Master of Shadows (22 page)

So he gestured, casting the spell with the knowledge he’d stolen from Emma Jacobs. A ball of light appeared over his palm, floating there as demurely as a helium balloon.

“Smells like Mageverse magic.” Warlock grinned in an intimidating display of teeth. “You’re not very strong, but you can draw on the Mageverse now. Most of your power will still come from death magic, so I wouldn’t advise you to get in any fights with Majae until you’ve killed someone. They’ll kick your ass.”

Now that he knew something about the Mageverse, Dice realized just how difficult it must have been to change his magical nature. “How did you
do
that?”

Warlock grinned again, until Dice wished he’d stop. “I’m powerful, boy—a lot more powerful than you. Keep that in mind.”

Did he have a choice?

 

Smoke examined Emma’s
gauntlet, a frown on his handsome face. “He bit through the enchanted steel as if it were cardboard.” The Sidhe and Eva had joined them at the Pendragon home.

“We noticed,” Arthur told him dryly. “Do you know what the hell that thing is?” Given Smoke’s millennia in the Mageverse, they’d figured if anyone could identify Warlock’s monster, it would be him.

He looked up at the three-dimensional image of the creature Morgana had magically created. “Never seen anything like it. Looks like a cross between a wolf, a tiger, and a grizzly bear.”

“Bet fighting it was no fun at all,” Eva observed.

“It wasn’t,” Tristan growled. “And if it had managed to bite one of us . . .” His gaze slid to Belle.

“You’d have ended up like Emma.” Smoke put the punctured gauntlet on the coffee table and leaned back in his seat, frowning. “One thing is for damned sure: you’ve all got to reinforce your armor. None of you can afford to get bitten.”

“It might be dangerous for you, too, Smoke,” Eva pointed out. “We don’t know how a bite would affect you, either.”

“And I’d rather not find out the hard way.”

“The question is, how much reinforcement is needed?” Arthur drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “It’s going to add weight and reduce flexibility, even with an enchantment to lighten the armor. That’s going to make fighting in it more difficult.”

“We’ll just have to experiment.” Morgana took a sip of her tea, eyes narrowed in thought. “It’s going to be a time-consuming process, so we’d better put out the word. I’ll issue an order to all my Majae to get to work on armor, including suits for vamps who have no partners.”

Arthur nodded. “And nobody goes in the field without the new armor.” His expression turned even more grim. “I don’t want to hold any more funerals.”

 

Smoke and the
witches started discussing armor weight versus flexibility ratios, spells to counter that effect, and speculating about the bite strength of Warlock’s monster. To Tristan’s experienced ear, this had the sound of a conversation that would go on past dawn. Since sunrise was only an hour or so away, he excused himself and headed home. He needed time to think, and he wasn’t going to get it at Casa Pendragon.

He was no longer sure he should take Sabryn up on her offer. Yeah, doing so had plenty of benefits from his point of view, but he hadn’t considered the implications for Belle. Watching her fight beside Bors had made Tristan sharply aware that abandoning her was not a good idea. Bors had damned near gotten her killed.

True, there were plenty of other Magi who weren’t blood-addicted she could partner with. But the sad fact was, Bors fought better dog-drunk than most of those puppies did sober as a judge.

The only man Tristan really trusted to protect Belle was Tristan. If he could be sure she’d go back to seducing Latents, that would be one thing. But he knew Belle, and she wasn’t going to take a safe job with the Magekind at war.

Assuming you could call being a court seducer particularly safe. After all, she’d be on mortal Earth, among the witch-eating werewolves.

No, thank you.

Unfortunately, dumbass that he was, he’d said a bunch of crap he couldn’t take back. Now he was going to have to persuade her to ignore all that and partner with him again.

Oh, what fun. He’d rather have his fangs pulled with a pair of rusty pliers. Tristan headed into the house and up the stairs, still wrestling with the question of how he was going to talk Belle into taking him back. He was so preoccupied, he was outside his bedroom door before he caught the scent of a woman waiting for him. His heart leaped in anticipation.
Belle’s realized she needs me
.

Then he took a second breath and swung the door wide. “Sabryn, what the fuck are you doing?”

A dozen candles ignited around the bedroom, revealing the witch lounging on a pile of pillows. She wore a wisp of red lace that barely shadowed her nipples and fell open across her thighs, framing the hot copper curls of her sex. She smiled, pure, wanton sex in human form. “I wondered when you’d get home. I was starting to worry we wouldn’t be able to play before sunrise. But you’re just in time.”

Oh, shit. “Sabryn, go home. I’m tired, and I’m really not in the mood.”

Her smile turned carnivorous. “Lord Tristan of the Round Table, too tired for sex?”

“No,” he growled. “I’m too tired for the screaming fit you’re going to throw when I tell you to get the fuck out of my house. I don’t want to become your partner, in bed or out of it.”

Shock flashed across her lovely face, followed an instant later by hot rage. No hurt at all. Good. “Are you telling me you’re turning me down for that skinny little hag?”

“Hag? Belle?” Tristan laughed, a great whoop of amusement.

“You bastard!” She jerked up the nearest object off the bedside table and flung it at his head.

It happened to be a dagger. Tristan caught it out of the air and sighed. “Give it a rest, Sabryn.”

“I’ll give
you
a rest, you arrogant fuck!” She exploded off the bed, a ball of bright gold magic condensing over her palm. She fired it at his head with lethal speed, her face twisted in rage.

He barely ducked in time. “Now, wait just one damned minute, witch!”

But Sabryn was already conjuring another fireball.

 

Belle climbed the
stairs to her bedroom with feet made heavy by grief. Tom’s ghost seemed to float at her shoulder, a laughing young man with dark eyes, cocky and handsome. Her ears rang with his son’s screams.
“Daddy, Daddy, don’t die! Please don’t die!”

Jesu. Her eyes stung, and she swallowed a sob as she pushed the bedroom door open. And stopped dead.

Tristan sat in the armchair next to the bed, a cut-crystal glass full of something amber in one hand. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s sat beside his booted foot.

She’d opened her mouth to tell him to get the hell out of her house when the condition of his face registered. A bright crimson burn marked one cheekbone, and his left eye was swollen shut. His right sleeve was wet with blood. “Sorry for dropping in like this,” he said, “but there are some very big holes in my house.”

“What the hell happened to you?” Forgetting her anger at his invasion, she hurried across the bedroom to catch his chin and angle his head up. A cut marred his lower lip with a drying smear of blood. She conjured a light with an absent gesture. “Let me see that arm.”

His bloody sleeve vanished at a wave of her fingers, revealing a long slash that cut across his biceps. It was at least five inches long. To her experienced eye, it looked like a sword wound. “Tristan, who attacked you?”

One corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Sabryn has a very bad temper.”

Her jaw dropped, and she stared at him in shock. “Sabryn did this?” The idea that a Maja would attack a Magus stunned her silent. Though vampires were far stronger than witches, they couldn’t shield themselves against magical attacks. That was the whole point of having a Maja partner.

Too, a knight like Tristan would feel it was dishonorable to strike back against a woman. All of which would make it practically impossible for him to defend himself. Her gaze dropped to his bloody arm, and her rage flashed hot. “I’m going to kill that bitch. What happened?”

“I got home to find Sabryn in my bed,” he said as she laid a palm across the wound and sent a wave of healing magic into it. “I told her rather bluntly that I’m not interested in a partnership. She didn’t take it well.”

Belle stared down at him, her brows rising. “Why did you change your mind?”

“After I watched you and Bors take on our large fuzzy friend, I realized I don’t want anyone partnering with you but me.” His green gaze met hers, dark and intense. “Please forgive me, Belle. I was wrong.”

She cupped his burned cheek and sent another wave of power into his skin. The burn faded, smoothing into healthy flesh. “No, you
weren’t
wrong, Tristan. I caused a bad flashback, remember? What if I do it again?”

His smile looked a bit twisted. “So you don’t get on top next time.”

She sighed. “It’s not that simple, Tris.”

“Yes, actually it is.” He caught her hand in his. His fingers felt almost feverishly warm, and his gaze seemed to burn with its intensity. “I want you, Belle. We’re probably going to go to war with the Direkind in the next few days. I want to be beside you when that happens.”

Belle snorted. “You just want to make sure I don’t get myself killed.”

“That’s not all I want.” He hooked a hand behind her head, pulled her down and took her mouth. The kiss was as fierce as his eyes, a hungry plundering of lips and tongue that let her feel the points of his fangs.

Her head began to spin, and her knees went weak as he softly licked and bit at her mouth.

Finally he pulled away to rest his forehead against hers. “Forgive me for being such an ass, Belle. Take me back.”

She knew she should say no. He’d hurt her, and he’d probably hurt her again. And yet . . .

Belle remembered Tom’s empty, staring eyes and the heartbreaking sobs of his son. She realized she didn’t want Tristan going into combat without her either. She wanted to be at his side, protecting him.

And she wanted to make love to him again. Wanted to feel his big body pressing into hers, hot and strong and hard. She breathed her answer against his mouth. “All right. We’ll see how it goes.”

“Thank you, Belle. You won’t regret it.” He combed his fingers through her hair. “The sun’ll be up in a few minutes. Would you lie with me?” His lip quirked. “Though I wish there was time to do more.”

Straightening away from him, she turned toward the bed, flipping the covers back. “You’d better get in before you end up falling on your face.”

Tristan gave her a smile and shrugged out of what was left of his shirt. She watched him strip, shamelessly enjoying the ripple of dense muscle as he moved.

Her own clothing disappeared with a gesture, and she slid in beside him to seek that perfect spot between his left pectoral and the rise of his shoulder. Her arm curled around his waist as he drew her close. They lay there between the cool sheets, listening to the thump of each other’s heart, enjoying the warmth of each other’s skin. Just before the sun rose, she felt his lips against her hair. “Thank you, Belle.”

 

Tristan was still
deeply asleep when Belle woke some hours later. No surprise; it was only two in the afternoon.

Belle sat up and looked down at him. He lay sprawled in bed, as abandoned in sleep as a small boy. But there was nothing boyish about his big body. He had all the powerful muscle of a man who’d spent decades with a great sword in his hand, his legs long and powerful from years in the saddle and miles of running. He looked like the warrior he was.

She couldn’t believe Sabryn had thrown a fireball at him. And that wasn’t all, either. She’d be willing to bet money that wound on his arm had come from a sword.

Belle gritted her teeth and decided she’d drop by Tristan’s place to take a look at the damage. Though if she’d had any sense, Sabryn should have magically cleaned up after herself.

Then again, Sabryn had never struck Belle as being all that smart.

 

And she wasn’t.
Belle stalked around Tristan’s bedroom, eying the hole in the outer wall. Sunlight streamed through the opening, more than enough to ensure Tristan couldn’t have slept in his own bed. Though Magi didn’t really turn to ash in the light of the sun as vampire legend said, it could burn them badly.

The edge of the hole was singed dark, indicating Sabryn had used a pretty powerful fireball. “You were lucky you didn’t burn the house down, you stupid bitch,” Belle growled.

She pulled her cell phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and flipped it open. “Morgana!”

“Yes, Belle?” Morgana’s velvety voice sounded bright this morning. She was in a good mood.

That was going to change by the time Belle got through with her. “Get over here and see what your pet slut did to Tristan’s house.”

 

Morgana’s mood did
indeed change as they studied the evidence of Sabryn’s magical strikes. But it was the bloody sword they found at the foot of the stairs that really set her off. Picking up the great blade, Morgana examined it with her magical senses. “This is Tristan’s blood.”

“Looks like she took his own sword to him. And being Tristan, he chose not to fight back.”

Morgana’s lip curled. “A Knight of the Round Table wouldn’t. Not against a Maja. He’d just duck and take to his heels.”

“Which probably galled him no end. He wouldn’t like running from anyone.” Belle picked up the remains of a colorful pillow lying on the floor. It was sliced in two and trailing stuffing, as though he’d used it to deflect an attack. The streaks of blood on the batting revealed he hadn’t been entirely successful.

Morgana conjured a cell phone. “Sabryn,” she snarled, “get over here.”

 

“He insulted me.”
The witch growled, her arms folded over her generous chest, a glower on her face that made her appear much less pretty than usual. “And he had the gall to
laugh
at me!”