Swearing, he clasped his hands on his head, trying to get a handle on the battle raging within him. “If we bring them across,” he gritted out, “they’re more likely to string me up for mutiny than to help. For thousands of years, the Order has refused to be swayed from their path. All they do is protect from rogue Calydons. That’s it. And even with focusing all our efforts there, many people still die.” He looked at Maria, needing her to understand. “They’re sworn to their oath. They can’t deviate. They won’t deviate.”
“You have.” Maria’s voice was quiet, but strong. Unwavering.
He stiffened. “What? In what way?”
“Because you came down here for Dante, and you haven’t done a damned thing to look for him.” She walked over to him and stood in front of him, staring up at him. “You’ve taken care of me. You’ve helped Sophie and Vlad.”
He closed his eyes, realizing what she said was true. He’d completely abandoned his oath. Guilt tore through him, a wrenching, brutal guilt. “Maria—”
“I saw the look on your face when we said the temple was in the Graveyard of the Damned. I saw you remember Dante. You’d forgotten about him, hadn’t you?” She touched his arm, and he opened his eyes to look at her. “Gabe, I love your loyalty to the Order. I love that it drives you, but there’s more to life than blind loyalty. Did you ever think that the Order is dying because the oath you take has sucked the life out of it? That it’s time to become more?”
He fisted his hands. “Dante believed—”
“Dante’s gone. It’s not his Order anymore. It’s yours. The world is different than it was two thousand years ago when he began.” She touched his arm. “Call them. For me, Gabe. For Sophie.”
Gabe ground his jaw. “I can’t—”
“You care.” Vlad was the one who spoke, and Gabe looked over at the other man, whose face was so haunted and stark. “I can feel it inside you, Gabe. You care about more than the Order. You care about Maria. Fuck, you love her, don’t you?” At his words, Maria sucked in her breath, but Vlad didn’t stop. He just walked over to Gabe, still talking. “You’re too fucking afraid to admit it, aren’t you? Afraid it makes you weak? Afraid that caring about anything other than your work makes you a pathetic piece of shit.”
Gabe stiffened, his jaw tightening. “You know nothing about the Order—”
“Yes, I do.” Vlad’s voice was hard. “I was there when you guys tried to kill a rogue Calydon because he’d lost his shit. I stopped you, and let the rogue go, because it’s bullshit to kill people just because you think it’s right. My parents tried to kill me to save their kingdom, and Sophie’s parents sacrificed her to save theirs. And you know what? Both those kingdoms were gone a decade later, reduced to a bunch of rubble. Why?” His words were hard, full of venom. “Because they didn’t rule with love. They ruled out of duty, and made choices for the greater good, but the greater fucking good starts with love and loyalty to those closest to you. Without it, the entire thing crumbles.” He stopped in front of Gabe. “It just fucking crumbles, like their kingdoms. Like your precious Order. The minute you start sacrificing innocents for the greater good, it breaks down the fabric of your humanity. Doesn’t it?” He slammed his palm over Gabe’s heart. “Do you feel that? Your heart is beating for the first time in your life, because in this hellhole, you’ve let yourself care. You’ve let it become personal, and that’s how you win.”
At Vlad’s words, images began tumbling through Gabe’s mind. Not images of all the rogues the Order had killed, but images of the carnage that was always left behind. Of his family, decimated by the rogue that had stolen his world. Of Ian, crushed under the weight of losing his sheva. Of his teammates who had broken the rules and bonded with their shevas, and yet had managed not to go rogue. Of Quinn Masters, their interim leader, insisting that rogues could be redeemed, despite centuries of evidence to the contrary.
What if the foundation of the Order’s mission had been wrong? What if, after all these centuries, they’d been wrong? Killing people who didn’t need to be killed? Not seeing that there was another way? Not understanding that the old way didn’t work?
Suddenly, he couldn’t breathe. He sank down to his knees, gasping for breath as images and memories assaulted him. He gripped his forehead, trying to make it stop, trying to make it end, trying to get back to the place where his brain worked, where everything made sense.
Everything started to spin violently. Gritting his teeth, he bowed his head and dug his fingers into the rock, fighting for balance. He closed his eyes, pain searing through his chest, when he felt Maria kneel beside him. He didn’t open his eyes, but he tensed, viscerally aware of her as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and put her cheek next to his. “Gabe.” Her voice was a whisper, a beautiful, amazing sound that made his entire body go still.
He waited.
“I love you, too.”
He scrunched his eyes shut, unable to breathe.
“I love you because of your honor, but I also love you because you gave it all up to save my life. No one has ever done that for me. No one has ever cared about me the way you do.” She slid her fingers between his, and he opened his eyes, staring down at their entwined hands. Her fingers were so much smaller than his, her skin lighter than his. Feminine. And yet, the hands of a warrior.
He felt the warmth of her love wash over him, filling him with a sense of wholeness he’d never felt before, even after he’d won a battle and saved hundreds. Nothing had filled him the way this moment had. Ever. “I gave my life to the Order,” he said, his voice raw. “I believed we were doing the right thing. How can my life be wrong?”
“It’s not wrong,” she said gently. “You saved many lives, and every life saved matters. But maybe it’s time to expand. Maybe Dante died because it was time for a new future, one that was different than the one he could give you. Maybe he died because he knew it was time.”
Gabe thought back to the night of Dante’s death, to that moment when they all relived it. Dante had sacrificed himself, not fighting back to defend himself against the assailant who had killed him. At the time, they’d thought it was for the greater good, but maybe…maybe…it had been because he’d known it was time to make the others step up.
“He came back to us once,” he said. “Through Quinn’s sheva. He said there was a new future, that it was our turn. We thought it was because of the enemy we were fighting at the time…” His words faded. Could it have been more? Was Maria right? Dante’s message through Quinn’s sheva had been one of acceptance of her, not criticism that they’d let a sheva into their midst. He thought of how Thano and Zach had left the Order. He thought of how every current Order member except him and Thano had taken on a sheva. He thought of the fact that they’d added only one new Order member in hundreds of years. The way they were doing it was failing. He’d known that, but he’d thought that survival meant anchoring to the past. What if he was wrong? What if survival of the Order meant using the past as a building block toward an evolved future, instead of using the past to trap them?
Son of a bitch.
Son of a bitch.
His head snapped up, and he looked at Maria. “If the Order is no longer solely about rogues, where does that leave it? What’s next?”
She smiled. “Sophie’s next. After that?” She framed his face with her hands. “After that, the future is unwritten. You get to write it. You and your team.”
A new future? One without Dante and his legend? Swearing, Gabe looked across the lava fields toward the Graveyard of the Damned. Give me a sign, Dante. Show me the path.
He waited…but nothing happened. No answers were offered by their leader.
Vlad crouched beside him. “Gabe, I get that you have issues. I’m down with that, because I have a shitload of baggage. I respect you and I consider you a friend, but if you don’t pull your shit together and haul ass with me to get your team, I will personally fuck up every mission you go on for the rest of your damned life.”
<
br /> Gabe looked up sharply into Vlad’s grim face, and something inside him released. A tension that he’d been holding inside him his entire life. He grinned, a shit-eating grin that seemed to light up from within. “Let’s go, buddy.”
Vlad blinked in stunned shock, and then he let out a whoop of victory. “Fuck, yeah!” He jumped to his feet. “Damon! Can you carry all of us? We need your speed.”
“Yeah, no problem.” As Damon shifted into full beast form, Gabe looked at Maria, who was still crouched in front of him.
She smiled, a smile that danced inside his heart. “Thank you,” she said.
He shook his head. “No. Thank you.” He shackled her wrist and pulled her close, sliding his hand behind her neck while he kissed her. Not a kiss to claim. Not a kiss to infuse her with his power. A kiss that was so much more than sex, power, or lust. It was a kiss from the heart that she’d just awakened.
“Let’s go!” Vlad shouted. “Now!”
Maria grinned. “I’ve been wanting to crush Lucien forever. I’m so excited.”
Gabe laughed as he grabbed her hand and stood up. “You’re so bloodthirsty. I love it.” They ran over to Damon, and he tossed Maria on the beast’s back, before climbing up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist, and leaned on her shoulder as she locked her arms around Vlad, who was already on board.
As Damon began to flap his wings, Gabe took a deep breath. Maria.
She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyebrows raised. What?
He wanted to say it. He wanted to tell her that Vlad was right. He wanted to give her those three words that she’d offered him. But they stuck in his throat. To admit he loved her was making a promise of forever, a promise of his heart, a promise of his entire loyalty. How could he do that? How could he offer his forever, when his entire world had been the Order? He didn’t know what was next. He didn’t know the future. He couldn’t make promises anymore about whose side he was on, because he didn’t even know what that meant anymore. Never mind.
Her smile softened. I love you, too, Gabe. You don’t need to say it. It’s okay.
It wasn’t okay. He knew it wasn’t. Maria deserved more. She deserved the words.
But he couldn’t make them come. He felt them in his heart. He knew they were true. But to say them to her would be to make a promise that he wasn’t sure he could keep. What if he really had to choose between her and the Order someday? Could he do it? What kind of man was he really, when all his years of battle and honor had been stripped away?
He didn’t even know anymore.
Chapter 36
Lucien’s claws were so painfully tight around Sophie’s shoulders that she had to bite her lip to keep the tears at bay. The wind from his wings was brutal, ripping at her clothes, making her hair slash across her face. She glanced down, and then had to shut her eyes when she saw how high they were. She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting against the dizziness. “Where are you taking me?”
“Shut up, bitch. You’ve lost the right to talk to me.”
She flinched at his brutal tone, fear hammering at her. She wanted to dissolve. She wanted to hide. Right now, she would have no problem with any instinct to hide and retreat. She didn’t want to be brave and fight him. She wanted to simply be gone.
But she couldn’t. Her body was completely corporeal, and nothing she tried made it dissolve. She was trapped in her own body. Trapped in his claws. Trapped in the sky, far away from any rocks. Vlad couldn’t fly. His magic wasn’t strong enough to stop Lucien. Just like before, so many years ago, she had nothing to save herself with, but this time, she couldn’t even dissolve. She had nothing.
“Temple of the Sun.”
At his words, fear shot down her spine, paralyzing her with terror.
Lucien laughed, a harsh, brutal sound that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “That’s right, bitch. You’re mine for a hundred years. You’ll be nothing but a mindless wench, and Maria won’t be around to heal you. You’ll just rot away with my cock in you, and you’ll love every second of it.”
Dear God. She couldn’t let him take her there. No one would be able to reach her. There would be no way out. Ever. She turned her head and saw the mountain in the distance, the one that housed the Temple. It was harsh and arid, a mountain of burned out lava so dead that nothing could live there, not even demon hounds. Lava poured out of the top of the mountain, trickling down the sides of it, the bright orange glow casting a haunting hue on the surrounding fields.
There was no way she could go in there. No way.
She looked down at the ground again, and this time, she didn’t flinch. They were hundreds of feet in the air. If she fell, she would die. It wasn’t her first choice for escape, but it was better than what he had in mind. There was no way she was going to let him take her.
She looked up, scanning the underside of Lucien’s chest, looking for a vulnerability, a spot she could strike to take him down. His scales were thick and hard, glistening with the reflection of the lava. She set her hand on his chest, and could feel the energy of his heart. She’d never have an opportunity like this again. Once he landed, she’d never get close enough, but right now, while he was flying and she was hanging in his claws, he was vulnerable. One strike there wouldn’t kill him, but it would slow him down. All she needed was enough time to hit the ground before he recovered.
She reached down and grabbed one of Maria’s knives that was still strapped to her calf. She pulled it free, and wrapped her hand around it. Her heart was pounding. Power filled her, the raw, bold power of taking control of her own future. No more being the victim. She angled her body and drew her arm back, summoning all her strength into her arm. “Good-bye, Vlad. I love you—”
Vlad. Her heart seemed to shatter as she thought of him, and her arm fell to her side as the agony of losing him again hit her. Not just him. Maria as well. Right then, in that moment, she knew that they were on the ground, desperately trying to figure out how to get her. But they couldn’t. It was too late. The temple was surrounded. It was too far away. She would be lost long before they could ever get there.
She had to act now. She had to. She tightened her fingers on the dagger and raised her arm again, but Vlad’s face kept flashing through her mind. His horror as Lucien tore her out of his hands. His anguish as she’d fallen into the pit the first time. His smile when she’d remembered him in the cave. The way he made her laugh. If she let herself die now, they had no chance. If she ran away because she was too scared of what was to come, they had no chance. If she stayed alive, if she was brave enough to face what might come, they had a chance.
She closed her eyes, her fingers tight around the handle of her dagger. Was she strong enough to face what might come, for the chance of seeing Vlad and Maria again? She wasn’t. She wasn’t. But somewhere deep inside her, another voice whispered to her. Fight, Sophie, fight. You can do it.
Vlad had believed she could save herself, but he’d been wrong. She hadn’t. She wasn’t a hero. She was just her.
“I have to do this,” she whispered. “I have to.” But her arm didn’t move. The dagger felt like a lead weight in her hand. If she stabbed Lucien right now, and fell to her death, she’d be running away, just like she had every time she’d dissolved over the last two hundred years. Just like she had when she’d rejected Vlad’s love.
She looked up at Lucien, and the raw, brutal lines of his face. The demon king. Unstoppable. Undefeatable. A hundred years in the temple with him would be hell. She knew that. But would it be worse to plummet to her death, knowing that she hadn’t given it every last effort to survive and to stay alive long enough for Vlad and Maria to find her? To give herself a chance for the life she’d never fought for? What if there was a way out? What if Vlad was right that they could do it? What if there were answers she’d never thought of, because she’d been too busy running away and hiding?
Dammit. She didn’t want to run away anymore. She didn’t want to give up. She wanted a ch
ance with Vlad. She wanted a chance to get Maria and the others out. She didn’t want this to all end badly.
She knew she couldn’t defeat Lucien alone, but she knew Maria and Vlad wouldn’t give up. They would fight for her. Together, could they do it? Together, could they find a way? She looked down at the dagger in her hand, one of the ones Maria had successfully used for so long to keep herself safe. The dagger wasn’t about weakness. The dagger was about one little sliver of metal, and the power it could wield if used the right way.
Sophie tightened her fingers around it as determination flooded her. Screw running away. Screw letting Lucien win. She was tired of hiding. She was tired of not being worthy of Maria and Vlad. Vlad was right. Hiding away and healing didn’t save anyone. It just prolonged their misery.
She wanted victory, and it was time. Maybe not to win, but at least to fight until the very bitter end. With one last glance at Lucien’s chest, Sophie slid the dagger in the waistband of her jeans.
She might die. She might face an even worse fate. But that was okay, because, for the first time in her life, she was going to stand and fight until there was nothing left at all.
But even as she hung there in Lucien’s claws, watching the Temple of the Sun getting closer and closer, she knew that if Maria and Vlad didn’t get to her in time, all the bravado in the world wasn’t going to save her.
She could choose to stay alive, but she couldn’t defeat Lucien herself. She needed their help, and she knew she needed it soon.
Maria hunched low on her brother’s back, shielded between Vlad and Gabe, as Damon tore through the tunnels, heading toward the cavern where Vlad and Gabe had crossed over from the earth realm. His wings shattered the rock walls of the tunnels, leaving behind a carnage of rubble. The sound was deafening, and Damon’s body shuddered from the impact each time he tore out another section of the wall. Maria knew that any demon could track them given the sound of their passage, but she also knew it didn’t matter.
Hunt the Darkness (Order of the Blade Book 11) Page 32
