won’t hurt me.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
The words cut through the red fury hazing Shay’s mind. Rage roared through his blood, the urge to rip and shred and tear overriding all else. Muscles and tendons shuddered with the effort to check that rage, to keep from springing forward with animal instinct.
An avalanche of emotions tumbled through him. Fear for Kelly, hatred of the one who’d dared touch her.
Feral and uncontrollable. He’d lost so much, and the rage and grief engorged him as the smell of terror cut into his wolf’s brain.
Samuel J. Shaymore, U.S. Navy SEAL.
Elemental Mage, with an Arcane lover.
Sam shook his head to clear the blinding need to attack. This was his Kelly quivering before him, his lover.
The urge to protect overrode the instinct to kill. She was scared, and someone had threatened to hurt her.
“Come back to me.”
Kelly. Her name sang through the wolf’s mind, a calm and soothing chant. She needed him.
Lifting his head, he looked at Kelly.
He looked down. Sam blinked, realizing he now stood on two legs. He’d shifted back into a man.
Voice hoarse, he reached out to pull her upright. “You’re okay? He didn’t hurt you?”
Sweat glistened on her forehead and trickled down her too-pale face. “I killed him, Sam. With these.”
He kissed the digits she flexed. “Too good for him.”
“You didn’t turn feral.”
“You kept me grounded,” he said quietly, brushing his mouth over her knuckles.
Shay clothed himself by magick. Kneeling by the dead body, he studied the look of frozen horror on the man’s face.
“I killed him with thoughts, not chants. He wanted me to kill you, said I was one of them, filled with darkness.” Horror tinged her faint voice. “Am I, Sam? How else could I summon power enough to do this?”
The terror on her face wrenched his heart. “No. I don’t know how you did this, but you’re not evil, Kelly. All this time, you’ve thought nothing for yourself, only those you want to free. Your intentions were honorable and your heart is good. Evil seeks only to seize power for itself and cares nothing for others. Evil has no compassion. It can’t love.”
They forged ahead. The tunnel ended at a stone wall with a heavy steel door set into it. The door opened noiselessly. Someone had entered the house through this corridor, wanting to keep their passage secret.
They stepped onto a landing and mounted the steps.
A faint scream sounded in the distance. Kelly froze. Sam squeezed her hand. “Steady.”
Anything could be on the door’s other side. He pulled the handle.
It opened to a cavernous room. Once it had housed a grand piano on a dais and a gleaming parquet floor. Guests had danced beneath the light of hundreds of crystals shimmering in the cut-glass chandelier.
Now it lay empty and still, the shine on the floor dulled, the chandelier dusty.
The children were here. She felt it. And beneath the sweet scent of innocence, vanilla and spring, he scented something stronger and deeper, more forceful.
Curt.
Sam drew out his weapon as they cut through the ballroom. The gilded double doors were open to the hallway. He sneaked a peek.
Empty.
They made their way down the hall, past portraits of his ancestors scowling at them from the yellow walls.
Behind two stately double doors was the library where once he’d carved her initials into shelving containing love poetry. “Because we write our own love story,” he’d told her.
Sam told her once he hated that room. Lost count of the times he’d waited for his father to lean forward in the rigid leather chair, place his palms on the English walnut desktop and begin lecturing him again.
Kicking the door open, they burst inside.
Huddled in a corner, near the polished bookshelves, were nine frightened children. Relief turned her legs to jelly, until she realized a pulsing glow surrounded them. Force field, she thought.
“Can you break it?” she asked Sam.
With a determined look, he lifted his arms. Current snapped and sizzled. Sam chanted a long spell, ancient words to vanquish and banish darkness and evil.
Somewhere in the house, several high-pitched screams sounded and then cut off. The shield holding the children vanished. Kelly rushed forward, the children embracing her, chicks around a mother hen. As she soothed them, Sam squatted down.
A little girl in a plaid jumper gave him a wary look. “Are the bad men going to take you away, too? Like they did to the other tall man who came to rescue us?”
Sam exchanged glances with Kelly. “What’s your name, honey?” Sam asked gently.
“I’m Molly.”
“That’s a pretty name, Molly. Can you tell me what happened to the tall man?”
She shook her head, fear clouding her gaze. “I don’t want to remember.”
“I know it’s scary, Molly, but I need you to be a brave girl. Pretend it’s story time and you’re telling a made- up story. Do your parents ever read you stories at night?”
“Mommy does.”
“Well, now it’s your turn. But you can share it with me. We’ll be story buddies, okay?”
A lump clogged Kelly’s throat at his gentle, kind patience. Molly nodded. “Okay.”
“What were the bad men like?”
“They were short, and smelled nasty. And then they brought in this tall man,” the girl lisped. “He had dark hair with white sides. He smelled nice, like pinecones.”
Curt’s hair was dark brown, touched by silver at his temples.
“The tall man started glowing, like my daddy does when he’s using his magick. But one of the bad men grabbed Joshua and put his hands around his neck, and said if he didn’t stop, he’d hurt Joshua.” Molly began to cry. Kelly hugged her, murmuring assurances.
Concern punctuated Sam’s expression. “Joshua?”
A boy about eight nodded solemnly.
“You okay, son?”
At his nod, Sam looked relieved. “He’s okay, Molly. See? Nothing happened to him. Go on, honey. Finish the story.”
“The bad men and the tall man talked. The tall man got this funny look. Then he smiled at us and told us everything would be okay. We’d be with our parents soon. Then the bad men left with the tall man.”
“Molly, do you know where the tall man went?”
“We heard sounds down there.”
The girl pointed to the floor. Kelly exchanged glances with Sam. “The basement,” he said tightly. “When the guys get here, we’ll head down.”
He called his teammates. “Get up here. Upstairs library, south end. Nine to evacuate.”
Kelly removed her pack and plucked a worn copy of
“J.T. and Dallas are here.”
Minutes later, the two SEALs stormed into the room, weapons drawn, greasepaint smearing their faces. The children screamed.
“Dial it down. I only need to you evacuate,” Sam said.
