“At least someone is thinking clearly.”
Zoe tilted her chin, her expression defiant. “Just as you will be thinking clearly once we’ve broken the witch’s hold on you.”
The earth trembled beneath their feet as Roke released a tendril of his power.
“I don’t want to fight, Zoe, but I will.”
She spared a brief, hate-filled glare toward Sally before she took a step toward Roke, her hand held out in a gesture of peace.
“Please, Roke,” she pleaded. “You know you can trust me.”
Roke’s eyes were hard and cold as diamonds, his face looking as if it’d been carved from granite.
Sally gave a small shiver. She and Roke had been growling and fighting since they’d first laid eyes on each other, but he’d never, ever looked at her like that.
She hoped to God he never did.
“I’m taking Sally away from here.” His voice was soft, but there was no mistaking the lethal intent. “If you try to stop me you’ll be hurt. End of story.”
Zoe flinched, but her determination never faltered. Sally might have admired the female’s courage if she didn’t suspect it stemmed from Zoe’s intense desire to claim Roke as her own.
Bitch.
“We can discuss this back at my lair,” Zoe said.
“No.” There was another mini-earthquake. “Let us go.”
“We can’t. You know that.” Zoe pointed toward Sally, although her gaze never shifted from Roke. “So long as the witch has you in her power, you’re in danger.”
“In my power?” Sally muttered beneath her breath. “Yeah, right.”
Of course the vampire heard her. “Shut up, witch.”
Roke growled low in his throat, the sound making Sally’s hair stand on end.
“You will speak to her with respect.”
“Roke . . . this isn’t you. You would never choose a woman over your clan. And certainly never a witch,” Zoe tried to soothe, while Sally took a step away.
It didn’t take a genius to know that the shit was about to hit the fan. She needed to be prepared.
Returning her concentration to her magic, she frowned as she felt a heat spreading across her stomach. What on earth? Cautiously she held the blanket out just far enough that she could peek down to discover what was causing the strange sensation.
She hastily swallowed her gasp at the golden glow that surrounded the music box clutched in her hand.
This was different from the shimmer that outlined the glyphs.
This light encompassed the entire box and was pulsing like a heartbeat . . . God almighty, it was pulsing in time to her heartbeat.
Which meant that whatever magic was happening was directly connected to her.
But what did it mean?
Would the box help to amplify a spell?
Or would it actually interfere?
Only one way to find out, she abruptly decided, lifting her head as Roke’s argument with Zoe reached its inevitable conclusion.
“Sally is my mate,” Roke was snarling, his hands lifting as the vampires began to press closer. “My loyalty is to her.”
Zoe grimaced. “I’m sorry, Roke, but someday you’ll thank me.” She gave a wave of her hand. “Take them.”
It was now or never.
Sally closed her eyes, speaking the words for a stun spell. She’d never tried to use it against vampires, but it was the only offensive spell she would work against such a large number of enemies.
If she could plait the air into a tight enough weave before releasing it, the explosion should be able to stun the vampires long enough for them to try to make another stab at escape.
A long shot, but better than nothing.
Unconsciously stroking her fingers over the box that had warmed until it was almost painful, Sally snapped her eyes open and spoke the word that would release her spell.
At first nothing seemed to happen and Sally’s heart stuttered to a horrified halt.
She didn’t know if she was strong enough to survive being thrown back into that dark, lonely cell.
Not with her sanity intact.
Then, abruptly the strands of her magic began to form, threading together at a dizzying speed. She clenched her teeth, feeling as if she were being yanked inside out by the swelling power.
This was bigger than a simple stun spell.
The realization had barely formed when the threads began to glow with a dazzling light. It reminded her of something . . . another magic she’d recently seen.
Oh, hell.
It was the portal that the imp had formed to bring her to Nevada in the first place.
She desperately threw out her hand, trying to grasp ahold of Roke before she was sucked into a swirling tangle of colors.
Roke didn’t know what the hell was going on.
One minute he’d been bracing himself to fight his own clan and the next he was being jerked through space and slammed into an invisible barrier that nearly knocked him out.
Sprawled on the grass, he struggled to get his bearings.
“Dammit.” He turned his head enough to see a lump of gray stone lying next to him. Levet. Perfect. “Did you do this, gargoyle?” he growled.
The lump slowly sat up, exposing the fairy wings that sparkled in the moonlight.
“I cannot create a portal.”
Roke pressed a hand to his forehead, feeling like he’d cracked open his skull.
“You’ve been popping in and out for days.”
“It was Siljar who was responsible for my . . . unorthodox travels,” he said.
Roke struggled to think. “Then she brought us here?”
“Non.”
“How can you be certain?”
Levet gave a click of his tongue. “Because I recognize a portal when I have been thrust through one.”
“Christ.” With an effort he forced himself to a seated position, his gaze searching the ground beside him. “Sally?” He cursed, jumping to his feet. There was no tiny, autumn-haired witch in sight. “Where is she?” he snapped as Levet waddled toward him.
The gargoyle frowned, his expression concerned. “Do I look like I know?”
Roke muttered a curse, allowing his senses to flow outward. It took less than a second to realize they were at the edge of Styx’s property in Chicago. There was no mistaking the sprawling, manicured lawn and the honking-huge house, not to mention the energy pulse from a dozen powerful vampires.
And then there was the barrier against magic that explained why the portal had come to such an abrupt end and why his skull had nearly been split in two.
So where the hell was Sally?
Leashing his rising panic, Roke closed his eyes and concentrated on the bond that connected him to his mate. A surge of relief rushed through him as he felt the steady pulse of her heart. She was alive. But the sense of her was . . . muffled. As if something or someone was trying to disguise her presence.
“She must not have come through the portal,” he snarled, pulling out his phone and punching in numbers.
Zoe answered on the first ring.
“Do you have my mate?” he demanded, his anger snapping a nearby oak tree in half. “Don’t screw with me on this,” he warned as Zoe denied any knowledge of Sally. “Goddammit.”
Levet’s tail quivered as he impatiently waited for Roke to shove the phone back into his pocket.
“Sally?”
“Zoe claims that she disappeared at the same time we did,” he said, pressing a hand to the empty ache in the center of his heart. “She assumed Sally cast some sort of translocation spell.”
Levet snorted at the vampire’s persistent assumption that a witch could actually transport people from one place to another.
“You trust her?”
Roke grimaced. He didn’t want to. He wanted to believe that Zoe was holding Sally captive and that he had only to return to Nevada to free her.