His sterling aura radiated around him, filling the large space. His magic enveloped Josiah’s body, making him tremble. Josiah still held the gun, but his body stood immobilized. Clutching her stomach, Rosalind shuffled over the floor. She threw a punch to his temple, as hard as she could, though pain screamed through her gut.
Wrath burned through her blood. “You’re a monster, Josiah.” A part of her wanted to bash his skull into the floor, but she didn’t have the strength, plus she’d lose the moral high ground. Still, she could get in one more punch. With a grunt, she slammed her fist into his throat, and he emitted a choking sound.
“Stop it!” Miranda screamed, pulling at her hair. “He promised to protect me!”
Rosalind stumbled back, and the pain she’d been ignoring flooded her body. She clutched her bleeding stomach, ready to collapse.
She watched with awestruck fascination as Caine’s magic forced Josiah’s arm to bend. Grunting, Josiah pressed the barrel against his own head.
“Stop!” Miranda shrieked.
Josiah’s face reddened, sweat streaking his temples. He cocked the gun and pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed off the high stone ceiling, followed by Miranda’s anguished screams—almost as if she cared about her torturer. Sobbing, Miranda ran from the room, slamming through the oak door.
Rosalind glanced away, unwilling to look at the carnage. When she forced herself to glance back, she shuddered at the sight of Josiah’s crumpled body and the gore pooling across the floor in a crimson puddle.
Caine glanced at her, and concern glinted in his eyes as she struggled to stand. He stepped over Josiah’s corpse. Something moved in the shadows behind him, and her gaze darted to Randolph. She’d forgotten about him. There was something in his hand—
“Caine!” She shouted.
Randolph hurled a stake right for Caine’s chest. Rosalind’s hand flew to her mouth, and her world stopped as she watched Caine’s tall frame crash to the floor by Josiah’s. Caine’s silver aura snapped into his body.
“Caine!” With pain fragmenting her leg, she tried to hobble to him, but Randolph blocked her path.
Stepping over Josiah’s corpse, the Brotherhood’s leader aimed a flamethrower right at Rosalind’s gasoline-soaked clothes. “Your demon lover murdered one of my finest Guardians. It’s okay. Josiah wasn’t a true believer. He didn’t belong with us. But I did want to watch you burn—not for my own pleasure, of course. But because it is Blodrial’s will.”
Fear tightened around Rosalind’s heart like a honeysuckle vine, crushing the life out of her. With the flamethrower pointed right at her chest, Randolph was about to set her ablaze. She’d felt the flames before—when Cleo had taken over her body—but this time, her skin would blister for real.
Cleo. The mage was her one hope.
Rosalind pulled off her ring and hurled it at Randolph. The moment it was off her finger, Cleo’s aura exploded from her body, and Rosalind’s mouth began to form ancient, Angelic words.
Randolph’s eyes bulged, and his flamethrower clanked against the marble floor.
He held up his hands, screaming in Latin, “Exorcizamus te, omnis immunde spiritus, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii.” His words seemed to shield him from the tendrils of Cleo’s vernal magic that curled around him. His body glowed with a golden light, and he backed over Josiah’s body, chanting. “In nomini et virtute Domini nostri Blodrial!”
Cleo’s temper flared. She would protect this body from the evil ones. Cleo chanted in Angelic, and her magic lashed out at him. She wanted to hurt him, to force his guts out of his throat, but those words he spoke shielded him.
They made Rosalind’s body shake, as though he was forcing the aura out of her. Hot agony coursed through her. Still, he continued to retreat, his face reddening with the effort, and Cleo felt a thrill of raw power as he scuttled from the room like a bug.
When the door slammed shut with finality, Cleo turned her attention to the beautiful incubus on the ground, his breathing labored. Richard was in there somewhere, but the incubus’s body was dying.
Trapped somewhere within Cleo’s powerful vernal magic, Rosalind’s mind screamed save him.
She walked closer. Ignoring the pain that wracked her body, she knelt down, her blood pooling on the floor and mingling with Josiah’s.
Cleo pulled the stake from his chest. Caine gasped, his back arching with the pain. Still conscious. She lay next to him, stroking her hand over his chest, and pressed her mouth to his. His perfect lips parted, warm and soft, and he kissed her deeply. Hungrily, he drank in her energy, and his arm tightened around her back. At his intensifying touch, heat shot through her body.
The incubus’s aura strengthened deliciously, swirling through her belly, caressing her skin. He pulled her on top of him, the kiss energizing him.
She had no idea who she was, or where she was, only that she wanted more of him.
She nearly gasped when he pulled away, looking into her eyes, searching.