Darkness Unleashed (Guardians of Eternity #5)(29)

Regan flowed to her feet, prepared for the imminent attack.

An attack that never came.

Even as Regan planted her feet and held the dagger at the ready, there was a low growl from beside her and Jagr was suddenly looming like an avenging angel behind her shoulder.

The cur snarled, snapping his teeth, but he wasn’t so far gone as to believe he could battle a massive, infuriated vampire. Even one who’d been so recently wounded.

For just a moment they were frozen in a strange tableau, the violence trembling in the air, prepared to explode at the first movement.

Regan ridiculously found herself holding her breath, her gaze glued on the cur who remained poised to pounce. A mistake in the end. While the cur flashed his considerable fangs and rumbled deep in his throat, it was the witch who took matters into her own hands.

Literally.

Raising her arms, she muttered a low chant. Jagr cursed, and with a sharp motion knocked Regan to the side. A split second too late as the bright light flared, and a savage pain exploded inside Regan’s head.

Jagr carried his slender burden through the silent streets and up the bluff to the hidden cave. Consumed with worry, he made no effort to control his icy power that flowed through the darkness and sent a feeling of cold dread through the hapless citizens of Hannibal.

What did he care? Let the humans stir uneasily in their beds, and the lesser demons flee the area in terror. His only concern was finding the gargoyle, and reviving Regan.

Easily sensing the tiny demon, Jagr slipped through the opening of the cave, already braced for Levet’s shriek of horror as he settled Regan’s unconscious form in the center of the hard floor.

“Regan.” Wings flapping and tail twitching, Levet hurried to Regan’s side. “What did you do to her, you undead reptile?”

Moving to the back of the cave, Jagr retrieved his long leather duster to carefully drape over Regan’s too-still form. Then, kneeling on the dirt floor, he grasped one of her slender hands.

“She was hit by a spell.” He stabbed his companion with a fierce glare. “Remove it.”

“How…” Levet swallowed his question as he was nearly tumbled backward by a blast of Jagr’s icy power. Instead, he closed his eyes and touched a gnarled finger to Regan’s forehead. “Human witch. A defensive spell.”

“I didn’t ask for CSI bullshit,” Jagr snarled. “Get rid of the spell.”

“Sacrebleu.” Levet snapped open his eyes. “I have to know what magic was used to reverse it.”

“Fine, it was a human witch. Now get on with it.” Jagr pointed a warning finger in the gargoyle’s ugly face. “And Levet.”

“Oui?”

“Keep in mind that if you make a mistake, it’ll be your last.”

Levet narrowed his gaze, the fierce pride of his ancestors suddenly shimmering in the gray depths.

“I would stick a dagger in my own heart before I would harm Darcy’s sister,” he swore. “Now shut up, and let me take care of her.”

Jagr clenched his jaw against the fury that battered through him with brutal force.

The night had been a disaster.

Being trapped in the burning RV. Allowing himself to be knocked unconscious by a witch, a human witch, so Regan was forced to battle their attackers on her own. And being too slow to protect her against the spell that now held her in its grip.

A major screw-up from start to finish.

And it was Regan who was suffering for his failure.

Keeping his gaze trained on Regan’s pale face, he paid scant attention as Levet muttered beneath his breath and occasionally waved his hands, but he recognized the moment the spell was broken.

It was in the easing of her body, and the soft sigh that fluttered through her parted lips. Levet rocked back on his heels, his wings drooping with weariness.

“I have removed the spell, but she will need a considerable amount of sleep to heal from the damage.”

“But she’ll heal? Completely?”

“Oui.”

The tightness constricting his unbeating heart lessened, but it didn’t disappear. Regan would heal, but those who wanted to hurt her remained alive.

For now.

Pressing her fingers to his lips, Jagr gently settled her hand on her chest that rose and fell with assuring regularity. Then ignoring the pain that lingered from the witch’s blast, Jagr surged to his feet.

A voice of reason whispered in the back of his mind that he should be returning to the charred RV. Not only was there the hope that the wounds Regan had managed to inflict on the cur would overcome the witch’s ability to mask his scent, but he needed to make sure that his own trail back to the cave was properly covered.

Reason, however, didn’t mean squat while his protective instincts were in full roar. There was no way he was leaving Regan while she was unconscious and completely vulnerable.

No way in hell.

“Levet.” With a narrowed gaze, he motioned toward the wary gargoyle. “I have a little task for you.”

“Crap.”

Regan wasn’t certain how long she waged her battle with the clinging darkness. The thick shroud was nothing if not tenacious. But then again, so was she. (Some, especially a gorgeous Visigoth chief, might even claim she was stubborn as hell.)

Refusing to admit defeat, she shredded through the unconsciousness that held her captive, her senses slowly tingling back to life, though her lids remained too heavy to lift.