She recalled the last time she’d been afraid to help someone she loved. Had let a few self-manufactured excuses stand in the way of saving a life. A dear life.
When she’d first found out about Dao, she’d made a promise not to let anything stand in the way of saving him, yet here she was, faltering, wasting time while Ric was doing God knew what with that lamia, performing the ritual that would stop her.
She swallowed a sigh of regret. This was the way of the Immortals. If sex was the only way to conjure the power needed to set the spell in motion, then sex would be what she’d do.
It was a matter of life or death. Dao’s life was worth it.
Besides, it wasn’t like she owed Ric anything. They hadn’t completed the wedding steps; she was quite sure of that. So they weren’t married. He was clearly not considering their arrangement an exclusive type of relationship. Hell, he was willing to let her friend die, despite the fact that she’d told him how important it was to her.
Who knew? Maybe this handsome Ancient One would do something for her that Ric would never have been able or willing to do—help her.
After all the risks she’d taken, what was one more?
“Okay.” She swallowed the burning in her throat and prayed a little vomit wouldn’t stop the spell from working. “I’ll do it. For Dao.”
Chapter 18
The gods help him, Ric couldn’t go through with it. Despite the price he’d likely pay, he wouldn’t complete the spell.
He had to help Sophie. He loved her. Whatever happened as a result of slaying the lamia he’d worry about later.
First, he had to find her before she bound him. That wouldn’t be an easy task. Although he was still free from the metal cuffs that had secured him to the floor, there was a Guardian to get past, and his brother, before he’d make it out the door. And since he hadn’t fed in a while and they’d begun the abolition spell, which drained his strength, he knew he couldn’t just force his way past them.
He paced back and forth trying to think of some way to distract them, trick them. All he needed was a split second to slip through the door. What would distract them? He glanced around the room. There was a tall metal shelf standing against the wall. What if he knocked it over? If he did it just so, he’d make a pile of rubble that might slow Barrett and the Guardian down for a second or two.
Where was Margaret? In his state, if he bumped into her on the other side of that door, he’d be cooked. She was much older than he. And even though she would be drained from the partially completed spell too, she was stronger.
If only he knew where the spear and shield were!
Time was running out. He could sense it. Deep in his bones. He had to make his move right now.
Knowing this was probably his only chance, Ric lunged for the shelf, caught the vertical support in his fist, and pulled. The contents came crashing to the floor, and just as he hoped, they created a handy pile of rubble between Barrett and the Guardian and him. He dashed for the door, leaving them shouting and scrambling over the heap.
Once out into the main part of the basement, he shut the door behind him and shoved a heavy chest up against it to buy him a few extra seconds. Then he sprinted for the stairs. He took them two at a time.
From the vision, he knew Sophie had been in a bedroom. But which one? There were probably one or two on the main floor and another couple upstairs. And if he made the wrong choice, thanks to the layout of the house, he’d be blocked by his pursuers, would never make it to her. They were already working on getting through that blocked door downstairs.
As he ran, he reached for her with his mind, gently testing the delicate connection they’d formed between them by having taken that unwritten fourth step. It was as delicate as a single strand of spider’s web. So fragile it wouldn’t take any effort at all to snap it.
He found her mind at the other end. Rage and hurt buzzed along their connection and burned through his body. Her rage. Her hurt. Betrayal. Loss.
Fearing she’d break the connection at any moment, he tried to connect with her senses. He felt Julian’s fingers on her skin. Felt the warmth of his breath on her neck. He struggled to see through her eyes, but they were closed tightly.
He stopped running and stomped his feet, hard. The sound reached him through her ears.
Above. She was upstairs.
He turned right, dashed through the doorway that closed the upstairs off from the ground floor, and locked the door from the inside. The little brass bolt wouldn’t stop Barrett and the Guardian for long.
“Sophie! Stop!” he shouted as he ran up the stairs. “I love you. Please stop.”
She was on the bed, still dressed. Julian was lying on top of her. She opened her eyes and glared at him when he ran into the room. “Get out,” she said on a low growl.
“You don’t have to do this,” Ric said, taking a single step forward. “I’m here to help you. I know you don’t believe me and I don’t blame you. If you saw…if they showed you…But I’m telling the truth. I didn’t complete the spell with Margaret, even though it could cost my brother his life.”
Surprise swept over Sophie’s face.
Julian sat back on his knees and looked at him. “I believe what he’s saying.”
Sophie scrambled to sit up. She handed Ric a sheet to cover with.
“I swear,” Ric explained as he wrapped himself toga style, “I didn’t want to do it at all. But I felt trapped.”
“You lied to me.” Her bottom lip quivered. Her eyes filled with tears. He felt his own eyes burning as he looked into hers, read the pain there, the anguish.
“I wasn’t completely honest with you. You’re right. At one point I wanted to use the spear and shield for my own purposes, to save my people. But I know that I can’t help them, not just because it would cause untold destruction to who knows how many Immortals, but because I want to help you. I want to keep my word. We can still save your friend but time is running out.” As if on cue, Barrett and the Guardian started working on the flimsy door down below. “They’re coming to stop me. The relics must be here somewhere.”
Sophie looked confused as she eyed Ric, then turned her questioning gaze to Julian. She trusted the Ancient One more than him. That fact burned Ric’s heart. But he could understand why.
Julian smiled. “Go with him.”
She nodded, stood, and walked into Ric’s arms.
It was the most wonderful feeling to have her in his arms again. The world was right.
The door below gave and he reluctantly released her, then pulled her toward the windows overlooking the front of the house. “This way.”
“Do we have to jump out of another window?” Sophie said with a semi-smile.
“With Barrett and the Guardian hot on our heels? I don’t think we have another choice.”
“I’ll hold them off as long as I can,” Julian said, standing at the top of the stairs and shooing them toward the window. “Hurry. Go for the shed.”
“Fine. But this is the last time. I swear.” She looped her arm around his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Have I told you I hate heights almost as much as I hate blood?”
“No.” Ric pushed up the window and jumped. They landed with a tooth-jarring jolt on the front lawn and Ric started running toward the street with Sophie clinging to his front like a monkey.
She yanked on his hair. “Wait! Stop!”
“What? Barrett’s faster than me. Always has been. I really don’t want him catching me.”
“Julian said to head for the shed. That’s in the back of the house. I figure there must be a reason he told us to go there.”
“I don’t know.”
Could he trust Julian? Julian had been trying to bind him. Julian had tried to kill him. Julian had tried to take Sophie from him. More than once.
“I trust him, Ric.”
“I know you do. But I’m not sure I can.”
Sophie unwrapped her legs from his waist. “He wouldn’t send me there if it meant I�
�d be hurt. I know it.”
Ric lowered her to the ground. “But he tried to kill me. He’s tried to take you.”
“He still says that wasn’t him in the hotel room. I don’t know how that could be, but I believe him. It’s tough not knowing whom to trust, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I gave you another chance.”
Yes, she had.
Ric nodded, took Sophie’s hand in his, and squeezed. “Okay.” Side by side, they ran around the side of the house. Ric lifted Sophie over the fence, then jumped it and met her at the shed door.
They pulled it open just as Barrett and the Guardian rounded the corner, coming from the opposite side of the house.
“Quick!” Ric kicked the door open, then helped Sophie inside the cramped, dark interior. He glanced around the space, filled with gardening tools, a riding lawn mower, sacks of potting soil. There was no sign of a spear, a shield, or an exit. “Dead end. He lied. Dammit.”
Sophie gasped. “No.” She dropped to the floor on her knees and covered her face with her hands. “No more lies!” She vaguely heard Ric swear and scramble to brace the door, which was being battered from outside, but she was too lost in her thoughts to really pay attention. Julian couldn’t have lied. He’d never lied to her. There had to be a way out of there, or there was a clue about the spear and shield hidden somewhere, something important. Unfortunately, the second Ric shut the door, the little bit of moonlight that had been coming inside was cut off, leaving her sitting on a dirty floor in the dark.
Working fast, she ran her hands over the gaping wood-plank floor searching for something, anything. A hiding place big enough for the relics to be slid between the planks. Toward the back, next to the lawn mower, her fingers closed around something that felt like a leather strap. She pulled and was caught by surprise as a heavy part of the floor lifted with it.
“Ric!” she yelled. “Here!”
“What? I’m kinda busy at the moment. Holding the door from being kicked in.”
“There’s stairs.” She dropped her legs, found the first step, and half ran, half stumbled down several more. It was pitch-black. She had to feel with her fingers along the cold stone walls. They were lumpy and uneven, slick with slime like an old cave. “Ric!” she shouted as she kept going down, down, down. The air was heavy and thick, difficult to breathe, and smelly. Finally, she bumped smack-dab into a flat, hard surface, what she hoped was a door. “I’m at the bottom but I can’t see.” She frantically searched for a doorknob with her fingers, groping blindly, her heavy breathing echoing in the tight space.
And then she felt Ric’s heat behind her and the worst of her fears eased.
“I can see it,” said Ric.
There was a loud bang and then a creak and then a blade of light cut through the darkness as the door in front of them opened into a wide storeroom. Pushed gently from behind, Sophie stumbled into the room and grinned in triumph. “I knew Julian hadn’t lied! This is it, isn’t it? The dragon’s lair.”
“Sure looks like it is,” Ric said behind her. After securing the door, which was slightly damaged by Ric’s forceful entry, he stepped around her.
Rows and rows of glass-enclosed shelves filled the room, floor to ceiling. As Sophie ran to the first one, she saw that each relic was displayed and marked with a tag. “This shouldn’t be too tough. They’re all marked like a museum display.”
“This seems too easy.”
Sophie just shooed him toward another row of shelves. “You look over there, and I’ll look here. It might take us a while to find them, but I just know they’re here.”
“They’d better be. Because otherwise we’re in big trouble. That door isn’t going to hold much longer.”
Sophie cringed as the sound of heavy metal striking metal reverberated through the underground room, rattling the artifacts in the glass cases.
“It isn’t here.” Sophie stopped at the last case and spun around, dumbfounded. “How could it not be here?”
“It’s here. Somewhere.” Ric turned the corner around another row of shelves, disappearing from her view. “We’re just looking in the wrong place.”
Panic was making it impossible for Sophie to think. The big metal door at the front of the room was groaning against the battering the Guardian and Barrett were giving it. It wouldn’t last much longer.
“We were performing an abolition spell,” Ric said, coming into sight again at the end of a long row.
“Yes. I’m painfully aware of that fact. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Plenty. It means the artifacts would have to be positioned in a circle identical to the one I was in.”
“Not in a case?”
“Maybe not.”
“Okay.” She started jogging up and down the rows again, this time looking for a circle of any kind. A circle painted on the ceiling, the floor, the walls, anywhere. Nothing. Just rows and rows of lighted glass-enclosed cases with gobs of crusty old bits and pieces of history. “Anything?”
“Not yet.”
She ran to the end of one row and rounded the corner, then ran even faster up the second. At the very back, on the concrete wall, she found a large wooden-framed, circular shadow box hanging on the wall. It had some strange pictures or symbols etched into the wood frame. In the center, behind glass were a couple of strange-looking relics. What looked like a spearhead and a piece of rock with a scrap of wood with some metal protruding from it. Could it be? Oh, God, she hoped! “I think I found something!”
“Where?”
She tried to open the cover but it wouldn’t budge. When the metal door at the entry groaned a warning that it was about to give, Sophie reached for the nearest hard thing she could find, wound up, and slammed it into the glass. It shattered, sending a spray of glass shards into the air, all over her face and arm, and onto the floor. Too scared to care whether she was bleeding to death or not, she dug at the ties holding the artifacts in place. Ric found her and hurried to help her remove the second one. And with each of them clutching an artifact to their chest, they ran the perimeter of the room looking for a way out.
Nothing.
And then the door gave and a very angry Guardian stormed into the room.
“Oh, God!” Sophie fought to stay conscious as all the blood remaining in her body drained to her toes.
Chapter 19
“Quick, behind me!” Ric stepped between Sophie and the obviously furious Guardian. Ric’s body was stiff as steel, every muscle tight, ready. He held the chunk of rock in one hand and used his free hand to push Sophie behind him until his body completely shielded her.
The Guardian watched him with fierce eyes but didn’t move.
Barrett rushed into the room behind the Guardian but quickly hurried around his side to give Ric a pleading look. “Ric, I can’t believe you’re going through with this. You know what it means.”
“I’m not giving them to Ysgawyn. I’m helping Sophie. Even you don’t know what’ll happen. We have to take this risk. It’s too important to Sophie not to.”
“I’d hate to see you get hurt or killed.”
“Me too. But I’m willing to take the chance. For Sophie. For her friend.”
“You’re such a martyr.”
“No, I’m just in love.” His gaze slid to the Guardian. Why hadn’t he moved yet? That being had enough power in his pinky to send both him and Sophie into orbit. What was he waiting for?
Margaret dashed into the room hollering, “Stop him!”
The Guardian didn’t remove his gaze from Ric’s. “I can’t,” he hissed. “You know that.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” Margaret said, sounding bewildered. “You’re the most powerful Immortal here. You could send those two to Hades with a sneeze.”
“I can’t destroy the relics.”
“So, blast them in the knees.”
“I can’t use my powers against anyone who is in possession of those artifacts.”
Margaret
’s face turned three shades of red and then one more.
“You get the spear and shield out of their hands, and then I can do something.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?” she asked through gritted teeth. “Especially now that they may know you can’t hurt them as long as they keep hugging them to their chests?”
The Guardian shrugged, glanced at Barrett in question, then stepped to the side, unblocking the door.
“What are you doing?!” Margaret shrieked.
“Letting them go,” the Guardian responded. “You’ll have to stop them some other way. It’s out of my hands now.”
Not sure if he believed the Guardian, Ric kept Sophie snug against his back as he shuffled his way between the Guardian and Margaret. Once Sophie was at the entry and heading up the stairs, he relaxed somewhat, turned his back on all three Immortals watching them, and followed her up the stairs.
When they emerged from the shed, he took her hand in his and they headed back to the car. He made sure they both held one of the weapons in their laps, in case the Guardian decided to follow them. Once they were back on the main road, he breathed a sigh of relief, the first breath he’d taken in a very long time.
“Where are we going?” Sophie asked.
“Back to the hotel for our stuff, I guess. But I don’t think we should stay there. Barrett and Margaret’ll be looking for us.”
“I’m sorry about your brother.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. He’s doing what he thinks is best. He wants to protect me, just like he did when we were kids. He’s always wanted to protect me.”
“I guess it’s not such a bad thing when you put it that way.”
“He’s really a good guy. It probably doesn’t look like it right now, but he is.”
She leaned closer until the scent of her filled his nostrils and her head rested softly on his shoulder. Despite all the stress pulling at his insides, he smiled. Balancing the rock with the shield embedded in it on his lap, he lifted his arm, wrapped it around her bare shoulder, and pulled her snug against his side—or as snug as the bucket seats of his car allowed. “I haven’t really absorbed everything that happened back there yet. It’s all very confusing. Did you say that you love me?”
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