Styx cautiously moved to stand at their side, leaving enough space not to set off Roke’s possessive fury. No doubt he sensed that Roke was on a hair trigger. Or maybe it was his bared fangs that gave it away.
“Tell me what happened,” he said to Sally.
She gave another shiver and Roke tightened his arms around her, his head lifting to watch his Anasso with a feral warning.
“That creature—”
“Gaius?” Styx asked.
Sally nodded. “Yes, although it wasn’t really him. He was being controlled by something inside him.”
Styx glanced toward the safe just visible through the jagged hole in the wall. “He brought you here to get the book?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It can harm him.”
Roke glanced down at her in surprise. “A book?”
She grimaced. “That or the magic in the book.”
Styx matched her grimace, shifting uneasily. Roke sympathized with his king. Any vampire would rather fight an entire tribe of trolls bare-handed than deal with magic.
“Why you?” Styx abruptly asked.
Sally blinked. “Me?”
“Why did he go to the trouble of kidnapping you if all he needed was a witch?” The towering warrior clarified. “He had to know it would alert us to his presence here.”
She hesitated, sending a covert glance toward Roke before she returned her attention to the Anasso.
“Because the spell is bound to my soul,” she at last revealed.
“Shit,” Roke snarled, a sharp fear spearing through him. He might be clueless when it came to magic, but he knew that having Sally’s soul bound to a spell was a very bad thing.
Dammit, why had he ever brought her to this warehouse? He should’ve had the sense to return her to Styx’s lair the second he realized he was susceptible to her magic.
Now . . . He swallowed a curse.
No. As eager as he might be to blame himself, he knew fate well enough to realize that if it intended Sally to be reunited with the book, there was nothing he could do to stop the inevitable.
But that didn’t make him any happier.
His dark thoughts were interrupted as Styx stepped toward the hole in the wall, his brows drawn together. “Sorcery?”
“Yes. I’m the last surviving heir.” She bit her bottom lip, the scent of her lingering terror making Roke twitch with the need to rip the spirit into painful pieces. Several painful pieces. “If he can kill me, then he can destroy the book.”
“No one’s killing you,” Roke snapped.
She flashed him a weak smile. “That was my hope.”
Their gazes locked. His filled with a bleak promise of protection; hers filled with a rueful regret.
“Why can this book hurt the spirit?” Styx intruded into their silent exchange.
Sally shrugged. “I won’t know until I manage to unravel the threads of sorcery protecting it.”
Roke went rigid. “No.”
“Roke.” She firmly pulled out of his arms, her chin set to a militant angle. “We have to find out what’s in that book.”
His hands clenched as he brutally squashed the need to jerk her back into the safety of his arms. Instead he turned his head to glare at his king. “And if this is a trick?”
Styx arched a dark brow. “What kind of trick?”
“Maybe the damned spirit pretended the book could harm him just so we would do everything in our powers to destroy the magic that guards it.”
“No.” Sally gave a shake of her head, her nose wrinkling. “There was no doubt it was being affected by its proximity to the book. It was rotting from the inside out.”
Roke folded his arms over his chest, his stance warning he was a male about to dig in his heels. “All the more reason to leave it alone until we know more about it.”
“Under any other circumstances I would agree with you, amigo,” Styx said, a hint of compassion on his face. “But in this case, neither of us is in a position to make a reasoned decision.” He nodded toward Sally. “Only our expert can decide what’s best.”She widened her eyes in faux shock. “You mean I’m allowed to have my very own opinion? Amazing.”
“Sally . . .” Roke began.
“I have to do this,” the stubborn witch interrupted him before he could even state his case.
He scowled. “Why?”
She lifted her hands in seething frustration. “Because there’s a creature out there who claims to be the god of vampires and is convinced that his survival depends on my death. I’d rather get him instead of waiting around for him to get me.”
“A good offense is truly the best defense, Roke,” Styx said in tones that were clearly intended to be soothing.
Roke, however, was in no mood to be soothed. He was mad as hell at a fate that would force him into an unwanted mating (with a witch, for god’s sake) and then once his most possessive instincts were fully committed, threaten to take her away.
“And if it was Darcy?” he accused him.
Styx rolled his eyes. “By now you should know that my mate charges into danger with nerve-shattering regularity.”
Roke couldn’t argue. The tiny pure-blooded Were was as irrationally stubborn and uncontrollable as Sally.
As if to rub salt in a very tender wound, Sally narrowed her eyes, the scent of peaches filling the air. “This is my decision, no one else’s.”
“Dammit.” He squashed a wry laugh as he met her warning glare. He’d been so smugly certain he would be able to choose a submissive, easily trainable mate who would always understand that the duties of his clan came first. What he had instead . . . His heart gave a dangerous twist, something far more potent than a forced mating tingling through his blood. “What are you going to do?” he roughly demanded.
She turned to pace toward the gap in the wall, her hand stroking at the edges of the hole, as if testing the invisible spell.
“Sorcery is similar to magic,” she said slowly, averting her face as if she could hide her uncertainty behind the satin curtain of autumn hair. “But the spells aren’t connected to a specific incantation or brew or sacrifice.”
“It’s connected to you,” he said in flat tones.
“Yes.”
He took a step forward, his hands still clenched. “Which means?”
“That I should be able to peel back the layers of magic like an onion.”
“Should be able to?”
She turned to meet his smoldering glare. “What do you want me to say? I’ve never tried to break through sorcery before.” She gave a restless lift of her shoulder. “To be honest, I didn’t even believe it truly existed.” Sally then proceeded to tell Roke and Styx the rest of what had occurred in the warehouse before they had broken in as Santiago had asked her to.
“God almighty,” he growled, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth threatened to shatter. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
Without warning her expression hardened, her hands landing on her hips. “No. That’s one thing I won’t be,” she informed him. “I need everyone to leave before I start—”
He was standing in front of her, wrapping his fingers around her upper arms in an unbreakable grip before she could even blink.
“Forget it.”
“Don’t be so stubborn, Roke,” she muttered, pretending she wasn’t unnerved by his inhuman speed. “If the book could hurt the spirit, then there’s a good chance it can hurt all vampires.”
“Santiago looked unharmed before he disappeared,” he reminded her. Not that he would have left even if Santiago had matched his decomposing companion.
At least not without this female.
Her lips thinned in annoyance. “I can’t concentrate with you breathing down my neck.”
“I don’t breathe.”
“But—”
“No.”
“You might as well give it up,” Styx drawled as he moved to stand beside them. “I recognize that expression. You’d have better luck arguing with that brick wall.”
Her lips parted to continue the quarrel, then catching the determination etched onto Roke’s face, she heaved a resigned sigh. “Fine,” she grudgingly conceded. “But don’t bitch at me when things go to hell.”
His hand lifted to tuck her hair behind her ear, his touch gentle. “Then we’ll go there together.”
Beyond the Veil
Nefri had never been truly defenseless.
She’d been used, abused, vulnerable, and on occasion, so out of control she’d become no less lethal than a nuclear bomb.
But she’d always had her powers. Which meant she’d never truly known the terror of being at the absolute mercy of another creature.
Now she blinked as she glanced around the empty marble building with fluted columns, and a domed roof that was painted to resemble the blue skies no vampire had ever seen. Below her feet was a delicate mosaic and in the center of the building was a fountain that was surrounded by marble nymphs dancing in the spray of water.