Page 54 of Possess Me at Midnight (Doomsday Brethren #4)

“He won’t have my vote,” Bram vows. “Rykard will represent the Deprived well. He knows them, will listen, and can carry our message to them. Smooth relations, as it were.”

Blackbourne snorts. “Your opinion. This is not the time for commentary. O’Shea? Keep in mind that a vote for Rykard sends us to a dreadful tie that should be avoided at all costs. No Council has ever had to enforce a challenge to dispute a tie.”

Tynan clears his throat. “Well, I’m sorry to say, then, that my first official vote as a Council member will bring about something dreadful.”

Hope flares. I hold my breath.

“My vote is for Rykard,” Tynan finishes with a defiant scowl.

“Bloody stupid—” Blackbourne curses, then shrugs, as if getting himself under control. “Well, then. Tomorrow, an hour past dawn, both candidates will present themselves at the gate of my estate for the challenge. God help you both.”

With that, Blackbourne severs the connection. The others follow suit. I pause, unease skittering through me. “Challenge?”

“Indeed.” He exhales, looks at Sabelle with regret, then shakes his head. “I never imagined Blackbourne would actually enforce this. I thought for certain he would devise something else. It’s his right as Council elder to do so.”

“But he chose not to, so what happens next?” Sabelle demands.

Bram swallows. “Tomorrow morning, Ice will appear at Blackbourne’s estate as instructed. He will battle with Mathias there for the right to the Council seat.”

“What sort of battle?” Her eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”

Bram sucks in a sharp breath, then looks at me with apology. “A battle that ends only when one of you surrenders or dies.”

Sabelle

The following morning, predawn gray gathers outside.

Inside, shadows move across the cave walls like ghostly secrets into the flickering torchlight as everyone gathers around Ice’s long dining table.

Bram stands nearby yet apart from everyone—arms folded, jaw tight, eyes shadowed with the same insidious thing that both terrifies me and breaks my heart.

“You won’t be going to Blackbourne’s, Sabelle,” he announces as if that is the end of the conversation, then sips his coffee.

I feel the internal tick-tock of time passing down to the hour when the challenge for the disputed Council seat will take Ice away from me—possibly forever. My gut cramps into a thousand knots, and I yearn for a few minutes alone with Ice. To touch him, reassure myself.

I want to Bind to him so badly. All night, I considered doing just that.

After all, once it’s done, my brother can’t undo it.

But almost as if he knew what I was thinking, he monopolized Ice all night, discussing the challenge, developing a strategy, and analyzing Mathias’s potential weaknesses.

Now, time slips through my fingers, and the panic that I might never see Ice alive threatens to steal my composure.

“You’re not,” Ice agrees, approaching from behind, coffee in hand. I turn to him, close enough to smell the musky-pine scent of him…yet so far away.

“It’s taking all I’ve got not to beg you to call off this challenge and withdraw your nomination. If I had known when I suggested your name what this fight would come to…”

Ice’s face closes up. “I can’t withdraw. Mathias can’t be allowed to govern even a sliver of magickind. And I won’t fail Gailene by taking the coward’s way out.”

Even at the expense of your life? But he prizes his sister’s memory above almost everything.

And why should he compromise that for the witch who can never become his mate?

After two centuries of grief, he needs closure.

Revenge. “I know, but I beg you… Don’t leave me here to bite my nails and wonder. Let me come with you and help.”

“Only Councilmen and candidates may attend the challenge.” Bram shrugs as if that settles the matter.

“Along with their mate or source of energy.” At their matching shocked expressions, I smile. “I had a little chat with Sterling last night. Most helpful.”

Bram curses. “Too clever by half.”

Ice sits in the chair beside me at the long table and shakes his head. “I won’t let you anywhere near Mathias. I know the atrocities he’s capable of. The energy I have will be sufficient.”

“To fight off one of the most powerful dark wizards ever? Look at the spell he felled Bram with, a simple wave of his hand. It nearly killed him.”

“Because I was unprepared,” my brother protests. “The bastard caught me off guard. I had no time to put up a defense. Ice knows what to guard himself against. He’ll shield himself.”

“Use your brains! Ice Called to me. If he has to fight a prolonged battle, I’m the only one who can help him. You can’t risk all magickind simply to protect me.”

“I’ll siphon the anger of others.”

A far inferior energy source, and we all know it. The passive power he gleans will waver quickly once he and Mathias are locked in mortal combat. But pointing out the obvious isn’t working. Both men are too protective, and neither is focusing on the greater good. I have to change tactics.

Whirling to Bram, I lean across the table. “What happens if Ice falters and loses this challenge because he didn’t have sufficient energy?”

“He won’t.”

“If he did, what would happen?”

I know the answer already but want to hear Bram admit it.

My brother grinds his jaw. “Mathias would win the Council seat.”

“Exactly.” I nod. “And then…?”

Bram stares into his coffee cup, lifts a shoulder. “No one knows for certain.”

“Don’t get squeamish now. We can certainly guess.

At best, he’ll intimidate Blackbourne, Spencer, and Camden, who are all either corrupt or afraid of their bloody shadows, and he’ll ramrod policies through the Council designed to give himself more power and silence dissent.

Then he’ll start murdering his opposition, likely beginning with you, me, and everyone ever associated with the Doomsday Brethren. ”

“He won’t succeed.” Fury burns in Bram’s darkening blue eyes.

“You don’t know that.”

“I won’t let that happen. I?—”

“You don’t know how to stop it. None of us do!” I insist. “And what happens if Mathias loses this battle for the Council? What will he do then?”

My brother pauses, frowns, looks across the table at Ice. “No one knows for certain.”

“But we can be sure he’ll have to abandon hope of controlling the Council, at least for now.

If Ice wins, you’ll have a four-vote majority.

If he loses, you’ll have chaos, bloodshed, and death.

Given the stakes, it seems foolish to merely hope that Ice has enough energy for this fight.

I’m the only witch who can provide for him. I’m going.”

Bram frowns, grits his teeth. “You’re not.”

“I won’t risk you,” Ice insists. “I’ll prevail.”

“Don’t be stubborn.” I reach out and grab his hand. “Mathias can’t do anything to harm me with so many Councilmen looking on.”

“Don’t be certain of that,” rumbles a new voice from the doorway.

I look up to find Shock standing with arms crossed over his chest, decked out in his usual leather, sunglasses, and bad attitude.

Lucan stiffens, murder in his eyes as he glares at the wizard warming Anka’s bed.

“Who the fuck let you in here?” Ice explodes from his seat.

I stay him with a soft touch. “I rang him earlier. He’s the only one who might know what dirty tricks Mathias could use.”

“Are you trying to help Mathias?” Bram’s voice booms off the cavern walls. “Why else would you tell Shock where we’re hiding? Maybe you’d like to tell him the rest of our secrets, too? Make sure it gets back to the wizard trying to kill us all?”

His outbursts of rage and mocking attitude are on my last nerve.

“You’re seriously asking me that after I’ve done everything possible to help in every way I can?” I demand. “Since you’ve come out of that horrible black cloud, I don’t know who you are. This isn’t you.”

Bram stands, pounding his fist on the long table. “It fucking is!”

Everyone in the room stops, stares. Collective disquiet fills the space.

Finally, my brother takes his seat with a quiet huff. “Apparently, this is me now. I don’t like it. Clearly, you don’t, either.”

“Aww, not feeling like magickind’s chipper Boy Scout anymore?” Shock smirks.

Bram glowers back. “Fuck you.”

“You’re not my type, especially now.” Behind his ever-present sunglasses, Shock seems to dissect Bram.

Does he mean the fracturing of Bram’s magical signature? He must see it. We all do.

“What do you know about Mathias’s mystery spell?” I ask.

“Haven’t figured it out?” Shock raises an imperious black brow and shakes his head.

“Don’t start with your riddles, you dodgy prick,” Bram growls. “We don’t have time. Tell us.”

“You think I take orders from you? Aren’t you cute?”

I don’t disagree with Bram’s assessment, but now isn’t the time to provoke Shock. We need his help too badly. I do my best to placate him instead. “Please. Can you explain it to us?”

“You really should let her talk for you more. She’s smarter and better looking by half,” Shock drawls to my brother. “Ever heard of the Devouring Shadow?”