Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,152

didn’t stand a chance against Mircea in a contest of wits even when I was rested.

But then one slipped out anyway.

“Forgive me, but weren’t we talking about retrieving your wife?”

“Rescuing. And ex-wife.”

“She isn’t your ex-wife if she doesn’t die, Mircea!”

“But I did,” he pointed out. “And like those transformed mages, I started a new life as someone very different. I honestly do not know if she’ll even recognize me.”

I rolled my eyes hard enough that I think I saw my brain. “She’ll recognize you,” I said sourly, and went to get that refill.

“I’m leaving when I finish this,” I told him. “So say what you want to say.”

“What I want to say would take all night.”

I took a deep breath, because arguing with Mircea never worked. He could steer a conversation with the adroit ease of a pilot navigating a harbor he’d sailed all his life. He could run you ashore or turn you around until you didn’t know where you were, until you ended up agreeing with him without even being sure what the hell had been said!

He’d done it to me a hundred times, but not tonight. I took a big drink of whiskey—too much. “Almost done now,” I said, and tried not to wheeze.

“Another time,” he promised, although it sounded more like a threat. “In any case, the successful assassination of Roberto may have been the catalyst for the development of Lover’s Knot. Or perhaps it was an accident—half of what the mages come up with falls into that category, although they’ll never admit it.”

“A spell to let vampires use magic?” I didn’t bother to keep the skepticism out of my voice.

“A spell to let them share it,” Mircea corrected. “The Roberto incident showed that it was technically possible for vampires to manipulate magic, but they had simply lost the ability. But what if they could borrow that ability from someone who still had it? That is what Lover’s Knot does—it permits two people, as long as they are in a romantic relationship, to share magical gifts. The witches I told you about were headed for the war, but not to fight. They were to be mentally manipulated into believing themselves in love with vampires belonging to the consul’s enemies, after which the spell would be cast, allowing their lovers to borrow the witches’ magic in battle.”

I thought about that. “Why lovers? Why couldn’t the spell just bind anybody?”

“It’s based on incubus magic,” Mircea said, his lip lifting a little in what could have been a smile or a snarl. “There had to be a conduit between the two people involved in the spell, to allow the vampires to access the women’s power. Which happens to be exactly what incubi do when they feed: they use emotion to create a channel through which they can connect to their partner’s energy. The spell merely coopted the same dynamic for a new purpose.

“The only downside was that the lovers also shared their fates. In other words, if a spelled vampire fell in battle, the witch died as well. Eventually, the witches began to be targeted as a way of taking down powerful masters. The spell was outlawed for that reason, as well as the fact that kidnapping magic workers was threatening to engulf the entire supernatural community in war. We thought all vestiges of it had been destroyed, until Claude found a single reference and brought it back to life. And Jonathan somehow stumbled across it.”

“To do what?” I asked, because I couldn’t image what a powerful dark mage wanted with a spell that gave vampires magic. But then, I’ve never been half as devious as the people I deal with all the time. It scares the hell out of me.

“He kidnapped Anthony,” Mircea said, his eyes strangely intense. “Jonathan intended to place the spell on him and then kill him, thereby taking out his lover, the consul, as well. Fortunately, we found out in time, rescued Anthony, and confiscated all elements of the spell in Claude’s possession. We wiped the memory of it from his mind, ensuring that he cannot reproduce it in the future, although he will also be watched, of course.”

“Of course.” This was all fairly interesting, not to mention scary, but I still didn’t get what this had to do with—

And then I did, and felt the world tilt around me.

Chapter Thirty-five

My whiskey glass hit the floor with a thud, but the thick, leaded crystal didn’t shatter. Unlike me, because it felt like my