Page 80 of Demon Loved
And yet, he wasn’t ready to surrender. Perhaps it would be easier to stop fighting and allow his spirit to be blown across the universe to the place he called home, but he knew he would never do that. Somewhere within the depths of his heart, he understood that he had already given his allegiance to these people, this place.
Especially the woman who stood next to him in the center of the circle, her golden hair whipping around her in an invisible gale. She was the fulcrum of all worlds converging at once, the tipping point that would determine whether they fell to the Collector’s onslaught or whether they managed to stay free.
All around them, the elders and the clan’s prima and her consort continued their chanting. Belshegar realized it wasn’t the words themselves that were important, but the connection between the five of them, the way they shared power among everyone in their circle, drawing it from the very ground beneath their feet. The golden glow that surrounded all of them might have wavered from time to time, but it still remained strong and bright despite the dark, shimmering energy the Collector had sent forth from the artifact he wore on his hand.
During the initial assault, the four servants the Collector brought with him had stood motionless, clearly told to stand by until they were needed. None of the group even appeared to be paying attention to the battle of magical wills taking place before them, and Belshegar found himself wondering if they were human at all, like the thief who had first attempted to steal the amulet Angela and Connor had been keeping safe, or whether they were some kind of strange automata their adversary had conjured, knowing that human assistants might not have been reliable enough during such a confrontation.
But then Allegra Moss seemed to stumble, her knees giving way under the weight of the magical burden she was being forced to bear. At once, Levi hurried over to her, lending her his arm so she might stagger upright once again. Next to him, Brianna sucked in a worried breath and began to move as though she intended to offer what assistance she could, but Belshegar tightened his grip on her hand, holding her back.
“You must stay inside the circle,” he murmured. “All depends upon it.”
Desperate blue eyes stared up at him, but she nodded without speaking. The lines of her lovely throat and jaw were so tight, he could see the tendons standing out against her smooth skin.
And yet she didn’t waver, and instead stood a little straighter and tilted her head up toward the sky, as if the force of her stare might be sufficient to hold back the dimensional energies pressing down on them.
Maybe it would. Belshegar guessed that none of them — most of all Brianna herself — fully understood the extent of her powers.
But one of the Collector’s servants, obviously sensing her moment of weakness, chose that moment to dart forward as if to physically assault the elderly woman, to break the connection between the McAllister witches and allow his master the opening he needed. In the next moment, however, bright energy flashed from Angela and Connor’s conjoined hands, green and brilliant as their eyes.
It drove the minion back. For a second, the hood he was wearing slipped, and Belshegar caught sight of a man not much older than Brianna, expression startled and frightened, before he pulled up his hood with shaking fingers.
So, they were human after all. Perhaps the Collector had realized that mortal witches and warlocks had their own peculiar strengths, something that an artifact could never possess.
A spasm of irritation passed over their enemy’s face, although he sounded pleasant enough as he spoke again.
“You are more powerful than I thought.”
“We’re not a bunch of amateurs,” Brianna said. Her voice was still tight with strain, but it seemed clear enough that she had no intention of backing down.
“No, it would seem not,” the Collector replied. His appearance shimmered for just a second, and Belshegar thought he caught a glimpse of long, pale hair before the face and form of the ordinary, brown-haired man he’d been wearing reasserted itself. “But you still have no real comprehension of why I need to be the keeper of these artifacts, and not those who have no idea how to properly take care of them.”
He lifted his hands, and the dark energy pulsing around him seemed to intensify, pouring out of his ring like a geyser gushing black oil. Brianna’s breath caught, and Belshegar tightened his grip on her fingers.
“Stay with me,” he said.
Her gaze met his, and an incongruous smile touched her beautiful mouth.
“Always.”
The chanting of the circle grew louder. Out of the corner of his eye, Belshegar saw how Levi continued to support Allegra, while the other members of the McAllister clan had rearranged themselves to fill in the gap his shift in position had created.
Clearly, these people were no strangers to facing down dark magic, even though he doubted they’d ever confronted an enemy like this before.
Still, they seemed to intrinsically understand that they couldn’t falter, that they needed to make their stand here.
After all, even if they could have no clear idea as to how many artifacts the Collector had already gathered to him, they still must know that if he was allowed to continue on this current path, at some point he would be so powerful that no one — not even, perhaps, many witch clans working together — would be enough to defeat him.
Dark lightning crackled overhead, and although Belshegar couldn’t see the physical evidence of such a shift, he sensed how the pressure on this fulcrum point intensified, how all the energies of thousands of dimensions were descending on this lonely hilltop.
Brianna’s breath caught, and a terrible shudder went through her slender body.
“It’s too much,” she gasped.
Yes, it was. She should never have been forced to bear such a burden, no matter what power she carried within her.
And yet…she was the only one who could drive back the intensity of countless collapsing realities.
“I know, beloved,” he murmured. “But I’m here with you. We all are.”
