Her Fallen Protector

by Nichole Severn

  Jacob pinned her with his green gaze. He nodded once, too quick to hear her protest. He delivered a bone-crunching hit to Sorren’s ribs, swinging around in time to miss the heft of the broadsword. As Sorren hit the wall behind him, Jacob went for the sword. Shards of drywall fell from the blow. In one clean sweep, the man she thought was her best friend put Jacob on the floor, fingers gripped in his shirt, the blade at his neck.

  A sob burst from her throat. “No! Please, don’t—”

  “Silence!” Sorren centered her in the blade’s aim, but kept hold of Jacob. “He broke his covenant to remain loyal after you were cast to Earth. Because of you, we lost one of our greatest protectors, and the Deceiver has taken advantage. We’re losing. Just like your master wanted. Like you wanted. You never loved him. He was just a mission. Well, I’m here to see that your mission fails.”

  He was too strong for either of them to fight. Shooting pain erupted in the center of her chest, threatened to rip her wide open, like the memory of her death. She wouldn’t lose the one person in this existence who cared about her. Not again. Her attention slipped from the sword to those piercing green eyes she’d found refuge in the last four days. Jacob’s mouth hung open as he struggled for breath. Ice crawled into the pit of her stomach. “No.”

  “So be it.” Sorren’s back muscles tensed for leverage and he raised the sword above his head.

  Her insides caught fire. “I’ll give you the Seal!” Only her shallow breathing interrupted the silence that descended over the apartment. “Let him go and you can have it.”

  The sword lowered. Sorren turned his gaze to her. Panic slid up her back as he studied her, his breathing even, as if he could stand there all day. “You’re lying. You don’t have it. If you did, I wouldn’t be here. None of us would.”

  She swallowed hard. Hatred enflamed his eyes, and she backed up half a step. “If you help us find it, the Seal is yours to do whatever you want with. Just let him go. Please.”

  “How do I know you’re telling me the truth? You couldn’t care less about the consequences if I let you anywhere near that ring, or if I brought Israel’s head back to the Father. In fact, I’ll prove it. The Seal or Israel. Choose him, he lives. Choose the Seal, he dies. For good. One less complication in whatever game you’re playing. You could even use the time it takes for me to do the job to escape. So where do your loyalties lie, fiend? Will you hold up your end of the bargain?” The lines around Sorren’s mouth and eyes deepened. He raised the tip of the broadsword a few inches higher, challenging her. Light gleamed off his armor with a slight shift in his stance, pinpointed the open cavity just below his underarm.

  All she had to do—

  “Time’s up.”

  “No!” Her senses clouded to the point of damaging overload. She lunged. Her apartment walls blurred. Stale air froze in her lungs. Her palms connected with thick body armor and she pushed with everything she had. Sorren’s body caved from the momentum and he slammed into the east wall with a thud. Drywall and plaster rained down in a shower of loose powder. The sword dropped to the floor. She took position in front of Jacob—ready for the next attack—as Sorren dusted his shoulders free of debris. Her fingers ached, too tense in a claw-like position. “Touch him again and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

  “Vdarra, no.” Jacob’s presence at her back cooled the fire burning her insides. His soothing touch slid over her shoulder.

  She gasped. Fisted her hands. The voice had sounded like hers, yet the words weren’t. The darkness swimming around her head traveled down her neck and filled her chest. Her hands tingled, and her body temperature had risen several degrees in the span of a few seconds.

  “Don’t let her take control. Listen to me. Take a deep breath,” Jacob said.

  The stale air shifted into a cinnamon coated aroma—his scent—and she breathed in as deeply as she could.

  “You claim innocence as darkness fills your eyes.” Gripping his sword tight in one hand, Sorren stood. The massive arms she’d once taken comfort in flexed dangerously.

  Jacob’s touch interrupted the connection she’d made with the foreign energy battling for control of her body. Heat tunneled through her clothing, shutting her down, relaxing muscles she no longer recognized as her own. What had she done? “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…did I hurt you?”

  The brilliant blue gaze dimmed.

  “I’m not her, Sorren, and I don’t want to be. We can help each other. We both want to the find the Seal before my father does. To destroy it.”

  “You want me to trust you? A fiend?” His distaste resounded in his tone and he straightened to his full stature, seemingly unaffected by her blow. “You claim you aren’t Duemos, yet you possess her strength, her power. You’ve destroyed the woman I’ve protected for ten years by letting the Deceiver transform your blood, and for that you’ll pay. You may look like her, but fiends by nature are manipulative, cunning, and only want what’s best for them. Why should I help you?”

  “Okay, you have a point. I didn’t fight them hard enough. Now I have a chance to make things right.” She closed the distance between them, her senses dulling, her trust leading her forward. He wouldn’t hurt her. Not as long as she kept Duemos at bay. Would he? “We were friends, like siblings, Sorren. You were there for me when I needed you after my father died. You made sure I didn’t work too hard and protected me when repos got out of hand. We sat on my couch for hours after work and pretended we could cook after watching the Food Channel. Listen to my voice. Look into my eyes and tell me I’m evil, that I could hurt anybody.”

  Jacob sucked in an audible breath over her shoulder. “Vdarra—”

  “If we’re going to survive this, we need your help finding the Seal, Sorren. And fast.” She smoothed her hand over his grip around the sword and pressed down. “Please, help us save all the people who are going to die if my father finds the Seal first.”

  Sorren studied her from head to toe, searched for the evil he wanted to find. One heartbeat. Two. He sheathed his weapon at his back.

  The tension in her muscles drained faster than she thought possible, but she couldn’t relax completely. They had a lot of work to do.

  “I’ll need assurances. For now, I’ll believe you’ll keep your word, but you obviously have issues with controlling your demon nature. If you don’t hand over the Seal, or attempt, in any way, to raise that army, you’ll surrender to me for sentencing.”

  A warm grip wrapped around her arm and Jacob positioned himself in front of her. Mountains of solid muscle shielded her from Sorren, but she couldn’t let him protect her from her sins. Not anymore. “Over my dead—”

  “Okay.” She pushed out from behind him. “I agree.”

  …

  His heart stopped cold.

  “Good. Then if we’re going to find the Seal, we need to start at the beginning,” Sorren said. “I assume Israel has told you what the Seal is?”

  Vdarra left the cover he’d provided, brushing her fingers down his forearm as she passed. “Yes, he also said…”

  She’d volunteered to hand herself over, to leave him.

  Again.

  Pieces of their conversation bled through the haze as ice formed in his stomach. With every muscle, he tried to control the devastation taking over. Pain stung his palms, and his knuckles ached. Her lips moved without sound, her eyes focused solely on Sorren. Strands of her ebony hair swayed in and out of her face as she gestured with her delicate hands.

  How could she surrender so easily? How could she give up on them a second time? Her silence during Sorren’s threat to end his life hadn’t escaped his notice. He’d lain at the end of a broadsword, with his life in her hands, and she’d agreed to hand herself over to Sorren, once again ripping them apart.

  Because she had nothing to lose.

  He couldn’t swallow the gut-wrenching tear splitting his heart in half. A stab of ferocious pain ripped through his chest. He couldn’t make her fall in love with him. The Father’s gift o
f agency prohibited manipulation of any kind, but the pain of losing her all over again was the worst kind of blow. No matter how much he’d tried convincing himself she just needed time to forgive him, she didn’t love him the way he loved her.

  The love he’d fallen from Heaven for, given up immorality for, couldn’t be resurrected. Maybe Sorren had been right all along. Maybe that love had never existed. For her.

  “That’s it. I don’t remember anything before the day my father found me in the ocean, besides bits and pieces that come up every now and then.” She reached for him. As if she couldn’t continue on without touching him, she wrapped one of her arms through his and pulled him closer.

  The ringing in his ears subsided. Her fingernails dug slightly into his arm, rendered him immobile. Her unusually bright and intelligent gaze had dimmed since Sorren appeared. Her body sang with uncertainty, her movements tense and choppy, and he placed a hand over hers.

  “Do you have a world map?” Sorren asked. “We don’t have much time.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, in the bedroom. But what good will that do?”

  “I need to see where you were discovered.”

  “Okay.” She left his side and disappeared into the bedroom.

  Jacob’s attention lingered on the door she’d gone through. He could feel Sorren staring at him.

  “You’ll lose her, Israel. I don’t want to see you go through it all over again, but I can’t change the Father’s mind. He realizes his mistake in letting her live, and wants her tried and sentenced in our courts to make sure that army never rises.”

  “That’s not my name anymore. I left that life behind.” Rustling came from the bedroom, but he had time before she returned. “Apparently for nothing.”

  “I found it.” A victorious grin spread across her features as she emerged from the bedroom with the map in hand. She strode toward them over the hardwood effortlessly, not unlike the warrior he’d once idolized in battle.

  He couldn’t look at her. Too much had changed.

  “Can one of you right the table you seemed so keen on destroying?”

  Sorren’s attention pressed on him as he gripped the edge of the coffee table and set it back onto four legs. His eyes burned with questions, but Jacob couldn’t dwell on the future. Not anymore.

  She rolled the world map flat on the table, using a discarded centerpiece she gathered from the floor to hold down one corner. The map had already been marked in several places, but the symbols read like a different language altogether.

  “What do these markings mean?” He brushed his fingertips over the laminate, to the crosses and lines circling several locations across the globe. No one marking corresponded with another as far as he could tell, looking almost random and uncoordinated.

  “This was my father’s. He kept it in his office before he…faked his death.” She ran a hand over the map to flatten it out again and shrugged. She studied the writing, but the defeat in her expression revealed she had no idea what any of it meant. “I kinda hoped he was trying to help me figure out where I came from. I have no idea what any of this means. I think he meant to keep it that way.”

  Sorren studied the map with intense interest, shoulders hunched, lips thinning. Jacob recognized that line of thought.

  “You think he was trying to find the Seal.” He spun the map toward him, north at the top, south at the bottom. “Can you read it?”

  “No, the symbols mean nothing to me,” Sorren said. “Where did he pull you out of the ocean?”

  She singled out a circle off the coast of South America. “He found me here. About a mile out to sea from Rio.”

  The date carelessly written in black marker below the circle indicated December 25, 2004. The day of her death, the day he lost everything.

  “The date is right.” Memories of that day had seared themselves into the back of his eyelids. Each time he closed his eyes, the images regenerated. Nine days of torture. Ten years of looking for her, finally finding and watching over her. All for naught. Her fingers inched across the table and settled beside his. Stroking. Soft and pleasurable. Just as she’d stroked him earlier. The air rushed from his lungs. Dammit. How the hell was he supposed to give her up with memories like that?

  Sorren considered them both for a moment, his gaze lingering on Vdarra slightly longer. His shoulders rose slowly. “It’s rumored the Father cast the Seal to earth at the same time you were expelled, but I haven’t been able to investigate further. He’s very protective of the location and won’t disclose it in fear you’ll be reunited with the source of your power.”

  “Wait, didn’t He send you to find it?” she asked. “Why not just tell you where it is?”

  Good question.

  Sorren didn’t answer for the space of three breaths, those blue eyes growing distant. Rigid muscle flexed across his back and Jacob’s stomach turned to stone. “Because I’m no longer worthy of his revelation. Haven’t been for a long time.”

  “That’s why you’re here.” He should’ve seen it sooner, should’ve known Sorren, the one brother who’d disappeared when he’d needed him most, had ulterior motives. “You don’t care about the millions of humans destined to die at the Deceiver’s hand should that army rise. You’re here to crawl into His good graces.”

  “If I find the Seal and return it to the Father, I’ll have my honor back, yes.” Sorren cast his attention to the map, his cheeks ruddy. “Bring him the Deceiver’s best soldier? Even better.”

  He straightened. No way in hell. “And what did you, of all loyal servants, do to upset Him, Sorren? Does He even know what’s happening?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “It is when you involve millions of innocent lives. You’re the general of His army. If we can’t trust you to be here for the right reasons, then—”

  “I fought for the two of you!” Sorren’s fists struck the table hard. The hardwood floor beneath shook from the impact.

  Vdarra jumped back, mouth open, eyes wide. Her gaze darted from Sorren to him, searing him to the core.

  He fought the urge to reach out for her, bring her into his chest where she belonged. She’d made it perfectly clear, from the moment he’d turned his back on her in Rio, they didn’t want the same things. Why couldn’t he get that through his head? His throat itched, and that stone in his stomach dropped fast as he refocused. “What do you mean you fought for us?”

  Shaking his head, Sorren went back to the map. Sorrow coated the warrior’s expression. He wasn’t really studying the markings or the colorful countries in front of him. He brushed a finger over the plastic and exhaled hard. “She and I had an arrangement if your relationship was ever discovered. She’d give up her immortality to save you and I’d convince the Father to let her live, to wipe her memory clean. Now He regrets hearing my plea as I’ve failed in preventing the Deceiver’s plan to resurrect her memories.”

  “What?” Jacob swung his attention toward her, tried to control the tremble in his hands. Heat blistered his skin, remnants of memory as the forest had burned around them. Her amber gaze had kept him rooted in her arms. You’ll find me. She’d planned on ripping them apart all along, freeing herself. From him. The color of her eyes had changed, but nothing more. How long had she been planning to turn herself over to Sorren? “Do you remember that?”

  “No.” Her fingers slipped away from his. She stepped around the table, toward Sorren, hesitant, determined. “You were watching over me, weren’t you? All those years working for me. It was the reason you moved next door to me. You wanted to make sure I wouldn’t find the Seal on my own and make you look bad. You lied to me. You pretended to be my friend.”

  Sorren’s expression hardened. “Partly, yes.”

  “Why else would you do something like that?” The passion radiating from her pores ignited heat inside him. She had to control herself. Any misstep would plunge her into darkness.

  “Vdarra.” His heart skipped a beat. He followed her around the table and gripped her wai
st. The brush of her against his most sensitive and responsive area flooded his system with pleasure. She fought for freedom, but he wouldn’t give up so easily. Ever. No matter how long it took for her to forgive him. Digging his fingers into her flesh, he stiffened as Sorren stalked toward her.

  Their new partner centered his attention on Jacob and a rush of the brotherhood they’d lost resurrected in an instant. “Because I was there when he fell. I saw what killing you did to him and I couldn’t let you destroy him again.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Her life had spiraled out of control since finding the man her soul couldn’t live without. She wanted to tell Sorren she couldn’t ever hurt Jacob, that she’d never leave him, but the truth weighed heavy on her chest: she’d already done it. And here she’d been worried—for nothing—about him leaving her. “Sorren—”

  “There’s really nothing more to discuss.” His attention darted between her and Jacob. “Whether I like it or not, you’ve found my brother again. Right now we have more important matters at hand.”

  She leaned back into Jacob, the solid protection he offered, the comfort she craved, and focused on the map. His steady breathing urged her own lungs to slow, but the grip on her hips counteracted any chance she had of relaxing. She’d promised to hand herself over to Sorren if she couldn’t produce the Seal. She overlapped his hands with hers. What a stupid promise. What had she been thinking? But there hadn’t been any other choice with the sword at Jacob’s neck. They’d get through this. After everything they’d been through, they had to. “Okay, so we need to find the location of the Seal.”

  None of her father’s markings on the map made sense. Like a foreign language, the symbols and lines meant something. She just couldn’t make it out. He obviously hadn’t discovered anything important during his search or the world would’ve paid the price already. So why were they studying it?

  Jacob shifted behind her, his warmth honing her body’s appetite into a delicious frenzy. She pressed back into him and his breath caught. Two could play at this game. Clearing his throat, he pointed to the circled location just outside Rio de Janeiro. “On December 25, 2004, she fell here.”