mythean arcana 06 - master of fate (20 page)

“I’m fine. What the hell was that?”

Mouse hissed, as if she were still pissed off.

“The one called Amaris is a witch of some sort.”

“She’s toast now.” Aurora swayed on her feet again. “I need to sit. I tapped out all my power frying her. At least it will take her a while to recover.” She stumbled to the couch and sat.

There was no way in hell he could sit right now, so he paced instead. Thank gods she hadn’t killed the witch. That could have been a huge change to history. He didn’t know if the timewalker elders would have tried to come down upon her for it, but hopefully they’d avoided their wrath. The timewalker elders hunted down any rogue timewalker who dared alter the course of history.

The back of his neck itched and he scratched it, then glanced at the corner of the room. It felt as though he was being watched. But there was nothing there. His wolf would sense it if someone else was present.

“Why did you suddenly charge them?” Aurora asked. “You sure pissed them off.”

He turned back to Aurora, ignoring the odd feeling in his chest. Had to be residual adrenaline. “One of them—the one who called for Amaris—was the Seer. The one who tortured me.”

She shot off the couch, still wobbly but standing. “What! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I dinna actually have a chance.” Or the foresight. His rage had gotten the better of him. After two decades of being helpless beneath her evil hands, he’d finally had a chance for vengeance and he’d lost control.

“Then why didn’t you stay and kill her?” she asked.

“You were hurt. And Amaris had power I’ve never seen before. What about the others? I couldn’t fight her if you were passed out, vulnerable. And I came to my senses. If I cause change in the past, the timewalker elders will come after me. The price could be my life. But we learned something. The Seer built the portal.”

“Or the witch.”

“I dinna recognize her or the others. The Seer is the only one connected to us. It’s no’ a coincidence.”

“They looked similar. Sisters, perhaps?”

“I never saw any sisters.” He reached into his memory, poking around in the tender bits for clues. “I may have heard other feminine voices in the tower prison, but I never saw them.”

“So she’s made a portal in the present day. Back to that stone circle. Why?”

“No idea. Do you think she saw you?”

Aurora shook her head. “I think I held my illusion.”

“She’s here though. Somewhere nearby.” Anticipation made the blood pound through his veins. She was powerful. But she no longer had her tower prison. The enchantments on that tower had been what had truly defeated him. The magic had negated his strength and bound his wolf. Without it, they were on even footing.

“I need more power,” Aurora said. “I’m tapped out and you’re close to it. It’ll take you time to reabsorb power from the aether and I can’t just take it from you when you might need it. And we need to put wards on your cabin. Can you aetherwalk me to somewhere with Mytheans?”

She had a point. He’d never seen any reason to put magical protections on his cabin, but now they were necessary. “You’re right. We should leave. We’ll go to the university.” 

He was still pissed about their role in Aurora’s imprisonment, but he’d save that for when they didn’t need the help so much. The university had unlimited power for Aurora, protections against intruders, and someone there might have heard of the Seer.

“We’ll go to the tower. I live there now. But aetherwalk us to the base of it. I’ve put some enchantments on it that will blow you away if you aetherwalk directly inside.” She walked into his arms. 

He barely flinched when she made contact. It seemed to be easier when he was aroused by desire, probably because his mind was distracted, and if he could see her hands. It had been what made last night possible. There had been nothing like it in the Seer’s dungeon; therefore, it hadn’t triggered any bad memories. 

“All right.” He waited until Mouse pressed herself against his legs, then aetherwalked them to Scotland.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ten minutes before

Erida stifled a gasp as the aether spat her out into a disgustingly charming log cabin. She struggled to maintain her link to the aether so that she would remain invisible, and stumbled back to hide behind a huge chair. Her demon familiar wasn’t fast enough, so she grabbed him by the tail and yanked him with her.

He started to shriek, but she slapped a hand over his fangs and gave him a look that said
No babies for you tonight if you keep up that shit.
The little monster preferred mortal children for his dinner. A threat that usually shut him up right quick.

She peered out from behind the chair. Felix and Aurora stood in the middle of the room. Aurora stumbled toward the couch to sit. It took everything Erida had not to shoot a jet of fire at the bitch who’d just sent Amaris, her youngest sister, up in flames. 

Felix started to pace, then glanced in her direction, his brow furrowed. 

Shite! Quickly, Erida focused on the connection of her soul with his and tore it apart, severing their link so that he would stop feeling her presence. Her power was tapped out from building the portal and she didn’t have enough to fight him if he saw her. Anyway, she wanted the whole damn soul, not just a link with it. Her familiar vibrated with excitement at the idea and she stroked its scaly back.

She watched silently as Aurora and Felix talked about what had just happened at the stone circle.

“One of them—the one who called for Amaris—was the Seer. The one who tortured me,” Felix said.

An evil grin spread across Erida’s face at the mention of her title.
You have no idea what’s coming, Felix.
She wasn’t nearly done with them yet.

She waited quietly as they talked. Blah blah blah. Fucking boring. Knowledge of their plans was valuable, but she was itching to get out of here and fuel up on some power. There was a little mortal town near here where she could steal some mortal souls. That’d do her some good for a while.

“She’s here, though. Somewhere nearby.” Felix’s voice interrupted her fantasies of the mortals’ despair when she stole their souls.

You have no idea how close.
As soon as she was powered up, she’d be back for them. Hazy daydreams of standing upon their corpses after she made them dance to her tune filled her mind.

Suddenly, Aurora and Felix were gone, aetherwalked away.

She stood and shrieked. Her familiar joined her, its high, devilish laugh mocking her rage. She kicked him. It was getting harder to maintain a clear mind. In the year since she’d been out of the aether prison, she’d drifted in and out of the present. Now, she’d just missed whatever they’d said.

In her rage, she tore a painting off the wall and flung it at a window. The window shattered. Pleasure sang through her veins. The destruction felt good. She grabbed anything that wasn’t nailed down and began throwing it around the room.

Her frustration at the way her plans had gone off the rails fueled her rage. The portal she’d made wasn’t supposed to suck her into the past, damn it! This was why she needed more power. More control. She’d almost been stuck in the seventeenth century. Would have been, if Felix and Aurora hadn’t shown up at the stone circle where she’d been watching her past self and her sisters. For once, her damned Seer powers had been working and had given her a vision of how she could escape the past and return to the present. Her visions had been unreliable for years, but this time, she’d had one in the nick of time.

To return to the present, she’d entered the aether halfway so that Felix and Aurora couldn’t see her or sense her. When Felix had been captured by Amaris’s moon wraiths, she’d bound part of her soul to his. Thankfully, it had sucked her forward in time with them. Now, she just had to pick up the pieces of her plan.

When she’d broken almost everything in the living room, her breathing finally calmed. Her familiar stopped racing about the room and turned to her. “Now what?” it hissed. “We find them. We capture them. We tear them apart!”

“Calm the fuck down!” she screeched at the little demon. She’d been plotting this for over a year, developing her plan. It’d taken her months to adjust to modern life and get her bearings. Once she’d learned her sisters were dead, she’d descended into a three-month binge of stealing souls and insanity. It’d taken her time to get everything set up. She had a plan now—a good one—and she couldn’t rush it.

The portal had worked as she’d intended. It’d brought Aurora here, near Felix, so that Erida had them both at her disposal. Though the portal had malfunctioned and taken her back to the past—the damn thing was meant to work the other way—it had at least confirmed that she had created access to the right point in time.

Now, all she had to do was refuel her power, which had been completely tapped out by building the portal, and get her hands on Felix and Aurora. They both had something she wanted very much indeed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Present time

Felix opened his eyes and Aurora stepped out of his arms. It was nearly dark in Scotland, though it was only four o’clock in the afternoon. Winter as usual. 

“Hang on a sec,” Aurora said before she turned to the red door at the base of the tower. She traced her hands over the frame, undoing whatever wards she’d cast in order to allow him inside. “There. Only you will be allowed through. Come on.”

She ran up the steps and pushed open the door to her flat. “I never thought this place would feel like home, but it’s nice to be back.”

He stepped through the doorway and took in the space. He hadn’t been back to the university since his recovery from the Seer’s tortures in 1705. It was vastly different. The walls had been painted a bright yellow, the furniture was a plush red, and electronics littered every wall, surface, and half the floor.

“Your hobby?” He gestured to the guts of an old television spread out in front of the fireplace.

“Yes. At first I just liked what electronics could do, but eventually I wanted to know how they do it. Hence...” She gestured to the mess.

Mouse picked her way delicately through the bits of plastic and metal until she reached a fluffy bed in front of the fire. She meowed.

“Sorry, pal. I’m all tapped out,” Aurora said. “If you can hang on a few minutes, I’ll be good to go soon.”

“I’ll make it.” Felix walked to the hearth and grabbed some tinder and logs out of the basket beside it. Mouse purred.

“Thanks. I’m already feeling a bit better. A night and I’ll be good. Or if we want to hurry up, I can go find some Mytheans to cozy up to.”

He didn’t like the idea of her having to go out and find a group to leach power from, and they needed some time to recover, so he said, “A night will be fine.”

A knock pounded on the door. “Open up, hag, or I’m breaking it down!”

Aurora beamed. “My sister!”

Aurora flung open the door to find her sister and Warren on the landing. 

“I saw you arrive.” Esha peered around her. “Hi, Felix. Long time no see.”