chapel. A rustle of wings sounded in the distance as the doves roosting in the towers took flight at the noise. “We were better than Belen wanted. We were powerful. Too powerful.” Parnell lifted his chin and his gray eyes, color swirling, stared into Rune’s with hatred flashing so brightly it was as if the emotion itself was alive. “Belen looked at us and trembled. So he thought to destroy us and create instead a lesser race. One that wouldn’t challenge him.”
“One that wasn’t homicidal, apeshit crazy, you mean?” Rune scoffed at him, and he saw that Parnell didn’t take kindly to criticism. Good. Keep him off balance, he told himself.
Danger simmered all around him. Teresa’s life hung in the balance of whatever was going to happen in the next few minutes. Parnell was a formidable foe and he was also nuts, which put a whole new spin on the fight. You couldn’t figure what a crazy man would do. Couldn’t count on him making rational choices.
“Trust the Eternal, beware the immortal,” Teresa whispered behind him and Rune remembered the warning Elena had delivered from beyond her grave.
“Now we know,” Teresa murmured.
Yes, he thought, now they knew.
He took another step backward, into the chapel, knowing that Teresa was moving, too. Keep her away from Parnell. His only thought rang out loud in his mind and everything he was centered on keeping her safe.
“Come to me, Teresa,” Parnell said, reaching out one hand to her even as he kept the flames alive on the other. “I will be your other half. Your mate. I will protect you as I have been doing all along.”
“Protect me? What does that mean?”
“Don’t talk to him, Teresa,” Rune ordered as they cleared the doorway and backed into Saint Agatha’s chapel. “Just take the Artifact and get out of here.”
He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t afford to take his gaze off the man in front of him. Parnell might be wearing civilized slacks and a silk shirt, but he had the presence of a warrior and it wouldn’t pay to discount him. Especially now, Rune thought, knowing the man to be one of the Forgotten. They were immortal, dangerously unpredictable and until this very moment, believed to be dead.
“How did you survive?” he asked, keeping Parnell busy as he hoped Teresa turned to leave.
“We were able to mask our presence from Belen,” Parnell said with a shrug. “He doesn’t pay much attention after all, does he? Too wrapped up with his witch goddess to notice whether he actually killed his children or not.”
The only light in the chapel came from the flickering flames dancing on the skin of the two immortals facing each other. Shadows spun and danced on the stone walls and shone on their faces.
“Rune …” Teresa’s voice, breathy, soft, uncertain.
It twisted a knife in his guts. He wanted nothing more than to be there for his woman. To help her through this greatest of challenges. To share his strength with her so that she could withstand the pull of the dark magic enveloped within the black silver.
“Teresa, you have to go. Go now,” he ordered.
But she didn’t.
He sensed her, still right behind him in the chapel, and he hoped to hell the black silver wasn’t working its darkness on her.
“What do you want?” Rune asked, keeping his knife blade up and aimed, the flames on his free hand burning brightly.
“What’s rightfully ours, of course,” Parnell told him. “It’s the Awakening. We want our witches.” His gaze slipped past Rune to Teresa. “We want what should have been ours for the taking.”
“The Artifact,” Rune said.
“Yes,” Parnell told him with a smile. “The Artifact and the witch who charms it. We will be the power in this world. We will bring Belen out of his dimension screaming. We will become what we always should have been. Eternal.”
“You are out of your fucking mind,” Rune told him with a shake of his head. “Nothing is yours. Not the witches. Not the Artifact. Go back where you came from. Hide from our god, because once he knows you’re not dead, you soon will be.”
From behind him, Rune heard Teresa’s deep sigh. “Rune, it’s getting warm. The Artifact. It’s heating up.”
“It’s the call of the dark, Teresa,” Parnell whispered in a coaxing tone. “It recognizes your soul. As it would know mine. It urges you to be what you once were.”
“Don’t listen, Teresa,” Rune told her firmly. “Just go. Now.”
“Now it’s … humming,” she said softly. “The