Jacob's Trial [Forbidden Legacy 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (26 page)

When Vanagan took position in front of her, she stared at the Wizard and his black-and-white spiky hair. He was by no means a small man. Dressed in unrelieved black, combat boots, and a trench coat that looked more suited to an Old Western, and sporting a laconic smile, he looked like a sexy techno thug that knew a hell of a lot more than anyone else.

She had no idea if he was on their side. Unlike at their brief meeting in her Los Angeles offices, he’d stayed out of her head. Jacob shifted next to her and slid her behind his shoulder. She released his arm reluctantly, freeing him to fight if necessary.

“Inquisitor General.” Vanagan’s voice cut through the hum of the room. Heads swiveled toward him, their attention divided. Cassie scanned the faces in the crowd. It didn’t surprise her that the entire chamber, fifteenth-century doom-and-gloom architecture aside, was populated by men.

Wizards were only men and apparently the Fae contribution to their DNA lingered on the Y chromosome. Or did it? Folding her arms across her chest, Cassie studied the men’s faces. Was the magical gene only passed to the male offspring, or was something else going on with the females?

“Wizard Marcus, this conclave has not recognized you.” Dismissal dripped in the inquisitor general’s tone. Where fear marred his eyes the night before, only loathing appeared now. Even at this distance, it narrowed his eyes and forced him to squint.

“Actually,” Cassie spoke into the echo of harsh breathing. “You opened the floor to comments when you accepted Wizard Miller’s statement. By most rules of order, the lack of censure suggests welcome.”

Jacob sucked in a breath noisily and gave her a swift head shake, but Cassie wrinkled her nose and ignored the entreaty to silence. If the inquisitor general wanted to shut people down, he’d missed that opportunity.

“Exactly.” Vanagan turned and winked at her. “The lady is well versed in common courtesy. This is a hearing, Inquisitor General, not a pronouncement of judgment. You convened the Council under the auspices of hearing charges against a Wizard you admit to complicity with. In addition, your consorting with the accused extends beyond the reported actions to a blood relationship to Wizard Book’s lover. As her father, you can hardly be expected to be an impartial judge.”

Cassie heard it coming and transferred her attention to the inquisitor general. He too saw the suggestion coming, and his mouth twisted into a cruel expression.

“Therefore, I move that the inquisitor general recuse himself from these proceedings save for any testimony the Council may request.”

The roar that surged at Vanagan’s suggestion rose to deafening proportions. Along the rim of the room, Councilors rose from their perches while one aged fellow, shoulders stooping and leaning heavily on a cane, shouted, “I so move that the inquisitor general recuse himself.”

“Seconded.” This from a short, swarthy man wrapped in an ancient headdress and linen robes. A third and fourth quickly added their voices.

A fifth spoke in opposition. The Councilors shouted over the din as the Wizards below shook their heads and gestured animatedly. Vanagan slid back a step, nearly bumping Jacob, who moved to block his access to her.

“Thank you for your assistance, m’lady.” Vanagan gave Jacob an arch look but addressed his comments to her.

“Why are you helping us?” Cassie asked the question stumbling around the obstacles in her mind.

“Who says I’m helping you?” His feckless grin didn’t quite touch the silver orbs of his eyes.
Perhaps I am helping myself.

The mental words brushed against the surface of her mind. The light caress as though a breeze was kissing the water.

You shouldn’t do that.
She frowned at him. Warm masculine energy funneled through her and slapped the connection away. Vanagan threw his head back and laughed.

“Touché, Wizard Book. She is yours.” He grinned openly at Jacob before looking back to the Council.

Cassie ignored Jacob’s quelling look, but something sizzled and popped. An explosion of air rocketed from one end of the Council’s ledge of chairs to the other. Cassie barely had time to absorb the image of the man tumbling to the floor, his neck twisted unnaturally, when all hell broke loose.

Jude slammed her forward into Jacob’s back. Fire singed the air and threatened to burn her lungs. Another pop exploded to her left, and three men went down.

Bodies slammed into bodies. Jacob pushed back, and Cassie found herself stumbling on her heels. Jude caught her arm and jerked her behind him until she was pressed against the rough stone wall. Arrayed in front of her, Jacob took point with each of his men fanning out around her. In the center of the chaos, Vanagan lifted two hands and magic leapt from him, lashing out at a black-cloaked figure rushing toward him.

Miller spun, blue sparks trailing around him and setting another set of black-cloaked figures on fire. The room was a riot of confusion, and even the Councilors seemed to be in a fight for their lives.

“Get her out of here,” Jacob said over his shoulder, and Jude jerked his head in a nod. But before the younger Wizard could catch her arm, the room seemed to compress. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, a whiffle of power racing over her skin.

“There!” Cassie pointed toward the portal swirling open three steps behind her father. The inquisitor general whirled as more black-cloaked figures rushed out. He leapt off the dais and landed with a crash on the floor.

Like a swarm of insects, the men poured into the already too-tight quarters of the chamber. Their silver blades glowed with white fire. Blood spattered the crowd as two more Councilors went down.

Vanagan suddenly appeared next to Jacob. “I offer you my arm in conflict, peace be on you and yours, with all matters to be settled later.”

“Take my arm in this conflict and peace will be between us.” The ritual in the words buzzed through Cassie’s mind. A tumbler in the lock inside her seemed to snap into place. Vanagan’s men joined with Jacob’s, threading into their defenses as the surge of black warriors raced toward them.

Jude jerked his head to the left. His nostrils flared. “Defend yourself, Cassandra.” His voice deepened, husky and so wildly familiar it tripped her heart inside her breast.

Twisting away from her, he leapt forward, sliding between Jacob and Vanagan and the onslaught bearing down on them. His entire body shimmered as magic peeled away. He extended his hand, pulling a silver blade from the air, and sliced it upward, catching the sword that threatened to sever Jacob’s head from his shoulders.

Sparks exploded from his body like water being shaken away, and suddenly it wasn’t Jude but Helcyon taking the lead, his blade shining as he cut down three attackers in one swipe and whirled to meet a fourth.

The man’s hood fell away, and Cassie’s lungs burned.

Fae.

Pale fury reflected in the Elven man’s features as he lunged toward Helcyon. Their blades sang as they sliced at each other. Sparks exploded at every contact. Fire whooshed out from Jacob, riding a wave of white lightning that erupted up from Vanagan to consume another attacker.

Blood filled the crevices of the chamber as a great black beast crashed through the portal. The Councilors, at least those still standing, whirled to face the latest threat. Steam poured from the beast’s nostrils, its eyes flaming red, and she recognized a Glashtyn. But it wasn’t Domoir.

Jerking her gaze back down, she caught Paul as he stumbled backward toward her. A black figure lunged at him with the sword and she yelled, the words lost in the hue and cry.

Power surged forward, and the blade froze, quivering an inch from Paul’s chest. Energy thrummed through her and snapped like a blood vessel bursting in her brain. Liquid heat shimmered the air, and the blade warped. Paul came up, and fire swirled up under the Elf’s feet and he went up like a torch.

A burst from behind her yanked Cassie’s attention around. DuPois and one of Vanagan’s Wizards struggled with another Fae, a midnight-skinned creature with reptilian eyes. It spat something, a stream of viscous liquid that scalded the Wizards. Vanagan’s man went down soundlessly.

Miller appeared behind the creature, a strand of silvery energy stretched between his fingers as he threw it around the being’s throat. And then it was headless, great gouts of black blood spewing upward.

Cassie’s gorge rose in her throat, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. The stench of death reeked through the air. Jacob and Vanagan stood toe to toe fighting another reptilian-eyed man. Helcyon seemed to be everywhere, the glow of his sword dimmed by the stain of red and black blood coating it. His torn shirt revealed the flexing of the muscles in his arms, the hot sweat dripping down the coiled strength, and even his hair seemed to flow behind him, gorgeous death on two legs.

Paul limped back to his spot. The chamber was littered with the bodies of the dead, and they just kept coming. Dalton fell back to stand next to her. “Give me your hand. We need to close that.”

He pointed to the portal vomiting out more creatures, some small, some large, all hideous and deadly.

“How?”

“Disrupt the bitch. You can break a glamour, you can break its foothold.” Dalton practically shouted in her ear, and she still had to strain to hear him.

“But I can’t target it…at least I don’t think I can.” She’d barely mastered the shielding thing the day before. A gurgled scream cut off abruptly, and a puddle of black blood slid around her shoe. Shuddering, Cassie forced her wild gaze back to Dalton.

“Take my hand. Push it through me. I’ll get it where it needs to go.” Dalton seized her fingers in his, and the connection hummed along her senses, a kindling of awareness nudging between the blazing bonfires of Jacob and Helcyon branded in her mind.

Images flashed through her mind. Jacob’s handsome, stubborn face etched with cold fury. Helcyon’s arresting beauty, alien and remote with the anger burning in his eyes. They were incandescent with power. The strength of it flowed through her and though she wasn’t touching them, they were there, radiating like a sun in the center of her belly. Dalton skated around the edges of them, bound in a golden thread that stretched out from Jacob. Cassie followed the tie and found more, the threads spindled out, looping around Paul, Miller, DuPois, and, surprisingly, Helcyon. A sixth vanished into the distance, to Jude, she supposed. Thinner threads, copper and tenuous, connected him to Vanagan, and from there a blue thread, frayed and worn, looped back to Helcyon.

She blinked slowly. The threads transposed over the chaos of the room. Sound retreated. Different threads, different colors, different textures, linked everyone in the room to varying degrees. She wanted to study them, but a sharp nudge against her mind jerked her gaze upward.

Dalton squeezed her right hand. The portal roiled and bubbled, a seething black mass of hate. Threads spindled out from its center, clawing at the surface of the room. Tethered, it floated like a wicked balloon suspended between one world and the next.

A second hand claimed her left. Vanagan intruded into the cocooned warmth unfurling inside of her. The sharp edge of his mind sliced through the distractions, peeling them away like the layers of an onion. First went the smell of the blood, next went the clanging of swords and screams of the injured and the dying. Last went the sight of it, the vision of mutilated bodies, gaping wounds, and fierce expressions.

Reality warped around her.

“Stop staring at him, you’ll shatter the glamour.” Jacob’s voice roared out of her memory. The snappish tone riddled with impatience forced her to concentrate on the blurred edges of her vision, the miniscule glimmer of light. “That’s it, get rid of the blinding spell.”

The world narrowed and she seemed taller somehow, her gaze zeroing in on the puddle of inky blackness. The focus of her vision swooped forward, and despite standing against the wall, she could see every tether, every inky tendril sucking hungrily at the room. As with the fairies, she imagined sweeping her hand through the tendrils.

Ice convulsed along her nerves. Razors of chill sliced along the surface of her awareness. Her heart spasmed, and she jerked her mental fingers away. Warmth swirled and kissed away the pain, melting the ice hardening inside of her.

Soothing words whispered against her forehead, and she stretched out her mental fingers again. Numbness shot up her arm as though her hand truly reached across the seething battleground to touch the blackness, but the ice fought a losing battle against the wildfire burning through her.

She ripped one tether free. A high-pitched scream sundered the cotton muffling her ears. Pain bloomed in her mind. No sooner did it register than it was swept away, shuttered behind a thick barricade. Warmth trickled down her neck. Her muscles shivered, but she focused on the next tether.

And the next.

One after another she assaulted them. With every one she snapped, the next became thicker, barbed, viscous, and harder to tear away. The last one seemed nearly as thick as her arm. Her body hurtled sideways, sandwiched between two hard bodies. Wetness splashed her face.

Copper filled her mouth.

Her vision expanded rapidly, the width of the room zooming out with sickening clarity.

A scream clawed its way up her throat. The sound stretched between her as she seized the thick tether and tore it away. Wind ripped across her face, dragging her hair across her vision. Light evacuated the chamber.