“So, you believe this bond will turn us into people who kill the ones we love?” Gideon asked as he rested his chin against her head. “You buy into the legend?”
Lily nodded. “I haven’t found anything that will stop it, and I’ve been trying for a long time.” She nuzzled against his neck, inhaling the warm scent that was him. He still smelled like freedom and heat and man, but there was something else there now…vanilla. He smelled like vanilla. The faintest hint of chocolate chip cookies. “God, I haven’t thought of cookies in two years.”
“Cookies?”
“You smell like contentment and security.” She closed her eyes and concentrated on the vanilla, letting it curl through her body and drift into her cells, relaxing her body and giving it a sense of completeness and safety. Happiness. “How can you make me feel better, when you should be terrifying me?”
“The bond.” He pressed his lips to her hair. “You don’t think Cade knew the danger the minute he met your grandma? He knew, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it. It just feels too damn good. You and I both know, yet all I want to do is slide my hand under this sweatshirt—” He slipped his hand beneath the waistband and flattened it over her belly, his light touch sending sparks of heat through her body. “And seduce you until you can’t think of anything but my body between your legs, my mouth on your breast and my scent all over you.” His hand moved upward until it brushed against the underside of her breast.
She sucked in her breath as desire rushed through her.
His teeth grazed over her ear. “You make me feel again, Lily, and I hate that. I can’t deal with it. I don’t know how to deal with it and it pisses me off. Emotions make me weak. But at the same time…” He paused to nibble on her earlobe. “God, it feels brilliant to feel alive again.”
Lily moaned softly and lifted her head so his lips could find her throat. She began to hear music dancing in her head, and she felt him tense, and knew he’d heard it too. “Be very careful,” she whispered. “I don’t think I can bring the full magic without earth, but you call it in a way it’s never been called before. I don’t know how it will work with you.”
His mouth stopped moving along her neck, but he didn’t pull away. He simply hovered there, as if he were fighting an internal battle. “So, the attraction between us…Satinka or sheva?” His voice had dropped a couple octaves, and was smoldering with a fire that licked at her insides
“Both.” Lily swallowed hard, suddenly aware that she was curled up between his thighs. She could feel his manhood hardening beneath her left hip, and her body quivered in response.
Gideon ran his thumb over her lip. “So, if we succumb to the Satinka attraction, I drain you dry and kill you. If we succumb to the sheva bullshit, all hell breaks loose. Double the risk.”
“And yet we’ve got twice the forces trying to pull us together.”
He nodded once and let his head fall back against the pale blue wall, his hand still buried in her hair, as if he couldn’t quite let go. His face was strained, and there was a single bead of sweat on his temple. He closed his eyes. “The simplest thing would be to pack you off to your parents and call it a day.”
She stiffened. “Frank—”
“I know, babe, I know.” His hand caressed the back of her neck. “He’ll come after you, and I couldn’t live with that.” His jaw tightened, and she saw the warrior come out. “Plus, we still need your expertise to find out what the hell’s going on.” He opened his eyes to look at her. “I owe it to my sheva…my first sheva…to see this thing through. Ezekiel can’t be allowed to get out.”
Lily nodded. “Frank has to be stopped. I’m not free until he is, so I guess that means we have the same goal, then.” She bit her lower lip and started to think, falling back into her old patterns of trying to strategize when the situation became too unbearable to handle. She’d done a lot of thinking during the last two years. “Okay, so I can look at the stone and see what the writing says and then—” She stopped at the expression on his face. “What?”
A faint smile toyed at the corners of his mouth. “You. Knowledge is power with you, isn’t it?” He slid his hand over her arm and lightly squeezed her biceps. “You might not have the muscles of a warrior, but you have strength. So much strength.”
Her belly tightened at the respect in his eyes. “Most people consider me a geek.”
He shrugged. “Who gives a shit what most people think?” He cocked his head. “How’d you survive for two years under Nate? I saw what he did to Ana, physically and emotionally. She’s a mess, and Grace is worried she’ll never recover. But you—” He laid his hand over her heart, his palm infusing heat into her chest “You survived intact, didn’t you?”
Something in her chest began to ache at the expression in his eyes. They weren’t cold anymore. Not at all. They were hot with hooded desire and something else. Respect? Affection? “Intact might be a bit optimistic, but yes, I survived.”
He tapped her heart. “With this. You willed yourself to win, didn’t you? Argued yourself into not giving up, or giving in?”
Lily thought of the nights she’d paced her cell, spending hours talking to herself, rationalizing her fears, focusing on her plans, buoying herself up, trying to learn from everything Nate said and did, so that someday she’d be able to take advantage of some slip up and escape. “I guess.”
Gideon cupped her chin and raised her face to his. “Kane asked me why it was different with you. Why I could let my other sheva die, but not you.”
“Because you’re not the arrogant idiot you were back then?”
He smiled. “Yeah, that too, but also because—”
There was a knock on the bedroom door. “Gideon?” It was a male voice. “Let me in.”
Gideon cursed, shoved Lily off his lap and leapt for the door. He slammed it shut just as the doorknob was turning. “She’s not decent,” he growled.
There was silence. “Hell, Gideon. What have you done?”
Gideon dropped his head against the white paneled door, his blue gaze not leaving Lily’s. “Leave the stone, Quinn. I’ll have her look at it.”
“I can smell her from out here,” Quinn said impatiently. “Anyone who walks down this hall is going to know you’ve bonded with her. You have two seconds to make sure she has clothes on, and then I’m coming in.”
Lily scrambled to her feet, her breathing tight in her chest. “He’s going to kill me.”
Gideon grabbed the stack of clothes and toiletries Grace had left on the bed and shoved them at Lily. “Take a long shower, and don’t come out until I get you. I’ll deal with this.” He grabbed the bathroom door, paused to give her a hard look, then yanked it shut.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Gideon pulled the bathroom door shut a split second before Quinn stepped into the room. He heard Lily lock the door and almost smiled at her actions. They both knew the lock would do nothing against a Calydon. But knowing Lily, it was important because it was symbolic of her taking action. Lily needed to be in control, and he understood that part of her now that he knew about her past.
His smile faded as he recalled her story about when she was a teenager. He expected anger to surge through him again, fury at what had been done to her. But the emotion that touched him was sadness, a deep, aching sadness that was unfamiliar and unsettling. It made him want to turn around, head right back into that bathroom, scoop her up and…
Gideon’s gaze fell on the bed, the covers still askew and the pillows still dented from Lily. He could imagine her hair spread across those pillows, her arms reaching for him…
Yeah, well, maybe the sadness he was feeling was just another excuse to justify why he wanted to get up close and personal with her so damn badly it felt like his blood was running hot.
Quinn flung open the door, and Gideon positioned himself in front of the bathroom door, blocking access to Lily.
Gideon’s blood brother strode into the room, flipping the bedroom door shut behind him.
His dark hair was tightly shorn, and his jeans and boots were well-worn and still caked with mud. Quinn had been out on another mission, no doubt trying to get a handle on the situation with Ezekiel. Clearly, he hadn’t bothered to change before tracking down Gideon. “What the hell’s going on in here?” Quinn demanded.
Gideon let his hands dangle beside his hips, his fingers flexed as Quinn got closer to Lily. The brands on Gideon’s forearms burned, his axes ready to be called forth. He was prepared to strike to defend her, if he needed to, even if his target was the man who’d stood by his side and fought off death with him thousands of times over the last five hundred years.
Quinn stopped at the aggression emanating from Gideon. For a moment, the two men froze, at a standoff.
“Are you going to kill her?” Gideon asked, opening his mind to Quinn’s, searching for any sign of betrayal. He picked up the buzz of tension and adrenaline, but not aggression.
He didn’t relax. Never would he relax when there was a potential threat to his woman.
The Order’s interim leader wasted no time answering Gideon’s question. “It smells like you’ve bonded with Lily.” His dark brown gaze settled heavily on Gideon’s. “Tell me she’s not your sheva.”
“She is.” There was no point in denial.
Quinn swore, and ran his hand through his hair, the action of a man who was agitated, not ready to strike. “You already had a sheva. You dodged the bullet already. You paid your price.”
“I did,” Gideon agreed. “You were there. You know. She was buried with my mark on her arms because she gave her life for me. The death stage.”
“Then Lily can’t be your sheva.” Quinn swore, his fists bunching when Gideon said nothing to support Quinn’s statement. His dark eyes were seething with tension. “You’re absolutely positive? There’s no chance you’re wrong?”
“She carries my mark.” Gideon shifted restlessly, adrenaline racing through him in response to Quinn’s agitation. “You will let her live,” he said quietly. “The same way I allowed Grace to live.”
“Fuck!” Quinn stalked over to the window, making no move toward the bathroom. He yanked it open and leaned on the sill, scowling out into the woods that stretched behind Dante’s mansion. He closed his eyes to the damp air, fighting for control. Only the tautness of his shoulders and the white of his knuckles indicated his true mood. “Does Grace know?”
“That Lily’s marked?” Gideon didn’t move from his position blocking the bathroom door, not yet certain whether he could trust the man that he’d trusted with his life for half a millennium. Shit. Had he really just thought that? Was he really questioning loyalty bonds that had supported him for centuries?
He thought of Lily, and the courage in those sensuous green eyes, and knew the answer was yes.
Quinn jerked his head once in acknowledgment. “Yes. Does Grace know you have another sheva?”
“I have no idea. She’s the one who told me Lily was up.” Gideon’s brands were on fire now, burning with the need to come to life and protect his sheva. “What’s your problem? Talk to me before I attack first to defend her.” Since he had his own sheva, Quinn would understand that comment. He’d grasp the protective instincts surging through Gideon, the raging aggression threatening to shred all his self-control and launch an assault at Quinn before he could turn on Lily.
Quinn turned to face him, his gaze hollow and…worried. Shit. Gideon had never seen his blood brother look worried before. Order members assessed facts and analyzed weakness and strengths. Then they made a plan and took action, sometimes doing all of the above in a fraction of a second. Worry was weak, inefficient, and debilitating. They had no time for that.
But there was no mistaking the fluttering and instability of Quinn’s energy.
The dude was worried.
“If you’ve met a second sheva, that means Grace and I aren’t safe,” Quinn said. “Destiny came back for you, which means she’ll come back for us. Fuck! I thought we’d defeated the curse. I thought it was over.”
Gideon slowly began to relax, finally understanding Quinn’s agitation. “You’re not going to kill Lily, are you?”
Quinn shot him a resigned look. “Who would I be to kill your sheva when I wouldn’t let you kill mine?” He stalked across the room, his hands clasped in his hair. “What do we do now, Gideon? What the hell do we do now?”
“We continue forward,” Gideon said. “We get Lily to translate the writing on the stone in hopes we can find Frank, or find out why Ezekiel’s prison walls are weakening, and we try to find Drew.” Frank had kidnapped Dante’s son, Drew, the night the Order had rescued Ana and killed Nate. They all believed Drew was a key component to freeing Ezekiel, and they had to retrieve the young Calydon before he could be used. “And when destiny comes to find you and Grace, you stop her again.”
Quinn spun toward him, his expression fierce and raw with fear. “Grace almost died last time we fought off our destiny. I can’t lose her, Gideon. I can’t.”
“I know.” Gideon softened his voice. “I was there. I remember.”
Quinn took a deep breath and settled his gaze on Gideon. “What are you going to do about Lily? Are you going to complete the bond with her?”
“And go through what you went through with Grace? No chance.” The words didn’t sit well for Gideon as he spoke them. Logically and morally, he knew that completing the bond with Lily was to be avoided at all costs. Centuries-old male instincts were growling with displeasure at the very thought of letting Lily go.
Gideon heard the shower turn on, and suddenly envisioned her clothes sliding off her body and hitting the floor, the water caressing her skin—
Quinn let out a soft chuckle of irony. “Not so easy to walk away from her, is it?”
Gideon groaned and paced across the room to the window Quinn had opened, sticking his head outside to catch the fresh air and listen to the damn birds, instead of getting a high off the faint hint of lilac coming from the bathroom. “No. It’s not.”
“I tried to resist. Grace tried. And we failed.” Quinn came to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder. “You want my advice?”
“No.”
“Your only chance is to get her out of your life. If you guys stay together, you have no shot at keeping your distance.”
“She needs my protection.” Gideon ground his jaw, knowing Quinn spoke the truth. He wasn’t a dumbass, and he knew full well that the longer he spent with her, the harder it would be not to throw her down on the nearest horizontal surface and stoke the fires between them until she was his, completely and forever. “I can’t walk away from her.”
“You think it’s hard now? It just gets worse.”
Gideon slanted a look at Quinn. “You regret staying with Grace?”
“Hell, no. It ripped me to hell and back when she almost died, but it’s worth every fucking minute of it.” Quinn was quiet for a minute as he propped his shoulder against the wall. “There’s no going back for me, Gideon, but you don’t have go down that road. Grace is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and also the worst. And it’s not over.” He cursed softly and rubbed his hand over his own brand. “I can’t believe you have another sheva.”
“Me either.” It sucked, yeah. It was wrong, sure. But damned if Gideon couldn’t help feeling an intense, powerful satisfaction each time he thought of Lily carrying his mark. He wanted it. He wanted her. He wanted to complete the damn bond. When he’d met his first sheva, it had been about intense sexual need. With Lily, it was so much more, so much deeper, so much more intense. Shit. He was in trouble, wasn’t he?
Quinn shot Gideon a knowing look. “You dealing okay?”
Quinn was one of the rookies who’d stayed with him on the grave. Quinn and Elijah had stayed with him. They were the only two beings on the earth that knew what that experience had done to Gideon the first time. Elijah was dead, but Quinn would know how having another sheva would affect him.
Gideon gave Quinn a look and sa
id nothing.
He didn’t need to.
Since they’d blood bonded five hundred years ago, Quinn could get into his mind, and he into Quinn’s. And Elijah’s. None of them ever bothered to lie to each other, or to hide their emotions. There was no point, not from the three of them. Others were a different story. Gideon kept the rest of the Order out of his damn head, except for the terse commands during battle. Hence Gideon’s legendary reputation as an ice cold killer. Quinn knew better.
“Do you think if I separated from her, that would really work?” Gideon asked. “Or would destiny find a way to bring us back together? Is there really any way to win? To stop our fate?”
“There has to be.” Quinn’s voice was strong, firm. “I have something I’m not willing to lose, so yeah, I have to believe there’s a way to beat destiny. Or at least beat her back each time and win the small battles, so you never lose the war.”
Gideon worked his jaw. “You and Grace are the only ones in history to have made it this far. Two thousand years, and only one couple has survived a complete bonding.” His gaze flicked to the bathroom. “Lily and I could crash and burn like everyone else.”
“Yeah, you could.”
Gideon thought of Lily’s strength and knew if anyone had a chance to win, it would be her. Except for the Satinka… Shit. He’d forgotten about that.
“She’s Satinka?”
He grimaced at the thought Quinn had picked up from his mind. “Not just Satinka. I heard her bells.” He sensed Quinn would probably know what that meant, and when Quinn cursed, he knew he’d been right.
“Jesus, man. You’ll kill her.”
“No shit. Already would have if Kane hadn’t been there.”
“You have to separate.” Quinn turned to face him. “You have to, and it has nothing to do with the sheva bond. I’ll put someone else on her, and you stay away from her.”
“I can’t—”
“You will.” Quinn’s jaw flexed. “We need her for Order business, and you don’t have the right to drain her. I’ll violate my pack Oath and not kill her for the mere fact she’s your sheva, but I’m damn well using her to stop Ezekiel from getting out.”
Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) Page 17
