“The Sylvermyst is proving to be surprisingly resourceful,” Siljar agreed.
Resourceful?
“He’s a pain in the ass,” she muttered.
“A male is allowed to be a pain in the ass when he is so wondrously gorgeous,” Siljar murmured, shocking Jaelyn. “It’s a pity I’m not a few millennia younger.”
Jaelyn wisely kept her thoughts to herself. She had all the troubles she needed, thank you very much.
“Do you want me to return to the Addonexus?”
Siljar paused, as if puzzled by the question. “Why would I want such a thing?”
“The Ruah will send another Hunter to complete the contract,” she explained, referring to the traditional leader of the council.
“So you can be executed?”
Jaelyn shrugged. “My fate is irrelevant.”
“I must disagree.” Pressing her palms together, Siljar stepped forward, her unrelenting stare starting to make Jaelyn twitch with unease. “Your fate has become of utmost importance. As has Ariyal’s.”
Jaelyn knew she should be grateful that Siljar wasn’t in a hurry to have her executed. No matter what her training, she wasn’t anxious to take one for the team. But her spidey senses were tingling, warning her that she wasn’t going to like where this conversation was going.
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” the Oracle bluntly admitted. “The threads are shifting.”
Jaelyn wasn’t sure what bothered her the most.
The fact that the Oracle was baffled, or that she seemed to be implying that Jaelyn was a part of her confusion.
“Threads?”
Siljar gave a wave of her hand. “I am not a true seer, but I am capable of occasional visions, and more importantly I can detect those individuals who are to be woven into destiny to fulfill those visions.”
Jaelyn took a hasty step backward. “You can’t mean ...”
“You, Jaelyn.” She paused.
Dramatic effect, anyone?
“And Ariyal.”
Shit, shit, shit.
“That’s impossible.”
“Ah, the cold logic of a vampire.” Siljar smiled, but there was no missing the warning in the dark eyes. She didn’t like Jaelyn arguing. “But denying your fate will not alter it.”
“You can see my future?”
“No, as I said, I am not a seer,” Siljar reminded her, “but I do know that you are a thread.”
Jaelyn clenched her hands at her sides. “Is that why the Commission hired me to track down Ariyal?”
“No, when you were requested to bring the Sylvermyst before the Commission it was to question his intentions in remaining in this dimension rather than joining his brethren with their master.” A punishing energy swirled through the air as the demon’s eyes glowed with a sudden silver light before returning to black pools of mystery. “But the fabric of the future is changing and your destiny has been irrevocably entwined with Ariyal.”
Shaken by the glimpse of power contained within the tiny demon, Jaelyn chose her words with care.
“How can the future change?”
There was a long silence. As if the Oracle was debating the wisdom of sharing insider info. Then she gave a small shrug.
“There is always a certain measure of fluidity in matters of time, but it is more chaotic than usual.”
“Do I want to know why, or is that one of those ‘curiosity kills the cat’ things?”
“It indicates that there will soon be a powerful flux in the universe.”
Jaelyn grimaced, wishing that she hadn’t asked. Or that the demon hadn’t answered.
Or...
Hell. She scrubbed a hand over her weary face. She was tired, hungry, and wishing she could get a hold of Ariyal and kick his ass. This might not be entirely his responsibility, but she was willing to blame him.
“The return of the Dark Lord?” she hazarded.
Siljar considered before giving a shrug. “It is impossible to say.”
Yeah, sooooo not helping.
She shifted her concern from the looming end of the world to her own looming end.
“Well, if the future is in flux then maybe my elevation to being some mystical thread is nothing more than a cosmic glitch that will soon be forgotten.”
Siljar cocked her head to the side, her expression curious. “I thought Hunters were fearless?”
Jaelyn snorted. “Facing death is one thing; knowing I’m a part of destiny is quite another.”
“Is it destiny that troubles you?” She flashed her pointed teeth. “Or Ariyal?”
Was the woman
trying
to piss her off?
“It would seem they’re one and the same,” she muttered.
“Very true,” the demon agreed with a shrug of indifference. Then she gave a lift of her tiny hands. “Well, I must go.”
“Go?” Jaelyn took a hasty step forward. “Wait.”
“Yes?”
“Do you intend to leave me here?”
Siljar slowly blinked, like a lizard.
“Oh, did I not say?”
“Say what?”
“The terms of our contract have been altered.”
Oh ... crap.
Why did she suspect that the alteration didn’t include a one-way ticket to Maui to hunt fire pixies?
“You no longer want me to capture the Sylvermyst?” she asked, ever the optimist.
Or maybe it was sheer desperation.
“No.”
“Oh.” She didn’t bother to hide her relief. “Thank the gods.”
“I want you to remain with him and keep the Commission informed of his movements.”
Remain with him? Her brief moment of hope was crushed beneath a tidal wave of horrified disbelief.
It was bad enough to hunt down the damned Sylvermyst and haul him to the Commission. But to become Hutch to his Starsky?
Oh hell, no.
“Why?”
Pinpricks of pain stabbed deep into Jaelyn’s flesh, effective reminders that nasty rumors whispered about the Oracles were well earned.
“I have no need to explain.”
“Forgive me. I will, of course, do everything in my power to fulfill our contract.” She returned to her knees, bowing her head as she waited for the brutal pain to dissipate. “How much of a head start does he have on me?”
“Three days.”
Jaelyn grimaced. For her it had only been two hours since Ariyal had disappeared.
Damned mists.
“Do you know ...” She swallowed her question, and almost her tongue, as there was a loud
pop
and a small demon who looked nearly identical to Siljar made a sudden appearance, standing at the side of the older woman. “Holy crap!”
Siljar motioned to the familiar woman with the heart-shaped face and long gold hair that was pulled into a braid.
“This is Yannah, my daughter.”
“Yeah, we’ve met.” Jaelyn returned to her feet, her gaze never leaving the tiny demon who had helped Ariyal hold Jaelyn captive while they were in the Russian caves. “But at the time I thought she was a spirit that Ariyal conjured.”
“Such a yummy fairy.” Yannah heaved a dreamy sigh. “How could I resist?”
Jaelyn blinked.
Good ... God.
Did Ariyal have this sort of effect on every female he met?
No wonder he was such an arrogant SOB.
“Yes, she can be quite naughty,” Siljar gently chided. “But she will be able to assist you.”
Naughty?
That wasn’t the word Jaelyn would have used. But then again, she’d already pissed off Siljar more than was healthy. She wasn’t about to insult her daughter.
“I welcome any assistance she can offer,” she instead muttered.
Yep. Just call her Queen of Diplomats.
“She will take you to Ariyal,” Siljar informed her. “She will also be the one who will be responsible for contacting you to retrieve the information you have gathered.”
Jaelyn made one last bid for escape. “There are others who are trained in the arts of espionage... .”
“You have been chosen, Jaelyn,” Siljar pronounced, her expression unyielding.
If Jaelyn could have sighed, she would have. Instead she gave a grudging nod.
“So, I’m to spy on Ariyal and report my findings to Yannah?”
“It is more than keeping track of his movements,” Siljar corrected.
“More?”
“We must know the contents of his heart.”
Jaelyn frowned. “I can sense the souls of humans, but I’m not an empath who is capable of reading demons.”
Siljar shrugged. “Remain close enough and you’ll be capable of detecting the taint of the Dark Lord.”
For no logical reason, Jaelyn found herself annoyed by the Oracle’s words.
“I don’t like the bastard, but I can assure you that he hasn’t been infected,” she growled. “He’s determined to sacrifice the missing child rather than allow his evil master to be reborn.”
“That is his plan for the moment,” Siljar agreed. “It is vital that he is not swayed into ...”
“Switching teams,” Yannah finished for her.
Siljar smiled and patted her daughter on the head. As if she’d just performed a remarkable trick.
“Yes. Switching teams.”
Jaelyn understood their concern. Ariyal had admitted that he feared the Sylvermyst might be susceptible to the Dark Lord’s influence. And obviously Tearloch had already fallen victim to the madness.
But that didn’t make her the best choice to fulfill the contract.
In fact, she was fairly certain she was the last person who should be taking on the delicate task.
She wasn’t subtle, or sneaky, and she sure the hell wasn’t tactful.
She was a Hunter who knew how to track and kill.
End of story.
“There’s no guarantee that he’ll let me stay with him,” she warned.
For some reason her muttered words made Siljar chuckle. “I’m confident in your ability to convince him, my dear,” she assured her, turning her attention to the tiny demon at her side. “Are you ready, Yannah?”
The younger demon appeared far from happy. “If I must.”
Siljar folded her arms over her chest, her expression one of universal parental warning.
“And do try to behave yourself, child.”
“Fine.”
Yannah wrinkled her nose, giving a wave of her small hand. Instantly the air shimmered next to Jaelyn. As a vampire she couldn’t sense magic, but she knew a portal when she saw one.
“Wait,” she hissed, attempting to back away. She had feet for a reason. There was no need to be zapping from one place to another.
She had barely taken a step, however, when Yannah was behind her, planting her hands on Jaelyn’s ass and giving her a rough shove forward.
“In you go.”
It shouldn’t be possible for the tiny female to manhandle a vampire, but Jaelyn found herself tumbling into the shimmering air before she could regain her balance.
“No ... dammit.”
Blackness surrounded her and Jaelyn knew that she was being magically transported to another location, but she could sense nothing. And that was worse than if she was being tortured by a horde of Copaka demons.
At last she was jerked from the strange nothingness and, falling forward, she barely got her hands stretched out before she did a face-plant.
She felt the skin being ripped off her palms as she hit the damp pavement, but as she rose to her feet she was far more concerned with the knowledge that she’d just been dumped into the middle of London. And that she wasn’t alone.
Baring her fangs she whirled to study the narrow street that was shrouded in shadows.
It was just past midnight, she easily determined, and most of the humans were safely tucked in the expensive townhouses that lined the road. In the distance she could sense a park with dew fairies dancing among the trees, and a handful of hellhounds sniffing along the Thames River, but it was the thick scent of herbs that had her bracing herself for the slender male form that barreled from behind a hedge to knock her back to the ground.
Unable to rip out his heart or suck him dry, Jaelyn was forced to allow the damned Sylvermyst to cover her with his hard body, a large silver dagger pressed to her throat.
At least that’s what she told her battered pride.
Perched above her, Ariyal’s bronzed eyes widened in shock. Then a wicked amusement suddenly shimmered in the streetlights.
“Jaelyn?”
“This job is really starting to piss me off.”
Chapter 4
Ariyal didn’t believe in Santa Claus.
If a fat man in a red suit snuck into his lair he would slice off the bastard’s head.
But he had to assume there was some magic involved in beautiful vampires appearing out of thin air.
Especially when it was this particular beautiful vampire.
That was a gift any man could appreciate.
For a crazed moment, he simply savored the sensation of her slim body pressed beneath him. God, it had been so long since he’d felt genuine desire.
Not since Morgana le Bitch had taken him into her harem.
Now his body was determined to make up for lost time.
Still, for all his rampaging desire, he wasn’t so lost to reason that he didn’t recall this female posed an extreme danger to him.
“How the hell did you get here?” he growled, keeping the knife poised near her throat even as he made certain it didn’t mar the perfection of her alabaster skin.
Her hands pressed against his chest, but she made no attempt to kill him.
Progress.
“Get off me, you ass,” she hissed.
“Not until I’m certain you don’t intend to alert all of London to our presence.”
Something that might have been embarrassment at her less than graceful entrance rippled over her starkly beautiful face before she was glaring at him in outrage.
“Don’t blame me. It was your little spirit who dumped me here.”
“Spirit?”
“Yannah.”
He scowled. He had occasionally conjured a spirit who went by the name of Yannah, but she wouldn’t be able to enter Avalon. And certainly she couldn’t have brought Jaelyn to London.
“Spirits are incapable of forming portals.”
“Spooks are your specialty, not mine,” she muttered, her expression abruptly shuttered. “All I know is that she made an unexpected appearance in Avalon and shoved me through a portal. Next thing I knew I was making a face-first landing in London.”
She was lying.
He was certain of that much.
The question was whether anything she told him was the truth.
“I sensed there was something different about Yannah when I summoned her from the underworld,” he at last admitted.
“Obviously you should be more careful when you’re inviting in creatures from hell,” she taunted.
Yeah, he wasn’t going to argue with her logic.
“I was distracted at the time, if you’ll recall. And it was you who allowed her to escape before I could properly banish her.”
“Whatever.” She refused to meet his gaze. “Now will you get off of me?”
Damn. What the hell was she hiding from him?
“Spirit or not, why would Yannah follow us to Avalon and then conveniently be around to help you escape?”
There was a barely perceptible pause. “She owed me for releasing her from your bondage. I called in my debt.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She struggled, the sensation of her hard muscles squirming against him nearly sending him up in flames. Holy shit. If only he could turn all that pent-up aggression to passion she’d be naked and riding him like a bucking bronco.
The image burned into his brain, making him so hard and ready he feared he might explode.
“Tough,” she growled.
He ground his teeth. Dammit, he wouldn’t let himself be distracted.
At least, not without the promise of satisfaction.
“Why did you follow me here?”
“You know why.”
He smiled without humor, pressing his aching arousal against her hip.
“Tempting, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait to have your wicked way with my body,” he mocked. “At least until I’ve halted Armageddon.”
Her eyes flashed with indigo fire, her struggles becoming serious.
“My only interest in your body is hauling it to the Commission.”
He pressed the knife against her throat, refusing to regret the smell of burning flesh.
If she tried to take him to the Commission then he’d have to do a hell of a lot worse than singe a bit of skin.
“Wrong answer.”
“Shit, that burns.”
“Hold still and you won’t be hurt,” he informed her, lifting his free hand to form a portal.
Instantly the familiar shimmer floated beside him. No other fairy could match his speed in forming a portal. Or his tolerance to iron.
Which were only two of many reasons he’d been chosen to lead his people.
Jaelyn froze, her gaze trained on the magical opening that hung near her head.
“What are you doing?”
“Returning you to Avalon.” His gaze narrowed. “And this time I will make certain no one will be coming to your rescue.”
She cursed, grudgingly turning her head to meet his ruthless gaze.
“Wait.”
“Why should I?”
“We ...” She looked like she’d swallowed a lemon. “... might be able to negotiate.”
Instinctively he lifted the dagger from her neck, absently watching her skin heal the small burn.
He should return her to Avalon. No ifs, ands, or freaking buts. The odds were that she was either there to haul his ass to the Commission.
Or kill him.
Neither possibility was particularly pleasant.
Still, he hesitated.
Wasn’t there some human saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer?
It was surely wiser to have her in sight until he discovered how she truly had escaped from Avalon?
Dubious logic, but he was going with it.
“Another bargain, poppet?”
“Something like that.”
His gaze lowered to the small breasts perfectly outlined by the black spandex.
“What do you intend to offer?”
She growled, but amazingly she made no effort to sink her pearly fangs into his arm. In fact, her mouth curled into what he assumed was intended to be a smile, although it was remarkably closer to the onset of rigor mortis.
“I’m willing to give you a few days to track down Tearloch,” she managed to choke out. “If you swear you will only capture the child and not sacrifice her.”
Curiouser and curiouser.
“Why?”
“I won’t help you kill an innocent.”
He pressed the blade back to her neck. “Don’t play stupid.”
She snapped her fangs, barely missing his fingers. “Careful, fey.”
“Earlier you refused to even discuss my need to stop Tearloch and Sergei,” he reminded her. “What changed?”
She shifted until the blade was no longer burning her skin, her raven braid spilling across the damp pavement.
“I’m no more anxious than you for the world to end. Especially if it means becoming enslaved by the minions of hell.”
Ariyal shook his head. “You really are a terrible liar, poppet.”
She made a sound of impatience. “Look, I’ve offered to give you the time you need to track down your tribesman. What does it matter why?”
“Because I don’t trust you.”
She met him glare for glare. “Believe me, the feeling is entirely mutual.”
“I should return you to Avalon.”
Something that might have been panic flared through her eyes before she was crushing it beneath a layer of ice.
“I’ll only escape again,” she warned in frigid tones. “And the next time I won’t hesitate to haul your ass to the Commission.”
Ariyal silently cursed.
He was an idiot.
His tribe had suffered untold pain and humiliation to be rid of their ties to the Dark Lord. He couldn’t afford to be distracted now that there was a chance the brutal bastard might be returned to this world.
The sensible solution would be to kill the perilously tempting vampire. Or at the very least to return her to Avalon and lock her in the lower harems where
nothing
could escape.
Instead, he was going to keep her with him.
What choice did he have? There wasn’t any place he could put her, not even in her grave, where she wouldn’t be nagging at his thoughts.
“You swear not to interfere?” he rasped.
“Not unless you try to kill the child.”
“Bloody hell, I know I’m going to regret this,” he muttered, rising to his feet, although he kept the dagger handy.
Jaelyn was upright and angrily tossing back her long braid in less than a heartbeat.
“You and me both.”
Still fully aroused from the feel of her body beneath him and furious with his odd compulsion to have her near, Ariyal grasped her upper arm and jerked her across the road.
“Let’s go.”
“Go?” She scowled, but allowed herself to be led toward the back of the looming townhouses. “Where?”
“If you insist on hanging around then you can at least make yourself useful.”
Her lips parted to offer a scathing comment, only to snap shut as they came to a halt near a servants’ entrance.
“The mage,” she said, her hand instinctively reaching for the shotgun that she usually carried strapped to her side. She glared at him when she came up empty. “And he’s brewing something.”
He nodded, catching the sweet scent drifting through the air.
“Yes.”
“It smells ...” She blinked in surprise. “... good.”
“Fey.”
“What?”
Ariyal breathed in deeply. “The plants he’s using are grown only by the fey.”
Her surprise hardened to suspicion. “Do you know what he’s concocting?”
He shrugged. “I would guess it’s a potion used to keep him from aging. Mages are humans and must use magical herbs to make them immortal.”
The suspicion remained.
No big surprise.
“You’re sure it’s not a spell he’s about to cast?”
“He’s a dark mage.”
“Yeah, I got that,” she snapped impatiently. “All the more likely he’s about to create some nasty potion, right?”
He studied her pale, perfect face. It was impossible to determine a vampire’s age. Jaelyn could be a few decades old or several millennia. But he suspected that she was barely out of her foundling years, despite her skills as a Hunter. There were too many gaps in her knowledge for her to be an ancient.
“His power comes from blood.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. Blood magic was a perverted form of true magic. “Either his own or that of a sacrifice.”
Her gaze weighed his open revulsion toward Sergei. “And your power?” she demanded.
“A gift from nature.”
It was the truth, and yet Jaelyn’s gaze narrowed as she sensed he was keeping something hidden.
“There’s more.”
He hesitated. He preferred to keep a few of his lesser-known skills ... lesser known. It was, after all, his secret tolerance to iron that had allowed him to escape from Jaelyn just days ago.
Who the hell knew when he might need another surprise or two?
But her expression warned that she wasn’t going to stop nagging until she was satisfied with his answer.
Dammit.
“When necessary I can draw on the powers of others,” he admitted between clenched teeth.
She stiffened. “How exactly does that work?”
“Relax, poppet,” he assured her dryly. “It’ll be a cold day in hell when I need power from a leech.”
She studied him, not entirely convinced. “Hmmm.”
He made a sound of impatience, pointed toward the nearby townhouse.
“Can you sense the child?”
Her lips thinned, as if she was annoyed to have to be reminded of why they were lingering in the foggy night.
“No,” she muttered, “but I think the spell that guards the baby prevents me from being able to scent it.” She tilted back her head, allowing her acute senses to absorb her surroundings. She abruptly turned to regard him with a hint of bewilderment. “The Sylvermyst is missing.”
He nodded. “Tearloch left just before your dramatic arrival.”
“He left? Do you know where he was headed?”
His lips twisted. “South.”
Her annoyance intensified. “You know what I mean. I find it hard to believe he would willingly leave behind the baby after he went postal trying to track it down.”
Ariyal had been equally startled when he’d caught sight of Tearloch’s slender form hurrying away from the townhouse. He had even taken a step to follow him, when he realized that the Sylvermyst was alone.