Master of Darkness (17 page)

Morgana sighed, an expression far too close to pity in her eyes. “It
was
you, Justice. And until you come to terms with that, you’ll never be able to access the full power of the Hunter Prince. Which means you’ll never be able to take Warlock, no matter how big your battle-axe is.”

She gestured. All three fireballs went out like a trio of snuffed candles.

* * *

Justice and Miranda
decided to go for dinner at the Majae’s Ladies’ Club, despite the fact that Miranda wasn’t a Maja and Justice sure as hell wasn’t a lady.

As a rule, both werewolves would rather eat a big slab of protein than anything else, especially if it was still mooing. Yet the neurochemical demands of magic could give even a wolf a ferocious appetite for something either made from pasta or covered in chocolate. Or both.

The Ladies’ Club was Avalon’s top choice for anyone suffering from post-combat munchies. Actually, it was the only choice, since half the city’s population was on a liquid diet and ignored anything that didn’t come out of a bottle—or a throat.

However, the other half had to eat, which was why the Majae rotated serving and cooking duties at the Ladies’ Club. Being female and thus viciously competitive, the witches took pride in seeing who could serve the club’s most delicious, elaborate meals.

Miranda considered the Ladies’ Club the primary perk of living in Avalon. Well, aside from the landscaping and architecture, both of which were also expressions of that same vicious witch competitive steak.

The club combined all three witch obsessions. The long, low Mediterranean-style building was stuffed with wrought iron furnishings, enough plants to populate a jungle, and marble statues of Roman gods and goddesses. Food was served cafeteria style around the clock, to accommodate the Majae’s erratic, vampire-influenced schedules.

The two werewolves strolled in and headed straight for the nearest serving line, where they loaded their trays with happy greed. Justice located an empty table half-concealed in a cluster of ferns. He took a seat with a sigh of anticipation and contemplated his huge plate of spaghetti and a tall glass of Scotch.

Miranda slid in across from him, her tray dominated by a piece of lasagna large enough to feed a family of four. According to the calligraphied card on the serving dish, Gwen Pendragon herself had committed the felony yumminess in question.

Miranda refused to feel guilty about eating it, either. Belle and Tristan had given her such a relentless ass-kicking, she figured she was entitled to a plate of sin covered in cheese and tomato sauce.

She’d inhaled half the meal before it dawned on her that Justice hadn’t said a damned thing since they’d sat down. Miranda glanced up to find him picking unhappily at his spaghetti. The Scotch was gone.

Fuckity fuck fuck
, she thought, knowing exactly what was bothering him. The question was, should she bring it up herself or wait for him to broach the subject? Glancing down at her remaining meal, Miranda decided in favor of cowardice. She wouldn’t feel like eating once the fight started, and her magic-using brain was still carb-starved.Forking up another bite, she moaned, at length and with considerable volume. Maybe listening to her have a simulated orgasm would snap him out of his funk. “God, Gwen knows her way around lasagna. But then, I guess if you’ve been cooking since the fall of the Roman Empire, you’d have to pick up a thing or two . . .”

“Do you think that damned witch was right?”

“Ahhhhh . . .”
Oh, hell, here it comes
. “Which witch?” She tried out a grin. “Sounds like the beginning of a tongue twister.”

“Who do you think I mean?
Morgana
.” Enunciating, he bit out, “
Do you think my wolf tried to kill you because I’m pissed about the way you treated me?
”

“Oh.” She put down her fork with a sigh of resignation.
So much for cheesy goodness
. “That witch.”

“Yeah.
That
witch. Do you agree with her that the Wolf is the evil part of me?”

“I wouldn’t say
evil
 . . . exactly.”

“Dammit, Miranda . . . !”

“Look, I realize you’re one of the Bitten, so you didn’t grow up with this stuff.” She took a deep breath and decided it was time to quit pulling her punches. “But everyone raised Direkind knows the wolf part of a werewolf isn’t something separate. It’s
part
of you. And if you’re not strictly honest with yourself, it can express emotions you hide even from your conscious mind. Kind of like a dream does. You know how you do things in dreams you’d never do in real life?” She gave him a too-bright grin, knowing she was babbling, but completely unable to stop. “Go to school naked, or bang the pretty secretary in the break room in front of the boss . . .”

“Miranda, dammit, I love you!” he thundered.

Dead silence fell as every woman in the room turned to stare. Miranda felt a furious flush roll to her hairline, and silently cursed her redhead’s coloring. “Well, gee!” she chirped. “Thanks!”

As she’d intended, everyone cracked up and went back to eating.

Once they were all safely occupied again, Miranda leaned forward and hissed, “Can we not do this in front of half the witches in Avalon?”

Justice shot to his feet and growled, “Fine. Morgana gave me a grimoire she wants me to study. When you’re ready to come home, call me on that magic cell phone of yours and I’ll walk you.” A gesture left his dirty dishes stacked on his tray and sparkling clean
.

Of course he’d insist on walking me home
. Miranda watched Justice stalk off to deliver the tray and its now-clean contents to the serving line for reuse.
Dad might beam in and try to eat me on the way.

But she wasn’t that lucky. Warlock would never appear when she was actually in the mood to kick his ass.

Miranda scrubbed a weary hand over her face as her temples began to pound in slow, deep throbs.

Cool fingers caught the sides of her head from behind, and the pain instantly vanished. Startled, she glanced around as Guinevere fell into the chair Justice had just left. Arthur’s wife gestured. “Eat, child. I love watching a woman do justice to food I worked my ass off to cook.” She snorted. “Most of the wenches around here like to pretend they’re too dainty to feel an appetite.”

“When you turn into a seven-foot werewolf, dainty’s pretty much a lost cause.” Miranda picked up her fork and took a dutiful bite.

Only to discover Justice had turned all Gwen’s wonderful lasagna into sawdust without so much as casting a spell. Her gaze flicked over to find the immortal still watching her. Miranda took another bite.

The witch sighed. “Don’t bother.” One corner of her lip twitched. “Men. Can’t live with ’em, can’t fry ’em with a lightning bolt.” She paused as Miranda snickered, before adding blandly, “Of course, one can fantasize . . .”

Miranda was still laughing when Gwen asked, “
Do
you think Justice tried to kill you?”

She stared, incredulous. She’d have expected a question like that from Morgana, but not from Arthur’s wife. “Eavesdrop much?”

“Justice has a fine, deep voice,” Gwen observed coolly. “Which tends to carry over a room full of chatting women, even when he’s not bellowing like a bull.”

Miranda thought that one through and her anger cooled. “Point taken.” She shrugged and sat back in her chair, conjuring a badly needed cup of coffee. “At the time, I’ll admit I was scared out of my mind. But I’ve been thinking about it since then. And I realized something.”

Gwen lifted a brow. “And what would that be?”

“He stopped.” Miranda met the woman’s gaze. “I think he would have stopped even if I hadn’t given him time to calm down. He’d have stopped even if he hadn’t been in love with me. He’s a very strong, intensely moral man. No matter how peeved he was, he would never hurt me. He’d never hurt anybody he considered an innocent. He’s just not wired that way.”

“He did chase you with enough homicidal intent to scare you silly.”

“He’d also just had his DNA rearranged by Merlin’s Blade.” Miranda waved her spread fingers as if conjuring. “When you’ve never been able to work any magic beyond turning fuzzy, getting that kind of power dumped into your brain would throw anybody for a loop. Most people—especially men I’d been such a flaming bitch to—would have done more than chase me down a rabbit hole.”

Gwen lifted a blond brow. “A rabbit hole?”

Miranda grinned. “More a pipe into the ground, actually. I think I saw too many Bugs Bunny cartoons as a child. The Wolf was right on my ass, so . . .”

“Rabbit hole.”

“Worked, too. I talked to him while he tried to figure out how to dig me out. Gave him time to calm down and Shift back to human.”

Gwen settled back in her chair, her expression thoughtful. “You’re right about his power. And the magic is not only in the axe—it altered his genetics, unlocking Merlin’s Gift in ways I’ve never even seen before.” Correctly interpreting Miranda’s puzzled frown, Gwen explained, “I scryed his DNA for Arthur, before and after he obtained the Blade. And I don’t mind telling you, what I found knocked me for a loop. First, he’s a multiple carrier of Merlin’s Gift . . .”

Miranda stared at her in disbelief. “But . . . He’s Direkind. The Bite doesn’t work on Latents.” Latents were the mortal descendants of those who’d drunk from Merlin’s Grail. They never gained powers unless Merlin’s Gift was activated by a member of the Magekind, who had to make love to the Latent at least three times.

Gwen looked up at her, interested. “What makes you say that?”

“Daddy dearest.”

“I didn’t realize you did that much chatting.”

“We didn’t. I was a nosy little kid with a taste for eavesdropping.”

“Given your father’s homicidal tendencies, that was probably a survival characteristic.”

“Pretty much. Anyway, he told a bunch of his Chosen buddies that he’d experimented with Biting Latents, but the spell didn’t work. His exact words were ‘They might as well have been bitten by a Chihuahua.’ I gather he was hoping to create some kind of Magekind/Direkind blend.”

“Which he probably intended to use in one of those endless plots of his. But yes, the bastard was right. The Bite and Merlin’s Gift normally cancel each other out.”

“But not in Justice’s case.”

Gwen nodded. “Not in Justice’s case. Damned if I can tell you why, either. It may be because he holds an unusually strong Gift, probably because both his parents were Latents.”

Miranda shook her head hard, wondering if she’d misheard. “Wait—what?”

“We see that sometimes. Say Lance stopped at some little medieval town a few hundred years ago and sired one of his many bastards. Now, there may have been no more than a couple hundred people in the whole town, especially if you’re talking post–Black Death. So within a few generations, half the people in town carry the Gift. Now, say Bors comes through, and he gets some wench pregnant . . .”

Miranda sat back in her seat, fascinated. “So before long, everybody in town has the Gift, and they’re all crossbreeding like mad, since none of them have any idea about the Gift, Merlin, or that there are Knights of the Round Table in their collective family tree.”

“Exactly. And considering the Magekind have spent fifteen centuries siring bastards all over the planet—well, eventually
everyone
will carry the Gift. Which I suppose would mean the Direkind will no longer be able to make more werewolves by biting people. You’d only become Direkind if you were born to Direkind parents.”

“Makes sense.” Miranda chewed her lower lip, thinking it through. “Even then, nobody would have more than two copies of the Gift in his DNA—one from the mother, and one from the father. And you might not get it at all, since you get only half of each parent’s chromosomes.”

“Justice, however,
did
get two copies of the Gift. Then some idiot werewolf Bit him, which added still more weird genetics. Now, if the Gift had been active, he’d have gone into anaphylactic shock, but his magic wasn’t ‘live’ yet.”

“But why did he Shift at all, when the magic shouldn’t have worked on him?”

Gwen leaned forward and braced her elbows on the table, her expression intense. “It’s got to have something to do with the two copies of the Gift. There are probably other wolves with two copies, but unless you’ve got the magic to detect it, you’d have no way of knowing. And since it’s relatively rare, Warlock may not have seen it before.”

“Why would he look? You don’t go running around gazing at people’s genetic code.”

“Which someone probably has, except none of the labs knew what they were looking at.” Gwen’s expression turned grim. “Once they figure it out, we’re all in trouble.”

SEVENTEEN

Miranda and Gwen
fell silent, considering the chain of events.

“Chocolate,” the witch announced. “This is a discussion that just cries out for chocolate.” Her agile fingers flashed, and two slabs of pie appeared on the table. She picked up the fork that had materialized alongside hers and took a large, gooey bite.

Miranda eyed the pie with its towering cloud of whipped cream and thick, chocolate core, and picked up her own fork. Her first bite made her moan. “Oh, God,” she whimpered, not even caring that her mouth was full. “If Brad Pitt were a pie, this is the pie he’d be. All three thousand calories a slice. I might as well apply it directly to my ass. And you look like such a nice person, too. Evil, evil woman.”

“You’re a werewolf.” Gwen forked up another bite. “You’ll burn it off the next time you Shift. Quit whining and eat.”

They devoured pie in semi-orgasmic silence for the next several minutes. It was close to dawn and most of the Majae had gone home, so they could gorge in peace.

“Merlin obviously suspected Warlock would go bad. Otherwise, why give the axe to Maeve?” Gwen said at last, scraping her fork across her barren plate in hopes of collecting any remaining molecules of chocolate. “So why did he choose such a raging jerk to receive so much power?”

“Merlin also suspected
Arthur
would go bad, or he wouldn’t have created the Direkind to begin with,” Miranda pointed out. “Which suggests Merlin was one seriously paranoid wizard.”

Gwen considered that point. “I think I’d describe him as more ‘wary wizard idealist’ than actively paranoid. He hoped we’d all remain as heroic as we seemed when he tested us fifteen centuries ago, but he also knew people change. The longer you’re alive, the more changing you do. An immortal can change one hell of a lot.”

“Hmmm. Well, yeah.”

Gwen glanced down, and a cup of coffee appeared at her elbow. “When you’ve got this much power and you’ve spent years watching all the really creative ways humans invent to brutalize each other, you start getting the urge to slap the evil out of them. But there’s no such thing as coerced decency. Either people are moral, or they’re just . . . not. The best you can do is educate them about why they should be moral, and make sure you can stop them if they choose another course. Otherwise you can become a tyrant really, really fast.”

“That’s what happened to my father,” Miranda said slowly. “I found one of his journals once. It must have dated back centuries. I had to cast a spell on it to keep it from crumbling every time I turned a page.”

Gwen’s brows rose. “That must have been interesting reading.”

“It totally floored me. The man who wrote that book was nothing like the utter asshole he is today. He wrote with such eloquence about the Direkind’s responsibility to humanity, and how guilty he felt because he couldn’t prevent the casual viciousness he saw every day. He even said he admired Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. But when Arthur went to war with his own son . . .”

“Mordred.” Gwen spat the name, her voice as flat and chill as a frozen lake.

“Right, Mordred. There was one passage where Warlock wrote, ‘This is not what Merlin would have wanted. Arthur has failed by letting Mordred’s mob kill his people.’”

“It wasn’t a question of ‘letting’ him do anything. Mordred was a tactical genius. No surprise there; he was the son of Arthur and Morgana. Just imagine what you’d get with
those
genetics, inbred or not. We had a hell of a time stopping him once his rebellion got traction. Arthur has always said he made his worst mistakes against Mordred.”

“I think that was the beginning of Warlock’s fall.” Miranda stared out across the darkened garden. “That’s when he started hating your husband. He’d thought Arthur was the perfect warrior king—until Arthur failed to keep Mordred from destroying Camelot. Then he felt . . . betrayed.”

“That’s the thing with heroes,” Gwen observed quietly. “Once you convince yourself your idol is more than human, the minute he fails to live up to your expectations, you feel stupid for believing in him. Hero worship always rides the razor edge of disgust. Nothing will turn an acolyte into an assassin any faster.”

Miranda grimaced. “Especially if you’re nuts to begin with.” She glanced around to find Gwen staring at her, a frown on her pretty face. “What, do I have chocolate on my nose?”

“That’s a really ugly spell Warlock cast on you—and it’s gotten worse. When you arrived in Avalon, I only caught glimpses of it. Shadows. I wasn’t even sure it was there at all. Now it’s all but solid,” Gwen told her bluntly. “You need to get rid of it before you go into combat again, or it’s going to get you killed.”

“Believe me, I’ve tried. It damned near cooks me every time anyone messes with it.”

“Given the way it’s set up, I can believe that. I’d be afraid to touch it, too.” Cocking her head, Gwen studied her. “But there is one thing that might work . . .”

“Which is?” Miranda prompted when she fell silent.

“Are you in love with Justice?”

She blinked in surprise at the blunt question, but she nodded. “Yes.”

“In love enough to consider a Truebond?”

“Direkind don’t Truebond,” Miranda said automatically. “We have something called a Spirit Link, which is similar.” She frowned. “Unfortunately, our version still kills you when your partner dies, which is why it’s not all that popular. Warlock went so far as to outlaw it for the Chosen, because he didn’t want Chosen males dying for the love of anything female.”

“He should just call those guys the ‘He-Man Woman Haters Club’ and get it over with.”

“Yeah, well, he’s afraid people would think he’s gay.”

Gwen snorted. “Yeah, that sounds like him. But you still didn’t answer the question.”

Miranda shook her head. “I don’t see how a Spirit Link would break the spell.”

“Justice has power enough to shatter your chains like peanut brittle. You don’t, even with your new athame.”

“Justice
tried
to break them. And I almost ended up a crispy critter.”

“That’s probably because his counter spell was coming in from outside your mind. Warlock knew the first thing we’d do is try to break the spell, and one or the other of us would have the juice for the job. If
you
applied the force from the within, I’ll wager those chains would shatter like a Victorian teacup. It’s impossible to build a spell that can resist
anything
coming from
any
direction.”

“All right,” Miranda said slowly. “That does make sense.”

“But . . . ? And there is a ‘but.’ I can almost see the thought bubble over your head.”

Miranda sighed and sat back in her chair. “I’m not comfortable asking Justice to take a risk like that just to get me out of a bind.”

Gwen considered her. “Somehow I don’t think he’d see it that way.”

“No, of course he wouldn’t. If he were any more heroic, the
Star Wars
theme would play whenever he walks into a room.”

“You really
are
a nerd, aren’t you?”

“Bite me.”

“
So
not my type. Look at it this way: Justice doesn’t have the knowledge to use his new power to its fullest, and he doesn’t have time to learn. Not with Warlock breathing down our collective necks. If you Truebond—or Spirit Link, or use the Force, or whatever you lot call it—you’ll be able to help him. And Darth Warlock will find it a lot more difficult to kill us.”

Miranda closed her eyes and sighed, knowing an argument she couldn’t ignore when she heard one. “Oh, crap.”

Gwen smiled.

* * *

Justice looked up
from the big grimoire he held in his lap as Miranda walked in. His eyes narrowed.

Which was when Miranda remembered. “Crap! I was supposed to call you so you could walk me home. I’m sorry, I started talking to Gwen and . . .”

“Do you
want
your father to kill you?”

So much for discussing Gwen’s psychic meld idea. The angry tension in his voice told her they were on the verge of a really memorable fight. “Given Avalon’s wards, it’s damned unlikely even Warlock could find a way in.”

“You forgetting what we saw at the falls? Fifteen Demi-Sidhe, a unicorn, Maeve’s cougar, a yearling dragon, and the King of the Trolls . . . Who knows what he could do with the power from that many sacrifices?”

Miranda grappled with her rapidly heating temper, trying to ignore the chill claws of Warlock’s fear spell that had already begun raking at her consciousness. The last thing she needed to do was cower—that would definitely set off Justice’s werewolf instincts—but she did owe him an apology. Especially since a note of genuine worry echoed behind the rumble of his rage.

“Look, Justice, I really am sorry . . .”

“I’d expected to hear from you an hour ago.” The dark light she associated with his wolf flashed in his eyes. “I was on the verge of heading out to search.”

“You could have just called my cell.” Everybody in town had a phone spelled to work in the Mageverse.

On her hip, the athame sang a trill of discordant notes that sounded distinctly like a warning. As if in agreement, Merlin’s Blade spilled blue sparks from its harness, as it leaned against the arm of Justice’s chair.

The wolf light brightened into true fury, flashing against the darkness of his eyes.
Damn, he really was worried
,
Miranda realized.
He didn’t even think about the cell.

That was why at least half his anger was directed at himself.

Unfortunately, that made no difference whatsoever to Warlock’s damned spell. She could see the links beginning to glow as they wrapped around her body, increasing the beat of her heart, double-time, triple-time, as adrenaline spilled through her blood, tainting her scent with the acrid stink of fear.

Not good.

Miranda reached into the Mageverse and pulled power, knowing she needed to disguise her physical reactions before they goaded his wolf even more.

Too late.

“I’m not going to hurt you, dammit!” He shot to his feet, towering over her even tall as she was. His big hands curled into fists. “I would never hurt you!” He didn’t even seem to realize just how irrational he sounded.

Miranda flinched before she could contain the reaction.

His dark eyes widened and his lips parted in a soundless gasp, and she knew he’d have looked at her with just that expression of wounded surprise if she’d conjured a sword and rammed it into his heart.

Stop it
, she told herself savagely. None of this was in character for the strong, controlled man she knew.
I’ve got to help him regain control.

“Justice, it’s really late.” Ignoring her rising fear, Miranda reached up to rest a hand on the bunched muscles of his chest. She held her voice steady despite the spell’s efforts to catapult her into outright, screaming panic. “I’m sorry I kept you up so long. We’ll both feel a lot better after we get some sleep.”

“You’re afraid of me.” The anguish in his eyes was even stronger than his wolf’s anger. “Are you sure you even trust me enough to occupy the same bed?” He curled his upper lip, as if trying to hide that vivid pain behind sarcasm. “Since the Wolf is just an ‘expression of my subconscious,’ I might hurt you in my sleep.”

Miranda gazed up into his handsome face, and this time she didn’t have to work to do it. Fuck the spell. She knew what she knew. “You would
never
hurt me. Wolf or no wolf, axe or no axe. You’re William Justice, and you don’t hurt women. Not in your sleep. Not ever.”

Something new flashed in his eyes, a brilliant magical flare that definitely wasn’t wolf. Pain and anger vanished, burned away in an instant. “I sure as hell wouldn’t hurt the woman I love.” He pulled her into his arms as tenderly as a man lifting a newborn infant. Wrapping her in cradling warmth, he sought her mouth.

Justice’s kisses started out gentle, but they didn’t stay that way. In seconds, he began kissing Miranda the way a half-drowned man pulls in oxygen, in starving, desperate gulps. Suckling her lips, biting first one and then the other with tiny nibbles, he alternated swirling his tongue around hers with deep, suggestive thrusts.

But there was more to his kisses than lust. They tasted of love, fear of rejection, and the need for forgiveness, stripped bare of pride and disguise, as naked as an erection. She’d never dreamed an Alpha wolf would be willing to reveal himself so utterly. Especially not a man as proud as Justice.

Even if he’d never told her he loved her, those kisses demonstrated just how he felt, told her how important she was to him.

Miranda gasped against his mouth. Kissing Justice, she forgot Warlock’s spell, forgot her own anger and distrust. Forgot everything but her need to show this vulnerable, powerful man how she felt. Show him so vividly, he’d no longer doubt either of them.

He dragged his mouth away from hers, breathing in pants. “There’s something . . . something I need to tell you. Someplace Maeve said we had to go. Now.”

“Now?”
Miranda laughed against his lips. “Somehow I think it can wait thirty minutes.” She kissed him again. “Or an hour.” Another soft, brushing kiss. “Maybe two.”

Justice pulled away with visible reluctance. “No, she said as soon as you got back. I offered to call you then, but she told me to wait for you to return on your own. But by then, I was pissed . . .” He shrugged, wincing.

“Wait—she specifically told you to wait until I got home?” Miranda drew away from him, frowning. Frowning still harder when she realized her arousal had given way to worry.

“Yeah.”

And that confirmed it. “She saw something. Scryed something. Anyway, she’s had some kind of vision.”

“That was my thought. Which was why I got so pissed off and worried when you were late.” He grimaced. “Then I jumped you like an idiot, instead of just telling you we had somewhere to be.”

Walking to his chair, he picked up his axe harness and shouldered into it, then buckled the straps around his torso. The big weapon shed sparks the entire time, as if urging them to greater speed.

“I am sorry.” Miranda stared at him with blatant longing. “And I’m even sorrier we don’t have time to make love.”