Shadowbound (The Dark Arts Book 1) (45 page)

The loneliness. The ache of betrayal. A brother who had known some of the same miseries that he himself had felt.

"Can't... hold him... much longer." Drake grit his teeth. The sheer amount of power that he was grounding was extraordinary.

"Then let him kill her," Lucien shouted, though his voice sounded strange and empty.
He
was starting to feel empty. One of the rings on his hand shattered as he drew too much power, letting his father absorb it.

The Prime's startled eyes shot to his, but defiance formed there. "No. That task... is mine. Not his... No son should have to... kill... his mother."

Drake had been straining beneath the lash of raw fury, but at the words, somehow the Prime found an inner strength that began pushing back against the strain. Somehow he was containing it.

That sensation of feeling watched heightened. An eerie sensation trailed down Luc's spine.

Shouts. Ragged confusion. Then something slamming into his side as Morgana drove herself against him, sliding the knife into his side.

"Your sacrifice, my lord," she whispered, her green eyes meeting his.

Agony erupted. A wash of red flooded Luc's vision, making him see double, until it felt like he stood in two places. In one world he staggered across the floor with glass crunching beneath his boots, a cold throb erupting from just beneath his ribs; in the other world, there was an aching feeling of nothingness, just icy stonewalls and a shadowy figure turning around to face him, its hands lifting to drag the black hood back from its face.

“
There you are,”
something whispered in his mind. Its mental claws locked tight over him.

Lucien screamed as all of his old nightmares took shape and form.

When he blinked, he was no longer standing in the sunroom. The two worlds became one. Instead, he was screaming within a prison of nothingness, the grate overhead revealing a small, insipid moon that looked oddly wrong, and the walls shimmered with a haze of heat, as if they were not truly there.

Voice raw, he came back to himself. "Where am I?"

The shadow revealed its face. The demon stood there, wearing a mask, and a topcoat with tails. The thin eye slits gleamed black, as if the holes fell into infinity, rather than reveal its eyes. It smiled, the mask stretching into a contortion that echoed its expression, and chilled his blood.

"My prissson," the demon rasped, "in your mind." Both hands speared wide. "This is where I dwell. Where you casst me, once my s...sservice was done."

No.
A cold sweat gleamed along his skin, and Luc took a step back. "How...?"

The demon advanced without taking a single step. "Do you remember my name?"

Lascher.
He didn't dare utter it. "I banished you."

That smile spread. "Yesss. Here. Always here. Did you not know that I have been watching you? All this time?"

A bubble of power spun to life, balanced on the creature's fingertip. Within the opaque globe, Lucien saw himself and Ianthe entwined upon their bed. Her pale skin gleamed against their dark sheets as her body arched in ecstasy and she threw her head back.

Lucien smashed the bubble, and it dissipated like smoke. "Not her."

It can't hurt me,
Lucien told himself.
This is a psychic plane that it's created somewhere within my mind. I'm not really here.
"You cannot step through into the physical world."

The demon laughed. Between one instant and the next, it vanished, and then it was standing directly in front of him. One hand lashed out, catching hold of the back of his neck. Their bodies pressed together, and the demon reached out and licked his cheek.

It burned like acid. Lucien gasped, trying to push it away, but all he could hear was that mocking laughter. Its grip was iron. The press of its body mocked him, and the fingers that glided down his chest clenched in his shirt, driving through what felt like the first layer of skin covering his heart.

"This is where I rule," Lascher whispered. "You are not the strong one here. I am. All I needed to do was wait for you to open yourself up psychically, wait for blood to ssspill." It leered closer, its breath smelling faintly of cinnamon and burnt spices. "Have you not dreamed of me?" A poisonous whisper. It conjured memories of nightmares too horrible to remember. "Yes," it taunted. "That one."

Red silk sheets. Naked flesh. The creature entwined with his body, its skin sinking into his, its mouth on his, their bodies slowly becoming one until Lucien lay alone, blinking up at the ceiling with black eyes...

No.
No.
He wouldn't remember. This wasn't happening. The demon couldn't take from him; it was only granted power when he willed it.

"Are you certain?" Lascher taunted; its body pressed against his. The movement dragged him back into the nightmare...

Ianthe.
Lucien threw the thought out there, clinging to her memory. Of the perfume she wore, the feel of her skin, the taste of her smile... It grounded him a little.

"She's lovely. Perhaps when I'm in your body, I'll get to enjoy her too?"

Rage spiraled through him. Somehow Lucien caught the creature by the throat and shoved it back against the icy walls. They throbbed and the demon flinched. Lucien found some strength in that. "You'll never touch her. Never!"

This... this was his boundary. Fury gave him strength that hadn't been there before. Suddenly, he felt like there was distance between them. He felt like himself again.

But how did he get out of here?

A whisper of skirts brushed against him. "Lucien!" A hand slid over his sleeve. There, but not here. "Lucien, wake up! Here! Take my hand!"

And then Ianthe shimmered to life beside him, her hand curling through his. Her figure was as opaque as the vision the demon had shown him.

She was blind to the demon beside him. Blind to this world. But somehow she stood on the threshold of it. The lilac color of her skirts seemed so bright, so vibrant against the cold, dark walls of this inner prison, even though she was not wholly here. Lucien could see right through her, but her touch... that anchored him. Suddenly, the ground felt real beneath his feet. Flashes of sorcery crackled off wards around him, and he saw Drake with his hands outspread, his rings sparking and smoldering as he flung sorcerous weaves at his ex-wife. Morgana retaliated, stumbling back in a rush of red skirts, staggering as both Drake and Sebastian hammered at her. It all swam around him in an eerie dream-like sequence, the figures moving so slowly as they ducked and threw battle globes at each other. Only the weft and weave of sorcerous power held any weight to it, any significance in this world. Battle globes met each other, erupting in violent coruscations of red and blue.

The only thing that looked real was his body, gasping on the floor, and Ianthe curled over him, holding onto his hand, while she frantically tried to staunch the blood.

Holding his hand, even now.

"Ssshe's the only thing holding you back," Lascher said spitefully. It reached out, gripping Ianthe's wrist.

Ianthe screamed. "He's mine!"

"The only thing holding
you
back," Lucien corrected, shifting so that his body was between them. He felt stronger now. "You have no hold over me. She does. She owns me; body, heart, and soul."

The demon hissed. A malicious cloud seemed to be building behind it, little sparks of malevolent green lightning crackling within.

"Lucien," Ianthe called to him. "Come back! You belong to me."

One last look at the demon, and then she was dragging Lucien back, through some sort of hazy tunnel, Lascher receding into the distance.

The demon hissed and flung the cloud at them. Lucien thrust up his hands, but it passed right through him, a sting of icy needles that tore at his skin. Ianthe, however, screamed.

As if it were cutting her apart inside.

***

D
RAKE STAGGERED
, torn between opposing forces as Lucien's spine arched off the floor and he screamed. Sebastian was on his hands and knees, swaying and bleeding from the nose and ears. He didn't know which son was in worse condition. Standing halfway between them, he eyed Morgana.

"Lucien?" he called.

Ianthe ground her teeth together, blood dripping from her nose as she lifted her face. "I've... got him."

A black haze enveloped her. Then she screamed as Lucien gasped, his eyes springing wide open.

"No!" a woman cried out. Eleanor.

Just a split second where his attention had been misdirected. Enough time for Morgana to make her move.

She held the tip of the Blade to Eleanor's throat, draping his lover's weakened form back against her. "Don't move," she spat.

Drake held both hands out in a gesture of surrender. His eyes met Eleanor's. She looked confused, weakened.
Fight back
, he wanted to yell, but Eleanor's magic was silent. She was never submissive, never this quiet. Eleanor was a raging lion when someone threatened those she cared for. It made his heart drop like lead. What had Morgana done to her? "You're facing a dilemma, Morgana. If you hurt her," he promised, his voice darkening, "I'll kill you. Let her go, and I might spare you."

"I'm the one with the Blade! Don't speak to me like
you
hold the power here!" Morgana gestured the tip of the Blade toward him, then shifted it toward Sebastian when their son looked up. "Don't you move either, you treacherous brat."

"Morgana." Drake held his hand out toward her and took a slow, steady step. "It's done. You're surrounded."

"It's done when I say it's done—"

Sebastian launched toward her.

His son's sorcery was burned out, leaving him weak and unsteady, but he moved with deadly accuracy.

"No!" Drake screamed, but it was too late. Sebastian collided with them just as Morgana drove the Blade home.

One final time.

Sebastian ground his bloodied teeth together, holding the blade sheathed in his side and his mother's hands around it. This time, there was no warning. Expression ripped its way through the room, focusing in on the Blade itself. The pressure built, and Drake barely flung up a ward large enough to contain it.

Red light exploded as the Blade's magic sunk in upon itself, stretching the very fabric of being, and then it collapsed. Sebastian's power threw him and his mother apart, taking Drake with it.

When Drake blinked and came to, he was lying beside Eleanor. Some part of him remembered crawling toward her before the blackness overtook him. "Ellie?" he whispered. "Get up. We need to get moving."

Those gold-ringed blue eyes met his. "
Nur. Megurrh
."

"What's wrong?"

The room began to tremble. The entire floor felt like it was going to drop beneath his feet. Their sorcerous duel must have weakened some of the supports below. "Ianthe, get Lucien out of here!" Drake threw over his shoulder, then curled over Eleanor. There was blood on her back—a blow directly from the Blade, which sent a chill through him. The only way to heal such a cut was by using the Chalice to mix a healing potion.
If
they got to it in time... The slow steady trickle of blood wet his hands.

"Ianthe's not breathing!" Lucien yelled back.

Everything seemed to turn on its head. Drake glanced behind him. Ianthe flopped like a doll in Lucien's hands, but Lucien looked fine. Strained and pale, but he was only bleeding a little.

Drake glanced back at Eleanor, who lay on the floor, and Sebastian, who was grappling with Morgana, torn between too many opposing forces. For the first time in years, he didn't know what to do.

Or who to protect.

For they all meant something to him. And he was terribly afraid that he would have to make a choice...

CHAPTER 30

^'
A 
Soul-bond is formed between two lovers, and it ties their life-spans together as if they were truly but one...'

–-
L
ADY
E
BERHARDT'S
transcription on Soul-bond's

"
IANTHE?" Lucien whispered, his voice tight and dry. "Ianthe.
Please.
Please come back. Breathe, damn you!"

The floor shuddered beneath them. Something fell. Somewhere.

But he shut the world out, pressing hard on her chest. Power was a faded ember within him, almost burned out, but at the periphery of his senses, he could sense the faded gold spill of the bond that connected him to Ianthe. It unraveled with delicate slowness as if she were slipping away into a place he couldn't follow.

"No," he whispered, bending forward to breathe into her lungs. Her mouth was soft and unresisting. Whatever the demon had flung at her had been a psychic storm of immense proportions. Ianthe had held firm, focused on dragging him out of that inner prison, rather than on protecting herself. It had worked. Lucien had blinked and found himself falling heavily into his own body, flesh weighing him down, but the cost of it... He didn't think he could bear the cost of it. He reached out with unsteady hands, stroking her face, trying to hold on, with everything that he had, to that dwindling thread of gold.

Their link.

Their bond.

Her.

She wasn't breathing. And she was colorless, all of the beautiful, incandescent colors that flickered around her constantly, fading to nothing.

It choked him, as if, without her breath, his own could not release. The shimmer of magic around her dulled a little, the vibrant white glow softening as if there were nothing to sustain it. Like a hot coal slowly fading in a cold grate, all of that heat, that energy, compressing into the heart of her, and then... flickering out.

"Please," he whispered, stroking a rough hand through Ianthe's hair. Her head lolled to the side. "Don't you dare do this. Don't you leave me."

Leaning down, Lucien pressed his mouth against hers, giving her the type of kiss that he'd never dared. One that gave her his heart and soul, tasting the lax fullness of her mouth. "You win," he whispered, hands fisting in her hair and heat flushing his eyes. Finally reduced to begging. "You win. I'm yours. Everything that I am is yours.
I love you!
Just... don't you dare leave me."