Tilting her chin, Anna wrapped herself in the unwavering comfort of Cezar’s bond. This golden palace with the swirling mist and priceless works of art might be impressive, but it was nothing more than a cold, empty prison. Just as all the countless homes that Anna had inhabited over the centuries had been hallow shells.
Did Morgana realize her loss? Had she ever felt true emotions?
“You know, Morgana, as much as I might hate you and what you’ve done, I still pity you.”
“Pity me?” Without warning, Morgana was moving forward, striking Anna across the face with enough force to split her lip. Obviously being pitied was more infuriating than being insulted. Go figure. “I have more than you could ever dream possible.”
“You have nothing,” Anna denied, determined to press the woman’s temper. A fine notion, supposing her powers decided to make a timely return. If not…well, she was shit out of luck. “You have no one who loves you, no one who cares. You’re completely alone and there’s not a creature on this earth who would mourn if you died. Actually, I don’t doubt that there would be a celebration on your grave. That’s…just sad.”
The next blow sent Anna to her knees. “Shut up,” Morgana hissed.
Pain ricocheted through Anna’s head, but along with it came the first stirring in her blood. Thank merciful heaven. She wasn’t doomed to fighting the magical queen with nothing more than a chunk of emerald and her bare hands.
Sheer relief allowed her to climb to her feet.
Still, she didn’t instantly strike out. The power was faint and elusive, as if stupidly hoping that it wouldn’t need to be used.
Or perhaps it was her own conscience that was stupidly hoping.
In either case it was…yeah, stupid.
“It isn’t too late, you know,” she grudgingly muttered, wiping the blood from her lips. She had no idea if she was capable of besting Morgana even with her powers at full force, but her sense of fair play demanded that she at least try to convince the woman to avoid a bloody, lethal smack down.
“Too late?” Morgana sneered, her hand lifting to encircle Anna in bands of punishing air.
Anna groaned in pain, but refused to back down. “I assume that you’re capable of changing if you really want to.”
Morgana laughed in genuine amusement. “You mean that I could become a loving, benevolent queen who adores her subjects?”
The bands continued to slowly tighten, threatening to cut off Anna’s air supply. Not to mention hurting like a bitch. “Something like that,” she rasped.
Confident that she had Anna at her mercy, Morgana stepped forward and grasped her chin in a punishing grip. “And I suppose that would also include not killing you?”
“That would be first on the list,” Anna rasped, her powers starting to pump full force as a blackness began to swirl through her oxygen-deprived mind. The choking bands wouldn’t kill her, but they would make her pass out for a time.
Morgana narrowed her eyes. “Fool.”
“No, simply a woman who understands that after two centuries of merely surviving, life is worth nothing without love in it. You might someday rule the world, but you will still be miserable.”
The magnificent green eyes flashed, as if overwhelmed by the need to shut up Anna’s soft words.
“Life is about power,” she gritted, using her grip on Anna’s face to bang her head into the column. “Who has it…” Bang, bang, bang. “Who doesn’t.”
Anna couldn’t halt her cry of agony as her skull began to crack beneath the relentless pounding. She had to stop this.
Now.
Unconsciously grasping the emerald tight in her hand, she forced her poor, abused mind to concentrate on the heat that bubbled in her blood.
For once the energy didn’t just burst out of her in an uncontrollable flood. In fact, it didn’t go anywhere. Instead, she felt herself sink into the golden waves that flowed through her body, like beautiful ribbons that sparkled with a brilliant glow.
Since the powers had first started to manifest themselves, she had hated them. No…she’d feared them. They marked her as even more different. Even more apart from the rest of the world.
Now she realized that the magic was a gift. It wasn’t evil, just as it wasn’t good. It just…was. An elemental force that was formed and directed by her own heart.
And it was that acceptance that offered her the control that had been so elusive.
Allowing the heat to pour upward, she focused on the bands that held her with a ruthless grip. In her mind she could picture them, as hard and thick as steel. They would be impossible to break with brute force, so instead she imagined her powers seeping deep inside them, the heat melting them until they became pliable.
Releasing her powers, she clenched her hands as Morgana continued with her assault, her blows becoming even more vicious as she sensed Anna’s attempt to escape.
“No,” Morgana hissed. “This time you die.”
Anna gritted her teeth, battling the pain even as she sensed the bonds beginning to loosen.
“You’re too weak to kill me, Morgana,” she warned. “Stop this before I’m forced to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” Morgana gave a wild scream, her hand crushing the bones of Anna’s chin. “I am a queen, a goddess. My powers are without end. You are nothing more than an abomination.”
Not so many years ago, Anna might have agreed with her psycho aunt. She had felt like an abomination. But not anymore.
Now she realized that she was something special, something unique. Something worthy of being loved.
And that was everything.
“I’m Anna Randal, a woman who is intelligent, capable, and a damn fine lawyer,” she said proudly, feeling the bonds slowly, but surely, loosening beneath her steady flow of energy. “I’m mate to Conde Cezar and distant granddaughter of King Arthur. And just as importantly, I’m the woman who is destined to kick your ass.”
“Why you vain little bitch, I will…”
Sensing the bonds were fragile, Anna ignored Morgana’s furious tirade, concentrating on one last surge of power. Her heart gave a leap of shock as she felt them shatter and fall away.
Before Morgana could react, Anna lifted her hand, grasping Morgana’s wrist and with one fierce motion twisted it away from her face. The wrenching pain nearly sent her to her knees, but she refused to so much as blink as she glared into the murderous green eyes.
“Stop this now, Morgana,” she said, her voice astonishingly steady, although the words were slurred from her injured chin. “I won’t tell you again.”
Something that might have been genuine fear briefly flared through Morgana’s gaze before she jerked her arm free and tossed her long mane of crimson hair. “You think I’m frightened just because my brother taught you a few tricks? It won’t save you.”
Anna smiled, not bothering to correct the impression that Arthur had taught her to use her powers. It was much better for Morgana to believe she had gained some training than to admit she was still fumbling and bumbling her way through it all.
“Actually, those tricks seem to be doing a fine job of saving me,” she retorted, her hand lifting to touch her aching chin. It was healing, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt. A lot. “And if you don’t back off they’re going to do a fine job of killing you.”
Morgana’s lips twisted, her hands pointed toward Anna as her hair floated in the rising breeze.
“Die.”
Anna gasped and then braced herself against the sharp pellets of air that threatened to skewer her. Damn, she didn’t know that you could turn air into bullets.
Not the most pleasant of surprises.
Jerking as a particularly vicious shard sliced open the skin of her stomach, Anna instinctively lifted the emerald that had begun to glow with a shimmering green light.
It was time for the gem to do what it was supposed to do.
Whatever the hell that was.
Still being peppered with the painful daggers of air, she ignored the urge to cower behind one of the marble columns and instead concentrated on the glow spreading from the gem. Surely Arthur wouldn’t have called her to his grave to give her this if it didn’t have some effect on Morgana?
For a time it did nothing but swirl about her. Pretty enough, but not exactly what she was hoping for. It was only when she was completely cloaked in the strange green flame that it stopped its swirling and thickened. Thickened enough that the agonizing attack was brought to an end.
Sucking in a deep breath, Anna leaned wearily against the column and studied the green glow. Through the flaming haze she could see Morgana, her arms outstretched as if she were still using her powers, but nothing passed through the fire.
In fact…narrowing her gaze, she reached out with her senses.
It was more than deflecting the powerful blows, she realized, although she didn’t know how. It was absorbing them.
Okay. This was a good thing. A really, really good thing.
Unfortunately, she didn’t really know how to use the weapon beyond protecting herself.
Straightening from the column, she took a cautious step forward. The glow followed her, keeping her protected even as Morgana screamed in fury and hurled what looked to be a fireball directly at her.
She took another step and another, ignoring Morgana’s shrieks and even the distant knowledge that the palace was beginning to shake with the force of the queen’s power. Overhead the glass dome shattered, littering the room with deadly shards, but neither woman took her eyes off the other as the lethal battle of wills persisted without pause.
Lost in her anger, it took Morgana some time to at last realize that her desperate strikes weren’t harming Anna. It wasn’t until Anna was standing almost directly in front of her that she dropped her hands and took a step backward.
Or at least she attempted to take a step backward.
The green eyes widened as she was snapped forward, presumably by the force of the emerald.
“What are you doing?” the queen demanded, an unmistakable fear threaded through her voice. “Stop this.”
Anna managed a wry smile through her lingering pain. “You want me to stop so you can kill me?”
“I will kill you either way, but it’s up to you whether it’s fast or painfully slow.”
The brave words echoed through the crumbling chamber, but they rang empty as Morgana was jerked closer to the pulsing emerald glow.
Anna’s eyes widened as she realized that the emerald had gone from absorbing Morgana’s power to actually trying to absorb the woman behind the powers.
Was that possible?
Even in the wacky world of demons it seemed…bizarre.
Not at all sure what was coming next, Anna took a step back, needing a moment to consider the implications. It was a moment that was to be denied her as Morgana gave a low cry and tried to grab a nearby column as she skidded across the marble floor in Anna’s wake.
Holy crap.
Anna glanced down at the emerald that had started to pulse in her hand, the green glow darkening and spreading as if it scented its prey.
And that prey was Morgana le Fay.
Coming to a sharp halt, Anna could do nothing but watch as Morgana was hauled ever closer to the strange flames that surrounded her.
“No,” Morgana rasped, arching her back as if she could somehow avoid the encroaching shimmer. “What do you want? Gold? Power? To sit at my side and rule?”
Now she wanted to bargain?
Anna gave a sad shake of her head. She didn’t know what the hell was going on with the emerald, but whatever it was, it was now out of her control.
“I told you what I wanted, but you refused to listen,” she muttered, her stomach twisting with a strange sense of resignation. “You just had to keep pushing me until it came to this.”
“Fine, I’ll push you no more,” the woman promised with more desperation than sincerity. “You set me free and I will never trouble you again.”
Anna rolled her eyes. For God’s sake, did the woman think she was completely brain-dead? Even assuming she could set Morgana free, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her homicidal aunt would strike without blinking an eye.
A promise from the Queen of Fairies wasn’t actually something she could take to the bank.
Gritting her teeth, she tried to ignore the steady pulse of the gem. Ugh. It felt as if…as if Morgana’s very essence was being absorbed into the stone.
Damn.
Her grandfather had promised the stone would help direct her powers. He hadn’t said anything about sucking Morgana into it.
Obviously the emerald’s power came something as a surprise to Morgana as well. Her expression was contorted as she wrapped her arms around herself, once again calling on her powers as if they might save her from the inevitable.
“Damn you, Anna Randal,” she screeched, her eyes glittering with a feral hatred. “You can’t best me. It isn’t possible. I’m your queen.”
“You’re not my queen,” Anna muttered, resisting the urge to close her eyes. If she had to be the one responsible for killing Morgana le Fay, then by God, she would have to be the one to witness the tragedy. “Never my queen.”
“You’re wrong,” Morgana hissed. “I’m destined to rule the world.”
Anna grimaced as the green glow crawled relentlessly up Morgana’s arms and the overly proud woman fell to her knees. Around her the room continued to shake beneath Morgana’s power, pieces of marble and gold flying through the air.
“Yeah, not so much,” she breathed.
A disturbing cry was wrenched from Morgana’s lips as she became consumed in the green fire.
“Modron. Where is my seer?” Morgana wailed, giving a confused shake of her head. “I need her. I need…”
A wave of regret crashed through Anna as Morgana was completely swallowed by the power of the emerald. It wasn’t that she didn’t accept that this was the only possible choice. Morgana le Fay was not only determined to kill her, but she was a megalomaniac who wouldn’t be satisfied until she had the entire world bowing at her feet. But, that didn’t mean Anna could take pleasure in her horrid punishment.
The flickering flames were beginning to thicken, obscuring the kneeling woman in a thick cloak of green.
For a moment the awful wailing continued, then there was an explosion of green fire and Anna screamed as she was thrown across the vast room and crashed into the golden throne.
The various demons and others who crowded into the cramped kitchen froze in wary unease as Cezar hauled Troy against the wall. No doubt they expected him to rip out the throat of the imp who had, after all, taken him hostage. Cezar, however, was not nearly as furious with Troy as he was with himself.
How the hell had he forgotten for even a moment that he had given his ring to Anna for her to wear around her throat? Dios, he must be losing his mind. The ancient ring might not claim the same magic as her emerald, but it possessed the one thing he needed to find her.
He ignored their questioning glances as he glared into the imp’s wide eyes. “You’re going to take me to Anna,” he growled.
Troy swallowed the lump in his throat. “I told you it’s not possible.”
“Can you make a portal or not?”
“Of course I can make a portal. I am fey.”
“Then do it.”
Troy rolled his eyes. “I have to know where I’m going and no one, no one, knows where Avalon is located. Only Morgana can create a portal there.”
Cezar couldn’t allow the thought of Anna alone on the isle with Morgana to enter his mind. He was too close to the edge. Suddenly Styx was at his side, his hand landing on Cezar’s shoulder to keep him steady.
“You can use a person to anchor your portal,” he said to Troy, his voice edged with his barely contained fury.
“I may be the Prince of Imps, but I don’t have the sort of power to latch on to a woman I’ve met on two occasions, through the protective mists that surround the isle,” Troy retorted, his expression hardening with impatience. “It’s like randomly dialing numbers on the telephone in the hope you hit the person you want to talk to. I don’t have enough of her essence to call her to my mind.”
“You won’t have to. You can dial my number.”
Troy blinked, and then blinked again. “Forgive me, Conde, but I don’t think it’s going to be a lot of help if I make a portal leading to you.”
“No.” Cezar gave the imp a small shake. It was that or choke him. “Anna is not only my mate, but she was wearing my ring. A ring that has been an intimate part of me for the past five centuries. You search for an echo of me and you will find her.”
A silence filled the room as Troy considered his words. “I suppose it might work,” he at last conceded.
“It will work,” Cezar said grimly, not willing to allow any doubt that he would soon have Anna in his arms. “Now do it.”
Troy frowned, a hint of reluctance flashing through his eyes. “Before I do this, I want your promise that you will protect me from the queen. Morgana’s not particularly happy with me right now and…”
Cezar growled low in his throat. “Troy, you test my patience.”
“Fine,” Troy huffed. “Release me and I’ll make your damn portal.”
Stepping back, Cezar kept a close watch on the imp as he smoothed his long mane of crimson hair before moving to the small clearing in the center of the kitchen. At Cezar’s side, Styx snorted in disgust as Troy held out his slender hands, waving them in a fluttering motion, as if searching for the best location for his portal. Like one spot on the cracked, filthy linoleum was better than another.
Ridiculous poof.
Impatiently awaiting the portal to appear, Cezar was caught off-guard when Troy abruptly reached back and grasped his wrist in a tight grip.
“Careful, imp,” he hissed.
“The more strongly I have the sense of you, the easier it will be to locate Anna,” Troy retorted, his eyes trained straight ahead. “Besides, a vampire can’t travel through a magical source unless he is connected to a fey. You’re nothing more than a passenger on this ride.”
Styx abruptly moved to Cezar’s side, growling deep in his throat. “Cezar, take care. I do not trust this fey. It could be a trap.”
“Don’t worry, Styx.” With a swift movement he turned his hand, taking command of the imp’s grip with a painful squeeze. “Troy knows what will happen if he disappoints me.”
Giving a squawk of pain, Troy glared at Cezar over his shoulder. “I really, really hate vampires.”
“Not as much as you’re going to if you fail me,” Cezar warned.
Muttering under his breath, Troy lifted his free hand and the shimmer of a portal began to form. Instinctively the vampires backed away, their distaste for magic clearly etched on their faces.
Cezar didn’t so much as flinch. It was going to take a hell of a lot more than magic to keep him away from Anna.
Coiled and prepared to strike, Cezar waited as Troy closed his eyes and did whatever it was the fey did to reach out and sense others. His muscles were trembling by the time Troy sucked in a sharp breath and stiffened in fear.
“Damn my luck,” he muttered. “I found her.”
Cezar didn’t allow himself to feel relief. Not yet. Not until Anna was away from Avalon and Morgana was dead. “Let’s go.”
Troy hesitated for a heartbeat before he muttered another foul curse and stepped into the portal, dragging Cezar in his wake.
In the blink of an eye the kitchen dissolved, to be replaced by an impenetrable blackness. He’d heard that most portal travelers saw flashing lights and experienced electrical charges that pulsed over their skin but as a vampire he could sense nothing. That didn’t mean he enjoyed the trip. Actually he’d rather have his fangs pulled than plunge himself in the middle of so much magic.
Keeping a crushing grip on Troy, Cezar closed his mind to the disturbing mode of transportation and instead concentrated on his bond with Anna. Soon, he soothed his ravaged nerves. Soon he would be at her side and he would destroy anyone or anything that was trying to harm her.
In the end it was soon, although it seemed like an eternity. Troy led him out of the portal and into a vast, marble room that was in the process of falling in on their heads.
“Shit,” Troy breathed as he was hit by a flying piece of marble. “This doesn’t look right.”
Cezar ignored the debris that battered his body, his senses leaping with stark relief at the unmistakable sense of Anna.
“She’s here.” He swiftly scanned the room, seeking his mate among the piles of rubble. “Anna!” he shouted, moving forward without concern for the dangers that might be hidden. He would deal with anything that sought to keep him from his woman.
“Damn, it looks like World War Three just arrived,” Troy muttered, grimacing at the layer of powdered marble that was coating his spandex pants. He cowardly remained close to the portal he had left open for a quick escape. “Where’s Morgana?”
Ignoring the pest, Cezar stiffened in fear as he caught sight of the slender body lying in a broken heap near the ornate throne.
“Anna,” he rasped, flowing swiftly to her side and bending next to her. With exquisite care he gathered her off the floor and held her tightly cradled against his chest. His heart twisted with pain. She was alive, but she was gravely wounded.
Clearly sensing his presence, Anna struggled to lift her lashes and regarded him in dazed confusion.
“Cezar? Is that really you?” she whispered.
He bent his head to press his lips to her forehead. “Si. It’s really me,” he assured her softly, a sharp fear piercing his heart as he felt her violent tremble. Damn, she must be convulsing. Pulling back, he regarded her with a concern that rapidly shifted to disbelief. Dios. Was she laughing? “What’s so funny?” he demanded.
Her smile lingered despite the tears that were streaming down her filthy face. “I saw the portal and I thought…”
“What? What did you think?”
“‘Beam me up, Scotty.’”