“Still angry about Gailene?” Mathias taunted.
Ice ground his teeth so hard he swore they might turn to dust. But he refused to give Mathias the knowledge that his words were a stab in the heart. He remained silent.
“I sense you are. As you said so sincerely, ‘a thousand apologies.’ My actual purpose for this visit, I’m sure you know, is not ancient history, but the Doomsday Diary. Where is it? Which female has it?”
Ice stared straight ahead at the concrete wall and said nothing.
“You want me to guess? A game. How quaint. Let’s see … Olivia has experience with the book, and of course, a familial connection, being Morganna’s descendant. Her magic, once she transitions, will be very strong. The younger MacTavish’s tasty new treat is another possibility. Despite being human, she’s both sassy and strong. She’s clever enough to hide it. And then there is Bram Rion’s very elegant sister, Sabelle. She is quite one of the most beautiful females ever. I would very much enjoy having her bound to my bed.”
Biting the inside of his lip so hard he drew blood, Ice forced himself to remain silent. Anything he said in defense of Sabelle now, anything that made Mathias believe that Sa-belle had his heart, would only paint a target on her back.
“You’ve nothing to say?” Mathias prodded.
Ice closed his eyes, resolved that whatever the evil wizard said or did, he would not talk. He would not put his princess in further danger.
“Hmm.” Mathias sounded put out. “I understand from Zain that withholding oxygen made you pass out briefly, but did little to loosen your tongue. He advises me that he spent an hour nearly crushing your stones to get you to talk.”
Grimacing at the memory, Ice still kept quiet. His bloody stones still throbbed. Ice knew he would never get to repay the favor, but hoped another of the Doomsday Brethren would.
“You have remained very loyal in the face of immense pain. Pity you won’t reconsider your future.” Mathias paused, as if he hoped Ice would now plead for mercy. Then he sighed. “Unluckily for you, I can be quite good at extracting details from someone’s mind, and it isn’t very pleasant. My methods are especially effective once the subject has been weakened by pain. I advise that you tell me where the book is and which female is its guardian and spare yourself the difficulty.”
“Fuck off.”
“Determined to be defiant, I see. Must run in the family. It took a great deal of effort to hold Gailene down so I and the others could take my pleasure until her death.”
Ice tried to stop the mental image, but it came at him like a jet barreling down a runway. Gailene … so young, so innocent, her tiny form spread wide open for Mathias and his minions’ brutal pleasure and her utter pain. The regrets and recriminations Ice had lashed himself for the past two hundred years haunted him anew. Why hadn’t he seen, guessed, what would happen?
Still, he said nothing, refusing to give Mathias a new way to torture him.
Mathias crept closer. Ice knew from the brush of air at his back and the stench of evil. He tensed, bracing himself, certain the wizard had more torture in store.
Instead, Mathias whispered in his ear, “You will tell me how to get my hands on the Doomsday Diary. I have more ways to ply you with pain than you have stamina to resist. And I have patience. If you insist on being difficult, you should know I’ll very much enjoy breaking you.”
Ice didn’t doubt that Mathias could find limitless ways to cause him pain. But no matter what, Ice would never put Sabelle in this madman’s path. His own life was all but over. Sabelle … Magickind needed her, and Ice needed to know she lived on well and happily.
“Fuck off.”
“Let’s see how brave you are in, say, a half hour. I’ve found the most interesting human, with the most deliciously twisted mind. I tested this one on MacKinnett before I burned him. Such gratifying screaming. I’m hoping you’ll prove equally entertaining.”
With a snap of his fingers, the heavy metal door swung open on creaky hinges. More footsteps. Heavy ones. Whoever had just entered was bulky. And he dragged something light but solid on the ground. He’d find out what it was soon enough, but had no doubt it would prove excruciating. Humans relied on torture since they had no magical means to coerce cooperation.
“This one?” A rough male voice asked.
“Indeed. Spare no mercy,” the evil wizard went on. “He’s particularly troublesome.”
The newcomer said nothing, but simply laughed, the sound like gravel rattling in a metal cage.
In the next moment, Ice heard a whoosh, followed by the snap of a whip. Then a line of fire broke out across his back. Agony. In seconds, blood seeped from the wound and dripped down his back. He barely had time to assimilate the impact of the first blow before the second came, then the third. Sweat broke out all over his body, despite the freezing room. He bit the inside of his cheek to hold a scream in. But, oh God, he could feel the whip ripping through skin, tearing into muscle, seeking bone.
One breath at a time. Ice focused on drawing air in, out. He turned his thoughts to Sabelle, desperate to focus on anything but the next lash, which wrapped around his waist, its coil snapping just below his navel and drawing fresh blood. Or the blow after, which opened up the sensitive flesh at the back of his neck.
Beauty. Kindness. Bravery. Intelligence. Goodness. Sa-belle. He’d held her a short time, but the knowledge that he wouldn’t be suffering this torture if Mathias knew who had the book gratified him. In his mind, Ice sidled up to her, wrapped an arm around her, buried his face in her neck . . .
Then he felt Mathias’s hands on his shoulder and the bastard working inside his head, probing his thoughts. In the blink of an eye, Ice erased them completely.
“What were you thinking of, warrior?” Mathias demanded. “Who?”
Fuck off. Ice sent the thought to Mathias, a pained grin spreading his dry lips.
With a mental roar, Mathias shoved his way inside Ice’s head, just as the lash of the whip landed on his shoulder and around his biceps, tearing his flesh open. He dripped blood over every inch of his back, which soaked into the waistband of his trousers. Without Sabelle to focus on, fresh pain rushed in, and the flaying from the whip rushed to the front of his consciousness. He missed the mental escape that thoughts of her brought, but refused to risk her.
His knees collapsed under him, but he forced himself to stagger to his feet. The whip bit him again, this time across his hip, tearing his pants, his skin. Still, he refused to cry out or give in.
Mathias squeezed his shoulder and pushed deeper into his thoughts, and Ice focused inward again, almost grateful for something to tend to. He shoved at the evil wizard, barring him from every memory he could, judiciously protecting the events of the last few days. That joy was his, and his alone.
Undeterred, Mathias attacked his mind like a demon, ser-rating his defenses with claws and teeth and determination. Diverting his energy to his mental defense, Ice let his legs crumble, let himself cry out. Pride meant nothing if it kept Sabelle safe. Instead, he locked down his thoughts, trembling with the effort to bar Mathias, using the powerful energy his night of passion had generated.
The snap of the whip landed again at the small of his back, slicing through skin and tendon, straight toward bone. He cried out, rolled to avoid the pain.
He lifted his head. Blood. Lots of blood oozed out of his pores, ran down his face—the cost of his effort to resist Mathias’s mental invasion. But at least with Mathias’s touch absent, the fucker couldn’t get back into his head.
Ice stumbled to his feet, lurched to the side. Dizziness assailed him. His energy flagged. Still, he put everything he had into protecting his thoughts as he crumbled to the ground and found blessed peace. Here was a good place to die. Now was a good time to do it.
Then the whip snapped across his skin again, over his biceps and ribs, ending right between his shoulders. Blood warmed the concrete around him. He regretted he had not avenged Gailene. He could only hope she forgave him if he saw her in his nextlife. But he could not be sad that, even with his dying breath, he’d protected the angel he held dear now.
It was his final thought before he slipped into a black chasm of peace.
Sabelle, Duke, and Tynan arrived at Sterling MacTavish’s estate via auto just over an hour after leaving Ludlow. From the moment they walked in the door, bedlam ensued.
“Is this possible?” Lucan demanded of his uncle Sterling. Caden sat by his side, Sydney in his lap, looking both rapt and confused.
Sterling MacTavish, nine hundred if he was a day, was a lean post of a man with gray hair and whiskers, well-groomed and well-dressed. Sabelle was used to seeing the haughty, learned man in a position of power. Now he simply looked scared.
“It’s not im possible,” Sterling frowned. “And what are we to do? With Thomas dead, Bram unconscious, Helmsley Camden deep in hiding … I don’t trust Blackbourne. I’ve never been more than acquaintances with o’Shea or Spencer.”
“You must call upon someone,” Lucan insisted. “We know how serious this threat is.”
“What threat?” Duke asked from the door, beating Sabelle to the question on the tip of her tongue.
Sterling looked across the room and rose, trembling, to his full height. “Mathias sent a missive, declaring that he will run for MacKinnett’s empty Council seat. Blackbourne has backed him.”
Foreboding rushed like a flood through her system.
“Thomas had no heirs,” Sterling went on, “and Mathias’s grounds are that he’s kin, albeit distantly, to the Chillingham line, who sat on the Council six centuries ago.”
“Unless he’s willing to admit that he and the Anarki murdered Thomas MacKinnett, how does he supposedly know about the man’s death?” Sabelle challenged. “I told Caden so he could protect himself, but I doubt he told anyone. So how will Mathias explain that to the Council and magickind?”
Sydney winced. “I transcasted the news nearly an hour past to all of magickind, as soon as you contacted Uncle Sterling. We thought it wise to inform the public quickly of the murder of one of their leaders.”
Of course. Mathias wasn’t stupid. At least it sounded like Sterling was finally a believer.
“And,” the former reporter continued, “I contacted my old boss Holly at Out of This Realm. She’s unhappy, but willing to sit on the story. Only magickind knows the truth.”
Sabelle reassured Sydney, “You did the right thing.”
“Mathias declared he’d been nominated for the Council a quarter hour later.” Sterling sighed, looking defeated. “Blackbourne then sent a message, championing Mathias.”
“According to Mathias, his intent is to bring ‘balance’ to the Council,” Caden spat.
“That’s important, I grant you.” Sabelle sighed, frustration rising like lava inside her. “But in order to fight Mathias, we must have Ice back. We need a plan now.”
“Agreed.” Duke nodded, looking grave.
Tynan hissed a harsh curse. “You must nominate someone to run against him. Lucan is a good choice.”
“You know the Council frowns upon having two members of the same family sit on the Council. Supposed to prevent a family from taking over magickind and ruining a family’s line of succession.”
“In extreme situations, it has been done,” Tynan countered. “The bigger impediment now would be that Lucan has no heir and no mate upon whom to get one. The Council won’t like that, especially now.”
Lucan closed his eyes. Sabelle avoided his thoughts, so she wasn’t certain what he hid, but pain and humiliation likely ranked at the top of the list.
“Perhaps you can nominate Duke,” Sydney suggested.
“Unlikely,” Duke drawled. “I’m too human for most of magickind. I may be wealthy and well-connected by human standards, but my magic comes from my grandmother, whose family was neither well-known nor well connected. I don’t know if I’d pass the Council’s scrutiny.”
Sabelle sighed in frustration. They had more pressing matters to attend first. “First, we must rescue Ice!”
“You’re right,” Duke said. “We should—”
“Isdernus is merely a Rykard. Not important. The Council, however, is. We must think of magickind’s stability, not a Deprived who’s more than half out of his mind. Use your common sense, girl,” Sterling rebuked Sabelle.
Sabelle wasn’t naive. She knew that most of magickind held that view of Ice. But she refused to stand still. “Where is your compassion? Ice saved my life at the risk of his own.”
“Then he finally did some good.” Sterling dismissed her. “Now, if no one in Duke’s grandmother’s family ever sat on the Council, he won’t pass scrutiny. Mathias still has his sympathizers out there, and people like Blackbourne wield a great deal of clout. He will try to convince some to vote Mathias’s way.”