At the top of the stairs, more destruction abounded. Furniture tumbled about and smashed into pieces like match-sticks. Charred walls and floor. And the smell … Something sickly sweet assaulted her nose.
They entered the hallway. Every door was closed, and Ice put his hand on the first door’s latch. Sabelle’s stomach clenched as she stood behind his broad back. He swept the door open.
“Oh God!” Ice bellowed before slamming the door.
He sounded like he might be sick. Still, he pushed her away from the door and tried to force her down the stairs. But she was faster. Shutting her out so that she didn’t know just how ruthless an enemy they fought wasn’t an option.
She ducked under Ice’s tattooed arm and opened the door again. The odor assaulted her first. Terror and blood and death. In the middle of the room huddled a group of corpses, frozen in death. Men staked with knifes to the walls, bleeding at wrists, ankles, and neck. The women all naked, wrists bound, branded with Mathias’s symbol on their red, bare mounds. Blood oozed between their thighs. Even more tragic were the children in a circle, dangling by their crooked necks from ropes knotted to the rafters above.
Sabelle slapped a hand over her mouth. There was the strapping manservant who had always helped Sabelle with her luggage and his wife, their two children. The maid, the cook, the butler and his son. Humans, all of them. Now dead for a cause they knew nothing about.
Ice grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her into the hall, shutting the door behind him. “When I push you away, witch, it’s for a reason.”
Through tear-blurred eyes, she looked at him. Fear set in, so cold and absolute, like a hard knot in her belly, she shivered. “I had to know. I can’t hide from reality. None of us can.”
His shoulders tensed, and frustration flashed across his harsh features. “No one doubts your bravery.”
“Then stop acting as if you do. This is terrible and wretched and the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life, but we have to move forward. MacKinnett . . .”
She couldn’t finish that sentence, and Ice didn’t force the issue. “Let’s find him.”
Her teeth chattered, and she wrapped her arms around herself. Swearing, Ice grabbed her hand again, squeezing it, bringing her near. His heat warmed her almost instantly, and again she was incredibly grateful for his presence. For him. Bram would have immediately ordered her away from this horrific scene. Marrok, Duke, Lucan—all like overprotective brothers. Shock and Tynan … the first would look out for himself, and the latter she didn’t know well enough to trust. But Ice, he let her participate, help, even if reluctantly. Again, it struck her that in the middle of madness, he was the one sane person she could rely on.
Leading her to the next door, Ice tensed as he approached. No sounds, no stirring of life. Just the sickening smell of death and fire.
Behind the second door, they found nothing but destruction. Furniture, pictures, pottery, draperies—all smashed, fractured, shredded. But thankfully, no more bodies.
Behind a third door and a fourth, the same. They’d reached the end of the hall.
Which left only the cellar.
“Is it possible he escaped?” Ice asked.
“MacKinnett had human connections through his late mate. He wasn’t the sort of wizard to leave his wife’s human companions to suffer their deaths alone. I want to think, for magickind’s sake, that perhaps he got away. But . . .”
Ice drew her cold frame against him, clasping his fingers in her hair, soothing her with his palm. Again, she felt oddly comforted merely with his presence.
“Let’s check the cellar, then.”
She didn’t want to, God knew. It was likely to be a chamber of horrors. But she had to be strong. Magickind needed heroes. That had always been Bram’s role. Without him, she and Ice would have to do.
Silently, they trekked down the stairs, back to the foyer, then to the kitchen. This room, too, lay in shambles. Pans littered the floor. Flour scattered over every surface of the counters and stove. An apron tossed over a lamp … and the rest of a cook’s clothes scattered across the counters. The Anarki had rigged ropes at each corner of the nook’s table. Blood darkened one side of the ropes, and Sabelle could almost hear the screams still echoing.
A little boy’s toy truck lay under the table in a pool of blood.
She looked away, shuddering, fighting tears. Ice drew her closer, kissed her cheek. “Go back to the car, check Bram.”
Bless him, Ice was trying to spare her the horror to come. Shaking her head, she dug down for strength, refusing to give in to fear. She would not leave magickind without hope. She would not stop fighting.
“Let’s go to the cellar.” When Ice opened his mouth to argue, Sabelle pleaded, “Please. I need to do this.”
Clenching his jaw and no doubt holding in a curse, he nodded and opened the door that led down to a dark, windowless cavern.
And opened the door immediately to the scents of charred flesh, blood, and hell. A shiver shot through her again, and Sabelle took a deep breath to ward it off.
“Stay here,” Ice barked.
“If you go, I follow. Do you see a light?”
With a grim shake of his head, he started down the dark steps into the utterly black room. Hands on the hard ridges of his shoulders, Sabelle followed, her legs so weak and shivery beneath her that she feared tumbling down the stairs. But she pushed on.
At the bottom, she groped the nearby wall for a switch. He did the same. A moment later, artificial light flooded the room, glaring and stark. And Sabelle screamed.
Inches from them Thomas MacKinnett had been stretched across a makeshift grate, his wand broken and his body set aflame—burned away to ashes. They’d stopped the fire halfway up his torso. His mouth gaped open in a horrific scream. His eyes bulged wide as he witnessed the last terrible moments of his life.
MacKinnett’s death proved in the ugliest, most tangible manner that Anka hadn’t been lying. Whatever her association with Shock, and his with Mathias, Lucan’s former mate had been telling the truth. Mathias truly planned to put himself in a Council seat.
God help them.
CHAPTER SIX
A QUARTER HOUR LATER, Ice and Sabelle sat inside the manor’s old coach house, which squatted on a parcel of winter-dried grass behind the manor and had been converted to guest quarters. These rooms were, thankfully, undisturbed. Ice pressed a cup of water into her cold hands, then sat across the table, his big body and larger presence taking up most of the narrow, quaint room.
Since she completed spells to keep Bram hydrated and his body functioning properly, shadows draped her brother as he lay on the sofa. Here, it felt peaceful, quiet except for the softly falling rain. The appearance of serenity was both temporary and a lie. Sabelle shivered as flashes of senseless murder and spilled blood tattooed her mind.
“We can’t stay here,” she said. “We need to warn the other Councilmen, then flee.”
Braced on his elbows, Ice leaned on the table, shoulders bulging and wide. “No. We should stay.”
Was he mad? “The Anarki can invade this place and do … terrible things,” she choked. “As they already have. And they’d take the diary, besides. Why would we stay in harm’s way?”
“Precisely because they have already been and think their mayhem here is done. They’ve no need to return.”
After a pause, she realized he was right. As much as Sabelle wanted distance between herself and the house of horrors just outside, where a man she’d been fond of and his servants had all been slaughtered painfully and viciously, she knew better. Why would the Anarki return here when they’d been so recently and completed their terrible task so effectively?
“All right. But we stay here in the coach house. I won’t sleep in the manor.”
Ice paused, frowned, then reached across the table for her hand. His warmth embraced her chilled fingers and she was absurdly grateful for his support. Sabelle hadn’t realized how badly she needed it. But somehow, he’d known.
“I wouldn’t ask that of you,” he assured. “We’ll stay in the coach house. I’ll keep watch.”
“You need sleep as well.”
He hesitated. “There is only one bed.”
Sabelle’s gaze flitted to it, a cozy cherry wood tester bed trimmed in gauzy curtains and piled with comfortable quilts. A bed designed and outfitted for romance. She imagined Ice’s body next to hers, hard and dusted in hair where she was soft and smooth, putting off heat like a broiling oven. Her pulse jumped. Very bad thoughts, indeed.
Hiding a wince, she turned back to the warrior. She’d offer the sofa to Ice, but Bram was draped over it limply, his condition unchanged. “We’ll manage.”
Ice closed his eyes. Looked down. Swallowed. When his gaze bounced up to hers again, fire flared. Transfixed, she stared.
“Princess, if we share that bed, neither of us will get any sleep. All night.”
She sucked in a breath as a hot ache balled in her stomach. Worse, the feeling was beginning to sink down and settle right between her thighs. She could only imagine the nuclear reactor sort of energy she and Ice would generate, the blistering pleasure. His intimated offer was so tempting. He was so tempting. An utter puzzle, hard one minute, tender the next, alternately kind, possessive, insistent, infuriating. He enthralled her.
God, she was a fool. If she spoke the Binding and became his mate, the Privileged would be devastated, her brother sick, her famous grandfather, Merlin, turning over in his grave . . .
Ice wanted her. Not for a tumble, but forever. His actions seemed to match, but always that voice in the back of Sabelle’s head reminded her how much he and Bram hated each other. What would he be willing to do to cause her brother serious pain? How far would he go?
She had no answers.
“I don’t think that’s wise,” she said finally.
He released her hand, eased back in his chair, eyes unreadable. “of course not.”
What did he mean by that? Sabelle frowned and wanted to ask, but it was pointless, really. These few days alone with him were some page out of time, never occurred before and never would again. Eventually, perhaps when she was less worried for Bram and they weren’t running for their lives and focused on saving magickind, she would find the will to Renounce Ice. Until then, what point was there in building their relationship?
None.
“We should focus on reaching the other Councilmen, warning them.”
“How?” he barked. “How do we do that without alerting the Anarki or their sympathizers that we’re here? We can’t tele-port without leaving the diary behind. I’ve seen no phone . . .”
“When any Councilman ascends, they are given a special transcast mirror for communication. It connects only with other such mirrors. This is not something many know, and they are always hidden.”
“I’d wondered why Mathias decimated the manor house, but if there’s a communication device … You think he sought that when he tore apart the house?”
“Likely.”
“We could search for MacKinnett’s.” Ice paused, then sighed. “How badly do we need it? Think about it, princess. Maybe we say nothing about MacKinnett’s fate or warn the others yet. Would it truly serve Mathias’s interest to kill other Council members just now?”
“They stand in his way. Why wouldn’t he want them all dead so he could he take over?”
“That’s likely his ultimate goal. But if the Council suddenly ceased to exist, Mathias could have an uprising on his hands, with the Doomsday Brethren still standing in his way. He’s evil, not daft. The more cunning approach is to start smaller, work his way up to power, then take action and fill the Council with like-minded puppets until he rules magickind with his iron fist.”
“Impossible. You know if a Council member passes to his nextlife and has no heir to claim his seat, the Council itself selects and elects its own members. I cannot imagine the current body voting Mathias to occupy MacKinnett’s vacant seat.”
“Unless Mathias has a Councilman in his back pocket.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Mathias must have a plan. I don’t think it likely that he would plot and murder to occupy a Council seat without a member willing to champion him and sway the rest to vote.”
Sabelle frowned. “Who would possibly do that?”
“You know better than I. Let’s talk about the Councilmen.”
“Well, clearly not Bram. Sterling MacTavish is Lucan and Caden’s uncle, and I’ve known that man my whole life. He would never aid Mathias. He lost friends during Mathias’s first terror. He’s also elderly and knows he no longer possesses the strength to fight.”
“So he continues to deny the bastard is back?” Ice asked, his tone razor sharp.
“Exactly. Clifden o’Shea, Tynan’s grandfather, is of the same ilk. Helmsley Camden has no issue, having never mated. Given that he waged a fierce political campaign against Mathias in the past, I’m hard-pressed to believe Camden would assist Mathias now.”