She pouted, throwing Kaia back against the porch rail roughly before moving close to him. The one thing she remembered, the one thing she had to remember, was that Odessa never showed fear to Braen. It was what infuriated him and attracted him to her. She sidled up warmly to his body, closing her eyes for a moment and envisioning Hunter to make her body behave realistically. She needed to calm him. There was too much emotion swirling around her. She couldn’t raise walls and maintain an illusion at the same time, so she was left open to it. A nosebleed or anything like it would ruin everything.
“You promised,” she purred against his ear. “You said I could hold her down for you. You said I could make her beg for you.”
“True,” he relented, his body posture still stiff. “But Dess, I’ve been waiting. My cock aches for it.” He reached between their bodies to rub himself through his fly.
“It won’t take long, lover. I promise.”
“Then come inside,” he invited, opening the door and grabbing for Kaia on one side as Tatyana took her on the other.
It was the only way to pass across the wards. To be invited or taken across by the caster or a dweller within the wards. She and Kaia walked into the house of their enemy. She found it to be cavernous and echoing, a crude expression of wealth, as though he had no time for details. His greed obviously ran toward other types of riches rather than those decorating his home.
This would be tricky. She wasn’t sure of the floor plan, the others who might live there, and where things were located. She had been intensely focused on Odessa’s personality and her relationship with Braen when she had invaded the other woman’s mind in preparation for this moment. Luck was with her, though, and she spied a wet bar in the corner on one side of the huge room. She threw Kaia down onto a couch and strutted across the room. She felt the Healer’s fear spike off the charts when Braen took the opportunity to toy with her hair.
“What would you like?” she asked, hoping he was specific.
“I think some whiskey. Would you like some too, witch?” he whispered loudly against Kaia’s ear. “A little liquid courage for you before ... well, before.” He chuckled at his ominous vagueness. He reached down and stroked a hand over Kaia’s denim-clad backside. “God, I love a big ass. Dess, you know I adore you but you have such a miniature behind. This is some serious ass on here. Good for the grabbing, better for the fucking.”
“Now, now, you promised,” Tatyana scolded as she hurried back with their drinks.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t touch,” he shot back. He took the glass she handed him and downed the double shot in a single swallow. He slammed the glass down on an end table and turned his avaricious attention back onto Kaia. “We should bathe it,” he remarked. “I hate to wash away that lovely smell of fear, but I think of all this dark skin under soap and water and I just start to ache.”
“What a fabulous idea,” she agreed as he reached for her and drew her down into his lap. He shifted so he could take her hips in hand and rub his prominent erection against her bottom.
This was too much. For both of them. Tatyana had to draw the line and pray that she had done enough. She reached out when Braen buried his face against her neck. His hands were traveling up toward her breasts. Tatyana grabbed the gag from Kaia’s mouth and the Healer witch sucked in a breath before burning precious magic to cast a powerful unlocking spell. The ropes binding her fell from her body and both she and Tatyana lurched to their feet and faced Braen.
In one hand, Tatyana held the glass with her drink in it; in the other she held one of Annali’s potion bottles. She threw it down on the ground just as Braen was struggling to get up in a fit of outrage. She grabbed Kaia, who was stiff from her bonds, and they dove behind a couch.
Braen was already done casting before the potion exploded under his feet. Out of nowhere strands of webbing appeared, flinging themselves over the two women. At first it was a light annoyance, but quickly it began to cling and suffocate, restricting their movement. Just when they thought they were going to be cocooned to death, the effect of the spell vanished, the webbing dissolving all around them.
“He’s out,” Kaia breathed with relief. “That stuff you put in his drink did the trick ... along with the blast. Thank the Goddess.”
“Braen! What is going on down here!”
A beautiful older woman, the perfect picture of a tragic heroine with her black hair falling free down her back and a white gown that swept across the floor, rushed down the stairs. She was porcelain pale and had wide blue eyes. She might have seemed much younger if her face looked as if she had ever smiled.
“Odessa! What has happened here?” the warlock demanded. She reached the landing and turned to see Kaia. She pointed at her with regal disgust. “You! You are white!”
“Well, there’s some irony for you,” Kaia said dryly, making Tatyana snicker.
The woman heard her and narrowed her eyes on Tatyana. “You are not my daughter! Pretender! Where is my child?”
The rage that tore through her caused all the doors to explode open and violent winds to whip into the house. The woman raised her hands and seemed to force the winds to attack the two white witches invading her home.
“Weather witch!” Kaia cried.
“Go to the back door! I’ll get the front!”
The women split apart, running against the violent hurricane force of the wind, dodging furniture and objects that flew at them. Tatyana felt as if she was at ground zero inside her head as well as outside her buffeting body. The pure wrath of Odessa’s mother, combined with Kaia’s fear and the uproar of a rousing clan of warlocks all around her made her feel as though her head were going to explode.
Tatyana had no choice but to fight through all of it. She reached the front door and forced herself against the wall so the sudden shift in the wind couldn’t drive her out of the door, defeating everything she had worked for. She thrust her arm through the door, her head ringing with wind shear and an emotional tempest. When she felt a warm, masculine hand clasp her forearm, she nearly sobbed with relief. She pulled, trying to drag him in even as he fought to enter. He couldn’t cast through the wards until she helped him across them. The minute Hunter forced himself over the threshold, he let go of Tatyana and gestured forward with his fist, his shouted Romany stolen away by the furious winds. Everything flying toward them changed direction like metal to an electromagnet, targeting the Weather witch. She screamed as she was bludgeoned.
A stone paperweight slammed into the warlock’s forehead and in an instant everyone was falling to the floor as the windstorm died. They all lay there gasping for breath. Tatyana, Hunter, Kaia, and Nox, whom Kaia had admitted through the back door. Adaliah was out cold, and so was Braen.
Hunter recovered quickly, knowing they were still on a property with well over forty active warlocks on it of varying skill and power. Ryce and Dimitre wouldn’t be able to hold them off forever and they needed help. But first...
The Sentinel gained his feet, seeking the one and only target that was his responsibility in this offensive. He was covered by debris, sprawled on the floor like a drunkard. Disgust tore through Hunter as he grabbed his foul excuse for a brother up by his clothes and threw him onto a sofa.
Tatyana watched Hunter close in again on Braen, his body gleaming with reflections as the decorative blades on his biceps and hips caught the sunlight pouring in through windows broken by the wind. In an instant a blade was out of its sheath and flashing with blinding light as Hunter grabbed his brother by the hair and poised to strike.
Suddenly Tatyana felt emotion exploding through her head, thoughts rapidly following. The conflict in Hunter was brutal and noisy, a screaming match of emotional frenzy. He despised Braen and all that he stood for. He hated his brother because he was a symbol of all that was tainted within himself. He was proof of the evil of the genetics of his family. He was horrified every time he realized that he, too, would have been on this path, were it not for Ryce. He was terrified when he thought about the pote
ntial evil Braen or he could pass on to another generation.
For these reasons and a thousand other egregious sins, he knew Braen must die. It was justice. Justice for Annali and Gracie and Tatyana ... for every woman Braen had violated over all the many years of his sexual maturity, including the ones currently locked away somewhere as his familiars. They could be free only if he were dead. This was Hunter’s duty. This was his birthright.
So why did his blade hesitate at his brother’s throat? It was as though something black and restless was crouched eagerly inside of him, waiting for him to commit this act. Brother murdering brother, a sin as old as creation. It was as though he knew he was flirting with darkness, and the good inside of him screamed in warning.
Hunter pulled back, gasping for breath and grinding out a sound of frustration. He held Braen down by his throat, the scar he had given him glaring up at him and reminding him of how it had felt those weeks after he had done it. More conflict, half of himself glad he had done it, the other half distraught over that sense of pleasure he’d gotten from it. Then it had been saving an innocent young woman, this time ... this time Braen was defenseless and not even conscious.
He knew Ryce needed him. His duty, everything he was, stood beside his Priest, acting as his magical second, stepping up should Ryce fall and need him.
Hunter was so blinded by his inner turmoil that it wasn’t until he felt wet droplets on his hand and focused on the heavy crimson color that he realized Tatyana had come up behind him and was leaning over his shoulder. Her hand reached for the wrist pinning Braen down. It was the lightest touch, but immediately caused him to loosen his grip and sit back. He looked up at her, seeing her painted and dressed up like Odessa, but with her own face and hair now. With her own blood running rapidly out of her nose.
“Tat!” he ground out, his fingertips reaching to swipe away the rivulets of blood.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered as she leaned forward over Braen to kiss Hunter on the corner of his mouth. He was baffled by her actions right up until he felt her body jerk hard and heard a very familiar crunch of sound.
The sound of a blade pushing through flesh, cartilage, and bone.
“Tatyana!”
He grabbed her by both arms and jerked her away, revealing his brother beneath them on the couch with one of Hunter’s own athamés plunged through his throat, and Tatyana’s inexperienced hands clenched around the handle as her victim’s blood welled up over her fingers. It was a killing blow, except it wasn’t an immediate one. She could hear Braen struggling for breath, drowning in his own blood, and Hunter knew it. He saw her look down at what she had done, watching it resolutely. When Braen finally fell still and silent, she turned up glowing eyes of jade to him.
“It’s over,” she whispered.
Then jade disappeared as her eyes rolled back and her entire body collapsed in his hold. Hunter fell to the floor with her, trying to make himself react in those few heartbeats before she started to seize violently.
“KAIA!” He screamed the witch’s name as though Armageddon had fallen upon the earth and the end of all things was imminent. Hunter realized that if anything happened to Tatyana, his world would come to a crashing end. Nothing else would matter to him.
He grabbed up her hand and held it tightly, ignoring his brother’s blood smearing between their palms, as Kaia came scrambling over the floor to them. The witch laid her hands on Tatyana’s thrashing head and closed her eyes, trying to focus in the madness of bodily circuitry gone wild.
They were both abruptly distracted when a series of explosions began to take place outside.
Kaia turned sharply to Hunter. “You leave her with me! Ryce needs you!”
Hunter couldn’t even speak the denial, just shook his head as he looked down and saw blood leaking from Tatyana’s ears.
“Hunter, listen to me. I can’t heal her until you leave! Your emotions affect her too strongly. The emotions of the others in battle make it worse. The sooner you end all of this, the better her chance of surviving! You have to go!”
“Blessed Lady, Mother of all, please—” Hunter found the voice to pray at last. “Please keep her safe. Keep her with me.”
Now that Kaia had put the need for him to take action into acceptable terms, Hunter all but tripped over his own feet to get away from Tatyana. He ran for the door with a war cry building in his throat and plunged himself into the pitched battle between Belladonna and Willow Covens.
Chapter Twenty-one
Tatyana opened her eyes with a light flutter of lashes, the darkness of the room startling her at first because for some reason she had expected it to be sunny. Sunny like it had been ...
She gasped softly, recalling the offensive against Belladonna Coven. A moment of pure fear raced through her from not knowing who had prevailed; the darkness of the room was suddenly a prison. Or potentially a prison. Panicking, she jolted upright and flung out her hands. The bedding, the shadows around her, it was all just ghostly lumps that could be anything or anyone.
Until her hand touched warm, bare skin stretched over hard muscle. In an instant all of her other senses unlocked, allowing scent and sound and sensation to wash over her.
Hunter.
She knew the feel and smell of him better than she knew herself, it seemed. His mind was quiet, lost in the ether of his dreams. She ran her hands over him to assure herself that he was okay. She found small bandages over his right shoulder blade, his right forearm, and on the small of his back. The wounds indicated he’d been caught from behind at some point. Distressed by this, but so glad he was alive and well, she leaned over and kissed his bare back.
“Thank God,” she whispered, sighing with relief. So much relief that tears stung her eyes.
As if on cue, Hunter jerked awake. He turned beneath her, reaching to draw her down on to him, welcoming her hug with one of his own. He loved the way she hugged. She threw her whole body and soul into it, giving affection he had never realized he craved so much. Then again, he craved everything about her.
Tatyana was on the verge of tears as she all but throttled him with the squeeze of her arms. She wasn’t a big crier, but something about him just made her speechless with the urge to do so. In this case she thought it was relief to see him safe, but she was also beginning to realize that in all cases there was something far deeper lying beneath the surface reasons. She buried her face against his strong neck, breathing him in and fighting with her emotions.
“Do you think”—she gasped softly—“would you think I am childish if I asked you if you believed in love at first sight?”
“A week ago, I would have,” he confessed in a voice still roughened with sleep.
The distinction he made had her suddenly feeling like she was soaring inside. Now she was tearing up for whole new reasons.
“But not anymore?” she asked, drawing back so she could see his beautiful eyes. It was too dark to make out their brilliant color, but they were no less beautiful to her.
“No. Not now. Now I would have to say I am a powerful advocate for it.” Hunter reached out and pushed a hand through her hair, inspecting her face very carefully. “How do you feel?”
“Light as a feather,” she breathed, reaching for him with her mouth. She felt as though she hadn’t kissed him for a lifetime. He must have felt the same because his arms drew her even tighter against his body as he made slow and heated work of their kiss. When he broke off, she thought to ask him, “Is everyone else safe? Dimitre?”
“Fine. Nothing Kaia can’t heal over a few days’ time. We’re bursting at the seams with recovering familiars at the moment, but otherwise everything is as it was.”
“Tell me what happened,” she begged him. “The last thing I remember ...”
They both realized the last thing she remembered and Hunter hushed her softly as he kissed her forehead.
“First, tell me why you did what you did,” he demanded.
“Because you couldn’t. To you he was
always going to be a brother. I felt the war inside of you. I knew which side would win. You would have killed him because that is what you had to do in the name of good, but ... you would have paid for it heavily in conscience. He couldn’t be dismissed as just another warlock, just another source of evil. To you, it was murder. Fratricide. It was beyond good and evil. To me... to me it was just good and evil. Witch versus warlock. I had no such conflict. If Dimitre suddenly turned into this Darth Vader type witch, I could never kill him.” She shuddered at the thought. “It was just better the way it happened.”
“You’ve never killed anyone before. I’m just worried...”
“Oh, don’t be,” she said with a snort. “First of all, after what he did to me and so many others? It was a relief to do it. Second of all, the worrying thing is Dimitre’s job. He’ll get jealous, there’ll be all this machismo again, next thing I know you’ll be arm-wrestling and male-bonding ...” She shuddered dramatically.
“Shut up,” he chuckled, rolling over until she was lying beneath him. He dipped down to the irreverent grin on her lips, lightly kissing them closed until they both lost sight of everything except the feel of one another as lighthearted affection turned into deepening passion.
Hunter shifted his body over her, redistributing his weight for her comfort and also to allow her the freedom to wrap her arms and legs around him, which she promptly took advantage of. He sighed against her mouth in pleasure at her grasping limbs and mobile hands as they slid over him. After a long chain of kisses that singed his skin, she cupped his face and drew him away from her so she could look at him.
Tatyana brushed her hand through those charming spikes of black hair hanging over his forehead. “Is it all over?” she asked him softly. “Really? Braen and that horrible place of evil?”
“It’s all over. For now. There will always be others.”
“Well, hopefully not until after I am an aunt again,” she laughed softly.
“You know about that?” he asked with momentary surprise. But he was rolling his eyes even before she gave him a look. “Right. Telepath. Empath. A.k.a. big fat busybody.”
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