by Bast, Anya
Isabelle stood near Micah’s side and pulled a lot of magick fast and hard. Water coursed from the pipes, down the hallway, everywhere and anywhere she could call it from.
The other water witches in the foyer caught on fast and called water, too. Soon Sarafina lay in an inch of it, then another inch. Rising fast, the water all made for Stefan, forming a conical wave around him and his Atrika bodyguards, who had difficulty staving it off.
Even better, the contingent of daaeman guards were now distracted and busy.
Seeing an opening, Claire, Mira, Thomas, and Sarafina all mounted an attack. They tossed all they could at the now struggling and preoccupied Atrika. Sarafina caught one in the side of the head with a burst of fire that sent him reeling back, howling.
The water coursed in, soaking Stefan’s shoes, and began to rise fast. It was already up to Sarafina’s calves. Most likely the water witches had tapped the water pipes, the streams in the Conservatory, and the Coven’s pool. She could smell a note of chlorine underneath the heavy scent of elemental and daaeman magick.
Thomas lobbed an earth charm at Stefan, which made Sarafina’s ears ring from the power. The charm made it past the Atrika and hit Stefan full in the chest, sending the warlock careening backward to slide on his back in the water.
Now out of Stefan’s control, the ball floated up into the center of the foyer, near the chandelier. It continued to emit daaeman magick, but judging from the swear words coming from Stefan’s mouth the warlock had lost complete power over it. Now it hung like a deadly daaeman disco ball near the ceiling. It was sure making the witches dance all right.
Something growled to the left of her and Sarafina turned her head to see Bai pushing witches out of his way to get to her.
Okay, time to go.
She pushed into the throng and tried her best to disappear. The last thing she needed was for Bai to jump right next to her in the crowd and take her away. He could do it so easily. Her only chance was to stay as far from him as she could and not allow him to touch her.
Weaving in and out and back and forth, all the while dodging blue bolts, she forced her way to the back of the crowd, where more Atrika and warlocks stood trying to guard the exits and keep all the witches in the vicinity of the daaeman magick. Water sloshed around her calves here, too. She could feel a current and she was working against it. The water witches were still calling it toward Stefan.
Sarafina ducked into a room off the corridor. Water streamed in after her and it was a struggle to get the door closed again. She found herself in a storage room filled with cleaning supplies.
Channeling fire, she shot a burst of it at the wall separating this room from the next. It created a ragged, smoking hole she could climb through. With some luck, she could just go around the guards.
Drastic times called for drastic measures.
THEO CALLED FOR SARAFINA AGAIN. WHERE THE fuck had the woman gone? He dodged a bolt and it smashed into the water at his feet, apparently dissipating on contact.
Stefan had lost control of the daaeman magick, but that only meant the ball was shooting off randomly. It was almost as bad as having Stefan direct the thing. The only positive was that now the warlocks were being hit, too.
Fighting the crowd that was working its way to the back of the foyer and the corridors leading away from it, Theo pushed his way forward toward Stefan. If he knew Sarafina, she would have gone for the source of the problem rather than running from it.
Theo came upon Isabelle kneeling in the water with Micah half in her lap, her wet hair sticking to her face. Theo went down on his knees beside Micah. “Are you hit?”
“His magick is gone,” said Isabelle. “Completely gone.”
“Oh, fuck.”
Soaked, Micah looked up at him with haunted, blank eyes. “Find me a sword,” he ground out. Rage transformed his face, made his expression tight. “Theo, find me a sword!” he repeated, louder his time.
There was a brutal cast to the scholar’s face that Theo had never seen on him before. It was an expression he was more used to seeing reflected in the mirror.
Right now, Theo could deny Micah nothing. He’d find the man a sword.
Theo glanced toward the corridor leading off to the opposite side of the stairway. An Atrika blocked the end of the hallway, but he could get into the room. There might, with luck, be some weapons in there.
“I’ll be right back,” Theo said and rose, sloshing through the water and picking his way past fallen witches to make it there, keeping an eye out for stray bolts of the blue demon magick.
After breaking the locked door down, he found only three swords within and managed to get them back through the crowd without the Atrika noticing. He gave one to Isabelle and one to Micah. Micah caressed the hilt with a finger, looking nothing like the happy-go-lucky geek Theo knew. Micah wanted to spill blood and Theo hoped he’d get his chance.
“You see Sarafina anywhere?” he asked Isabelle. Everyone had to shout over the din of battle, grieving, screaming, and rushing water.
“She was here, Theo, but then she took off like the devil was chasing her.” She pointed toward the back of the foyer, at the other corridor.
Maybe not the devil, but Theo was guessing it was somebody just as bad.
Theo melted back into the crowd in the direction Isabelle had pointed in. He had to find her.
SARAFINA EDGED HER WAY DOWN THE CORRIDOR. This part of the Coven was dry, at least. All the water was being directed to the front part of the building.
Some of the Coven witches had also managed to make their way past and were convening, trying to devise a way to mount an effective attack against Stefan and the invading Atrika from the opposite direction.
She was just trying to get away from Bai.
Her best bet was to get out of the Coven completely and keep moving. Having lost Theo in the foyer, she knew she was alone now. Against Bai that made her chances slim to none.
On the lower floor of the Coven, she turned a corner and headed toward the Conservatory, past the doors of the ballroom. There was an exit leading out onto the sprawling lawn from the back of the Conservatory if her memory served her. After her narrow escape from Bai down this very corridor, she’d memorized every part of the building so she’d never get trapped again.
Stefan’s hand clamped over her mouth and he dragged her kicking back into the recessed doorway of the ballroom. God, she hated this room! She bit his hand, tasted blood, and he released her.
How the hell had the bastard traveled from the foyer to this part of the Coven so fast? Her blood went cold as she realized there was only one way.
There was an Atrika here, too.
Sarafina spun, raising power, but a big, black-haired, dark-skinned Atrika simply snuffed out the fire before it could reach him.
“Are you always going to need someone to fight your battles for you, Stefan?” She clucked her tongue. “So sad.”
He gave a loose shrug of one shoulder. Such a French gesture. “They’re useful. I don’t disregard the tools at my disposal.”
Sarafina shifted her gaze to the dark-skinned Atrika. “So you’re a tool, huh?” The lips of the daaeman curled back in a thin growl. “I thought the Atrika breed had more pride.”
The Atrika turned his attention to Stefan, his eyes flashing red.
Stefan gave an unsure sidelong glance at his demon-on-a-leash, looking like he wondered if the Atrika might break his chain.
Sarafina raised a brow. “Worried, Stefan? You should be. I wonder what the Atrika will do to you once you give them whatever leverage it is you’re using. It’s the elium, right?”
Stefan turned his attention back to her. “Don’t make me shut you up.” Every word was a lash of a whip.
Oh, looked like she’d hit a nerve.
Stefan glanced at the Atrika. “Go back to the foyer. I don’t need you here. I can handle a witch like her with one hand tied behind my back.”
The Atrika jumped away, leaving them alone.
Stefan stepped out into the corridor. “So many women of the Coven have offended me, Sarafina. Mira killed my father. Isabelle tried to kill me. Yet out of all of them, I think I’m most affronted by you. You’re the only one who never had a good reason for wronging me. Mira and Isabelle both had personal debts to settle, but you . . . you’re just a flat-out bitch.”
He took another step toward her. Sarafina’s stomach clenched, but she stood her ground. “You kidnapped me, Stefan. That’s pretty personal.”
Sarafina pulled a thread of fire and held a small line of white-hot flame in her hand. It was useless, but it made her feel better.
Stefan glanced at the fire. “You’ve learned so much in such a short time. You’re wasted here.”
She channeled fire into the palms of her hands and stood on the balls of her feet, ready to move. He circled her, an odd expression of pleasure on his face.
Sarafina tilted her head to the side and smiled a little, bat-ting her lashes. “So does that mean you’ll take me back?”
“No, my petal, you’re not mine to claim anymore.”
The world went perfectly silent and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Sarafina’s skin prickled at the sudden flush of presence in the corridor. She knew the press of that particular existence in the air around her, on her soul. Pressing, taking . . .
It was Bai.
“You will come with me now.” Bai’s voice was deep and even. He sounded satisfied, happy. Sarafina supposed he had no reason to feel otherwise. Apparently, the bad guys were winning and Bai had what he wanted. That would be her.
Slowly, she turned toward him. All six and a half feet of her future children’s father filled up the corridor behind her. The fire in her palms died.
Behind Bai, Sarafina saw Theo turn the corner and freeze. Their eyes met and held past the daaeman blocking the pathway between them.
“Sarafina.” Theo growled her name and then shouted it again as he began to run toward her. Power gathered in an arc from here to there.
The Atrika was about ten feet away. He disappeared and Sarafina ran toward Theo, her feet pounding madly on the carpet of the corridor. She knew what was coming next. It gathered like the doom of Armageddon at the back of her throat and behind her teeth—bitter fear of the inevitable.
Bai jumped in right in front of her. She screamed in terror. He reached out and touched her and she was gone, obliterated in every way that mattered.
GONE. SARAFINA WAS GONE.
Theo stood in the center of the corridor, seeing his worst nightmare come true. Bai had disappeared, reappeared, and then disappeared with Sarafina. Theo had been too far away to stop it.
He stood for a moment in cold, painful shock, then raised his gaze from the place where Sarafina had disappeared to the smirking warlock not far away. Sarafina had slipped through his fingers, but there was someone here to take all his aggression out on.
Gathering power, he ran toward him, intending to make him into a warlock mash. Stefan sent up a wall of white-hot fire. Theo countered, pulling earth right through the floor of the Coven to put out the flames. The walls shook and the floor moved in a wave that didn’t trip Theo up for a moment. He leapt over the smoldering ridge of earth and kept going.
On the other side, Stefan was just disappearing around the corner at the opposite end of the hallway. Theo pounded after him, his sword heavy in his hand. Rage and grief twisted inside him, but he couldn’t let it get the better of him. Instead, he used it, transforming it into speed and a deadly will to make Stefan pay.
Theo caught him on a staircase somewhere near the Conservatory. Pulling a charm, Theo used it to trip Stefan, who went sprawling on the steps. The warlock flipped and shot a wave of white-hot flame at Theo that he only narrowly managed to dodge.
“She’s gone.” Stefan snarled. “Bai’s taken her to Eudae. You’ll never get her back now.”
“Then I’ve got nothing to lose, warlock.” Theo advanced on him. “You’d better start praying.”
TWENTY-NINE
SARAFINA PRESSED HER PALMS AGAINST THE FLOOR and retched. Her whole world was focused only on that for a moment. When she finished, she closed her eyes as another wave of intense nausea swept through her.
The scent of the place wasn’t helping. It smelled of old blood—tangy and metallic—and a twist of unfamiliar, decaying plants. The spot where she’d landed seemed to exude death and violence. When she moved her hands, cold dirt and grit bit into her palms.
The Atrikan part of Eudae. It had to be.
The look on Theo’s face . . . He’d been shattered, terrified. What could he be feeling now? Sarafina couldn’t venture a guess. He’d be feeling like this was his fault, like he’d failed her. Theo thought he failed everyone. This would destroy him.
Her heart grieved that more than anything, even more than the fact that when she lifted her head she would find herself in a brutal alien world with no hope of rescue or escape.
Oh, God, she missed Grosset so much. It hurt like a physical pain in her chest and gut. She knew Theo would take him in as soon as the smoke cleared. As gruff as Theo acted toward her pet, she knew he had a soft spot for Grosset. The little dog would be okay. But she’d never be able to bury her face in his warm fur again.
And Theo.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tears splashed to the concrete floor. Sarafina couldn’t even think about that loss right now. It hurt too much.
Anyway, she’d lost him before Bai had ever grabbed her.
The wave of nausea faded and she rocked back on her heels, taking stock of her situation through her tangled hair.
She blinked, not believing the scene that met her eyes. “What?”
They were back in the building in Kentucky, in the room where they’d had the knock-down, drag-out fight with Stefan and the Atrika.
Bai hadn’t moved her to Eudae.
She wondered why for a fleeting moment before a surge of incredible joy made her entire body sing. If she wasn’t on Eudae, there was a slender thread of hope to hold on to. Her euphoria tamped out like a candle in a tornado as soon as she saw the shadow in the corner.
Using one of the tipped-over chairs to help herself up, she stood and grabbed an old towel from one of the tables to wipe her mouth clean. The fabric smelled of herbs.
“What are we doing here?” Her voice echoed eerily in the large, empty space and raised goose bumps along her arms. Dropping the towel, she hugged herself.
Silence.
She sighed. “Look, if you expect me to play broodmare, expect me to bear and raise all your brats, you’d better answer me when I ask you a question, buddy.”
He moved his gaze from where he’d been staring off into the distance at some unknowable thing and settled it on her. All her bravado evaporated. “Eudae is not like Earth for Atrikan females. You cannot expect . . . respect.”
“I’m not an Atrikan female.”
“You’re not a full blood, but you carry our spark in your DNA. You are descended from the Atrikan line, I can smell it on you. Why is it do you think I am so attracted to you?”
There was so much wrong with that last sentence she couldn’t even begin to fully digest it. She had Atrika in her DNA? Oh, wow, that was so not a compliment.
Bai took a step toward her and she took a step back involuntarily. “You have just the barest trace, as do several others in the Coven.” He tapped his nose. “It’s a special talent of mine.”
Another step. And another. For every one he took toward her, she moved back. She knew she might be backing herself into a corner, but she couldn’t stop herself. She didn’t want Bai within ten feet of her, even though Bai wanted to get much closer than that.
Much closer.
The backs of Sarafina’s thighs hit an overturned table and she almost went sprawling. The feet of the table scraped against the concrete floor—loud in the otherwise quiet space.
Sarafina spied an abandoned sword on the floor and scooped it up, holding it
between her and Bai. Uneasily, she inched around the table to put more distance between them.
Bai held out a huge hand. “This doesn’t have to be unpleasant, vae Sarafina.”
She raised her sword and gave a grim laugh. “Oh, I intend to make it pretty damn unpleasant, Bai.”
“You could learn to accept your circumstances, accept me. It’s my hope that one day you will.”
“You mean actually learn to like having sex with a monster, carrying and raising little daaeman bratlings? Serving up raw meat for dinner every night? I think not.”
“You have seen only Atrikan battle behavior, not our everyday life.”
“I’ve imagined it, and it makes me shudder with revulsion. How do Atrikan children play, anyway? By dismembering small animals?”
His eyes glowed red and his lips pulled back a little, revealing sharpened teeth. Man, she really needed to learn to keep her thoughts to herself.
He turned his face to the side and closed his eyes. When he turned back his eyes were no longer red. Apparently, he’d mastered his sudden flash of temper. That was good news for her.
He held out a hand. “Come with me, vae Sarafina. You are so beautiful, like the human image of an angel. Your mother named you well.”
She clenched her hands around the sword handle. “Why haven’t you taken me back to Eudae yet?”
“I cannot until Stefan gives us what he has promised.”
“The elium.”
Bai nodded. “He is not stupid, this warlock. He has managed to manipulate us well, but we will have the better of him in the end.”
Sarafina had no doubts on that score. Stefan was stupid—or desperate—to have tried to control this daaeman breed. He deserved anything he got, in the end.
“Stefan somehow gained control of the one thing the entire Atrikan breed never could. How did he do it?” she asked.