“If you really did steal that from him,” Bram began with a grimace, “I’m surprised he’s not already trying to beat down my door. One…” Bram began.
Marrok tightened his arm around Olivia.
“Two…”
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Richard lean forward, emblem in hand, reaching for the book. With one hand on his mate, Marrok gripped the book even tighter with the other.
“Three.”
Richard laid the emblem down into the sunken track. With a click, the key fell into place.
Lips pursed in concentration, Olivia repeated the process, latching her half of the key into place. With a soft snick, it fastened over Richard’s M.
Suddenly, the book seemed to lurch into Olivia’s hand, as if pulsing with a life of its own. It beat in a rhythm, like a heartbeat. Beside her, Marrok felt every bit of the power that had cursed him. It scalded his skin as his mate held tight and pulled the book open.
It cracked with age, yet hummed with an undeniable vibrancy. A sudden chill blasted the room. Page after page—most of them blank—whipped past in an inexplicable gust.
“Unreal,” breathed Bram.
“I feel a rush of energy inside me,” Olivia added, still gripping it as if afraid to let go.
Marrok stared, mesmerized. He’d always known the Doomsday Diary had awesome power. He’d always had a healthy respect for it, but now…Bloody hell!
A blast of light flashed to his right. Then a fireball of pain hit him between the shoulder blades. He staggered under the agony ripping at his skin, tearing joints. His next breath became almost impossible to draw in. His hold on Olivia began to slip.
Was this Morganna’s way of punishing him for daring to open the book and trying to crush his curse?
The pain kept multiplying, unrelenting, slashing through muscles, gouging into his bones. His neck no longer supported his head, and his chin fell to his chest, as he strained to control his body and find his balance, to stay upright.
What magical treachery was this?
“Gray?” Bram shouted in question.
Must…protect…Olivia.
A second blast came, this time in the back of Marrok’s skull. His head jerked back. His muscles froze. He sank to his knees, clinging to his mate’s waist. He could not let her go, but never had he felt such excruciating pain. The torture infected him quickly, like a snake’s venom, burning his veins, making his heart and lungs stutter and—for a few agonizing moments—stop.
He remained conscious by sheer force of will. Vaguely, he heard Olivia gasp at his side. Marrok forced himself to look up, lurch to his feet.
Richard came into view then, teeth bared, fury distorting his face. His violet eyes flashed with hate as he leveled his wand at Bram.
“Nay!” Marrok ground out.
Olivia’s father turned and raised his wand. The bolt of light burst forth again and a fresh wave of agony slashed through Marrok’s senses. He tried to brace himself for the spread of torment, reminded himself that he was immortal. But his consciousness was slipping…draining. He wondered if having a le Fay strike him with magic was enough to end the curse and kill him, all in one fell swoop.
Could he actually die?
He lost his hold on Olivia and slumped against the table.
She let go of the book and grabbed his shoulders, screaming his name, but she sounded far away. He couldn’t possibly tell her that he was well. Such a blatant lie.
Bram growled something, and a ping of magic sounded to his left where Bram tried to stun Gray.
Still Olivia’s touch gave him the will to fight on. He would not leave her to her father’s evil whims.
With a battle cry, Marrok shoved away from the table, sweating, bleary-eyed. He pushed Olivia behind him and swung a mighty arm at Richard Gray. Before the punch connected, Gray leapt aside, grabbed Olivia, and pointed his wand at Bram.
A burst of energy flashed, this time directed across the table. Bram feinted and lurched forward, slamming his hands on the surface in front of him.
A snarl, a vicious curse, another ball of dark power flared around them, killing the lights in the room. Marrok reached for his mate.
He felt nothing but air.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“OLIVIA!” MARROK SHOUTED, terrified to the bottom of his soul.
In the room’s pitch blackness, Bram snapped his fingers. That instant, the lights blazed back on. The book lay on the table under the wizard’s palm, saved from Richard’s desperate grab. But frantically scanning the room only confirmed what Marrok felt in every corner of his heart: Richard was gone.
And he had taken Olivia with him.
Marrok whirled to Bram, anxiety clawing his belly. “Where are they?”
The wizard winced, regret crossing his face. “Disappeared.”
“Is there no way to trace their location?”
“I’m not a GPS tracker. Listen,” Bram tried to calm Marrok with his voice, “It’s no secret that Richard wanted you and Olivia apart.”
“You suggested giving the knave enough rope to hang himself. He has.”
“Indeed. I don’t think he’ll hurt Olivia, since he likely needs her to use the diary.”
“And after that?” Marrok stared at him with growing horror and frustration. “Olivia, will begin losing energy quickly. That will kill her, if Richard does not. And if he is in league with Mathias, you know what that monster will do to her.”
The very thought shredded his guts.
“We will find her before then.” Bram paused. “You love this woman.”
He flinched. Marrok had fought this feeling, but almost from the moment he had realized Olivia was not Morganna, he’d begun seeing not a le Fay, but her. Her compassion and willingness to help, both her strength and neediness, drew him. He had shown her reluctance and distrust in return. Oh, he’d wanted her and taken her as often as she allowed. But he’d been too cowardly to tell her of the feelings growing in his heart. And now it might be too late. Dolt!
Scrubbing a hand across his face, he stared back at Bram’s concerned expression. “We must find Olivia.”
Bram clapped him on the shoulder. “We will. We have something Richard desperately wants, badly enough to deliver a trio of killing spells right at you.”
“Those blasts of pain were killing spells?”
“Puts a new spin on terrible in-laws, doesn’t it? His treachery is unforgivable, and he’ll pay for it. He’s either a coldhearted bastard who would manipulate his daughter in order to acquire a weapon to be used against his own kind, or he’s in bed with Mathias, who has the same wish and is ten times more powerful.”
“What good does having the diary do us, unless we ransom it? We still must discover where they are.”
“There is…another way, perhaps.”
At Bram’s pause, Marrok tossed up his hands in impatience. “On with it, man! Every moment she is gone, I feel the bond straining and twisting. It’s painful, like dull razors gouging into my soul.”
Bram nodded, brow furrowed. The wizard was clearly pondering something—but too slowly.
Though Marrok hated magic at the moment he wished he was filled with it. If it would bring back Olivia, he wanted magical power so strong, he glowed.
“Do something!” he demanded, knowing he was all but giving the diary to Bram.
Picking up the book, Bram flipped through the pages at the beginning, whipping from one page to the next—and whipped past the page that held Morganna’s curse on Marrok.
Slapping his hand over the book, Marrok stopped Bram’s perusal and flipped back to Morganna’s damning scrawl. He expected a wisecrack from Bram, an arched brow—something—upon reading Morganna’s words. Nothing prepared him for what the wizard said next.
“Let go. I’ve looked for the page where Morganna cursed you. But so far the damn thing is empty. Why?”
“What nonsense do you speak? Can you not see the words before you?”
“What words?” Bram stared at him as if he’d lost all sense.
Marrok sighed. “I know not what game you play. Stop messing about.”
Bram glanced up and leveled him with an eerie blue stare. “We should try to use the book to find Olivia.”
“Is it wise to toy with something so powerful?”
“It’s worth a try. Can you think of another way to find your mate quickly, before anyone gets hurt?”
“We know not how the book works.”
“Legend says that whatever the possessor of the book writes in it will come true. You said you saw Morganna write in it. I’ve read accounts of such. Perhaps it’s that simple.”
Nothing about Morganna had ever been simple, but if Bram’s idea worked and he could have Olivia back in the few strokes of a pen, it was worth a try.
Sweat dripping and fear thumping, Marrok nodded.
Bram clapped him on the back and reached to his desk for a pen. He grabbed the book and paused. “You know of no special pen?”
“None. The night she cursed me, she used something of Arthur’s.”
“Splendid.” Bram’s voice filled with acid. “Magical experiments are always…interesting.”
Interesting and magic were not two words Marrok wanted in the same sentence. But he was desperate to have Olivia back.
“Do it.”
With a quick intake of breath, Bram took the pen to the page beside the one on which he was cursed and wrote, Bring Olivia back to her mate. Banish those who took her and think to change her fate.
After Bram dotted the last period with a flourish, Marrok held his breath, anticipation clenching his stomach. This must work. As his gaze darted around the room, out the windows, he saw no sign of Olivia. Worry replaced hope, and he swore.
When he looked down at the book, he swore again. All of Bram’s writing had disappeared.
“Does that page appear blank to you?”
Bram stared at it—hard. “Yes. What the bloody hell happened?”
Marrok had no clue. “And you cannot see Morganna’s words on the next page?”
Bringing the book toward his face, Bram peered at it, then brought it closer still. “Nothing.”
“This diary has more secrets than we imagined.” Like Morganna herself.
Still staring at the page, Bram nodded. Then he looked up with deep regret etched in his face. “You try.”
Startled, Marrok took the book in hand. The wizard was giving it back to him with the slim hope he could use it to save Olivia?
“Go on,” Bram urged.
The thought of his mate in danger, feeling fear, sent a fresh jolt of urgency deep inside him. Gripping the book by the spine, he wrote words similar to Bram’s.
With the same results.
Once the words faded from the page again, Marrok closed the book, gripped it to his chest. “What does this mean?”
“Perhaps Olivia was right and that the book responds more to witches than wizards. But I fear Sabelle is still too weak from her journey to help us.”
Marrok tossed the book on the table without a backward glance. The thing had been the source of his torture for centuries. Why had he expected it to save the only person he cared for—and thus his soul?
Terror crawled through him. The bond with Olivia…he could feel her far away, sense her confusion and weakness already setting in. And something else, some growing sense of disbelief. In the next instant, a splash of shock blanched him like a jump into an icy winter lake. Then suddenly, the echo of fear—Olivia’s fear—burned down his nerve endings.
“Would you like to try anything else with the book? Other words?”
Sweating, terrified, Marrok shook his head. “No time. We must find her now.”
Or, dear God, it would be too late.
Olivia saw a blur of light, heard a whir of noise. She was tossed end over end; her stomach turned.
Then she landed in a heap on the floor in a completely unfamiliar place. The room was dark with heavy curtains. A dim light illuminated an aging room with a beige sofa colored with mystery stains. She doubted even Goodwill would take anything in the room. A narrow bed with a gray spread she’d bet had once been white sprawled haphazardly, tangling with equally dingy sheets. An open pizza box with a half-eaten pie inside littered the table. Styrofoam cups of cold coffee lay everywhere. And cigarette butts filled ashtrays every few feet.
The smells, combined with whatever means they had just traveled, made her stomach pitch as if she were in a freefall. She nearly heaved.
Swallowing down the nausea, Olivia picked herself up and stared at her father.
“Where are we?” Besides someplace that looks like a Motel 6 reject?
“My rooms. At least for now.”
She supposed he changed them often to outrun the Anarki. “What happened? Where is Marrok? What was happening to him before we…poofed out of Bram’s house? Where is the book?”
“Full of questions,” her father chided, then paused to pace. Finally, he leveled her with the oddest stare, almost an angry one. “That will cease. The book, blast Bram Rion, is still clutched in his fist, no doubt. And your mate isn’t coming. If he had not been immortal, he would be conveniently dead by now.”