Witchlock (11 page)

Macha’s hair fanned straight out like the spokes of a wheel. Her body glowed with energy flooding her. Walls shook and the floor rumbled as if it would explode from the pressure.
 

As he waited for her to strike at him, he added, “The sooner you help me bring Brina back to us, the sooner we’ll marry and start a family. You want babies to rebuild the Treoir dynasty and secure the Belador power here forever. I want the woman I love in my life and to father her children. We have the same goal for different reasons. I intend to get started on that goal right now. Please teleport me to the entrance of VIPER headquarters in twenty-five minutes.”
 

That calmed Macha when nothing else would. She nodded. “We need Brina back and soon. Her mental state seems to grow worse each day she goes without remembering. I’ll trust you to take care with her.”
 

“That’s a given.” He strode quickly through the halls, passing two of the royal guards along the way. He gave them an abrupt nod when he’d normally have stopped to chat. He’d expected to find Brina alone, which
she technically was, but Allyn McDonahue stood outside the open door to the library.
 

Macha had sucked Tzader dry of any patience.
 

This guard deserved none. Not after trying to poach Brina.
 

Tzader knew the minute Allyn realized who approached because the guard tensed and straightened his shoulders.
 

When Tzader reached the entrance to the massive library, he paused to take everything in. Brina sat on the far side of the room in a cushioned window seat with a leaded glass backdrop.
 

That was new. There hadn’t been a window in this room for years.
 

Tzader kept his voice down. He had no problem taking this guy to task, but he didn’t want to cause a disturbance so near to Brina.  He told Allyn, “I warned you about being around her.”
 

“I am not
around
her, but guarding her. There is a difference, Maistir.”  Allyn had said that in a tone of tolerance more than respect.
 

“Find someone else to guard. In fact, spend your time outside training your men, overseeing the gryphons, picking up rocks, I don’t give a damn what you do. Just stay away from her. Understood?”
 

Allyn had gone rigid as a post. “Understood.”
 

Tzader stepped back, giving him room to leave. Once the guard was out of sight, Tzader stepped into the library and walked with loud enough steps to alert her that someone had entered.
 

Brina’s head lifted. Flame red hair fell to her waist in soft curls, looking as if the locks were threads spun of fire and copper. Her heart-shaped lips parted with surprise and green eyes as bright as a lush valley in spring studied him.
 

In that moment, he saw her go from hope to disappointment when she couldn’t gather her memories of him.
 

A traitor within the Beladors had used Noirre majik supplied by the Medb to trap Brina within majik threads while the Medb attacked Treoir Island and Castle. Tzader had killed the traitor, but not before Brina, along with Quinn’s teenage cousin Lanna, had tried to escape by teleporting. They’d ended up lost in another realm.
 

Evalle had brought Storm to Treoir as a last ditch effort to bring the two women back, which had ended successfully. But Brina’s memories had deteriorated.
 

Were
still
deteriorating.
 

Tzader kept walking and forced his lips into a smile.
 

He had little time to make headway with her, but it could be too much time if she became agitated. She’d been through a lot and he would not
press her for more than she could handle.
 

But his warrior queen was strong.
 

Somewhere inside that body still lived the woman who had waited within the walls of this warded castle for four long years, seeing him only in hologram form, just to do her duty as a Treoir.
 

His woman had been raised a fighter.
 

She sat cross-legged on the cushions. In her lap lay an enormous album that had leather binding softened by a century of wear. The large pages made her hands appear as small as a child’s holding a normal-sized book.
 

He tried not to think about how fragile Brina looked. She’d never been fragile, but everything she’d been through recently showed in her sad face.
 

She closed the album and held up her hand in a silent order, forcing him to stop three strides short of her.
 

He obeyed her silent request, but it took all of his control to hold back from bundling her into his arms and drawing her close to bring peace back into her face. “I’d like to visit with you.”
 

She blinked, closed her eyes, then opened them, frowning. “I know you … but I’m not bringin’ you clear to mind.”
 

Her Irish lilt curled around his heart and hugged him. “You do know me and, if you’ll let me, I’ll help you remember a lot of things.”
 

Standing this close and not touching her reminded him of the years he’d suffered without her in his arms and his life, sating his loneliness for short periods only when one of them visited in holographic form.
 

His father had bequeathed his immortality to his only child without Tzader’s knowledge.
 

Tzader had come to terms with the unfairness in life, and now cared only about today and tomorrow.
 

Brina studied him. “Tell me somethin’ that I should be rememberin’.”
 

A thousand memories rushed forward, all clamoring to be the
one
that brought her back. “There is a huge tree not far from here where we once swam as teenagers. It was
our
spot.”
 

He’d made love to her there the first time, and again in his dreams just over a week ago, but his dreams didn’t count. She had to remember what happened for real.
 

Her eyebrows dropped low as she thought hard on something. Sending him a wary look, she asked, “Were we at the tree ... recently?”
 

“What do you call recently?” he said, curious to see where this was going.
 

She shrugged. “In but two weeks past.”
 

“No.”  Not unless he could show her his dream.
 

“Oh.”  She sounded disappointed.
 

“What’s wrong?”
 

“I recall bein’ in a place such as that only a wee time back with a man and we were ... ” Her voice trailed off and she couldn’t meet his gaze. “It matters not since it was not you.”
 

Who the hell had she been to their spot with, and what had they done? “What did you do at that tree?”
 

Her cheeks blushed and jealousy stormed his body, because he knew exactly what she’d been doing
with a man
. He demanded, “Who was this man?”
 

She put aside the album she was holding and stood. “Do not dare to raise your voice to me.”
 

He heard her, but he had been put off by Macha and would not leave her without finding who had dared to take her to their tree. “I want a name, Brina. Now.”  
 

If she said Allyn, that guard would regret his audacity for the rest of his short life.
 

She pointed to the doorway. “Get out!”
 

That order had rung with the power of Brina the Belador warrior queen everyone missed, and would have made Tzader happy to see one part of her return, if not for what she’d said.
 

Raising his voice had been the wrong move.  
 

He took a step closer and hoped Macha didn’t show up to interfere. Brina’s eyes widened with the shock of anyone defying her.
 

Keeping his tone gentle, Tzader spoke as he eased closer to her. “You might be confusing the time, because that’s one of
our
memories. That tree was our favorite place, our secret place to meet. But the last time was four years ago.”
 

She shook her head, now distracted by his words. “Why would we have gone there then and not recently?”
 

He held her gaze as a bridge between them, moving another step closer as he spoke. “Because your father helped Macha ward this castle against immortals before he went to battle the Medb four years ago, and without knowledge of that, my father asked for Macha’s promise to pass his immortality to me. I couldn’t touch you until I broke the ward.”
 

The soothing sound in his deep tone had to be working because she appeared mesmerized and murmured, “How did you ... break the ward?
 

“I rushed through it to protect you when the Medb attacked Treoir.” He lifted a hand and ran it over her hair, surprised to see his hand tremble, but this was their first real touch in four years. “I died when I crossed the
ward, but through a miracle I was revived. Just not fast enough to reach you before you were attacked with Noirre majik.”  He paused to lean closer. “I killed the traitor and I would kill a thousand more if they tried to harm you.”
 

Then he kissed her.
 

A gentle kiss. A little hello from their past to remind her of their first kiss, but she leaned in and his heart banged against his chest with more happiness than he’d ever believed he’d feel again.  
 

Brina remembered him ...
 

He cupped her face and continued the kiss, slowing only to say, “The last time we were at our secret place we made love under that tree. Your first time and I’ll never forget it. Never give you up. I love you, Brina.”
 

She froze and pulled back.
 

He didn’t try to stop her.
 

She touched her lips. Confusion and wariness struggled in her gaze. “But we were not married then, correct?”
 

“No, but we pledged ourselves to each other before we made love.”
 

“Pledged? I hold the power for the entire Belador tribe and I gave myself without marriage?”  She took a step back, her legs bumping the window seat. Humiliation crawled up her neck in red splotches. “You took advantage of me when I was what? Eighteen?”
 

Heat crawled up his neck at being accused of something so disgusting. “No. It was consensual. You were an adult.”
 

“Why didn’t we marry then?”
 

“I told you. Our fathers screwed up or we would have been married by now.”
 

She challenged, “We couldn’t have married somehow? What if I’d been pregnant?”
 

“Then we
would
have married.”
 

“But only if I was pregnant?”
 

“What? No.”  Tzader took a step forward and reached to calm her, but the room spun out of focus and his step ended up on dirt and rocks outside the mountain headquarters of VIPER.
 

He roared in fury.
 

Chapter 9
 

Two hours before daylight, Evalle quietly opened the door to her dark apartment. She slipped inside ahead of Storm, who made no sound as he followed. They tiptoed past the futon Lanna had requested for her bed, where she was currently crashed out, dead to the world.
 

Feenix slept next to Lanna, curled up on his beanbag chair with his little wings tucked in and clutching his favorite alligator stuffed toy.
 

Evalle smiled at the peaceful scene. It gave her hope that this living arrangement would be fine after all. Lanna wasn’t staying forever and Feenix would get used to Storm being here. Her little gargoyle had just been frightened the first night.
 

Squawking, screeching and flapping wildly for the best part of an hour as he wrecked everything he ran into.
 

Lanna had tried to help by making Feenix’s toys fly, but that had turned the place into even more of a circus.
 

Evalle didn’t want to think about that right now.
 

She’d spent this past week dwelling on it every waking minute, which had been pretty much the whole time since she couldn’t remember the last solid sleep she’d had. Not when she suffered nightmares of Storm changing his mind about living with her. She’d come up with a plan. That’s what Quinn and Tzader, her best-friends-slash-surrogate-brothers, had taught her.
 

Tackle a problem by coming up with a strategy.
 

Their advice always sounded good on paper, but once she waded into trouble up to her neck, she generally just started killing everything until she could walk away.
 

Not exactly a strategy for sorting out a personal crisis that was probably all just in her mind.
 

Probably.
 

Moving in stealth mode down the hall, she stepped inside her bedroom and left all the lights off except the fused-glass night-light Feenix loved. It threw a kaleidoscope of color over the room.
 

Storm shut the door and started shedding clothes.
 

She’d begun doing the same, but paused to admire the view of the hottest man alive.
 

Cut muscle wrapped him from neck to ankles and the man was entirely at ease nude, but who wouldn’t be with an Adonis body like his? He had beautiful teak-colored skin covering a powerful physique. Reaching up, he flicked the leather thong away that had held his black hair, letting it fall
past his shoulders.
 

He smiled without looking her way.