He had not broken eye contact with her once since his men had tossed her on the sandy shore. Tears streamed down her face, but only to dislodge the sand kicked up at her. Rafe’s betrayal jettisoned her well beyond weeping. And yet, if Pryce interpreted her crying as weakness, then he was in for a big surprise.
Not that she was any less shocked by the turn of events—all of them, from Rafe’s inability to return her love to Pryce’s sudden appearance less than twenty-four hours after they’d escaped him on the hotel rooftop. Pryce had seemed formidable when he’d attacked her in the jungle, but now he was downright scary. He gripped the sword he’d stolen from Rafe’s brother as if the handle were an extension of his arm. The weapon glowed bright purple as the fire of the opal in the handle met the cool cobalt of the blade.
“You are bait, Ms. Hunter,” he told her. “Your ruse last night was clever, but you forgot that I’d dealt with a guardian of Rogan’s magic before. I knew you would ultimately end up here, where the magic began.”
She still could not speak, but her eyes must have betrayed her confusion.
He smiled at her indulgently. “Your companion last night was no mere bodyguard. Shame on me for not recognizing him sooner for what he was. The guardian of the stone cushioned your landing on the rooftop and then faked his own death. He was quite convincing. I bought his theatrical demise—until I attempted to use the stone. Then, when Hector Velez called to complain that you’d disappeared before his men could collect you, I realized I’d been tricked. You must care for him deeply to risk your life on his account.”
Mariah kept her eyes focused, her heart stoic. Up until a short time ago, she had cared for Rafe more than she had for any other person in her life. But not anymore—and never again.
“When I acquired this,” he continued, lifting the sword, “I was confronted by a man who looked not unlike your companion. Dark and forbidding, violent and sharp. He bested me. But now I realize he was not human. He possessed magic unlike any I’d ever seen. Lord Rogan must have imbued his objects with a manifestation of the magic itself, to protect them. Guardians, so to speak.”
Mariah looked down at her lap. This asshole couldn’t be more wrong about the men who were cursed by Rogan’s sorcery, but she certainly wasn’t going to correct him. What would be the point? She just wanted out—out of this situation and off this island and, if there were any justice left in the world, out of the States and on the first plane to Sydney.
“I might have pursued him, but I found it prudent to allow certain people to believe I died falling off that cliff. But I still had contacts. I had you followed in Germany and learned from the locals that you’d left in a hurry. You’d found something significant, hadn’t you? And if one item associated with Lord Rogan could keep me from dying after plunging into the icy Pacific from ten stories up, then imagine what I could do with two.”
She glared at him defiantly, as if the thought of his having more magic at his disposal didn’t terrify her to her core.
“But you have thwarted me. Twice. However, since Rogan’s guardian went to such trouble to protect you last night, I will simply wait for him to rescue you now. He knows I am here. When he arrives, I will destroy him and take the stone.”
Had she been capable of making a sound, she would have snorted.
The grin faded from his face.
“What do you know?”
That she was a whacker for falling in a love with a man who didn’t give a shit about her feelings. That she’d put her life on the line for a phantom whose ability to appreciate her sacrifice was equal to the amount of drinkable water in the waves lapping a few inches from her feet. That Farrow Pryce, was going to have a hell of a long wait if he expected Rafe Forsyth to ride to her rescue.
He wouldn’t come. And she didn’t want him to. She’d get herself out of this on her own, damn it. And if she didn’t, she deserved whatever she got.
Pryce lowered the sword. The glow emanating from it dulled, and the tightness that had kept her from speaking loosened.
She cleared her throat. “He won’t come for me,” she said, her voice hoarse.
“Why not?”
“Why should he? If you didn’t notice, I was leaving the castle when you snatched me. Our deal was that he would use the magic to help me find my coins, and then I would return him to Rogan’s castle. Our transaction was complete.”
Farrow’s eyes narrowed. “He cared about you on that hotel roof. He was devastated that you were hurt.”
“But I wasn’t hurt,” she reminded him. “We were acting, mate. These guardians have a talent for putting on a show. It was a trick. If you want him, you’re going to have to go after him.”
She didn’t know why she was lying for Rafe, except that telling mistruths was second nature to her. And while she was pissed off at Rafe until she was seeing redder than the stone embedded in the sword’s handle, she didn’t wish harm on Ben, Cat, Paschal or even Gemma. The poor woman had a past with Pryce. If the bastard acted like every other man Mariah had known, his ex would be his very first victim, simply out of spite over his wounded pride.
She also knew that Pryce must have had a very good reason for not infiltrating the castle in the first place. He had what looked like three thuggish men on his side. And he had the sword, which he seemed to be getting pretty good at using, magically speaking. Still, he wanted to flush Rafe out into the open. Why?
He stretched the blade forward. She scrambled out of his way, but a second later, she was again bound by the magic. With a malevolent grin, he touched the tip of the blade to the top of her hand, piercing her skin.
“What the hell are you…”
But her question died in her throat as the blue light shot into her body. She gasped. Her lungs seized, and a split second later, she could no longer see.
“Tell me the truth, Ms. Hunter, or quite soon, you’ll be dead.”
“Bet I can do it.”
***
Rafe glanced down at the woman, Gemma Von Roan, the descendent of his blood enemy. After recovering from her episode, she had joined him in the great hall. She reached out to touch him, but he jerked away.
“You can save Mariah?”
Gemma lifted one shoulder indifferently, but humiliation cascaded from her like an unpleasant smell.
“What advantage would that be for me?” she asked. “No, I can free you from Rogan’s curse.”
“How?”
She sidled closer. “You made her fall in love with you, didn’t you? And I don’t think she’s the type to just give that away for free. Trouble is, she didn’t spend any time trying to get you to love her back. Seems to me that if you were raised Romani, you need someone a little more…compliant. Old-world. I can be whatever you want me to be. All you have to do is ask.”
Her hand was sliding up his chest now. Her right hand. Her left had curved around to the small of his back and was drifting lower until her fingers spanned over his buttocks and then squeezed.
Disgusted, Rafe pushed her away—not with his hands, but with the magic. She stumbled back several steps, then smiled so that her eyes lit like stars.
“Rafe, don’t!” Paschal warned, jogging away from where he, Ben and Cat had been plotting Mariah’s rescue.
Gemma clutched her chest lovingly, as if he’d just given her his heart rather than repelled her with evil magic.
“It’s remarkable! So strong. Do it again,” she ordered. Paschal planted himself in front of her. “Don’t! If you use the magic on her, she’ll steal it.”
“I can only steal psychic powers,” she countered.
Paschal whirled on her. “You don’t know what you can do. Stay away from my brother. You can’t free him. Only Mariah can.”
Gemma yanked herself out of Paschal’s hold. “Well, at least we know why Farrow isn’t just attacking. If that push was any indication, he knows Rafe’s magic is stronger, especially here in the castle. He wants a more balanced battlefield.”
“But he hasn’t taken Mariah off the island,” Cat argued. “I know she’s still here.”
Cat guided Rafe to the dining table, where she and Ben had been poring over a map of the island. When Rafe attempted to disengage himself from her grip, she stopped him with a quelling glare.
“Concentrate,” she ordered. “Just think about Mariah. I can find people. It’s what I do. But I need to connect through an object that is close to the person who is missing. I can use you to pinpoint precisely where Mariah is.”
Despite the cool blackness of the magic tearing through him, Rafe pictured Mariah in his mind, trying to remember her face in the jungle lagoon or in the cabin during the rainstorm. But no matter how much he tried, only the blush of expectation that had colored her face just after her confession of love came to his mind. She loved him. Why, then, could he not love her in return?
“I have her,” Cat said, her free hand floating toward the map. “They are at the lagoon.”
“We can use some of the renovation tools as weapons,” Ben said. “It’s the best we can do.”
“Farrow can use the magic!” Gemma insisted.
Paschal pointed his finger at her. “You! Stay out of this. Your loyalties are suspect at best.”
“I told you Farrow was here,” Gemma insisted, fury in her eyes. “I could have sneaked out and joined him if that was what I wanted to do.”
“You only want Rafe to use the magic so you can mimic it,” Ben replied.
“So what if I do? It’s Rogan’s magic, isn’t it?. I’m his heir. I’m the one who deserves to have it. My whole life has been about the pursuit for that power. Why would I stop now?”
“Because you’ve grown a conscience?” Paschal said hopefully.
Gemma crossed her arms tightly over her chest and laughed. “Whatever made you think I’d done that?”
“Wishful thinking?” Cat replied.
Rafe pulled away from the argument. None of it mattered. If Gemma Von Roan wanted the magic, she was welcome to it. He simply wanted it out of him. He glanced up at the mosaic and wished he had been there that night—that he had died at the hands of the soldiers. Death would be a release, at the very least. Returned to the earth, he would not suffer knowing that, yet again, he could not save a woman he loved.
And then, suddenly, he could not breathe.
Twenty Nine
“Like…hell…I…will,” Mariah said, shoving each word out of her mouth. Each syllable tasted of burned cotton and mercury, but when she strung them together, she regained her defiance.
She was not going to die like this. Not that succumbing to a power-hungry madman wouldn’t be the perfect capper to the worst couple of weeks of her life. First, she’d had to kowtow to Hector Velez, who’d wrecked her reputation and threatened to burn her alive. Then she’d had to run away from a former lover who’d lured her into this mess from the beginning. And after she’d stolen a rare Gypsy artifact that should have bought her out of all her troubles, she’d ended up with an arrogant, cold-as-ice opportunist who had taken the detritus of her emotions and compacted it into a tiny, insignificant square of scrap.
Blood from her wound leaked down her arm as she thought about Rafe. Rafe, who’d seduced her. Who’d wanted her so desperately when he’d been infected by this dark and evil magic but, in the end, couldn’t love her. How dared he treat her no better than he might a common whore? Who the hell did he think he was?
Suddenly, the blue light that had held her as if encased in ice began to melt—not to the consistency of water, but to the viscous texture of hot wax. It clung to her insides, solidifying and edifying her until she could stand against Pryce’s attack. She grabbed the blade and, though her hand was sliced open, she felt no pain. Instead, she imagined Farrow dropping to his knees in subservience, and seconds later he complied.
Her eyes seared with heat. She gulped in great breaths and pushed the air past her thickened trachea and into her heaving lungs. The more she inhaled, the more aware she was of the rush of blood pumping through her veins—the more she remembered how Rafe had spurned her. He hadn’t even faced her after he’d sent her away. He had not deigned to acknowledge how she’d plumbed the depths of her psyche in order to find the slit in the armor she’d erected around her heart. She’d broken down her barriers, opened herself up to ultimate rejection—which was precisely what she’d gotten.
“You will not hurt me,” she said to Farrow, her voice echoing as if nothing existed inside her skull except pure, white heat. He released the sword and dropped to the ground, his hands digging into the sand, sweat pouring from his face and soaking his back. Her gaze darted to the men he’d brought with him—the ones who had dared to grab her, paw her, manhandle her. Suddenly they were on their knees, too, and their eyes bulged and their faces turned bloodred.
Mariah was in control of the magic—and she would finally have her revenge.
On Pryce.
On Ben.
On Rafe.
***
Rafe crumpled to the ground. Pain scorched through him as his insides attempted to burn their way out of his body. He howled, barely aware of the others standing around him—Ben holding Cat back, Paxton frozen in place and Gemma inching her way closer. He attempted to push her away, but he no longer had the power. After a flash of blinding light, total darkness engulfed him.
Light taps on his face brought him back to consciousness. He blinked to find Cat standing over him, smiling broadly.
“Welcome to the land of the living,” she said.
His neck ached, but he managed to turn and see his brother and his nephew standing over him, their expressions of happiness just as bright as Cat’s. He relaxed, and his head hit the ground with a thump. A painful thump.
“Ow,” he said.
“Yeah,” Cat said wryly. “You’re going to have to be a little more careful about things like pain now. You’re no longer invulnerable to little things like, you know, dying. You’re just human like the rest of us.”
“But I can’t …”
Ben reached down, offering his hand, which Rafe took. His nephew pulled him up, though Rafe wavered in a flux of dizziness until Paxton braced him on the shoulders and his equilibrium returned.
“You are alive again,” Paxton assured him. “Mariah’s confession must have had a delayed reaction.”