Hels's Gauntlet [Forbidden Legacy 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (7 page)

He parried another blow, his fierce grin of welcome dissolving into concentration. Jacob didn’t wait for an invitation into the battle, slamming his fist into the kidneys of the closest attacker and releasing the spell in his mind. Fire scorched his fingertips as the being went down shrieking in agony.

Vanagan seized another, lightning twisting together in a garrote between his extended fingers. Between one blink and the next, he wrapped it around the man’s throat and jerked him backward, separating the head from the shoulders in a geyser of blood.

Paul separated his quarry with a controlled, almost nonchalant motion. The man lunged forward, intent on impaling the Wizard with his short sword. Catching the man’s wrist, Paul twisted until the bones snapped. With a whisper of magic, he slammed his foot into the man’s groin and seized his shirt front.

Lifting him as though he weigh nothing, Paul threw the black-clothed attacker toward the rock face where he impacted and then melted, horribly, into the strata, strangling off his screams of agony as the pressure swallowed his chest.

“Keep one alive,” Jacob ordered grimly, palming two hematite stones from his pocket and tackling one of the last two. He couldn’t create something from nothing. But clamping his hand over the assailant’s mouth, he shoved the hematite inside and activated them with a thought.

The creature bucked, slamming his head back to strike Jacob’s chin. Teeth clacking together, he locked his arms and held on. Power shuddered over the man and his struggles grew weaker, and when the sick smell of ozone permeated the air, Jacob released the collapsed figure.

Not dead.

Yet.

He looked up just in time to see Helcyon’s sword slice between the last assailant’s ribs. The man doubled over the blade, and slid off it until he joined his allies in a pool of blood.

“Glad I listened to me.” He planted his foot on his captive’s shoulders, making sure he didn’t move. The hematite released a small blast of electrical energy into his body, overwhelming his neurons and scrambling his brains. Then it sucked back the same amount of energy from the man’s body, leaving him barely conscious, but alive. For how long would depend on his answers.

Vanagan checked each of the figures, flipping them over, one at a time and jerking off their masks. The motley collection boasted three reptilian critters, two human-looking males, three Elves, a now-buried-in-the-rock-goblin, a male with pointed ears and blue tattoos who looked more human than Elf, and two furred faces that Jacob didn’t recognize.

The black-and-white-haired Wizard scowled at the blue-tattooed face, recognition flickering across his face.

“You okay?” Jacob divided his attention between his prisoner, Vanagan, and Helcyon.

“I am fine.” The bland answer jerked Jacob’s head up. Helcyon stared at Vanagan, hostility narrowing his eyes.

“Problem?”

“Perhaps my nephew can explain why my brother laid a trap for me.” His voice raw and husky with the struggle for breath, Helcyon’s blood and sweat stained his leathers dark.

Paul maneuvered himself around, creating a triangle around Vanagan. But their new ally looked surprised. “Father is in hiding, Uncle. Considering the bounty on his head, it was the prudent decision.”

The statement lacked conviction.

Helcyon shifted his grip on his sword. “Kyrian found me Underhill. He is not ‘hiding’ that well.”

Dragging his prisoner’s arms behind him, Jacob secured the creature’s wrists. The figure groaned, a low, almost mournful sound, but he ignored it for now. It wasn’t going anywhere.

“I give you my word, Uncle, my last contact with Father was the day Cassandra made her announcement. He fled before the Danae could send her hounds for him.”

Jacob believed him.

“The only hound on his scent was me, and she lifted those bounties.” Helcyon poked a hole in the defense.

“Which we know now.” Vanagan straightened, his brows drawing together in a fierce frown. “A message I would have passed on had I seen him, but I haven’t.”

“He’s not lying.” Paul folded his arms. “But he’s not being totally truthful either.”

Vanagan slanted a look at the quiet Wizard. “My thoughts are my own, but regardless of my father’s involvement, I knew nothing about this attack before Cassandra warned us.”

Helcyon flicked a look toward Jacob. Shaking his head once, Jacob wanted to table that for a better location. Too many eyes and ears on a public beach.
Speaking of which…where the hell are all the people?

The beach was devoid of life. Danger itched between his shoulders. “We need to go.” Jerking the prisoner upward, he caught Paul’s jacket and draped it over the hooded figure’s head. Better he not see where or how they got where they were going.

“I got this boss. I’ll clean it up.” Paul already had his phone out and snapped pictures of the faces. He’d document identities and destroy the bodies, cleaning the site of the blood and debris.

Helcyon limped toward him, shrugging off Vanagan’s attempt to give him a hand. “We’re not taking them near her.” He pointed his sword at Jacob’s prisoner.

“No, we’re not. But we have an opportunity to interrogate. We’re taking it. You need to see a healer.” Up close, Helcyon’s injuries were worse. Blood slicked his neck and matted his hair. Gore coated his left side, and his hands were deep red and stained from it. Raw skin and muscle showed from the cuts to his leathers and abrasions on his hands.

He was a mess.

“I’ll live.”

“You might.” Jacob jerked the prisoner to the side, avoiding Helcyon’s blood-spattered blade. “But others are not used to that level of damage, nor will she take it well if she sees you like this.”

Helcyon turned his head and spit. The blood continued to ooze from his split lip. He glanced upward at the beach house. “It’s secure enough there if we clean this up.”

“I got this.” Paul waved them onward.

Vanagan reached out a hand, and Helcyon slapped it away. “I’ll transport Jacob and the prisoner.” Raw anger seethed in the words, a tone Jacob had never heard from him before. Concern for his friend wormed past his focus on the situation. The Elf was usually the most composed of their cadre, easy with a smile, a smart remark, and the answers. Rarely did he allow impatience more than a cursory nod.

Hels is in trouble…
Cassie’s strained words whispered in his ear as Helcyon tugged him and the prisoner sideways Underhill and out again into the sunken living room of the beach house. Was the ambush the trouble?

Or did the danger extend deeper than that?

Agony clung to Helcyon’s skin like a sticky coating. Flash burns, thin slices, and bloody cuts decorated his flesh. His leathers provided a modicum of shielding from the assault, but even they were in tatters. Every breath sent another sliver of pain deeper into his chest, but he ignored it.

“Sit down.” Jacob secured their prisoner to a stiff-backed Georgian chair in Cassandra’s living room. Blood dripped down the black-cloaked figure’s arm in rhythmic pulses to pool on the white carpet. Helcyon’s ribs squeezed, as though the cracks in his ribs continued to spider web with every breath, and he ignored the order.

Vanagan maintained a healthy distance, standing at the great picture window overlooking the sea. The silvery color of his eyes reflected off the tinted glass. The pressure of his stare weighed on Helcyon, but he refused to back down from his suspicions. Kyrian set a trap, sprung it on him, and tried to have him killed.

My brother.
The thought washed in with a fresh wave of pain to pound against the shores of his soul. For centuries, Helcyon protected his rash, impulsive sibling. He accepted consequences when the brother made imprudent decisions. Older by just fourteen months, their similar ages were unimaginable even a millennia ago. Elven women simply hadn’t gotten pregnant more often than once every fifty to sixty years, much less two as close in age as he and Kyrian. Kyrian, the coward he let run.

The one he let live despite the orders to end him and his son.

Blood, even Helcyon’s protective blood, proved thinner than survival and the desire for power.

“Sit down,” Jacob repeated, as he circled the prisoner and gave Helcyon a harried look. “Now.”

Exhaling a rattling breath, Helcyon split the difference and leaned a hip against the side of Cassandra’s sofa. A red stain blossomed on the white cushion. They would have to redo the whole living room in exactitude. Not that they planned for her to live there again, but it was her home, the home she created for herself and they muddied it with blood, pain, and death.

His exhaustion swamped him because he said little when Jacob produced a knife to cut away what was left of one tattered sleeve. The deep pink and red of muscle offset the one glimpse of white bone he caught in the slices going down his right arm. The black tattoo on his shoulder shivered, the ink sliding over his skin as it began a gradual descent toward the injury.

“I will be fine, Mother.” He layered insult into the title. Arousing Jacob’s anger might get him to back off, and the warm caring ate away at Helcyon’s control. He didn’t really want to feel his injuries yet. Not when he could sublimate the pain.

No, what he wanted was to find Kyrian and beat him senseless, wait for him to heal, and do it again.

“Now, dear, behave.” Was that just the barest glimmer of a smile on Jacob’s normally stern face? Helcyon blinked three times and shook his head. He had to be imagining it. Right up until Jacob ripped down the rest of his sleeve, pulling open the oozing wounds. Helcyon’s eyes crossed at the white hot lance of agony thrusting into his bones and rattling through his blood.

Vanagan took a step toward them as though he wanted to help, but Helcyon bared his teeth. A fresh sliver of pain worked up his arm to his spine and sent ripples of pain stabbing through his nervous system. “Stay there.”

“Stop being so stubborn.” Jacob slapped Helcyon on the back of the head. The light tap was hardly a grave assault, even if the blow made his ears ring and jerked his attention back to the Wizard. “Or childish. Whatever you were
feeling
, I think
she
was, too.”

The particular emphasis on Cassandra extinguished the forest fire of fury consuming the threads of his control. He sat still while Jacob poked over the wounds on his arm and unbelted the jerkin to help him peel off the leather so the Wizard could inspect the rest of his injuries.

“I will be fine, Jacob.” He measured the words carefully. He tested the connection rooted deep in his soul that extended back to Cassandra, the thickness of the ties, the rich gold enveloping the green showed twines of silver tying the two together.

The silver was the third in their triad, and it bound the ties they held to each other. Though he and Jacob were anchored by Cassandra, the growing silver suggested that ties binding them together stretched between them, via the bridge of their mate.

“You know, if you two lovebirds want to be alone, I can take care of the prisoner.” Vanagan’s cool observation lacked the heat of an insult.

Jacob ignored the jibe. “Go get some water and iodine. Both are in the kitchen. Help me patch him up, and then we’ll deal with the freak in black.” He backed up a step and swiped the blood off his hands, uncaring that he wiped it on his jeans and T-shirt.

“He’ll heal.”

“I’ll heal.”

Vanagan’s statement tripped over Helcyon’s, but Jacob stared at the black–and-white-haired Wizard until the man rolled his eyes and stalked off toward the kitchen in a swirl of black leather and resentment.

“You trust him?” Helcyon pitched his voice low and gave Jacob a hard look.

“No. But I trust that our lady inspires a wild amount of loyalty, and, for whatever reason, he’s as snared as the others. She wants you back. He’s not going to risk her rancor by doing anything stupid, no matter what your brother did.”

Jacob folded his arms and studied their prisoner. The creature hadn’t stirred since being secured to the chair. Head down, shoulders sagging, it was entirely possible he, she, or it was unconscious. But the hood made it hard to tell.

“We have problems, Jacob.” Helcyon left the subject of Vanagan alone for now. His brother’s betrayal provided enough sting. He liked the idea that his nephew wasn’t involved.

“And this is different from every other day how?”

Helcyon couldn’t argue with the sentiment, but further response was interrupted by a cell phone. Jacob pulled the phone out and flipped it open.

“He’s fine,” he said into the phone instead of hello. “I promise. He’s fine. Pissy and pig-headed, but fine. I’ll bring him home soon.” He went silent, listening, and Helcyon could just make out Cassandra’s worried tone. “Oh, for the love of God, just go take a walk, a bath, go back to sleep. I swear I will bring him there and you can give him all the hell you want.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Helcyon’s mouth. His woman did not like to be placated or pushed off. He held out his hand when Jacob rolled his eyes, but he knew deferring to Helcyon gave the illusion that the prisoner needed to worry about him and not the Wizards. The humor acted like a balm on his bruised soul.

Jacob tossed him the phone, and he lifted it to his undamaged ear. “He was in so much pain, Jacob. You need to bring him home right now or—”