“How long will that take?” Muriel asked.
“Not long,” Jason said. “Matt can mobilize fast.”
Not longsounded like forever to Muriel, especially when she couldn’t sense what was happening to Brandon.
“Be ready to go in ten minutes,” Jason said to Muriel. “Zarek will meet us out front.”
As the vampires left to prepare, Ana pulled Muriel aside. “Believe in yourself, Muriel. You are stronger than you know.”
Ana squeezed her hand, then let her go.
Muriel ran back to the guest room, yanked on clothes. Her hands were steady as she laced her boots. TheCodexsat on the bed, pulsing with controlled power.
She picked it up, and the ancient grimoire settled into her arms. She reached out to Brandon again. Thatdormant presence was fainter now. Brandon was unconscious, or close to it.
Hold on, she thought, even though he couldn't hear her.I'm coming.
18
MAGE IN DISTRESS… MOSTLY
BRANDON
The first thingBrandon noticed when he came to was the taste of blood in his mouth. The second was the suppressant cuffs burning against his wrists like molten iron. Thankfully, his cloaking was still in place. He didn’t want Muriel experiencing any of this.
He kept his breathing shallow and his body relaxed despite the screaming protests from bruised ribs and a busted lip. Through slitted eyes, he took stock. Tallow candles burned in the corners, casting just enough light to see. Earthen floor. Earthen walls. Rough-hewn support beams atop flat stones. One window high on the far wall, fitted with iron bars. Open stairs made of sturdy hardwood slabs led upward to a door reinforced with iron crossbars and heavy-duty hinges. The placesmelled of damp, musty air as if it had been closed up for months.
The nulling spell had worn off, but the suppressant cuffs were still in place. Standard Magisterial issue, they were designed to block a mage's access to cultivated magic—the structured flows they'd spent years learning to channel and shape from the innate magic within. They burned because they were working, cutting him off from the pathways he'd built through decades of study and practice.
They were not as effective against the latent, ancestral power he’d been born with, however.
The old magic sang beneath his skin, wild and primal, answering to bloodlines that predated the Magisterial Consilium by millennia. Merlin hadn't just learned to channel natural energy—he'd been born knowing how, the same way wolves knew to hunt and birds knew to fly. And Brandon, last remnant of that lineage, carried the same gift.
He called it to him now, using the earth energy beneath the cabin floor, the slow pulse of ley lines running through the mountain roots, and the wild green life force of the forest pressing close on all sides.
The magic came to him slowly, sleepy and stiff from decades of unuse. Brandon had locked that part of him away when he’d moved to Mythic, making it nearly impossible for the Consilium to track him. Now it seeped through the gaps in the bespelled iron cuffs—notenough to break free, but enough to start unraveling the spells placed on them.
Footsteps crossed the floor above him, sending tiny particles of dirt and dust down onto his head. He made out two distinct sets of footsteps, but there had been at least four, possibly five at Zed’s. If there were more—and there probably were—they’d be lurking farther out, guarding the perimeter.
He checked the cloak again. Under normal circumstances, maintaining a shield took minimal effort. Between the injuries, the suppressants, and the natural magic he was carefully channeling, his control kept slipping.
He felt it happen again now—the cloak flickering like a candle in a draft, just for a heartbeat. Long enough for Muriel to know that he was still alive. Did she know that he’d been taken?
Yes, he thought, allowing himself just a peek. She knew.
Every instinct in him screamed to keep the bond cloaked completely, both to protect her from feeling his pain and from using it as a GPS. But the magic that had bound them together had its own imperatives.
It would compel her to come. The bond would call to her like the tide answering the moon. No amount of anger, well-meaning friends, or logical arguments would be able to stop her.
So instead of wishing she'd stay safe and far away,Brandon turned his focus to making sure he'd be ready to keep her safe if she heeded the call.
The door at the top of the stairs opened and heavy footsteps descended the stairs. Brandon let his head loll against the wall, kept his breathing ragged.
A well-placed kick to his midsection got his attention. “I know you're awake, Emrys.”
The voice was cultured, educated. A British accent with the faintest Irish lilt beneath it. The speaker was tall, lean, with the kind of aristocratic features that spoke of old bloodlines and older money.
“Brandon Emrys, proprietor of The Glas Tann, skilled mage, and—most interestingly—last known descendant of Merlin Ambrosius.” The man’s smile was both evil and gleeful. “Yes, we know quite a bit about you.”