The Awakening (Immortals)

by Joy Nash

  “Move aside, Kalen,” Dougal grunted. “She’s ours.”

  Kalen regarded Leanna’s half-breed lackey dispassionately. “No. This ends here.”

  “The hell it does.”

  Dougal lunged for the witch. Kalen caught the half-breed with a burst of white light and flung him on his ass, hard enough to hurt. But not hard enough to do any real damage.

  He struggled to his feet. “Kalen. Give us the human. This is no concern of yours.”

  Behind him, the witch was trembling like a rabbit. “I’ve made it my concern,” he said. “Take your mistress and go. I’ll deal with the witch.”

  Dougal spat. “We don’t let insults lie.”

  “In this case, you will.”

  “Why should we? She’s only a human.”

  Kalen didn’t answer. Leanna groaned, her head lolling to one side. The binding force was already loosening. The spell, though powerful, was meant for humans, not Sidhe.

  “Kalen,” Leanna moaned. “Dougal.”

  Her lackey was at her side in an instant. He lifted Leanna’s head and cradled it against his broad chest. The human tourists watched with wide eyes, unsure if the scene was scripted or not. Leanna went wild, straining against her invisible bonds, grunting and moaning in rage.

  No good would come of Kalen’s lingering here.

  Taking advantage of the distraction Leanna provided, Kalen pivoted slightly and drew the witch into his embrace. Her small, trembling body offered almost no weight in his arms. Keeping one eye on the tight knot of Sidhe around Leanna, he allowed his power to drain into the earth until he was as defenseless as any mundane human. Luckily, Dougal and the other Sidhe were occupied with Leanna’s increasingly violent thrashing.

  One second. Two. Three. His magic reached its nadir, gathering in a tightly coiled spiral. With a nod of his head, he released it. Power exploded, opening a rift in the fabric of space.

  Lifting the witch into his arms, Kalen stepped through the portal and was gone.

  Every molecule of air vacated Christine’s lungs in one wild, heart-stopping rush. A whistle like shrill winter wind blowing through an attic crack screamed in her ears. The earth fell away, stars spun to black, her stomach heaved. Panic turned her throat raw. For a split second, she thought she was dead.

  And then…

  Silence.

  Her feet hit something solid. She gasped, sucking in air, her legs collapsing like overcooked spaghetti. But she didn’t fall. Strong arms encircled her, keeping her upright.

  “Well,” a man’s voice said with an air of grudging admiration. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a female do something that stupid.”

  Kalen.

  She inhaled a shaky breath, but couldn’t quite work up the nerve to open her eyes. Her other senses were drowning in him. His voice? That alone could drive a woman halfway to orgasm. It was low and rumbling, a vibration in his rib cage. His lips grazed her left ear—too close. His arms, hard as steel bands yet not at all bruising, surrounded her completely. His scent was a heady mix of spice and sun-heated earth.

  His wool kilt rubbed her bare stomach, and his chest, tempered by a slight abrasion of crinkly hair, heated her naked breasts. But the physicality of him—the meager information gathered by her mundane senses—was nothing compared to what her witch’s senses told her about his magic. Teasing sparks of it skated over her skin, dipping and swirling in all her intimate places. Goddess, was she in trouble! With full sensory overload so imminent, she was afraid that if she opened her eyes and actually looked at him, too, she’d climax in his arms. And wouldn’t that be mortifying!

  Fully anchored against him, skin to skin, she felt his power as if it were her own. Except she was sure if such magic ever resided inside her all-too-mortal body, her bones and muscles would shatter with the sheer stress of it. Kalen’s magic was as wide and deep as the sea, as broad as the sky. Immortal magic, born of the Etruscan mother goddess. Magic that, perhaps, could save the world.

  He was holding her much as the Selkie had. But where the Selkie had been all fluid, seductive motion, Kalen was as solid and sure as the earth. His skin was warm, almost too hot. But his touch was gentle and strangely comforting. Christine found herself wanting to believe in him. Cling to him forever.

  The thought caused her to stiffen. If Shaun’s death had taught her anything, it was that misplaced faith led straight to disaster. And judging from what she’d seen of Kalen so far, he didn’t deserve her trust.

  She eased from his arms. Surprisingly, he let her go immediately. Turning away from his heat, she drew a deep breath and opened her eyes.

  She was facing the sea.

  She was so startled she nearly fell, and would have if she hadn’t gripped the low stone wall in front of her. She stood on the battlement of a castle. There was a steady breeze, inexplicably warm. Some magical effect, perhaps? Now that her senses weren’t filled with Kalen, she was free to smell the tang of salty air, to hear the angry pounding of the ocean against the base of the steep cliff upon which the castle was perched. The first hint of an early dawn laid a shifting trail of light across the water.

  “Where am I?” she breathed.

  “My home.” Kalen’s voice came from above and behind, too close. She sucked in a breath as the front of his body covered the back of hers. His warm, heavy hands settled on her shoulders, massaging heat into her chilled skin.

  “But…the cairn…the tour. We were miles from the sea.”

  “Yes,” he said, stroking up and down her arms. Magic tingled. She couldn’t help it—she began to relax into his heat. “We’ve traveled about twenty miles. Northeast,” he added as an afterthought.

  This was the castle from her vision. She turned and looked up at him. “But how did we get here?” A sudden, horrifying thought nearly gagged her. “Not…by demon portal?”

  He scowled at her. “Hardly. It was a simple translocation.”

  She stared at him. “I…don’t understand.”

  “I opened a portal between two locations in the human world…not a demon portal, mind you—my passageways go nowhere near the death realms. We stepped through and emerged in a different place.”

  She searched his eyes. They were dark, and told her nothing. “You mean…you can just do that?”

  “It’s a bit more involved than ‘just doing,’ ” he said. “But yes. I can.”

  No wonder she was still shaking. And her stomach didn’t feel so great, either. She took a few steps away, out of range of his unsettling touch. She gripped the battlement, as if wrapping her fingers around rough stone would keep him from whisking her away again.

  “That was horrible,” she muttered. “Just horrible.”

  “It’s not bad once you get used to it.”

  “I can’t imagine that ever happening.” She looked back at him, then tensed when she realized the movement had drawn his attention to her chest. Her bare chest. Her sweater and bra were twenty miles away. Abruptly, she crossed her arms.

  He chuckled.

  She turned away. “What’s wrong with traveling by car? Or boat?”

  “My way is quicker.”

  It was that. It had also been disorienting, nauseating, and horrifying. In other words, sheer terror. She rubbed her bare arms, though she wasn’t at all cold. The friction settled her nerves somewhat. She looked past Kalen toward the center of the castle. The rocky island was separated from an unevenly lit coastline by a dark slice of sea. The castle proper consisted of a high central tower of somber gray stone, and longer, lower buildings constructed of the same material. She was standing atop the perimeter wall that enclosed the complex.

  She took a few steps along the battlement, aware of Kalen’s eyes on her. Even though she was no longer in physical contact with him, her body still hummed with the echo of his power. It made it very hard to think. Especially given the fact that she was half naked, and he was looking at her so frankly. His eyes told her he wouldn’t mind at all if she dropped her arms. Goddess he
lp her, she almost considered doing it.

  “I…” She stopped and swallowed. “Thank you for getting me out of there. The tour, I mean.”

  “Ah yes. The tour. Would you mind explaining what the hell you were doing, challenging a band of Sidhe half-breeds? I can think of few better ways for a human witch to get herself killed.”

  “I…I wasn’t thinking of that.”

  “That much was obvious.”

  She scowled. “I wouldn’t have had to act if you had stopped Leanna. How could you just stand there and watch while she summoned a demon?”

  “She wasn’t summoning a demon,” he said tightly. “She was casting a fertility spell.”

  “At first, yes, but then she added shadow runes at the very end…” She broke off, frowning. “You were planning to get her pregnant tonight?”

  His expression abruptly closed down. “I don’t wish to discuss it.”

  He took two strides toward her, his fingers closing on her elbow. The sudden, firm touch sent a shock of awareness reverberating through her body. Magic—Immortal magic—surged through the connection. Her knees went weak. Her thoughts—what she could remember of them—scattered.

  “Come.”

  Blessedly, he didn’t seem to notice the effect his touch had on her. It wasn’t a deliberate spell, then. She tried to pull discreetly away, but his grip wouldn’t relent. He drew her toward a narrow door set in a corner turret. Once inside, he propelled her down a dizzyingly steep circular stair.

  Round and round they went, down what must have been at least five or six stories. At last, Christine stumbled out of the stairwell and onto level ground. Still gripping her elbow, Kalen changed directions, striding purposefully down a long, dark passage.

  “Wait…” she stammered, trying to break free of his grip. No luck. The hallway was so dark that Kalen was little more than a shadow in the darkness, yet he walked as quickly as if the passageway were flooded with light, dragging her along behind him.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  He paused at a portal that led to a large room, his large frame nearly filling the arched opening. Finally, finally, he released her. Christine sucked in a breath as the shock of his withdrawal ran through her body. She pressed her back to the cold stone wall of the corridor and crossed her arms, anchoring them once again across her bare breasts. When his gaze didn’t move from her face, she didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted.

  “So, tell me,” he said. “Are all American witches as foolhardy as you?”

  “I…” She inhaled. “I’m not foolhardy at all. In fact, I’m the dullest witch I know.”

  “I find that exceedingly hard to believe.”

  “It’s true. I never would’ve challenged Leanna, except for that demon portal.”

  He gestured impatiently. “I told you, it was a fertility spell. That’s all. Sidhe and demons do not mix. Tell me—did you feel any death magic?”

  She sucked in a breath. Of course she hadn’t. But that was because she could only sense magic through touch, and she hadn’t been touching Leanna when she cast the spell. Still, a niggling doubt assailed her. Could it be possible she’d only imagined she’d seen Leanna trace the same runes Shaun had drawn? Had she overreacted? She knew she wasn’t the most rational person when it came to demons.

  “You didn’t feel anything, did you?” Kalen said quietly.

  “No,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean—”

  “What it means is that now you have a problem. There’s no grudge like a Sidhe grudge. Leanna’s going to be looking for you.”

  “But I didn’t really hurt her! I just stopped her spell.”

  “You think that matters? You’ve made a powerful enemy. Leanna’s no ordinary Sidhe.” He paused. “She’s the daughter of Niniane, Queen of Annwyn.”

  Christine felt the blood drain from her face. “But…I don’t understand. If Leanna’s Sidhe royalty, what’s she doing leading sex tours for humans?”

  “Unfortunately for Leanna, her father was human. Her mother never acknowledged her, so her rank is very low among the Sidhe. Her power, however, is too strong for them to dismiss her entirely. So…she does as she pleases.”

  “And what about you? Does it please you to play gigolo for her?”

  The sudden, harsh expression in Kalen’s eyes told Christine she’d gone too far. When he spoke, the quiet anger in his voice made her stomach clench.

  “You’ve made one enemy tonight, little witch. I don’t suggest you make another.”

  She knew she should drop the subject, but somehow, she couldn’t back down. Not from this—it was too important. “I’m only speaking the truth,” she said. “I can’t believe you would stoop so low as to participate in that disgusting tour. It’s a betrayal of everything you are.”

  His jaw tightened. “And what, pray tell, is that?”

  “You’re Kalen, Immortal Warrior. Son of Uni, Mother Goddess of the Etruscans. Bane of demons. Defender of mankind.”

  The expression in his black eyes was inscrutable. “And who, exactly, are you?”

  “Christine. Christine Lachlan. I’m…nobody, really. Just an ordinary witch.”

  “Well, Christine Lachlan, ordinary witch, I see you’ve done your research. I suppose I should have expected that. In my experience, witches are nothing if not thorough.”

  It didn’t sound like a compliment.

  “It hardly matters,” he continued, more to himself than to her. “You’re here now, and here you’ll stay, until I say otherwise.”

  “You’re keeping me prisoner?”

  “I’m protecting you from Leanna. You’re a pretty little thing. It would be a shame to see you get killed.”

  “Killed? Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? I didn’t even hurt her.”

  “You humiliated her, and pride is everything to Leanna. She’ll be out for your blood. But you’ll be safe enough in the castle. No one comes or goes without my permission.”

  “So I am a prisoner.”

  “Call it what you like.”

  She regarded him for a long moment, wishing the passageway was better lit. If she could study his face in light, instead of shadow, she might get a better idea of what kind of man he really was. Was he really concerned for her safety? Or did he have some other purpose in keeping her here? It was impossible to tell.

  Finally, she sighed. She’d come to Scotland looking for him, after all. Now she had his undivided, if irritated, attention. She could work with that.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll stay. But I have some things at a faerie guesthouse in Inverness. Do you think you could get them for me?”

  He frowned. “What kind of things?”

  “Just a backpack. Clothes, mostly.” And her scrying bowl, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

  “Clothes.” The word encompassed a universe of disdain. “Are the rest of your garments anything like the ones you wore this evening?”

  She was suddenly acutely aware of her bare breasts under her crossed arms. “Mostly, yes. Why?”

  He made a dismissive gesture. “Not worth retrieving, then. We’ll leave them to the faeries.”

  “But they’re mine! And I need something to wear!”

  “I’ll provide you with garments.”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “I said, no.”

  She glared at him. He didn’t seem to notice. He stepped through the archway and into the cavernous room beyond. It was some kind of medieval great hall. With a gesture of one hand, he set at least a hundred candles in three huge iron-wheeled chandeliers ablaze.

  Shadows vanished. Christine blinked at the sudden light. She blinked again when she caught sight of what was in the room. With a sense of burgeoning unreality, she passed through the doorway.

  And stared, openmouthed, at a statue of a beautiful young man. Carved from pure white marble, his form loomed over her. His right hand rested on
his powerful thigh while the left held a slingshot over a lean shoulder. Thick curls crowned his head, His expression was serious, his eyes clear. His young body, a study in sheer magnificence, was completely nude.

  Christine’s heart clenched tightly, and for a moment, she couldn’t breathe. It just wasn’t possible. It was like looking at a ghost. She half feared the figure would disappear in a puff of smoke.

  “Michelangelo’s David,” she breathed. “It…it’s a very fine reproduction.”

  “I don’t own reproductions.”

  She spun around. “But…that’s not possible! David was hacked to pieces by a madman with an ax last spring.” Not two days before she’d arrived in Florence. The destruction of the crown jewel of the Renaissance had sent the city into a frenzy of mourning. “This can’t be the real David.”

  “I assure you, it is.”

  “But…I saw the surveillance video of the attack on CNN. The whole world did.”

  Kalen’s lips thinned. “Given a few more months, no doubt David would have been destroyed in truth. Have you been to Florence lately? It’s a cesspool. Zombies rotting on the steps of the Uffizi, vampires draining their victims in the shadow of the Duomo. But no, fortunately the David you saw destroyed on television was only a reproduction. The original was already here. I’d taken it out the day before the attack.”

  She put out a hand, realized it was trembling, then let it drop to her side. “But how could that be?”

  “How do you think? Money. The Museo dell’Accademia sold its greatest treasure for fifty million Euros.”

  “Fifty mill—no. David is irreplaceable. The museum wouldn’t have sold it for any amount of money.”

  He gave a harsh laugh. “Think again, my love. Nothing is without price. Not for humans. The museum directors knocked each other over grabbing for my money.”

  “But the man with the ax…”

  “A thug. Hired to hack at a copy. Far better for public relations—not to mention for insurance purposes—to have the piece believed destroyed rather than sold.”

  “Or stolen,” Christine said hotly. “By a thief with a pile of cash.”