Master of Fate Read online

  “Give me another pan,” Jamison said in his earpiece. “You’re still live.”

  Adam swung the camera the other way slowly, hoping no one would shoot him or run him through while he was doing it. Which was when his camera’s viewfinder filled with a shot of some asshole in armor playing St. George and the Dragon with a lizard the size of a school bus.

  Sucking in a breath, Adam focused on the tiny armored figure who leaped around, dodging the dragon’s snapping lunges. His heart plunged into his throat. It was going to fucking eat the guy…

  “That!” Jamison yelled. “Hold that shot!”

  * * *

  As the dragon darted at Davon again, he gripped his sword and leaped ten feet straight up, avoiding the charge, hearing the vicious snap of jaws. He badly wanted to use Reaver, but Alys’s visions said he’d miss.

  Bres’s magical blast caught him in midair, batting him across the pavement. He crashed to a halt and immediately dove left, avoiding another thunderous snap as he shot to his feet. Now now now…

  Davon swung Reaver before he even turned all the way around, knowing where the dragon would be. He put his full weight, strength, and momentum behind the stroke…

  And rammed Reaver into the center of the dragon’s great head. Snarling, he poured all the gauntlets’ remaining power into it.

  Flames ignited in the dragon’s skull, and it screeched in frenzied agony, rearing skyward even as the fire spread. No non-magical blaze could have damaged the creature’s fire-resistant hide, but this was Elementalverse magic.

  And it burned the dragon just the way it had the troll when they’d rescued Dearg.

  Davon didn’t hang around to watch. He whirled and ran, throwing himself into long, furious bounds.

  Alys landed just where the vision predicted she’d be after throwing herself off the dragon. She hit the ground in a crouch, knees bending as she absorbed the impact. Davon slammed into her in a tackle he’d once used playing high school football, knocking her right off her feet.

  God, he hated this part of the plan.

  They hit the ground with Davon riding Alys like a sled as she skidded over the pavement on her armored back. As they came to a stop, he drove his fist viciously into her helmet. It didn’t crack -- the witches had done too good a job reinforcing it -- but the impact bounced her head against the helm’s shell.

  “God, Alys, I’m sorry!” He slammed his fist down again, and again with all his strength, until her eyes rolled back. Out cold. And now there was a tiny hairline crack in the visor. The dragon’s fire, combined with his punches, had weakened her faceplate just enough.

  Davon flexed his fingers, and three-inch claws slid from the gauntlet again. Carefully, he thrust the claws into the crack, then curled his fingers against the faceplate and jerked. Fragments of magical plastic went flying as the visor shattered. Davon snatched the Unicorn Dagger from the sheath strapped to his upper arm. To his relief, its tear-shaped glass pommel now glowed a brilliant crimson. The spell was done. Now, if only it fucking works.

  Flipping the dagger over in his hand, he drove it downward. The glass pommel smashed against Alys’s mouth, bloodying her lip. A wisp of red smoke drifted up her face from the shattered globe. Alys jolted and came to, staring up at him with wide eyes as she sucked in an involuntary breath, inhaling the smoke. Drinking in the cure the dagger’s magic had created.

  Her eyes narrowed, taking on the vicious expression he’d learned to recognize as Bres. “Well, it seems you don’t love her as much as she thought,” the king sneered. And yes, it was obviously Bres. The contempt and arrogance dripping from her voice had nothing to do with the woman he loved.

  Bres’s fireball took him right in the face, flinging him off her. He hit the ground rolling, his helmet smoking. The dagger went bouncing, but its job was done anyway. Davon somersaulted to his feet as he drew Reaver, only to see that the great blade looked blackened and dark. It had been completely drained.

  Oh, shit. The gauntlets were dead.

  “I’m going to cut you to pieces, boy,” Bres snarled. “And I won’t even need magic to do it.”

  He might be right. Davon was no match for Alys, despite his greater strength. Four centuries of combat experience were so thoroughly ingrained in her muscle memory, Bres could probably beat Davon even without her cooperation.

  But that didn’t matter. All that mattered now was buying enough time.

  Bres stalked him, his expression vicious in the frame of the visor. He lunged forward, and Davon barely managed the parry. Alys’s sword rang on Reaver’s powerless blade. He disengaged and danced back.

  From the corner of one eye, he saw a figure run past in the distinctive armor of a Knight of the Round Table. Whoever it was charged a centaur, howling the Magekind battle cry. “Avaaalonnnnn!”

  He knew that voice. Arthur. Thank God. Though we’re all out of the closet now.

  The mortals were getting brave now that the dragon lay crispy in the middle of the square. Beyond Bres’s shoulder, Davon spotted a ballsy cameraman shooting as Arthur swung Excalibur at his opponent. The centaur reared, dodging the stroke, hooves fanning the great warrior’s head. Yeah, that’s going to be on loop for the next week.

  Then Davon had no more time to think about it. Alys/Bres was raining blow after blow on him, and it was all he could do to keep his head on his shoulders. He kept dancing, ducking and spinning around her, furiously blocking sword thrusts powerful enough to click his teeth together.

  Davon had been an athlete as a mortal, and he’d gotten stronger and faster since becoming a vampire. Alys had spent the past decade building his strength even more. But as he fought her now, he realized it still might not be enough.

  * * *

  Alys stared out of the cage of her own skull in terror and helpless fury. She had no idea what the fuck was going on. It was like being trapped in a movie where you had no control over the movement of the camera or the action. All she could do was look where the camera was pointed, unable to do anything about what was happening.

  And overlaying it all was the greasy evil of Bres’s mind. She could feel his need to reduce everyone around him to piles of rotting meat or sycophants crawling for his approval. Begging for his mercy. And she knew exactly how little mercy he had.

  Now Bres was stalking Davon. Her partner’s face looked cold with expressionless concentration.

  He’d abandoned her. She couldn’t understand why she hadn’t foreseen any of this -- not Davon’s betrayal or her own capture. Why the hell hadn’t her visions warned her? Though it could’ve been worse -- what she’d seen following her capture could have come to pass. In that vision, Bres had turned Times Square and its surrounding buildings into a blazing magical inferno the Magekind had been helpless to extinguish. Without Arthur’s leadership, they’d had been easily overwhelmed and slaughtered.

  Bres, of course, had promptly set out to bring that vision about. She’d fought him with every ounce of strength, but he’d blown through her defenses like wet tissue paper. When she’d sworn to kill him, he’d only laughed. Then he’d thrust her down to the depths of her own mind until she was barely aware.

  At first that had almost seemed a mercy as the horrific images from the vision battered her.

  Then came a spinning nightmare of sensations: Bres’s vicious anticipation, the jolting impacts on her arms and legs she’d recognized as combat. The first thing she’d truly been aware of was the impact of something hitting her in the mouth. Gasping in pain, she’d tasted blood. And found herself stared up into Davon’s face, into the fury and despair in his dark eyes.

  Shocked, she breathed in a lungful of red smoke that smelled of ozone. Had to be a spell. She’d immediately buried the thought, knowing Bres would read it out of her mind. Fortunately, he was thoroughly distracted by trying to pilot a strange body located in an entirely different universe.

  Davon wasn’t making it easy on him, either. He’d whirled and leaped around her, the black blade of his sword ri
nging against Bres’s. It wasn’t his usual weapon. She spotted a curving cross guard that looked familiar and wondered if it was Reaver. That couldn’t be. Davon didn’t have the magic to generate the sword’s flaming blade.

  But he had more than enough skill to use it as a non-magical weapon. Swinging the sword with effortless strength, he pushed Bres hard, driving the puppet master backward. Davon was six inches taller than Alys, and his vampire strength was that much greater.

  What was more, Bres hadn’t anticipated the challenges of intricate sword work in the body of a puppet. As the Fomorian focused all his attention on Davon, Alys’s awareness grew. From the corner of one eye, she glimpsed a huge, charred husk that appeared to be a dragon. She hoped it was Farek and not Sir Kel. It was a good sign that she was on her feet rather than riding the green dragon, as she had in that horrific vision.

  With every moment that went by, her awareness sharpened, until she no longer perceived everything through a fog. Things were finally beginning to make sense, her consciousness no longer seeming to float.

  And she could feel her body, feel the effort of straining muscles as Bres drove her ruthlessly. He didn’t care if she died as long as he killed Davon.

  The last time she’d seen Davon, he’d been running away -- leaving her to be captured by the Fomorians. Abandoning her to the infection, to the psychic rape that was Bres’s possession. What the hell was he up to?

  Desperately, she tried to think. Her body was slowing, weighed down by exhaustion, by the burns and bruises she could feel forming beneath her armor. Something must’ve been fucking hot to burn her through the enchanted mail. Had she been aboard Farek when the dragon caught fire?

  That would explain a lot.

  She could hear Bres’s mental voice hissing through her brain. The Fredericks boy is good, but he lacks experience. I’ve got to finish him off before the witch drops. Beneath that was a boiling frustration. Should’ve invaded Avalon. I could have killed them all by now. But no, I wanted to humble Arthur, terrorize the mortals with my power, and enslave the lot of them.

  Yeah, that was pretty much what Alys had figured. And she’d seen all too clearly his plan for the Earth and what he saw as its infesting Human monkeys.

  Bres flew into an uncharacteristically clumsy lunge, aimed at Davon’s chest. It was a feint, designed to lure Davon close enough that Bres could blast him. And it would work. In a flash, Alys saw it all -- the fireball exploding in Davon’s face, burning right through his armor and setting them ablaze.

  Bres dropped his weapon a fraction, leaving a tiny opening as he pretended to miss the parry. Even as he did so, he drew on her magic, preparing a lethal blast. As the power burned down the length of her arm, Alys threw her will at the muscles of her biceps and forearm. Her hand jolted aside just as the blast boiled out. The fireball slammed into a neon sign, which instantly burst into flame.

  You little bitch! Bres roared, incredulous. You dare? You’ll pay for that…

  His power slashed at her, trying to sear into her brain and knock her back into the dark, leaving him free to do whatever the hell he wanted to Davon.

  Fuck! You! she snarled back, and grabbed for the Mageverse, for the power he had blocked away from her mind.

  And there it was, in all its blazing glory. Alys drank it in like a drowning woman sucking oxygen. Then she poured it back out again, blasting it into Bres like a fire hose, shoving his stinking presence out of her head. Freeing herself.

  Distantly, she heard his roar of outrage. You little whore, you will not…

  Yes, you asshole, I will! Snarling, she poured so much power into her psychic shields that they blocked him out of her mind like a titanium wall.

  In the next breath, she seemed to catapult into her own body, expanding into her legs and arms and pumping chest. Everything was hers to command again. Triumphant joy filled her…

  Just as the ground came up and slapped her right in the face. She lay there, dazed, distantly aware of terrified screams, the crackle of flame, Fomorian howls, a deep voice bellowing curses. Sounds like Arthur.

  But she couldn’t spare attention for any of that. Bres still remained in her body despite her shields. She could feel the lingering slime of him beneath her skin, a corruption that filled her with revulsion. He seemed… distributed throughout her body somehow, even in her very brain. Revolted, she reached for him.

  Small. He was impossibly small even as he seems to be everywhere inside her.

  Well of course. It’s the fucking contagion.

  And it was dying. She could feel it weakening, almost as if someone had hit it with penicillin or something.

  But it wasn’t just a disease, or it wouldn’t reek so of Bres. She remembered Davon talking about scientists using viruses to cure genetic diseases by inserting bits of DNA into them. They’d then inject the viruses into the patient so the virus could insert the new DNA into their cells.

  Bres must’ve done something similar, inserting his own DNA into the contagion, then using that to infect his victims. His DNA had acted as a conduit for his magic, bypassing his victims’ normal magical protections.

  But a conduit works both ways. That’s why he couldn’t let us get our hands on his puppets. We’d have followed that magical connection right back to him.

  Alys could use the virus’s magical link to his brain and body. But she had to strike now, before he realized his vulnerability and protected himself. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the strength to take him on alone. Not after the abuse she’d taken. Her magic was all but burned out, her body drained, her will worn down to a nub. How the hell could she…

  “Alys?”

  She opened her eyes to see a pair of booted toes inches from her face. One of those boots was planted firmly on her sword. Davon stepped back and kicked it away, then lifted his own weapon. “Are you back with us?”

  Painfully, she rolled over on her side and looked up at his face. And realized instantly what she needed to do. But he betrayed me… Left her to be captured by the Fomorians.

  But he’s here now. He risked his life for me again and again. And as she stared up, into his dark, concerned gaze, she realized Davon Fredericks was no more capable of betrayal than Arthur Pendragon. He was honor all the way to the bone. Whatever he’d done, he’d had a damned good reason. She groped for the visor of her helm, only to find the faceplate missing, evidently shattered. “Davon?” she rasped. “Davon, help me up!”

  He stared at her a long moment before dropping to one knee beside her, though he still held the sword ready. “Looks like the cure worked.”

  So he’d been responsible for freeing her from Bres. Alys wasn’t at all surprised, but she didn’t have time to ask how he’d pulled that off. “Davon, we need to Truebond. Now.”

  Chapter Eight

  Brown eyes widened behind Davon’s visor. “Truebond? But…”

  “We need to go after Bres. He used his own genetic material in the virus, which gives me a potential magical backdoor into his mind. But I need you to reinforce my magic because I don’t have the strength.” Basically, she’d be using him both as a battery and psychic reinforcement. Something in her rebelled at the thought of forcing such intimacy on him, but they had no choice. “We’ve got to do this now, while Bres is still shocked. Before he realizes the…”

  A chorus of screams rose, answered by the guttural roar of a troll. Instinctively, Alys and Davon simultaneously ducked and spun, just as a group of New Yorkers raced past in full panicked flight. Behind them, a team of Magekind were exchanging magical blasts with two trolls, a pair of centaurs, and a dozen Fomorians.

  Davon grabbed her arm and hauled her into the shelter of the nearest alley. “Alys, we’re in the middle of a battle, for God’s sake! Arthur and the Magekind need us. We can’t just…”

  “If we can take Bres out, the Magekind won’t have to worry about the fucking war. And we’ve got to do this now, before he realizes how vulnerable he is.”

  He stopped, staring at
her, then gave her a crooked smile. “Good point.”

  “I’ll cast an invisibility spell on us. That’ll protect us while we get this done.” Alys grabbed for her magic and wove a quick enchantment. The sounds of battle instantly faded, blocked by the spell. Looking up at him, she hesitated, remembering the visions -- what happened to Truebonded couples when something went wrong. “But you need to keep in mind, if we Bond, and I get killed…”

  Davon pulled off his helmet, his gaze dark, intense. “My life wouldn’t be worth living anyway. What do I need to do?”

  There was no hesitation in his eyes. No doubt. Alys reached for his face, only to realize she was still wearing gloves. This needed skin-to-skin contact. Instead of taking the gauntlets off, she rose to her toes and took his mouth in the kiss she’d craved for a decade.

  His lips felt impossibly soft as they parted in surprise against hers. She groaned softly, started to slip her tongue…

  Memory barreled into her brain like a tank going full speed as the amnesia spell broke as it was designed to -- with the kiss she’d foreseen three days before.

  Alys saw it all -- the visions of Avalon’s destruction, the frantic search for a solution. The delicious hour she’d stolen to make love to Davon. The preparations and the planning, and the way he’d had to execute all of it alone. She gasped against his mouth, realizing the cost the plan must have exacted.

  All leading up to this inevitable moment.

  But there was no time to consider the implications, not if they were going to do what had to be done. Alys grabbed for the Mageverse, pulling the energy in even as she dropped every psychic barrier she normally maintained. Then she took that power and began to weave a net of magic around their minds, drawing them closer together, spinning more and more threads. Pulling those bonds tight. Making them one.

  He threw himself open to her. Let her see it all -- all the pain, all the guilt he’d felt when he let her be taken. How it had tormented him to imagine what she must be going through. What she must think of him.