Visions of Chains

by Regan Hastings

  She was female and he was more than ready for one.

  That’s all it was. All it could be.

  But even he knew that for the lie it was. So he let her go before he could give in to the urges choking him.

  She stumbled backward and clapped one hand to her mouth. “Oh my God. I . . . know you. I mean, I don’t, but something inside me recognizes you. The power surge when you kissed me was shattering.”

  In the soft glow of guttering candlelight, her skin looked pale and her eyes were even more blue than usual. Even through her shock and the residue of her fear, she was lovely. Enough to tempt him. But Finn pushed that thought aside. “That’s the draw of a Mated pair. Our bodies, our souls, were meant to be together.”

  “That is probably the absolute weirdest thing you could have said.”

  Not the reaction he had expected.

  “I’m supposed to believe we’ve known each other for centuries?” She shook her head and murmured. “No. No, this cannot be happening, that’s all there is to it. This is some bizarre dream. Or a breakdown!” She said the last almost hopefully. “I’m in a locked ward somewhere, aren’t I? And you’re the gorgeous young doctor acting really unprofessionally with a patient. Yes. That’s it.”

  Impressed with her imagination if nothing else, Finn said, “Okay. Whatever helps you deal with this.”

  “I don’t have to deal. Breakdown,” she reminded him.

  “Right. Come on. I’ll explain it all when we have more time. Right now, we don’t have any time.” He grabbed her arm and when she fought him he said, “It’s either start walking or we take another fire ride. Your choice.”

  “Fine. I’ll walk.”

  She started past him, muttering about medication and straitjackets and Finn took a quick second or two to admire the view. His gaze dropped to the curve of her behind and the long legs that were striding away from him. Black jeans hugged her body like cool night. Her blond braid was unraveling at the edges, but her chin was up, head held high.

  Yeah, she was a beauty but she wasn’t going to give him an easy time of it. His body was ready and aching and she was trying to dismiss him as a delusional dream.

  The last couple of hours had been hard and fast. She’d held up to it, too, he told himself with a trickle of pride. And now, her anger was leading the charge inside her instead of the fear and confusion he knew she was experiencing. Another point for her. She stalked down the tunnel ahead of him like a woman on a mission. And she was, he thought. A mission to put as much distance between them as possible.

  “But that won’t work, witch,” he murmured. He’d felt her response to his kiss. Knew she was as stirred up as he was, she just didn’t want to admit it. She’d have to deal, though. Now they were together and they were staying together until their job was done. Then he’d not only let her walk away—he’d make sure it happened.

  Following after her, his boots not making a damn sound on the tunnel floor, Finn mentally geared up for the next month. They’d have thirty days, the cycle of the moon, to complete the quest that had been waiting for them for eight hundred years. They didn’t have time for her to ease into this. To give her space to deal with her fear and the knowledge that she was a witch. They had to dive right in and make this work. Not just for their sakes—but for the world’s.

  Her fear stained the air. He could smell it as he took in her distinctive witch scent with every breath. Earth witches always smelled like nature. Earth and ocean and something else, specific to the witch. His witch smelled like cinnamon. Dark. Rich. Spicy. But the scent of fear almost overpowered it. It was alive and well and crouched deep inside her. Not surprising. She’d had a hell of a lot thrown at her in just a couple of hours. But he suspected that she was stronger than even she knew. At least he hoped so, because she was going to need every scrap of strength she could gather if they were to survive the coming trials.

  Chapter 7

  “Deidre.”

  Why did his voice vibrate on her skin like a damn tuning fork? She paused and looked back over her shoulder.

  In the candlelight, his features looked harsh and sharp, as if they’d been carved from stone with an ax. How could she find that so appealing?

  “The others don’t know what I am,” he said.

  Deidre stopped, swept him up and down, taking in the scuffed black boots, the black jeans, the gray shirt and the short black leather jacket, before meeting his gaze again. “Well, then, I’ve got something in common with your terrorists after all, don’t I?”

  His mouth worked as if he were biting back words struggling to get out. “I meant, don’t tell them. They won’t understand.”

  They wouldn’t understand? What? Like she did? None of this made any sense. He made fire come out of his skin. He zapped her from the parking lot to the tunnels in the blink of an eye. He kissed her and her body lit up like midnight on the strip in Vegas. That was so not her. None of this was.

  “Ah.” She gave him a look that should have made him wary of approaching her. “So I’m out of the magic closet and you get to stay neatly tucked away? Yeah, that’s fair.”

  “All’s fair in magic and war.”

  “That’s love and war,” she corrected.

  “No such thing,” he told her.

  A flicker of disappointment flared inside her but was gone again in an instant. What did she care if this big, fiery guy didn’t believe in love? Wasn’t as if she was looking for a blind date, here. Even though that kiss had been amazing. She had way bigger things on her mind at the moment. “Fine. I won’t say anything. But you’ve got lots of explaining to do.”

  “Agreed.”

  She turned back and hurried along the tunnel, hardly noticing that she wasn’t as freaked by the underground passageway as she had been earlier. When you’ve suddenly become a witch and mentally ordered guns to fire themselves, a tunnel became no big deal. Up ahead, she heard hushed conversations, moaning and the soft, pitiful sound of weak sobs. Her steps hurried. Shauna. Shot. She had to try to help.

  Walking into the candlelit chamber, she took it in at a glance. A wide room, there were a couple of chairs, several mattresses covered with blankets and a table with a camp light on top of it. No electricity in the underworld, she thought. Along one wall were stacked supplies. Bottles of water, canned food and a couple of coolers.

  In a corner, huddled together for either comfort or warmth, the five freed witches stared out of haunted eyes. None of them looked like they were ready for a trek to Virginia.

  But it was the woman stretched out on one of the mattresses that had her attention.

  Deidre crossed the room quickly, knelt down beside Shauna and reached for her. Instantly one of Finn’s men lifted a weapon and trained it on her. “Back off, bitch. We don’t need your help. I’ll take care of Shauna.”

  Deidre hardly spared him a thought. She flicked her fingers at him and sent his gun scuttling out of the room into the tunnel. Amazing just how easily she was doing that now. She hadn’t even had to think about it.

  His eyes went wide.

  “Forgot what I can do already, did you?” she asked, a tight smile on her face. “And yet you didn’t mind my help a while ago. Oh. By the way, don’t call me bitch.”

  Leaning over Shauna, Deidre let go of the sense of betrayal she had felt toward her friend. Hard to be mad at her when she was lying there bleeding.

  Even in her pain the other woman managed a smile. “That is completely cool, Dee. I can barely light a candle with my magic.”

  Deidre forced a smile. “Lighting candles? Way more useful than gun throwing.”

  “Not tonight,” Joe said from somewhere to her right.

  She felt Finn come up behind her. Eerie. She didn’t have to hear him. Or see him. She simply sensed his presence. What did that say? Heat from his body reach
ed for hers and she was grateful for it. She felt as if she was frozen, like her blood must have ice crystals in it. Too much had happened too quickly. Being a witch. The cold night. The gunfire. The dog. Shauna being hurt. Being a witch. God, even thinking that twice didn’t make it seem real.

  All these years she’d had such empathy for the embattled witches—she had to wonder if her subconscious had somehow known what she was all along.

  “The bullet’s still in her shoulder, Finn.” The man who’d called Deidre “bitch” spoke softly. “We’ve gotta get it out.”

  “Deidre will get it out, Mike.”

  “Me?” She turned her head around to look up at him. “She needs a doctor.”

  “No,” Shauna muttered. “No doctors. Have to report bullet wounds. Might as well take me straight to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”

  “Damn it, Shauna, this isn’t a game.” Deidre glared at her friend, then softened her tone because she’d already been shot. She didn’t need to be yelled at. “You need a transfusion and antibiotics.”

  “We’ve got emergency medical equipment here,” Joe said, walking up to stand alongside Finn. “We take care of our own.”

  “Just one big crazy family, how nice,” Deidre snapped.

  “You can get the bullet out, Deidre,” Finn told her, going down on his haunches. He met her gaze and said, “Use your magic. Pull the metal from her shoulder. It will be less invasive than one of us using forceps to dig around in her flesh.”

  “Oh, God,” Shauna moaned.

  Deidre swallowed hard at that image and knew she’d have to try. She couldn’t let Shauna suffer even more pain. Not if she could help it. “Fine. Just tell me what to do.”

  “You already know,” Finn said. “Just do what you did outside. Direct your power with your mind.”

  “This is crazy,” Mike muttered. “Just because she can throw guns doesn’t mean she—”

  Finn shot him a look that had the man shutting up fast. Deidre didn’t blame him. Even with his features calm and blank, Finn was intimidating. A look of fury from him was bound to strike fear into the heart of anybody with a brain.

  “Okay, just . . . back off,” she said, looking at all of them in turn. “Shauna, I’m going to try to get the bullet out, okay?”

  “Do it, Dee.” She closed her eyes, and bit down hard on her bottom lip.

  Hands sweaty, throat dry as dust, Deidre was half afraid she would have that meltdown she’d been joking about a few minutes ago. But like Finn had pointed out, there was no time for it now. She’d do that later. Indulge in a rant or a crying fit and then she’d demand some answers from the man kneeling right beside her.

  Taking a deep breath, she laid her hands over Shauna’s wound and felt the cold stickiness of congealing blood against her palms. She tried not to think about the fact that it was her friend’s blood and instead concentrated on calling up that sparkling sense of power she had felt earlier.

  She thought it would be hard.

  It wasn’t.

  As soon as she reached for it, her magic was there. As if it had been hidden away in a locked chest for years and now was just eager to be used. To be needed. She smiled to herself as the shimmer of something wondrous spread from her heart, down her arms to her hands and then to her fingertips. Focusing on the shape and size of the bullet within her friend’s body, Deidre pulled on it with her mind.

  She felt it move. Felt it sliding from tissue and muscle to edge past bone. While Shauna whimpered, Deidre concentrated, calling it forth, drawing on her magic, on the amazing thing she was doing until—

  The bullet popped free and landed in Deidre’s palm. It glittered in the candlelight, a shiny, blood-streaked brass piece of metal, smashed at the tip from its contact with Shauna’s body. Astounding that something so small could do so much damage.

  “Good job,” Joe said and edged her out of the way. “I’ll take over now.”

  He motioned to Mike to break open the medical supplies and then spared a smile for Shauna. “I’ll have you stitched up in no time, cutie.”

  “Oh, God,” Shauna moaned. “I’ve seen how you sew.”

  “Everybody’s a critic . . .”

  Still holding the bloody bullet in her palm, Deidre moved off, staring down at it as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d done. She wasn’t even surprised to find Finn at her side.

  “You did well.”

  “Yeah.” She shook her head and closed her fist over the bullet. “It’s been a great night.”

  “Deidre—”

  “No more talk tonight,” she said with a half laugh. “I don’t think I can take much more. I just want to go home.”

  “No. I can’t let you do that.”

  Chapter 8

  Deidre stared at him, stunned speechless for about half a second. “You can’t keep me here.”

  “Watch me.”

  “Oh, hell,” Mike said under his breath, but just loud enough to be heard, “let her go.”

  “We have to talk.” Finn grabbed her elbow and when Deidre tried to pull away, he simply tightened his grip. “Joe, we’ll be in my chamber. No interruptions.”

  “Not even if Mike’s bleeding from the eyes.”

  “Thanks,” the other guy said.

  “Dude,” Joe told him with a slow shake of his head. “Learn when to shut your piehole.”

  Deidre wasn’t really listening. Her mind was racing with the implications of what was happening. Not only was she a witch, but she was in an underground tunnel with a—whatever the hell he was. His “troops” weren’t exactly on her side, either. There was no one to go to for help. And if the guards at the jail had recognized her, it wouldn’t be safe to go home anyway. But she had to at least call her mother. Find out if those guards had said anything and if they had, she could try to explain.

  Oh God, how would she explain this? And what could her mother do besides maybe find a place for Deidre to hide? Which, she told herself, she already had. Here in the bowels of the city with a man made of fire and his little band of terrorists.

  Not to mention the escaped witches who weren’t talking, just huddling together in a corner of the room.

  She half ran to keep up with Finn’s long strides and didn’t complain because frankly, she didn’t want to risk being enveloped by fire again. Down the tunnel, a right turn, a left, another right. Candles were lit here, too, but she sensed that she and Finn were all alone in this section. Great.

  When he finally tugged her into another chamber and released his grip on her, she rubbed at her elbow and sent him a furious look. “Might have been easier to just club me over the head and drag me behind you.”

  “I considered it.”

  “No surprise there.” Well, she thought, except for the room. It was bigger than the one they’d just left. Nicer, too. The ceiling was higher and there were crystals embedded in the rock walls. Finn waved his hand and torches hung from brass brackets around the room leaped into life, flames blazing, sending shards of light dancing from the hearts of the crystals.

  Like prisms, they created slashes of color that moved around the room in rhythm with the dancing firelight. There was a huge bed in one corner, a table and chairs, and a screened-off alcove that led . . . she didn’t know where. Not bad for camping out, she thought, though at that moment, she’d have given a lot for a hot shower.

  “No shower, sorry,” he said.

  She whipped around and stared at him. “Didn’t know I’d said that out loud.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Horrified, she looked at him. “Oh God, tell me you can’t read my mind.”

  “No, thank Belen,” he muttered. “Just your expression. There’s water in the far corner and towels. You can make do with those.”

  �
��Who’s Belen and why can’t I go home and take a shower?”

  “Belen is my god, the lover of your goddess, Danu.”

  Danu? Witches, men of fire, now gods and goddesses. It was all too much. Deidre’s head felt like it was about to explode and when it did, it wouldn’t be pretty. “She’s not my goddess. I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Yes, you have,” he said with tired patience. “You’ve just forgotten.”

  Deidre nodded. “Right. Like I forgot you. And centuries of lifetimes.”

  “Exactly.”

  She lifted both hands and would have covered her ears, but stopped when she remembered the dried blood on her palms. Her friend’s blood. She stared at the dried brown stains, took a breath and let it shudder from her lungs. Her stomach lurched and her vision blurred. “I have to wash up.”

  “Come on. Take a breath. No fainting.”

  “I don’t faint.”

  “You look pale enough to keel over,” he said as he led her across the room to the screened-off area. There was a wide basin cut out of a stone ledge. Several towels were folded neatly and stacked beside the basin. Above it, a pipe hung from the rock ceiling. The pipe was capped and pushed high and out of the way. As she watched, Finn pulled the pipe down, aimed it at the basin, removed the cap and fresh water poured out. When the makeshift sink was full, he recapped the pipe and pushed it higher again.

  “I tapped into the city’s water supply for the washroom.” He nodded his head, indicating another cutaway in the stone. Deidre peeked around the edge and found what was probably a close relation to medieval garderobes.

  “Really?” she asked nodding at it.

  He smiled. “You’d prefer a bucket?”

  “No, I’d prefer a room at the Ritz.”

  He shrugged. “Not happening. Here. Let me help you.”

  She pulled away from him and knew she sounded sulky when she snapped, “I don’t need help. I’m not a child.”