He lifted my hand high over my head and pinned me with his body against the icebox.
Think, Portia, think! I commanded myself, trying to remember the training sessions I’d had with Vance.
I flicked the fingers of my free hand toward the rows of knives and several popped out of their holders to fly straight at Brian’s back.
He anticipated it, though, throwing a shield up around himself, and the knives all bounced harmlessly off the unseen barrier, clattering with a great noise to the floor all around him.
“That wasn’t very nice, Portia,” he said with a slight shake of his head as if he were berating a naughty child. “But I do like your fire. You know, I’ve been looking for you ever since you left.” He inhaled the scent of my hair. “I was serious when I said I’d happily take Vance’s place.”
“I’ll never leave him,” I said, and I stared up into his demon red eyes, swallowing slowly as he pushed the knife a little harder against me.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll do my best to help you change your mind,” he smiled harshly, and his gaze flitted down my face and to my throat.
“I think Douglas and Fiona have other plans for me,” I said, trying to change the subject and direct his attention to a safer subject.
He laughed then.
“They don’t even know where you are. I’m the one who had the bright idea to start following Crispin to see if he’d lead me to you, and guess what? He did,” he replied, his eyes flashing
“Where are they keeping the box?” I asked him point blank, trying to glean any information from him that I could while I was stalling.
“What box?” he replied, not really listening to me, and he leaned in closer to my neck.
“The one for the ritual,” I said, angling my head as far away from him as I possibly could.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he responded and he bent in even closer.
He moved over me then, placing his lips against my mouth. I yanked my head hard to the left, trying to get away from him.
“That’s all right, Portia,” he whispered in a low voice. “Your neck will work just fine, too.”
I could feel his teeth sharpening against my skin, and he licked over the scar that was there.
“I think you’ll make a lovely demon bride,” he said, lifting his head back for a second before he moved in to bite me.
Shoving hard at him with my free hand, I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain, but it never came.
I heard Brian grunt, and I opened my eyes just in time to see him ripped away from me and flung clear across the room, hitting the far wall.
“Portia, get out of here!” Vance yelled at me before he turned his attention back toward Brian, and I felt the murderous rage that threatened to consume every fiber of his being.
I couldn’t move, though, because my legs had turned to jelly. I sank to the floor in semi relief at his appearance.
Brian hopped up in an instant, easily jumping onto one of the large metal preparation counters in the room, before flinging himself across the open space toward Vance.
He hit Vance in his midsection, and the two of them skidded across the floor, slamming into the opposite wall.
Brian rolled away quickly, before Vance could get a good hold on him, standing to throw his athame at him with deadly accuracy.
Vance immediately shielded himself, causing the knife to hit and bounce away from him. Brian reached out with his hand toward the knife as it slid away, and it immediately jumped back into his outstretched hand, but he wasn’t finished. All the knives in the entire kitchen suddenly lifted and shot straight at Vance.
Vance stood quickly raising his arm and waved it in a circle over his head, finally pointing directly at Brian.
The knives turned and headed back toward Brian who stood shocked for a moment before throwing a barrier up around himself.
Suddenly one of the metal countertops loosened, flipping off its surface, plowing through the air toward Vance.
Vance threw his hands out in front of him and released a giant arc of flame into the metal, stopping it in mid-flight while Brian kept pushing at it with his magic from the other side.
The metal surface was frozen in place between the two forces that struggled over it. Soon it began to overheat and started to melt in the middle, until it snapped into two pieces.
Brian used the momentum to hurtle the severed sheets at Vance from both sides. They just missed slicing him by mere millimeters, continuing on past him, where they slammed into the wall, sticking into the ancient stones there.
“Impressive,” Vance said, and the two circled, facing each other in a stand off, looking for an opening against the other one. They were both breathing heavily from their exertions.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Brian smirked, taunting him, attempting to bait him.
“Yeah? Like what?” Vance replied, quirking an eyebrow at him, though never letting his guard down for a moment.
“Like how I’m going to steal your Portia over there and make her forget she ever knew you existed.” He grinned while he goaded him, looking over at me with a seductive wink.
“Wrong answer!” Vance replied, seeing his opening. He ran toward Brian and levitated, launching himself into the air before somersaulting past Brian, to land behind him in a crouch.
Before Brian could register what had happened and turn around, Vance stood quickly, reaching out to grab him around the neck with one hand, yanking him hard against his body. He held him prisoner with only one arm, his muscles flexed and bulging.
Vance’s eyes were hard pinpoints in the dim light.
“I told you if you ever spoke her name I’d kill you,” he stated flatly, his voice sounding deadly, and his hand began to glow the molten color I had seen it do before.
Brian lifted his arm, trying to swing it backward so he could stab Vance with his athame, but Vance yanked the arm hard behind him until I heard the bone snap in two.
Brian screamed, and Vance released the arm, which flopped down to dangle limply at his side. Brian reached up to his neck with his good arm then, clawing desperately at Vance’s now flaming red hand.
I could smell the sickening scent of burning flesh when the skin on Brian’s neck and face began to smoke under Vance’s grasp.
Brian continued to claw and grab, unable to loosen the strong grip that held him, and then suddenly I heard him gurgle, and blood gushed out from between Vance’s fingers.
Vance didn’t let go. I could see the light fading from Brian’s eyes as death overtook him. Still, Vance continued to hold onto him until I actually heard bone crunching beneath his fingers. Brian’s head suddenly sagged and fell off his body to the floor with a loud thud.
Vance finally released Brian then, letting his body tumble carelessly to land near the severed head.
I sat, frozen in place, with my hands clasped over my mouth, my eyes wide in horror when Vance turned to look at me.
I could feel the deadly fury that moved through every part of him with each beat of his heart. His eyes locked with mine, and I felt sorrow shoot through him when he took in my expression.
He took a faltering step toward me before stopping.
“I’m sorry, Portia,” he said, swallowing hard when I continued to look at him, completely aghast.
I was unable to answer him after what I had just witnessed.
He stared hard at me for a few moments before he walked briskly out the door.
Chapter 18
I was still sitting on the kitchen floor, staring at Brian’s gruesome corpse, when my family arrived back with the groceries.
Dad flipped on all the lights as he entered the room, stopping cold when he saw the scene in front of him. His eyes trailed over the body and across the floor to where I sat shaking against the refrigerator. Shelly screamed when she came into the room behind him and dropped the bag of groceries she had been carrying. She buried her face in Brad’s shoulder.
“Port
ia!” my dad called to me, quickly setting his bags on the counter. He rushed over to my side. “Are you okay? What happened here? Did you do this?” he asked in rapid succession.
My teeth were chattering as I tried to talk. “Brian snuck up on me. He threatened me and tried to bite me. Vance found us. They fought, and Vance ...Vance … he …,” I trailed off, looking at the body in front of me.
Grandma dug through a drawer, finding and grabbing a linen tablecloth. She pulled it out and began to cover the body along with the severed head.
My dad shook me hard trying to get me to focus.
“Portia, did Vance kill Brian?” he asked me staring straight into my eyes with a look of concern.
I nodded.
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. He left,” I said, and my voice quivered uncontrollably with the shock of what I had witnessed.
“He left you here? Alone? With this?” he asked incredulously, gesturing to the scene behind him.
“Yes,” I said, and a sudden wave of guilt washed over me. “But it was my fault.”
“How’s this your fault?” my dad replied, moving to stand over me, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before, let alone coming from Vance. I mean I’ve always known he was powerful, but … he scared me,” I explained. “He saw the look on my face afterward, apologized and then left.”
My dad turned to the others who also had stricken looks on their faces as they stared back at me.
“Brad, Shelly, go find Vance,” he ordered. “And tell him I said to get back here right now!”
“No!” I said, and I slowly rose up to my feet, trying to summon up my courage. “Let me go.”
“Are you sure that’s the best thing to do?” my mom spoke up. “What if there are more people from Douglas and Fiona’s coven out there?”
“Brian was said he was looking for me on his own. No one else knows where we are. He was gloating over how he found me without their help. It’ll be fine, Mom,” I said, and I hesitated over the sheeted body.
“Portia, we’ve got this taken care of,” my grandma said. She placed a hand of restraint on my shoulder. “Go find your husband.”
I looked at the sheet one more time, wrapped my arms around myself and headed out the door.
I knew exactly where to look for him. I exited the keep and headed out into the night air.
Slowly, I moved across the grounds of the massive structure until I reached the remains of the old crumbling Kirk.
I could see his outline in the darkness. He was kneeling over the remains of the ancient altar, his head held in his hands.
Moving quietly, I walked up the stone-strewn aisle, until I reached his side and knelt beside him.
He didn’t move or acknowledge my presence, and the wall in his head was firmly up between us.
I stayed there for a long while waiting for him to say something, anything. But the words I waited for never came.
I finally decided to be the one to speak.
“Lord,” I prayed out loud, and I looked up to the starry heavens that showed through the giant holes in the beamed structure. “I’d like to thank you for all the many blessings I have. I’d especially like to express my appreciation to you for my loving husband, who would do anything in his power to protect me from harm. Please, please let him know how much I love him, even when things scare me unexpectedly. I love him with all my heart. Amen.”
I knelt with him for a while longer as he continued to wrestle with his demons. Some time later when he still hadn’t spoken to me, I stood up and walked out of the church. I went back to the keep, thankful that I didn’t pass anyone as I made my way up to the bedroom.
Closing the door behind me, I changed into my night clothes and then crawled into the massive bed, pulling the down comforter over my head.
I snuggled into the cozy space and waited for him.
It was a long time before he finally crept quietly back into the suite. I heard him move toward the bathroom, and soon the sound of the shower was running behind the closed door.
A short while later, I felt him lift the covers and slide into bed with me, and the air filled with the sweet smell of his aftershave, soap and shampoo.
“You didn’t have to wait up for me,” he said with a sigh, not touching me with any part of his body.
“But I wanted to,” I said a little sleepily, and I rolled over to lie across his chest, letting my hair spread over him in the way I knew he liked.
I heard his breath catch in his throat when I touched him, and I knew my gesture meant a lot to him.
“I’m sorry, Portia,” he apologized again, and he lightly reached out to stroke the strands of my hair.
“Sorry for what? Saving me?” I asked him.
“No, for being so brutal about it … for scaring you,” he replied. “I let myself get carried away with anger. I couldn’t stand that he touched you.”
I lifted my head to look at him in the dark, laying one of my hands against the side of his face.
“Vance, had the tables been reversed and someone who was purely evil was making moves on you, I would’ve felt the same way,” I said, lightly stroking his face. “The fear came from the fact that I’ve never really seen the full extent of your powers before. Everyone is always telling me how you’re this super powerful warlock, but other than a few isolated incidences, I’ve never seen you at maximum capacity. For a single moment it made me question whether or not I really knew who you were. I didn’t recognize you.”
He was quiet for a moment before he spoke.
“I never meant to scare you. I’m sorry I did. And just for the record, you know all the important things there are to know about me. Who cares about whether or not I have strong powers. The strongest things inside me are my feelings for you. Brian threatened those tonight, and I reacted accordingly, completely violent and with unnecessary roughness.”
“You don’t need to try and explain to me. I get it. I just want you to be happy with yourself. Yes, you were brutal, but the fact is Brian was evil and needed to be destroyed. It was something we knew we were going to have to do eventually. It just happened sooner rather than later.”
“When I heard you scream into my mind, it was as if my heart stopped beating and my blood ran cold,” he said, and I felt a tremor move through him. “I was so frightened while I was running to you, feeling like everything was moving in slow motion, and I couldn’t get to you fast enough. I was so afraid he’d kill you before I could get to you.”
“It’s over now,” I replied, and I kissed his lips softly. “Put it from your mind. There’s no sense in reliving it.”
We were both quiet for a minute before he spoke again.
“Thank you for your prayer,” he whispered. “It meant a lot to me. I thought I was losing you.”
“Never, ever,” I replied, kissing him again.
He hugged me tightly to him, and when the kiss was over, we spent the rest of the night together in a soft, tender embrace, just holding one another, until we drifted off to sleep.
The morning light found us much too soon since we didn’t want to get up yet to face another day.
I was happy to see that Vance was much more like his usual self than he had been last night. Every now and then I would catch a look of question in his eyes, though, when he would stare at me. I could see he still had doubts about whether or not I was really okay with everything. I was going to have to do my best to prove it to him.
“You know I love you with every fiber of my being, right?” I asked him once when I caught him in the middle of one of those reflective stares.
He didn’t answer me for a minute, and he brushed his hand lightly over my head, moving down the surface of my hair.
I started to worry then.
“You do know it?” I asked again, feeling my heart flutter a little.
He stared straight into my eyes when he answered.
“Yes, I know
that you love me with every fiber of your being. I just wonder if you feel safe around me now with the same kind of intensity. Or do I scare you completely?”
“I know you’ll always protect me and never try to hurt me,” I answered in a matter of fact tone.
He gave a small smirk, before slightly shaking his head from side to side in disagreement.
“You’re dancing around the question,” he stated, staring at me. “Give me a straight answer.”
He wasn’t going to make this easy on me.
I sighed.
“Yes, I feel safe around you, and yes, you scare the crap out of me,” I said honestly.
I could see the sadness creep into his eyes.
“But,” I added, “there have always been some dangerous things about you that have scared me a little. I mean let’s face it, all the demon stuff you’ve been through. You killed the woman you thought was your mother. You killed your father. Then there’s the whole demon kiss thing, and now this. You are dangerous.” I paused for a moment before continuing, placing my hand over his chest. “Here in your heart, though, is the desire to be a really good person, and I love that about you. That and the fact that I’ve never met a girl yet who didn’t enjoy having a guy who could be a little bit of a bad boy on occasion, myself included.”
I smiled at him, trying to make him understand.
“That’s the problem, though,” he replied seriously. “Under the right circumstances, I could be a very bad boy, so bad that I could even kill you.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” I said firmly. “You’ve had the opportunity to kill me on a couple of occasions in the past, and both times you chose to try and save me instead.”
He grunted in disgust. “Yeah, after I’d helped myself to drinking your blood and then basically begged you to make the demon conversion with me. I’m not some super hero, Portia,” he replied with a frown.
“That was the bloodlust talking, after the fact. It doesn’t mean anything. It wasn’t real,” I said dismissing his comment.