Scorched

“It came back. It took one look at the fire pond and did a belly flop right in the middle.”

“It killed itself?” Ashe said, her voice going up an octave.

He passed off the child to one of the hound women. The little girl must have been lost, because they looked very, very happy to see her.

“No, the dragon likes it.” Caravelli made a dramatic face. “It’s wallowing in it like a big, fire-breathing pig, rolling around in sheer bliss. Nobody can get through there. We’ve had to detour the second group of hounds through the balconies.”

“Leave it there for now,” said Mac.

It was clear the vampire, on some level, was enjoying himself. The hellhounds were looking at him like he was the Second Coming.

“We’ll leave the dragon there for now,” Caravelli said, still looking directly at Ashe. “We’ve got it surrounded in case it tries to move.”

“How are we going to get it back where it belongs?” she asked.

“Caravelli?” Mac said.

The vampire ignored him. “It looks like the tunnels that vanished are opening up again. Maybe by tomorrow we can convince it to go home.”

This is weird. “Caravelli?” Mac waved his hand in front of the vampire’s face. No reaction. Then he waved his hand through Caravelli.

Outrage slammed through him. I’m still a ghost! This was a disaster. Mac looked frantically around. Okay, everybody here is supernatural. Surely somebody is psychic. He didn’t see Holly anywhere.

And he hadn’t seen Constance. He turned around again, looking everywhere for her small, dark form. Lore was sitting with Sylvius on some overturned crates, one hand around his friend’s shoulders. Mac ran over to them. “Hey, can you see me?” He snapped his fingers under the hellhound’s nose.” Yo, Fido!”

Nothing.

Mac stopped, caught short by the stricken set of Sylvius’s body. He was curled over, his head nearly on his knees. The first thing he noticed was that the kid wasn’t hurt anymore. No blood. No wounds. Even his color was good.

“You’ll be okay,” Lore said. “I have faith. So should you.”

Mac nearly missed Sylvius’s answer, it was so quiet. “But Macmillan died! So many did. And what’s going to happen to me now?”

“You’ll do what you must.”

Which was true, but clearly not what Sylvius wanted to hear.

“I’m not who I was. The Avatar took back the part of me that was her.” Sylvius raised his head. “What’s left?”

With a shock of surprise, Mac understood. Sylvius was a young man. No wings. With the silver hair and black eyes, he was striking to look at, but he was human—or humanish—like his father.

What was a teenage ex-love god going to do when he finally discovered the twenty-first century? If ever there was a need for adult supervision, this was it.

Mac spun on his heel, hurrying into the Castle. He had to fix this invisibility problem pronto—but first he had to see with his own eyes that Constance was all right.

When the worst was over—and that had gone on and on, with battle and injury and death—Constance went back to the Summer Room, She needed solitude, if just for a minute or two.

I should be with Sylvius. He needed her. But they’d grieved together for hours. She had nothing left. If she could only gather her strength and fumble the pieces of her heart together—then, maybe, she could help someone else.

The Summer Room was just as she had left it, violated and broken. It had become her home—the home she had ached and longed for—and it was destroyed. Like everything else. Crying felt useless. She’d already sobbed until her ribs ached. There had been so much to cry about—but weeping did no good. It changed nothing.

Atreus had finally found respite from his madness. Someday she would find the energy to wonder whether his madness was guilt at what he had done to the Avatar, or if his love for the Avatar had been the result of insanity. Right now, all that mattered was that he had destroyed, and destroyed, until he finally destroyed himself.

She had been, in the drama of the great Atreus of Muria, what they called collateral damage. After two and a half centuries of service, her master had destroyed her world without a thought for her happiness. And not just hers. If she had let him go at the end, it was only to stop the carnage yet to come.

She was done with masters.

Her servant’s tale was so small, it could be written on a handkerchief.

A man had loved her. He had loved her despite her human weakness and her vampire strength, her innocence and her bloodlust. He’d kept coming back despite the fact that she asked him to lay down his life for a child not his own.

And then he died, and left her. Mac was dead. It was her fault.

Events had followed, one after the other, like a string of beads, and it all led back to her. Lore had warned her about wanting her vampire powers, but she had fallen prey to temptation. The first time she had really used those powers, she had released Atreus. He had killed Mac.

And she was left empty of all but a stunned, silent grief.

She fell onto the sofa, trying not to see the splintered wound left by Bran’s sword. She could feel the shards of wood under her hand, digging through the cotton of Holly’s skirt. Constance put her hands over her face, hiding from the candlelight. Bran might have broken all the furniture, but the magic candles still burned on, their length never altering one bit.

All the wrong things seemed to go on forever.

Cold air wafted through the room. With the door caved in, there was nothing to stop the unpredictable Castle breezes. Connie shivered, mourning Mac’s heat. Mourning Mac.

The cold came again, more acute now. She shuddered, somehow finding enough will to get up and drape one of the tapestries across the door.

Connie?

She started, looking around. She had heard Mac’s voice, but there was no one, nothing in the room but her. Grief is driving me mad.

“Connie!”

Astonishing. Mac’s voice was coming from the candlestick next to the hearth.

Constance sighed. Well, all right. Everyone else in the Castle seemed to have lost their minds—Viktor and Atreus, for instance. Now it was her turn. She sat back down on the sofa.

“Connie.”

She gasped, shrinking back. That had come from right in front of her face!

The light flickered, all the candles guttering. Slowly, slowly, Mac emerged into view, leaning over the sofa to stare down at her.

“I can see right through you,” she whispered.

“So my mother always said.”

His voice caressed her, a wave of tiny shocks that brought her feelings back to life. After such sudden loss, her relief was beyond description.

And then he was gone. “Mac?” She was clearly losing her mind.

A cold breeze stirred the room, making her shiver. Then she felt his lips, soft and hard at once, familiar and warm. Not burning now, but still filled with all the heat of a man reunited with his mate.

And he was there again, bending down to hold her, a filmy shadow of himself. Constance held very still, seeking only with her mouth, connecting again and again. She drank him in, closing her eyes, tasting his smoky, spicy flavor. Eyes shut, she could imagine him fully there, his big, hot body curling around her, cherishing her, giving her back the life she had lost. Forgetting that, no, he was only madness, or a ghost, or a memory, she reached up with one hand to cup his cheek. First her fingers touched only warmth, a tingle that somehow resolved