“It’s time to start planning your exit strategy. The kids will survive, but I for one don’t want to be here when shit hits the fan, and we both know it’s about to. The Mages are getting bolder, and they managed to infiltrate the Horde stronghold, which means the chances of them being here are very high.”
“I won’t leave those kids at the mercy of monsters, and neither will you. I know you; we’ve spent enough time together that I know you would protect them if the need arose.”
“Be that as it may, it’s too dangerous for us. We’re outnumbered, and I watched them painting wards in blood that would prevent me from sifting you out. That alone is enough to tell me that I need to get you out immediately. I made a promise, old man, and I’d like to keep it.”
Alden watched Ristan thoughtfully as he considered his words. They both started at a soft knock on the door.
“Enter,” Alden called and Olivia’s sweet face peered around the door.
“Hey,” she said shyly, Ristan felt his cock bounce to life as his balls grew tight with need. Her juices had created an obsession, and he wanted nothing more than to finish what he’d started. Only this time, he wanted her to be fully aware of what he was, and who she was fucking. But that would never happen. He could convince himself of anything, and he would make sure nothing more ever happened with her.
“I finished an entire archive today,” she said as she held up a bottle of wine. “Help me celebrate?” she asked hopefully, her eyes sliding from Alden to Ristan, moving away from him quickly.
“I’d love to, but…”
“No,” Ristan said, stopping Alden from continuing. “We would love to,” he amended and watched her as she moved into the room in a sexy getup. He was curious to see if she realized what had happened with her body the night before.
“I’ll grab glasses,” Alden said as he moved into the little room attached to the office.
“You’ve been finishing a lot of those dusty archives, so what makes this one so special?” Ristan asked, his eyes watching her for any sign that it was once again Danu inside Olivia’s body, or anything that might be off. Olivia’s request was odd, as he’d never heard of her celebrating after she’d finished any of the archives she’d been working on.
“I finished all of the records that came to us from Rhode Island. It might not seem like much to you, but it’s pretty huge to me,” she whispered as she moved deeper into the room. When Alden reappeared with glasses, she smiled.
She handed Alden the bottle and smiled again as she sat beside Ristan. He could see the lace top of her stockings, with the delicate hooks that kept them in place. Her dress was shorter than she normally wore; his cock jerked in full awareness of the skin she was brazenly showing.
She was up to something, and he wanted to know exactly what it was. Ristan looked over Olivia’s head to Alden, who nodded subtly in acknowledgment of her closeness to him. Her legs grazed his innocently, and even as the older man gave his approval, Ristan wasn’t sure he trusted what she was up to.
Olivia watched Ristan. Her shyness wasn’t feigned, but her mind kept replaying what had happened in the study carrel, and with her memories, came a rush of juices that made her feel like a traitor. Alden silently poured the drinks, and Olivia sent a silent thanks to Cyrus who had sent back another Enforcer with a blocker that would prevent her from falling asleep as they were about to.
They each held up the wine, and Alden made a toast that made her chest hurt with what was about to happen. She drank deeply of the red wine, swishing the rich berry flavor around in her mouth before swallowing it.
Alden poured them all a second glass, and his phone rang. Olivia waited until he moved into the other room, and then she turned on the charm, or she hoped she had, since this creature, whatever he was, had already fed from her.
She watched his nostrils flare, and as she snuck a peek at Alden returning to his chair, she noticed Alden’s eyes at half-mast, his head drooping slightly. Her head swung back around to Justin, who glanced curiously at Alden. Olivia panicked and moved quickly, gently pushing Justin back down in his chair. He slowly sat back, his eyes narrowing on her.
“Olivia,” he whispered softly. “This is a bad idea.”
“I want you,” she blurted, her eyes lowering with her shyness, as she lifted her skirt so she could straddle his lap. Her heart raced; her breathing hitched in her throat as she rubbed her wetness over his bulging cock. “I’ve dreamt of you,” she admitted as she leaned over and brushed her lips across his softly, innocently.
Her hands rummaged through his hair as he groaned against her mouth. She was seriously in trouble if the patch didn’t work. His hands moved to her hips, and his eyes lifted to hers as he opened his mouth to kiss her, and she allowed it.
She could almost pretend he was Human. Her sex dripped with moisture, and his dick was pulsing hard enough that she could feel it. Bump, bump, bump. She moaned softly as his tongue parted her lips in a seeking kiss.
Electricity shot through her, unlike anything she could have imagined. His tongue captured hers, and she moaned softly against his mouth. Her hand wrapped around his neck as she placed the patch on his skin, and then she cried out as he jerked to his feet, dropping her on her ass.
“What the fuck…” he whispered as he swayed momentarily. Her eyes widened in horror as his skin turned porcelain, and his gray-blue eyes changed to silver and began to swirl in a pattern. His hair was black, and a lot longer than it had been, and he was fucking huge!
He fell on top of her, causing her to scream as his fingers dug into her skin as he struggled against the mixture of the drugs and the vellum spell. “Fucking Witch! I’ll hunt you down, and I’ll take what I want from you,” he whispered as his words began to slur thickly.
“I’m so sorry,” she cried, but as she lay beneath him, the doors of the small office burst open and Enforcers rushed in, Cyrus trailing close behind them. “I did it,” she whispered as the Demon’s weight pressed against her. She could see Alden now, as she lay on the floor, his eyes watching her with a wounded look of betrayal.
“You did it, sweet girl,” Cyrus said, and he smiled coldly. “Detain all three of them, and take Alden below with the creature. The raid has already begun. The entire Guild is being eliminated.”
Olivia’s heart stopped. “What?” she whispered brokenly.
“This wasn’t just about one traitor, sweet girl; it’s about an entire Guild of them. Why do you think we started moving Enforcers from here to Seattle? Alden has tainted everything he’s touched,” he said, and nodded to the Enforcers who awaited his command. “Take her with them, but don’t kill her; she might still be of use to us,” Cyrus said as a giant of a man stepped in beside Cyrus and looked at Olivia with inhumanly clear blue eyes.
“Secure the Demon; he’ll awaken shortly. He’s already fighting the drugs,” the man said. Or, the being said; he wasn’t a man, and he made Olivia’s eyes hurt as she stared at him. He was a little bigger than the Demon, and his long hair was so blond, it almost looked silver.
“Bilé, we want the weapons. You promised us more weapons that could restrain and debilitate the Fae,” Cyrus said as he dismissed Olivia from his mind, and smiled with an ugly, twisted look on his face as the being pulled out golden rods and handed them off to Cyrus.
“If you think of using them on me, be warned that they will not work as you think they will. We have an understanding, and if you cross me, you die,” Bilé said. His image swiveled, and then he looked as Human as the men around him. He swung his head back to the unconscious creature on the floor. “Besides, you have quite a weapon right there. You have no idea what you captured with your pretty little bait. If you bring that one enough pain, he will draw the biggest prize you could imagine here whether he wants to or not. They are connected.” Bilé chuckled and the sound scared the hell out of her.
&nbs
p; Olivia felt hot, angry tears as she was yanked out of the room by Enforcers, then the entire building shook as an explosion sounded. Doors swung on their hinges and dust from the brick and mortar trickled around them. The earth at Olivia’s feet shook, making her eyes water from the dust as her ears rung from the explosion.
“Let me go,” Olivia pleaded, but the men ignored her. One held her arm painfully while the other took in her outfit.
“You look like fun, sweetheart,” he sneered, his mottled hazel eyes sliding down her body with unmasked hunger that made her step back, only to be yanked closer as the man squeezing her arm held her there.
“There are children in the building! Babies!” she pleaded as tears slipped from her eyes to run, unchecked, down her cheeks. “Please; you’re Enforcers. You’re supposed to protect us!”
“Wrong,” one grinned. “We’re not here as friendly Enforcers, and let’s just be honest, sweetheart, we’re not really even Enforcers. So why don’t you just shut up and enjoy the show?”
Oliva watched in horror as Alden was dragged out, blood dripping from his face; something had been done to him while he’d been unconscious from her deed. She’d done this. She’d trusted Cyrus, and now they were harming those she’d vowed to protect.
A man ran out of one of the many offices, only to be shot by one of the men who stood with her. The false Enforcers dragged her down to the library level where she saw Darrin, another librarian stop and hold his hands up in surrender; he too was killed. She sobbed as more people rushed in to see what was happening, only to be killed. Gunfire and screams sounded from the upper floors of the Guild, and Olivia cried as she slid to the floor, covering her ears.
“Stop, oh God, please just stop! They don’t deserve this. They’ll surrender, just stop killing them,” she pleaded, to no avail.
It wasn’t until she caught sight of the kids huddled behind a row of bookshelves that her heart stopped. She held her finger up to her lips and placed her hands over her eyes. She mouthed the word hide, and the moment the men moved to chase down some of the other librarians, she kicked off her heels and bolted to the kids. Some were from the secondary class, the rest were kids from her primary class, and they were huddled around one of the younger apprentice librarians, Lexie, whose leg was bleeding profusely.
“Follow me,” she begged softly, helping Lexie as she applied additional pressure to the single gunshot on Lexie’s leg. “I need you guys to be as quiet as you were when we trained for the drills. Can you do that?” she whispered, and helped Lexie up from the floor.
“They’re going to find us,” Ashlyn whispered as her bottom lip quivered. “They shot Miss Lexie; they’re going to shoot us, too.”
“Not if we can reach the catacombs; we can hide in there,” she whispered. The kids followed as she assisted Lexie, who was somehow managing to hold in her cry of pain as she began to move deeper into the shelves of the extensive libraries. “Now, when we hit the reception area, I need you guys to move quickly. There are monsters here, so we need to be silent, but really fast.”
“Miss Olivia, will they kill my mommy?” Sarah asked, her baby cheeks stained with tears.
“I think the Guild is fighting back, honey, but right now I need you to be brave. I need you to do as I ask, and I need you to do it quickly,” Olivia said as she counted heads of the primary class and came up short. “Where is Michael?”
“He hid by the bathrooms,” Lexie said as she tore a small bit of fabric from her skirt and proceeded to tie off the wound. “I couldn’t get to him.”
“Okay, I’ll go back for him as soon as you guys are safe in the catacombs. Can you walk?” she asked, noting the blood already pooling and soaking through the fabric.
“I think I can, but, Olivia, it’s bleeding really badly,” she admitted as she met Olivia’s terrified eyes.
Olivia knew based on the amount of blood flowing down her leg that Lexie’s femoral artery had been hit and felt bile rush to her throat, but she refused to let it come up. She swallowed past the sob and shook her head. That was death; Lexie was bleeding out, and Olivia didn’t have a single strip of vellum or a wand on her to do a healing spell to at least attempt to stop the blood flow. “You can make it,” she promised.
Lexie nodded, and as more rapid gunfire erupted, she moved with the kids deeper into the catacombs. Once they were secure in one of the passages that led to the tunnels, she sat with Lexie. Her wound was pouring blood from the strenuous effort it had taken to get them into the tunnels.
“Tell my mom I was brave today, Olivia. Tell her I did well,” Lexie whispered as she held onto Olivia’s small hand.
“You can tell her when they come to save us,” Olivia replied as she moved a few stray strands of hair from Lexie’s face. Olivia’s heart hammered wildly as she watched the blood, knowing it wouldn’t take long.
She’d been right. It took moments for Lexie to pass away, and the kids knew as Olivia released a muffled sigh that Lexie was dead. Olivia took Lexie’s hands and crossed them on her chest, and posed her as if she was only sleeping.
“Okay guys,” she whispered brokenly. “We’re going to play a game. In the next room is a silence ward; it’s used to keep the harp inside of it from being heard. You’ll still need to be very quiet, but I’m going to leave Kenny in charge, and we’re going to see who can be the quietest while I look for Michael. Can you guys do that for me?” she asked with pleading eyes as the kids moved to the small dark room where the cursed harp was.
“I’m the boss, like an Enforcer?” Kenny asked, his child eyes growing large as tea saucers.
“Just like that,” Olivia whispered.
“Okay, everyone inside,” she said as her eyes slid back to where Lexie was slumped over in death. Her heart continued to pound, and once the kids were hidden inside the room, she left to find Michael.
He was five, and he’d be scared to death about now. She hugged the walls as she made her way to the boys’ bathroom. When she caught sight of him, she released a relieved sigh, but as he stood and ran toward her, gunshots rang out, and his small frame jerked and fell to the floor. She covered her scream with her hands, as her head shook in denial and the sight of the shattered life.
They were intentionally killing the kids! Her heart felt as if it would explode from her chest, but she didn’t move. She waited for a few moments until it sounded like the gunfire was heading away from the library, then moved to Michael and felt for a pulse. A sob tore from her throat as anger took hold. This was insane. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down! She stood, moving away from the tiny body since it was too late to save him.
Olivia pushed open the doors of the alchemy room and stepped over bodies as she moved to the premade vellum, ripping off enough—or at least she hoped it was enough—to save whoever she could in the Guild. She’d started this, and she had to stop it.
Where were the real Enforcers? Because those men currently executing children were not the one’s she’d served with. They were murderers. She grabbed a few items that she’d read about from mission logs and made her way to the door.
She hugged the wall again, whispering any prayer she could remember in the midst of the crisis. As she rounded the corner and came face to face with one of the men who’d been in the room with Cyrus, she used the enchanted dagger, whispering the spell she had memorized so long ago. She watched as the dagger sailed through the air, planting in the heart of the male, who looked as shocked as she did that it had actually worked.
She backtracked to the area where she’d left the children, using the vellum to take down anyone who stood between her and those innocent kids. She could hear screams and gunshots all around her, but stopped as a single tortured scream ripped through the area.
Justin. If she could get to Alden, he would be able to tell her why he’d allowed Justin inside. He wasn’t the enemy since he
hadn’t killed children, which he’d damn well had ample time to do. Maybe together with an Elder, and whatever the hell Justin was, they could stop the senseless deaths.
She counted the strips of vellum and winced. She hadn’t taken enough, and the room that held it was now across the library. She exhaled and inhaled slowly, her heart thudding painfully in her chest as she decided her next step.
“Oh, fuck it,” she whispered, and headed towards where they had taken Alden and Justin. If Cyrus was the enemy, then Alden hadn’t been. She’d fucked up. She had to fix what she’d done as best as she could. She had thought she’d been in the right, when she’d been so wrong. She’d been so quick to buy Cyrus’s lies. This wasn’t who she was, and she had to make it right.
Chapter Thirteen
He awoke to fiery pain as something was shot through him. His organs twisted as he cried out, his eyes searching for the attacker, only to find Cyrus watching him as he stabbed another bolt into his chest. He looked down and watched as another Enforcer held a knife to his stomach, pushing it through and tearing a bellow of pain from Ristan.
Blood erupted from his lips, and Cyrus smiled with wonder.
He knew this wasn’t the first time they’d awoken him with torture, and he’d watched as they’d tortured Alden. He’d held back at first, taking the pain, but as time moved on, he began to scream as they tortured him in front of Alden.
Questions had been asked, about Ryder, about Synthia. He’d ignored them, feeling as they sliced strips of his flesh and broke his bones. He’d held out, screaming against the pain as they’d forced Alden to watch his torture, hoping it would bring him around to say the words they wanted to know. They made promises to let the old man go if Ristan did as they wanted him to. He knew they were lying, though. They wanted him to bring the Horde King here, and they would try to kill them all. This he knew for sure.