Jacob's Trial [Forbidden Legacy 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (12 page)

No, he walked away from the conversation, Cass. He walked away from the pain. He wouldn’t be afraid of having children if he didn’t want them.

Once upon a time, her life had been simple. She got up, she went to work, she wooed clients, and she went home to drink wine and shop online. She went to blockbuster parties and attended pocket-sandwich theater productions. She had girlfriends and shopping trips. She picked up men, she let herself be picked up, and she even indulged in the occasional torrid affair. When they ended, she picked up the phone and called her mom.

Tears pricked her eyes. The fourteen days stretching between that life and the life she lived now seemed vastly more insurmountable than the six-foot moat stretching around the property. Striding around the rim of the pool, she grabbed a towel and rubbed herself dry, dusting the sand off as she went.

Up the stairs, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror and stared at the glowing gold eyes blazing back at her. It was all their fault that they were even mired in this discussion.

Jacob hadn’t wanted to like her, but he had.

He hadn’t wanted her to make the announcement, but he’d supported her.

He hadn’t wanted to share her with Helcyon, but he swore an oath because he wanted her more.

He hadn’t even wanted to like Helcyon, but the tension between the men seemed to thaw with every day they spent together. Even the occasional flickers of jealousy retreated, and they talked.

They talked even when she wasn’t there.

Maybe Jacob didn’t want to have children right now, but she wasn’t sure she wanted them yet either. They had time.

A lot of time.

Jabbing a finger at herself in the mirror, she focused on the glowing eyes. They had to stop glowing. She might not be able to bleed the gold from her gaze, but the glow could stop.

She glared, locking eyes with herself until the glow dimmed and then extinguished, leaving only the golden color without the fireworks. A little laugh exploded out on her held breath. She’d done it.

She’d stripped Helcyon of his clothes.

She’d stripped Jacob.

And now she’d stopped her eyes from glowing.

Maybe she could do this magic stuff. Chewing her lip, she glanced at the closet behind her. The earlier phone call wiggled up through the warring thoughts in her mind. Retail therapy always helped her think. Her shoes had been couriered to her office. Her office was one step away through Underhill.

Nibbling her lip, she debated it. She’d pulled all three of them Underhill once. Helcyon told her she could create portals. Was it that much of a stretch to portal from stripping her men bare?

Dropping the towel, she fished through the clothes on the rack, pulling out a pair of loose jeans and an oversized tunic top. Too casual for the office, but she wouldn’t stay. She would slide in, grab her shoes, and slide out.

Hurrying into her clothes, a ribbon of excitement unfurled in her belly. Shoes were a practical escape, they were real and tangible in a world turned upside down by magic, Fae, Wizards, and blood feuds older than any wine she’d ever been fortunate enough to sample.

She took a minute to tug her damp hair back into a ponytail and ignored the makeup. Gold eyes aside, she looked like a college student and had to suppress a giggle. Normally she wouldn’t be caught dead stepping out without makeup, but she didn’t want to waste the time.

Doorways were easier. That was what Helcyon told her once. Doorways were natural gate points. They lent their purpose to the construct and framed portals perfectly.

A shiver of nervousness rode the ribbon of excitement in a zany circle through her belly, and Cassie closed her eyes and put her hands on the doorframe to her closet. The crazy image of the wardrobe from the C.S. Lewis classic tickled the back of her mind, but it was the right thought.

Energy tingled through her fingertips, warming the wood beneath her hands. She pictured a doorway in her mind, imagining the entrance to her closet, and then she pushed open the door and instead of the racks of Donna Karan, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Christian Louboutins, she pictured her office.

The room was decorated in warm wood tones and accented by sandy colors. Autumn-colored carpet muffled the floor, and the oversized blonde-oak desk sat in the corner, allowing the perfect view to the wide picture windows. It was an executive office, but she’d added a few plants and a fountain where an oversized, smoky-colored ball spun, twirling to the water rolling around it. The office always smelled of sandalwood and lemon-pine cleaner with the barest hint of orchids from a candle her grandmother made for her.

The familiar scents twined around her, fleshing out the image. A tugging in her center flooded with heat. Power sprawled through her and poured out through her fingers. The air pressure popped, crackling inside her ears. Opening her eyes slowly, delight drummed a fast beat against her heart.

The doorway to her office stood open and beckoned. She’d done it. She’d made a portal. The air shimmered, a hint of haze as though a gauzy curtain was all that separated her bathroom from the office beyond. Sun spilled in, gleaming off the Pacific waves, and sitting on her desk was a stack of four neat shoe boxes.

Excited, she rushed forward. One quick dash and she’d have her shoes and be back before they noticed. She could hardly wait to tell them she’d done it. The door to her bedroom flew open and slammed into the wall. The noise jerked her attention.

“Cassie!” Jacob’s shout echoed through the room, but she was already slipping sideways, his dark scowl vanishing behind the netting and then winking out. The world went black and then righted itself, and she stumbled the last two barefoot steps to her desk.

The euphoria flooding her system crashed, and she seized the desk’s edge as her knees went wobbly. Sickness curdled her stomach, and spots danced before her eyes.

“You know, I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away if they sent the shoes here.” Michael’s voice slapped her dizziness away, and Cassie whirled, slamming her shin into the desk.

Michael leaned against her office wall, arms folded across his chest and a cruel smile on his lips.

“Where is she?” Helcyon slid to a stop at the entrance to Cassandra’s bathroom. The Wizard pounded one fist against the doorframe separating her dressing room from the closet. Helcyon barely stepped into their kitchen to consider meal preparation when a surge pulled power from his core. He’d recognized Cassandra’s touch, the scent of ocean breeze, sage, and sand that accompanied her. He’d allowed the energy flow.

But the fierce jerk of power coalesced and fear boiled. He’d started up the stairs to see just what she was doing when he’d heard Jacob’s frantic shout. The hard pull against him slacked in the same moment, spurring his body to speed.

“She went through.” Jacob slammed his fist into the empty doorframe again. “Just walked right through and the portal collapsed.”

Helcyon frowned and studied the doorway. Residual energy clung to it, a dim, blue glow to his mind’s eye. No sigils appeared on or in the wood. Drawing in a deep breath, he centered himself and then opened his mind’s eye fully, seeing beyond the “reality” to the layers of Underhill that touched the house.

When they’d constructed it, blending their magic with the power Cassandra returned to them, Helcyon pulled a piece of Underhill into the building. Shaping it to Cassandra’s will, as she had shaped the sandy beach escape, it was a mere fraction of the gate she created, but it allowed him to control Underhill’s access to their fortress.

It was supposed to keep her safe.

“They weren’t supposed to be able to get in here.” Jacob’s wrath turned his voice to fire and ice. The vein in his forehead throbbed as he glared at the door. Were it an animate object, Helcyon believed he would have torn it asunder. As it was, the Wizard was left clenching his fists with no true target for the rage boiling through him.

“No one took her.” Helcyon found no trace of another’s magic. The room was alive with the scent of Cassandra, the sweet grass growing along the sandy shores, the hint of brine, the whisper of cloves, and the underscoring melody of lavender and mint she favored for her perfume. “Nothing could slip through the defenses, not without triggering one of us. Did you feel an assault?”

“No.” Jacob gave a short, sharp shake of his head. “I felt her. She pulled from me.”

“Me, as well. Why weren’t you in here? I thought you two would be hours considering your mood.” Helcyon continued to prowl, slipping back and forth through the doorway. The residual energy signature shimmered across his skin, a barely there sensation, a caress of a half-forgotten moment.

“Because I was an ass. If no one came in…then how the hell did she portal out?”

“You are certain it was a portal?” Helcyon paused, fixing his gaze on the Wizard.

“It was a portal. She didn’t just sidestep into Underhill. It was an open doorway to somewhere else, and she walked through it.”

“What was on the other side?”

The Wizard frowned, his anger retreating to neutral coldness. Helcyon understood the focus. He shared it. They had to identify where she’d gone. How she got there could be handled later. Find her first. Eliminate any threat. Retrieve her back to safety.

“An office of some kind…rusty-colored carpet, big windows, ocean view, a corner desk.”

“Did the desk have anything on it?” A memory sparked in his mind along with the curious sensation of pride mingling with exasperation.

“Some kind of ugly-looking marble eggs on one corner, a computer, shoe boxes…”

“She went to her office.” Helcyon knew the room well. Most of his visits were limited to the conference room. A room he knew well enough to reach via Underhill with just a few thoughts. But she’d met with representatives once or twice in her private office, where her gaze could trail to the sea.

“Thirty seconds and then let’s go.” Jacob spun on his heel and charged out of the room. He returned in less than twenty seconds, gun holster in one hand and a jacket in the other. He wrapped the gun holster in the jacket. “If we run it won’t damage Underhill too much.”

His tone suggested indifference if it did, and Helcyon didn’t object. He took Jacob’s arm, and the world slid sideways as they stepped into Underhill. The barren landscape offered only a sandy trail, and they jogged side by side with Helcyon edging the lead as he followed the twists and turns.

“We’ll come out in the conference room.”

“How far from her office?” In the last ten days of their residence together, Jacob had spent little time in that office, leaving it to Helcyon to guard her back and forth.

“A dozen meters from the single-door entrance, sixteen from the double doors. Out the single door, turn left, the hallway dead ends into her office.”

“Got it.”

The end of the path loomed before them, curving where it brushed up against the human world. The possibilities of Underhill pressed in against his skin, and he called to him his armor, the black, sleeveless tunic materializing across his shoulders. The lighter armor firmed beneath it, silver metal shimmering against his arms. The weight of his sword pressed against his back.

He spared a hand to Jacob’s shoulder and tugged the possibilities shimmering around him. The metal clinked, bronze to Helcyon’s silver. The links surged together, interlocking over his skin and snapping into place over the Wizard’s chest.

The Wizard hissed at the burn of metal fusing to his skin, but Helcyon ignored the complaint and pulled them both through the shimmering fabric between Underhill and reality. They burst into the conference room, the air electric with the violence of their arrival.

Sparing the empty room no more than a cursory glance, Helcyon edged Jacob behind him at the door. They went through it as though expecting an army on the other side, but the quiet office sent a shiver of warning through Helcyon’s extended senses.

Cassandra employed some dozen interns, secretaries, and press agents in her office. It was never quiet. The silence was eerie. Not even the machines hummed. The lights burned in every quarter, illuminating the wood-paneled hallway splashed with natural light from the bank of windows.

Side by side, the Wizard facing behind them and Helcyon facing ahead, they moved swiftly down the corridor. The dark-blonde oak door to Cassandra’s office stood closed. One step from the door, they heard the dark whisper of Michael’s too-familiar voice.

“My, you truly are on a very short leash, Cassie.”

Helcyon reared back and slammed his foot against the door, cracking the brace and sending it flying inward to slap against the wall. Jacob surged through with him, gun in hand.

Cassandra stood, leaning with her back against the desk, her gold eyes too large for her pale face. She jerked her gaze toward the open door and Helcyon spun, sword flashing as he took a position directly in front of her, Jacob bracketing his side.

Michael met their hostility with a relaxed smile and a casual clap of his hands. “Ten minutes, boys. You’re getting sloppy.”

Jacob’s gun arm was steady as he locked his sight on Michael. Helcyon pushed his shields wide, encompassing the three of them behind a barrier.

“Planning to shoot me, Jacob?” Michael’s indolent gaze roamed over all three of them. His total lack of concern signaled a warning within Helcyon. He studied the room and the Wizard facing them for magical trace.