“Get a room,” he teased.
Kyanna finally managed to break the kiss, but she had to lean her forehead against Xander’s chest and curl her fingers into the front of his shirt as she struggled to regain her composure. At last, still a little breathless, she pushed out of his arms. Maggie could tell, if given half the chance, Xander would have shimmered them away to finish what he’d started.
“I need to check on reports of a nest of Carpath? in Denver,” Xander told Kyanna, his own voice a little rougher than normal. “Will you be all right here for a bit?”
“Go,” Kyanna said, giving him a quick squeeze. “Do your macho demon thing. But you better hurry,” she added, trailing a finger down the center of his white V-neck T-shirt. “I feel like taking a bubble bath…and I might decide not to wait for you if you take too long.”
Maggie blinked. She could have sworn Xander’s eyes had just flickered red. Hmm. Must have been a trick of the light.
“Woman, if you start that bath without me, I’ll turn you over my knee,” he rasped.
“Promise?” Kyanna asked cheekily.
Xander growled. And this time, Maggie was absolutely positive. His eyes had turned bright, flame red. Without another word, he disappeared in a now familiar distortion of air.
Kyanna turned back to Maggie. “That should give us a few hours—”
“Half an hour, at best, darlin’,” Gideon corrected. “Carpath? don’t offer much of a challenge, at least not as much, oh, say Charocté or Animagi. And let’s face it, sugar, that was one motivated demon you just sent off.”
Blushing, Kyanna laughed. “Then I guess we better get busy.”
Gideon sat on the front veranda, leaning back on his elbows. He could relax now a bit. Maggie and Kyanna were only practicing simple charms. He watched as Maggie called forth a bubble of water from thin air, then caused it to float up and hover, shimmering in the golden glow of the late afternoon sunlight. The bubble popped, and crystal droplets sprinkled down over both giggling women. Maggie’s skin glowed with vitality, her face alight with excitement.
She took his breath away.
He could hear the murmur of the women’s voices as they spoke quietly back and forth, Maggie asking questions, Kyanna instructing and praising. Maggie was a quick study, picking up the finer points of angelic magics like she’d been doing it all her life. He felt his own chest puff just a bit every time she easily mastered what Kyanna often warned might be a difficult enchantment. She was gifted. And smart.
And he was starting to sound like a sap, but he just didn’t care. The woman amazed him at every turn.
His first inkling that something might be wrong came in the form of an odd wave of power quivering through the air. At first, he thought it was Maggie and Kyanna, one of the many angelic enchantments that often caused a demon’s skin to crawl.
A huge black void appeared out of nowhere, opening up about ten feet from the women. It seemed as though time stood still, yet leaped ahead a thousand years all at once. Gideon was off the veranda and sprinting across the yard before the next heartbeat.
Everything swayed toward the vortex, foliage, grass, even the very air seemed to be pulled inside. The cooler overturned. Cubes of ice and bottles of water, the cooler itself went skidding across the lawn before the whole mess was sucked up inside the black void. Maggie and Kyanna screamed as they were dragged backward.
Maggie managed to grab hold of the lip of the old stone fountain with one hand. She hung horizontal above the ground, the vortex pulling relentlessly at her. Her other arm was stretched back, and she clung tenaciously to Kyanna’s hands. Kyanna, who’d been closer to the vortex, floated precariously in the air, her feet all but disappearing into the void; the only thing keeping her on this side of the portal was Maggie.
“Hold on!” he shouted.
The closer Gideon got to them, the more he could feel the terrible pull of the vortex. His boots began skidding across the grass, until he was no longer running toward them, but skating along, trying to keep his balance as he angled for the fountain. He collided with the aged stone hard enough to severely injure the ribs Michael had already bruised. Thank God the thing weighed nearly a ton, or both women would have been long gone by now.
Frantic, Gideon scrambled around the massive center tiers until he could reach for Maggie. She was hanging on by the tips of her fingers now. Terror closed his throat, trapping any words of instruction inside. He had to hurry. Her wide, terror-filled eyes sought his, pleading with him. She wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. She screamed, but the vortex sucked even that away.
Throwing caution aside, he leaped for her. His fingers brushed hers, but it wasn’t enough. Before he could get a grip, her hand slipped from the fountain, and both women tumbled into the void, disappearing before his eyes. The whole thing had happened in less than a minute.