Touch of Lightning

by Carin Rafferty

“Both,” she said, raising her hand to her forehead and grimacing as though in pain.

  “Does your head hurt?”

  “Yes,” she said, closing her eyes.

  He started to cast a spell that would take her headache away, but stopped himself. She’d already responded badly to one supposedly harm­less spell. He didn’t dare expose her to another one.

  “Well, you just rest. I’ll carry you,” he said, standing.

  Again, he expected her to fight him, and he frowned when she passively let him lift her into his arms. He’d known she was small, but her slight weight startled him. Why hadn’t he noticed how light she was when he’d caught her? Because she’d been struggling so frantically that she’d felt heavier.

  As he cradled her, she rested her head on his shoulder and laid a hand against his chest. He glanced down at her face. Her eyes were closed and her brow furrowed in obvious pain.

  Sympathy stirred inside him, and he wanted to brush his hand across her forehead to smooth out the lines. Instead, he headed for the cave, thankful that his magic was back. It functioned as an internal compass, and without it, he knew he would have been lost.

  As he walked, he thought about the spirit. Who was he? And what part did he play in this drama?

  More importantly, was he good or evil? Sebastian hadn’t picked up on any evil vibrations, but that wasn’t surprising. Both times he’d encountered the spirit, it had appeared to protect Sarah. In a protective role, the spirit’s aura would emanate honorable intentions. Once Sarah felt better, he’d have to question her about her ghostly companion.

  Now that his magic was back, he also needed to contact Lucien, he reminded himself. He’d alert him to the problems with the triangle and tell him that if it returned, he wasn’t to put it on.

  As they neared the cave, Sebastian glanced down at Sarah. She hadn’t moved a muscle during the walk back, and he thought she’d fallen asleep.

  The moment they entered the cave, however, she raised her head and asked, “Where are we?”

  “Home,” he answered, walking to the fire. “Can you stand on your own?”

  “I think so.”

  He dropped her to her feet, keeping his arm linked around her waist until she steadied herself. Then he released her, took a step back, and stuffed his hands into his back pockets, saying, “How’s your head?”

  “It hurts,” she replied, raising a hand to her temple as she glanced around the cave. Finally, she looked at him, her eyes narrowed in confusion, as she asked, “What happened to me?”

  “You don’t remember what happened?”

  She shook her head, and then grimaced at the action.

  “What’s the last thing you do remember?”

  “Waking up.”

  A shiver of unease tracked its way down Sebastian’s spine. “Do you remember who I am?”

  “No.”

  His uneasiness increased. “Do you know who you are?”

  She stared at him for a long moment before confirming his worst nightmare. “I have no idea.”

  Chapter 8

  Evil Manipulated

  AS THE TROUBLESHOOTER, Sebastian had come to think of himself as omnipotent. And rightly so, he assured himself as he walked to the cave door and stared outside. He was the most powerful warlock alive, which, in effect, made him the most powerful human being alive.

  Of course, that didn’t make him invincible, he admitted. It did, however, give him a better chance to defeat the evils—both supernatural and natural—that preyed upon the covens around the world. Or, at least, it had until now.

  He turned back to face Sarah. She stood in front of the fire, staring at him. As he took in her perplexed expression, he raked a hand through his hair, feeling damned perplexed himself. From the moment he’d arrived on this mountaintop, she’d thwarted him. Now, when he needed answers the most, she’d developed amnesia.

  Wondering if she was faking it, he let his mind brush against hers. Since he’d only been able to mentally link with her during their sexual fantasy, he expected to be blocked from her thoughts. Surprisingly, her mind was open to him, verifying that she told the truth.

  “Well, hell,” he muttered, deciding that her reaction to the spell had caused her memory loss. But how long would it last?

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  He smiled ruefully. “Nothing important. Why don’t you sit down and rest? Maybe that will help your memory come back.”

  “Maybe,” she said, but she made no move to sit. Instead, she rubbed a hand against her temple and asked, “Who am I?”

  “Sarah.”

  “Sarah what?”

  “I don’t know your surname,” he said, surprised to realize that was true. They’d never formally introduced themselves, and the triangle had only provided him with her first name. “We only met a few hours ago.”

  Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Then why did you say we were home?”

  He blinked, confused by the question. Then, he recalled that when he’d carried her into the cave and she’d asked where they were, he’d said home.

  “It was just a figure of speech. You brought me to this cave earlier tonight, but from what you said, you don’t actually live here.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking around the cave curiously, still massaging her temple.

  They both started at the sudden rattling from the back of the cave. Sarah spun toward the sound, and Sebastian quickly cast another pro­tective spell over himself. The spell lightning no more than encircled him than the rattler slithered out of the shadows.

  “What a beautiful rattlesnake!” she said, walking toward it.

  “Yeah, well, as the old saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Sebastian stated dryly. “She’s your pet.”

  Sarah glanced back at him. “Really? What’s her name?”

  “You called her Willow.”

  “Willow. A perfect name,” she said, dropping to her knees in front of the snake. She lifted the reptile and brought its head close to her face, crooning, “You’re as slender and supple as a willow branch, aren’t you?”

  Sebastian grimaced when the beast flicked its tongue against Sarah’s lips. Sarah, however, laughed. As grotesque as Sebastian found the sight of her fondling the snake, her laughter enchanted him. It was rich and wholly sensual.

  Desire again stirred inside him, and he muttered an inward curse. Even if he wanted to get involved with Sarah—which he didn’t—she was the enemy. Not only that, according to the spirit, she was neither mortal nor witch. So what was she?

  Suddenly, Sarah swiveled her head toward him, and Sebastian felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Her lips were curved in a smile, her golden eyes agleam with delight. While serious, she was beautiful. Smiling, she transcended beauty to something so extraordinary he couldn’t even describe it. He wanted to walk across the cave and sweep her into his arms, and then he’d . . .

  He cut off the fantasy abruptly and asked, “How’s your headache?”

  He hadn’t meant for the words to come out harshly, but they did. When her smile died and she eyed him warily, he wanted to kick himself. She needed to be reassured, not frightened. She had amnesia, for pity’s sake.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m not fond of snakes, particularly those of the poisonous variety. They make me nervous, and that makes me curt.”

  “Oh,” she said, her expression still wary. She placed the snake back on the ground and murmured something inaudible. The snake slithered back into the shadows.

  Sarah watched until it disappeared, then she returned her attention to him. “My headache is better. Who are you?”

  “Sebastian Moran.”

  “Sebastian,” she said, as though testing the word. “I like it. It sounds solid, reliable.”

&nbs
p; Sebastian shrugged, uncomfortable. It was the first time she’d spoken his name, and the way she said it in her soft, throaty voice didn’t make him feel solid or reliable. It made him horny as hell.

  Get your mind off sex! he ordered himself impatiently.

  Aloud, he said, “It’s just a name.”

  “How do we know each other?”

  It was a question he’d expected but didn’t know how to answer. In her condition, he couldn’t dump the story of the talisman on her. Yet he was averse to lying to her. She would, hopefully, regain her memory shortly. Instinct said that if he lied to her now, when she did remember she’d be even less cooperative.

  “I came here because I needed your help, but it’s a complicated story,” he finally said. “I think we should save it for later. So why don’t I gather some wood to stoke the fire? While I’m doing that, you can unroll the sleeping bag that’s over there next to the trunk and lie down. You should get some rest.”

  “What are you hiding from me, Sebastian?”

  He closed his eyes against the blunt question and rubbed his fingers against the bridge of his nose. He was getting a headache of his own.

  He dropped his hand and opened his eyes. “I’m not hiding anything from you, Sarah. I just don’t think you’re in any condition to listen to my story right now. As I said, it’s complicated. After you’ve had some rest, we’ll reevaluate the situation, okay?”

  She tilted her head and regarded him for a long moment. “Can I trust you, Sebastian?”

  Involuntarily, Sebastian’s gaze slid from her head to her feet, taking in her alluring feminine curves. He knew that wasn’t the context of her question, but his body chose to interpret it that way.

  Forcing his gaze back to her face, he saw her watching him with a strange, speculative look. Automatically, he let his mind touch hers, startled to discover that she too felt the stirring of desire. That realization caused a sharp tug of lust in his groin.

  “Yeah,” he stated gruffly, knowing he had to get out of here before he acted on his baser instincts. “You can trust me. I’m going to get some wood.” He left the cave, walking until he was out of sight of the opening. Then he leaned against a nearby pine tree, closed his eyes and drew in several deep breaths, forcing his body to calm.

  Why was she suddenly having such a strong physical effect on him? Granted, she was gorgeous, but his response to her was more than plain, old-fashioned sexual chemistry. More importantly, why had she suddenly become sexually aroused? Considering her condition, sex should have been the last thing on her mind.

  Was it a residual effect from the fantasy lovemaking they’d shared earlier? Or was it something more ominous? The talisman had taunted him into sexually debasing her. Could it be stimulating their libidos now? But if so, to what purpose? Sarah had no memory. Of course, he knew that didn’t negate her connection to the talisman. Memory or no memory, it could—and would—continue to use her.

  Suddenly, Sebastian wondered if his spell had caused her amnesia, or if the talisman had used the event to induce it. In a horrible macabre way, it made sense. Sarah called herself a guardian and considered herself a protector. When he’d told her that the talisman had chosen her as its instrument of destruction, she’d fiercely denied it, declaring she’d never harm her people. That meant she had a conscience. For the talisman to use her, it needed to override her ethics and that would take time. But with amnesia, she didn’t remember her established moral code, and that explained why the talisman would choose sexual manipulation.

  Sebastian knew there were three basic, primitive human emotions: Anger, fear, and sex. Of the three, sex was the most primitive. The gen­etically encoded need to procreate overrode intellect and could make people perform acts that they’d never commit otherwise. Indeed, lust that wasn’t tempered with conscience was a highly dangerous emotional state.

  “So if I’m right, the talisman wants Sarah and me to copulate so it can connect with her baser instincts,” he said, needing to hear the theory aloud. “Once it has a primeval hold on her, it can prevail over her morals and mold her into whatever monster it wants. To stop that from happening I can’t make love to her, but as long as I’m wearing the triangle, I’m susceptible to the talisman’s machinations.”

  Of course, he could be wrong, he told himself. It was possible that Sarah had a simple case of amnesia. He knew, however, that if there were even the slightest possibility that he was right, he only had one option. He had to take off the triangle and let it return to Sanctuary. Thankfully, his magic had come back, and he could contact Lucien, tell him what was going on, and warn him about the triangle.

  He stepped away from the tree and looked up at the sky. The moon’s position assured him it was only a couple of hours after midnight, which made it around three in the morning in Sanctuary. Since his race’s power was at its zenith during nighttime hours, they were primarily nocturnal. Lucien would still be up.

  He sat beneath the tree and cast an invisibility spell over himself for protection. To connect with Lucien over so many miles, he had to use astral projection, and his body would be vulnerable.

  Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply and focused inwardly until he reached a trance state. Then he willed his soul-mind to leave his body.

  SEBASTIAN WASN’T a novice to astral projection, but he’d never become accustomed to the giddy sensation of leaving his body. And giddy was the right description. He always felt dizzy, as though the world spun at a crazy speed, yet it wasn’t an uncomfortable sensation. Indeed, it gave him a sense of freedom that he imagined a bird must feel as it soared through the air.

  He wasn’t aware of moving upward, but suddenly he hovered above the treetops. He glanced down, startled to see his body sitting beneath the tree in suspended animation. As many times as he’d done this, it still unnerved him to see his physical self so lifeless. Was that what death would be like? The soul-mind soaring, while the body remained grounded forever? Would it still startle him to be separated from his body in death?

  Although the questions intrigued him, he knew that now was not the time to indulge in them. He had a mission and he needed to take care of it quickly. Sarah waited for him, and her memory might come back at any moment.

  He no more than completed the thought than he found himself in Sanctuary. He stared at his surroundings in surprise. He’d willed himself to go directly to Lucien, and he’d expected to find him at home with his mate Ariel and their twins.

  Instead, Lucien stood in the crystal cave, where the coven met for the nightly rituals. Kendra Morovang, the coven’s youngest narrator, was with him. As Sebastian studied Kendra, he noted that she looked as if she carried some horrible burden.

  Sebastian wasn’t surprised. The narrators were the coven’s historians. They committed to memory everything of significance that had occurred within their race from the beginning of time. He knew that their job was not only onerous, but terribly limiting. They were condemned to live as observers, never actively participating in historical events. Sebastian couldn’t imagine anything worse than a life that made you sit idly on the sidelines with no chance of making a personal mark. He also knew it was hardest on the young narrators like Kendra, and it wasn’t unusual for Lucien to be counseling—or, more accurately, consoling—her. He hated to interrupt them, but he didn’t have a choice.

  “Lucien?” he said to make his presence known.

  “Sebastian?” Lucien gasped, spinning around, his silver-blue eyes searching for him. “Where are you?”

  “Here,” Sebastian answered, concentrating on making himself materialize, though he knew he’d appear as incorporeal as a ghost.

  “Thank God, you’re here,” Lucien said, raking a hand through his shoulder-length shaggy, black hair.

  Sebastian arched a brow. “Thank God? You’ve been spending too much time with Ariel, Lucien. You know we don’t b
elieve in God—or at least not the concept of a single spiritual being.”

  “All belief is relative, isn’t it?” Lucien answered with a wry smile. “Who or what you worship isn’t as important as the precepts your religion imposes on you. As long as those precepts are for the betterment of mankind, how can you go wrong?”

  “Touché,” Sebastian said with a chuckle, needing a taste of Lucien’s sense of humor right now. But he knew a taste was all he could afford. He had to get down to business. Sarah waited.

  Sobering, he said, “I have something important to tell you. I’m going to be removing the triangle, and when I do, it will return to Sanctuary. I’m here to warn you that under no circumstances should anyone—including yourself—put it on.”

  “After you hear what Kendra’s revealed about Ragna and the triangle, you’ll see that goes without saying,” Lucien said, his own expression sobering, enhancing the cragginess of his stark features.

  As Sebastian switched his attention to Kendra, he felt a shimmer of unease. Lucien hadn’t been counseling her, but talking about the talisman. That put a different connotation on her burdensome look.

  “What about Ragna and the triangle?” he asked, automatically lowering his voice to a quiet, nonthreatening tone. With her long brown hair, large brown eyes, and cupid-bow mouth, Kendra was one of the most beautiful witches Sebastian had ever met. But she looked so ethereal that he always felt that if he touched her, his hand would pass right through her. Everyone in the coven treated Kendra like fragile porcelain, but Sebastian suspected there was nothing fragile about her. He couldn’t confirm his suspicions, however, because a narrator’s mind could only be read by another narrator.

  “Shana told you everything she found in the journals?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Sebastian answered.

  Kendra nodded. “What the journals don’t report is that Ragna took her own life within a month of Seamus’s banishment.”

  “What?” Sebastian gasped. “That’s impossible! She had a daughter. Her maternal instincts never would have allowed her to resort to such a desperate act, unless she feared she’d bring harm to the child.”