by Jenn Stark
“No,” I whispered again, the sound mournful to my own ears. No, I didn’t want Armaeus to lose, to die, to wink out like one of the harbinger fire’s tiny mortal embers. No, I didn’t want to be the one to wield both life and death and pray the outcome didn’t destroy the world. No, I didn’t want to lie here broken and bloody, like a snared fish on a pike.
No.
The rage that suddenly blew through me came from a place so deep inside, I wasn’t expecting it. I would have directed it at Chichiro, but I couldn’t see her, couldn’t see anything but the bright blue sky, harsh with brilliant sunlight. Still, the force of that anger lifted me up and off the spikes with a harrowing rip, my body caught up in a rage of blue-white fire that I aimed directly up into the sky only to have it drop back down like a spurting fountain to crash into me again. Instantly, it raced along my nerves, my skin, my torn muscles and shattered bones, stitching me up in a curative flame and spinning me round as I searched the grounds not with tears in my eyes anymore, but blood. There was Nigel, far beneath me, staring up at the sky as if he could only pick me out at a far distance. And there, at last, was Chichiro, standing on the ledge she’d flung me off, her arms folded, her face resolute.
I knew what she wanted. Even as I stabilized, I could feel the rain of buffeting blows attempting to break through my cocoon of magic once more. I also understood—too late—Nigel’s real purpose here. Chichiro wanted me to stop her, to get angry enough to do what I would not do before: turn my magic on her and physically keep her from doing me or Nigel physical harm. Especially Nigel. She wanted me to be angry, to lash out—but why? Was there another test that I was missing in this? Or was it simply…
My magic slipped, and another claw of power ripped through me, slashing the length of my body. It was too soon, far too close to the well of anger and pain I’d so recently uncovered, and without thinking, without breathing—I lashed out with a scream of pure animal rage.
And chaos reigned.
Chapter Twelve
Pain. Pain surrounded me, so breathtakingly intense, I could feel the oxygen struggling and dying in my lungs, unable to be expelled. Everything on my body felt like it’d been wrenched apart and smashed back together, only not quite in the same configuration as before. I couldn’t even blink right, the pressure of my lids against my eyeballs feeling too heavy, too slow.
Agony radiated outward as I tried to make an assessment of my injuries—failed—and slipped out of my ruined carcass in a mini astral-travel moment as easily as shedding my trousers. I floated above myself, and finally saw what was left of me lying on the bed in Chichro’s guest room after my lesson.
Lessons, I realized with some dismay. I certainly hadn’t remembered being burned along half my body. I definitely didn’t remember my eye being popped, my face swelling up like a cabbage rose on the left side. No wonder I couldn’t close my eyelid properly. And it seemed impossible that I’d somehow missed sticking my left foot in a meat grinder, the bloody mass of flesh and sinew making my stomach pitch. I could see I was healing—at least when I flicked on my third eye, mercifully one of the few things that hadn’t been pummeled and slashed. Brief bursts of electricity skittered over my body, invisible to normal vision, barely discernible even with my advanced sight, but they were there. They weren’t working anywhere near fast enough, but they were there.
I sagged a little, unable to keep my strength up enough to remain in astral form. But there was no way I wanted to return to my body. At least out here, floating as I was in a sort of half-life, I could witness the agony of my physical form without actually feeling it. That had to be better than the alternative. If I could just keep my strength…
“Miss Wilde.”
I nearly cried out, but the corresponding lurch of agony that my body gave while lying on the bed cut short the exclamation in my throat. Even at a distance, I could feel the pain sluicing off my healing form, wounds opening, gashes seeping as I struggled to respond to the sound of Armaeus’s voice.
“Miss Wilde, let me help.”
A voice that was heavy with its own intense pain, I realized dimly. Armaeus sounded like he was undergoing every bit as much agony as I was, but I was pretty sure that couldn’t be possible. Still, I had no possible chance of resisting him, nor did I want to. We had come too far together for me to resist his touch when I was so battered by my own recklessness.
Besides, regardless of what I’d seen in Death’s fiery blaze, regardless of my suspicions about what he was doing with the balance of magic and the power levels of both Connecteds and non-Connecteds, besides my panic over the wands of life and darkness, there was no question in my heart of how the Magician truly felt about me. He feared our final battle, yes. I did too, having seen the twisting fire of the banshees. But this wasn’t our final battle. This was a moment when I needed the Magician, and in this moment, he was simply there.
“Armaeus,” I finally gasped, and it wasn’t the gasp of my mind, but again of my body, my torn and bloodied lips parting to reveal ragged teeth, my head turning on the pillow, half my hair scorched away, my cheek ripped open deeply enough to reveal bone beneath.
“What have you done, Sara?” The horror in his voice riveted me in place, even in my spectral form, as his energy shifted and danced over my destroyed body. He rarely used my real name—only when he was in a moment of extreme emotion. Was I really injured that badly?
I glanced back to my battered figure as the Magician came more into focus. Okay, so I was injured that badly.
But I wouldn’t be for long, I knew instinctively, as if it’d been coded into my DNA. Armaeus still wasn’t fully present, but I could almost see him. I could definitely sense him. My body could sense him too. I winced as I watched my body seem to collapse into the bed. I hadn’t realized how rigidly I’d been holding myself, despite or perhaps because of the rigors of pain. But now, with Armaeus close, I could relax. Now, with his hand above my head, my face turning instinctively toward his palm, I could distantly feel the tears trace down my own cheeks even as I saw my ruined eye sockets palpitate with the effort.
With another grim grunt of effort, Armaeus’s image grew stronger, until he looked real enough to reach out and touch. Despite the sense of detachment I should have experienced from my position beyond the bonds of corporeality, the sight was devastating. He stood over my body with both hands outstretched, his face caught in a grimace of haggard pain. Yet he was still the most beautiful man that I have ever seen. Tall, well over six feet, his body was lean and muscular, radiating strength. The long, corded muscles of his arms, visible beneath the sleeves of his rolled-up dress shirt, strained with intensity as he spread his arms wide. His long-fingered hands and bronzed forearms tensed as if to gather me up in his embrace, though he held himself a good three feet away from me. The Magician’s raven-black hair, normally swept back elegantly from his face, hung in waves around his sharp-cut features, and his eyes as they stared down at me glowed more black than golden. He was wielding significant magic, yet the body on the bed—my body—still remained a bloody mess.
“I cannot stop your pain, for some reason.” He spoke aloud, sounding surprised, irritated. “I wanted to stop the pain, then heal the wounds. But there is something blocking me. Something in this space.” He paused. “It’s you, Miss Wilde. You’re stopping me.”
He turned and looked my way, but I could tell he couldn’t truly see me. Which was almost as unnerving as the idea that I couldn’t let him take away my pain. Because that cray had to stop.
“Where are you?” he asked, his voice sharpening in alarm.
“I’m here! I’m right here,” I said, but it was as if I was locked in a distant room. I’m here, I tried again, reaching out to him with my mind. I’m not trying to block you.
“And yet, block me you are.” Armaeus turned back to the bed, seeming surprised anew. “You cannot test yourself this way anymore, in this headlong attempt to improve your strength. I may not always...”
He shook hi
s head as if to shake off the thought, but my heart quailed in my chest nonetheless. He was right! He was right. Strength was one thing, and I was gaining it in leaps and bounds. But I was risking something far more important.
I was risking my connection to Armaeus.
I was risking us.
No more, I resolved. No more.
Slowly, carefully, I eased back my mental barriers. I could feel the tears surge up behind my eyes, the panic clutching my throat, for all that Armaeus was no longer paying attention to my astral self. How long had I held myself fast against this man, desperate for him not to reach me, possess me? How long had I pushed him away out of sheer self-preservation?
And what was I setting myself up for now, when he had finished with the business of healing my broken body and realized that I still remained open to him—more open than I’d ever been?
Oblivious to my roiling emotions, Armaeus dropped one hand closer to my head—
And all thoughts of anything but blinding agony flew out of my mind. I went rigid with shock as the Magician’s healing fire reached out to me in earnest. Sweet Christmas!
At my bedside, Armaeus’s chuckle was low and grim. “I warned you,” he murmured, but even though I was desperate to let him do what he did without obstruction, it appeared my body hadn’t quite gotten the memo yet.
I gasped as he made a long, sweeping pass with his hand, this time over my jawline. This was like dental surgery without the Novocain. But the sight of what Armaeus was doing galvanized me beyond the torturous agony that I could feel even at a distance.
I stared. I’d never had the advantage of watching the Magician work, since I was usually inside the body that was being stitched back together, but Armaeus moved with surprising speed and efficiency, his hand passing over my head several times, never quite touching me, but getting closer with each wave. With the first pass, he was able to reduce the swelling of my left orbital area and reassemble the underlying meat of my cheek, the skin effectively covering my cheekbone again. My mouth sagged open, and I jolted on the bed as he moved, but in my distant incorporeal self, all I felt was a slight uptick in the wall of agony. Another pass and the skin over my damaged jaw knitted back together, and my hair was restored to my skull. I wondered what specifically had scalped me—probably one of the spires on Chichiro’s roof—but I resolutely pushed that thought from my mind.
With my face more or less put back together, Armaeus edged back a bit. Using both hands, he moved in a long and flowing stroke down my torso and arms again, and the healing continued. The usual sense of relief and even pleasure that normally attended a healing by the Magician, however, was nowhere in evidence. The pain was unrelenting, even as I watched the punctures fill in and the broken bones set.
My legs were another matter entirely, as they seemed to have received the worst of the damage. My left foot in particular took several tries for Armaeus to encourage the burned and bloody stump to regenerate itself. Once again, I tried to remember what exactly I’d done to jack my foot up so badly, but my mind sheared away from the memory with a resolve that left me almost as shaken as the pain.
“How long have I been here?” l didn’t realize that I’d asked the question aloud until Armaeus stilled. Not only had I asked it aloud, I’d asked it through my own mouth. Technically, I could return to my body, I supposed, but even the mirrored pain was enough to make me queasy. I had no illusions about how bad the actual pain would be.
Armaeus turned and addressed my shadow self. “You are stronger,” he said, also speaking with his normal voice now, no longer in my head. I kind of missed him being in my head. “I can see your astral self.” He slanted his glance back to my body, now resting in less abject horror than it had before, but still firmly passed out. “But I still cannot stop your pain,” he said again, almost in wonder.
The answer suddenly broke over me, as less of my brain was apparently needed to keep me alive. “Chichiro’s teaching me,” I gasped. “It seems I agreed to be taught.”
Armaeus’s brows lifted in understanding, as if this sort of tough love made complete sense to him. He’d clearly been buried in his grimoires too long.
“To answer your question, I have no idea how long you’ve been here. I know only that you reached out to me approximately six hours ago. I would have come sooner, but your location was not distinct and your mind was not firmly attached to reality.”
I snorted. “Since when has that ever stopped you?”
He gave me a weary smile. “I would like to see you now, Miss Wilde. Truly see you, if you will allow it.”
A small part of me regretted the return to my formal name, but the larger part felt intense relief. I would be safe now. I would be healed. I knew in my heart that I could eventually have healed myself, but I’d had no desire to remain in that bloody, destroyed form any longer. I thought of other people I had seen in similar straits, most recently Gamon, the head of the House of Cups. She’d been completely at my mercy, and I had healed her. But I could trust no one other than the Magician to see me so broken. No one who could do anything about it, anyway. The very thought sent a chill through me.
“You can see me,” I said, searching his eyes. “Can’t you?”
“Not…” Armaeus took a deep breath, and he reached for me—not my physical body on the bed, but my astrally projected self. As his hand neared, it lost its corporeal form, and suddenly he was as thin and translucent as I was—but only for a moment. Then his hand closed around mine, with the unerring knowledge of two souls bound together in time and space.
As our fingers touched, a world of magic exploded within me. The pain was pushed away, held off for this blessed time, and I gripped Armaeus’s hand so tightly, I almost thought I could climb right inside his body. We were away and somewhere else—safe. Lost.
Truly lost, as it happened.
A blink later, Armaeus and I were several steps away from each other, standing in the middle of a space that fairly shimmered with sacred protection.
“What—where?” I gasped. The Magician had transported us to a grotto with a small stream at its edge. Trees crouched all around, forming a protective bower. Above the trees, a soft blue sky stretched, darkening at the edges, the color seeming to indicate a newly set sun.
“Where doesn’t matter,” Armaeus said gruffly. “I found it a long time ago, and…remembered it as a place of safety for those who might need it.”
I turned back to him, surprise flickering through me. This was one of the oubliettes, I knew immediately. One of the places to stow magic, and Armaeus hadn’t destroyed it. I didn’t know why, and I needed to know why…eventually.
But right now, I didn’t care.
Without another word, I crossed the sand-dusted rocks of the grotto and stepped into Armaeus’s arms. He stiffened for a bare moment, as if surprised, then sighed deeply, wrapping his arms around me, pulling me close.
“You left this plane,” he whispered, his voice so agonized, so broken, that it caught me up short. When it seemed that he would say something more, though, he pulled back. He stared at me intently, searching my face. “You were with Kreios…then you left.”
“I had to,” I said. I stared back at him, marveling at his golden eyes, the irises now shot through with black. A lot of black. “You’ve been working dark magic.”
He tightened his jaw, and his hold on me strengthened further, his power pouring into me unchecked. The magic of Armaeus Bertrand was based in the very core of the life force, the regenerative and creative power of sex. And the immortal demigod pretty much cornered the market on sex—had been practically begging me to partake of its restorative fire every time he touched me—but I’d been too afraid to embrace it fully. Always too afraid.
I wasn’t too afraid anymore.
Armaeus still didn’t realize my barriers had dropped, however, his own mind still tearing through a million other thoughts. “I cannot see who is hunting you,” he said, grimacing. “I cannot see where you went—or why, or who
wishes you dead. I assumed the block between us was because I had allowed my emotions to become engaged with you. I warned you that that would be dangerous, but I did not know exactly how. If this block keeps me from reaching you in times of need, however, or discerning the mysteries surrounding you, that is a very bad thing.”
“But you did find me,” I whispered back with a wry smile, staring up at him, soaking in the strength of him while I still could. “You did. And I note that you’re not letting me go yet.”
“I’m not letting you go.” The admission seemed to cost him, however, and he sank his head forward until his forehead touched mine. As before, the physical connection between us jump-started the endorphin train, and my pain receded again.
“This is working for me, you know,” I murmured, letting my eyes close and savoring the moment of merely being with him. Especially being with him without epic pain shattering my nerve endings. “I don’t feel any pain now, not here, not with you.”
When he didn’t respond at first, I almost smiled. Armaeus’s mind was moving so furiously, he was missing the obvious. I tried again. “I do, however, feel a host of other things.”
That, of course, caught his interest, and he peered down at me. Unfortunately, there was a look in his eye I had come to know all too well—and not the look of amour. No, this was much more the expression of a scientist studying the bug he’d just pinned to a placard. “Your pain is gone completely?”
I knew he wouldn’t rest until I gave him the data he needed. “It’s not gone, but it’s…pushed back. Manageable. Without the nasty side effects of heroin. I appreciate that.”
Armaeus chuckled. “I think you would be the first to admit that there are side effects to my connection to you that have an impact far beyond that of human drugs. An impact that is not always a positive one.”
“This part is positive, though,” I said softly, and this time, he didn’t miss the change in my voice. His gaze sharpened on me, his entire body stiffening except his hands, which now grasped my arms in an embrace so gentle, my heart gave a hard tug. “This part where I stand with you in a place where no one can touch us, holding you close, feeling your heart beat against mine, your skin warm against my fingers, your breath soft against my lips. This part’s good. I like this part, for the record.”