Seduced by Magic (36 page)

He pocketed the parchment, which was of no use save for the transfer. He dismissed the messenger just as Junga approached. She had changed out of Elizabeth's elegant suit and was wearing functional jeans, a gold jersey with S
AN
F
RANCISCO 49ers
emblazoned across it, and walking shoes. The shirt was all she'd been able to find at the last minute that would fit her while she was in her human shell. The jeans were tight as hell on her, and they made her ass look good enough to fuck.

When Darkwolf walked into one of the guest bedrooms to retrieve Silver, he stopped for a moment at the doorway. She was holding one palm against her belly, and she looked vulnerable and tired. Very tired. It was something he had never seen in her before.

In that moment, he was Kevin Richards again, the former white witch who longed to be human again. A human who might have been able to win the spirit and the love of such a woman. This woman.

What if she could save him? Return him to the life he once knew?

The moment she sensed his presence, she straightened her spine, dropped her hand from her belly, and raised her chin. The hatred in her eyes brought him back to reality. He belonged to Balor now, and this woman would never love him. He could keep her, always his captive, but she would never love him.

Silver looked beautiful despite her day of captivity. She had bathroom facilities within the room she had been relegated to, and she had eaten all that he'd placed in front of her through the powerful shield. Although it had looked like she was forcing herself to eat. Her hair hung long and loose around her shoulders and she had a soft flush to her cheeks.

He loved that fire in her gray eyes, her spirit, her beauty. Something about the unguarded moment he had just caught her in concerned him. Something beyond being held captive was disturbing Silver.

Sara walked into the room and sidled up to Darkwolf as she met Silver's gaze. Sara had once belonged to the same D'Anu Coven as Silver, before Silver was kicked out and before Sara had been seduced into the Balorite fold.

With no hesitation, Sara reached up and kissed Darkwolf, slipping her tongue into his mouth. She tasted sweet and when she rubbed his cock through his jeans, he wanted to fuck her, right in front of Silver, to show her what she was missing.

He heard a low growl behind him that he knew was Junga. After deliberately extending the kiss, he physically separated himself from Sara. She gave him the sensual pout that she was so good at. Her nipples were taut beneath her low-cut blouse and he was certain her pussy was wet, waiting for him.

Junga growled again, but he ignored her. He tweaked one of Sara's nipples and she gave a satisfied smile. “No time now.” He pinched her other nipple and she moaned a little louder. “I'll give you a good fucking when we get back.”

Sara smirked at Junga and looked down her nose at Silver, who had a horrified expression on her face. She obviously was shocked at how easily Sara had embraced being a warlock, and her relationship with Darkwolf.

“Let's get the witch and go,” Junga said in a harsh voice that sounded much like a command.

Darkwolf turned to Junga, ice in his eyes. It was not her place to give him orders. He wore Balor's eye. He had the power of the god. However, the demon queen would never quaver before him, despite the fact he was certain he could kill her through Balor's magic. He brushed aside his irritation. He looked from Junga to Sara. “Prepare for the transfer.”

His gaze returned to Silver and the shield around her that had been multiplied by the strength of Balor. She hadn't been able to penetrate this shield no matter how many times she'd tried. He had watched her, amused at her attempts. The shield was in front of the bedroom door and covered the curtained window so that she could not break through it, and she had no means of communication.

He frowned. Unlike the fraction of time she'd had to use her cell phone. Her guard had been down, though, and he'd been able to use his magic to retrieve it from her.

Just how much did she know and how much did she tell her friends? The D'Danann and witches had not appeared
at his door, so he was certain she hadn't been able to relay their location. No doubt there was nothing to worry about.

When Silver had noticed Darkwolf, her hands were immediately prepared to fight him the second he removed the shield. Instead of releasing it, he wrapped the shield snug around her, like a lover, the way he wanted to wrap his arms around her.

“It's time.” He stepped closer to her now that she was confined to one small space with his magic.

She reached up to touch the barrier, then snatched her hand back. “Time for what?” She dropped her hands to her sides and clenched them into fists.

Darkwolf sighed. He truly didn't want to do this, but he saw no choice. They would need only a little of her blood—Balor had promised this when he'd spoken to Darkwolf through the stone. He would have to take her to the door itself, now that the location of the door had been made known.

He slipped his hand into his pocket, pulled out a small vial, and opened it. Careful not to breathe in the contents, he pushed the open bottle through his shield and splashed it on Silver before she had a chance to react. He briefly caught the scent of poppy seeds, chamomile, and his own special ingredient.

Darkwolf let the shield drop just in time to catch Silver before she collapsed and fell into a deep sleep.

Copper's heart pounded as she descended the stairs. She had no doubt this was what she was supposed to do—this was her destiny. The Drow were trying to open that evil door, and she had to stop them.

She wished she had her witch friends with her, or the D'Danann, or the PSF—well, all of them—but everyone and everything had been blocked from her for one reason or another. She was forced to do this alone. And she was determined to save her sister and her unborn child.

Unlike the other two times Copper had walked into the recesses of the Drow stairway, torches did not automatically flicker to life as she made her way down. Once the door screeched shut above her, the light of her wand was all that lit her way.

Her shoe slipped and she barely kept from falling by bracing her palm against one rough wall. She steadied herself and held her wand tightly in her other hand. The journey seemed to last much longer, and her heart was pounding harder by the time she reached the foot of the stairs.

“How am I going to confront Garran about this, Zeph?” she asked, more to herself than the familiar. She wasn't afraid of Garran, she knew in her gut he wouldn't hurt her. He wanted her and he wouldn't let any harm come to her.

She believed that, despite the fact he had betrayed her and all the Fae in the meadow by not telling them he could travel in and out of their prison, belowground. Not to mention the fact that he was apparently in league with Darkwolf and trying to open the door that separated evil from Otherworld, and perhaps her own.

Oh, goddess. Was she a total freaking idiot to trust him at all?

Surprisingly, in the absolute dark, no guards were there to greet her at the foot of the stairs. Or rather, it would have been completely dark if she didn't have her wand light. She was in the main chamber with its polished granite floor. All the debris that had fallen when the Drow and Tiernan had battled the giant had been cleared and the floor shone once again.

The entrance chamber was completely silent. “Where is everyone?” she said and her words echoed throughout the huge chamber. Other than her own voice, she didn't hear the slightest sound of speech, clink of armor, rustling of clothing. It was hollow, achingly empty. Her familiar flew to land on her wand. Zeph buzzed his wings, showing his nervousness.

Feeling as though she were sneaking into someone's home without them knowing—which she more or less was—she crept forward, her jogging shoes not making a sound on the smooth floor. Her wand light cast a bright golden glow that played off the carvings in the walls and made shadows seem to move and writhe, sending a crawling sensation up her spine.

When she reached Garran's chamber, her heart pounded as she peeked in. No one was in the room. The glow from her wand sparkled off the thousands of crystals,
creating a dazzling scene. The one blight on the crystal was the obsidian door that seemed to suck up all the light from her wand.

She'd bet her last dollar that obsidian door was the doorway to Otherworlds.

Her stomach felt queasy. “Why would Garran leave his chamber unprotected?” she mumbled, and Zephyr moved down her wand from the tip to her hand, tickling her a little.

A noise behind her caused Copper to whirl around. Her braid flopped over her shoulder and her earrings swung. She moved out of the chamber and held her wand out, prepared. But she saw nothing.

Zephyr buzzed back to her ear and she felt his increasing agitation mingling with her own.

For a moment she paused, looking from one exit to another leading from the circular area. “Well, Zeph, which exit should we follow?”

But her gut knew exactly which one to take—the one that led to where the Drow and Tiernan had fought the giant.

It was obvious to her now that the Drow had been digging far below the surface to find the door that would release all manner of evil. The giant had come from deep beneath the ground where its kind stayed unless disturbed.

Copper crept across the large room to the exit leading to the chamber where the battle had taken place. When she reached the tunnel she took a deep breath. It smelled of dry dirt and she sneezed when she inhaled some of the dust. Her wand light lit the way through the tunnel.

It wasn't long until she reached the landing overlooking the pit. She raised her wand and it gave off just enough light to illuminate the expansiveness of the pit. From this very point she had watched Tiernan and the Drow fight the giant.

In her wand light she was able to make out the huge hole in the floor of the pit. One large enough for the giant to have climbed through.

Her shoes skidded on the dirt path when she took a step forward, she stumbled over a rock, and almost lost her balance. “Oooookay. Let's not do that again.” Holding her wand out, she peered over the side of the path and swallowed when she saw just how sheer of a drop it was. Heart beating just a bit faster, she continued down the trail that led around and around the pit, slowly making its way to the stony floor and the enormous hole.

It took so long she should have been tired by the time she reached the bottom of the pit and the hole itself, but she wasn't. Between that and her six-mile jog today—from one end of Golden Gate Park to the other and back again—anyone else would probably have been nearing exhaustion. But thanks to all of her workouts during her captivity, she could more than keep up, and she was only a little sweaty. Wisps of hair clung to the perspiration along her neck and brow. She felt sticky beneath her bomber jacket and she shrugged out of it and set it aside with her backpack while she checked out the hole at the center of the pit.

The hole was enormous. It was blocked off by dirt and boulders lying all around it, as if something had exploded upward. The dirt pile was open on one side, and through that opening she could clearly see the hole. She moved past the boulders and dirt, closer to the hole and peered over its edge. It was very deep by the look of it, and as wide around as the kitchen at Enchantments—or rather the giant that had come through to attack the Drow. Her wand light didn't reach the bottom.

Copper had no doubt this was the tunnel the Drow had used to reach the door that was to be opened to free Balor. It all made perfect sense. Why else would they have been tunneling here? The giant being disturbed from its guard post far belowground and coming up through the tunnel to attack the Elves clinched it.

Of course, that meant she needed to follow the tunnel that was bound to lead her to the Drow, to Silver, and to the
door itself. Why weren't there any ladders, or ropes? Something that could be used to climb below? After all, the Drow couldn't fly. Well, she didn't think so, anyway.

She raised her wand so that she could see better and saw that there
was
a rope tied around one of the boulders and it disappeared into the depths of the giant hole. She hadn't noticed it at first because it was so thin and almost transparent. It glistened in the wand light.

Unfortunately, it was several feet away from her. Copper stuffed her wand in her back pocket, keeping the lit end up. It threw just enough light around her to see, but she would have preferred its full light in front of her. Carefully, she climbed over piles of rocks and dirt, grasping handholds and finding footholds, as she worked her way to the rope. Dirt was under her fingernails and she scratched the insides of her arms on the rocks.

Her pulse elevated every time pebbles slid beneath her shoes or fingers and into the darkness below. Stones would bounce against the walls of the hole, but the fact that she didn't hear them hit bottom added to her feeling of urgency to reach that rope.

“Not gonna fall. I'm
not
gonna fall.” Sweat coated her forehead and she took shallow breaths as she worked her way around.

When she finally reached the boulder that the rope was tied around, she sagged against the rock in relief and gave herself a moment to catch her breath.

“I can do this.” She worked to convince herself as she reached for the strange-looking rope that glittered in the faint wand light that came from her back pocket. She hugged the boulder and reached as far as her arm could go, and made a frustrated sound when her fingers came just short of it.

“Damn.” Her arms trembled from the strength it took to hold on to the boulder and keep her footing. Just a bit farther and she'd have it.

Any farther and she was likely to plunge into the hole.

She was about to try to stretch a little more when Zephyr buzzed off her ear and toward the rope. He zipped straight to the other side of the rope and landed hard against it—hard for a honeybee.