by LETO, JULIE
His expression became serious. Turning to Ben, he asked, “Where is Paxton?”
Ben frowned. “Missing, but he went willingly with a woman named Gemma Von Roan to try to find other objects that could contain your other three brothers.”
“You mean four,” Aiden corrected.
“No, three,” Catalina insisted. “Your brother Damon—he’s already free.”
Aiden’s chest stiffened. Lauren curled her arms around his neck just a bit tighter, hoping to offset some of the shock.
“Where is he?”
“Europe, but he’ll head back here as soon as he knows you’re alive. He’s been looking for you and your brothers as well. And for Rogan’s heirs. Paxton—who now goes by the name Paschal Rousseau—is the only one he’s found.”
Quickly, and in hushed tones, Ben and Cat, as she told them she preferred to be called, filled them in on the wild tale of their journey thus far to reunite the cursed Forsyth clan. When they had finished answering as many questions as they could, the police came with the news that Farrow was nowhere to be seen, and though they’d initiated a search of the rocky beach below, they did not expect that he was alive.
Once the group was alone again, with instructions to stay put until the police took their official statement, Aiden and Ben exchanged a long stare that caused a chill to run up Lauren’s spine.
“What?”
“Pryce was holding the sword when he jumped,” Ben said.
“So? They’re both gone. Good riddance,” Lauren said, though she figured there was going to be some serious fallout on the set over the loss of the sword. Well, they had a gazillion pictures. They could make a replica, though she wasn’t sure if she wanted to touch anything associated with the curse now that it was finally broken.
Aiden and Ben, however, did not seem relieved at the absence of Rogan’s weapon. Cat winced, as if she’d finally figured out what concerned them, though Lauren had not caught on. “If someone doesn’t—”
“The magic,” Cat said. “The magic could have saved him.”
Lauren could not breathe. “He’s still alive? We have to tell the—”
But she cut herself off. They’d all be carted off to the psychiatric ward if they started telling tales about magic and sorcerers and curses. Farrow Pryce might have escaped, but he also might not have. That was a worry for another time and place.
After Ben and Cat went inside to talk to the cops about their kidnapping, Aiden and Lauren were left alone on the cool pool deck, the water still and the night blossoming with possibilities.
“There’s so much,” Aiden said simply.
She nodded, still curled in his lap, thinking there was nowhere in the world she’d rather be. “We’ll sort it all out. We cheated death in a big way. I can’t think of anything we can’t weather from this point on.”
“Even love?” he asked.
She stared into those silvery gray eyes of his and lost herself in the emotion so evident there. “Especially love. You know, I told you I loved you and look what happened. I broke a centuries-old curse. What do you think will happen when you tell me you love me?”
For a split second, though it felt like several long moments, Aiden did not speak. Then he slid his hand gingerly around her cheek, kissed the bruise with a soft brush of his lips, and whispered words she hadn’t known she’d longed to hear until he spoke them.
“I do love you, Lauren Cole. And I believe—no, I know—that the entire world will be ours for the taking so long as we remain together.”
“The whole world? That’s pretty ambitious,” she teased, kissing him along his jawline, across his forehead, on the tip of his nose.
“That’s the least of what you deserve, my lady.”
And when he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her as if the sun would never set again, she completely and thoroughly believed him.
Read on for a preview of Julie Leto’s next book, coming soon from Signet Eclipse.
“Don’t touch it, Mariah.”
With dexterous skill bred of one too many close shaves with police all over the globe, Mariah Hunter pocketed the stone she’d spent the last half hour digging out of the craggy earth and traded it for the Walther P38 pistol she’d bought in a Berlin pawnshop. The warning had come from the last person she’d wanted to catch up to her. And considering the dangerous and desperate people who were currently on her trail, even in the middle of this godforsaken wasteland, that was saying a lot.
Bending her knee to cover the gaping hole, Mariah stood. With her boot directly over the spot where she’d found the stone, Ben Rousseau couldn’t see that his warning had come too late. She hadn’t had a chance to notice anything about the stone other than its glossy red surface and the odd markings carved along the edges, but the find was clearly valuable or Ben wouldn’t have taken a chance with a confrontation.
He held his open palms at shoulder height. “I’m not armed.”
“Then you’re an idiot,” Mariah replied, flipping off the Walther’s safety. She spared a split-second glance at the thick copse of trees directly behind Ben; the massive sentinels of pines curved around the tight, oblong clearing. She saw no sign that Ben had brought backup, but she couldn’t imagine that her former lover had come after Mariah without someone to watch his back. She’d bet money that Catalina Reyes, the paranormal researcher who’d been sharing Ben’s bed for the last year, was out there somewhere, probably training her sights on Mariah while Ben attempted to sweet-talk her out of her hard-earned treasure. Mariah could only hope that Cat remembered how she’d helped her out a few months ago, providing key information about a big, bad guy threatening to outmaneuver Ben and Cat to some Gypsy artifact. She had no idea how that situation had been resolved; she knew only that the stone now nestled in her bomber jacket wasn’t going anywhere without a fight.
Ben took a step forward, but she stopped him with a shot that missed his big toe by a quarter inch. He jumped back and cursed, but not before Mariah heard a soft squeak of surprise from the trees to her left.
Bingo.
“Hey! I said I was unarmed,” Ben said, sidestepping. To the left. Protecting his lady love.
How sweet.
Blech.
“And I beat you to this dig, Rousseau. Finders keepers. Back off now while you still have all your body parts.”
Ben’s gaze dropped slyly to his crotch. Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as he looked. He’d zeroed on where she might have shot him ten years ago, after their disastrous relationship and fiery breakup. Now she simply wanted to keep what was hers.
Though he didn’t lower his hands, Ben’s posture relaxed and his mouth curved into an infuriatingly lazy grin. “Threats? I’m just trying to keep you from falling into a quagmire of trouble you really don’t want right now. From what I’m hearing, you have enough on your plate.”
He wasn’t talking out of his arse on that, was he? If not for her own thick quagmire of trouble, she wouldn’t be in this godforsaken wasteland digging up rocks and threatening a former lover with a gun.
“Listen to the bloody professor,” she said haughtily, stepping back and to the right, lining up her body to make the quickest escape. “You may have lost your nerve for the antiquities game, but I haven’t. And whatever trouble I’m in, I’ll get out without any help from you. I always have.”
Ben’s gaze, darkened only by a flash of regret, raked down her body. She shivered at the cold, calculated perusal. Unlike a decade ago, his intention wasn’t the least bit sexual. He was looking for bulges that would give away the stone. The little bauble she’d unearthed must be more than a hunk of glass or else Ben wouldn’t have crossed the Atlantic to try to beat her to it.
“Some artifacts are worth coming out of retirement for,” he replied, with an annoying hint of cockiness that contradicted his current situation. The man never did know when an ounce of humility would do him good.
“But this place,” he explained. “It’s cursed, Mariah.”
“So
was that cave near the Oasis at Dakhla. That didn’t stop either one of us from scooping up the statue of Sekhmet and selling it to the questionable collector in Yemen.”
“This is different. Trust me—”
She snorted. “Trust you?”
“Anything taken from this area,” he insisted, ignoring her justified doubts, “could contain very powerful black magic, and there are some really dangerous—”
Mariah could no longer contain her laughter. She couldn’t imagine for one minute that Ben thought his warning would scare her off. Not after all they’d seen together. Not after all they’d survived.
“This isn’t funny, Mariah.”
She raised the gun to his chest. “Look, after what I’ve been through, I take my laughs where I can get them. Now pipe down. I thought I heard something.”
Ben’s darting eyes again revealed what she suspected was Cat’s location, if indeed his cohort had joined him on this jaunt across the pond. Even if Ben did have his bedmate with him, she might not be a good shot. And though there was a fair amount of bad blood between her and her former partner and lover, he didn’t want her dead or she’d be a corpse by now.
The wind, sharp with an icy nip, whistled through the pines. Tucked in a corner of Germany as yet undeveloped and wild, the area had been dubbed Valoren, which the locals told her translated loosely into, “land of the lost.” Made perfect sense. From the sharp, jutting ridges of the mountains that surrounded them to the mossy soil beneath their feet, the area was a perfect place to hide treasures like the palm-size stone she now had in her pocket.
Under the circumstances, she didn’t imagine that Ben would tell her why this stone—or whatever else she might have found here—was so sought-after. Even the people she’d met in the nearby village were perplexed by the recent interest in their poor and undeveloped corner of Germany. As a result, the locals had become suspicious and secretive. She’d considered it a major coup that she’d found a local artisan with Gypsy roots who’d given her a place to start in her quest for the stone.
“Look,” Mariah said reasonably, “I’ve got my own troubles that have nothing to do with you. I highly suggest that once I pack up, you don’t follow me.”
“What makes you think I’m going to let you leave with what you found?”
“Who’s going to stop me, you?”
Mariah fired the weapon again, missing Ben purposely and splintering the trunk of a nearby tree to his right.
Ben spun and started toward the trees on the left, giving Mariah the opening she needed.
She dove into the tangled forest. Behind her Ben shouted for her to stop. She didn’t look back, but focused on leaping over rocks, ducking behind boulders and sliding over fallen tree trunks. Finally she spilled out onto the path where she’d stored her transportation—a dirt bike she’d bartered for in the village. It wasn’t pretty and it was as loud as a cyclone, but it would get her out of here in a hurry.
She rode for nearly a quarter of a mile before she caught sight of her pursuers, roaring up behind her in an open-topped Jeep. She cursed, leaned forward, downshifted and swerved off-road, sending dirt and gravel flying. She wasn’t expertly familiar with the terrain, and she certainly preferred to travel by air rather than ground, but she’d scoped out the area well enough to map out a few escape routes. Behind her, the Jeep’s horn honked. Did they really expect her to stop?
She careened around an outcropping of boulders and under a canopy of trees that would lead to a river if she could avoid dropping over any of the cliffs that dotted this region. The overhang threw her into shadows. She could hear nothing but the roar of the bike’s engine, the kick of the rocks beneath her wheels and the pump of her heartbeat in her ears.
As the path narrowed and she had to slow down or crash, she cursed. She’d come here on a lark. She’d grabbed a chance to beat Ben to a valuable piece of history and sell it to pay off the debt she’d acquired after liberating a certain stash of Mayan coins for a collector. She would have scored big on that operation, but she’d had to dump the package in the Chiapas jungle rather than risk arrest by the Mexican police. Trouble was, the tracking device she’d attached to the coins in order to retrieve them later wasn’t working. Her collector wanted either the coins or the cash he’d paid her up-front to facilitate her operation.
She had neither.
But now she had the stone. She could only hope that Ben’s persistence meant the ruddy thing was valuable enough to buy her out of this mess.
Distracted by her worries, she hit a root at top speed and nearly flew over the handlebars. She corrected, scattering twigs, leaves and dirt behind her, but avoided running into a tree and kept the bike upright. The forest undergrowth was too thick for her to continue. She should have chosen another route. Damn. She stopped, fighting to catch her breath as she powered down the engine and listened for her pursuers.
She didn’t have to listen long. They were getting closer.
She might have offered to sell the stone to Ben right there, but she had no way of knowing a fair price until she’d examined the find more closely. She patted her jacket, surprised to find that the spot where she’d stashed the rock seemed warm. Without time to wonder about the phenomenon, she hid the bike behind a thick oak, grabbed her dilly bag and crashed deeper into the brush on foot. She’d find a hidey-hole until they gave up, then make her way back to the bike and hightail it to the next village before trading up to a car that would get her to the nearest airstrip. From there she’d be free.
She tried to find a balance between speed and stealth as she made her way deep into the cover. Her heart racing more from exertion than fear, she focused on her escape, ignoring the emotions that threatened to distract her. She’d thought she’d moved above wanting to one-up Ben, to show him who was the more clever thief.
She was wrong.
Spying a narrow ledge she guessed might lead her to a lookout, she moved carefully along the edge, digging her fingers into the mossy rocks as handholds. When the flat rock beneath her feet curved around an outcropping above a deep ravine, she nearly turned back. Her breath caught. Being a pilot she wasn’t afraid of heights, but her talents did not extend to mountaineering.
She cursed. She’d have to go back down and find another route. But in her hurry to change directions, her ankle twisted and she lost her footing. When she tried to recover she found nothing beneath her. Nothing but air.
The gadje woman was going to get herself killed.
Infuriated, Rafe Forsyth tried to tune out the woman’s emotions. For years he’d existed in peace. Centuries. His curse had not, until now, included experiencing the feelings of others, as he had so naturally in life. It had been his gift as much as his curse. But, unpracticed at bearing the onslaught of emotions, he could not tune her out. Despite his efforts to remain alone, he could not ignore the warmth of her flesh so near his, could not resist reacting when a jolt of fear shot into his soul like flaming glass.
Suddenly the ground beneath them disappeared. Her terror spiked, and the image of an impending plummet caused him to yell out the Romani word for “fly.” A sensation of weightlessness suddenly surrounded him, surrounded her. Movement sleek and swift like a bird on a wing propelled them forward. Then her fear gave way to surprise and, a second after her feet gently touched the ground, relief.
He saw none of this, but he sensed it. Sensed it all.
“What the bloody hell?” she said, her voice muffled even as she dug into her pocket. He heard the rustle of fabric, and then a yank of limitless force grabbed at his middle and pulled. She’d wrapped her hand completely around the stone that contained him, and instantly he was injected with an essence of woman that stirred his blood. Spiked his awareness. Tempted him to sin.
Concentrating, he fought the wrench of the magic, the all-encompassing drag of the dark sorcery that had bound his soul to the stone for what he guessed had been hundreds of years. Rogan had not controlled him in life; or would he now, despite Rafe’s ent
rapment by the curse.
How had this woman found him?
Why?
From the moment she’d brushed her fingers across the stone that had become his prison, he’d been awakened by a power he’d instantly recognized as the same dark magic that had entrapped him so many years ago. He’d used all his might to resist. The urge to materialize from his prison, to expand from the containment of the stone, pounded at him, but he would not succumb. The magic had tempted his sister, stolen his life and resulted in the murder of the only woman he’d ever loved.
And yet now, in the open, with sunlight dappling across hair the color of fine mahogany, he couldn’t help inhaling, breathing in the essence of her. The woman named Mariah. He sensed no fragrances except her own natural musk, mixed with the rich scent of the earth and the sweet smell of torn leaves. For an instant, before he met her startled amber eyes and the pale arch of her cheek that bore none of the signs of his people, he wondered if she might be Romani, like himself.
She turned the stone that contained him over in her palms, fascinated by what he imagined was the same fiery glow that had drawn him to the marker so long ago. He pushed the memory aside and concentrated on the woman holding him, examining him, her entire being seized by a boundless curiosity unlike any he’d ever experienced.
What was this stone? Had it given her the ability to fly and saved her from certain death? Was it magic? Or was it truly cursed?
He had no answers. Only regrets.
At the sound of distant voices she released him. Sudden darkness engulfed him once more. An intense burst of energy told him she was again on the run.
This time she suppressed her fear with a thrill of adventure and a burst of confidence. The lure of her tugged at his core, but again he resisted.
He had no desire to leave his prison.
No desire for anything but quiet. Peace. Solitude.
