Dawn was just a few years older than Kelsey, but she had a talent for the warrior magicks, and Kelsey had none. Those warrior magicks were the exact reason Dawn had been recruited for the Select, before she had even completed her training at Brendain.
Kelsey was a damned fine witch, but when it came to the combat magicks, Dawn left Kelsey far behind.
Kelsey’s one decent combat magick was fire, and fire was proving useless. Before the flames died down completely, Kelsey whispered, “Stone.” The stone flooring around the door took on an odd look, like it was melting. The stone flowed toward the doorway and slid up, like water flowing uphill.
Finally . . .
“Bloody hell!” Dawn hissed. Over the stone, Kelsey saw somebody, one of the shifters, preparing to pounce over the stone before the wall was completed. She flung fire toward him, jerking it back before it could burn him. Obligingly, he fell back.
Thank God none of them realize how badly I do
not
want to hurt anybody.
Hell, the fight alone was draining her and putting her on edge like never before. Being a healer, Kelsey hadn’t ever seen the front line of any sort of battle. Other than the occasional need to defend herself against rogues and ferals, she hadn’t ever needed to use the basic defensive magicks all witches were required to master.
That was a hell of a lot easier than trying to fight somebody without actually inflicting injury.
This was really putting her abilities to the test.
Air rippled around her, and for just a brief moment, she let hope flood her. The hope drained away as quickly as it had come. Even though she could still feel the magick of somebody trying to enter the room, there was no sign of Vax. The spell was still echoing through the air. Vax wasn’t going to be able to transport himself here just yet.
Well. Maybe not.
There was a sudden vicious punch in the air—it was like a hot geyser of power, flooding the atmosphere, intense, brutal, and raw. A hell of a lot more powerful than the blasts still pounding at the rock wall behind her back. Kelsey rubbed at watery eyes and opened them just in time to see Vax appear just inches from her nose. He cocked a brow at her and said, “Problems?”
Kelsey managed to wheeze out, “Hell, yes. Why am I the one standing here?
You
can handle this.”
Vax said reasonably, “Well, I tried to tell you that. However, you insisted. And I didn’t want to waste time arguing.”
Kelsey had been planning on reengaging the wards, hoping to buy a few minutes before the Select realized what had happened. It was something that Vax couldn’t do, and she hadn’t been able engage them until Nessa was gone.
“And you’re not wasting time now?” she muttered.
Vax just laughed, reaching out with a dark hand.
But as she closed her fingers over his, the wall at her back exploded. Heat scorched her flesh. Kelsey fell screaming against him.
Kelsey came to only seconds later, but they were already in Vax’s house. The return to consciousness was brutal and painful. Her entire back felt like it had been raked across diamond-sharp, hot coals. The searing pain was so damn bad, she felt like she was going to puke.
With gentle hands, Vax guided her to the couch, and she sank down gratefully. As she sagged against the arm of the couch, tears fell down her cheeks. She just barely managed to keep from crying like a baby as Vax gently brushed away the scraps of her shirt. It was in shreds, barely hanging from her shoulders. In the back, it was completely gone.
Kelsey didn’t have to see it to know how bad it looked.
She’d been burned before. Worse than this. Low across her back there was a strip of flesh that was an ugly, ridged scar. It had happened years ago, decades, but she hadn’t ever forgotten the pain.
Kelsey
really
hated being burned.
She heard Vax moving up behind her, and she tried to steady her breaths as he lowered himself down behind her. “We need to get rid of the shirt. I’m going to cut it off, then I’ll clean this up.” His voice was hard and tight as he added, “Your back is torn straight to hell, bruised and cut, not just burned. There’s bits and pieces of the stone wall inside your skin.”
fire didn’t heal as quickly as natural fire did. Kelsey had several days of pain to look forward to. “Just do what you have to do, Vax,” she said tightly. She flinched as he reached up and gently gathered her hair into a loose tail.
“You’ve got some singed hair here.” His voice was still rough, and finally he muttered something in a voice too low for her to hear.
She didn’t have to hear it to understand the sentiment. Swallowing against the pain, she snapped out, “Damn it, Vax. I’m not worried about my stupid hair. You and I both know it could have been worse. Just get it done.”
The hand on her shoulder tightened. “I’m not a good healer, Kelsey. This is going to hurt like a bitch. It’s going to leave scars.”
“It already hurts like hell. And I’m not worried about how I’ll look in a bikini right now. Just get it done—please?” Her voice cracked on the final word.
She damn near lost consciousness as he went through the slow, painful process of cleaning her back. The world dwindled down to the pain, and she could barely breathe. Air wheezed in and out of her lungs. Sweat rolled down her face, stinging her eyes and mingling with the tears.
Through the roaring in her ears, she distantly heard him murmur, “Done. Come on, easy . . . just breathe. I am so sorry, Kelsey.”
One hand patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, and Kelsey couldn’t help but smile a little. So it was possible to flap the unflappable.
In a hoarse voice, she whispered, “Let’s get it done, Vax. The sooner you do this, the sooner I can pass out.”
“Why don’t you pass out now? Might make it easier. On us both,” he muttered. But he placed his hands on her, and the pain of his bare palms in full contact with her scorched skin was hideous. Finally the screams she had been trying to keep silent erupted.
Heat flared, and when the darkness swarmed up to swallow her, she fled into it gratefully.
• • •
MALACHI RE-FORMED IN THE COUNCIL’S CHAMBER only to find it empty. Not too unusual, although most days, Andreas could be found here, when he wasn’t being coddled by his twin or working in the archives.
But it was a little unusual that he encountered nobody as he headed for the archives. He’d expected to find Andreas or Tobias there. Both of them tended to spend a lot of time with the old records, but the archives were empty as well.
As was the library.
As was Kelsey’s room.
He was heading for the dungeons when he heard it. A deep rumble in the earth below him. The thick walls of the Hunters’ keep were stone, designed to muffle sound, but faint, very faintly, he heard voices, worried ones.
He dematerialized and re-formend in the dungeons. It was like walking into a war zone. The room had been designed in a circle, with nine doors. One was the entranceway to the dungeons. Behind each of the other doors were the cells. Along the western wall, that half of the stone circular walls was decimated, like a bomb had been lobbed at them.
There was only one doorway that remained intact along that entire side of that interior wall. And it looked to have been carved from one piece of stone. Smooth stone replaced the solid iron door that had once stood there.
There were wisps of smoke still drifting through the air, and Malachi’s skin buzzed from all the magick that hung in the air.
The small area was crowded with Hunters and three of the remaining Council members, but Kelsey was nowhere to be seen. He had a feeling the prisoner was also missing.
Damn it, you little fool
, he thought furiously.
The fury he felt increased, mingling with fear, because he also smelled blood—Kelsey’s blood.
Striding to the Select’s captain, Malachi grabbed the vampire by the throat and slammed him against the wall. His lips peeled back from his fangs as he rasped, “What in the hell has happened?”
The vampire’s dark brown eyes barely flickered. He didn’t attempt to struggle, just hung there with his eyes lowered and his hands loose at his sides. Malachi heard the others approaching. He cast one narrow, black look at them and ordered, “Stand back.”
As they fell back accordingly, Malachi looked back into Chan’s almond-shaped eyes and growled, “Talk.”
“The prisoner has been taken.”
“Taken—” He bit off a curse as the vampire confirmed his suspicions. Dropping Chan to his feet, Malachi gestured to the rubble of the room and demanded, “And this?”
Now Chan’s eyes flickered. But his face remained emotionless as he said, “We tried to enter the room. Whoever took the woman away was not someone that Dawn recognized.”
For one second, relief filled Malachi. So it was not Kelsey. But he could smell her.
“Continue,” he rasped, clenching one hand into a fist.
Dawn Meyer stepped forward, her innocent-looking, heart-shaped face as emotionless as Chan’s. “Kelsey Cassidy was here. She was helping him.”
Malachi breathed out a long, slow breath, trying to level out the rage inside of him. “She was injured.”
Now Dawn looked a little nervous. She licked her lips, hesitating before she finally replied, “I believe so. She would not allow us entrance. She did that.” She gestured toward the wall with one milky-white hand. “We could not enter. So I took the wall down.”
“With her standing just beyond it.”
Dawn’s eyes narrowed just a little. “She has betrayed us, Malachi.”
He sneered. “If she had betrayed us, the wards would have denied her entrance. You’re the bloody witch—you should know that better than I.”
Clenching her jaw, she replied, “Kelsey deactivated the wards.”
In a silky tone, Malachi told her, “All the more proof she has betrayed nothing. The wards would not have accepted her touch or her magick if she had turned from us.” Closing the distance between them, he lowered his head and whispered, “If she has been grievously injured, little witch, I will personally take it out on your hide.”
Behind him, he heard a soft intake of breath, and he turned to glare at the two remaining members of the guard. Beyond the doorway, there were more and more people gathering: Tobias, the twins, Nikolas and Andreas, some of the instructors, and others.
“Malachi, we were given our orders. We must carry them out,” Chan said quietly, bowing his head as he spoke. He acted with the utmost respect and Malachi still had the urge to reach out and rip the vampire’s throat out.
“You have new orders.”
The tension in the air grew thick, and he sensed Tobias moving up behind him. Cutting him a narrow look, Malachi said quietly, “I lead the Council, Tobias. And I command the Select. If I choose to change orders, it is my bloody right.”
Tobias inclined his head and said, “Indeed. Leading the Council was never something I wanted.”
“And you think I did?” Malachi bit off the rest of his response. He had to find Kelsey. “None of you will pursue Kelsey Cassidy. I shall handle this.”
That said, he strode through the rubble into the cell where Kelsey’s scent was the strongest. There was another one, faint but familiar. Malachi knew every damned Hunter that had passed through the doors of Brendain over the past seven hundred years.
He knew this one, and it had every possessive urge screaming.
With that new rage bubbling inside of him along with the rest of his anger, Malachi dematerialized.
Back in the demolished dungeon, Chan met Tobias’s eyes. He bowed his head. In a firm, unyielding voice, he said, “All due respect, Council, the Select do not allow rogues to escape us.”
Tobias closed his eyes, heaving out a sigh. “Chan, you cannot hope to stand against Malachi. He will back up his orders.”
“Until I am convinced that he will deal with the rogue witch as needed, I have no choice but do what I am sworn to do. His emotions for Kelsey will cloud his thinking. We cannot let emotions rule us.”
“Malachi acting emotionally,” Niko murmured. “I never thought I’d see it.”
Sending Niko a quelling look, Tobias said, “Malachi will not allow emotions to interfere with his responsibilities. Nor would Kelsey. There is more to this than any of us can understand.”
“You know this for fact?”
Turning, Tobias stared at the rubble surrounding them. “This is all the fact I need.”
“My apologies, Tobias, but I need more.” Chan’s look was level, and the look in his eyes was implacable.
“You do not even know where they have gone,” Tobias said gently. “Do you?”
He met their eyes. The Select were possibly the most deadly warriors to ever walk the halls of Brendain, and he did not want to see the bloodbath that could erupt if they pursued Malachi. But it was not his friend he feared for.
Malachi had initiated the Select. He had trained them until he was satisfied with the captain chosen to lead them. Chan was a dedicated, powerful vampire. Had he chosen, he could have sought out his own land and been Master, instead of remaining at Brendain for as long as he had.
But this was Malachi.
When there was no answer, he looked at Dawn and demanded, “Can you sense them? Any of them?”
Her lashes swept down, hiding chocolate-brown eyes. Thick black hair fell down in a curtain to shield her face. “No. I cannot. Something blocks me from Kelsey. Whoever this other witch is, he is stronger than I.”
Tobias knew who it was. He recognized the scent, although he prayed none of the others did. All he could do was buy them time. He only prayed it was enough.
Looking back to Chan, he said, “How do you plan to find them?”
Chan inclined his head. “I always find my prey.”
At that, Tobias laughed. The harsh, brittle sound had absolutely no humor in it. “You think Malachi is prey?” Turning on his heel, he left the dungeon.