New Blood (53 page)

Jax recoiled as the hidden man cackled in delight. “You see?” he crowed. “The truth comes out. Now that she has no familiar, now that she cannot use him, she casts him aside.”

She made herself sit up, stiffened her muscles, using the cold and the pain to lock them in place. If she was frozen, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much.

“Is it done then?” Mikoyan the alchemist asked. “Is the familiar bond broken?”

“It is.” Esteban nodded, along with Oleg.

“Now, what will you do with us?” Amanusa didn't truly care. Jax was lost to her. Their blood bond was broken and she didn't know how to remake it. They might be married, but it wasn't the same. It couldn't be. How long before that fell apart too?

“Let them go,” Esteban said. “That was the plan. We would set him free of her and let them go.”

“What is to keep her from binding him to her again?” Oleg demanded.

“It was the plan to set them free,” Mikoyan said. “That is what we all agreed to.”

“But—” Oleg began.

“How can we set her free to work her foul magic on other unsuspecting innocents?” The hidden man
came to the opening into the parlor. “We must kill her to keep her from undoing the good we have done.”

“No,” Esteban protested. “I did not sign on for murder. We would free him. That was all I agreed to.”

“I can look after myself,” Jax growled. He stood, ignoring the magicians behind him. “I am no longer her familiar. My mind and my will are my own. Do you doubt my ability to prevent what was done to me from happening again?”

Mikoyan looked sharply at him, then grinned and came to clasp Jax's wrist—the right one, not the one that had been bled. “Glad to have you back with us.”

Jax gave him a brusque, cold nod. He looked down with distaste at his blood-spattered shirt and dragged it off, wiping his bare chest clean. “Do you have something I can wear, to get out of this filth?”

Footsteps sounded in the hall, and Inquisitor Kazaryk came into the room to hand Jax a fresh shirt.
Of course.
The man had dogged their steps too long to surrender without a whimper. Or a final attack. He was greedy for the power he thought sorcery could give him, and for the pleasure of the pain he thought sorcery caused.

Kazaryk smirked at Amanusa. “The empire has powerful friends within the conclave. They could not keep me.” Then he turned to Jax.

“Perhaps you will be safe, my friend,” Kazaryk said. “But too many others are not. She will still be free to work her evil.” He watched Jax a moment. “My apologies for Nagy Szeben. I did not understand the situation at that time.”

Jax slammed his fist into Kazaryk's jaw, sending
the smaller man to the floor. “Apology accepted.” He shrugged into the shirt, covering up those lovely shoulders. “Sorcery is just magic,” he said. “No more evil than conjury or alchemy.”

“Agreed. As long as men are working it. Women are weak, easily corrupted by the power. A woman working magic is an abomination.”

The man was mad.
But then it had been apparent from their first meeting that the man had a twisted view of women. Amanusa couldn't bring herself to care too much. Jax was free. They would let him live. She had worked the magic and anything else was up to Jax. If he still wanted her.

“We must destroy her. John Greyson can be the new sorcerer.” Kazaryk's head snapped around and he glared at Esteban. “Where do you think you're going?”

Esteban held up Jax's stained shirt, bundled with the bloody napkins. He'd even retrieved the one Amanusa had used. “To the kitchen. There is a fire there for burning these. Even I know it is not safe to leave so much blood about with a sorceress in her power.”

“Don't be long,” Kazaryk said.

“I will be as long as it takes. Linen does not burn easily and I do not wish to smother the fire.” Esteban paused at the doorway to the dining room. “And if you are going to murder someone, I do not care to watch.”

“Coward,” Oleg sneered after him.

“Is it bravery to slay the helpless? Esteban is right,” Mikoyan said as the young conjurer departed. “We did not agree to murder.”

“Give her to me,” Jax said. “You promised me payment for the years I served.”

“What will you do with her?” Kazaryk asked, suspicious and eager both at once.

“Perhaps I will make her my familiar. What does it matter to you?”

Jax was head-blind. He couldn't touch magic. Could he? Whatever he wanted to do would be fine. If she was his familiar, she would still be with him.

“As long as she is under control—” Mikoyan began.

“Are you a sorcerer?” Kazaryk moved closer to Jax, intent on his face.

Jax refused to meet his eyes. He didn't know why the Inquisitor wanted to catch his gaze, but whatever Kazaryk wanted, Jax would be sure not to give it. “I could be,” he lied.

Kazaryk almost capered in place. “Yes, bleed her dry. Drain away her life and take her power. We need sorcery. You can be our sorcerer.”

Jax shuddered, wishing he could recall more of the intervening two hundred years. Even with Yvaine gone, much of that time was a blur. If this was how everyone thought of sorcery, no wonder it had been lost. Maybe so much secrecy had been a mistake. Perhaps if they knew the truth—but if they knew how much power her blood held, they might be all the more eager to drain her dry. He could discuss it with her later. Now, he needed to get her out of here. Alive.

She worried him, the way she sat in the big striped-velvet chair, staring at the vicinity of his chest, as if he weren't even there. Could she have truly meant what she said?

No. She had lied. Lied to the magicians and to the magic—but she couldn't lie to him. She loved him. She trusted him. He had to trust her. He had to carry out his part of the plan.

A decanter of spirits on a table shoved into the corner of the room caught his eye. These men—these bloodthirsty men—had no idea how sorcery truly worked. They believed one could steal magic by stealing blood. Therefore . . .

“Let us share her power among us all.” Jax went to the table and splashed the whiskey into five glasses, then carried the tray to the center of the room. Kazaryk, almost slavering at the idea, fetched a spindly-legged table from the front hall and set it to hold the tray.

Jax took Amanusa's hands and lifted her to her feet. Kazaryk moved as if to grab her arm and Jax swept her out of his reach, into his own hold. “She is
mine,
” he snarled, hoping he sounded more possessive thug than protective mate.

Kazaryk spread his hands and backed away, his gloating smile still in place. “What will you do with her?”

“Spill her blood.”

Jax didn't like how Kazaryk watched Amanusa, didn't like his eyes darting over her body and never her face, didn't like his tongue flicking out to touch his lip before vanishing again.

Jax held his hand out for the knife he'd used earlier. Oleg fetched it from the sofa. Kazaryk licked his lips again. Mikoyan and Paolo stood on either side of the chair where Amanusa had worked the blood magic, their arms folded, faces stolid. It was clear
they believed he had changed sides, that he now wanted revenge against Amanusa. They didn't seem to disapprove of vengeance, but they didn't seem to want to participate.

Jax lifted the sharp boning knife and turned Amanusa's right hand palm up. He'd cut his own hand. They wouldn't suspect he had no intention of killing her if he cut her in the same place. He looked at her, waited until she looked back, drowned him in the blue of her eyes. Could she read the message in his eyes?
Trust me.

He laid the knife against her palm and drew it across in the outflow of his breath. Immediately, crimson drops welled up and began to flow. Jax held her hand over each glass in turn, letting one or two fat drops fall before moving to the next. The blood plunged into the amber liquid, dispersing like smoke. He hoped Amanusa had charged the spell, but if she hadn't, he could speak the spell while she worked the magic.

With their blood bond broken, could they still work magic that way? He hoped so. It was the best he could come up with.

“Why her hand?” Kazaryk snatched up a glass, peering at the whiskey inside it. “Why not cut her wrist, bleed her out?”

“Because I'm not ready to do that yet. I don't want to waste any of it, and to let it puddle on the floor would be a mess as well as a waste.” Jax clasped her hand in his, fingers twined, cut to cut, and willed his own wound to bleed more.

His bleeding had slowed, but not stopped completely. The wound was still raw. He wanted her
blood inside him again and his inside her. He'd cut her right hand rather than the left for that reason. He could hide their entwined hands in her skirts and still drink with the others.

He held a glass out to Mikoyan, who didn't quite hide his distaste, but came to take it anyway. Kazaryk handed a glass to Paolo, and Oleg picked up his own.

“To success.” Jax lifted the last glass in a toast. His success was not theirs, but they didn't know that.

“To victory.” Kazaryk gloated a moment more, then tossed the whiskey and blood down his throat.

Everyone drank. Mikoyan and Paolo only sipped. Oleg tossed his back like Kazaryk. Jax did as well. He wanted as much of Amanusa's blood inside him as he could get. He would finish off the alchemists' whiskey if they set it aside.

Damn
his stunted magic-sense. He couldn't tell if any magic was working. Was Amanusa gathering it up? It took time for the magic to work its way into a man's system, but his blood-to-blood contact with Amanusa ought to work more quickly.

“I don't feel any different,” Kazaryk said after a few minutes.

“Give it a little time,” Jax said.

“You were at the session yesterday. You were
in
the session. You should remember,” Mikoyan said.

“That
farce.
” The Inquisitor sneered and poured himself another drink.

Jax held tight to Amanusa's hand. Justice magic took only a few drops. More blood could change it to different magic. He wouldn't spike Kazaryk's drink again. But Kazaryk didn't ask for it. Maybe he wanted to see how the first dose hit him. He would learn soon. Surely.

Something whispered through the back of Jax's mind.
Amanusa?
he thought at her. No answer came.

Warmth bloomed. Love.
Amanusa.
She had returned to him. He hugged her close inside his mind, his heart.
Blood of my blood,
he thought fiercely.
Our blood, all of it,
one.

He
reached
for her, pushing his love at her. Amanusa whimpered. Kazaryk smirked. Silently, Jax pleaded for her to feel the magic, to take hold of his love and do what only she could do.

Without releasing her bleeding hand, he grabbed her shoulder and spun her roughly around to face him, giving her a sharp shake. Would she understand? “Thought you could get away with it, didn't you?”

He caught her face in a harsh grip, forcing it up to his, but she wouldn't look at him. He shook her again. “Look at me, woman. You belong to me now, do you understand?”

Her lashes flickered and she glanced up at him. Her eyes caught and held.

“You're mine,” Jax growled at her, willing her to feel his love, accept it. “Until your life ends.
Mine.
”

She blinked at him. Her mouth dropped open in a gasp.

“We have all tasted your blood, taken in your power. It's in us now.” Jax brought her injured hand to his mouth and ran his tongue across the still-oozing cut. She watched him do it, her tongue sliding over her lower lip in echo of his action, drawing his body tight despite the lingering pain.

“Your blood,” he repeated. “Your power, inside all of us.”

Amanusa's gaze flicked from his mouth to his eyes
as he prayed for her to understand his meaning and finish the spell. To bind him again, or at the very least, to deal with the men who'd kidnapped them, forced this brokenness upon them.

“You want my blood? To take my power?” Her voice held fear, but the touch across his mind held a fierce and powerful love.

“It's already mine.” With one hand he gripped her shoulder and with the other, he licked up the blood that had pooled in the cup of her hand, holding her gaze as he did. “I'll take it all. I want it, and I will have it.”

Yes,
he thought, and
Please,
and
Hurry.

The power slammed into him, a locomotive crashing through his veins. The blood bond of a familiar snapped back into place as if it had never left him, and he laughed aloud.

Kazaryk looked from Jax to Amanusa, a faint smile on his face. “Can you feel it? Is it the power you stole?”

“I stole nothing.” Jax's grin felt feral. Vicious. Hungry. “She gave everything I asked.”

“Oh, my God, it is back,” Oleg cried. “The familiar bond is back.”

“Kill her!” Kazaryk shouted.

Magic flared. Jax could see it again. It slid off the shields Amanusa had built around him, but she staggered.

“No!” He hauled her in close, hoping to wrap her in the shielding she'd given him. “You were supposed to save some for yourself.”

“I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you.” He poured his love into her, pushed
and shoved so she would know how much he loved. “And if you get yourself killed, I will never forgive you. Now, stop them, damn it! They've tasted your blood.”

She took the love he gave her and wrapped herself in it. The magic attacking them swirled around her, as if she'd vanished to its senses.

Amanusa turned to the four male magicians in the room, white with terror. Mikoyan stood firm, despite his fear, and Paolo stood quaking beside him. Oleg and Kazaryk scrambled to flee. With a flick of her wrist, they froze in place.

Jax stared. He cleared his throat. “Amanusa, love, what are you doing?”