Entwined Enemies (11 page)

Mason
—that ignites a pang of guilt. Does their twin connection still bother me? My time with Mason has been amazing, but something definitely changed when I found out about Sylvia.

Has my time with Mason been deprived of what I’m feeling right now? This glimpse of perfect intimacy that nobody else can share?

What I know for certain is that I don’t want this moment to end. I’m enjoying it far too much, more than I ever imagined, especially as Trent has been hatching schemes about me this entire time.

The pragmatic side of my personality is starting to kick in, counting the seconds and waiting for the torch to extinguish. To deliver Trent and I back into the darkness. Passing the time with pleasure and waiting to take advantage of that blindness.

It’s possible Trent is waiting as well, but for a different reason.

The flame dies out, and he growls in the dark for the first time. That’s when I feel him swell inside of me. It would normally be too much to take.

The formidable girth of him causes the last vestiges of my Maintain the Flesh spell to expire as he widens inside me. No sooner has that protection ended than the heat of this place slams into me like a wall.

How is Trent able to endure this oppressive temperature? Surely he’s been here before, but even so, this heat is unnatural. No matter—I have more pressing matters to worry about.

If Trent is anything like Mason, he could transform at any point now. He could shift into a half-man, half wolf when he releases, and I can’t cast Maintain the Flesh anymore. Not in this place, at any rate. If Trent shifts, even a little bit, he’s likely to split me open.

I need to remember that now, to remind myself that he’s the enemy.
It’s a question of survival
, I tell myself, silently picking up the silver spike where Trent dropped it beside us.

I still need to beat him, to drive this weapon into his heart. I can do it easily while he’s on the verge of release. Not on his terms, with speed and strength, but on mine, with seduction.

I raise the spike up in the darkness, as if stretching in pleasure, tighten my grip with both hands, and then hope my aim is true in this darkness.

A loud, grating sound fills the room, worse than nails on a chalkboard. Stone grinding on stone. An outline of light appears against the wall. I hide the spike behind my back.

The outline grows brighter as a portion of the wall recedes. It’s not a door. More like a slab. It must weigh hundreds of pounds, but somebody is pulling it out from the other side. When light finally does stream into the room, it’s blinding.

I can barely make out the silhouette of a man. Whoever is moving this massive section of wall is doing it by hand. The person sets the slab aside easily as my eyes adjust. I’m expecting to see the giant of a man. I’m surprised by the reality. It’s just the opposite.

He’s slender and slightly built across the shoulders. Not tall, but not short either. I’d say my height exactly. I smell him before I can see his face. Cologne. Something scented with juniper and lemon. It saturates the room. He steps through the slab entranceway without ducking.

When my eyes finally adjust, I realize that I’ve seen him before. His face is handsome, if not boyish. He looks young, maybe eighteen years old like me, but I know better. The man has thick auburn hair, worn in his face like a teenager, but can’t be said to be wearing much else.

An old iron key is against his hairless chest, suspended from a metal chain, and he’s wearing a pair of old-fashioned boxers, for modesty.

His eyes remove all questions as to who this is standing before me. The golden eyes of a lion. I know this man all too well.

Felix Eichmann.

This is the man who seduced Trixie, Saffron’s daughter, and drained her potential.

I’m still straddling Trent with a silver spike behind my back. Felix can see it clearly, causing him to smile with amusement.

“If it’s not too much trouble, could you refrain from killing Trent? I still have use for him.”

His voice is neither high nor deep, but full of playful arrogance. The first and last time I met this man was memorable. I was casting a protective ward to keep Felix away from Trixie with Candice and Saffron. It worked, and he was driven back, but that was five years ago.

Candice and Saffron never explained why Felix has designs on Trixie, but what I do know is that he waited until she turned eighteen. That’s when he offered her a job at his multinational corporation. A placed called The Vault, the most secure storage facility in the world.

Felix and Trixie had a relationship during her employment, or something resembling a relationship. It was mostly Felix having his way with her at his convenience. It had been going on for a while before I found out and told Candice and Saffron.

When Saffron found what Felix had done to Trixie, she was furious, angrier than I’ve ever seen her before or since. Saffron stormed off in a murderous rage, but Candice talked her down, which was tense. Rather than killing him, they decided to hex him.

I actually thought that was a strange decision at first, especially if killing a manipulative warlock was the easier
mundane
solution to their problem. It wasn’t until we actually faced him that I finally understood their decision. Felix crackled with magical energy.

Seeing Felix here now answers a few questions for me right away, like who tattooed Trent and his minions with magic immunity. If what I’ve been told about Felix is true, he could have done that. It also explains the teleportation circle, which he would have inscribed.

The fact that I don’t have access to the quicksilver pool, however, I can’t explain. I wouldn’t be able to threaten Felix as a spellcaster, but I could protect myself at the very least.

Trent looks at the ground for the silver spike and realizes that it’s not there anymore. He quickly looks up at me on top of him. For one second, a flood of emotions plays across his face. Hurt and then anger.

Trent reaches around my back without looking and rips the silver spike out of my grip.

“You were going to kill me?” he asks.

Felix chuckles. “Don’t doubt it. This one is the Maiden of her coven.”

“Wait, you know each other?” Trent asks Felix.

“We’ve met,” he answers. “Seduction is her forte. That’s how she wins, Trent—by getting you to lower your guard.”

He’s not wrong—seduction is what I do, but it wasn’t that simple this time around. There was more going on between Trent and I than expected. A lot more. I’m almost afraid to say what it was.

I haven’t experienced that kind of intimacy in a very long time. A part of me wonders if I’ve
ever
experienced that kind of intimacy. The men I siphon for lust were all being observed, either directly or remotely, by Candice and Saffron through our shared bond to the quicksilver pool.

The few times I didn’t tap into the quicksilver pool with Mason, his sister would have been riding along, feeling everything that he was.

Trent actually looks wounded beneath me. He’s trying to stay mad, but wrestling with unexpected emotions at the same time. He’s starting to think that what happened between us was strictly deception.

If I’m right, he’s magnifying that feeling by how vulnerable he allowed himself to become. I’m all too familiar with how men harden after realizing they’ve exposed their soft underbellies to a woman. It’s almost like they want to feel betrayed in order to feel strong again.

I look down at Trent sympathetically. “If you shifted into a wolf, even a half-man, half-wolf, that would have killed me. I had to protect myself.”

“What? You think I can’t control myself?” he says. “I mastered my wolf a long time ago. I only change when I want to now.”

Felix laughs out loud. “I love it! A witch actually hurt the feelings of my werewolf general! Seeing that alone makes coming all the way down here worth the trouble.”

That’s going to sting Trent’s ego more than I want. I have to control this situation.

“I have no idea how much control you do or don’t have! You could have the discipline of a monk or the hair trigger of a teenager for all I know. I have to look out for myself. I know for a fact that you’re self-interested enough to understand that much. If it makes any difference, I was going to kill you sooner, but kept putting it off.”

That gets a wry grin out of Trent, but Felix laughs.

“Ha! She’s still trying to seduce you! I don’t think she can help herself. It’s like breathing for this one.”

That gives Trent pause as he seriously considers Felix’s words.

“You kissed me. Is that how you get men to lower their guard before stabbing them?”

I stand up off Trent’s lap indignantly.

“If that’s what you want to believe, go ahead. Felix is clearly your master. Let him tell you what to think as well as do.”

“He’s not my master,” Trent counters.

“Uh-huh,” I say sarcastically as I retrieve my clothing. “Let me guess. You have some
amicable
deal where he tells you to do and you do it. You
agreed
to be his lackey at first, but now you’re
indebted
to him. I know what that tattoo on your neck does, Trent. I also know who put it there now.”

“Oh, I am impressed,” Felix says. “Now she’s even feigning disappointment, like she has some kind of hold over you. Masterful work, dear, truly, but if you’re falling for any of this, Trent, I may have to find myself another general.”

Trent looks back and forth between us. I pretend not to notice, and pull my cut-offs on over the layer of sweat that has rapidly formed on my body. My shirt as well. It would be more comfortable to wear nothing in this heat, but I want Trent to think I’ve been offended.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

“If you can’t tell the difference between real and fabricated pleasure, then you’re a fool,” I tell him. “Trust your instincts or doubt them. I don’t care anymore.”

That last part is lie. I do care, especially as I can’t cast spells right now. Felix is a warlock of the highest order, and I’m utterly defenseless, cut off from my coven and the quicksilver pool.

I need somebody on my side, and Trent is the best I’ve got right now. I know it’s desperate to count on him after only having sex once, but I’m not exactly in a position to choose at the moment.

The rest, however, is true. I really was feeling something in the moment with Trent. He was too. We were both caught off guard by it.

I glance at Trent just long enough to see that he hasn’t made up his mind yet. Good. If he’s anything like Mason, instinct guides him more than anything.

“Very impressive,” Felix jeers while clapping. “That was a truly excellent performance!”

I walk up to the man with golden eyes standing the same height as me. Felix is pissing me off, and there’s no point in hiding it.

“Okay, warlock, this is obviously your dungeon. Lock me up, string me up, whatever, but get on with it already. Your passive-aggressive bullshit annoys the fuck out of me.”

He smiles and gestures for me to leave through the open slab entranceway, standing aside like a gentleman.

“Well, I don’t want to do that. If there isn’t any
fuck
left in you, then what does that really leave? Your bag of tricks would be empty.”

Felix knows that I’m cut off from the source of my magic. It must be a feature of this place. This is his clever way of asserting dominance. I won’t give him the satisfaction of reacting with fear, so I walk past him disdainfully. Maybe I can get my bearings by looking around.

Three stone stairs lead up to a hallway, where it’s even hotter than in the small stone room. Sweat is pouring down my face continuously now. The ceiling here is arched, maybe fifteen feet high at the peak.

The entire length of the hallway is lined with slab entranceways. Each one is located on a landing down three flights of steps. There is a sconce spaced out between each slab and every torch is burning.

I start to wonder if there’s a teleportation circle behind each one of these entranceways, but then my attention is grabbed by something much more interesting.

Two massive double doors made out of steel, the surface etched with the landscape of a massive battle. The doors mark one end of the hallway, terminating the space. It’s hard to make out the details from this distance, but I recognize what looks like an army.

The army is being led by a large man with cloven hooves, double-jointed legs, leathery wings on his back, and two enormous horns on his head. Not really a man so much as a demon, but wearing breastplate armor and wielding a gigantic curved sword.

The demon is depicted heroically on one door, blade in hand, facing a giant on the adjacent door. At least what looks like a giant.

The behemoth appears human from the waist up, bald and bare-chested, with arcane runes etched on his flesh. From the waist down, there is nothing human about the giant, only fire, smoke, and wind where legs should be.

The whole scene has been meticulously carved, which must have taken a lifetime to do.

I immediately want to see more, and step toward the double doors for a closer look before I even realize I’m doing it.

Felix snaps his fingers and extinguishes the torches bookending that end of the hallway, shrouding the steel sculpture in darkness. Apparently his magic has no problem working in this place. What did he say earlier?

Seeing that alone makes coming all the way down here worth the trouble.

We’re underground.

More torches begin to snuff out, from the steel doors to where we’re standing now. That’s when something else occurs to me.

I’m an unexpected visitor here. Felix is doing his best to be nonchalant about it, but none of this was ever intended for my eyes. Which means that I should pay even closer attention my surroundings than I have been.

If this is a private sanctum of sorts, then every square inch of this place is relevant, assuming I get out of here alive.

There’s a slab entrance directly across from the room where Trent and I were entombed. It’s marked with a series of numbers. I commit them to memory before the torches next to them extinguish as well.