by Sue Wilder
It was a nearly car-free village due to the steep hills, with stacked, sugar-cube buildings tumbling down to the water. The houses connected through common walls, angled steps and narrow, red-tiled walkways. Residents knew each other’s business the way families did, acknowledged the short-term visitors with less invasive interest. But no one went about their daily activities unobserved. A shop keeper, a waiter in a café, or the old women sitting on the steps shelling peas all loved to gossip in the sun.
Christan held Lexi’s hand, nodding to the few residents who watched as they passed. The walkway zig-zagged through sun and shadow, in and out of the faint wisp of flowers. There were aqua-colored shutters against plastered walls, wide terraces shaded by pink umbrellas. And everywhere, a view of the blue, blue sea.
The house at the top of the hill looked like every other white-washed home with shutters at the windows, although the buildings next to and below it all remained curiously empty. Inside, several rooms held the cool morning air when the windows were left open—there was a kitchen, living area, and a large bedroom. The short flight of red-tiled stairs led to the rooftop terrace, also tiled in red. Green flowering shrubs planted in large pots provided the sense of seclusion, and a wooden table, hand-crafted and used for dining, sat beneath the strings of lights lost in the vines covering the rustic pergola overhead. The terrace was Lexi’s favorite place other than the bedroom, where wide French doors were open to the breezes from the sea. She loved the soft bed where her enforcer held her in strong arms and taught her about vulnerability.
When they weren’t exploring the town, eating fresh seafood or enjoying the mulberry flavored granita di gelso, the sun beckoned. At a tiny round table near the quay, Christan taught her the rules for scopa, the card game played in every cafe in Italy. The old men laughed when Christan hid the tricks, giving him an advantage in the game, then cheered and pounded on the tables when she still won. After the card games came the terrace at midnight, counting stars and playing a different game of love.
By the second week they were exploring the cool Aleppo pine groves on the western side of the island, sitting on the cliffs staring at the sea, trying to spot the rare Bonelli’s eagle or the peregrine falcons. It was there—as Lexi sat quietly between her enforcer’s long legs—that Christan explained what the Calata member known as Two had done.
“There may be something added to the blood bond.”
“What is it?”
“Perhaps magic tied to a myth from the past.”
“Is it definite?”
“We don’t know for sure,” he said.
“But everyone agrees?”
“It’s something we need to consider, after you told me about the wings.”
Lexi shifted in his arms, remembering the vivid impression. “It was strange, the way I imagined them unfurling up and out behind me on such a rush of vindication.”
Christan pressed a kiss into her hair. “If you ever feel that sensation again, call to me, cara,”
“Why?”
“Because it may signal a partial shift.”
A peregrine falcon circled in the air, lazy yet alert, and Lexi watched the subtle movement of the wings.
“Would I need your help if that happened?”
“This is magic, cara, never forget that, and if you were ever where I couldn’t find you, get to you—” He pressed his chin hard against the top of her head and held her tight.
“You need to explain,” she said, her eyes still on the falcon.
“There’s an ancient story from immortal existence, well before they came to this planet, about two mythic creatures. One is Justice, the other Vengeance. They keep immortal order, keep the universe in place. They aren’t gods, not creators, but they were made by a creator before time existed. Necessary. Terrifying. And not always in the world.”
“What does the myth have to do with the sensation of wings?”
“The creature known as Justice is a mortal-looking female. She also has the wings of an angel. It’s where the iconography comes from in nearly major religion.”
“How could she be human-looking?” Lexi asked, staring out to sea. “If the story existed before immortals came to this planet?”
“No one knows.”
A tiny boat was moving toward the horizon, and Lexi studied the white sails catching the light. “What did the creature who was Vengeance look like?”
“Use your imagination.”
Christan fell silent, and Lexi listened to the rhythmic pounding of waves on the rocks below.
“You said Three needed me to be justice, balancing your vengeance?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know of the myth?”
“Of course.”
“Then did she force the blood bond because she wants this myth, too?”
“I want to believe Phillipe when he tells me no.”
Lexi’s hands tightened around Christan’s forearms. “It’s a story, and natural that I’d imagine a familiar image like a guardian angel when I was upset—angels are everywhere and on everything. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Christan didn’t argue.
“Why would these two creatures come back into the world?” Lexi asked after the silence had grown too long.
“According to the story, whenever immortal society slips too far into chaos and destruction, the creatures will reappear as a power, assimilating within a bonded pair who have already proven to be perfect opposites. No living immortal has ever seen The Two—which is the best translation of the one word used to describe them. The myth might have been the origin story for Janus, or the oriental concept of Jin and Jang.”
“Is immortal society in chaos now?”
“There’s growing discontent. You know about the traitors in One’s inner court, but there are other fractures, including the assault on the Agreement and the mates recovering their memories. All of it signals a change in the established order, a potential disaster for both immortal society and the human world.”
Lexi remembered the story Phillipe told her, about the missing centuries in Cambodia when Six had been in control. Their worlds intertwined, he said, the immortal and the human, and disaster for one would be a disaster for the other.
“You’re saying that the blood bond did this, turned us into these mythic creatures?”
“It’s possible that was Two’s intent.”
“Because of the growing chaos?”
“Because of a murder the Calata never solved.”
“That’s somewhat insane.”
“An apt description of the woman.”
“Who came up with this theory?”
“Phillipe.”
Lexi searched the cloudless sky, looking for the falcon that had disappeared. “I wish it hadn’t been Phillipe,” she said after a long moment.
“Why?”
“He’s not just a master assassin, he’s a damn good academic.”
“I know.”
“What happens if other bonded pairs perform the blood bond without realizing?”
“The story says there can only be one affected pair in existence at a time.”
“So if Marge were to…”
“She and Robbie will be safe.”
“But I’m still too human,” Lexi argued. “You’ve told me I don’t have enough power.”
“Strength doesn’t always come from brute force.”
“That sounds Machiavellian.”
“It comes from further back, during the Spartan wars.”
“Name dropping?” Lexi teased, because she was frightened. “I already know you’ve been around awhile.”
“Just a while?” He pretended outrage. “Your conception of time needs work. Besides, you’ll get additional power from me. That’s how it works now.”
Lexi shook her head. “If I’m sucking up all your power, what does that do to you?”
“Not much.”
“Not reassuring,” she said.
“I have plenty to spare.�
� Christan kissed the top of her head. They sat quietly, his arms wrapped around her while she held onto his forearms. Lexi warmed to the primal heat, the power flowing in a constant undercurrent between them. She fed into that energy without even realizing she did it, and wondered, now, if she offered him a current of her own.
“I don’t want to be a mythic creature,” she said, watching distant clouds form puffy and pure on the horizon.
“Neither do I.”
“But you asked me to hunt with you.”
“I did.”
She turned in his arms and stared steadily. “And I will hunt with you, Christan. All you have to do is ask.”
✽✽✽
By the third week he was teaching her how to use the power in her mind. How they could be separate when they wanted privacy because constant awareness was an invasion. But they could be together, too, and communicate with a speed that was faster than speech. Christan was gentle and reassuring as he helped Lexi strengthen her mental shields. In return, she slipped into his mind when he grew remote, caressed his anger with warmth and brought him back when he forgot how to smile.
Christan shielded her from the worst of his thoughts but she knew they were there—a black emptiness where not even light survived. It was, Lexi thought, what the Void must have been like, and when the energy strengthened and old memories began to rise, she would enter his mind unnoticed. Push the coldness down. It was on such a night, when he was slipping away, that she realized what she needed to do. Lexi took him by the hand and led him into the hills, stood beneath a sky blanketed with stars and the dark rift, the ancient gateway to the gods.
“Tell me,” she said, holding both his hands. Lexi had seen the scars that marked his body from years of service, knew there were deeper scars hidden in his mind. Shudders moved through him like ripples in a stream and he told her.
Christan spoke quietly, never raising his voice, but Lexi heard the emotion. What he told her was far worse than the mental images he shared that night when he was pushing her away. He told her of the jungle, of the twenty-three bodies spread out in the sun. Women, children, and the babies, all scattered like broken toys. Lexi walked with him through the images, stood at his side. Knelt down as he knelt. Looked into the faces of innocent victims and cried the same tears that filled the enforcer’s eyes.
Her fingers trembled as he brushed the hair from a girl’s bloodied face, wrapped a blanket more tightly around a child in his mother’s dead arms. Bent beneath the force of the one word Three had forced into his mind.
It had been her rage that burned when he tried—and failed—to control the vengeance. Begged when Christan begged to offer mercy. The murderer deserved the execution, but no one deserved the torture, and after Three ordered him not to extend “a quick death,” Lexi absolved his guilt when Christan refused to forgive himself. She held him in her arms as she should have held him centuries ago. Then she led him back to their bedroom where she took him into her body, offering love until he was able to do the same and they both began to heal.
Over the following week their life followed a simple rhythm. They cooked in the tiny kitchen instead of going out. Carried their dishes to the wooden table on the terrace, drank red wine and watched the setting sun. They explored the ruins of the Castle of Punta Troia, built by the Saracens, used poorly by the Normans, and a place of political exile for the French. Lexi pulled up the memories, pushed most of them aside. Too many brought tears to her throat and she declared a moratorium on sadness. She wanted only good memories, imprints in the ground that might bring more peace to the fractured, ancient land filled with ruins. Wanted the healing found in the trees that covered the hillsides. The purity in transparent sunlight splashing across the grass.
That was the afternoon when she asked him to shift.
They had wandered lazily through the hills, discovered a green meadow secluded in a grove of pines. Beneath the blue, blue sky, Christan made lazy, seductive love to her on a blanket in the sun. Afterward, as Lexi sat beside his prone body and stroked the hard curve of his shoulder, she had asked him. She understood how elemental shifting was to his existence, how necessary, and when he rolled over and looked at her, she said, “I want to see you.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Lexi spread her fingers across his chest and caressed him. She wished she had the words to tell him how she loved who he was as a man, an immortal, an enforcer. In this life, he had never shifted in front of her with joy and love. He had shifted as a challenge to their complicated relationship, or as a warrior engaged in battle.
She would do this for him, remember Gaia with him, and as she stood, graceful as a gazelle, wild as Kyrene with the sun blazing golden fire through her hair, she saw the answering awareness in his eyes.
Lexi slipped into her clothes, knowing he watched, and in one fluid movement she turned and ran across the open hillside. In an instant he was beside her, the sleek, lethal body rippling as they chased the sun toward the horizon. And another myth was born on the island that day, of a golden-haired huntress who raced through the groves of Aleppo pine and lay, protected and asleep at the side of a lion.
CHAPTER 26
The island of Marettimo, off the coast of Sicily
It wasn’t until week five that the photographs became important.
Christan was in the kitchen, boiling water for the French press and grinding the coffee beans they’d bought from the café at the foot of the hill. Sunlight slanted through the window, dancing with the tattoos on his shoulder. He was barefoot, dressed only in the worn jeans that hung low on his hips, and Lexi watched as he reached across the stove for the kettle. She would have gotten up from the couch if he hadn’t insisted they get some work done. His hair was still damp from the shower and she gave her head a little shake, reaching for the open laptop, glancing around before she braced it against her knees.
If it was her choice, they’d stay here forever.
The whitewashed house felt like home, as if she and Christan belonged there, and for however long their stay might be, the house at the top of the hill welcomed them. There were books stacked on a table, several she wanted to read. Christan had a stack of his own books pulled from the shelves, and one day she glanced through them when he wasn’t around, recognized appreciation in the dog-eared pages, the faint smudges from fingers smearing the ink. Oddly, a book of poetry seemed to be a favorite, the volume small and thin, the leather cracked. A quick glance inside revealed an elaborate script in a language she couldn’t read. Another book was on the art of warfare, which didn’t surprise her at all. She left the books undisturbed after that, had gone out into the field on the hill and brought back wildflowers, filling every vase in the house.
They lived in relative isolation for a modern world filled with clutter. Even though all communications passed through One’s encrypted network, Christan refused to access email or answer his phone, stating with some emphasis that Three would survive without him, and Lexi had agreed. But the world reinserted itself on that bright, warm morning when Lexi opened a folder on the homepage of the laptop and stared at the images.
They were the photographs from satellites and who knew what other secure sources, showing white dots in a black sea. Islands she didn’t recognize, landforms she did, and before her lay the depth of Christan’s search; he hadn’t stopped or wearied or left any stone unturned in his efforts to find her.
She remembered how he had come to her on that boat in the middle of the sea, reached her though the telepathy they shared. Kept her calm and gave her strength. Lexi realized, half ashamed, that she hadn’t expected it from him, not after their fighting at One’s compound. When he glanced in her direction, she saw the quick puzzlement in his eyes, and her smile was sad, soft. If he asked, she could explain later, apologize, and she looked back at the laptop, opening the file containing the photographs he’d taken in the cave.
Christan brought the coffee and propped himself on the arm of the couch. Lexi set the lapt
op aside and, holding her mug in both hands, leaned against him where he was warm.
“Maybe we can stay this way,” she suggested, petting his thigh, and his voice was warmly indulgent when he said, “How about we work and then play?”
“Can’t we reverse that order?”
“Not if you want to get this work done, cara.”
“You don’t always have to be an enforcer in your own home,” she pointed out, setting aside her coffee before she spilled it, and her hair slid over her shoulder like silk.
“I didn’t make this rule. I believe it was you when you were flat on your back and needed me to stop.”
“Well,” she said, “I’m rescinding that rule. I was deranged when I made it.”
Christan’s cup of coffee joined hers on the table before he tangled his fingers in her hair, pulled her toward him.
“I would always have you so deranged,” he murmured against her mouth. Lexi rose when he released her hair and straddled his lap. Wiggled. His hands gripped her hips, and his gaze narrowed.
“What are you doing?” he asked, while she worked at keeping her expression innocent.
“Getting comfortable.”
“For whom is your comfort intended, and at the expense of whom?”
Her hands were tangling in his hair, which had grown long again. Her lips drifted against his temple.
“You sound so archaic, Enforcer,” she murmured. “Have you lived for centuries?”
“I believe I have.”
“Then if time is relative there’s no rush, not if we have centuries.”
She was wearing a tee shirt that smelled of him because it was his, and tiny panties edged in lace. His fingers slid along the silky edge and probed deeper.
“Do you like it slow?” he asked, pushing inside enough to make her muscles clench.
“In the beginning,” she admitted.
“And how long should that beginning be?” He lifted her, ripped the panties into two pieces that fluttered to the floor.
“Those were my favorite,” she pointed out as he resettled her across his lap.
