Dying Wish: A Novel of the Sentinel Wars

by Shannon K. Butcher

  If he’d had a soul, it would have rejoiced at the knowledge. Instead, he mourned for her and what she could have had by now if she’d been with a whole man.

  “You’re closing yourself off from me again,” she said.

  He had to. There was no other choice but to protect her from his secret. It wouldn’t change anything if she knew. There was nothing she could do to save him. All knowing would give her was a responsibility to report him, or the burden of keeping his secret as well. He couldn’t do that to her. She didn’t deserve to have him dump on her like that when she’d helped him feel like the man he used to be for a few short hours.

  Iain was sorry that he had to pull away from her. Being with her so close, touching her mind, was a joy he’d never thought to experience. And now that he had, he had to deny himself one more thing.

  “I need to call in,” he told her, rolling away to sit on the edge of the bed. “I’ll report to Joseph and the others that we found the cave.”

  “We don’t know it’s the right one.”

  “It was filled with demons. It has to be cleaned out, one way or another.”

  “And then what?” There was anger in her voice. “You’ll ask me to go hunting again? To find the real breeding site this time? I can’t keep doing this, Iain. I’m no good at it, and it scares the hell out of me.”

  He couldn’t deny her comfort, not when he could hear so plainly how upset she was. He didn’t know what he could do to fix it, but he had to try.

  Iain turned toward her. She’d pulled the sheet up to cover her nudity. The flush of arousal was still clear on her face and throat, but the languid pleasure shining in her eyes was gone. “We’ll go back home. You’ll stay there while the rest of us deal with the problem. You shouldn’t have been asked to go back to where you were held. That wasn’t fair.”

  Her chin angled up. “I’m not a coward.”

  “I know,” he reassured her.

  “But I’m not a fighter, either.”

  She was. She didn’t want to admit it, but if she hadn’t been a fighter, she wouldn’t have survived captivity for so long. The fact that she wasn’t comfortable in the role yet was likely his fault. He should have eased her into combat, taking her into safer situations, gradually working their way up to the big stuff.

  If he’d spent ten minutes thinking about what she needed, that’s what he would have figured out before now. Instead, he’d been too busy fighting his rage and trying to keep his fucking dead soul a secret.

  He didn’t know what to say to make her feel better. He wasn’t even sure he was capable of such finesse. “When we’re…separated, you need to pick a gentler man. Someone who can take the time to train you right and see to it that you’re comfortable in your power.”

  “When we’re separated, I’m not picking anyone else. I’m going to live on my own. Besides, you don’t seem to be making any headway with the broken-heart thing. How are we supposed to part ways?”

  He ignored her question because he couldn’t tell her the truth. At least not yet. “Cain is a good choice. He’s patient. Kind. He’ll see to it that you have a life that is as close to normal as one of our kind can get.”

  Her lips flattened in anger. “Cain? You screw me and then tell me to go into the arms of another man, like it’s as simple as changing a shirt?”

  The idea was appalling. Even now, he wanted to rip Cain’s head off and kick it from a cliff. Iain had to take several slow, deep breaths before he could wade through his rage enough to even speak. “It had been a long time. For both of us. We needed the release. But it doesn’t change things. Does it? Do you somehow magically want to be with me now?”

  He held his breath, waiting for the answer to that question with more anticipation than he had a right to feel.

  “No,” she snapped. “I don’t. I don’t want to be with any of you. I think I’ve made that abundantly clear.”

  He couldn’t let her think she had a choice. Her life depended on her accepting her situation. “Cain is the man you should be with. He needs you as much as you need him. Promise me you’ll go to him when we’re separated.”

  “I’m not making any promises to you or anyone else.”

  She was so damn stubborn. It was time to play dirty.

  He dropped his voice to a low, coaxing tone. “I saw how you were with Samson. I saw the longing in your eyes. Cain will give you the child you want.”

  If he hadn’t been watching her so closely, he wouldn’t have seen the way her eyes darkened with desire as he spoke the words. But he was, and he did.

  And then desire turned to hurt as she looked up at him. “How can you even say that? How can you so calmly talk about another man giving me a child when I haven’t even washed your semen from my body? Are you truly that cold?”

  His gut clenched as though he’d taken a punch. “I haven’t been administered the fertility serum. I can’t give you a child.”

  She hugged her knees to her chest. “You don’t even know if I want a baby.”

  “I’ve watched you. I’ve been in your mind. I know.”

  “You stay the fuck out of my head. I mean it.” She jerked the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around her body as she stood.

  He was losing her. She was slipping away, driving a wedge between them.

  Desperation to see her safe spurred him on, searching for some way to make her see reason. “Cain will let Tynan give him the fertility serum. He’ll pay the blood fee that I’m sure is associated with the cure. Whatever you want, he’ll give it to you.”

  She stood next to the bed, quivering with anger. “Will he leave me alone? Will he let me live my life in peace?”

  “He’ll make sure you live. That’s all that matters.”

  Jackie shook her head, and he saw tears sparkle in her eyes. “No, it’s not. And if you cared for me at all, you’d see that.”

  She disappeared into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. He tried to reach for her through their link, to make sure she was okay, but all he felt was a cold, hard wall blocking him out.

  * * *

  Jackie kept her mouth shut the entire way back to Dabyr. A couple of young men had come and picked them up, telling them that Joseph had ordered their return. From the way they said it, there was clearly something going on, but no one seemed to know what.

  Frankly, Jackie didn’t really care. Whatever it was, she was certain it would be one more thing getting in the way of her finding a real life for herself.

  Part of her wanted to give up and accept her fate, but every time she considered that, a little sliver of her old self died. She’d worked so hard for so long to keep something of herself alive while facing the horrors of her captivity. She’d sheltered that deep, secret core of what made her who she was, and kept it hidden, protected. No matter how often they took her blood, starved her, or humiliated her, no matter how many children’s screams she heard, or how many babies she saw die—that kernel of herself that made her who she was she kept locked away, shielded by the hope that she would one day be free.

  And now that she was free, she realized that it wasn’t truly any kind of freedom at all. She’d traded one cage for another. Sure, this one was more comfortable, but they still controlled her—with fear of what might happen if she left, or with guilt from the lives that would be destroyed if she didn’t help them fight their war.

  How the hell was she supposed to simply overlook those things and move on?

  Every time they brought her back to Dabyr, she lost a little more of herself. They were slowly eating away at her resolve, sucking her into a world where she didn’t belong.

  It would have been easier to give in and surrender. Let them use her as a weapon. Be with Cain as Iain had suggested and simply conform.

  Just the thought seemed to crush the soul from her body. She knew it was selfish not to jump at the chance to help, but she was terrified out of her mind that if she accepted her fate and threw her lot in with these people, she’d spend the r
est of her life fighting and watching people she cared about die.

  She’d done enough of that for one lifetime. She’d paid her dues to this war in blood and tears. She couldn’t let it take any more away from her, or she’d have nothing left.

  Joseph was waiting for them at the door, looking shell-shocked. His hair seemed to have a bit more gray in it than she’d remembered, and his shoulders bowed a bit further.

  “What’s going on?” asked Iain.

  “Come with me,” Joseph ordered.

  He led them through the halls to an unlabeled doorway. Most of the rooms here were numbered to make them easy to find, but not this one. Unlike the other wooden doors, this one was metal. There was no peephole, and rather than the standard key-card reader, there was a number pad and some kind of screen.

  Joseph placed his hand on the screen. A light slid over his palm. Then one LED turned green. He punched in a code, and the second LED turned green. The lock clicked.

  “Brace yourself,” he said, looking at Iain. “This may be a trick.”

  “What may be a trick?” asked Iain, scowling.

  “Just watch what you say. We’re not yet sure who she is, but we’re hoping you can shed some light on it.”

  Joseph turned the knob and pushed the door open. The three of them filed inside. The room was dimly lit, plain, and painted in a dull gray. There was a counter filled with some electronic equipment on one wall, and a large window in the adjacent wall. The window displayed another room on the other side of the glass, painted the same dull gray, but with only a table and chairs bolted to the floor. Pacing around that table was the most beautiful woman Jackie had ever seen.

  Serena.

  Chapter 21

  Iain stood there for a long time, staring, unable to believe his eyes. Serena, or someone doing a hell of an impersonation of her, was only a few feet away, on the other side of a two-way mirror.

  Her long red hair had been cut at an odd angle, arrowing from her left shoulder down to her right hip. A large section of her skirt had been sheared off, revealing one long, shapely leg.

  He remembered that dress. She’d been wearing it the night she’d been killed.

  As the momentary shock of seeing this creature faded, rage took its place. How dare someone defile her memory by showing up here, pretending to be her? Serena deserved better.

  “Who is she?” demanded Iain.

  “She says she’s your betrothed.”

  Jackie covered her mouth with the back of her hand and stepped away from the glass.

  “It’s a lie,” said Iain. “She died. This can’t be her.”

  “We had a visit while you were gone. An Athanasian woman ported here. Somehow, she sensed Serena’s presence and freed her.”

  “Freed her? Where the hell did she come from?”

  Joseph glanced at Jackie, then lowered his voice. “She says she’s been held in some kind of stasis bubble for two hundred years. I think you should talk to her, see whether you can verify her story.”

  “Fine, but if she turns out to be trying to trick us, don’t expect me to hold back,” he warned.

  “And if she’s not?” asked Jackie. “What if she is who she says she is?”

  “She’s not,” said Iain. She couldn’t be. Because if she was his Serena, then he’d abandoned her, leaving her trapped and alone for two centuries. Even he wasn’t that much of a bastard.

  Iain went to the door to the adjoining room and walked in to face the impostor.

  The woman saw him. Her face lit up with happy surprise, and she flew into his arms. Her slender body hit his, but he refused to hug her back, no matter how much like Serena she felt. Even her smell was the same—like new grass and lavender.

  He disengaged himself from her grasp and took a long step back. “Who are you?”

  Her smile faltered, fading as she stared at him as if he’d hurt her feelings. “You know me, Iain. I’m Serena.”

  He let his tone fill with the anger thrumming through him. “She died. Who are you?”

  The woman stepped back. Her hands were shaking. “I was taken the night we were to bond. Snatched away by a bright light. It was Mother’s doing. I could feel her touch vibrating through the magic, smothering me.”

  Serena’s mother had never wanted them to be together. If she’d known their intention, she would have done something to stop it. But still…“If what you say is true, then how did you survive all this time?”

  She bowed her head in weariness. “I don’t know. I never grew hungry or thirsty. There was no pain, only endless boredom. I seemed to float around, tethered to the Sentinel Stone. Sometimes I could see things going on outside my cage. I saw glimpses of people. Heard voices and machines. I screamed for years for someone to find me, but no one came. You never came. I thought for sure you’d feel me and come find me.”

  He refused to believe it. He’d never once felt her presence, though he had searched for it. Every time he’d tried, all that had met him was blank nothingness. He was sure it was because she’d been killed. Even now, he felt nothing—no heat or subtle tug against his skin. He didn’t know if that was because this woman wasn’t Serena, or if his union to Jackie somehow blocked it.

  But now, with Serena’s double sitting there, so close, looking exactly as he remembered, he had to learn the truth. “Prove to me you are who you say.”

  “Let me take your luceria and you can see inside my thoughts. I’ll be able to hide nothing.” She rose and came toward him. Her eyes fell to his bare neck and she stopped dead in her tracks. Her throat moved as she swallowed, and grief pinched her lovely features. “I see. You’ve taken another.”

  “Convenient. Now you can’t offer me that proof.”

  Her nostrils flared in rage and she grabbed his shirt in her fist. “Convenient? You think that being trapped for two hundred years only to be freed and find the man I love bound to another woman is convenient?”

  The fire dancing in her eyes couldn’t be faked. With every passing second, he was becoming more convinced that she was who she said.

  Iain grabbed her wrist and closed his eyes. Once upon a time, he would have been able to feel her presence as easily as he could his own heartbeat. The luceria hadn’t bonded them, but it drawn them together.

  He felt a faint hum within his ring. It was muted—nothing like it had once been—but he didn’t know if that was because this wasn’t really Serena, or if his bond to Jackie was to blame.

  “What was your favorite horse’s name?” he asked.

  She lifted her chin. “I never had a favorite. Riding always terrified me after that fall I took as a girl.”

  “What did your mother say to me when I first met her?”

  “She said that you weren’t good enough to clean her chamber pot, and that if you tried to steal me away from her, she’d unman you.”

  She’d also said she would put his head on a pike and nail his entrails onto a sign as a warning to other inadequate men.

  Iain glanced at the mirrored glass, knowing Joseph was watching. So was Jackie, but he couldn’t think about that now. His focus couldn’t shift while he was dealing with a potential threat.

  He gave Joseph a slight nod.

  “Do I pass your tests?” she asked.

  “Just one more thing. Show me your birthmark.” He didn’t elaborate. If she didn’t know what he was talking about, then her lie was over.

  The woman’s mouth tightened in indignation, and a flush of color tinted her cheeks. Iain had always been amazed by how pretty her blush made her, and had worked to make it appear as often as possible. But right now, all he could think about was the sense of impending doom he felt now that she had returned.

  She loosened the laces at her bodice and turned away from the glass as she leaned forward. There, on the smooth curve of her left breast, was the ring-shaped mark of a female Theronai.

  He stared at it, trying to find something that reminded him of how he’d felt for her before—some hint of love he knew
he should have for her. Love didn’t just go away. It lingered. It left a mark, and yet Iain could find none.

  Maybe it had died with his soul.

  He turned and left the room, regret heavy on his shoulders. Not only had he let Serena down by abandoning her, but he’d also betrayed her by bonding himself to another woman. He was certain that Serena would be hurt by his actions, but truth be known, he was more worried about how Jackie would feel knowing that the woman he’d once loved had come back from the grave.

  He closed the door behind him, unable to look Jackie in the eye. Instead, he kept his gaze on Joseph. “All of her answers were correct.”

  “Do you think it’s her?”

  He wanted to say no. It was selfish of him—not something an honorable man would do. It was easier to pretend she was dead than it was to face up to his utter failure of her.

  “I do. My luceria reacted, though not as strongly as it once had.”

  Jackie backed into the corner, hugging herself.

  Joseph nodded, staring at Serena. “We’ll keep her here for a while yet, while I make arrangements for her comfort.”

  “I really need to go,” said Jackie.

  She was upset. Even though he was barred from her thoughts, he could see it clearly in her face. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No,” she said, a bit too forcefully, then in a calmer tone, “No. I’ll be fine. I just need some time alone.”

  He started to follow her, but Joseph grabbed his arm. “Let her go. This is a lot to absorb. Give her some time.”

  He didn’t have any time. Every second he spent away from her was one he’d never get back. With the clock ticking away the last of his minutes, he didn’t want to waste them standing around with Joseph.

  “Serena will need to be watched,” he told Joseph. “Even if she is Serena, there’s no way to know if her story is true. If she’s been in Synestryn hands…”

  “I’ll see to it,” said Joseph, his expression grim. “This changes things. With Jackie.”