by Sue Wilder
“Will it be frightening?” she asked, curling her small fingers against the stone.
“At times, but you are brave.”
The child squatted down and drew careful lines in the sand.
“I won’t always be brave, Grandmother,” she said with a wisdom beyond her years. “But I shall always try.”
The dog was barking again. Lexi dragged in a deep breath and calmed her racing heart. Her right hand throbbed, and she watched the memory line as it extended beneath the skin, curling like a caress, forming a teardrop at the edge of her wrist.
CHAPTER 21
Shahat, Libya
Kace returned twenty minutes later, kicking a broken piece of furniture aside. He frowned as he looked at Lexi’s right hand.
“Memory returns.”
“You’d like to think.”
Kace gripped her wrist and held it up, his thumb pressing against the pale line that was still sensitive and new beneath her skin. He knew it hurt and smiled when Lexi didn’t flinch.
“What did you remember?”
“The recipe for bsisa. Start with chickpeas and grind them with coriander—”
Kace made a tsking sound and two men stepped into the room. A girl stood between them, covered in a dark blue burka with mud on the hem. Lexi recognized Katerina’s energy before they dragged the material from the girl’s head.
Katerina’s eyes were wide, her hair a dark riot around her shoulders and caught against her face. Lexi took an involuntary step forward. Jago intercepted her, catching her around the arm while pushing Katerina hard enough to make the girl stumble.
“Why bring Kat here?” Jago was knocking the broken furniture aside, looking for something else to kick, and Lexi stepped backward while Katerina reached out a hand.
Kace’s sideways glance was dark and amused. “Call it motivation.”
“Do you enjoy hurting people?”
“I never enjoy hurting you.”
“You do it anyway.”
“A means to an end,” he said. Lexi hissed in a hard breath, and the enforcer’s amusement grew. “I did try to warn you, babe. Not my fault you won’t listen.”
Kace unfolded the drawings she’d made while still on the boat. After a quick glance, he tossed the papers to the dirty concrete floor. Images scattered, all of the same animal that looked like an antelope, with thin curving horns and dark smudges on the face. There was another drawing, one with pointy mountains and a line curving between, then the jagged, black mark that had gouged the paper when Kace had stabbed deep into her mind. That was the mark Lexi recalled most vividly.
“Think about what I’ll do if you keep fighting,” Kace said flatly.
Katerina had already squatted down and was pressing her face into her hand. Lexi could see a faint bruise forming across her cheekbone. There were two bottles of water sitting in a corner and Jago kicked them toward Katerina, where they rolled drunkenly in the debris.
An instant later, Kace reached out and snatched a small bug from Lexi’s hair, holding it up like a trophy. He was still laughing as he walked out into the white-hot sunlight.
✽✽✽
“Who are those assholes?” They were alone and Katerina was still cradling a cheek half hidden behind dark chestnut hair.
“The tall one was Kace,” Lexi said. “The one that gives you the creeps is the Spaniard—Jago. How did they find you?”
“I was stupid. Yesterday, I followed the same path as the day before, and I had a hood over my head before I realized it.”
“Did they hit you?”
“No,” Katerina admitted, “I didn’t want to get out of the car and with that burka I didn’t see the edge of the door.” She glanced at the stiff material crumpled beneath Lexi’s feet. “Did yours have dirty stains?”
“Yes.”
“Is it what I think it is?”
Lexi didn’t answer, but her hand trembled as she gathered the drawings into a neat pile and then knelt down and concentrated on smoothing the burka into a neat pad so she didn’t have to look at the stains. “Well you’re here now,” she said after a long moment.
“And so are you. When you went missing it caused quite an uproar.”
Lexi’s thoughts flashed to Luca and her chest ached from the sudden stab of grief. Katerina looked away.
“I’m sorry. I use sarcasm when I’m nervous.”
“Luca was a good man.”
“I said I was sorry.” Kat picked at the label on the water bottle. “What happens now?”
Lexi shifted, sitting cross-legged on the burka. She reached for the other water bottle, wiped dirt from the top before twisting the cap free. The water was tepid but the cap had been intact so she thought it was safe enough to drink.
“Christan will find me,” she said, taking a sip. “Arsen will find you. That’s the way it works.” When Katerina said nothing, Lexi looked at the girl, saw that her blue eyes were watchful. “Why do you hate him?”
Katerina looked toward one corner in the dirty room, then to the other. “What kind of dreams do you have?”
“You want to compare notes? Maybe now isn’t the time.”
“I’m trying here, please.” Katerina sipped at the water; her hand was shaking. “Do you have different dreams?”
“Yes. Do you?”
“No. I have one dream, over and over.”
“Can you talk about it?”
“Not here.” Her eyes were dark blue and the bruise, Lexi noticed, was more prominent.
“How’s your cheek?”
Katerina didn’t answer. The heat was claustrophobic and both girls sat crouched on the bug-ridden burkas.
✽✽✽
“What the hell!” Arsen’s voice echoed in Christan’s mind as they lay flat on the top of the hill. The war-beaten settlement sprawled in the distance, and both warriors recognized the new girl hidden beneath the blue burka. They’d sensed her energy signal while she was still in the vehicle, frightened and willful. Willfulness appeared to be a common characteristic in mates in this lifetime.
“Nothing changes,” Christan answered telepathically. “We have the same number of bad guys, with two girls instead of one.”
“This is so fucking perfect.”
“Now you know where she is.”
“How the hell did she let them get her?”
“Maybe she’ll tell you when this is over.”
Christan’s thoughts drifted to the other woman in that white block building where the tin roof was already radiating heat in the sun. The air would be stifling inside, the floor dirty, and he remembered how she disliked the dirt—unless she was trekking on a research assignment and then she could tolerate anything. But on a daily basis, Lexi tolerated dirt moderately before she went looking for the shower. That led him to other memories he shouldn’t entertain when they waited on the verge of war.
He couldn’t get the images out of his mind, though, of the shower in their cabin in the woods, the way she would glance over her bare shoulder before stepping beneath the spray, watching him watch her with that wicked light in her eyes, turn her back. Let him see the curve of her hips while water ran over her throat. He would reach for her, and when the need was a primitive pounding in the blood, he would take her against the shower wall, holding her thigh around his waist while he plunged into her with erotic need.
Then another image flashed in his mind. He remembered the look on her face as he had last seen her, standing in that ballroom, bruised and frightened. He’d done that to her, with their fight earlier, refusing to give her the comfort she deserved. Luca tried on his behalf but it should have been him, touching her, calming her in those desperate moments when Three stood with blood on her clothes and Six, in a killing rage. Not for the first time, Christan fought with bitter self-reproach; he continued to hurt this woman when he should be protecting her with his life.
He shuddered, releasing images that made him vulnerable.
Arsen glanced at him. “Everything all right?”
“Yes.”
“You sure of that?”
“Just wondering how much longer we sit here waiting.”
“That’s your call, Enforcer.”
Christan stared at the soldiers who seemed relaxed but weren’t, at the dark-haired enemy who exited the block building and walked to the parked vehicle, opening the door and slipping inside. The windows were tinted black and the soft rumble of the engine told Christan the air conditioning was running. He wondered how much longer before Darius reported in to give his recommendations. Then his gaze narrowed on the heat waves radiating from the metal roof. He didn’t think he could wait much longer.
✽✽✽
Sweat trickled down Lexi’s temples and she swiped it away. The boards covering a broken window let in the stale air but no breeze. The stench was bitter-sweet, filled with rotting fruit and the leftovers from some animal. Probably not the angry dog, though, still chained and barking in the sun.
Katerina seemed as miserable as Lexi in the heat. The girl sipped water from the thin plastic bottle that crinkled occasionally in her hand, and Lexi wondered what dream Katerina had over and over, if it was like the Gaia dream where Lexi relived being in Christan’s arms and then the grief when he never returned, or more like Gemma standing on a moon-shot road. Marge had described a few of her dreams, although she had never gone into detail other than to relate one incident in the dark, misty centuries of Wales, where there’d been warfare and she’d been gathering herbs and plants when the horrific, bloody battle overwhelmed her. Robbie had been there, a healer for one of the warring factions, and Marge hadn’t gone into much detail after that, other than to say what passed for sanitation in those days could have used a lot of improvement.
There was no way of proving that the lives, as they were remembered, were real. Time had a way of erasing all traces of men who were not famous enough for the history books or the statues. Women were invisible unless that’d committed some great betrayal to men. There were locations—history researched and details corroborated through items in museums, old legends about landmarks. Lexi remembered her own obsession with Cyrene, and the memories that surfaced when she looked at the damaged stone lion.
In this modern age, imagination was everywhere. Technology created false realities, and perhaps it was imagination that helped make the idea of reincarnation and remembered events seem more accessible, solid. But in the end, the ordinary people, or those who went to great lengths to pass as ordinary, slipped beneath the ocean of history like so much sand drawn out with the tide. There was no way to really know that a past life existed other than through an act of faith.
Or through the tattoos that marked the warriors’ shoulders, back and arms, the black and amber lines that emerged on their own, recording sensate memories that matched the dreams and the henna-colored lines on a girl’s right hand.
Lexi wondered, now, how difficult it must be for Katerina, without having Arsen to confirm that what she dreamed was real. Did she wonder if her experience was a mental break? Katerina was an academic, with degrees in both computer science and ancient languages. She understood concrete truth and reinvented realities, and there was no way of knowing if she believed what she heard from Renata, perhaps from other struggling mates, with nothing but the faint lines beneath her skin as proof. With all the research into quantum theory and time not being linear, it wasn’t difficult to imagine reincarnation being altered to allow immortal warriors, lifetime after lifetime, to reconnect with their human mates. And Katerina must believe enough about the Agreement and immortals and her warrior lover to hide from Arsen.
But what was the one dream Katerina had over and over? That kept her on the run from a man she seemed to hate?
“Do you remember your first life?” the girl asked.
“Yes. It was here, in Cyrene.”
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
Lexi stared toward a dirty corner in the room where a haphazard pile of moldy leaves and rags shifted. The movement was furtive as if a small animal scratched at its nest. The leaves would lift, settle, then the rags seemed to be tugged in and the sequence would start up again.
Kat glanced at the nest in the corner and shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“The more you know the more they’ll hurt you.”
“Got it.” Katerina finished the water and tossed the bottle aside. When she wrapped her arms around her upraised knees Lexi felt mean-spirited, withholding what Katerina might view as a confirmation.
“I was a girl named Gaia in that first life,” she said, drawing circles in the dust with the heel of the water bottle. “I lived in the settlement near here, a small herding community in the middle of ruins. I remember playing between white columns. There wasn’t much left, most of the people had moved closer to the coastline and the trading routes, but I liked that I had the hills to myself. I made up stories about the stone lions that edged one wall. I loved the lions.”
“How old were you in the dreams?”
“Different dreams have different ages. I remember spilling tea into the fire and nearly putting it out. I was seven, then. And I remember the first time I saw Christan. I was older, walking in the hills, moving my father’s goats to the summer grass and he was a lion, standing so still I thought he was a statue come to life.”
“Was it a happy life?”
“Until he left and didn’t come back. What about Arsen? Did he leave and not come back?”
Deftly, Katerina changed the subject. “Did Christan tell you about the Agreement before he did it?”
“No. None of them told the girls. They weren’t given the choice. The Calata was intent on killing us and the warriors had to swear obedience, drop to their knees and swear.”
“Who told you?”
“Three, when I was in Seattle. And Christan, when I asked him.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I do now.”
“So why are we here?” Katerina looked at Lexi. The bruise now matched the color of her eyes.
“They believe Gaia knew one of the Calata members, the one named Two, and that Two told Gaia where she hid a secret. They want me to remember.”
Katerina’s gaze was steady. “Do you remember?”
“Not yet. But I’m afraid that I will.”
✽✽✽
The door opened half an hour later and Kace returned to the stifling room, standing to one side as Jago arranged a metal chair where the light from the window fell in pale stripes across the floor. Behind him, two other men carried a table and set in front of the girls sitting on dirty burkas. Dark, empty eyes revealed little as the soldiers left. Jago stood in the shadows while Kace sat down, the metal hinges of the chair pinching beneath his weight, and Lexi thought it was a scolding sound, wished the chair would give up the fight. Kace seemed no more concerned about the cloying heat than Jago since they’d spent most of the time in an air-conditioned vehicle. The enforcer was tracing random circles on the battered table with the tip of his thumb.
“Sharing the odd reminiscence?”
“None that I’ll share with you.”
“You will eventually.” The pile of material in the corner moved with sudden agitation, and Kace glanced at Jago. An instant later, Jago’s knife sliced through the air, followed by a high-pitched squeal. The material settled like a deflated balloon, and when Lexi stared at Kace, he shrugged.
“It was getting on my nerves.”
“You didn’t even know what it was.”
“Nor do I care.”
Energy, cruel and cold, prowled at the edge of Lexi’s mind. “Well?” asked Kace, one eyebrow arched.
“What?”
“Do you need more motivation?”
He was leaning back in the squeaking chair while Katerina stared at a bug scrabbling across the floor.
“I remember random things like bsisa and tea, nothing else.”
“Nothing?” Kace shook his head skeptically. “Look at Kater
ina while we talk, babe. She’ll let you know when it’s time to cooperate.”
Katerina gave a soft moan and curled inward, her fingers stiff in the dirty burka. Kace watched her struggle against the pain, and the reason for Katerina’s presence hit Lexi with sudden anger. The girl was breathing in shallow gasps, but she lifted her head, defiance in her eyes as she turned to Lexi and sent a silent message.
Their earlier conversation flashed, the question Katerina had asked and Lexi’s answer, about the secrets she was afraid she might remember, secrets Kace wanted, secrets Six would dig out with knives. That was why they kept her on the boat, throwing her into the Mediterranean until new lines appeared on her hands. Then Arsen’s plan, Christan’s plan, to get her onto dry land so they could rescue her. Even now they were on their way, but without any sense of Christan’s energy and sitting on this dirty floor, Lexi felt more alone than ever.
“Stubborn is not an attractive trait, babe.”
Katerina had curled inward and Kace watched—because he could without guilt. A girl who meant nothing, who knew nothing, unable to fight back, and he didn’t appear to notice when Katerina sucked in a deep breath, spread her hands in the dirt as if to tell Lexi she could endure.
“This grows tedious.”
Kace leaned back in the protesting chair while the rise and fall of vibrations in the air warned Lexi that the warriors were using shielded telepathy. Jago straightened from his lounging position and walked to the table, flipped open a rolled leather case that held an assortment of knives arranged according to size.
Lexi’s pulse thudded in her throat, and carefully, she released a deep breath. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not preparing to eat a meal.”
The Spaniard held up each blade, twisted until the sharp edge glinted in the light, then laid the knives one by one on the table as if counting out pieces of silver. It was a great show, Lexi supposed, if the goal was intimidation, and she shut out everything except the stiffness in her spine, the ache of her knees as she sat in an unfamiliar position, the distant barking of the dog that abruptly stopped.
