“So nice of you to join us, Gardiff,” she said as slowly and calmly as possible.
The colors muddled before his deep voice filled the room. “I appreciate the invitation, Your Grace.”
He’s in New Mystic City Nick wrote on a pad of paper he’d retrieved from his apartment.
He’d suggested the foreign—some might even say backward—method of communication. Electronics weren’t necessary in the mystic world, and no one trusted any magical means.
Keep him talking, Nick added.
“It was time we communicated,” Abia said to Gardiff. “This scheme will get you nowhere. If the scepter’s power is diminished, so will yours.”
“Not so,” Gardiff returned, sounding amused. “You’ve been misinformed. No doubt by that dotty old uncle of yours. You’ll lose your powers, but mine will grow stronger.”
Though the idea spurted fear into Abia’s heart, she remained calm. “They won’t. You’ll lose everything. We all will.”
“We?” Gardiff’s voice rose with fury. “You don’t care about me, or my kind! You want to hold all the power in the mystic world. I, alone, am brave enough to fight you!”
Oh, dear Merlin, delusions of grandeur. Not unheard of in the mystic world, actually. But add in the psycho, controlling, I’ve-been-wronged tendencies and disaster was imminent.
He’s content with his surroundings, Nick wrote.
Purgatory? Abia wondered, though she knew her hope was in vain. Where would Gardiff be content?
A castle? A ballroom full of people telling him how right he was? How appreciative they were of his knowledge and leadership? How they couldn’t wait until he was all-powerful and in charge?
Bleaccck...as the caporals might say.
“I’d rather you come to the palace and talk to me,” she said woodenly. “There’s no need to fight.”
“I’m sure you think so,” Gardiff returned. “But only because you have great power.” The colors on the screen exploded with malice. “You won’t for long.”
Abia cast an anxious glance at Nick, who jerked his head in the negative. Damn. She really wanted to show Gardiff the wrong side of great power.
“Your skill will not match mine for long, however,” Gardiff said, his tone mocking. “One way or another, I will have satisfaction.”
Is he for real? Nick wrote on his tablet.
Abia jerked a nod. One way or another...
The phrase echoed in her mind. There was something odd about the words, the timing.
Gardiff had doubts about his plan. (As he should. If Malburn didn’t fully understand the ramifications of the scepter’s absence, then no one did.) Still, she was surprised the sorcerer had given her a clear opening so quickly.
This chat was nothing more than a shakedown. She was almost disappointed by the crudeness.
“What do you want?”
A touch of blue snaked through the colors on the screen.
Oh, goody, I’ve made him happy.
“I’m anxious to tell you,” Gardiff said. “Unfortunately, you presently have an advantage in our negotiation, so I’ll choose another location to continue our discussion. Come to Broadway at East 15th, the edge of Union Square Park. I’m sure your caporal policeman can lead you there.”
The swirling colors on the screen vanished.
“Nick?” Abia asked urgently.
“Nothing.” He shoved back his chair. “He’s gone.”
Fighting for any sense of direction, Abia clenched her wand as she directed it toward the now-empty screen. “Malburn?” she asked quietly, turning toward her uncle.
“I’m sorry, my dear.”
Abia’s gaze swept her team. “Anybody?” After getting negative responses, she slid her wand into her jacket pocket. “So we go.”
“It’s a trap,” Nick said.
“Sure it is.” She shrugged. “What choice do we have?”
“Do you think he really wants to negotiate?” Malburn asked.
“Yes. If you don’t know the ramifications of the scepter, no one does.”
“Gardiff’s speech was too flowery,” Nick added.
Abia angled her head in question.
“He wants you to think he’s crazy, but he’s not. Big ego, yes. Dangerous, definitely. But he thinks through each step. He has a plan.”
Abia had been thinking Gardiff was reckless, but Nick’s assessment was interesting. “You think he knew we’d get back the pieces all along? He knew it would come down to the last one? He wanted to force me to negotiate.”
Nick nodded. “He knows how skilled you are. He can’t beat you head-to-head.”
Malburn looked truly worried for the first time. “But he’s desperate to win.”
“So if he hurts me, or any member of my team, he thinks I’ll be more amenable to his terms?” Abia asked, incredulous that Gardiff could want power and so completely not understand it.
Malburn exchanged a glance with Nick. “I believe so,” her uncle said.
Abia flashed them all a fierce smile. “Then he’s going to be wildly disappointed.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Seeing the activity in the park—even at ten p.m.—Nick considered Gardiff’s strategic move highly questionable.
“This is too pubic,” Abia said, glancing at the buildings surrounding the area, the artfully lighted trees and landscaping, the tourists and Manhattanites alike, passing through the park, some pausing to take pictures. “Where’s the most notable point?”
“A statue of George Washington.”
And if Gardiff thought he was going to use his wand to blast a statue of the father of America, he was gravely mistaken.
“But there are statues of famous people and significant works all over,” Nick continued. “He directed us here to see if we’d show. He wants to know how anxious we are to negotiate.”
“How about a focus on tracking, Commander?” Evan asked. “This could be the starting point of a trail.”
Since Abia had already cast the Shadow spell to conceal them—a good thing, since a stunning woman with vibrant red hair surrounded by four burly guys dressed in black leather would’ve attracted way too much attention—she turned to Nick.
Nick, still getting used to his role and aware the rest of the team was waiting and watching, closed his eyes. He let the world as he knew it fall away and listen to the inner voice he’d always thought was his conscience but now realized was centered around his mystic abilities. “North,” he said, feeling a vague draw in that direction.
The moment he took a step, he knew he was right.
Confidence washed over him. He’d tracked only spells before, not sorcerers, but the results were surprisingly the same. After a few turns, they wound up moving east on 16th and were nearly to 3rd Avenue when the attack commenced.
A glimpse of a hooded figure was Nick’s only warning. The attackers multiplied immediately, and, remembering the night he and Abia had been ambushed weeks earlier, Nick jumped into the stream of wand-fire heading directly for her.
As she returned a burst from her own wand, Nick fought the sorcerer’s spell. His training with Malburn allowed him to feel the difference between the wizard/witch spell and the sorcerer’s. Like eating a hamburger versus a chicken sandwich. They both had bread, mayo, lettuce, onion and cheese, but the primary ingredient tasted entirely different.
His breathing became choppy, and his head swam, but he shook off the effects and darted between Evan and another stream of attack. The intervention gave the powerful captain a chance to battle back quickly, freeing Nick to move on.
Abia was sending rapid streams from her wand against two sorcerers, and though Nick’s pulse jumped in fear, he could see she had the situation under control. She was beautiful and scary at the same time. The darkened sky flashed with bolts reminiscent of lightening, as if echoing her determination and fury.
He’d never loved her more. If they ever got out of this mess and returned the scepter to its rightful place, he’d have to te
ll her.
She’d shown him an entire new world, how could he not show her his heart?
He spun around to check on the rest of the team and noticed Sven. With his Viking-like size and coloring, he drew considerable fire. Nick raced toward him, taking the brunt of a particularly nasty spell long enough to allow Sven to gain his footing.
Amazingly, the entire battle was going on in bustling Manhattan, yet was completely concealed from the millions around them.
They were evenly matched by the sorcerers in numbers, but the opposition had no chance against a talented, organized team led by a pissed-off duchess with off-the-charts skill. In less than ten minutes, they’d rounded up their attackers, bound them with magical golden ropes and confiscated their wands.
Nick’s chest hurt as if he’d been hit with a bat—which, he recalled, he had once by a teen gang member when he’d been a rookie—but, otherwise, he was unharmed. The rest of the team, Abia included, had various cuts and burn marks. Song held his palm tightly over his right arm, blood leaking through his fingers, his dominantly Asian features twisted in pain.
Tearing a strip of cloth from his T-shirt, Nick bound the wound, though Song resisted until Abia gave him assurance. According to mystic tradition, wounds were treated by Healers. And while the hierarchy had worked for thousands of years, Nick couldn’t help but wonder why Warriors weren’t trained in basic triage.
With a flash from Abia’s wand, they were back in the palace in New Mystic City.
Song was sent to the Healer for further treatment, leaving Nick to wonder what the mystic medic would think of his primitive bandage. Abia, Evan and Sven led the sorcerers to the dungeons.
Conrad appeared and escorted Nick to his suite, where he explained the mystic justice process wasn’t like the democratic—though admittedly flawed and tangled—one Nick was used to. No lawyers were called in the middle of the night to represent their clients. No judge. No arraignment. Suspects were locked in the dungeon. The IPSF dictated their reports (via Mystic Chat recordings and Remembrance spells). The Queen and her council would decide their fate in due time. If they were lucky.
The record for awaiting judgment was forty-six years.
After serving him a strong cup of coffee laced with a splash of whiskey, Conrad left Nick to his thoughts. But since the only thought on his mind was how to confess his feelings to Abia, he was restless.
He should be trying to figure out how to find Gardiff, how to end the crisis. But would that bring his relationship with Abia to a close as well? The Queen had offered him a position going forward, but how was he going to balance two jobs in two different worlds? Plus, with so much in question regarding the scepter and how its absence might affect mystics, not to mention the uncertainty about Abia’s feelings toward him, he wasn’t sure there was a future on any front.
Leaving his room, he headed toward Abia’s. It took five turns and three staircases to get there, as her suite was near the Queen’s, who had her own tower on the opposite side of the castle. Somewhere along the way, he must have taken a wrong turn, as he found himself facing a stone wall and unfamiliar corridors to both his right and left.
Before he could take more than a step backward, though, Black Magic appeared at his feet.
Only his many years on the force, facing unexpected events nearly every day, kept his feet planted to the floor instead of leaping ten feet in the air. For all he’d seen in the last few weeks—and there’d been a lot of weird stuff—a feline with magical powers had to be the most unnerving of all.
He’d swear the cat sensed his trepidation, too, since he sat silently, looking up at him with patient, unblinking eyes as if waiting for Nick’s heart to stop hopping around his chest like a rabbit on an energy drink.
Kneeling, Nick glided his hand down Magic’s back. “I’m looking for Abia’s room. Any idea how to get there from here?”
Abia had said he understood conversation, but it still felt strange to ask the question.
Magic gave a nearly human nod, lifted his paw to Nick’s hand, then, in a blink, they were both in Abia’s sitting room.
“Yeah,” Nick muttered, bracing his hand on the floor to regain his balance. “Not gonna get used to mystical animals anytime soon.”
Realizing his words could be interpreted as an insult, he scratched the cat’s head. “Thanks, pal.”
For all Nick knew, Magic could be a transformed prince, like that children’s fairy tale with the frog. If so, at least he’d gotten a comfortable castle suite and Abia as a master instead of a lily pad and slimy green skin.
Then again, maybe Abia was Magic’s spell caster.
With that sobering thought in mind, Nick straightened and took his coffee to the balcony. Magic followed him, and when Nick leaned forward, his arms resting against the stone wall border, the cat leapt beside him.
Man and feline stared at the castle lights reflected on the blackened lake below them.
Nick wondered if Magic’s mind was on a hot, red-haired Siamese. Were his thoughts complex enough to worry about the mystery of females? To wonder what they thought about the other gender? To consider their differences and similarities with appreciation and total confusion?
Maybe Magic had a thing for a hot, red-haired Pekinese. Then they’d really have something in common.
Nick resisted the ridiculous urge to ask such a personal question and contemplated his own dilemma. In his past relationships, he was used to taking the lead, controlling the direction. On the job, he led the investigation, usually had the most experience and the answers to problems.
“I’m the Alpha,” he mumbled.
Magic pulled his attention from the rippling water and stared at him in disbelief.
“I know, not around here.”
Oddly enough, though, Nick realized he wasn’t threatened by Abia or her fierce powers. (Okay, maybe he’d taken pause with the whole she-could-transform-me-into-any-slimy-thing-she-wanted-to aspect of their relationship.) He liked being able to do things she couldn’t, and he respected she had abilities he didn’t. He didn’t mind her commanding him. She certainly had all the experience in the mystic world, and she listened to his opinions when he had them. She validated him in ways he hadn’t known he needed.
They were equals.
Given they were entirely different species, that idea might be hilarious if it wasn’t so true.
Was equality what he’d been missing from past relationships? Had he been too controlling? Had he been unwilling to commit his emotions, reveal his devotion? Was he too ego-driven? Too career obsessed? Or was Abia simply, amazingly, the other half of him?
From inside the suite, a door opened, then closed. Abia was home. And she’d obviously walked instead of using a spell. Had she needed some time for her own thoughts as well? Her responsibility was deeper than his. Her apprehension magnified. She was fighting for the future of her world.
Was he wrong to confess his feelings in the middle of a crisis? Yet not telling her felt like lying, and he didn’t want any kind of barrier between them.
“How are my favorite guys?” she asked as she joined them on the balcony.
Magic got a brief scratch; Nick got a lingering kiss.
Through their embrace, he inhaled the Jaschid scent of her warm skin and absorbed the enchantment of them together. They weren’t equals by any means. He was a fool to think anything else.
He was a slave to her and every spark she inspired, every breath she took. He didn’t just need her, he had to have her.
Knowing he needed to either lighten the mood or completely lose her respect by babbling his thoughts incoherently, he forced himself to lean back. “Magic isn’t an ex-boyfriend who pissed you off, so you turned him into a cat, is he?”
Surprised, she jerked back. “What? No,” she added as his question must have fully registered. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
He handed her his mug. She sipped, then immediately handed it back. “Yuck. What is that?”
/> “Coffee and whiskey.”
She made a sour face. “Why ruin a perfectly good drink with coffee?” With a wave of her wand, the whiskey bottle, ice bucket and a glass zoomed from inside the apartment, sliding to a halt in front of her. The drink assembled itself mid-air, then the ingredients flew back inside.
Sipping from her glass, Abia dropped to the sofa. “Conrad was supposed to take you to your room. I thought you might be asleep by now.”
“I wanted to wait for you. And I—” Missed you, he finished silently. “I like it here. ‘Course I got lost,” he added as Magic climbed behind his mistress’s head, stretching out on the back of the sofa. “Magic found me, though I have no idea how.”
Abia scratched her feline companion’s head. “He knows you’re important to me and sensed your distress.”
“He knows what I’m thinking?” Nick asked, hoping he wasn’t betraying how much that idea bothered him.
Abia cupped her glass between her palms. “In his own way.”
Instinctively, Nick’s gaze jumped to Magic’s. The cat nodded. “How did the interrogation go?” Nick asked, reluctant to acknowledge the cat’s power as he sat beside Abia.
“Not well,” she said. “The sorcerers won’t say anything about Gardiff. They won’t even admit he’s their leader.” On a sigh, she leaned her head back. “There are times when they’d have been tortured. I can’t bring myself to do it.”
She was the one who needed sleep. Would they drift off together after he made his confession? Her exhaustion gave him the perfect excuse to put off talking about his feelings. But he didn’t want to go through another battle without knowing where they stood. “They’re more afraid of him than you.”
Her head dropped on his shoulder. “I’m pretty damn scary.”
Setting aside his mug, he wrapped his arms around her. He inhaled her, drawing courage, strength and desire all at once. “I think so.”
“You said a few days ago that Gardiff felt like he was a victim.”
Nick struggled to remember. “Did I?”
Tonight and Forever Magical Romances Boxed Set Page 28