My Forbidden Desire (34 page)

Not that his new talent mattered much right now. His forbidden witch wasn’t anywhere near, so instead of blasting her mofo father to hell and back, he lay naked on a metal table under a suffocating magical restraint. Movement was impossible. No matter what Rasmus did to him, and he was doing a lot, Xia was unable to move or touch any magic at all. His autonomic nervous system, however, remained in fine working order.

What Rasmus was doing amounted to a magical vivi-section. The sorcerer was determined to have him mage-held again, which was why he wasn’t dead yet, and he was going after Xia’s bond to Carson and Nikodemus with a scalpel. Sometimes a hacksaw. He switched between assaults on his magic and physical assaults in the hope that near-death would give him an in.

Not so far.

Rasmus kept bringing him back instead of letting his body succumb. Xia would rather die than be mageheld again, but he was afraid he wouldn’t get the choice. Rasmus was determined to find a way to take him, and if he succeeded, then Xia was fucked all over again. Then next time he saw Alexandrine, he’d probably have a kill order from her loving father.

He wanted to disassociate from what Rasmus was doing, but he didn’t dare take the risk. He needed to be aware so that the minute Rasmus made a mistake—if he made a mistake—he could break free. And then he’d kill the mage with his bare hands. So far, no luck. The best he could do under his present circumstances was separate himself from the pain. Sometimes it worked for a second or two.

The mage sent a sliver of boiling heat into him, and Xia bit back a scream. Not that any sound would have come out. Something in his chest gave way, and for a moment Xia was fully present in his body. His heart felt like it was on fire and withering to ash. A scream bubbled up from his throat, tearing and burning on the way. With his body filled with magically induced fire, he forced himself to concentrate on the chill of Alexandrine’s magic. The cold grounded him and gave him a place to hide his sanity.

“Now, now, Xia,” Rasmus said. “Enough of that.” He pushed his white-blond hair behind his shoulders. The mage was pissed because he’d been trying to break him down for what felt to Xia like hours. His bond to Carson, created when she had severed him from Rasmus, had so far held up to everything the mage had thrown at him. He suspected his possession of Alexandrine’s magic played some role in his resistance. Some of what Rasmus had tried so far was brutal even for a mage. Rasmus frowned and muttered to himself as he lay a hand on Xia’s bare chest. Fire seeped into him from the contact. “How did she manage this?”

Xia concentrated on the chill of Alexandrine’s magic in his belly and let his mind separate once again from Rasmus’s probe. Seeing Alexandrine in person, even if only in his desperate imagination, wouldn’t be so bad. She was a head trip, that one. Totally hot in the body department and totally into being out there at the edges with him. There was that witch thing she had, too.

From day one, he’d been turned on by her being a witch, whether she could touch her magic or not. Matter of course for the kin. But he liked that he owned her magic. Alexandrine might not agree, but the truth was, he liked it a lot. He must be the first kin in hundreds of years to have a demon-bound mage of his own. He needed a way to survive this shit with Rasmus so he and Alexandrine could play with what that meant.

Somewhere, far from Xia’s present mental space, Rasmus cursed. Xia’s air cut off. He was trying
that
again. Fucktard mage. Trying to get his body to give up and die so that he could slip in and take control during the moments before irrevocable death. Hadn’t worked the first twenty times he tried it. Well, maybe this time Xia would die.

The air pressure changed. So did the light. Even in his current state, he felt the magical equilibrium balance out. Someone had opened the door and broken the seal. His sense of Alexandrine and her magic rocketed through him. Nice to have her so close while he was dying. Her witch magic felt good, as opposed to Rasmus’s, which felt like a sledgehammer to the back of his head. He could feel other individuals, too. Rasmus, in a different way for some reason, and his magehelds, too. Not as kin—that was impossible—but as Alexandrine must feel them.

Concentrating on Alexandrine helped him. She was a fantasy to get him through the moments until Rasmus gave up in rage and just killed him. Rasmus’s sledgehammer broke over him, whirling him into an ocean of pain. Which didn’t stop until just before the instant of his death.

Xia lay on the table, immobile but alive and holding on to Alexandrine’s magic as hard as he could. He felt one of the kin, too, more strongly than the others, and again, not in the normal way.

“What is the meaning of this?” Rasmus said.

“Fuck you, mage,” Xia rasped when he got air into his lungs.

Except, Rasmus wasn’t talking to him. His eyes were focused on something across the room.

“Hey, Dad.”

Damn. In addition to hallucinating her magic, he was conjuring Alexandrine’s voice, too. Hurrah for going insane. Sexual reminiscences were way more entertaining than wondering what Rasmus was going to try next. He thought about what it felt like when Alexandrine went down on him when he was shifted. The woman had talent and enthusiasm, and he was into watching her get him off like that. True statement: His orgasms were better when he was shifted and when she was all small and human and totally turned on by him. His kind of witch. Alexandrine was good in bed and out. Enthusiastic. Fantastic.

“You okay, Xia?”

That was Alexandrine, talking to him through the fog of his agonized body and mind. God love her. Talking to him like she cared about the answer. She must hate him after what he’d done to her and her magic.

“Xia?”

He forced his eyes open, and hell if Alexandrine wasn’t standing ten feet from him. Wearing one of his sweatshirts, too. Durian was behind her, the loser mage-held, looking mean and ready to kill like the assassin he was. Nikodemus should have sicced him on Rasmus before it was too late. Pain shivered him down to his marrow.

Nikodemus’s former lieutenant reached back and closed the door. The air pressure changed again. But his sense of Alexandrine’s magic didn’t stop. The double-ply metal surface was made with a layer of crushed rubies in between, which acted as a shield; no magic got through and none got out. With the door closed, they were in a magical echo chamber. His inner ear adjusted to the change in pressure. If he was going to hallucinate about having forbidden sex with Alexandrine, it was odd that he’d hallucinate Durian, too.

“Answer me, Xia.” She was close enough for him to see, and her expression was a mix of fear and concern. And irritation, too. Just like a witch.

“You’re not really here,” he said. But the words didn’t come out. They just zoomed around in his head, looking for a way past the freeze Rasmus had on him. God, she was gorgeous. Not model gorgeous. Really, she was only pretty, but she was his pretty now. His. In his insane world here, she cared what happened to him. At least the real Alexandrine was safe from all this.

“Xia?” Alexandrine took a step toward him.

Rasmus threw up a block that diverted energy from the binding that kept Xia motionless and in pain. She stopped moving, but Xia could feel the space around him now, where before he couldn’t. Whoa.

Now that he thought about it, this scene was kind of familiar. Not so long ago, it had been Durian on the table getting his rib cage sliced open—he figured it was a matter of time before Rasmus started cutting—and him watching as Carson and Nikodemus came in and blew everything to hell. Now didn’t that just suck rotten eggs? He couldn’t even have an original hallucination.

He laughed, and damned if the sound didn’t emerge from his throat. The magic holding him down eased up a little more, and he discovered he had the use of his extremities. Toes wiggled. Fingers twitched. Oh, what a lucky bastard he was. Come to think of it, he’d seen that happen back when Rasmus and Magellan were sacrificing Durian for the talisman.

The two mages had already killed one fiend that night, but Durian had been the main course. Laid out and ribs cracked open with his body immobilized and his mind completely aware. Xia remembered like it was yesterday, watching Durian’s fingers strain toward the talisman and then, at last, tipping the figurine into Carson’s hand. Rasmus hadn’t told Xia he needed to watch out for the sacrificial victim, so he’d remained conveniently silent while he watched a witch blow Magellan’s plans to the clouds.

“Ms. Alexandrine Marit, what a delight to see you again,” Rasmus said smoothly. “You will allow me to say how relieved I am that you are unharmed.”

The words jerked Xia back into his hallucination about Alexandrine. Only this wasn’t right. If he was going to fantasize about the witch, she ought to be naked. Not dressed in leftovers from his closet. And he wasn’t inviting Rasmus or Durian to his party.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m lucky I didn’t get hurt; that’s for sure.”

“Ms. Marit.” Rasmus had positioned himself at an angle to Alexandrine and Durian. Xia had a perfect view of all three. “While this is a delightful surprise, I assure you, I am engaged at the moment.” He lifted his hands. “Durian, you’ll take her upstairs to wait for me?”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said.

Persistent thing, wasn’t she? The chill of her magic felt close enough to touch, and so he did, because her magic didn’t hurt him, and Rasmus’s bindings, as luck would have it, appeared not to extend to sources of magic the mage knew nothing about and that resided outside his physical body.

“But this is important. I had to see you. Life or death, Dad.”

Rasmus didn’t answer right away, but when he did, he was as cool as ice. “I’m sure it seems so to you. However, as I said, I am quite busy at the moment. Durian will see you get a cup of tea or coffee while you wait.”

“No caffeine for me. Stuff gives me the jitters, you know?”

Xia watched her glance over her shoulder at Durian, and when she did, he caught a sense of her fear. She was afraid of Durian, didn’t trust him. Smart woman. She was even more afraid of Rasmus.
She was really here
. It occurred to him that if she was here, then he ought to be able to pull from her magic. He tried and got a blast of cold in the back of his head.

“You got herbal?” Her eyes dilated, and if he hadn’t been looking at her face, he might never have noticed her reaction when he pulled her magic. “I’ll take some of that, if you have it. But in a minute. Not right now.” She returned her attention to Rasmus. “I can see you’re busy torturing my boyfriend, but I need a minute of your time.” She held up her thumb and forefinger, separated by a half inch of air. “Just a minute.”

“I am not your boyfriend, witch.” Oh, yeah. The words made it past his vocal cords this time. Xia started laughing. He couldn’t help it. Jaysus, but she had nerve. He felt her magic come on stronger.

The icy sensation in the back of his head slid down his neck and into his chest. He pulled. Shit, this whole improbable scene was real, wasn’t it? At least it was real to him, and in his world, her magic belonged to him, and he could use it. He couldn’t touch his magic—hell, he could hardly move his body—but Alexandrine was here. She was facing down Rasmus even though she couldn’t do shit against the mage, or his magehelds for that matter, and her magic was on tap for him. He tried to pull more, but he overreached, and all he got was a headache and a sputter of magic that flickered out.

“Boyfriend?” Rasmus said. His voice dripped poison, the hypocrite; his long-time lover was Iskander’s twin sister. It was okay for him to take a fiend to bed but not for Alexandrine to do the same?

“Fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Boy toy, then. He’s my boy toy.”

“That’s just sick,” Xia said. He laughed again. “I’m not your goddamned boy toy, either, Alexandrine.”

She rolled her eyes, but he got the impression he’d hurt her feelings. “Fine. How about fuck buddy? Will that work for you, sweetie cakes?” He heard her mutter, “Asshole.”

Oh, shit. She was here. Really here.

“Boyfriends get dumped or picked up for fun. No way am I just your boyfriend, baby.”

She reached and patted his arm. “Say, Dad,” she went on. “Can you answer a question for me?”

“Durian.” Rasmus gestured in the mageheld’s direction.

Alexandrine pulled Xia’s knife from underneath her baggy sweatshirt.
His
sweatshirt. “No giving him orders. And whatever the hell you’re doing to Xia, you need to stop it. Right now.”

Chapter 27

Y
ou’re a madwoman,” Rasmus said. “Or ignorant. I don’t know which is worse.” He gestured in Durian’s direction.

“Fuck off, mage,” Xia told him. Rasmus didn’t know Alexandrine couldn’t use her magic or that Xia could. If he did, this would be playing out very differently.

“He’s a fiend, Ms. Marit. By his nature, he is evil and depraved. Can you truly be ignorant of what a monster like him would do to us if, as you suggest, I let him go?” Rasmus’s magic let up enough that Xia’s brain stopped burning. “If I were to release him, I assure you neither of us would be safe.”

“Gee, I wonder why? Do you think maybe he’s pissed off from the torture?”

“Controlling a dangerous animal requires extreme measures.”

“This thing is sharp,” she said, lifting Xia’s knife. “Standing this close to you, I don’t think I’m going to miss when I throw it.” She grinned and hoped like hell she was convincing. “I’ve been practicing.”