Never in his life had he felt anything like this.
Then it all just . . . stopped. The eye-searing energy disappeared, leaving him clinging blindly to her lithe, sweat-slick body. Kat fell limp under him, her strong legs releasing their desperate hold, her fingers relaxing their grip on his shoulders. His skin stung, and he suspected she’d dug her nails deep.
“My God.” She gasped. They were both panting. “What the hell was that?” Ridge gently disengaged his fangs from her throat and licked the blood away. “That,” he said, his voice hoarse, “was magic. You’re a Maja now, Kat Danilo.”
NINE
Kat lay dazzled and panting. With a last, sated groan, Ridge collapsed beside her. She could feel his pleasure echoing in her own body like a deep thrum in her cells. Incredible. She wasn’t sure if it was his thought or her own. Never felt anything like that.
Magic swirled around her like dust motes in a shaft of sunlight, a dancing glitter. Half-hypnotized by the swirling patterns, she watched the tiny flashes dance around her head. Every time she inhaled, she breathed them in.
Experimentally, Kat puffed out a breath. Magic rolled from her mouth in a glowing plume, reminding her of chilly childhood mornings when she’d watch her breath mist.
“You look stoned.” Ridge rolled onto one elbow, watching her with an indulgent expression.
“I feel stoned. Sort of . . . floating.” Kat frowned suddenly. “Is it real? The magic, I mean?”
“Oh, yeah. I don’t see it often, but sometimes when it’s particularly dense, vampires can perceive it.
And I’m told Majae see it all the time. After a while, you quit noticing it as much.” He looked different, she realized. Vivid, sharply solid. More real somehow. When she looked away, she could feel his presence like a low hum.
As if he was a concentration of pure magic.
A weaker hum came from a closed door across the room. “There’s something magic in the closet.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised.” He yawned hugely.
Curious, Kat rolled out of bed and swung the door open. A pile of metal objects lay heaped on the floor.
Kneeling, she picked up a helmet, scorched and dented. There was a cuirass too, along with greaves, gauntlets, and other assorted bits of armor. All of it was blackened, as if it had been through a fire, and most of the pieces showed dents and smears of old blood.
“I should have cleaned and repaired it, but I didn’t have the heart. Some bad memories there.” Ridge said from behind her.
“You were hurt.” She could feel the magical echo of old wounds, a reverberation of pain in her own flesh.
“Not as bad as some.” His voice was grim. “I lived.”
The flow of magic in the dented helm seemed to be disrupted. Acting on pure instinct, she fed her own power into it, straightening and reinforcing the flow. Light swirled around the helm, and the dents disappeared, leaving it gleaming as if brand-new again.
“Cool!” Kat looked around at Ridge, surprised. “It wants to be whole. I wonder if I could fix it all . . . ” Extending her hands over the pile of battered armor, she concentrated, sending a wave of magic swirling over it.
When she dropped her hands again, it was all repaired and shining. “Damn. That was . . . surprisingly easy.” Kat cocked her head, considering the pile, mentally tracing the smooth flow of magic. “All I had to do was straighten the kinks in the energy patterns, and everything popped right back out.”
“Can you make armor of your own?” He knelt beside her and lifted a long sword out of the pile, then handed it to her. “Creating the stuff’s a bit harder.”
“You mean copy it? Maybe scaled to fit me?” She weighed the big blade in her hands. It was well-balanced, but definitely made for a vampire’s strength. Too heavy for her by far. Transferring the weapon to her left hand, she bit her lip and concentrated. Magic swirled into her right hand, formed a column of light, solidified.
The new blade was shorter, lighter. She handed Ridge the original, then extended the copy, weighing it in her hands. The balance was a little off. She dissolved it and tried again. Better, but still off. Tried again until she was satisfied.
“What do you think?” She handed the sword to Ridge.
He took it, held it at full extension, then gave it a slow swing, careful in the limited space. “Good work.” Handing it back, he eyed her. “You know how to use that?” Kat nodded. “My sensei taught me a little kendo, and I fenced competitively in college. I’m not a knight, but I know which end of the blade goes in the target.” Next she tackled the armor, dragging magic in and pouring it out, following the patterns of force in Ridge’s armor. It was, she thought, a bit like singing a song someone else had written. Her first try at a full suit was a bit misshapen, but she kept working, destroying the suit and recreating it until she was satisfied.
Finally Kat stepped up to the full-length mirror and considered her gleaming reflection. Her head ached from the effort of all that ferocious concentration, but at least the thing looked right. The armored plates followed the contours of her body, and the joints matched her own, with no gaps to allow a weapon to penetrate. She twisted back and forth to test the armor’s flexibility. And smiled in satisfaction. It was light as construction paper, but strong as the steel it appeared to be.
So she’d passed the first test she’d set herself. “Okay, now let’s try the hard part.” She reached down the gorget of her armor and drew out the silver locket she’d been wearing for days now. Concentrated.
“Uhh, Kat . . . ” Ridge said uneasily.
She ignored him, all her focus on pouring magic into the locket and listening to the returning echo of energy. First came a familiar scent she hadn’t smelled in so many years, she’d almost forgotten it.
Kat found herself smiling. “Cherry lip gloss and my mother’s Nicole perfume. My sister always filched Mom’s perfume when she went out.”
Then another odor cut through the familiar smell. Like the smell of dog fur, only ranker, tinged with the copper taint of blood and the nauseating reek of death. Kat sent more magic pouring into the necklace.
“Show me. Let me see him!”
At first nothing happened. She gritted her teeth and concentrated harder on the killer’s feral reek.
“Are you sure you should try to do this now?” Ridge’s green eyes narrowed in worry.