Free Hels's Gauntlet [Forbidden Legacy 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Heather Long

it, and we’re already trying to fix what the blight has done. You cannot take her to your home, and you know why. That leaves the Wizard Council.”
    The woman jerked, a glimmer of fear ebbing around the fury in her eyes.
    “Which we all know would be a mistake. That leaves the Brotherhood. We can contain her. We can heal her.”
    “But we will interrogate her.” Jacob spoke the words before Helcyon, his tone chill and hard. Despite the nearly five–hundred-year age gap, Vanagan did not seem the elder in this situation.
    His gaze twitched from the female to Jacob and then back again. “Agreed. You can even stay and keep her in custody or send your men to guardian her. But she can’t die.”
    A wordless pulse of question flashed against Helcyon’s awareness. Jacob wanted to agree, but did Helcyon? The woman was an enemy. She would kill them all given just the slightest opportunity.
    But she was female.
    She held magic.
    “Agreed. She will live, in chains if necessary. Bind her with salt and iron before we move her. She goes by human transport.” Although he’d already slipped her Underhill, the brief exposure hadn’t shattered reality, so they had that small hope to cling to.
    “No!” the woman screamed, blood flying on her spittle. The words across her center hardened into one solid line, and power reared up. Like a hooded cobra, it fanned out and then struck. The poison flew straight at Helcyon, digging angry talons deep into his flesh, and even as his shields rotated to compensate, exhaustion and injury sucked him under.
    The world went black.

Chapter Eight
     
    Cassie paced the length of the living room window. She lifted her gaze from the wooden floors and thatched rugs intermittently to stare at the gravestone beyond. She’d slept all of two hours before Jacob slid into bed with her.
    Exhaustion dragged her heels, but she refused to sit. Worry fractured her concentration. Aside from the one cell phone call, she didn’t give in to the urge to plague them until they came home where she could see they were all right. Whatever happened, they needed their concentration. She clung to the whisper of Helcyon’s voice, the order to “stop” which lasted a scant few minutes after she hung up the phone.
    She paced.
    She wanted to be where they were. She wanted to help them. But she couldn’t leave their safe haven, not when danger threatened. A flutter in her belly reminded her of the reason why she needed to stay put and calm down. As surreal as the pregnancy seemed, the reality of it weighed heavily in her mind. They wanted to keep it quiet, from enemy and ally alike. According to all the books, she shouldn’t even be showing this early, yet without the looser fit of clothing, the swell of her abdomen seemed screamingly obvious.
    “I don’t get it. How can piercing someone’s carotid and sucking out the blood be sexy? Aside from the hygiene issues, it hurts.” Jude flopped lazily on the sofa, one leg slung over the arm, the other on the floor. Flat on his back, he read as long as she stayed in the room. Whenever she wandered off, he wandered right behind her, grumbling particularly after she interrupted the sex scene to head into the kitchen for a cup of decaffeinated coffee. The swill hardly did the trick, but the activity filled her empty hands with the illusion of accomplishment.
    “It’s not just biting. It’s the intimacy and the sensuality.” She spared him a dry look. If he didn’t like the book, why the hell was he reading it?
    “Yeah and sticking your teeth into a blood bag like they’re straws, that just screams ‘let me fuck you silly.’” Jude grunted, but flipped to the next page. “I feel bad for her though. I mean her husband was apparently a douche, and her so-called friend is such a bitch. They’re in tropics, but she doesn’t want her to have fun ’cause all she can do is puke? She should just kick her ass to the curb or get her own suite.”
    “There’s a point to it,