Death Bringer

After a deep, steadying breath, she sauntered down the hallway toward the two guards, her hands at her sides and her expression pleasant.

“Hey, what’s up?”

The guards glanced at each other and then barred the door with their crossed spears. Ella flexed her fingers.

“I need to get in there, and you two are in my way. I’m giving you this warning, because my magic is a lot stronger than my control, so I might accidentally fry you both.” She raised her eyebrows. “So if you want to leave right now, I won’t tell anyone, okay?”

The taller troll hissed at her in his own language and brought his spear up, nearly taking off the top layer of her new face.

She wasn’t even aware she’d brought her hand up. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Power sliced from her, and the nearest troll screeched and fell to the ground. She swung to face the other one, but he was already running in the opposite direction, no doubt to raise the alarm. She stepped over the smoking body and pushed open one of the golden doors. Dark power streamed past her and through her, strengthening her magic.

She drew the door shut behind her—there didn’t appear to be any way of locking it—and walked toward the furthest end of the vast cathedral-like room. The ceiling was domed and painted, the walls covered in trophies. It was also silent in the vast space, as if someone held their breath.

There.

Already aware of a huge commotion behind her, she ran toward her goal, her gaze fixed on the smiling face of Brad Dailey, the agony of Ms. Phelps, and her own familiar features.

“Thank God,” she breathed, and reached out her hand to claim her prize.

Agony hit her hard and she staggered and held on to the nearest shelf. Looking down, she discovered her ankle was clasped firmly between the jaws of a small black dragon with eyes like rubies. Blood dripped from his jaws, and she knew it wasn’t his.

“Oh, holy crap. No one said there would be dragons.”

Before she could even think of retaliating, blackness engulfed her. She collapsed onto the carpet, aware of claws scrabbling at her legs, and then no more.

* * *

His cell door opened, and Vadim winced at the glare of the torch. Adam appeared, silhouetted against the light. He threw something at Vadim that hit him hard on the chest and came to rest on his lap.

“Bad news, Death Bringer. Now you have every reason to stay and fight.”

He left the torch in the sconce by the door, giving Vadim some light, and withdrew. Still half-constrained by the leaden chains, he stared down at an all-too-familiar blue-and-red backpack.

Rage and grief coalesced in an unstoppable crescendo. He roared his fury at the top of his lungs, making his prison shake and the torch go out, leaving him in darkness with madness his close and dearly desired companion. Pain flooded his senses, tearing down his carefully constructed barriers. Inwardly he screamed for her, not willing to expose her precious name to his captors.

Slowly he came back to himself, his breathing ragged, his claws and fangs extended to their fullest, more beast than man, more filled with bloodlust than love. He forced himself to think through his instinct to simply destroy the world that had destroyed her.

A growl escaped him and he shut his eyes.

Think.

If she were dead, there would be no reason for him to do anything but annihilate Otherworld.

Adam wouldn’t want to provoke that.

Would he?

Treacherous hope stirred in him. But if she wasn’t dead, she was being held captive, her survival subject to his good behavior. If Adam expected him to fight, he obviously had to offer him an incentive to do so. Vadim took a deep steadying breath. If Ella was in Otherworld, he would find her, and be damned to anyone’s expectations of him playing nice.

He reached out a shaking hand, grabbed the backpack and brought it to his face, inhaling Ella’s scent. Beneath his tightening grip, the fabric started to tear, and he forced himself to relax. She felt close, but was that an illusion created by his need or was it reality?

Dammit, he was touching the backpack. His hands were free of the chains... His rage had fueled his power to new heights and he was recovering far more quickly than Adam might have anticipated. Vadim smiled into the darkness. Luckily, the attempt to undermine him had simply made him stronger. If Ella was near, he was going to find her and then let loose hell...

* * *

Ella sat upright as a burst of magical power shook through the building, and more importantly, right through her. That had to be Vadim, but what was up with him, and where was she? Her head pounded and she was thirsty. Dammit, she was tired of waking up and not knowing what the hell was going on...

Her leg hurt.

Looking down, she couldn’t see the damage the dragon had inflicted on her ankle, because someone or something had bandaged it up. Were dragon bites infectious? Would she need a shot? Where the hell would she get that?

She was in a small room with just a bed and a sink, rather like a monk’s cell. There was a window, but it was set high in the wall. She didn’t think it faced the outside, because the light was wrong. Tentatively, she searched for Rossa in her mind, but he wasn’t there. All she could feel was Vadim, and even he felt different.

Her backpack had gone, which meant she had no food. Her stomach rumbled in protest. Maybe they knew that after twenty-four hours without coffee and donuts, she’d be willing to tell them anything they wanted. She couldn’t sit here and wait for that to happen. With as much care as she could manage, she lowered her injured foot to the floor and immediately winced.

Would the cleanup spell work on wounds? It had certainly worked on clothes. She had to suspect that the words Vadim had given her were rather more complex than he’d let on. Or was it the power of Otherworld that enhanced them? She didn’t know, and as long as it kept working, she wasn’t going to second-guess herself. She felt her left shoulder, which was still throbbing like a bad tooth. Would it work on that too? Sounds beyond the door made her lie back down on the bed and close her eyes.

The door opened a scant inch, and a troll looked in on her.

“She’s still unconscious, sir.”

“Good. Leave her, then. The master wants to see her when she awakens.”

The master? Ella wanted to snort. Adam obviously thought a lot of himself, but then power-crazed individuals usually did. The door shut, and she was alone again. She counted to five hundred and then cautiously got up and went over to the door. There was no sound from outside, but that didn’t mean much. One of those stupid dragons might be curled up right on the threshold.

She turned back to the window. Surely that was the better option? Vadim had been a whiz at opening locked doors and getting through stuff, so she assumed she would be too. Unfortunately, she was pretty sure her ass wouldn’t fit through the space. Maybe she could be like Alice and minimize herself a bit? She’d managed to do that at the front door without even thinking about it. Or could she walk through the wall?

She tried that first and ended up with a bump on her head and a bruised right knee. So the wall was out. How about the window? What would happen if she got stuck halfway? She sat back on the bed and considered her options. Another wave of raw power shook the building. Her heart rate sped up in response. Vadim was seriously pissed about something. Did she dare try and contact him? Did she want to? She took off her boot and threw it toward the open window. It bounced back off some invisible barrier.

She shoved her foot back into the boot and stood up. There was no time for finesse. Fuck it. She had to get out right now. From her position by the bed, she raised her hands and blasted power at the door. It blew outward and crashed against the door opposite with a horrendous crash. She didn’t wait to see the reaction from her captors, but tried to magic herself back outside the complex. Nothing happened. In desperation, she started to run along the corridor in the hope of finding her way to the exit.

Her mind seemed to know where she was heading, so she followed her instincts, aware of pursuit but more