Master of Shadows (39 page)

An expression of horror flashed across the killer’s face. He bounded straight upward and brought Excalibur smashing downward toward Tristan’s head, obviously meaning to cleave the knight’s skull in two.

Tristan spun aside and rammed his elbow into his foe’s face, sending him staggering back, shaking his head as if stunned. An odd smile twisted the Dire Wolf’s mouth before his expression shifted into lethal determination again. “You can’t beat me, Tris, you never could.”

“Fuck you,” Tristan said, and hacked his blade at the werewolf’s head.

The assassin jerked back, then slammed the flat of his own sword against Tristan’s head, sending the knight staggering back. He fell to one knee. Again, horror flickered over the killer’s face, replaced an instant later by savage determination as he brought Excalibur flashing down toward Tristan’s neck. Tris threw himself into a backward roll, avoiding the stroke.

Tristan’s friends call him Tris
, Belle realized suddenly.
Bors had called him Tris.

Suddenly the pieces slotted together with a click she could almost hear. Those horrified expressions right before every attack, the twisted smiles whenever Tristan hurt him. Her mind skipped to the glowing antlers Eva wore, outward manifestation of Zephyr’s ghost, who had possessed her after the stag’s death.

. . .
The way he fights reminds me of Bors . . .

Bors,
Belle realized
. When he ate Bors’s magic, he ate Bors’s ghost.

She knew the beast’s mental shields would block any magical attack she launched. But what if it wasn’t an attack?

Reaching through the Mageverse as though opening a communication link to another agent, Belle slipped past his shields to touch the killer’s mind below the level of conscious thought.
Careful,
she thought.
I can’t let him know I’m here, or he’ll block me.

There, in the depths of the beast’s consciousness, she found Bors. And the Magekind couple Emma and Tom Jacobs, and an entire family of werewolves, and the criminal members of a biker gang. All of them bound behind a spell that tasted of Warlock’s work, a bit of minor magic designed to keep them from interfering with the killer’s conscious mind.

So Belle broke the spell.

 

Tristan was tiring,
Dice realized. His parries were slowing, his attacks losing their clean, hard snap. Any minute now, Dice could . . .

Howls of rage and pain exploded in his ears, so shatteringly loud Dice jolted.
What the flaming hell . . .

The ghosts boiled up from the depths of his brain, screaming in fury at a child left orphaned, a man murdered with a coward’s blow, a little boy butchered in his bed, bikers betrayed by their own leader. Dice saw them in his mind, their faces ringing his, pale and twisted as they howled for vengeance. Their fury blinded him, and Excalibur dropped from fingers gone suddenly numb. He started to bend down and retrieve the sword, but he couldn’t move.

The ghosts had locked his muscles.

Tristan met his horrified gaze and smiled as something metallic flashed toward Dice’s face. “Payback’s a bitch.” And so am I,” Belle said, watching in satisfaction as the killer’s head tumbled almost lazily off his shoulders, hacked off by Tristan’s sword. His body toppled into the leaves with a meaty thud.

Tristan blew out a hard, relieved breath and bent to pick up Excalibur with his free hand. “No, darlin’, a bitch is the one thing you’re not. Let’s take Arthur his sword.”

 

Justice fisted a
hand in the werewolf’s mane and dragged him off Miranda before the bastard’s claws could do any more damage than the long, raking strike he’d inflicted. “Andrews, you bastard, I am really sick of you.” Wrapping one arm around the councilman’s throat, he grabbed his foe’s head and jerked hard to the side. The werewolf’s neck snapped.

“Traitor!” Rosen spat, galloping out of the darkness at an awkward run, apparently following on Andrews’s heels. He drew back a sword he must have stolen off one of the bodies. “I should have known you’d throw in with the vampires.”

“Hell, who can blame him?” Davon growled, thrusting out a hand toward Miranda. Knowing what he wanted, she gestured, and a sword appeared in his palm. He closed his fist around the weapon and struck in one blurring motion.

Rosen’s headless body hit the grass.

“Well,” Morgana drawled, eying the doctor. “Decided you’re one of us after all, did you?”

Davon gave her a wolfish grin. “How could I resist? You’ve got such a great medical plan.”

She shook her head. “You must be feeling better. That joke was terrible.”

“I kind of liked it,” Tristan announced, walking up with Excalibur in his hand and Belle at his side.

“You would,” Morgana muttered.

“So did I,” Arthur said, a wheeze lingering in his voice. He sat up, though he was still a little blue around the lips. Gwen’s eyes were open, but she looked even worse than he did.

Tristan scanned the battleground. “Where the hell is Warlock?”

Morgana pointed toward the crest of a nearby hill. “That way somewhere, still fighting Smoke, Eva, and the Round Table.”

“So Eva’s okay?” Belle asked anxiously.

“Right as rain, thanks to Smoke’s magic.”

Miranda shook her head. “I’m amazed they’ve been able to hold their own against Warlock like this. He’s got a
lot
of power.”

“They probably couldn’t have, if Kel and Nineva hadn’t softened him up.” Morgana looked upward as a shadow fell across their faces. Kel soared by overhead, Nineva winging along beside him. “Speak of the devil.”

“Wait for it . . .” Miranda said, watching them disappear over the hill. “Wait for it . . .”

A moment later, a chorused shout of disgust rang out in the distance, sounding like several knights and a couple of infuriated dragons.

“. . . Aaaand Daddy cuts his losses and gates for safety,” Miranda announced. “He always did have a finely honed sense of self-preservation.”

“Dammit,” Arthur snarled. “I wanted a piece of him.”

“Right now, you’d have choked,” Gwen told him tartly, and coughed. “We’ll get a big bite later . . .” She paused to pant. “. . . When we’re all feeling more up to it.”

The Magekind agents
were home at last. They streamed through Morgana’s dimensional gate, weary, battered, and solemn. Nobody felt triumphant, considering the procession of casualties who floated after them, carried on a wave of magic by the team of healers who followed. Most of the dead were bite victims who’d succumbed before Miranda realized how to cure them. The young werewolf had been working like a demon ever since, casting spells to heal the rest.

Belle was one of the last through the dimensional gate, Tristan striding beside her. One big hand rested on the small of her back with a possessiveness that made her lips curl into a smile of anticipation.

“I can’t wait to get you alone,”
he told her through the Bond.
“I have plans.”

“Unfortunately, we also have house guests,”
Belle pointed out. Justice and Miranda were still staying with them, since they were both likely targets of Warlock’s rage.

He snorted.
“Knowing them, they’ll be fighting too hard to notice if we swing naked from the chandelier.”

Belle smiled. He was probably right. The two trailed them, having some kind of argument in low, intense voices.
“I give them a month before they’re in bed.”

“You’re on.”
He grinned.
“I figure they’ll be shagging by Wednesday.”

“I prefer old love.”
He dropped his hand to her ass and gave it a delicious little squeeze.

“Speak for yourself,”
she said, and bumped his hip with hers.

 

“I did save
your ass,” Justice pointed out, his strong jaw tight with irritation.

Even pissed looked good on him, Miranda thought. “You could have moved a little faster.” She touched her belly. “Andrews damn near ripped me into confetti.” The councilman had raked his claws across her abdomen, tearing so deep she’d had to transform to heal. “But thank you.” The last was reluctantly said. She wasn’t sure owing the big werewolf was a good thing.

“You’re welcome,” he growled, his tone less than gracious.

She sighed. It was obvious he was going to be a pain in the ass. Unfortunately, they were the only werewolves in Avalon, except for Eva, and she was busy with Smoke.

Which meant they were stuck with each other.

 

The next night,
Belle cuddled closer against Tristan’s side as he licked the tiny bite wound he’d left in her neck. She stroked her fingers through his blond hair, savoring the possessive male pleasure he radiated into the Truebond.

He was truly hers at last. Isolde’s angry ghost would no longer torment either of them.

Tristan cupped her breast, his thumb flicking delicately across her nipple, sending warm little jolts of delight ringing through her body. Smiling lazily, she reached down and curled her fingers around his cock. He was soft now, but he wouldn’t stay that way if she had anything to say about it.

And she did.

Belle scooted down and delicately licked one of his tiny male nipples. The warm heat of the sensation echoed through the Truebond, adding to her building desire.

Slowly, tenderly, she began to nibble her way down his warm, sweaty chest. His cock went hard and hot in her hand. When she flicked her tongue over the sensitive head, he growled in delight and rolled his hips, thrusting his shaft in the grip of her hand.

“I love you.”
The thought rang in the Bond, so stark and true that Belle caught her breath.

“I love you, too”
She curled her hand tighter around his cock and gave him a wicked grin.
“All of you.”

“All six-foot-three of grumpy immortal,”
Belle corrected.
“I love the way you love me.”

 

The werewolves were
pissed.

Almost three hundred of them had gathered in the moonlit field to hear Warlock speak. He surveyed their angry faces with satisfaction.

The sacrifice of the werewolves had been regrettable, but necessary. And so far, Warlock’s plan was working exactly as he’d intended.

“This is an outrage,” shouted an older man whose potbelly stretched his white T-shirt. “A dozen werewolves dead . . .”

“And three members of the Council of Clans.” This one was in his twenties, young, muscular, and eager to prove himself. His hazel eyes kept taking on an orange glow, as if he teetered on the edge of transforming. Just the kind of cannon fodder Warlock could use.

“Not to mention all the Chosen.” Grayson Corban clenched his big fists. He’d been one of the aristocrats who’d staged the ambush, sweeping down on the Magekind as they tried to get all those idiot civilians to safety. “So many of our best and brightest, dead at the hands of the Celts.”

Warlock gave the big werewolf a slight smile. Corban was proof that even soft, twenty-first-century Americans could be taught to use a sword. Like the other members of the wizard’s cult of Chosen males, he’d been training for years, and he’d fought well against the Magekind.

Much better than the idiot councilmen Warlock planned to portray as heroic martyrs. Distasteful, but necessary.

The one loss he regretted was Dice. The Dire Wolf had been a promising agent. He’d even managed to seize Excalibur just as Warlock had planned, though he hadn’t made it back with the magical weapon.

Well, there’d be other opportunities.

The rest of the plan had gone off like clockwork. He’d known even his best Chosen werewolves couldn’t defeat experienced Magekind agents in equal combat. So he’d told Rosen to call in as many civilians as possible, knowing they’d panic the minute the fighting started. Sure enough, some of them had been trampled.

Given the Magekind’s delusions of heroism, they’d been distracted as they tried to get the Direkind to safety—which had set them up for the perfect ambush.

All in all, the plan had worked well. Warlock had noted the elements that needed tweaking so he’d be able to compensate for them the next time.

Best of all, now that he knew how to create warrior beasts like Dice, he could do it again. And again. Perhaps he’d create an entire team, though that would mean using a great deal of death magic. Warlock was willing to do whatever it took.

After all, he had a war to win. And Arthur Pendragon to kill.

 

Returns to her wildly popular Mageverse with...

Giada Shepherd is a Maja—a witch with incredible magical powers—and is assigned to protect a handsome chemist.

 

Logan MacRoy—a forensic chemist and the mortal son of King Arthur, immortal vampire—is the target of a hired assassin who specializes in explosives.

 

As Giada and Logan team up to capture a bomber, love grows between them. But what will Logan do when he discovers the truth? And when the killer creates ever more deadly traps, how long can they both survive?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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