by Ana Calin
I scratch the back of my head. I desperately want to avoid violence, or any conflict for that matter. “It doesn’t have to come to a confrontation. It’s past midnight. The Grand Mage is surely engrossed in one of his rituals, he won’t be obstructing us.”
“We’re not here to get out of confrontation’s way,” he says through his teeth.
“I think it’s better if he doesn’t even know we’re here,” I argue, noticing how his jaw is ticking. “We’ll have more freedom to search for what we need.”
“It would be easier to get the information directly from him. We’re not even a hundred percent certain he knows something, we could be wasting time looking for information that doesn’t even exist.”
I turn to him, holding Nazarean in my arms. His sleek, black fur under my palms feels reassuring.
“Let me put it this way,” he continues. “The Grand Mage has spies everywhere. I can’t imagine anything going on in the Flipside without him knowing about it, even if it was centuries ago.”
“Even if he knows, he won’t give the information up easily. Or he’ll try to use it as leverage. It’s better that we search for it on our own, and I think I know where to start.”
We start towards the mansion. It looms high and intimidating in the darkness, its spires piercing the clouds. One thing is for sure, we can’t take the main entrance. The place is heavily guarded, and even though no spirit or guard is strong enough to take on the King of Flames, the Grand Mage can quickly assemble a small army against us. Things can get bloody, which I’m determined to avoid.
As we hide in the shrubbery, I touch Xerxes’ arm to draw his attention. It feels hot and hard as iron under my palm. In fact, he is entirely hot, like the cauldrons of the underworld, and I can’t imagine how any woman could ever resist him. He changed clothes back at the castle, and now he’s wearing a pair of ripped jeans, army boots and a leather vest with blades strapped all over it. He’s sex on a stick, and I can’t blame this crazy attraction I feel entirely on the connection between us. I’ve seen how the witches looked at him back in the dungeon under the Edinburgh castle. Marayke, for example, is downright in love, it’s so obvious that I feel sorry for her.
“If we want to get to him, we need to do it before any of his guards notices us and lets him know we’re here,” I whisper.
He nods, eyes fixed purposefully on the entrance that’s now within sight. We’ve managed to make our way through the bushes and shrubbery so quietly that no one even caught a whiff of us, following Nazarean’s lead, who’s a master at camouflage and sleek infiltration.
“Let’s go,” Xerxes breathes.
His starts to emerge from our hideout, but I stop him. His eyes find mine, which he usually tries to avoid as much as I do.
“Wait. Promise me you won’t attack the Grand Mage. Think about it. We can find out what the he’s been up to, his secrets, we can discover things we can leverage against him if we use the time wisely. It’s much better than we’re in and out without anyone knowing we were ever here.”
I would give anything to know what goes through Xerxes’ mind as he ponders. He stares down at me with eyes that exude secret, and that don’t betray any of his feelings.
When he breaks eye contact with me he looks back up to the mansion spires. “The way to go about this is simple. We catch the Grand Mage, we tie him up, and I torture the information out of him. If we find anything useful information before he lands in my hands, fine. If we don’t....” He trails off, and I swallow hard. I know for a fact there’s no way to persuade him to do things differently, but if I could at least delay him, we might come across important information before the poor Grand Mage lands in his hands.
“I think I know what room we should start with,” I manage, though I barely keep from trembling.
“Let me guess. The library.”
I stare up at the top spire.
“His study.”
We follow Nazarean through the garden, keeping in the shadows of ancient trees with heavy crowns and old shrubs. The closer we get to the mansion, the harder it is to keep my glowing white skin hidden. But also, the closer we get, the harder it is to advance through the thicket. At a certain point, it seems to be closing in on us like soldiers.
“This thicket is enchanted,” I screech as leaves and twigs knot around my ankles and my arms. “We won’t get in there without the protection spell that guards the mansion.”
“Oh, we will get in there.” Xerxes sounds calm, as if he’s done this a million times before. He pulls two hunting daggers from his vest, and slices through the twigs. After he cuts me loose, he wraps an iron arm around me and pulls me out of the shrubbery that threatened to eat me alive.
I breathe hard as he puts me back down on my feet close to the mansion’s terrace, but before I can catch my breath he pulls me after him again. I notice from the corner of my eye that one of the old wooden terrace doors was now open. With his superior senses, Xerxes must have picked up movement before I even noticed. He slinks expertly along the outer wall to the back of the mansion, and I can’t help admiring how aptly he’s doing it. It’s fascinating to observe. What’s also fascinating is how trusting I feel of him.
“We can get in through here,” he says, motioning with his chin to a heavily guarded back door.
“Are you crazy? And how do you suppose we do that?”
He cocks an eyebrow at me like he doesn’t understand the question, and flips the daggers in his hands. They glint in the moonlight, sharp and deadly. High realms, he’s going to take them all down. I hang on his arm.
“If you attack, it will alarm everyone in this mansion. You might have another dozen of those guards coming at you before we even get to enter this place, let alone find what we’re looking for. We need the peace and quiet to sniff around.”
“First of all, I wasn’t going to attack them.” He jerks his chin towards the side of the spire, with no windows for the first few stories, and which no one is guarding. “I meant that.”
I blush to the tips of my ears, my hand falling off his arm. We sneak over to the spire, Xerxes ramming a knife between two blocks of stone in the wall.
“Climb up my back, and hold on tight.”
After a few tries, I manage to wrap my legs around his waist, knotting my arms around his shoulders, making sure I don’t choke him by holding on too closely to his neck. But he puts the other dagger between his teeth, and takes my hand in his, and then my other hand, arranging them around his powerful neck.
“You won’t hurt me,” he says after he takes the dagger from his mouth and rams it into the wall. Nazarean nestles in his usual spot at the curve of my neck, under my braided ponytail, holding with his paws to my hair.
Xerxes stabs our way up the wall. He does it so expertly that, if anyone on the ground were to notice us, I’m sure we’d seem no more than a shadow slinking up the wall. That is, if it weren’t for my skin that’s so bright it would reflect against a freaking pocket mirror. My face must glow like a beacon, even though I hope that the negative energy I’ve been getting these past twenty-four hours in the dungeons under the Edinburgh castle managed to tone it down.
At least I’ve traded my white robe for the black outfit of an assassin, pretty much a black catsuit that sticks close to my skin, and stays true to the shape of my body in the most uncomfortable way, but it helps with camouflage—or at least that was the idea when Xerxes’ people gave it to me.
My heart slams against Xerxes’ back as I keep myself plastered to him, looking down, not taking my eyes off of the guards standing around by the tower entrance.
This place is a freaking fortress, but Xerxes clearly has quite a bit of experience with getting into such bastions, because he takes us up dagger by dagger with barely any effort, his arm muscles moving elegantly under his silken bronze skin. I can feel the sinews of his back move under his leather vest, and my heart beats harder. Luckily, I can blame it all on the adrenaline if he asks, but there’s no fooling myself�
�being pressed against his body is making me feel things that I shouldn’t.
We reach the first window of the tower, but Xerxes moves past it as soon as he’s peeked inside.
“Not safe,” he throws over his shoulder, and as he climbs further up I catch a glimpse of a gathering of mages inside. The Grand Mage must be hosting some kind of event. Good, that gives us more freedom to explore the higher levels.
Xerxes moves further up the spire. Here the wind is harsher, whipping through my hair and against my cheeks. I hide my face in Xerxes’ hair, helping Nazarean to clamber between us and shelter between my chest and his back. I find myself wondering how aware Xerxes has been of my breasts crushed against his leather-clad back, because I sure have been sharply aware of how they feel against his iron body.
“Here,” he grunts, and smashes his elbow into a window at the top, clambering inside. I let go of his neck and fall to the floor.
It’s warm in here, the heat stinging my cheeks, or maybe it’s just the brusque change of temperature. Nazarean licks my temple, the way he always does when he worries I might be sick. I smile with my eyes still cobwebbed from the wind. I stroke him under his soft, furry chin.
“I’m fine,” I breathe in his small ear.
My entire body aches as if I’ve done the climbing myself instead of Xerxes, and I’m exhausted. It’s an effort even to tell myself I should get off the floor.
“Are you all right?” Xerxes inquires, looming tall above me. I sit up, slowly, my entire body protesting.
“Yeah, I think so.”
He reaches out and helps me up. I stumble as I come up to my feet too brusquely, and knock against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I manage, tucking a loose strand behind my ear.
Damn it, I can barely stand his closeness without feeling like a schoolgirl. I need to put distance between us. Stepping by him, I take in the chamber. It’s round, so we’re certainly in the upper half of the tower, where there must be room for only one chamber per level, and a stairwell.
There’s a big bed with a dark canopy with patterns in the shape of stars, a curved bookcase, built specifically to fit the curved wall, a curved writing desk with papers and a quill inside an ink bottle, and an open wardrobe overflowing with shiny robes.
“This must be the Grand Mage’s bed chamber.”
Xerxes starts sifting through the books on the Grand Mage’s private desk, calmly and casually as if we weren’t on an urgent mission.
“We won’t find what we’re looking for in here,” I say. “We have to get to his study, I think it’s at the base of this tower. That is, if he didn’t move it since the last time I was here.”
“And when was that?”
“A few years ago at an event.”
Xerxes moves around the room casually, taking his time exploring it, as if he doesn’t have a worry in the world.
“Shouldn’t we get moving?” I press.
But instead of replying the King of Flames just drops on the bed, crossing his arms under his head and his booted feet on the Grand Mage’s expensive covers.
“What in the cursed realms are you doing?” I urge. “We have to move fast, get what we came for and go, before anyone discovers us. We can really avoid confrontation, and it won’t even be hard, if we do things right.” Besides, the temperature is rapidly dropping in here because of the broken window. The tower is high, and the wind strong, wheezing. I’m already getting goosebumps.
But Xerxes seems completely unbothered.
“What exactly would we be looking for in the Grand Mage’s office? Documents, scrolls, what?”
“Probably his personal books. We’ll search for any information he might have on Apophis, and I’ll take it from there.” I go on to tell him exactly how one thing will lead me to the other. Talking actually helps form a structure in my head. I had something close to a plan in mind from the start, but I hadn’t had the time to get into the details of it. “If he does know where the Wraiths hid the Firestone, it will be obvious from the information he keeps on Apophis. Even though I’m not exactly a mage, I’m a part of their guild, I know how they think.”
“Tell me more,” Xerxes invites, his voice warm. Maybe because he’s gotten used to me being around him, and he doesn’t feel like he has to act all tough and bad-boy all the time? “Take me through the steps.”
I do, focusing on each one, seeing it in my mind.
“It sounds like a good plan,” he says when I’m done. “But still there is no guarantee we’ll learn anything, and it will take a lot of hiding from the guards and all the other entities that might roam this castle.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I’m sure it’s comfortable, lying there with your hands under your head and criticizing. Do you have a better plan?”
“The one we started out with.” He props himself up on an elbow, comfortable on the bed. “We wait for the Grand Mage to return to his chamber—this chamber—and we get the answers directly from him.”
“But, you said—No,” I block, shaking my head no. “We agreed to avoid unnecessary conflict and violence. Besides, he might come in here with guards, and you would have to—” I can already imagine him pulling the hunting daggers and slashing the guards’ throats before they even realize what’s happening.
“I’ll take them down, it’ll be easy,” he confirms my fears.
“No,” I yelp. “You don’t understand. I... To me, ‘guards’ is not just a word, or a concept. I have been living with ‘guards’ for a year now, I played cards with them, laughed with them, drank with them. We told late night stories, and shared secrets. I made voodoo dolls for them to mess with their rivals, and—” I look away to hide my face so Xerxes can’t see that I’m crying.
“So that’s what the voodoo dolls were for,” he concludes. “You were just messing with people to avenge your friends?”
“We weren’t really hurting anyone.” I motion to my ‘silver-moon’ glowing face. “It would show if I did.” I bend down, and pick up Nazarean, who’s done sniffing around the room, and now he’s brushing his tail against my feet, meowing up at me in a heart-warming attempt to ease my distress. As I straighten up with Nazarean in my arms, I realize I’m sitting on the bed next to Xerxes. Desperate to persuade him not to hurt anyone, I came closer. Or maybe it was the heat that attracted me.
“Oh, high realms, I’m sorry.” I jump up, holding Nazarean at my chest, the warmth of his fluffy body permeating through my catsuit. “It must have been the warmth, it’s freezing in here.” The tight fabric keeps me warmer than the white vaporous garments I used to wear before Xerxes took me away from my hideout, but not warm enough.
The King of Flames looks me up and down, assessing my state.
“You’re shaking. I can help with that.” He moves more to the side, making room for me on the bed. My heart skips a beat. Is he inviting me to lie down with him?
“I—” I swallow hard, my heart beating in my throat. “I’m not sure if that’s proper.” I expect Nazarean to hiss at him, too, but he doesn’t. Another clear sign Xerxes doesn’t have bad or dirty intentions with me. Except I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.
“You replenished my magic powers, and you’re going to do it again if I need it before we get to the Firestone. The least I can do for you is to warm you up.”
I don’t know what to say, it’s like my brain is frozen, but Nazaren meows, clearly agreeing with the king.
The king. Xerxes sure looks like one as he lies on the Grand Mage’s king size bed, one knee bent, his wrist propped on it. His glowing bronze skin, his strong features that show just how vigorous he is, the leather vest, the ripped jeans and the sculptured shape of those dark-red lips, the man is irresistible.
I should refuse, I should step back from the bed and find another way to warm up, but Nazarean meows again, encouraging me to do it. I look at my familiar and oldest friend, raising my eyebrows at him, my face full of questions that only he can understand. We communicate on l
evels that no one else gets.
I remind him that this is the King of Flames we’re talking about, the villain who created armies of Undead, who allied himself with the most dangerous creatures of the Underworld, and who tried to take over the world, to gain control over all the realms. But the vibes I get from Nazarean insist that we can trust him.
My familiar is a magical creature with abilities way beyond what one would expect from a magical black cat. In the end, I decide that, if Nazarean feels comfortable with the King of Flames, so shall I. I take a deep breath, and place a knee on the bed. I keep Nazarean in my arms as I lie down, but he jumps off as soon as I’ve rested my head on the pillow.
Bastard.
The barrettes in my hair push uncomfortably into the back of my head, and I’m forced to make a few awkward moves to remove them. I can feel Xerxes’ red eyes on me as I lie back down, and it makes me blush to the tips of my ears.
“Put your hands by your sides, you’re not lying in a coffin.” There’s amusement in his voice, but I’m not laughing. It’s true that I clenched my hands on my chest like I’m in a coffin, but relaxing proves so hard it’s almost impossible. I feel even more stupid with my hands to my sides.
“Now I look like the Virgin Mary on her first day at the beach.”
He makes a low growling sound deep in his throat, and I wince.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s been a while since I’ve laughed.”
“Oh, that was you laughing?”
He makes that sound again, only that this time I even find it in myself to smile. It encourages him to move closer, the heat of his body enwrapping me.
“I’m going to put my arm around you now,” he announces in a soft voice that’s meant to help me feel comfortable, but I feel all sorts of other things, and he notices. “Is everything all right? Do you prefer that I don’t touch you?”
“No, you may do it, please.” Damn it, now I’ve sounded too eager.
His arm slips around me, and my ears start buzzing. I close my eyes, just to make sure he doesn’t see them roll back, and I tell myself the pleasure comes only from being surrounded by heat after I’ve been so cold that it seeped into my bones.