Married (38 page)

“Get out, Adam.” Georgie pulled a bloody scrap of green silk out of her purse. “This is going to be chancy.”

“What are you doing?”

She looked at Silviu as she answered, lifting the fabric for him to see. “I’m burning this.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Adam protested. “Margaret said—”

“I know.” Georgie glanced at him, then looked past him to where Eliasz and Ileana were pushing the last of the guests out of the door. Two black cats, Christiana and Margaret disappeared into the hall. “Go, Adam.”

He licked his lips, clearly torn. Muso waved a hand and sent Graves flying. Silviu spun, scooping Madeleine up in his arms then rushing toward the table. Graves snarled and sent a dark wave hurtling at his Family Father. Daniel came back to himself with a scream for them to stop.

Silviu put Madeleine down next to Georgie and reached out to squeeze her shoulder. The look in his eyes said he needed some sort of touch to calm his rage. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

She shook her head. She pinched the fabric between her fingers and stared as if it would give her answers. The scrap was as silent as she. There was no emotion within her, no feeling. She couldn’t afford it just then. She was numbed through, not a flicker of pain or pleasure or fear.

She lifted deadened eyes to her pale grandmother. “Go.”

Madeleine’s chin shot up. “I will stay.”

“Stop, both of you!” Daniel’s voice broke over their moment, sending a disconnected sense of surrealism skimming through Georgie’s head.

It was all real, but it felt like a dream. The only thing she was tethered to was the simple golden rope she could feel snaking through her soul. Pumping strength into her muscles.

Georgie didn’t protest her grandmother’s decree. She didn’t push Adam toward the door again. She didn’t pay any attention to Daniel or the little Levy grouping behind him.

She watched Graves and Muso for another instant, magical light pouring from them, stretching between them. Graves swung his fist, Muso crashed back into the table. The last of the plates shattered on the floor.

Without another moment’s hesitation, Georgie threw the fabric on the flame sputtering in the melted depths of the only candle still gracing their table. The silk burst into black fire that carried a terrible stench. The dark blaze imploded, exploded back out and sent fierce magic sweeping through the room. Banners ripped from the walls, chairs skidded over the floors, candles blew out.

Events were an avalanche, gathering force and mass as everything happened at once, jolting Georgie from the strange and hazy place she occupied. Tearing her from numbness and submerging her in horror, popping the surrealism like a bubble.

Darkness barreled into Graves and pushed an inhuman screech from his chest. It was cut off abruptly when Muso launched forward, a silver fork glinting under the lights as the prongs sank into Graves’ eye. Daniel shrieked as black fire coasted over his face.

It all happened so quickly.

Then Madeleine collapsed.

Adam jumped for their grandmother. Jumbled words filled with power poured from his throat as her thin body convulsed. Georgie went to her knees and reached for the fragile, flopping wrist, feeling the dark magic flowing strong under Madeleine’s papery skin as Adam squatted down and cradled the old woman to his chest.

The golden cord inside Georgeanne twanged in warning and instincts took over, focusing her attention on the dark flow. Adam’s spell was stabilizing the old woman but not casting out the terrible magic she’d become so vulnerable to. Georgie fed the gold light inside her straight into Madeleine’s body, letting it rise within her as Silviu had taught her, desperate to snap the cords binding her grandmother as she’d done on the effigy.

Madeleine gasped and her stiff body relaxed. Terror such as Georgie had never known infiltrated every part of her, chilling her brain and freezing her heart until a harsh noise broke from her throat, lost in the sound of Daniel Levy’s screams.

Adam’s hand rested on Madeleine’s throat. His head snapped up to meet Georgie’s wide eyes. “She’s alive, honey. Her pulse is weak, but it’s there. That was the worst of it.”

“I tried to help, but I don’t know if I did.”

“Well, she’s still alive, so something worked out.” His voice wavered, carrying a reedy quality that told Georgeanne he was a step beyond his limits.

She laid a comforting hand on his shoulder and looked up at Silviu, almost falling back at the furious look on his face. Though his glare was trained on Muso, Georgie prayed he would never look at her that way. His eyes were tempered steel, his face all angles with fury writ upon every line, and his lips were non-existent as he stared at Daniel and Muso. Magic stormed from him without control and he gave it free rein to establish his will.

His voice was lethally soft. “I have had enough. You have dared to bring harm to my Family, my
betrothed
. I don’t care if you wish to slaughter every member of your own Family, Muso Ngozi, but you will die for threatening mine.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Silviu

Silviu’s veins were on fire. Never had he felt such rage, such fear. Muso was a hair’s breadth from the vilest death Silviu could dream up for him to experience, and the man could only stare blankly. Daniel Levy looked ill and the small group behind him fared no better. Constance, Anne and Warner huddled together as if that would protect them from Silviu’s wrath.

There would be no mercy.

Georgie surged to her feet. She grabbed his arm and gold magic flooded the ballroom. She pressed against him in the center of a tempest of Silviu’s making, her hair tearing from its clips to dance around her chin. Her torn dress rippled in a high breeze.

He felt his power swamp her, pour over her and mingle with her own essence. She returned it to him tenfold and the unbreakable connection forged between them in the dark fires of perverse magic hummed with vibrancy. Their Matched magic unlocked his true power and Silviu welcomed it with every fiber of his being.

There was no denying their bond—not by any of those still present on the battlefield. Silviu filled her and Georgeanne filled him. They might as well be married already.

“Use them,” she whispered. “Make Muso speak on your behalf at the Council of Covens. We can gain another two Fathers’ votes for your ascension to the High Seat. Don’t kill him and start a war.”

“No. He dies.”

“No, Silver, listen to me.” Georgie pressed closer and locked him in her arms, imprinting the undeniable fact that she
lived
into his senses. “We need to be smart.”

She was the only thing that could prompt him toward clemency. Her calm rationality slid through his anger with a soothing caress. Silviu glanced down at Madeleine, held tenderly in her grandson’s arms. “For what she’s suffered—”

“She’s alive and she’s strong. Don’t start a war, Silver.”

He stared at Madeleine for another moment. She may be alive, but she was far from all right. For as strong as she was, she was still old and fragile. Silviu had believed she had several more years in her, enough time to put all his plans in motion, but the events at the Ngozi hotel had doubt blossoming. He would rather not commence on the next phase of his life without Madeleine’s wisdom, guidance and influence—all that had been promised to him when his betrothal to Georgeanne was sealed with blood—but the likelihood he might have to was a grim probability.

Silviu figured he might as well get started.

His heart clenched with remorse.

He turned back to Muso. “My betrothed is attempting to save your life, Ngozi, in spite of the fact that hers was almost lost.”

“It was Graves, not me,” the Father immediately protested. “I wouldn’t hurt the Davenolds. It wasn’t my magic that felled her.”

“But the fault still lies with your Family and therefore you, as the Father.” Silviu let the contempt he felt fill his eyes and whip through his magic. “You will make reparations.”

“What?” Muso’s already widened eyes bulged. He shook his head. “What do I have that you could possibly want?”

“Your votes for High Seat.” Silviu narrowed his eyes. “You will remember how I spared your life when everything within me screams for your severed head on a pike outside the Lovasz estate gates. You will remember how you lied to me about your past, your son and your goals, and you will think hard about repeating that mistake and rekindling my anger. You won’t survive a second time, Ngozi.”

Silviu turned to Daniel and continued. “And you will remember that you are the man who instigated the entire mess. The one who put my betrothed in danger. “You will remember my strength and do everything in your power to remain on my good side.”

“Yes.” Daniel swiped a shaking hand over his sweating brow. “My apologies. If I’d known, I’d never have even issued the invitation.”

Adam rose, holding Madeleine’s lax body like a sleeping child. “We need to get her upstairs.”

Silviu nodded. “Lead the way.”

He waited for Adam and Georgeanne to exit the ballroom before he swept out behind them, covering them from any danger still lingering at their backs. They moved quickly through the hotel, the occupants in hiding, leaving the halls hushed and layered with an unnatural stillness. Adam led them directly to Madeleine’s suite and laid her on the bed.

Margaret was already there, waiting for them. “Christiana is in our room, with Tulah and her mother.”

Adam stepped back to face Silviu with waxen, stiff features and ran a hand through his hair. “I need to go. I need to make sure Tulah’s okay. I mean, Charles…
fuck
. Even with Chris’ help, there’s nothing more I can do for Grandmother that you two can’t.”

Silviu understood perfectly. He understood the compulsion to put his hands on the woman he’d claimed, to wrap her up, hold her close and heal her from the inside out. He understood the ravening beast that must surely be prowling Adam’s mind, demanding he put his universe to rights.

“Go.” He waved the Davenold male out of the room. “Tomorrow we’ll be leaving.”

“I’ve already called my home,” Margaret said as she bustled around the bed, tucking her sister beneath the covers. “I didn’t know if your sister and Eliasz would be coming with us, so I told them to prepare enough rooms for us all.”

“They’ll be coming,” Silviu growled.

Georgie stared at him with dark, troubled eyes. “You don’t think she’ll recover, do you?”

He picked up Madeleine’s hand, frowning in concentration as he felt her unsteady pulse and searched for any signs of the dark magic that held her. He felt nothing, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Before, when she was merely tired from whatever awful spell had been flung at her, he hadn’t felt the invasion.

“Silviu?” Georgie’s toned edged into a higher octave.

“I don’t know, my love,” he finally admitted. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. This darkness is far beyond my understanding.”

“Your father would know.” Georgie rubbed Madeleine’s shoulder frantically.

“Maybe. Maybe she just needs to rest.” He shrugged. “Graves is dead, so that might lessen the effects. Maybe the Davenold power will be enough to pull her through.”

“I’ll stay in here with her,” Margaret offered.

“I’m not leaving,” Georgie stated dully.

Silviu grabbed her hand and led her toward the attached sitting room. “We’ll stay in here, love, where we’ll be close if anything happens.”

In spite of the restlessness Silviu knew would keep him from sleep, he towed his unusually submissive betrothed over to the couch. Silviu stretched out over the cushions, head propped on the arm, and pulled Georgie down on his chest. After a moment of resistance, she tucked her face into the curve of his neck.

Her tears coasted over his skin.

He simply held her for a long time. Georgie needed to let the reaction move through her so she could release it. His own arms tightened with crushing force around her small frame for the same reason. Adrenaline was wearing off, leaving exhaustion in its wake, cauterizing the fear with sour memories.

“I don’t want her to die, Silver.”

He stroked his hand over her back. “I know.”

“I’m scared.”

“I’m scared too, Georgie.” He tipped her face up to his, his heart twisting at the misery he found—her dark eyes red and swollen, her lips turned down. “I was terrified when you stepped into that spell. I could
feel
you dying.”

“But then you were there.”

“I don’t know what happened, my love.” It was a miracle his throat let those words past the constriction within. “I felt you dying, leaving me, and something inside me just exploded out and dragged you back.”

“Your magic.”

“No. Something more than that.” Silviu lifted his hand and rubbed at his chest. Georgie pushed his fingers away to take over the task. “My soul, maybe. I love you.”

She pushed up to press her lips against his in a sweet, chaste caress. He didn’t press for more. He didn’t demand words of love in return or proof in a more physical sense. He simply held her close and breathed in her scent until, inch by inch, both their bodies relaxed.

For the first time, Silviu was able to hold the woman he loved through the night.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Tulah

He’d held her through the night. Close against his side, as if Adam needed to hold her on some fundamental level Tulah couldn’t comprehend. His arms were tight bands around her and, for the first time in her life, Tulah realized why her mother had so willingly given up any sense of self to a man.

Because the right one was totally worth the surrender.

Adam had held her like that all night long. Even in sleep, his arms didn’t loosen, his body didn’t move away from hers. He kept her safe, rescued her from evil and warmed her inside and out.

She listened to the steady thump of his heart under her ear for another moment before carefully shifting. Still sleeping, he mumbled a protest, but it died when she didn’t move away from him. Tulah did slide lower, though.