Demon from the Dark

Always she'd held on to this damned ring, held on to unfounded hope.

Done. She threw the ring into the waves.

At once, she gasped, tempted to dash into the water and find it. But she stopped herself. Tears welling, she raised her face to the mist. Good-bye.

Turning on her heel, she headed back to the cabin. With every step she took away from her past, she felt lighter, as if a crushing weight on her chest were dissolving. The longing, the bafflement, the desperation—all ... ebbing.

She sighed, feeling as if she could finally breathe after so long.

In the bedroom, she tugged Ruby's blanket higher, leaning down to brush a kiss over her forehead. I'm going to take care of you, Ruby. I always will.

Satisfaction coursed through Carrow, a flare of power surging within her. Though doused by her torque, it had arisen...

From within me?

With a bewildered laugh, she climbed into the other bed. All her life, she'd been waiting for this answer. Carrow had always known she could feed her powers from anyone's happiness. She'd just never figured it could be her own—because she'd never been truly happy.

Not until she'd let go of her past and welcomed a new future.

She stared at the peeling ceiling, which looked so different from when she'd left it. Because I'm different now.

Then she smiled, was still smiling when she gradually drifted to sleep.

But not long after, she bolted upright in bed, just as Ruby did.

'Did you feel that, Crow?' the girl murmured. 'Something bad's coming.'

Chapter 44

'What do you want with me, Mariketa?' Conrad Wroth said as he traced with his wife into Andoain's great hall.

As soon as Mari had been able to locate them—a feat in itself—she'd asked them here to meet with her and Bowen. 'I need a favor,' she said, beholding the towering, red-eyed vampire. The key.

Conrad was an immortal male, filled with evil—in the form of a vampire's blood-borne memories—and he was obsessed with Neomi, his phantom Bride. Who was asintangible as smoke.

Fortunately, Conrad owed Mari big-time. The ballerina Neomi, now one of Mari's friends, was alive only because of her.

'Name it, then,' Conrad said, his Estonian accent pronounced.

'Well, it's like this,' Mari began, 'you know how Loreans have been abducted by this weird order of mortals? My best friend Carrow was among them. But I've located where they're all being kept.'

Though Mari had been able to sense a cataclysmic Lore disturbance, she could get no second opinion or reading from other witches. She couldn't find Nix anywhere, so no backup from her.

In the eyes of the Lore, Mari's mystical waypoint was only a baseless hunch.

She felt like the plucky seismologist who'd seen a blip of untold strength but couldn't get anyone to believe the big one was coming.

'What does this have to do with me?' Conrad asked.

Bowen said, 'We need someone to teleport me to Carrow.'

'Us,' Mari corrected. 'Teleport us to Carrow.'

Clasping her upper arm, Bowen said, 'Damn it, lass! We have talked about this.'

They'd been going round and round. Her wolf was nothing if not overprotective.

'And I will no' allow—'

'How did you find them?' Neomi interrupted, softly but sternly, her French accent coloring her words.

Mari said, 'I detected the immortal energy within the place and was able to download the location into a mirror. Full disclosure: it felt like a freaking Lore world war was going on.'

Conrad and Neomi both remained quiet. At length, Neomi said, 'You know how deeply we are in your debt.'

Not even a year ago, Conrad had brought a dying Neomi to Mari. She'd risked everything to save Neomi, using more power than she'd had to give to transform her into a phantom, an immortal who could become corporeal or intangible at will.

'But this sounds like a suicide mission,' Neomi continued. 'If he can somehow trace to this energy you speak of, what if it's in the middle of the ocean, or in a sunny desert?'

'I firmly believe that it's on an island.'

Conrad asked, 'Can't someone fly over the coordinates first?'

'Nix told us it couldn't be seen from a plane,' Mari hedged, since, of course, there were no coordinates. Which had hardly helped her prove her case to her immortal allies.

'Vampire, we need someone to get us on the ground,' Bowen smoothly said, 'so we can search the island on foot.'

Mari added, 'Conrad, it has to be you.'

'How would he know where to go?' Neomi asked.

Mari carefully gazed away as she held up a small pocket mirror. Before this week, she'd never achieved so much magic with so little mirror. 'I created a trail to the energy, like a portal, and stored the directions to it in this mirror. I believe if you gaze into the glass, it will act like a mystical GPS system to guide your teleportation.' Patent pending if this badboy works! 'It's possible you could trace directly there.'

Conrad gripped Neomi's small hand. 'If something happens to me, who will take care of my Bride?'

Mari hated to pressure him, but this was for Carrow. 'Conrad, you wouldn't have a Bride right now if not for me.'

The vampire gazed down at Neomi with such a consuming look that even Mari sighed. 'I'll do as you ask, witch.' Just when Mari felt a welling of relief, he said, 'But I go alone. I can trace across the area much faster. Can cover more ground.'

Bowen shook his head. 'We doona know exactly what you'd be tracing into. Did you no' hear the Lore world war bit earlier? At the very least, you can expect those mortals to be there in full force.'

'Alone,' the vampire repeated.

'But how will Carrow know you are a friend?' Neomi asked him. 'Your eyes are red.'

Conrad was a true fallen vampire, his eyes bloodred from drinking victims to death. But he'd been brought back from the brink by Neomi and three stubborn Wroth brothers.

Mari said, 'I could tell him something only Carrow would know. And show him pics so he'd recognize her.'

'Are you certain, mon grand?' Neomi asked.

He nodded, saying simply, 'Mariketa bids this.'

'Very well.' The dancer stood on her toes, reaching up her free hand to thread her fingers through his black hair. 'Then bring Carrow back. And come home safely to me.'

'I will return with her,' he told Neomi. Then he faced Mariketa. 'To pay on a debt so dear that it can never be settled.'

Malkom woke late, blinking against a heavy bank of morning fog. He'd just dreamed a memory of Carrow's, one that he hadn't experienced before.

When he'd been in chains, humiliated in front of all the citizens of Ash, Carrow had looked up at him with realization. Malkom is noble, she'd thought.

He sat up, staring out into the gray mist, staggered yet again by her. In the past, he'd longed to be noble. He might not actually be, but for his lady to deem him so?