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Authors: Angela Knight

BOOK: Master of Smoke
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Eva’s fingers tightened convulsively, crushing the egg and raining yolk and shell fragments into the bowl.
“What?”
“As I am now, I can’t protect you. If I left, you’d be safe from Warlock’s assassins.”
“Forget it.” Eva started plucking bits of shell out of the yolk with short, agitated gestures. “I might as well roll you into a burrito and serve you to the bastard. He’d snack the minute he found you. No way in hell is that going to happen if
I
have anything to say about it.”
David peeled his lips off dainty fangs. Those crystalline eyes were the only part of him that looked familiar. But wrong, so wrong, in that tiny triangular head. “Do you seriously think you can stop him? You can barely face down your own reflection!”
Eva stared at him in astonished hurt. “Thanks a fuckin’ hell of a lot, David!” She picked the bowl up and dumped its contents down the garbage disposal. No way would she be eating anything now.
“I do not want to die knowing I have doomed you!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want to live knowing I let you die!” She leaned down until she was nose to tiny black nose with him. “I repeat:
not happening!
”
He lifted his chin with regal pride. “I may be small, but I’m fast. I can hide from Warlock until I can shift back to my proper form and defend myself.”
“And you can hide just as well right here, so drop the melodramatic bullshit.”
“What if he sends another team of assassins? They will butcher us both. At least alone, I may be able to elude them.”
“You couldn’t elude the neighbor’s poodle right now, and you know it.”
“I may be in cat form, but I still have my intelligence. And you have no right to keep me here.”
“There’s the door.” She pointed a shaking finger at it. “Go!”
“I can’t turn the doorknob!” he roared, his voice startlingly loud coming from such a small body.
“Then how the hell do you think you’re going to fight off fucking
werewolves
?”
With a snarl of rage, he leaped off the counter and headed for the door, crouched, and began to stare at it as if he could will it to open.
Blinking burning eyes, Eva picked up her cutting board and began raking the makings for the omelet into the trash.
 
Dogs lazed in
the shade of the woods behind the Drayton Apartments. There was a huge red Great Dane, a black Doberman, a German shepherd, and a muscular pit bull with curly steel gray fur. They scratched at fleas, panted, chased squirrels, and terrorized a fat Persian cat who was lucky to get away with her life.
But they never strayed far from Building Five. Periodically one or the other of the dogs would get up and stroll around the building, stopping only long enough to lift a leg at the shrubbery.
If anyone had bothered to look more closely, they might have noticed that the animals seemed fascinated by the second floor. Yet they kept a careful distance, as if wary of drawing attention.
And all four came to quivering attention whenever anyone went up or down the stairs, only to subside when they got a good look at whoever it was.
But they were, after all, only dogs, so nobody paid much attention to them.
 
Tension rode like
a nauseating weight in Gerald Drake’s belly as he stood at attention in Warlock’s inner sanctum.
What kind of lunatic has an inner sanctum?
He stifled the thought as soon as it flitted through his brain. The last thing he needed was for Warlock to detect any hint of disloyalty in his mind. The sorcerer was already furious with him as it was.
Gerald had reported Miranda’s slaying of Worthington right away, knowing Warlock would want to know of it. He’d expected to be summoned immediately for discipline—which would be highly unpleasant, judging from past experience.
Instead, Warlock had seemed oddly distracted during the call, as if he was far more concerned with something else. He hadn’t even been able to make time for Gerald’s full report until just now, hours after the initial incident.
Odd. Warlock had been obsessed with Miranda’s every move for years. Now she’d killed the man the sorcerer has designated to breed her, and he scarcely seemed to care.
Not that his distraction would save Gerald. He’d always known the little bitch would be the death of him. Warlock would lose his temper over something she’d done, and Gerald would end up a dead werewolf. He’d never expected to survive her rebellious teenage years, much less into her twenties. Luckily, she loved her mother, though Merlin alone knew why. Joelle was good for very little else, but she made an excellent hostage.
At first, the task of raising the werewolf witch had seemed simple enough. Marry Joelle, control her little brat, and reap the considerable rewards Warlock rained down on him in the form of magical advantages for his construction business. Gerald had grown rich thanks to the sorcerer’s spells, as government contracts fell into his hands like ripe peaches, while competitors suffered disasters natural and otherwise.
Now his corporation was the largest in three states, with multimillion-dollar contracts to build everything from schools to bridges.
But the price—Merlin’s balls, the price was high.
Warlock had left him waiting in his throne room for the better part of an hour now, uneasily considering the glowing magical runes carved into the stone walls. A circle of inlaid silver lay set in the floor at the center of the space, surrounding a low dais and Warlock’s massive ebony throne. Stone statues of Merlin’s original Direkind Chosen stood in niches around the room, and the scent of exotic spices filled the air, making Gerald’s nose itch.
He stifled a sneeze as his sensitive ears picked up the click of claws on stone. He straightened to his full height as Warlock padded in. To Gerald’s uneasy surprise, four strangers followed him, all in Dire Wolf form. They were huge even by Direkind standards, tall and massively built—one with thick black fur, two in shades of brown, a fourth who was as blond as a movie starlet.
Must be the Bastards. At least some of them; weren’t there supposed to be twelve? Where were the others?
Not that it mattered.
This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all
.
Warlock flung himself down on his throne, his white fur seeming to glow against the dark wood. Black lips peeled off white fangs as his eyes glowed amber with a sullen, feral rage. “Now, Gerald. Tell me again how you failed to control my daughter.”
Terror tied his belly into a sick knot.
Miranda
,
you’re going to pay for this
.
 
The silence steamed
with rage for the first half of the trip home. Miranda knew it wouldn’t last, and it didn’t.
“You’ve destroyed us.” Joelle’s grip made the steering wheel creak in protest.
“What the hell do you want from me, Mom?” Miranda exploded, a knot of frustrated rage coiled in her belly. “Am I supposed to just submit to being raped with a smile? Fuck that! I’m not a doormat like—”
“Me?” Her mother’s voice had gone deep again, growling with fury and an incipient transformation. “Did it ever occur to you to wonder
why
, Miranda? Why I put up with everything Gerald does—the cheating, the violence, the casual contempt? Do you honestly think this is the life I wanted?”
Miranda threw up her hands. “Oh, yeah, that’s right—book me another flight on Guilt Air. I’m not responsible for your choices, Mom.”
“What choices? When did I have a choice?”
“Half an hour ago! Tristan and La Belle Coeur would have taken both of us to the Mageverse if we’d said the word. But no—you had to fucking
attack
them!”
“Because it really would have triggered a war, you little twit! Don’t you understand, Warlock is not going to let you go.” Her mother’s eyes flashed red in the blue glow of the Volvo’s dashboard lights. “You’re the key to the dynasty he’s determined to create, and he’d declare war on the Magekind to get you back. Merlin created us to fight them—odds are, we’d kill them all!”
A chill stole across her skin, but Miranda shook it off. “Oh, come on! Ninety percent of the Direkind don’t even believe he exists. They’re not going to go to war with Arthur just because some loony tune werewolf wizard says the word.”
“Warlock’s not crazy. And you have no idea what he’s capable of, so don’t underestimate him. He’s got charisma, and our legends have turned him into a hero. The Direkind wouldn’t realize what he’s really like until it was too late. By then who knows how many people would have died on both sides? Is it worth all that just to keep you from a little—”
“Rape?” Miranda gritted her teeth. “I’m not going to just lie down for whatever they’ve got in mind. I don’t care what kind of rationales you throw in my face or what kind of guilt trips you put me on. You don’t have the right to ask that of me.”
Joelle thumped the steering wheel with a frustrated palm. “Miranda, it doesn’t have to be rape. You’re in your Burning Moon—if you don’t fight, it won’t be that bad.”
“Yeah, Worthington said the same thing—which is when I stuck the knife in his brain. Listen to me, Mother: I am
not
going to submit. If I can find a way to escape, I’m going to take it. Now, you can go with me, or you can stay and keep being a victim. It’s your call.”
“Don’t you understand—I’ve already tried that! Warlock found me, and it cost me ...” Tears glittered in her eyes. “God, what it cost me.”
Miranda frowned at her. “When did you try to escape?”
“When I was pregnant the first time.” As Miranda gaped in surprise, Joelle pulled the Volvo over onto the shoulder and parked there. Opening the door, the older woman got out and stood looking toward the moon as it rode over the trees like a white ship sailing through the clouds. Finally she started into the woods, her steps slow and weary.
Miranda followed her. “You never mentioned you’d been pregnant before. What happened?”
“It wasn’t rape that first time.” Joelle pushed a tree limb out of the way and continued into the thick brush. “I thought I was in love with him.” She laughed in a bitter bark. “He really had me fooled.”
Gaping, Miranda stared at her mother’s back. “You were in
love
with Warlock?”
“I was young, and he was handsome and powerful and immortal.” Joelle stopped, turning her face up. A shaft of moonlight lit her skin and painted silver reflections in her eyes. “I was so flattered that he wanted me. Of all the women of the Chosen, he picked me as the mother of his child. He said I had the perfect bloodline.”
“What happened?”
She shrugged. “I made him angry. I don’t remember what I did now—it could have been anything. It’s easy to make Warlock angry. Anyway, he beat me. Very, very carefully, mostly in the face, since I was seven months pregnant at the time, and he didn’t want to hurt the baby. So I ran away.”
Miranda swallowed. “He found you.”
“Oh, yes. He has extensive resources even aside from magic. It took him less than forty-eight hours to track me down. That time when he beat me, he wasn’t so careful. I lost Mary Catherine.”
Miranda winced. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“The next time he took me, it was rape.” She pushed her hair out of her face, and Miranda saw a tear paint a glittering trail down her face. “After that, he told my parents he’d found a husband for me. Of course, they made no protest. They were as frightened of him as I was.”
“You never tried to escape again?”
“And watch you die as Mary Catherine had?” She shook her head. “Miranda, you can’t fight men like Warlock and Gerald. They’re ruthless, and they know what your vulnerabilities are. The only hope you have is submission, because that’s the only way nobody dies.”
“But, Mom—why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Joelle gave her another weary glance. “Because I knew it wouldn’t do any good. And I was—” She blew out a breath. “I was ashamed Warlock had played me for a fool. He never loved me any more than Gerald does. Besides, telling you this story changes nothing. Does it?”
Miranda bit her lip, but she couldn’t lie. “No. In the end ... no.”
Joelle smiled sadly. “I didn’t think so. Come, I need to get you home. Gerald is probably impatient for his dinner.”
THIRTEEN
Blade rang on
blade in the furious music of combat as the vampires and witches fought.
Not very well.
They swung their weapons clumsily, the vampires with more power than skill, the witches hesitantly. Here and there someone fought a bit better as natural athleticism overcame a lack of experience. But they weren’t an impressive bunch.
Tristan and Belle stood on the sidelines of the combat grounds, watching the new recruits practice, neither particularly impressed. “I swear to Merlin, they get worse every year,” the knight grumbled.
“Everyone has to learn, Tristan,” Belle told him. “You probably did, too. You’ve just forgotten because it’s been fifteen centuries. Give them a few more weeks, and Reece and Erin will have them whipped into shape.”

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