The Haunting (Immortals) (30 page)

“First is that the dream realm and all those like it are my playground—and have been for a very long time. And second, no one—
no one
—takes my spirit mate from me and lives.”

Nick stretched out his arm and pointed his finger at the genie. From the tip, a bolt of lightning shot forth. Mai didn’t even have time to draw in a breath before it arced
across the distance and scorched the spot where the genie had been standing moments earlier. Only he wasn’t there.

Suddenly, he was standing before her. “Nick—?”

“Stay away, Mai,” Nick warned her.

The genie backed up, his eyes fixed on Nick but his target Mai. Before he could take more than a step, Nick hurled the dagger. The genie roared in pain and anger. Lashing out, he grabbed for Nick and caught his arm. Almost immediately, the area around the point of contact began to glow.

“Don’t let him touch you,” Mai yelled. “That’s how he transfers to another body.”

The genie barely spared her a glowering look as he held tight to Nick.

Nick labored for breath. He felt his spirit slipping out of his body; saw the genie’s spirit leaving his. He knew he couldn’t let the genie complete the transfer and fought to bring his spirit back.

Using Darius’ form had been helpful, but now Nick had to tap into his own resources. As the genie struggled to pull out the dagger, Nick shifted, taking on the mass and height of a grizzly bear. The genie was shocked enough to loosen his grip momentarily, and Nick used the split-second advantage to pull free.

He swatted once at the genie, ripping four deep gashes in his side. The red devil staggered back, clutching the dagger that still protruded from his chest. He was down, but not dead.

Nick shifted back to his normal form as he went to Mai, who fell into his arms. “I wasn’t sure if I’d see you again,” she said into his chest.

“You have to know that I would never leave you,” he told her. He longed to hold her, to comfort her, but there was no time. “We have to go. The real Darius and Lexi are
waiting in your room, by the mirror. I wasn’t sure if we could get out without magical assistance.” He cast a glance at the genie. “I think we’d better hurry.”

“What about him?”

“I’ll kill him if he tries to stop us,” Nick growled.

“You can’t,” Mai said desperately. She quickly told him what the genie had said about the dimension always making sure it had its genie.

“Then let it keep the one it has.” He grabbed her hand and pushed her ahead of him down the hall in the direction he had come earlier. When the genie had thrown the lightning bolt, Nick had been ready—having finally figured out why he’d kidnapped Mai. In that instant, he’d had to use his powers to slow the passage of time in the wish dimension long enough to explain to Darius and Lexi what was going on. He hoped that in the time he’d been gone they’d discovered a spell for sealing the realm. “Run, Mai!”

Looking back, he saw that the genie had finally succeeded in pulling the dagger from his chest and was now lumbering after them.

Mai’s living room was a small dot of light up ahead. “There!” Nick shouted. They both raced toward it.

Their pounding footsteps resounded sharply in the darkness. As they drew nearer, Nick saw Darius and Lexi through the glass. He conjured a ball of light and hurled it forward, signaling them to action.

Nick and Mai had almost reached the glass when the genie shouted after them, oddly calm, “Espíritu, you only think you’ve won.”

A blast of power hit Nick from behind and he went down. For a few precious seconds, he was stunned, unable to move. The genie raced past him and grabbed Mai about the waist. Nick watched him lift Mai off the ground as easily as if she were a doll, despite the way she fought to get free.

“Let her go,” Nick threatened the genie.

“Or what?” The genie sneered. “You’ll give me what I want?” One of his big hands wrapped around Mai’s neck, easily encircling it. “I think you’ll do that anyway.”

He began to squeeze and Nick watched with impotent rage as Mai’s face turned red and her eyes grew wide with fear.

“What do you want?” he asked, desperate to save Mai’s life. “You know that I can’t let you leave here. Even if you were to take my body, the instant you stepped out of the mirror, you’re a dead man.” He nodded toward the opening where Darius and Lexi stood, a lethal-looking duo biding their time until they could strike.

“No,” the genie said resignedly. “I see now that I’ll never be allowed to live among the humans.”

“Then let her go.”

“Not yet,” the genie said. “There’s still something I require of you.”

“What’s that?”

“Freedom.”

Nick stared at the genie as his meaning came clear. “You want me to kill you?”

The genie smiled. “Yes. You’re the only one who can do it—and it’s the only way I’ll be free.”

With Mai’s life on the line, Nick knew he was as trapped as the genie. “Okay,” he said, understanding the consequences of his action. “Let her go.”

The genie loosened the hand around Mai’s neck and set her back on her feet. She coughed, trying to catch her breath, but the genie didn’t release her.

“Mai?” Nick asked, worried about the pallor of her skin.

Her hand went to her throat and it took several tries before she was able to speak. “I’m okay.”

“Listen to me, baby. I want you to go to the portal. Darius and Lexi are waiting there to help you out. They’ll take care of you.”

“You can’t kill him,” Mai pleaded. “It’s a trick.”

Nick looked from the genie to her. “I know what I’m doing, Mai.”

The genie smiled. “It’s the devil’s choice. You can trade bodies with me and stay here in my place, trapped for all time. Or you can kill me and become the new genie, trapped here for all time.”

Nick ground his teeth together. “Let Mai go first.”

“No, I don’t think so,” the genie said. “She’s my—how do you put it?—my insurance policy against you changing your mind. So I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.” He jerked Mai to him. “I’m going to start killing her. If you want to save her life, you’ll have to kill me. Since you’re the dream walker, you’re the one the dimension will claim as its own. The wood nymph will be free to leave.”

It was a no-win situation. Either way, Nick was never going to be with Mai again. Saving her life was the least he could do. “I’m sorry, love.”

He began to pull the magic around him, just like his father had taught him. He saw Mai’s face turn red as the genie slowly squeezed her throat. She fought for her life and Nick knew she fought for his as well. Channeling the magic through his body, he hurled it forth in a bolt that hit the genie in that part of the chest visible above Mai’s head. It blew a hole clean through him. The expression on the genie’s face was one of surprise. Then he screamed as the hole expanded, burning away more flesh.

Then the screaming stopped. For a second, the genie stood glowing like a hot ember, his image wavering in and out of focus. Then he smiled—and vanished.

A sigh reached them, carried on a breeze—followed by an unnatural silence.

Then Mai was in Nick’s arms. He held her tightly, knowing it would be the last time he could. “What have you done?” she cried. “What have you done?”

“I couldn’t let him kill you.” Nick begged her to understand. Something that felt like fingers played across his soul and though he’d never experienced the sensation before, he knew they were the tethers of the realm reaching for him.

“Mai, we don’t have much time.” He caught her face between his hands and kissed her, desperately. Finally he released her long enough to catch his breath. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but knew that it would just make their parting that much harder.

She grabbed his hand and tried to pull him to the portal. “Maybe there’s something Darius and Lexi can do. His mother’s a goddess. She has powers.”

He went with her, not wanting to tell her that even a goddess could not alter the laws of the universe. This realm was not complete without its servant, and Nick would not jeopardize the rest of the universe for his own needs—though how he was to survive without Mai, he had no idea.

Outside the portal, Darius held Lexi’s hand as she muttered incantations beneath her breath. The power of their love, Nick knew, gave them the strength to keep the portal open. He could see the strain of their effort in Lexi’s face and knew she couldn’t keep the portal open much longer.

“This is my fate,” he told Mai.

“But I don’t want to live without you,” she whispered. “I love you.”

The fingers of the realm tightened their hold on him.

“Come with me,” she begged him. “Maybe the genie was wrong. Maybe he lied about what would happen to you.”

“He didn’t lie,” Nick said. “You need to go now, Mai. Before you’re trapped in here, too.”

Her eyes lit up. “That’s it. I could stay with you. We could be together forever.”

It was so tempting, but he couldn’t do that to her. “No.”

He signaled Darius with a slight dip of his head and stepped back. “It’s time for you to go.”

Tears gathered in her eyes and Nick knew he was lost if she cried. “For God’s sake, take her,” he yelled at Darius. “And don’t let her back in.”

Mai tried to duck beyond Darius’ reach, but he was too fast for her. Holding her tightly, he pulled her through the portal and to safety.

“Let me go,” she shouted, struggling to break free. “I want to stay with Nick.”

Darius shot him a questioning look and Nick shook his head. Darius might not understand why it had to be this way, but he would restrain Mai and keep her safe. Of that, Nick was sure.

The cloudy mist gathered as the portal began to close. Nick watched it with a sense of growing resignation.

He could see through to the other side, where Mai had stopped struggling and was openly weeping. Darius was no longer restraining her as much as he was supporting her.

“I love you,” he told her, though she couldn’t hear him.

When he could stand it no more, he turned and headed deeper into the dark tunnels of his new home. This, then, was his fate, to grant everyone else’s wish but his own. As far as fates went, this one sucked.

Her world was collapsing around her. Darius held her in his arms as she wept and Mai was barely aware of him. Every thought was with Nick. She wanted to be with him. “Please,” she begged of anyone who could help. “Do something.”

She’d found the love of her life and in a cruel twist of fate, he’d been taken from her before she’d even had a chance to appreciate that love.

What was the point in going on?

“How is she?” Mai heard Darius ask as he came into Mai’s bedroom.

It was a week later and Lexi was sitting in a chair beside the bed. “Still asleep,” she said. “I’m worried about her. She’s been out for days.”

“It takes time,” he said reassuringly. “How are you doing?”

Mai heard Darius’ affection for his wife in his voice.
Lexi is lucky
, she thought.
Things have worked out for her
. She’d found her true love in the Immortal. It could have been a disaster—her growing old and him not. But they’d
found a way to make it work. They would have eternity together, while she and Nick…

“I feel so helpless,” Lexi said. “I don’t know what to do to help her.”

“Just be here for her,” Darius replied. “The rest, time will have to heal.”

“I don’t know,” Lexi said softly, her voice beginning to fade as Mai let herself slip into sleep. “Some hurts don’t heal over time.”

Mai didn’t want to hear any more. Her heart ached and the only relief she found was when she dreamed.

“Your friends are worried about you,” a familiar voice said. Mai’s heart raced as it always did when Nick appeared.

“I’m fine,” she said, moving into his arms. “As long as I’m with you.”

The first time he came to her, she’d thought he’d found a way to escape—and in a way he had. He was a dream walker and they were spirit mates. As he’d told her once before, he’d always find her in her dreams.

“You can’t sleep the rest of your life away,” Nick chided gently even as he lay down beside her. She reveled in the rough feel of his hands against her bare skin. They created a delicious friction along the more sensitive areas of her body.

“Why not? If it’s the only way I can be with you, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“You have a life to live.”

“My life has no purpose without you,” Mai told him truthfully.

He paused in the act of trailing kisses along the column of her throat. “Maybe coming to see you was a mistake,” he said, rolling onto his back and staring up at nothing in particular. “I wanted to be with you so badly, I didn’t care how. But I don’t think I can do this.”

“What are you saying?” She turned onto her side to face him.

“I love you too much to let you waste your life away.”

“Oh, please, Nick. Don’t do this to me again,” she begged. She’d thought she’d lost him before and it had been the most horrible thing in the world. Having him in her dreams wasn’t perfect, but at least he was a part of her life this way. He was the best part.

“Mai, I—”

She laid a finger across his lips to silence him. “Sshh, no more talking. Let me show you how much I love you.”

She kissed him then, silencing what ever words he would have uttered. She didn’t want to hear them. All she wanted was to be with him.

For hours, it seemed, they cuddled, caressed and kissed, neither one of them in a hurry to finish. In her heart, she knew that this really was their last time together and she wanted it to last. When he finally rolled her beneath him and took her, she cried—for herself, for Nick and for their lost love.

Mai awoke the next morning carrying the memory of her dream with her. She kept her eyes closed, thinking she might fall back to sleep, but then changed her mind. Nick was right. She had to start living her life again.

Opening her eyes, she saw Lexi sitting in the chair beside her bed. She was awake and watching Mai closely.

“Thank you,” Mai said.

“For?”

“For being here with me.” She had to stop speaking as a wave of intense pain and loneliness washed over her. She took a couple of steadying breaths. “I appreciate everything you’ve done and I wanted you to know that. I also want you to know that I’m going to be okay.”