Anne rose from her chair. She, too, faced the fireplace, then lifted her hands. A biting gust of air seemed to spring from her palms, knocking over a small table in her path. The wind scoured the hearth, dousing the flames just as all the candles in the room were extinguished.
Darkness filled the drawing room.
Livia snapped her fingers, and the fire and candles all relit. Both Zora and Anne gazed at Bram, wearing matching expressions of challenge.
“You’ll make for excellent artillery,” said Bram.
“Better than any cannon or firearm.” Whit curved an arm around Zora’s shoulders.
“More accurate, too,” added Leo, taking his wife’s hand.
“The women are our most powerful weapons.” Livia raised a brow. “The men may prove the greater liability, for they’ve no magic.”
“True.” Whit rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Yet Zora can turn this ordinary saber into a weapon of exceptional power.”
“She might do the same for you,” Livia said to Leo.
His mouth twisted. “Swords are forbidden to commoners. I’d say hang the rules, but I never learned the art of swordplay. But I’m a damned good shot, and can fight with my fists.”
“You can persuade the demons to turn back,” Whit said to Bram, “or fight amongst themselves.”
Bram hadn’t made use of his Devil-given gift in a long while. It could prove useful in the coming fight. He turned to Leo. “Let me kiss your wife.”
Whit and Zora exclaimed, Anne gasped, and Leo snarled, “Like hell.”
From her position near the fire, Livia remained still, her expression opaque.
“I’m going to kiss your wife,” Bram said, “and you are going to permit me.” He focused his will on Leo, exerting pressure through thought.
Bram took a step toward Anne. She immediately brought her hands up, a swirl of cold air churning around her. Yet before she could push Bram back with her magic, Leo planted his fist solidly in Bram’s jaw. Bram stumbled back, his head ringing, but he kept his feet.
“You don’t bloody touch my wife,” Leo said with a rumble.
“We just proved two hypotheses,” said Bram.
“That you’re the same damned libertine you’ve always been?”
“That my gift of persuasion no longer exists. I’d never attempted to use it on you before, so it ought to work. Clearly, it didn’t.”
“And the other theory?” Anne asked, slowly lowering her hands. The icy wind abated, so the only sounds came from the fire and Leo’s enraged growls.
Bram lightly touched his jaw and winced. By morning, he’d have a large bruise adorning his face. “Master Bailey does indeed throw a very powerful left hook.”
“You could have tried to persuade him to do something else,” Whit objected.
“Such as?” asked Bram.
“Punch you.”
Though it hurt like a bastard, Bram grinned. “He’d want to do that anyway, magic or no.”
By minute degrees, the strain in the chamber eased, yet it did not entirely dissolve. They were not the same band of friends they had been months earlier, affable and reckless, unconcerned with anything but their own pleasure. A metamorphosis had transpired. Bram saw it in Whit and Leo’s gazes, in the set of their shoulders and the way they both stood as though ready to brawl. Nothing was certain, no outcome was a given. If they had once been confident that the world would bend to their desires with nary a consequence, that confidence had been replaced by a hard-edged understanding—they must fight for what they wanted.
Bram did not regret the difference.
“You’re like us, then,” Leo said. “No magic.”
Livia rose and moved to stand in front of him. She was older than the other two women in the room, and she wore her experience like an empress wore her ermine. He had always preferred his lovers to be worldly—it made for a more stimulating time in bed, and it also ensured that there would be no misunderstandings as to the transitory nature of their relationship.
But all those were fatuous reasons. Gazing at Livia, at the hard-won wisdom in her eyes, he understood that there were facets of her he would never entirely grasp, and that he could spend the rest of his days searching them out with only the promise of knowing her fully.
How many days he had left . . . that was a duration no one knew, least of all himself.
“There’s magic still within him,” she said quietly. She placed her palm against his chest.
He covered her hand with his own and closed his eyes. Following the means she had taught him, he delved into himself, down through the shadowed labyrinth of his consciousness. Something shone in that darkness, still. The golden key shimmering in the gloom. It hadn’t the same bright edge as when she had been a spirit, but even diminished, the power continued.
Opening his eyes, he smiled at her, and she smiled back. They were part of each other. Now and for eternity.
Feeling the Hellraisers’ gazes upon him, he returned their stares. If there had been any doubt that he and Livia were lovers, that doubt now vanished. Yet they were more than lovers, and Bram let the Hellraisers know this with a meaningful look. In silent communication and solidarity, Leo glanced at Anne as Whit gazed at Zora, then both men looked back to Bram. Men needed few words to converse, and so they did now.
Only months prior he, Whit and Leo shared in everything, bound together by friendship more powerful than any female could ever provide. They might not have unburdened their deepest selves to one another, but each man had been stalwart in his loyalty to the others.
That had changed. Three women had altered the terrain, reshaping whole continents. Livia, Zora, and Anne were the keepers of their hearts now. And though the Hellraisers might repair the fractures between them, they were no longer everything to one another.
“Your hand,” Whit said.
Everyone’s gaze fell on Bram’s hand resting atop Livia’s. The Devil’s mark curled over his skin, flames dancing up to his knuckles.
“
Bram remained silent.
“If that’s so,” Leo said, “then if anything happened to you during the battle—”
“I’ll be trapped. In Hell.” He did not miss Livia’s flinch. “Already been considered.”
“Perhaps you ought to remain safely behind,” Anne said.
“I realize that you do not know me, Mrs. Bailey,” said Bram, “but you’ve only to look at me to realize that I’d rather suffer eternal torment than sit out this battle.”
“No matter the cost?” Anne pressed.
His gaze solely on Livia, Bram said, “I do this
Livia studied the assembled company, ringed close around the fire, everyone wearing matching expressions of grim determination. An odd gathering, this. Noblemen and commoners, well-bred ladies and windblown wanderers. Soldiers and sorceresses.
Had she planned to assemble an army, one capable of defeating the Dark One, this would not be it. She needed a whole battalion of warriors, trained not only in martial combat but the use of magic. These mortals had only recently walked the paths of magic, imperfectly learning its ways. Of all of them, she alone knew all of magic’s depths, its uses and dangers. And of all of them, she alone knew how great their enemy truly was, how the odds against them were so steep as to be impossible.
She looked at them now, these Hellraisers and their women, understanding that they might all be marching to their deaths. Commanders of armies did the same. They would review their troops and issue orders, knowing full well that within hours or minutes, the living men would be reduced to inanimate collections of cold muscle and blood.
She had seen Bram’s memories, learned the contours of his mind. He had looked into men’s eyes,
