by Mina Carter
Her gait had been smooth and agile, but he'd sensed the sheer effort she'd had to expend during the run. Another few feet, and he would have caught up to her easily, but she'd sensed him while he'd still been a quarter mile away, giving her a head start that had enabled her to reach the graveyard first.
Shit. He had to focus and find her. Summoning his rigid control to hone in on his task, Ryland crouched down and placed his hand on the dirt path where he'd last seen her. The ground was humming with the energy of death, but again, he couldn't untangle her trail from all the others. He realized that she'd mingled her own scent of death with those of all the other spirits, making it impossible for him to track her. He grinned as he rested his forearm on his quad and surveyed the small cemetery. "I'm impressed," he said aloud. "You're good."
There was no response, but he had the distinct sensation that she was watching him.
Slowly, he rose to his feet. "My name is Ryland Samuels," he said. "I'm a member of the Order of the Blade, the group of warriors that you protect. I'm here to offer you my protection and bring you into our safekeeping."
Again, there was no answer, but suddenly threaded through the tendrils of death was the cold filament of fear. Not just a superficial apprehension, but the kind of deep, penetrating fear that would bring a person to their knees and render them powerless. Fear of him? Or of the fact he said he wanted to take her with him? Swearing, Ryland turned in a slow circle, searching for where she might be. "There's no need to be afraid of me. I would never hurt an angel."
The fear thickened, like the thorns of a dying rose pricking his skin.
Ryland moved slowly toward the far corner, and smiled when he felt the terror grow stronger. She might be able to hide death, but there was no cover for the terror that was hers alone. He was clearly getting closer to her. "Look into my eyes," he said softly. "I don't hurt angels."
There was a whisper of a sound behind him, and he felt the cold drift of fingers across his back. She was touching him. He froze, not daring to turn around, even though his heartbeat had suddenly accelerated a thousand-fold. Her touch was so faint, almost as if it were her spirit that was examining him, not her own flesh. Was she merely invisible right now, or had she abandoned her physical existence completely and traveled to some spiritual plane? He had no idea what she was capable of. All he knew was that he felt like he never wanted to move away from this spot, not as long as she was touching him. He wanted to stay right where he was and never break the connection.
He closed his eyes, breathing in the sensation of her touch as her fingers traced down his arm, over his jacket. What was she looking for? Was she reading his aura? Searching for the truth of his claim that he would not hurt her? She would get nowhere trying to get a read on him. He never allowed anyone to see who he truly was, not even an angel of death.
But even as he thought it, he made no move to resist, his pulse quickening in anticipation as her touch trailed toward his bare hand. Would she brush her fingers over his skin? Would he feel the touch of an angel for the first time in a thousand years? He felt his soul begin to strain, reaching for this gift only she could give him.
He tracked every inch of movement as her hand moved lower toward his bare skin. Past his elbow. To the cuff of his sleeve. Then he felt it. Her fingers on the back of his hand. His flesh seemed to ignite under her touch. A wave of angelic serenity and beauty cascaded through his soul, like a deep inhale of intense relief easing a thousand years of tension from his lungs.
At the same time, there was a dangerous undercurrent beneath the beauty, a darkness that he recognized as death. A thousand souls seemed to dance through his mind, spirits lodged in the depths of her existence. Her emotions flooded him. Fear. Regret. Determination. Love. A sense of being trapped.
Trapped? He understood that one well. Far too well. Instinctively, he flipped his hand over, wrapping his fingers around hers, not to trap her, but to offer her his protection from a hell that still drove every choice he made.
He heard her suck in her breath, and she went still, but she didn't pull away from him. Her hand was cold. Her fingers were small and delicate, like fragile blossoms that would disintegrate under a stiff breeze. A hand that needed support and help.
Ryland snapped his eyes open but there was no one standing in front of him. He looked down and could see only his own hand, folded around air. He couldn't see her, but she was there, her hand in his, not pulling away. "Show yourself to me," he said. "I won't hurt you."
Her hand jerked back, and a sense of loss assailed him as he lost his grip on her. "No!" He reached for her, but his hands just drifted through air. "Catherine," he urged, as he strained to get a sense of her. "I—"
"Ry."
Ryland spun around at the sound of Thano's strained voice. His teammate was a hundred yards back, hunched low over Apollo's neck. On his knees beside them was Zach, who was slumped against a tree. "Shit!" He bolted out of the graveyard and sprinted over to the others. He knelt beside Zach. The warrior looked up, and Ryland saw that the edges of both eyes had a faint orange glow. The discoloration was creeping inward, and Ryland knew that when it took over the entire iris, Zach would die and become a talrak.
Quickly he ripped off his heavy jacket and handed it to Zach. "Put this on."
"Fuck that, I don't get cold."
"The talrak venom is poisoning you. You can use all that fire inside you to burn it up and hopefully slow it down, but if you're expending energy toward keeping warm, you'll lose the battle sooner. Wear the damn coat."
Zach met his gaze, then swore and grabbed the coat.
As he wrapped it around him, Ryland looked up at Thano. "Got space on that horse of yours?"
Zach snorted. "I'm not riding that thing—"
Apollo stomped his foot and swished his tail angrily.
"We need to move fast," Ryland said. "Faster than I'm going to let you push yourself." He looked up at Thano. "Yeah?"
Thano looked at the horse, who snorted and bobbed his head. "Yeah, it's cool with Apollo."
Ryland didn't waste time asking Thano why he was asking permission from a horse. He simply picked up the dying warrior while Apollo went down on one knee, lowering his massive body. Knowing he didn't have time to honor Zach's protests to stay on his own feet, Ryland set him astride in front of Thano, ignoring his muttered resistance. The younger warrior locked a weary grip around Zach's waist.
Ryland realized that Thano looked almost as weak as Zach. Adrenaline flooded him, an urgency to get his team to safety. "You think you can hold him in place?"
"Shit, yeah. Youth is a powerful thing, old man. You forget that sometimes."
Ryland laughed grimly as Apollo stood back up, his well-muscled frame towering above Ryland. They had to hurry. But what about Catherine? Without her, the Order was in trouble. Shit! He quickly assessed his options and came up with the only plan he had time for. He reached out with his mind to Thano. Catherine is hiding in the graveyard. I need to trick her into going to the village so I can grab her there. Follow my lead.
Thano raised his eyes. Deception? I love it. Bring it on.
Ryland nodded, then put on a serious expression. "We have to stay here and find Catherine," he announced, even as his instincts were shouting at him to get his teammates to safety immediately. One minute. That's all it would take to get the ball rolling to make sure Catherine stayed safe while he handled his team. "I know she's in the graveyard." Tell me that Zach's dying and we need to get the hell out of here. Suggest the village to the north. We need to set her up to go there, so we can deal with her after we get you guys fixed. We need her to think we won't be headed there, so she'll decide that is the only place she can go to escape us.
Thano winked, then his face darkened. "You want to stay here and search for her? Fuck the girl, asshole. Zach's dying from the talrak bite. He's our priority, not some woman who we don't even know for sure is the one we're looking for." Is he really dying?
Not if we can get to the vill
age in time to get the antivenom. "We've been hunting her for three weeks," Ryland snapped, allowing his true frustration to show. "We're so close. Another day—"
Thano called out his halberd and had it at Ryland's throat. Despite the weakness of his body, his grip was firm, his weapon steady. "Shut the fuck up, asshole. This is about Zach. We're going to that village up ahead to the north, and we're going to get help. You can hunt the woman after we save Zach." Shit man, this is great. I've been wanting to pull a weapon on you for years. Can I stab you, too? He pushed the tip of the halberd against Ryland's throat, pricking the skin.
You're a pain in the ass. But Ryland was amused by the irony that the most easy-going guy in the Order was playing the asshole. Thano was actually pretty convincing, which was a little weird. Thano wasn't supposed to have that element to him.
Ryland called out his machete, but before he could level it at Thano in what he hoped was a convincing show of men being stupid-ass men, Zach swore.
"No. Thano's wrong. You're both wrong." Zach stirred, and with a flash of black light and a crack that split the night, he called out his sai and leveled it at Ryland's heart. His eyes were still at half-mast, but Ryland felt the press of his mind as he joined their conversation. I couldn't miss out on the chance to call a weapon on Ryland. Why should Thano get all the fun? "Fuck the village," he snarled. "Too many people there know Ryland. We can't risk it. We're turning back, and we're doing it now."
Ryland narrowed his eyes, well aware that Zach's hostility was not completely faked, and that both warriors were too damned pleased to be holding him at the end of their blades. But he made a show of lowering his machete, even though his natural reaction was to take their threat and turn it on them. He wasn't a man who stood down for anyone, and that included a couple of arrogant bastards like them. But he wasn't going to let anyone die on his watch, and this was the only way to do it. "You both are complete bastards," he snapped.
"I'll take that as a compliment coming from the king of the bastards." Zach flicked his sai. "Turn around, asshole. We're going home, and since you're the only one who knows about this talrak shit, you're coming with us. I haven't survived five hundred years of battle to die today. Move it."
Thano's eyes glittered with amusement, and he poked his weapon further into Ryland's neck. "Yeah, start skipping along, old guy. Get your saggy old ass back on that trail."
Ryland narrowed his eyes. You bastards are enjoying this way too much.
Thano grinned. Of course we are. The other guys are going to be so jealous when we tell them what we got to do. Come on, finish it out, Ry. Bow to our greatness.
Zach snorted, and there was no mistaking the pleasure he was getting out of holding a weapon on Ryland.
He glared at them both, and then nodded his acquiescence. "Zach comes first," he agreed, making a show of frustration. "Let's go. I found Catherine once, I'll find her again. We'll circle around. Zach's correct. We have to skip the village."
He gave one last look back at the graveyard, but could not see her, and had no way of knowing if she'd heard the conversation. He needed her to be safe, dammit. He needed her to go to that village where he could protect her. Instinctively, he pushed at her with his mind, even knowing that she wouldn't be able to hear him. Calydons could talk telepathically only with their mates, and with other Calydons. Go to the village, Catherine. You will be safe there.
No answer, and he knew he was out of time. Zach truly was dying, and he had maybe a half-hour left to save him. He'd done all he could. It was time to move on and trust that Catherine would take the bait. If not, he would simply have to hunt her later. "Let's do this," he said. "Follow me. I know the shortest way."
Without wasting time with further conversation, Ryland broke into a run, driving all his energy into sprinting toward the one place that could save his teammates. Apollo's hoofbeats thundered behind him as the beast kept pace easily, despite carrying the two massive warriors.
Ryland bent his head against the branches, not slowing to avoid them.
The final bell had begun to toll for Zach. The time was now. But would Catherine still be around when he got back? Or had he lost her? Tension radiated through him as he ran. There were so many critical components of the Order's future dangling so precariously in his hands. Thano. Zach. Catherine. If he lost them all, what would be left of Dante's vision?
Nothing. It would be the final step in the crumbling of what had once been a legend, and it would be his damn fault.
Ryland sheathed his weapon, lowered his head, and ran harder.
He could not afford to fail.
* * *
How stupid did they think she was?
Of course they were going to the village. And they obviously wanted her to go there as well.
Catherine watched her pursuers disappear into the forest. She'd been riveted by the exchange between the men, by the seething cauldron fermenting inside Ryland, which he'd somehow managed to hold at bay while he'd let the others take control.
She didn't even know him, but it was obvious that Ryland was the man in charge. He exuded a dark power that rolled off him like angry thunderclouds over a vast desert. During the entire discussion about whether to stay or leave, she'd been riveted by Ryland. By the tormented depth of his voice, by the way his hands had twitched with the need to fight back, and by the intense control he'd exhibited to let his men hold weapons on him.
She knew there was no way the others would have pulled weapons on him if he hadn't given them permission. It had been a setup to bait her, clear and simple. Granted, she knew it was true that Zach and Thano were suffering from talrak poison. That much was obvious. And the rest of the exchange? Zach's hostility had been genuine, but she'd sensed a bond between the mounted warrior and Ryland. Something she didn't quite understand, but it had definitely been there.
Ryland was danger and death, but he was also something else, something deeper that had been the bridge that had connected him to the mounted warrior. It wasn't warmth. It wasn't a purity of spirit. But there was something…
No. She couldn't try to find goodness in him. She had to remember that he was the enemy. He was hunting her. He carried death. How, she didn't know. She'd never met anyone like him before. It was fascinating and terrifying at the same time. He'd threatened to take her back to his home, to the Order of the Blade, a thought that made chills of terror race down her spine. If he took her, she would never get to Lucy. She would be trapped, and, dear God, she couldn't be trapped again.
But at the same time, when he'd uttered those words, that promise to keep her safe, she'd felt like her entire world had come crashing to a halt, as if her heart had suddenly begun beating for the first time in her life. He'd sounded so genuine, a man who would lay down his life for her. The promise had been so beautiful, so intense, that she'd wanted to leap out of the shadows and beg for his help.
But she knew too much to fall for that again. She was not the naive fool she had once been. There was no way she was turning herself over to a man who wanted to kidnap her. But even as she thought that, his tormented black eyes drifted through her mind, and her heart ached for the anguish she'd seen in their depths. She wanted to know more about him, and at the same time, she wanted to run away from him as fast as possible.
Her fingers tingled and she rubbed them together, recalling what it had felt like to touch him. Why had she done that? He could so easily have spun around and grabbed her before she could have gotten out of the way. But when she'd seen him standing so close, his shoulders bunched as if he was carrying a thousand burdens in those powerful muscles, she'd been compelled to touch him, to see what she could learn about him.
His coat had been well-worn, laden with stories of the battles he'd been in. So much death surrounded that man. It had caressed her, chasing away her fear and drawing her in. For a brief moment, she'd been lost in his presence, drawn into the aura that was so familiar to her. And when she'd touched his skin...she shivered at the memory. His skin h
ad been so warm, warmer than a man shrouded in death should be. At the same time, it had been velvet soft, as if beneath the rough exterior was a tapestry spun of the softest silk, a thousand colors woven into one rich story of such suffering, torment, and bravery.
When she'd touched him, the gnawing hunger inside her had quieted, almost as if he'd offered her sunlight. She had no idea what had happened, but she now had enough control that she could risk being around people for a little longer, even though it was dark out. Yes, she couldn't take the chance of going to sleep and surrendering herself to the night, but awake would be okay. What had that touch between them done? Would it happen again, or had it been a one-time thing?
Not that she would try. He was too dangerous…and too compelling.
Ryland shouted in the distance, jerking her attention back to the present. Dear God, how had she let herself get distracted by him? She knew better than to think of a man as anything but a threat. God, she knew better.
Wearily, she rubbed her temples, staring in the direction the men had gone. If she had a brain, she'd do as they claimed they were doing, and avoid the village. But how could she do that?
The stone from the map was gone. Her map would be useless if she couldn't find her way to the next mark, a pyre of fire and smoke. Without the stone, she had no idea which way to go.
People who'd lived in the area for generations might know the land well enough to help her. Someone in that town might have the answers she needed. She had no choice.
With a sigh of exhaustion and desperate hope, Catherine slung her backpack over her shoulders and walked out of the graveyard to where Ryland and his team had last been. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Dancing on the air were stories of death. Ryland's stories. His legacy that touched the very core of who she was.
Ryland knew exactly where that village was, and he was going there to save his team. Which meant she had to follow him.
Fisting the straps of her backpack, Catherine began to walk in the direction Ryland had gone, tracking him the same way he'd tracked her: through the fragments of death he left behind. She knew he wouldn't be lying in wait for her. His concern for his team was evident, and he would not stop until he had them safe. But once he did...she shuddered. He would never deviate in his ruthless quest to find her until he had succeeded.
