Edie relaxed in Deuce’s arms, her hand falling to the floor, her head lolling, her life force further away, flickering with indecision. He followed the flickering light to the deepest corner of her mind, feeling Bohdan behind him, repairing ruptured blood vessels in his wake.
Come to me, Edie. He whispered it in her ear, in her mind, keeping his voice calm through sheer force of will. She was so weak. Too weak. The other was draining her.
Now.
She struggled to find the path, her Help me, Deuce a soft plea.
I am here, my heart. He touched his soul to hers, guiding her closer, wrapping as much of her as he could in his hold. You will hold onto me, and you will listen.
I’m listening. Exhaustion imbued the two words with lethargy.
Bohdan is here.
Her withdrawal was immediate. No!
Deuce held her mentally. Soothed her, pulled her back from that dangerous edge. He needs your help.
Why?
Bohdan’s voice crossed his, a calm brush of strength. You hold my mate.
Your mate?
The woman who speaks to you, helps you, is my mate.
You said your mate was dead.
She is reborn.
I hold her?
She took the blow for you. She is injured. Her link to you is all that keeps her here.
Shit.
I do not like you swearing. Deuce gave her the reprimand as a distraction. Edie’s Tough lacked most of its usual force. Her strength was failing.
He shot Bohdan a warning glance. He needed to keep his anguish from Edie. She was not an experienced telepath. She couldn’t filter.
Bohdan nodded his understanding. I need to get to her.
You’re going to tell me you need to mess with my mind, aren’t you?
Bohdan glanced at Deuce. Deuce nodded. There was no way to keep that from her.
She is linked to you. I can only reach her through you.
You could at least sound apologetic about it.
I am sorry.
Deuce.
I am here.
Hold me.
He would, with everything he had, ignoring the Others filling the room, the sounds of battle outside the window. Edie was all that mattered. I have you.
He felt her mental bracing. He shook his head. It will not work like that. If the other thinks you are in danger, she will sacrifice herself.
Oh God, you want me to be calm.
I need you to be very calm, Bohdan inserted.
I can’t do that. Eden’s agony ripped at Deuce. It hurts too much to be calm.
You will trust me in this.
Deuce didn’t know if she would, or could. Their relationship was so new. He’d had so little time with her. It was his duty to protect her from moments like this, not throw her into the middle of them.
Oh, get over yourself. I’m not that fragile.
Deuce touched the gold of her hair, sinking his fingers into the curls. You read my mind.
It’s only fair if you get to read mine.
He caught the frantic rush of adrenaline as she prepared herself, and evened it out.
There was a short pause in which he felt her indecision. What if I fail?
I will not let you fail.
Her fingers twitched on his thigh. He caught her hand in his, bringing it to his cheek as her breath, that precious sign of life caressed his neck. He whispered in her ear, “Trust me.”
She took an uneven breath, her body caught between unconscious and alert, defense and acceptance and then she relaxed. Her mind reached for his, falling open, giving him blanket permission to do with her as he willed.
Go for it.
He did.
* * * * *
It didn’t hurt. Eden opened her eyes, the dragging sense gone, the memory of Pietre heavy on her mind. Deuce was staring down at her, the lines by his eyes the only indication of his worry.
“Jalina?”
“Our daughter is safe. Nick and Marlika have been taken to heal.”
She glanced to the right, saw Pietre’s mangled body and flinched. She turned her head back and caught Deuce’s gaze. “Others like him should come with a warning label.”
“Others like him should not exist.”
“Can anyone else from the Pack or Pride do what he does?”
His lips thinned. “No. He has been altered.”
She closed her eyes, accepting the truth. “By my grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
His lips brushed the back of her hand. “You are not responsible for his actions.”
“But if it weren’t for me—”
“I would not be a happy Chosen.”
She took another quick glance at Pietre. “Is he dead?”
“Yes.”
“Who…” The question drifted off. Deuce brought her hand to his chest. Beneath her palm his heart beat steadily.
“He touched you. Threatened our daughter. He knew the price.”
Deuce had killed him. With great joy it would appear from the blood splattering the walls of the room. “I don’t think he expected to be on the losing end of the deal.”
“He was a fool.” Only Deuce could pack that much disgust into a sentence, reducing something she regarded as fraught with complexity to something so simple.
“If you had zapped him mentally there wouldn’t be such a huge cleanup to do.”
“He was killed according to custom.”
She did not want to know the details. “You Chosen have a ritual for everything.”
He nodded, his hair falling over his shoulder onto her breast, where it pooled in a dark spill. “Yes.”
She glanced at the glistening puddle surrounding Pietre’s head. “For all your longevity, you are a rather primitive bunch, aren’t you?”
Deuce stiffened infinitesimally as a soothing brush of calm surrounded her. “Yes.”
She didn’t fight his hands sliding under her shoulders. “You don’t have to try and shield me, Deuce. It’s not as if I hadn’t already figured that out.”
For the first time ever he didn’t meet her gaze. “You have?”
Did he think it was a well-kept secret? “The first hint might have been when you started with the mate business, then got all feisty because I wore another man’s jacket and the fact that you can’t stand to lose the edge in bed…”
He lifted her against his chest. “I would prefer that you had not experienced that part of me so fully.”
She caught his hair and gathered it into a ponytail at the base of his skull. “The one thing you should understand about humans, Deuce, is that we really get off on emotions.”
“You are not upset at the killing?”
“Are you kidding? That freak hurt Nick and Marlika and tried to take Jalina. Killing was too good for him.”
“Would you like the details of his death?”
She shuddered. “I understand the need for his death but details are not necessary.”
His lips brushed her ear. “You are bloodthirsty…but squeamish?” She suspected that hitch in his breathing was a chuckle.
She nodded, cuddling her cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, breathing deeply of his scent. “We humans are funny that way.”
“I am thinking not all humans, but maybe just mine.” His free hand slipped under her knees.
The emphasis he put on mine did not escape her notice. “Maybe just yours.” If he hadn’t been holding her so tightly she might have missed his stillness at her agreement. She let go of his hair and opened her fingers over his shoulders. “Take me out of here, please.”
Without the slightest of jostling, he lifted her. “You feel well enough to move?”
“Yes.” She could be near death, and she’d feel well enough to be out of here. She kept her eyes on the pulse in his throat, ignoring the darker stains on his black shirt, knowing instinctively what they were, and asked the one thing she feared most. “Did we lose her?”
Dusan shook his head. “No. Bohdan has her.”
“Physically has her?” As impossible as that seemed, she wouldn’t put much past the Chosen after what she’d experienced.
“No. But he holds her life.”
She linked her arms around his neck. “The way you hold mine?”
“No. He has to find her first for that.”
Remembering the desperation, combined with the determination with which Bohdan had torn through her mind toward the woman, she didn’t have any doubt that he would. “What if she doesn’t want him?”
She could easily see Bohdan scaring the pants off any woman with all that intensity.
“She is his mate. There is no choice.”
She didn’t know much about the woman who had been speaking in her head, who Bohdan now claimed was his mate, but she did know one thing—she was not a pushover. “I don’t think that whole mate thing is going to hold much water with her.”
“Bohdan will see to it.”
“Or she’ll see to him.”
Deuce paused and glanced down, his right brow arching in that endearing way. “You fear for him?”
“He has a few likable qualities.”
Deuce’s lips twitched. “No doubt his mate will find a few she likes also.”
If she didn’t kill him before she discovered them. “I hope so.”
A shift of energy in the room had her stiffening. Deuce turned. Dak stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the expanse. His clothes were torn. Blood smeared his hands and the gun he held. Three slashes marred his left cheek. One glance was all he spared Pietre. The disgusted curl of his lip indicated how he felt about the lion’s plans for a takeover. “The invaders have been eliminated.”
From the number of dark stains on his clothing and skin, Eden figured the Others were as primitively ritualistic as the Chosen when it came to dealing with traitors.
“Casualties?” Deuce asked.
“None.” He jerked his chin in the direction of Pietre’s corpse. “The rest were not strong psychics like that one. With the Chosen’s help we were able to defeat them easily.”
Dak said that as if it was over, but Eden knew better. It would never be over. Not as long as Clay Lavery lived.
“He won’t give up, you know.”
“Who?” Dak asked, running his gaze over her. Maybe she didn’t look as bad as she thought because with a quirk of his lips, he relaxed.
“My grandfather. His biological clock is ticking. He’ll just keep creating more and more monsters until he finds what he needs to get what he wants.”
“And what does he want?”
“Immortality.”
“We will not give that to him.” Calm as always, Deuce had given her the answer she’d dreaded.
“I think he just plans on taking it.”
“He is welcome to try.”
Dak shifted the gun to his shoulder, stepped back and motioned two Others into the room toward Pietre’s body. “We will be ready for him.”
There was no getting ready for what a man of her grandfather’s intelligence and determination could create. “You need to just kill him.”
“Not all of his discoveries were evil,” Deuce pointed out.
Jalina. He was talking about Jalina. “Surely your own scientists can find out what he did and recreate it on their own?”
“We cannot risk that they won’t.”
“So you’re going to let him live?”
Deuce nodded, his lips a hard, flat line. “For now.”
Eden tightened her grip on his shoulders. There was one option they were all overlooking. “He might take a trade.”
To her surprise, it was Dak who shot her idea down before Deuce could utter the denial pouring through his body. “We do not trade our mates for secrets.”
“It was just a suggestion.”
Deuce’s grip on her tightened to the point of pain. “If ever the suggestion is made again, you will discover the discipline a Chosen mate delivers to his woman.”
“There’s no need to get huffy.”
“I am not huffy, I am displeased. We will find the solution, but we will not trade the lives of our people for a shortcut.”
Dak nodded. “Agreed.”
“So, my grandfather gets to live.” It did not seem a fair trade.
“On borrowed time, but for now he has a reprieve.”
She arched her brows. “But you do have someone working on it?”
He nodded. “Yes. Many someones.”
She rested her cheek against his chest. “Good. Now, could you get me out of here?”
“With pleasure.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Deuce was gloating. Eden stood on the porch, looking out onto the moonlit yard, Jalina in her arms, and knew it was true. It wasn’t readily apparent to the naked eye, but the man was on an out-and-out gloat fest. He said something to Dak. Whatever he said shocked the Pride leader as his eyes widened briefly before resuming their steady stare. Or maybe it wasn’t what he’d said but the fact that Deuce had been smiling when he’d said it. Eden knew Deuce wasn’t much of a smiler.
Before today I did not have much to smile about.
You still don’t as far as I can see.
I have my daughter, my mate and the trust of each. It is a very happy day.
The ping of resentment that he’d listed Jalina first took her by surprise. Deuce loved her. She had no reason for her insecurity.
Immediately, she was enfolded in mental comfort. I love my daughter, but you are my soul.
Peeping Tom.
His laugh stroked her nerve endings with its note of promise. Later I will peep, now I am just observing.
She stuck her tongue out at him. Dak, who’d followed the direction of his glance, laughed out loud. Eden hitched Jalina up on her shoulder and rubbed her back. As far as she could tell, not much had changed, but to Deuce it seemed as if the world had shifted.
“Your mate is a happy man.”
“Marlika?” She turned, tamping down her shock. “Should you be out of bed?”
“The Others heal fast.”
She must, since Deuce had told her that Marlika had suffered a severe concussion, lacerations to her face, and two broken ribs. All that remained of the lacerations were faint lines where five hours ago they had been gaping wounds. “More benefits of a fast metabolism?”
Marlika shrugged slightly, her right shoulder moving more easily than her left. “Since I was feeling better, I thought I’d see how everyone was.”
She used the word “everyone” but her eyes were on Jalina, and a strange glimmer of energy surrounded her. “Thanks to you, she’s fine.”
“My help was not much.”
Now, Eden recognized the note in her voice and that glimmer. “You are so not going to tell me you’re feeling guilty?”
Marlika’s gaze ducked hers. “I underestimated Pietre, and he almost succeeded.”
“Good God, no one could estimate Pietre.” The Coalition had altered him, making him a strong telepath. Unbalancing his mind in the process.
Marlika touched the soft curls on Jalina’s head, apology in every nuance of her posture. “I should have been more careful.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Marlika flinched and now Eden was the one who got to feel guilty.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve lived with my grandfather my whole life. Even when I had no idea of what he was doing and operated under the delusion that he loved me, there were two things that always stuck out about the man.” She kissed the top of Jalina’s head. “He’s brilliant, and he’s ruthless about getting what he wants.”
Marlika glanced uneasily over Eden’s shoulder. “The Coalition is very determined.”
“They are not as determined as the Chosen,” Deuce said, coming up behind Eden. She leaned back into him as his arm came around her waist. She put her hand over his, holding him to her. She didn’t remember much about her time in that black void, but
she remembered one thing. She hadn’t been alone, and Deuce had been her anchor, keeping her safe. She tilted her head back to see his face. “Tell her she didn’t fail us.”
His hair brushed her cheek as he inclined his head in that arrogant, unconsciously regal way he had. “The Chosen are forever in the debt of wolf Marlika and her blood. We offer our eternal gratitude and protection.”
That wasn’t what Eden had meant. Men were so obtuse.
Marlika didn’t say thank you. She didn’t even seem to breathe. Then she collected herself, and nodded her head, her aura as regal as Deuce’s. “On behalf of myself and my blood, I thank you.”
The words were nice, but Eden knew only one way to express her confidence. “If you are feeling up to it, would you mind watching Jalina while she naps? I need to talk to Deuce.”
The formality left Marlika’s expression to be replaced by shock. “You want me to watch her?”
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re family, and I wouldn’t trust her to anyone else.”
A smile replaced the shock as Marlika reached for Jalina, taking her in her arms as if she were the most precious of gifts. Her smile softened further with the love she felt for the child. She glanced up, her beautiful dark eyes misted with tears. Her “Thank you” was equally damp. “I will take very good care of her.”
“I know you will.” Jalina was the child Marlika never expected to have. She’d almost given her life for her tonight, and would do so again in a heartbeat. When it came to babysitters, there was no one Eden trusted more.
Eden turned in Deuce’s arms as Marlika took the child and headed into the house. “We need to find her mate.”
“Harley has been working on it.”
She touched her finger to the slight dent in Deuce’s chin. “You need to put the Chosen on it full time. I’m not having my daughter’s godmother dying on her.”
Deuce’s hands slid down to her hips. Against her stomach she felt his cock stretch in greeting. “Godmother?”
“It’s a human concept.” She rested her cheek against his chest. Surrounded by his arms, his heart beating under her cheek, it was easy to believe all things were possible. She tilted her head back. “Basically, I have chosen her to be Jalina’s mother if anything happens to me.”
CONCEPTION (The Others) Page 33
