Chapter 37
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
Sydney
A quarius gasps. I follow suit when I spot a familiar man leading a dozen vicious, berobed figures. “Zain?”
He doesn’t speak, just reaches through the crowd and grabs my hair in a firm fist, then yanks me against his chest and positions me like a human shield.
This isn’t a friendly hug. I’m now his captive.
Bloody hell. I thrash against his hold and a sudden accompanying bite of pain, but he’s wiry and deceptively strong. That’s particularly evident when he wraps his other hand around my throat and squeezes.
“Let her go!” Caden lunges for me, fury carved into his strong face.
Zain drags me into the cluster of hooded figures, his grip on my windpipe crushing as he runs his tongue up my cheek. “Of my little bargaining chip? I think not. She’ll make a lovely sacrifice.”
Panic sets in. I flail and scratch, but I can’t break free. Tears sting my eyes. Why didn’t I listen when Caden and the others tried to warn me of the danger?
With a growl, Caden lurches for me again. “You son of a?—”
“He’s baiting you.” Bram jerks Caden back.
“You think?” Zain buries his face in my neck, inhaling long and loud, before he growls in disgust. “Ugh. You smell like him.” He tosses his head at Caden. “Every pore. Everywhere. The stench of integrity.”
“Enough with the games. What do you want?” Bram demands.
“As if you have no notion.” Zain’s laugh is humorless. “Give me that book you’re holding or the bitch dies.”
I go cold. At the office I got an odd vibe from Zain, but he’s a killer? Apparently yes, given his cruel grip and not-so-veiled threats.
Why would he kill me for a little journal that grants sexual fantasies?
Or is the book capable of more?
“Seriously evil aura,” Aquarius murmurs.
Caden escapes Bram’s hold and charges for me again, his expression fiercely determined. My heart leaps to my throat. He’s doing his best to save me, but Aquarius is right; Zain would think nothing of hurting him.
I can’t let that happen.
“Do I?” Zain asks Aquarius, again tightening his hands on my neck.
Panicked, I wheeze for air, but I can’t breathe at all. I flail as my vision begins to close in.
Leaping over a pair of the freaks in robes, Caden comes to my rescue, elbowing one in the temple, punching another in the nose. They crash to the ground in a heap. He steps over them and leaps for me. Bram and Duke are right behind him, felling more of what must be Anarki.
With a curse, Zain flicks his wrist and opens his free hand. Caden slams into an invisible wall between us. Again, he launches himself at it. Again, he crashes into it.
How the devil did Zain do that?
Magic.
I was right—all these years. The paranormal exists! Now I have to stay alive long enough to write about it.
Bram flicks his wrist, and a ball of blue light heads for Zain—before it stops abruptly and dissipates.
“Oh, you can block magic now. Been learning parlor tricks from Mathias?” Bram taunts.
Zain tenses. “I’m learning from a master. And learning well.”
Caden snarls, still trying to shove his way past the force field once more, his face mottled with rage. His blue eyes drill into Zain’s, vowing retribution. “Let her go! She knows nothing.”
“She wrote the article. Your leader is holding the book in his hand,” he says, then turns to Bram. “It’s a simple transaction: the book for the girl.”
“Give it to him,” Caden barks.
Bram shoots him a long-suffering expression that demands he be reasonable. “Zain may have trained up a bit, but he’s a snot-nosed tot compared to me, inferior in both bloodline and ability. Isn’t that right?”
“The newly transitioned whelp is two seconds from losing his shag if you don’t cooperate.” Zain squeezes my neck a fraction tighter, and I choke, still clawing for breath. “Did you know I have the ability to heat a human up from the inside, boil their blood, cook their organs? I’m a human microwave.”
I would gasp if I had the air. Unwelcome gray dances in my vision. I don’t know if Zain can actually follow through on that threat, but such a death sounds horrific.
Caden looks somewhere between panicked and nuclear as Bram dangles the damn book just beyond Zain’s reach.
“Well, there’s something to be proud of,” Bram quips.
Sinking my nails into Zain’s skin, I claw until I manage to loosen his grip. Finally, I gasp in a huge breath, and blessed oxygen fills my lungs. “It’s my book. Bloody give it to him.”
Zain loosens his grip a bit more and runs his tongue up my cheek again. “There’s a good girl.”
I shudder. Caden looks an instant from going stark mad.
“Sorry.” Bram shrugs, making it clear that he’s not. “If he wants the diary, he’ll have to fight me. If he’s stupid enough to try to kill you, I’ll take the book, disappear forever, and his boss will flay him alive for failing. Again.” He regards Zain with a smug smile. “Are you feeling stupid?”
“You poncy, holier-than-thou twat!” Zain snarls. “If you leave here with the book, you’ll disappear forever, no matter what I do. If I kill Little Red, however, the younger MacTavish could turn completely mental, like the elder, which reduces the able ranks of your Doomsday Brethren by another. I’ve got ten Anarki remaining, so who’s the stupid one? You can’t defeat us.”
Zain has a very good point, but Bram’s confidence doesn’t slip one whit. I begin to suspect he’s off his trolley. And the fact Zain is talking about my death as if it’s a fait accompli hardly comforts me.
“Give him the damn book!” I snap at Bram.
He merely raises a superior golden brow. Duke’s expression is no less assured. Are they utterly mad?
I’m not waiting for the Anarki to attack to find out.
Now that I can breathe, I stomp my foot on Zain’s instep at the same time I ram my elbow into his abdomen, grateful for the self-defense class I took last year.
Zain clearly wasn’t prepared for me to fight back. He grunts in pain and doubles over. I take advantage of his surprise and dart away, sprinting toward Bram, my hand outstretched for the book.
The wizard holds it away from me, then shoots Caden a glare. “Control your woman or I will.”
“You’ll pay for that, you fucking slag!” Zain vows as he leaps to his feet and charges Bram.
Caden wraps his arms around me, holding me close. I feel safe. Relieved.
Until I realize he’s restraining me.
Bram tosses the book at Duke, who catches it in an elegant grab. Before I can blink, Bram waves his hand. Something that looks like a magic wand appears.
A wand, is it? How Harry Potter.
Bram brandishes it with a flourish, jolting Zain with a burst of energy. The sparking blue bolt hits the sodding wanker, who jolts as if he was skewered by a live wire.
His minions rush for Bram and Duke, who both raise their wands. As they charge, they step into the light, and I get a good look at their faces. I scream. Those…things are little more than skeletons with rotting flesh dripping from gray bones, staring out from under their hoods with dead, sightless eyes.
“Retreat!” Bram demands, waving his wand with another efficient sweep that materializes a blade that halves two robed figures into broken, unconscious heaps next to those Caden subdued.
Someone loops an arm about my waist and hauls me closer while Caden clutches me. I scream until I realize the second arm belongs to Hurstgrove. Mr. Titled is helping to protect me.
Bram reaches for Aquarius, who looks wide-eyed and terrified. Before he can secure her against his side, one of the skeletons in robes grabs her and literally tosses her in Zain’s direction. She shrieks, the chilling sound making the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“No one is leaving until I get that book!” Zain snarls as Aquarius lands against him. He absorbs her smaller body with a grunt, then traps her with a lean forearm around her waist. “I’ll count to three. One.” He glares at Duke, who still holds the tome. “Two.” He raises a brow at Duke as he lifts his wand to Aquarius’s head.
“Do something!” I shout.
“Three,” Zain spits. “You stupid wankers.”
Then Aquarius jerks and gasps, her green eyes popping wide as she lets loose a bloodcurdling scream.