by Sue Wilder
“Phillipe told me she is on her way. He is trying to stall them as long as he can.”
Lexi let go of Luca. She felt a hollowness in her throat when she looked at Christan’s face. He stood unbending and remote, with a code of honor that was implacable. It was the strongest aspect of his personality, even though he denied it, and he refused to yield. Once before, he had been willing to fight to the death for her and he would do the same now. Lexi struggled to find an argument that might change his mind and knew it was pointless. Honor was in the action, not the outcome, and she started to move forward. Luca wrapped his hand around her arm.
“Don’t. If you love him, do not react.”
“It’s so hard, Luca.”
“Maintain,” the warrior commanded while around her, more warriors filled the room, lining the walls. Weapons were displayed. Tunics revealed loyalties: Six and Five. Chaos grew as the audience began to argue over the merits and flaws in the case Six presented. Lexi heard the anticipation; it terrified her while Six was exultant. Everything about him vibrated with anticipation, avid and full of lust for the coming blood and knives and memories dug from her mind.
The ballroom doors exploded, embedding shards of wood like spears into the walls. Voices fell silent as Three walked into the room, and she was not alone. Two warriors followed, escorting a third who was having difficulty walking. Lexi ripped her gaze from Six but not before she saw the rage in his eyes.
Three stood with the elegant, deadly confidence of a cardinal Calata member who controlled the alchemy of old, a white magic too close to black and on a level not quite buried in the past. Her silk pantsuit shimmered like opals in the overhead light. Ancient power dwarfed that of the immortals around her and she still aroused fear.
“Forgive my late arrival.” Three spoke in English, so there was no need for Luca to translate. “I was interrogating a witness.”
“A traitor, not a witness,” Six sneered as if unimpressed. “Anything he says will be unreliable.”
“Even when he’s confessing to murder on your orders?”
“Confessions under torture are not admissible.”
“There was no torture.” Three stood between her warriors and those siding with Six. “The warrior admitted his crimes without coercion.”
“It matters not,” Six said, spreading his hands. “We are judging your warriors, Three, no one else.”
Murmurs of support rose in the air. Six gave a knowing smile that was not reassuring. Three seemed to expect it. Her eyes swept over the assembled audience.
“Do you deny you ordered the murder of Elene Santori,” she asked, “human mate to the warrior Javier, who is under One’s protection and subject to the Agreement?”
Six’s lip curled. “Yes” he said, “I deny it.”
Three seemed to be in complete control. Something about her expression, Lexi realized, that bordered on satisfaction.
“Do you deny you ordered the attack on my enforcer and his mate in the alley in Florence, unprovoked, and then accused us of starting a war?”
“You have no proof of your claims,” Six replied. “You’re wasting our time.”
“What of the attack on my enforcer’s villa in Florence, where warriors and mercenaries belonging to you killed two human caretakers—do you deny ordering that as well? And before you answer, we have identified mercenaries killed in the attack and linked them back to you and Five.”
“Your Enforcer committed unprovoked murder. He killed three warriors, an act of war. We were within our rights to respond.”
Voices in the room hummed like agitated bees while the tension in Lexi’s muscles became volatile. Three bowed her head as if in agreement and then looked at Six.
“You compelled my enforcer to Zurich, where you incapacitated him, then violated the pact we have all sworn to uphold by summoning his mate with the intention of killing her in front of him. Do you deny compelling her?”
Three paused while her accusation settled in immortal minds, before adding, “Unless you have another explanation for how a human woman got to Zurich from Florence in the space of seconds.”
There was no mistaking the menace in both her voice and her posture. When Six refused to answer, Three turned and gestured to the assembled crowd.
“Do you expect the Calata, and all immortals gathered here, to believe you don’t possess a dangerous power? For as long as we have lived on this planet, humans have never survived teleportation, and yet you managed to transport Christan’s human mate to Zurich. Do you deny you used unknown power—which should have all immortals alarmed?”
“Perhaps the girl is no longer human,” Six snarled, “and we should be alarmed by your unsanctioned use of alchemy. How do you explain the way she disappeared from Zurich and ended up in Seattle?”
“If it is a misuse of power you wish to compare,” Three said, “you will not like the outcome. And since you have admitted the girl was with you in Zurich, you can no longer deny an attempted murder of a protected mate. Your actions violate our laws. It is not my warriors who should be subject to this inquisition, it is you.”
Six did not respond. Instead, he moved with a blur of energy, appearing so close to Three’s side her warriors responded to the threat. They converged around Three, leaving the prisoner exposed. Six struck, ripping the man’s head from his body. He held the trophy in front of Three’s face, splattering her white blouse a bloody red before tossing the remains aside. The head rolled drunkenly. A collective gasp rose from the immortals, who were there, after all, to see blood on the floor.
Three faced the assembled immortals, leaving the red evidence smeared across her face. “Six accuses us of waging war against him while his actions destabilize the peace we have achieved.” She looked at One. “I hold no enmity toward you, but I will not allow women under my protection to be attacked without retribution. My enforcer had the right to vengeance under the Agreement and Six has no claim. If he persists in his demands for lex talionis, then I will remove him from the Calata.”
“Are you issuing a threat?”
Five rose to his feet and power rolled from Three, filling every corner of the room and racing along the walls. She looked utterly terrifying.
“I do not make threats.”
“That’s our cue.” Luca said. His hand closed around Lexi’s wrist as he turned toward the nearest exit. Shouting filled the hall. Hard bodies were moving, fighting. Warriors were surrounding Christan, pushing him through a door on the opposite side of the crowded space. Other men protected Arsen and Darius. Weapons appeared, handed off from armed warriors to those who were unarmed. Lexi didn’t bother to resist. Luca’s job was to remove her from the chaos even if it meant leaving Christan behind.
Lexi stumbled once and Luca caught her, his hand reassuring as they ran out into the dark courtyard. The night was cold. Lexi shivered once as they hurried down a series of wide, rose-colored terrace steps. Fountains babbled faintly. Sweet fragrances drifted from the gardens and a few torches still guttered. Luca urged her toward a gravel path, then beyond the first crenelated wall. In the distance, Lexi could see the vehicle waiting in a shadowed utility yard. She heard the grating as Luca opened a wooden gate, felt the faint shifting crunch of gravel beneath her feet. Overhead, the stars were brilliant, crystalline. She wanted to pause long enough to count the first five pinpoints of light, but Luca was urging her forward. His deep voice was comforting, telling her she was safe, and suddenly he hesitated, then let go of her hand.
There was such a look of shock in his eyes she didn’t realize what had happened. Then his body fell and she was being forced to her knees. A black hood dropped over her head, blocking out the horrifying sight of Luca’s head, rolling slowly in the gravel.
CHAPTER 14
Lexi curled onto her side. She was lying on a surface that was both cold and hard. Luca burned in her memory, the soft, laughing sound of his voice, followed by the last light in his eyes. She rose to her knees, bent inward with the pain, crushed
by desolation so deep she rocked with it. Bitter words came unbidden, flowing from some inner mystery until she was singing. It sounded like an ancient keening song of loss. A song of anger over an unjust death. A song for justice.
By the end of the lamentation Lexi was beyond emotion. She rolled onto her side and although she didn’t sleep, darkness descended and there was nothing at all.
✽✽✽
The sound of the mourning song brought every warrior and immortal to a halt. Shock reverberated through the villa.
It was a song that had not been sung for thousands of years.
It was a voice that had not been heard for even longer.
It not only mourned an unjust death, it was terrifying in the promise of vengeance.
“Inferno, canto,” one of the Italians murmured, crossing himself.
Hell, singing
✽✽✽
It was Phillipe who stepped in front of Christan and held him in place. No other entity could stop the enforcer in mid-change, and for an instant it looked like immortals would get a violent spectacle after all. Power screamed through the air, no longer invisible but vibrating with the colors of red and black and the cold silver of a blade. When Christan found the ability to speak it was a guttural roar.
“Where is she?”
“We’ll find her.” Three had taken control, issuing mental orders as warriors nodded and disappeared. The initial shock gave way to anger. Arsen didn’t ask permission from Three, and after looking at Christan, he disappeared into the night.
Phillipe’s face had turned into a mask of pure violence. “Can you control yourself, Enforcer?” he demanded.
“Yes.” The word scraped past Christan’s teeth. She was still alive. Her heart beat with his and the need to give in to Three’s compulsion for vengeance was overwhelming. But Phillipe was right. Christan needed control.
“Where is Six?”
“No trace of him in the villa,” a warrior replied, and Christan recognized him as a member of the formal guard detail. “One is assembling all the immortals loyal to her. Her warriors have secured the grounds. Betrayal occurred beneath the sanctuary of her roof and she offers her profound apologies,” he added in a formal statement to Three.
“She can deal with the politics later,” Three snapped. “Where is my warrior’s mate?”
“She was last seen leaving the hall with Luca.”
Arsen stalked back into the room. Without acknowledging Three, he walked up to Christan and gripped his arm. Knowledge flowed from the man who loved her as a sister to the man who loved her as his soul. They were in agreement. Luca died protecting a warrior’s mate. The song had been one of intense mourning. And it demanded vengeance.
✽✽✽
Nothing remained in the ballroom but broken urns and crushed flowers. The combatants had retreated—Six to places unknown, while Three went to a luxurious villa on the grounds of the compound. Warriors came and went, their faces grim and determined, while a few whispered rumors circulated. A potential coup by Six was popular. Speculation around the cardinal enforcer gained momentum, and shortly after eleven that evening, when he was seen standing in the courtyard, his expression was so hard and bleak those rumors intensified. It was the worst expression some had ever seen from the enforcer who instilled fear, and it did not bode well for his adversaries.
For the next hour the enforcer spoke only to warriors vetted by his second-in-command. To Three he said nothing, but there had been a violent confrontation between the enforcer and Phillipe. The enforcer wanted immediate action, while Phillipe counseled for restraint since they had no actionable intelligence. As shocking as Luca’s murder was, there were powerful immortals who refused to move against Six without irrefutable proof.
Afterward, the enforcer shifted into a creature of nightmare and disappeared into the dark, followed by his second and one other warrior. When they returned, there was a cold light in the enforcer’s eyes. It recalled visions of an ancient jungle, for those brave enough to remember. An animal swiftness that snapped through every shadow. He looked like a legend. Like a myth.
✽✽✽
By two in the morning, Darius was in command, establishing their security and coordinating warriors around the world, working with Leander, who ran interference between One and Three. Time was a critical factor. Lexi had been missing for five hours. Christan counted every minute as it drained away. When Phillipe walked into the private suite a moment later, the academic was holding several maps in his hand.
“We found the vehicle they used for transport,” Phillipe said. It was an armored SUV, found parked in a field outside the seaport of Ancona on the eastern coast of Italy. Trace energy led to a rear compartment where strands of her hair were found in the metal seams. Tactically, they should assume Lexi was now on a boat somewhere in the Adriatic Sea. Everyone understood that once the vessel reached the Mediterranean, it would disappear in the mass of commercial fishing vessels that operated with little regulation.
Maps covered the table and Christan pressed his palms flat as he leaned forward to study them. His persona changed. Throughout his long life, Christan fought endless battles, learned how to read the terrain. War came to him as love came to others; he relished the blood and the simplicity of action without guilt or justification. This situation did not differ from war. There would be blood. His enemies had taken the one person they never should have touched, the woman for whom he’d willingly destroy their world if he didn’t get her back. She was his blood mate and he would find her. Or die with her. His eyes narrowed as he studied the options.
“Three hours to drive to the coast.” Christan ran a blunt finger along the probable route to the eastern coastline of Italy. From there he traced down between Italy and Greece. “If she’s on a boat they’ve been at sea for two hours. A private vessel, or commercial fishing because they’d need to blend in. The trip from Ancona to Patras takes less than a day, but they won’t go into the port there, too obvious. Kefalonia is the largest island, but it’s not the only one.” He pointed to the map and drew out a circle. “By tomorrow afternoon she could be anywhere in this area.”
“A fishing boat might head on down toward Crete if they wanted to hide,” Arsen pointed out. “A few days out in the open but worth the risk. There are over 300 commercial vessels in that area.”
“We need to find her before they get that far,” Christan said, looking at Phillipe. “Why didn’t we pick up her energy when they were travelling to Ancona? She should have been close enough for everyone to sense her.”
“Lexi might be shielding herself without realizing it. Or they’re using drugs to keep her unconscious, dampen the energy pattern. I don’t think there’s any doubt Lexi is the one who sang that lamentation.”
“How did she even know it?” Arsen asked.
The lamentation had taken them all back to the tragic wars that once covered the earth with blood, a memory most struggled to forget. The song had been a call to conscience.
Eons ago, it had been a demand for war.
Before that, it had been something worse.
“Should we assume Six knows?” Christan was still studying the map.
“Six left immediately, as did Five,” Phillipe replied. “They may have been too far away to hear it.”
“There were plenty of loyalists who report to him,” Christan murmured. But he knew Six would keep her alive—that was Two’s song. The connection was unmistakable now, and it would give them time to find her
Christan straightened and dragged a hand through his hair. He wouldn’t exhaust himself, but he’d push for any advantage if it gained him the high ground. A battle was coming. He knew his blood mate’s courage. She was his mirror. He had to trust she would know what to do.
CHAPTER 15
Hola chica,” the voice said, pulling Lexi back to consciousness. She was half-sitting, half-leaning against a hard surface. A man was bending over her. She batted at him but he caught her hand and laughed as he slapped
a bottle of water against her palm.
“Drink,” he ordered. “You need to flush the drugs from your system.”
Lexi gripped the bottle and looked around the cramped quarters. The stateroom was painted pea-green, and Lexi was sitting on a narrow bed beneath a tiny round porthole that was as black as the night. Moisture was weeping through the glass and trickling down her neck, ice cold. Judging from the slight rolling vibration and the thick smell of fish and brine, she was on a boat.
“What drugs?” she asked as she unscrewed the lid on the bottle. “I don’t remember taking any.”
The man held up his hand and mimicked pushing a needle into her arm, his thumb depressing an imaginary plunger. Lexi thought about Luca wrapping his big hand around the same arm, leading her away to keep her safe. The memory should have crushed her but didn’t. It angered her.
“Where am I?”
“On a personalized cruise in the Mediterranean.”
“It smells more like a fishing boat.”
The man shrugged. Lexi studied him as she drank the water. His hair was dark and matched his eyes. The thin, hard face reminded her of the Spanish noblemen in a painting she once admired, finding it in an old book on Dutch Masters. All he needed was the white ruff around his throat. And maybe a dagger in his heart.
“Who brought me here?”
No answer. Lexi stared at the face that belonged in a museum and allowed silence to chill the room. Water continued to weep from the window.
The Spaniard shrugged. After a long moment, he said, “Enjoy the trip.”
✽✽✽
The stateroom was cramped, with a built-in shower area behind a partition. The sink was adequate. Lexi scrubbed Luca’s blood from her skin, inspecting her clothes for evidence of gore. There were only a few spots and she rubbed them away with a damp towel, feeling like she was rubbing away the memory of a kind man who murmured “forse non” with a trace of sadness. Lexi understood what he meant, that perhaps, no, he would never find love, and she cried while pressing hard at her eyes with the heels of her hands. When she was herself again, Lexi noticed the table bolted to the floor, along with a chair, also bolted down. Curved bars attached to the metal berth were alarming since the welding was shiny over the dull silver, new and deliberate. When the Spaniard returned twenty minutes later, he tossed something toward her. Lexi caught it, glancing at the paper wrapping. It was a power bar.
