“However,” he said, after a moment, “we are not here to discuss my bedroom skills, but rather the ward. And I reiterate, it cannot harm you to simply look at it.”

That statement should not be taken at face value when dealing with someone involved in the dark arts, Azriel commented.

I know that, Azriel. I’m not a total ignoramus about magic, so please don’t treat me as such.

I merely comment. It was not a rebuke.

Well, it sure as hell had felt like one. I drank some Coke, then met Lauren’s gaze and said, “I thought you said it had to be fine-tuned?”

“It does. To work fully it has to be tuned to your energy.”

Energy, or aura? I very much suspected the latter, and that had my doubts rising even higher. “Where is it?”

“In my purse. Lucian?”

He rose and walked over to the bench. I put my Coke down and followed. I wanted some distance between me and Lauren when I studied her creation.

Her purse was black leather, and was about as far from feminine as you could get. In fact, it looked more like an over-the-shoulder briefcase than an actual handbag. Lucian gamely delved into it, and his hand came out holding what looked like an oversized die. Only there were no dots on its black surface, which held an odd sort of oiliness that gleamed in the sharp overhead lighting. He set it down on the counter in front of me.

I leaned closer, but didn’t immediately try to touch it. Despite the oddness of the surface, there was no sense of energy radiating off the black stone. It really could have been nothing more than a numberless die.

“It won’t bite,” Lauren said, amusement clear in her voice. She hadn’t moved, but I had an odd sense that she missed nothing, despite the fact that I had my back to her.

“Forgive me for not taking you at your word.” I shifted around to study the other side of the die. It didn’t look any different, and I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d bothered moving.

“Here, look.” Lucian picked up the die and deftly tossed it from hand to hand. “See? Nothing bad happens when you touch it.”

“Agreed, nothing bad happens when you touch it,” I muttered, my unease growing as I watched the toss of the stone. “But this thing is supposed to tune itself to me, and I’m not exactly believing everything will be fine and dandy when it does.”

“Oh, for the love of . . . Nothing is going happen.” Exasperation rode Lauren’s voice. “Lucian would not allow it, even if I had wished you harm.”

I glanced at her sharply. “Since when does a dark sorceress take orders from someone she barely knows?”

Lauren’s smile was thin and unamused. “Come now, Risa. You saw us arguing and you are no fool. Please do not take me for one.”

“So you are lovers?” My gaze went to Lucian. “Why didn’t you say that up front?”

“Because it wasn’t pertinent.”

I snorted softly. How could the fact that he was fucking a dark sorceress not be pertinent information? “And just how did you come to that conclusion?”

“Who I spend my time with is nobody’s business but my own.” The comment was decidedly barbed, and I couldn’t help glancing at Lauren. If his words annoyed her, she wasn’t showing it. This time. “The only reason Lauren is here now is because she is powerful.”

“Maybe, but it does make me wonder what else you’re not telling me, Lucian.”

“It’s no secret that my life revolves around the need for revenge—”

“Yeah,” I interrupted, “and it’s what you’ll do to get it that has me worried.”

“You have nothing to fear—”

“Meaning you’re not behind the compulsion spell that’s been placed on me?”

My voice was matter-of-fact, and his sudden grin was warm and unrepentant. “I feared my Aedh charms might not have been enough to hold you, so I stacked the odds in my favor. But the spell is harmless, Risa.”

“Maybe this one is, but the next one might not be.”

He held up his right hand. “I promise, I will place no more spells on you.”

And you can trust every word out of a liar’s mouth, Azriel commented.

Have you ever heard the saying “If you can’t say something nice, say nothing?”

I do not believe so. Nor can I help commenting when he makes such blatantly unbelievable statements.

It was pointless saying anything further when I was never going to convince him that Lucian was remotely trustworthy, so I didn’t bother. Especially since I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of it myself.

I crossed my arms and said, “And what about getting other people to place spells on me?”

“I promise I won’t do that, either.”

“Does that mean there’s no other spells on me?”

“I did not need more than one.”

Which wasn’t actually confirmation that there were no other spells, just that he hadn’t actually needed them. I eyed him for a moment, then sighed softly and waved a hand. “Fine. Give me a closer look at the ward.”

He pushed it toward me. I studied it dubiously for several minutes, then gathered together the threads of my courage and reached for it.

No touch! Amaya screamed, the sound so high-pitched it made my eyes water.

At the same time, the Dušan swiveled around in my flesh, its head near my knuckles as it snarled at the ward.

I snatched my fingers away.

“I can’t,” I said, and stepped away from the counter.

Anger exploded around me, the force of it so fierce it stole my breath. My gaze snapped to Lucian’s. There was no anger to be seen in his expression, not even the merest hint, but it had come from him nevertheless. “Why the hell not?” he said, his voice as flat as his eyes.

I might as well have been looking into the eyes of death. A shiver that was part fear, part foreboding, rolled through me. “What do you mean? Didn’t you see that?”

“See what? What the hell are you talking about?”

I frowned, my gaze searching his. “The Dušan. It reacted to the ward.”

He glanced at my wrist sharply. Now that I’d stepped away, the Dušan had resumed her normal position on my arm. Amaya, however, was still eager to bite into whatever darkness Lauren had employed to make the ward, and she was letting me know it. Banshees had nothing on the noise she was currently making inside my head.

“Impossible,” he said.

“Not in this case.” I crossed my arms. “I can’t use the ward, Lucian. I won’t.”

He contemplated me, his expression still remote, then turned and faced Lauren. “It would appear you have wasted your time and energy. I’m sorry.”

Lauren rose and moved toward us, her long dress flowing around her legs like the gray tendrils of a web. Definitely a dangerous, dark spider, I thought with another shiver.

But one who wasn’t entirely surprised or annoyed by my actions, if her expression was anything to go by. My gaze returned to Lucian. Maybe she wasn’t worried because she would still extract the price of the ward from him.

“A foolish choice, but one that she nevertheless has the right to make.” Her gaze came to mine. “You may yet regret this decision, however. There are worse things in this world—and the next—than this stone and the magic within it.”

“I’m more than aware of that, believe me.”

She wrapped her fingers around the ward, then raised it to eye level and contemplated the oily black surface. “It is a thing of beauty, is it not?”

I didn’t reply, but then, she didn’t seem to be expecting me to. She dropped the stone into her bag and then, with a glance at Lucian, turned and left.

I heaved a silent sigh of relief. One problem down, one silently seething Aedh to go. I hesitated, watching him, wondering if it was better to keep my distance, then shook the thought away. He might be angry, but he surely wouldn’t hurt me. After all, he needed me alive just as much as everyone else did. I walked around the counter. “Well, I can’t say I’m sorry to see the back—”

The rest of the sentence was cut off as Lucian’s hand shot out and his fingers closed around my neck in a vise-like grip.

Chapter 12

Shock held me immobile for too many seconds. By the time my brain did start working, my lungs were burning and my head was pounding—a result of not only lack of air but Amaya’s scream of fury.

But there was also fear. Not because of the sheer and utter fury in his eyes, but because, for one instant, it felt like his fingers were going through my flesh. That he would, at any minute, rip my throat apart from the inside out.

“Do you know what you’ve just done?” He shook me with each word, as if to emphasize the point. “You just let what might be our one chance to win this race walk out the door!”

I made a gargling sound and kicked him. The blow was weak, ill aimed, and went unnoticed. Amaya, I thought, and flayed my hands back, trying to reach her. I couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength.

It didn’t matter. She burned through my flesh, answering my unspoken need.

Hurry, I thought, as spots began to dance in front of my eyes. Only they were spots that burned like fire. Furious, red-tinted blue fire.

Valdis, I realized dimly.

“I have been looking for an excuse to kill you for some time now, Aedh,” Azriel said softly. “If you do not immediately release her, I will have one.”

For a moment Lucian didn’t respond. Then the fury melted from his eyes and he blinked. A second later, I was a heap on the floor, coughing and spluttering and sucking in great gulps of air.

But I wasn’t on that floor alone for long—Amaya had finished her journey through my flesh and had appeared in my right hand, her shadowed steel spitting dark purple fire as she hissed her displeasure and need to kill. I gripped her, then surged to my feet and aimed her point at the middle of Lucian’s brow. My whole arm shook as I fought the urge to press farther, to let steel taste flesh and blood.