Bound By Darkness Page 0,25

mage. He easily sensed Sergei’s rising desperation at the knowledge he was no longer needed by Tearloch. It wasn’t going to take much for him to do something stupid.

Almost on cue, the idiot gave a muttered curse and rushed forward.

“Stay back,” Ariyal commanded, not at all surprised when the mage continued his terrified charge. “Dammit, mage. What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m dead without that child,” Sergei hissed. “No one’s taking it away from me.”

Ariyal watched the disaster unfold, already accepting there was no way he was going to halt Tearloch as the Sylvermyst pulled the spirit who still clutched the child in his arms into the waiting portal.

The air shimmered as the portal began to close. Sergei screeched in frustrated horror, his hands lifting toward the disappearing Tearloch.

At first, Ariyal assumed the mage was trying to reach the portal so he could enter before it closed. It wasn’t until he heard the low chanting that he realized the stupid bastard was intending to lob a spell at the opening.

Gods, was he a complete moron?

Even a thick-skulled troll knew better than to point magic directly at a portal.

Spinning on his heel, he turned toward Jaelyn, who was watching the spectacle with a disgusted frown.

“Get down,” he snapped.

She blinked, then instinctively backed away as he surged forward.

“What?”

With no time to explain, Ariyal tackled her to the ground and covered her with his larger body. He ignored the fangs she flashed and her foul words of warning. Instead he braced himself for the inevitable explosion of magic.

There was the hissing sound of the spell hitting the portal, destabilizing the massive amount of magic needed to rip a hole through space. The predictable chain reaction was less than a heartbeat behind, and Ariyal cried out as the blast of shattered magic slammed into him with painful force.

Shit.

He was at last on top of his beautiful, aggravating vampire and he was going to die before he could get her naked.

Chapter 6

Jaelyn was knocked unconscious briefly by the invisible wall of power that had crashed over them with terrifying force.

Groggily, she managed to shake off the clinging darkness. What the hell?

Had there had been some sort of magical tsunami?

A nuclear explosion?

The end of the world?

No, surely not the end of the world, she tried to reassure herself.

Fate couldn’t be so cruel as to condemn her to an eternity being squashed beneath an infuriating Sylvermyst. Could it?

Pretending that the earthy scent of herbs wasn’t teasing at her senses and that the hard, male body wasn’t cloaking her in welcome warmth, she pressed her hands against his chest.

“Get off me,” she muttered, giving a shove to roll him off her aching body.

Ariyal landed on his back with an awkward flop and Jaelyn belatedly realized the explosion had knocked him well and truly out. With a startled curse, she rose to her knees, swiftly scanning the room as she prepared for the next attack.

An attack that thankfully never came.

A glance was enough to discover the Sylvermyst and his pet spirit had disappeared along with Sergei. Thank-freaking-God. It was bad enough to be surrounded by magic-users without adding in a weird-ass spirit who would give anyone nightmares.

She allowed her senses to filter through the house, assuring her there was nothing lurking in the shadows before she returned her attention to the man who lay unnervingly still beside her.

He wasn’t dead. She could hear the steady pump of his heart and the soft rasp of his breathing, but it was obvious the magical blast had injured him.

“Stupid show-off. Like I need you to play He-Man,” she muttered, annoyed by the vivid memory of him jumping on top of her, shielding her from the massive explosion.

When was the last time someone had tried to protect her? Never.

That was when.

And the fact that this man had done so should have annoyed her, not made something warm and mushy bloom in a secret part of her unbeating heart.

Infuriated with her peculiar behavior, with the Sylvermyst who was making her freaking nuts and the situation that she couldn’t control, she leaned over her unconscious companion and laid a hand against his throat, allowing the steady beat of his pulse to reassure her nagging concern.

“Ariyal,” she hissed. “Dammit, wake up.”

Nothing.

Not so much as a twitch.

“Now look what you’ve done.” Her fingers moved to trace over his starkly beautiful features, something perilously close to fear churning through her stomach as she wondered just how badly he was injured. “I should leave your sorry ass to rot