Emma’s fallen under a powerful curse and no one can wake her. Dexter’s desperate to keep her with him, but doesn’t want to risk her life or ask her to give up her daughter. If they can save her, will he give up everything to be with her?

Tilly’s finally back in the twenty-first century, and her family wants her to stay. She’s determined to go back with Ashford, only wanting to be with him in his own time.

Ashford has a completely different plan, thinking she’ll be safer if he leaves her behind, even though it will break both their hearts. He just hasn’t got around to explaining that to her yet. First he has to survive a forced encounter with his lifelong nemesis, then fight a powerful coven in hopes to save Kostya from their evil clutches.

Trapped in his childhood home, Kostya isn’t sure what’s real and what’s magic, only wanting to save Serena and their baby from his curse, but fearing there’s no hope for himself.

Chapter 1

Julian, 2nd earl of Ashford and Happenham, wanted out. Of this small library room in the ramshackle castle belonging to one of his very distant relations, of the bloody current year he was in, and lastly and mostly out of this damn fool situation.

Why was he about to face the man who’d been trying to kill him for nearly half his life? He forcefully reminded himself that he’d agreed to be used as bait so that he could get Matilda back to her own time, and possibly recruit magical assistance in rescuing his brother-in-law Kostya. It had seemed like compelling logic at the time, but now he only hoped they’d all survive.

His very distant relation, Piper Sinclair, who had seemed sure of herself up until a moment before, now looked scared out of her wits. What little faith he had in her dwindled as the terror in her eyes grew. He felt fairly certain things were about to go straight to hell.

His other partner in this mess they were in, Liam Wodge, tried to get her to calm down. Ashford didn’t trust Liam Wodge at all and liked him less. He wanted to blame him for everything. After all, he had sired the madman they were currently waiting to spring a trap on, a trap that Piper didn’t seem to think would work anymore.

She pressed her fingers to her temples as if to stop a driving pain, shaking off Liam’s comforting touch. “He’s really strong,” she said, blinking rapidly. “He’s super pissed.”

“Let’s remain calm,” Liam said.

She paced away from him with a stormy look and fiddled with the curtains, probably messing about with one of the hexes she and Liam had been setting up all morning. Fat lot of good it all did. Ashford hated being right all the time, and wished he had his gun, but Piper had flatly refused to allow him to carry it in her house. It was her way or the highway, or some such thing she said about it, and now he had to be in close proximity with the man who’d wanted him dead for fifteen years, solely relying on these two bumblers’ magical abilities.

While Piper had a reputation of being extremely powerful, she was admittedly unpracticed, professing to hate magic and wanting nothing to do with it. She’d been forced to use it several times in the past, but preferred to live in denial of her abilities. Liam had inherited his powers from his wife, but was too scared to use them, not wanting to draw the attention of the powerful and ruthless Povest coven who kept careful control over all practicing witches.

Nice lead bullets would be infinitely preferable.

Now Piper turned to him as if she was about to rethink her policy on the use of firearms in her home, and he stepped forward, ready to run upstairs for it.

“Stop,” Liam said, grabbing his arm. “We all of us need to calm down.”

“Your son is anything but calm,” Piper retorted. “Lord Ashford, we’re really going to need you. Can’t you do something?”

There was that ridiculous request again. Since Piper had told him she sensed a strong power in him, Matilda had harangued him relentlessly to try
something
, as if he could blink and pull a rabbit out of a hat. Except for being able to use the portals his long ago ancestor had set up for traveling through time, he couldn’t do anything even remotely magical. His twin sister had got all the power allotted to their generation, and it hadn’t gone well for her. Even if he did have something he wasn’t aware of, he preferred to stay ignorant of it, as he had for the last twenty-nine years.

“I can get my gun and put a bullet through his skull the moment he walks through the door,” he said.

“Absolutely not,” Liam said. “That’s not what we agreed on. I must be able to have my say.”

Piper looked at Liam, then down at the woven Turkish carpet as if she was already trying to get the bloodstains out. Ashford almost laughed, but was too far beyond finding anything funny at the moment. If Solomon Wodge had just entered the property, it was only a matter of minutes until he was upon them.

Piper closed her eyes and took several long deep breaths, then looked at each of the men in turn. “We need to be on the same page, that’s all. We’re going to immobilize him so Liam can speak to him.”

“I’m quite sure he has a weapon of his own. Last I checked, bullets are stronger than good intentions,” Ashford said, positive Matilda would be frowning at him right now, for his bad attitude and his smug tone.

The wild fear returned at once to Piper’s eyes, all the calm from her breathing exercises dashed by his words. Liam shook his head.

“He won’t use it.” He looked hard at Ashford, his face full of despair. “That won’t be fun for him.”

“Oh my God, what kind of person are we dealing with?” Piper wailed.

“A bad one,” Ashford said, silencing Liam with a hard look of his own. It was time Piper knew exactly what she was getting into. “You’re both mistaken if you think you can reach him. There’s simply not anything left to reach.”

Piper looked like she might pass out. “Get your gun,” she said. He breathed a sigh of relief, and shoved past Liam, who tried to stop him. “It’s just for defense,” she told them both. “We’ll try it our way first, Lord Ashford.”

He nodded, pretending agreement, knowing at the first sign of their plan not working, he was going to draw.

“Solomon will know he has it, it will remove any trust we’re trying to build,” Liam argued.

Ashford snorted at the man’s level of denial, then quickly felt a pang of empathy for him. Hadn’t he had similar delusional hopes to save his sister? Still, he couldn’t waver on this, not if he wanted to remain alive.

A gurgling, strangled sound came out of Piper and he stopped in the doorway to turn and see her gone completely white with fear.

“It’s too late,” she hissed, motioning him back into the hex laden room. “He’s inside already. He’s coming straight here, like we left him a map or something.”

Ashford pushed aside his own fear. Without a solid, earthly weapon, he was going to have to rely on these two and their so-called powers. He knew Solomon hated magic with a deep and abiding passion, but he also knew the man wasn’t stupid enough not to have honed his skills to razor sharp efficiency, no matter how he felt about it. One couldn’t hunt and kill witches without being stronger than them, and Solomon had been successfully murdering witches for years now.

Liam gripped his arm. “Try and keep your mind as blank as possible,” he said, shoving him into his corner. “If you can’t help us, at least don’t be a hindrance.”

Liam took his place in front of the windows, and Piper moved to another corner, the three of them forming a triangle that when Solomon came through the door and moved into the middle of it, was supposed to keep him suspended there, unable to use his own powers.

Ashford stood in his spot, eyeing the door and waiting, trying and failing to keep his mind free from thoughts. His mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, not least of them regret over agreeing to be part of this plan. Before he could argue, the door crashed open and Solomon Wodge stood before them, a look of triumph on his face.

Ashford had only seen him in person a few times before and only at a distance. Solomon jumped from time to time so quickly that he never took a moment to try and fit in, always wearing a mishmash of styles from different centuries. He either didn’t care what people thought, or gave off such an aura of malevolence that no one ever gave him any trouble for looking out of place. Today he wore a black, red, and gold kilt, probably his twisted sense of humor at being in the Highlands, an Oxford rowing crew jumper topped with an eighteenth century British army uniform coat, and what looked to be quite high quality riding boots.

Once Ashford adjusted to his alarming choice of clothes, he saw that Solomon did not look well. His normally buggy eyes were bloodshot and his skin was blotchy and sallow. Always thin, he looked positively decimated now, and carried the frightening look of a man who had nothing to lose.

Ashford thought of Matilda, and how he wanted to see her again, hold her in his arms, even if it was just to say goodbye. He had to make it out of this room to ensure Solomon didn’t continue to have control over his house and the portal within it, to keep Matilda and others like her safe. He wanted to get back to his own time and rescue his brother-in-law Kostya from the clutches of the Povests, and break Kostya’s lifelong curse so his oldest friend Serena and her unborn child would be out of danger. Ashford had plenty to lose.

He saw Piper giving him a pleading look, and realized he’d been thinking, his negative energy or whatever she’d griped about earlier must have been tampering with her spells. Done with worrying about it, he turned to Solomon, who was fully in the room now and looking furious.

“What say you, Solomon?” he asked amiably. “This has been a long time coming, has it not?”

Solomon sneered, his eyes glossing past him and settling on his father. “I must say I expected Ashford. And of course the lady would be in residence at her own house, but I’ll admit this is a surprise.”

“A good one, I hope,” Liam said, his voice completely lacking any hope.

Solomon laughed, bending over and slapping his knee he seemed to find it so funny. Ashford hated how badly it unnerved him.

“Oh, delightful,” he said, finally straightening up and adjusting the sash on his coat. He narrowed his eyes and Piper gasped, holding her hands out. Solomon laughed again. “That’s cute,” he said. “How many little curses do you have going on in this room? Not too shabby. It’ll take me a minute or two to break them.” He glared at the three of them in turn. “So, that gives you a minute or two to make your peace.”

Piper continued to hold her hands up at chest height. Ashford couldn’t tell if it was a defensive posture or if she was struggling to keep her spells together while Solomon worked to crack through them. For the moment though, they seemed to be working, because all three of them were still alive.

“Your father wants to talk to you, that’s all,” she said.

Solomon gave her a look that would have chilled anyone’s blood in their veins, and Ashford had to mentally give her credit when she didn’t flinch. Solomon seemed to be concentrating all his efforts on freeing himself until Piper spoke, then he whipped around to face Liam.

“What do you think you have to say to me?” he asked, eerily calm until he spat out the word, “
Father
.”

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