Vincent: Her Warlock Protector Book 5 (10 page)

Though the thought of Amanda with a gun shocked him, the idea that she might have used it on Lionel was oddly comforting.

"I'll put this in the car,” he said, hefting the backpack. “Then I’ll make a call to arrange the plane."

"I'll be right behind you. I'm gonna get Dalya."

The knob to the open front door was still in Vincent's hand when Amanda said, "I'm not going to run forever."

"Understood."

LIONEL SKID THE F-150 to a stop in the alley, the passenger’s door flying open close to Hugh's face. Despite the raging headache, Lionel leaned across the front seat.

“If you want to save your precious ass, you need to come with me now.”
 

For a moment, Hugh looked like he might put up a fight, but his shoulders dropped and he climbed into the truck without a word.

Lionel stomped on the gas, and the truck fishtailed in the loose gravel of the alley. When he had the truck back under control, he dropped a gun in Hugh’s lap.

Hugh looked at it in horror.
 

"I’m not using this."
 

"How else do you plan to keep Amanda from going to the police?"

"I can talk to her, explain–"
   

"That you only locked her in your dungeon?" Lionel said with a barking laugh.
 

"She walked into a yoga studio. I can say the door was an accident and you went down to check on her. I didn't attack her, you did."

"Nice try. Pick up the gun."

Hugh crossed his arms, refusing to touch it.
 

"Pick up the gun or I will shoot you myself."
 

The little rebellion was over as quickly as it began. Hugh laid his hand on the gun.
 

"You reported Amanda as a witch while I still needed her. Then you locked her in a basement thinking…who knows what you were thinking. Then, because you weren't done yet, you let Vincent Harcourt into the building. So now, you get to help me fix this."

"What do I have to do?" Hugh asked sullenly.

"Shoot Vincent Harcourt."

FROM THE YARD, both Vincent and Amanda heard the squeal of tires as a vehicle slid to a stop in her drive. At the noise, Dalya finally stuck her head out of her hut. Amanda lurched as if she was going to run, but Vincent grabbed her by the wrist. He shook his head "no.” The three of them stood in Dalya's enclosure waiting.
 

Amanda tried to shake off the nervous nausea that rose with each passing second. Her heart pounded in her chest as she fought the animal urge to jerk away and run at the thought of Lionel. When the pounding began on the front door, she clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes shut to keep from screaming. Vincent jerked on her wrist, pulling her along as he sprinted for the gate at the back of the enclosure. They ran, their footfalls muffled by the grass, toward the scrub of the beach with Dalya trailing along behind them.
 

"Her sheep is running away,” Hugh said.

“What?” Lionel said.

“Her sheep ran away.”

Footsteps raced down the stairs.

Vincent kept Amanda's hand tight in his, pulling her to the left away from the rocky breakwater and toward the closed summer houses. They wove between the piers as they ran across the concrete foundation of the first house, then the second. Amanda fought a wave of panic when, as they dashed across the foundation of the third house, she realized they were hemmed in by chain link fence, both in front of them and to the right.

“No,” Hugh said somewhere in the darkness behind them. “That’s it. I’m not going to–”

His voice was cut off in a strangled, wet gurgle. Something heavy thudded to the ground amidst the whisper of crushed grass.

“
Hugh
,” Amanda whispered.

Vincent pulled Amanda close and whispered in her ear, "Stay to the shadows. Hide in the piers."

"Where are you going?"

“To protect.”

Amanda stomach tightened at Vincent's grave expression. He seized her face in his hands and kissed her fiercely. Then he turned away, moving deeper into the shadows, all sound drowned out by the waves.

Amanda stayed to the shadows under the houses, but continued to move, to pick her way along, looking for an unlocked fence gate. She saw Lionel, tucked behind a pier. She stopped, reached into her purse, and put her hand on the gun. She froze, holding her breath. Dalya nudged at her legs. When Lionel darted away, she finally exhaled and continued her slow progress. As they came near to where Lionel had stood, Amanda stepped off the cement, her shoes and Dalya's hooves silent in the thin strip of grass which ran between the foundations and the fence. Still looking for some avenue of escape, she tripped. Just catching herself in time, she looked down.

Hugh lay face-up in the grass, his pale throat a red-black slime of congealing gore. A scream rose in her throat, but she clamped her hands over her mouth. In the moonlight, Hugh’s face was that of a boy, a frightened boy. She fell to her knees in the grass beside his body. He had not wanted to hurt her. She knew that without a doubt. His troubled face flashed into her mind. And now, because of her, he was dead. Blindly, she searched in her bag, but not for the gun. Instead she pulled out the grimoire. She opened it to a page in the back and began to read.

THOUGH VINCENT DIDN’T know what Amanda was doing, he kept her in his peripheral vision as he scanned the shadows for Lionel. The Templar had to know by now that Vincent would never be his exorcist. Lionel had come looking for Amanda. Vincent hunkered low, in the dark shadow of one of the beach houses. He inched his way forward, and silently pulled his gun from the holster.

Lionel stepped out of the shadows. In his right hand he held a dagger, his eyes on Amanda. He cocked his arm.
 

Vincent stood, no longer hiding as he strode across the cement toward Lionel. He had no intention of missing. The first shot was high and to the left, mangling Lionel's left ear. Lionel raised the gun in his left hand to point at Vincent.
 

Vincent fired again, the shot smashing Lionel’s left shoulder, the impact of the bullet spinning Lionel around. Vincent fired twice more. Two blossoms of red erupted in Lionel’s chest as he fell backward. Smoking gun still trained on the Templar, Vincent stood over him.
 

Lionel lay there, unseeing eyes staring up at the night sky. For a moment, Vincent considered the ultimate stroke. Like Amanda, he wouldn’t run forever either. Lionel’s dagger lay close by. With Hugh dead, there would be no one to stop him from decapitating Lionel and incinerating the body and head. Not even an immortal would come back from that.

But as he glanced in Hugh’s direction, he could hardly believe what he saw. Amanda hovered over the prone body, her hands glowing blue.

"No!" Vincent screamed at her, but it was a warning come too late.
 

AMANDA PLACED HER heated hands above Hugh’s sliced throat. For a moment there was nothing. Then the glow died out.
 

Hugh coughed, gagged, then sat up and looked around in a daze.
 

"My throat hurts,” he said, putting a hand to it, where only a scar remained.

His eyes, the size of plates, darted all around. They landed on her, and then Vincent running toward them, and then Lionel’s body.
 

“What happened?”
   

Amanda started to stand but staggered and had to grab the chain link fence for support. Her head was splitting, and she felt like she could sleep for years. And she was euphoric, high on the knowledge that she was a witch. Not only did she have talent, she was
gifted
. She smiled crazily at Vincent as he came to her side.

“We need to leave,” he said. “Someone will have heard the shots.”

But Amanda could only grin. “I’m a witch. A real, live, honest to God, witch.”

“Yes, you are.” Vincent grinned back. “But we need to go.”
 

He took Amanda’s hand.
 

Hugh stood, fingers twisted into the wire of the fence.
 

“I feel like I’ve been out to sea,” he said, steadying himself. “What am I supposed to do?”
 

“Not wait for him to get up and kill you again,” Vincent said.

As he turned back to the house, Amanda’s world began to spin. The grass tilted at a crazy angle. Before she knew it, Vincent swept her up.

“No, I don’t need to be–”

“Shut up,” he said quietly, walking briskly back to the car.

 
Gently, Vincent sat her in the passenger’s seat of the Charger and buckled her in.
 

Dalya had apparently run back to the house and was waiting at the back door of the car. She bleated her impatience.
 

“You’re not going to fit,” Vincent said, but he opened the door and watched as Dalya took two steps back and smoothly leapt into the back seat. “Well, all right then.”

Vincent wasted no time pulling out of the drive. There was no sign of Hugh and Amanda hoped he was okay.

“How do you feel?” Vincent asked, as he gunned the engine.

“Euphoric. Excited. I feel like I have been hit by a truck, and I would love to be able to sleep for a week.”

There was a bleat from Dalya.
 

“You cannot perform strong magic spells like that without it taking a toll on your body and spirit. This is why you need more tutoring, education, a coven. With your abilities you could easily…”

“Kill myself.”

“Yes,”
 
he hissed.

Though Vincent kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, Amanda saw the tension in his shoulders, the way he had squinted when he answered. Despite herself, she had to smile a little. He cared for her, maybe even loved her, and nothing could make her doubt that ever again.

HUGH STOOD ON the cement foundation next to where Lionel lay and watched as the Charger’s headlights disappeared into the night. In his right hand were the keys to the F-150. In his left hand was the gun he had been handed in a different lifetime.
 

He listened to the waves crash on the shore, to the wind whip off the Gulf. But that was it. Among the deserted beach houses, there were no sirens, no alarms. One life had ended and another began. This one was going to be different.
 

He did not look. He just pointed the gun at Lionel and fired until there was nothing but the dry click of an empty magazine.

With the gun tucked into the back of his jeans, he walked away. He did not look back.

AT THE AIRPORT Amanda stumbled onto the private plane with Vincent’s help, Dalya bringing up the rear. At the top of the stairs was a closed wood panel door for the cockpit to the right, and a few rows of tan leather captain’s chairs to the left. She collapsed into the first seat she came to. Vincent had disappeared behind the closed door. She let her eyes shut, unable to keep them open.

Then they were in the air and Vincent’s hand was on her shoulder.
 

She opened her eyes to his as he crouched in front of her.
 

“I have something to show you.”

He offered her his hand then helped her to stand. With his hands on her hips, he walked behind her, guiding her toward the closed door at the back of the plane. His hand slid from her hip to the small of her back has he reached around her and opened the door.
 

It was a gorgeous bedroom. To her right, two white, linen, club chairs faced one another. In front of her was a bathroom with a marble floor, but most of the space in the room was taken up by a sumptuous king-sized bed. Square in the middle of it was Dalya, lying as comfortably as though she belonged there.

“That’s my sheep on a bed,” Amanda said, grinning.

As tired as she was, she could not help but laugh.

“She won’t get off,” Vincent said. “I’ve tried everything, but all she does is–”

*
Bleat!*

“That.”

Amanda smiled. “I have an idea.”

In moments, they were in the marble bathroom.

“What is it with you and bathrooms?” Vincent asked as he pulled her wrecked sweater off over her head.
 

“Last time wasn’t my idea.”
 

Amanda had already thrown Vincent’s shirt to the floor. Everything hurt from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. The small burst of energy already sapped, she leaned with her face pressed against Vincent’s bare chest, her arms resting around his waist.
 

He stroked his hands up and down her back, the heat of his hands soothing.
 

“We need to…” he said.

“For so many reasons,” she said nodding.

He knelt and pushed her jeans and underwear to the floor. Then stood and, with his right arm around her waist, lifted her out of her bunched clothing.
 

“I think I could get used to this,” she murmured.

“Good.”

After he slid her clothing across the slick marble floor with a flick of his foot, he set her back down. Fingers soft on either side of her chin, he touched her face as he placed barely-there kisses on her lips, the corners of her mouth, each cheekbone, the bridge of her nose and each eye. When he came back to her lips, she welcomed him, her hands pressed flat against the small of his back.
 
She pressed her fingers into his hard muscle, lightly dragging her nails across his skin, as she brought her hands around to unbutton his trousers.

He took deep breaths as his smooth palms stroked down her back, and she unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers. She kissed his chest softly and then nibbled it as she pushed his pants and boxers to the floor. With a hand wound in her hair to cradle the back of her head, he captured her mouth again in a hard kiss.
 

Her legs went limp. The spell work, the running, the roller coaster of the past few days were all taking their toll. Even though their sacred union would restore her, she had gone too far, done too much. Arms locked around his shoulders, it was all she could do to hold on as her aching body rebelled.