging a dozen Fomorians.
But future Alys was staring after Davon in shocked confusion. “’Von? Where the hell are you…”
As future Davon disappeared into the trees, Alys cursed and turned back to the fight -- right into the magical blast that detonated in her face. She toppled, knocked cold. The Fomorians pounced on her, picked her up, and opened a gate. A heartbeat later, they all vanished.
Davon stared at the image with his jaw hanging open. “I’m supposed to just run out on you?” He shook his head hard as his bewilderment turned to outrage, then to outright fury. “No. Fuck no! Forget that!”
“You have to.” Alys stepped right up to him, shoving her face up to his, her dark eyes hot. “Because if you don’t, we’re all fucked. If Bres does not infect me, he’s going to infect Morgana.”
He stared at her, feeling a wave of icy shock roll down his face. “Bres is going to infect you?”
“Better me than Morgana Le Fay.” Her gaze was haunted. “If he gets Morgana, we’re all screwed.”
Davon listened in sick horror as she related everything her vision had revealed: Morgana leading the Fomorians into Avalon, followed by the systematic slaughter of the sleeping vampires and their Majae defenders. “Which is why we have to let Bres infect me.”
“But what happens to you?”
“You’re going to cure me.”
He blinked at her, stunned, struggling to come up with a coherent list of reasons that idea made no sense. “How the hell am I supposed to do that? I was a trauma surgeon, Alys. For something like that, you need an epidemiologist.”
“I don’t mean researching a cure, Davon.” She made a dismissive gesture. “I’ve got a knife we can use.”
“A knife? How the hell is a knife supposed to…” He threw up a hand. “Never mind. Look, if Bres controls you, won’t he know what you know?”
“Yes, which is why I’m going to have to forget this. I won’t remember any of this. Not the visions, not the plan for the cure, nothing.” Pain lit her dark eyes. “Not even us making love. I have to wipe it all from my memory. I can’t even know what day it is.” Her mouth hardened as her brows dipped. “And you can’t tell me any of it. Can’t act as if anything is different, because if you do and there’s the slightest suspicion in my mind, Bres will realize it’s a trap and go back to his Avalon plan.”
Davon swore and spun away to pace several frantic steps before whirling back. “But how can you make yourself forget all this?”
Alys shrugged. “I’ve got a circlet we use to learn new languages and particularly complicated spells. I can alter it to block my memories of tonight and implant a replacement scenario. I’ll wake tomorrow night and think I’ve had a vision. Which I have -- I just won’t remember all of it. Obeying that vision, we’ll show up to spring the trap Bres has planned.”
“So he’ll get you instead of Morgana.” The words emerged in an acidic snarl.
“Yes.”
“Fuck me.” Davon stared at her in frustration. “And I’m supposed to know all this and hide it from you? Christ, Alys! What’s Bres going to do to you?”
“You don’t need to know.” Her expression went so flat he knew it was bad.
Davon exploded into movement, stomping around the lab and cursing in the vilest terms he knew. Alys stepped into his path, forcing him to stop short. Resting a slim hand on his cheekbone, she stared up into his eyes. “I know this is going to be difficult for you…”
“Me? You’re the one that fucker’s going to kidnap!”
“Yes,” she said steadily. “And you’re not going to want to let it happen. Every protective instinct you have -- and you’ve got a lot of them -- is going to scream in outrage. You’ve got to ignore them, Davon. Otherwise we’re all fucked. Anything else will not save me or yourself.”
“I don’t give a shit about myself! I care about you!”
Her calm cracked into a snarl, revealing the fear and anger beneath. “Then Goddamn do what I tell you! I have one chance -- humanity has one fucking chance. And that’s for you to follow the plan. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. I know it’s going to rip your guts out. And it could end up killing you. I may not make it either, but it’s the best chance any of us have.”
They stared at each other, Davon fighting rage, despair, and pain.
Finally she blew out a breath, “Come on, we’ve got a lot of preparations to make. And you have to memorize some combat sequences that could kill you if you screw them up.”
“That’s encouraging,” he muttered. And followed her.
* * *
They spent the next several hours in a frantic rush, gating back and forth to Mortal Earth as they scrambled to get the plan in place. The whole time, Davon was acutely aware of the fear in the depths of her dark eyes. He wanted to rage at her. Or God, or Satan, or Bres, or whoever the fuck was responsible for this hell they were trapped in. But it wouldn’t do any good.
When they finally returned to the house, Davon made one final trip to the lab with her. He watched while she searched the shelves, finally pulling out a small flat box. “I think I’ll have it teach me the Fomorian language, and maybe some Dragon,” Alys said, her voice a little too bright. She handed the box to him and turned around to rummage in a second, larger container. Its contents rattled. Looking over her shoulder, he saw it held a selection of gemstones in small containers. She plucked out an emerald and a topaz, then gathered a handful of opals and led the way over to the lab table. He put the box on the table, and she flipped it open.
Inside sat a silver circlet of twining ivy leaves, eac
h curled around an empty set of metal prongs. He realized they were gemstone settings when she pushed the emerald into the setting. The prongs promptly tightened around the stone, which flared green in response. “I want to understand the bastards when they talk to me,” she said, feeding the topaz to a second setting opposite the first.
Davon frowned. “Won’t you notice you’re suddenly speaking languages you don’t remember acquiring?”
Alys snorted and began popping opals into the circlet’s remaining settings. “I doubt it’ll register. I’ll have other things to worry about.” Spreading her hands over the circlet, she began to chant. The gemstones started to glow, their light flaring until it was almost blinding.
“What did you just do?” Davon asked as she dropped her hands with a tired sigh.
She twisted from side to side, stretching as if to relieve tight back muscles. “Bespelled it to block my memories of today. It will leave part of the vision of Carilla and her kids, which the spell will make me see again in the morning. It will also plant a false vision that will surface after I’m in Bres’s hands. According to what I saw in the circle, that one will convince him to launch an alternate attack, rather than the assault on Avalon he has planned.”
The more Davon thought about all this, the less he liked it. “And I can’t let on about anything I know. Not to you, not even to Arthur or Morgana.”
“Exactly.” She pushed her corkscrew curls back off her forehead. Her hand trembled. “I saw what happens if you attempt to warn any of us. Each and every time, it ends in disaster.”
He rubbed the aching spot between his eyebrows. His every bone and muscle ached after the hours he’d spent struggling to memorize those damn combat sequences. Alys had pronounced herself satisfied, but he wasn’t exactly confident. Too fucking much could go wrong.
The two of them stood looking down at the circlet for a long moment. Finally, Alys shook her head and closed the box, then tucked it under her arm. “Sun’ll be up in about half an hour. We’ve got to get to bed.”
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