My Forbidden Desire (32 page)

There wasn’t a sound out of place. Nothing that didn’t belong. No footsteps. No eerie creaks. But someone was breaking into the house; she was sure of it. Xia continued to pull just that strand of power, a wisp of energy that raised the hair on the back of her neck. He cursed softly.

Her inner ear went off kilter. It was here. Whatever it was, it was here, right now.

“Xia, get away from the door!” Her warning came in a low, harsh whisper. At the same time, she moved toward him. She lurched, off balance because she didn’t know how to deal with the different kind of magic that flooded into her from Xia. She landed hard on the floor. So much for being quiet. Xia, however, maintained silence. The man was a total freak of ice-cold nerves. Her hand shot out and wrapped around his ankle. She yanked. Hard. Xia landed on his ass away from the door.

Which exploded inward, sending splinters of wood into the air where his head and chest had been.

“Damn,” someone said. “I don’t usually miss.”

“Fuck,” Xia said at the same time.

She was on her feet in one fluid motion, Xia’s knife in hand. Light reflected off the blade with a dull blue sheen that wasn’t natural given the lighting in here. She got a hum in her fingers that worked its way up her arm. Magic to which she hadn’t been sensitive before. She stayed where she was with Xia’s knife balanced in her hand. “Next time,” she said, “listen to me, would you?”

“We have bigger problems now.” Xia grabbed her arm and backed them both away from the door.

“Let’s talk about this, Xia,” said their as-yet-unseen visitor. “May I?”

Someone walked in. A tall, dark someone with a voice that shivered her insides. Once he was in the room, with the door blasted to slivers, there was enough light for her to see it was the man from the grocery store. The man who’d attacked them at her house. Her father’s mageheld, Durian.

“Take another step and you’re dead,” Xia said.

Alexandrine shoved Xia behind her, or, more accurately, she pushed herself in front of him, because if Xia didn’t want to move, he freaking didn’t move. Instinctively, she judged the distance between her and Durian and what it would take to put the knife in his heart.

The other fiend took a step back, hands raised. “All I want is the talisman,” the fiend said.

Of course. She was a witch, and magehelds were not allowed to harm the magekind unless ordered to do so. Like the shaved heads, that was a fact of their condition. Alexandrine’s spine flashed hot, and this time she was able to identify the magic Durian held, though again, filtered through Xia. If she had her own magic, she’d be feeling Durian’s power directly while Xia would feel nothing. Instead, she had this bizarre reflection of her magic. Xia pulled harder, which sent the air around them vibrating. That she felt all on her own. By herself, she could only feel Xia pulling.

“It cracked, Durian,” Xia said. “And assimilated. Your mage is shit out of luck. So how about you go deliver the bad news and leave us alone until we can get Carson after you?”

Durian’s lip curled. “Rasmus will be so disappointed.”

“Xia,” she said. Her premonition fired off again, subtly changed because even with Durian right here in front of them, Xia’s revelation had shifted the parameters of the danger. “It’s you he’s after.”

Durian glanced at her once, then returned his attention to Xia. He looked menacing in black. Black jeans. A black sweater. Black Vibram boots. His black hair was shorn close to his skull. Of course, being six foot and then some with a dancer’s lines kind of added to the elegant bad-ass mystique he had going. Hell, from what she’d seen so far, all fiends were physically gorgeous and scary as heck.

“Are you quite sure, Ms. Marit,” Durian said, “that you don’t wish to see your father again?”

“Not interested.”

Xia turned his head. Damn him, he’d stepped aside so there was once again a clear line of sight between him and Durian. She didn’t like this. Not even a bit.

“I’m not letting you take her.”

With a chillingly dead smile, Durian cocked his head and said, “What a pity.”

She concentrated on processing what she was getting from Xia. She had a new worry now. What would happen if her magic went off the way it sometimes did when she was stressed out? Even when her magic was hers, she wasn’t any good at dealing with it, and Xia sure as hell wouldn’t know what to do. The entire situation was too new for either of them to know how this worked or affected them.

“Perhaps you’ll change your mind,” Durian said to her. “Your father finds you far more interesting now than when you were a child. Xia may accompany you, if you like.” He inched closer.

“Back off, buddy,” Alexandrine said. She could tell Xia was working up to something big with his magic. He wasn’t the only one. Unfortunately, Durian was doing the same thing. The pressure in her head kept ratcheting up, a sign, she figured, that her magic was close to boiling over. Durian was pulling; she was getting that from Xia, too, while he ignored what was going on with her magic. Her mouth went dry as a bone.

“It’s a shame,” Durian said, “that Carson Philips isn’t here.” He put a hand to his chest and grimaced. His gesture wasn’t idle. He frowned and moved his finger up and down the midline of his chest. “Our meeting tonight might end quite differently if Magellan’s little witch were here.”

Xia lunged and Alexandrine grabbed his arm. “No!” She shouldered her way in front of him again, and he crashed hard against her back. She stumbled toward Durian. The air was so hot around them she practically fried. “Xia, it’s a trick. He’s up to something.”

“Am I deceived?” Durian’s eyebrows rose. “A witch protecting a fiend?” He laughed. “Remarkable.”

“Fuck off, Durian,” Xia said.

“You’ve gone to the dark side, Xia, haven’t you? Letting a witch protect you.” Durian put his hands on his hips. “Or has she so emasculated you that you can’t take care of me on your own?”

Xia shook off her hand, and everything after that was a train wreck. Durian released his power. As she expected, he feinted at her. Xia stepped in front of her, and that’s when Durian let him have it. Of course, she was caught up in it, too. A bonus for Durian.

She might not be able to directly feel the mageheld pulling, but she sure as heck felt his magic when it hit her. She reeled under a concussive shot that short-circuited her brain. A flash of light blinded her, but not before she saw Xia blown off his feet and Durian hurl himself after Xia. Magic lanced through her, bone-deep and so dark and terrifying a scream burst from her. She couldn’t move. The world went black and soundless.

When she opened her eyes, or maybe when her ability to process vision and hearing came back, she was on her ass on the floor, facing the blown-out door and surrounded by slivers of wood. The doorknob was near her left shoulder, a mass of melted brass.

She got a deep breath, and her relief at breathing was replaced with panic. Her sense of Xia was gone and so was any echo of her magic. The lack of it knifed through her heart. She peered hard into the darkened room and saw Xia sprawled on the floor with Durian bending over him. Every muscle in her body protested when she tried to move.

Durian looked over his shoulder at her and said, “Don’t you ever give up?”

“No,” she said, hunched over and gasping for air. With Xia out, she didn’t have a link to her magic, but she also didn’t have any of the confusion, either. Right now, she figured her best hope was a reprise of what she’d done to Kynan. No magic and take him by surprise.

Xia’s knife was still in her hand. With the effects of Durian’s magical blast still bouncing around in her head helter-skelter, she was off balance and nauseous. But, hell, she’d felt way worse the time Kynan blasted her. Compared to that, she was in the pink. Even if she’d had her magic, she couldn’t take down a mageheld like Durian, but she could slow him down. Sometimes brute force got you what you had to have. The hilt of Xia’s knife burned her palm, and she rushed at Durian as hard and as fast as she could.

Unfortunately, Durian’s mind was even faster than his reflexes.

She got stopped with the mental equivalent of running into a wall. Her arm froze before she started the down-stroke to Durian’s spine.

The mageheld’s fingers gripped her wrist. He snarled. “Stupid girl.”

Durian’s magic churned in her, burning the inside of her head. She tried to focus on the talisman’s power, because she wanted to blast Durian to heck and back, but nothing happened except that the inside of her skull continued to sizzle. The power to stop Durian remained horribly out of reach. Without Xia, she couldn’t get to her magic, and she didn’t understand the magic from the talisman, let alone how to use it.

“You’re not taking Xia.”

“Yes, I am.” Durian laughed, but not as if he were amused. “This is your fault, you know. If he hadn’t been so intent on protecting you, witch, I’d never have gotten him down.” He put a hand on Xia’s forehead. “Here’s another one for you. Information free of charge. Rasmus doesn’t give a shit about you.” The fiend hauled an inert Xia to his feet as if he wasn’t dead weight. He pressed a hand to his chest and grimaced. “What he wants is Xia back in the fold.” The scent of blood welled up, sharp and intense. Was Durian bleeding or was it Xia? “I’ve been told to make that happen.”

Her stomach clenched. “Take me with you, then.”

“If you had enough power to make you worth training, Rasmus wouldn’t have given you away all those years ago.” He draped Xia over his shoulder. “Sorry, witch. But Xia’s going back to his master.”

“The hell he is.”

“That’s what all the mages say when they go up against Rasmus.” He touched his chest again, and this time Alexandrine was sure the scent of blood was coming from him.

“You’re hurt.”

Durian sneered. “I’m mageheld, witch. Take my advice. Consider him lost to you. It’ll be easier for us all.”

“If Rasmus thinks he can make Xia one of his magehelds again, I want some of what he’s smoking.”

“I do what I’m told. That’s it.” He lifted a hand and kept it raised between them. “I imagine Rasmus has some thoughts about how to overcome whatever Carson did to Xia and your brother, too, or I’d not have been sent after him.” He shrugged and walked out of the room with Xia over his shoulder.

Alexandrine couldn’t move for what seemed like an eternity after Durian left with Xia. The more time passed with her mind cut off from her ability to use her body, the more her heart felt like it was being ripped from her chest. The effect didn’t wear off. It just ended. One minute she was frozen with Xia’s knife clenched in her hand and the next, her arm slashed down at the point where Durian’s spine had been. She was damn lucky she didn’t end up stabbing herself. As it was, the blade went a couple of inches into the floor. Oops.

She yanked on the knife and arranged the slivers of wood to hide the hole. He’d probably never notice. Her hand shook when she was done. Her premonitions were still dead-on. Something awful had happened. Xia was gone, and unless she figured out what to do about that, her father might just figure out how to take him mageheld again.

Alexandrine sucked in a deep breath, but it didn’t do much good. She remained teetering on the edge of despair. Her father lived in Berkeley, which was at least half an hour from here, provided she had a car and didn’t hit any traffic on I-80. She didn’t have a car, so it didn’t matter if traffic was bumper to bumper or she could speed the whole way there.

Sitting around feeling helpless and sorry for herself wasn’t going to help the situation. She clipped Xia’s scabbard to her waist, put in his knife, and headed downstairs for the phone she’d used to call Kynan. She punched REDIAL. Straight to voice mail. “Crap!”

She left a message along the lines of, S
omething awful has happened to Xia. Call me the minute you get this.
In between the words, she might have sobbed. She set the phone on vibrate and stuck it in her front pocket.

Time to take stock. She’d contacted the only person she knew who might be able to get her some help. Kynan wasn’t going to want to help her, but he would help Xia. She was pretty sure of that. But one phone call didn’t mean she had time to waste waiting for a call back. If he called, and if he decided to help, it was going to be too late. What else? She doubted Google was going to be of any assistance, and no way was she getting any of her nonvanilla friends involved in this. Maddy was in enough danger as it was.

The thing was, she knew where Rasmus lived. She’d been to his house, and despite the fact that she couldn’t touch her magic, she was still a witch. Durian hadn’t killed her, and that meant her father hadn’t lifted the stricture against harming the magekind. In sum, she knew where Durian was taking Xia, and it was a good bet any magehelds she met there couldn’t hurt her. Not unless her father ordered otherwise. Not even Kynan Aijan could claim that level of protection.

She found the rest of her clothes and got dressed. Then she went downstairs and searched the house for car keys or money or maybe a gun—hey, one of those could do some damage. No gun that she could find, but there were twenty-five dollars in a desk drawer and a 1968 Chevy pickup in the garage. The heap of green metal looked like it was held together with chewing gum and bungee cords. No keys. Xia wasn’t the type to leave his keys in the ignition, anyway. She found them hanging off a hook stuck to the side of the fridge.