Strange Brew

"You're going to kill them anyway," I whispered.

"True, but if you drink from me, I'll bring them a swift death at the end of a stake. They'll never know what happened. If you refuse, I'll wake them just enough so that they know they are dying, slowly, and they'll know that you could have saved them, but you wouldn't. I hope that gives you something to think about."

He strode from the room, and the heavy wooden door slammed behind him, echoing through the chamber like a gunshot.

I sank to the floor and cried, my sobs muffled by the unending chanting that echoed through the chamber.

Gage was true to his word. After what seemed like an eternity, he returned with his entire black-robed coven in tow. They surrounded my warded prison like vultures waiting for the opportunity to fall on me and rend me to pieces. I ignored them and kept my eyes on Gage. He was the key. If he'd bonded the coven to him by blood, then his blood and his death should break the bond. I didn't know if any of them had enough magic on their own to fight us all, but I was willing to risk it. Gage's power radiated through the chamber, and I didn't feel anything that came close to it from any of the others.

Gage came to stand in front of me. I took a calming breath and squared my shoulders. One way or another, this nightmare would end here and now.

"Will you drink?" he demanded.

The gods knew I wanted to. I was weak and hungry, but his blood was tainted with evil and I wouldn't do it, couldn't do it. I gritted my teeth and shook my head.

"You know you want it, vampire," he said, his tone almost seductive. "You long to taste that coppery liquid on your tongue, don't you? And the power. Think of it. You have power of your own, Miss Craven. I can feel it, even though you have no idea how to use it. I can teach you."

I realized something in that moment, as I listened to him offer what I had already refused. Despite what he had said the last time he was here, it was important to him that I join him willingly. Whether it was to appease his sense of vengeance or vanity he needed me to come to him of my own free will. I would not give him that satisfaction.

"I am a Macgregor witch, Gage, whether or not I am worthy of the name. Your blood magic is beneath me. You use the dark arts because the Goddess has forsaken you. You have nothing to teach me."

He jerked his head back as if I'd slapped him, and then narrowed his eyes. "So be it."

Gage walked to where Michael lay and stood over him.

"Don't touch him!" I shouted. "If you harm any of them, I swear to you I will make you pay!"

He laughed. "How amusing that you continue to make threats, Miss Craven," Gage said as he pulled a long, deadly looking dagger from under his robe. "If you had any power to make good on them, you would have done so by now."

He raised one hand and passed it over my lover's face. Michael's eyes flew open, and I could see the muscles in his neck straining with the effort to move.

Gage leaned down, smiling. "Good evening, vampire."

"Who are you?" Michael asked, his voice low and hoarse. "Why can't I move?"

"I am Edmund Gage, and I have just been having a conversation with your lady. Did you know that she has all your lives in her hands, and she refuses to save you?"

"Cin? What have you done to her?"

Gage stepped back and allowed Michael to turn his head. His blue eyes focused on me, and I smiled sadly as his worried gaze raked over me from head to toe. Then, satisfied that I was unharmed, he glanced around the room.

"One simple task could save you and your friends," Gage said, drawing Michael's attention back to him, "yet she refuses. She would rather let me bleed you dry. What do you think of her love for you now?"

"Michael, no," I pleaded. "It's not—"

"Shh, m'anam," he said. "I trust you."

I looked at him, and my stomach clenched. He was my world, this man. I had been raised a sheltered and spoiled aristocrat, meant for nothing more in life than breeding more sheltered and spoiled aristocrats. And then I had found him. I had given up my life to save us all, and I had died in his arms. I looked into his eyes and I remembered that night, and all the others that had followed—dancing with him in the streets of Paris; making love to him with the salt of a Spanish sea still on my skin; lying in his arms under a Highland sky, watching the northern lights shimmer above us. He had taught me how to truly live, and love. I loved this man beyond all reason. I loved his body. I loved his mind. I loved the way he made me laugh and the kindness in his heart. I loved the way that he loved me like I was the other half of his soul.

I reached my hand out to him just as Gage's blade came down, slicing Michael's wrist open and spilling his blood across the cold gray stone of the altar.

I slammed my body into the ward and screamed to the gods from the depths of my soul.

And the world stood still.

Nothing moved, Gage's hand was frozen on the downswing, that evil smile I'd come to hate was still plastered across his face. Not a breath or a heartbeat echoed through the chamber. I stared, transfixed, at the drop of Michael's blood that hung suspended in the air below his wrist.

"Three years," came a deep, definitely female voice from behind me. I spun around and was completely unprepared for whoever—or whatever—stood behind me.

She was tall, and I couldn't distinguish any of her features. She wore a cloak made entirely of black feathers. The hood framed where her face should be, but all I could see was shadow. She walked past me, through one side of the ward and out the other as though it weren't there. As she moved the shadows under that hood seemed to move with her. The feathers that made up the cloak grazed my hand as she passed, and they seemed almost alive. They were huge, black and glossy, with iridescent undertones of dark purple and green, and they brushed the floor with a soft whisper as she moved.

"Three years," she said again. "A blink of the eye, really, compared to the mille

I shook my head. "Who are you?"

She sighed. "Don't be obtuse, Cin. You called me. Whoever do you think I am?"

I had called her? My mind raced. Gage had cut Michael and I had screamed…

"Morrigan," I whispered.

The feathers ruffled again. "Precisely."

Morrigan, the Great Phantom Queen, war goddess, harbinger of death. She often appeared in the guise of a raven. I had invoked her in one of my last successful spells, to summon The Righteous to me. It was how I'd met Michael. She was the goddess I prayed to the most. And she was here, standing in front of me. I fell to my knees.

"Morrigan, please, help me," I pleaded.

"Oh, for the love of Danu," she muttered as she once again walked through the ward. I looked up, but could still see nothing but shadow under the hood of her cloak. The hands that wrapped around my upper arms and jerked me to my feet, however, were very real. "Get up, child. You have no need of my help. I gave you all the power you will ever need when I created you."

"You?"

"Of course. You are all mine. Vampires, werewolves, anything that walks the night is mine. You are my warriors. There are battles to come—"

"What battles?" I asked.

She grew very still, and I cursed myself for a fool. I was probably not wise to question a goddess.

"You will know in my own good time," she said, and her words were clipped and fierce like the staccato drumbeats at a public hanging.