“Everything,” he admitted, “and I will accept nothing less.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the one who saved your very fine ass from that mob.”
“Funny,” she said softly, “I don’t feel ‘saved.’ I feel trapped.” She pulled free of his grip, though her body instantly missed his touch. Quickly, she moved to one side so he wouldn’t reach out and grab her again. “And how did you do that fire thing without burning us both to a crisp?”
Frowning, he lifted both arms and fire danced across his skin. Snapping, hissing flames flashed over his body, wrapping him in a blanket of living fire.
“Oh, my God . . .” She swallowed hard and backed away until she once again slammed into the railing.
“I am the fire, Shea Jameson.” The flames on his body winked out of existence, leaving his skin unmarked, untouched. Magic shimmered in the air between them. “Just as I am your other half.”
She stared up at him as the moonlight shone on his features, giving him a shadowy, evil look that sent her heart plummeting to the soles of her feet. “You’re crazy.”
“No,” he said, his voice clipped. “But I am out of patience. I have waited centuries for this day. And I will not wait any longer.” He reached out, scooped her up into his arms, and before she could shout a protest, carried her back into the room and tossed her onto the bed. “There is no escape from your destiny, Shea. Tonight it begins.”
She scrambled away from him, never daring to take her gaze from his. “What? What begins tonight?”
Torin walked across the room, opened the door and stepped through it. Before he closed it again, he sent her one long look and said simply, “The mating ritual.”
Chapter 3
Torin left the bedroom with one last look at Shea. Everything in him burned. The flames that were a part of him seemed to lick at his insides as well, consuming him in a fire that could not be smothered. He closed the door firmly, then stalked down the long hall and stopped at the head of the stairs. The lighting was dim, shadows spilling from the corners. His housekeeper, an older woman named Anna, looked up at him.
“No one goes in there.” He glanced back down the long hallway at the closed door. He wanted Shea to accept where she was and that she wouldn’t be leaving. If he gave her an hour or two to herself, he had no doubt that she would come to realize that their joined path was now set in stone. That there would be no escape from the destiny they had both been chasing for centuries. Time to herself would make her that much more receptive when he returned to her.
Finally, he swung his head back around to meet the older woman’s gaze and repeated, “No one goes in. I will take her food later.”
“Understood,” Anna said, sitting down in the nearby chair to keep watch.
Torin smiled briefly. He had every confidence in Anna’s loyalties. This woman and her family had been with him for generations, traveling from one country to another as he followed his witch through her many incarnations. They were honorable and unquestioning and he trusted them as he did few others.
Leaving Anna on guard, Torin took the stairs to the main level of the house and walked directly to the library. Acres of books surrounded him. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases ringed the room, broken up only by the wide windows that offered views of the landscaped lawn. In this room, too, the lighting was dim, as if Torin preferred the shadows to the light. And perhaps that had been true for the last few hundred years. Now, though, he had changed, he told himself. Now there would be light. There would be life.
All Torin could think was that finally Shea was here. Where he wanted—needed—her to be. His body ached for hers. His mind reached for thoughts of her, like a balm to his fragmented soul. With the completion of the ritual, they would be one. Her body, her soul, would be laid open to him—and his to her. As it was always meant to be.
And what had once gone so terribly wrong would at last be righted.
Every inch of his body hummed with need and it cost him greatly to remain apart from her. But he called on his immense will and vowed to give her an hour or two alone. To settle into the situation. To realize that she had no choice. The Awakening was on her and it was long past time for them to begin the ritual.
Damned if he would wait even one more night to claim what was rightfully his.
His mind racing, he stopped in front of one of the windows and stared out at a yard drenched in darkness. There were no spotlights on his property. Torin didn’t need them. His eyesight was as keen in the dark as it was in daylight. Incandescent lighting would have served only his enemies. Of which there were many.
And now that the Awakening had begun, those enemies would be gathering.
“Does she remember?”
He shook his head, barely sparing a glance for the man who stood in the shadows, watching him. Well over six feet five inches, Rune, too, was an Eternal. His long brown hair was tied at the back of his neck by a strip of rawhide. His features were sharp, his eyes swirling with power. He wore his standard uniform of black T-shirt and black jeans and the steel tips of his boots winked in the lamplight.
“No,” Torin told him, disgusted. “She looks at me and sees only danger. Her memories are still blocked. But her body remembers,” he assured himself, remembering how she felt curled up against him. “For now, that’s enough.”
Rune moved closer, the scowl on his face deepening. “With the Awakening, her mind should have opened as well. How are we to claim them if they don’t remember?”
Torin turned his head to glare at his old friend. “We make them remember. Force their hand if we must. Remind them of everything that has gone before. We’ve waited centuries for this and for me, at least, the waiting is done.”
Rune crossed his arms over his chest as he met his friend’s glare with one of his own. “I know what is coming as well as any other Eternal. But your woman is the first to Awaken. It’s up to you to set us on the path. If this doesn’t work, we’re all fucked.”
Torin snorted. He didn’t need to be told that their mutual goals were balanced atop a dangerous precipice. Every Eternal had been marking time through the centuries until the moment of Awakening arrived. If they failed now, all had been for nothing. Which was why he would not fail.
“I know exactly what’s at stake here. Nothing will go wrong.”
Accepting his friend’s word, Rune nodded. “My witch is still unaware of what’s coming. Until she Awakens, I’ll stay here and help you.”
Torin smiled, surprising even himself. How long had it been since there had been anything worth smiling at? How many centuries of agony had he survived, watching his woman and being unable to claim her? The constant burning of unquenchable want had been his companion through eons. Now, though, he sensed the end in sight. The time when all of the waiting would be rewarded.
“When have I ever needed help getting a woman into my bed?” But even as the words left his mouth, Torin knew that this woman was different. This was more than a few hours of pleasure. This was eternity. And unless Shea gave herself to him with that knowledge, with complete acceptance, nothing would change and their chance would be lost.
“How will you spark the memories?” Rune demanded.
“She’s already having visions,” Torin told him. He’d been keeping watch over her for years. He knew that her aunt’s execution had opened a narrow path into the past for Shea. He’d seen her wake screaming from nightmares that she didn’t realize were actually memories. He’d watched as she fought to maintain “normalcy.” In secret he had given her his protection each time she ran from enemies both real and imagined.
And he’d hungered. Just as he did now.
Through lifetime after lifetime, Torin had burned for her and only her.
“She must recall the past. That life.”
“She will.” She had to. Torin turned his gaze back to the dark landscape as his thoughts drifted briefly to that long-ago age. To the moment when everything had changed for them. Images flew
through his mind, clear and distinct. He felt the power rising. Felt the crash of failure, the terror and the raw grief of regret.
They’d given up much on that night.
All in a quest for too much power.
He pushed both hands through his hair and refocused his gaze on his own image in the glass. He was a man and not a man. A legend, yet more than that. He was, essentially, caught in a stream of time that had no definition.
Until now.
His gaze took in the man beside him. An Eternal. A brother. Less than human, yet more than mortal. There were others like them as well. Beings who had survived the centuries and who now had one chance for something more.
All that was required was for their witches to accept their destinies.
And them.
Chapter 4
Shea waited a few minutes after her gorgeous kidnapper left before she quietly opened the bedroom door. The long hallway was dark but for a few lamps set into the wall. The illumination they gave off was barely more than candlelight. There were at least six doors off the hall and at the end, near the head of the stairs, Shea spotted a woman with steel gray hair and a stick-straight spine sitting in a chair. The older woman was reading a book, but Shea wasn’t fooled. The woman wasn’t taking a break.
She was on guard duty.
Crap.
Closing the door with a soft snick, Shea looked futilely for a lock, then silently admitted that even if there had been one, it wouldn’t have kept out the man who had just left. She’d never seen a man more . . . powerfully male. It was more than his muscles, though they were plenty impressive. There was something else that fed into the indomitable male thing. A sort of aura that clung to him. One that spelled danger to anyone foolish enough to cross him.
Which she definitely planned to do.
Mating ritual?
She really didn’t think so.
But even as that thought blasted through her mind, her body was reacting in a completely different way. Desire pumped through her, making her skin feel heated and too tight. Her mind was shouting at her to run and her body was urging her to stay.
He’d saved her, after all.
Rescued her from a mob that would have killed her, given half a chance.
But he’s not even human.
Hard to forget the way those flames leapt and danced across his skin. Hard to forget the flash of something dangerous in those pale gray eyes of his, too.
Shea blew out a breath, and tried to come to grips with what had happened to her life in the span of a few short hours. She knew only one thing for certain. She had to get away. From the man asking too much of her and from the enemies she knew would now be tracking her relentlessly.
She had to disappear.
Again.
She leaned back against the closed door as her gaze swept the plush room. She had to give her kidnapper credit. At least he’d brought her to a damn palace. But an elegantly appointed trap was still a trap.
“Where the hell am I, anyway?”
Malibu, she remembered suddenly, though knowing where she was didn’t help her any. Long Beach, her home, her car, were about thirty miles away. He’d swept her out from under a murderous mob and taken her from everything familiar only to drop her into the middle of the unknown. Fine, she told herself with a nod of her head. She’d been in tough places before this one. She knew all too well how to deal with threats. She’d been handling her own safety for years now. It was him she didn’t have a clue how to deal with.
Torin.
Just thinking his name sent ripples of awareness spreading through her. She closed her eyes against the sensation of impending . . . something. It was something she couldn’t name. The moment she did, though, images dredged up from some distant corner of her mind flashed across the backs of her eyes like a kaleidoscopic slide show. Faces, places, voices all presented themselves in a staggering flood that made absolutely no sense. It was as if they were someone else’s memories rushing through her mind, but if that were true, why was she seeing them?
She saw fires burning, heard a scream that sounded as though it was pulled from the depths of a soul. She glimpsed a blossoming darkness that stretched and spread like a black flower rising from death’s garden.
Instantly Shea opened her eyes, gasping for breath even as her stomach did a fast lurch. She clamped her mouth shut and swallowed convulsively against the sudden urge to retch. Things were bad enough without her being sick on top of everything else. She knew she couldn’t afford to give in to whatever it was she was feeling. She had more important things to consider at the moment. Nerves jangling, mind still reeling, she pushed away from the door, crossed the room to the balcony and stepped outside.
Lifting her face to the cold wind driving at her, she hoped to let the images that were still fresh in her mind fade away. For months now she’d been having dreams filled with frightening shapes and sounds. She never could remember them on waking, but more than once she’d shot out of bed, desperate for a breath that wouldn’t come. Now, though, those mental dream collages were stronger, clearer. She didn’t know what was happening, but whatever it was, she was convinced it had something to do with Torin.
So the sooner she got away from him, the better.
The icy breeze off the ocean pushed at her as if trying to keep her in the room. But Shea knew better than that. She couldn’t stay here. Yes, he’d saved her from the mob, but he hadn’t let her go. And she wasn’t sticking around to see what else he had planned for her.
The only one she knew she could trust was herself.
Her gaze focused on the world beyond the fenced yard surrounding her. There were dangers out there, she knew. Hadn’t she been running for the last ten years of her life? She knew that the MPs and BOW were somewhere watching. She also knew that civilians, like the ones at the school who had surrounded her with fear and hatred just that afternoon, could be even more dangerous than the feds.
And still, there was little choice. She had to take her chances.
She couldn’t stay with her jailer. His presence was doing something to her. And she couldn’t risk sticking around to find out what more might be coming. Not only that—there was another good reason to run.
“Mating ritual,” she whispered, reminding herself that not every danger came with a threat to her life.
Heat instantly blossomed deep inside her and her body trembled at the thought of being under, over and around that incredible male. But she couldn’t help how her hormones reacted. That was just nature. Chemistry.
She was more than that.
She had a brain and she was going to use it.
Looking down at the hydrangea bush beneath the balcony, Shea considered just how badly she might be hurt if she dropped herself into it. “Worst-case scenario, I break a leg and I’m trapped here,” she murmured, as if hearing her own voice would infuse her with the courage she needed. “Best case, I’m out of here and on the run.”
She didn’t have the suitcase from her car trunk, but a quick check of her bra told her that she still had her stash of emergency money. She’d find the closest bus or train station, buy a ticket and disappear.
Not daring to waste any more time, Shea climbed over the edge of the balcony and sent one last look back to the lush, empty room she was leaving behind. Warmth and luxury weren’t everything, though. Sometimes safety was the open road and a cold wind at your back. She took a breath, then turned her mind to the problem at hand. Carefully, she lowered herself until she caught the bottom of the railing, her hands gripping the base of the twisted iron tightly. Chill dampness leached into her bones and fed the dark cold already settling in the pit of her stomach.
She could only hope that her jailer wasn’t currently in a room with a view of the hydrangea bush. Her legs swung free, her feet instinctively groping for a foothold that wasn’t there. She hung in place for a slow count of five, then bit her lip, closed her eyes and let go.
A brief yet seemingly interminable amount of
time passed and then she dropped into the bush. Heavy branches and bunches of lilac-colored flowers broke her fall, but the air rushed out of her lungs on impact. Wincing at the noise she’d made with her fall, she waited to see if there would be an outcry, if someone in the house had heard the commotion and was even now racing out to recapture her.
But there was nothing, so she took a breath and did a quick mental inventory. Nothing broken, thank God. Sore, bruised undoubtedly, but she was ready to run. She peered up and around the thick dark leaves and was relieved to see that the bush surrounding her backed against a wall of the house. No windows. So no way for Torin to have seen her fall.
Now all she had to do was escape before he discovered she was gone.
Scrambling, Shea fought her way free of the heavy plant, then staggered to her feet. Instantly, she headed for the darkest shadows on the lawn. She knew there was a high wall around the property, but she’d already noticed the sturdy, ancient trees lining the perimeter. Surely one of them would be close enough to the wall that if she was lucky, she could use it to vault herself to freedom.
Freedom.
That one word was like a talisman. She had to stay free, not just of Torin but of the agencies chasing her. Free of the civilians who would no doubt be on guard for her. She had to find a way to hide deeply enough that the world would, eventually, forget about her.
Shea clung to the shadows, keeping low, half expecting to hear a shout at any moment. To feel strong arms covered in flames wrap around her. To look up into gray eyes that were as merciless as they were mesmerizing. She took a breath and ducked beneath a low-hanging branch of an oak that looked as though it had been standing in that spot for a century or more. Taking off her shoes, she tucked them into the waistband of her skirt. Bare feet would make climbing easier. A dense canopy of leaves hid her from sight as she hiked her skirt up to her thighs, grabbed hold of a heavy branch and pulled herself up. Her injured knees scraped against the bark and pain she didn’t have time to acknowledge shot through her.
Visions of Magic Page 3