by Cassi Carver
Maybe Sage was going to beat him again, because Claudius said, “Wait. It’s okay. I said he could have some final words.”
Kara could hear the sound of his deep breath before he spoke. “I won’t deny that I was sent by the Southwestern Coven. But you’re missing one thing, Claude—I work for the O.P.A.”
Claudius paused, then Kara heard the smile in his voice. “You’re with the Office of Paranormal Affairs?”
“You bet your ass I am. And you’re already in deep shit. You don’t want to add murder to everything else.”
The Office of Paranormal Affairs? Was that the same agency that Gavin had told her about?
“That’s a fantastic story,” Claudius replied. “But I have a file on you as thick as this spell book, Tray Thomas Oaks. You were born Tomás Carvalho, in Brazil, to two warlocks who guarded the high priestess of the Southwestern Coven. You were raised in the United States, did a tour in the military, and after you got out, you returned to your homeland, probably to get additional training and an assignment.”
Claudius’s shoes scuffed on the ground as he circled Tray. Kara couldn’t believe what he was saying, but Tray didn’t bother to argue or correct him.
“And then you got the job with the San Diego Police Department,” Claudius continued, “most likely because the Southwestern Coven had Abbey under surveillance and thought that was your best bet to gain her trust. If I’d known at that point you were a spy, your first week on the force would’ve been your last.”
The sound of Tray being beaten rang in Kara’s ears—the smack of flesh, a whoosh of breath and his low whimper as he tried to get his lungs working again.
Kara’s voice was clogged with betrayal and misery. “All that, Tray, to spy on Abbey?”
“No, Kara.” He coughed and it sounded as if his ribs rattled. “The Southwestern Coven was interested in Abbey, but not the O.P.A. Abbey was just a bonus for them. It was you they were curious about. There aren’t many—hell, any—females of your species living outside the protection of your kind. When a tracker sent reports that he’d found something strange, the agency wanted to keep an eye on you—that’s all—and I was already undercover with the coven. Getting them to assign me to Abbey was easy. The O.P.A. was never going to hurt you. You never would have known.”
“He sounds so sincere,” Claudius joked to Sage. “It must be the secret-agent training. I hope they taught you the art of escaping shackles, Tomás, or your career is coming to an abrupt end.”
“I’ve already called them. They know I’m here, and if I don’t check in, this place is going to be crawling with agents before the hour is up,” Tray told him.
But from the crack in his voice, she didn’t think anyone in the room believed that. Not even Tray.
Chapter Twenty
Gavin stood on a gray plane that extended into infinity. The ground was misty, like a storm cloud. He’d done his damnedest to find Julian a space so remote and removed from the kingdoms that not even the lowliest black-wing could feel threatened by his presence.
“Here we are.”
Julian closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Yes. Thank you for bringing me here. It feels right in my spirit.”
“I’m glad.”
Julian turned and locked eyes with Gavin. “You love her?”
Gavin rocked back as surely as if Julian’s words had shoved him from his spot. “You have the gift of reading thoughts, brother?”
Julian smiled, but it was stiff. “I’m getting glimpses here and there, but in this case, I have the gift of having eyes.”
Gavin nodded. “I’ve always loved her.”
“Did she feel the same?”
“You are who she wants. You are who she’s going to move heaven and earth to get to. Kara is a stubborn woman.” He’d had his chance, but it was better this way.
“If you remember me, if you feel any loyalty to me—take care of her in my absence.”
“You don’t need to ask. I will always do what’s best for Kara.” I always have.
Julian spun a slow circle, then stopped. “A silver streak is approaching fast.”
Gavin couldn’t see it, but then Julian was part of the consciousness of this place now in a way that Gavin never could be. Julian lifted his arms, and a transparent black bubble materialized around them just a second before a pale blur hit hard and bounced, landing face down in the gray fluff.
Only spiky white hair was visible through the mist. “Aiden?” Gavin called. When he stepped forward, he bumped into a solid, immovable wall. “By Hexa’s hairy ass, Jules. Take down this ward.”
Julian popped the bubble with a touch of his finger, and Gavin bolted forward.
“Aiden.” Gavin propped up Aiden’s limp form and cradled his head. “What in the name of hell were you doing flying balls-out through the Land of Desolation?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Gavin saw Julian’s brow hitch. He hadn’t told him the name of this land for fear he wouldn’t want to come. When it came to real estate in the Shadowland, location was everything.
“I was looking for you, you dumbass.” Aiden tried to sit up and shake off the impact Julian’s ward had made on him. “Well, you and him.” He jabbed his thumb in Julian’s direction.
Gavin’s whole body tightened, his muscles constricting. “What’s happened?”
“I hope our ritual to ease Julian’s passage between the worlds has had the desired effect, because he needs to come back now. Kara’s head is on the block.”
Julian flashed to his knees at Aiden’s side quicker than sight, and brought his face level with the other man’s. “I don’t understand what that means to have one’s ‘head on the block’. Is she in trouble of some kind?”
Aiden looked from Gavin to Julian. “It means the witches are going to chop her fucking head off.”
Kara couldn’t stand the sound of Tray’s torture any longer. She was in shock over Tray’s duplicity, but until she got to the bottom of it, she couldn’t allow Sage to beat him to death. She was the most twisted witch Kara ever had the misfortune of knowing. “No more! Stop hurting him, you sick bitch!”
Sage’s black half boots appeared in the corner of Kara’s vision. She was panting from her workout on Tray. “Good idea. Let’s give him a break. I’d rather spend some quality time with you.”
She brought the pipe down on Kara’s shoulders with bone-jarring force. Kara’s entire body went limp in the aftermath of the pain, and her throat fell against the wooden block, pressing against the cartilage until she had to gasp for air.
“Sage. No,” Claudius said. “Put down the pipe, and come help me form the circle now.”
“Fine.” She threw down her weapon and skulked over to him.
Claudius stood on the edge of the chalk triangle on the black plastic sheet and positioned his men along the perimeter. “Hold hands. It shouldn’t be long now. And we may not have much warning before the black-wing arrives. Once he’s bound and his flesh body can be killed, we’ll move him to the rack to drain him. Have you cleaned out the urn? I don’t want to take the chance of his blood mixing with the last spell we brewed.”
Kara couldn’t believe her ears. They were speaking of Julian like they were brewing a pot of coffee. “You have no clue what you’re getting into,” Kara choked out. “A few drops of his blood doesn’t make you invincible, Claudius.”
“No, but his blood combined with my magic does.” He winked at her, then his expression went blank. “Hold hands, I feel an invited presence permeating the ward.”
Even though Kara could barely hold her head up, she watched in horror as Claudius’s men linked hands, Sage at his right, as they began chanting. “Focus your power,” he said. “Visualize him alighting in the mark of the Maker.”
And then Kara saw him. The torches fluttered wildly and the energy in the room made an audible crack! when Julian touched down, his feet centered in the triangle, his black wings poised over his back like a raptor. He wore tan buckskin pants, and hi
s strongly muscled chest was bare with only a single sun pendant adoring his neck.
The witches continued chanting as Claudius regarded him. “Hello, my Fallen friend.”
Julian roared, and it shook loose stones from the walls and caused dirt to sift through the cracks in the roof of the cave. His fangs and claws glinted in the dim light. “You dare to touch my woman? What insanity is this?”
“I should point out that the woman you’re referring to is currently one twitch of my wrist away from losing her head. Even the Aniliáre have no cure for that.”
Julian’s gaze flew to Kara and traveled up the guillotine, no doubt seeing the blade she knew was poised high above her neck. “If you harm her, there will be nothing stopping me from devouring your entire coven down to the bones.”
“Which is why she’s totally fine. We haven’t harmed her. We’re only interested in you.”
“Don’t listen to him, Julian! He’s going to try to drain you for your blood. Just get out of here.”
“Shut up,” Sage spat and almost pulled away from the circle of hands.
Claudius yanked her back. “It’s all right, Sage. Let her speak. She loves him, and she’d rather die than see him hurt. Now let’s see if he feels the same way.”
“Do you really think you can drop the blade before I can flash her from this place?” With his lips poised above his fangs, Julian extended his wings. When they hit the bounds of the triangle, blue light sizzled up his body.
Claudius shook his head. “This just isn’t your night. You’d have to be able to leave the mark in order to save her. Why don’t you try? Go ahead. We’ll wait.”
Kara’s heart tumbled in her chest when Julian stepped forward and was nearly electrocuted by the energy rising up from the mark. He wouldn’t leave the cave while she was still there, and perhaps he couldn’t leave it even if he wanted to.
“He needs help grasping the seriousness of the situation,” Claudius said to someone outside the circle who Kara couldn’t see.
But a second later, pain exploded across her lower back, as if a giant had slammed his fist two inches into her kidneys. She screamed against her will. Her head slumped, and she could only hear muffled words, as if from a distance.
“Stop! I’ll do it. Do not hurt her.”
“Wonderful. And this won’t take long, so the sooner we get started, the better.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Lie down in the mark, and I’ll do the rest.”
They were chanting, in Latin maybe, and by the time Kara’s heavy eyelids bobbed open, Julian was bound, hands and feet, with red ropes in the center of the triangle. Claudius and his people unlinked their hands, and two men hefted Julian to a strange semi-vertical table that had shackles at the top and a large-mouthed urn underneath. That was where they were going to drain him.
Tears ran freely from Kara’s eyes, but her throat was too raw to call out to Julian and plead with him to fight it. They chained his feet to the wide board and positioned his head over the urn.
Sage withdrew a jeweled dagger. “Where should I make the incision?”
“Just one would take all night,” Claudius replied and took the dagger from her hand. “Let’s see where we get the best yield.”
Kara gasped and twisted in her bindings when Claudius thrust the dagger through Julian’s ribs, then again through his thigh and finally through his stomach. Blood streamed down Julian’s chest, running over his face, trickling through his black hair into the urn below.
“Look how well that works.” Claudius swiped a finger across Julian’s chest and sucked it clean. “When it slows, we can try the wrists, and when that’s finished, we may still be able to get a little more from the main arteries in his neck. Don’t be shy, gentlemen. Give it a try.”
Kara’s fingers itched, and her body shook with a silent growl as she watched her bondmate’s lifeblood spill from his body. She twisted in her bindings, feeling the sharp metal cut deep into her wrists. She welcomed the pain, struggling against the ties as Claudius and his people made a game of poking Julian like a pincushion.
Kara felt the sharp edges of the bindings cutting into her veins as her blood spilled from her wrists and ran down her fingers. At first, she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it when her father’s ring, wet with blood, grew warm against her finger. Then the heat spread up her arms and extended through her legs until it caused her to curl her fingers out, the itch there turning to pain, as though her bones were coming through the tips of her fingers.
And at the same time, her eyeteeth were elongating—not simply clicking into place, like she’d seen from Julian and the others, but slowly stretching from her gums. She might have been scared if her gaze hadn’t been glued to the man she loved, watching as the witches took turns taunting him and running their blades across his skin.
Hotter and hotter, the ruby ring burned. The muscles under her skin felt as though they were bunching up, contracting and gaining mass. The feeling she usually had of sensing evil was transformed in that moment to something else, as though her energy was not just identifying her enemies, but building to a crescendo like a dragon rising from slumber, scenting the air and preparing to devour.
With her lips pulled back in a snarl, she pulled against the metal cuffs, this time feeling them give just a fraction of an inch. She focused on the ring, inviting the foreign presence there fully into her body, calling upon it to help her avenge her bondmate.
And then, with muscles flexing, Kara gave a final tug against the metal and her wrists broke free. Sage turned to her, mouth agape, just as Kara brought her hands to her wooden collar.
“Claudius! Drop the guillotine!” Sage cried.
Kara couldn’t get her long-tipped fingers around the latch, so she plunged them into the wood instead, partly amazed, partly expecting it when they tore the wood to splinters. She pulled her head free just as the large, triangular blade smashed into the broken shards.
Julian looked so weak, but when the people around him turned to glance in Kara’s direction, he roused and shifted his head to see her. She could barely make out his features with his face a slippery crimson. A spark lit in his eye when he saw her crouching in her corner with her hands before her, ready to take on the first witch who made a move. She didn’t think it was simply her own blood covering her hands that made the claws on her fingers shine red. She had red, crystalline claws like the ruby on her father’s ring.
When Julian began to fade, her first thought was that he was headed for the Abyss. He was too weak. He couldn’t endure being on the surface again so soon, especially not with his flesh form sustaining so much damage.
The first witch to charge Kara was a man who looked fleetingly familiar, perhaps one of Sage’s men who’d helped beat Kara on her first visit to the coven. He was big and slow. Kara sidestepped and grabbed his wrist in her clawed hands, twisting the dagger from his grip as she sliced through tendon and bone. He screamed, but she took the long dagger by the hilt and plunged it up through his chin, straight through the roof of his mouth, silencing him completely.
“What the hell are you waiting for? Get in there!” Sage hollered.
A tall, thin witch yanked a mace from the wall and another grabbed a sword. But as the two other men stalked slowly toward Kara, she was more concerned with Claudius’s perfectly calm countenance and the words he seemed to be reciting under his breath. An instant later, the dagger scorched her palm. She flung it like a hot potato at the chest of the man with the sword and heard it sizzle as it found his heart.
The other man’s eyes widened as his friend fell, but then he set his jaw and charged, swinging the mace in an arc destined to end in Kara’s skull. Faster than she’d ever moved, Kara launched to the side and ran up the wall, flipping over his back. Like a blur, she reached over his shoulder and grabbed the chain, intending to wrap it around his throat to choke him. But she wasn’t used to her new strength. When she tugged the chain, it buried the links so deep in his
throat, it almost severed his head.
Claudius’s head shot up at attention. “They’re storming the ward! Sound the alarm—and hold her off,” he commanded the remaining men as a loud wail flooded the air, like the breathy screech of bagpipes.
He dropped the dagger and shoved the urn into Sage’s arms, then grabbed a sword from the wall and lifted it above Julian’s neck. Kara’s cry reverberated off the stone walls as Claudius brought the long blade crashing down into…the vacant, bloody wood of the inverted table.
Julian was gone. But had he flashed, or was he really, truly gone? Claudius and Sage rushed out the door of the chamber as the three remaining men looked from Kara to the bodies around her.
“Three dead, three to go,” she hissed through her long fangs.
“Hell no.” As soon as the first man turned toward the door, the others followed, and within seconds she was all alone in the room with just her and a very battered Tray.
“Shit.” She padded toward him, trying her claws on the thick metal shackles around his wrists, but it was no use. Her claws were strong, but they weren’t that strong.
His eyelids opened to small slits. His lips were cracked and bleeding. “Kara?”
She was so conflicted inside, she didn’t know what to say to the man who had broken her trust and betrayed the love of her best friend. “Why, Tray?”
“I had a job to do,” he wheezed. “I fell in love with Abbey from the get-go, but that didn’t change the assignment.”
“Do you understand what it’s going to do to her when she finds out?”
“Yeah. I was hoping she wouldn’t ever have to.” He tried to move his shoulders, but then he grimaced in pain.
“So you never did call your agency, did you?”
“I thought I could handle it. Once I brought them here, my cover with the Southwestern Coven would have been blown and the O.P.A. would have reassigned me.”
“And then you’d have no reason to spy on Abbey any longer.”
He smiled sadly. “Pretty much.”