Page 115 of Ancient Magic

“Done,” she assured Micha in icy tones.

Micha released her and turned to face Azra, the nearby marble column popping and cracking as if it was being crushed by an unseen power. Micha? Skye desperately hoped so. She couldn’t take another enemy making an unwelcome appearance.

The older vampire took an instinctive step back. “Wait. This has all been a terrible mistake,” he rasped, holding out his hands even as Skye could sense him mentally reaching toward the unconscious fairy. “I was obviously being compelled by powers beyond my control. None of this was my fault—”

“Micha, he’s trying to wake up Lynx!” she called out, tapping into her magic to block the male from entering the fairy’s mind.

There was a brief flare of power before it sputtered and disappeared. Damn. She was all tapped out. Thankfully, Micha still retained his strength. Even better, his ability to manipulate the magic of the Gyre allowed him to create weapons out of nearby objects.

“No one forced you to betray your people,” he hissed, lifting his arm and pointing a finger at Azra. “It was your own pathetic lust for power that nearly destroyed us all.”

“No. I told you. It wasn’t me. It was the dragon. She manipulated me until I couldn’t think clearly.” Azra pressed his hands together, as if pleading for mercy. His eyes, however, remained hard with ruthless determination. He wasn’t conceding defeat, he was playing for time. “Listen, now isn’t the time or place to make any hasty decisions. Take me to Sinjon. I’m sure he’d understand.”

“Yes, I’m sure he will understand.”

Micha sounded almost sad as he gestured with his hand, and without warning the air was filled with jagged shards of marble from the column he’d shattered moments ago. Skye hastily backed away, her eyes wide as the lethal projectiles whizzed directly toward Azra.

The male screeched in fury, lifting his arms to try to protect his face. It was a wasted effort. The marble sliced through flesh and bone with sickening ease, digging deep into his skull. Skye gagged at the sound of the shards sawing their way through Azra before they were zooming around to launch another attack.

Azra’s screams were no longer anger. They echoed through the cavern with a pain that made the ground shake.

“Stop! Please!”

Micha ignored the pleas, his face grim as he concentrated on the shards currently slicing Azra to bloody shreds. Skye gagged, turning her back to avoid the gruesome death.

It wasn’t that she didn’t think the vampire deserved his fate. He’d been willing to watch the world burn in a pathetic power grab. He’d gone beyond ambitious into the realms of demented. Which meant he had to be destroyed. Vampires were too powerful to survive if they were unstable. But she was exhausted, queasy, and unable to endure the sight of any more violence.

She would be brave again tomorrow.

An eternity passed—at least that was what it felt like to Skye—before the ghastly screams began to fade, and she released a shaky breath of relief. Was it over? Really and truly over?

She was almost afraid to believe.

For good reason, she immediately conceded, watching as a shimmering black streak appeared near the pedestal. It was nearly three inches long and as thin as a strand of hair. Just for a second, she tried to convince herself it was a trick of the light that glowed from an unseen source in the ceiling. Or a residual effect from Zanna’s magic. The dragon might not have physically been in the cavern, but her spirit form had been spewing a toxic brew of power. Skye could still smell the brimstone.

Or maybe it was a protective trigger connected to the pedestal. After all, she wouldn’t have noticed the strand if she hadn’t been staring in that direction for several minutes. Maybe it was always there, waiting to release a trap if someone came too close.

She was still busy trying to convince herself that she had nothing to worry about when the strand began to lengthen and then to twirl in a circle. Skye instinctively touched a finger to her charms, futilely hoping that there might be a spell left to toss at the latest threat.

There was nothing. She was all magicked out.

A damned shame since the strand had stretched and grown into a large circle that continued to expand until it touched the marble floor just inches from where Lynx was lying unconscious.

“Um...Micha,” she breathed in warning.

She’d never seen a portal, but she’d read an ancient manuscript that had described them. Back in the olden days, when magic flowed freely through the world, there were a few of the more powerful mages who could open a doorway from one place to another, even if it was hundreds of miles apart. She was pretty certain that was what she was looking at now.

There was a cool rush of power wrapping protectively around her as Micha moved to stand at her side, at the same moment the outline of a large male form became visible inside the darkness of the portal.

“I smell copper,” the vampire muttered.

Skye sucked in a deep breath. He was right. Whoever was coming had the same coppery scent as Lynx. But it wasn’t demon. It was something she’d never encountered.

With the confident assurance of a creature who obviously wasn’t scared to enter a strange room without knowing who or what might be waiting for him, the male stepped out of the portal. He was even bigger now that she could fully see him with long copper hair that was pulled into a braid to reveal a startlingly beautiful face. There was something almost fey about the emerald eyes and the angular cut of his features, but she instinctively sensed he was unique.

And old.

Mind-numbingly old.

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