Its frantic squawks rang out against the deepening evening sky. The nearer it drew to Priest the more desperate its struggles to break free.
“Easy,” Priest crooned as he inched closer to the agitated animal. Fighting past the furious swirl of the darkness inside him, he filled his magic with what little calm he had left. Urged the owl to settle and surrender to his power. “I don’t want to hurt you. I want to help you.”
The second he clutched the bird’s torso in both hands the darkness in him surged and burned beneath his skin.
The owl shrieked at this touch and tried to take a chunk out of his forearm with its beak, but Priest’s grip was too low and his magic too strong. Its only defense was the ear-splitting cries it spilled into the night, each one of them whipping the ugliness inside him to an untamed fury.
Kateri.
The bond he shared with her pulsed in answer and the rage inside him hesitated. She was his light. His foundation. So long as the connection stayed strong—his soul connected to her goodness—the stain of his brother’s magic couldn’t take over.
Mind and heart rooted on the connection to his mate, Priest focused on his magic. On the owl struggling within his hold and the soul nestled inside it. “Don’t fight it. The more you do, the more it will hurt.”
Another squawk. This one filled with pain and desperation, but also laced with that of the tortured man underneath.
Priest tightened his hold and speared his powers deep, digging his silver light into the very heart of the owl. His panther hissed at the burning backlash from the darkness, but Priest pushed through it and put all he had into the connection. “Surrender. Face your priest.”
A deep and murky amethyst light exploded around them, and the owl shifted to man.
Definitely not his brother, but no one he’d ever laid eyes on either. Dressed only in beat-up jeans, the stranger’s torso bore the dangerous and forbidden marks he’d found in his brother’s research too late, each of them drawn in what looked like dried blood. Deep bruises dotted his belly, arms and shoulders, some of them fresh and others the putrid green that came days after injury.
Priest tightened his grip on the man’s throat and filled his voice with every ounce of compulsion he could muster. “Your name.”
The man’s eyes widened, confusion and an almost palpable fear marking his brown gaze. His dark hair was even longer than Priest’s and hung loose on either side of his sweat-coated face. “Jerrik.”
As soon as the answer was out of his mouth, Jerrik’s whole body tensed, his back and neck bowed as though a bolt of lightning had shot from the ground and through his flesh. His tortured shout rang loud and long against the bayou’s stillness. Pure pain and agony. Only when the cry died off, did he straighten his head, his body shaking as though filled with more energy than it could stand. A wildness filled his eyes and the brown that had once colored his irises was pure black.
One second.
One stark, debilitating second and the darkness overwhelmed Priest. Choked and held him frozen in place, every muscle rigid and unforgiving as stone.
Jerrik rolled his head and circled his shoulders, the languid act of a man waking from a long, deep sleep. When he locked his black gaze on Priest and spoke, the voice was no longer the man he’d heard moments before, but one Priest knew all too well. “Hello, brother.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Stupid, short-sighted, dick-headed men! Katy thrashed against her brother’s unforgiving hold and kicked where she prayed to God it hurt like hell, adding what little magic had begun to resurface along with the attack. Thrown over his shoulder as she was, leverage was hell, but her powers were streaming back online and he wouldn’t be able to hold her much longer.
Alek all but sprinted toward the car, Elise and Jenny running dead ahead of them. “Goddamn it, Katy, if I don’t get you out of here, Priest is gonna kill me.”
“He won’t be able to kill you because I’m going to kill him first.” Punching a sharp blast from her palms, she aimed for Alek’s feet.
He stumbled mid-stride and loosened his grip just enough she was able to move with the momentum and rolled from his shoulder to an ugly heap on the ground.
Unfortunately, Alek recovered faster than she did and darted toward her.
She acted without thinking, directing a sharp shock just in front of his feet.
Alek jumped back just before he slammed into the electrical wall. “Jesus, Katy. Would you think for a minute? Priest needs you safe.”
“I am thinking. I’m also feeling. He needs me. Now. There’s no way in hell you’re getting me in that car.”
“You can’t be serious. You haven’t trained.”
“I’m deadly serious.” Straightening from her fighting stance, she fisted her hand against her sternum. “I feel it, Alek. He’s in trouble.”
Alek hesitated long enough to study Elise and Jenny by Priest’s Tahoe, then grimaced and turned his conflicted gaze back on her. “Fine. Then you take them. I’ll go after Priest.”
“He doesn’t need you, he needs me.” With that she strode toward the back of the house and the tree line where Priest had disappeared.
“Katy, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I’ll know what I need when I need to,” she shot back over her shoulder. Or at least she hoped she would. For the first time in her life, the only thing driving her were instincts. Instincts that insisted she haul ass before it was too late.
Alek clamped one hand on her shoulder, wrenching her to a halt and spinning her with such force she nearly lost her balance. “I don’t think you get it. You could die.”
Certainty even beyond what she’d felt surrendering to Priest’s bond filled her in a rush, and her voice dropped to a ragged rasp. “If anything happens to him, I’m as good as dead anyway.”
With that, she took off running, following the incessant demand that thrummed through their bond. Alek’s curse and the lack of footsteps behind her was the only indication he’d finally ceded to her wishes.
Her cat paced and growled, demanding release. Logically, shifting made sense, but fear kept the door to her other self closed tight. Too many times since her soul quest Priest had had to coax her back to human form. If Priest needed her as badly as her instincts insisted, the last thing she’d need would be a fight for control with her companion.
You control your beast. Not the other way around.
Her beast let out a sharp grunt at the memory of Priest’s words, an agreement and a promise for support all rolled up into one.
Right. She was in control. Not her cat. Not her father, or anyone else.
The shift happened in an instant, her human form giving way to the tight compacted muscles of her lion mid-stride and her companion’s senses taking over completely. Like a compass, the bond still led them both, but now there was more. A mix of Priest’s scent, the muddy bayou and something uncomfortably pungent. Beneath her cat’s massive paws, a foreign energy hummed through the moist soil. Something dangerous. Unnatural.
Evil.
She raced forward, fully surrendering control to her companion even as she reached for Priest through their connection. For a second, she felt his grip. A feeble yet desperate mental touch.
An agonizing scream cut through the air. A deep, gut-wrenching sound that could only be male, but sounded nothing like Priest.
The thick cypress trees flashed by in a blur, her beast laser focused and drawn to a single point somewhere dead ahead.
In the distance, a clearing came into view. At its center two men faced off not ten feet apart.
No, not just two men. Priest and a man she’d never seen before. Where the stranger seemed almost ragged and dazed, Priest was straight and still as stone. Trapped and lifeless. Between them an inky black cloud swirled and twisted, its snakelike form coiled and reared back, ready to strike.
Now.
One simple, all-encompassing direction from her beast, but it was all she needed. She shifted, channeled all her magic into a tight, unmerciful fireball and let it fly.
It crashed into the blackness mere inches from Priest’s mouth, but rather than annihilating her target, the substance scattered into ash-like particles, swirled on the air, then streamed through the mouth of the dazed stranger.
Gasping as though he’d surfaced from too long underwater, the once stunned and unfocused man scanned the terrain and trained his black, malevolent gaze on Katy. His smile was pure evil and his voice thick with menace. “Ah, my brother’s mate. Come to join the fun.”
So, it was Draven. Odd because while they had similar coloring and long hair, the man’s face looked nothing like Priest. Where Priest was all hard angles and ruggedness, this man had more classic features. Definitely not someone she’d consider Priest’s flesh and blood.
“Possessed.” Not so much a clear word spoken in her head, but a whispered thought. A feeling not unlike when her companion communicated its desires, but with a different source. “Brother.”
Their bond. Priest was using it. Fighting whatever it was that held him immobile and using it to guide her.
Desperate to keep Draven’s attention off Priest, she filled both palms with more energy and circled away from her mate. “What have you done to Priest?”
“Done to him?” Draven turned with her, leaving his back exposed to Priest. Which meant whatever means he’d used to hold Priest locked in place was something he was confident of maintaining. It wasn’t much in the way of knowledge, but it was something. “I’m merely taking back what he took from me. My clan. My magic. All of it.”
The magic cradled in her palms grew heavier. Hotter. Tingling along her fingertips and burning up her forearms, eager to do what she’d summoned it for. But if the man in front of her was truly only a shell for Draven, then she couldn’t strike without hurting an innocent.
Draven’s gaze flicked to the dark energy swirling in her hands and he chuckled. “Throw it. There’s no way you’ll beat me on your own, but you’ll see how good it feels.”
“Darkness.”
A warning from Priest. Or maybe a clue. More than anything she wanted to look at him. To glean what she could from his eyes and offer whatever non-verbal assurance she could, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off Draven. “I don’t need to hurt other people to feel good. I don’t need to steal something that’s not mine to feel worthy.”
Draven’s grin slipped, the disgust on his face evidence she’d plucked a sore spot. “You’re a self-righteous little bitch, aren’t you? Just like my brother.” He cocked his head. “I wonder. Once I use my darkness to take him over, will that make you my bitch? Or will you just suffer knowing your mate is trapped as my puppet?”
With barely any telegraphing to clue her in, he struck, an ugly bolt of magic darting straight for her head.
Katy ducked, rolled and countered the attack with her own jolt, but Draven knocked it aside with a negligent, backhanded swipe. Inside her, the bond between her and Priest wavered, the light that had beat within it dimming to a pale gray.
Darkness.
Possession.
Puppet.
That was it. If Draven could possess Priest, he wouldn’t need the primos. He’d have all the high priest’s gifts at his disposal. And with the darkness already in Priest, God only knew what kind of thrall he could hold Priest under.
Finding her feet, she braced and surrounded herself in a protective wall of shimmering magic. “You won’t take my mate and I damned sure won’t be your bitch.” She fired. One short, inconsequential blast after another. None aimed to injure the poor man who’d fallen prey to Draven’s possession, but enough to keep him occupied.
After all, Draven wasn’t the only one with sway against the darkness.
The darkness loves you, mihara. Deeply.
She hoped that was true, because she was banking on that love. Counting on it to make a choice and save them all.
Channeling all the love she could through their bond, she reached for his shadow self. “He said you loved me, too. That you wanted me. If you want me you have to fight him. Stay with me. Fight for me.”
Draven laughed, the sinister edge to it leaving her iced to the core even though sweat coated her skin. He prowled forward. “You think it would choose you over me?” He swept her next strike aside and whipped a vicious bolt straight for her solar plexus.
In the split second her shield wavered, a black tendril snaked through the cracks and cinched around her neck.
Behind Draven, Priest’s eyes flared wide. His face was a fierce red and the visible muscles along his neck and arms strained against the invisible force that held him locked in place.
Her lungs burned with the need for air and her temples throbbed a demanding beat, but the bond inside her strengthened. Cast off the dark pall that had begun to intertwine the strands and began to glow. “Help me. Choose me.”
Draven smirked, circled behind her and wrapped one arm around her head. The perfect stance to snap her neck. His vile voice was a nasty gurgle at her ear. “Hard for it to choose you if you’re dead.”
She braced, blackness overtaking her vision even as her gaze locked on Priest.
And then she was free.
Flat on her back, but free and staring up at the early night sky. Fresh air tainted by Draven’s acrid magic flooded her lungs, and her ears rang with the beat of a thousand bass drums.
No.
Not drums.
Fighting.
Forcing her quivering muscles into action, she rolled to one side.
In the center of the clearing, Priest and Draven went head-to-head. A formidable sight. Two tightly matched predators intent on winning.
Except Priest was at a disadvantage. Where Draven wouldn’t hesitate to kill his brother, Priest wouldn’t risk Draven’s host if he could avoid it. Especially not if he was the sorcerer primo they needed to balance the Earth’s magic.
Instinct prickled and pushed her up on shaking feet. Priest might not be willing to hurt an innocent man, but he could absolutely purge his brother’s spirit if she could give him enough time to work.
Slowly, she straightened. Grounded herself in the earth and air around her. Drew her power inward and fueled it with all the emotion of the last few weeks. The pain of losing her parents. The shock of learning her heritage. The freedom in finding who she was and the love granted her by fate. Every bit of it filled her. Whipped her magic into a fearsome frenzy.
Priest dodged an attack from Draven and spun.
Draven followed, but glanced over his shoulder as he turned.
One second. One heart-stopping beat of realization in Draven’s eyes.
Her magic shot forward.
But it was too late.
In a burst of color, Draven—or whoever his host was—disappeared, and an owl as big as her lion surged into the sky, a purple aura tinged with black surrounding it.
And then it was gone.
Swallowed whole by the darkening night as if it never existed.
Not taking her eyes off the sky, Katy stumbled toward Priest. “Where’d he go?”
He caught her with hands at her shoulders barely two steps in, spun her and yanked her against him. “He’s gone.” His arms shook with fatigue and his labored breaths huffed beside one ear, but he was alive. Exhausted and covered with sweat, but with his strong heart pounding an affirming rhythm. “He felt your power. Knew he couldn’t fight us both. He won’t be back. Not until he has a chance to regroup.”
She drew back only enough to meet his eyes. “What do you mean he felt it?”
His hand at the back of her head tightened. A telltale sign that even the marginal distance she’d created went against his protective instincts. “You haven�
��t even learned a tenth of what you’re capable of. Let alone how to hide it. I knew what you were doing. Tried to set him up and keep him distracted, but your magic was too intense. Too big for him not to notice.”
A weight far more potent than fatigue or disappointment settled on her shoulders and her voice cracked when she spoke. “I screwed up.”
His face softened, genuine concern and pride marking his stern features despite her missteps. Keeping one hand anchored firmly low on her back, he cradled the side of her face and dipped close, his rough yet gentle words a comforting caress. “No, mihara. You freed me. Saved me when absolutely no one else could have and bought us the time we need to regroup.”
“But now he’s free.” All the emotion she’d held in check rolled up from the pit of her belly and sent tears spilling down her cheeks. “He’s already possessed that poor man. What if he kills him? Or hurts someone else?”
“My brother won’t risk his host. He’s too powerful. Probably our sorcerer primo. Draven needs that strength. Whoever he is, we’ll find him and the rest of our primos and we’ll deal with Draven.” He swept his thumb along her cheek and wiped away her tears. “We’ll do it together.”
She stiffened in his arms, the remembered anger as she’d watched him run into the woods without her catching up with all the other turmoil surging free. “You left me.”
He pulled her close enough to rest his forehead on hers, but the action wasn’t fast enough to hide the smile he fought in the process. “I did.”
“You needed me.”
“I did.” The hand he’d cupped her nape with, gave a gentle squeeze and he drew in a long, shaky breath. “I’ll train you. Everything you need to know.”
“And next time you won’t leave me behind.”
He lifted his head. Behind his dark eyes burned the reverence and solemnness she’d grown not just to appreciate, but to rely on and love. A vow from one mate to another. “The next time we face my brother, you’ll be right where you’re meant to be. Beside me in everything I do. Every step of the way.”
Guardian’s Bond Page 28