“What?” She stared at him. Hello? Hadn’t she just offered him something to protect? “What kind of answer is that?”
“The Order of the Blade is an elite team created two thousand years ago to protect innocents from rogue Calydons. We are not allowed to sacrifice ourselves to protect others, because without us, there is no way to stop them. The greater good triumphs.”
She gazed at him in dismay. “You would let an innocent die to save yourself?”
“I would let an innocent die if it was the only way to save a thousand others.” Flint glittered in his eyes. “It’s what I have to do, Alice.” He raised his brows. “If you’re an angel, you, of anyone, should understand about the greater good. Isn’t that what angels are all about?”
She swallowed and looked away for a split second. “Yeah, sure, the greater good,” she agreed. “That’s what I do every day. Save the world.” She couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of her voice, and she grimaced when she saw the flicker of interest on Ian’s face. She immediately faced him again and raised her chin. “Promise me you will help me with Catherine,” she said.
“I don’t make promises unless I know I can keep them,” he said. “I don’t know what I’ll find at his place, but if there’s any way at all that I can save her, I will.” He met her gaze. “My promise is that I will do my absolute best to save your sister. If there is a way to do it without violating my oath, I will find it and do it. I promise you my best, and trust me, that’s a damn good offer. Deal?”
Alice grimaced, shifting under his stare. Did she really dare align herself with a man who was too smart to trap himself with a simple promise? A man who unsettled her far too deeply? A man she couldn’t get out of her mind? A man who had saved her life twice in the last ten minutes? A man who claimed her for his own, threatening to strip her of everything she was?
She thought of her mother dying in her arms, and she knew the answer was yes. Absolutely, unequivocally, without a doubt, yes. Anything to keep the past from happening again. She met his gaze. “It’s a deal.”
*
Relief poured through Ian at Alice’s acquiescence. She was on his team. Hot damn. She was the first person he’d come across in years who had helpful information about the elusive wizard who had cursed his family. She was the break he needed.
But at the same time, dark foreboding settled around him. A Calydon’s sheva spelled doom for both parties even under the best of circumstances, and for Ian, his soul mate was the key to an even darker fate.
Every withdrawal by Alice, every time death tried to take her again, every moment that his mark failed to appear on her arm…it was a constant, inexorable slide from sanity to suicidal madness.
It couldn’t stay like this.
Alice’s expression grew wary. “What is it?” She glanced over her shoulder, as if looking for something to defend herself against him.
“No. Don’t retreat.” He closed the distance between them in two steps, forcing himself to stop when she leaped back. Anguish tore through him as his sheva distanced herself from him again. Son of a bitch. How had he managed to get the one sheva in history that was so damn resistant to her mate? It shouldn’t be possible, but it was.
Damn that curse. It knew what it was doing by selecting Alice for him.
Alice pulled back, inching so close to the edge of the rock, Ian knew she was considering jumping.
“Stop.” Forcing himself to hold back, he raised his palms in a gesture of peace. “Don’t retreat. Stay where you are.”
She stopped, and then frowned at him. “Are you in pain?”
“I’m fine.” He took a deep breath, fighting not to scare her into bolting. As a Calydon, it was etched in the very marrow of his being to claim his woman, not to stand back and give her space. What he was trying to do now was against his nature on so many levels, and with the addition of the curse, it was hell. The need to lock her down was fierce. If he could just get his brand on her arm, it would help. But without it, she was still an elusive enigma, able to flutter out of his life without a moment of hesitation. “If we are going to work together,” he said, keeping his voice contained, “there’s one thing that is going to have to change.”
She stiffened. “What’s that?”
“Your response to me.” There was no point in hiding it. It was what it was, and he was too seasoned of a warrior not to know when a threat could not be ignored.
Her mouth tightened, but a faint flush rose on her cheeks, sending heat spiraling through his body. “What do you mean?”
“My destiny,” he said quietly, “is to find the woman who touches my soul, and then I have to lose her.”
“Yes, you told me.” She swallowed, but he saw empathy flash in her eyes. “I know what that’s like, to lose someone,” she said, her voice softening. “That’s awful.”
He nodded and inched closer, his entire soul screaming to connect with her. “The curse makes the loss so powerful that it’s impossible to withstand. Suicide is the only way out.”
Alice stared at him. “Suicide?” She glanced at the brand on his forearm and then back at his face. “But you’re an immortal warrior. I don’t understand. How could anything affect you that strongly?”
“Apparently, I’m a sensitive guy. You didn’t notice that about me right away?” He moved closer, carefully, slowly encroaching on her space. “I cry at chick flicks and weddings.”
The smallest hint of a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. “Do you now? Why do I find that hard to believe?”
“Just because I’m a badass warrior who is a critical part of the Order of the Blade team, and I spend my days saving the world and killing rogue Calydons, you think I don’t have a sensitive side?” Another step, and he was close enough to catch her scent, even though the wind was blowing it in the other direction. She smelled like salt and brine from the ocean, but beneath that was the hint of something fresh and exotic, something pure, like a lily on a spring breeze.
She cocked her head, and he was pleased to see a thoughtful expression on her face. No longer fear or distrust. No longer trying to shut him out. She was analyzing him now, and that was a hell of a lot better than fearing him. “Do you really?” she asked, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to believe. “I mean, do you really have a sensitive side? I believe you about the killing bad guys.” She met his gaze. “That’s why I agreed to team up with you.”
He didn’t have to feign the look of agony. “That’s the reason? It had nothing at all to do with the scorching flames searing the air every time we get close to each other? It wasn’t because your soul burns for me and you can’t take one more minute without my lips against yours, and my soul entwined with yours?”
Her eyes widened. “No, definitely not that.”
“Shit. I don’t get how you’re so immune to my charms. I’m generally considered a ladies’ man, you know.” He reached out ever so gently and encircled her wrists lightly with his fingers. She stiffened, but when he didn’t tighten his grip, she didn’t pull away. “The first time I met you, I was with my teammate, Elijah,” he said. “Do you remember?”
“No…” She let the word trail off, as if she wasn’t sure what she knew and what she didn’t. She cocked her head, and he saw curiosity flare in her eyes, making him realize that she truly did not recognize him or remember what had happened.
Urgency coursed through him. He needed her to remember. The fact he wasn’t imprinted in her mind or her soul was brutal, against the laws of what bound them. “We were tracking Cardiff,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “You found him?”
He shook his head. “I was following a lead. We were in the mountains of southeast Washington, closing hard when I heard a scream from the heavens.”
“The heavens?” She rolled her eyes, in a decidedly human reaction that was pretty damn cute. “Isn’t that a little dramatic?”
He raised his brows. “So, now you’re calling me a drama queen?”
She burst o
ut laughing. “It hadn’t occurred to me, but hey, if that’s your claim to fame, it’s all yours.”
He grinned, loving the sound of her laughter. “I looked up to the heavens, as I said. Know what I saw?”
“Butterflies? Clouds shaped like hearts?”
“Almost.” He tightened his grip on her wrist. “A woman had just tumbled off the edge of a cliff at least two hundred feet above my head, and she was plummeting straight down to certain death on the rocks below.” He swore, remembering his shock at seeing a woman catapulting through the air in such a barren place. He could still vividly recall that moment when he saw her: auburn hair streaming out behind her, hands hopelessly outstretched, as if she were reaching for some salvation he couldn’t see, the look of shock on her face as she tumbled down toward him. The moment when his world became only about her. “You were wearing blue jeans, a red tee shirt with a sparkly heart on it, and sneakers. Your outfit was so normal and unpretentious, and not at all fitting in with a woman who would be free-climbing those ledges.”
She stared at him. “That’s my favorite shirt.”
He grinned at the stark surprise on her face, as if until now, she hadn’t completely believed in their past. “The world stopped when I saw you,” he said. “My entire focus immediately switched off Cardiff to saving you.” Never in his life had anything taken his mind off Cardiff, not until he’d seen Alice in her swan dive. “I sprinted over there—”
She held up her hand. “I remember now,” she said slowly, as if the memories were still coming. “You leapt up to snatch me out of midair. I must have been fifty feet up when you grabbed me.”
Ian grinned. “Couldn’t let you hit the ground unattended. It wouldn’t be chivalrous.” Then his amusement faded as he recalled the rest of it. “We landed,” he said softly, searching her face for some flash of recognition. “I stood there with you in my arms in the middle of that mountain range and my entire world shifted. For the first time in my life, I felt the power of the curse. I knew you were my downfall—”
“Whoa.” She jerked her hand free. “I remember now. You made some announcement about how I was your sheva and then your friend killed me.”
“No!” He grabbed her shoulders before she could pull away. “Listen to me, Alice. Elijah made that move when the Order was run differently, when it was our duty to kill Order shevas before they could kill us—”
“What?” She gaped at him, and it definitely wasn’t with love and adoration. “You guys kill your soul mates as a regular thing?”
“We used to. Not so much anymore.” At her disbelieving stare, he realized he really wasn’t playing the smooth Casanova role well. Shit. “Try this.” He grabbed her hand and pressed it against his chest. “Close your eyes, Alice. Feel what I felt that day when you died in my arms.”
“I don’t want—”
He narrowed his eyes. “If you want to save your sister, then you need to do it.”
Alice bit her lip, but she finally stopped fighting. Her fingers were petite and too fragile against his chest. An overwhelming sense of protectiveness swelled inside him, and he pinned her hand beneath his. “Stop fighting me,” he said, opening himself to that moment when Elijah had cut her down.
The despair rolled over him like a thick cloud, the agonizing sense of loss that seemed to strip everything else from his mind. He remembered her gasp of shock, and the way she’d reached for him as life had bled from her body. The agony of losing this woman he didn’t know. The guilt and shame of being unable to protect her.
Alice sucked in her breath, and her fingers dug into his chest. He realized immediately that she was experiencing his loss, understanding the truth of the words he was speaking.
“Elijah should never have been able to strike before I realized he was coming,” he told her. “But I was so consumed by you, and the curse was already working. Every instinct I’ve honed for the last six hundred years vanished. You were all I saw, until it was too late.”
She pulled her hand away, and folded her arms across her chest, hunching her shoulders, as if trying to ward off the taint of his emotions. The intimacy had made her uncomfortable, he could see that, and tension hummed through him. He needed to bond with her, and yet all she did was create distance.
“Every time you die, the curse comes back,” he said. “Every time you shut me out, the curse gains strength. You can’t do that to me if we have any chance of making it out of this thing alive.”
“Shut you out? What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what you think it means.” He moved closer, taking her wrist again. “I can deal with only so much loss when it comes to you,” he said softly.
“Me? But I’m—”
“You’re my soul mate, and the fact you don’t carry my marks doesn’t change that. From now on, you don’t get to die.”
She shook her head. “There’s no way to stop it,” she said. “Cardiff killed me with a black magic spell. I’m almost impossible to kill, so I keep coming back to life, but each time it gets harder. It’s just a matter of time until death finally keeps me and I can’t revive. I’m going to keep dying until I finally stay dead—”
“No!” He yanked her against him, and she tumbled into his chest, slamming against his hard body. “You can’t die again,” he said. “You won’t have to come back from death again, because I won’t let you die.”
Hope flashed across her face for a split second, but was immediately shoved aside by grim reality. “There’s nothing you can do, Ian. I’m already dead—”
“Hell, Alice,” he interrupted, cutting her off. “All you have to do is talk like that, and it nearly does me in. You make me tread so fucking close to the edge.” He lowered his voice, his words like daggers through her chest while his hand locked around her hips. “You scare the living hell out of me, Alice, and I can’t let you destroy me.”
She braced her hands against his chest, pushing against him, trying to put space between them, but he didn’t give her even an inch. “I wouldn’t destroy you.”
“You would, and you will.” He bent his head, until his mouth was only a breath from hers. “No more walls between us, Alice. I can’t take it.”
He felt her sudden understanding of what he wanted, and the cold chill of raw fear. “You want sex? Emotions? All that?” At his nod, she shook her head violently. “Dear God,” she whispered. “Not that. I can’t—”
“You can.” And then, before she could stop him, before she could twist away from him, before she could fight her own desires, he claimed her with a kiss meant to sear her very soul.
Chapter Six
Alice didn’t want to kiss Ian.
She didn’t want to feel his emotions.
And most of all, she didn’t want to feel her response to him.
But as Ian’s mouth captured hers, all of Alice’s resistance vanished, just like before. It wasn’t simply the kiss. It wasn’t simply the raw strength of his body against hers. It wasn’t just the fact that he had pledged to keep her alive. It was the sheer force of his being as it filled her through his kisses, his touch, and his very breath.
His hands were firm and unyielding on her hips, pulling her against him. She loved the sensation of being trapped in his arms, as if his great strength could keep all the darkness at bay. The breadth of his shoulders made her feel tiny, as if it was no longer her job to make everything right, to be an independent entity who was incapable of connecting emotionally with anyone.
It was intoxicating the way his lips were soft and yet demanding at the same time, the shocking sensation of his tongue sliding against hers. Her breasts were crushed against his chest, making her nipples tingle with a desire that seemed to vibrate right through her to every level of her being. She’d been kissed before, but never had it been like this. Never had it reached inside her very soul and infused her with life.
She knew it was forbidden. An angel of life was not allowed to connect with anyone, or to develop loyalties to anything but he
r job. Even her friendship with Flynn had been superficial on some levels. But right now, with Ian kissing her, she didn’t care. Though she knew he must be the catalyst sent to be her downfall, she couldn’t resist him. It was just too much, this gift, this moment of feeling alive and human. This moment of feeling like there was another being on this planet who was a part of her.
Ian deepened the kiss, asking for more as his hands palmed her lower back, pressing her more tightly against him. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, her resistance shattered. She locked her hands behind his neck and kissed him back.
Yes, Alice. Just like this. His guttural groan of capitulation filled her mind, and she felt his rising ardor, his need for her.
Excitement tore through her, a heady feeling of power that she could have that kind of effect on him. It was intoxicating, empowering. His emotions were stark and raw, exposed to her, filling her with feelings so intense she barely understood them. It was a gift, this moment, this feeling of being alive. She wanted more. So much more.
His hands slipped beneath her shirt, and she gasped at the feel of his palms against her bare skin. Electricity seemed to leap between them, searing her skin, plummeting through her. She felt like she was on fire, burning for this man who carried so much torment that even she could feel it. Ian—
Alice. I can’t tell you how amazing it feels to hear your voice in my mind. You belong there. Doesn’t it feel right? His hands slid over the curve of her bottom, cupping her, lifting her against him.
The hard length of him pressed into her belly, sending desire shooting through her. And now she remembered. She recalled every detail of when they’d made love before. How she’d given herself over to him on purpose, how they’d tried to use their kisses and physical connection to break the barriers between them so he could learn the secrets she wasn’t allowed to share. She remembered the intoxicating sensation of the hard wall against her back, the warm heat of his skin on the inside of her thighs, the feel of him sliding into her—
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