Nicholas was on his hands and knees, clouds fogging his mind as he tried to shake off the pain. Tamara survived such attacks all the time, and sure, he’d trained for this. But damn, it hurt to get thrown into a bar. He’d pissed Jacqueline off and would probably die for it, but a low, raspy laugh escaped his lips. His plan had nearly worked. Drain Jacqueline of her powers and kill her, then return to Tamara, call it a day, and watch some football on TV. Apparently, the plan was going to have to change.
He flinched as Jacqueline threw a chair at him with a mere flick of her wrist. The wood smashed into him. His ribs screamed as they took the brunt of the blow. Magic surged through him, eager to fight back. He raised a hand, flinging out a blast of his own power. When his green energy blast hit her hastily constructed shield, she was forced back a step. While her shield was up, she couldn’t immediately retaliate, so he took the opportunity to get to his feet.
“Why couldn’t you just kill her? I set my spell up so nicely,” Jacqueline snapped.
“Sorry, but I’m not inclined to be some witch’s boy toy.” Nicholas leaned against the bar, his chest still stinging where the chair had struck him.
The pair of them eyed each other, like alpha wolves vying for dominance. The distance between them crackled with their magic, eager to be used, to kill, to destroy. The bar door opened before either of them could make another move. Tamara stood there, panting and looking pissed as hell and weak as a kitten. What the hell was she doing here? He’d told her to stay put.
“Tamara, get out of here!” he warned.
“So nice of you to join us.” Jacqueline smiled, her tone oozing with sarcasm. “It will be a pleasure to kill you, since you robbed me of my lover.”
“That overgrown furball? Really? No offense, but you’ve got bad taste in men,” Tamara replied with a smug grin. Nicholas stifled a pained laugh. He should have known Tamara wouldn’t listen to him when it came to her own safety.
Jacqueline threw a bolt of red light at Tamara, who dodged just in time to avoid being struck. The door sizzled and smoked where the bolt of magic had struck it. Tamara, rather than run for her life, just narrowed her eyes and raised a small crossbow. She aimed at Jacqueline with a dark grin.
The short bolt left the bow, hurtling through the air, but Jacqueline was completely protected behind her shield. The bolt bounced off the shield and clattered to the ground. Jacqueline kicked it away with her black-heeled boot and raised a hand toward Tamara.
Tamara stood her ground, but Nicholas was already moving. He needed to distract the sorceress long enough to give Tamara time to attack. He grabbed the empty glass tray and threw it at Jacqueline. Her shield was much weaker on the side facing his direction. She was not trained, like he was, to maintain a shield of equal strength on all sides. She hadn’t trained for battle like he had. The tray caught her in the shoulder, and she spun toward him. Her magic turned on him. She fired a red ray of power, and it hit him in the chest. A cry ripped from his throat as pain like nothing he’d ever felt sliced through him in a fiery burn.
He staggered back, the force of the blow making his heart beat unsteadily. The blast rippled through his body in poisonous waves. He gasped and fell to his knees, her magic shooting through him like an electric shock out of control. Tamara’s scream sounded so far away, and he could barely see her, a blurry figure sprinting in his direction. Jacqueline swatted her hand at Tamara, as though batting away an irksome fly. A red bolt of destructive magic flashed in Tamara’s direction just before Nicholas’s vision blacked out.
The flash of red blinded Tamara as it struck her stomach, and she collided with the pool table.
Air whooshed out of her lungs, and she rolled across the pool table, scattering the balls across the felt.
There was a second of unpleasant free-falling as she reached the edge of the pool table and dropped to the ground. Her left shoulder and hip crunched when they came into contact with the floor. She ran a shaky hand over her stomach, checking for a gaping hole in her body. Her shirt was charred and ripped in places. But her skin was perfectly fine, except for it being extremely hot to the touch. All those years of Nicholas forcing her to drink magic-repellant shakes for breakfast were finally paying off. But her shirt—it was ruined.
“First my jeans, now my shirt.” Tamara was tired of playing games. That bitch owed her a new wardrobe.
The sorceress started toward her, a maniacal glint in her eyes.
Tamara got to her feet, ignoring the sudden dizziness. She was still far too weak for this fight, but she needed to end it fast and get to Nicholas. He had to be okay. She refused to accept any alternative. Forcing her eyes away from his limp form, she focused on what she needed to do. She grabbed the nearest pool cue and readied herself to defend against an attack.
“Do you plan on beating me to death with that?” The sorceress seemed to find her choice of weapon highly amusing.
Tamara eyed the cue speculatively and then, without hesitation, snapped it in half on her raised thigh. Now she had two short, sharpened sticks to work with. “As much as I would enjoy that, I’ve got a lot to do today, and you’re wasting my time. I bet one of these through your chest will be just as good as anything,” Tamara replied as she brandished the jagged-edged pieces. She’d always wanted to go Buffy the Vampire Slayer on someone, and now was her chance.
The sorceress grimaced.
“How my Antonio ever wanted a psychotic little thing like you . . . ,” she muttered.
“Maybe I’m better in the sack. I’m guessing your skills are rusty. You’re, what? Like two hundred years old?” Normally she didn’t resort to petty banter with enemies, but her bold words drew out the sorceress’s fury and attention, which gave her time to plan.
“Why, you little . . .” Jacqueline’s shout grated over Tamara’s ears.
Tamara leapt at her, wooden sticks raised. The sorceress flicked her wrist, and the sticks in Tamara’s hands exploded into sawdust.
“What the hell?” Tamara stumbled back, trying to change tactics as Jacqueline abandoned magic momentarily and launched herself at Tamara. Tamara snuck one of her curled fists through a small opening in Jacqueline’s defenses and caught the sorceress on the jaw.
Anytime now, Nick, anytime. She wondered if Nicholas was going to wake up. Not if—when. He’d wake up. He had to.
Jacqueline wound her hands around Tamara’s throat, magic and strength allowing her to constrict Tamara’s windpipe. Black spots danced over her eyes, and sharp pain shot through her lungs as she struggled to breathe. Slats of light and dark flashed through her head, like she was on a train, seeing light streak through windows as they passed in and out of brief tunnels. And then she blacked out completely.
Jacqueline dropped the hunter, letting her body crack against the pool table and crumple on the ground unmoving. She would have gloated on any other occasion, but she knew her spell had made the hunter weak. Without that spell, Jacqueline would have lost in a hand-to-hand battle.
A low groan of pain from the tracker reminded her that she had one more problem to deal with before she could leave. There would be no use in keeping him now, because he was more trouble than she’d anticipated. She advanced on the tracker, who was gasping for breath on his knees near the bar. It was a pity to waste such a beautiful man, but his determination to defy her was problematic. She supposed she shouldn’t take a lover who was inclined to try to kill her.
Nicholas’s vision blurred as he stared up at the sorceress. She raised one hand over his head, ready to finish him off. His heart ached. He’d failed. Tamara was dead because he hadn’t done his job, but it was more than that. Without her, he was nothing—his life was meaningless. His heart splintered in his chest, his eyes burning with the pain of tears he couldn’t shed. The image of her face flashed before his eyes, the young girl he’d first fallen in love with, her serious gray eyes full of sorrow. She’d become the woman he loved now, the warrior and lover, both gentle and fierce. Something thick in his throat made it hard to swallow. He stared up at the sorceress, not really seeing her. The memories of his life flitted past his vision like faded ghosts.
Jacqueline began to murmur an incantation, one that would drain him of his powers. He couldn’t fight it in his weakened state.
Let my death be quick. Let me find my love in the next life. He resigned himself to his fate, but then a gun materialized out of the haze, next to the sorceress’s temple.
“Give me a reason, bitch, and I’ll end you.” Tamara’s voice cut through his haze.
Jacqueline’s lips curled like a rabid animal, but she lowered her hand.
“Break the spell, and I’ll let you leave and never come back. If I so much as hear your name again, I will hunt you down and finish you off. I won’t hesitate to bring the entire Brotherhood down on your head,” Tamara hissed.
“I will do no such thing,” Jacqueline snapped.
Tamara cocked the gun with a click, but Jacqueline still did not break the spell. Nicholas waited for one of the women to act. Both simply stared at each other for a long, hard moment. Suddenly, Jacqueline pointed her hand at the ground near Tamara’s feet and exploded the floor in a shower of black smoke and silver sparks.
Tamara was knocked backward. Jacqueline ducked below the gun’s line of fire and broke into a run, vanishing out the bar’s door.
Nicholas called out, his voice hoarse. Tamara lingered in the doorway before turning back around.
“She got away.” Tamara returned to his side, holding out a hand to help him up. He flinched and drew back from her. The lust spell was still in him. He could feel it clawing at his insides like an enraged dragon. Tamara blinked and withdrew her hand. The flicker of hurt in her eyes stung him, but he had to protect her.
“I thought I told you to stay in bed.” He groaned as he got to his feet. The faint pulse was still in his lips, and he drew back again when she reached to touch him. “The spell isn’t broken. Don’t touch me.”
Tamara’s eyes widened in unhappy surprise. “What are we going to do? How do we break it?”
“Well, usually you have to either convince the spell caster to undo it, or you have to kill them. But unfortunately, she just walked out the door before we could do anything about it,” Nicholas explained, weariness and exhaustion taking its toll, along with the shock of knowing that their only salvation from the deadly spell had just evaporated.
“We’ll find her. We can find her, right?” Tamara’s eyes shimmered with tears.
He was right there with her, shock and devastation tightening his throat. If they couldn’t find Jacqueline and break the spell, they couldn’t be together. Her eyes reflected what was in his heart. Even if they swore to never touch, it was a promise that was bound to be broken. After he’d kissed her, held her in his arms and made love to her, he couldn’t deny himself her touch forever. If they couldn’t be together physically, one of them would have to leave the city, perhaps even the country.
“She’ll probably disappear. She’s more than two hundred years old. She’s bound to have tricks up her sleeve. We’ll never see her again.” Nicholas leaned against the pool table, heavy in defeat.
Tamara took a deep, shuddering breath as she tried to accept this news.
“Let’s get back home, and we’ll try to figure out what our options are.” Nicholas let out his breath in a long sigh, weariness stealing through him.
“What do you mean?”
“Tamara, if I can’t touch you ever again, we may have to have Damien assign you a new tracker. Not to mention that we have to deal with what happened this afternoon . . .” Nicholas trailed off.
“No, don’t say it. Don’t ruin it.” Tamara bit her lip and fumbled for her car keys. “I’ll see you at home,” she mumbled and dashed out the bar door.
Nicholas dug into his pocket for his cell phone, and he called Damien. His boss might give him hell for this, but he had to make the call.
“Nicholas? Everything all right?” Damien’s cool voice came through the phone.
“Jacqueline Allaire got me with some sort of energy-sucking spell. I can’t touch Tamara without draining her. It nearly killed her. We confronted Allaire, but she . . . escaped. I have no way of finding her. She’s too powerful and too smart to let a tracker like me find her. But I need to find her and end this.” Nicholas edited the truth behind the events of their fight with Jacqueline. The last thing he could do was confess that he’d crossed a line with Tamara both emotionally and physically.
“I’ll get Robert on it. He has a few extra tricks that aren’t . . . Well, let’s say they’re neither safe nor advisable. Otherwise, I’d tell you to try them. Once he has her location, he’ll send it to you.”
“Thanks, Damien. If Allaire doesn’t die, this spell won’t go away. We’ll have to get Tamara another tracker.” Nicholas cringed as he voiced the horrible thought aloud.
“We’ll worry about that later, okay?” Damien calmly assured him and then hung up.
That guy never acts the way I expect him to. Rather than chew his head off, Damien was showing support. Nicholas pocketed his phone and headed for his own car.