Ana hugged her again. “Oh, Lily. I’m so sorry it took so long. I sent them after you as soon as I could, but I was unconscious for a while.”
Lily couldn’t help but smile as she leaned back against the pillow, sinking into the plush softness that felt so decadent after two years in Nate’s basement cell. “How dare you be unconscious? You’re so insensitive.”
Ana giggled and scooted next to her on the pillow, two women who’d found solidarity and hope from each other in a harsh and brutal life. “Okay, yeah, I guess I have an excuse, huh?” She gestured to the other woman, who was waiting by the door. “This is my sister, Grace. She’s the one who got the Order on my case.” Ana beamed at her sister. “She saved me.”
“Hi.” Grace nodded from the door, and Lily was amazed at how much the sisters looked alike. The same silver eyes, the same golden skin tone, gorgeous black hair that practically glistened. Ana was shorter with more luxurious curves, and her eyes slanted down at the corners, giving her an exotic, sensual look.
Grace’s dark hair was tumbling down around her shoulders, and she was wearing a pair of slim-fitting jeans that made her legs look long and fit. She looked relaxed, and her long silver earrings were delicate and feminine, but she gave the impression of strength, a woman who somehow combined everything soft with everything strong.
Lily sat up a little straighter and touched her own hair, realizing she still hadn’t showered. “Where am I?”
“The temporary headquarters of the Order, the home of their leader Dante, who Nate killed,” Ana said. “You’re in isolation so none of the men accidentally stumble across you. Gideon seems rather determined that you not be turned into a sheva and killed, not that I’d let them kill you, of course.” She held up her pinkie finger. “We’ve suffered together, and I’m here for you.” She grabbed Lily’s pinkie and shook it. “We’re sisters, Lily. You and me.”
“If you guys are sisters, then I guess you’re part of my family now.” Grace reached the bed and held out her hand to shake Lily’s, smiling with genuine warmth. “Nice to meet you, Lily.”
Lily reached for her hand, then froze when she saw the silver outline of a sword on Grace’s forearm. Grace was sporting a brand that would no doubt prove to be identical to that of her mate, the mark of a fully bonded sheva. Lily’s heart constricted and her gaze jerked toward Grace’s face. “Your mate was killed by the Order?”
“No.” Grace smiled. “He’s actually an Order member.”
Lily blinked. “But you’re alive?” How could an Order sheva be walking around the halls of their headquarters? They would never allow it.
Grace nodded. “It appears Quinn and I beat destiny, at least for now. They’re letting me live.”
“You’re serious?” Lily frowned, trying to reconcile that news with all that she knew about Calydons. She’d never seen any kind of indicator that destiny could be thwarted, not in all her years of research. “Really? I’ve never heard of anyone defeating the bond. It’s impossible.”
“It is impossible, but it’s not.” Grace looked happy and relaxed, like a woman comfortable in her life and with her mate. She definitely didn’t have the fearful demeanor of a woman worried that some Calydon was going to leap through the door and take her down. “They had no choice with me,” she said with a wink. “I wouldn’t recommend testing them again. They’re a little prickly about changing their ways.”
Ana held out her arm. “I have one too.”
Lily grabbed Ana’s wrist and peered closely at her arm. There were faint silver markings up by her elbow, the first outlines of a weapon. It was the earliest stages of the bond. “Who?”
Ana’s eyes saddened. “Elijah. Another Order member. He died trying to save me from Nate. By giving his life for me, he satisfied one of the stages of the bond, so I developed the mark. Since he’s dead, I’m no danger, so the Order doesn’t mind if I live.” Ana rubbed her hand over the mark, a caress so tender that it almost made Lily believe Ana was connecting with her dead mate.
Lily thought of Gideon, and she glanced toward the door, wondering how soon he’d return. Hearing Ana and Grace talk about their mates was stirring something inside Lily. She felt restless and unsettled, and she wanted Gideon there by her side.
Grace set her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Trust me, Ana. I’m sorry you never got to know Elijah, but it’s easier this way. You don’t want to go down that road.”
Ana glanced up at her. “It worked out for you.”
“For now,” Grace acknowledged. “Who knows what the future will bring, though? I wouldn’t have chosen it if I had a choice.”
Lily looked at Grace. “But you didn’t have a choice. No sheva has a choice about whether she will bond with her mate.” Lily thought she heard footsteps in the hall, and looked sharply at the door. Gideon?
No one entered, and disappointment surged through her.
Grace pressed her hand to her mark. “No, I didn’t I have a choice, though I certainly tried. I refused to believe in destiny and the whole bonding thing, but destiny didn’t really care what I believed.” Her face softened. “But now that I’m here, it’s so worth it.”
Ana grinned, her silver eyes sparkling with amusement. “Grace is in love. Isn’t it cute? She’s been this hard-edged miserable person for the last ten years, and then she meets some Order member who has to kill her, and boom, she remembers how to smile.”
Lily felt a pulse in her heart at the genuine affection between the sisters, and suddenly she missed her family so much. Her throat tightened. “Is there a phone here I can use?”
“I’ll get mine.” Grace smiled again. “Nice to meet you, Lily. We’re so glad you’re here.” She squeezed Ana’s hand, then strode out of the room, carefully closing the door behind her.
Ana settled down beside to Lily and propped herself upon one of the flowered throw pillows. “So, before she comes back, I have to ask you something.”
Lily grinned and settled down next to Ana. It felt good to have girl talk, to be sitting in a real bed, not afraid, knowing that Gideon was somewhere nearby, making sure she was safe. “What’s up?”
“Do you remember the man who visited me in my cell that time?” Ana’s face became shuttered. “Frank Tully.”
Lily shivered and glanced at the window, all her peacefulness quickly dissipating. Frank would be coming for her. She knew he would. Would he be able to breach the Order headquarters? She shifted again, restlessness building inside her. Where was Gideon? “What about Frank?”
Ana leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I dream about him.”
Lily frowned. “Nightmares?” She had plenty of those.
“No. Dreams like I’m drowning and he saves me.” Ana fixed her gaze on Lily’s face, her eyes desperate for information. “Who is he? Do you know?”
Lily shook her head. “No, but I know he’s more dangerous than Nate was. Smarter, too.”
“I sensed that…but I think there’s something else.” Ana hugged her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. “Like maybe he was pretending to be a jerk when Nate was around so Nate would trust him?”
Lily frowned, not liking Ana’s questions or her apparent desire to see something good in Frank. “Trust me, he wasn’t pretending. You met him. Didn’t he scare you?” Scare was too gentle of a word. Frank had looked at Lily with such evil, such threat, and such mercilessness that she’d known that if he ever got his hands on her, he would destroy her, and death would not come fast enough.
“Yeah, he did unnerve me.” Ana sighed and rubbed her forehead, suddenly looking exhausted. “I just feel like…I don’t know. Confused. Like I should know more about him, but I can’t remember. I just feel like he’s not who he seems.”
“He’s worse than what he seems.” Lily remembered how Frank had seemed concerned about Ana’s injuries and how Nate had been treating Ana. She recalled how he’d made a gallant show of protecting Ana from Nate’s violence. Was that what Ana was remembering? “Listen t
o me, Ana. Nate messed you up, and I’m sure Frank seemed like a chance for escape or something, but he’s a really evil person. I felt it. Didn’t you feel it when you looked into his eyes? They still haunt me.”
Ana chewed her lower lip. “I did feel it…but something else too.” Her face was lined with worry. “He scares me so much, but at the same time…I feel drawn to him.”
Lily tightened her fingers on Ana’s shoulders. “He did something to you, then. He can affect emotions.” She swallowed hard as she recalled when Nate had tried to call out Lily’s magic, and Frank had done something to make her respond to Nate physically even though she reviled him. “Don’t be fooled by Frank. You’re finally free, Ana. Don’t go back. Do you hear me?”
Ana looked away, picking at a stray thread on the comforter. “It’s not like I even know where to find him, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Ana! That’s not an answer! Promise me you’ll stay away from him!”
The door opened and Grace walked in, carrying a stack of items that looked like towels, clothes and some toiletries. She set it on the bed. “I know you don’t have any of your own stuff here, so here are some of mine. I think we’re about the same size.” She frowned, looking back and forth between Lily and Ana. “What happened?”
“Ana is—” Lily began.
“Don’t say it.” Ana was on her feet suddenly, her cast thunking to the floor. “I’m fine. I’ll resist him.” Her eyes pleaded with Lily. “Everyone here is already treating me like I’m some fragile doll. Don’t make it worse. Please. I just want to forget all of it.”
Lily knew how strong Frank was. Ana would have very little defense against someone that powerful, if he truly were trying to influence her. “I think we should tell Gideon—”
“No!” Ana’s eyes flashed. “I sent them after you, Lily. You owe me. Let it go.” She whirled around and stalked out the door, limping with each step.
Grace sighed as Ana limped down the hall. “Ana’s been struggling. She’s always had a positive view of the world, but everything she went through with Nate really shook her up. She’s been having difficulty finding her equilibrium again.” She looked at Lily. “I won’t put you in the position of asking you to betray her secret, but do you feel it’s important?”
Lily nodded. “I think she’s in danger.” If Frank had his sights set on her, Ana was definitely in trouble, especially if Ana didn’t want to believe how awful he was. Lily supposed it made sense: after what she and Ana had been through, it was hard to figure out how to move forward.
Grace’s eyes flickered with worry. “I won’t allow anything else to happen to her. I’m going to go talk to her.” She flicked a finger toward a closed door. “Bathroom’s in there. Oh, and here’s my phone.” She tossed a cell phone to Lily and walked out, pulling the door shut behind her as she called Ana’s name.
Lily stared after them for a minute then looked down at the phone. Her heart pounding, she dialed her parent’s phone number and pressed the phone to her ear, her hands shaking.
There was a click, and then Lily heard her mom’s voice. “Hello?”
Tears filled Lily’s eyes and she started to cry, obliterating any chance she had at talking. Her mom sounded exactly the same as she’d remembered. How many times had Lily played this moment over in her mind, trying to believe that someday she’d hear her mother’s voice again? And it was real. It was happening. Mom.
“Hello? Who’s there? What’s wrong? Who is this?” Her mom’s voice rose with concern.
Lily cleared her throat, clutching the phone. “Mom? It’s me. It’s Lily.”
“Lily. Oh, dear God. Lily!” Her mom screamed. “Gerry! It’s Lily! She’s on the phone! Lily! Where have you been? Dear Lord, is it really you?”
“It’s me.” Lily could barely even talk, she was crying so hard. “Mom…I love you.”
“Oh, Lily. I love you too.” Her mom was crying now, as well. “I can’t believe it’s you.”
There was another click, and then her dad’s cautious voice. “Lily?”
Her throat filled up again. “Dad.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus. Lily.” Her dad’s voice filled with tears, and she heard him sobbing.
*
“When are you coming home? Can we meet you somewhere? I have to see you,” Lily’s mom said ten minutes later, after Lily had filled them in on some of the less gruesome details about what had happened to her. Her mom and dad had been asking questions about Nate that Lily didn’t want to answer. Things that would just burden them and give them no peace. Things Lily didn’t want to relive.
“We have to see our baby,” her dad agreed.
Lily leaned against the polished cherry headboard and studied the huge window that was so open and inviting. Where was Frank? Was he out there right now, trying to figure out how to breach the headquarters and get her? Was he watching her condo, waiting for her to reclaim her life? “I can’t come home yet.”
“What? Why not?”
Lily rubbed her palm over her forehead. “It’s not safe for me. The man who held me…” She paused, trying to figure out how to explain it without worrying them more. Without telling them that an even more dangerous psychopath was now pursuing her.
There was no need for them to know Frank’s Calydons were probably sitting outside her parent’s house, waiting for her to show up. There was no way she could tell her mother that Gideon was the one who had saved her. Gideon. What was she going to do about him?
But even as she thought about him, fierce longing pulsed inside her, a need to connect with him. Was her magic crazy? Or was it her own truth and her own heart that had looked into his eyes and believed he was worthy of her trust? She needed to see him again, to figure out what was going on between them. To determine what was real, and what wasn’t.
“Lily? What about the man who held you? You said he was dead?”
“He is. I’m working with the police,” she lied. “They need my help to catch the guy’s partner.”
“Tell them no,” her mom said. “You’ve been through too much. We’ve been through too much. Come home. I’ll make your favorite stew and Grandma’s Dutch apple pie.”
Lily closed her eyes at the mention of her grandma, who Gideon had admitted to killing. “Mom? I have a question about Grandma.”
There was a tense silence. “What is it?”
“Before Gideon…” Lily swallowed. “Before Gideon killed her, was she acting…weird?” She needed the truth. She had to know who Gideon truly was. She had to know if she could really trust him, or if it was her Satinka need for him that was making her want him. Had he really killed her grandma in cold blood, or it had he been justified?
“No, not at all,” her mother said quickly. Too quickly. “She was her same sweet self as always.”
For the first time, Lily didn’t believe her. “Mom. Tell me the truth.”
“Tell her, Maggie,” her dad said. “After what Lily’s been though recently, I know she can handle the truth.”
More silence, and then Maggie finally began to talk. “I had stopped by my mother’s house to pick up Trig for the afternoon while she and Cade had some private time. But when I got to the kitchen, I saw Cade standing over my father, Cade’s knife lodged in my dad’s chest. My mother was sobbing, screaming at Cade for killing him, and Cade was yelling at her, telling her she was a slut for defending another man when she was Cade’s mate.”
Lily nodded. She’d heard this part before, and it still gave her chills. Her mom had explained that Grandpa had come to find his wife and beg her to leave Cade and come back home. Cade had returned home, and he’d gone crazy with rage when he’d found another man with his sheva.
“I freaked out,” Maggie said. “Cade saw me, and went crazy on me. He started yelling that I had come there to steal his son, and he called out his weapon and I thought for sure he was going to kill me.”
Lily hadn’t heard this part before. In the rendition she’d heard, Gideon showed up at this point an
d killed both her grandma and Cade without justification. “What did you do?”
“My mother—Grandma—yelled at him to stop, to leave me alone. When he turned toward her, I thought he was going to attack her, so I grabbed a knife and threw it at him.”
Lily felt her jaw drop at the thought of her non-confrontational mom throwing a knife at a Calydon warrior. “You did? He ducked, I assume?”
“I wouldn’t know. My mother grabbed a kitchen chair and slammed it into my head. It knocked me out for a split second, and when I woke, she was bringing it down again, screaming at me for trying to hurt Cade. She broke my arm and my shoulder.”
A cold chill crept up Lily’s arms at the image of a mother turning on her seventeen-year-old daughter. “Oh, Mom—”
“She stopped attacking me when Trig came into the room and Cade went after Trig, screaming about how Trig was stealing my mother from him,” Maggie continued. “My mother hit Cade with the chair, and he whirled around, threw her against the wall, then called out his spear to plunge it into Trig’s chest, cursing Trig for coming between Cade and my mother.”
Lily’s hand went to her chest. “Oh, God—”
“That was when Gideon showed up. He killed Cade and saved Trig, but then my mother grabbed the knife I’d had and charged Gideon. So, he killed her, too. Then he left, without another word. The bastard just walked away, leaving Trig crying and me with a shattered arm and shoulder.” Maggie’s voice grew bitter. “He didn’t need to kill my mother in self-defense. There’s no way my mother could have killed him. He did it because of what he is, a cold-blooded assassin poisoned by the Order.”
Lily’s stomach churned, reeling with her mother’s brutal disclosure. “He had to kill her, Mom,” she whispered, her voice raw. She now understood why Gideon had simply turned away. It wasn’t because Gideon had felt nothing. It was because shutting down his emotions was the only way he could survive what he’d done. “Your mother was lost, Mom. She wasn’t your mother any more. She would have killed you.” Lily had done enough research on Calydons to know it was true. By the time the bond got that far, there was no hope.
Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) Page 14
