Stone Cold Lover

by Christine Warren

  Fil felt the claws of climax digging into her flesh, dragging her toward an explosion she thought might rip her apart. She wished that magic gave her to power to freeze them in time, so that they could always be like this, joined together, bathing in the bliss of their union, pleasure always drifting at the edge of their grasp.

  Ruthlessly, he pushed her forward and she broke with a ragged cry. Her scream echoed in her head as her entire body clenched. She shook with the force of it, unable to do more than let it wash over her. Her body continued to absorb his thrusts. She felt his rhythm growing ragged, heard his breath catch, felt the rumble begin low in his chest. She tracked its progress as it built and built until it burst from his throat in a mighty roar.

  She looked into his face and saw his eyes go blind a split second before they blazed with the white-hot fire she had come to associate with his magic. It bathed her in an unearthly glow as he poured himself inside her.

  In silence, she lay beside him and shivered. Spar had touched more than her body, deeper than her heart. He had woven himself into the very fiber of her soul, and he would take a piece with him when he stepped back into his shell of stone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Over the next week, Fil discovered she had absolutely no knack for doing tedious research. Apparently she would have made a piss-poor private detective. She did, however, appear to be developing an ability to ignore elephants in the room, eight-hundred-pound gorillas in the corner, and anything right under her nose with a skill that was sure to dethrone the reigning Queen of Denial.

  Yup, that crown was hers, baby!

  Spar seemed to be operating on the principle of don’t-ask-don’t-tell; he never brought up the status of their relationship, and she never told him that the minute he turned his back on her, she was going to sob like a little girl and crawl inside a vat of ice cream the size of a small, third-world country. The American military had nothing on the two of them.

  It didn’t help matters that every time Fil tried to get Ella on the phone, either Kees answered or one of them was so pressed for time, they barely managed to impart the vital information they shared before the call ended. She had gotten not a single inkling of what Ella and Kees’s relationship might be like, but if it was anything like hers with Spar, she wouldn’t be surprised that it was the last thing her friend wanted to talk about.

  The fact that Fil had finished a commission just before the explosion at the abbey and hadn’t bothered to line another up ahead of time meant that at least she had plenty of time to brood about everything. Oh, and try to find the elusive Hierophant in a world of over seven billion people. But mostly, she brooded.

  To save her sanity, she’d turned over all the information from Onslow to Ella, along with giving her friend every last detail she could remember about her vision of the Hierophant. Ella had apparently developed some mad research skills over the past few weeks, and Fil was happy to take advantage. Maybe if both of them worked on the problem, Ella would come up with a solution. She was finding nothing.

  By Sunday afternoon, she had reached her breaking point. Snapping her laptop closed, she thumped it down on the coffee table and glared at Spar. He hadn’t done anything in particular; in fact, he’d simply been sitting in an armchair wading through some of the resource materials Onslow had mentioned in his packet of info. He’d speculated that knowing as much about the Order’s summoning rituals as possible might help in searching out their location. His lack of transgressions didn’t matter, though. Fil was bored and frustrated and angry, and she still had this damned demon mark on her hand, which in the past day or so had started to itch like a bad case of poison ivy. So goddamn it, she was entitled to glare whenever and wherever she wanted to.

  “I’m going for a walk,” she snapped, surging to her feet.

  Spar looked up at her and frowned. “It is too dangerous.”

  “What’s dangerous is keeping me cooped up in this building like it’s Alcatraz. We haven’t left the damned place since the trip to Ottawa and I, for one, have cabin fever. I need some fresh air.”

  “Have you forgotten what happened on that trip to Ottawa? You were attacked by a golem.”

  “Yeah, I was the one who nearly got her hip dislocated. I remember it pretty well.”

  Spar set aside his papers and rose. “Then you should know that the Hierophant is unlikely to have given up his attempts to reach you. Whether he wants you ritually dead dead or just plain dead do you truly wish to risk falling into his hands?”

  She lifted her head and stuck her chin out, barely suppressing the urge to slam her fist into his straight-lipped, clench-jawed face. She knew she’d just come away with a broken hand. The man’s head was made of rock. Literally.

  “At this point, I could do with a new set of hands,” she snarled, almost surprised at the vitriol of her own tone, but the rage drove her on. “You’ve been putting your hands on me pretty regular for a while now, haven’t you? Maybe I’m starting to get a little tired of it.”

  Spar jerked back as if she had punched him. The look on his face tugged at something in her chest, but it barely registered under the heavy weight of the fury that drove her.

  Fil could swear the edges of her vision had begun to turn crimson, as if seeing red was more than just a turn of phrase. Maybe she really had burst a blood vessel or something, to bring up another cliché, but she couldn’t pull herself back long enough to care. She needed to get out of this fucking apartment and she needed to get away from that fucking Guardian. Who the hell was he to keep telling her what to do and where to go? He didn’t fucking own her!

  When her thoughts darted into the kitchen and danced briefly over the big chef’s knife that sat in the top of her knife block, she screamed a word in Lithuanian she hadn’t even remembered she knew and threw herself toward the front door. If she stayed here one more second, there was going to be bloodshed.

  She felt a cold jab of terror when something inside her cheered at the idea.

  “Felicity!”

  She ignored him and fumbled for the doorknob, finally managing to grasp the solid metal and yank open the heavy panel. Instead of an empty landing at the top of a narrow stair, Fil found herself looking into a pretty face and a pair of warm brown eyes.

  Those eyes took one look at her, darted over her shoulder to see Spar hovering behind her projecting enough worry and frustration to light up the province, and went cool and sharp in an instant. She shouldered her way into the apartment, forcing Fil back into Spar’s solid body.

  “She’s in trouble,” the woman said, her voice coolly efficient, her tone broking no opposition. “Grab her before she tries to take a swing at me.”

  Fil’s arm was moving before the words were past the stranger’s lips, but Spar’s hand darted out from around her back and caught her fist before it could make contact with the side of the woman’s head. Frustration detonated inside her, and her rage became a living thing, more powerful than Fil herself. Her vision went entirely red and she lost herself in the madness.

  * * *

  “Tim told me she was worried, but I had no idea it was so serious. I should have come sooner.”

  Spar looked up from where he had Felicity wrapped in his embrace and saw the unfamiliar woman shaking her head. In his arms, his mate thrashed like a wild woman, throwing herself from side to side, kicking and growling, acting more like a wild animal than like his Felicity. He had no idea what was happening, but he believed the woman when she said Felicity was in trouble.

  He fought back his rapidly escalating concern and glared at her. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

  “My name is Wynn, and Tim Massello at the university told me he thought your girlfriend could use my help. Anything else you want to know will have to wait.” She gestured to the sofa. “Get her down there and hold on to her. I have some things in my car I need to fetch. This could get messy.”

  She turned as if to leave the apartment. Grunting, Spar adjusted his hold on Felicity
after she sank her teeth into one of his forearms, and raised his voice to be heard over her screeching. “What is going on? What is happening to my mate?”

  “It’s the mark, and we’ll talk later about the big picture here. If you want her to get through this, let me go get my things. I can help her. I promise.”

  Unable to do anything else, Spar watched Wynn head back down the stairs, then returned his focus to Felicity. Her face was contorted into a mask of rage unlike anything he had ever seen before. She hissed and spat and snapped at the air like a rabid dog, all the while fighting with surprising strength to break his hold. He had her pinned against his chest, but he realized that getting her down onto the sofa might make her easier to contain. If he pinned her against the cushions and used his weight over the top of her, he could minimize her ability to move.

  By the Light, he needed to know what was wrong with her. One moment, she had been working quietly on her computer, and the next she had picked a fight with him over nothing, something they had discussed and agreed on well before today. She knew that anytime she left her home, she tempted the Order to launch another attack on her. Spar knew she hated being trapped indoors, but they had agreed that when her restlessness grew too much, either he would take her to her studio, or after dark he would take her for a short flight above the city. They had made a deal, and until this afternoon Fil had expressed no dissatisfaction with the arrangement.

  He had no idea what could have set her off, but if this Wynn woman could take one look and attribute this fit to the demon’s mark, he knew the matter had turned grave. He had hoped that with days passing free of further visions, the danger of the mark had passed, or at least had grown no stronger. Now he very much feared the opposite.

  Felicity continued to fight him, but her strength, even fueled by her raging madness, could not compare to his. He worried not about her escaping his hold, but about her hurting herself, or about him unintentionally injuring her in his struggle to keep her pinned.

  When the woman called Wynn reappeared at the top of the stairs, Spar had Felicity trapped against the sofa with his own body. He held her wrists above her head in one of his hands; one of his legs pinned hers at the knee. With her relatively secured, he took his first good look at the stranger.

  She stood somewhere around average height for a human female, perhaps five inches or so above five feet, taller than his Felicity. Her medium-brown hair hung in subtle waves down her back nearly to her waist, and her large brown eyes reminded him of a doe’s, deep and soft and very round. At the moment, they carried an expression of worry, one that tightened her pretty features into pinched lines.

  Her figure appeared well rounded at the breast and hips, but surprisingly compact elsewhere. Her baggy, wide-bottomed jeans and loose-fitting, printed top did their best to camouflage it, but a male, even a mated one, would be hard-pressed not to notice. He could also see that despite the cool weather, she wore nothing but a pair of thin sandals on her feet, and her toenails had been painted a glittering purple.

  It wasn’t her appearance that gave her away, though. It was the canvas sack she placed on the coffee table, and the items she began to remove. He recognized a tiny metal cauldron and the charcoal disk she wedged inside as an incense burner and could tell from the scents of several small cloth bags that they contained herbs and resins that could be burned, or perhaps even used for other purposes. As she continued to line things up atop the wooden surface, he grunted.

  “You are the witch.”

  “Nothing gets past you, does it?” She didn’t bother to look at him, just calmly continued her preparations. “I guess that’s why they made you a Guardian.”

  Spar’s shock briefly loosened his grip, and Felicity managed to tear one hand free to swing wildly at his face. He felt her nails scratch his skin and immediately resecured her, tightening his grip a fraction.

  “What did you call me?” he demanded.

  The woman rolled her eyes. “I don’t need to see you covered in granite to recognize you for what you are, Guardian. My full name is Wynn Myfanwy Llewellyn Powe, and for seven generations the men in my mother’s family have served the Light as members of the Guild of Wardens.”

  Spar shook with the need to grab the woman and shake her. Did she not realize the importance of what she had just told him?

  “Who among your family currently serves?” he demanded, leaning toward her with a growl. “I must contact him immediately. We need to—”

  “Hey, right now we need to deal with this.” Wynn pointed at Felicity, still writhing on the sofa. “Do you mind postponing the discussion of my curriculum vitae until we get Felicity out of danger?”

  Shame flooded him, and Spar shifted under the unfamiliar emotion. “Of course. Felicity must be treated.”

  “Glad we agree.” Wynn twisted to move around Spar’s grip on his mate, laying the back of her hand against Felicity’s forehead. She frowned when she felt the heat of the other woman’s skin. “How long has she borne the mark?”

  “More than a sennight. It struck her late on Friday night this week past.”

  “I love how you guys sound more and more medieval the more worked up you get.”

  He watched her reach for something on the table. “She seemed to suffer no ill effects before this. At least, nothing that affected her behavior. She did have a vision last weekend, and afterward the mark appeared to darken on her skin.”

  Wynn shook her head. “I am really sorry I didn’t come sooner. When Tim called me and told me he knew a woman who needed a curse removed, I thought he meant someone who got a rash on her hand and didn’t want to wait for an appointment with a dermatologist. I made a poor assumption, and I’m going to have to live with that for a while. If I’d contacted you right away, this would have been a lot easier. And a lot less dangerous.”

  Spar did not like the sound of that. “What will you do? You can remove the mark, can you not?”

  “I wish. Unfortunately, it’s taken root too deeply. I won’t be able to remove it completely, but I’m going to sever the connection to its source.”

  “The source is dead. The nocturnis who cast the spell was murdered by one of his own. That is what Felicity saw in her vision.”

  “Wrong. If the source were a single person, this would be no big deal. Bippity-boppity-boop, I wave my magic wand, mark disappears, and we all go home happy for a nice smoked meat sandwich.” She handed him a bundle of red silk cords. “This is a lot more complicated than that. This mark is tied not to the caster, but to the Defiler himself. Cutting the bond will not be quick or easy. You need to bind her.”

  Appalled, Spar refused. “I will not. I can hold her as I am doing now. I will not tie her up and leave her feeling abandoned, like some sort of prisoner. You will start without those.” He threw the ropes onto the coffee table.

  Wynn picked them up and handed them back. “You can’t hold her for this. One, I wasn’t kidding when I said it wouldn’t be quick; we could be here for hours. And two, I need to be able to get to her without you getting in the way. You take up too much space where I need to maneuver.”

  He glared at her, using his most intimidating Guardian expression. She simply watched him and waited, hand out, red cords dripping from the sides of her palm. Muttering something foul in a dead language, he snatched the cords from her and began to wrap them around his mate’s slender wrists.

  “Actually, my mother is entirely human, so the livestock reference is way off.”

  Of course, the witch spoke Aramaic. Why hadn’t he simply assumed?

  It took longer to bind Felicity than it should have, and very little of that had to do with Spar’s reluctance. She fought him like a wildcat, throwing herself against his grip every time he shifted, continually looking for a weakness that would allow her to escape. When he finally had her subdued with rope around her wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles, Wynn handed him additional cords, longer ones this time.

  “This sofa has exposed legs. Tie her hands
to one end and her feet to the other.”

  Spar’s fists clenched until he feared they would shatter. “Is this really necessary?”

  “It’s for her safety, Guardian. This won’t be a pleasant experience for any of us.”

  Silent, fuming, and aching, Spar did as she instructed. When Felicity had been fully secured, Wynn reached out and touched his arm.

  “I know you want to—need to—be close to her, but I can’t let you get in the way,” she said, her expression grave. When he opened his mouth to protest, one corner of her mouth curved slightly upward. “If you walk around and stand at the back of the sofa, she’ll be within arm’s reach, but you won’t be any more in the way than the furniture itself. Okay?”

  He felt a rush of gratitude as he moved into position. Gazing down at his mate, he saw the way her chest rose and fell as she panted from her long exertions. Her skin gleamed with sweat, and her clothing had been torn and rumpled during their struggles. Her shirt bore several holes where buttons had been, and beneath the fabric her skin was mottled a sickly grayish color. His eyes flew back to her face, and he could see the odd color beginning to seep down from her hairline.

  Wynn followed his gaze, and her jaw tightened. “Okay, let’s get started.”

  What followed were the longest six hours of Spar’s inhumanly long life. He lost track of the incenses Wynn burned and the incantations she chanted. Crystals and stones and herbs and runes all passed in front of his watchful eyes. At times she laid her hand on his mate’s head or body, and at times she seemed to forget Felicity was even there as she seemingly slipped in and out of a trance-like state. What he would always remember, though, was the long strip of muslin that she anointed with several different oils before wrapping it nine times around the hand that bore the demon’s mark. Spar would remember because he’d had to pry Felicity’s fingers from their clenched fist and hold them while Wynn worked, and because his mate had screamed in agony during the entire winding process.