“Come, woman,” Brother Ailwin said, jerking my hair backward.
Here we go. Ready?
Corazon !
Rather than fight Brother Ailwin, as he clearly expected me to do, I threw myself backward against him, relieving the tension of the blade against my neck enough to allow me to spin around and face my abductor. I slammed my knee into his groin at the same time I jammed a thumb into his nearest eyeball, sending him to his knees screaming bloody murder.
Before I could do more, an Alec-shaped blur flashed by me, and I was thrown across the room, narrowly missing a table to careen first into Eleanor before rebounding onto Kristoff, who shoved me toward a chair and leaped forward to help Alec. Brother Ailwin had stopped screaming as Alec lifted him off the ground by his throat.
“Now, lichmaster, let me tell you how I deal with those who would use my Beloved,” Alec growled, his voice so menacing it made me pause for a moment. It was the voice of the man who had seen his salvation cut down before him, the man who had murdered a woman, the same man who was filled with so much agony, it would have driven anyone else insane long, long ago.
“Dear god, I think my back is broken.” I helped Eleanor to her feet from where she lay smashed against the wall, her arms and legs moving feebly. “Seriously, man-stealer, you need to go on a diet. Ouch. Double ouch.”
I pushed Eleanor gently onto the couch, and spun around to help Alec.
The spotty monk, who had been sent flying when Alec attacked Brother Ailwin, suddenly yelled and tackled me, throwing me to the floor. “Harm him, and I will use the Tool against you, Dark One!” he cried, one hand clutching my hair, his knees on my back as he pinned me to the ground.
“The hell you will!” I snarled. “I refuse to be used!”
“You cannot refuse. You are a Tool,” Brother Ailwin said, his face turning bright red as Alec’s stranglehold eased up.
The spotty monk yanked me up to my feet, holding me in front of him like a shield.
“Yeah? Well, maybe I’ll just use myself, then!” Can I do that?
No.
Damn! “Fine, then. I won’t use myself. But I refuse to let you use me!”
“You cannot refuse,” Brother Ailwin repeated, his color fading as Alec released his death grip on the lichmaster’s neck. “You are a Tool; the power flows from Bael through you.”
“Well, maybe I just won’t let that power out of me. Did you ever think of that?”
“Oh, let him use you,” Eleanor said, passing a hand over her forehead. “I’ve got a hell of a headache and want to get out of here. I just want to go home.”
“Home?” I asked, distracted. “You were dead!”
“Even the dead have homes,” she said primly, brushing her blouse. “I had a very nice little cottage in the seventh hour of the Underworld. My roses were about to bloom when I was yanked out of there. Since Alec has so plainly lost his mind, I will go back to my cottage and roses and Gregory, the handsome soldier who lived next door.”
“You have a boyfriend in the Underworld and you’re yelling at me for stealing Alec?” I asked, aghast at her nerve.
“Gregory isn’t a boyfriend. He’s more a friend with benefits.” She considered Alec for a moment before she sighed. “He’s not as handsome as Alec, but he’s not a bastard like him, either.”
“Lich!” Brother Ailwin told Eleanor in a haughty tone of voice. “You will be silent while your betters speak!”
“Oh, that’s going to go over well,” Pia muttered.
By the time Eleanor got done chewing out Brother Ailwin, everyone was snappish.
“Right, we got off track,” I said, trying to look as badass as Alec. “But the fact remains that I will not let Bael’s power pass through me, so you might as well just give it up.”
Unhappily for my plan, Ailwin looked anything but worried. In fact, he shrugged and, with a petulant look at Alec, smoothed out the collar of his shirt. “You would destroy yourself if you were to try that.”
Alec—
No ! I forbid you to even try that. Now we will do this my way. “Let go of my Beloved and I will not destroy you,” he said in a conversational voice to the monk holding me.
“Brother Godwin would not be so foolish as to do that,” Brother Ailwin said, nodding to the spotty man who held me. “Perhaps a little demonstration of how serious I am to possess the Tool is in order. You may use her to destroy the Dark One, Brother.”
“Jesus wept!” I swore at the same moment Alec lunged toward me.
The same sense of standing in a river swept over me, and I knew the monk was pulling on the power of Bael. I also know that it was directed at Alec, and that I absolutely could not allow.
You will not sacrifice yourself for me! he yelled into my head.
I’m not going to let you suffer any more, Alec. You’ve done enough of that. I wrapped my arms around myself as the power built and built within me, wanting to escape me, wanting to flow out of me and nail Alec in the chest. I fought it, spinning it around and around inside me, trying to contain it, but knowing in my heart that I hadn’t the strength to do so for long.
Brother Godwin dropped me as I curled up on myself in an attempt to hold back the power, and sneered, “You will only destroy yourself, Tool. Release the power!”
“Never!” I panted, writhing on the ground with the agony of the still-building power. Alec reached me just as the second monk threw himself on his back, sending both men to the floor. Kristoff started forward to help, but Brother Ailwin screamed something about Pia, his dagger glinting as he jumped over the ottoman toward her.
Eleanor yelled god alone knew what, dancing around on the fringe, waving a vase and threatening pretty much all of us.
Inside me, the pressure continued to grow, pain lacing every breath as I struggled to hold it back. I felt like a stuffed potato in a pressure cooker, my entire body twisting upon itself as I screamed in anguish.
Corazon! We must Join! Now!
This is not really the moment for this!
If we don’t, you’ll die!
Jesus wept! It hurts, Alec! I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to hold it. Get out of here! If I lose control, it’ll destroy you!
Alec, whom I could barely see through the tears that blurred my eyes, was fighting like a madman with the monk. In the middle of clawing desperately at the floor to reach me despite the monk trying to bash his head on the floor, he did something that boggled what was left of my mind—rather than biting the monk and draining him of his blood, he bit his own thumb, then with a tremendous effort dragged himself and the monk toward me. Take my blood, Cora. You must take it to complete the Joining.
I didn’t argue the point. I didn’t question my need to obey his command. I didn’t even debate with myself the wisdom of taking a step that I knew would change the course of my life forever. I’d already made that choice. I rolled over toward Alec, kicking out at Brother Godwin as I did so, every last atom of my body in torment with the need to fight the power. My control started to slip just as Alec’s hand loomed before my blurred eyes. I opened my mouth, praying the few drops of blood on his thumb would be enough.
As the blood touched my tongue, the power surged within me, spelling certain death to Alec. I screamed an oath of vengeance as I made one last, desperate attempt to turn it back onto myself. “Hide!” I yelled at Alec. For the love of the saints, hide from it!
My back arched as the power broke free, pouring out of me, slamming into the man in front of me before sucking me down into an ebony pool of oblivion.