by Dee, Bonnie
But Donovan countered her, reciting a spell Brenna felt pricking across her skin, and their energy met, clashing in the middle of the room, filling the small space with a force so palpable it was almost visible.
Mark stood frozen off to the side, and Brenna knew there’d be no help from him.
As Donovan and Jenalee continued flinging words and energy at each other, Brenna did the only thing she could think of—something physical.
She sprinted forward, covering the power-charged living room in seconds and threw a roundhouse punch straight at Jenalee’s perfect face. Her blow landed, and she felt the sickening crunch of cartilage under her fist as the Destroyer’s nose crumpled.
Jenalee shrieked and grabbed Brenna by the throat, lifting her off her feet in an impossible show of strength. Brenna choked as the Destroyer’s fingers dug into her neck, cutting off her breath. She kicked, punched, anything to lessen the Terran’s hold, using everything her brothers had ever taught her. Her blows landed, but had no effect. Black spots danced before her eyes, and she felt herself fading.
She barely heard Donovan’s roar of fury, and then she was flung down, collapsing into a boneless heap. She struggled to pull air into her lungs as Donovan roared in Gaelic … something warm rained down on her … coppery … thick … blood. Then she was being lifted, cradled in a pair of strong arms. She forced her eyes open to Donovan’s frantic murmurs of “Lhiannan, don’t leave me, lhiannan. Hang in there, baby. Please hang in there.”
“Fine,” she croaked, her throat raw with fledgling bruises. “Just need to get my breath. Put me down.”
Donovan set her on her feet gently, concern and barely muted rage contorting his handsome face.
She turned in his arms, gasping at the ruined body sprawled gracelessly on the carpet.
A great, gaping hole cratered Jenalee’s chest, revealing her weakly beating heart.
“What did you do?” Brenna’s stomach clenched, heaved at the combined smell of death and evil, and it took what little spirit she had left to keep from barfing.
“Nothing. Something. Hell… I used the deflection spell Claire taught me last night and it came back on her. She was trying to rip my heart out,” Donovan replied, his voice low and tortured. “The binding spell wasn’t working.”
But now it was, holding the Destroyer and Mark in thrall.
“Release them; she’s dying.”
“I know, but…”
“No buts. Maybe she’ll tell us something. Donovan, we need to know.” Her voice was hoarse, and speaking hurt like hell, but it had to be said. She knew the pain lancing through her body had to be miniscule to the agony of betrayal coursing through Donovan.
He wavered, so she poked him in the ribs with her elbow. Hard.
“All right.” His agreement was grudgingly, almost angrily given. He lifted the enchantment with a wave of his hand.
Mark stumbled forward, then pulled himself back, terror and revulsion clear on his face.
Brenna’s hand went to her throat as Jenalee began to speak.
“Fools,” she hissed through her pain, her eyes bright with agony and pure hate. “You have vanquished the evil you know, but you remain blind to who and what we really are. Your true nature won’t be enough, can never be enough. The Sorhineth will be ours, no matter what was Seen.” With those ominous, veiled words she was dead.
* * * *
“Jesus, Donovan.”
It was at least the fifth time Mark had uttered those particular words, and Donovan wanted to smack him. He was shocky as hell himself, and didn’t need someone whose loyalty was seriously in question annoying the crap out of him. Brenna was his biggest concern, closely followed by what the hell he was going to do with Jenalee’s body.
Her body. Pain knifed through him as he considered what he’d done to his best friend in order to save his woman. The fact Jenalee had tried to kill them both didn’t lessen the shame or agony one little bit. He’d never harmed a woman before, even in self-defense. Killing one was something he still couldn’t quite comprehend. And her treachery wasn’t just bitter, it gnawed at his confidence like a hungry rat. How could he have been so wrong? How could he not have seen through her deceit? Eighty-five years he’d spent with her, trusted her with his secrets, his insecurities, his victories, his nightmares. Over half a Terran lifetime of trust, of covering each other’s asses, of shared family meals, of hot, passionate sex. The utter betrayal of his friendship, of his love, raked at his heart, his soul.
And worse than all of those things was the remembered sight of her fingers digging into Brenna’s throat, the utter rage and bestiality it had brought out in him. The concept he could have lost his mate over something he had begun doused his feelings of betrayal like a cold dash of water. It was those emotions that had made him finally break.
“Enough already!” His voice snapped through the room. “I’m going to call Claire and get her over here now. She’s more in touch with KOTE than any of us.”
“And I need to talk to Terry.” Brenna’s voice was weary, cracked with emotion.
Donovan’s gut clenched. He should be the one handling this, not a brother three thousand miles away. It was yet another blow in a day fraught with them. But knowing Brenna, she had a reason. “Are you sure it’s wise?”
“We’re a family of Wardens first. His being a cop is secondary. He’ll know what to do.”
Yeah, she’d had a reason all right, but it rankled that she had the connections to make something happen, and not him. Apparently she could see his pique.
“We’ve been waiting for this for a long, long time. Even if we didn’t have the practical knowledge, did you think we hadn’t thought of what to do physically?”
“Facing down a Destroyer in my living room? No.”
That brought a strained smile. “No. Disposing of a body.”
Mark was finally able to find his voice for something other than whining. “What do you mean, disposing of a body? This is Jenalee! It’s not like she can just disappear and no one will notice.”
“Does anyone know you came back from Mexico?” Donovan made his voice dangerously low. He needed Mark with them on this, otherwise he’d have to… The concept didn’t bear finishing. He’d thought he was through with carnage and death when he’d left Cambodia. Thought he’d started a new life back in the City which wasn’t as ugly. Loma Prieta had changed that, and now the effect was snowballing.
Brenna spoke to her brother over the phone, glancing back and forth between him and Mark.
“No, no one knows but us,” Mark conceded, a glimmer of something resembling coherence starting to show.
“And Claire, in just a minute. Let’s keep it that way.” Donovan pressed on. He wanted, needed, to do something, anything. “I need to know who Jenalee was in contact with before she disappeared on you.”
Mark nodded, a short dip of his head. “No one in particular, just the usual folks, at least as far as I know.” He gulped reflexively, then mumbled, “Excuse me, I think I’m going to be…” He fled down the hallway into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
Donovan steeled himself and flicked a glance at Jenalee’s ruined body. He didn’t blame Mark one bit. He picked up Brenna’s mobile phone and dialed Claire.
“I’ve got a small problem here. I need you.”
“On my way.”
He disconnected and walked to Brenna, studiously avoiding the sight of Jenalee’s corpse again and the splatter of blood now decorating his living room.
His Warden looked at him through eyes much calmer than either his or Mark’s. Maybe growing up with four hellraising brothers had equipped her for this, but even that was a stretch.
“Gotcha, Terry. Thanks, and I’ll call you as soon as it’s done.” She cradled the phone. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this, but…” she waved her hand in the direction of Jenalee, “I was, um, scattered. He says we need to check the Sorhineth for something addressing stasis of some kind.”
�
��Terry said this? The cop.” Donovan tried to hold his incredulity at bay, but didn’t succeed. He could understand neither of them thinking of it, but Terry?
“Yeah, remember, engineering degree? Even if we couldn’t read the Sorhineth, he figured something would be in there addressing this … situation.”
He nodded. “Claire’s on her way. Now let me see your neck. Are you okay?”
She laughed, and it sounded brittle. Maybe she wasn’t taking this as well as she appeared.
“As okay as I can be.” Her hands crept to her throat, and he stepped forward, pulled them down and traced the deepening blue marks with his fingertips.
“Gods, Brenna, I’m so sorry.” His fingers coasted over her neck, her jaw, up to trace her cheekbones. He needed the feel of her skin to ensure she really was in one piece, that she’d survived Jenalee’s attack relatively unscathed.
She shuddered beneath his touch and stepped into his arms.
“Not your fault. She surprised us all.”
“I should have known, should have sensed it. Jesus, Brenna, I grew up with her, made love to her. How could I have missed it? Especially when I felt it as soon as she walked through the door.”
“Because she was damned good, that’s why.” Mark walked from the bathroom swiping a hand against his mouth. “She played us against each other for a long time, so when you decided to go haring off after the Sorhineth, I believed every word she said about it being a fool’s errand, and that you were losing it. She liked to pretend she could slip away, but I always knew where she went. The warning flags should have gone up when I couldn’t find her a few days ago, but they didn’t.”
“My biggest question is why Donovan didn’t sense her … I dunno … Destroyerness, at her apartment before. She was obviously adept at hiding it most of the time, but her place was so thick with it…”
“We never went to her place. Always one of ours or whatever hotel we happened to be staying at. Julian was the one who told us about her apartment being trashed…” Mark answered, his words trailing off as their implication hit him.
“Julian,” Donovan whispered, his voice gone icy with fury.
“Yeah.”
Mark’s tone was quiet, reflective, and downright deadly. If Donovan had any question before about his allegiance, it was gone now, and what a surge of relief it brought. Mark had been fooled just as completely as he had. He needed to have people, be they Terran or human, around him whom he trusted. And now he needed to extract from Julian what Donovan had been unable and unwilling to wrench from Jenalee.
“So it was her sanctuary, her safe place,” Brenna reflected.
Donovan knew she was far too perceptive to have missed their unspoken condemnation of Julian as a Destroyer at most, a pawn, at the least, so she must be ignoring it. Her next words confirmed it, as she attempted to console her fellow human.
“She must have bespelled you, Mark. That’s why looking at me hurts … her Destroyer magic doesn’t mesh well with the Sorhineth.” She paused as a new idea formed. “The Sorhineth. That how and why Donovan can feel the Destroyers now. It’s acting like a tuning fork, picking up vibrations of evil …whether they’re off Mark’s enchantment or off a Destroyer’s menace.”
“Shit, Donovan.” A new voice spoke, and they all spun to see Claire standing in the doorway, mouth open in shock. “What in the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
* * * *
Giving Claire the lowdown took less time than Donovan would have imagined. The young woman tapped her beringed fingers on the kitchen tabletop for long moments after he’d finished.
“She tried to kill Brenna?”
Donovan watched Brenna touch the bruises on her throat with trembling fingers and felt that blinding rage again. He pushed it down and answered as calmly as he could. “No doubt about it.”
“Then she obviously didn’t know she needed Brenna to read the Sorhineth.” When Donovan and Brenna began to speak, she raised her hand to stop them. “Like the Destroyers, it’s not common knowledge to the general Terran populace. Hell, I didn’t even know until last night. But there’s more to it than that. I need to think more. Something’s wrong.”
“You mean more wrong than my best friend lying out in the living room with her freakin’ heart showing? Oh, and the pretty damn sure likelihood one of my own men is a Destroyer as well?”
“Yeah, exactly that. Get me the Sorhineth. I’ll think on it while we figure out what in the hell to do with her. Ah, maybe it would be best if we got her out of your living room.”
Donovan pasted a stoic expression on his face. Taking care of Jenalee’s remains had to be their first priority. Julian’s treachery could wait … but not for long. “Mark, some help here?”
I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. Donovan looped his hands beneath Jenalee’s shoulders, lifting as Mark hoisted her legs. They backed into the spare room, placing her gently on the bed. Donovan closed her eyes with his fingertips, muttering a short prayer for her soul. Jenalee might have been the thing he most despised in death, but in life she’d been more than his best friend, she’d been a sweet reminder of an innocence he hadn’t felt since the World War II.
An hour later—sixty minutes where Donovan had nothing more to do than obsess about the sight of Jenalee’s fingers digging into Brenna’s throat—Claire gave a shout of triumph.
“Got it! It’s a stasis enchantment, one which gives us some time to figure out what to do, but will keep her body in the same condition, and better yet, hide it from prying eyes.”
“Then do it.” Donovan forced the words from his throat.
“Ah, you need to speak the incantation. It needs to come from a Protector.”
“Fine.” Donovan walked down the hallway, Claire at his side, Brenna and Mark a few paces behind. They stopped at the foot of the bed, each staring at Jenalee’s devastated body for a moment, quiet in their own thoughts.
“What are the words?”
Claire gave them to him, her voice quiet but strong. He repeated them, hands clasped before him. When the last word left his lips, Jenalee faded from their sight. As if in response to the spell, his key fob grew warm … again, like he’d invoked something within it. And as with everything on this strange and wondrous trek, it struck him as a portent of doing the right thing, no matter how hard it might be.
Brenna sighed, a soft sough of sound, then turned to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling his attention to her … only her.
“I’m sorry, Donovan. I know she meant a lot to you.”
He buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply. “Yeah, she did, but not as much as you do.”
She pulled back at that, her gaze darting to Mark and Claire before asking, “Huh?”
“I was scared to death back there.” He paused, wondering if this was the right time and place, and then figured, what the hell? “You asked me what lhiannan meant. It means beloved, Brenna. You’re my mate.”
*
Brenna stared at him in shock, warmth flooding through her even as her mind denied his words.
“That can’t be right. I’m not Terran, I’m human.” She shook her head furiously, heart pounding in counterpoint.
A small smile graced his lips. “Give it time, and you’ll see I’m right.”
“As much as I hate to break up this tender moment,” Claire interrupted wryly, “we’ve got some serious things to think about here.”
“Right.” Donovan brushed a tendril of hair away from Brenna’s face and stepped away. “Let’s get some coffee and we’ll figure out where we go from here.”
They filed out of the bedroom toward the kitchen. Brenna walked in a daze as she thought about his words, heard Jenalee’s when she’d said that Donovan shouldn’t have given his heart to her.
Mate? There was no way. But even as she thought it, she couldn’t help but revel in it the tiniest bit. It felt so right. Too right.
* * * *
“We need to hole up somewhere, at l
east for a few hours, just to figure out a plan.” It felt good to be taking control again, something Donovan needed on a level bordering on desperation.
“Why? Jenalee was the Destroyer, and I know exactly where to find Julian.” Mark had gone past shock and acceptance, and now his voice and attitude were bitter and vengeful.
“I have an idea what’s going on, but we need to get out of here.” Claire, on the other hand, was strong and positive of what she said.
“The Drake?” Mark looked to Donovan.
“Yeah, The Drake. Tony, the manager,” Donovan qualified for Brenna and Claire, “will hook us up … and Julian’s never been there.”
* * * *
“Are you sure this is safe?” Brenna asked as they pulled the Jag into the parking garage. She’d spent the majority of the drive over thinking of Donovan’s words and what, if anything, she should do about them. While she was perfectly happy in sexing the hell out of Donovan Callahan, she wasn’t looking for hearts and flowers, wedding bells and children. At least not right now. And certainly not with a Terran. No matter how much she’d revised her opinion of Donovan over the last few days after watching Jenalee’s death, she hadn’t made the same leap of faith when it came to Terrans in general. Death and destruction came too easily to them for her to stomach, even when it was forced … or deserved.
How in the hell was she supposed to address a statement so monumental as “You’re my mate”? She liked Donovan too much to tell him that all she wanted was a lot of between-the-sheets time. But she had to say something, didn’t she?
Donovan cut her musings short by answering her question. “Yeah. Tony knows us, will think we’re gonna be stashing Jenalee here at some point. We’ve done it before with her and some of our other clients. He understands the value of being quiet and won’t do anything to jeopardize us. As long as we lie low, we’ll be fine.”