Prince of Twilight (25 page)

She moved as if floating, lifting a hand and tracing the shape of a circle around the room, encompassing all of them as she muttered words in what he thought was Egyptian. And Vlad swore he could see an ether forming a sphere around them. Thin, barely visible, it wa
vered and danced, and he had the odd sensation of being contained within a bubble of power.

Then she moved to the westernmost part of the circle and moved her arms as if parting a curtain. And he glimpsed a darkness there, a dark portal within the bubble's wall.

Finally she moved to Tempest and began her work. She chanted over her body, and used her fingers to sprinkle it with water from the bowl. Then she returned the bowl to its place and came back to take up the incense, and again using her hands, she wafted the smoke over Tempest, from her head to her feet.

She continued chanting haunting, mesmerizing words in a melodic, hypnotic tone. Deep and rich and commanding yet gentle.

Tempest's eyes fell closed. Her breathing grew shallow, and she began to turn her head to the left and right.

Vlad held her shoulders, wanting to speak to her, to comfort her, but Rhiannon caught that urge and then his eyes, and told him without speaking to remain silent. She kept chanting.

She put the smouldering herbs back in their spot and took up the bell, ringing it over Tempest, over her head, her chest, her belly, her hips, her knees, her feet. And now her chanting took on a more urgent tone. It was louder, more commanding.

Tempest twisted her head harder. Her breaths came short and sharp and fast, and she started to move her body, twisting and writhing from side to side.

Rhiannon slipped into English. “Leave this body, Elisabeta. Go, through the western gate and on to your reward, to rest. To peace. Go, Elisabeta. Release this woman and go!”

Tempest's eyes opened wide and blue. She shrieked as if in agony, and her body lifted from the chaise as her back arched nearly double.

Roland and Vlad gripped her, and to his amazement, it took all their strength to press her down again.

“Go,” Rhiannon commanded. “You do not belong to this plane! Go, Elisabeta!”

Tempest's entire body began to spasm, as if she were having a seizure of some sort. The men struggled to hold her, and Vlad shot a panicked look at Rhiannon. “I don't think she's breathing. She's not breathing, Rhiannon!”

Her face turned red, and then her lips turned blue, and the rest of her skin tone followed.

“It's killing her, my love,” Roland said. “This isn't going to work. Elisabeta will not leave her alive.”

Rhiannon hesitated only a moment as the spasming continued. But then she ran to Tempest and gripped her shoulders. “It's ended,” she said. “It's over. Breathe again, child. Breathe.”

Immediately Tempest's body relaxed and stopped shaking. But it was a long, long moment before she sucked in a breath so powerful Vlad wondered that it didn't burst her lungs.

Rhiannon sagged in relief. “See to her. I must attend the circle.”

“Did it work?” Vlad asked. “Is Beta gone?”

Rhiannon met his eyes and shook her head sadly. “Her grip on our little mortal is more powerful than I could have imagined, Vlad. If I'd forced her out, she would have taken Tempest's soul with her. I'm sorry.”

Vlad sighed. He wasn't certain if it was in disappointment or relief. Perhaps both. He gathered Tempest into his arms, carried her to the chair nearest the fire and sat there, holding her in his lap, her body resting against his chest. He held her and pondered what on earth he could do now that the exorcism had failed.

Rhiannon had taken away the sphere of energy, extinguished the candles and poured the smoking herbs into the fireplace. She turned to him then, her face grim as she moved closer, her hands going to his shoulders. “We cannot exorcise the trespassing soul from her body. But we can minimize its strength and power over her. That power, Vlad, is at its peak when she is near you. You know that. You've seen it.” She closed her eyes, and Vlad thought he glimpsed a tear on those thick lashes be
fore she spoke again. “You have to let her go, love. For her sake, you have to let her go.”

Vlad stared down at the beautiful woman in his arms. Her eyes were closed, her breathing deep and regular at last. He stroked her hair away from her face. “It won't be forever, Tempest. Only until I can locate the ring and the scroll. Only until then. I promise you.” He bent to press a kiss on her lips, committing their softness to memory. “It will be easier for her if I can make her forget,” he said. “Give me just a few more moments with her. I'll erase her memory, and then you can take her away.”

 

“Rhiannon?”

Melina and Lupe knelt on either side of her as Rhiannon regained her senses and struggled to sit up.

“Are you all right?” Melina asked.

“Of course I'm all right.” She gathered the shreds of her dignity and pushed her hands against the floor in an effort to rise. To her utter humiliation, the two mortals helped her, gripping her arms and tugging until she was upright again. As soon as she had her footing, Rhiannon shook their hands away. “I don't desire your help.”

“I don't blame you,” Lupe said. Melina shot her a look, but the younger woman ignored it. “I looked in the archives, as you suggested, Rhiannon. I know
that members of our order assisted the priestesses who tried to hold you against your will, so long ago.”

“What they tried, mortal, was to kill me. Had Vlad not taken me from that place, not transformed me when he did, I would have died. And that was precisely what they wanted. They nearly killed both of us in trying to prevent my escape.”

Lupe lowered her head. “It was wrong, what they did. I'm sorry.”

Rhiannon lifted her brows.

“Rhiannon,” Melina said. “You have to know those women were not acting in accordance with the laws of the Sisterhood. They took it upon themselves to align with the priestesses of Isis to act against you in exchange for the reams of wisdom those priestesses promised them in return.”

“Of course. And I suppose the Sisterhood punished them for it. Or were they given some sort of medal, instead?”

Melina glanced at Lupe and said nothing. Lupe frowned and returned her gaze to Rhiannon's. “I couldn't find any mention of what action was taken against them, if any,” she said.

“We don't keep written records of that sort of thing,” Melina said.

“What sort of thing?” Lupe asked.

Melina licked her lips. “They were executed. Hanged, both of them, for betraying the laws of the order.” She met Rhiannon's eyes. “Read my mind if you don't believe that's the truth, Rhiannon. I'm not proud of what they did, and I'm not proud of what was done to them as a result. But I suppose you have a right to know. You
can
trust us.”

She was skeptical. “An order is only as trustworthy as its members, Melina. And this order seems to me to be lousy with traitors. Take Brooke, for example.”

“Three, in all these centuries,” Melina countered.

“Three that I know of. I have no doubt there have been more. You don't exactly choose wisely when you recruit these women.”

“I've made mistakes, that's true. I'm only human.”

“Precisely.”

Lupe licked her lips nervously. “We're wasting time. We need to go after him if we want to have any hope of saving Stormy.”

“We?” Rhiannon cocked one brow as she speared the woman with her eyes.

Melina stepped closer, clearing her throat nervously. “We…need to go along, Rhiannon. And I'm afraid I can't take no for an answer. If Brooke survives, she'll need us there. We need to bring her home.”

Rhiannon rolled her eyes. “Where she'll no doubt
be tried, convicted and executed for betraying the order.”

“Don't pretend to understand our ways, Rhiannon. You're making assumptions. If there's a way I can save her, I will. But she has to face the repercussions of her actions.”

Lupe came up to stand beside Melina. “I don't want to tell you guys your business, but it seems to me we also need a plan.”

She had a point, Rhiannon thought, though she hated to admit it. With a deep sigh, she said, “If you mortals are coming along, I suppose we'd best travel by car. I have copied the rite we'll need to exorcise Beta from Brooke's body, to set her free of the power of the ring. It's right—” She dipped a hand into her pocket, but it came up empty. She frowned.

“I have the copy you gave me,” Melina said.

Rhiannon swallowed hard. “There's one thing I must tell you, and on this I am adamant,” she said. “We do not intervene until we are certain of Vlad's intentions.”

“We already know his intentions,” Melina said. “He's going to help Elisabeta take Stormy's body. He's going to kill her, Rhiannon.”

“Perhaps,” Rhiannon said. But deep down, she hoped she was wrong. Vlad had made the right deci
sion once before. She had to believe he would do so again, despite the fact that his obsession for Elisabeta seemed only to have worsened over the past sixteen years. For his sake, she had to give him the chance to do the right thing.

And then she was going to kick his ass for what he'd done to her tonight.

“We do not intervene,” Rhiannon said again, “until I am certain. If either of you tries to step in before I give the word, I promise you, you will not see the sunrise. Is that understood?”

The woman looked at each other, fear wide in their eyes. “Understood,” Melina said softly.

 

As she lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness, Stormy was flooded with memories, the missing pieces of her time with Vlad, sixteen years ago. The memories Vlad had erased from her mind for so long.

He'd tried to save her. He'd tried to let Rhiannon exorcise Elisabeta from her body. He'd been forced to choose between them…and he'd chosen her.

The knowledge made her heart sing, gave her a surge of strength, enough to bring her back from the stupor into which Elisabeta's blow had plunged her. But the moment she did so, her joy faded and her doubts returned. Just because he had chosen her in
the past, that didn't mean he would make the same choice again. He'd shown no hint of his feelings for her since their reunion. He'd given her no reason to believe he would act against his bride to save her.

Would he?

Stormy forced her questions to the back of her mind and tried to take stock of her current situation. She found herself paralyzed. Panic at being unable to move her limbs hit her like a blast of ice water in the face, and she came fully awake, eyes flying wide as the instinctive need to move surged through her. She strained and pulled.

Something hit her, a hard, stinging smack across her face.

She went still, blinking through the surge of hot tears that sprang into her eyes and tried to focus.

Brooke—no, not Brooke, Elisabeta—stood before her, silhouetted by the moon against darkness, the pounding sea at her back. There was something different about the beach. And slowly as her mind cleared, Stormy became aware of several things all at once. First, she wasn't paralyzed at all, but bound by lengths of rope that had been in the trunk of her own car. They held her immobile. She lay on her back, her arms outspread and staked to the ground on either side of her. She felt the ropes chafing her
skin. Her ankles were bound together, and staked, as well. And she had been moved. She was no longer on that gorgeous stretch of rocky shore where she had stopped to work through her feelings and her pain and, perhaps, to die.

No, this spot was different. There were trees and brush around, and the ground was just as rocky here, but amid the rocks was soil, not sand. The waves crashed to the shore beyond Elisabeta, but that shore was farther away than it had been before.

Finally she drew her gaze back to the woman who stood before her. And the cold breath of panic crept into her veins as it fully hit her—she was bound. Completely vulnerable to the whims of this insane, unnatural being. A being who wanted nothing more than to see her dead.

Hell.

Elisabeta seemed satisfied that Stormy had stopped her struggling, and she turned and resumed what she had been doing. What she had been doing, it turned out, was placing candles on the ground. And as Stormy slid her gaze back along those she had already set out, she saw that they would form a complete circle around her staked body. A circle in which she lay not in the center, but toward one side. There was room for another to lie within the ring
beside her, and she had no doubt Elisabeta intended to be that other.

At four equally spaced points around the circle, censers were at the ready, heaped high with herbs that would burn to surround her in clouds of fragrance and power; herbs that would help Beta in her purposes. No herb had the power to eject a soul from its body. But the right ones would grease the wheels, so to speak. And though Stormy had no idea where the insane woman had located the candles and herbs, she had little doubt that Beta knew what she was doing.

She had to get the hell out of this. She resumed tugging at the ropes that held her. Elisabeta paused with the lighted match in her hand, poised at the wick of one of the candles, and sent her a scowl. “Stop it. It's no use, anyway. You're only wasting your energy.”

Stormy stopped but not because of what Beta had said. She stopped because of the way the other woman looked there in the light of that tiny flame. Her eyes were even more deeply sunken than before, and rested atop giant, dark brown half moons. Her face was gaunt and pale in the flickering match-light, and her skin seemed papery and loose. Dry to the point of peeling, and hanging from the bones of her face as if it were no longer attached.