CHAPTER 4 #2
We reemerged into the brightly lit hallway and made our way to his rooms side by side.
Thanks to the sheer size of the mansion, it took us several minutes to reach our destination.
I spent that time tucked close to Michael, studiously avoiding the priceless objects that dotted the hallways.
The moment we stepped inside his rooms, I dropped his hand and glanced around, my paranoia creeping back in.
Mary’s temper made her son’s look tame in comparison, and part of me expected to find the place trashed.
To my right, the gleaming modern kitchen looked untouched.
In front of me, the couches that dominated the living room were still strewn with comfy-looking cushions. Everything seemed intact.
I pushed myself into motion and headed toward my bedroom.
It, too, appeared unmolested. My textbooks still had all their pages.
No one had set fire to my clothes. The white lilies sitting in a vase on my dresser scented the room with their bouquet, so fresh they must have been placed here this morning.
I padded back into the common area just in time to watch Michael shrug out of his suit jacket.
His shoulders strained against the fabric of his button-down.
The shirt was fitted, outlining his pectoral muscles, flattening over his abs.
Even without the bond, the sight would be distracting. With it, I might start panting soon.
He draped the jacket over the back of the nearest couch and rolled up his right sleeve, revealing a forearm corded in thick ropes of muscle. Was it my imagination, or had he gotten larger since we’d been bonded?
In typical Michael fashion, he smoothed back his hair as he paced toward the door.
I had just enough time to wonder what he was doing before he lifted his arm and bit his palm.
White-hot agony burned into my hand. It felt like someone had shoved a smoldering piece of coal into my fist. I was quickly becoming addicted to the way we shared pleasure over the bond, but the pain? That I could do without.
I looked down and saw an angry red welt rising on my skin.
Larger bumps bubbled up along the perimeter, forming a distinguishable set of teeth marks.
If Michael and I had been farther away from each other, I might only feel a slight ache where he was injured, but this close, I was lucky the bond hadn’t made me bleed right along with him.
I lifted my gaze from our shared injury to see Michael drop to one knee and press his bloody hand to a spot on the floor. Power exploded through the room like he’d just detonated some sort of magical bomb. I rocked back on my heels, almost blown off my feet from the metaphysical force of it.
A shimmer of white-gold flared over the walls.
It looked like someone had super-heated the metal into liquid and then turned it sentient.
It susurrated like waves on a storm-ravaged sea.
The iridescence split and coalesced into individual lines that ran horizontally over the walls.
I turned to follow their progress through the room, trying not to freak out.
This was the weirdest shit I had ever seen.
The magic lines rolled toward the balcony doors from opposite sides, drawing closer and closer toward each other.
A little thrill of warning shot through the back of my mind, like Michael had just braced himself.
I braced myself too, just in time. The lines of the spell crashed together, and it was like being in an airplane during a sudden drop in altitude.
My ears popped as the spell snapped into place.
It felt like the floor dropped out from beneath me.
My knees buckled, and I stumbled and fell to the ground, catching myself with my hands.
Holy shit. Michael could have at least warned me.
I lifted my head to tell him that, but my gaze didn’t make it to him.
Glyphs danced within the lines on the walls, silver against the gold.
The runes shimmered like a butterfly’s wings caught in a beam of sunlight.
So, not only could I now see wards, but I could pick out the spell that formed them.
Great. No, really, this was perfect timing.
I rose to my feet as Michael turned from the door. He grabbed some paper towels and wiped at his bloody hand.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine. Would a little warning have killed you?”
He shook his head. “Mother might have bugged the room during our absence.”
I went still. “Are you serious?”
He simply looked at me.
I sighed. “Of course you’re serious.”
I needed to stop underestimating Mary’s shittiness. If I always expected the worst from her, maybe I wouldn’t be pissed whenever she lived up to those expectations.
Michael strode into the kitchen and dropped his bloody rags into the sink.
He pulled a lighter from a drawer and lit them on fire, and I frowned, wondering why he hadn’t just thrown the paper towels out.
Did mystics need to guard their blood for some reason?
Or was this just more Kolbeck paranoia? Did they think the witches would sneak into the compound to steal it and use it in a spell against them?
Argh! This ignorance was going to get us in trouble again.
Michael put the fire out and turned toward me. “The ward will have knocked all the technology out. No one outside of this room can feel or hear anything that happens within it now.”
I pulled my phone from my handbag and hit the Home button. Nothing happened. Damn, this was one hell of a ward. Anna hadn’t been exaggerating about Michael’s magical strength.
He eyed me. “How much of the ward can you see?”
I described it to him in detail.
A deep line formed between his brows. “I can’t tattoo you here. It would take too long. The best I can manage is a blood bind.”
“What the hell is that?” I’d never heard of it before, and it sounded creepy.
“I’m going to mix my blood with ink and draw a binding spell on your back,” Michael said. “Since your magical abilities are derived from mine, it’s the most powerful way to subdue them for now.”
I frowned. “But I thought you couldn’t do magic because of your tattoo?”
The ward that surrounded us was one thing. It had already been in place, ready and waiting. All he’d had to do was activate it with his blood. I might have been a magical null up until this point, but even I knew that in order for someone draw runes of power, they had to sink their magic into it.
In answer, Michael pulled off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt.
He shrugged out of it, standing in a thin white tank top that put far too many of his muscles on display.
He reached overhead and tugged the tank off, revealing stacked abs and a chest you could break your fist on.
A surge of lust blew through me at the sight.
If no one could feel or hear anything outside of this ward, did that mean we could finally—
“I need you to cut the tattoo off me,” he said.
My desire withered and turned to ash. He needed me to do what?