Though he could ill afford it, Marrok diverted his attention to Olivia for a moment. She was doing her best to escape the half-dead minion and the stink of his rotting flesh.
Then the evil wizard waved his hand. A moment later, Olivia stiffened in the Anarki’s arms, clawing at her throat, mouth open, face turning red. Gasping.
“Give her some bloody air!”
With a smirk that made Marrok want to punch him into the next century, Mathias waved his hand again. Olivia gasped audibly, then let it out, shuddering.
Mathias would pay for that—and any other harm he’d done to Olivia.
“Cooperate, or your mate will lose her ability to breathe permanently.”
Shock crossed the graying floor and grabbed Olivia by the arm, dragging her forward. Marrok would have protested—and taken Shock’s head off—if he hadn’t feared what the wizard would do to Olivia in retaliation.
Marrok raced toward his mate. In two steps, he was in front of her, bringing her against him, holding her in his arms.
“Are you well, love?”
She nodded, then sobbed. “He killed my father right after your cottage was attacked. Mathias was pretending to be him for days.”
So, he had been right—and wrong—about Richard, but that brought him no comfort.
He tucked those thoughts away and focused on stroking Olivia’s back, caressing her hair, offering her comfort with a brush of his lips against hers. Sweet and in one piece. Nothing else mattered.
“As touching as this is,” Mathias cut in, “I require the book. Now. Bring it to me.”
“Let Olivia leave the tunnel. All else is between you and me, and I have not the magic to fight you.”
Mathias paused, considering. “She may walk to the end of the tunnel, but stays inside where I can see her…just in case.”
Marrok hated it, but the concession did get Olivia a good six meters from the fight he knew was about to happen. Slowly, he nodded.
Releasing Olivia was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but he unwound his arms from around her and tried to set her away.
“No,” she protested, grasping at his shoulders. “He isn’t to be trusted. He will take the book and do something dreadful.”
“I will not let him harm you.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about!” She gripped him harder. “He’s dangerous, unscrupulous. Please…Don’t give up the book. You will never be free of the curse if you do.”
“That is not important. Go!” he urged, shoving her toward the tunnel’s opening. At least standing there, the others could watch her. She was one of their own. If all hell broke loose, they would save her.
Still, she wasn’t budging.
From across the distance, Shock raised his hand. Marrok protested and lunged—too late. He blasted Olivia to the end of the tunnel. She tumbled on her backside on the bricks, just at the place where moonlight crept into the underground structure.
“You were given an order, witch. Obey,” Shock snarled. “Or do you think yourself too important because you’re a le Fay?”
Marrok grabbed a blade from the sheath strapped to his thigh and raised it threateningly at Shock. He’d dearly love to sink this blade into the man’s flesh. Repeatedly, if needed.
But Shock wasn’t his primary enemy. He’d be dealt with later. For now, Mathias and his considerable half-dead army deserved all of Marrok’s attention.
“Now,” Mathias tsked. “I want the book. Let us conclude this business, shall we?”
“Give me the damn book, human,” Shock growled.
The wizard was begging to have his gut slashed open.
Taking a deep breath, Marrok took two steps toward Mathias and Shock, nearly to the edge of the light. Then he stopped.
“Meet me halfway.”
“I am in no mood to compromise. Give it over!”
Marrok’s mind raced. What happened in the next few moments would determine the outcome of this whole event—and the rest of his eternity. He must keep his wits about him.
Deep breath. Three, two, one…
Suddenly, Marrok leapt at Mathias. He flung the book in his face, hitting him square in the nose. Warm blood spurted across his forearms, and Mathias howled. Marrok followed the assault by sticking the knife in the evil wizard’s gut and twisting hard.
“Run, Olivia!”
He didn’t dare look behind him to see if his mate complied, not when the book fell to the ground with a thud. Marrok saw Shock lunge for it at the same time he did. Marrok dove at it, but Shock already had it in his grasp.
“Stupid human,” Mathias spat. “I’d planned no more than light torture for you, since I cannot kill you outright. Now…”
Mathias raised his hands above his head, his expression more than fearsome; it was terrifying. Those blue eyes turned red, and Marrok swore he was seeing the devil in the flesh.
Quickly, he drew his Glock from the waistband of his trousers and fired a shot at Mathias, right between the eyes. He shot again, this time hitting the evil bastard right in the heart. The wizard fell to the bricks, limp.
Then he turned to confront Shock, only to find the traitor—and the book—gone. Bloody hell, the bastard had zapped out of here to God knew where. But losing the book to gain Olivia’s freedom was worth every day of immortality. He’d endure anything for her. Everything.
He turned to the end of the tunnel, hoping he’d find it empty. Instead, Olivia stood there, wide eyes growing wider with each passing moment. She gasped, pointing to something just beyond him. Marrok whirled on the balls of his feet, expecting to see Shock challenging him.
Instead, Mathias stood. Blood dripped down his face, into his eyes, onto his white shirt, saturating it. Marrok could see the bullet lodged in his forehead. It would have killed any human.
Mathias definitely was not human. That was clear when he blinked and the bullet oozed out, falling to the ground with a clink. The wound healed itself instantly.
“You’ve ruined one of my favorite shirts, along with my evening, and given me an enormous headache.”
Mathias made a quick whip of his arm, then a flick of his wrist, and Marrok felt something puncture his chest. Enormous. Ragged. Burning as it sliced down, threatening to gut him.
He dropped to his knees, and Mathias laughed, the maniacal sound bouncing off the walls, closing in on him. Marrok placed his hands over his belly and came away with a fistful of blood. He choked, and looked at Mathias in horror. Had the wizard somehow found a way to kill him? Because he could swear that he was rapidly losing his life.
“No!” Olivia shouted, running to his rescue. “Stop it.”
“Go!” Marrok told her. “Be safe.”
“I won’t leave you!”
The fiery slice of his flesh was nearly to his pubic bone now. Certainly, his guts would fall out soon. Blood seeped everywhere. He was going to die. Mathias was apparently more magical than Morganna’s curse. But damn it, he wanted to die in peace, knowing that Olivia was safe and well.
“Go. Please,” he begged as he fell to the ground in a hot pool of his own blood. “For me. Love you.” Marrok couldn’t leave her and this life without saying those words.
Then everything went black.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
OLIVIA STOOD TOE TO TOE with Mathias. Before, she’d been terrified of the dark wizard, doing anything and everything not to draw his ire.
Now she was just pissed off.
“Perhaps your mate wasn’t so immortal after all,” Mathias drawled, his hands dripping blood.
He looked like an extra from a horror flick. Though wounded, he did a damn good job of hiding it.
Timidity had gotten her nowhere with the wizard. She’d played by his rules. He’d gravely injured her mate, whose possibly dying words had been that he loved her.
She loved him, too. It gouged her soul to think of him dying like this. Why wasn’t he spontaneously healing, as before? Whatever the reason, she wasn’t giving up.
Mathias was going down.
“Down? Hardly, witchling. You haven’t yet learned to master your thoughts, much less me.” Mathias cocked his head to the side, looking amused. “Are you getting angry?”
“I’m already there,” she snapped.
Energy collected inside her, growing, glowing. Her fury melded with her determination. Fear fused with her love for Marrok. It coalesced in her head, racing through her body, a lightning-fast lava sizzling down her arms, into her fingertips.
Before she could let it fly, a commotion behind her disrupted the stream of energy.
Bram, Duke, and Ice ran down the tunnel, three abreast. Caden followed, his charming smile replaced by a feral battle snarl, backed up by the automatic weapon in his hand and wicked blades strapped to his hard thighs.
With a wave of his hand, Bram flooded the tunnel with light. Olivia gasped. Behind Mathias, at least two hundred of the half-dead Anarki waited, their eerie hooded faces gray and menacing.
Oh God. This would be a difficult and deadly fight for the Doomsday Brethren.
Mathias reached out, palms down, gathering his own flash of energy. Olivia shook at the red-eyed fury on his face, but refused to cower. She’d fight to the death.
Then sparks flew from Mathias’s fingertips, red and orange and black, like something out of the bowels of hell. The Anarki rushed forward, charging right for her.
“Duck!” Caden screamed as he shoved her to the ground.
The rat-tat-tat of machine-gun fire resounded off the ungiving walls of the tunnel. The first row of Anarki fell. Another cropped up to take their place.
Mathias staggered against another bullet, but when Olivia looked up, he’d already healed the wound in his thigh as he had the gunshot to his head, with a wave of his hand. Though paler, he stood tall, looking down at Olivia huddled on the ground where Caden had shoved her.
“This battle is pointless. You cannot win. Already, you’re in the position you’ll occupy for the rest of your days, witch: kneeling at my feet.”
“Never.”
“Saving yourself for your mate?” He glanced at Marrok. “You needn’t bother. He’s not yet dead. But soon, he will be.”
“Bastard!” Caden shouted. “Where the hell is my brother’s wife?”
Mathias simply smiled.
Bram and Ice both drew nasty-looking guns and began firing at will into the crowd. Duke hacked his way in with a blunt sword, dripping sweat and black blood as he stepped over decaying bodies resolutely. Olivia scarcely noticed. All the fury and energy that had been coiling in her before the Doomsday Brethren’s appearance made another surge.
Bram fought his way to her side quickly and stood between her and Mathias. “Go!”
“I’m not leaving Marrok.”
After the barest glance down, Bram fixed his gaze on the enemy. “He wanted to die.”
“Not like this,” she argued.
“I have no doubt that his last wish was for your safety. Go! Don’t make his death in vain.”
Damn it, Olivia hated it, but Bram was right. Marrok had surrendered both his chance to break the curse and his life to save hers.
With a sob, she darted toward the end of the tunnel, the chill of Anarki right behind her. Adrenaline charged her veins, mixing with a potent rush of energy.
Before she could dash out of the tunnel and into the moonlight, a figure stepped out, blocking her. Leather, sunglasses, and bad attitude. Shock.
Olivia skidded, trying to change direction, but Shock snaked out a beefy arm and caught her against his chest, then turned her to face the battle inside the tunnel.
“Release it!”
“Let me go, traitor!” she screamed, struggling for escape.
His grip remained painfully tight. “That energy inside you. Can’t you feel it? Mask your goddamn thoughts and release it!”
A few feet away, Bram and Mathias faced off. Like gunfighters in the Old West, they stared and waited for the other to twitch first. Power sparked the air, clashing and crashing.
“Do it!” Shock insisted.
“Go to hell! You betrayed us—”
“Shut up.” Losing patience, he brought her hands to her sides. “Marrok is enduring agony after excruciating centuries alone. You’ll know the same once your mate is gone, if you let Mathias take him from you. You want that?”
No!
Would her despair somehow help Mathias? She struggled to hold the feelings back, but couldn’t. Fury and anguish swarmed her as the half-dead Anarki ran her way. The energy wound up inside her like a screeching crescendo, tight and keening inside her. Mathias, the bastard. The mate thief. The cruel monster. It blasted her with power, yanked away the fear.
“When I tell you, take all that energy ramping up inside you and let it fly,” Shock growled in her ear.
“Bite me!”
“You want to rescue your mate or not?”
Olivia did, and everyone knew it. She had to start masking her thoughts better. In her head, she chanted one of her favorite songs, How many people want to kick some ass? I do! I do! Shock chuckled.
