by C. M. Owens
He smirks while shaking his head. “I’m fine. I messed up a long time ago with Alyssa. I swore I’d always be there for her when I came back. I meant it. As long as that fucker is dead, all is right with the world.”
That has me frowning, and he groans. “Don’t tell me she saved him,” he says, exasperated.
My lips thin, and my silence is his answer.
“What’d she do with him?”
Looking up, the field is barely in immortal sight. “I’m going to find out, and then I’m going to finish it.”
***
GAGE
“Gage!” The familiar feminine voice calling my name has me whirling around, and I see Morgana being forcefully tugged in a line of shackled prisoners that will finally see the right side of bars for all their crimes.
With quick strides, I make my way over to her and use my magic to take her out of the link, reassembling the chains to the prisoner walking behind her.
She throws her arms around my neck, and her lavender scent wafts toward me as I slowly return the embrace. Her hot tears leak through my shirt, and she sobs softly against my chest.
“What happened to him?” she asks through a choked sob.
Sighing, I look around for the only girl who has the answers to that question. Kimber is with Drackus, and it looks like they’re in a heated argument. I guess he’s having the same amount of luck I am.
“He’s still alive, but I can’t let him stay that way.”
She sobs harder, and a fleeting moment of guilt fills me. “You need to get out of here and stay far away from anyone affiliated with Gavin. Understood?”
She leans back, clutching handfuls of my shirt in her fists. “I’ll come with you. I can’t be alone.”
I forgot how fragile she is. “That won’t work. We have a lot of shit to do, and they won’t let just anyone in the circle.”
She frowns up at me. “I never wanted him to be this way, Gage. And he wouldn’t let me leave. I wanted you. I always just loved you, but he cast the Aphrodite spell. Please let me come.”
My heart clenches, but not for the reasons it once would have. In the place of the strong feelings I once had, is nothing more than immense pity and sadness. She simply doesn’t want to be alone.
“The Aphrodite spell is tricky, Morgana. In order for it to work, one of the intended targets has to be in love. And if the other person is in love with someone else, it doesn’t work at all. Believe me, I know.” With a reverent sigh and a freedom from understanding, I offer her a forced smile. “If you had loved me, the spell would have never worked on you.”
I always wondered if he had done that, but I refused to believe he was capable of something like that back then. But if she had loved me, she could have never been forced to love him.
“No,” she whispers. “I know I loved you.”
I look over as Kane and Alyssa kiss each other with all the passion I once envied. That’s real love. What I feel for Kimber… It’s maddening, but it’s real love.
“I need to go, and you need to get out of here. Start over somewhere nice, Morgana. You deserve a break from the darkness.”
“Take me with you,” she pleads, hiccupping against her choking wad of emotions.
Kimber is suddenly beside me, and I notice the blood on her cheek. Immediately I tilt her head back, inspecting the wound.
“It’s not mine,” she says, smiling at me when I scowl at her. “Hedge hugged me, but he had… someone on his chin.”
She tosses her thumb over her shoulder, pointing to her ogre friend from the Somage, and my stomach roils as bile rises to my mouth. I suppose he took this as a buffet night.
She turns and faces Morgana, and her smile gets tight. My eyes drift back over to the brunette I once thought I’d never get over. It’s amazing how a few centuries changes everything.
Kimber sticks out her hand to introduce herself, but Morgana recoils with hurt in her eyes, looking at me as though she can’t believe I’m really over her. Christ.
Kimber clears her throat and lowers the hand Morgana refuses to touch, and she pats my chest. “I’ll give you two a minute.”
Frowning, I take her hand, lacing our fingers together. “Not necessary. I’ve said what I needed to. And I really need to talk to you.”
I eye her, and she smirks. She fucking smirks. She’s proud of the fact she went behind my back and saved my brother’s life.
“Gage,” Morgana whispers hoarsely, but I keep Kimber’s hand in mine when I give her one last look.
“Go, Morgana. There’s nothing left for you here. Go be free and start fresh.”
She gives me a sad smile, her eyes sparkling with tears, and I tug Kimber toward my car.
“That was awkward,” she mumbles under her breath. “Considering she screwed you over, I really didn’t think she’d be all jealous and bitchy toward your new girlfriend—that came centuries later.”
Sighing, I drop my arm around her shoulders. “She claims Gavin put the Aphrodite spell on her.”
“The same one you used on Alyssa?” she asks. It’s not a jab, but I still wince.
“Yeah. Same one.”
“But you don’t believe her?”
“No. I think she is freaking out because she’s alone for the first time in centuries. I’m something familiar, so she was reaching out, trying to grasp onto anything. She’s lost, but I can’t be the one to help her. Not this time. She needs to help herself.”
She’s quiet for a long minute, and then she blows out a breath of uncertainty.
“Do you still love her? I mean, now that your brother is out of the picture, you can—”
I cut her off by spinning her and pulling her to me before crushing my lips to hers. Her fingers thread through my hair, tugging me even closer as she melts against my body.
“I want you. The only one who has ever made me first, Kimber… that’s you. You’re first to me, too. You’re the only one I want.”
She grins against my lips, nipping at my lip piercings that she loves so much.
Then I push her back against the car when we reach it. “Now tell me where you put my brother.”
The seductive air disintegrates, and her defiance forms once again. She’s not going to make this easy.
***
GAGE
“You can drive fast all you want; you’re not scaring his location out of me, Gage. I won’t die in a car crash,” Kimber says, sounding bored. “If you want to know, promise you won’t kill him.”
We come up on the convoy of cars, and I dematerialize us and my phantom to surge to the front. She gasps for air as we take the lead and become solid again, but she doesn’t act as rattled as I expected her to.
She knows I’d never hurt her, so I have no damn leverage over her. She has all the cards, and she knows it.
“Fine!” I finally yell. “I won’t kill him, but I do need to know where he’s at so that I can make sure he’s not able to hurt anyone again.”
She leans back, smiling to herself victoriously. If I didn’t love her, I’d hate her right now.
“The devil’s eye is designed to send an immortal anywhere the user wants it to as long as it’s on the same plane as the trap, and as long as it isn’t too far from the trap. So I called a succubus to talk to a witch about where I might could hold a powerful warlock without worrying about him escaping. Turns out she knew a place nearby.”
I drag in a long breath, and drop my head back. “Sadie told you where I kept her. He’s there?”
“She said you told her it was strong enough to hold even you. It should be strong enough to hold him.”
I fucking hope so. To be sure he hasn’t gotten out, I slam on the gas, jutting us forward even faster.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”
“Do you have any idea how thorough I am?” she quips. “It greatly depreciates the danger factor.”
She’s not taking this as seriously as she should.
I glance in my rearview
to see Zee’s car right on my ass. Chaz is riding with Karma and Dice, because Karma knows what’s going on. She also understands why Dray can’t heal him. His injuries are sustained from his own magic, which means Dray can’t heal him, and Chaz wants his secret kept. Which means he’ll need a lot of rest and privacy. Something I can offer him at my house. I owe him a lot more than that.
As soon as we reach the oversized, underground garage, I leap out of the car, ignoring Kimber as I dematerialize, but Zee pulls me out of my shadowed form, using his night stalker abilities, and forces me to reassemble.
“What the hell?” he growls.
Kimber sells me out quickly. “He’s going to see his brother.”
“Not alone,” Zee says. “Take me with you.”
Considering the others couldn’t keep up, they don’t know what’s going on. Everyone will want a piece of the action if I waste time arguing.
“Fine,” I grumble, and he releases his hold to let me dematerialize us both. Using my magic, I make the chains come to life and find him to pin him down before we even make it underground. When we reappear, Gavin is resting his hand on his knee, sitting on the stone floor, and wearing a smile he shouldn’t be. At least the shackles are in place.
“Guess your girlfriend made you promise not to kill me before you came down here,” he says smugly.
“I’ve broken promises before,” I remind him, watching him as he runs a hand through his dark hair.
“So you have. But not to this girl. She forgave me for torture because she loves you. Hell of a girl to lie to, wouldn’t you say?”
Grinding my teeth, I glare across the room at him.
“I didn’t make any promises,” Zee says, his smile slowly crawling up in warning.
Gavin rolls his eyes. “You’re a young night stalker with a weak sire. I’ve done my homework on all of you. You aren’t strong enough to subdue me, let alone kill me. Your strongest venom is too weak to even leave a mark on someone as strong as me.”
Smug son of a bitch. Even in an underground cell, unable to use magic, and shackled to a wall, he manages to act as though he’s better than everyone.
Zee gets closer to him, and before I can warn him to back off, he’s suddenly getting jerked down, gasping as Gavin grabs his face in his hands. I sling my hand to knock him away, but my power comes back at me, and I’m knocked against the wall.
Zee yelps and struggles, while I leap to my feet, but before I can grab him and get out, Gavin releases him.
Zee staggers back to me, keeping his eyes warily on Gavin, and I take several breaths to make up for the adrenaline rush.
“The fuck?” Zee gripes, pulling the sleeve up on his arm as ink begins to crawl up him.
“What the hell did you do to him?” I demand, looking over at my brother as he smiles and rests his hands behind his head.
“How can I possibly tell you my master plan?”
The words strike a chord to me, and so many things fall into place. Gavin’s thing has always been wording things, ever since we were little and couldn’t speak freely inside the coven’s home where we were enslaved.
“Motherfucker!” Zee gripes, ripping his shirt open as the ink continues to crawl up both of his arms, creating tattooed sleeves, and it slithers across the top of his chest until the two sides connect.
“Let’s get out of here,” I tell Zee.
He narrows his eyes on Gavin, but my brother just used magic in a cell that should forbid magic. Yet he’s not escaping. He’s strong enough to override some parts of the restraints, but not all of them.
I grab Zee’s shoulder before pulling us out of there, and he curses the second we’re topside.
“What did he do to me? What the hell is this? A curse or something?”
“No,” I say, my mind racing for answers as hope invades me. “Gavin just did something to help us. We just have to figure out what exactly it was, and we’ll have to stay away from him. He’s strong enough to use magic in there.”
“What the hell?” he asks, baffled.
“He could have killed you, but he did something else. Judging by the new ink, I’d say he just forced something on you that required a very powerful spell.”
He follows me, walking beside me as we head through the woods and toward the house. I need time to think, so walking is better than vaporizing.
“Why would he help us? And how did he just do that? I thought you said that shit would restrain his magic.”
The house comes into sight as we reach the clearing. “It should have. I made those strong enough for me. Which means he’s a lot stronger than me. He could have escaped us before that trap tonight. He could have killed a lot of people. He could have killed me that night at the rings. I never stood a chance.”
“And?” he prompts, not following my random conversation.
“And that’s why we need to stay away. He’s not in control.”
“Control? Never mind. One thing at a time. So he wants to help us, but we need to stay away. He’s held back, but hasn’t been on our side. I’m confused about why you think he fucking wants to help.”
I stop walking and look directly into his eyes. “He didn’t say why. He said how. ‘How can I tell you my master plan?’ Those were his words. Not why would I tell you my master plan.”
Zee’s eyebrows go up. “Dude, you’re seriously up in the sky, and I’m still underground. What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means Kimber was right. My brother is tied to one serious bitch of a blood oath.”
Chapter 28
KIMBER
“How mad is Gage?” Ella asks, sitting down beside me.
Drackus has finally calmed down. He’s so pissed about the fact I stole his right to kill a warlock that is way too strong for him to kill. Gavin makes Drackus look like an amateur. But he proved to everyone tonight that he’s not the heartless murderer everyone thinks he is.
“He’s mad, but I hope he sees things my way one day. Hopefully soon. His ex is already trying to get his attention.”
She drops her spoon into our shared bowl of ice cream, and Drackus shushes her as he works on reading through my gatekeeping book, searching for a clue as to where I’ve hidden Gavin. He can search all he wants. The answer isn’t in there.
Gage bursts through the door, startling us, but the moment his eyes land on mine, he’s suddenly right in front of me, pulling me up from the sofa and away from Ella before delivering a bruising kiss that has me wobbling under the force of it.
His tongue sweeps in, and I dissolve into him.
“I guess the chat with your brother went well,” Ella drawls, a smile in her voice.
Gage pulls back just barely, and I run my tongue over my swollen lips. “You were right,” he says softly. “Gavin’s under a blood oath.”
“So there really is a bigger threat out there,” Drackus groans, slamming shut the book.
“Yeah,” Zee says, pulling his shirt off. “And Gavin did something to me.”
I look over at all the new ink that has taken over his arms and chest. “What is that?”
He shrugs, and Gage shakes his head, letting me know he has no clue either.
Chaz walks in, limping lightly, and Gage turns to face him. “You need to be resting.”
“I need to be here,” he says, brushing off Gage’s concern. Then he adds, “So now there’s a bigger threat, a traitor in the Somage, and Zee has some freaky new tats. All in a day’s work.”
He drops to the sofa beside Ella, and he puts his head in her lap. She gingerly runs her fingers through his hair, and he closes his eyes while shifting and wincing from the move. He must have exerted a lot of power to fight tonight, even though I didn’t get to see him fighting.
“Traitor in the Somage?” Ella asks, looking up from Chaz.
I frown while leaning back against Gage. There really isn’t any rest for the wicked.
“Yeah,” I say in answer. “We set it up to call the Somage in last and fill them in on just ce
rtain parts of the plan. We made it known there would be an ambush, but we left out all the details. They knew the details that only the Somage had heard. They didn’t catch wind of the slave ring invasion until one of the alarms was triggered, and the Somage wasn’t in on it. But they knew about this.”
Her mouth falls open, and then she curses. “Shit. There’s a lot of power in the Somage.”
“It’s not all of them. Maybe one or two. There’s no one who could convince them all to shift sides so easily. But we don’t know which ones have, so we can’t use them anymore.”
Zee walks around the living room, pointing to his chest and arms very dramatically.
“Biggest problem is right here,” he says. “What the hell does this mean?”
He throws his hands up when no one answers, and the whole damn wall behind him blows up. Gage covers me, pushing me to the solid wall behind me, and we all look on in shock.
“Son of a fucking bitch,” Drackus says on a breath.
The pounding of numerous feet coming down the stairs finds us, and I look over to see Chaz sitting down after having shielded Ella. He grimaces when trying to move, and Alyssa goes to him while warily investigating the tragic wall.
“What happened?” she asks, her eyes examining Chaz’s bruised side.
“To the wall or the duster?” Dice asks, his eyes wide as he pulls Karma to him. “Because I really want to know about the fucking wall.”
“Holy fucking hell,” Kane says, walking over to Zee. “When did you do this?”
“Are you really asking about tattoos right now?” Thad asks incredulously.
“That’s what he did,” Gage says, pinching his brow.
“Huh?” Zee asks.
“That’s what Gavin did. Shit. He essentially called you weak, remember?”
Zee looks down at his arms, then his eyes shift to the decimated wall, and then he looks back to Gage.
“So he did what? Gave me magic? That’s impossible.”
Everyone exchanges confused looks, especially the ones who just got down here.
“With all the shit that has gotten free from purgatory, there’s not too much that’s impossible anymore,” Gage groans.