by Hazel Hunter
“Who are you?” she called out, her voice tinny and echoing. “I know you're back there.”
The man's chuckle was wet and ugly. His hulking form was barely visible.
“The little witch wants to know who I am. Foolish thing. Does a deer ask the name of the knife that's about to gut it?”
“I'm not a witch,” Nicolette tried. “I'm just a fortuneteller with the circus. It’s just games. You know, cards and crystal balls–”
The big man moved quickly and landed a solid foot in her midriff. Nicolette yelped involuntarily. The pain was short and sharp, spreading outward. She sucked in a sharp breath but found that, in a strange way, the pain focused her. It cut through the thick terror, and her mind cleared a little.
“The little witch is a liar. It is terrible that she should be so damned and yet also a liar. It is oddly upsetting.”
“You're a Templar Knight,” she said softly. “You want to kill me.”
The man laughed unpleasantly.
“I am going to kill you,” he said, and the tone in his voice was sickeningly precise. “You are an abomination that must be purged from the earth. I am the will and the sword and the might that will do so.”
“You don't have to do this,” Nicolette said.
In answer, he kicked her again, harder this time. A loud grunt was forced from her lungs, followed quickly by a wave of nausea washing over her. A sudden fatigue overwhelmed her as consciousness flickered. For a strange, disjointed moment, she imagined she’d have an immense bruise later. But with a jolt of realization, she knew there might not be a later.
Focus, she thought.
Even if she was looking at her last moments on Earth, she didn't want them to be spent panicking. It wouldn’t do any good to deny what she was.
“I'm not just a witch,” she said desperately. “I'm a person. I had parents. I…I want to do things with my life. I'm in love.”
The last slipped out seemingly from nowhere, but it made the man pause.
“Love,” he said, the words dripping with malice. “With the Corps major who was in Boston.”
Something about the way he said it made her want to take the words back. But she couldn’t. The only thing she could do was say no more.
Almost perfunctorily, he kicked her hard again, actually moving her across the dirt. A deep groan filled her throat as she fought for breath. But as her eyes filled with tears, she reminded herself that she had endured far worse from Vacek. She remembered the cold place that her mind went when she was being beaten. Unbidden, that gift came back. She calmed her breathing and saw more clearly.
“Tell me, little witch, do you love him?”
She’d already said as much.
“Yes,” she hissed, hoping to stave off another blow.
“Does he love you?” She started to answer, but the man cut her off. “Stupid question. Of course he doesn’t, else he would have protected you better. Still you can go get him, can't you?”
“No,” she said, voice trembling, barely under control. “He…he's already left town. He was called away to fight others. He had no more time for me.”
“That's a lie.”
This time he grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back so hard that she wailed.
“He is still here,” he said, “and you will lure him out for me.”
“I can’t,” she gasped. “He’s already gone!”
“Liar!”
The man's shout echoed from the cave walls, and she cringed. He was the first Templar she had ever met, and from what she had been told, a certain madness ran through the entire order. The Templar Knights were famously strong, and famously unhinged.
“You are going to go. You are going to find him. You will lead him to me. I will kill him, and you, little Judas goat, I'll send you bleating back into the world.”
“But I…”
“That is the bargain, little witch. I am not to be trifled with. Find the warlock. Bring him back. Then run away. You can live your pitiful, little life for a short while longer.”
“No.”
For a moment, they both froze. The word had come out of her mouth crisp and clear, as powerful as a trumpet's song.
Nicolette had lived her life in the shadows. She had always been someone who had done what was necessary. She knew how to protect herself and how to survive, and for the first time, she realized that there were things more important to her than survival. She imagined this maniac hovering over a betrayed Sebastian, and it was like cold water had been dumped over her head. She could no more see him harmed, than she could take her own life. Remorse flooded through her at the thought. She’d rejected the very thing she’d been desperate for, and risked his life in the bargain. She stared directly into her captor’s eyes with all of the venom she could summon, and spat.
“Take your offer to hell,” she said scornfully. “I am not negotiating with a murdering lunatic.”
For a long moment, her captor was still. He could have been made of the same rock as the cave around them. Then he stood and stoked the fire a little higher. She could see his face now, and in some ways, she was surprised at how normal he looked. He was a bulky man of middle years. In his sweatshirt and jeans, he would have been unremarkable on any street in any city.
Whether her training with Sebastian had indeed sharpened her reflexes or if a close proximity to death had made her extra sensitive, she could see his aura too. It flickered around his head, that same sickly white streaked with gray. Now she could see the beginnings of a red rage bleed into it as well. He shook his head.
“You'll take some convincing,” he said softly. “I can see that. But you'll agree. You’ll have to.” She shook her head, out of words. All that was left was her resolve. “Little witch, you are going to change your tune.”
He smiled, as he picked up his knife.
Nicolette watched, her eyes wide as he raised it. Its bright gleam caught the flickering fire light.
“So sing for me, little witch,” he said quietly, moving the flat of the blade to her throat. With deft smoothness, he slid it behind her ear. An involuntary shudder ran down her body as the tip of the blade came to rest behind her neck. “Sing,” he whispered, as he slowly pressed the knife inward.
She screamed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Karas squawked angrily, fluttering above the entrance to the cave. The bird looked at Sebastian as if to ask him what he was waiting for. The fact that it was a cave made Sebastian feel a little better. His power made this home ground, but it wasn't Karas's.
“Stay here, you got me?” he said, pointing at the bird. “That's no place for you.”
Familiars were extremely intelligent, but they could be unpredictable. Many of them felt they knew better than their masters or mistresses. Whether they would take orders from another witch or warlock was entirely a matter of chance.
Though Karas screamed again, he settled on a tree nearby. His gimlet gaze bore into Sebastian, and Sebastian got the message. He took a knife from its sheath as he opened up his consciousness and entered the caves.
He got a feeling from the surroundings as soon as he walked in. It was a sensation that made him queasy. There was something unsound about the walls and the ceiling above. Over the centuries, water had eaten its way through the stone, now riddled with crevices. This was a cave that was looking for a reason to collapse and, to Sebastian, it was too much like entering a burning house. When he was younger, he might have run forward, but with this much at stake, he had to keep himself in check. Even a warlock attuned to the earth could trigger a rock fall. Then all would be lost.
Gritting his teeth, Sebastian stalked into the most absolute darkness possible. The ground started to slope, soon he could hear a whisper of a conversation. There was a man. And there was Nicolette’s voice! She was still alive, and his heart soared. He moved faster, but when the voices raised in anger, he had to force himself not to break into a run.
The light around the bend of the
tunnel was flickering orange shadows, and on the wall, he could see two silhouettes. Suddenly Nicolette’s scream shattered the air.
Throwing away all caution, Sebastian ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Nicolette stared numbly at the hair that had been hacked from the nape of her neck. The man let it dribble out of his hands. He was about to say something else when an unearthly roar came from the tunnel behind them.
“Get your hands off of her, Templar!”
Sebastian roared into the chamber like a force of nature. He clipped the man hard with his shoulder, forcing him away from Nicolette's prone form. She watched in horror as the Templar turned with the speed of a whirlwind. The knife that had so recently been used on her was turned towards Sebastian's unprotected body.
Sebastian barely blocked it, but step by step, he backed the Templar away from Nicolette. He feinted with his own knife: at the man's face, his belly and his chest. But it seemed the Templar was as skilled as he was, and he refused to give more ground.
“Come for your little whore?” the man taunted.
Sebastian's response was an enraged roar.
Nicolette's heart was beating out of her chest. She didn't know what to do. But she did know she couldn’t just lay there. Then she realized she didn’t have to. She craned her neck, watching the two men locked in their battle. If she straightened her legs, she might be able to reach the Templar. She writhed on the ground, trying to scoot closer and keep him in sight. The seconds felt like hours, but then she saw her chance. With a quick but inelegant movement, she flexed her entire body and lashed out with her tied feet. The attack landed squarely on the back of the Templar's knee. He went down with an angry shout.
That was all it took. The moment the man was down, Sebastian made a gesture with his hand, and the stone rose up around the Templar. The earth itself came up to shackle the man to the ground. In less than a second, the Templar was bound more firmly than human hands could ever have done.
The man shrieked, and Sebastian stared down at him for a long moment, but then whirled quickly to Nicolette. In an instant, he was on his knees by her side. His knife sought and found her bindings. He helped her to sit up and, for a long moment, he only held her tightly.
“Thank you for still being alive,” he whispered into her hair. She laughed shakily, her stomach hurting. “Can you walk?”
She nodded. But as she tried to stand she realized she was still under the effect of whatever the man had drugged her with. The world tilted. But Sebastian’s strong arms supported her, and then swept her up. She felt the press of his hard chest against her, and she wrapped her arms wearily around his neck.
“I’ve got you,” he said quietly, turning to go.
“What about him?”
Behind them, the man was cursing them, swearing that he would slaughter them both, but Sebastian ignored him.
“We're leaving him.”
Wordlessly, Sebastian carried her through the twisting dark passages. Soon the Templar's curses were just a distant echo. The darkness was so absolute that Nicolette was almost glad to have been unconscious when she’d been packed into the cave in the first place. She was just beginning to get claustrophobic when she saw a glimmer of light ahead.
When they stepped out into the summer afternoon, she blinked. Gently, Sebastian lowered her to the grass. A familiar croak made her look up, and Karas alighted on her shoulder.
Laughing weakly, she stroked Karas's crest.
With a startled caw, Karas tightened his claws on her shoulder, making her flinch. A moment later, she could feel what had startled him. There was a fine tremor in the ground, and with every second, it became stronger. An unearthly quiet that blanketed the area, but slowly, a low rumble built into a roar.
Sebastian was facing the cave entrance, his back taut and his fists clenched. When the cave mouth started to collapse in on itself, he growled so deep and loud that Nicolette flinched. The roar of the ground stopped suddenly and, when she opened her eyes, the entrance to the cave was gone. Only deep, sharp cracks and pits in the new surface hinted that it hadn’t been there for centuries. After a few rainfalls, it would be impossible to tell that there had been a cave there at all.
“You buried him,” Nicolette said shakily.
Sebastian nodded his head. “He was dead from the moment he touched you.”
Nicolette stared at Sebastian as he slowly turned to her. So many emotions flashed across his face in quick succession. Rage, concern, relief, and—was that final one love? After everything she had done? Tears welled up in her eyes as she reached out to him.
“Sebastian,” she whispered lowly, his name sounding like a prayer.
He knelt in front of her, taking both her hands in his.
“Nicolette,” he started, but she placed a finger gently on his lips.
“No,” she said, her voice quavering, the words tumbling out. “I was a fool. I could have got you killed. I couldn’t have lived with that. I just couldn’t. I can’t.” Tears started to fall. “I can’t live without you.”
“Oh, Nicolette,” he murmured, even as he crushed her in his arms. “You don’t have to,” he said, his voice strained. In one fluid motion, he swept her up in his arms and stood. His blazing eyes seemed to see into her. “Not ever.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Nicolette watched the sunset from the hotel room's balcony. Chicago was a city that never slowed down enough to sleep, but she could find peace gazing out towards the lake. Lake Michigan was serene and tranquil, and Nicolette tried to keep calm. Karas, uninterested in the city for the moment, perched on the back of one of the hotel chairs, keeping an eye on her and occasionally interjecting with a soft caw.
When the key turned in the hotel room lock, she was up in a flash. She was in Sebastian's arms before he had completely closed the door behind him.
“Well, hello beautiful,” he said, burying his face in her dark hair.
She’d had it cut, but left it long enough to hide the wound that was still healing at the back of her neck. It hung just below her chin now in a slightly wavy bob. She felt free from the weight of it and all the years she had spent running. Though she thought she might grow it back, it would have a different meaning if she did.
“What did they say?”
Sebastian was never a man to mince words. He nodded.
“They said yes.”
“I can come with you wherever you go?”
“According to my discretion, yes.”
“That means every mission, right?”
“It means according to my discretion,” he said with a grin.
Though she had joined the other witches and warlocks a month ago, she had found herself camped at headquarters for most of that time. While Sebastian and other members of the Magus Corps fought Templars in New Mexico, she’d bitten her nails and waited anxiously for any word. She felt as though she hadn't slept the entire time he was gone. When he came back, she had all but refused to let him leave their bed for a full forty-eight hours.
Then she’d asked to see the Commandant. Surprised but then nervous to have been given admittance, she had nevertheless firmly requested to be sent wherever Sebastian went. The Commandant had been dubious until she had demonstrated her aura reading abilities. Their usefulness in the field was undeniable. After that, it had been a matter of getting fully approved. With no small amount of satisfaction, she knew she would never be separated from Sebastian again. Her smirk faded when she saw his serious look, and pulled away slightly.
“What? What's the matter?”
With his hands on her shoulders, he guided her to the chair where Karas perched and seated her there. As she watched in amazement, he knelt in front of her and produced a small velvet box.
“Oh, Sebastian!”
“Nicolette Erling, when we first met, you told me that love has many faces. I think, though, that for me, it only has one––yours. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
He opened
the box, and Nicolette's jaw dropped.
Inside the satin-lined box was a beautiful platinum ring, but instead of a white diamond, the gem in the center was a yellow diamond. It had a deep, rich, and golden hue. When she looked up, she could see the glimmer of gold that circled Sebastian's head.
“Yes,” she whispered, “Oh Sebastian, yes.”
With a wide smile, he slipped the ring onto her finger, and in the next motion, he lifted her up and carried her towards the bed.
“This isn't always the easiest life,” he warned her, lying her down on the yielding mattress. “I won't always be the easiest man to be with.”
“If I had wanted easy, I would have stayed with the circus,” she said. “You're what I want. You're who I want, and I will want you forever.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Oh yes.”
He studied her for a moment, but in the next his mouth crashed down on hers. Now that she knew him better, she reveled in the strength of his powerful body arching over hers. That strength was there to protect her, and her own powers, still growing and thriving, were designed to protect him as well. She returned his kiss with a will, and then she reached up to pull his shirt over his head.
“I want all of this off,” she demanded breathlessly. “I can't stand there being something between us. I need all of you.”
He stripped in a matter of moments, and then his hands were on her clothes. She heard the rough tearing of fabric, but it didn’t matter. Past caring, she had come to embrace the wildness and love they shared.
But when they were both naked, they paused.
“This is forever?” Nicolette asked, her voice soft.
He nodded. “Oh yes, my love. Forever.”