Bound By Darkness (Guardians of Eternity #8)(16)
Author: Alexandra Ivy

He leaned forward, allowing their lips to brush as he spoke his low warning.

“Querida, you haven’t seen aggressive yet.”

Chapter 5

Jaelyn perched on the steeply slanted roof, her eyes narrowed as Ariyal easily tugged open the unlocked skylight.

She shook her head, her unease intensifying as she shifted to crouch beside the Sylvermyst.

“It must be a trap.”

“No one ever thinks an attack will be coming from above. Especially vampires.” Ariyal shot her a taunting smile. “Not surprising considering the fact they spend the majority of their lives in the dank ground.”

Jaelyn clenched her hands, silently condemning Siljar and the rest of the Oracles to the nearest hell.

It had been bad enough to be stuck with the unpleasant duty of tracking down Ariyal and hauling him to the Commission. But now …

She was a Hunter, not a babysitter for an aggravating, pain-in-the-ass Sylvermyst.

“We aren’t dealing with a vampire,” she said between clenched teeth.

He shrugged. “No, but this lair was built for one and Sergei spent most of his life in the company of a leech.”

She allowed her frigid power to swirl through the air. “You’re pressing your luck, fairy.”

He flashed a wicked smile before he was shifting to drop through the skylight with a liquid grace. He landed without a sound and tilted back his head to meet her jaundiced gaze.

“Are you coming?” he softly demanded.

“As if I have a choice,” she muttered beneath her breath, refusing to acknowledge his astonishing beauty as a stray beam of moonlight played over his pale, perfect features and the fascinating shimmer of his bronze eyes. Instead she pushed forward and landed next to the fey in the narrow hallway, her senses sweeping through the townhouse. “The mage is below us.”

“Yes.” He paused, turning his head toward a closed door just down the hall that was paneled in a dark, glossy wood with gilt-framed paintings gathering dust. “But there’s a spell of protection through there.”

She frowned. “The babe?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“Don’t forget your promise,” she warned, muttering a curse as he ignored her to shove open the door and disappear into the room beyond. She was swiftly following behind him, stepping into the obvious nursery to find the annoying man standing near a wooden cradle. “Ariyal, did you hear me?”

“Perhaps you should let me concentrate, poppet,” he commanded, his gaze focused on the crib, where she could see a tiny bundle she presumed was the child. “We’re surrounded by a spell.”

She froze, glaring at her companion in smoldering frustration.

Dammit. She hated taking orders almost as much as she hated magic.

A double reason to feel the urge to rip off someone’s head.

“I told you this was a trap,” she hissed.

“It’s not a trap.” He held up his slender hands, waving them above the crib as if trying to sense some unseen force field. “There’s a magical web to protect the child.”

“Can you get rid of it?”

His brow furrowed as he concentrated on the magic he could apparently sense beneath his hands.

“Yes, but not without alerting the mage.”

“Too late,” a voice drawled from the doorway.

Jaelyn whirled around, prepared to pounce as she caught sight of a man standing in the doorway wearing nothing more than a burgundy robe with his silver hair hanging about his thin face.

Vaguely she recognized him as Sergei, the mage from the Russian caves, although his gaunt, unshaven face and his shadowed eyes suggested the past weeks hadn’t treated him kindly. Still, whatever his troubles, his magic was obviously working just fine as he managed to cloak his scent and approach them without warning.

He flinched at the flash of her fangs, his hand shaking as he held up a small glass vial filled with an amber liquid.

“Stay back, vamp,” Sergei warned. “I spent several centuries concocting the perfect spell to kill a vampire as slowly and painfully as possible.”

“Do you think you can cast it before I put an arrow through your heart?” Ariyal stepped beside her, stretching out his arm to clench and unclench his fingers. There was a shimmer in the air and suddenly an ash bow complete with a wooden arrow was in his hand. With a smooth motion he had it cocked and ready to fire.

Jaelyn grimaced. She might fully approve of the mage becoming a human pincushion, but the knowledge that Ariyal could make the bow and arrows appear from thin air creeped her out.

She had a definite allergy to wooden arrows.

Sergei paled, no doubt recalling his one-time ally had an itchy trigger finger.

“Relax, Ariyal,” the mage attempted to soothe. “There’s no need for any of us to be hasty.”

Ariyal remained poised for battle. “Put away the vial.”

“You’re the trespasser.” Sergei nervously licked his lips. “You put away your weapon.”

Jaelyn shifted. The two clearly had issues that had nothing to do with her and she had no intention of getting caught in the cross fire.

Not when the damned mage had a spell specifically designed to harm a vampire.

“A stalemate,” Ariyal mocked.

Sergei took a cautious step forward, his gaze darting toward the crib.

“If you’ve come for the child then you’re wasting your time,” he said. “You’ll die if you touch him.”

Ariyal made a sound of disgust. “You think that I can’t break through your magic?”

Sergei made a visible effort to gather his shaken courage. “I don’t doubt that you could shatter the protective shields around the cradle, but the spell I’ve placed on the child is specifically cast to harm those with fey blood.” He gave a tilt of his chin, covertly shifting another step into the room. “It was the only way to keep your friend Tearloch from taking off with my prize.”

Jaelyn scented the mage’s sour desperation, and she shifted to block his path to the baby, a cold smile curving her lips.

“Don’t even think about it.”

He halted, his pale eyes narrowing with a barely concealed hatred.

No love for vampires there.

“Stay back, leech,” he hissed, holding the vial over his head.

“You can’t win this game, mage,” Ariyal warned in lethal tones.

“You think I don’t know that?” the man snapped. “I’m no longer playing to win, merely to survive.”