Page 61 of Possess Me at Midnight

He staggers back. Unless he leaves the cellar, the mine’s destructive energy will weaken him in minutes. If he has any hope of escaping the Anarki, he’ll need every bit of his strength.

I have to let the stubborn wizard go…but it’s more painful than most anything I’ve felt.

“Why are you willing to give your life for the chance to kill Mathias?” I need to understand.

“Ask Bram. He’ll explain. Good-bye, princess.”

Then Ice presses a desperate kiss to my mouth—not gentle, but claiming, marking, saying everything we’ll never have time to voice. It lasts a breath, a heartbeat, but he imprints himself into my memory forever.

When he pulls away, his eyes hold mine for one last moment. “Remember me.”

Frantically, I try to pull him into the crawl space with me, but he shoves the stone back into the wall, shutting out my view of his beloved face. My world goes dark.

I try to bite back a sob as I press my hands against the barrier that separates us. On the other side, I hear the scraping of the sofa across the floor, along with the something else he drags across the stone to serve as yet another obstacle. A rush of cold water and a blast of cold air later, I understand. He didn’t merely conjure a slab of ice to block me from returning to the cellar; he froze the opening shut so no one, especially the soulless Anarki, can follow.

Finally, footsteps, lone ones, fade away. The slam of a door resounds with finality.

Ice has left the cellar and gone to meet his death.

Chapter

Twenty-Three

No. I will not submit to Ice’s plan. The Doomsday Diary and my brother have to be protected, but I can fight. I cannot let the Anarki take him.

Grabbing the wand from my pack, I move Bram and the diary beneath the tunnel’s narrow stairs. They provide little cover but hopefully enough for the moment. It’s a big risk, but magickind cannot afford to do without another warrior any more than it can be without more Councilmen. And even if Ice will never be mine, I’m not at all certain my heart won’t shatter if he’s no longer in this world.

Somehow, some way…I fear I’ve truly fallen in love with him.

Digging through the pack, I extract MacKinnett’s transcast mirror. The dead Councilman’s blacked-out symbol on the glass reminds me of the gravity of the situation. I can’t hesitate or falter.

Quickly, I press the symbol to reach Sterling MacTavish. Another calculated risk. He’s long been skeptical of Bram’s assertions that Mathias has returned from exile and has again gathered the Anarki, but I pray that one of his nephews has shaken some sense into the elder, so he’s willing to send Lucan and Caden my way. It’s the only hope I have.

Stomping footsteps overhead remind me that time is short. Scuffling, running. A shout like a battle cry. Ice!

As my ears ring and my heartbeat roars, Sterling’s aging face comes into view. Gray hair and beard. Same piercing blue eyes his nephews inherited. His silvery brows lower when he sees me in MacKinnett’s mirror.

“Sabelle Rion?”

“I haven’t much time,” I whisper. “The Anarki attacked Thomas MacKinnett. He was burned to death in his cellar. All his human servants murdered, the women raped.”

Sterling sighs. “Not you, too. First your brother… Where is he?”

“With me at Thomas’s house. We’re hiding. Bram is unconscious, felled by some spell of Mathias’s a few days past. Sterling, you must listen to me. The Anarki have returned. Right now, Isdernus Rykard is fighting them alone?—”

“Won’t be the first time. When Mathias was alive, the nutter attacked their quarters by himself and killed nearly a hundred.”

I smother a gasp. Truly? I’ve heard rumors about Ice, but only a madman would raid Mathias’s compound alone. The Anarki fear me, and Mathias will want me brought to him alive. Ice’s words haunt me. Yes, they’ll bring him in alive…so they can torture him slowly and kill him with maximum pain.

Above me, I hear the slamming of doors and more shuffling, followed by grunts of pain, then shrieks of terror. The sounds grow more distant. They’re moving away from the cellar, probably dragging Ice toward an exit. I bite back tears that threaten to fall when I hear his battle roar above the din. He isn’t going down without a fight. But what is one man against so many? If Sterling’s story is true, he had the element of surprise in his favor before. Now, he has no one but me.

I have to get out of here.

“Sterling, if you don’t want to believe Mathias is back, believe that someone has killed Thomas MacKinnett. Look at your mirror.”

The old wizard peers at it, then freezes. A frown slowly overtakes his face. “His symbol. It’s black.”

“I saw his body with my own eyes—what was left of it. All the bodies, in fact. Even children. You can add Bram, Ice, and me to the list of the dead unless you send help here now.”