Master of Shadows (9 page)

Thing is, the house was just too damned big for one occupant, and it had a tendency to echo, especially on the rare occasions he was both home and occupying his bed alone.

Now, as he waited in his king-sized bed for the sun to rise, Tristan stared at the slowly brightening stained-glass window above his bed, remembering the vivid taste of Belle.
It was just blood
, he told himself.
I drink it all the time
.

Majae blood always had a kick, a delicious fizz of magic and vitality unlike anything he’d ever tasted in his mortal days. Every Maja’s blood was just slightly different, in subtle, delightful ways.

But Belle’s was more intense. More erotic.

More
.

It seemed to burst on his tongue, distilled feminine sensuality, sizzling magic, and that lush something that was pure Belle.

He knew he must have tasted her before. Probably several times, considering that Majae often bottled their blood as gifts, donated it to the Lord’s Club, or served it to guests. For God’s sake, he’d known her for a thousand years.

But not really. Yes, he’d run into her at parties and served on the High Council with her, but there’d always been others around. And she’d been a court seducer, a job which had both kept her busy and encouraged him to keep his distance.

Besides, she’d always reminded him a little too much of Isolde, another beautiful blonde who’d been adored by every man who met her. He’d assumed Belle would have Isolde’s darker edges, too.

So he’d steered clear. Until last month, when Morgana had forced him to accept Belle as a partner, after Belle had suddenly acquired an inexplicable need to work field missions.

He’d quickly realized she was far more dangerous than Isolde, magic notwithstanding. Yes, she had the same bright and flashing charm, but she also had a strength and intelligence Isolde had never possessed.

He really should have anticipated that. Belle was, after all, a Maja, while Isolde had failed Merlin’s tests.

Isolde had also been a the traitor who’d left his soul in bleeding desolation.

Tris was coming to want Belle every bit as much as he’d ever wanted Isolde. Remembering the look in her eyes as she realized how the taste of her affected him was enough to get him hard all over again.

“It’s not a good idea to become lovers with your partner,”
he’d told Davon. And it wasn’t.

But he didn’t always follow his own advice.

He was planning Belle’s seduction when sunrise stole his consciousness.

 

The creature that
had been Dice Warren snarled, sounding like a chainsaw in the confines of the cavern.

Warlock circled him warily. Dice was huge, easily the size of an Indian elephant. The wizard had been forced to gate them both into the largest cavern in the cave network for this little exercise. He wanted to give his monster room to learn who was dominant.

Warlock was looking forward to this. He hadn’t had a really good fight since the battle with Smoke and his little werewolf whore.

Nothing made him feel as alive as spilling the blood of something that could kill him.

Dice could definitely do the job. The beast looked like a cross between a wolf and a tiger, with a long muzzle and triangular, upright ears. Yet his body was catlike, with thick, powerful legs that were proportionately shorter than a wolf’s. Each of his forepaws was the size of Warlock’s head, while his retractable claws were the length of daggers. His fur was long and bushy like a wolf’s, in a shade of rich, dark sable that contrasted with the yellow glow of his eyes. He was both beautiful and terrifying.

Now all Warlock had to do was tame him.

“What have you done to me, you bastard?” Dice’s voice sounded deep, growling. He also had an incongruous lisp, since he hadn’t yet learned to speak through his carnivore’s fangs.

Warlock gave him a taunting smile. “I’ve made you my perfect weapon.”

Yellow eyes narrowed. “You made me a monster. And I’m going to rip you apart.”

Warlock smirked and gestured. A snaking length of blue light appeared in his hand, spilling to the ground to curl around his clawed feet like the lash of a whip. “Come on then, boy. Try for me.”

“I ain’t a boy.” Black lips lifted off white teeth. “I ain’t even a man.” And he charged.

Fortunately, he wasn’t used to his massive body, and inexperience made Dice slow and awkward. Warlock stepped aside like a matador teasing a bull. A flick of his wrist sent the spell whip flashing out to bite into Dice’s shoulder. The creature yelped in startled pain.

Dice wheeled and struck out with a clawed forepaw. If he’d connected, he would have ripped Warlock’s head off his shoulders.

The wizard was too fast and experienced for that. Ducking, he sent his whip licking out to curl around Dice’s foreleg. This time the creature’s cry of pain was more howl of rage. He spun toward Warlock and gathered himself, narrow yellow eyes watching his enemy with feral intensity. Yet he held back, watching for an opening.

Warlock studied him with approval. He was beginning to think. He’d be deadly once he got used to his huge body and started using the advantages it offered.

But first he had to be broken.

“You are slow,” Warlock growled, cracking the light lash to send up an explosion of sparks. “You are clumsy and ignorant. You can’t take me. You can barely keep from tripping over your own big feet.”

“Fuck. You!” Dice exploded toward him in a furious blur of fangs, claws, and massive muscle. Big paws flashed out.

Warlock spun aside and flicked the whip to cut across Dice’s unprotected belly. The beast roared and leaped.

Warlock dove clear, narrowly avoiding being crushed under the monster’s weight. As he hit the cavern floor, the werewolf spun, flicking the whip to flay the length of Dice’s ribs.

“Fucker!” In his fury and pain, Dice opened his fanged jaws wide and roared.

A torrent of flame boiled from his jaws and poured over Warlock like a blast from a blowtorch.

“You put me
in one hell of a position, you know that?” William Justice growled.

Instead of replying to that opening shot, Belle gave him a sunny smile and lifted the two venti Starbucks cups she held. “How do you like your coffee?”

“Black,” he muttered. “Like my disposition.”

“No wonder you and Tristan get along.” She handed over one cup and kept the other. A quick spell doctored her coffee to her tastes: two sugars and a cream.

“My brother wolves want your vampire’s head on a pike,” Justice told her, taking a sip of the coffee.

“Instead they got the witch’s.”

“What?” He glowered at her, suspicious.

“Steve Sheridan’s bite killed Cherise.”

Justice lowered the coffee and frowned at her. “How? He didn’t do that much damage.”

“Apparently Direkind bites are poisonous to the Magekind. She died despite all our efforts to save her. We’re having the funeral later this week.”

“I’m . . . sorry.” He looked taken aback. “We had no idea. I don’t think any of us has ever bitten one of you.”

“It was a shock to us, too.” She studied the fire-blasted yard that stretched before them. Yellow crime scene tape meandered between trees and bushes, swaying in the light breeze as it surrounded the burned-out husk of what had once been a sprawling mansion.

Now all that was left was the brick fingers of a couple of fireplaces and a few partially tumbled walls. Jagged studs stood here and there, broken and burned black. The ground was covered in soaked piles of ash and debris—tumbled bricks, burned insulation, chunks of wallboard, and bits of blackened metal.

Belle sniffed. Charred wood, seared plastic, the chemical stench of God knew what. And something else, something like a cross between ozone and fur.

Watching her, Justice took a breath too. “Smells like magic.”

“Not Magekind,” she told him, frowning. “More like Miranda Drake. Tristan and I met her just the other day, and she had that scent.”

Justice nodded. “At Joan Devon’s Grieving. I heard all about that from the ladies. Most of them said it was ‘tacky’ of you and the knight to show up to such a private moment. Especially as one of your people killed the man Joan was grieving for.”

Belle snorted. “I didn’t get the impression Joan was doing much grieving. Which might be because the son of a bitch deserved it, since he died trying to blow up two kids and three hundred cops.”

“Good point, but the ladies didn’t see it that way. The general opinion is that whatever crimes Gerald Drake committed, he was driven to by grief over the death of his son.”

Belle lifted a brow. “His son, the serial killer?”

“That’s the one.” Justice took another sip of his coffee and meditated on the taste. “I’d have taken Trey Drake’s head myself if Arthur’s son hadn’t beat me to it. We still don’t know how many women Drake killed and ate.”

She shook her head. “I don’t get those people at all. The Sheridans I understand. Jimmy’s dead, he was an innocent, and they want revenge. But the Chosen . . .”

“Our aristocracy has never been the sanest bunch around. And they can rationalize the bloodiest fucking crimes you’d ever want to see, most of them against their own wives and daughters. What’s more, the women just seem to accept it, as if it’s the way things are supposed to be.”

“Assholes,” Belle growled, and stepped over the police tape. She was picking up a lot of power coming from a point in the middle of the ruins. Setting her feet carefully, she started picking her way through piles of ash.

“Yeah, but they’re powerful assholes,” Justice called, watching her. “And they’ll turn this thing around and hang it on you guys before you can blink.”

“What, this fire?” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “We had nothing to do with it.”

“Since when has fact had anything to do with a juicy rumor?” He cradled his cup and leaned back on one leg, a pose that made his broad shoulders look even broader. “Especially when there are five Chosen aristocrats willing to swear you and Tristan were about to kidnap poor Joelle’s daughter right in front of them.”

“Miranda wanted to go with us, Justice. That’s not kidnapping.”

“The way they look at it, Miranda Drake had a duty to obey her parents, so she had no right to go with you. Which, to them, would make it kidnapping.”

Belle grunted at him, concentrating on her footing in the treacherous remains of the house.

“Then an hour later, the Drake house burns to the ground,” he continued. “Doesn’t look good. Especially given that firefighters found Joelle’s body in the ashes with a broken neck.”

“Well, we sure as hell didn’t break it,” Belle snapped.

“So find me some evidence.”

“Will anybody believe it if I do?”

“Probably not, but it will satisfy my curiosity.”

Belle’s magical instincts whispered, and she bent to dig carefully through the debris at her feet. When she stood, she held a fragment of a book. Most of the thing had burned away, but the left lower corner remained. Delicately, she fanned it open, casting a quick spell to keep the seared paper from crumbling to ash.

“What the hell is that?” Justice crunched across the ruins to join her.

“A magical gold mine.” She grinned at him. “Miranda Drake’s spell book.”

 

It was very
quiet in the cavern, especially after the howls and screams, the roar of flame and electric crack of the lash.

Dice lay in the darkness, trying not to whimper as he bled from countless slices from the whip.

Warlock stood watching him. There wasn’t a mark on the bastard, though Dice had tried to fry him, slice him open, even bite his head off. The wizard had conjured energy shields to protect himself from the magical attacks, danced around the physical ones, and basically run Dice into the ground.

Exhausted, weakened from blood loss, Dice had finally collapsed after more than an hour of vicious combat.

“Are you done?”

Panting with pain and exhaustion, Dice opened his eyes and found the werewolf standing right in front of his nose. He considered breathing fire at his foe again, but he just didn’t have the power. He’d drained himself dry.

He considered lunging forward to take a nice big bite, but he was too exhausted to move.

Worst of all, he found he couldn’t meet Warlock’s orange gaze. He tried, but each time his eyes brushed the wizard’s, he felt the impact of Warlock’s will like the blow of a hammer.

“Are you done, dog?” The wizard asked the question again, the words soft, menacing.

“Fuck you,” he growled, even as his eyes skated away from Warlock’s.

The whip licked out, slicing across his sensitive muzzle and tearing a gasp of pain from his lips.

“Watch your tongue,” the sorcerer hissed, “or I’ll rip it out of your mouth.” Warlock lifted the whip as if to strike. “I asked you a question. Are you done, dog?”

“I’m done.” The words escaped him despite his determination not to say them.

Dice knew with a sinking heart that he spoke the truth. He could no longer fight. He no longer wanted to. Warlock would only hurt him worse and humiliate him more.

The sorcerer smiled.

 

Miranda Drake flipped
off the lights and locked the restaurant’s back door, the keys producing a cheerful jangle as she turned the dead bolt. It had been a good night for tips, and she smiled, thinking of the sexy pair of red boots she had her eye on at the mall. She’d been saving for weeks to afford those boots.

A hand hit flesh in a hard slap, and a woman’s voice yelped. Miranda’s head snapped up as she spun around.

Two figures struggled in a pool of light cast by the parking lot safety light. A wiry male figure gripped a woman’s thin shoulders as he jerked her onto her toes and shook her hard. Her hair flew around her face, and she yelled again.