Torment (Craving 2)

“No can do. We are going together,” I told him. A calm had come over me. Suddenly, I felt really one with my Shama. It was no longer a separate entity I went to for help. MY Shama was now in my soul, my brain, and my heart. I knew just what to do.

We stood quietly as they cuffed our wrists behind our backs and chained our legs. However, I was irritated when they dragged Devin off and dumped him roughly into the bed of one truck and took me towards another.

That was a complication I had not expected.

A few moments later, we were lumbering down the mountain on a narrow road. As it turned out, and as I suspected, Draoidheil magic doesn’t work on me. With a thought, my cuffs and chains were undone. With another thought, I was in my invisible purple smoke and in the bed of the truck transporting Devin. I didn’t bother to undo his chains as I held his shoulder, closed my eyes, damn if I know why, and whispered the spell that would open a very different portal to MacLeod. Siubhail air astar.

In the flash of a moment lives change and one jumps from one mud hole into another.

We landed in the library of MacLeod. Devin was still in his cuffs and had chains around his ankles.

He gasped. “Bobbie…ye did it!”

Something was wrong.

I saw that it was nearly six o’clock, and yeah, I was hungry, but it was already dark outside. Ah, the sun had vanished and the clouds had taken over. Uh-oh.

That fact immediately made me jittery, but it was the scent that caught my attention and held me in place.

Allora!

She stepped forward, ignored me and spoke only to Devin, “Well, well, your little witch has done it. I had not realized Lisa MacForly had any descendants left.”

With a thought, I removed Devin’s restraints. He was on his feet and standing between Allora and me.

“This ends now, Allora. Ye took a great deal from me, dinnae ye? I have always meant to coom home and tear yer head off yer elegant neck, but I’m open to making a deal with ye instead. Leave us be and I’ll let ye live.”

“No, it does not end. I can’t believe how the sight of you still warms me…but I can’t forgive you, won’t forgive you,” she snapped, then hissed like a vicious, feral cat. “I mean to make you suffer for eternity for hurting me.”

“There ya go,” I stuck in. “Whatever deal Devin here meant to make with you would not be binding on me. So let’s forget making peace deals. You and I—we are in it to the end. You killed my grandmother. I am going to kill you. Simple, and don’t doubt for a moment my resolve or my ability.”

“Bobbie!” Devin said in a voice filled with dread.

My heart sank as I looked in the direction of his gaze.

Jeremy sat in a brown leather winged chair in the dim light. He was gagged, bound, and I could see the glitter of magical threads wound around him.

How? How had she captured him, and how had she used magic to restrain him?

“Jeremy!” my voice was hoarse with dread. I started towards him, but she was faster than I and had her nails digging into his throat.

“I have often wondered what it would be like to taste a warlock and then suck him dry. I never have, you know. He would be my first,” she said, and licked her lips.

Could I reach her before she sank her fangs into him?

I had to think.

Devin was at my side and held my arm. “Steady, lass,” he said, then he spoke to Allora. “How did ye manage to get this particular warlock?”

Allora laughed. “Cars have tires. His went flat…oh my, in the pouring rain on his way back to his house with his little human. He got out to change it. I got inside and got her. We drove here together. I left her outside with two of my vampire guards. Right now, she is safe enough, as I left her on the other side of your silly ward. If he is very good and does everything I ask, perhaps I won’t feed her to them.”

“So…that is how you got them here…what about the magical ropes holding him in place?” I asked, also stalling for time as I inched closer to her.

“I told him if he didn’t restrain himself…I would feed on her m

yself,” Allora said.

Jeremy, still gagged, met my gaze full on. He was trying to tell me something.