“I… might have… started it.” Mackenzie’s rigid shoulders sagged and he sensed the resolve that flowed through her, heard it in her voice as she said, “I did start it. I bit him. Well, clawed him. I took his blood, Syn. You want to be mad at anyone, be mad at me. It was my choice.”
The demoness changed in the blink of an eye, her expression going from murderous to joyful as her gaze shifted from him to Mackenzie. “Sweetie! Congratulations.”
Syn pulled her into a hug that made Mackenzie grunt and he felt the pain she experienced from the tight embrace on his own body, growled at the demoness in a warning to handle his mate more gently.
In response, she extended her middle finger at him.
He got the impression she still wasn’t going to be nice to him.
Not willing to fight a battle he knew he couldn’t win, he turned his focus to the documents and maps on the table, seeking a way they could draw the witch out. He showed no sign of attacking them, so they were going to have to attack him.
Mackenzie manage to extricate herself from Syn’s embrace and came to stand beside him again. “We could stage a fight. There’s a chance he doesn’t know we’re working together now. A slim chance, but it’s still a chance. If Grave led his legion or visited somewhere, we could perform a pincer move on him, come at him from two angles and pretend to take him down. Grave could play dead.”
Hartt was quick to shake his head. “It won’t work. Harbin played dead the time we encountered the witch in the mortal world, using it to catch him off guard. The male won’t fall for the same trick twice.”
“So, how do we draw him out? He’s gone to ground.” Mackenzie glanced at him.
“He wants us all dead. What if we isolated ourselves, making him think he can pick one of us off?” Grave stepped forwards, coming to a halt on the other side of the table to Hartt, his back to the sash windows.
“Isolating ourselves sounds dangerous. You can’t possibly think taking on the witch alone is a good plan.” Mackenzie’s tone made it clear she thought it was a stupid one, and the vampire was an idiot for suggesting it.
“I meant we appear as if we are isolated, while the others lay in wait. I nominate you to be the one who pretends she’s all alone.” Grave glared at Mackenzie, and Hartt growled at him, issuing another warning.
Mackenzie wasn’t going anywhere alone, not until he had put this witch in the ground.
He rubbed his thumb across his lower lip, seeking the answer not in the papers scattered in front of him but inside him. He could almost feel it there, just beyond his reach.
“He probably wouldn’t take the bait anyway. He wants us to kill each other, and then he wants to kill the last one standing.” Mackenzie twisted and leaned her backside against the edge of the table, coming to face him. “I say we give the play dead scenario a shot. You and Grave could both pretend to die.”
While the vampire snarled at her for that suggestion, Hartt didn’t take it personally. The witch knew Mackenzie was a phoenix shifter, and therefore she would be reborn if she died. He was probably expecting her to be the last one standing, might even want her to die and be resurrected so she would be weak enough to capture. He did growl now, the thought of her being held captive by the witch and tormented, used for her blood, ripping it from him.
He couldn’t risk her like that, not when he was sure the witch could teleport and use other spells that might incapacitate him and Grave while he made off with Mackenzie. He wanted to tackle the male head-on, not giving him a chance to use spells against them. He wanted to hit the male while he wasn’t expecting it, taking him by surprise, but that meant he needed to find the bastard.
He smiled slowly as an idea hit him and looked at Mackenzie and then Grave.
“We fight fire with fire.”
Or at least a witch with a witch.
Chapter 26
The thatched cottage was still in the darkness, loomed up the hill from Mackenzie as she stood with Fuery and Syn, waiting for Hartt to return with the vampires. Grave had insisted on bringing his brother, Night, and Mackenzie had wanted to tease him about how he only wanted Night to come because everyone else got to bring someone.
That desire had died on her lips as Hartt had revealed the real reason the King of Death wanted backup—the mate of the witch they were going to see was a prince of elves.
A mad one at that.
The tales of Prince Vail were legendary, horror stories that were whispered in dark halls by fearful people and around campfires by youngsters to scare each other witless. She had heard a lot of stories about him, and according to Hartt and Fuery, most of them were probably more truth than fiction.
But things had changed for the mad elf prince.
Within the last few years, he had been freed of the spell that had bound him to a witch who had been controlling him for four thousand years, something that had blown Mackenzie’s mind, and had found his mate.
In another witch.
Now, he was apparently recuperating here in this idyllic chocolate box cottage with that mate, learning to tolerate her magic and only occasionally slipping into a murderous rage when he sensed her using it near him.
Which wasn’t a comfort.
She rubbed her bare arms, trying to keep the chill off them and willing Hartt to hurry. While Fuery had assured her that Vail wouldn’t attack her, she didn’t like it here, wanted backup of her own. Syn would take on anyone to defend her, she knew that, but she didn’t need violence if Vail turned dangerous.
She needed someone who could reason with him, and Fuery had said that Hartt was good at handling the prince. She wasn’t sure whether he was telling the truth, or just trying to make his friend look good to her, and she didn’t care.
She just wanted Hartt at her side again.
A restlessness had invaded her the moment he had left her here, returning to Hell for the vampires. She itched to pace, wanted to lash out at Syn whenever she dared to speak and felt a powerful need to avoid being near Fuery. She put the last one down to a desire not to be close to other males while her own one was absent, something which she already found irritating. If she had known a side-effect of mating with Hartt would be a need to avoid all other males if he wasn’t around, she wouldn’t have claimed him.
No. She still would have.
She would just have to find a way to work with this new instinct, to figure out what did and didn’t trigger it so she could live with it. She was a good twenty feet from Fuery and felt no compelling urge to place herself further from him, so maybe it was only close proximity that roused the instinct. It was a start anyway, a baseline for her to work from when she had the time.
Hartt appeared close to Fuery with the vampires. He blew out his breath and she frowned as she sensed his fatigue, the fierce drain on his strength that had him growing pale, and his emotions growing turbulent. She closed the distance between them when she felt darkness rising inside him.
“You should not have teleported so many.” Fuery looked as worried as she felt, cast an assessing glance over Hartt as he bent over, bracing his hands against his knees.
“What do you mean?” Mackenzie said.
He growled, a clear warning to Fuery not to tell her, but his friend thankfully ignored him.
“Teleporting powerful people is taxing on elves. It drains us and leaves us weak.”