Ana dug her hands into the rocky soil and summoned all the energy left in her body, concentrating on Elijah. She visualized her mental energy traveling through the parched soil, touching every living being in the earth, searching for the one male with whom destiny had chosen to bond her. Destiny had linked the two of them, thrusting them into a connection fated to end only in their destruction. Ana would not let him die simply because he’d been cursed as her soul mate. Elijah. It’s Ana. Tell me where you are.
She conjured his husky voice in her mind, letting the deep tones roll across her. She concentrated on the strength of his body and the thickness of his muscled arm as he’d tucked her against his hip to protect her when death had been coming for them both. She vividly recalled that brief moment in Elijah’s arms, when she’d realized this stranger was going to stand and protect her despite the risk to his own life. For the first time since her parents had been killed, since Nate had kidnapped her, since hell had taken over, she’d felt safe.
For that one minute, she’d no longer been alone. In that beautiful moment, she’d forgotten all the nightmares that haunted her, the reality that she had to keep everyone at bay to protect them from her. She’d forgotten she shouldn’t allow anyone to take care of her. In Elijah’s strong arms, she’d simply given herself over to him, to the strong, powerful guardian who looked at her as if she was worth the entire world to him.
God, what a moment that had been, seeing her worth blazing in his haunted, tormented eyes. It still beat in her heart, a moment she’d clung to so desperately when there was nothing else to keep her going during the beatings, the deaths, the hell…
Ana focused on that moment, on that feeling of safety, warmth and connection Elijah had given her. She thrust the emotions out across the dirt beneath her, unable to keep the desperate longing out of her mind when she called out for him yet again. Elijah!
Silence.
She felt her heart slowly begin to crumble, falling into a thousand pieces of hopelessness, guilt and loss. Despair overwhelmed her, and she succumbed to it, letting the grief and desolation fill her mind and her heart…and then she felt a pulse of energy.
A protective energy. A male energy. Searching for her. Reaching out for her with fierce comfort and strength.
Elation flooded her and she buried her hands in the dirt, desperate to get closer to him. Ana’s heart pounded with hope as she stripped away her defenses and plunged her entire soul into the connection. Elijah!
Ana. His voice was like a great warmth blossoming through her mind, a gift from the heavens that she’d almost given up hope of ever hearing again. The agony of relief shook her, and she bowed her head, fighting the sobs at the feel of his mind linking with hers.
The weak, barely audible vibration came up through the earth, almost exactly where she was lying, and she knew he’d pulled her to this spot.
Elijah was right below her.
“He’s here! I’ve got him!” Tears spilled down Ana’s cheeks and she lurched to her knees. She clawed the earth, ripping her fingernails on the rocks, frantic, desperate. Her finger tore open against a rock, but she didn’t even feel the pain. She dug faster, her muscles burning, her hands so ineffectual against the packed rock. “Dammit! Come on!” Elijah! We’re coming! Don’t give up!
Strong hands grabbed her and flung her aside. She stumbled backward as Quinn and Gideon shoved past her and thrust shovels into the rocky shale, their muscles bulging as they pounded through the earth. There was a roar of triumph as other Order members abandoned their positions and sprinted across the sinkhole toward them, shovels clenched in their fists.
The males attacked the spot where Ana had been digging, and the earth began to fly. They ripped through the tons of dirt, their muscles flexing as they moved with superhuman speed, shovels flying as they drove down mercilessly, working with the perfect synchronicity of a team that had been together for hundreds of years.
Ana scrambled out of the way, hope pounding at her as the warriors tore through the ground. Their faces were grim. So grim. They were already fifteen feet down and moving fast. Elijah! We’re coming!
But there was no response from Elijah this time, not even a flicker. There was only a void where Elijah’s presence had been, and Ana knew with sudden certainty that he had used the last of his reserves to contact her. Her hope flickered, and real fear began to pulse inside her. What if they weren’t in time?
No, they had to be! “Quinn? Gideon? Do you sense him?” With their blood bond, they would be more sensitive to him than the other Order members.
Quinn didn’t even look up, his face covered in dirt as he assaulted the earth. “No.”
“Me either.” Gideon was the deepest in the hole, his muscles taut beneath his skin as he dug. His blond hair was ragged, covered in a day’s worth of dust and grime.
Oh, God. Was Elijah dead? Ana dropped to her knees and buried her bleeding hands in the dirt, sending all her mental energy into the soil that already carried a faint rancid tint from Ezekiel. Elijah. Don’t give up. We’re coming for you.
“I can hear a heartbeat,” Gideon shouted. “He’s near.”
A heartbeat? Ana started to shake. “Don’t hurt him! Be careful!” She clutched the rim of the hole and watched as the males dug more carefully, until they finally tossed the shovels aside and used their hands, still removing dirt with such efficiency it was astonishing.
“I feel skin!” Gideon shouted.
“You found him?” Ana leapt up and the edge of the hole crumbled beneath her feet. She lost her footing and catapulted headfirst down the edge of the hole. She crashed hard into Kane’s scarred back, and he whirled on her. Black light flashed above his forearm and a loud crack exploded as he called out his weapon from the black brand tattooed into his skin. The double spiked flail appeared in his hand so quickly Ana didn’t even have time to suck in a breath before the spiked metal balls were headed toward her face.
“Shit!” Recognition flashing in his dark eyes, Kane averted his blow at the last second. His weapon slammed harmlessly into the earthen wall behind her with a thud that made the ground shake, and little rocks tumbled down from above, showering them both.
“Sorry,” she squeaked. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Kane swore and yanked his weapon out of the wall of dirt. “Hell, Ana, we’re all on edge here. Watch yourself.”
She knew why they were on edge. Ezekiel would be coming after them at any moment. It was a race to rescue Elijah before doom descended and consumed them all.
“Elijah!” Ana shoved past Kane to where Quinn, Gideon and Zach Roderick were down on their knees, rapidly clearing dirt from Elijah’s inert body. She could see his thigh and one shoulder, covered in clay and deathly still. Her heart stopped for a split second, stunned by the decimated condition of the warrior who had pulsated with such strength, fire and determination such a short time ago. She’d brought him to this? Dear God, Elijah. I’m so sorry. I won’t let you die, I promise.
Fierce determination chasing away the shock, Ana scrambled across the loose dirt and knelt beside Elijah’s shoulder. She quickly began clearing the dirt from his face.
A loud crack made her start, and she jerked her gaze up to see that Thano Savakis had called out his weapons from the brands on his forearms. He was standing directly above her, the three pronged tip of his halberd poised over Elijah’s head. Thano’s second halberd was over Elijah’s heart. Ana realized Kane’s flails were poised over Elijah’s exposed belly. “What is wrong with you?” She shoved at their weapons, but they didn’t move them.
“We’re just taking precautions,” Kane said quietly.
She saw their grim willingness to kill their own teammate if they had to. God, what a legacy they had as members of the Order of the Blade. Calydon warriors who lived and died by their oath to protect innocents from rogue Calydons. To fulfill the Order of the Blade mission, they killed ruthlessly, repeatedly and without remorse, and had been doing so for hundreds of years.
Even if it was one of their own who had to die.
“He’s not a monster,” she said, moving her shoulders protectively between Thano’s weapon and Elijah’s heart.
Gideon pushed her back firmly. “He was the last time I saw him. If he’s in the same state as he was then, he’ll try to kill us all, and he’ll succeed if we’re not ready.” His blue eyes were heavy with regret and worry, and she realized he feared they were going to have to slay his best friend right there. “Stay out of the strike zone, Ana, or you wait up on the hill.”
Ana clenched her fists. “Elijah is not insane. He spoke to me, and he knew who I was. He’s not going to attack any of us.” Ignoring Gideon’s scowl, she turned back to Elijah and helped Quinn clear the dirt away from Elijah’s head, viscerally aware of the weapons hovering above her. She would not let them kill him, and she tensed her muscles, ready to block their path to Elijah’s heart if he needed protection. Elijah, they aren’t the enemy. Let them help you.
Her fingers brushed against his skin, and energy leapt into her, a pulse of fire and heat. “He’s alive!” Her nerves humming from the shock, Ana dug even more frantically, her fingers flying gently over his face as she wiped the dirt away from his mouth.
Quinn worked silently beside her as Gideon and the others unburied the rest of him. Elijah’s face began to emerge. She saw the strong angle of his jaw, the roughness of his whiskers, the face she’d seen in her dreams for so long. His skin was pasty brown from the damp clay, his dark hair caked with mud. His eyes were closed, his face expressionless with the silence of death. “Oh, God,” she whispered, her hands faltering in horror. He’d been buried alive. “How could he possibly have survived?”
“I can hear his heart,” Gideon said. “It’s slow, but working.” He looked up at the Order members standing guard. “He could wake at any second. Be ready for him to attack.”
There was a pulse of assent in the air, and Ana tensed, feeling their utter commitment to slaying one of their fellow Order members. She laid her trembling hands over Elijah’s forehead and bent close, resting her cheek against his cold skin. Elijah. Can you hear me? I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.
There was no response, no spark from touching him this time. Even with skin to skin contact she couldn’t get even a faint pulse of energy from him. Her throat tightened and she lifted her head, then sucked in her breath when she saw the rest of him that the Order had finally unburied. Naked and raw, Elijah’s skin was shredded. Deep gouges, open wounds caked with crusted blood and sand… Her stomach lurched and she laid her hand over his chest… “Oh, God…”
Gideon swore, and she shot a glance at him. “You did this to him?”
“Some of it, yeah, when he attacked me.” His face was hard and unapologetic, and she dropped her gaze from his, knowing what he hadn’t bothered to say.
At least Gideon had left Elijah alive, which was more than she could claim.
CHAPTER TWO
“Is Elijah still alive?” Ana skidded around the corner of the basement corridor of the mansion belonging to the Order’s deceased leader, Dante Sinclair. Her cast slid on the mud covering the steel floor, and she yelped as she started to fall. “God, please, tell me he’s alive.”
Quinn caught her arm as she nearly went down, righting her with a firm grip on her upper arm. “He’s alive, Ana, but—” He paused, his eyes dark, his face grim.
“Where is he? Why is he in the basement?” Ana wrenched her arm out of Quinn’s grasp, searching the corridor past him for any sign of Elijah. But all she saw were five Order members talking in low voices. Their shoulders were hunched, and she realized they were discussing what they would do about Ezekiel if Elijah didn’t recover.
Elijah and some of the others had been returned to the temporary Order headquarters by Kane, who was the only Order member with the ability to teleport. Ana had been deemed not critical and had been forced to stay behind with two other Order members, so as not to tax Kane’s ability to relocate Elijah when he was in such fragile condition.
It had taken Kane almost three hellacious hours to return for Ana and the others.
She hadn’t been able to reach Elijah by mind, and she’d been nearly insane with fear by the time Kane had reappeared, especially when Kane had been unable to reassure her as to Elijah’s well-being. She was nearly desperate with the need to see him, to know he was all right, and her entire soul was screaming with the need to connect with him. “Where is he?”
“Calm down, Ana. He’s alive.” Quinn’s voice was gentle but firm, his dark eyes deep with understanding. She realized that he thought she was freaking out because of the sheva bond, because he knew from first-hand experience exactly how intense it was.
The sheva bond was an unstoppable connection between a Calydon and his soul mate. With the completion of each of the five stages of the bond, the connection would become tighter and tighter, sucking them in until there was nothing else in the world for either of them. The moment the bond was complete, destiny would hunt them, thrusting them into the hell that awaited every bonded warrior: he would lose her and go rogue, destroying everything that mattered to either one of them. The only way to stop him would be by death, to him, to her, to both of them, unless the Order got to them first and killed one of them in a preemptive strike.
The Order had been striking for over two thousand years, their mission being the single one of protecting humanity from the rogue Calydon.
Quinn might think he understood the sheva bond. He might think that Ana’s need to see Elijah was because she carried the outline of his brand on her arm, formed when Elijah had satisfied the death stage by offering his life to save hers.
Quinn was wrong.
It wasn’t simply the bond calling her to Elijah. It was so much more, so deep, pulling at her very soul with a fierceness she knew no one would be able to understand. It was too much, formed from a lifetime of the guilt and torment she’d been carrying.
“Quinn—” She realized suddenly that her forearm was tingling, and she looked down at her arm where Quinn’s hand had been. There was a smear of mud and blood on her arm, and it was beginning to burn her skin. Was her arm stinging because it was a reaction to Elijah’s blood? Fresh blood? Oh, no. “What happened?”
“Ana.” Her sister, Grace Matthews, stepped up beside Quinn, placing her hand possessively on the warrior’s forearm, supporting her mate. “It’s better if you don’t go in there—”
“Better for who?” God, she hated how Grace still looked at her as if she was some child she needed to protect. Didn’t Grace understand how far beyond that they were? There was no more innocent girl, no more permission for anyone to protect her. “I need to see him.” Ana shoved past Grace, but her sister grabbed her arm.
Grace’s silver eyes were haunted and worried. “Ana, you’ve been through so much—”
Ana yanked her arm out of her sister’s grasp, her heart racing so hard she could barely breathe. “Tell me where he is!” Metal doors stretched down the corridor, all of them closed, as if this had once been a prison for deranged Calydons…and since they were in the basement of the former leader of the Order, that’s probably exactly what it was.
“Let her see him.”
Ana turned toward the quiet voice and saw Lily Davenport standing near them. Ana felt tears rise in her eyes at the sight of Gideon’s sheva. Lily had suffered alongside Ana at the hands of Nate Tipton, the ruthless bastard who had kidnapped them both. Their shared incarceration had created a bond of friendship that would never die. There was sympathy in Lily’s eyes, and sadness, as if she didn’t know if seeing Elijah would help, but that she knew Ana had to do it. She understood.
Grace shook her head. “But—”
“She can handle it,” Lily said. “You can’t protect her anymore, Grace. It’s too late for that.” Lily pointed down the hall. “Third room on the right, Ana. Yell if you need help.”
Ana nodded and started running down the corridor. After having been tortured for m
onths, Elijah had been buried for three days, only to be rescued and then locked up like some beast. If he wasn’t insane already, that would do him in.
Gideon broke from the group and stepped in front of the door just as she reached it.
He caught her by the shoulders and forced her to stop and look at him. “Don’t release Elijah. He’s too dangerous. And don’t get within his reach, okay?”
Release him? “He’s not some beast—”
“Promise me, or you’re not going in.” Gideon nodded at the faint mark on her forearm, acknowledging the connection that pulled her toward Elijah. It was his brand on her arm, and it had appeared after they’d met, locking them down as soul mates and starting the process of bonding them and pulling them inexorably to their demise. “I know you want to help him, but you can’t. It’s too dangerous. He tried to kill me, and I’ve been blood bonded with him for five hundred years. You’ve done only one stage of the bond with him, and it’s not going to be enough to keep you safe from him. Do you understand?”
She saw in his eyes that he wasn’t going to yield, and she nodded impatiently, willing to say whatever it took to get in to see Elijah. “Okay, okay. Just let me in.”
Gideon narrowed his eyes as if weighing the veracity of her response, then he dropped his hands from her shoulders. He shoved the deadbolt aside, then used both fists to muscle the door open, his shoulders flexing with the strain.
The minute it was open enough for her to squeeze through, she eased through the door and into the cell. Then she saw Elijah, and tears stung the back of her eyes. “Oh, Elijah.”
They had laid him out on a steel slab and locked him down in padded steel wrist and ankle cuffs. He was unconscious, his body limp and defenseless. They’d strapped him down like he was a monster. On that slab, he’d been imprisoned and stripped of all his abilities to defend himself, laid out at the mercy of anyone who would come after him. He was trapped, just like she’d been at Nate’s, just like he’d been when Frank had so mercilessly messed with his mind.
Darkness Surrendered (Primal Heat Trilogy #3) (Order of the Blade) Page 2
