The Spell (16 page)

Jason Alberich stood at the edge of the clearing, his hand trying to block some of the light of the fire from his eyes. He was blinking a little, trying to get a closer look at her. He seemed unsure.

“Jason?” Danny jumped to her feet. “What –” She was too shocked and she swallowed the rest of the question only to begin again. “How are you here?” she asked, bewildered.

Jason dropped his arm and stared at her with wide eyes. “I performed a scry to find you when Imani came to me, telling me that you were missing,” he told her. “What the hell happened? What in the world are you doing in the middle of the forest in your pajamas?” he asked, his gaze skirting down the thin clothing she wore.

“Oh, Jason,” Danny breathed, waving his question away. She was too whole-heartedly relieved to want to discuss the issue right then and there. What she really wanted was to go home, take a long hot shower, and curl up in an oversized fleece. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered.

Alberich stared at her for a moment more, his stark green gaze clearly confused. And then he seemed to come to his senses. He straightened, swallowed hard, and took control. “Let’s get you home,” he said decidedly. “I’m assuming that since you haven’t done so already, you can’t transport. So, come here,” he told her.

The wolf howled again, closer. Danny jumped a little and Jason’s green gaze skirted to the forest and the unknown beyond. He shrugged off the black sports coat he was wearing and looked back down at Danny. She needed no further urging.

She rushed toward him and he held up his jacket in order to drape it over her shoulders. The warmth instantly penetrated her damp clothing, chilled skin and stiff muscles. A part of her wondered whether it might send the wrong message, but the weary part of her didn’t care, and she wrapped her arms around the coat, hugging it close to her body.

“Take my hand,” Jason told her, offering her his. She took it. Again, she was struck with how chilly his touch was despite the warmth of his jacket and the relative cold of her own right hand.

Jason muttered the quick incantation that would transport them, and Danny closed her eyes. She always closed her eyes when she traveled this way; it made her dizzy otherwise.

A few seconds later, she felt the world go still around her. It was like stepping foot on solid land after being at sea. She opened her eyes and glanced around. They were in Jason’s mansion. Candles in sconces lined the walls along with tapestries of the finest silk.

Danny felt a chill go through her so hard, it hurt her skin. She glanced down at her hand, still held firmly in Jason’s grip. Then she looked up into his green eyes. “Jason, why didn’t you take me home?”

He waited a moment before answering, but released her hand. She could feel the reluctance in that slow slip. He wanted to hold on.

“It’s obvious that you aren’t safe in your home at the moment, Danny,” he told her softly. He took a step back as if he could sense that she needed the room. “Imani came to me to tell me that your bedroom window was open and you had vanished without a word of warning.” He looked down at his large sports coat where it covered her pajamas. His gaze burned as he cocked his head to one side and arched a brow. “Would you like to tell me what happened tonight?”

Not even a little bit,
she thought as she shivered, regardless of his jacket and the fire burning in the massive marble hearth against one wall.
He hates Caige
. She thought of the werewolf and her abduction and the mark that Lucas had left on her arm, and her heart dropped into her stomach.
Oh gods,
she thought desperately. As if thinking of the mark activated it, she could feel it tingling against her arm now. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. It was just all too real.

Without thinking, she covered her right wrist with her left hand. Jason did not fail to notice the gesture, and at once Danny realized her mistake.

Without a word, Jason came forward and reached for her arm. Danny pulled back. It was a reflexive movement. Jason stopped in his tracks and straightened. He seemed to consider her for a moment, his expression melting from slight surprise to slighter disappointment to being unreadable altogether. His black clad form towered over her now and his green gaze darkened, his pupils expanding and pinning her to the spot.

Danny felt her heartrate speed up. Jason Alberich had never looked at her like that before.

“Danny,” he said slowly, softly, “show me your right arm.”

It was a direct order, given to her by her herald. No witch in their right mind would disobey the herald of their coven. And yet… Danny stood there, breathing quick, shallow breaths, and considered doing just that.

“Jason, please try to unders –”

“I won’t tell you again Danny,” he warned her. He had yet to raise his voice. Jason Alberich had never raised his voice, as far as Danny knew. He was the very essence of calm and collected, just as his father had been before him. His tone, his very presence, carried enough influence that it brooked obedience and had done so since he was a teenager.

However, this time his calm, low tone brought about a different reaction in Danny. Against all logic and reason, she found herself wanting to fight him. To deny him. She didn’t want him touching the mark on her arm and she didn’t want him telling her what to do. She was tired and hungry and confused. It had been a long night.

So, instead of saying anything at all, Danny simply removed her left hand from her right arm and turned away from Jason. If she had to, she would walk home from here. Wherever “here” was. No one knew exactly where the herald’s abode resided. It was kept a secret and had been for generations – since the witch trials and the inquisition had ripped a chasm in the world’s reason. It was done as a precaution.

Danny swore internally and hugged herself once more.

Several seconds of tense silence followed in which Danny’s skin became increasingly more sensitive by the almost abrasive quality of the magical space between her and Alberich. She could feel his power all around her. It came with the territory and had always been there. Jason was an incredibly strong magic user. But now his power surrounded her like fingers of fog, licking at her – warning her.

She could feel him come up behind her, as quiet as a prowling cat. She hugged herself tighter and waited for what she knew was coming. She had no idea why she was so afraid to let him see Lucas’s mark. She knew he didn’t like Caige and she knew he would be disappointed in her. But so what? He wasn’t her father. He couldn’t punish her. Could he?

And then he was so close the tendrils of his power wrapped around her like a shroud, enveloping her in a cocoon of his will. She shivered, feeling the hardness of his chest against her back.

He leaned over her until his lips were beside her ear. He remained silent and she froze in his embrace as he slid his hands down her arms until his fingers wrapped possessively around her right wrist.

Danny shut her eyes tight, but she didn’t fight him. His touch felt both tender and brutal as he raised her arm and slid her sleeve back, exposing the sparkling, shimmering knot that wove itself intricately across the inside of her wrist.

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting then, as she imagined him gazing upon the telltale mark of domination. But it wasn’t what he did. Very slowly, he lowered her arm, retaining his grip on her wrist. With his other hand, he cupped her chin and turned her head so that she was facing him over her shoulder, her eyes still shut tight.

“Open your eyes Danny, and look at me,” he commanded softly.

Danny did so. There was no reason not to. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him, at once struck by the tenure in his jade green irises. “How did this happen?” he asked her, his cold fingers still holding her face in place.

She swallowed hard and remained silent. She just wasn’t going to tell him that she let Lucas Caige straddle her, sink his fangs into her, and then mix his own blood with hers. She wasn’t going to admit that she had let him do it all because he had turned her into a wanton vessel of need beneath him. There was no way she was admitting any of that.

“I see,” Jason said, his green eyes glittering but giving nothing away. His lips were so close to hers, Danny couldn’t help but imagine them lowering to her own. It was a natural thing to think of when a man was as close and as overwhelming as Jason Alberich. But the increased tingling of the mark on her arm made her feel guilty for the thought nonetheless.

“You let the wolf do this to you, didn’t you?” Jason asked. His thumb gently brushed against the skin on her cheek; a lover’s touch.

Danny nodded. She wasn’t feeling like herself in that moment. The swell of willpower she’d experienced only seconds earlier that had given her the strength to turn away from Jason was all but gone now. It had been lifted and carried off on some sort of secret, magical wind. And now Jason’s piercing, powerful eyes were getting to her. He was subjugating her with them.

And she liked it.

No,
she thought.
I’ve never liked Jason that way. What’s wrong with me?

Jason smiled a slow, knowing smile and shook his handsome, blonde head. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for the submissive type, Danny,” he whispered, leaning closer now so that his words brushed across her lips. Danny’s breath hitched, her heart hammering. “I’ve known you were a fighter since we were children, playing together by the sea. I
should
know,” he continued calmly. “I’ve had a lifetime of practice in reading women.”

Danny’s head was swimming now. Jason was solid at her back and his arms were strong where they held her. His words confused her and enticed her. They were like mini-clues and sweet nothings and deadly warnings all mixed together, and she couldn’t make sense of any of them because he was inside of her now. She was under his spell.

“But I could have been wrong,” he told her, and his grip on her chin tightened almost imperceptibly, as did his hold on her wrist. “Because it would take a submissive at heart to lay beneath a werewolf and allow him to mark her up in this manner. Especially when she was so capable of fighting him off. Because she was a witch.”

Danny blinked. Jason’s tone had changed and the swell of his power was receding, at once allowing her head to clear. She replayed his last words through her mind, making certain she’d heard him correctly.

When she was sure, she felt her jaw drop open a little and saw Jason’s gaze narrow in answer. He bared his teeth, still holding her tight, but clearly angry now. “Were you that hard up, Danny?”

Danny gasped and instantly found the strength to jerk out of his embrace. When she did, he took a step back and the world seemed to come crashing in all around her. It hit her hard. Dizziness caused it to spin and tip and she stumbled back, reaching out to steady herself on the expensive leather sofa behind her. Still, she was mad enough – filled with enough righteous wrath – to form the words she wanted to say. “How dare you?” she hissed.

Jason’s expression was once more impassive and unreadable, but his eyes were sparking emerald fire. “Well, that answers the question of why a witch of your caliber wasn’t able to transport out of Patrick’s Point state park,” he told her, his tone hard and unrelenting. “Clearly his domination is draining your powers already.”

Danny had been prepared to release a barrage of epitaphs onto her herald, which probably wasn’t a wise move in and of itself, but at his latest comment, she grew still. A cold, hard logic settled in around her like ice water and she froze beneath it. She couldn’t help but recall the warning Lalura had given her about sleeping with a werewolf. Jason had echoed it not thirty hours ago. And now, here she was with Lucas Caige’s mark on her arm, feeling more than a pint low in the magic department.

Could the warning have been true? Could Imani have been wrong? Was Lucas taking away her powers?

Oh no.

“You’re figuring it out now, aren’t you? Finally,” Jason said, his tone starkly disappointed. “Now that it’s too late.”

Danny felt the floor melt beneath her as she gazed down at the black sparkling mark across her inner arm. It was so beautiful. She’d never seen anything like it.
And it’s killing me,
she thought numbly.
Lucas is killing everything I am.

The world tunneled and Jason was there in an instant, gathering her into his dark embrace. “I’m sorry, Danny,” he said, the harsh tone of his voice completely gone now. He lowered her to the rug beneath her and knelt beside her, still holding her in his black-clad arms. “It’s not too late,” he told her, shaking his head. She looked up into his eyes and noted the determined set of his jaw. “There are ways… we can get you out of this.”

“What ways?” she whispered.

It was a while before Jason replied. His fingers lightly brushed a lock of her black hair from her forehead. Then his eyes caught hers again and held them. “The mark of an alpha werewolf can be removed.”

A shock of fear, hard and strong, rushed through Danny and she stiffened in Jason’s arms. She knew all too well how a werewolf’s mark could be removed from a dormant. It required the work of a warlock – and it was incredibly painful.

“Shh,” Jason held her tighter and again shook his head. “Not that way,” he assured her softly, obviously noting her sudden terror. “No.” Something dark flashed across his eyes, there one second and gone in the next. He paused for a moment before continuing. “There’s another way,” he told her. “The mark will disappear when Lucas Caige is dead.”

*****

Lucas stopped in the damp clearing and raised his head, scenting the air. In a flash, he regained his human form. It was instinctual, he guessed. In the world of predators and prey, it was a good idea to be as tall as your enemy when he finally approached you.

“I have a message from our master,” came a calm voice from the shadows of the clearing’s tree line. Lucas watched as a man stepped out of those shadows and nodded toward Caige, almost respectfully. “He knew you would come here,” he said as he gestured to the area around them. This was where Dannai had been only moments before. Lucas knew this because he could still smell her here. The space was filled with vanilla and chocolate and caramel and fear.