Bound By Darkness (Guardians of Eternity #8)(20)

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.”

“An unlikely outcome,” Ariyal drawled, deliberately drawing back the bowstring another fraction of an inch.

“Wait,” the man breathed, sweat blooming on his forehead.

“Why?” Ariyal demanded. “If you die the spell dies with you.”

“Along with the child,” the mage blurted out.

Jaelyn moved to place her hand on her companion’s arm. “Ariyal.”

“You would, of course, claim that you’ve bound the child to you,” Ariyal mocked, not bothering to glance in her direction. “I’m familiar with your habit of telling the truth only when it’s convenient.”

The pale eyes darkened with fear. “Do you want to risk killing the brat on the slim chance I’m lying?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Jaelyn interrupted, rolling her eyes at the typical male need to huff and puff at one another. Why actually communicate when it was so much more fun to bang on their chests? She turned to study to the mage, sensing that his terror went way beyond their own arrival in the townhouse. “What do you mean you’re merely trying to survive?”