Shadowbound (The Dark Arts Book 1) (44 page)

"I've got this," Lady Eberhardt called, pushing up the black chiffon of her sleeves and facing the horde of imps. "Bishop, you can stay right here, you can. Drake, perhaps you'd better go see to that raging storm that's about to erupt inside. I can feel all of my neck hairs rising again. Quite gives an old woman the chills."

"Stay here with Lady Eberhardt," Lucien insisted.

Ianthe frowned, catching at his sleeve. "I don't think that wise."

Lucien clasped her cheek, pressing a swift kiss to her forehead. "I need to stay with my father." His thumb stroked her cheek, his eyes intense. "And I cannot protect you, not with my attention split."

"I'm not quite certain when it was that I needed protection," she replied tartly.

"You're Louisa's mother," he replied. "You should take care of yourself for that reason alone, if not for the fact that you're also my Anchor."

Anchor
.

Her heart twisted. He would not say anymore. She knew it. Clenching her pride tightly in hand, she nodded, then took hold of his lapels. "And you're her father. Be careful." And then she reached up on her tiptoes, before her courage failed, and pressed a kiss to his mouth. "You're also the man I love. Be careful of my heart, Lucien Devereaux. I've only just given it to you, and it's quite precious to me."

His eyes were wide, startled, as though he couldn't get used to such confessions. "Ianthe."

Biting her lip, Ianthe stepped back. A violent explosion rocked the garden as Bishop flung a wall of shadow toward Tremayne in retaliation for the explosion. "
Go,"
she mouthed, then turned her attention back to the fight. It didn't matter if he didn't feel the same way. He had given her enough of herself back. She felt more certain of herself than she ever had.

The lion roared as it leapt toward an imp, its marble teeth crunching into the creature's bronze throat and slamming it to the ground. Lady Eberhardt's hands were moving in eerie patterns, scarlet battle globes circling her as Tremayne flung a set of his own.

Ianthe snatched power into her body, fairly humming with it. The gauntlet tightened around her wrist as she activated it, and she flung a punch of pure power from its metal knuckles toward Tremayne's blue battle globes. The force as they met rocked her back, her skirts streaming behind her in the wind. Blue lightning spewed over the garden, earthing itself in sizzling spots on the lawn.

Lady Eberhardt turned black eyes directly upon Ianthe, as Lucien and Drake strode toward the front door, snatching at her sleeve. "You'd better watch your young lad's back, my dear. I did a reading this morning."

"What did it say?" Ianthe demanded, flinging another wave of power toward a pair of imps. It knocked them into the roses, and one hissed at her, crouching low behind a shrub.

"Staying behind's all very noble, but you're not the one in danger, my dear."

"Lucien?"

Lady Eberhardt's eyes flickered to Lucien, then back again. "Just watch his back. You need to be by his side. I'll keep an eye on this brother, and Drake can handle the last." Her voice softened for Ianthe's ears alone. "The brothers are the key. Three relics, three brothers, three sacrifices."

"What the hell do you mean by that?"

"I saw two brothers enter that building," Lady Eberhardt replied. "Only one of them comes out whole."

"Why didn't you tell him? Why didn't you say something?"

"What's meant to be, is meant to be. One doesn't mess with fate, besides..."

An enormous whoosh of fire burned over their wards as Bishop and Tremayne faced off.

"Besides?" Ianthe called.

Lady Eberhardt hesitated. "I think this needs to happen, if we're to have any chance at defeating Morgana."

Ianthe tore her arm free, leaving Tremayne and his pet sorcerers to Lady Eberhardt and Bishop, whom Lady Eberhardt had been quite intent upon seeing remain behind. Maybe she'd seen more in her cup of tea leaves than she'd mentioned?

"Lucien!" Ianthe called, slamming the front door open. The house was immaculate. A bunch of the most beautiful roses filled a vase on a table in the hall, and black and white tiles stretched out into the distance. There was no sign of Drake or Lucien.

She could feel them however, that tiny golden itch in the back of her mind causing her to lift her head. Upstairs. He was upstairs. And so too was the source of the hurricane brewing on the edges of her mind.

Ianthe put a hand on the rail and took the first step. A faint tremble ran through her, the walls shaking. The pressure began to make her ears ring.

"Lucien! Drake!" She hurried up the stairs.

No guards. That was odd. Not even a ward or a whisper of a broken one...

Ianthe's heart gave a dull thud in her chest as Drake's words played through her memory again.
Lucien, I think you
are
a gateway for the demon now...
And what was Morgana trying to do through the Relics Infernal? Raise a demon...
No. No, it couldn't be. Could it?

But the thought played out in eerie determination in her head. Lucien and his brothers were meant to be sacrifices; Lady Eberhardt kept saying it. And somewhere within her lover was the path to the Shadow Dimensions and the demon within. Lord Rathbourne had been Morgana's ally, after all. Perhaps, by forcing Lucien to summon the demon last year, he'd been trying to create a link for the demon to follow. That was what he'd meant in his diary!

If Morgana played her cards right, she wouldn't need all three relics. She would only need one. The Blade. And a human vessel for the demon to occupy.

A sacrifice. Lady Eberhardt was right. Ianthe wasn't in any danger, but Lucien was.

Ianthe's blood ran cold. "Lucien!" she screamed, grabbing a fistful of her skirts as she began to run.

You need to get out of here, right now!

Y
OU NEED
to get out of here, right now!

Lucien swayed as the force of the thought hit him. Ianthe. Her psychic touch felt like silk and roses, brushing against his senses through their bond. It had been strengthening every day as they grew physically and intimately more involved, but this almost knocked him off his feet.

Ahead of him, a door splintered out into the hallway as a pulse of power lashed out through the walls, splintering plaster and cracking the cornice. He pushed her out of his mind.
Can't
.
Rather busy at the moment.

The connection between them softened until he could only sense her remotely, the same way he always did.

The Prime absorbed the impact, grounding it with a delicacy Lucien could only admire. Drake hadn't bothered to draw on the temporary wellspring bond between them, using his own power in deft weaves to divert whatever was happening in that room. Lucien was an adept of the seventh Order, but he couldn't even compare to this. His father was the composer of an entire symphony, whilst he himself was but a single cellist.

"Are you ready?" Drake demanded.

Sweat dripped down Lucien's throat, but there was no pain in his head. Only a feeling of intensity, as if something was watching him—something that felt like a predator. He nodded, ignoring it.

Together, they linked hands. Lucien opened himself psychically, and his father's presence swept into his mind, usurping his power.

Instinct wanted to cast Drake out. It felt alien to surrender to someone else's will, and though he'd been taught how, during his apprenticeship, no sorcerer truly enjoyed being used as a wellspring.

Drake let go of his hand, now that the mental link was forged, and stepped through the door. Lucien followed and found himself in the remains of a cell. Part of the wall was blown out, revealing a terrace and glasshouse.

An elegant woman in red stood within the whirlwind, her raven-dark hair whipping around her throat and her skirts lashing behind her. Threads of shimmering sorcery laced the air in front of her, faintly malevolent, as she bore down upon a man in the center of the devastation, a man on his hands and knees, screaming in pain...

"Morgana," Drake called.

She looked up, an expression of malicious delight fading swiftly, as she noticed the Prime. Then her gaze slid past Drake, toward Lucien. And she smiled. It was an expression that turned his blood to ice, for she was truly pleased to see him there, and he couldn't think why.

"Hello, Drake. It seems you've brought me a present." As Morgana turned, something moved behind her, sagging against the wall—a mess of blue skirts and dark hair with blood spattered all down her.

"Eleanor!" Drake cried out.

Lucien hauled him back as his father took a step forward. He alone seemed to recognize the danger in the room. Cracks slithered up the plaster as a brutal pressure choked the air, but it seemed like no one else saw them. Morgana and Drake were both too busy with each other.

"Drake," he warned.

Sebastian had lifted his head as Morgana's attention changed focus. His eyes were pure black with power, and for one eerie moment, it felt like Lucien could read his mind. Sebastian's face calmed, as if he'd been wrestling with his own conscience, but now a decision was made. It was accepted. The world went silent. The moment of calm before the storm.

One second that felt like forever. Lucien stepped forward, moving through air that felt like jelly, one hand flung outward, trying to stop it in time.

"Don't!" Lucien screamed, tearing the reins away from his father for a second and flinging up the strongest ward he knew. The sudden ripple in the air tore away his words as Sebastian simply... detonated.

I
ANTHE THREW
herself forward and clung to the edge of the second floor, her legs dangling in midair as the staircase sheared out from under her. Slamming the gauntlet onto the floorboards, she tried to find purchase, but her hands were slipping, slipping...

"Help!" she screamed as part of the ceiling gave way, dropping behind her into the foyer. The chandelier landed with a fierce crash, spewing glass all across the tiles.

The world wouldn't stop moving. The first ripple had almost torn her feet out from under her, but she'd felt it grow as power radiated outward. An earthquake that gained magnitude, the further away it swam...

A pair of pale silvery skirts swished into view. A young woman staggered out of the shadows, her hair a shining gold halo of curls around her head, and a linen blindfold covering her eyes. "Hello?" the girl called. "Where are you?"

"Here!" Ianthe gasped, trying to drag herself to safety. Nails wrenched themselves up out of the timber floorboards as the house shuddered.

The young woman moved with unerring accuracy, scrambling onto her hands and knees and grabbing Ianthe by the gauntlet. "I wish this bloody floor would stop shaking!"

The stranger was taller than she was, but lighter of figure. Her skirts slipped on the floors as she tried to haul Ianthe up.

"Me too." Ianthe kicked a boot up onto the edge of the staircase, and with an enormous wrench of effort, managed to roll herself onto the second floor. The pair of them sprawled there in a heap of skirts, panting, as the entire building shook and shivered.

The worst thing was, she could feel the torrent of power building. Something was barely containing it, but that something was about to give, and when it did...

"We've got to stop him," the girl gasped.

"Who?"

"Sebastian." The young woman turned around, stumbling against the wall. "I can see more sparks, but I don't think they're strong enough to hold back the storm. I don't even think I am, but I have to try! You have to take me to him!"

It sounded like utter gibberish, but Ianthe darted another glance at the blindfold. If she wasn't mistaken, that was a sure sign of a Cassandra. Taking the girl by the arm, they staggered along the hallway. "What's your name?"

"Cleo Sinclair."

Sinclair, Sinclair...
Where had she heard that name?
Then she realized. The Earl of Tremayne was a Sinclair. Ianthe stopped in her tracks, almost wrenching the girl off her feet. The shaking of the floor drove both of them into the wall.

"I mean, it's Mrs. Cleo Montcalm now, I suppose. I keep forgetting that I'm married. And stop looking at me like that. I can almost feel your eyes upon me. I'm sure you've had dealings with my father, but right now, there's no time. Sebastian's going to destroy half of London if I don't get to him in time."

"Sebastian's your husband?" A piece of plaster tore itself in half along the ceiling, and Ianthe dragged Cleo forward, trying not to fall as that section of the roof crashed to the floor. One by one, windows were shattering somewhere in the building.

"Yes. You would be Miss Martin, I presume?"

"How did you know?" Suspicion reared its head.

"I
saw
you. This whole affair set my precognition off, and I kept hearing your name and seeing your face. It was so prominent it was blinding the rest of my senses. I knew I had to find you. You're the only one who can stop this, I think."

Two brothers enter that building... Only one of them comes out
...

Which meant either Cleo was going to be a widow very shortly, or Ianthe was never going to get the chance to be anything more than Lucien's Anchor. "Here," she said, dragging the young woman faster. Pieces of rubble jumped and shivered across the floor as a tremor began to shake the very earth itself. "It's intensifying."

S
ILENCE
.

No wind. No air to breathe. Just pressure.

A vacuum of nothingness.

Lucien's ears were ringing. He took a step forward, power roaring through him and diverted through his outstretched hand into the Prime. Glass crunched beneath his boot, having given up the ghost in the first blast. The wall between the cell and the sunroom had blasted outward during that first intense wave as the Prime sought to contain the raw force erupting from his son.

Lucien's brother.

He recognized little of himself in the other man. No, Sebastian was cut from Drake's image, whereas he himself bore more of his mother, Lady Rathbourne. When Sebastian looked up, his eyes narrowed with hatred upon the woman that Drake was protecting, Lucien finally saw something that he recognized.