Captive Soul (28 page)

(
 29 
)

John never wanted to let her go.

He stayed inside her, feeling her heart beat, feeling his heart beat, as they breathed together, both coated in sweat and a decent amount of soot and ash. The whole basement smelled like sex and sweat and fire. It was hot as hell, but she was hotter. He’d never felt anything like that, but if he stayed where he was, he could swear he’d get hard all over again.

“You’re unbelievable.” He ran his lips around the edges of her ear, loving the way she shivered. Then he kissed her cheek and neck, sampling a few of the different kinds of softness she had to offer.

“And you want me again,” she said, her smile intoxicating him as much as her voice, nothing but a deep, sexy purr as she wrapped her legs around him and started moving.

John made love to her, slowly this time, taking time with each rolling thrust. Her arms flopped away from him and her head tilted back. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open, totally without inhibition—and totally his.

There had never been anything better than this. There couldn’t be anything better than her.

For a time afterward, he cradled her face-to-face on the mat, and they didn’t speak. For all her communicating, Camille seemed comfortable with times that didn’t require any words. He liked that. He liked everything about her.

Later, still face-to-face with him, she asked him about the end of the meeting that she’d missed, and she kissed him between sentences as he gave the report.

“Blackmore talked a lot about what Bela did in the meadow, and how it helped, and how everybody needed to think of unique solutions to old problems. Jack always had a little bit of football coach in him.”

Camille’s expression was still relaxed. “Maybe that’s what we need, though I have to be honest—I can’t imagine Jack Blackmore as a rah-rah kind of guy.”

John had been thinking through a few things he needed to ask Camille, and this seemed like as good a time as any, since they were on the subject. “What exactly did Bela do in the north meadow? Why did it hit her so hard?”

“It’s part of her terrasentience. Bela’s not strong with terrakinesis—earthmoving—so she uses the charm I made her to pump it up sometimes.” The lines on Camille’s face tightened at the mention of the charm. “With the charm, she channels her earth energy through her to do the heavy lifting. It’s hard on us when we do projective stuff, all that energy pushing through us.”

“I can imagine, but this fight against the demons, it’ll take everything we’ve got and then some.” He brushed her hair out of her face.

“I’m aware of that.” She sounded a little tense. Worried? Or maybe slightly annoyed? He wondered if he’d been patronizing her. He had, hadn’t he?

“Sorry,” he said. “I really have to work on my pillow talk.”

She laughed. “We don’t have any pillows.” Her laughter faded then, too quickly for John’s tastes. “But, our lives are what they are. We could make shit up, or we could keep doing this—sharing what’s really happening in our heads and hearts.”

Those eyes. He could look into them until next year, at least. “You can be scary sometimes.”

“I’m sure you’re terrified.” She picked those words, but John couldn’t miss the fact that she had started looking away and fidgeting, like she was plotting a great escape any second.

“Are you afraid, beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“Of me?”

“Yes. No. Not—not really.”

“Put it in words. I can wait.”

Camille closed her eyes. Opened them. Seemed surprised that he was still there. He didn’t have a sense that she was trying to torture him or herself, only that she had deep hurts, deep fears that only a long time of loving and talking could put to rest.

“We’ve got patrol in a few hours,” she said, her voice coming out in a husky rasp.

John acknowledged this by rubbing her arm some more, keeping her close, and not taking back his question. Waiting her out—it worked almost every time.

Her muscles got tighter than tight, and her breathing became shallow even though he was trying to comfort her. He was getting a sense she was close to her bolt point, that soon she just wouldn’t be able to stay anymore if she didn’t start talking to him about what was bothering her, what was hurting her.

“Don’t go, beautiful.” He wasn’t begging or demanding. Just asking.

“I feel like I’m a complete coward. I know that’s what I’m being, but I don’t know how to be anything else.” A second later, she added, “I don’t want to be Ona, terrified and broken and alone.”

John wasn’t entirely sure what she meant with that last part, but the terrified and broken and alone part was easy enough to grasp, and hearing it made him hurt for her. “I’m right here.” God, he couldn’t stand it when he couldn’t comfort her. Everything he was saying felt lame, but he had nothing else to offer but himself and the few phrases that came to him. “We’re right here together.”

The fear finally showed on her face, and he heard it in her voice, too. “What if you stay? What if you start meaning everything to me, and then I lose you, too?”

“I don’t plan to lose you, Camille—and I don’t plan to get lost.” He kissed her, soft and easy, pulling back before he risked making her feel trapped. “Can we do any better than that?”

She tried to say something, but the words choked off.

This was it.

When her famous fire Sibyl communication shut down, she was about to get up and run.

“Don’t go,” he said again.

For a few long seconds, he was sure she would pull away from him, scramble to her feet, grab her clothes, and disappear out the gym door. He thought he was ready for it even though he didn’t know how he’d stand it, but what he really wasn’t ready for was what happened next.

Camille seemed to go to war with herself, closing her eyes, opening them, swallowing a few times, and giving off thin lines of smoke from her shoulders. She shook in his loose embrace, but after a long, searching look into his eyes, she just stopped. Went still. She quit fighting—what? Him? Herself?

Then Camille settled back into John’s arms, hugged his neck tightly … and stayed.

(
 30 
)

Tarek was no stranger to dark urges and emotions. Rage, hunger, and lust were as familiar to him as desert landscapes, the rising of the sun, the moon’s cold glow, and the ridges of his fangs in tiger form. He was not, however, accustomed to joy, to pride, to the fierce sense of triumph he experienced when he entered the conference room of the Westchester mansion Seneca had made available for his personal use.

The room itself was simple in its splendor, with a golden chandelier illuminating framed pictures of oceangoing ships on dark paneling, hardwood floors, and a large oak table with twenty leather chairs. On any normal day, the space smelled of lemon and cotton from cleansers and rags. The carefully laid charms and elemental bindings Griffen had created and placed at its corners blocked all incoming energy, just as it shielded any energy within the house from detection—but tonight the air reeked of strength and power and new, expensive suits. Surely any passerby would know something wonderful was occurring within. How could the world remain unaware of what Tarek found so bone-stirringly magnificent?

The twenty chairs in the large room had been filled with heavily muscled human-looking men of all colorings and tastes in clothing. The walls behind the table were also crowded with men of similar height and weight. From Tarek’s left, the youngest specimen came forward. This man, a boy in comparison to the rest, had an indistinct nationality, both by accent and features, though Tarek would have guessed Hispanic heritage. The boy wore dark slacks, a white shirt, and leather shoes, and he looked like he’d escaped from a preparatory school only days ago.

“Aarif.” Tarek put his hand on his true brother’s shoulder, smiling in spite of the many challenges awaiting them this night, and perhaps many nights to come.

Aarif’s eyes gleamed, a golden light burning in the dark depths. He seemed overwhelmed, unable to put his thoughts fully into words, but he spread out his arms. “
Culla
. Just … 
look
at them.”

Tarek could do little else. He smiled at the men around the table and standing against the walls, and they returned his pleased expression.

“My brothers,” he said. “You have come. You have all come.”

Since the moment of their release from their temple prison in the Valley of the Gods, the surviving Eldest had not been in the same location together. They had all been cultivating supporters and their own Created in locations scattered across the globe. That made the most sense for their long-term survival, but even with their precautions and separation, Rakshasa losses had been heavy at the hands of John Cole before he died, and now due to Sibyl interference.

These men, these true brothers, were all Tarek had left, and all he cared about. Each Rakshasa appeared skilled in maintaining human form, so each had followed Strada’s last edict: to learn their enemy, to fit in, and to form alliances that would serve them. Each had answered their new
culla
’s call to put aside their individual triumphs and join him for the good of the pride.

Tarek moved to the head of the table, deeply touched when each head bowed in a gesture of submission. Then his true brothers met his eyes. Cool air bathed Tarek’s face, issuing from the room’s many vents, and he was grateful for the stark sensation. Otherwise, the sight of his real family might have left him speechless for some time.

“Separation no longer serves us,” he told them, knowing they required explanation for his urgent demand that they come at once to New York City. “In large numbers, we cannot be defeated, even by an army of elemental witches whose ancestors harmed us in the past.”

Naveed, the tallest around the table, had chosen brown skin and short brown hair, and he wore a standard American business suit that probably drew no undue attention in Boston, where he had been operating. He made gestures with his hands as he said, “At the height of our desert empire, these women were disorganized and only beginning to find their identity, yet they used old magicks to slaughter half our number and trap us for centuries in that accursed temple. Now that they call themselves Sibyls of the Dark Crescent Sisterhood instead of witches, wise women, and healers, now that they are greater in organization, numbers, and power—how can we hope to prevail?”

“These Sibyls do not wield the terrible and ultimate elemental powers of their ancestors,” said Bakr, who would become
culla
upon Tarek’s death. He had chosen lighter brown hair than Naveed, and his fawn-brown eyes and light coloring seemed fitting for his location in the Southern city of Atlanta. “Still, they are fierce and brutal in direct battles. We have found no certain solution to counter their attacks, though the protections you instructed us to create to hide our energy signatures have been very useful.”

Tarek appreciated Bakr’s honesty and rewarded it with openness of his own. “I believe our way forward is to band together and eliminate the Sibyls in each population center. When enough of their fighters lie dead in the streets and we have taken city after city, perhaps they will be interested in establishing a treaty. Until then, we must kill them without hesitation or mercy.”

He watched his brothers carefully for any hint of dissent or disagreement, but he saw nothing of the sort. Fahaad, who had been leading their efforts in Houston, Texas, closed his blue eyes in obvious relief. His sunburned skin seemed to loosen at the edges as he grew more hopeful from Tarek’s words.

“Why are we beginning here in New York?” Hasram asked, his flame-colored hair a match for his temperament. “Dalal and I have dealt the Sibyls in Los Angeles many crushing blows—they are nearly on the run. Should we not finish the job there before coming here?”

“For that matter, we could locate the dens and caves where they train their young and go after them at their source,” Ramar suggested. His human form had dark hair, eyes, and skin like Tarek had chosen for himself, giving him a faintly Egyptian appearance.

“In due time,” Tarek said. He allowed a moment of silence, studying each of his true brothers in the late-day sunlight sinking into the room’s floor-to-ceiling windows. The setting sun gave the oak table a bloody cast, which seemed more than appropriate.

When Tarek was certain each one in the room was ready to listen to him, he revealed the truth of his request for their presence. “I have brought you to New York City first because I believe we face our greatest and most imminent threat here.”

He gestured to Aarif, who flushed at the honor of addressing his true brothers as an equal. “We have reason to believe the leader of the rebellious Created who call themselves Bengals has located herself here, along with her amassed army,” Aarif said, almost too eagerly. “I discovered their trace scent and ultimately their lair in some of my travels in the past two weeks.”

Tarek saw lips curl and heard the rumbles of anger. The Bengals were thorns in the paw, but never a serious threat, save for their
culla
, a woman who had faced the Rakshasa in direct battle before—and aided in their near destruction.

“To eliminate that fiend and her ragged band of rebels would bring us all great satisfaction,” he said, “and avenge the deaths of our many brothers in the Valley of the Gods.”

There were nods, but also scowls and some uncertain expressions. Still, Aarif continued with confidence. “But there is another and even more urgent reason. The Dark Crescent Sisterhood has indeed abandoned the older powers that once devastated us in favor of skills that give them more immediate and controllable weapons in direct combat. Here in New York City, however, we have located a pocket of these witches who still have the old magicks of their ancestors.”

This announcement caused some consternation and an outbreak of small discussions. The human-form Rakshasa against the back walls pushed forward to join in the talk around the table, and Tarek didn’t feel any need to stop his true brothers until they once more grew ready to listen. After a minute or so, the swell of words subsided, and attention began to turn back to Tarek.

Shafeer, with his boyish American sand-colored hair and splash of freckles, became the one to state the obvious, his higher-pitched voice rising over the swells and lulls of his brothers’ lingering conversations. “If the old magicks have survived, the Dark Crescent Sisterhood could defeat us again.”

Tarek nodded. “If we leave these four alive to fight us.”

Total silence took over then, extending as the Eldest stared at one another, Tarek, or the table in silent contemplation.

“Only four?” asked someone from the back of the room. “We’re afraid of just four Sibyls?”

Bakr snarled, and for the first time since they gathered, Tarek caught a flash of fur, silver as starlight, along his heir’s knuckles. “It took only four the first time. Your memory is short, Dubar.”

Jabrail, who had elected to present himself with rich, dark skin to match his black hair, asked perhaps the most important question, for which Tarek had been waiting. “If they still have the strength to do so, why haven’t the Sibyls made a definitive and coordinated move against us?”

Tarek nodded to Aarif, who once more plunged in with eagerness, filling the tense room with his forceful, youthful voice. “They seem uncertain. Hesitant. Tarek and I question if they fully understand their own abilities and how to employ them—which is why we must act with haste.”

This time the murmurings and conversations were snuffed out like candle flames under a bell. In each set of eyes, blue, green, brown, black, or any shade in between, Tarek saw the unmistakable gleam of sudden optimism, along with hints of lust for the coming fight. The conference room now smelled of sweat and exertion—like cat and claw and fang and fur. Like Rakshasa. Tarek wanted to roar his solidarity with his true brothers, but it was not yet time for battle cries.

“We have all shared our experiences and reports,” Aarif said. “We have all had our allies search and explore and report. I believe that without question, the four witches skulking here in Manhattan are the only women on earth other than the Bengal bitch who could do us lasting harm.”

Bakr’s toothy grin lifted Tarek’s spirits even more. “What is your plan?”

Aarif spread his arms. “Sibyls with the old magicks aren’t as effective in simple combat, so that’s how we must engage them.”

“I propose we draw them into a closed space with barriers too powerful for them to shatter.” Tarek placed his hands on the table and leaned forward to be closer to his pride. “Then we meet them in force with our superior numbers and abilities, and we tear them to pieces.”

Ramar’s expression communicated approval, but he voiced the doubt he carried. “What would cause them to take such a risk, to pursue us into what will no doubt seem like an obvious trap?”

Tarek smiled, and this time he didn’t try to stop his fangs from extending. “Bait.”

Aarif, black fur showing along both hands, added, “With a strong enough lure, the Sibyls will come.”

Now almost every face at the table, including those standing behind, radiated anticipation along with approval.

“Do you propose to capture one of the four and use her to draw her sisters?” Bakr asked.

“That has much merit,” Tarek said, “but I believe I have determined an even better enticement. If I am correct, they will come for us with great numbers, perhaps their entire New York contingent, and their human law enforcement associates as well.”

No one questioned him on this or asked him for more information, and Tarek knew he had his pride’s total trust and support.

Hasram’s hectic red coloring had settled, and he now seemed to be calculating his own portion of the battle plan. “How will we contend with the Sibyls who do not have the old magicks—the ones who
do
fight well in close combat?”

“We will leave their destruction to our allies,” Aarif said, glancing at Tarek for approval, which Tarek gave with a nod. “The sorcerer and his Coven will defend against the demons and paranormals who fight with the Dark Crescent Sisterhood. Our human friend who so generously gifted us with this house, he and his many foot soldiers will meet the other Sibyls in battle, with Created for shields. Sibyls have no natural resistance to bullets.”

Tarek strode to the wall opposite the room’s floor-to-ceiling windows, and he opened two wooden panels to reveal a white board on which he had drawn a diagram of the location where he planned to carry out his ambitious plan.

When he looked back at his true brothers to gauge reactions, he saw fangs and claws and fur. He saw gleaming eyes and heard the untamed snorts of approval. The splendid scent of tiger filled his nose, and he felt his own fangs extending.

“I take it,” he growled, almost overrun by his own elation, “that we’re all in agreement.”

The dwelling Seneca had provided offered four stories of luxurious rooms, baths, and relaxing areas, but the Eldest chose to congregate for a human-style meal, refreshments, and companionship in the ample walled backyard, beneath leafless trees and among the dead remnants of flowers and bushes. Tarek found the chilled air refreshing, and the stark landscape only fueled his desire for the upcoming battle. Their first move would be brutal indeed, and he savored even thinking of it—though he knew he had a small chore to perform, just to ensure that all went as he planned.

That chore presented itself in a matter of minutes, as Tarek knew it would.

Dressed in jeans and a black sweatshirt, Griffen came out the back door of the house, walking quickly into the barely illuminated night. “Tarek,” he called, tension obvious in his voice. “Has Rebecca been here? I can’t find—”

Griffen’s breath streamed around his face in ragged, misty ribbons, and the scant moonlight caught the exact moment when he took in just who—and what—he was approaching. He came to a clumsy halt when the crowd of Eldest ceased conversation and turned as one to face him.

The sorcerer’s usually arrogant expression faded, replaced by naked shock, then by a flat, neutral mask Tarek took for barely concealed terror.