This time, Fuery backed away one and cast a panicked look at Hartt, his dark eyes gaining a wild edge as he started to shake his head. Hartt closed the gap between them and placed his hand on Fuery’s shoulder. The touch seemed to comfort him and Fuery drew in a shuddering deep breath.
“The elf is tainted,” Loren said and Bleu looked over his shoulder at him. “The male you knew no longer exists, Bleu.”
The elf male looked as if he didn’t want to believe that. Had they been close to each other once, back before the attack Bleu had mentioned had happened?
Bleu took another step towards Fuery.
The darker male responded by drawing his black blade and snarling at Bleu. Hartt stepped in front of his comrade, partially shielding him with his body and placing his hand over Fuery’s to stay his blade.
“Do you not recognise whose company you are in?” Bleu said and Fuery’s black gaze flickered to Loren. “Do you not recognise your prince?”
Fuery’s eyes narrowed and he snarled through his fangs, black-sounding words in a tongue Anais didn’t know.
Bleu’s expression turned dark and dangerous. “Your prince is standing in this very room, not roaming Hell bent on bloodshed and destruction. That wretched male is not your prince.”
“Watch your tongue, Bleu!” Loren snapped.
Bleu lowered his head and pressed his right hand to his chest. “My apologies, my prince.”
Loke groaned and twitched, and everyone’s eyes leaped to him. Anais stroked his brow, her heart aching with a need to help him. They were close, she could feel it. He was growing stronger. He just needed a little more from her.
“It’s okay,” she whispered and smoothed her fingers across his forehead and then feathered them down his cheek. “We’ll have you back in Hell soon, safe in your cave.”
“Cave?” Bleu frowned at Loke.
“The male is dragon.” Loren returned his focus to Loke, placing his hands back on Anais’s neck and on Loke’s chest. “I will speak with him about the sword and your mission when he is well again.”
Bleu nodded.
“Harbin?” Hartt grabbed hold of Fuery’s wrist and the man lowered his black gaze to it, his eyebrow rising as he stared at Hartt’s hand.
“I might be a while. Go on without me. I need to finish my mission and then I’ll meet you,” Harbin said.
Hartt nodded, cast one last look back towards Bleu where he now stood in front of his sister with Kyter at his side, and disappeared in a flash of silvery light.
Bleu muttered something in the lyrical language of the elves as he gave Harbin the evil eye and Loren responded.
Cavanaugh growled, baring huge canines, and moved in front of his sibling.
“Enough. No more fighting.” Kyter scrubbed a hand down his face, his golden gaze filled with weariness.
The elf female stroked his arm and he frowned at her and then his face softened and he lifted his hand and caressed her cheek. She smiled and Kyter’s gaze darkened, but not with a need for violence this time. There was hunger in it, desire that made Anais ache to have Loke look at her that way again, even when she feared he never would after everything she had done.
Kyter dragged the woman through the back door of the club and jealousy coiled in Anais’s heart, fraying her temper again.
“Can you all get the hell out of here now so I can focus?” Anais barked and everyone looked at her. “I’m trying to save someone’s life.”
Cavanaugh looked down at his boots, tunnelled his fingers through his silver hair, and then lifted his gaze back to meet hers. “I’m sorry.”
He caught Harbin’s arm and led him into the back of the club.
Bleu cast her an apologetic look, and then glanced towards Sable and Thorne. His violet gaze turned troubled, an edge of hurt in it.
“Return home, Bleu. I will be there soon,” Loren said and the elf nodded and disappeared.
Sweet silence fell.
Anais locked all of her focus on Loke and fell swiftly into the trance state. She lost track of time as energy flowed between her, Loke and Loren, a connection that felt like a living thing to her.
It made her veins pulse, a wave of heat travelling through her body with each beat, washing up from her toes to her head. A deeper awareness grew inside her, a sensation that she was connected to an incredible power, and she floated within it, drifting as light as a feather in the hazy pale glow that engulfed her.
Loren’s hand left the back of her neck and the connection shattered, bringing the dimly lit club and Loke back into view. Her knees gave out and Loren caught her under her arms and lifted her into his, cradling her against his chest as if she weighed nothing.
“You have done all you can,” he said. “Now both of you must rest.”
Rest sounded good.
Anais clung to consciousness long enough to take one last look at Loke, hoping she had given enough of her life to save him but not so much that she wouldn’t wake from the warm arms of sleep that were already wrapped around her and pulling her down into the darkness.
He slipped out of focus and sleep took her.
CHAPTER 25
The air smelled different. Loke breathed deep of it and frowned as it no longer burned his lungs. They easily expanded in a fluid movement, their silence rousing him further from sleep when he had grown used to them rattling and wheezing. Strength coursed through him and he was aware of it for the first time.
Aware that he had been weak and now he was strong again.
He slowly flexed his fingers against the soft material cushioning his tired body, pulling it into his fists. The aches were gone too. The burning in his bones that had left him feeling they were turning to ash.
What had happened to him?
He wasn’t back in Hell. He knew that much. He wasn’t in the Archangel facility either. He was somewhere new and unfamiliar.
Loke groaned as he tried to open his eyes and they stung despite the low level of lighting in the room. Perhaps he wasn’t back to full strength after all, but he wasn’t being drained of his energy by the mortal world either. Something had happened that had given him back his strength and had stopped it from fading away again.
Whatever that something was, it had left him feeling different.
He opened his eyes again and they burned less this time, allowing him to take in his surroundings. A room with wooden furniture and a soft bed. He looked down the length of his body at his bare feet where they hung off the end of the bed. His blue leather trousers almost matched the colour of the sheets beneath him.
Loke drew in another deep breath and used his senses to pick through the smells. There were others in the building with him. Immortals. He could smell shifters, elves, and the wretched demon who had knocked him out.
He could smell Anais.
He singled her out, using his senses to track her as she moved around somewhere below him. His heart stung and he rubbed his chest, trying to soothe it as the constant voice at the back of his mind began to taunt him again, reminding him of everything she had done.
The demon might have been the one who had knocked him out but it was Anais who had brought him to the mortal world and had placed him into the nefarious hands of her masters.
Anger curled through him, making him restless and driving him from the bed. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of it, and paused as his head turned and the room spun around him. He pulled down another breath and stared straight ahead at a wooden set of drawers as he waited for the dizzy spell to pass.
The door to his right opened and Anais stood there, the brighter light of the corridor casting her into shadow. Her blonde hair hung around her slender shoulders, threads of it clinging to her black t-shirt. That black t-shirt blended seamlessly into her dark trousers, making her appear more like a wraith than something real.
Loke hung his head and grasped the edges of the mattress with both hands, anchoring himself to the bed when all he wanted to do was stand and cross the room to her, and
pull her into his arms and feel that she was indeed real. The part of himself that was having difficulty handling what she had done rebelled against those softer desires, replacing them with a need to lash out at her.
He turned his face towards her.
She held her hands up. “Don’t speak. I need to say something.”
Loke nodded, curious to know what was on her mind.
“I’m sorry about what happened. I know it doesn’t change anything, and I shouldn’t have let them take you like that. It isn’t what I wanted, but it all happened so quickly and I didn’t have time to think.” She paused and cast her gaze down at her boots. “Or maybe I did… I was muddled and part of me wanted to go back… and Sable said that Archangel only wanted information about the dragons so we could rescue the others. I was an idiot to believe them… and Sable feels pretty awful about it too because they duped her as well. If I had known they were going to put you in a cell like that… put you through tests and… if I had known that you couldn’t be in this world without being in danger… I’m sorry. I really am.”
He could feel her hurt flowing through him and it cooled his anger enough that he could look at her with clearer eyes and a more forgiving heart. She had placed him into the hands of Archangel, but she had also rescued him from them, placing herself in great danger and no doubt damaging her relationship with them.
“What did you want?” He rose onto his feet and she lifted her gaze to meet his.
The dark circles beneath her eyes alarmed him and he had moved a step closer and had raised his hand with the intention of touching her pale cheek before he even realised what he was doing. He halted and held her blue gaze instead, waiting to hear her answer.
Anais looked off to her right. “I don’t know.”
Her expression turned troubled and he could feel the conflict within her. She hadn’t only hurt him. She had hurt herself too. He could hear it in the tremulous beat of her heart and smell it in her scent. She was nervous around him. Guilty. Afraid. Not of him, but of what he might say or do. She was afraid he would lash out at her verbally to inflict pain on her and punish her for what she had done.
The darker part of himself believed she deserved such retribution, but the rest of his heart squashed it out of existence because what was done was done and nothing they said or did would change it. He was stronger now, somehow able to cope with being in the mortal realm, and his life was no longer in danger.
He refused to hold a grudge when she had believed that he would be treated in a better manner than he had been. She hadn’t betrayed him or intentionally placed him in danger. If he had been more honest with her about his species and why he had never been to the mortal realm, she would have known he couldn’t survive in her world and she never would have allowed her friend to take him from his cave.
He knew that in his heart.
A heart that loved her.
A heart that feared for her.
“I had another vision.” He let that confession slip out as a whisper but she reacted as if he had shouted it, her head jerking up and her eyes shooting wide as she stared right at him, her heart hammering in his ears.
“What did you see?” Her voice was weak, each word trembling on her lips.
“I saw you die,” he whispered and took another step towards her when she swallowed hard and paled further. He couldn’t shake the vision this time or how it made him feel. Afraid. Weak. Frustrated. He wanted to protect her but he couldn’t. No matter what he did, the vision only changed slightly. “The location was different, but the shadowy figure and the outcome remained the same.”
She dropped her gaze to the strip of floor between them, her fair eyebrows furrowing as she clenched her fists at her sides.
A deep need to comfort her filled him, but he remained where he was, struggling with his feelings as he looked at her. His little Amazon. She looked so weak now and afraid, and it pulled at him, strengthening his need to protect her.
“I thought that since I took you from the battlefield, I would have created a big enough interference in events to stop them… I had thought your fate would change.” He barely held himself back when she wrapped her arms around herself. “I will protect you, Anais.”
Her head lifted and her eyes leaped to meet his. “Why?”
He could understand her confusion, because part of him was also confused. He swore he had been muddled from the moment he had met her, never knowing whether he was coming or going, or what he was feeling. He no longer felt like the master of his own body. Something had seized control of him the second he had set eyes on her in the midst of that battle.
Possibly his heart.
He should have been angry with her, but the need to shield her from whatever dark future awaited her overshadowed that feeling. His love for her was too strong to deny. It was too powerful to be weakened or destroyed by the things that had happened. It was a love that would never fade. It would never die. It was eternal.
He didn’t have the courage to tell her those things though, not when he was unsure of how she felt about him. The look in her eyes, the soft edge of need, told him that she wanted to hear them but he couldn’t lay his heart on the line.
Not when he had been carefully guarding it for six thousand years.
“The elves have agreed to take you back to your home.” Those quiet words cut at his heart and they seemed to lash at her too.
Lines bracketed her mouth as she tried to smile and he decided that he didn’t like seeing her this way. Defeated. He preferred the female warrior he had met on the battlefield. The one who had been confident and courageous. Strong. Sure of herself. Was she feeling the same way as he was, suddenly unsure of herself and uncertain of her feelings and everything else?
Before meeting her, he had been as sure of himself as she had been, certain of his future. He had known what lay ahead of him and the direction his life would take. Everything had been set in stone and she had shattered it.
She had turned his life upside down, but he wouldn’t change anything that had happened. Well, maybe the past few days, but never the rest of it. He didn’t want to go back to that life, that monotonous existence.
He didn’t want them to part, and that was exactly what she was saying was about to happen.
The elves would take him home.
Without her.
She would remain here, in the mortal realm, far beyond his reach.
Not if he had his way.
He was going to fight her on it.
He was going to fight for her.
Loke closed the distance between them. “I would like to meet these elves.”
She tilted her head back and looked up into his eyes, her blue ones reflecting the pain he felt in his heart, and nodded.
He allowed her to lead him from the room and down a set of metal steps into a pale expansive room. He wasn’t sure where they were and it was on his mind to ask her as they crossed the room to a door, but then she opened that door and he stepped into the next dimly-lit black-walled room.
The room from his vision.
His blood turned to icy sludge in his veins and he quickly took in the large room, and the occupants of it. The demon and the elf male. Which one would be the one who killed her?
His heart set off at a pace and he stormed towards the two males. The dark-haired elf eyed him with suspicion and called his black armour, replacing his tunic and trousers with it, and arming himself with sharp black claws.
As he had seen in his vision.
Loke snarled at the male, baring his fangs, and prepared himself to attack.
“Loke.” Anais was between them in a flash, blocking his way to the elf male.
The russet-brown-haired demon’s eyes glowed red and his broad bare chest heaved with each hard breath he took as his dark leathery wings emerged and his horns curled around to flare forwards into twin deadly points on either side of his face. The elf used Loke’s temporary impediment to his advantage, calling a black blade to his hand an
d backing off a step to gain some space.
The black-haired female he knew as Sable looked ready to join the two males in fighting him.
Loke growled, grabbed Anais by her arm and shoved her behind him. His claws grew longer as he faced off against the demon and the elf, his focus fixed on them so they couldn’t attack unnoticed. He bared his fangs again and kept Anais tucked close to his back, shielding her with his body as he tried to calculate which of the two males was the one in his vision.
The elf was the prime suspect. He had the right build and the talons.
“What are you doing?” Anais tried to get past him.
He moved with her, his eyes constantly locked on the elf’s violet ones. He was still weaker than usual, and the elf was old and powerful, a prince of his kind. The chances of him surviving a fight against the male, especially when the demon and the huntress looked ready to assist him, were slim but it wouldn’t stop Loke.
He would protect Anais, no matter what.
“Explain yourself.” The elf took a step towards him.
Loke roared and lashed out at him, swiping with his claws. The elf leaped backwards to evade his blow and glared at him.
“Loke, calm down!” Anais grabbed his left arm and pulled on it, but he stood firm, refusing to give the elf an opening in which he could attack. “He wants to help you.”
He wanted to kill Anais.
Loke felt sure of it.
This was the male he had seen in his most recent vision, the one who would cause her death.
But ultimately, it would be the elf prince who died this night.
Loke wouldn’t allow the male near her. He would kill the elf before he had a chance to hurt his little Amazon.
He broke free of Anais’s hold and launched himself at the elf. They clashed hard but the elf made no move to attack him. He grabbed Loke and grappled with him, and Loke snarled as he realised the male intended to restrain him. He brought his right arm up hard, looping it over the elf’s one and twisting out of his grip. He drew his arm back, his gaze narrowed on the elf and his focus on taking the male down before he could incapacitate him.
The elf released his other arm and Loke grinned as he saw his victory playing out in front of him, all because the elf refused to fight him and would only defend.
Eternal Mates 7 - Taken by a Dragon Page 23
