Masked Desire

  The warning echoed again in his ears as he stopped to assess the scene in front of him.

  Yangzei, ready to kill him. Michaela, already injured. His sister, unconscious.

  Fuck it. He opened himself up completely. If the dolma wanted him, it could take him. He would be the sacrifice it wanted.

  It started with his feet, which sank into the ground. Cormac didn’t fight it. Take me. Do what you want with me.

  The dolma responded with violence. The wind picked up and swirled around him like a tornado. Branches and stones cut his flesh and his blood streamed out but Cormac stood, eyes open and hands outstretched. He would give it up, give up everything, if the dolma helped him.

  Suddenly, there was silence. Cormac looked around with eyes that were no longer his, seeing jagged fragments of light surround all the living things. Every animal in the forest acted as his ears. The trees were his eyes.

  He could see all, including Yangzei.

  “That is what the other fey did,” the Ancient said, that echoing voice furious. “He made me hurt.”

  Cormac ignored him. The power of the dolma was his now and he had no qualms about using it.

  The trees first.

  * * * *

  “What the hell is happening?” asked Estelle in awe.

  Michaela couldn’t answer, partly because she wasn’t sure, and partly because she felt very…odd. Dreamlike. Cormac had opened himself to the dolma, and she could feel the edges of it, a huge presence that slowly prodded at her, as though wondering who she was.

  “That fey with the gun is moving Isindle away from the fight,” murmured Estelle. “She’s still out. Caro has him in her sights, just in case.”

  Michaela nodded but couldn’t take her eyes away from the fight in front of her. The two men had gone past any recognizable fighting style and were now holding on to each other and wrestling for dominance. Trees dipped down around them, but the two fighters were so close that she couldn’t tell who they were trying to reach. Around them swirled wind, lifting up rocks and raining them down on the fighters.

  Then the two broke apart for a moment and she saw one of the Cormacs lift his hand to his heart as if for strength.

  Not his heart. His sigil.

  That was him. She rose up behind the boulder, her eyes on the other Cormac, Yangzei.

  Ivy was trapped in that Yangzei hell, so Michaela was scared to shoot to kill. She pulled the trigger, aiming for his hip. Yangzei’s Cormac masque flickered and disappeared as the bullet hit.

  She scrambled around the rock, dragged her leg, desperate to get to the fighters.

  Instead, Madden appeared from the trees and raised the gun.

  Then everything happened at once. Madden fired but in front of her rose a pale flash.

  Cormac.

  Cormac lying on the ground, bleeding.

  Madden’s laughter, suddenly stilled as Estelle shot him.

  Cormac.

  Michaela’s leg gave out as she tried to reach her mate, screaming something that might have been his name.

  He was already in a pool of blood and her sigil was colder than cold against her flesh. “Cormac,” she gasped.

  His eyes, a pale green as though they’d been drained of life, found hers. “Told you I was right.”

  “God, right about what?” She pulled his shirt open and sagged at the sight of the wound, a gaping hole through his shoulder, his lung.

  “To tell you I love you, Miaoling.” He chuckled, but groaned as the blood gushed out. “Go get Ivy.”

  Then he stopped breathing.

  * * * *

  Michaela knelt beside him, stunned. Dead. Cormac was dead.

  Impossible. He couldn’t die. She loved him. They were mated.

  “Another to have failed you.” Yangzei’s whisper came from behind her.

  She twisted silently. The Ancient’s face was appropriately solemn but his eyes were gleeful.

  “Give me Ivy,” she said.

  “No.”

  She could hear the whisper of the horde inside him, captured souls held prisoner but they were too weak for her to join with. She needed Cormac. Without knowing why, Michaela put one hand on Cormac’s sigil and raised the other to the sky. Cormac was a caintir and they were mated.

  The dolma would not let him die. He wouldn’t let Ivy die.

  Which meant it was up to her.

  Michaela took a deep breath and sliced through the wall that had built up around her heart for centuries, protecting Miaoling and all of her love, her trust. Protecting? Don’t lie. Avoiding. Shunning. Fearing the pain that came when she let herself care. Tears blinded her as she relived every little wound, the injuries big and small that had forced her to become Michaela. The rejections. The hate. The pain. As each peeled off, it flayed her soul, but she forced herself to go on.

  She had to, even if it killed her in the process. She needed to become part of the dolma.

  Help me, she thought. I can’t do it alone.

  It was the dolma that replied in a voice that seemed to echo through the world. You must.

  A vision of Cormac came to her, his hand on her back. Soothing her. Supporting her.

  She remembered Ivy’s laugh. Yao’s gapped smile as he presented some delicacy he’d stolen for them to share. Stephan’s stories. Caro. Baptiste. Captain Lu.

  There had been much love and kindness in her life. Enough to overwhelm the selfishness? The anger?

  If Cormac died, the pain she would feel would be more than she could handle. She would break, shatter into a thousand shards of glass.

  He was not going to die. Nor was Ivy.

  I am the mate of a caintir and I will join him.

  Then do so.

  Shaking with fear and agony, she opened herself completely to the dolma. For a moment, she was in that same in-between place Isindle had shown her.

  Then she was on her hands and knees, screaming with all of the memories that came tumbling down around her. Strong arms embraced her as she wept, feeling herself knit back together.

  Cormac.

  “I never thought you’d be here,” he said. “The in-between is only for fey.”

  “You need to come back with me. I need you.”

  He turned to face her, his eyes now a green so bright that she could barely meet his gaze. “You don’t need anyone, Michaela, let alone me.”

  “I love you.”

  Cormac stilled. “What?”

  “I love you.”

  “It’s too late.” His smile now was sad and gentle as he laid a hand on her cheek and leaned to kiss her. Desperately, she clung to him, trying to press her lips against his as he murmured broken words of love. Her arms clashed together and to her horror, she drew back to find he was a mere ghost. The light behind him turned incandescent.

  “Cormac!”

  “Good-bye, Michaela.”

  “No. I love you. I do need you. You’ve become part of me.” Frantic, she struck her hand against the sigil that had started to fade from her chest. She wouldn’t let him die.

  She reached down deep and searched for their connection. It lit her up from the inside and this time when she reached for him, he was already taking her into his arms.

  Their kiss was like nothing she’d experienced. It filled the small cracks left behind in the torture of breaking herself down to become her real, true self once more, a Miaoling stronger and more open than she could have ever achieved alone. Cormac’s love was a light in her darkness and as he breathed into her, her sigil warmed against his.

  Now, finally, they were true mates.

  Then he was gone.

  * * * *

  As if from a distance, Cormac saw Michaela’s face twist in agony as she tried to hold him back. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her that he would wait forever on the other s
ide.

  Except he didn’t want to wait. Michaela needed him. She loved him.

  Fuck death. She loved him.

  Cormac lifted his head to fight, knowing that it was a lost cause.

  Michaela.

  I’m here.

  Help me.

  She opened her mind to him in a gesture of trust that clutched at his heart. Within her he could feel all the pain and isolation she’d experienced.

  He also felt the love. She had a capacity for love he’d only dreamed of. For Yao. For Ivy.

  For him.

  He wouldn’t fail her, not his Miaoling.

  With tremendous effort, he forced himself from the edge of the precipice. Michaela stretched out with both hands and a line of light flung out to twist around him. His mate heaved back, trying to wrestle him close, swearing like the merchant-sailor she had been, her face almost gray with fatigue and effort. He could do nothing to help but resist the gaping emptiness behind him. It called him in, luring him with sweet promises of rest.

  There could be no rest without Michaela. She was his and he was hers. Simple and true.

  “Help me!” She screamed at him as her grip wavered.

  “Tell me what to do.”

  “I don’t know! I don’t have a plan!”

  Despite everything, her frenzied declaration made him laugh. That was all it took. He stumbled forward, death’s grip on him lessened enough to move away from the danger.

  Then into Michaela’s arms. She bent into him, her fingers clawing against his back as though afraid he would return to the void.

  “Don’t leave me,” she said.

  “Never.”

  They stood for a moment in the timelessness of the in-between and all Cormac knew was a rushing coldness and the feeling of air bursting into his lungs.

  He was alive. Healed. A caintir. Mated.

  Michaela had brought him back.

  * * * *

  Michaela had no time to marvel over the miracle she’d experienced. Cormac was alive, but Ivy was still a prisoner.

  They were back on the island, in the fight that had killed Cormac only a moment ago, still laying in a cooling pool of his blood. The in-between was gone. She was the first to get to her feet, pulling her mate away from Yangzei and stepping in front to shield him. In her peripheral vision, Eric and the others were all waiting, guns trained, for her to make a move. They wouldn’t shoot for fear of hitting Ivy, whose ghostly form still wept on the ground near Yangzei’s feet.

  She had no idea what to do and she didn’t care. The dolma had opened her eyes to a perception beyond what she’d limited herself to before.

  Cormac rose behind her, covered in blood with a severe expression. “You are not going in that fight without a plan,” he said grimly. “I have one.

  “Never thought I’d see the day.”

  “I even have some lists somewhere. You need to trust me, Miaoling.”

  She looked up. “With my life.”

  “Then we strike together. Both of us.” He placed his hand on his sigil and Michaela’s responded. Their minds linked and Michaela knew what he was doing even as he did it.

  Together, they ran at Yangzei, who flinched back with their combined force.

  “Now.” Cormac’s command was quiet.

  Simultaneously, they reached out to the dolma, channeling the energy that swirled around them and thrusting it into the Ancient. The vindictive coldness she’d experienced in Eric’s house fell over her like a blanket.

  She attacked.

  * * * *

  Before his eyes, Michaela shifted into a masque he’d never seen before, a tall being who moved with the strength and stealth of an assassin. Yangzei laughed and shifted himself to become an older man with a wiry frame.

  “You are not the only one to have studied with the mountain monks,” he said.

  Michaela didn’t reply, but moved slowly towards him, her hands held loosely at her sides. Yangzei’s eyes tracked only her, so Cormac took a small step towards the small, translucent Ivy who sat huddled to the side. Then another.

  When the fight began, Cormac halted, his eyes dazzled. Michaela fought like a snake, darting in and out with rapid attacks. Yangzei was more of a mountain, an immovable force that simply deflected her blows. He was trying to wear her down.

  She had told him she was strong and that she didn’t need his protection. He would always be there for her, but she had this.

  Instead, he focused on Ivy. It took three more steps before he reached her.

  “Ivy.”

  She looked with red, pleading eyes. “Get me home.”

  “We will.” He laid a hand on her head. “As soon as your auntie finishes this bastard off.”

  He focused on the fight again. Yangzei was still a mountain, but Michaela was now more of a tiger, fierce and remaining on the attack.

  Yangzei shifted, his new masque now a cheerful looking Chinese man with a shaved head, missing teeth and one eye. He knew instantly this was Yao.

  Michaela’s mind was a welter of devastated thoughts and emotions and she fought to force them down. How had he ever thought she was cold? Michaela was a volcano, a solar flare.

  Ready to explode.

  He could be her tinder.

  Let me help, he thought. I have an idea.

  There was a long pause. Yes.

  Cormac gathered Ivy to his chest and ran to Michaela. As Yangzei slashed out with a clawed hand, he pulled his mate close, feeling the hammering of her heart through their connection.

  “Let go,” he said. “Use me and let go.”

  She understood instantly. Grasping both of his hands in hers, she combined the dolma with her rage, sending it towards Yangzei. Cormac’s heart stuttered as she drained him of everything he had, and he focused hard, reaching deep to replenish her again.

  The resulting blast knocked them both off their feet. Yangzei let out a shriek of mixed agony and fury and backed away. In a moment, he’d grabbed Madden’s limp body and simply disappeared.

  It was over.

  Chapter 47

  Miaoling—Michaela no longer—stood on the richly woven rug in the middle of Eric’s war room and assessed its new configuration. There was enough space for the newly named High Command. They were no longer facing a threat limited to masquerada, and the layout reflected this. There were spaces for all of the arcane groups who wished to ally with Eric. Their recent rout of Frieda’s forces had both swayed groups that initially hedged their bets—and these were not part of Eric’s inner sanctum—as well as confirmed the loyalty of others.

  As long as Madden and Yangzei were out there, the war room would remain operational.

  “Councilor.” Eric came in and handed her a cup of tea.

  She accepted it with a smile of thanks. “How is Stephan?”

  Eric shook his head. “Not good.”

  Despite Cormac’s efforts, infection had set in, affecting his arm. Although they hadn’t had to amputate, he’d been greatly weakened. Stephan was having trouble adjusting, lashing out in rage. Estelle had done her best, but Miaoling didn’t blame the vampire for her absences from Stephan’s side.

  After all, the woman was now also the seneschal major, her mentor killed fighting against Frieda’s rogue vampires. She had responsibilities.

  “Is he still threatening to go after Tom?” The dark cloud hovered over her again. Tom had not been seen since the battle, and no one on his team could provide information about his last moments. Since they had no body, they’d been loath to declare him dead. Stephan had taken it particularly hard.

  Eric’s silence was answer enough. Tom’s loss had been difficult for all of them.

  Ivy poked her head in. “Time for class, Auntie. I’ll be back for dinner.” She waved and left.

  Miaoling watched after her with
a small smile. Estelle had said the memories were too deep and intense to allow her to take them away, and they’d been forced to tell Ivy that she lived among beings out of fairy tales. To the girl’s credit, she’d only fainted once and then blamed it on lack of food. For now she lived in Eric’s house and spent most of her time with the medics, who adored her. With Yangzei and Madden around, they were taking no chances.

  “Tell me some good news,” Eric said as he leaned against the chairs.

  “I need to resign as head of your council.”

  “Your idea of good and mine are very different things.” He sighed. “I thought this was coming. Pharos?”

  “I’ve been chosen as the new leader. I’m going to be busy making some changes.”

  “No more secrecy?”

  She nodded. “I want it to be as transparent as possible. Except with the humans, obviously.”

  She rose to leave and Eric stood and kissed her on the cheek. “Good luck, Miaoling.”

  She bowed low. “Thank you, sire.”

  * * * *

  Cormac glanced around his tree. It was all ready for his mate. Life had been a flurry for the last few days but Michaela—Miaoling—was coming by.

  To talk.

  That part, he was not looking forward to, but he was desperate to see his mate. Despite their constant connection through their mating bond, he craved her physical presence like a drug.

  “It’s still a hovel.”

  “Shut up, Rendell.” Cormac made the branches outside rustle menacingly. A silly use of his caintir power, but Rendell brought out the worst in him.

  Rendell laughed and uncoiled himself from the chair. “Is the Lady Isindle near?” he asked with studied indifference.

  “Isindle is busy.”

  Another laugh. “I only wish to pass on a message from the magehood.”

  Although they had publicly repudiated Isindle to please Tismelda, the Fern House mages had set up a secret line of communication to Isindle in her exile, keeping her abreast of all the news and sending messages of support. Rendell had become the unlikely go-between and Cormac tried hard not to think of their relationship, if a relationship there was. They weren’t together, but in the aftermath of the battle he was sure he’d seen Rendell watching Isindle in a way that struck him as much too interested. He didn’t like it but when he’d idly commented that he should tell Rendell to keep his dirty paws to himself, Miaoling had told him in no uncertain terms that it was none of his damn business.