Jack found Katrina gone when he had awakened that morning. He had not been able to get over the fact they had joined after all these years. So when he received Katrina’s message, he eagerly followed her invitation. Finding no seals or traps, he quietly entered through the second floor.
He could smell death. Smell the scent of his brother’s insanity in this.
Heard his beloved’s grief as a lunatic raged near her.
This was a man Jack had never seen, but his instincts warred. This raging man was the man his brother had hired. Jack understood now. His brother had written a clause that Jack would be Lycon’s toy forever and completely — if Jack were unable to fulfill his contract.
Jack would not let that happen. Invisibility was a skill he’d come to rely on many a time. He had a duty as a husband to the woman he’d recently joined and as a businessman. With quiet stealth, he stole past Katrina, knowing full well by the slight lifting of her shoulders that she was well aware he was in the room, but he couldn’t take that chance of being seen.
Not just yet.
Jack flew into the air and fired an attack on David.
David returned fire, finding nothing to attack. He stood in the center of the room, his hands aimed for a fight he could not see as he moved his body around one-hundred-eighty degrees.
Jack hovered above him, wanting to torture this man on so many levels, but he dare not take the chance of his beloved being destroyed again or being held by Lycon for eternity.
Jack descended in front of David as David stood still. Jack’s hand formed a claw and held it at David’s soul. From the corner of his eye, he saw Katrina look their way, waiting. Jack summoned his power to the brink and waited until it built to its highest form of destruction and fired. David leaped back from the blast as if he had sensed his coming death, twisting but not escaping the mutilation.
David fired at the stairway.
Jack speared to the ceiling to stop it, but Katrina threw up a shield, protecting them. Katrina walked through the shield and began firing at David. Jack joined Katrina from behind.
David tossed out fireballs, alternating with each hand, before raising his fist to the ceiling and pulling.
The black mass simmering above dropped.
Jack was next to Katrina in a heartbeat and held her close, shielding them both as he blew the black mass into the chimney. When the room cleared, David was gone.
Katrina sank into Jack’s arms. “I wasn’t sure you had received my message.”
Jack said nothing for a moment, enjoying his beloved in his arms once again. “Nothing like joining and skipping out in the morning,” he said with a bit of humor laced in his voice. “Is that what the lasses do these days? Thank heaven I don’t have a daughter or I would be killing every last man in this world.”
His Katrina was scaring him the way she wasn’t responding.