Darkness Unbound

by Zoe Forward

  “You IDed him like a goddamned dog? Why would you do that?” Ashor demanded.

  Astrid said, “He was on my team. He was at risk. I took steps. He didn’t seem to mind. We can remove it at a later time, if he sees it as a problem. Kira said it was okay.” She hated being defensive. How could he question what was now a brilliant decision?

  “Kira was in on this?” Ashor yelled.

  “Don’t you guys talk about anything?” Astrid asked. She took a step toward him. “Maybe you’re too busy doing…other things?”

  Ashor’s face colored red.

  Astrid bit her lip against laughter. “Right. So, assuming whoever took them is on their way back to Hashishin headquarters in North Carolina, we need to plan to get them out of there. We know this is to bait us into confrontation. Scott, did you get the schematics on the Hashishins’ place downloaded from my file before the Company locked it?”

  Scott nodded.

  “Well…let’s see ’em.” Astrid crowded close to Scott. He pulled up plans she’d memorized weeks ago when they’d first entered the place to get Cy out. She mumbled. “The place will be on high alert.”

  Kane asked, “Is this the same place that they took you? Where they tortured you? Sounded like that center was destroyed?” He moved in close behind her.

  “No. I wasn’t in North Carolina. I think they’ll go home. To Asheville where they held Cy.”

  “If they get a sniff of us there, they’ll probably kill the two of them. Can you portal in close?”

  Astrid bit her lip. “Last time didn’t they put up an invisible magikal wall? What if there’s some other magikal force field or something over the place? Who knows what it could do to you guys.”

  Ashor cleared his throat. “And to you. We should expect another warded protection shield or worse this time.”

  “It’s probably safer to portal into the periphery and then you guys do whatever you did last time to get the wall down,” Astrid suggested.

  “We beseeched a god,” Dakar said. “I think it unlikely any of them will respond again.”

  “They might respond to you,” Ashor said, eyeing Astrid.

  Astrid met Kane’s gaze. “Maybe. I haven’t exactly asked for any of them to appear. They just do.”

  Kane announced, “We’ll work on the god situation, if we need to. In the meantime who’s going on this?”

  Ashor nodded at Astrid and Kane. “You two go. Take Dakar and Khyan. The rest of us will stay.” His eyes met those of Khyan for a moment. Quietly he added, “We cannot afford to lose all of us over this, should Djoser pull out a whopper surprise again. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry,” Kane said. “We got this one. This time he will go down.”

  ****

  “Hold up,” Kane called to Astrid as they exited the conference room. He gripped her wrist and pulled her into an unfamiliar room on the first floor. The click of the door’s lock sliding into place echoed through the unfurnished room. He hoped the brown and yellow flowery seventies curtains were remnants of the house’s previous occupant. Even he couldn’t imagine any of the other guys having taste that ran that far south of poor.

  Astrid crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not doing this again, Kane. I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for years.”

  He stalked toward her. Her rebellious scowl pushed his need to claim her into the stratosphere. After a throat clear he said hoarsely, “I know you can. And I…shit...” He blew out a long sigh. “That’s not why we’re in here. Your protection will always be my top priority. You can bet your ass if you do insane again that I will do…whatever I must.”

  “Then, why are we in here?” Her eyelids drooped and her eyes slid to his lips.

  “Don’t do that.” His body lit up with need to answer that invitation. He wanted to kiss her and then slam so deep inside her that she’d be screaming his name within seconds. After a good mental shake he said, “With us going into God knows what that’s guaranteed to be…hell, I don’t know what to expect. This has been a non-stop funfest of whacked since it started. Who knows what’s in store for us. But, I need you to know…” He swiped a hand through his hair. “Shit, this is tough. I’m just going to lay it out there. You’re it for me.” He chanced meeting her gaze, uncertain what he’d find, half certain she’d butcher his heart.

  Her hand snaked around his neck, slowly reeling him in. He barely caught her whisper. “Same here.”

  He said, “It’s been that way since we first met. Since you first waggled your toned ass at me and told me you were in charge of my team.”

  “I never waggled.” She pulled him close, angling for a kiss.

  He snorted. “Oh, yes, you did. You made sure I looked.”

  Her head snapped back. She grinned. “Maybe I wanted you to look. Your this-is-my-show attitude irritated me.” When her warm lips pressed against his, pressure splintered his skull.

  He gripped his head. And stepped away from her. Images and memories flooded his brain. They weren’t his recollections, or were they? He remembered his mother’s stiff dead body while he knelt on a dusty floor surrounded by the stench of human refuse. But his mother was blonde, not dark haired, and she’d died in a hospital. That wasn’t his mother, but it was.

  From far away he heard Astrid yelling his name. He fought beyond the images to get to her voice. He focused on her beautiful face with her aquiline nose and long pale eyelashes. He recalled her tearful gaze from long ago, another first-time moment when he’d been summoned forth, however inadvertently as he later discovered. And some shit named…Colin. Who the hell would cheat on this woman? Back then he’d been Zannis. His visit with Amun-Ra replayed as if it’d been yesterday, which it almost had. He remembered what he was, his parentage, and about his son.

  Everything in him stilled as the pieces of his past and present shuffled into order. He slid to a solid ass plant on the floor and lowered his hands from his face.

  She knelt in front of him and wiggled between his legs. “Talk to me. I can’t get into your mind right now. This is freaking me out, Kane.”

  He moved nothing other than his eyes and scanned around the room until his gaze fixed onto her. “I remember.”

  “What does that mean? You remember what?” Astrid bit her lip.

  She was worried. More than worried, she was shaken. He lifted the emotion from their mental connection. “I remember him or should I say me. Zannis. His entire life. My life. All of it.”

  “You remember him?” Astrid blew out a ragged sigh. Her cheeks turned an amusing shade of dark red. “All of it?”

  He traced a finger across her lips. “Every second of that night he got with you. Hell, I don’t get this. I feel like there’s another person in my head, but it’s not another. It’s me. Only not me.”

  “Oh.” Then she rushed to add, “I didn’t know you then, Kane. I mean, I didn’t know you as you are now. As Kane.”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just saying, I remember all of Zannis’s life. I swear we’re going to have more than one night and a few stolen moments this time around. There’s so much I’m going to do to you.”

  She gasped. Her lips parted.

  He couldn’t resist a taste. He wove his hand through her hair to cup the back of her head, and took advantage of her parted lips. She leaned into him, her puckered breasts pressed tight to his chest. He was so hungry for her that it was all he could do not to rip his zipper open and yank off her pants. Then he’d be inside her. He devoured her lips in a way that was probably too hard, too possessive. But he didn’t care. The chemistry between him and this woman was damn near incendiary. Her soft moans detonated any hint of self-control he had where she was concerned.

  Her hand lowered the zipper before he could get there, probably picking up his need off their mental pathway, or maybe she was just as desperate for him.

  Raggedly Astrid moaned, “I need you, Kane.” She rolled away to kick off her pants and underwear. She needed this fast, before he
changed his mind and became serious. She suspected he wasn’t done talking. She liked what he’d said so far, but feared what came next. His typical MO was business first. She’d take advantage of their attraction before he turned rational. She needed to bind him to her. Then perhaps he wouldn’t talk about anything painful. And wouldn’t consider doing something reckless that might land himself in the afterlife. All she knew right now was that she couldn’t wait to have him.

  Seconds later she spanned her hand around him. He wrapped his large hand around hers where she held him, and stroked. “Bella…damn...” Her thumb swiped over his head. He tugged her hips over him, forcing her hand to release. And held her suspended. He was right there. His thick head poised below where she was aching for him. He grinned at her.

  “Come on…please?” she begged.

  He released her hips, thrusting deep inside.

  She gasped. He paused while her body adjusted to his presence. Then she squirmed to get him to move.

  He clutched her hips, anchoring her. His gaze fixated on where their bodies were joined. So sexy. She curled her nails deep into his shoulders and clenched him with her internal muscles, willing him to move.

  He answered her with a groan, and initiated a brutal pace. He used his massive thighs to hammer his hips upwards. Hard. Insistent. She moaned long and low. His finger moved to that sensitive nub and caressed. “Tell me you love me. Admit it.”

  “Damn you, Langford.”

  He rubbed harder and pounded mercilessly. “Tell me.”

  She swallowed a scream as she approached that cliff over which she desperately wanted to swan dive. “This is extortion.”

  He pulled his finger away from her. “I want to hear you say it,” he said before a hard thrust.

  Breathlessly she asked, “You’re serious?”

  One hard thrust sent sparkles flaring across her vision. He said, “Fuck, yeah, I want to hear it.” He threw her a sexy grin. His thumb rubbed again.

  She moaned, “I love you.”

  “That’s better.” His thumb halted its torture. He angled her pelvis to hit that just-right zone. A few hard thrusts and her massive free fall hit, shattering her mind into a million stars.

  “Oh, Bella,” he whispered hoarsely. He slammed her down on top of him several times, and erupted deep inside her. As their bodies stilled, he cradled her against him.

  Her head fell onto his shoulder. He stroked the hair off her face and ran a hand over her stomach. “I’m good with this.”

  She whispered, “Really?”

  His hand moved back to her abdomen to rest there. “I understand the situation a bit better with Zannis’s memory. This child is ours. Amun-Ra promised to protect him.”

  “You talked to Mr. Blue-hair about this?”

  He chuckled. “I don’t think he’d like being called that. Zannis spoke with him, although I don’t think Amun-Ra wanted you to know he approached him.”

  “Why not?”

  “The gods like to think they’re doing everything on the sly—manipulating behind the scenes. To do that they need to believe their meetings are secret.”

  “I got that from them.”

  “His promise reassures me that you should survive whatever is coming against Djoser.”

  “What about you? You must survive too, right?” She squirmed to get more of her body in contact with his, and buried her face in his neck, filling her nostrils with the smell of his sweat and subtle aftershave. She could stay here, in his arms, forever.

  “Who knows. Now that I have full recall of how to fight that daemon, and our history, things are balanced heavily in my favor.”

  “I won’t…keep going without you. He kicked Zannis’s ass last time. Well, yours.”

  “Maybe he did, or maybe I let him.”

  She pushed away from him. “You did suicide yourself. Cy was right?”

  His eyes darted away.

  “Cy told me that there’s no way Djoser could’ve bested you, if you’d brought the dragons into the fight. Is that true?”

  He whispered, “With the dragons I’ve never lost. They’re of the gods’ world, which mean they trump almost everything in this realm.”

  “Oh, God. You did suicide.” She listened to him breathe with her ear pressed tight to his chest. “Why?”

  “A god who is my father asked me to do what was best for you.”

  Her heart squeezed. “Amun-Ra has been manipulating us from the beginning. Half of me hates that you suicided. The other half of me is…crap, this sounds so bad, but I wanted you as Kane. It was tearing me up to want both of you but feel guilty about wanting you a bit more as you are now in my time.”

  Kane chuckled. “You got both of us. Amun-Ra knew what he was doing, even if it sucked. Like you, I’m also of full-blood god-descent. Reincarnated now.”

  “Really?”

  “I didn’t know until Amun-Ra spoke with me. I’m not sure what it means at this point since I’m in a new lifetime.” Kane’s phone dinged.

  She mumbled, “We’re probably being ordered to work again. Damn it.” She traced the contours of his chest through his T-shirt. “If we live through this, then there’s nothing that will stop me from getting you on a beach.”

  “We’ve been talking about it for a long time.”

  “Never seriously. Right now, I am dead serious. I want you half dressed on a beach.” She smiled against his chest.

  “I’m not wearing a speedo.”

  “Oh, hello, no. I don’t want the other girls seeing that much. I see you in a sexy pair of low-slung board shorts.”

  He chuckled. “We better shower and get moving. Let’s deal with Djoser and see what he’s got up his sleeve other than a snake. And see what new shitfest sending him to the afterlife incites.”

  “You don’t think this is a straightforward daemon execution?”

  “Hell, no. There are too many gods involved in this.”

  She giggled. “And goddesses.”

  “That too,” he added with a grin. Kane shifted to pull his cell out of his pants and glanced at the screen. He cursed. “They got confirmation from Djoser that Hashishins have them.” He looked up at her. “Fast shower. Then food on the run. You think you got another portal in you today?”

  “I feel good. Recharged. But food is mission critical.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Astrid looked sexy as hell when she pulled her damp hair up into a ponytail. Kane pushed a PBJ across the kitchen counter at her. Flashes of what they’d done together in the empty room had him wishing he’d joined her in the shower. And for roomier cargoes.

  She bit into the PBJ and moaned her delight. She smiled at him with a warmth that melted his soul. This woman was the start, finish, and all for him. Forever. The thought of what they were about to do, to attempt to battle, released a font of stomach-grinding, chest-gripping emotion that he didn’t immediately identify.

  Fear.

  He’d accepted death as a reality for years. He’d watched too many friends have their chains snapped with near-misses, almosts, and that’s-all-folks. Now facing the thought of never exploring the depth of that warmth in her eyes terrified him. He’d had a few ass-clenching moments with Astrid and her reckless need to be the one that took the bullets for everyone, but out of self-preservation he’d never braked his life long enough to allow himself to recognize what was in his heart.

  He smiled at her.

  “What?” she asked as she reached for a second sandwich.

  He shook his head. Funny how infinitesimal moments like this were the sum total of the meaning of life. He reached for her hand and squeezed.

  She returned the squeeze. “Don’t worry.”

  “Can’t help it. You’re everything to me.”

  “Stressing over details is your forte.” She slid around the counter and wedged herself between his legs. Her hand caressed the bulge between his legs. She brushed her lips against his.

  He licked her lips. “Mmm. Peanut butter. If you keep
this up, we’ll never get going on this mission. There are lives at stake.”

  “There are always lives at stake. Right now my sanity is at stake.” She laughed low in her throat and caressed him again. “I love how big you are. Have I told you how deep you go in me? Very deep…sooo nice.”

  Fuck.

  “I heard that. Sounds like a perfect idea,” she said before she brushed her lips against his again. “How long you think we have before we must go?”

  “Not long. In fact…”

  “Good. I finally found you guys. We have to do this. Now!” Khyan announced from the kitchen doorway. “Dakar is cranked up, and I can’t take him exploding on me again.” Khyan rubbed his now-healed nose.

  Astrid groaned and banged her head against Kane’s chest. She thought to him, I want a week. No disruptions. You. Me. No clothes.

  It won’t be long enough, he thought.

  It’ll be a start, damn it.

  She pushed away from him and faced Khyan. Kane marveled that her face didn’t reveal even a hint of the inner turmoil he detected. She was locked down and in business mode. God, this woman was incredible. Now if only he could smother what she’d started. He pushed to a stand. Walking was going to hurt. A lot. He thought to her, Remind me to get you this jacked up and then force you to turn it off.

  Her head slow turned his way. Her eyelids drooped and her gaze slid southward. You think I’m not in pain?

  God, he wanted this woman. He thought to her, Djoser doesn’t even need to kill me. You are going to single-handedly do me in.

  She laughed. “Let do this, Khyan.” She thought to Kane, Then you and me. Alone.

  ****

  Astrid landed knee-first at the edge of the dense foliage surrounding the northwest corner of the Hashishin headquarters’ main building in Asheville. The tip of the sword at her back whacked the ground. The hilt bit deep into the skin between her shoulders. She adjusted and scowled at Dakar who smoothly adjusted his blade to avoid pain as he knelt next to her. A smile flickered across his lips, but he was smart enough not to comment.