by Mina Carter
Shirts didn't matter. Finesse was lost. Foreplay was gone. All that mattered was that they bind each other. The need surging from Catherine was every bit as fierce as Ryland's, her hands just as frantic as she yanked off her jeans while he ditched his. Then he was on her, thrusting deep, so deep, claiming her, taking her, making her his. She gripped his hair, holding his kisses captive as he thrust, kissing him back desperately, as if she could make everything else disappear.
He felt her soul reach for his, a frantic yearning driven by a need so fierce it made the world spin in frenzied chaos. "Catherine," he growled as he thrust deeper, harder, opening himself to her and drawing her deep within him until there was no way to tell which darkness was hers and which was his. But he knew the light was hers, because there was no light within him. He felt like his soul was alive and glowing, vibrating with freedom and levity, everything he'd never felt before.
He wasn't a fool. He knew it was an illusion. Freedom was not his, not now, not ever, but as God was his witness, in Catherine's arms, he felt like he finally knew what he'd been seeking his whole life—
The orgasm took him with violent intensity, thrusting him into a whirlwind of darkness and light, of good and evil, of lust and desire, of innocence and beauty. Catherine screamed his name, her voice a declaration to the heavens that Ryland was the man in her arms. He joined his voice with hers, bellowing her name, two voices mingling together, denying the existence of anything but each other, their connection and their need for each other…
…until the orgasm let them go, and spit them back out into the reality of their lives.
Into the darkness of the facts.
Into the cold, hard grip of a glittery golden cuff around each of his ankles.
* * *
Catherine felt Ryland's body go rigid, and he jerked back so quickly that he almost fell. "Jesus!" He lunged for his ankles, and she saw six-inch golden bands around both of his legs.
"Oh, my God," she whispered in horror, staring at the metal cuffs that were decorated with the same ancient designs as the one on his chest tattoo. Where had they come from? "It can't be—"
With a roar of anguish, Ryland called out his machete with a crack and a flash of black light and slammed it down onto the metal.
Sparks exploded into the darkness, and she ducked her head as they showered down on them, burning her as they landed. They were real. Not their imagination. Real.
The cuff didn't move, and Ryland swung again, an unearthly bellow filling their cave. "Get away!" He swung again. And again. And again. Until he was in a frenzy, fighting at them. Sweat was cascading down his body. He was shouting, bellowing, screaming at them, swearing at them, and ordering them off his body. His face was contorted, twisted in fear or hate or terror or something else so overwhelming that it had turned him from a strategic warrior into a beast fighting for its life in a battle that would destroy him.
"Ryland! Stop!" She grabbed for his arms, but he tore out of her grasp and swung again. This time, he missed, and the blade crashed into his ankle, tearing apart flesh and bone. He didn't even react to the blow as he reared back to hit again, this time aiming for the painting on his chest.
Dear God. He was going to try to kill the dragon! "Ryland!" Without thinking, she lunged for him, throwing her body over his chest just as he brought the weapon down. She screamed as it came toward her head, and then at the last second, he pulled the blow, the blade slamming into the stone beside them.
He stared at her, his face ashen. "Catherine," he said hoarsely. His hand was shaking, and his face was stark with horror. "I almost killed you."
"No, you didn't." Gingerly, she sat up, trying not to put pressure on his damaged ankle. "You weren't going to kill me." She managed a shaky smile. "But I'm glad you're back."
He dropped his weapon with a loud clatter on the stone and grasped her shoulders. His hands were shaking so badly he was making her teeth chatter. "You're okay? I didn't hurt you? Jesus, for a split second, when I saw my blade coming down toward you—"
"It's okay." She cut him off, trying to head off the anguish rising within him. "It's okay, Ryland. You knew I was there. You weren't going to hurt me—" Her arm began to burn intensely, and she instinctively looked down at it, expecting to see that he had actually cut her, but her adrenaline hadn't let her notice it until now.
There was no cut. It was the brand. The tip of the halberd was filling in, as more thin, silver lines appeared on her arm.
Ryland swore and grabbed her arm. "Holy crap," he said. "The death stage."
"The death stage?" she echoed, unable to take her eyes off the marks as they crawled along her arm. Thano's mark. How was this happening? She didn't understand. She wanted to grab Ryland's machete and carve Thano's brand out of her arm. She felt violated with his halberd on her body. The thought of being claimed by a man she didn't want…her stomach roiled and her legs started to tremble.
"Death is one of the bonding stages. Killing to save the other, or offering your life to save them." He looked at her. "You risked your life to save me."
She shook her head. "I didn't—"
"You did. I almost killed you." His eyes were black, raging with emotions so intense she couldn't even read them. "I'd lost my shit. My next blow would have been to my own chest to make it all stop. I would have killed myself, and I almost took you instead." His black eyes were glistening, and there was a rawness to his voice. "You offered yourself to save me." He spoke the words softly, almost as if he were awed by the concept that anyone would make that sacrifice.
She shifted uncomfortably, the magnitude of what she'd done beginning to dawn on her. What if she'd been wrong that he wouldn't hurt her? What if he had struck her? Would he have killed her? And if she'd died, who would have saved Lucy? Had she really just chosen Ryland over her own daughter? No, no, no. She hadn't. She was right. "I knew you weren't going to hurt me. I knew it." She looked into his shocked face as another question dawned. "If what I did just satisfied the death stage for the two of us, or it would have, if I was your sheva, then why did it make Thano's mark appear on my arm?"
Ryland said nothing for a long moment, and then recognition dawned in his eyes. "When a warrior blood-bonds with another warrior, it can affect their shevas."
Oh…she definitely did not like the sound of that. "How?"
Ryland's face was gaunt and tormented, as if a ghost had just taken him. "I blood-bonded with Thano," he said. "We did it in secrecy not too long ago, so Thano could find me and kill me if I went rogue." He ran his hand over his brow, wiping away the sweat left from his frenzy. "That means that if I do bonding stages with his sheva, it is the same as him doing the bonding stages with her. Bonding by proxy."
A cold chill settled in her spine. "You're kidding."
"No." He moved away from her and grabbed his jeans, turning his back on her. "How many stages have we done? Transference, when you called his weapon. Sex, we took care of. Trust, when each side shares their deepest secret or entrusts the other with their life." His gaze was hooded. "Some of our conversations might have covered that."
She stared at him. "But—"
"And the death stage. Killing a direct and certain threat to the other's life, or offering your own life to save theirs. You just satisfied your half of the death stage, but I haven't done mine." His eyes glittered. "The blood-bond is the only other one left. We haven't done that one yet, but—" He looked at the lines on her skin. "It's close."
She covered her arm. "I don't care what's on my arm. I don't belong to Thano."
"Oh, but you do." He scowled, still trying to grasp what had happened. "You really are his sheva, and I had sex with you twice. Shit." He yanked his pants on, sucking in his breath when his shattered ankle caught in the fabric. "I don't understand this," he said. "I don't understand how I can crave another man's sheva. That never happens. Never."
Catherine felt like she was going to throw up. She was horrified by the idea of belonging to Thano. It was like a noose tig
htening around her throat. But what other explanation was there? Numbly, she fumbled for her pants and pulled them on. "It can't be," she said. "It just can't. Thano doesn't want me, and I don't want him. Don't we have to want each other?"
"It's because of me." Ryland helped her to her feet, and took over buttoning her jeans, the intimacy of his assistance making tears burn in her eyes. "I overshadowed it. I blocked your connection with him. I interfered with how it is supposed to be."
"How? How could you interfere? You just said that Calydons don't covet the soul mates of other males. So, that's not it. There has to be something else—"
"I'm not a true Calydon." His tone was grim.
"What?" She touched his arms, the brands carved into his flesh. "But you are—"
"No." Ryland retrieved her shoes and handed them to her. "I was born a creature of the nether-realm, but when Dante freed me, it created a bond between us that transferred some of our essences to each other. Dante became...darker...and I acquired some of the traits of being a Calydon. The weapons. The mental telepathy. Enough to blend in and join the Order, but I've never been a part of them. Not really. They have no idea I'm not a full Calydon. Only Dante knows the truth, and when he brought me in, no one questioned it." He looked at her. "I'm not a true Calydon, which means I don't play by all the rules. I can covet you, Catherine, even though my own teammate owns you."
Panic tightened her chest, and she started to have difficulty breathing. "No man owns me."
"The sheva bond is a two-way ownership," Ryland said. "He owns you, but you own him."
"Then it's you." She shook him off as he started to argue. "It's you, Ryland. You're the one who is the other half of my soul. Not him."
Regret and yearning burned in his eyes. "The brand doesn't lie."
"Of course it does." She looked down at the cuffs on his ankles, and her heart tightened. "It has to," she said, looking at the already-healing wound on his ankle from when he'd attacked himself to try to escape his bonds. She knelt before him and wrapped her hands around the cuff on his left ankle, looking up at him. "It has to be me, because you need it to be me. You need me to be yours to defeat this."
Darkness flared in Ryland's eyes. "It doesn't matter what I need," he said. "I won't take you from him." Honor was thick and heavy in his words, and he pulled back his shoulders in defiance.
And it was then, in that moment, that she saw the man he truly was. A warrior driven by integrity and loyalty to his team, a man who would give up his life to honor those he had sworn himself to. He might not be a true Calydon, but he was more Order than any other warrior would ever be.
She knew how much he needed her. She'd felt it in the desperation of his kisses every time he'd kissed her, and when they'd made love. Whether or not there had been any risk to her when she'd jumped in front of his machete, there was no doubt in her mind that he would have struck himself in the chest if she had not intervened. He did need her, and they both knew it.
Despite that fact, however, and the grim future that he faced without her help, he was willing to deny his need for her, so he could do what was right. No wonder being enslaved to kill the innocent had nearly destroyed him. He was born to protect, to honor, and to preserve. Somehow, in the midst of this hell, he had been created with more goodness in him than many angels she knew, including herself.
Fierce resolution surged through her, a need to protect him. No way should this man, this beautiful, tormented man, be enslaved and forced to hurt others again.
No way.
Somehow, someway, she had to save him, too, as well as her daughter—
A faint, haunting scream began to echo in the distance, and a thin veil of evil brushed over her skin, the same corrupt essence that had tried to take them both a minute ago. Catherine sucked in her breath and leapt to her feet, her heart pounding. "What's that?"
Ryland turned sharply toward the sound, his muscles tensing. "They're on their way," he said. "They found us."
"Who?"
"Desdria's army. Her connection to me is strong enough now to penetrate this cave. It wasn't when I was a kid, but apparently now things are different. Shit. That's not good." Ryland whirled around and raced toward the wall where he'd retrieved the glowing stone. He passed his hand over the wall, and suddenly a section of the wall seemed to shimmer and vanish, dissolving beneath his hands. "There's no way we can defeat them." He reached inside and pulled out a bag made of a pale silver material. It was glowing slightly, an almost rose-colored blush emanating from it as he shoved it into his pocket. "Our only chance is to outrun them."
"Run?" The area outside the faint glow of their stone was pitch black. What was out there? Tunnels? Caves? Stone? Crevasses? How on earth could they run blindly through there without getting killed?
He grabbed her hand. "Run."
* * *
Ryland locked his hand around Catherine's as he sprinted out of their hideaway into the darkness. The air was thick and suffocating, oozing with noxious bile so impenetrable that it burned his skin. He could feel the hunters descending, closing in from all directions. Their hideaway would do no good if he and Catherine were trapped in it, because the army stalking them could suck all the oxygen out of the area in a split second, rendering their safe spot unviable.
The darkness swallowed the two of them up almost instantly, and he shifted into his preternatural vision, easily seeing the rocky geography that he'd navigated so many times as a child. Catherine tripped, blinded by the darkness, and he caught her. "Come on," he said. "Stay with me." They had to make it to the geyser before the army caught them. That was the only way out of this section of the nether-realm, but it was going to be close.
Catherine tripped again, and Ryland grabbed her. He slung her into his arms and kept running, but his brands burned with warning. There were threats everywhere, and he needed his arms free to fight. But she couldn't see to run. Shit. Catherine. Can you hear me?
No response. If she were his sheva, he would be able to connect with her and guide her, but of course, she wasn't and he couldn't link to her that way—
Then he had an idea. Since Thano could bond with her through Ryland, then maybe Thano could be a telepathic bridge between them. Since he was blood-bonded with Thano, they could connect across long distances, though he wasn't sure whether the nether-realm would block them. Thano. You with me?
No reply. No sense of Thano's presence. Shit!
Something dove at his head, and Ryland stumbled, trying to hold Catherine and free his right arm. He called out his machete with a crack and a flash of black light, and then swung hard. The agonized squeal told him he'd made contact with the bat, but then the whir of wings told him that more were coming. Swearing, he set Catherine down. "Keep running," he ordered her.
She kept going, but fell almost right away, tripping over the crags. "I can't see," she shouted.
Swearing, Ryland opened his mind to Thano again, to the blood of his teammate that burned in his veins. He felt the other warrior's youthful energy, and he honed in on it, searching that vibration for a connection to Catherine, for the warm, beautiful spiritual essence that he knew so well. Catherine. He reached out for her through Thano's bond. "Open your mind to Thano, Cat," he commanded. "Try to reach him."
"Okay." With complete trust in his command, Catherine instantly did as he wanted, and he felt her mind instantly. He was shocked by how right it felt to have her mind in his, to sense her spirit, to feel her so intimately connected to him. This was how it should be. It was perfection.
Success and irritation rushed through him, bitterness that she could bond with Thano so easily, triumph that it had worked. Catherine.
Her shock was palpable, a feminine response that jump-started every protective instinct in his body. Ryland?
Of course it's me. I connected us through my blood-bond with Thano. He had a weird urge to play with the connection, to wander around in her mind, but he had no time. He went straight to business. I'm going to show you the layou
t of the land through my eyes. Trust what I show you, and then run. I'll be right with you, but I need to fight off the visitors we're about to have. He then offered her his sight, and he felt another ripple of surprise from her as she saw through his eyes.
That's incredible. You're amazing. She broke into a sprint, running effortlessly over the uneven terrain as she utilized the vision he gave her, accepting his gift instantly.
Amazing? She thought he was amazing? And she'd trusted him enough to accept his vision without question? Yeah, he liked that. A bizarre sense of satisfaction whirred through him, pleasure thrumming at her compliment. Yeah, well, don't spread the word. I'd hate to destroy my reputation— The first of the bats attacked, and Ryland swung, taking out six of them in one blow.
More and more came, in bloodthirsty waves of poisoned fangs and barbed wings. But he knew their bite and wings weren't the worst of it. They were the eyes of Desdria, spies that would report back to her all that went on in her world.
A group swarmed Catherine, but Ryland couldn't break from his own defense to block them. Call out Thano's halberd!
He felt her acquiesce, and then to his shock, his machete disappeared from his hand and appeared in hers. She let out a yelp of surprise, and then swung it, the weapon performing unerringly for her as it would for any male's soul mate. For a split second, disbelieving hope raged through him that she was his—and then he realized that she was simply accessing his weapon through his bond with Thano. He was closer, so she'd called his instead of Thano's.
The level of disappointment that ricocheted through him nearly brought him to his knees, and he was almost too late calling out his second weapon. He barely armed himself in time to behead a tandem of bats gunning for his throat.
Ryland? What's that noise?
The screaming was getting louder, bouncing off the walls as if a million rubber balls were ricocheting off every surface, hammering at their senses and trying to confuse them. "Come on!" He sprinted up to her and grabbed her hand, giving up fighting off the bats.
