White Fire: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 5

by Michele Callahan

  He understood why they had done it, but could not forgive them, or himself. They had locked him in the cave and put him in an Itaran stasis pod. But they had left him with the stone, this beautiful black rock that held her Mark. The Timewalker’s symbol broke the smooth perfection of the stone’s surface, and he traced it with his thumb now.

  The Shen was an ancient symbol, the Mark of the goddess, a symbol of her eternal protection. Those that carried the Mark on their flesh, the Timewalkers and their Marked Mates, carried her gifts and her blessings. They also served the goddess as warriors of light. The Mark was sacred on all three worlds. His beautiful Angeline had carried the Mark on her breast.

  And this stone had saved his life, had awakened him from the dreamless slumber.

  As long as he held the stone, he could think, he could function and resist the clawing hunger.

  The moment he had risen from his stasis pod, he had summoned the dark and opened a portal to Itara to search for his bride. He was living in his own past, before the battle that had resulted in her death. He’d been determined to find her, to prevent her from dying at the hands of the Triscani.

  He discovered that in this version of time, he could not find her. He was convinced that somewhere she must exist. But the Mark on his chest was gone. His kingdom, gone, ruled by a well-established Queen and her seven circles. He had nothing and no one now, but vengeance. So he’d dressed for battle and taken a sword. He had to be very careful not to ash the bastards, but he intended to cut off a lot of their fucking heads.

  He’d just have to defeat the Hunters here without draining them dry. He couldn’t afford to absorb any more evil into himself, even if it would give him the satisfaction of leaving nothing but a pile of ash behind. If he did that, eliminated even one of them, he’d be lost again. Deranged, trapped in the dark, and ruled by a thirst for death and chaos that he’d have no hope of being able to control. He knew because he had lived seven hundred years wrapped up in that nightmare. One pile of ash could end the world.

  Ajax did his best to ignore the woman and wait. He could feel the Triscani Hunters closing in on his position. He was one of them. He walked in their darkness. They could not hide from him, and he did not try to hide from them.

  Which suited his purposes just fine. It made them easier to kill.

  This time there were three.

  Ajax sent his power out like tendrils through the night, looking for his enemy. Once he tasted their essence, they would not escape. He could track them to the ends of the earth. He could even track them into their own dark kingdom.

  The human female jumped as if something had bitten her and her eyes flew to his laced with panic. Ajax imagined himself to be stone and looked away from her. She grabbed her bag and hurried to the door, which suited him just fine. He had scared her, so perhaps it was best she just went home and hid in her bolt-hole like a little frightened rabbit.

  Ajax lingered, content to wait and draw his enemies to him.

  But they did not come.

  They followed her.

  Ajax left the bar and followed them on foot several blocks to a parking lot. He stopped out of sight and listened to the human’s confrontation with the false King’s favorite pet, Elijah. Two Triscani Hunters surrounded the female while Elijah spoke to her. Shock rippled through his system when she did not back down. Not only did she know what he was, but she stood and bravely faced down three Triscani alone. As he listened, he learned that Eli believed the little human responsible for eliminating seven other Hunters. Her response to that accusation was sarcastic, but he heard the truth behind it. She had killed them. But how?

  Despite his best efforts at self-control, he had studied her petite frame at the bar. She was short and gently curved, but there was not enough room under that sweater or her tight little leather jacket for a sword.

  Ajax crept closer and drew his short sword from its hidden sheath across his back. He’d take Eli first. Eli was the only one of the three bastards who could open a portal and take the female to their master. He leapt when he saw the gun in Eli’s hand, but it was too late. She had been shot and slid down behind her car where he could not see her. The time for stealth was over. He leapt onto the roof of her car and beheaded the first Hunter with one swing of his sword.

  “Eli.” Ajax focused on the unconscious woman’s form, wrapped the energy of the air molecules around her and levitated her body until it came to rest behind him on the ground.

  “Ajax. I thought you were dead.”

  “You were wrong.”

  “Step aside and I’ll let you go. I only want the female.”

  Ajax shook his head. “How about I just kill you and your errand boys instead?”

  Eli looked from the sword Ajax held to the tranquilizer gun in his hand and shrugged. “I believe I'm underdressed.”

  “A coward’s weapon.”

  Eli smiled. “Do not feel sorry for her brother. You have no idea what she’s capable of.”Eli lifted his head, his gaze scanning the edges of the parking lot and surrounding sidewalks. They were beginning to draw attention and humans gathered, some filming on their cell phones, several already speaking with human police. Ajax knew that Eli’s hearing was as sensitive as his own. Human law enforcement would be here within minutes.

  “Leave her alone.”

  Eli stepped back away from the car and a portal opened behind him. “I can’t do that, not if I want to keep my head.”

  Eli disappeared and Ajax turned to the remaining Hunter, ready for a fight. He jumped down from the car and advanced on the enemy. This should be easy enough.

  Two more Hunters stepped from the breach and the portal snap closed behind them. Three.

  They rushed him together, a wave of evil sent to pull him under. He managed to take one head before they were on him. And then he had no choice.

  The Triscani were greedy, and they punctured his flesh with their clawed hands within seconds. The moment they did, they were lost. They believed themselves to be invincible, too strong together, even for an Immortal.

  But Ajax was not a simple Immortal, he was a forbidden son of the Itaran royal line, just as the Triscani were, an Immortal born with the dark gift that allowed him to absorb another’s soul. And the wrenching of an Immortal’s soul from their body was a matter of will. His will had been honed to a diamond’s strength while in his own personal hell…for centuries. The Triscani half bloods didn’t stand a chance.

  He turned them to ash in a matter of heartbeats. Their evil tipped the scales of darkness inside him and the rage, the hate, returned. Ajax rolled onto his side and held out his hands, watched as they turned black as the night sky above him.

  Between his newly darkened fingers he saw the woman lying on her side, facing him. The dark hair that had covered her head lay where it had fallen from her head, and in the parking lot’s security lights, he discovered a fair-skinned angel with auburn hair. He could not leave her lying next to his enemy. He had to ignore the pain in his blood and the madness until he could get her somewhere safe.

  Ajax stood and walked past her. He kicked the Hunter’s body in the chest and forced him several feet away from the female before he lifted her and her belongings into his arms. He ignored the screaming and shouting humans and the sound of approaching sirens. He stared down at her face and tried to reach her mind. He needed to know where to take her.

  He felt her consciousness fight to meet his, to respond. Home.

  With the word came the image of the interior of her loft apartment, and the knowledge that it was very close, just a few floors above him in the nearby building.

  Ajax opened a portal to her living room and stepped through with her in his arms. He looked around the sparsely furnished apartment and wondered how long it would take her body to process whatever poison Eli had put in it. A day? Two? Would she even survive?

  He walked to her bedroom and placed her in the middle of her bed. The evil that boiled in his blood roared like a lion in his skull, d
emanding that he kill her, taste her sweet soul and leave her in search of more.

  He stood over her, staring, warring with the inevitable, fighting the beast within as the swirls of black beneath his flesh consolidated and spread from his hands and legs to his neck and head. He was a Hunter once more.

  If he stayed, he’d kill her.

  Chapter Three

  Emma rolled over in bed and moaned, sure that she had the grandmother of all hangovers. She looked down at herself and wondered how the hell she got home last night. She was lying on top of her bed with all of her clothes still on. Her favorite pair of high-heeled black leather boots were on her feet.

  Her gaze automatically went to the heel of her right boot to admire the tally marks there, her secret trophy case, a notch for every Triscani kill. She looked at that boot every morning and every night to remind herself that she was strong, that she had survived out here on her own, and she didn’t need to be afraid.

  But instead of satisfaction at the sight, her heart raced in fear.

  Oh, God. Hunters. Their freakishly humanlike captain. He’d found her. He’d shot her with a tranquilizer gun.

  She’d expected to wake up in a Triscani dungeon, or worse. Not in her own bed, in her own clothes, with cottonmouth and a headache.

  How had she gotten home?

  She sat up slowly and swung her feet over the edge of the bed, lifted her gaze and froze.

  A Triscani Hunter sat beside her bed, a living statue that watched her with unblinking obsidian eyes. He didn’t move or seem concerned that she was awake. He just stared at her, his expression lost behind colorless eyes. But he was glorious. Naked as a newborn babe. Muscular and solid, with a tapered waist and six-pack abs any male underwear model would kill for. His clothing and boots lay scattered at his feet like trash.

  Naked, but armed. A wicked-looking sword lay across his lap…

  She tore her gaze away from that danger zone and lifted it to study his face. His features weren’t melted like the other Hunters she’d met, but neither was that Hunter captain’s that she’d seen last night. Maybe that didn’t happen to them until they were older? Like zombies on TV? The older they got, the more parts started falling off, or in the case of the Triscani, melting together? Maybe this one was young? Fresh meat.

  She didn’t know what to do. Run? Scream? Try to talk to it? Maybe this Hunter knew why she was hunted. Maybe he knew why their master wanted to talk to her.

  Or maybe she should just burn his ass to extra crispy and make a run for it.

  She couldn't do that, not yet. What if there were ten more of them in her living room? She’d use her fire power, pass out, and get herself killed anyway.

  She could go invisible, use the Timewalker gift she’d inherited from her mother, but that hadn’t worked well in the past against Immortals, Hunter or otherwise. Last night was no exception. If she moved, if she breathed, if her freaking heart kept beating, they could hear her. Humans? Easy to fool.

  If she were far enough away, or if there were a bunch of other humans in the room to mask her presence, only then she could escape an Immortal’s notice. But strolling home last night with high heels on concrete? Or one on one, like this? No chance.

  And why reveal her talent now, when the element of surprise might save her later?

  Assuming she survived this.

  “Take the sword.” His deep voice had her scrambling away from him to the other side of her bed. He just looked at her with eyes so black and sad she couldn’t possibly look away.

  “What?”

  “Take the sword.”

  She approached him, slowly, and slid the sword off his lap. Hilt and all it was shorter than her arm, but double edged blade looked razor sharp. The moment she had it, she retreated to stand on the other side of her bed. What the hell was she supposed to do with it? It probably weighed twenty pounds. She could barely hold it out in front of her, let alone swing it around like a gladiator.

  He stood and turned toward a portal that opened on his left. He paused at it and turned back to face her. She tore her eyes from his freakishly sexy ass and forced herself to listen.

  “Follow me.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “You must.”

  “No.”

  He sighed, and took a step toward her. She backed up, sword up like King Arthur facing a dragon. She wondered what hallucinogen someone must have slipped into her drink last night.

  Triscani Hunters were not sexy. She did not lust after them. They did not stand guard over her like dark angels while she slept. They did not give away their swords. And they most definitely did not stroll naked and magnificent through her bedroom. This had to be either a strange, psychedelic head trip, or a really bizarre dream. Either way, she absolutely was not stepping into through the Hunter’s portal.

  No. Freaking. Way.

  “No.” And since he was her dark dream, she decided to ask him the obvious question. “Why are you here? And why are you naked?” Was he planning on having hot monster sex with her? Seducing her with that stomach and that ass and those abs? And that…

  “Come. Follow me. I will instruct you once we reach the other side.” That was not an answer to either one of her questions.

  “I already told you Hunters no. Not going anywhere.” She shivered. “Why. Are. You. Naked?”

  He stepped back to his previous position and she relaxed, let the sword dip so that its tip rested against the hard wood floor. Her shoulders were on fire and her wrists hurt, but she wasn’t giving it back.

  “I could not stand to feel the ash of my enemies against my flesh.”

  Emma looked again at the array of scattered black clothing and noticed what she hadn’t the first time, dust. It lay in distinct layers on the floor around his clothing. His boots were the worst. Gray ash coated the laces and tongue, turning the black laces and leather a sickly gray.

  “Oh.” She looked back up at him. “And why are you here?”

  “I could not leave you unprotected until I knew you would wake. I feared Eli may have poisoned you.”

  Eli. So that was his name. The captain. The Hunter who had outsmarted her last night. She’d have to remember his name, and avoid him like the plague.

  She understood his disgust, the dirty feeling that coated your skin with the ash, the guilt and remorse that a hundred showers and rose-scented soap never quite washed away. Sad to say, but she knew exactly what he was talking about. Just looking at the ash on her floor brought up bad memories of her own dealings with the stuff.

  Quickly, she looked down at her clothes, at her boots.

  “None of their filth touched you. I was very careful not to touch your flesh.”

  “You’re pretty considerate, for a Hunter.”

  He bowed, the gesture one of obvious self-mockery. “And now, you must return the favor, before I lose control of myself.”

  “What’s the favor?”

  “I need you to lock me in a cage and then cut off my head.”

  <><><>

  Ajax watched the peculiar female’s expression change from curiosity to disbelief, to fear.

  She was right to be afraid. He held on to his control by a thread. He’d watched her sleep for hours, studied the rise and fall of her breasts, the soft lines of her face next to the yellow roses that floated like soft promises stitched into her bedding.

  She’d looked like an angel. He’d reached out five times to touch her skin, to suck her soul dry and leave her just one more pile of ash in the apartment. The monster inside him raged to be fed, insisted that she would be delicate and sweet to his battered senses, a breath of light on his shattered soul. An angel in his personal darkness.

  But each time he’d seen the dark stone of his hand approach her innocent face, he’d pulled back.

  The beast inside would have to subsist on his enemies. He may have lost himself to the dark, but he would not take her with him, he would not pull an innocent, delicate female into hell.

&nbs
p; He’d shed the monsters’ ash, unable to bear the touch of their corruption against his flesh. He’d held the sword across his lap, a reminder to keep his distance from temptation. And he’d realized that there was only one option left.

  If he went out into the world like this, he would feed the beast. He’d consume more souls and leave a trail of ash in his wake. Human? Immortal? Triscani? It wouldn’t matter to him. Not once he started.

  He was blood bonded to his two closest friends, half-blood brothers, Teagh and Bran. If he died, they did too, and they were good men.

  And, as he’d proven again last night, no Triscani could break his will. If turned loose to feed the hunger, he’d be unstoppable. A monster without equal. The worst fear the Itaran Queen could have ever imagined. The reason male children were forbidden in his family line. The reason he’d been born a forbidden son.

  He’d kill them all.

  Unless she stopped him. Unless she helped him return to his cage. Right now.

  “You’re insane.”

  “Yes.”

  That brought her up short. “Yes? That’s your answer?”

  “Yes. If you do not come with me, if you do not help me now, I will be responsible for more death than you can imagine.” He wouldn’t lie or pretend that he wasn’t a monster. He stood before her, completely naked, and told her the absolute truth. “I am Ajax, the Lost King of the Immortals. If you do not stop me, here, now, there is no one in all the three kingdoms who will be capable of it.”

  “Ajax? Your name is Ajax?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, my God.” His sword fell from her loose fingers onto the floor, useless, beside her. “You can’t be one of them. You can’t.”

  “I am what I am, human.”

  “You can’t be. Is there some way to reverse the process? To get back to normal?” She took a step toward him. Stopped. “Oh, God. You were in the bar last night.”