Silken Rapture: Princes of the Underground, Book 2 (30 page)

Blaise started to rise. The knife flashed.

“If you move, I will throw this knife and kill her. I will not miss,” he said, his eyes flashing at Isabel.

“What do you want?” Blaise grated out.

“I want you dead and Morshiel destroyed. I want to be master of Sanctuary.”

“You’ve gone mad,” Blaise mumbled, not entirely believing what he was hearing.

“Am I? I’ve already seen half of my plan come to fruition,” Aubrey said smugly. “Morshiel is vanquished.”

Isabel made a little sound of distress to the right of him. Blaise glanced at her sideways, keeping Aubrey in his sight.

“Where is Morshiel? Where did he go?” Isabel asked shakily. She sounded disoriented.

“You don’t know?” Aubrey mocked.

“He is within me, Isabel,” Blaise replied. “I told you. I will control him now from within.” He heard her gasp and felt regret. He’d thought she’d understood the magical ceremony they’d just enacted. Apparently, the truth was a little more than she’d bargained for.

Aubrey laughed softly at her discomposure. “Shocked, are you? You were the medium…the chalice for an alchemical miracle, Isabel. Blaise has vanquished Morshiel, with your help.” He shifted the knife in his grip. “Now, thanks to you again, Isabel, the mighty Lord Delraven is mortal. It is over. All those centuries of being your second-in-command are behind me now. I have loved you like a brother, but you always were the stronger one. In the end, my brains have triumphed over your power, Blaise.” He stepped closer, the knife poised to plunge downward. “I can kill you now.”

“No,” Isabel called sharply, darting forward.

“Stay back,” Aubrey shouted, slashing the knife in her direction threateningly. Blaise took advantage of Aubrey’s distraction to act. He lunged upward, striking Aubrey’s knife hand. Aubrey snarled and slashed. Pain shot through Blaise, icy and precise. He stared down incredulously at his ripped shirt and saw the bloody arc of the wound on his pectoral. It felt like an icy burn.

“Oh my God, Blaise!” Isabel screamed in horror. Blood—shockingly scarlet in color—began to flood the wound. Aubrey laughed when he saw Blaise’s amazement. He had been wounded often, but never had he bled this much, nor was his blood ever so blazingly red.

“I told you, fool. You are mortal now. You can die. You
will
die,” Aubrey added as he stepped forward. “For I am the stronger of the two of us now.”

Blaise wanted to reach for his heartluster, but it was as if his body moved through viscous liquid. His limbs seemed heavy and slow. Instead of going on the offensive, which was his customary habit, he barely had time to block Aubrey’s attack with his right arm. He sunk a punch to Aubrey’s liver region. Aubrey grunted and served a vicious blow to his head, knocking Blaise backward. For a second, pain became his whole world. Was this how mortals suffered? He tried to focus as the room spun around him.

“Blaise,” Isabel’s sharp voice pierced his vertigo.

“Touch the crystal, Isabel. Do as I say,” he yelled as Aubrey rushed him again, his fangs bared. Blaise faded back and Aubrey’s knife skimmed his belly. He utilized the gravity and force inherent to Aubrey’s blow and pushed on the upper portion of the slashing arm, shoving him off balance. He punched the side of his head and Aubrey staggered backward, hissing in fury. Blaise knew he’d only bought some time. What Aubrey had said appeared to be true. He was no longer the stronger of the two. His battle instincts remained intact, but either the wound or his new mortality had weakened him.

Aubrey leapt, teeth bared, bloody knife plunging. Blaise knew he could not withstand his furious, immortal strength.

“Blaise!” Isabel screamed.

He reached for her outstretched hand. Energy poured into his body—earth, to the crystal vein, to Isabel and straight into him. White light filled his consciousness. He saw Aubrey flying toward him, but as if in slow motion. He glanced back. Isabel was there with him, her life force radiating even in the midst of the powerful energy surrounding them, her dark eyes speaking volumes.

He turned back. Aubrey still was suspended in midattack. He was moving, but slowly…so slowly. Inside the bubble of energy and light, Blaise seemed to move in normal time. When Aubrey neared him, he squeezed Isabel’s hand and reached, closing his other hand around the handle of the silver knife.

It all happened in one crashing, abrupt moment. He yanked the knife from Aubrey’s hand and slashed upward, planting the knife high up in Aubrey’s ribcage. The white light blinked out. Aubrey crashed to the floor.

He glanced back at Isabel, anxious to see she was safe. She’d broken contact with the crystal.

Aubrey wheezed for air. Blaise knelt next to the man who had betrayed him. Dread mixed with his determination. Aubrey had been weakened by the knife embedded in his ribs, but Blaise would have to behead him.

It was the equivalent of being told he must be his dearest friend’s executioner.

He unsheathed his heartluster. Dark red blood spilled onto Aubrey’s lips as he met Blaise’s stare.

“So…you will undo what you did so many years ago when you first made me immortal?” Aubrey asked in a choked voice.

“You have given me no choice by betraying me,” Blaise replied. “How did you find out what would happen here in the crystal room tonight? How would you know what it would take to vanquish Morshiel?”

“I was the one who planned Isi’s abduction. I conspired with Morshiel. I have been waiting for a means to undermine your strength for a century or more,” Aubrey muttered. He coughed and more dark blood spilled around his lips. “Finally, the means came to me. Morshiel took me as his lover, even if you would not. I promised him your death. I used drugs and my ascendancy to gain Saint’s secrets from Isi. I used my magic to lower Usan’s protective wards so that the demon—Shirian—could enter. She assisted me, with her demon-magic. She’s an impulsive bitch, and she attacked Isabel without my permission. Still, she didn’t ruin all. It might have worked. It might have,” he gasped.

Aubrey must have noticed Isabel stir behind him. He smiled at her. “Yes, I planned it all,” Aubrey said, his gray eyes flashing in a mixture of defiance and pride.

Blaise shook his head slowly.

“What? Are you disappointed in me, Blaise?” Aubrey asked in a taunting tone. “Do you think I care?”

“I think you care,” Blaise said quietly.

Tears filled Aubrey’s light eyes. His jaw trembled. “Did you really believe I would be satisfied with second best? You would not take me as a lover. I wanted to be the one you cherished most, not some ridiculous sidekick. I am too great to share the stage.”

“I was not shaking my head because of that. I was doing so because you are wrong to think you engineered everything tonight. I planned tonight’s events. I orchestrated my destiny, Aubrey, not you. I understood that Morshiel’s greed to touch Isabel would be his downfall, because it is my strength, and we are opposites. I think Morshiel understood that magic on some level. Even Morshiel comprehended more than you by coming here tonight. You never would believe me when I told you that Morshiel and I were one. He is my dark self, but thanks to the Magian’s magic, I had the chance to gain ascendance over him. I may be mortal now, but I have gained a soul by fusing my dark and light selves.

Aubrey stared at him in amazement. “Are you that great of a fool?” he whispered in astonishment. “You
planned
to become mortal?”

Blaise gripped his heartluster and lifted it toward Aubrey’s neck. “I do not want immortality and power over others. I want to live because I choose to, not because I must. I wanted what I thought I could never have—the ability to love. Isabel gifted me with that. She gave me the impossible. I don’t expect you to understand,” he said as he looked into his one-time companion’s bewildered eyes. “How could you comprehend me, when you so willingly gave away the precious soul you once possessed?”

“I did not want to die!” Aubrey spat.

“You would have died clean, your soul intact.”

“Who cares about my soul when my brain would have been riddled and ruined by the plague,” Aubrey hissed.

Sadness filled him. “You should know that I did care for you, Aubrey. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough. Goodbye, my friend.”

He slashed his arm in an arc. The heartluster tore through Aubrey’s neck.

Slowly, by degrees, the soft sound of crying penetrated his grief and anger. He threw down his heartluster and reached for Isabel. She came down next to him. They knelt, holding each other. Isabel’s tears wet his cheek, and his wound burned all the way to his newly found soul.

After a while, Blaise helped Isabel rise and dress.

“I have to leave you, but only for a short time,” Blaise told her.

“Why?” Isabel asked.

“Isi told me that the Scourge revenants were weakened when Teslar was vanquished. I need to take the Literati into the tunnels, to finish them off. The underground must be cleansed.”

“No,” she whispered, looking decimated. “I’m afraid you won’t return.”

He touched her cheek. “I will return. I have to do this, Isabel. Please understand.”

She nodded after a moment, but her limbs shook. The direct contact with the crystal must have weakened her. Even though he was the one who was wounded, Isabel staggered next to him as they started to leave the room. He put his arms around her and took her weight.

Stupid, weak woman
, Shirian thought bitterly. She’d watched the scene unfold before her, unable to manifest due to Aubrey’s prohibition against touching the crystal. She could only do so if he commanded it, or if he allowed her to wear the crystal necklace. That damned woman had ripped the crystal from her neck, jerking her out of her physical body.

Hatred for Isabel Lanscourt poured through her.

Shirian knelt next to Aubrey. He was the only man who had ever mastered her. She could not help but respect him. His essence had become fused to hers. Now he was gone, and she could not touch the crystal without his permission. Never again would she be clothed in beautiful flesh, never again would she feel delicious sensation.

She whimpered when she heard Aubrey’s voice in her head.

“You are not hearing things. It is me. My brain is still alive, though not for long. Touch the crystal, demon. Touch it, and then touch me.”

Shirian scurried to do his bidding. The crystal’s energy flooded her, congealing her essence into flesh, immediately stealing the air from her newly-formed lungs. She reached and touched Aubrey’s bare hand. Energy poured through her.

Aubrey’s gray eyes opened wide on his decapitated head.

Epilogue

They stood together in St. James Park beneath a cherry tree in full bloom, their arms around one another, watching as people passed.

“They look so happy, don’t they?” Isabel murmured into Blaise’s chest, referring to a young family who walked by—a man, woman and their two school-age children. He grunted in agreement, stroking her shoulder.

“Next spring, the baby will be with us here in the park.”

“Yes,” Isabel murmured happily. She brushed her fingers over her belly. At three months pregnant, she had yet to feel much of a bulge, but she sensed the child’s presence. “Usan said the baby couldn’t be any healthier than she is.”

The sound Blaise made caused her to stare up at his face. A cherry blossom fell on his shoulder, its softness such a contrast to his bold, intimidating male beauty. “You are still angry at Usan?” she whispered. “For using his magic to keep you from telling the other princes about what happened to us…about how you conquered Morshiel?”

“Yes. About you and the baby, as well.” His gaze ran over her upturned face and his eyes softened. He stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb. As always, his touch on her bare skin made her shiver with pleasure.

They had discovered that what had occurred in the crystal room when Blaise had vanquished both Morshiel and Aubrey was not a singular event. The two of them together—joined—amplified the power of the crystal. When they both touched the crystal, they could absorb a vast amount of energy. Their abilities for telepathy, telekinesis and mind control were enhanced in both of them. Blaise might no longer be immortal, but he was still very powerful. Every day, it seemed, he discovered some new ability, or new strength.

Other things had changed since that night in the crystal room. Blaise had acquired the ability to sustain himself on food. He no longer needed to drink her blood or utilize the crystal to survive. He no longer could transform into a wolf, but some of his animal nature remained. His fighting skills, acute instincts and sharpened senses were intact.

Her body still thrilled to his touch and the sensation of his teeth on her skin. Thankfully, those unique abilities lingered.

But so did the pain from the wound on his chest. He no longer possessed the superhuman ability to heal. Isabel knew that the twinges of pain he still felt were constant reminders of Aubrey’s betrayal. He did not speak of Aubrey often, but every once in a while, she would see the sadness in his eyes, the anger, the bewilderment. The fact that Aubrey’s body inexplicably disappeared from the crystal room on that night only seemed to add to his unrest. Isabel suspected it made it even more difficult for him to come to terms with Aubrey’s betrayal.

She placed her palm gently over the scar on his chest now, offering him silent comfort.

“You must understand,” he continued after a moment. “The other princes are like brothers to me. I want to strategize with them, share my knowledge—yes—and I’m frustrated that I can’t, but it’s more than that. I want to be able to tell them that I’m happy…that it’s possible for creatures such as us to find joy. We had all been so…dead.”

Tears burned in her eyes as she looked up at him. She smiled. “Are you sure you don’t regret giving up your immortality? Even a little?”

“Regret loving you? Regret the miracle of what has happened between us?” he murmured, turning her in his arms until his groin rested against her belly. “There’s isn’t even a tiny shred of regret. I’m only thankful.”

“You deserve to be happy,” she whispered. She sensed something in him, though, even if it wasn’t regret. “What is it, Blaise? Why are you uneasy? Are you thinking of Aubrey?”