“Thank you.”
“I want to take care of you. That is what a mate does. Remember, I will protect you from any threat.”
Including her father. Before she could respond, he laid a brief, fierce kiss on her lips, then took her hand, grabbed the Doomsday Diary, and led her from the bedroom.
They descended the stairs and drifted down the wide, airy hallway, made stunning by exquisite tile floors and rows of marble pillars flanking both sides.
As they approached the breakfast room, Olivia saw Bram awaiting them outside an open door to their left.
“Breakfast will be ready shortly. May I have a word with you first?” Bram asked Marrok. “Olivia, you’re welcome to come, if you like.”
Beside her, Marrok tensed, as if gearing up to be battle ready. “Rion, we appreciate the hospitality. We will not trouble you for long. I doubt you would stage an inquisition to ask about the length of our visit, so I will assume this involves the Book of Doomsday and decline your ‘gracious’ invitation.”
Olivia saw his hands tighten around the book. He would guard it with everything inside him. Would he go so far as to pretend devotion for her, too?
“Actually, it has little to do with the book and everything to do with this morning’s battle. Please.” Bram gestured into the sitting room again.
With a sigh, Marrok placed his hand at the small of Olivia’s back and led her into the room.
Room? It was like a museum. A gilt fireplace, heirloom rugs. Traditional mixed with modern to create an eclectic but expensive effect. And the art? She wanted to cry at how beautiful it was. As she studied each piece, she felt her jaw drop. Was that an original Pollock on his wall? Nearby was a statue that reminded her very much of a…
“Is that a Bernini?”
Bram frowned absently. “Art would be Sabelle’s department, but I believe so. Please sit.”
They dropped down onto a small velvet sofa facing a huge picture window that showed off the bright sun of a cheerful morning. Hard to believe that a mere two hours ago they’d been fighting for their lives.
She’d been so dazzled by the art, she hadn’t paid attention to the other four men in the room. Three she remembered from Bram’s party. One she didn’t know at all.
In the far corner, the marine/biker guy she recalled, Shock, was decked out in leather and badass, complete with sunglasses and killer attitude. Lucan all but growled at the man, a good indication that he had no problem challenging Shock, despite the fact he had four inches of height and forty pounds on Lucan. Near the door, the real-life duke hovered, shrewd, pedigreed, and gorgeous. His designer khakis, crisp shirt, and impeccably expressionless stare belonged in Bram’s palace.
But the unfamiliar man…He was a mountain, almost as tall as Marrok, but rather than being good-looking in a stark, masculine way, he was flat-out scary. His dark hair was merely stubble inching up from his scalp. Intense green eyes pinned her in place. A model’s cheekbones slashed across his strong face. Below the neck was all Conan the Barbarian-style: enormous shoulders, biceps, and pectorals. He wore a black T-shirt, camouflage pants, and dirt-crusted combat boots.
Beside her, Marrok clutched the diary in a death grip. “What the devil is this, an ambush? I will not surrender the diary.”
“Think of this as a mass plea.”
Olivia had seen the wizard teasing, calculating, but never quite this determined.
Pure fury narrowed Marrok’s eyes—and no surprise. Olivia was feeling a little ganged up on, too. “I will not give you the book.”
“I won’t ask for it. I know better. What we need now is your help.”
“My help?”
Bram nodded. “First, thank you for jumping into the battle today. If not for you, Lucan, Duke, and I would have been completely overrun by the Anarki.”
“Do not thank me for protecting my mate. It is her I sought to rescue, not you.”
“Of course. I’m sure, however, that you did not fail to notice that the rest of the Doomsday Brethren and I—”
“Doomsday Brethren?” Marrok cut in.
Bram nodded. “We’re wizards banding together to defeat Mathias and help you protect the book. Lucan and Duke, whom you met at my party, captured the Anarki in front of your house early this morning.” They nodded at Marrok. “Along with Shock, whom you also met at my party.” The dude in leather sneered. “And Ice, whom you did not.”
“Is five enough wizards to fight an army the size of Mathias’s?” Olivia asked.
“No, especially not after what we saw this morning. The Anarki is comprised of more former humans than wizards. Wizards we can fight with magic. The half-dead…” Bram shrugged. “They deflect magic. I’m not certain why, perhaps because they have no soul.”
She shivered. It sounded awful. They looked horrific. And she knew there were many more out there. “How do they come to be half-dead?”
“Dark magic. The soul cannot be removed from the body without the individual’s consent. He or she has to release it. After Mathias captures them, he uses his well-honed skills to make people beg. The promise to wipe away the shattering memories or unbearable pain will prompt virtually anyone to surrender their soul to him. Then, with a powerful bit of dark magic…Well, you saw.”
“How is it possible to fight someone so insane?”
Bram answered with a grim smile. “I believe it’s crucial to reduce the number of nonmagical Anarki. Mathias has made them impervious to magic, so the Doomsday Brethren cannot fight them.” Bram turned his solemn stare back to Marrok. “That is why we need you. We must learn human combat, what’s needed to dispense with the half-dead. You skewered several at once. I saw you punch them. Olivia shot two. These methods work. And we are clueless. Mathias will slaughter us unless we learn to fight as you do.”
Marrok sat back in his chair. “You want me to teach you guns, knives, fist fighting?”
“Yes. Anything that can be used against the human Anarki. Wands were useless against them. All the Doomsday Brethren are warriors to the core. I know casualties are a part of war, but I cannot abide sending them into battle unless they know how to defeat their opponents.”
Marrok said nothing into the long silence, and Olivia wondered what he was thinking.
Finally, Bram stepped into the quiet. “You are likely wondering what’s in it for you, why you should throw your lot in with us. In exchange for teaching us human combat, we vow to provide magical protection for the Doomsday Diary and your mate.”
With a swish of his fingers, Bram produced a trio of images. “This is the aftermath of an Anarki attack.”
Immediately, the pictures had her clapping her hands over her mouth, to contain both her scream and her bile. Blood everywhere. Chaos. Sightless eyes. Naked, abused bodies. Men, women, babies. The pictures reeked of pain. Her stomach churning, Olivia looked away.
Beside her, Marrok clenched his jaw. He wanted to be unmoved by the photos, but he wasn’t.
“This could be any of us,” Bram went on. “All of us, if we don’t band together to stop Mathias. He won’t rest until he has the book in his power. And you,” he swung his gaze back to Olivia, “are particularly at risk. According to our prisoner, Mathias believes you’re critical to his plan. He will kill anyone he must to get his hands on you. God help you if he does.”
Olivia swallowed, fear stabbing her. Having seen these pictures, she didn’t want to be one of Mathias’s victims, stripped and tied, used up and bled out, branded and left to die.
“What else has Mathias done since his return?” Marrok’s voice was just above a hush.
“Odd disappearances. Missing reports among the male human population in England are up threefold in the last month, I just discovered. There have been two full-scale attacks on magical families, one on a member of the ruling Council. The other on a family with two breedable daughters. One of the girls is dead, the other missing.”
Olivia singled out one of the images. “This picture shows what Mathias did to the dead woman?”
“It’s called Terriforz,” called the scary one by the door.
“Tell them, Ice,” Bram suggested.
Menace rolled over Ice as he prowled between her chair and Marrok’s. “It’s a magical rape. Mathias gets off on torture.” Ice’s voice trembled. “Terriforz kills slowly. He makes her beg for it, but leaves her fully aware that she’s being raped over and over. After Mathias got tired of the victim in the picture, he gave her to his army. She bled to death. He’s already moved on to the next victim.”
Olivia gasped, and Ice turned those green eyes on her. She felt the instant chill. To say he stared at her as if she were an insect under a microscope would be an understatement. “You’re the le Fay woman.”
“Olivia.” Should she offer her hand? In the end, she didn’t. He just looked too scary.
“It seems like you’re in the shit or you wouldn’t be here.”
“The Anarki have my mate’s address.”
Ice glanced at Marrok and greeted him with a short nod. Marrok returned the gesture.
“As I said before,” Bram went on. “We have no training in mortal combat. Mathias’s army is filled with beings resistant to magic. How can we keep the balance for magickind if we’re unable to fight them?”
“How much can the five of you accomplish?” she asked.
“Likely not enough,” Bram acknowledged. “But it’s better than not trying at all.”
Marrok hesitated, then set his jaw. “I want no part of this. Staying here places Olivia in greater danger.” Marrok still clutched the book with white knuckles. “I will take her elsewhere and—”
“And if they follow you? Find you?”
“They will not.”
“Bullshit!” Bram thundered. “Now that they know who has the book, they will hunt you down, no matter where you hide. They already have.”
Marrok dismissed Bram with a wave of his hand. “Mathias had help locating me.”
“Agreed. Someone at the party overheard Olivia’s thoughts and came after you, but we don’t know for certain who betrayed us. And that doesn’t change the fact that Mathias—”
“I have an idea who betrayed us,” Lucan said suddenly.
“Who?” Marrok whipped around to face the wizard.
Olivia tensed, hoping like hell Lucan had a better theory than Marrok’s. It couldn’t be her father. It couldn’t. Granted, she didn’t know him well, and he had been Mathias’s second in command, but it didn’t make sense to her to take the guy out once, then help him gain power again. She was going to get to the bottom of it all—soon.
Lucan’s burning blue gaze suddenly snapped across the room. “Shock can read others’ thoughts. He must have heard Olivia’s last night. His family is crawling with Mathias sympathizers. How many of your brothers turned Anarki, Shock? Zain, the one we captured, for sure.”
At the sound of his brother’s name, Shock jolted. “He’s barely more than a kid, damn it.”
“Old enough to don Anarki robes and kill people. You’d stand to gain a lot if Mathias’s high-minded ideals about equality were adopted.”
Shock lunged over the sofa to leap at Lucan’s throat. “Bastard! I don’t piss about to get what I want. I leave that to you.”
Lucan held off Shock’s attack—barely—with a raised hand that seemed to create some invisible force field. But the effort was costing him. Sweat broke out across his forehead. He tensed, the tendons standing out in his neck as he strained to maintain control. And still, Shock kept charging, cursing Lucan in creative ways that made Olivia’s jaw drop.
Finally, Shock flung a hand in Lucan’s direction. A buzzing sound filled the room. Lucan gasped as if a thousand-pound weight had settled on his chest, then jolted. He dropped his hand, and Shock invaded his personal space with a growl, wrapping his hand around Lucan’s neck.
“Listen, you holier-than-thou wanker, I—”
“What is your magical blood mixed with?” Lucan croaked. “Your whole family is known for evil tempers. Did your tainted blood win out after Bram’s get-together? Did you get cozy with Mathias?”
Shock’s fingers tightened around Lucan’s neck. “Your mate’s too good for you.”
Lucan leaned into Shock’s face. “Are the rumors true? Are you part vamp? Or are you infected with darklust? Is that the reason for the sunglasses, to hide those lust-filled stares you can’t control?”
“The sunglasses are to stop you from seeing the exact moment I’m going to rip you apart with my bare hands.”
“Stop, both of you!” Bram barked.
Evidently, he’d had enough of this argument, and Olivia couldn’t blame him. Lucan enjoyed baiting Shock. And Shock…Was there really such a thing as being part vampire?