by Julie Leto
Rafe knew he should look away. But as she peeled her snug shirt from her skin, revealing a lacy contraption that buoyed her breasts, the distinction between right and wrong disappeared. Like a man, she wore breeches that reached her ankles, but the fabric hugged her hips and buttocks, with shocking emphasis on the parts of her that were, undeniably, female.
She flicked a button at her waist and, seconds later, shimmied and undulated provocatively until only the lace on her breasts and a sheer scrap of silk cut into a triangle at the apex of her thighs kept her from total nakedness.
Had he a mouth, Rafe knew it would have watered.
He had to look away or douse the room in darkness to preserve the privacy she had no idea she did not have. Suddenly, the lanterns she’d lit upon entering the room flickered, then went out.
“Strike me, what now?” she shouted, frustrated.
She stumbled away and then a light from a smaller room behind her flicked on. Backlit, her body tortured him anew. She was lithe and slim, yet muscled. Her skin glistened as if she’d spent her whole life in the sun.
Despite the wrongness, he wanted to see all of her. The lights in the room came back on. She gasped, eyed the stone warily again, then whispered something to herself that he could not hear, though her uncertainty rang loud and clear. She closed the door to the smaller room with a decisive bang.
Moments later he heard water, as if a rainstorm had started inside the tiny room where Mariah had disappeared. After a while, steam seeped from a gap between the door and the floor. Water? Inside? And how had it heated so quickly? He sensed no fire. Saw no maid to draw a bath.
This woman brought him nothing but confusion and conflict. He had not wanted to leave Valoren. He’d never wanted to know the world outside of his homeland. Unlike his brothers, Rafe had been born in the Gypsy colony, and unlike his sister, who longed to explore, Rafe had never entertained any desire to leave. Now, trapped within Rogan’s magical stone, he had no choice but to go wherever this woman took him.
And added to his torture now was Mariah Hunter herself. She moved with the same sensuality as the wind in a storm, possessing all the same flashes of emotion, the same thunderous desires. Her tempestuous emotions wreaked havoc on his long-dormant abilities to care about the world outside. Long ago, he’d come to terms with his fate—or at the very least, he’d forgotten how to rage against it. What point did fighting serve? No matter how he’d once tried, no matter what he’d lost, he could not free himself from his magical prison.
And yet, until he’d crossed paths with Mariah Hunter, he’d never experienced the incredible pull he suspected would lead him to the outside. All he had to do was surrender. Give in. Trust that submitting would not result in something worse than perpetual imprisonment.
Suddenly, the memory of his first hours trapped inside Rogan’s marker rushed back at him. Pain slashed at his nonexistent innards. He tried to push the images away, but he had nowhere to hide from the anguish, nowhere to run from the guilt.
He remembered little of what happened to him immediately after he’d drawn his dagger to destroy Rogan’s mark on the gemstone embedded in the unfinished gate. He recalled a flash of light, intense pain—and then nothing. Only at daybreak had he determined that he’d been magically sucked inside the stone he’d attempted to destroy, unable to free himself or communicate with anyone who passed.
Unfortunately, the only people entering the village through the unfinished gate were the soldiers. They’d marched in just after dawn, as he’d learned they would when he’d ridden reconnaissance for his brothers the night before. The mercenary army had carried swords and bayonets and shields, as if the tiny community of peaceful Romani would offer resistance. He heard the paid fighters curse the emptiness of the village, endured the sound of the leaders ordering the scouts into the mountains to search the caves. Trapped inside the stone, he could not warn his people—he could not help his wife.
And then she appeared.
Irika.
As if he’d conjured her with Rogan’s black magic—the same way he’d saved Mariah from falling off the cliff—his wife had appeared.
Had he magically summoned Irika to her death? Though his memory was untested, he recalled hearing his wife desperately shout his name before she’d crossed into his line of vision. Why had his beloved, strong-willed wife left the safety of the caves? To search for him? Had she mistaken the marauding army for allies of his father, the former governor, instead of enemies of the Romani clan?
He’d never know. Her calls for him had nonetheless sealed her fate. In seconds, a soldier had captured her, slammed her to her knees and held a blade to her throat while he shouted for his superior. Quickly surrounded, Irika was assailed by questions about the whereabouts of Rogan and the Gypsy inhabitants of the village.
She refused to speak another word, so they killed her.
And there was nothing Rafe could do to stop them.
Suddenly, the thick blackness of the memory pressed in on him like the smoke of a lethal fire. He choked on his rage, on his powerlessness. Irika had died trying to find him. He’d wanted to emerge from the stone and save her from the murdering soldiers, but he’d been unable to move. Squeezed tight inside black magic, he’d pounded against the invisible walls for hours, to no avail.
And then, he’d simply…faded.
His existence since that night had been as uncertain as it was unending. At first, he marked the change of seasons as the snow fell or melted around him, as the birds nested and sang or abandoned the cold climes for warmer weather to the south. But after decades of watching the world go on around him, watching the stain of Irika’s blood fade into the soil, he stopped caring. He slept, unconcerned about the world outside.
Now a strange woman had touched the stone for the briefest instant, and he had to employ all his strength to remain within.
A greater torture did not exist.
A sound from outside the rented room suddenly cleared the darkness. Rafe sensed someone coming near—someone who fed on vile emotions such as hatred, disgust and the kind of frenzied anger that resulted in bloodshed. The rain-like sound from the smaller room had stopped. Mariah emerged, swathed in only a towel, her hair dripping wet, when the door from the hallway burst open. Two men charged inside. Dressed entirely in black, one grabbed Mariah roughly. Her towel dropped in the struggle. Rafe hardly noticed until he saw a silver blade flash against her moist and vulnerable neck.
“Where is it?” the assailant demanded.
Mariah, like Irika, refused to speak. The second man grabbed the stone from the bed and held it against Mariah’s cheek until the gem bit into her skin. Only her anger overrode her terror.
“Thought you could steal from us, did you?” the man asked.
Despite her nudity, Mariah’s topaz eyes flashed with defiance. “I found it fair and square.”
The man with the stone laughed while the other ran his free hand roughly over Mariah’s breasts, then down her belly. Rafe shouted for them to release her. Both men flew away from her, pushed by the magic that entrapped him, by the dark essence that instantly constricted around his soul.
The man holding the stone scrambled to his feet. He stretched the rock away from him, but did not let go. Rafe sensed his conflict. He was terrified of the voice he’d just heard and the force that had pushed him aside, but he was equally fearful of what would happen to him if he did not complete his mission.
The man with the knife climbed to his feet just as quickly, too dazed to recapture her. She slammed her fisted hand against his nose, then doubled him over with a well-placed elbow to the gut. She grabbed his wrist and twisted until his knife flew from his grip, unaware that his partner had raised the stone above her head.
Rafe could not allow another woman to die. He surrendered to the pull. Pressure attacked him from all sides, as if his entire body were being squeezed through the eye of a needle. He couldn’t contain a furious roar when he finally broke free.
He
ignored the dizzying pain and struck out at Mariah’s attacker, throwing the man backward over the bed. His eyes, visible only through slits in a covering knotted tightly over his face, widened with terror.
“Who the hell—”
Rafe turned and watched Mariah crumple the second assailant with a well-placed punch to the jaw.
“Dress yourself,” Rafe ordered, forcing his gaze away from her.
For a second, he anticipated that she might argue, but her nudity demanded attention more than did her shock. She tugged her shirt over her wet skin and jumped into the breeches, then pointed at the dumbfounded man on the other side of her bed.
“That rock is mine,” she insisted.
“He will not take the stone,” Rafe replied, holding out his palm, knowing, somehow, that he could summon his prison back to him with a thought. “Return to me.”
The man cursed as the stone jumped in his grasp. He threw his other hand over it and attempted to pull the rock tight to his chest.
Rafe took a bold step forward and repeated the command.
The stone flew from the thief’s grip and thudded into Rafe’s outstretched palm. The heavy heat against his flesh was unlike anything he’d experienced. In his moment of hesitation, the thief rushed toward him. Rafe waved his other arm and, instead of landing atop him, the attacker flew through the air, crashed against the wall and fell, motionless, to the ground.
Rafe moved to examine the stone again, but his palm was empty. Mariah had reclaimed the marker with amazing swiftness.
“I don’t know who you are,” she said to him, her eyes wide and apprehension rolling off her body, “or what you are, but I think we’d both be better off if we got the hell out of here.”
As she spoke, she scooped her belongings into her bag and tossed her boots over her shoulder.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She pulled up short, her eyebrows arched high above her wide, amber eyes. She swallowed deeply, then gave the now-splintered door a cursory glance. “I’m leaving. Thanks for your, um, help, but I suggest you do the same.”
She had no idea where he’d come from; of this Rafe was certain. And she’d either not seen him summon the stone from the thief’s grasp, or else she was ignoring what her eyes told her was true. After a split second’s hesitation, she left.
Rafe remained behind.
Though the man nearest to him stirred with a moan, Rafe ignored him, focusing instead on the shape of his own hands. Then his arms and legs and chest. He still wore the leather breeches he’d worn that night. His shirt, nearly as dark as his boots, felt damp against his skin and smelled of rain and horse and sweat. He spotted a mirror near the window. Stepping over the unconscious attacker, he stared into the looking glass, shocked at how little he’d changed.
His hair was still black and long. His skin untouched by time.
But before he could form another thought about the resilience of his youth, the stone’s pull yanked him yet again. He flew from the room like bait on a fisherman’s hook and, a split second of darkness later, he was beside Mariah, sitting on a seat inside a carriage made entirely of leather, metal and glass.
“Strike me,” she cursed.
He spied the stone instantly, nestled between her legs. Her left hand gripped an odd wheel while her right twisted a key into a tiny lock just below it. A roar erupted, and he tensed in response.
‘What is that sound?” he asked.
“Your cue to get the hell out of my car,” she replied. “Look, thanks for helping me out back there, but I can handle myself from here on out.”
Rafe took a chance and grabbed her wrist.
“Hey,” she protested.
“I cannot leave you, my lady.”
“Wanna bet?”
From beneath the seat, she withdrew a pistol. He’d never seen such a design before, but he had no doubt the weapon was deadly. He released her and held his hands up in surrender.
“I have no wish to harm you,” he said.
“I have no wish to be harmed, so this should go real easy. Get out of my car.”
He glanced around. So, this thing was called a car.
She used the gun to gesture toward a handle in the door. “Now. I don’t know who those guys were in my room or how they found me, but I’d like to avoid tangling with them again.”
“A wise plan of action,” he agreed.
“But I don’t know you, either. So if you don’t mind…”
With an indulgent grin, he attempted to twist the handle, then figured out that pulling it toward him released the latch. He pushed open the door and climbed out. He had no desire to be shot, though he highly suspected that while she possessed Rogan’s stone, leaving her was not an option.
His theory was tested immediately. The moment he was out of her car, she somehow made the wheeled contraption move. A screech not unlike the caw of a massive hawk echoed against the walls of the odd stone building. Red lights blinked from the back of the vehicle, which drove down a ramp and disappeared.
He looked around. The structure housed rows and rows of these so-called cars, though none of them seemed engaged at the moment. How amazing these modes of transportation were, requiring no horse to pull them, as far as he could see. Just as he was about to investigate a nearby vehicle, the blackness captured him once again, and this time, when he opened his eyes, he was not unprepared to find himself beside Mariah as she sped down the road.
She, however, swerved in surprise, initiating a spin that convinced Rafe that if he hadn’t died centuries ago, he might soon enough.
Five
Mariah squeezed her thighs together, determined not to lose her hold on the damned stone even if she crashed into the telephone pole she was using all of her driving skills to avoid. She eased off the brake and allowed the car’s momentum to carry it through a full rotation before she applied measured pressure to the pedal and counterbalanced the steering so that they went off-road, but missed hitting anything.
Once she had the ignition off, she scrambled for her gun again. Unfortunately, the spin had dislodged it from under her seat. She was unarmed and vulnerable to someone who’d just appeared out of the ether.
Maybe he wasn’t the crazy one?
“Who are you?” she demanded. “How did you get back in the car? What do you want with me?”
For all his swarthy good looks, her mysterious rescuer suddenly looked a bit green around the gills.
“Is this how men travel now? In devices that make one ill? I much prefer a horse.”
“Typical Texan,” she muttered, reaching farther beneath her seat for the gun, finding nothing but a fast food wrapper that was likely over a year old. The last time she’d used this car—a getaway vehicle she’d kept stashed near the airport in case she needed a quick set of wheels—her main ride had been in the shop.
She gave up trying to find the gun. She had a strong suspicion the weapon wasn’t going to deter him. She could no longer deny that he had arrived from nowhere. For the third time. The first two times she’d written off his sudden appearance as a product of her attention being diverted elsewhere. This time, that explanation did not apply.
“Damn it, who are you?” she asked again.
He swallowed thickly, and when he turned, the nauseated look on his face had disappeared. His skin tone had returned to a healthy, sun-kissed complexion reminiscent of the men she’d met in Egypt—though not quite as dark. Set in perfect balance beneath thick lashes, his eyes were a startling gray. His mouth curved into a smile that might have stolen her breath under other circumstances.
“Rafe,” he replied. “My name is Rafe.”
She cursed inwardly as his mellifluous voice rode roughshod over her frazzled nerves. This Rafe was utterly hypnotic—like a living, breathing pendulum.
“Rafe what?” she snapped, determined to ward off any attraction. So what if he’d come to her rescue in the hotel room? Another minute or so and she would have taken control of the situation—though
she had to admit that without his intervention, she might not have gotten a spare minute at all.
He eyed her quizzically before finally replying. “You require a surname? Forsyth. Rafe Forsyth, son of John, Earl of Hereford.”
“You don’t sound British,” she decided. Though the inflections of an accent tinged his words, his manner of speaking was more exotic.
“You do,” he said. “Sound British, that is. Only…not.”
“I’m Aussie by birth,” she explained. “American by living arrangements.”
“Aussie? American? I do not understand. Where am I?”
“Don’t you know?”
He leveled an impatient glare at her. “If I knew, would I ask?”
“You’re in Texas, in my car, where I did not invite you. In fact, this is the third time you’ve shown up, and I don’t even know…”
As she stared at him, she realized she’d seen this man before. In her dreams. On the plane. Kissing her.
“You need to leave now,” she insisted.
“I cannot,” he replied. “You have tried twice to rid yourself of me, but I am bound to you for as long as you possess that cursed stone.”
She glanced down at the rock, still clutched between her legs. “What are you talking about? Look, I don’t have time for this.”
“Time is not your problem, my lady.”
“What’s up with the ‘my lady’ crap? This isn’t the seventeenth century.”
“I should hope not, as I was born in the century following. But the fact of the matter is, that bauble you retrieved from Valoren has possessed my soul for quite some time, and from what I can tell by the events of this evening, as long as you have it with you, you have me as well.”
He crossed his arms over his chest—a rather impressive chest, she could tell, as the ties on his midnight shirt had come undone, allowing her a generous sampling of his tanned muscles beneath. With squared shoulders and forearms whose lean tendons were obvious even through his sleeves, the man looked like no stranger to physical activity. And while Mariah was no slouch when it came to self-defense, this guy could probably break her in two with very little effort.
