My shield was so strong that Volod’s power bounced off of it, shot past him, and slammed into Danut.
The Vampire was flung against a huge tree, which cracked like the sound of thunder.
Volod’s face was twisted into a furious expression. He raised his hand again, sending his incredible power at me.
My shield held, but barely. The strength of his blast knocked me on my backside. Pain burst through me as I scrambled to my feet while at the same time trying to enhance my elemental magic.
I didn’t have time to go on the offense as another ball of power slammed into my shield.
This time I felt my whole body burn as some of it invaded my protection.
Before I could recover, I felt Volod in my head again. Just like he had at the council meeting, only this time stronger.
The pain in my bite mark intensified as I fought against Volod’s mental assault. He was trying to get inside my head. His darkness was working to seep into my mind.
My shield completely buckled and I dropped to my knees.
Volod walked toward me with an evil, hateful expression on his face.
I dropped my daggers and clapped my hands to the sides of my head.
Had to get him out. Had to get him out.
The slimy feel of his presence inside made me want to vomit.
Had to get him out.
I summoned everything I had.
And attacked him.
Earth buckled at his feet. Air blasted into him at the same time. Rainwater gathered and shot toward his face, temporarily blinding him.
The combination of three of my elements slammed him up against a tree.
I sent the same elements at Danut, who’d gotten to his feet.
Volod’s hideous darkness, the deadness I’d felt inside, left me in a rush.
It was too late when I sensed Drago behind me. I had put all of my magic into the shield between me and Volod.
I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Adam bull-rush Drago, knocking the Vampire on his side.
Before Drago realized what had happened, Adam had his crossbow pressed to the Vampire’s heart and he fired.
The stake drove into Drago’s chest, piercing his heart.
My neck burned and I gathered my elements for a strong shield. Volod was coming back after me.
Volod hit my shield with another blast of power.
I could feel myself weaken again. Both Danut and Volod raised their hands at the same time. I wouldn’t be able to keep my protection up if it was hit with blasts from both of them.
Adrenaline pumped through me as I back-flipped, then dove behind a tree. The tree caught on fire as if lightning had struck it. A crack loud enough to hurt my ears and then the top half of the tree started to fall on me.
I scrambled away from the tree and came face-to-face with Danut. I didn’t have time to draw a dagger so I grabbed his head and head-butted him. He shouted out. Immediately I jerked his head down and slammed my knee into his face.
Danut screamed but then his fangs flashed in the moonlight and he came at me.
I almost faltered in my mad scramble to get away when I saw a sword flash through the air—and nothing holding the sword.
The steel blade came down on the back of Danut’s neck. Danut’s body dropped. His head rolled away from his body.
Negel appeared beside me, holding the sword, a pleased look on his face.
The bite marks on my neck burned. I twisted. Volod was coming at me, all fangs and claws and fury.
I grabbed the sword from Negel.
Swung at Volod.
The blade connected with his head.
The metal sliced his skull straight across the top, above his ears.
From the powerful momentum of my swing I fell back hard onto the ground.
Volod wouldn’t survive even part of his head being sliced off.
But the next thing I knew he was running.
Volod was running.
With his hand holding onto his head, he tore through the forest, away from me.
What?
It couldn’t be.
I must not have sliced all the way through.
Right before I started to run after Volod, I heard a cry.
I turned to see Chuck run a sword through Negel’s belly.
“No!” I shouted.
Chuck raised his sword as he ran toward me.
I took fire from the burning tree and ordered my element to fry him.
He went up in flames, his screams echoing through the dark forest. I finished him with my buckler, severing his head from his shoulders.
“Negel.” I dropped to my knees beside the Sprite.
The burning in my bite mark was gone. My thigh was numb. But my skin felt like it was going to freeze off from my fear for Negel’s life.
“You’re going to be okay,” I said. “We just need to get you to a Healer.”
Negel shook his head. “I am done.” He gave a weak smile. “But it was a great fight, wasn’t it?”
The backs of my eyes burned as I nodded. “You saved my life.”
“Here it is.” He pointed to a box on the ground at my side. “Volod set it down before he attacked you.” The Sprite smiled. “Now you shall live.”
If I could have cried, tears would have been rolling down my cheeks. Instead the rain-wet trees sprinkled tears for me onto Negel’s face.
He was starting to fade. I saw it on his face, in his eyes.
“Tell my brother, Penrod, to watch over my wife and sons.” Negel’s words caused me to gasp as pain wrenched my insides. “Tell him … that I love them all.”
“I will.” My voice choked as I said the words. “Thank you for saving my life. You are one of the bravest beings I know.”
“Bye, Nyx.” A peaceful expression was on his face. “Good-bye.”
And then he was gone.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Even though it was night, my skin was still warm from a day on the beach in Belize. This trip was the first time I had ever been out of New York State, other than New Jersey, and I loved it.
Adam and I had moved onto a more private area when the sun went down. Now we sat next to one another, holding hands with me resting my head on his shoulder.
Silver moonlight bathed us both and a breeze teased my hair and ruffled his.
“The last time we saw moonlight was the night we took down Volod’s operation,” Adam said, sounding like he was deep in thought.
“No you don’t.” I raised my head from his shoulder. “I so do not want to talk about business.” I shook my head. “We recovered the serum and antiserum, everyone involved in the battle was given a tiny dose of the antiserum and an epidemic was avoided. End of story.”
“We never had a chance to talk,” Adam said. “You’ve been in quarantine with the other paranorms who came in contact with you.” He tugged on my hair. “Then you and I were on an airplane to Belize and you slept the whole way.”
“Okay. Details.” I sighed. “But only a little.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “How does the council know they got all of the serum?”
“It was measured before Volod got hold of it,” I said. “They were able to determine how much was injected into me and believe every drop is accounted for.”
“Captain Wysocki is breathing a few sighs of relief,” Adam said, “now that the attacks have stopped. I told her how we put a stop to them. I’m not sure she can quite get herself to fully believe that real Vampires were behind it all.”
“I can understand that,” I said with a nod. “After all, she’s just a norm.”
Adam tickled me and I giggled. “You’re a special norm, Adam.” It was hard to speak as I giggled. “You’re not just any norm.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Any leads on Volod?”
I shuddered at the name. “None. It’s like he evaporated.”
“Or e-vamp-orated,” Adam said with a laugh.
“Not even funny.” I lightly punched his
shoulder. “At least all of his forces were wiped out and many of those captured have already been tried and executed. The others will never see the light of day—or moonlight—again. They’ll rot in jail.”
“Paranorm justice is sure faster than the human system of justice,” he said.
“When you’re working with magical beings,” I said, “things are easier to investigate with more accuracy, too.”
“Volod may not have been captured, but he has nothing left.” I shuddered at the mention of his name. “He will be tracked down. Rodán said he will not quit the pursuit until the monster is captured or destroyed.”
I swallowed. “Volod may have something left.” I cringed at the thought. “We never recovered the list of paranorm weaknesses from the pyramid. It’s possible Volod somehow had it on him that night and got away with it. It’s a thought that frightens me.”
“It is a scary thought, but that’s in Rodán’s court now,” Adam replied.
I nodded, but still felt a shiver.
He smiled. “Okay, we can stop talking about business. Back to vacation now … where were we, Nyx?” Adam said as he started tickling me again.
“Yes, I know you needed all the facts, Detective Boyd.” I said through my giggles.
Then he took my face in his palms and kissed me so fast and sudden that he stole my breath. His kisses were soft and wonderful, then hard and more urgent, and just as wonderful.
He ran his hands over my body, skimming my breasts in my little black string bikini.
“We can’t do this here,” he murmured in my ear. “Let’s go back to the beach house.”
“Yes.” My voice was a hoarse whisper before we kissed again.
Adam helped me to my feet and we started walking down the beach toward the beach house. “Dang, I forgot the backpack.” He brought me to a stop. “Wait here.”
While I waited, my gaze traveled the dark waters with moonlight sparkling on its gentle surface. Then I looked at something that sent chills through my body.
A male standing just beyond the edge of the beach, near a group of palm trees, was looking at me. He was so far away I couldn’t make out who he was through the moonlight.
The bite mark on my neck burned. Feeling almost dazed, I brought my hand to it and felt heat when I touched it.
“Volod,” I said, my voice a hoarse whisper.
“What?” Adam came up from behind me.
“Look,” I said as I glanced at Adam over my shoulder. I turned back and blinked. The male was gone. “Volod was there.” I pointed. “Volod is here.”
“You just need to relax.” Adam massaged my shoulders with his strong hands. “Take some time away.”
Maybe he was right.
Maybe it had been my imagination.
“You do need a vacation, Nyx.” Adam grasped my hand. “I shouldn’t have brought the subject up.”
Instead of worrying about what I might have seen, I squeezed Adam’s fingers and we turned and walked back to the beach house.
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Icy wind and water whirled around me as my hair whipped across my cheeks. Wind spun so fast, fierce, and cold that a growing storm roared with power.
Hail stung my face and arms. Rain splattered my face and rolled down my cheeks and skin. Water blurred my eyesight.
Thumps on hard surfaces. Loud crashes. The sound of smashing.
An object glanced off my forehead as it spun in the storm.
Hurricane. I was trapped in a hurricane.
So hard to breathe. Water in my nose. In my mouth.
No sound came out as I tried to scream.
The storm wasn’t natural.
Not natural at all.
It wasn’t supposed to be happening.
The storm wasn’t natural …
Because it was caused by … me.
My elemental magic. Air and water.
“Nyx!” I shouted over the shrieking storm. I clenched my fists and dug my nails into my palms. Fought to gain control over my magic. “Stop!”
My control over the elements had never been so fragile.
Again I screamed into the wind. Tightened my muscles.
With all I had I grasped the reins of my magic.
The storm ended like a car slamming into a concrete barrier.
Things that had been spinning in the storm crashed to a hard surface.
Shock immobilized me.
I blinked water out of my eyes.
My surroundings came into focus.
I was in my bedroom in my apartment in Manhattan.
For several moments I sat on my sodden mattress and stared at the devastation around me.
How had I lost control in my sleep? I wasn’t a child. Only younglings would do something like this without near the destruction I had just caused.
Without realizing I was doing it, I reached up and touched the collar around my neck that signified my Drow station in life. No, I was nowhere near being a youngling. I was of age by Drow standards. By Earth Otherworld standards I was fully an adult.
I looked around me. Almost everything in my room was smashed and broken. Trinkets I had purchased since I had moved from the Drow realm to New York City were cracked, broken, torn, shredded.
As a well-paid Tracker and PI, and thanks to my wealthy Drow heritage, I could replace everything that had been ruined. But I couldn’t replace the memories that accompanied a good many of the objects.
I let my hand fall away from my collar and it splashed in the water pooled around me on my mattress. I inhaled and exhaled with long, slow, deliberate breaths.
Even though Dark Elves don’t get cold easily, the storm had chilled me enough that goose bumps broke out along my skin. I shivered.
A nightmare.
The same one I’d had countless times since I was a youngling. The worst part of the nightmare was seeing an elder, a man with long, graying red hair in a world with lavender-streaked skies. The vision of the man made me sick.
Unlike every other time I’d had this nightmare, this time my entire being had reacted to the nightmare. It had never happened before. I’d never woken in the middle of a storm I had caused to happen.
My heartbeat slowed while my mind started to clear.
A sick sensation, like thick, black sludge weighted my insides. It reminded me of just weeks ago when I’d been sentenced to death by a Vampire. The thought had bile rising in my throat. I didn’t want to think about that. Not at all.
I moved my palms to my belly, over my soaked lingerie. I lowered my head and closed my eyes.
It had been a long time since I’d had such intense nightmares—nightmares that I never remembered when I woke.
During most of my adolescence I’d woken up screaming, wind whipping around my room from my elemental magic. Sometimes the room would be filled with mist. Sometimes a slow, drizzling rain.
Never a storm.
Mother would come in, rock me until I stopped crying and the rain ceased or mist cleared or wind subsided.
When I got older the nightmares came less frequently. I gained control over my elements and woke with nothing more than a sore throat from screaming.
Even though I never remembered the dreams, somehow I knew they had all been the same.
Once I came of age at twenty-five, they stopped.
I frowned and opened my eyes, blinked more wetness away as I raised my head. The nightmares started again two weeks ago. Over two years since they had stopped.
“Why now?” I said, the sound of my voice loud in my bedroom that was st
ill, save for the sound of water dripping from the doorframes.
The sludge in my insides only worsened.
Winter sunlight slashed through the French doors and into my bedroom. I stared at the fractured pattern reflected in the sheen of water on my hardwood floor.
Light.
Light here, in the Earth Otherworld, often means renewal, rebirth.
In the lives of the Dark Elves, light means death. Death to any Drow who dared to go aboveground during the day.
To all Drow but me.
The mattress made squishing sounds as I shoved the comforter off my legs. I found a place on the floor where nothing was splintered or broken, slid out of bed, and got to my feet. Water ran down my body in rivulets, joining the puddles on my floor.
Had Kali gotten caught in the storm? I hoped not. My blue Persian would never forgive me.
I stepped through the water and felt melting bits of hail beneath my feet. My floor would be ruined if I didn’t take care of it. Other than my elemental magic, I knew little Elvin magic, but I did know the word for “clean.”
“Avanna,” I said and the room dried, including my hair, skin and the lingerie I wore. My things still lay broken on the floor and I wished I knew an Elvin word for “repair.”
I stepped over a broken crystal clock, grabbed a shortie robe, and slipped it on.
A frame with a photograph caught my attention and I stooped to pick it up. The glass shattered but it didn’t look like the picture of Adam and me in Belize was ruined.
I smiled and traced my human lover’s image with my fingertip as my heart skipped. Love for him flowed through my veins, warm and sweet, as I took in his boyish grin and that dimple I loved. In the sunshine of Belize he looked sexy, adorable, and intensely masculine, all at the same time.
I set the picture with its broken frame on my nightstand where my lamp should have been. It too was on the floor in shambles.
I avoided everything sharp and pointy and walked toward the window next to the French doors leading to the balcony from my bedroom.
Ice-laced sunlight touched my face and body as I peered out the window and the cold made me shiver again.
By day I look a lot like my human mother with my fair skin and sapphire blue eyes. The exception is that my hair is black with blue highlights and hers a pale shade of blond.
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