Tall, Dark & Apocalyptic (11 page)

“You’ll want to reapply the gel in a couple of hours.”

His gaze shot to her face again and held. The intensity of that look went right to her clit. “I might need help.”

She shook her head. “I think you can manage yourself from now on.” Yeira walked away, eager to put some distance between them. She didn’t get far. A hard grip enclosed her wrist, tugging her to a stop and into his body.

Her back was enveloped in heat, the hard, heavy presence of his cock pressing against it as he wrapped an arm around her middle and held her there. The hunter lowered his head and spoke into her ear, his voice a husky whisper that wafted hot breath over her face. “Where are you going, woman?”

Yeira tried to wrench free. He held on tight, pulling her closer. “I’m going to gather firewood. It’ll be dark soon and it gets cold in the dead lands at night.”

He pressed closer and Yeira sucked in a gasp before she could stop herself. “You won’t need a fire, Yeira. I’ll keep you warm.”

Her name was a husky caress from his lips. Yeira shook her head even as she licked her lips at the prospect. “Not happening, Hunter.”

His lips found her jawline and touched it in a soft, lingering kiss. Yeira closed her eyes as the world rumbled metaphorically beneath her feet, sending frissons of rabid need rolling through her. His free hand found her hip and splayed there, the long fingers heating the skin beneath them.

Her pussy throbbed with building lust, her belly tightened under it. In sheer desperation she tried to jerk free again, with similar results. “Let me go, Kord.”

The delicious touch of his lips moved downward, creating a sizzling trail down the side of her throat. Despite her efforts to ignore him, she shivered under the sensual touch. “You might as well stop fighting it, Yeira. You and I both want this. It’s inevitable. I’m going to bury myself inside you eventually. It might as well be sooner than later.”

Tears of anger and frustration filled her eyes but she blinked, willing them back. The last thing she wanted was for him to see her cry.

The anger was because she knew he was right…the frustration caused by the fact that all she wanted in that moment was to turn in his arms and meet his sexy lips with her own, claiming him as hers. So she did what was necessary to squelch the fire between them. Though the words were like acid on her tongue. “You’re going to rape me? Because that’s the only way this is going to happen.” She held her breath. Knowing she shouldn’t goad him. But she was out of options. She needed more than anything for him to release her before she gave in to the sizzling lust enveloping her.

He stiffened. Stilled. And slowly his arm slipped away. He didn’t say a word but stepped back, taking his delicious heat with him.

Yeira didn’t turn around. She couldn’t bear to see the hurt in his eyes. Instead she did the only thing she could in that moment to keep from making his declaration truth.

She hurried away from him, fighting hard not to break into a run. Another second encompassed in his heat…feeling the hard insistence of his body against hers…and she would have done the unthinkable.

She’d have let him make love to her.

And the results would have been catastrophic. Because nothing would have changed between them. Not really.

When Edwige was defeated, he would end Yeira’s life too. His honor wouldn’t let him do anything else. And her honor wouldn’t let him off the hook even if he gave in to temptation.

For his sake
she couldn’t fall into his arms and his life.

Because he’d live with the regret all his life if she did.

~
TD&A
~

Edwige stood before her scrying pool, hands lifted and eyes closed as the images played out in her mind. The picture she was seeing was distorted, a bird’s eye view, of Joris, staring out a window in a room that looked like it was from the fourteenth century, thirteenth world. He stood with his slim, muscular legs spread, his hands clasped behind his back, and his profile contemplative. Edwige’s heart hurt watching him through Ebon’s eyes. Her loveliest creation, Joris had captured her heart with his beauty from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him.

His effect on her hadn’t dimmed over time.

Tears stung her closed eyes. She felt him pulling away. Every moment…every day that passed without his presence before her, told Edwige she was losing him.

Beyond the sentimental pain the thought caused her…beyond the broken heart…Edwige knew the consequences of Joris’s betrayal would be grave.

Her apprentice knew too much about her. He knew nearly everything about her operation. And, over the years they’d been together, he’d learned too much about her death magics under her tutelage. A Joris that had turned away from her was a dangerous creature.

Edwige inhaled deeply, shuddering as the picture shimmered and flexed. A door opened behind Joris and he turned, his stunning features brightening as a man walked across the stone floor. The man’s dark features were neutral, his full lips tight with anger.

But Joris didn’t appear to see the anger. He hurried over, clasped the man’s arms and leaned in, kissing him on the lips. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

The newcomer’s perfect mouth tightened in a grimace. “I told you I’d come.”

Joris blinked under the censure but his smile didn’t waver. “I’m glad. We have much to discuss.”

Edwige’s temper flashed, rising to stain her cheeks with red. The heat of her anger pulsed beneath her skin and her fingers twitched with the need to strike out.

It was obvious Joris had feelings for the other man. Even if the object of those feelings didn’t seem to return them. Somehow that made it worse for Edwige. Her dearest was leaving her behind to love another. And that other didn’t seem to appreciate the gift of Joris’s love.

Such a horrible waste.

The dark-skinned man flashed his golden-brown gaze around the room and Edwige felt rather than saw Ebon sliding backward, more deeply into the shadows.

“We need to make it fast. I have work to do.”

Joris inclined his head. “Of course. Would you like something to eat…to drink? You’ve come far through the time void. You must be tired. Would you care to rest before we talk?”

The other man shook his head, the motion sharp and impatient. “The longer I’m here the more possibility that I’ll be discovered.” He lowered his gaze toward Joris, “…that we’ll both be discovered.”

Joris twitched his fingers dismissively. “Don’t waste your concern on me, dear one. She doesn’t have a clue where I am or what I’m doing. The dark witch is stupid in love with me. It would never occur to her that I might betray her.”

Edwige’s anger swirled in her chest, biting at her like a nest of angry vipers. Her knees buckled under the pain, but she barely noticed as she hit the floor. Her ears rang as blood rushed to her head. It was confirmed, Joris was plotting against her.

More importantly, he no longer loved her.

“I wouldn’t dismiss the witch that easily, Joris. She has eyes and ears everywhere.”

Joris shrugged, walking away to pour himself a drink from a clay pitcher. The cloudy, pink liquid swirled into his glass, a light froth adorning the top. Edwige recognized the magic-infused nectar she’d perfected just for him…to keep him looking young and vibrant.

She suddenly realized that she’d done the worst possible thing with Joris. She’d given him the means to go on without her. She’d taught him entirely too much. With a sinking heart, Edwige realized she would have to end Joris. Though it nearly broke her heart to admit it to herself. It would have to be done.

“I have it under control, dear one. You should concern yourself with your own safety. How did the attack on Authority headquarters go?”

The man’s mouth tightened, his brows lowering. “You told me you would only send a few reborn, to create the illusion Edwige was declaring open war on the Sorceri. You sent a hundred good men from both sides to their deaths.”

Joris shrugged. “The cost of war I’m afraid. With the witch distracted by an energized Sorceri our job is much easier.”

The newcomer grimaced. “You knew it would be a blood bath. The hunters are superior fighters.” He frowned. “And of course there is the Sentinel.”

Joris sipped his life-sustaining drink. “Ah…the Atlantan. Yes, he is a terrifying spectacle, isn’t he?”

Joris’s laughter skimmed warmly over Edwige’s skin and she shivered under its power.

“If only we could put him and the dark one in a room together,” Joris went on.

The comment was so mean-spirited that Edwige gave a small cry. Her rage-filled emotions traveled through her connection with her familiar and Ebon lifted from his hidden perch, his wings shaking with sympathetic anger.

The newcomer’s sharp, golden gaze shot upward, narrowing as he spotted Ebon. “The witch’s familiar! You fool!” He drew his sword as Joris’s blue eyes widened in surprise.

Edwige’s gaze fixed on Joris, her fists clenching at her sides in impotent rage. She sent a bolt of power through Ebon toward the angry hunter and he dove to the side, neatly avoiding it. He quickly gathered his guide magics and popped from the room without a single word or concern for Joris.

Her former love…her ex-apprentice…her Judas betrayer looked up at her through a wide, blue gaze, understanding lighting his handsome features even as he reached for an ebony wand cut from the shin bone of an ancient dinosaur.

The energy wand she’d made for him herself as protection.

Edwige didn’t wait for him to use the wand against her beloved familiar. She sent Ebon flying toward the vented peak through which he’d entered Joris’s hidey hole. But before the raven slipped through the vent, she focused his gaze downward, to the pale-faced betrayer lifting his wand toward the ceiling in jerky, panicked movements.

Edwige whispered an incantation and appeared before Joris in a formation of light and shadow, only her angry black gaze forming completely before him. “You foul, ungrateful creature. You are dead. Do you hear me? Dead! You can run, but I will find you. And when I stand before you next, I will be the last living thing you will ever set eyes upon.”

She sent a wave of power through the image and exploded on the air, her final warning throbbing through the large, nearly empty space, shaking the walls and sending the pitcher of nectar to spill across the stone floor.

Satisfied with her spectacle, Edwige told Ebon to return to her.

They had much planning to do.

Yeira added a thin length of broken wood to the growing pile in her arms. The wood smelled peppery and was unnaturally lightweight. Its center was honeycombed and mushy, filled with a liquid she knew from experience gave off a mind-altering smoke, which seemed to focus the thoughts on sexual things.

At least that was where Yeira’s mind went under its influence. She wasn’t sure if that was a general thing or just a personal one.

She wished there was another option for their fire but the poivron tree was the only one that had survived the poison of the dead lands, even with the reborn magic aiding it. She’d just have to make sure Audie was upwind of the smoke. It wouldn’t do to have him get any ideas.

A soft hissing sound danced past on a pepper-scented breeze. She stilled, her gaze sliding toward the spot, several yards away, where the air sparked and seemed to thicken.

Yeira reached for her weapon before remembering it was gone. She dropped the wood she’d gathered and stepped back, her fingertips tingling with the first surges of energy.

The countenance that appeared a moment later sent the magic sliding back. The little gnome’s face, with its oversized, bulbous nose and unruly eyebrows and beard, peered at her from the depths of a spacial void. As soon as Yeira realized who it was she dropped to one knee, lowering her head with respect. “Eminence.”

The Watcher of the World fluttered a spidery-fingered hand impatiently. “Stand, child. I have news.”

Yeira straightened, her heart pounding with dread. News from the millennium-aged Watcher of the World was generally epic. “The Healer is well?”

The gnome’s tiny face puckered crankily. “My brother is fine. He sent me to you.”

Relieved, she asked, “What did he wish me to know?”

“The witch, Edwige, she is on the move.”

Yeira heard the soft crunch of Audie’s footsteps behind her. She lifted her hand, signaling him to stop. “You have located her?”

The little creature turned beady, black eyes toward Audie. “Hunter. Good. Your services will be needed. The dark one goes to vanquish her once-beloved apprentice.”

Yeira frowned. “Joris? She wants to kill him?”

“He has conspired against her with other reborn. She learned of his perfidy just this day.”

Yeira felt the Watcher’s words like a series of individual blows to her chest. Joris had been telling her the truth. He would have helped her take Edwige down. “He wasn’t lying…” she murmured, despair twisting her stomach. She could have helped him stop the dark one.

Audie was suddenly there, a hand going to her back as he addressed the Watcher. “Eminence, where will we find them?”