Midnight Mage

6

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THE SUN BLAZED MERRILY in an azure sky, showering the world with heat and light and refracting off the pale sand beneath my feet. Shading my face with a hand, I gazed through watering eyes at my dreamworld.

It was the Roman Colosseum. Not as it was today, an impressive shadow of former greatness, but whole. The hundreds of elegant travertine arches, richly engraved columns, and rows upon rows of tiered seating were a feast of geometric beauty.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” asked a low voice.

As I turned, clouds moved over the sun and dappled shadows raced across the sand. I regarded the Western Prime, standing some ten feet away, and realized two things. One, if this were my dream, he’d be wearing a loincloth instead of his fancy suit. And two, the  detail around me was much too involved for my imagination to have conjured.

“What is this place?” I asked and immediately wanted to slap myself.

“The Colosseum,” he said with a twitch of lips. I flushed, dropping my gaze to his feet. “If you’re wondering whether you’re dreaming, the answer is no. But you are unconscious. Do you see the haze in your peripheral vision?”

Only when he mentioned it did I see it—a white radiance, dense and sparkling.

Magic.

I swallowed thickly. “The Omega is doing this?”

“Not exactly.” Prime Thorne shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it to the sand, then began working to loosen his tie. “You’re in my mind. But Adam is near, as is your uncle. They will prevent any spillover that might occur as I test you.”

“What do you mean, test me?”

Fingers paused on the button at his neck. His head came up, revealing an expression I associated with teachers the world over: long-suffering patience.

“Don’t be afraid. This is a simple exercise to test the scope of your ability. Your uncle underwent a similar trial during his training.”

Don’t be afraid.

Strangely, I wasn’t afraid. Or not so strangely, given that the king of mind-fucking was standing ten feet away. He stopped  after two shirt buttons, which I found disappointing, and subsequently unnerving. Hell-bent on ignoring the swath of golden, toned skin from his throat to chest, I stared avidly at his bare feet.

Bouncing lightly, he gave me a come-hither gesture. “I’m ready, Alfea.”

I shifted my weight, wondering what I was supposed to do. Did he seriously want me to zap him? I wasn’t sure I could. For the first time in recent memory, I didn’t feel a charge trying to escape my skin. Maybe it was because I wasn’t physically here.

“Stop dallying.”

His voice came from behind me. Right behind me. I yelped and spun, backpedaling away from him. My heart pounded in my chest, sending furious Flight! Flight! messages to my legs. My muscles bunched.

“Do. Not. Run.”

The words froze me where I stood, my body poised on the brink of launching into a sprint. It wasn’t the authority in his voice that got me—it was the hunger.

The sun rained down its sweltering heat. Sweat beaded on my face and chest. Fear prickled across my scalp as I realized that, pseudo-dream-state or not, I was alone with a predator.

The predator.

Top of the fucking food chain.

“Shit,” I whispered, turning slowly to face him.

Pearly fangs glinted as he smiled slightly. “Good girl,” he murmured.

Then, like the prey I was, I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. They weren’t beautiful anymore, the irises no longer green but glistening obsidian. The sight was too much. Talons of fear pierced my brain. Adrenaline surged in my limbs.

I ran.

I made it maybe five feet before fingers seized my shoulders. My back slammed against a hard chest and my head was wrenched to the side. I screamed and thrashed and swung my legs, none of which did anything except invite a thickly muscled arm around me, trapping my arms to my waist. I was lifted from the ground, all five-foot-seven inches of me. Like I was a doll. Or dinner.

Cool lips traced my jugular, unfazed by the storm of tiny electrical currents erupting from my skin. His strength was inviolable. Barring a miracle, I was going to be bitten by a vampire.

I stilled, quivering, and cursed Fate, the bitch who’d decided that the first lips to touch me in fourteen years would belong to a bloodsucking fiend.

The sudden absence of his grip had me falling forward. My knees slammed into dense sand. Momentum carried me onto my hands, where I stayed, heaving, until the urge to vomit passed.

“Please accept my apologies, Ms. Sullivan.”

I almost didn’t hear him over the rush of blood in my ears. When the words registered, and I understood that he had been privy to my thought—and released me like a leper because of it—a rush of shame overtook me.

“Screw you,” I said and shoved to my feet.

Dark brows rose in surprise over eyes that were green again, though darker than their usual shade. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Anger was accomplishing what fear had failed to. My arms pulsed with heat, the snaking ribbons of scar tissue writhing with silver luminosity. For once, I didn’t try to dampen the rise of power. There was no need to ground the charge, only direct it.

At him.

“Do it,” he said.

“With pleasure.”

I lifted my hands and lightning erupted, arching brilliant white across the sand and striking the Western Prime in the center of his chest.

Heat.

Light.

Darkness.

And in the darkness, low voices murmured.

“…never seen anything quite like it.”

“That was supremely foolish, Riven. What if it had happened in truth?”

A low chuckle, full of genuine mirth. “I might risk it. Such an extraordinary feeling…” The sound of footsteps moving away, then, “And the spell we talked about?”

“Almost done.”

When I next opened my eyes, I was in my own bed. I sat up fast, then flopped back down as nausea gripped me. A strange pulse of heat in my body was followed by a wave of cold that made my teeth chatter. Groaning, I lifted a hand to my face, which was flushed and damp with sweat.

“Hey, kiddo.”

“Mal,” I whispered.

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