Текст книги "Bespelled"

Автор книги: Laura Thalassa

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Blood magic is destructive magic, and I drag that destruction along with every step I take. It batters at the ward, and I sense the walls that entrap me weakening. The ground begins to tremble, but this time, Memnon isn’t responsible for it.

“Sky above, spirits below, my blood you take.” The coven was a match; this is an inferno. “This ward unmake.” My gaze falls to Luca. “This spell I break.”

BOOM!

Power floods out of me, shattering the walls of the spell circle. It sweeps across the room, blowing the salt away and throwing the men backward.

I stand there, wounded and bloodstained, as my magic retreats into me, clearing the air.

Fearsome mate, I felt that, Memnon says down our bond. I swear I hear the sorcerer’s low laugh. The Fortunas made a mistake trying to capture a true Sarmatian queen. I hope you make them pay for it.

I am. With that, I pull away from our connection. I grip my dagger tightly and stride forward, the pads of my feet stepping on all those old, nearly forgotten bloodstains. Magic still lingers in those stains, stale and fetid but there nonetheless. I pull it into me, and the stains hiss as they simmer away.

This power came from the blood of my coven sisters, my mage brothers, and my lycan friends—them and perhaps other innocent supernaturals who were forced to give up their lives. It’s wrong to form another’s pain into power, but these individuals have already suffered. I won’t let it be for nothing.

Both Luca and Jacques are pushing themselves up from where they’ve fallen.

I draw together my magic⁠—

Luca incants beneath his breath, and a split-second later, a curse hits me in the abdomen. The magic impales my torso as though it were a stake.

I stagger, choking on the pain, then fall.

SELENE! Memnon roars. The building shakes violently.

Luca drags himself the rest of the way up from the ground, his arm still outstretched. Tucked under his other arm is the hateful Book of the Damned. It still smokes, that acrid power wafting off it.

“Fucking cunt,” he spits out. “You think you can best me? In my own home? I haven’t survived all these years on might alone…”

He continues speaking, but I stop listening when I sense those beings in the ground beneath me. They clamor close, lured in by my spilled blood.

They can have it.

“Take my blood but spare my life,” I whisper. “Feast instead on Luca Fortuna and Jacques Allard.”

My blood sinks into the floor, drawn down by the creatures beneath me.

A moment later, the ground trembles, and a crack forms beneath my legs. It slithers forward, breaking concrete and heading right for Luca. Another crack branches from it, moving toward Jacques.

As soon as the crack reaches him, it widens to a fissure. The building creaks under the pressure.

“Fuck!” Jacques curses as one of his legs falls through the growing opening. The earth continues to shake as he attempts to pull his leg from the hole. He’s almost gotten himself out of the fissure when the ground beneath his hands and upper torso falls away. His body is swallowed into the earth, and the last thing I hear is his echoing cry.

“What in God’s name have you done?” Luca shouts as the other crack follows him across the room.

I’d love to answer, but the crack beneath me now widens. I drag myself away, crying out a little as the pain in my stomach darkens my vision.

The earth shakes again, and the floor beneath the sorcerer crumbles away. Luca drops The Book of the Damned to lunge for solid ground, but it too gives way under his body. His hands manage to catch the lip of the concrete floor, exposed rebar jutting out from it.

Luca’s eyes meet mine for an instant, and I see true terror in his eyes. Then the concrete lip he holds onto collapses, and the sorcerer falls.

He’s barely disappeared from sight when the ground begins to seal back up, the building shrieking and swaying as it does so.

Above me, the lights in the chandeliers flicker.

Rejoin us, Empress. Your blood tastes better when it comes with your flesh…

As the voices speak, the floor beneath my own legs disintegrates.

Oh fuck.

It feels like a direct portal to the Underworld has been ripped open beneath my feet.

I scramble to get to more solid ground, crying out as the movement tugs at my injuries. More of the ground falls away beneath my stomach, and I swallow my fear as my bloodied hands grip the smooth, chilled concrete for dear life. I struggle to pull myself farther out of the hole, but my muscles are shaking, and my strength is waning, and every time I move, I feel like I’m tearing through a bit more of my innards.

I don’t know why I’m fighting this. If these gods that dwell beneath the earth want me, I’ll have to live in the sky to truly stop them.

At the thought, my grip loosens, and I slide a little deeper into the fissure.

Don’t you dare stop fighting. Memnon’s voice rings out down our bond.

The double doors blow open, and my soul mate strides in, his magic billowing around him like churning storm clouds. His hair is stirring, and his eyes glow the faintest amount. He himself looks thoroughly torn up. His tux is in shreds, and claw marks run along his forearms, legs, and back. He even has a gruesome set running along the underside of his jaw.

I make a small sound at the state he’s in, and the noise draws his eyes to mine. The moment he sees me, his magic barrels across the room. It molds itself around my body and drags me forward, out of the chasm.

I scream as the movement jostles my innards.

“Selene!” Memnon roars.

I can no longer see him, not when his magic surrounds me. But then, I feel his hands on me.

He murmurs a quick spell, and my pain vanishes. An instant later, he pulls me into his arms, sitting back on his haunches to hold me, his hand moving to my abdominal wound.

Before he can press a healing spell against it, the ground shudders again, dislodging his grip on my stomach and sliding the two of us forward. It feels as though the earth itself is trying to pitch us into the massive crack Memnon just dragged me out of.

Mistress…join us as you once did…

My eyes move to the dark opening down, down in the deep earth, and I grit my teeth.

“No,” I say.

Memnon gives me a curious look before following my gaze. He studies the fissure for several seconds, then returns his attention to me.

You’ve been speaking to the Hungering Ones, haven’t you? he says down our bond.

They didn’t seem so bad when I was facing down a demon, I admit wearily.

It seems they’ve acquired a taste for powerful witches.

Memnon lifts his eyes from mine. To the chasm in the earth, he says in Sarmatian, “Old gods below, you cannot have Selene. She is mine. Honor your oaths, and take my blood as an offering of peace.”

The sorcerer unsheathes the blade strapped to his side. In one sharp motion, he cuts his forearm and lets the blood pour onto the ground.

The shaking slows, then eventually stops altogether.

The room grows very, very quiet, save for the drip of Memnon’s blood.

My eyes meet my mate’s eyes, feeling exposed. “Thank you.” Whatever those voices are, they are boogeymen.

The glow in his eyes fades back to brown. “Est amage, you do not need to thank me for things that come with being your soul mate. We pull each other back from the edge.”

He wipes his blade and returns it to its sheath.

Memnon’s gaze drops to my stomach and my mess of a wound. He makes an agonized sound. “Est amage.”

Memnon’s hand covers my injury once more, his fingers splayed out across it, and I can feel the lick of his magic as it seeps in, the tingling warmth spreading through my flesh. He murmurs the Mochica curse-breaking spell, and I sense some inner darkness release and flitter away with it.

“As much as I love your ferocity, I cannot stand this part of it,” Memnon admits. His words are punctuated by the uncomfortable tugging sensation as his healing spell takes root and my innards reform. “Where is the demon?” Memnon asks.

“Where he belongs,” I say.

A smile curves his lips, and he tilts his head so he can see me better. “That’s my queen.” His eyes sweep over the mess of the room. “I notice the spell circle you mentioned is gone as well.”

“I really don’t like being trapped.”

Memnon laughs, the sound light and joyful. It’s at odds with the oppressive magic that saturates the very walls of this room.

“Of course you don’t,” he says mirthfully. “You are a Sarmatian queen, made to roam the boundless, open plains of the steppe. Your soul is made of vaster stuff.” He pulls his hand away from my midsection, studying the pink, newly formed skin. My mate lets out a shuddering breath. “How does your stomach feel?”

“Fine,” I say dismissively, staring up at his face. I don’t care about my stomach at the moment.

I grab the tattered lapels of his tux and drag him to me. His lips meet mine, and we’re kissing each other feverishly, as though the world is ending. It’s bruising, desperate. We are in Rome, we are in Bosporus, we are on the Eurasian steppe, and we are here.

We are eternal.

I feel my heart…give in.

I gasp into his mouth at the sensation.

Immediately, Memnon pulls away, his eyes returning to my former injury. He places a hand back on the skin and presses his power into me.

I grab his wrist. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” I say softly.

My scary, violent sorcerer takes a deep breath. “Little witch, there will always be a part of me that fears your mortality, and right now…I just want to hold you for a little longer.”

So the two of us stay there for another minute, Memnon holding me against him. I lightly grasp Memnon’s forearm and press a wordless healing spell into his skin. Almost immediately, the claw marks begin to seal up. I watch them mend, now knowing the creature that inflicted them.

“How did you get rid of your demon?” I ask.

“I beheaded the first and second. The third one, I stabbed in the heart.”

“You faced three demons?” I say, my voice hushed. One was hard enough.

“Leonard was determined to kill me off.”

I stiffen. “What happened to him?”

“Dead. He bled out from a nicked artery.” Memnon’s voice grows cold. “It was too quick and too clean for a monster like him.”

I shiver as I think about those old bloodstains on the floor.

There’s still one Fortuna left, and—shit, Sybil.

I stand too quickly, then sway a little.

“Easy, Empress,” Memnon says, rising up.

“We need to save my friend.”

He groans—groans! “Must you make me act honorably?”

“Memnon!”

There’s a gleam in his eyes. “I tease.” He reaches for my hand. “Let’s go save your friend.”

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CHAPTER 51

When we get to the auction floor, pandemonium.

The entire room is one seething, churning mass of aggression.

Lycanthropes swarm the place—many of them in their animal form—along with the guests from the midnight auction. Those individuals still wear glittering gowns and pressed suits. And everywhere my eyes fall, supernaturals are fighting.

The only people who are absent, it appears, are Politia officers. Go figure. I’m sure they’ll show up soon enough, given the carnage.

Blood decorates the walls and floors and even a few of the circular tables that fill the room. Not twenty feet away, I see the body of a man with his throat ripped out, and several more bodies lie slumped over the linen-covered tables or on the ground.

I scan the room, looking for Sybil and any other supernaturals who might’ve been captives, but it’s hard to make sense of the tangle of people. I don’t see anyone who looks like a captive, and I can only hope the lycans have already evacuated those supernaturals from the building.

Memnon strides forward into the mayhem, his hair beginning to rise. His eyes are fixed on a woman to our left. Her hair is now unbound and her dress is ripped, but it’s easy enough to recognize Sophia Fortuna from the haughty set of her chin and the glow of her eyes. A small army of guards encircles her, and she fights from behind them, lobbing spells at the lycans closing in on her. I hear one wolf yelp as a curse lands and its fur catches fire.

This sorceress tried to take you from me, Memnon says, unsheathing his dagger. I cannot let her live. His thoughts are as simple as that, now that his power has consumed him.

Whatever plan the two of us might’ve formed to locate Sybil, it’s just crumbled to dust in the wake of this battle.

Memnon strides forward and as soon as he hits the melee, he unleashes himself. The sorcerer spins and lunges, cutting through the fighters, stabbing and slicing when he needs to. He makes it look like a dance. What an awful thing, to think of killing as a dance, but there is a mesmerizing quality to it, even as blood arcs. The entire time, his attention remains riveted to Sophia, who hasn’t noticed him yet.

I take a step back, eager to search all sixty-some floors of this building if I have to, to find my friend. I’m about to turn when a cascade of pale blond hair catches my eye. It triggers some old, unpleasant emotion, and reflexively, my gaze moves to the individual’s ears, their pointed ears, then their eyes, which are the color of meadow-sweet grass, the hue too rich for human irises.

It’s not possible…

I’m staring at a ghost, one who haunts my old memories. She’s the fairy who nearly abducted my soul mate two thousand years ago.

Eislyn.

My magic immediately rises. She should’ve been long dead. Even the fae have expiration dates. How is she alive? And what the fuck is she doing here, in San Francisco, in this very building?

My power is unspooling out of me the longer I stare at her.

I feel her eyes catch mine, and I see her falter. And now she’s the one looking at me as though I’m the ghost. Did she not know I was here, alive?

Then her gaze moves like a magnet to Memnon. I realize belatedly that she’d been staring at him before she saw me.

Her expression is both fearful and covetous as she takes in my soul mate. Possessiveness rises in me at the look, along with the pressing need to end the fairy before she can be a threat to him once more.

I sense the moment Memnon sees her. He’s nearly upon Sophia when he halts. For several seconds, he stands there, completely still, his head turned in Eislyn’s direction.

Then, all at once, Memnon’s power consumes him. His hair almost violently rises, and sparks crackle in the plumes of his magic.

This is the woman who killed his sister, his mother, his loyal brothers in arms. She’s the one who whispered into his traitorous friend’s ear and brokered a sinister agreement with Rome. She is the one who cursed Memnon to a hundred years of sleep so she might entrap him. And she is the one who set a Roman legion on me and all but killed me that fateful evening.

Memnon detonates.

His power rips across the room, flinging tables and chairs and people across the space. Only my soul mate and I remain standing.

Memnon strides forward toward the fallen figure of Eislyn, more rays of his power lashing out around his form. His magic looks like a thunderstorm that’s descended on the room. The billowing power catches supernaturals in its grip and lifts them into the air.

They scream and thrash, but only for a few moments. Then something sweeps through the roiling mass of magic, and the supernaturals caught up in it grow docile.

I stare at their glazed eyes as they hang from Memnon’s smoky power.

“Eislyn, what are you doing here?” he bellows, his magic wrapping around her torso. “Were you too wicked to be accepted into hell?”

I can feel his hate and anger filling him like poison. This is more than just regular power usage. This is the kind that eats away at the conscience, and Memnon already has so little of it left.

“Neither you nor I believe in hell, old king.” Eislyn’s voice is as soft as the wind and as melodic as birdsong.

My mate slowly prowls toward the fairy, who’s caught in the matrix of Memnon’s magic. Unlike the other supernaturals in the room, Eislyn’s eyes are wide and a touch frightened, but they’re not glazed over. If anything, they’re sharp with focus. She stares at him like she’s hanging on to his every word.

“Two thousand years, I was forced to sleep, all to escape your curse,” Memnon continues. “I didn’t expect to see you alive. How I burn, knowing you walked under the sun and lived while I rotted away. But then again, if you hadn’t lived, you wouldn’t be here in my clutches.”

Snap.

A bone breaks somewhere in the room, then the lifeless body of Sophia Fortuna falls to the ground, her corpse smacking into a table on its way down, her neck bent at an odd angle. Hours ago, she was next to untouchable. Now, she’s dead, killed in an instant.

“Did you know I would be here, or was it merely a happy coincidence?” Memnon demands.

Eislyn’s lips part. “I thought I imagined you,” she says softly.

Snap.

Snap. Snap. Snap. One by one, men and women in suits and gowns fall to the ground, dead.

What had he told me about a sorcerer’s power the night of the Samhain Ball?

The stronger the magic we cast, the less we can control who that magic touches.

Memnon can’t control his power. Not when it consumes him like this.

Eislyn watches him wondrously. “You are just as vicious as I remember,” she says.

She blinks, then after a moment, she raises her hand to Memnon’s magic, which holds her like a vise.

She murmurs something to the indigo magic, and to my shock, it loosens its hold on her. A set of wings unfurl at her back.

“I don’t think so, Eislyn,” Memnon says, using his power to barricade the exits.

She turns in midair. “We will speak again, warlord. But not tonight.” She flicks her wrist, dropping her arm down, and it’s as though she dragged the light down with her. The room fills with darkness.

“Eislyn!” Memnon bellows.

Snap, snap, snap.

Fuck. There are definitely enemies in Memnon’s clutches, but there are plenty of shifters trapped in the plumes of his power as well. As the bodies hit the floor, I force my power out, beating back the darkness.

Slowly it lifts, revealing a room full of bespelled supernaturals and an angry sorcerer but no Eislyn.

Memnon roars at her absence, and through our bond, I can feel more of the sorcerer’s bloodthirsty power slip its leash.

Now it’s swirling around the supernaturals above us. To my horror, I make out Kane, his face expressionless as he hangs there in Memnon’s magic. My eyes move over the trapped supernaturals until I see Irene, the Marin Pack beta, floating in the air. I even see Cara, sweet Cara, who must’ve felt compelled to come and save other shifters from a fate she escaped.

I’m the only one at this point besides Memnon himself who hasn’t been swept up in his power. And given how much magic the sorcerer is drawing on, that could change at any moment.

“Memnon!” I shout. “Please, release the captives!”

He doesn’t release them. He doesn’t even register that he’s heard me.

Snap, snap.

Two more supernaturals fall, these two old men in suits.

“Memnon!” I cry out desperately.

When he turns to me, his eyes burn like embers, and his hair has lifted up and around his face. He takes me in, though his eyes appear unseeing.

For you, mate, he says. All this is for you.

It’s not for me. You’re hurting our allies, my friends!

He stares back at me.

Snap.

Another body falls, this one a middle-aged woman in a magenta dress. So far the deaths have all been auction guests, but it’s only a matter of time before my mate kills someone truly innocent.

You wanted to stop these terrible people, he says. We are stopping them.

Memnon, please. A tear slips down my cheek as I start toward him. I’m begging you!

They cannot hurt you, my queen. I will not let them. No one will hurt you ever again. Our fates will not be repeated. He turns away from me.

Snap, snap, snap, snap⁠—

“Est xsaya!” The ancient words rip from my throat. “Stop!” I shriek. “For me. For us. Stop before I must use my magic and stop you myself.”

My soul mate falters. Slowly, he rotates to face me.

His eyes are still glowing, and they still appear unseeing.

He studies me for a long moment.

“It didn’t work,” he finally says, taking me in. “Your command didn’t work.”

I halt in my tracks, and the two of us stare at each other across the auction hall. Above us, his magic begins to lower its hostages to the ground.

“You love me,” Memnon breathes.

I blink, and another tear rolls down my cheek. His glowing eyes flicker as he watches that tear. His gaze returns to mine, and he begins to stride across the room, his expression growing purposeful. The sorcerer’s magic pushes aside chairs and tables as he goes.

Memnon’s power finally releases the supernaturals, and the indigo magic leaves them to swirl around us like a vortex, hiding me and the sorcerer from the rest of the room.

“You love me,” Memnon repeats, daring me to deny it. His gaze still burns with his power.

Another tear slips out.

“I do.” I give him a shaky smile. “I love you.” I always have. I just managed to bury it for a while. He’s my friend, my monster, my one-time enemy and lover.

There’s no more tightly wielded control. I’m free-falling.

Memnon closes the last of the distance, his eyes dimming to their normal smoky amber, and his hair lowers to the nape of his neck. But though his magic has waned, the intensity of his expression has not.

He brushes his knuckles over my cheekbone. “Te amo in aeternum,” he says softly in Latin. His eyes search my face as though trying to commit this moment to memory.

Memnon leans in and kisses me, the stroke of his lips desperate. I reach for him, my hands cupping his face. I feel a tear drip onto my hand, and I realize he’s shaking, his whole body trembling.

“A love like ours defies everything,” he breathes against my lips. “I am yours forever.”

The Politia do eventually come, though by then, the fight itself is long over.

Initially, I expect the supernaturals in the room to point fingers at Memnon, who held them all hostage for a time. Instead, the shifters seem to focus their wrath on the auction guests, and those individuals in evening wear seem to be defensively arguing back. I don’t think any of them recall that they were held captive by a raging sorcerer.

Once it becomes clear the officers want to detain everyone in the room for hours longer, my soul mate alters a few minds so the two of us can slip away and find Sybil.

Memnon and I find her sitting on the sidewalk outside the Equinox Building, near a line of ambulances with flashing lights. Sybil’s nestled between Sawyer’s thighs, an emergency blanket covering her, and her new mate is murmuring something to her and holding her close. It’s startlingly tender.

“Sybil,” I say softly, stepping away from Memnon. I pull the suit jacket he placed on me tighter around myself, trying to keep out the chill of the evening.

My friend glances up, and a small noise escapes her lips when she sees me. Shucking off her blanket, she rises to her feet, and then the two of us are moving toward each other.

We meet somewhere in the middle, and I sweep her into a hug. My best friend immediately begins to bawl in my arms.

“I thought—thought you w-were dead,” she chokes out.

I laugh a little as a few tears trickle out of my own eyes. “You can’t kill me that easily.”

I pull back, brushing her hair away from her face so I can see her better. Her earlier wounds are gone, but there are shadows in her eyes, things that not even magic can heal.

“We survived,” I whisper.

Her face crumples, and she nods, gripping me tighter.

My hands move to her upper arms, and I give them a squeeze. “Thank you,” I say softly, “for trying to protect me for so long. You are the best damn friend there ever was.”

Sybil’s sobs only grow louder, and I pull her back in for another hug.

The two of us hold each other for several minutes.

“Sybil.” Sawyer’s voice is low, rumbly, as he approaches us. “The car is here.” He lays a hand on my friend’s shoulder and runs his thumb over a patch of skin that causes a full-body shiver to course through Sybil. “We need to get you back. It’s not safe for you to be out here before you have mastered your shifts.”

What’s this now?

Sybil looks horrified as she pulls away from me. “I would never…” But as she speaks, her body spasms a little.

Sawyer steps in a little closer, and he makes a soft rumbling sound that causes my friend to relax. “Of course you wouldn’t. I would make sure both you and your best friend were safe.”

My eyes move between the two of them, and only now do I realize that the sweet embrace Memnon and I saw between Sybil and Sawyer a moment ago might’ve been more than just simple physical contact. Sawyer might’ve been containing her in case she accidentally shifted.

My best friend’s chin trembles, and I hate how fragile she appears. “Selene.” Her voice is hoarse with emotion. “The pack is going to keep me sequestered away until the next Sacred Seven. Apparently, this first month for witches can be…difficult.” Tears well in her eyes, and she looks scared. Everything she endured today couldn’t have helped that.

But the pack Sawyer is a part of is good, and I know they will take care of my friend until I can see her again. The weeks will go by in a blink of an eye, I reassure myself.

I tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re a badass. You’ll do great. I’m sure of it.”

Sybil’s eyes flit over my tattered dress and the puckered flesh of my forearms. “You’re okay?” she asks tentatively.

I nod and give her a tight smile. “I’m fine.”

She frowns but then forces out her own smile. “I’m so relieved.” She swallows, and her eyes are welling again. “You should go home, Selene,” she says, her voice hoarse with emotion. “It’s freezing out here. We can talk more later.” As she speaks, Sawyer begins to gently steer her away from me and toward a car parked behind the ambulances.

“I’m holding you to that,” I call out after her.

I stand there, watching as Sybil and Sawyer head toward their waiting ride. Memnon comes to my side then, one of his arms draping comfortingly around my shoulders.

“Hey, Selene,” Sybil calls out over her shoulder. She pauses to turn back to me. “Seven other supernaturals were saved from bonds tonight. You did that. Not the Politia, not even the shifters. You. I hope you know how proud I am to be your friend.” She flashes me a shaky smile and another tear leaks from my face. “Now get out of here, you freak,” she says fondly, “before you catch your death.”

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