He took her hand in his. “Love, time is ticking against us. Regardless of whether your father is in league with Mathias, we must secure the second half of the diary’s key. Opening that book can change the world, and not for the better. Can we afford to take a chance?”

“Opening the book helps you, too. Don’t deny that.”

“I would never try.”

Biting her lip, Olivia looked away. Though their alliance was uncertain, what needed to be done was crystal clear: secure something that opened a weapon of frightening intensity…and something that would bring him one step closer to being uncursed.

“Okay.”

“Where is the emblem? Your flat?”

She shook her head. “The shop.”

“We should go now. If Mathias learns you have the emblem, he will invade—”

“I can help,” Bram said from the hall, peering past the slightly ajar door. “In case we run into Mathias or the Anarki. Marrok can handle the half-dead. Lucan and I can dispense with any magical tossers.”

Marrok hesitated, then nodded. “Olivia?”

She sighed. Stress weighed on her like a hundred pounds in each arm and leg. When had her life become so complicated?

A glance beside her answered the question. Marrok. From the moment he’d walked into her life, everything had been, as the British said, topsy-turvy. She was damned sick of it all.

“Let’s go,” she said finally.

Within a few minutes, they had piled into one of Bram’s fifteen cars, this one a Hummer. Sleek, black, looking as if it could hold a dozen people. But somehow when Marrok and the two other testosterone-oozing guys poured themselves inside, the interior became cramped.

“Keys to your shop?” Bram prompted.

She shrugged. “They were in my purse the night Marrok took me to his cottage, and I never retrieved them before the Anarki—Wait, how has Sabelle been getting in?” She turned to Marrok. “I assumed you gave Bram the keys to pass on to his sister.”

“No,” Bram refuted. “You had no magical protection around the shop, so it was easy to break in.”

“Nice.” She shook her head.

“Sabelle locked the door behind her.”

Yeah, he was totally not getting the point. Then she frowned. “I had no magical protection around the shop?”

“You didn’t think Sabelle would leave it wide open, did you?”

Honestly, she hadn’t pondered the question at all. “So how can you just break in?”

“Being Sabelle’s trusted relative, she shared the spell with me.”

Wasn’t that great news? “While we’re here in the city, do you think we could stop by my flat and pick up my clothes? I’d like to have something of my own to change into.”

Bram turned to the side and shot Lucan a stare, then he glanced at Marrok in the rearview mirror. “I would rather find you new clothes tomorrow.”

“I’m partial to my things. I’d like to have my own toothbrush, a damn bra—”

“I can guess what happened to your last one.” Bram laughed.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Olivia sulked. Everyone knew way too much about her undergarments and sex life. But that wasn’t the biggest problem. Cruising the streets of London in the dead of night with three hulking men—one of whom was her “husband”—running from a band of evil wizards, knowing that a trinket she possessed might be the key to saving the world from doom…It was all just a little too bizarre.

Mile after mile slid past the tinted windows of the monster vehicle, the interior occasionally illuminated by a streetlight. Sliding her eyes shut, she struggled to tune everything—especially Marrok—out. How could she feel so much for a guy who’d done the horizontal bop with her great-great-grandmother and mated with her for some way to end his curse? They couldn’t get along for a whole day, so even if he wasn’t set on dying, she didn’t see this lasting for an eternity. Where did that leave her?

“Nearly there,” Bram murmured.

Within a few minutes, they piled out of the vehicle, Marrok watchful on her left, palming a Glock. A wicked blade with serrated teeth was strapped to his other thigh. Good thing there were no metal detectors in her shop.

On her right, Lucan was no less focused, wand at the ready, his entire body tense. She swallowed. They expected trouble. This wasn’t just a precaution.

In front of her, Bram approached the door cautiously, his gaze darting all around. He laid his palms over the glass of the door and drew in a deep breath. Olivia opened her mouth to ask what the hell he was doing, but Lucan warned her with a shake of his head.

“It’s undisturbed.”

Bram eased the lock on the door, broke his sister’s enchantments with a quick whisper, and they entered.

“Could anyone concentrate like that and get past Sabelle’s protection?”

“No,” Bram assured. “I only knew how because she told me the specific spell she used and how to end it. If not for that, I’d still be scratching my head. Sabelle is a particularly powerful witch.”

The rest of the “mission” was uneventful. She retrieved the emblem in quick silence, the sharp edges and heavy rubies cutting into her palm.

They filed out, and Bram secured the doors and muttered a quick few words. Olivia couldn’t discern them, but after he finished speaking, she absolutely felt the invisible iron bars around the building preventing her from even getting close. Even though this was her place of business, she felt as if she were trespassing and should move down the walk immediately.

“Neat trick.”

Bram winked. “Next, I’ll bounce a ball on my nose.”

“Will you bark like a seal, too?”

Lucan laughed.

“If anyone can make me, it’s you, gorgeous.” Bram flirted like he was born doing it.

Marrok gripped his Glock tighter. “Stop trying to charm my mate. You would dislike seeing me angry when weapons are so close at hand.”

Bram backed away from Olivia. “Indeed.”

They piled into the Hummer and, at her urging, made a quick stop by her flat. Again, the guys flanked her as they walked in. As soon as she opened the door to the dark flat, Olivia sensed that her place had been disturbed since she and Marrok had stopped by two days ago to pick up her red dress.

As she flipped the switch, she second-guessed herself. Nothing looked out of place. A stack of mail still sat unopened on the kitchen counter. The remote control was still half-buried between the cushions of her brown cast-off sofa. The plate she’d munched toast on the last morning she’d been home still littered the kitchen table as if life here had been put on pause.

But the vibe in the flat screamed that her space had been violated.

“Does anyone feel the weird atmosphere but me?”

“Weird how?” Marrok demanded.

“Like someone’s been here.”

Lucan shook his head. “My magic doesn’t work that way.”

Bram nodded. “My magic does. I feel it, too.”

Marrok hovered beside her as they strode down the hall to her little bedroom. The bed was still unmade, her laundry still folded in the basket, but not hung in her postage-stamp closet. The sense that the room had been invaded was stronger here.

“Damn,” Bram swore. “Mathias is working fast.”

“Do you think? Maybe the landlord came to fix my leaky sink.”

“Maybe.” But Bram didn’t sound convinced.

If the Anarki had been here, were they looking for her or the emblem? If the latter, how could Mathias possibly know…unless her father had told him. The possibility ripped at her heart.

Olivia shoved the last of her needed belongings into a small bag. As a group, they made their way back down the hall and out the door. Bram magically sealed the flat with a wave. She’d worry about how to get back in later, after Marrok’s curse was broken.

Outside, cold prevailed. Fog, leafless trees, an odd stillness. The night was eerie. They’d piled into the Hummer and pulled away from the curb, Bram’s metal/alternative music making the vehicle throb and thump.

Mid-chorus, Lucan crashed back against the plush leather seat, curled his fingers around his thighs in a crushing grip and let out a piercing scream of pain.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

BRAM FLIPPED THE MUSIC OFF and shot Lucan a glance. “Oh, dear God!”

Olivia leaned forward from the backseat. Lucan clutched his chest as if agony burned a brand right through his heart, stabbing over and over. “What? What is it?”

Clutching the steering wheel, Bram guided the tanklike vehicle through London’s dark streets. Horror splashed across his face, a gasping disbelief.

“The yellow and pink in his signature,” Bram blurted, checked the road, then turned back to Lucan. “It’s fading fast.”

Lucan screamed again, clawing his chest viciously, as if trying to dig into it with his bare fingers. “Anka…No!”

“Deep breath, friend. We’ll get you—”

“Home!”

“Probably not a good idea.” Bram seemed to mutter the words almost to himself.

Olivia caught a glance at the wizard driving. He looked grim as he pressed his foot to the accelerator and hurtled the Hummer faster through the night. The engine’s sounds were drowned out by Lucan’s cries of pain.

“What the hell is going on?” Marrok demanded.

Bram glanced toward the passenger’s seat once more where Lucan was thrashing, gasping, shouting. “He’s losing the light from his magical signature.”

“What does that mean? What does that have to do with Anka?” Olivia asked.

“She was his light.”

Horror dawned, curling like an acrid ball of bile in her stomach, roiling. “Are you saying…she’s dead?”

“That or she’s broken with him. Either will cause him agony.”

“Broken with him?”

“The mate bond. If that’s severed, he would lose his light, which would alter his signature.”

“She can break their bond voluntarily? Like divorce?”

Bram sent her a curt nod. “It doesn’t happen often with magickind, but it’s possible.”

Shock tripped through her brain as ramifications, one after the other, burst into being. Olivia turned to Marrok. He didn’t look surprised. “You knew this?”

If ever a man looked as if he wanted to lie, it was Marrok. He hesitated, caught Bram’s reflection in the rearview mirror.

“Aye,” he admitted finally.

Her blood began to boil. “When?”

“At the time you fell ill.”

“And you neglected to tell me this…because?” Because he’d wanted to bind her to him, keep her to himself, until he managed to end his curse. All his tenderness and caring, lies? The possibility was like a sword to the chest. She’d always feared that he was simply using her, but had hoped…Stupid!

Marrok cast an uneasy glance at Lucan. “Now is not the time.”

Oh, she so wanted to argue that with him. But Lucan screamed again, his elbows thudding on the door, his knees on the dash. It didn’t slow him at all, as if he felt only the internal pain that tore at him.

“Damn,” Bram cursed. “His signature is nearly black.”

“I can’t see it.”

“You won’t before transition. You may not afterward, though most do.” Another glance at Lucan, another shake of Bram’s head. “We’ve got to restrain him.”

With a wretched howl, Lucan tore at his shirt, ripping it from the taut muscles of his torso. He clawed at his face, his chest, the cries so furious and anguished, it made the hair on Olivia’s arms stand up straight.

“Restrain him?”

“Before he kills himself. If his signature turns totally black, his soul may be lost.”

Olivia sucked in a breath. Sabelle had said magical mating was powerful; she hadn’t been kidding. “Can we help him?”

“Try talking to him. Soothe him in your female voice.”

With a nod, Olivia learned forward. Bram grabbed her wrist in a harsh grip.

“Don’t touch him. If you do, he may try to ravish or kill you.”

“Why?”

“If he’s not too far gone, he will deduce that you’re female, assume you’re Anka, and try to reestablish the bond. If he’s gone primal, he will smell you and know you’re not his mate. Then he may perceive you as a threat and try to kill you.”

Holy shit. Slowly, she nodded.

Marrok took her hand from Bram’s grip and held it in his own. “Careful.”

With halting words, Olivia began to whisper to Lucan, words of comfort and reassurance, quiet, soothing syllables, crooning sounds. For a few moments he paused, listened, craned his head toward her. When he opened his eyes, she gasped.

His usually electric blue eyes were nearly black. With a gasp, she pulled back.

“Stop!” Bram urged. “Stay away. He’s too far gone. The light has nearly left him, and God knows what he’ll do. We’re almost to my place.”