“I’m a partially bonded Calydon male, which means I can’t bring myself to give a shit about whether sex is a bad idea when you’re almost naked in front of me.” His voice was almost a whisper, a fierce growl muted by exhaustion beyond what any man should be able to endure. How he was keeping himself conscious, she had no idea.
“You need to sleep,” she said, “not lust after me.” In the interest of fighting off both destiny and her own desires, she opted to keep her underwear on even though it was wet, and then she crawled onto the bed beside him.
I will always lust after you. Get used to it. Elijah dragged her across the bed so her back was nestled up against his chest. He tucked her into the curve of his body and threw his leg over hers. The feel of his bare skin on her thigh sent desire pulsing through her. His leg was so heavy with muscle, so hot, so there.
He slid his arm beneath her shirt and folded it across her chest. His elbow was by her ribs, his forearm angled between her breasts, and his hand resting across the base of her throat. It was a position of intimacy, of possession, of vulnerability, bringing her into his space. It was the statement of a man ready to settle into the moment, to simply breathe in their connection and let it fill him. It wasn’t a position of sex. The tenderness of his embrace filled her with longing so intense she felt like the world was crushing down on her.
Elijah nuzzled his way through her hair, pressed his face to the curve of her shoulder and took a deep breath. “God, I love the way you smell,” he mumbled. There was such satisfaction in his voice, seeded with hazy lust and utter possessiveness, that the female in her wanted to nestle against him and surrender completely to how he made her feel. She wanted to stop fighting so hard, to give up the battle, to lose herself in this moment that was so beautiful, so peaceful, everything her soul had been craving for so long.
“This isn’t a good idea,” she whispered.
His arm tightened around her, and his brand brushed against the side of her breast, searing it through his touch. He didn’t move his arm away. Need to sleep. Don’t leave me.
I won’t. Sensing his tight control as he fought to fend off the terrors that had consumed him in the basement, she slid her hand under her shirt and laced her fingers through his where he was holding her so tightly. I’m here.
Nice.
She knew the instant he fell asleep, his mind quieting where it still touched hers. There were no nightmares in there right now. It was simply the focused healing sleep of a Calydon, so necessary if either of them had any chance.
Ana could feel the warmth on her back from his body pressed so tightly against hers. She could feel his chest expand with each breath, his muscles tensed and flexed even in sleep, and she knew that he was still in unbearable pain. She tried not to think about how badly he was hurt, about the wounds still losing blood. Instead, she focused on the even rhythm of his breathing, on the way he held her so tightly against him. She felt cherished. Protected.
Everything Ana didn’t deserve. Didn’t want. Could never, ever trust.
But it was such a gift, this incredible moment, to be in Elijah’s arms, to be embraced so tenderly by the man she’d held so tightly in her soul ever since they’d met. She’d thought he was dead. She’d lived with the guilt of his death. She’d ached with longing every time she’d heard his voice whisper through her mind, thinking it was simply her imagination. And now he was with her. Holding her. Needing her. Desiring her.
Elijah was alive.
Tears spilled out of Ana’s eyes. She’d stood there and watched Elijah die, and yet somehow he’d survived. Damaged, but alive. All she wanted to do was snuggle against him, bury herself in the heat of his body and shut the world out.
But she didn’t dare.
She couldn’t afford to get so comfortable that she forgot to keep her eyes open. Elijah wasn’t the only one who saw nightmares during sleep. Her illusions had begun to take her over as well, haunting her the moment she let her defenses down.
She brushed her fingers over the wound on her throat from that morning, when she’d woken up screaming, clawing at her own neck to pry the garrote off her throat. A garrote that didn’t exist, except in her own mind. Her own illusions were attacking her now.
If she fell asleep, the tight mental shields she was using to keep the illusions at bay would fall. Another illusion would come, and with Elijah so connected to her, it would hit him as hard as it would hit her.
And he’d never survive it.
Never.
As terrified as he was of her on a subconscious level, Ana hadn’t had the courage to tell him how right he was to fear her. Elijah might think he was a monster, but she actually was one.
She wasn’t simply a monster. She was the tool to Elijah’s destruction. It was as if destiny was pissed off that Gideon and Quinn had managed to survive the bond without going rogue, and fate had hand-selected Ana as Elijah’s soul mate with the sole purpose of making sure it broke him.
It was like a cruel joke, forcing Ana and Elijah together to enable him to get through each minute, when each contact between them sent him catapulting faster and faster toward his ultimate destruction, a hell that she would be solely responsible for.
It was a race now. A race to kill Ezekiel before she and Elijah could complete the bond and destroy each other forever. A race in which two thousand years of destiny and an eternity of Illusionist destruction had all the odds in their favor.
CHAPTER NINE
Ezekiel threw open the doors to his basement and marched into the darkened room, flanked by the six strongest Calydons who had already sworn themselves to his service. More than sixty had already been recruited, but so many of the ones Nate Tipton had recruited for him were dead, courtesy of the Order of the Blade taking most of them out several weeks ago.
The Order may have slowed him down, but Ezekiel was rebuilding and they would pay for trying to stop him.
Plants lined the edges of the room and he brushed his hand against one of them. It instantly shriveled and died, and he felt the pulse of energy as it cried out for mercy before its life was snuffed out.
He was gaining power quickly, and it felt brilliant.
A whimper in the corner caught his attention, and he turned toward a woman huddling like some pathetic victim. Late teens, eighteen maybe, her body young and nubile, her breasts tempting and lush beneath her daring top. Tears streaked her face, but she glared at him as he approached.
He squatted before her, drinking in the long legs stretching out beneath those short shorts. God, he loved this century. No more guessing what he was getting before he took. Her hair was a fiery red…almost auburn. Lush and rich. A few freckles on her chest, disappearing beneath her shirt. Freckled breasts? Fascinating.
This new one his men had brought home for him had promise. Could she be the one he was looking for? The partner to his future?
He reached out for her leg, and she scrambled backwards. “Did you kill those other women?” she asked.
Ezekiel shot a careless glance toward the far corner, where the bodies of eleven women were heaped in a pile. His groin hardened at the sight of their nakedness that had served him so well before he’d finished with them and shut them up for good. The faint odor of their rotting flesh floated through the air, and he breathed deeply of the scent he’d been deprived of for the two thousand years he’d been in prison. The signs of redemption and purity, of peace and serenity, the promise of a land where only the good thrived. “Yes, they were my pleasure,” he said.
She moaned, and he turned back to her, suddenly disgusted with her terror. “Did they keep you company?” he spat at her. “Regale you with tales of my magnificence?” He rose to his feet and stood over her, cowing her with his size and his strength. God, he loved the rush he got from people cringing in terror as they waited for their punishment for how they’d chosen to live their lives. “I am still searching for my queen. Perhaps you shall be her? Or perhaps, more likely, I will cut your throat and relish watching you
bleed out on my floor? Which do you think?” His cock grew hard, and he knew this one wouldn’t live long. He wanted her too badly, and he needed the power he got from draining these women and using them until there was nothing left.
Ezekiel was but a fraction of the being he would soon become. He was so much more powerful than he ever had been before. Once he learned how to manage it, to control it…he raised his arms to the ceiling and crowed with delight. Finally, after two thousand years, Evangeline’s death would be avenged. At last, her beautiful spirit would be able to be at peace, as her death served those who were as worthy as she had been.
At the thought of the woman he’d given his heart to, Ezekiel dropped to one knee and bowed his head, resting his forehead against his clasped hands as he sent a prayer into the heavens, a whisper of his love to the woman he had yet to make himself worthy of. “My dearest Evangeline,” he whispered. “I swear on my soul that I will finally fulfill my promise to you. I will ensure no innocent ever suffers the fate that befell you.” He closed his eyes against the anguished memory of that moment when he’d last seen her two thousand years ago. After months of searching, of drinking from the fountain tainted with demon magic and welcoming that poison into his blood to make himself powerful enough to rescue her, Ezekiel had finally succeeded.
God, that moment of triumph when he’d broken down the doors of the palace and fought his way past the guards to the dungeons. When he’d ripped that stone door off its hinges… and found his true love dying, her life bleeding out on that brutal stone floor. His princess, his soul mate, the woman who gave his life meaning had been lying there, her body violated, her heart broken by the bastard king and his depraved ways, a deviant who’d plucked Evangeline and so many other innocent women off the streets so he could use them as his playthings.
Ezekiel’s heart had shattered in that moment when he’d seen the only thing he’d ever loved lying there in that dungeon, abandoned and lost because he’d failed to get there in time. He’d failed her. And yet, when Evangeline had opened her eyes and seen Ezekiel standing there, there had been no recrimination in her lavender eyes. She’d simply lifted her arms to him, asking to die in the arms of the man she loved.
As he’d sat there on that cold, stone floor, his soul breaking as her spirit fled her battered body, he’d fought to understand why something of such beauty and purity had suffered such a brutal fate. It had taken hours, but he’d finally understood. Evangeline had been the martyr, the one to free all the others like her: innocents of a pure soul and spirit who were being victimized by the tainted, poisonous bastards who dared spawn the earth. Evangeline’s death had been to show Ezekiel what he had to do: save all the others like her from that fate.
His mission was to rid the world of all the tainted souls who cast darkness and pain into the lives of those as pure as Evangeline. It was there, in that hellish hole in the ground, that Ezekiel had finally understood the reason he’d survived the childhood hell he’d prayed to be delivered from every damn night of his young life.
Ezekiel had tried to fulfill his destiny. Two thousand years ago, he’d summoned his forces, he’d created a legion of Calydon warriors by taking them to that demon-tainted fountain and having them drink. He’d slowly, carefully, precisely begun to work his way through the world, eliminating every living creature whose taint was an insult to Evangeline’s pure soul. One by one he’d taken them down, basking in the beauty of watching the bastards die the rotted death they deserved. Ezekiel had been on his way, so close, so near to salvation, when Caleb had interfered.
Ezekiel swore, anger rolling through him at the memory of how his twin brother had refused to see the value and importance of Ezekiel’s mission. He burned with betrayal at the memory of how Caleb had stopped him, defeating his forces and locking Ezekiel up. Of anyone to understand what drove Ezekiel, it should have been the man who was his other half.
It still bit at Ezekiel mercilessly that Caleb had refused to stand by him. The loss of his brother haunted him almost as much as Evangeline, because Ezekiel knew of no way to atone for the loss of his brother, to explain why it had had to happen. What could he have done differently? Not steal Caleb’s wife, his brother would say, but that wasn’t Ezekiel’s fault. Her spirit had called to Ezekiel, and he’d known she was part of his mission, so he’d taken her. It was Caleb’s fault for not understanding, but Ezekiel knew that somehow, it was his fault as well, for not helping his brother understand.
He’d failed his brother. He’d failed Evangeline. He’d failed the millions of innocents who had suffered over the last two thousand years while he’d been locked up.
But not anymore. Not now. Because he had a second chance, and he was getting it right this time.
The woman before Ezekiel whimpered, pulling him out of his memories and back to the present. He stared at her, revulsion building inside him as he looked at her flawed body and felt the bitter rancidness of her soul. How could he have thought she might be the one? Her taint was so evident in every breath she took. Her unworthiness stank up the room, a woman that didn’t even deserve to be thought of in the same moment as Evangeline.
Ezekiel scowled down at her, almost disgusted by what he had to do to her. He didn’t even want to touch her, but he knew he had to do it for the sake of his mission. “Who have you hurt? Your children? An animal? A plant?” He knew the list would be endless. He’d seen filthy people like her so many times before. He’d seen their mark on Evangeline’s body that first day he’d met her when they were both ten years old and she’d been hiding from her bastard father in the old feed shack. Revulsion churned through Ezekiel as he sneered at the woman before him, a woman so like the countless other soulless creatures he’d destroyed.
The woman stared at him. “What? I don’t have children. I haven’t hurt anyone—”
He snorted with contempt. “You can’t even see what you really are, can you?” Her breasts were nearly all the way out of her skimpy shirt. “Let me show you.” He let down his shields and grabbed her arm, unleashing into her the evil and taint he’d absorbed from so many deaths.
Her eyes widened and became glazed with hate, the vile emotion he’d known pulsed deep inside her. If her spirit had been pure, he could not have affected her, but there she was, pulsing with all the vileness of so many before her.
Ezekiel thrust her into the arms of his team, and she whirled on them, attacking them with a pleasure and fierceness that was so like the expression he’d seen on the king’s face the day the depraved royal had abducted Evangeline.
Disappointment was like a cold knife in Ezekiel’s back, and he swore. Was no one pure enough to withstand that kind of taint? Was there no person in the fucking world with a soul beautiful enough that it rose above the hell and refused to be tarnished? There had to be people like that out there. People who he could use to start a new world, a world of goodness, the world that Evangeline deserved.
But until he found those who were worthy, he would do his duty, and wipe out those who were scum, those who deserved the most hellish fate he could summon onto them. This time, he would not fail. This time, he would amass enough power that no one would be able to stop him. He needed more evil to harvest, more taint to draw in from others, so he could thrust it out into the world and let people use it to destroy themselves.
A mother. Maybe a mother. He turned to his men. “Find me a woman with children. A mother who loves her children, who would defend them with her life. Bring them all to me.” He would test mothers, see if he could turn them on their children. He needed to see how much power he’d gotten back. It wasn’t until he’d reached the height of his powers that he’d been able to make mothers turn on their children, merely by walking through a town. Friends murdering friends had been easy. Husbands killing their wives had been the next step. Mothers taking out their beloved children…that was when he’d know he was powerful enough to begin his mission.
The first step was to find one to test his powers on. See where he s
tood.
Plants were dying from his touch. Good.
He glanced at the ones in the corner, and they were still alive. Not yet dying merely from being in his presence. But soon.
Someone called him an infection once, but they were wrong. The infection was already there, deep inside people, and he was the angel of beauty to clear it out. Ezekiel thrived on what he was doing, on watching the fabric of the unworthy society unravel. Hearing the pleas of the weak, offering him anything if he’d only spare them.
That had once been him, a small child, begging for mercy he’d never received from his father, getting beatings and lashings instead of a reprieve. That had been Evangeline, begging for her life from her father and the royal bastard who’d taken her. Now the tables were turned. Never again would he be the one begging. Never again would goodness have to beg for mercy. Never again.
His captive’s eyes widened and she tried to jerk free of his men, but they held her with no effort, her struggle futile. Ezekiel held out his arm and called out a knife. He smiled as he inspected it, still getting used to the fact he had twenty-one weapons to call now, not just the one weapon he had originally been gifted with. The ritual that had freed him had given him the power and weapons of all twenty-one men who had taken him down in the first place.
The level of power he’d attained two thousand years ago was nothing to what he would be able to achieve as soon as he completed his escape from his prison. He was out, yes, but only his spirit. Currently, he was using another Calydon’s body as his host. His body was still locked down in that prison, and until he broke those walls down and reunited himself with his body, his virulence would not be at its peak.
He needed more power to make it happen.
Ezekiel grabbed the woman’s wrist and glared down at her. “And now, you learn what it feels like to truly suffer—” Sudden pain shot through his head. He shouted and released her, gripping his head against the thundering pressure. What the fuck?
Darkness Surrendered (Primal Heat Trilogy #3) (Order of the Blade) Page 9
