Darkness Avenged (Guardians of Eternity) Page 0,118

very own hero who would slay her endless parade of dragons.

Then she was grimly squashing the stupid thought.

His devotion wasn’t real. It was nothing more than a symptom of the mating she’d forced on him.

It would disappear the moment they managed to break the bond.

And she would be an idiot to let herself believe for a second that beneath the sham of their mating Roke considered her anything but the enemy.

And that if they managed to survive the night, she would soon be alone, with no one to depend on but herself.

Again.

“Considering the fact I’ve had a bounty on my head since I was sixteen, there’s a good possibility that it’s going to be a daily lecture,” she muttered wryly. “Or at least until—”

“Not now,” he broke in, to her reminder this was only temporary.

“What can we do to help?” Styx demanded, keeping guard near the door.

“I don’t think anyone can help,” she admitted, her concentration returning to the numerous threads that she struggled to keep from slipping her magical grasp. “I have to do this on my own.”

“But not alone,” Roke whispered in her ear, tugging her until her back was pressed against the solid muscles of his chest. “Lean against me.”

Her heart did that terrible melting thing again, but she focused her energy on the remaining weave that protected the book.

Even with Roke’s added strength she was soon soaked in perspiration, her knees aching from being pressed against the hard floor, and her mind pounding with a headache that wasn’t going to be cured by a couple of extra-strength aspirin.

Then, she slowly peeled away the last weave to reveal the book that the sorcery had been protecting.

A book that wasn’t a book.

“Blessed goddess,” she breathed in shock.

Roke stiffened. “What’s wrong?”

“I removed the last layer of magic.”

Styx was at their side before she could even blink. Damn vampire speed.

“And?” he rasped.

She instinctively pressed into Roke’s comforting hold. It wasn’t that he was any less intimidating than the King of Vampires. But he was at least . . . familiar.

“I’m not sure.”

Styx warily glanced inside the top of the safe that had been ripped off by Roke.

“Can you sense the book?”

She shuddered. “Oh yes.”

Roke shifted so he could study her troubled expression. “Is it magic?”

“No, it’s a . . .” She bit her bottom lip, struggling to find the words to explain the darkness that threatened to suck them all into oblivion. “A void.”

Styx turned to stab her with a piercing gaze. “A void?”

“Like a black hole that sucks away everything around it.”

If she hadn’t been so weary she would have laughed as Styx jumped away from the safe as if he’d been poked by a cattle prod.

“Are we in danger?” he growled.

She used her magic to probe the strange void, baffled by the sense that it was pulling in . . . something, but unable to determine exactly what that “something” was.

“Not immediate danger,” she said slowly, grimacing at her companions’ matching expressions of aggravation. “Hey, that’s all I can promise.”

Roke absently smoothed a comforting hand down her back. She swallowed a rueful sigh. He was obnoxious and arrogant and bossy beyond bearing, but someday he truly was going to make some female a wonderful mate.

“So how was this book able to hurt the spirit?” he asked.

Hmmm. How to explain what she was sensing to two vampires who made a habit of pretending magic didn’t exist.

“It’s not really a book,” she at last admitted.

Predictably Roke frowned in suspicion. He understood a book. Even one that might hold magical spells. “It’s not?”

She lifted her hands, searching for the right words. “It has the physical appearance of a book, but it’s only a focal point for the power.”

Roke frowned, but not bothering to try and question what a focal point might be, he honed in on the most important detail of her revelation. “That doesn’t explain why it affects the spirit.”

Styx paced toward the door and back, clearly lost in his own thoughts. “Santiago said that the creature feeds on emotion,” he abruptly stated.

“So a void . . .” Roke’s eyes widened. “Of course. It would starve him.”

It took a minute for Sally to follow their line of logic, then she gave a sound of shock.

The void was absorbing emotions.

A perfect weapon to battle the creature.

Whether or not it was created to perform some other purpose was impossible for her to say.

“Can the book, or whatever the hell it is, be moved?” Styx asked, his warrior mind already considering the best