Vengeance: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 3 (28 page)

“Maddy, grab him some water.”

I turned and made eye contact with a coven member. “Go.”

Bahlin looked back at me, arching a brow at my passing the buck of his command.
 

“Don’t think about dictating to or dismissing me.”

Another sharp nod and he turned his attention back to Kristof. “Tell me what happened.”

“We were all in the room with Darach and he started talking. Lachland told him to shut up, but he kept talking. He was there, then gone.”

“What happened to your head?” Bahlin took Kristof’s chin in hand and turned it to the side.
 

The dragon blushed and hunched his shoulders, and I recognized the youth of the gesture. He was even younger than I’d credited him with being.

“Answer.” Bahlin’s voice was a whip. He looked over his shoulder at me, his ice-blue eyes cold and predatorily unforgiving. I’d never seen him look this foreign, even in his pre-shift stage as signified by his eyes.

“There was chaos when the warlock disappeared.” Kristof closed his eyes and swayed so that Bahlin helped him to the first step, squatting in front of him.

“Slow down and tell me everything that happened.”

“Yes, sir.” He tried to sit up straight and, with the exception of a slight list to the left, managed to hold himself upright. “There were four of us in the room and three on the door, just like you ordered.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “The warlock was meditating, silent, but his lips were moving. He suddenly opened his eyes and offered us each a trove of gold if we’d side with him to kill the magus.” His eyes darted back and forth, finally landing on mine, unspoken apology passing through his gaze.
 

I very slowly moved up to him and stood steps away before deliberately reaching out to caress his face. “Who accepted?”

Kristof swallowed again. “Lachland argued with Darach, told him to shut up and that we weren’t taking any of his bribes.” The young dragon rubbed his forehead and breathed deep. “Edan and Anndra…”

“What?” Bahlin hissed out. “What did they do?”

Kristof lifted his face and sorrow rained down his face. “They killed Lachland. There wasn’t room to shift or I’d have taken them, both.” My disbelief wasn’t schooled quickly enough because Kristof barked, “I’m a wicked warrior in the air, Niteclif.”

“He is,” Bahlin confirmed. “He’s one of the best. Rest, man, and know justice will be dealt, swift and sure, for them killing one of their own.”

The young man nodded and he slumped in the chair. The dragons’ healer, a man I didn’t know, swept through the crowd and bent toward Kristof with soft words and a softer touch. The wounded man nodded. He rose from his seat with help and followed the healer to the sofa at the back of the room.

Bahlin turned to me, fury a fine garment overlaying his form. “I’ll deliver justice when they’re caught.”

“Do you want a formal trial?” It seemed it wouldn’t be necessary, but I didn’t know if I should offer or not.

“When the circumstances are clear, and death is warranted, it’s up to the leader of the sect to determine whether or not the Justice Dealer is necessary.”
 

Hellion stepped into the room and looked at me.

“I’ll be handling Darach,” I said, Hellion echoing my words in perfect time. “No.” Again, we spoke together.

“He wronged me. That bastard took my coven from me, my
people
, Madeleine.” Hellion’s chest heaved, raw wounds saturating the bandages. “They aren’t fucking sheep, and that’s how he treated the whole situation. And to find out he tried to bribe my death at the hands of my allies and in my own home? No.” He shook with rage and had to grab the door lintel for support. “He’ll die at my own hand.” Pushing off, he stumbled into the hallway.

I let him go.

Chapter Sixteen

Pushing the mudroom door open, I walked outside. Of all the places Hellion could go, there was one place I felt certain would call him to him like sanctuary. I wandered the garden slowly, trailing my fingers along the silky petals of late-blooming flowers and across the low-hanging branches of the deciduous trees. Some had already started giving up their leaves to the shifting seasons, the colors of fall fading in a whirlwind of reds and yellows on the fall breeze. The garden paths wound around until the pergola came into view. Trailing vines wove in and out of the wooden fortress to create a semi-private arbor of dappled sunlight and shadows. Moss decorated the curved legs of the cement benches, soft green against weathered gray.
 

Hellion sat, shoulders hunched forward, forearms resting on his knees and head bent in supplication. I stood silent, watching him. Emotion cloaked him heavily, the weight of responsibility more a burden now when it shouldn’t have been his to bear. With a great, shuddering breath, he rolled his shoulders back and sat up straight, his hand briefly going to his wounded side. He turned his head a fraction and silently motioned me forward.

I took slow, tentative steps, feeling as if I were treading hallowed ground. The small Celtic cross draped with dried flowers and a couple of small ribbons surprised me.
 

“The staff comes here sometimes.” His voice carried to me with the breeze.

I nodded and said a quick prayer of my own before I spoke. “I wondered if you’d find your way here.”

“I forgot I’d shown ye the arbor.” Feeling rebuffed, I turned to go, but he shifted to stop me, reaching for my arm. “Wait. That came oot wrong.”

“You never misspeak.”

“I’m no’ exactly at me best at the moment,
anamchara
,” he answered, an apologetic smile playing around his lips. “I’d ask ye to forgive me. Let me start again.” He pulled gently on my arm and I moved toward him, sinking to the bench beside him.
 

“I’d understand if you wanted to be alone, you—”

His lips found mine tenderly and he pulled me to him. I went more willingly this time, weaving my fingers through his hair, drawing in deep lungfuls of his smell—the spice of his cologne, the scent of his skin, even the sunshine in his clothes—and the pungent tang of earth on the wind. His tongue delved into my mouth to dance with mine—touch, retreat, touch, retreat—and my heart sighed loud enough I knew he must have heard it.

I nipped his bottom lip and he grinned before leaning into the kiss with refreshed enthusiasm. One hand cupped the side of my face while the other slid down my back and encourage me to shift around and straddle him.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m no’ so unstable as a game o’ table top ninepins, ye know.” He blushed and rubbed the end of his nose carefully. “Slide on over here.”

Shifting carefully, I settled into his lap, but I just couldn’t bring myself to rest on his thighs. Instead, I straddled his legs, one knee on the bench and one foot on the ground. Hellion tilted his head back and I cupped his face in my hands, lowering my lips gently to his in as a tender a kiss as we’d ever exchanged. The rain began to patter gently on the natural roof of the arbor. We were, at least preliminarily, safe from the weather.

Lacing our fingers together, Hellion tugged on my hand until I moved closer to him. He took over the kiss, breathing into me, his seductive skills manipulating my will power. It was an age-old dance of dominance, with him shifting to standing, forcing my chin back until my neck was held at an odd angle. I whimpered involuntarily and he smiled, his lips still pressed to mine.
 

“That’s one of my favorite sounds, Maddy. It means I’ve taken you to the edge, where pleasure and pain converge and the mind cannot tell one from the other.” His obsidian eyes were bottomless this close.

I stepped back, my thoughts scattering at the rapid change in the tenor of the kiss.
 

Hellion sat back down on the bench and invited me with open arms to join him. I did, sinking into his better side and nestling under his arm. He settled his chin on the crown of my head and I felt him slow his breathing to a measured pace.

“I’ve had all the time I needed to come to a decision. I want that to be clear, very clear, that you won’t change my mind, not as my future bride and not as the Niteclif. I understand the risks and the potential consequences better than anyone. Wait,” he said as I started to ask what the hell was going on. “Give me half a chance to explain. I fell to Connell because I refused to answer his dark magic with my own. It was there, Maddy, there at my fingertips, and it called to me. I could have destroyed him but for my morals. That internal compass nearly cost me my life today, and it cost many their lives last night.”

Once again, I started to speak then stopped and gestured for him to continue. If nothing else, I’d take the time to think of what to say.

He nodded once and continued. “I’ll not turn away from the dark arts again. I intend to embrace whatever magics I can call to hand in order to stop Connell and save us from Agares’s abuse.”
 

I looked up to meet his gaze.
 

Hellion’s face was stony, devoid of emotion until he shook his head and grinned darkly, his hair rustling like silk on silk. I reached out to touch it and he grabbed my wrist, squeezing. “No. Listen to me, and listen closely. You’ve no clue what I’m capable of, the destruction I can cause and the powers I can invoke.”
 

Heat spread through me, straight to the juncture of my thighs. My lips swelled and my clit was engorged, my sex flooded with arousal. I crossed my legs and pulled on my captured wrist.

“Dark magic allows me to take what I will, when I will. I can make you want me with a passion you’ve never known.”
 

An invisible hand intimately caressed me and I gasped, my head falling back. It wasn’t right, this sensation, and I pulled against his grip. “What are you doing?”

“Like everything else, the dark arts come with a cost, Maddy. Nothing in magic is free. It’s an exchange of power that must always be balanced. The exchange here is a piece of who I am for the power to do what needs to be done. I’ve spent my life fighting the pull, but no more. I learned a hard truth today.” His lips thinned. Letting me go, he crossed his massive arms over his chest. His beaten body, still marked with bloodstains, was a reminder of his mortality. The ease with which he embraced his rage and the effortlessness with which he’d claimed my body were reminders of his capability. “You need someone who can partner with you and keep you safe. You’re the only thing that stands between the paranormal and mundane worlds. The two can never meet. You know that.” He turned away for a moment, seeming to gather his thoughts as well as his determination. “Chaos will reign if there’s no Niteclif to mete out justice, and your job is to make sure that justice is always served and the filth of our world never infiltrates the innocence of yours.”
 

“I get that, Hellion. What I don’t get is exactly what the hell this has to do with you making this choice?” My voice shook as I fought to clear my head. “There has to be another option, something else.”
 

He took my face in his hands and kissed my forehead in a strange kind of private benediction. Pulling back, he stared down at me. “There’s no other choice I can see, Maddy. I fell today, the fault no one’s but my own. I thought I was dead. I failed the people who depend on me and, worse, I opened the door through which Connell might reach you.”
 

Hellion sat back against the woody wisteria vines and closed his eyes. “The first thought when I awoke? I knew with radical clarity that there was absolutely nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe and to keep you with me, my soul be damned if that’s the cost. I will fight whatever battle I must, whether it’s with Connell or Agares or Lucifer himself. Let the comers come. I will cut them down at the knees.” He pounded a fist against his wounded chest. “I won’t lose you to an archaic moral code, and I won’t let my people suffer lifetimes of abuse because I was too cowardly to do what needed to be done.”

I stared at the man in front of me, this wounded magus who had tread so close to the darkness for so many years. “I don’t want to lose you to this any more than you want to lose me.”

“You won’t.” Hellion reached out and caressed my face, his thumb skimming my lower lip. “You’ll be my moral counterbalance, Maddy, the thing that brings me back from the edge when its siren song is too strong for me alone. I need you, and will need you even more once this begins. You’ll see things…” His voice trailed off, reluctance dragging the words out slowly.

“Things like…” I prompted.

“It will change me some, Maddy.”
 

“No.” The snap of my voice was like the crack of a whip.
 

“There’s nothing to discuss. I warned you—my mind is made up. I’m sorry.”

“You said you needed me to pull you back, right?” I scrambled off the bench and out of his reach. “If you need me, shouldn’t I have a say in this?”

“Again, I’m sorry.” He sighed and rubbed his chest. “My mind is made up.”

“So that’s all there is to it.” My words were only words. They wouldn’t sway him, couldn’t change the outcome.

He stood and moved toward me.

I backed up. “I guess you don’t see it the same way I do,” I murmured, still reeling that he’d make such a huge choice without at least consulting me. The “why” of it made sense, but there was so much more to this decision. Spinning on my heel, I headed back toward the house.