“Jacob.”
In the briefest retelling possible, Cat explained how her psychic powers—the ones Alexa had doubted so strongly before—had grown since her departure for Texas.
“It’s the magic,” Paschal offered. “You spent a great deal of time in my house, around my things. So many of those items had been touched with Rogan’s magic, I’ve no doubt they amplified your natural abilities.”
Cat glanced lovingly at Ben. “Or else I was just properly motivated by someone who believed in me.” With a breath, her dreamy expression disappeared, replaced by her usual determined glare. “Either way, I can feel Jacob’s fear. The threat to him is very real. If we don’t act, he’ll die.”
“I thought you hated him,” Alexa said.
“I do,” Cat shot back. “But you don’t. And you’re my friend. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
After a heartfelt shaking of hands among the reunited Forsyth men, Paschal and Ben headed toward the kitchen. Cat and Alexa helped move Damon so that when they opened the door, he’d remain hidden from view. Jacob had said the gunmen wanted the magic. Did they know about the stone? Did they know about Damon? Were they using her to get to him—or at the very least, to the magical source that he’d tucked into his pocket?
“A bit of Rogan’s evil might go far right about now,” Damon muttered as he leaned heavily on a thick stone column.
Alexa grinned. “The magic itself will be enough.”
“I don’t know that I can control it.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “You locked the door. And you just made yourself invisible.”
Pain caused tight ridges around his mouth. “Rogan had a lifetime to learn how to manipulate this stone to keep the magic from turning him mad. Now, I’m just a man who doesn’t want the woman he loves to step into danger.”
The woman he loves
.
The woman he loves
.
With each repetition in her head, Alexa’s confidence grew. She took a moment to kiss Damon strongly and thoroughly, then pulled away before he could wrap his arms around her and keep her inside.
She took two steps back and nodded toward Cat at the door, who shouted to the party outside that they were on their way.
“Hold that thought,” she said. “And don’t use the magic unless you have to. I just got you, Damon. As a man. In my life. I can’t lose you.”
He patted his pocket. “You won’t. I promise.”
But as Alexa turned toward the door and nodded for Damon to unlock the castle, she wondered if she already had.
Thirty Two
With a click, the door slowly swung open. Alexa squinted against the sunshine, but as the day had just dawned, her eyes adjusted quickly. She spotted Jacob lying across the top step, his eye blackened, his lip bloody and a nasty gash running across the top of his nose.
She squelched the instinct to run to him and instead focused her gaze on the raiding party below—two big men carrying equally big rifles. One shifted nervously, even as he kept his gun trained on Jacob. The other, pointing the weapon toward her, appeared steady and sure.
She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped when Rose walked out from behind one of the large armed men.
“No one has to get hurt here, Ms. Chandler.”
Alexa gaped. It was one thing to be attacked by strangers, but a trusted employee? Clearly, there had been a reason why she’d been reticent about getting close to Rose.
“It’s a little late to claim nonviolence, don’t you think?” she asked, holding up her hands, still red with Damon’s blood.
Rose sneered, then gave a little shrug. “A necessary show of strength. We want the source of the magic and we want it now.”
Alexa stared at her boldly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
You’re…pissing her…off.
Alexa wavered, the intrusion of Cat’s voice into her mind distressing on so many levels, she didn’t know where to start. But with few weapons at her disposal, she had no choice but to exploit Cat’s newly honed psychic abilities to try to get the upper hand against their attackers.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.
Cat stood only a few feet away from her, flush against the threshold, trying to interpret the feelings and emotions swirling around them.
Jacob’s terrified. He…doesn’t…trust…
For a split second, a backwash of emotion rushed into Alexa’s brain. The events of the last two days and warring emotions between saving Jacob and letting him rot had exhausted Cat to the point where she was not reliable. Cat knew it. Alexa knew it, too. With an imperceptible wave of her hand, she sent her friend farther into the castle.
She’d relied too much on everyone else so far. On Damon’s magic. Cat’s abilities. Even Paschal’s superior knowledge and Ben’s medical skills. Rose had been her assistant, but Alexa was an expert negotiator. She should be able to work this out on her own.
Rose marched between her goons and placed one foot on the bottom step.
“You’re anything but stupid, Ms. Chandler. You know exactly what we want. Hand it over, along with the castle, and your brother will be safe.”
“She’s…” Jacob said, his breath coming hard from his bloodied mouth, “lying.”
Alexa raised an eyebrow.
Rose shrugged prettily. “Perhaps I am; perhaps I’m not. We want what we want and we mean to get it. By any means possible.”
“Who’s
we
?”
“The K’vr,” Rose answered, though almost imperceptibly, her eyes darted toward the path that led to the lagoon. “We’re the rightful heirs to this castle and everything within it, including the source of Lord Rogan’s magic.”
Alexa squinted, trying to see if someone was hiding amid the overgrown plants, but she saw nothing but the rustle created by the ocean breeze.
“What is that source?” Alexa challenged, sidestepping closer to her brother, who was struggling to his feet. “You’ve been incredibly vague for someone who wants it so badly. It’s almost as if you expect me to tell you what it is. Don’t you know?”
“
You
know,” Rose insisted.
“I do? Why are you so sure?”
“Because you’ve manipulated the magic for days,” Rose replied. “Your brother here has seen it, seen him. Felt him, anyway. The phantom within. Now your time is up.”
Alexa bent down next to Jacob and shifted so that her shoulder tucked under his arm. Up close, their eyes met and Alexa watched as his gaze shifted from pained to regretful to icy cold.
Cat jumped out from behind the door and screamed, “No!” but her warning came a split second too late. Jacob grabbed the Queen’s Charm and yanked it from Alexa’s neck.
Gunfire erupted. Alexa tucked her head beneath her hands and dropped to the ground just as blood spurted from a bullet drilling into Cat’s arm. The impact threw her friend hard against the stone. Alexa rolled toward her, yelping when a bullet exploded just above where her head had been.
Jacob ordered the attack to stop, but when it didn’t, he jumped in front of her. Blood splattered from his stomach, raining bright red drops over her.
“Jacob!”
Shocked, he turned to Alexa and mouthed, “I’m sorry.” Then, as if time stopped cold, he crumpled forward and tumbled down the steps, only to unfurl, wide-eyed and bleeding, on the shell-encrusted ground at Rose’s feet.
Coldly, Rose stepped over him, stopping only to retrieve the Queen’s Charm from his hand. Alexa turned her face away from her fallen brother, knowing he’d betrayed her even as he’d tried to save her. A mass of contradictions assailed her, none of which she had time to sort through. Was Rose from the faction of the K’vr that believed the necklace was the source of the power, or did they understand the true nature of the charm?
“You didn’t have to kill him!” she screamed.
Rose gave Jacob a cursory glance. “He was in the way.”
“Meaning you meant to kill me,” Alexa surmised. Rose took the steps slowly.
Cat had rolled so that the advancing enemy could not see her face. She had one hand gripped tightly around her wound, but the blood seeping through her fingers wasn’t bad. A flesh wound, likely. Alexa wished Cat would verify her suspicion with a thought, but she could see her friend was too hurt to wrangle her psychic energy. Alexa had to get them out of this. Rose had the necklace. There was a chance she might be able to enter the castle without worry about the magic on the other side of the door.
But the gunmen couldn’t.
Just as Rose’s foot touched the top step, Damon appeared and in two flashes of blue light, disarmed the gunmen below. The rifles flew high into the air, then landed in melted, mangled heaps on the ground. With a frightening battle cry, he leveled another set of flares toward the men themselves. One fell. The other ran, singed, into the tangle of trees. Knowing Damon could do nothing to stop Rose with his magic, Alexa launched herself into the woman’s side, sending her flying.
If Damon was experiencing uncontrollable rage since he had called upon Rogan’s magic again, Alexa imagined the eruption of emotion was nothing compared to the fury flooding through her as she tussled with her former assistant. Though formidable when flanked by armed gunmen, Rose wilted beneath Alexa’s well-placed strikes to her nose and ribs. Applying pressure to the woman’s wrist, she released the necklace from her grip and snatched it back.
“You’re so fired,” Alexa said, before delivering one more blow to Rose’s chin, which left her unconscious.
When she spun on Damon, she saw the fire building in his eyes, even as he leaned against the door. He was both weakened and powerful. Reluctant and determined. His gaze had drifted to Cat, who’d scuttled as far away from Damon as she could. With the Queen’s Charm firmly in her hand, Alexa shouted his name.
He turned. She moved to kiss him, to release the evil coursing through him, but he pushed her away. She tripped down the stairs, falling to where Jacob lay dead, her body aching and her mind confused. Was she too late?
“Alexa?” Cat called desperately as Damon turned back toward her.
“Damon, no!”
She stood, opening her arms wide. “If you’re going to hurt someone, hurt me.”
Below her, she heard a croaked, “No.”
“Jacob?”
Though blood soaked his shirt and his skin had paled so that he nearly blended into the sandy ground, Jacob turned his face a quarter of an inch and blinked. He didn’t have much time. He knew. Fear streaked in his glossy gaze, scaring her as much as the anger and rage building in Damon just a few feet above her.
“Not Rose,” Jacob said, his voice barely audible. “Keith.”
“Who?”
Just beyond the edge of the trees, Alexa heard rustling again. Not the breeze this time. Not even the soldier who’d deserted. Someone else. The Coast Guard? Another accomplice?
She glanced at Damon, who stared woefully at his hands, which sparked with the same blue flame he’d used to disarm the gunmen.
Jacob gasped for air. “Rogan’s…” He gulped in another painful breath, then exhaled with the word “heir” dying on his lips.
Alexa turned toward the trees and spied a dark head bobbing beyond the thicket of palmetto. “Keith!” she called, thinking fast. “You coward! Rogan’s heir wouldn’t run from a fight, would he?”
The dark head stopped its retreat and with infinite slowness turned toward her. He was a kid. A teenager. But the hatred in his eyes was unmistakable. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, but his sneer spoke volumes. And so did the fact that he’d watched this entire confrontation from the sidelines. He expected Jacob and Rose, two people once close to her, to do his dirty work. Well, if there was one thing Alexa knew about, it was how to properly take on a legacy of power—and this punk had a hell of a lot to learn.
“You did this,” she accused. “You killed my brother. You caused this bloodshed and you hide in the bushes like a snake? Take it from someone who runs a multimillion-dollar empire, kid. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”
The young man accepted her challenge. He came out of the trees, his chin jutted forward. Only then did Alexa notice the automatic pistol clutched in his hand.
“You should have let me go when you had the chance,” he taunted.
Damon started down the steps. Keith held his gun higher. “You may have my magic, but you’re not impervious to bullets. And neither is she.”
Thirty Three
He turned the gun yet again on Alexa, who’d managed to back up a few feet, but not nearly enough to avoid being shot at close range if the kid had even halfway-decent aim.
Damon stopped. The fire in his eyes flickered, flaming and then burning out, then flaming again. He was struggling against the evil infection of Rogan’s magic. Struggling, but not winning. Sweat dripped down his face, soaking his shirt to his body. His hands shook.
Out of the corner of her eye, Alexa saw Cat crawl back into the castle. One less person in the line of fire, she thought. Now it was up to her and Damon to bring this to a close.
“Damon,” she said, turning to face him completely. “I love you.”
Behind her, Keith laughed. “How romantic, wasting your last breath on sappy shit. Go on,” he urged Damon. “Declare your love for her, too, so I can shoot you both and claim what is mine.”
“You can’t kill him,” Alexa said, her voice balanced and calm. She’d negotiated business deals with sultans and despots. She could certainly manage one homicidal teenager. “He’s the source of the magic. You need him or you’ll have nothing.”
The lie tripped off her tongue easily, and from the horrified look on the kid’s face, she knew he’d bought her story instantly.
“Is he?” he asked, his eyes wide and mouth agape.
“Rogan?” Alexa turned back to Damon, the fire still flickering in the stormy gray depths of his eyes. “I don’t know. Are you?”
Two words. One short question, but enough to push Damon over the threshold between victim and master. With a guttural shout that called up a mighty wind, Damon lifted his hand high, and Keith’s feet were ripped out from beneath him. He flew one way and the gun the other. Alexa dove over Jacob’s lifeless body, retrieved the weapon and threw it as far as she could into the bramble.
In the distance, she heard sirens. A bullhorn. The rattle of gunfire.