by T. M. Cromer
“He’s a good deal older than you, child.”
“I’m well aware.”
“Do you have reservations about the age difference?”
“I didn’t until this moment. Is there something I should know?”
“Not at all. As far as I know, he has all his teeth.”
She couldn’t curb her smile. “He’s a good man, Alastair, and I love him.”
A slight frown came and went between his brows in less time than it took Liz to register his reaction. “I’m glad you found someone worthy of you, child.”
“He is, isn’t he?”
Confidant sapphire-blue eyes met her concerned gaze. “He is.”
A sigh of relief escaped her. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until he answered. It wasn’t as if she needed Alastair’s approval, but she trusted his judgment. If she was wrong about another man, she might just lose her mind. “Thank you.”
“I just needed to make sure this is what you want.”
“It is.” She sat forward in her desire to relay what she was feeling. “My world is brighter with him in it. He reminds me that life isn’t all business, and encourages me to have fun. I feel things so much more with him.”
A blinding smile lit Alastair’s face. “Good, because you deserve the best, Elizabeth. Always remember that.”
Her tears blurred her vision, distorting his handsome face. “Thank you for always being kind to me, my mother, and my brothers. After Dad died… after… well, I know what you did for us, and I can never repay you.”
“Your father was my friend. I regret that I couldn’t save him during the war.”
“Mom said he’d been imprisoned with you in Zhu Lin’s dungeon. Did my dad suffer?”
Pain flashed in Alastair’s eyes before he blinked to clear away his strong, immediate reaction. But he was too late to hide the truth. “I’m sorry.”
“That wasn’t on you. The witches’ war took many lives. I remember him as a kind and loving father.”
“He talked about you, your brothers, and your mother. During.” He loosened his tie, as if it suddenly felt too tight. “He was so proud of you kids.”
“How come you never told me before?”
“It was my mission to forget. Rorie is helping me deal with the memories instead of trying to lock them away.”
Liz covered his hand with hers. “I cannot imagine the trials you faced, nor do I want to. But I’m glad you’re with us, and I feel better knowing my dad had you to keep him company in the end.”
Alastair closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and nodded.
Looking away, she gave him time to compose himself. The timing was good for them both because Rafe ended his call and joined them.
He leaned down to kiss her cheek, then took a seat beside her.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
“Who was on the phone?”
He wore a look of one disturbed. “Marguerite.”
Liz paused mid-pour to stare. “Why did she call you?”
“Seems she’s concerned about the goings-on at the château. Grand-mère’s ring went missing, my mother is having a meltdown, and two of the staff up and quit this morning.” He picked up his cup and saucer and toasted her. “I say a job well done on our part, don’t you?”
Laughter bubbled up and out. “I can just imagine your mother’s face!”
His deep chuckle spoke to the part of her seeking revenge against his iceberg of a mother. A thought occurred to her, and she addressed Alastair. “Did you know Josephine was engaged to your father?”
“GiGi informed me last night.” He stilled, and his contemplative gaze swept back and forth between her and Rafe. “You realize this changes things, Xuereb?” Alastair said solemnly.
“How so?”
“Your mother has the motive to steal our power.”
“She wouldn’t.”
Liz didn’t speak, but she wasn’t as confident as Rafe that Josephine wasn’t behind their misfortunes. She met Alastair’s thoughtful stare. As she was about to comment, her phone rang. The caller ID showed Damian’s name.
“Damian? Hey—”
“The darkness attacked Sabrina again this morning. Twice.”
“Holy shit!”
“Precisely. What have you discovered?”
“Unfortunately, very little. I—” She stared down at her phone. “He hung up.”
The air around them crackled, and a brilliant yellow light indicated an opening portal. Damian stepped through with his tearful daughter wrapped tightly in his arms.
“This stops today,” he stated without ceremony. “Will you watch over my daughter?”
When the Aether asked you a favor, you agreed. To garner his displeasure was unthinkable. Liz nodded. “Of course. Tell me how.”
“Keep her here with you while I have a talk with Franco Moreau.” The emphasis on “talk” said Damian was going to do much more.
“I’ll go with you,” Rafe offered.
“Fine, but I leave now.”
“Don’t you need to scry to find out where he is?” Liz asked quietly as Damian handed her Sabrina.
He ran a hand over the black coffee in Rafe’s cup. An image of Franco kneeling in a temple was reflected back at them. Only Alastair didn’t look surprised the Aether could use a cup of coffee for a scrying mirror.
Damian’s vicious curse caused the hair on Liz’s arms to stand on end. His displeasure turned the very air around them heavy even as the sky darkened. “He’s at Isolde’s old temple. The bloody fool is trying to resurrect her on his own.” With a growl low in his throat, he stepped through another portal. The sizzle of the rift sealing up was instantaneous.
“So much for you going with him.” Liz’s gaze ping-ponged between Rafe and Alastair. She covered Sabrina’s ears. “He had murder in his heart. One of you needs to find him, like yesterday.”
“Does anyone happen to know where Isolde’s temple is located?”
“Spring might have an idea.” Alastair pulled her contact information, called her, and quickly explained the situation. After he disconnected, he stood. “Her best guess is England.” A contemplative frown tugged his brows together.
“If I tell you where, will you save Papa?”
Liz met Sabrina’s stark stare. Her heart contracted at the fear she was witnessing. Knowing what it was like to lose a parent at a young age, she was compelled to say, “Yes, sweetheart. We’ll do what we can, but you need to tell us all you know.”
“He’s going to kill that man.”
Rafe bent his knees to make eye contact with the girl. “We’re not going to let that happen.”
“No, he’s going to. But if he does, she’ll drain his powers to free the evil one.”
Insides cold with fear, Liz said, “Sabrina, sweetie, you need to tell us where your papa went, right now.”
“I don’t know the name, but I can take you.”
“No!” Rafe ran a shaking hand through his hair. “No. We are not taking her into a dangerous situation.”
Alastair held out his hands, palms up, and a burst of light had them all shielding their eyes. When they dared look again, he had a pair of shackles in his fist. “We don’t have time to waste. Sabrina, take us to your father, child.” When she looked from Liz to Rafe to Alastair, he gave the girl a warm smile. “You can do it. All you have to do is visualize the room where your father is, just like when you teleport from room to room at home.”
“I can open the door like he did,” she said softly.
“You mean the portal he went through?” Liz asked, shifting Sabrina’s weight in her arms.
“It’s easy.” Real enthusiasm colored her voice.
Liz didn’t know whether to weep or cheer. They were relying on a six-year-old to take them to a place none of them had ever been, where the Aether was likely to murder them all slowly and painfully for endangering his daughter.
“We don’t have a choice, Elizabeth,” Alastair said softl
y. “If we do nothing, Isolde will wake and destroy us all.”
“How do we know? I mean, her time entombed could’ve mellowed her out, right?”
“It could also have made her even more deranged than before.” He squeezed her shoulder lightly. “If Isolde was so out of control that a goddess needed to take action, it was bad.”
“Then we should petition her to help.” Anything other than take a child into battle with the people who stole their power to begin with.
“They can’t steal your power again, Miss Liz.”
“From the mouths of babes,” murmured Alastair.
Still, Liz was torn. In the end, the pleading dark eyes of Sabrina tore at her conscience. If they did nothing, and Damian suffered the loss of his magic—or worse, died—after all he’d done for them, she’d never forgive herself. “Take us to him, sweetheart.”
“You bloody imbecile!” Damian infused his voice with all the fury he was experiencing. The current rippled between him and Franco Moreau, knocking the man sideways. Wariness flooded his face, but Franco continued to speak the spell.
“Stop! This is your one and only warning, Moreau.”
Still, Franco chanted. All the while, he sat back on his heels and stared in terror at a spot behind Damian.
Turning in a slow circle, Damian sent out a feeler. Another, darker energy, was present, but it lingered in the air, never touching down in one place. Was it his mother? Had he been too late to stop the damned fool trying to resurrect her? There was only one thing for it; he must prevent her from waking, or they were all doomed. There would be no shoving her into the box a second time.
Almost two hundred years ago, Damian had stood next to Nathanial Thorne on the hill overlooking the containment ceremony. Isolde’s destructive rage was unlike anything he’d ever witnessed before. In the end, it had taken a goddess, a god, and the most powerful witch families, both living and dead, to come together to stop her.
Now, left with no choice, he gathered all the elemental magic available to him and stepped into the circle Franco had created. The other warlock’s eyes burned with a fanatical light, and he rocked back and forth on his knees, hands clasped in front of him, as he spoke the forgotten language of the gods. The pleading light in his eyes was off-putting.
A tingle started in Damian’s lower extremities, but he ignored the sensation and closed the distance between him and Franco. Placing his palm flat on his enemy’s head, Damian shot his power into the man’s skull, short-circuiting his brain’s wiring and frying his neurotransmitters. Franco’s scream ricocheted off the stone walls, making his excruciating pain known. Damian didn’t stop, because Franco began to chant again. As if he were compelled to!
The tingling shifted into Damian’s torso, and it became difficult to take a deep breath. Blood vessels burst in Franco’s eyes, and the sclera turned from white to garnet. The tear ducts dripped blood, and it ran down his gray cheeks to drip onto the floor.
The second the first droplet hit the ground, the temple came to life. Stones rumbled, and ancient symbols flared brighter than the sun. Franco crumbled at Damian’s feet, his sightless eyes locked onto a phantom only he’d seen before death embraced him.
Damian swayed as a sharp, excruciating pain rocked through his skull. Disoriented and discomfited, he grabbed his head and crashed to his knees. A female’s wicked laughter rang out, and for the first time in his life, he knew real fear. He could feel the steady drain of his power as the room put off enough light to sear his skin. With the last of his strength, he attempted to crawl toward the circle’s edge. If he could cross the border, he could break the spell sucking away his life force.
“Bloody hell,” he ground out between pants. The crushing pain in his head was about to cause him to black out. If that happened, he was done.
Across the room, his daughter appeared, and he had a second of joy before he registered she should be as far away from Isolde’s temple as she could get.
“Go,” he mouthed over the deafening rumble of stones. Instead, she ran directly for him, and Damian was sure his heart was going to stop beating in his chest as she crossed the line to grab his hand.
Her little body jerked, and the color on her face drained away drastically.
“Go, beastie, hurry now,” he rasped out.
“Not without you, Papa,” she screamed over the ear-piercing hum of magic filling the room, although she did back across the circle’s border.
“Sabrina, I’m ordering you to go!” he roared, using the last of his strength.
“No, Papa.”
Liz and Alastair were next to them in an instant, and they gripped his arms to drag him across the circle’s border. They rolled him onto his back because he was incapable of movement even if he could drum up the energy.
With his very last breath, he ordered, “Get her out of here, goddammit!”
Chapter 24
Once Rafe registered the magic of the circle hadn’t stopped with Franco’s death, he swiftly traversed the corridor of Isolde’s temple, looking for another threat. Franco’s face had been frozen in fear, and that might have been because he saw the devil in the form of Damian, but Rafe very much doubted it. The little weasel had been staring toward the east wing of the building until his collapse.
He caught sight of a woman in black just as she ducked around a corner. The click of her heels on the stone indicated she was moving at a fast pace. The only reason she would run was if she’d seen and recognized him. From the back, Marguerite and his mother were roughly the same size. But based on the rhythm of her rapid walk, Rafe suspected he knew exactly who had manipulated Franco.
Utilizing Granny Thorne’s cloaking spell, Rafe concealed his presence and muted any sound he could possibly make, then hightailed it after Josephine. He shoved aside his inner turmoil and feelings of betrayal. What had he expected from her when she admitted how much she hated his future in-laws? She’d never been much of a parent to begin with, other than to drill manners into him, making him unfailingly polite so as not to embarrass her among the elite crowd. Later, when this mess was over, he’d examine why she still had the ability to cause him endless pain.
His mother paused to listen. Lips curled in a self-satisfied smile, she held up the paper she tightly gripped and began to voice the hand-written words. If memory served Rafe, they were exactly what Franco had been repeating in the circle when they arrived.
The ground beneath him shook, and Rafe cast an uneasy glance at the stone ceiling above him. Dust particles showered the area, and he tried to subtly shift so it wasn’t obvious the dirt wasn’t hitting the ground directly.
Josephine’s head jerked sideways as if she sensed she was no longer alone. Cunning lit her eyes, and her sinister smile was awful to behold. Had she always been so evil and he failed to recognize it? Had her various disappointments in life turned her heart to stone? Perhaps the ugly nature of her personality was what drove Preston II away, and not his unfaithfulness.
“I know you’re here, Raphael. I can feel your presence.” She pivoted slowly in each direction. An animal sensing danger.
He dropped the cloaking spell.
“Always doing the Thornes’ bidding, like a good little soldier.” She sneered when she saw the magic-suppressing shackles dangling from his hand.
“This has nothing to do with the Thornes and everything to do with the destruction you are about to cause the witch community. If you resurrect the Enchantress, she might never be able to be contained again. The devastation she rendered the first time around hurt real people, Mother.” Appealing to her softer side was a gamble because Rafe doubted she had one, but anything was worth a try.
Her eyes turned positively feral as her lips curled back into a snarl. “You don’t get it, Raphael. You’re soft—like your father—with little understanding of what it takes to maintain our name. Our reputation. Our lifestyle.”
Latching onto the one thing that seemed odd in her little speech, he asked, “Lifestyle?”
His head jerked in an involuntary negative response.
“Of course you don’t, because you never cared enough to ask or to be part of our family. To be part of something greater.”
“Mother, if you were hurting for money, you could’ve always told me. I would’ve given you whatever you needed.”
“She is too prideful.”
Both Rafe and his mother expressed their surprise for the newcomer. Marguerite stepped from the shadows and approached Josephine. “Isn’t that right, Auntie?”
Although he’d had no doubt he could’ve taken his mother should she attack, Rafe was a little leery of two. Bottom line, he wanted to be able to subdue them without seriously hurting or killing either woman.
“You!” Josephine scoffed, giving Rafe the first indication they weren’t a team. “You are a waste of good air. Always flitting around, living the high life. Society’s little darling.”
He risked a glance to register his cousin’s reaction. Her stone-cold countenance told him nothing. Was this an act to throw him off guard?
“Franco admired you, Marguerite, but instead of using and guiding him, you rejected him at every turn. His continued failings were all in an effort to impress you.”
A memory came back to Rafe. One of Franco trailing his captivating cousin, and Marguerite reading him the riot act, telling him to bugger off because he was no better than the slime train of a slug. More than once, Rafe had caught Franco rifling through Marguerite’s room, touching her things and sniffing her clothing. The guy had been a creepy little fucker from the get-go.
Marguerite’s solemn-eyed expression bothered Rafe. He’d failed her. Left her alone with a pervert and a deranged old woman who always belittled those around her. As best he could, he tried to relay his apology with unspoken words. Now was not the time to verbally express his regret.
She gave a slight nod of understanding, and turned her attention back to Josephine. “The game is up now, Auntie. You’ve been caught out.”
“No!” With a frantic shake of her head, his mother lifted the crinkled spell in her hand. “Only one more step, and she’s awake. She’ll reward me for releasing her from her prison and for delivering the family responsible for putting her there.”