Eternal Nights

by Patti O'Shea

  Kendall tried to find more words, but her mind went blank. She could do nothing save stare at him expectantly. He wouldn’t abandon her. If she had faith in nothing else, she had faith in that.

  Perhaps some small part of her, however, had hoped he would be elated at the news. Perhaps that part was mourning that he did not share the happiness that had grown in her since she’d first learned of her condition. Perhaps she had fantasized that he’d draw her near, excitement in his voice as he expressed his pleasure at becoming a father. She could not blame him for his reaction; she could only castigate herself for expecting more.

  His hands tightened around hers once more. “You’re certain?” Kendall nodded. “How is it possible?” He shook his head before she could speak. “I know you’ve taken precautions so this would not happen.”

  Heart in her throat, she explained, “The healer who provided me with the powder died. Natural causes,” Kendall added what once would not have needed to be spoken. “I had to be careful whom I approached next, lest our secret be revealed. The time without the elixir was but days. We should have been safe.”

  “How far along are you?”

  Wyatt’s countenance had become unreadable, his voice flat, and Kendall had to struggle for an even tone. “Two lunar cycles. I believe I conceived the night of the Covenant Circle.”

  He nodded jerkily. Covenant Circle was one of the holiest of days. That night he’d come to her chambers and had reached for her over and over, unable to slake his need. It was only later he’d admitted he’d been part of the patrol that had found the bodies of the missing children—thirteen of them, all brutally slain.

  Abruptly, Wyatt surged to his feet, striding back and forth across her bedchamber. Kendall wrapped her arms around her waist, hugging herself against the pain washing through her. He’d never spoken of wanting children. Always, she’d assumed it was because she couldn’t give them to him, but that might have been an incorrect belief.

  “The timing is not good,” he told her.

  “I know, but there is no good time for a High Priestess to become pregnant.”

  He crouched before her, cupping her face between his hands. “I’m aware of that. I meant that the timing isn’t good because we cannot leave the city now, not when everyone who does meets their death. Were circumstances different, we could run off tonight and raise our child in the wilderness.”

  Hope crept into her heart. “You want our babe?”

  Fiercely scowling, he told her, “Of course I do. You doubted that I would?”

  Leaning forward to close the distance between them, Kendall said, “I thought that you would be happy, but when you acted as you did, I was uncertain.”

  “My love, how many times have I pleaded with you to leave with me, to live outside the city?”

  “Many.”

  “If my reaction was not what you wished for, I apologize. My unhappiness isn’t that we’ll have a child; nothing could bring me more joy. The difficulty is this killer.” Wyatt released her and returned to the settee, then gathered her on his lap. “We cannot leave the city; we’d be dead in short order.”

  Kendall nodded.

  “And yet we cannot allow anyone to discover your pregnancy. The proscribed punishment for an unchaste priestess is banishment, and at this moment, that means certain death.”

  It meant more than that. Their book of laws set out that the man who defiled a priestess be flogged in addition to being banished. Given the situation, they could ill afford Wyatt to be incapacitated. Not that anyone, even the brawniest of men, had survived the killer outside their walls.

  She wanted to tell him of her loss of power, but Kendall could not. She had already broken her vow of chastity; she would not break the one of secrecy as well. “I can hide my condition for a time. My robes are loose-fitting.”

  “What of your attendant?” He rested his hand on her belly, his fingers circling over where their child lay.

  “I rarely allow her to dress me. If I were careful to always be robed when she arrived, it might work.”

  After a slow kiss, Wyatt said, “If you could conceal the babe until the murderer is caught, we can leave the city once it’s safe. I identified a spot that offers fresh water, plentiful food, and is protected from the worst of the elements.”

  That gave Kendall pause. “You chose this spot cycles ago, did you not?” she said slowly. “Before you asked me to leave the city with you for the first time.”

  She didn’t need his nod to know she was correct. If only she’d gone with him then, how different things might be. Except if she’d done this, they might have been the first victims of the fiend hunting their people.

  “We’re agreed then?” he asked. “We’re leaving as soon as the killer is caught?”

  “Yes,” she assured him, settling her head on his chest. “And I’ll make certain no one discovers I carry your child.”

  “It won’t be for long. With the entire City Guard working to capture him, surely it will be less than another lunar cycle.”

  Kendall nodded, believing in his judgment. “I trust you, and I love you with all my heart. Never doubt it.”

  For the first time since shortly after his arrival, Wyatt smiled; she felt his lips curve against her temple. “I don’t. And don’t doubt that I love you, as well as our babe. I promise to care for you and our child, to do whatever I must to ensure you’re both safe—always.”

  *** *** ***

  Kendall intercepted another glance from Wyatt and sighed. He’d been checking on her throughout the day, but so far he hadn’t asked about her preoccupation. She had a lot to think over. That dream had left her unsettled. Embarrassed.

  They’d discussed spouses and children yesterday, so it wasn’t a huge stretch to explain why she’d dreamt about carrying his baby. But good reason or not, just thinking of it was enough to make her face go hot. Her only consolation was that he couldn’t read her mind, because if Wyatt ever found out, she’d die of mortification.

  Logic, however, didn’t account for everything, and that’s what left her uneasy.

  Lucid dreaming.

  She’d heard the term, but she’d never before experienced it. How cool was it to recognize that she was dreaming while it was occurring? Yet it was so eerie to remember nearly every word, every action, every emotion in last night’s episode.

  There were a few other things that left her nervous. For one, Kendall now realized that she’d been this other woman in every dream she’d had since they’d been trapped inside the temple. She hadn’t noticed at the time, but the certainty was deep inside her. It had been the same with the man who was Wyatt, yet didn’t look like him—he’d been in all but one vignette with her as well. These dreams were clearly more than some kind of nighttime entertainment.

  Her palm started to tingle, and Kendall guessed they were approaching a spoke of hallways. As they turned the corner, she discovered she was right.

  “Which way?” Wyatt asked.

  Kendall grinned up at him, amused that he’d asked her despite her record of choosing dead-ends. “I like the corridor at the one o’clock position, so we should probably pick any other hall.”

  Wyatt returned her smile and said, “You definitely have a point. Eleven o’clock?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Once they’d gone far enough that her palm stopped buzzing, she returned to her thoughts. What if her dreams were a spontaneous regression to a past life? Maybe she was only thinking that because they’d discussed it so recently, but it made sense.

  How many times did a person pick up the same dream at a later point? She’d bet almost never. Yet Kendall had gone through incidents in this woman’s life as if she were hitting the highlights—sort of an abridged biography.

  It also explained why she’d looked different, even though she knew it was her. Past lives, different bodies—it made sense. The very thought was enough to give her heart palpitations. Kendall didn’t want this to be a past life. If it was, it meant tha
t Wyatt had been her lover then, and the argument could be made that he was her soul mate. She cringed away from the thought. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.

  The notion of a soul mate was a bunch of bull, some fairy tale that ruined lives. The pursuit of a soul mate meant losing her latest uncle. It meant watching her mom cry, and listening to her warnings never to fall in love. It meant moving, a new school and new friends.

  Almost everything she dreamt could be explained from the events going on around them now, and if she had her dream dictionary with her, Kendall would bet that the elements she didn’t have reasons for would be cleared up as well. She was simply being fanciful. Nothing more.

  With determination, she forced the dreams from her thoughts. She needed to keep her mind on practical matters like what to say when they got out of here and approached Sullivan. Since the colonel would be leery if they came across like a pair of raving lunatics, she’d have to remember to stay calm while she made her report. Kendall couldn’t afford to be rattled, not by events and not by the man himself. The Big Chill. Yeah, the name fit Sullivan perfectly.

  If she didn’t want to think that far ahead, there were other sensible things to consider. Food, for instance. They’d had little to eat for six days, and absolutely nothing for the past two. The body could go a surprisingly long time before things became critical, but she knew her own strength and stamina had begun to diminish.

  Kendall had her hair clipped back so it didn’t touch her face, but she hated that it was so stringy and greasy. Both her body and her uniform stank. Her only consolation was that she’d spent the money to have some of her body hair permanently removed, and she didn’t have to worry about stubble anywhere.

  Of course, Wyatt wasn’t any better off than she was, but he still looked good with a bristly beard and dirty hair.

  At least she’d had a few hygiene items in her bag. They’d been able to brush their teeth, although the intimacy of sharing a toothbrush with Wyatt was enough to make her squirm.

  To be honest, though, she’d been squirming since that one dream. Kendall didn’t know how it was possible she could be this aroused days afterward, but she was. Maybe nothing would put out the fire except an orgasm. And she knew just who she wanted to provide it. Her eyes cut over to Wyatt. The warmth of his hand caused a different kind of tingling in her palm. And elsewhere.

  How could she be thinking about sex with him now? Bad enough that they were on the run, but she’d just finished wishing for a shower. She wouldn’t want him to touch her while she was this icky. Would she?

  “Okay, Bug, what’s going on with you?”

  Kendall gulped, the sound audible. “What do you mean?”

  “The absolute silence is bad enough, but you’ve been looking at me odd all day. What’s the deal?”

  Playing dumb wasn’t going to work. Wyatt would just keep asking until he got an answer, but she wasn’t going to tell him anything she didn’t want him to know. “I’m just a little, I don’t know, down maybe.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. “And feeling sorry for myself. You don’t want to hear me whine about how I want a cheeseburger with a side of fries or that I want to take a shower so bad I can almost feel the water on my skin.”

  He eyed her for a moment, but before she could worry that he’d seen through her, Wyatt said, “You haven’t complained once during this whole mess. If you want to do it now, I don’t mind.”

  “Maybe you don’t, but I do. This thing is my fault anyway, not yours. If anyone has the right to complain, it’s you.”

  That got her one of his slow, sexy smiles. “If I whine, will you kiss me until I feel better?”

  Kendall gaped at him. On the surface, what he’d said wasn’t that big a deal, but it was the way he’d said it. His manner had been teasing, the sexual undercurrents swirling beneath the words.

  “It depends where you want me to kiss you.” What kind of imp had grabbed control of her and spoken? Kendall knew she would never say anything like that, certainly not in a tone of voice that suggested she’d be happy to drop to her knees and do more than kiss him.

  Wyatt’s eyes immediately went hot, and she found it hard to breathe. He didn’t slow down, but Kendall had this sudden feeling that he was thinking about taking her down to the stone floor. The scary thing was that she wouldn’t protest.

  Frantically, her gaze darted around, looking for something, anything to say that would take their minds off sex. “Intersection,” she reported, voice thick.

  For a moment, she thought he was going to ignore her warning, but Wyatt shook his head and took in their surroundings. “We’ll keep going straight,” he said, and he sounded more choked than she had. Before she could breathe easy again, he added, “Don’t think I won’t remember what you said.” His free hand came up to tip her face to his. “Don’t tease, Kendall, because if you offer, I’m not saying no. Got it?”

  Before she could do more than wonder over a side of Wyatt that she’d never seen till now, they reached the point where the hallways crossed, and out of habit, Kendall glanced both ways. She didn’t know who was more surprised, the two men coming down the hall to her right, or her and Wyatt.

  He didn’t have to tug her; she was running a split second after spotting the thieves. One of the idiots fired, and she could hear the other berate him before they were out of earshot.

  They ran past an open chamber door and around a corner. Kendall could feel herself becoming winded already. Damn. Had to be the lack of food.

  She knew the temple dampened sound, but she could swear she heard the sound of the men running after them. “Faster, Bug,” Wyatt said, and she dug for more speed. Her small burst lasted until they reached a fork in the hallway. They didn’t pause for even a nanosecond before he pulled her to the left.

  A stitch started in her side as they ran around a large curve in the hall. Her body didn’t appreciate her pushing it harder when it was sorely lacking in resources. Their pursuers were still behind them, and she strained to hear where they were. She couldn’t pick up anything, not over her own harsh breathing.

  They neared another corner, rounded it, and stopped short.

  There, not twenty feet in front of them, gaily decorated in gemstones, was another dead end.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kendall saw Wyatt eye the way they’d come, but the fork they’d gone by was too far back—the smugglers had to be past it already—and the last chamber they’d seen was even farther away.

  “Get against the wall,” he ordered grimly. “In the corner.” Drawing his knife, Wyatt positioned himself in front of her, blade in one hand, pistol in the other.

  Kendall did as ordered, but wasn’t happy about him acting as her shield. As she tried to catch her breath, she looked around wildly for some escape, something they’d missed. She couldn’t let Wyatt die, not because of her.

  Those men had to be close, had to be, and she wished for some sound cue to let her know how near they were.

  She was getting ready to draw her own pistol, to fight beside Wyatt, when she spotted a triangle pattern of stones near her elbow that looked familiar. In her dream, she’d put her hand on this identical thing and the wall had become transparent.

  Without hesitating, she laid her marked palm over the gems. The vibration increased instantly, filling her body with enough energy to make her blood feel as bubbly as champagne.

  The wall opened fast, silently.

  “Wyatt,” she whispered fiercely, “come on! ”

  He glanced over his shoulder, saw the open wall, but he didn’t move. Kendall grabbed him by the waistband of his pants and gave a yank. One tug was all it took to prod him into action, and she released him, darting into the opening. There were no lights burning inside, but she didn’t turn them on. Illumination from the hall revealed a matching triangle on the inside, and as soon as Wyatt was in, she put her hand over it.

  The wall seemed to be closing much slower than it had opened. Surely, the thieves would reach them before the damn
thing shut. She willed it to move faster.

  Wyatt stood facing the gap, pistol drawn, prepared to fire if the wall didn’t shut in time, and Kendall stared past his shoulder. Her eyes were glued on the corner, waiting for those smugglers to round it. Hurry, hurry, hurry, she urged.

  The gap continued to narrow, and Wyatt shifted, keeping his weapon trained into the hall until, with an nearly inaudible scraping sound, they were entombed. No sooner did she breathe a sigh of relief when she heard the smugglers outside the wall.

  “Where the fuck did they go?” The voice was muffled.

  Reaching past her, Wyatt took her wrist and gently removed her hand from the stones. In the darkness, she couldn’t see a thing, but he’d remained oriented enough to know where she was.

  “They gotta be hiding around here somewhere,” the other man said. “We’ll find them.”

  Her adrenaline began to ebb, and Kendall swayed as lightheadedness replaced it. Before she could catch her balance, Wyatt’s arms were around her and he held her against him. For some stupid reason, she felt emotion slam into her. He always took care of her, protected her. He’d been willing to stand in front of her and shield her from the bullets as long as he could.

  She reached out and hugged him back. One or both of them could have died—her mind circled back to that fact repeatedly. She might have gone to her grave without feeling his body over hers, inside hers, and that loss suddenly was more than she could bear. The reasons to sleep with him were legion, the reasons to play coward seemed as insubstantial as cotton candy. Men like Wyatt Montgomery didn’t come around often. He was one in a million and she’d have to be a fool to keep running from him.

  “Keep looking,” voice number two ordered, but he sounded farther away from the wall now.

  Kendall leaned forward, resting her cheek against Wyatt’s heart. It was pounding rapidly, showing that for all his outward cool, Wyatt had experienced an adrenaline surge himself. There was something reassuring about that, and she held him tighter.

  They didn’t move. Of course, since it was dark and she’d been focused on the threat coming toward them, Kendall hadn’t looked around before the wall had shut. They could be standing in a room or a corridor—she had no clue—but she wasn’t going to turn on any lights. What if the glow somehow seeped into the corridor and alerted the thieves to their presence? Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No. She was erring on the side of caution.