Vengeance: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 3 (42 page)

I lay there panting, fighting nausea. It hadn’t taken more than a literal minute though it felt as if it had passed on a time-lapse camera, each frame sliding by at a third its normal rate.

Hellion laid his hand over my forehead, and again the nausea faded. He said, “Stay here.” I nodded, and he murmured the releasing spell for my voice. He went to the sink and grabbed a washcloth, wet it and came back to clean my stomach off.

“What
was
that?” I panted.

“It’s a rather complex, arcane piece of magic that has been all but forgotten. It’s used for healing when one is dying and for, ah, well, death itself. Different order for the runes and a few different words, and you’d be pushing daisies before you knew what had happened.”

“What do you mean dying? I wasn’t that bad.”

“Days more and you would have been.”

I sat up and realized I wasn’t sore. I looked inside my T-shirt, and all the bruising was gone. I scrambled off the bed and Hellion let me go. I raced to the bathroom and shut the door. Lifting my T-shirt, I twisted in front of the mirror: the bruising over my kidneys was gone. I looked closely at the area over my heart where Tarrek’s curse had taken me, and the black blistering was gone. I felt really good. I walked quickly back into the bedroom. I stopped across from Hellion and smiled a true smile, and he gave one in return.

“Better?”

I nodded. Then my smile faltered. “I have to go back to Bahlin, Hellion. It’s not a choice for me right now. You understand that, right?”

“I do and I don’t.” He moved farther onto the bed, propping himself up on the pillows and watching me. “But I do believe it’s for the best, at least until we sort out how you and I are going to proceed.” He let his head list to one side, and his eyes closed gently before he asked, “My god has deemed us a mated pair and all but ordained it. I must ask, do you think you could love me, Madeleine? Or spend your life with me?”

Why do the supes always go straight for the kill shot?
I wondered. “I don’t know, Hellion. There’s something between us, and it’s only the second time in my life I’ve felt this type of connection, and the first didn’t end so well. I want to be careful, okay?” I took the chair he’d vacated earlier and watched him a bit warily. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me at this point, but I also knew he had the potential for a wicked temper and the means to back it up.

He shifted again, settling the covers around his hips. Without his shirt, he looked like a model for the cover of a bodice-ripping romance. I was staring at his torso again when he asked, “Is what you feel for me the same as what you felt for Bahlin?”

I thought about it. “No. And I don’t like that. I’m not like most women, Hellion. Emotions scare the ever-loving hell out of me.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never had luck in relationships.” I struggled to find the words to adequately explain and finally just gave up, shrugging. I would have to use what I had, adequate or not. “I’m just not that woman, the one who dreams of the fairytale ending, or the one who runs off with a man because he professes to love her, or even the one who generally accepts happily ever after.” I thought back to the wish at the stones, and my bitter thoughts about love being an add-on to life. “I’m not your storybook heroine, Hellion, so how can I just accept a storybook life?” I stood and rolled my head around on my neck. Man, I was tense.

He threw the covers back and stood, a small smile playing across his face. He shoved his hands in his pants pockets, the muscles on his stomach bunching. “I’m truly glad you’re not that woman, Madeleine.”

I took a small step toward him and he reciprocated, moving only when I moved and only so far as I went, until we met halfway and faced each other. “You say that now, but you’ll undoubtedly learn that I won’t have my hand forced, not by threat or magic or fear or, sadly, even love. I make my decisions in my own time, so don’t get too excited about finding the perfect minister to officiate just yet.” Though it still surprised the hell out of me, I admitted, “I like you, but that doesn’t a marriage make. Let’s see how this goes and also see how things with Bahlin work out before we go jumping from any bridges.” I laid my hand flat on his bare chest, and the feel of his heart was soothing to me. I jerked my hand back.

He reached out and traced my cheek with his thumb. “I understand the fear of what might be, but why not celebrate what is? You respond to me, I respond to you. For now, it’s enough.” He shook his head, and a crooked grin graced his lips. “It’s amazing to me, this shift, but I’ll accept it at face value. I wish you’d consider the same so we could at the very least see what lies between us.”

“Seems like you weren’t listening.” I smiled to lessen the sting of my words. “I don’t trust anything like this, Hellion, particularly anything this easy. I just don’t. And you sound like you’re trying to get into my pants, nothing more.” He opened his mouth, undoubtedly protest, but I held up my hand to stop him. “You’ve done an emotional one-eighty— first wanting me dead before declaring me your true love because someone told you to. I’m skeptical, no matter what I inexplicably feel. I’m disappointed I let things get as far as they did this morning.” I stepped back and he followed me. “Back off, Hellion.” I sighed. It felt like I’d spent the morning telling men to give me some space.

He took a step back and reciprocated my sigh but his was followed by a sudden grin. “This will be great fun.”

“What?”

“Convincing you to follow your heart.”

“And are you so sure of the answer?”

“Odin’s spoken. Besides, the true answer will be what’s best for all, even if it hurts initially.”

“How can you be so stoic?” I demanded.

He shrugged and beamed. “I’m Irish.”

Saving the love of her life could mean letting her inner darkness out to play.

Blood of an Ancient

© 2013 Rinda Elliott

Beri O’Dell, Book 2

Beri O’Dell is on a mission. She has to rip back into a hell dimension fast, but needs two things first—the blood of an ancient and a fix for her friend Blythe’s magic, which careened out of control after the battle with the Dweller.
 

Finding ancient blood isn’t easy when the old ones are rare and unwilling to donate. She needs to find Blythe’s former mentor…except the woman has lost her mind and joined a traveling band of singing witches.

That’s not the only magical monkey on her back. Nikolos is imprisoned, and after a screwed-up spell lets her witness the horror that has become his life, her fear for him grows by the day. Now there’s another problem—a powerful being unleashed during the battle with the Dweller likes her gluttonous new existence, and will kill anyone who threatens it.

But Beri has a few tricks up her costumed sleeve, even if it means mining the darkness of her soul to set everything right…and get Nikolos back in her arms.

Warning: Sleazy ancients. Random fires. Nosy teenage hackers. Hints of off-screen torture. Battles with...Beri doesn't know what. And one scary boyfriend who keeps inching toward insanity.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Blood of an Ancient:

Later in the day while Blythe packed, I rummaged in a greenhouse I discovered behind the house. It was obviously under construction because no actual plant life resided inside, just a lot of boards and tools. I assumed Nikolos planned to build more of the long tables he had in here. There were two.

The sprite was still sleeping—I hoped—in the windowless bathroom, but I needed something to put him in for the trip. I wasn’t letting him out of my sight. Who knew when we’d find another ancient?

I ended up building a kind of rudimentary mini-coffin. It wasn’t pretty, but I glued the hell out of every corner so I was sure no sunlight could get inside. We couldn’t just keep him wrapped in shirts the whole way.

I was wondering if vampires could suffocate later as I watched Blythe pull up a search engine. Dooby and Castor had grocery shopped, so Blythe and I made a quick dinner of sandwiches and chips before settling in front of the computer to find this band.

“The witch who answered the phone said the band is called Staglina.”

It wasn’t hard to find them. They must have been popular because they came up on the first search page. Their website was a dark, serene blue with an image of the moon hovering over an ocean. There were no concert locations, no band member biographies…nothing but a link to a video.
 

Blythe clicked and sat back with a thump against her chair when the music started. So did I. My heart pounded harder, warmth filled my chest. Women’s voices raised in a harmony like nothing I’d ever heard filled the room. Castor and Dooby left the table where they’d been poring over the ancient spell book translations and approached the computer.

We all waited until the last note played, then I released a shaky breath. “Whoa.”

Blythe shook her head. “Sophie can’t be in that. This is magic.”

“Of course it’s magic—they’re witches.” I managed to stop myself from rolling my eyes. I was trying not to do that so much around Blythe with her habit of stating the obvious. I did catch Phro’s eye roll in my peripheral vision. The goddess couldn’t care less about the little witch’s feelings.

Castor leaned over my shoulder and used the mouse to restart the video. He turned the speakers down. “Look at their faces.”

I squinted at the small video. All I saw was a blur of women in blue dresses. “What faces? This is obviously a poorly recorded phone video from a concert.”

“And Staglina linked to it?”

I shrugged. “Sure. Why not? That song alone would pull a lot of people to their concerts.”

“Nothing around them is blurred—just their faces.”

The stage, the trees behind it, everything else showed up sharp and crystal clear. “Creepy.”

“Suspicious,” Blythe replied. “Wonder what Staglina means?” She clicked back to the home page. “And why wouldn’t they have a concert listing? I was told Sophie called them from Alabama. Some small town near Birmingham.”

“I think Staglina is Norse.” I searched the memories of my stint with an obsessive Norse mythology fascination. I’d been trying to find a troll and got completely caught up in the old stories. I wouldn’t be telling Aphrodite this, but I never got quite as fascinated with the Greek myths. “I’m sure Nikolos has some books on Norse myth in his library, but I think I remember it having something to do with a chain and anchor.”

Blythe clicked on another page. Empty again. “I don’t get it. What kind of band has no useful information on their site? How are fans supposed to find them?”

“See if you can find a mention of their concert.” I took a bite of the ham sandwich, enjoyed the extra kick of sharp cheddar. “Maybe someone who went to the last concert blogged or something.”

An hour later, all we had was the location of the last show in Alabama and that came from a small news piece on cops being called out to break up a concert they couldn’t find.

Blythe sighed and stretched her neck back and forth. “I’ll stay on this and read comments on the video page. There were hundreds.” She picked up a potato chip and crunched it.

“Have fun with that. Comment sections on any website never fail to sap at my belief in the general goodness of human beings.” Grimacing, I reached for the mini-coffin I’d built. “I’m too tired to deal with that little creature in the bathroom tonight. Have Elsa or Castor… Wait.” I turned to Dooby, who’d gone back to the book. “You have power over the dead, right, Dooby?”

He looked up. “Yeah, but vampires aren’t technically all-the-way dead.”

“Do you think you could figure out how to feed him so he doesn’t starve before we can get to the spell?”

He shrugged. “Sure. Give me the little coffin.”

I didn’t trust that ornery expression but I walked over and gave the box to him, then walked to the door. “Hey Blythe, don’t stay up too late. We have a long trip tomorrow.”

“In the car?” Blythe avoided my gaze.

Suspicion gave me sudden goose bumps. “I think taking a vampire sprite on an airplane would be a bad idea, don’t you? Why?”

“Nothing. I just don’t like long car rides. But before you go to bed, I want to try something.”

I waited for her to go on. Tapped my foot when she didn’t.

“I think I know how you can see Nikolos again. I have some yerba santa. If we pour boiling water over it and pour it over your ankhs, I think he might come to you in your dreams.”

Even the thought had my heart pounding hard. “Let’s do it then.”

It only took a few minutes to boil the water and strain the concoction over my necklaces. It took me forever to fall asleep because I couldn’t help wondering if it would work. I wiggled so much the sheets tangled about my legs.

When I finally slept, I realized that once again, Blythe had gotten a spell wrong. Instead of Nikolos coming to me…I went to him.

Vengeance

Denise Tompkins

The demons that haunt you don’t have to be your own.