My Forbidden Desire (35 page)

Rasmus took a step back. Xia got a flash of heat in his chest that came from the mage and from Alexandrine’s magic. Rasmus was pulling, and he could feel it. “Do you not understand the consequences of allowing such a creature to be free?”

“Uh-huh.” She reached over and grabbed Xia’s arm, hauling on him. “Can you get up?”

Not really. But he did anyway, sliding off the table with her help. His legs quivered, but he kept his knees locked. He wanted to lean against something, but, like the door, the table had a core of crushed rubies, and the minute he broke contact, he felt one hell of a lot better. His back itched; because Durian was mageheld, Xia shouldn’t be feeling him at all. Through Alexandrine’s magic, he could, but not as if he were one of the kin. The sensation creeped him out.

“As inconsequential as you are, Alexandrine Marit—”

“Says Kessler on my birth certificate.”

“—you are a witch. One of us.” Rasmus kept his distance; the mage knew what Xia was capable of, and it was unpleasant and bloody. Magic still constrained Xia from using his own power. He was counting on Rasmus believing he was safer than he really was. “Xia and all his kind are the natural enemies of humankind. It is our special purpose, the purpose of mages, Ms. Marit, to protect those of our race who lack the ability to do so themselves.”

“Protect them from what?”

“Monsters.” He was talking to Alexandrine as if he couldn’t believe she needed any of this to be explained. “Demons who destroy lives and impose their will on us. Creatures who engage in sexual congress with innocent women for reasons that would sicken you. Rape. Miscegenation. Iniquity you cannot imagine.” Like most mages of significant power, Rasmus’s voice was a weapon, too. Persuasive and imbued with a magic of its own. “The great Renaissance of Europe and Britain would never have happened if not for the magekind.” Rasmus’s mouth contorted. “For pity’s sake, you poor deluded girl, mages exist to fight the evil you came here to save. If it weren’t for us, humans would still be living in the Dark Ages.”

She pointed to the ceiling with her free hand. The knife stayed ready to pierce Rasmus’s heart. “How many magehelds are up there right now because you’ve taken over their lives? How many have you killed so you can look thirty-five instead of moldering six feet under?”

“If I didn’t control them, they’d be like Xia. A ravening beast who preys on humans.”

“That’s funny, because the fiends I’ve met say the same thing about us.” She shrugged. “We kill and murder. Torture. Bigotry must be an interspecies thing.”

“Until our kind started fighting back, demons murdered and enslaved us. They procreate with our women.” He hit his chest with a fist and waved his other hand in the direction of Xia and Durian. “Do you believe either of these creatures had no hand in such atrocities? They’re not new on this earth, Alexandrine. Do you think they’ve never taken a human woman against her will? Have you asked Xia how many he’s raped and murdered? Ask him how many times he’s taken possession of some innocent and so destroyed a life.”

“By whose order?” she softly asked.

“Long before I took him and made him safe.”

Xia tried pulling again. The chill started in his head. He didn’t figure he’d get more than one chance to take down Rasmus. He had to do this right.

“I’ll be honest with you, Dad. That sounds evil to me. If it’s not okay for them to control us, then how can it be okay for us to control them?”

“Come a little closer, witch,” Xia said. He snarled for effect. “And I’ll show you what Rasmus is talking about.”

Alexandrine turned from Rasmus to him. Their gazes locked, and,
bam,
their connection went full on. He had everything he needed. She took a step toward him. And more. “This close enough?”

More than close enough. He owned her magic. Flat-out owned it without any of the limitations that so restricted Alexandrine. Going after Rasmus, however, would only bring the assassin down on their asses. Xia probed Durian with Alexandrine’s magic and didn’t get far. He didn’t know how Carson had managed to sever magehelds. If he fucked up, this could go very badly. Durian reached for his chest, pressing a palm to his sternum, where Xia was sure he had a poorly healing wound.

“I don’t know what you think you’re up to,” Rasmus said to Alexandrine. “But do not delude yourself into believing your magic can harm me or Durian.”

Xia kept up his search for whatever it was that bound Durian to Rasmus. Rasmus didn’t get yet that it wasn’t Alexandrine who was pulling.

“If you don’t stop, girl, I will release him.”

Alexandrine grinned. “Thanks, Dad. Love you, too.”

“Get away from Xia.” The air overhead crackled. Rasmus gestured, and Xia felt the mage pull. “Durian, make it so.”

Xia got a handle on Alexandrine’s magic and pulled as hard as he could. She swayed and grabbed Durian’s shoulder to keep her balance. Durian flinched, but not because Alexandrine had touched him. Xia had found something in the mageheld that didn’t belong. He punched hard, magically speaking.

Rasmus cocked his head, but he still didn’t get what was happening. “Your power, my dear child, and please do not mistake that for an endearment of any sort, is insignificant. You’re magekind, yes. I don’t deny you that birthright. But you can do nothing of interest to me.” He hesitated, and Xia watched the flow of his hair as he tipped his head to one side. Rasmus was catching on now that something was happening that he didn’t understand. “Perhaps less so now.” His voice went low. “Stop that immediately.”

“Gee.” Alexandrine took a step nearer to Xia and gave him a panicked glance. Her eyes were dilated to the point where there was practically no visible iris. “I have a funny feeling your kind of power isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. After all, from what I hear, Carson Philips didn’t have any and look at what she managed. Magellan dead. Kynan Aijan on the loose. Xia footloose and fancy-free.”

“Carson Philips is bound to the warlord Nikodemus,” Rasmus said. “Of course she can now do interesting things.” He looked Alexandrine up and down. “Could it be?” He waved a hand. “Durian, if she doesn’t leave in the next ten seconds, kill her. I don’t care how you do it. If you want her first, by all means. Just see that she’s dead when you’re done.”

“See?” Alexandrine said. “That’s what I mean about you guys. That’s just not right.” She swayed on her feet, and Xia got some of the backlash from her. She was feeling the effects of him pulling through her. “Xia, now would be a good time to take care of things, please.”

Xia punched through to the center of Durian’s magic. The mageheld stiffened. The result wasn’t anything like the kin-to-kin connection Xia was used to. As far as Xia’s magic was concerned, Durian remained a nullity. Yet he did feel the other fiend’s magic. Durian’s power resonated, and right there at the center of everything was magic that didn’t belong. Magic that felt more like Alexandrine’s than his.

“Time’s up,” Rasmus said.

Xia touched the pulsing gnarl with the magic of one of the magekind, but he was a southpaw trying to write with his right hand. Everything felt wrong and backward. Durian lay a hand on Alexandrine’s shoulder, and through the contact, Xia felt the mageheld’s compulsion to act. He also felt Durian’s anticipation—a coldhearted and joyful anticipation of killing one of the magekind. He wasn’t interested in sex. What he wanted was to kill Alexandrine and pretend he was killing Rasmus. Wasn’t that a familiar feeling?

Alexandrine could have tried to save herself. She had his knife. With that, she had a good shot at killing anything within reach of the blade. But she didn’t, because she was waiting for Xia to sever Durian or explode something or fry Rasmus where he stood. With no change in expression, Durian slid his hands around Alexandrine’s throat.

“Now, fiend,” Durian said to Xia. He’d figured it out, then, what Alexandrine was to him. Their eyes connected. “Do what you must now, or it will be too late.” Under Rasmus’s compulsion, the defiant delay cost him. Durian’s eyes flared copper red as his fingers tightened around Alexandrine’s neck. She grabbed the mageheld’s hands, but he bent her head back and kept up the pressure.

Xia battered at the knot in the core of Durian’s magic. He didn’t know how to unravel it. He could see it, could feel it pulsing, but the goddamned mage magic didn’t work the same way as his.

At least Rasmus wasn’t trying to take him anymore. No, the bastard was watching Durian strangle his daughter. The hell with this cutting-the-knot crap. He sent a shot of her magic into Durian and freaking burst the thing apart. If it killed the mageheld, too damn bad.

Durian’s scream echoed off the walls, but his fingers remained frozen around Alexandrine’s throat. She got her hands between his arms and broke his hold on her. The mageheld—make that former mageheld, because Xia could feel him normally now, like a ton of bricks on fire—staggered back, palms pressed to his chest. Alexandrine fell to her knees, sucking air.

Rasmus was as good as dead.

The mage took a step forward, then came to a halt. He knew he’d lost Durian; the fear showed in his eyes. Poor little mage. He’d lost control of his killer, and now he was all alone with a fiend—make that two—who’d spent a lot of time dreaming about killing him. With an inchoate cry, the mage rushed Alexandrine. Magic seethed in the air. He grabbed her by her upper arms and yanked her up. “You little fool! What have you done?” He slapped Alexandrine hard enough to whip her head back. She took it with hardly a flinch. “They’ll kill us now if I can’t get them back.”

“No,” Alexandrine said slowly. “I think they’ll kill you.”

“Durian!” Xia shouted. But the former mageheld was on his knees, fighting to stay upright.

Goddamn, his body hurt. Xia lurched toward Rasmus and Alexandrine. He felt Durian, though there was something kind of jacked up about that, and he still had a handle on Alexandrine’s magic and a direct connection to her. The talisman’s magic fired off in her, too, making her feel like kin to him, to Durian, and probably to Rasmus.

Xia’s body turned to ice. Everything happened all at once and overlapped.

Rasmus pulled, and the talisman’s magic in Alexandrine boiled over. The mage yelped and leapt back, but he knew one of the kin when he felt one, and he was at last feeling that in Alexandrine. With a smile, he tried to take the part of Alexandrine that was kin. Xia felt the mage’s magic at work. “He’s in control of you, isn’t he?” Rasmus said to her. “All this time, he’s been working you.”

“No, he’s not.”

Xia’s heart went cold as Alexandrine’s upper body bowed back under Rasmus’s assault on her kin magic. Xia went after her, but his body wasn’t cooperating well enough yet. He wasn’t as fast as he needed to be.

Pure fiend-driven chaos ripped through the room. That was him, losing it. She wavered on her feet as Xia lost control, unable to focus the magic burning through her and without a focus for his magic, either. He was going to end up flaming her out if this kept up. He shoved himself into Alexandrine’s head without asking permission, and that gave him what he needed—information about how she’d worked her magic when it belonged to her. She dropped to her knees again, wheezing in short, abortive breaths. Rasmus was doing that to her. At the same time he felt the mage taking control of the talisman’s magic, Alexandrine screamed. He felt her pain. Shared it and tried to stop what was happening. Xia got air into her lungs despite Rasmus.

They drew a deep breath, but Xia didn’t dare ease up. Her demon-bound magic scoured them both, but he knew how to deal with it now. The problem was his choices were limited if he was going to keep Alexandrine alive. He could take over her body and use it to kill Rasmus, or he could make her his demonheld before Rasmus took her first. Neither choice worked. He couldn’t use Alexandrine to kill. Not like that. She’d never forgive him. And he sure as hell wouldn’t take her mageheld.

Durian slumped against the wall, hands clutching his chest. The fiend looked out of it. Xia knew the feeling. Back when Carson had severed him, he’d passed out. Well, too bad for the assassin. He directed some of the fire raging through him into the other fiend. “Get over it, Durian,” he said. “Make yourself useful.”

Meanwhile, Rasmus was at least having to work at taking Alexandrine. The mage pulled hard enough that ice formed on the walls. Xia made it to her just as Rasmus released his magic again. A streak of boiling light headed directly for her. The blast hit her shoulder instead of her head, but she still shut down mentally. The mage’s second strike was aimed at him. The air above them started popping. Hail hit the floor.

Xia kept his hold on Alexandrine, shielding her from Rasmus’s assault as best he could. Alexandrine staggered to her feet, his knife clenched in her hand. She made a sound, not unlike a sob. She put his knife on the floor and kicked it toward him.

“Alexandrine,” he said. “Take Durian with you and get out. Now.”

Chapter 28

A
lexandrine lunged for the door on legs made of over-cooked noodles. After a heart-stopping moment when she thought they were locked in the room, she found the mechanism that disengaged the hardware. Freaking lock! The metal door felt odd when she touched it, as if there were an energy source inside. Her fingers tingled. Freaky. She yanked open the door and whirled, expecting Xia and Durian to be right behind her, ready to get the hell out. They weren’t. Durian was barely halfway to the door, and he didn’t look so hot, and Xia was still with Rasmus.