Vengeance: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 3 (22 page)

“Do ye dare tae touch me, Madeleine?”

“Stop calling me Madeleine,” I whispered into his lips. He didn’t move to kiss me back so I wrapped myself around him, weaving my arms and legs behind his body so that I clung to him like a tree to a mountain’s barren face. His pungent smell filled my nose and I made a conscious point to settle into the blood and grime that decorated his bare skin.
 

Nothing
, my actions said,
nothing will deter me.
 

He sat, unmoving, breathing hard, as he tried to decide what to do with me. Reaching behind himself, he attempted to unwind my limbs, but I held fast. He yanked and I hissed at the burn in my side, but still I held.

I shifted my weight and my grip every time he broke me free, fighting to cling to him despite his determination to dislodge me. “Stop it, stop it, stop it,” I chanted. Irritated with him, I grabbed his hair and lifted my face to his. I couldn’t stop the shiver that broke my skin out in goose flesh when those bottomless eyes met mine.

“What?” His baritone was gravelly after all the yelling.

“You can’t make me stop loving you, so stop it.” I yanked his hair, hard, and his eyebrows winged up.

“You think this is about love?” Hellion leaned his head back and laughed. “This is about worth—mine, and mine alone.”

“Stop it.” Yank. “You are worthy of my love.” Another yank. “You are worthy of the loyalty shown to you by those who follow you and call you Coven Master.” He opened his mouth and I yanked yet again, even harder. “You failed no one tonight. Why can’t you understand that?”

He looked at me, jaw slack with disbelief. “Did ye no’ see the bodies, woman?”

“I saw loyal coven members who followed you here of their own free will. I saw no one who deserves to have their sacrifice discounted, and that’s what you’re doing when you make this all about you.” I waited, sure he’d rail at me for effectively calling him selfish, but my waiting was met with silence.

We sat that way until I began to shiver in the cooling room. My front was toasty, snugged up against him, but my bare limbs and back were freezing. On a deep sigh, Hellion wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in my neck, murmuring words of Irish Gaelic that I didn’t catch. Holding me closer yet, he stood and moved to the bed.

“I need a shower. Would ye wait fer me?” He refused to meet my eyes when he asked.

“Go. I’ll be here.”

He turned and moved away from me without another word. Not whole of heart, he was at least pointed in the right direction.

The water had been running for about ten minutes when the knock sounded at the door. I tied my robe tighter and moved to answer the summons, thoughts of the evening clicking through my mind like individual film frames. Mark stood at the door, face white and tight.

“What? What’s happened?” I demanded as the butler pushed passed me into the room. He started toward the bathroom without a word and I grabbed his arm to spin him to face me. He yanked it out of my hold and kept on for the bathroom. Not knowing what else to do, I punched him at the base of the skull.
 

He dropped like a stone.

Moving to stand over him, I fought for calm. “You listen to me because I’m only saying this once. If you have anything to say to him, you can fucking run it past me
first
. He’s had a really bad night. Got it?” Shaking my fist out, I widened my stance in case the little shit decided to rush me. The water shut off behind me and I went to my knees, slapping a hand across his mouth and another behind his head for leverage. “Not. A. Word.”

Mark crawled to his hands and knees, high bright spots decorating his cheeks, and I followed. He tried to talk and I shook my head.

“Whisper.”

He nodded. “Maddy, I’ve not broken loyalty. None of us have.”
 

I dropped my hands and motioned to the hall, following him out and pulling the door shut behind me. “Spill it.”

“The dragons are here with—”

I didn’t hear him finish the whispered sentence because I was already running down the hall as fast as I could go, the stitch in my side irrelevant. Lives could have been saved tonight had those assholes been here, so it only seemed right I was going to kill their leader and even the scales of justice a little bit.

I skidded around the corner to a roomful of men lounging about, most of them radiating
other
to me like a neon badge. Seated in a large leather lounge was the son of a bitch I intended to make a pair of boots out of.

“Shift,” I barked out.

“Pardon?”
 

“Shift, you sack of donkey shit. I’m about to tan your hide.” Chest heaving, I reached for my gun, only to find it missing.
Clothes.
Clothes would have been good about now. Whatever. “How
dare you
show your face here?”

He moved to standing, narrowing his eyes as he went. “What are you talking about? I came with help.” Bahlin gestured to a man I’d not yet registered.
 

Slightly shorter than the dragon’s 6’4”, he was still an imposing figure. His white silk shirt was the only relief in otherwise all black attire. Even his hair, cut close to his skull, sported the same midnight color. His eyes were strikingly familiar, a true black I’d only seen on one man before.

The stranger moved toward me, hand extended.

Instinct had me stepping back, reaching for the nearest weapon I could grasp. The fire poker was oddly weighted in my hand, but it wouldn’t matter. If I swung it hard enough, I could brain the man. Because he might be a magus, but he was still a man.

“You fear me, lady,” he said in a voice smoother than heated caramel, “yet you do not know me.”

“Connell Darach,” I spat. “The dragons’ warlock and no friend of Hellion’s. Or mine.”

He paused, letting his hand fall to the side. When his eyes narrowed, they didn’t hold the same confusion as Bahlin’s, but rather a speculative consideration. “I seem to be at a disadvantage.”

“I somehow doubt that.”

“Yet you’re here with…Hellion.”
 

I inclined my head and the blast of energy at my back let me know that Mark had truly held loyalty to his master, interrupting Hellion’s shower to tell him about our guests. I had half hoped the butler would follow me down the stairs, leaving Hellion out of this. No such luck.

I felt Hellion’s presence as he moved in to stand near my shoulder. “You’re not welcome in this house, Darach. I’ll ask you once to leave.”
 

Never had I heard Hellion’s voice so cold, like a bitter winter wind that held no regard for clothes but cut you to the core with one swift gust.

Still gripping the poker, I back up until Hellion put his hand on my shoulder and guided me to his side. When his hand finally rested casually behind my back, I felt a cold, hard weight pressed into my spine. I reached behind me and took the gun from him and he squeezed my wrist.

“If you’re here to gloat, I’ll have none of it. Good men and women died tonight and it’s in your best interest to not push the envelope in that regard.” Hellion made to turn and Bahlin stepped toward us.

“Wait. What the bloody hell happened, Maddy?” The confusion marring his otherwise perfect face struck me as genuine, and I bumped Hellion’s ribs with my shoulder to get his attention.

“Do not fear hiding the gun, Lady Niteclif.” Darach smile benignly. “It’s evident you’re in possession of it.”

I dropped my hand away and stepped from Hellion’s side. “Consider—
again—
that Bahlin doesn’t know. It seems too much to hope for under the circumstance, but what if?”
 

Hellion looked skeptical, but the dragon in question didn’t change his position.
 

I turned back to the men in front of me at the same time a snaking tendril of inquiry slipped around my ankles and up my calves. I jumped, moving away from the sensation while swiping at the air around me with the poker, but I wasn’t dumb. I knew what magic felt like. I dropped the poker, raised the gun and leveled it at Connell’s forehead in a two-handed cup grip. “If you wanted to know if I was wearing underwear, you should’ve just asked, you sick bastard.”

He smiled and my soul went still, recognizing the predator within the man’s eyes.

“Maddy?” Bahlin stepped forward.

I started to gesture with the gun for the men to leave, but Darach took another step toward me. The safety was off before I consciously registered the malice in his face. My words were cool, controlled in delivery, intended for him and him alone. “I believe Hellion asked you to leave the house once. My methods of communication are much more direct lately. Because I’m not entirely unreasonable, I’ll ask you to choose—either leave now or bleed here.”

Faint pressure started on my trigger finger, so subtle at first I wondered if I actually imagined it. I pulled away, finding resistance much stronger than I’d anticipated. Glancing down, brows drawn in consternation, I watched my finger begin to squeeze the trigger of its own volition. If Connell thought to intimidate me by literally forcing my hand, he was in for one hell of a shock. I wouldn’t need to be coerced to pull the trigger. The moment I relaxed, so did the pressure against my finger. Bluff called; point to me.

“Maddy?” Hellion laid a hand on my forearm and I shook my head.

“He’ll fight this battle for you, Niteclif. Shouldn’t you acquiesce, set your pride aside?” Connell Darach’s smirk pushed every available button I had in that single moment.

I squeezed the trigger on my own, pulling the gun to the side and splitting the difference between his forehead and Bahlin’s nose. The dragon leapt aside, cursing heavily enough it should have colored the air blue.
 

Darach never flinched.

“You can try to force my will,” I said through clenched teeth, “but I’ve learned I always have a choice, Darach.
Always.
” I flipped the secondary thumb safety on and lowered my arm, muscles burning from lactic build-up.
 

“You’re a fascinating woman.”
 

“Screw you.”

“And gladly.” His eyes surfed my body, skimming over every surface they could touch, before he cleared his throat and turned to leave.

“Darach.” Hellion’s voice stopped the other man.
 

The warlock looked lazily over his shoulder, his indifference to Hellion a clear visual snub.
 

“You will respect my…” Hellion paused, and I couldn’t help but notice Bahlin stayed silent. “You will respect the Niteclif, not only in my home…
her
home…but in my presence.”

“You’re not even sure what to call her, old acquaintance mine, yet you insist I defer to your wishes?” Darach laughed. The sound made the hair on the nape of my neck stand up all over again.
 

“I’ll play no games with this demand.” Hellion’s response was both cultivated and yet sharp and raw. “And I’ll be clear to whom the Niteclif’s heart belongs.
Me.
”

Bahlin’s nostrils flared at the magus’s declaration, but I stood firm despite the lingering guilt. He refused to look at me.
 

Darach held no such compulsion. Whereas he’d skimmed the surface of my body before, this time he drank me in with visual gulps. Head to toe he wandered, and I felt bared before him, vulnerable and exposed.

“Stop it,” I whispered.

“As you wish.” The warlock spun and left the room.

Hellion sucked in a great lungful of air to follow the man out of the room with a curse or a threat, I wasn’t sure which, but I grabbed his wrist and squeezed.

“No. Let it go.” I rounded on Bahlin, who seemed slightly stunned at the conflict. “Why are you here? I was under the direct impression you told Mark and Stearns that Ireland was off. Then you show up with your little black magic pimp in tow, wondering that we didn’t afford you a cheerful welcome.”
 

My eyes closed and the film frames were back—bodies strewn across the field, the smell of decomposing demon, the blowback of a closely fired, large caliber handgun.

“I didn’t mean Ireland was off, I meant
I
was off
before
Ireland.” He sighed and clasped his hands behind his head. “I was angry with you, but I still wanted to get backup for whatever happened, and I figured Darach could help—”

“Did ye now?” Hellion stepped around me and cold-cocked the dragon.

Bahlin’s men swarmed Hellion and he went down in a mountain of arms and legs, grunts and the sounds of fists on flesh. His eyes a dangerous ice blue, Bahlin hauled himself off the floor and wiped at his bloody mouth at the same time Micah came into the room.

“Both of you put an end to this. Now. I can’t take any more fighting tonight.” I couldn’t watch. With the earlier violence still fresh in my mind, this felt gratuitous. Spinning on my bare heel, I rushed out of the room.

The crisp night air was a blessed relief. I stood on the small patio off the study, looking over the intimate garden housed in the cove created by the two wings of the large home. Sheltered and particularly secluded, I couldn’t see the garden grounds that had suffered violence only a few short hours ago. Gratitude washed over me, a private benediction.