Hunted by Magic (15 page)

“I should leave,” Iannis said, but he made no move as I stepped into the water. His violet eyes burned a trail of fire across my naked body as I slowly waded in, and though the cool water lapped at my skin, the fire inside me only built as I closed the distance between us. He was so close now, within arm’s-length, and I held my breath as I approached. Part of me was afraid that this was just a dream, that in a few moments I would wake up and the glorious naked man before me would be gone.

But when my fingertips alighted on his chest, it didn’t vanish into nothingness. The smooth, cream-colored flesh was real, as were the hard muscles that lay beneath the skin. A sharp, indrawn breath caused his chest to rise, and the crisp, dark hairs teased my skin as I flattened my hands against his chest. His heartbeat pumped hard against my palm, and I caught the flutter of his pulse at the base of his throat as I drew my gaze upward to his sternly handsome face.

“Why are you doing this?” he whispered.

“Because I need you,” I murmured back, and my heart ached at the raw truth in those words. Sliding my hands into the hair at the base of his skull, I allowed myself to savor the feel of his silky cherrywood tresses gliding against my fingers, something I’d thought about more times than I could count but never imagined I’d actually experience. This moment was so surreal, and for a beat in time nothing else existed but the two of us. There were no consequences, no friends or family breathing down my shoulder, no past, no future, no anything. There was only the heartbeat beneath my palm, the water swirling around my hips, and a pair of iridescent eyes that blazed so hot I thought they might consume me whole.

Before either of us could change our minds, I unclasped the chain from around my neck, then slipped it around Iannis’s neck while pulling his body into mine. Our lips clashed, and I nearly dropped the necklace into the water as a bolt of white hot heat lanced my body. Strong arms banded around me as the necklace clasped, and I could feel the heat of the two charms glowing between us as Iannis kissed me back, crushing his mouth against me as his fingers dug into my hips with bruising force. My knees went weak as his arousal pressed against my inner thigh, my fingers digging into his broad shoulders as I gasped, and then his tongue was in my mouth, tangling with mine. He tasted dark and sweet and spicy all at once, a flavor combination unlike anything I’d ever tasted, and I kissed him hungrily, wanting more, wanting everything he had to offer.

“I remember you now,” he rasped, pulling back just far enough to let those glorious words feather over my lips. “I can’t recall ever doing this, but I remember you. How could I have forgotten your fiery spirit for even a moment?” His hand drifted up to press against my cheek as his eyes burned into mine, and if I had been a lesser woman, or perhaps had a looser grip on Iannis’s shoulders, I would have swooned.

“Yeah, well that shamaness did a number on you.” I shifted a little, and my nipples scraped against his chest, sending little zings of pleasure through me. Iannis’s eyes gleamed hungrily, and my lips parted as his head dipped down –

“Sunaya! Come quick!”
Fenris cried, and I jumped, knocking my forehead against Iannis’s.
“We’re under attack!”

“Shit!” I clapped my hand against my throbbing forehead.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!”

“What’s wrong?” Iannis demanded as I leapt from the stream and made a beeline for my clothing.

“Fenris just sent me an S.O.S.,” I explained as I hurriedly dragged my clothing on. “I guess your shamaness friend is trying to kill him now.”

“Damn,” Iannis swore as he rushed out of the stream. I forced my gaze away from his naked body – I couldn’t afford the distraction – and focused on shoving my feet back into my boots. “That wolf who sneaked into the village was Fenris? Of course he was.” He sounded chagrined as he grabbed for his own clothes. “Did you bring anyone else?”

“My friend Annia. I’m sure she’s with Fenris right now.”

Iannis and I sprinted down the hill, following the cacophony of shouts and cries. I was a little surprised that he was keeping up with me, but I didn’t have time to dwell on that. We burst into the camp to see women herding their children into the safety of the huts, while pandemonium reigned closer to the fire pit. Annia and Fenris stood back to back near the fire, Annia with her bow drawn and Fenris in human form with his hands outstretched, power crackling at his fingertips. They were surrounded by warriors, and Halyma was facing down Fenris, a ferocious glare on her beautiful face as she held a feathered staff aloft and chanted some sort of spell that made the head of the staff glow bright with power.

“Halyma!” Iannis shouted, drawing the shamaness’s attention away from Fenris. “Stop! These are my friends!”

“These people are outsiders!” Halyma’s dark eyes flashed, and her nostrils flared as she caught sight of me. “Cursed man-beasts and white men, trespassing across our lands and trying to take what is ours!”

“They are not trying to take anything,” Iannis said sternly, and I inwardly sighed with relief – he was sounding more like his old self. “They came here because they were concerned about me.”

“They are trying to take you!” Halyma shrieked, her cheeks reddening with anger. “You are my
sharalli
, and I will not let them have you!” She leveled her staff in my direction, and a ball of deadly energy shot straight toward me.

Iannis shoved me to the side, and made a slicing motion with his hand as he shouted a Word. A glowing force field materialized in front of him, deflecting the ball up into the sky where it dissipated.

“You…you defend her?” Halyma whispered, her dark eyes filling with tears. She looked so dejected that I would have felt sorry for her if she hadn’t just tried to kill me.

“Of course.” Iannis put his body between Halyma and me, partially blocking my view of the shamaness. “These people are my friends, Halyma. How could you try to hurt them, knowing that?”

“Because they are taking you from me.” Halyma’s voice hardened, though the tears did not disappear, and she pointed a shaking finger at me. “I knew that one would come eventually. That is why I told you to get rid of that necklace! And yet you defy me by wearing it again.”

“I am not yours to command.” Iannis’s voice hardened as well, and the air around him crackled with power. “I am grateful that you found and healed me, Halyma, but you cannot keep me here against my will. My people are in danger, and I must go back to them. As a leader yourself, you must understand this.”

Halyma was silent for a long moment, and for a second I thought she might actually let us go. But then she lifted her chin proudly and squared her jaw.

“I care nothing for mages or their troubles!” she spat, her dark eyes gleaming with anger. “I saw something in you that I thought would be different, but you are just like the rest, taking what you need from us and leaving us to suffer. If you want to leave me, I will send you to the afterlife!”

She pointed her staff in Iannis’s direction and began a chant, but Iannis flung out a hand and shouted several Words. Some kind of strange, sizzling yellow and black energy shot out from his palm and slammed into the shamaness, knocking her flat on her back before she could complete her chant. Her body began to shake as energy crackled over her skin and clothing, and she bucked and writhed as though she were having a seizure.

“Come on!” I grabbed Fenris’s hand. “Let’s get out of here!” Raising a hand, I conjured a ball of fire and aimed it at the shamaness’s tent. The structure burst into flame, and those of the Coazi who weren’t trying to help the shamaness rushed to put out the fire, giving us the diversion we needed. The four of us made a run for it, sprinting from the camp as hard and fast as our legs could carry us, and I prayed to whatever god might be listening that we would make it out of this blasted mountain range alive.

I
t took
over an hour to lose the Coazi – even though most of them stayed behind trying to save their shamaness and her burning hut, a good number of them still came after us. Iannis and Fenris took over the defense against the ones who chased us, deflecting arrows and spears with the use of magic. We did not retaliate as Iannis still seemed to have friendly feelings for them, and after all we were intruders on their land. We continued in our full-on sprint for a good two miles after the last confrontation before we finally slowed.

“Okay,” Annia gasped, clutching at a stitch in her side. “We’ve got to stop or I’m going to explode. Surely we’ve lost them now, haven’t we?”

“We have,” Iannis confirmed as we slowed to a trot. I arched a brow, amazed that though his cheeks were flushed from the run, he was barely winded. “But the Coazi have small parties that roam these mountains, so it would not be wise to assume that we are safe. We really should keep moving.”

“Well I’m sorry, but unlike you three I’ve got human limitations,” Annia snapped, still clutching at her side. “I can’t sprint for miles on end.”

Iannis stopped abruptly, and I nearly ran into him. “Come here,” he commanded.

Annia stopped as well. “Why?” she demanded, suspicion in her voice.

“So that I can help you,” he said patiently. “There is little point in making you suffer through your ‘human limitations,’ as you call them, when I can provide a workaround.”

“Alright.” Annia stepped forward cautiously. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just stand there for a moment.” Iannis squatted down, and Annia jumped a little as he wrapped his fingers around her ankles. He spoke a few Words, and glowing circles of magical energy formed around Annia’s ankles. The energy spread up her legs and over the rest of her body, and her eyes widened as she was briefly enveloped in the strange glow. The magic hummed over her for a few moments, then disappeared in a shower of sparks.

“Wow.” Annia ran her hands down her sides as Iannis rose. “What the hell did you do to me? I feel amazing.”

“I gave you an energy boost,” he said simply. “You should be able to run for several hours more without tiring. It will wear off eventually, but for now you should be able to keep up with us.”

Sure enough, when we resumed our run, Annia kept up without complaint. We ran another eight miles, mostly downhill, until we came across a cave that looked suitable to bed down in for the night. Iannis and Fenris warded the entrance, and Annia and I built a small fire in the back of the cave where the glow could not be easily seen from a distance.

Once Iannis and Fenris had secured the entrance, they joined us around the fire. My eyes roamed over Iannis as he stared into the flames, the firelight flickering over his handsome features. When I’d first met him, I’d never thought I’d see him sitting cross-legged on a cavern floor in beaded buckskins, with his hair tousled and a healthy flush on his normally alabaster cheeks. It was a good look for him – no, better than good. He was downright sexy. No wonder that shamaness had desired him – any red-blooded woman would have. Even so, there was no way I could forgive her for putting that spell on him. What Halyma had done to Iannis was little better than slavery.

“Now that we’ve had a chance to catch our breath, why don’t you fill us in on what happened?” Fenris asked as he handed Iannis a packet of beef jerky. “We’ve traveled quite a way to come to your rescue, at considerable risk. It would be nice to have the blanks filled in at last.”

“Indeed, and I am grateful.” Iannis’s eyes swept over us all, lingering on me just a beat longer than everyone else. Heat swept through my stomach, and I fought the urge to bite my lip. “I am greatly in your debt, for going to such lengths to find me. If you had not, I might have lived for years or decades as Halyma’s
sharalli.
Her mind magic is extremely potent.”

“Just how the hell did she manage to bewitch you into staying with her in the first place?” I demanded, jealousy adding an edge to my voice. Even though I knew Iannis had been under a spell, it still chafed me that he’d allowed himself to be caught like that in the first place. I mean, he was one of the strongest mages in the Northia Federation. Shouldn’t he have been able to resist one puny shamaness?

“These shamans are far more powerful than the public gives them credit for, and I suspect Halyma is special among them.” Iannis arched a brow at me, no doubt reading my thoughts from the expression stamped across my face. “I woke up in the dirigible feeling disoriented and sluggish, and found my fellow passengers completely unconscious. Then the pilot came into the cabin, wearing a gas mask.” His voice was suspiciously even, but I suspected that deep anger lay hidden underneath, like magma simmering beneath a seemingly dormant volcano. “I could not kill him since we needed him to land, so I tried to stun him instead. But the gas affected me more than I realized, for I missed, and he managed to throw me out the door of the airship.” His voice turned arctic. “He will be punished.”

“I took care of that for you,” Fenris assured him.

“Oh?” Iannis arched a brow.

“Fenris lost his temper when we were questioning him,” I remarked dryly. “He killed the pilot with a lightning bolt.”

“Ah.” Iannis looked surprised. “I suppose this means your secret is out now, Fenris.”

“I was forced to explain my past to the girls after it was done,” Fenris admitted with a sigh. “But never mind that, Iannis. What happened after you were thrown out the door? Even you cannot fly.”

“I haven’t come so close to death in several decades at the very least.” A shadow passed over Iannis’s face as he spoke. “I was hurtling through the cold air, my lungs aching from the gas, and it was too dark to see how far I was to the ground, so I invoked Resinah’s strongest protection spell as well as another to make myself lighter so the impact would not be as great.”

“Ah.” Fenris nodded as though that made perfect sense to him.

“Wait a second,” I objected. “Why couldn’t you use a levitation spell to save yourself?” If Fenris was able to teach me how to do that, Iannis had to know how to use it too.

“The levitation spell is not powerful enough to halt a fall that rapid. It is meant for slow ascents and descents. At the rate I was falling, it would have barely slowed me at all.”

“Oh.” I frowned. It sounded like magic wasn’t completely impervious to science. Clearly there was more to learn than I’d thought.

“In any case,” Fenris said, moving the conversation along, “I imagine you did not come out of this unscathed.”

“Certainly not,” Iannis agreed. “I hit a tree, suffered numerous broken bones and lacerations, and was knocked unconscious by the impact. I only awoke when Halyma and her small group of Coazi found me, stuck in the top branches, and deduced I must have fallen from the sky. To give her credit, she is a very skilled healer. I could not have done it better myself. But by the time I was mobile again, she had used her powers to make me believe I was a member of the tribe, and in love with her.” He shrugged, frowning deeply. “Had it not just happened, I never would have believed myself susceptible to such trickery.” After a moment he added, “Now I know why she had to sacrifice some animal every day. It would have been difficult to keep up such a deep enchantment without constant reinforcement.”

I huffed out a breath. “I guess I should take comfort in the fact that even you aren’t infallible.” I wanted to ask if he still had feelings for Halyma, but that would have sounded pathetic. “Still, it would have been nice if you could have kept the
serapha
charm around your neck. I about died when I found it in a bird’s nest without you attached to it. I thought you’d decided to throw it away for some reason.” My throat tightened, and I swallowed hard to get rid of the lump trying to form there.

“Halyma had a good idea of what it was, and she tricked me into giving it to her.” Iannis’s long fingers went to the charm, and butterflies fluttered in my belly as I watched him stroke the gem briefly. “I would have never taken it off willingly,” he added, his voice softening.

“That’s what I thought,” Fenris said, sounding satisfied. “We could tell by the glow that you were still alive, so the charm was helpful to us regardless.”

“How did you manage to locate me without it?” Iannis asked. “I hope you haven’t just been aimlessly wandering around the plains.”

“We decided to start with the Resistance camp at the base of the mountains,” Annia said. “We’d heard from another group of Coazi that there was a camp holding prisoners, so we figured that was our best lead after hitting a dead end with your necklace.”

“Prisoners?” Iannis’s violet eyes snapped fire as he sat up straight. “Do you mean my delegates?”

“Yeah. They’re being held in an abandoned mineshaft while the camp awaits orders on what to do with them. Naya can tell you the story, since she’s the one who met with them.” Annia jerked a thumb in my direction.

I sighed, then filled Iannis in on what we had discovered back at the camp – that the strike on the airship had been ordered by the Benefactor, targeting Iannis specifically, and that though they’d been waiting on orders from the Benefactor on what to do with the other delegates, they were leaning toward killing them. By the time I was done, Iannis’s face had turned to stone, his eyes blazing with a cold fury that sent shivers down my spine.

“We must rescue them immediately,” he said, pushing to his feet.

“Now?” Annia protested around a mouthful of beef jerky. “It’s dark out. Everybody knows that you don’t travel at night.”

Iannis swung around to face her, and she flinched a little under the weight of his icy glare. “I cannot leave them to die, and besides, such missions are best performed under the cover of darkness. We will go now. Once the delegates are liberated and the Convention is over, I will stamp out the Resistance and their mysterious Benefactor once and for all.”