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She slid to a stop. Hesitated in the presence of the captain.
Cam sensed her reluctance. “It’s all right. Brodie knows.”
She threw the captain a wide-eyed look of surprise, but nodded. “I felt Neuvarvaan. I know it was the goddess blade. Doran’s used it again.”
Ignoring Brodie and the questions he sensed his best friend longed to ask, he took Morgan by the arms. Her eyes shone pale yellow in a face flushed with worry.
“Calm down. What did you feel? How do you know it was Doran? You said you couldn’t pick out any one source of magic among so many.”
She took a shaky breath. But when she spoke again, her words came clear and sharp. “I didn’t think I could. But the pressure of the city’s Other increased. Like the smash of a wave against the inside of my skull. Or the scream of a million people all at once. Every Other drawing on his powers at the same instant. Even I felt a tug, right here.” She put a hand just under her ribs. “Doran’s using us. He’s harnessing our powers to focus his own. That’s why he came to London. Not just to hide, but because the population of Other is better than any standing stone. We’re a living source of mage energy.”
It made sense. In a senseless sort of way. And that surprised him most of all. “Could you pick out Doran? Could you track him if you tried?”
“Not with certainty. But I can try to trace the mage energy back to its source. Like tracking the ripples in a pond back to the dropped stone.”
With defiance burning in her clear gold gaze, the sexy-sultry, hot-blooded lover of his morning morphed into the cold, determined warrior-queen. No attempts to shock him. No in-the-face challenges to gauge his reaction. Her transformation was seamless and complete and just about the most erotic thing he’d ever witnessed. His groin tightened in instant arousal.
Shit. Was he losing his mind? The world stood at the brink, and all he wanted was to drag up her skirts, push her back against the wall, and drive himself into her, find for a brief moment the bliss he’d experienced last night in her arms.
With forced deliberation, he let her go before he made a fool out of himself. “Then that’s what we’ll do,” he said.
Even as lust died away, another emotion sprang to life. The vicious creature—the part of him who’d hunted and killed and answered only to Sin—uncurled from its place in the darkest corners of his heart. Licked at Cam’s soul. He pushed it down. Locked it away with ruthless finality. He’d not lose himself to the inhuman blood-thrill. Not again. Not even to stop Doran.
Morgan broke into his thoughts. Drowned out the slithery voice of savage temptation. “If we don’t find Doran soon, he’ll unlock the Morkoth magic. Create his army of Undying. And if we can’t stop him, Andraste and the Fey will. The mortal world will become a battleground.”
His voice was firm. Final. “Trust me. It won’t get that far. I won’t let it. All right?”
Their eyes met. The heat in her gaze locking on to the ice-cold freeze of his own. “I trust you.”
Her words stunned him and terrified him and dropped his heart into his boots.
She trusted him? Was she insane? He didn’t even trust himself. He was as strung out and off-balance as he’d been since the days of Toulouse. It wouldn’t take much to send him tumbling.
He just prayed he wasn’t setting them both up for the fall of the century.
Chapter 18
Morgan slowed, the scream of mage energy ripping through her, every nerve taut, every sense sizzling and alive.
“The source of the power is near.”
She scanned the area. Rows of long, brick warehouses and offices, streets lined with dingy shop fronts, tenements, and low, dirty, seamen’s cottages. Beyond the dock’s high walls, the wharf stood congested with ships in various stages of loading or unloading. Lighters, barges, and colliers threading their way between the schooners and East Indiamen. Voices raised in Flemish, French, Italian, Spanish as ships’ crews shouted and jostled against street costers and merchants, clerks and customs officers, the very air carrying the exotic tang of foreign ports of call.
A wild, rowdy marketplace of buying and selling.
The perfect place to disappear. And the perfect place to find the kind of men who’d sell their souls to join an army of Undying.
Doran was here. Or had been recently.
“This is where I tracked the bastard who jumped me,” Cam said. “Looks like Doran’s aware we’re not dead.” He came up behind her, his body reassuringly close. A step back would place her in the circle of his arms. She remained rigidly still until the temptation passed.
Unfortunately, even as the thought receded, a swamp of instant nausea took its place, the street and the buildings and the sky all swaying and swimming like water on glass. The pound of magic grew to a heavy beat threatening to shake her to her knees. She put out a hand to steady herself.
Cam was right there. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m dizzy.” She swallowed over and over. “It’s the power. Raw. Overwhelming. It’s too much.”
“Brodie,” Cam ordered, “stay here. Take care of Morgan. I’ll be right back.”
