Stone floor connected with his booted feet. He stumbled but managed to stay upright. Barely.
This was one of many reasons witches didn’t commonly use mirror travel. The arrival was always an ordeal. He knew witches who had broken arms by arriving, then stumbling on their feet to smack into walls or other furniture. It was a less than graceful mode of transportation, though in a pinch it would do.
Basil lay crumbled on the floor. His brother Drake stood over him.
Sage blinked, not certain he saw clearly.
“Drake, old boy,” Sage said, confused. “What are you doing here?”
Marianne had said Julia had contacted a necromancer who was blackmailing her into stealing the Merriweather grimoires. She said nothing about Drake Merriweather helping her.
“Ah, Sage,” Drake said. “So glad you’ve joined us.”
A spell flew from Drake’s lips. A moment later, Sage was unable to move. He tried to force his limbs, pushing at the invisible barrier that pinned him. It did no good. He was bound in spell.
“This was not part of our bargain,” Julia said.
Julia was here.
Sage could hear everything, but he could only see what came into his view. From one corner of his vision, Julia stooped to assist Basil to his feet.
“Drake,” Basil said, as he stood. “What have you done?”
“No time for a reunion, dear brother. We’ve work to do, haven’t we, Julia?” And with another quickly worded spell, Drake bound Basil.
“No, Drake, release them. Send them back. You have what you need. They can do you no harm. Send them back!” Julia’s outraged voice met his ears as she moved away from his line of sight.
“You will help me find the correct formula,” Drake said, his voice a raspy growl more like an animal than a man. “After we’ve found the spell, I will honor our agreement.”
“Truly?” Doubt colored her voice.
“I may have gone mad, Julia, but I still honor my promises.”
Sage had difficulty following any conversation after that. Drake led Julia from the room. Within moments, he returned and undid the spell confining Sage.
Sage’s legs wobbled, and he sank to the floor.
“Sage,” Drake said, then squatted next to him. “It saddens me to see you here, brother.”
“Well, I had to go after them,” he explained. “I didn’t know you were here. Basil just threw himself into the mirror to chase after Julia. I couldn’t let him go alone.”
“Of course not,” Drake said, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth though it never reached his eyes. Drake had sad eyes. In fact, a smile hadn’t touched his brother’s eyes since Susanna died. Drake’s wife had meant the world to him. Her death came at great cost to his brother’s happiness.
“Drake, what are you doing here?” Sage’s mind began to create an abundance of possibilities for his brother’s presence. Some of those possibilities were far more disturbing than he cared to admit.
But Drake ignored his query.
“Always the hero, Sage. Always the one to ride to the rescue when anyone needs you. You were there for me, too, brother, when Basil was not. He found other things more important than family. When I was in great pain, he needed to fulfill his wanderlust. You tried to help me, but I pushed you away. Now, I think it’s better if you go home.”
“What’s happening, Drake? Why are you here?”
“I live here, brother. You are in my home.”
He stepped back so Sage had a better view. The stone walls revealed a room Sage had seen once before during one of his many visits to his brother’s castle. Castle Blackmoor was a crumbling bit of real estate, but Drake had been proud to call it home. Susanna had loved it, too, which made it all the more precious to his brother.
This was Drake’s laboratory. He was an inventor and a self-proclaimed scientist as well as a witch. After spending years at university, studying medicine and other sciences, he had come home and set up this room to assist in his experiments. He had made several advances before Susanna fell ill.
“Drake,” Sage said his brother’s name. A sour taste had formed on his tongue. “You…”
“Go home, Sage, please,” Drake warned. “Before it’s too late.”
“What have you done to Basil? Where is Julia?”
Drake closed his eyes and sighed. “Always the hero.”
Then he spoke quickly, casting the spell before Sage could repel it in defense.
Darkness swelled within Sage’s eyesight, welcoming him unwillingly to sleep.
****
A soft feathery touch brushed against his cheek awakening Sage. He blinked several times, his eyelids feeling strangely glued together.
A raven-haired woman stood before him, a feather in one hand and a knowing smile on her face. She was beautiful. Her arched brows and thick black eyelashes framed dark brown eyes which focused on him. Red lips curved upward, revealing pearly white teeth. Her skin was flawless, like creamy silk.
The way she smiled, like she wished to devour him, intrigued him, and he found himself smiling in return.
Until he felt the chains binding his wrists.
“What the bloody hell?” Sage muttered, pulling against the chains only to find he was bound to a short leash that limited his movement. He couldn’t even cross his arms. The chain was strapped to the wall behind him, and though he sat on the floor, he had little room to maneuver.
“You’re awake. Good,” the woman said. “Finally, I get to play.”
“Who are you?” He glanced around the tiny room. It was sparse, with a desk and a chair. “Where are my brothers?”
“So many questions. All will be answered in time.”
Then she leaned forward, closing the small gap between them. Her warm breath caressed his face. Her tongue plunged into his mouth, searching, caressing, kissing deeply. He wanted out of these chains, especially if a beautiful woman was willing to kiss him like this. He strained against the chains, trying to wrap his arms around her as well as gain his freedom. Sadly, he could do neither. Although, he’d never been averse to a bit of bondage in the bedroom.
When she finished kissing him, she drew back, licking her lips. Sage might have enjoyed such behavior at another time, in another place, but at this moment, it disturbed him that she regarded him as if he were some manner of prey.
Normally, he enjoyed spending time with bold women, yet something about this one sent signals of alarm racing through his skull.
“I’ve never been kissed by a woman I’ve not properly been introduced to.”
She shook her head, slightly. “No need to know my name to enjoy the comforts and pleasures I’m willing to bestow unto you.”
“Call me old-fashioned,” he remarked. It made him considerably uneasy that she could not part with something as simple as her name.
The hairs on the back of his neck began to stand on end.
There was something in this room, something magical that differed from the sort he was used to sensing. It felt off somehow. If he could compare it to a piece of beef that had sat too long in the sun, he might say the magic felt rotten. As if it had gone sour. He couldn’t quite understand. It made him uneasy, to say the least. The urge to run consumed him, threatening him with the notion that he was in great danger.
But this was Drake’s castle. No harm had ever come to him here.
Sage tried to brush his uneasiness aside, but it remained, stubbornly so.
The woman dipped her head again, this time placing her warm lips on his cheek, kissing her way to his ear, where her lips and tongue wrapped around the lobe. His heart hammered loudly in his chest, not in sensual excitement, but in sudden fear.
Who was this woman? Why was she touching him in this way?
A day ago he might not have questioned her motives. What hot-blooded male would question good fortune such as this?
But with the momentous revelations he had discovered at home, what with Marianne’s spirit being torn apart fro
m her body, he couldn’t help but feel this woman was connected in some way. As if she were an obstacle in his path. A beautiful, stunning obstacle, but an obstacle nonetheless.
“As much as I adore the attention you lavish upon me, I fear now is not an ideal time, my dear.”
The woman leaned back until she looked into his eyes again.
“I have friends who need my help. I need to get out of these chains and find them. Would you mind?” Sage lifted his wrists in hopes she might free him.
The woman smiled again, seductively, and he thought for a moment he heard a growl emitting from her throat but assumed it must be a purring sound. Perhaps she imagined the sound might entice him.
Then she lunged at him, her mouth latching onto his throat, her teeth clamping on his skin, her tongue licking and tasting. Her hands roamed the rest of his body, caressing his arms, his chest, the back of his neck, running her fingers through his hair.
He closed his eyes and groaned.
This must be a dream. Some sort of erotic dream. It was the only explanation. Drake had cast a sleeping spell over him, and he still slumbered, prisoner to its seduction.
He shouldn’t fight its pull. He shouldn’t fight her. Who would want to stop this incredible experience?
But doubt lingered in his mind. This felt too real to be a dream. And the feeling of magic, that rotting magic, sickened him.
“Stop this.” It sounded weak to his own ears. She wouldn’t believe he wished for her to stop. But he needed to get out of here. Basil might be in danger. What was Drake doing? How had they ended up at Drake’s castle when Marianne said Julia bargained with a necromancer?
There were too many questions that needed answering, and this woman was a barrier between him and the answers. She must go.
“Stop this!” He said the words again, this time with more force. “I have to get to my friends. They need my help.”
She moved her mouth away from his neck. He met her gaze. The woman’s eyes flashed red, flames appearing where her irises should be.
“No one can help them now,” she said, smiling.
The evil in her face struck him. Suddenly he knew where the rotten magic was coming from.
The woman.
She reeked of it, this dark magic leaving his skin feeling sullied and dirty.
He lifted his right hand, spoke the words for a spell to push her away, a force to knock her back. He cast the spell, and she flinched from the magic. Then she lifted her head and smiled.
The spell did nothing but make her blink. He tried it again, and again. Then he tried something more powerful, the force of twenty men attacking, and yet she barely flinched. Instead, she grew stronger, happier, more at ease with the violence he flung at her.
Her fingernails grew and lengthened, like the claws of an animal. She scratched his chest; a long vibrant line of red appeared. Then she laughed at his cries of pain.
He cast more spells, but he was feeling fatigued. All the energy and stamina he possessed drained. Soon when he cast spells nothing emerged. He felt his magic fading. It was as if every spell he cast was absorbed within her, and his magic went with it.
She began speaking to him then, telling him of what she planned to do to him. That he had been promised to her.
“Do you not like me?” she said, when she noticed her words did not sway him. “I picked this form to please you, but perhaps you like something else?”
Her face shifted, her skin vibrating in a quick fluid ripples until he stared at Marianne.
Marianne?
Yes, she had mutated into Marianne. He watched in horror as she approached him.
“Oh, gods!” he cried out. What was she that she could shift forms? He looked away.
What was she?
“Oh, you do like her! I knew you would,” the creature crowed happily.
It was not Marianne’s voice. The creature. That’s how he must think of her since what human could mutate forms? What entity used such dark magic?
A demon.
She was a demon.
“But I do not like this body,” she said. “Too skinny, by far. How is this?”
She pulled his hair, turning him to her, yanking his head back until his eyes opened to find Julia grinning at him. Julia’s face with glowing, fiery eyes.
“This female has curves and a beautiful body.” She leaned back and grabbed her breasts, caressing them, kneading them. “Alas, you do not find her attractive. Perhaps you’d enjoy this?”
It shifted again, and he saw his brother, Drake.
“Oh, gods!” Sage shouted, struggling, kicking his legs, swinging his feet. But the creature’s strength proved too much for him.
“Ah, Sage,” it said mimicking his brother’s voice. “Do not give up on me. I enjoy your struggles.”
But Sage’s mind was being torn asunder. He could not think. He could not see. His mind was elsewhere, searching for something, anything to take him away from the torment she inflicted on his brain.
The creature had shifted again, this time back into her original form. And then her hair grew aflame, her neck and down to her breasts and then her arms. Her entire body consumed by fire. He screamed as the heat flashed over his body.
Then she sat on his lap.
Flames licked at his skin. He screamed, closing his eyes since he could not bear to watch himself burn. It soon sank into his brain that the fire did not damage him. It stung, it hurt, but as he burned with her, the flames merely covered his skin like a cloak. The intense heat was almost more than he could bear, yet it did not burn as he expected.
She laughed.
His body burned. Even his blood felt on fire. Every vein lit under his skin; with every heartbeat, it surged through him, into his arms and legs, into his body.
Her claw-like hands wrapped around his arms, the fire burning more intensely there. Her nails pierced his skin.
Sage knew he was going to die.
Chapter Nine
Marianne circled the cottage twice before deciding to step further into the darkened forest. She walked several steps away before crouching beside a large tree. There she stayed, listening, watching, patiently waiting for another suspicious sound to draw her attention. Although she found no sign of any human presence, she still felt that someone was in the forest, waiting, perhaps even watching her. She tried to cast another spell, something to help her locate any life larger than that of a rabbit or squirrel who might have found a home in the shrubs or trees surrounding her. But, her magic failed her. She frowned as she looked at her hands.
Why did her magic not work?
Another wave of nausea hit Marianne. She stood and leaned against the tree, gripping the bark beneath her fingernails. She waited for the wave to pass. It was sharper this time. Painful. Her stomach cramped, and she squeezed her eyes shut until it passed.
She took several deep breaths before she lifted her head.
What was that?
She sniffed the air trying to identify the odor. It smelled like smoke. But where…?
Marianne looked cautiously over her shoulder. It took a moment for her to comprehend the orange and red glow flickering through the trees.
Fire!
The cottage was on fire.
Sage!
She leapt to her feet, lifted her skirts and ran swiftly back to the cottage, hoping it was mere illusion. As she grew near, she saw it was not. Flames licked at the thatched roof, crawling up the walls.
“Sage!” she screamed, spinning in a circle, searching for any sign of him by the side of the road, staring in disbelief at what had become of their refuge. She saw no one.
Marianne turned back to the cottage, a horrified notion forming in her mind. What if he was still inside?
With her heart thudding, she hurried into the burning building. It felt much like walking into a lit oven. The fire consumed one half of the cottage, the walls and roof rippled with waves of flame. It would not be long before the entire structure would burn to the ground.
Sage lay on the floor where she left him. Sleeping? Or dead? She looked closer and gasped. He was on fire!
“Sage!” She screamed his name, going as close to him as she dared. The heat was overwhelming. The smoke clouded the air until she choked on it. She dropped to her hands and knees, crawling toward Sage and screaming his name over and over.
The heat became unbearable. Her chest grew tight with need for air. Her eyes squeezed shut, tears creeping out the sides as she coughed from the smoke.
She couldn’t see him anymore.
“Sage!” She choked out once more, thrusting her hands out, searching blindly for him. Whether he was on fire or not, she had to find him.
Her fingers scraped the dirt floor which had grown warm from the heat. Nothing! Where was he?
Was he dead? Is that why he couldn’t hear her? It was all her fault. She never should have left him. And now she would die with him. She tried searching again, but the fire surrounded her. She couldn’t see anything but orange flame.
Strong hands gripped her waist. She was pulled from the floor and dragged away. She clung to the arms holding her and tried to move her feet. They were moving. But where? There was nowhere to hide in the flame.
“Close your eyes!”
With his arms wrapped tightly around her, she felt the vibrations of his roar while pressed against his chest. She quickly obeyed. He lifted her neatly into his arms, scooping her legs out from beneath her. A moment later, there was a crash. She felt his body impact the door, shaking her violently. Then a rush of cool air hit her face. She took several deep breaths, choking on the fresh air.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself lying on the edge of the road, looking up at the flames engulfing the cottage. It burned brightly, lifting ashes high into the sky.
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