Authors: Rachel Carrington
“Why did you not stop me from kissing you inside the cave?”
The question took her aback.
“Because I didn’t want to.”
“Am I not the enemy?”
Skye walked ahead of him.
“I’d rather not talk about this now.”
“As I said, you cannot avoid the unpleasant things.”
Skye continued walking.
“Maybe not, but I can try.”
She
approached a gurgling stream and just as she raised her leg to cross it, the
ground opened, splitting wide.
The
centrifugal force snatched her, dragging her beneath the surface.
Skye opened her mouth to scream, but no sound
would come.
The chasm closed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rane didn’t think twice about his next move.
He clapped his hands, opened his palms and
split the ground.
Then he dove after
Skye.
He caught her mid-air, his hand
capturing her wrist.
In a matter of
seconds, it was over and Skye stood on the ground next to him, breathing deep
gulps of air, her face as pale as a freshly bleached sheet.
She fell to her knees, shaking.
“What was that?
I’ve never
experienced anything like that in all my life.
It wasn’t an earthquake because we would have felt the tremors.
No, this was definitely something out of the
ordinary.
Or maybe it isn’t.
Was this another one of your surprises you
chose not to share with me?”
She managed
to stand and holding her hands against her thighs, she continued to drag fresh
air into her lungs.
“That took twenty
years off my life.
Of course, you don’t
have to worry about that, being immortal and all.
Why haven’t you answered me?
What in the hell was that?”
Skye finally looked at Rane and what she saw startled her.
His skin was the color of primed metal, his
eyes almost glassy.
He swayed where he
stood and Skye quickly pushed herself beneath his arm.
“Come on.
I have to get you
back to the other wizards.
They can fix
you.”
She talked to him as they walked.
The words came out sounding deceptive even to
her own ears.
The wizards couldn’t fix Rane without her help and she couldn’t help
them.
As much as she was starting to
care for Rane, she couldn’t risk Emily’s life.
If one had to die, it would have to be Rane, no matter how much the
thought made her sick.
Falcon greeted them at the door.
“I sensed something was wrong.”
He lifted Rane’s bodily as if he were a small child.
“I will take care of him.”
Skye stood uncertainly in the middle of the grand entrance.
“How can I help?”
Silver eyes raked her almost scathingly.
“You can return to your room and stay there
until someone comes for you.”
Her back stiffened.
“I want
to help him.”
Falcon began walking away from her.
“You cannot help him, witch.
You
should not be here at all.”
Skye watched him leave and while anger burned in her at the wizard’s
high-handed manner, she knew he only spoke the truth.
“You shouldn’t worry about Falcon.
He would never hurt you.”
Skye whirled around to find the face behind the voice.
A slim woman with copper hair, which fell to
her waist and a genuine smile, approached her, followed closely by a shorter
woman wearing a long, flowing white dress.
Skye took a step back, viewing both women with suspicion.
“Who are you?”
The first woman held out her hand.
“My name is Danni.
I’m Falcon’s
wife.”
“And I’m Tess.
I’m Jaxon’s
wife.”
The smaller woman came forward to
stand at Danni’s side.
“Why would you talk to me when you know your husbands would not
approve?”
Tess laughed a light tinkling sound.
“I always do things my husband doesn’t approve of.
It keeps him on his toes.”
She winked and hooked her arm through
Skye’s.
“Why don’t the three of us go
somewhere and have a little chat?
I’m
sure Falcon’s going to be busy for a while with Rane.”
Skye looked over her shoulder as Jaxon’s wife led her away, but the
corridor was empty and Falcon had extinguished the lights.
The two women flanked her and as they entered a chrome galley, Skye
noticed that at least one woman was at her side at all times.
Tess stood by her while Danni made tea and
then Danni escorted her to a small table while Tess gathered scones and
biscuits.
Skye’s lips twitched.
“You
say you don’t mind angering your husbands and yet, you don’t fully trust
me.
Why would you risk their wrath to
talk to me?”
Danni and Tess exchanged glances.
Danni finally spoke in a low voice.
“We need to know some answers.”
“I’m not sure I can give them to you.”
Tess leaned in and covered Skye’s hand with her own.
“Just promise us you aren’t here to harm
Rane.”
Skye leaped to her feet so fast the chair clattered to the tiled
floor.
“I won’t promise you
anything.
I don’t know you and if you’re
trying to finagle information out of me to take back to the other wizards, I
can’t help you.”
She marched toward the
exit.
“And the next time you want
information, don’t do it under the guise of friendship.”
***
Sabrina had never cared for the rain, but every summons brought a
downpour.
Viciously, she cursed below
her breath while darting through the air, her speed startling the birds.
With her hair plastered to her neck and the
black dress she wore enhancing every curve, she looked prepared for sex instead
of a meeting of such importance.
Her feet touched ground and immediately, she squared her shoulders
and came to the door of the stone structure.
She would never understand why the creature that summoned her just
didn’t use his wealth to obtain a home more befitting his wealth and
stature.
She lifted the head of the brass gargoyle attached to the door and
let it drop.
The hollow clang resounded
against the wood.
Shuffling footsteps
came to the door and as Sabrina shivered, she muttered obscenities at the
grotesquely malformed Cyclops who took his sweet time answering her summons.
As the door swung wide and a sliver of light fell to her feet,
Sabrina pasted a smile on her face while trying not to wince.
“Abner, it’s good to see you again.”
Abner’s eye glittered as he surveyed her.
“You look good, Miss Sabrina.”
His voice grated on her like nails on a rusty
gate.
She knew he watched the sway of her hips as she walked across the
uneven floor and it took every ounce of self-control she possessed not to turn
around and relieve him of his vision.
No light filtered from beneath the closed door at the end of the
hall.
Sabrina managed to knock with just
the right amount of purpose.
“Come in.”
The voice, sultry
and compelling, welcomed her.
And as Sabrina stepped into the room, the hypnosis was complete.
***
Night fell upon the city of
the hall.
Someone had left a lamp on in
Rane’s room, lending just enough light for Skye to make her way to his
bedside.
She looked down at him, his face relaxed in slumber.
He looked so pale, defenseless.
Closing her eyes against the wave of nausea,
which enveloped her, Skye held the dagger aloft, mentally counting to ten.
Ten seconds segued into twenty and still she
couldn’t bring herself to lower the point to Rane’s flesh.
She dropped her hand to her side and continued to watch the wizard
for a long minute.
He looked peaceful,
completely unaware that his life was in jeopardy.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
She turned the medieval dagger over in her hand.
A gift from Sabrina that Skye didn’t really
want, the knife bore a serrated edge and a gilded handle with the Coven’s crest
on the hilt.
Skye didn’t doubt it also
carried a wicked spell which would insure Rane’s demise.
If only she could plunge it into his heart.
One minute dragged into two, three, before Skye started backing
toward the door.
She’d been wrong.
She couldn’t kill him.
Somehow, she’d have to find a way to free
Emily without anyone getting hurt.
Then
she and Emily would disappear quietly.
Skye believed she could hide them so perfectly that not even Sabrina’s
tracking abilities could find them.
She slipped out of the bedroom and closed the door behind her and as
she walked down the hallway, Rane propped himself up on his elbow and stared at
the door.
He’d been awake during Skye’s foray into his room and even though
the dagger had been poised above his chest, he’d never believed she’d actually
kill him.
Skye didn’t have it within her
to be a cold-blooded killer.
He had to find out what had driven her to try to kill him.
***
“This should not be taking as long as it is.”
The gravelly voice sent a chill down
Sabrina’s spine, but as much as she wanted to flee, she couldn’t move.
The master’s spell had secured her in
position, her feet frozen.
“The witch
has never killed before.”
Sabrina knew
the excuse would help little.
The leather chair creaked as the master rose to his feet and circled
the braided rug in front of the fireplace.
“Perhaps I should have chosen a more beneficial coven.”
Sabrina closed her eyes against the thick knot of fear settling in the
pit of her stomach.
He’d made the rules
clear when he’d propositioned her.
Succeed and she would be the most powerful witch in the universe.
Fail and she would die.
“These things take time.”
A pale hand sliced the air and Sabrina saw the curled fingernails
draw in toward his palm.
“Do not speak
to me of time.
All I have is time.”
He whipped around and for the first time,
Sabrina saw his face.
She recoiled
instantly.
Hideously grotesque, the master’s
visage was a combination of ghostly white skin with sunken eyes and light pink
lips.
His skin was drawn so tightly over
his cheekbones that Sabrina was sure no tissue existed beneath.
And when he opened his mouth again, black
stumps caught her attention.
Shaking, she lowered her gaze and tried not to retch.
“Yes.
Horrible, isn’t
it?”
The insidiously calm voice reached
out to her and Sabrina held her breath.
She pleaded with Mother Earth, all goddesses she knew, to spare her from
his touch.
He moved into position in front of her, so close his foul breath
bathed her face.
Her stomach rolled and
tumbled and she covered it with one hand.
“Would you like to know how I got this way, my pet?”
He lifted one gnarled hand and caressed her
hair.
Sabrina swallowed a wave of bile.
“If you’d like to tell me.”
In
reality, she could give a rat’s ass how he’d gotten that way.
She simply wanted to get away from him, to
wash the stench of his breath off her skin and attempt to erase the memory of
his face.
“Ingrid.”
The name came out
on a blast of pure fury.
“Your
enemy.”
His eyes darkened.
He backed away from Sabrina and began
pacing.
“She thought I was a danger to
her child, her beautiful young daughter, Skye.
I only wanted to touch her, to take some of the power the little girl
possessed.
It would have been enough to
make me happy, but once Ingrid saw me, she cursed me, taking away my own beauty
and replacing it with this, this,” he swept his hands down his body, “vile
creature you see standing in front of you.”
His breath spewed out in liquid drops.
“She would not have been able to doom me like this were it not for the
help of the wizards.
They intervened and
gave her the ability to take away everything that I was.”