Wicked Release (2 page)

She cried silently over her patient. To be a healer was a gift to the bearer as well as the recipient. Another gift he’d given her, to remind her of that truth. His angelic face had eased her torment. His presence had, for a short time, made her feel less alone. She could do this for him. The beautiful specimen whom she longed to kiss just once—before she ran as far away from her jailers as she could get.

Sarah leaned down, ready to give in to her urges when his long lashes fluttered. Blue eyes, so bright and brilliant she lost her breath, were gazing back at her without surprise. “Saved you,” he rasped weakly.

Her surprised chuckle at his first words was a strange and rusty sound in her ears. She wasn’t sure if his mind had been addled, but that was to be expected after his traumatic experience in her world. “I saved you in return, angel. You are welcome.”

Her senses were on high alert. Perhaps as many as nine Magians were moving closer, almost surrounding her as she hovered over his body. Enough to imprison her again.

Removing her hands, she pulled back her power, rolling adeptly to a standing position behind his head, her arms up defensively. “Stay away. I warn you, I won’t go back. You will have to kill me first.”

All their movements ceased at her words. An older woman, nearly as beautiful as her angel, reached out in supplication. “Sarah Blackwood, you have my oath as a Magian that you are in no danger from us. Lorie…the man you healed is my son. He’s been lost to us for months. May I go to him?”

 “Magian oaths mean nothing to me.” The heartbroken expression on the woman’s face tore at her. There was no pretense in her concern. A mother’s concern. “However, family does. Of course you can go to him. I won’t stop you.”

She wanted to. She wanted to keep her angel—Lorie was his name? She wanted to keep him with her. To touch him and experience that flame again. She’d never known anything like it.

The way she felt reminded her of reactions she’d heard of when magics truly, intimately combined. She looked down at him again. No. No, it couldn’t be that. This man was not hers. That was not her destiny. She was far past the age for an arranged or natural pairing. He was attractive, and she had been alone for so long. That was all.

A soothing male voice interrupted her thoughts. “Sarah, my name is Tucker. I am a Magian protector. I am tasked with keeping our laws. What’s been done to you goes against every code in the Rede. Now that you’ve been released, can you tell us if you know—”

“Not now, Tucker. Are you blind?” A short, spry woman, of an age or older than her angel’s mother, pushed the others out of the way. “She’s obviously been through hell and back. Can’t the third degree wait until she’s rested? Maybe even taken a bath?”

Sarah’s heart raced. Did she dare hope they didn’t know about her punishment? That they weren’t in any way involved? They spoke her name as if they didn’t know it. She was a stranger of no import or high birth, while these Magians looked very well taken care of—and yet they were offering her shelter and a bath.

“A bath?” she breathed.

“Jenner.” Lorie’s strengthening voice brought Sarah’s gaze back to his face. He was trying to sit up, but his mother kept pushing his shoulders back toward the floor.

“Jenner,” he repeated. “Give Sarah anything she wants.” He turned and the intensity of his stare burned into her like a brand. “And Con? Put her in my room and stay with her. Protect her while I fill the others in.”

Con? Who was he speaking to? Sarah was dizzy and out of sorts. How long had it been since she’d spoken this much? Since anyone had spoken to her? She was surrounded, only this time people weren’t trying to harm her. Or were they?

She jumped when a man’s large hand cupped her shoulder. Sparks again. Hot, wild sparks licking at her skin through the comforting gesture.

The tall man with deep moss green eyes and a strong, handsome face made her mouth fall open.
Not
Lorie. This man’s rough good looks were far from angelic. They were intimidating. Masculine. But there was no mistaking the similarity of the feeling. The instantaneous knowledge and passion. Her magic tangled with his where he touched her and they both gasped. He sensed it too?

He swore beneath his breath when she flinched. “Impossible.”

The tiny woman coughed loudly in an obvious attempt to regain their attention. “Conway, take her upstairs, there’s a good boy. We’ll deal with your reaction later. One impossible thing at a time.”

Her fists clenched in front of her and she shrieked in surprise as the man lifted her in his arms. Her body reacted to all the energy whirling through her, lighting up from within. Her mind, however, still raced with denial and suspicion. “Put me down at once. I am no invalid or helpless child.”

One side of his mouth quirked up, but he didn’t respond. He turned away from the small group of Magians, who still appeared dumbstruck by her presence, and headed for the stairs.

Sarah glanced back at Lorie over a muscular shoulder. Seated on the floor and appearing nearly fully recovered, he smiled at her. “Told you I found her.”

“Yes.” The man carrying her pulled her closer, as if she would escape his grasp. “Yes, Lorie, you did.”

She had the sneaking suspicion these people were preparing her to be sacrificed. How else could she explain the plush bed with the cloud-like linens, so soft on her skin? The feast they had brought that was meant for her alone, though she knew it would feed an entire family? She was queen for a day, a title rife with potential dangers.

Leaning back in the steaming, scented water, spelled to massage her aching muscles, she huffed in frustration. How else could she explain all these wonders?

Over the years, when the scenery of her prison began to change, she’d deduced the spell was a living one—taking experiences from the world outside and allowing some of it to filter in to her. From what she’d witnessed, things had changed. Violent inventions had advanced. She’d seen wagons of war that set off explosions and flying machines that rained fire from the sky. She recalled being chased by a human mob whose weapons had changed from stones to handheld devices that shot bolts of lightning into her skin—a painful and disheartening experience.

None of those horrors had prepared her for this bath. Or this room, which was a wonder beyond her imagination. A human wonder, not a spell. Their ability at invention certainly paralleled any inborn Magian skill.

Despite all she’d experienced, all the deaths at angry human hands, it was never the people
without
magic she despised for her plight. She always remembered the true villains had been Magians. A few families in particular. They had kept all this from her—taken her freedom and her family and left her abandoned in another world created just for her. A place out of time, where she was utterly alone and surrounded by darkness. Where her healing abilities were useless, and her existence was never-ending.

The pacing footsteps on the other side of the door alerted her to his presence. Conway. Con, he’d insisted she call him. He hadn’t been out of shouting distance since she was brought here. She had to admit she was no longer alone, but she had to wonder. Was he her new guard? Was she a prisoner here now, able to live and communicate with others, but unable to leave?

She had to know what was going on. She was freed from the curse, but still weak and lacking information. She cupped her hands and scooped the heated water into her palms. A child’s spell, but it should do the trick.

The water clouded, obscuring her hands with a simple phrase. Images began to form in the reflection. It was the group downstairs. And the angel named Lorie. She leaned closer, bending over her hands to hear what they were saying.

His mother was the first to speak. “What were you thinking, jumping into a spell that complicated? And why didn’t you leave when you had the chance?”

Lorie ran a hand through his wet, newly washed curls and shrugged. “I’m honestly not entirely sure how it happened, but how could I leave? She was still trapped. Still suffering and alone. I knew you would find a way to get us out once Harrison knew where I was.”

The young woman with dark hair and grey eyes banged her hand on the table. “How? How did you know, Lorie? You didn’t even know I’d run away. You didn’t know Callie was actually a Magian. How could you know any of us would be able to find a loophole in that complicated web of a three hundred year plus old spell?”

Three hundred years?

Her angel smiled innocently. “Because that’s what I do, Harrison. I know things. I admit I was a little distracted when you took your unexpected holiday. I hadn’t seen that coming. When you’re in there you lose track of the outside world. But I’ve known about Callie for years now, and I knew Jenner would tell her when the time was right. I also knew that my sister, the most powerful witch of her generation, would join forces with the rest of this talented family and find the answers I couldn’t. Find a way to grant Sarah Blackwood her freedom.”

His smile dimmed as though recalling something sad and Sarah frowned. No one as beautiful as he was should ever be sad.

“I told you I was looking for our ancestor, remember?
He
was the
you
of his generation, Harrison. The most powerful. From my research, he was looking into a way to break some kind of complicated spell—this spell, but disappeared without a trace before he could. Once I arrived, I literally stumbled on his location. That is, after my first death.”

Sarah was confused. No one had tried to break the spell. She’d never sensed
anyone
other than her true tormentor during those first, horrifying years. And even he eventually stopped coming. There had been no one else until Lorie. Who was he talking about? What had he found?

The young Harrison must have read her mind. “What did you find? And what the hell do you mean by first death?”

Lorie’s sharp laugh was filled with anger and pain. “You don’t want to know. And besides discovering that the third part of my triad had been tortured for centuries in a book I’d walked past in the library for as long as I can remember? When I woke in my designated spot for round two of the killing games, I found a body. Our ancestor’s body to be exact. He’d been murdered and pushed into the spell along with her, by one of the people who put her in there in the first place, I imagine. It had to have happened before he was placed inside; otherwise the power of the curse would have revived him. The same way it kept reviving me.”

The matching expressions of disgust and sorrow were, in an odd way, comforting to Sarah. They stood in stark contrast with the remembered sneers of delight she’d seen before she was locked away.

The water spilled out of her shaking hands, breaking the spell. This was too much. All of it. No one had come in to drown her. No mob was banging on the door demanding entry to kill the witch. She had touched people. Spoken to people. People who seemed genuinely disturbed at the idea of others suffering. Perhaps it was true and she was finally free.

Something else Lorie had said struck her. Triad. Did he actually believe that she, Sarah Blackwood, was part of his triad? It was inconceivable. Was that why he’d stayed? He’d suffered, she’d seen it. Truly suffered. For her? Because of what he imagined she was?

She could recall with crystal clarity how painful
her
first death had been. How disorienting and emotionally disturbing it was to be slain, over and over again, for being a witch. He’d risked that damage for her? This angel had died in her name?

“No.” She banged her fists in the water. That wasn’t why she’d been trying to escape. That wasn’t in her plans. She’d held on for hundreds of years based on the slim thread of hope that she would find a way out, discover the fate of her loved ones and destroy whatever remained of the ones responsible for what she’d become.

Three hundred years and more had passed. There was no future for her. No future she recognized. The notion was almost laughable. Impossible. She was too damaged. Too broken. Her soul too chipped away, despite her healing ability’s return.

The door flew open, banging against the counter. She was lifted out of the water before she realized she’d been screaming and banging her hands against the tiled wall. They ached, but she didn’t care. That was real. Pain was real. This group, these strangers meant nothing to her. They were as insubstantial as her illusions.

“Hush, babe. You’re breaking my heart. Please stop,” he murmured as he rocked her in his embrace. He was so strong; her weight seemed to be nothing to him. She rested her bruised hands on his shoulders, feeling like a feather in his arms. She wasn’t used to feeling this weak. “You’re safe here. You’re safe with us. What scared you?”

Sarah allowed her fingers to open, and then curl into his flesh through the fabric of his buttoned shirt. He was truly handsome—the small scar along his strong jaw, the laugh lines around his eyes. But she couldn’t let his features distract her.

“I’m no simpleton,” she growled, digging her nails into his flesh and wondering at the sensual thrill she derived from the savage act.  It was almost as satisfying as the clenching of his jaw. “I do not require lies to ease me. I require answers and my freedom, nothing more.”

That was not the whole truth, she knew. Her body was reminding her with a vehemence that should have alarmed her that, while her mind might desire answers and focus, the rest of her was not so easily satisfied. It had been fed and pampered, spoiled and soothed like royalty, and still, it demanded more.

Was it contact with anyone, or with him in particular? The only two men she’d touched since she was freed had both caused this same firestorm inside her. She had never been loose with her affections but, following her lack of a match after her eighteenth Triune festival, she hadn’t been entirely chaste either. It was not the Magian way.

This was different. More than abstinence-induced passion. More than Magian nature.

No desire, no wicked daydream she’d had while staring at the men returning, sweat-soaked and bare-chested from the field had ever been this intense. Her need had never been so profound that it could not be dismissed. So formidable that its wants won out over her will.