by Ophelia Bell
The notion of running from his troubles didn’t sit quite as well with him. But if he could keep Evie in his life and avoid dying, perhaps it would be worth it.
“This looks like a hippie commune,” Marcus commented. “But a nice one. Do you know anyone who’s gone?”
The man shook his head. “Keep that. I don’t need it. All I know is that honor doesn’t factor in if you’re running from someone else’s problem. That war…” The man stabbed a finger at the radio. “Has nothing to do with you, me, or your girl.”
Marcus nodded his thanks. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Only if you tell me about her. What’s so special you decided to decorate her with such a shiny rock?”
Marcus smiled at the ring just before stowing it again in his pocket. He left the envelope sitting on the bar.
“If you met her, you’d understand.”
“Met who?” a lilting voice said from behind him. Marcus turned, sluggish from the alcohol, to see Evie standing behind him.
“You, baby.” He smiled at her and then frowned when her worried look registered. “What’s wrong?”
“You weren’t home when I got there. I was worried. What’s wrong? Why are you here?”
He blinked drunkenly at her and raised another shot. “Celebrating,” he said, as if that were the best explanation.
“Celebrating…” she said. “Celebrating what, exactly?”
“This man here—” Marcus gestured with the full shot glass and half the liquid sloshed over his hand. He eyed it then tossed the rest into his mouth and swallowed. He pointed the empty glass at his new friend. “He’s opened my eyes.”
Evie glanced at Marcus’s friend. Marcus struggled for a moment for an introduction before realizing he’d never gotten the man’s name. It didn’t matter now.
“This is her,” he said. “Evie. The woman I’d die for. No… I mean, she’s the woman I live for.”
The man turned and straightened his tailored jacket, reached out a hand to Evie, and gripped her outstretched palm, shaking it gently.
“You are more lovely than words,” he said. “No wonder he’s so in love with you.
Evie’s brows creased and she glanced once at Marcus before shaking the man’s hand and smiling.
“Thank you. I…” Before she could finish her sentence, her gaze drifted to the bar and the envelope that still sat there beside the scattered shot glasses. Her hand fell out of the man’s grasp and she turned her gaze back to Marcus.
“Is that what I think it is?” Her delicate finger pointing at the creamy white rectangle that held Marcus’s fate sealed inside.
“Yeah… I haven’t opened it. I already know what it says, though.”
“Oh, Marcus.” She wrapped her arms around him and he reveled in the contact. He could die happy in her embrace. He would rather die happy in her embrace than anywhere else.
He held tight to her, dimly aware of his friend shifting off his barstool and moving away.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you came. I needed to think.”
Evie nodded and plucked at the corner of the envelope. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”
Her tone was pensive, hesitant to ask the real question he was sure she wanted to ask. He silently thanked her for not articulating the thing that had to be torturing her already. Would he go?
He loved her for that. Christ, he loved her for everything, but he’d put this off long enough. He knew what was inside, but unless he opened the envelope, he’d be a blind fool who never took real action in his life. He just needed her there with him when it happened.
Marcus let out a deep breath and picked up the envelope, ripped it open, and read the letter. Nothing in it gave him any respite from his decision. It was all exactly what he expected.
He turned it sideways and tore it in half. Then folded the pieces together and ripped them through the center. When he was done, the letter was nothing more than a pile of fragments on the floor around them. It might be the only confetti they ever got.
The ring rested heavily in his pocket, pressing against his heart. He couldn’t ask her to marry him when he was about to ask her to leave her life for another reason. He wanted her to come not because she felt obliged to join him, but because she genuinely wanted to be with him. Once they got to that beautiful place in the brochure, he’d ask.
“We’re going to leave. Together, I hope.”
“Why wouldn’t we be together?”
“You have nothing to run from, Evie. I do. But if you’re not going to come with me, then I have no reason to run.”
“Then I guess I need to go home and pack, huh?” She gave him a shaky half-smile that told him everything. Her eyes filled with tears, and all he could do was kiss her.
She clung to him while they kissed. If they weren’t in public, he’d have made love to her as fiercely as he could, just to remind her how much he loved her.
“Marcus, go pack. Pick me up in a couple hours. I’ll go wherever you want us to go. As long as I’m with you, it doesn’t matter.”
She pulled away and he clung to her hand, unwilling to lose contact with her now. She might not come back, but he had no real reason to doubt her. She’d never lied before, but there was always a first time. And this ordeal would be one to run from if she chose to run.
“Marcus,” she said softly, “I am never letting you go. I promise I’ll go with you.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”
She gave him a long look and then fell into his arms again, kissing him so desperately she left him dazed when she released him, nothing more than a blur of motion when she disappeared through the doors of the bar.
“Sounds like you have your answer,” his friend said. “Don’t disappoint her. She’s worth living for.”
Didn’t he know it…
Marcus threw his money on the bar and stumbled out the doors. He just hoped he was worth running away for.
Chapter Fourteen
Nikhil
North African Coast, near Alexandria, Egypt
Present Day
The cave was exactly as Nikhil remembered it, though the opening was worn much smoother from the centuries of tides rushing in. He’d targeted the destination of his drift to the rear-most chamber where he’d spent most of his time as a child, practicing with toy swords on rudimentary dummies made of sack cloth stuffed with straw and tied to stakes.
Nothing remained of that child in here, but he found a small cache of candles that were still intact after all this time. It only took a flick of his fingertips to light them and line them up along the uneven ledges and rocks that surrounded the area.
The room was so much smaller than he remembered—barely large enough to accommodate the two reclining stone figures he’d transported here. They now lay without their pedestals on the dusty floor.
“I apologize for the lack of amenities here, daughter. I am hoping this place is only temporary.”
“We are patient enough to wait a little longer, Papa. For us, even a year or more feels like mere minutes.”
“If I had known who you were sooner, I would not have made you wait,” he said. If he had known sooner, so much pain and death could have been avoided.
His path was set for him now, and much clearer than it had ever been. His efforts over the centuries to produce a child to love now seemed hollow and pointless. Now that he’d found Asha, there was much more at stake. Keeping her safe was the most important thing, followed by finding a more suitable sanctuary for her and her brother to stay until their mates could search them out and awaken them.
But the need that drove him most now was to find out where the creature was who had done this to him to begin with. He knew her identity once—she’d somehow infiltrated Belah’s court and posed as a trusted friend for years. Nikhil still remembered t
he day Meri had died—a feeble old woman in her bed, with no children of her own but with several young physicians she’d trained to carry on her knowledge. Had the darkness somehow been passed to one of her protégés? He had a difficult time remembering any of them now, but one or the other had always been privy to his simplest secret—that he never aged and could not die.
Now he knew that she’d been leading the Ultiori through him somehow. That it had only taken the one moment of weakness when she’d first fed him her blood and her essence for her to get inside his mind. That link had been enough to perpetuate the control, and through his powers, the control of those around him.
The strength of his love for Belah, plus that turul’s song had banished her finally, but he had no doubt she was still somewhere out there, trying to get back inside. He could not let that happen again. He had to find her and make her pay.
First, to ensure at least temporary safety for his daughter and her brother he needed to draw on the last vestiges of power inside his weakened body. Tracing a circle around them with his steps, he pushed the power out through his fingertips, building the temporal bubble as he went. It wouldn’t be much, but as long as the blood still flowed from his wounds, it would be enough to last until he could hopefully enlist the help of his Elites, if they were willing to hear his story.
* * *
The drift back to the Alexandria Institute left Nikhil nearly crippled. He collapsed to the floor in his office on the top level, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
The day outside the floor-to-ceiling windows was dark and dreary, raindrops spattering against the glass. The sound of the storm outside was still no competition for the roaring of the river that rushed beneath.
He’d loved this location for the feeling of true, primal power it gave him, and he drew on that power now, even though he knew how dangerous it could be. The natural web of life that existed around the building would feel the brunt of it. In the past he’d never hesitated when he needed it, but was very careful not to stay in one place for too long because his simple presence was like a wick that pulled the life out of his surroundings. The vegetation around the compound would experience a blight today, to help him heal enough to do what he had to do, but he swore to himself it was the last time.
Finally he rose and found his way to his personal bathroom and showered. His wounds were completely healed now, but the water still ran bright red with all the blood that had covered him.
He would have to find a way to make amends with Marcus and his musical lover. He owed them for his life—his sanity—and for helping him truly reunite with his daughter.
After showering and dressing, he made his way down to the lower level where he hoped his Elites would still be. He’d left Naaz and Sterlyn unconscious outside the cells of the two prisoners they cared about the most. In his absence they always ached to visit their females but studiously avoided any attempt at doing so. Each one of them had made the same mistake at the beginning of their service to Nikhil—they all tried it once—tested his ability to control them by breaking the rules and entering the one cell that was off limits to them each.
For Marcus it had been Evie North’s cell. The female had arrived with Marcus fifty years earlier. Their love had been painfully apparent from the start, though Nikhil had gotten the distinct impression the emotions were one-sided during his remote viewing of the intake interview his research director had conducted. Marcus adored the petite, beautiful young woman, and while she certainly had seemed to regard him with no small amount of affection, it was not true love for her. Somewhere along the way that had changed, if Evie’s behavior when he’d come seeking vengeance were any indication.
Some aspects of the races he captured over the years were still a mystery, and the turul’s mating choices were chief among them. He’d always cared more about dragons from the start, at any rate.
The red dragon Zamirah was Sterlyn’s particular weakness. She hadn’t been of interest to the young knight at first, but over the years as one of her jailers, their attachment had grown. When Nikhil caught Sterlyn attempting to break the dragon out and escape, he’d had to mete out brutal justice on them both. Ever since, Sterlyn had been the most solicitous and well behaved of the three Elites.
And of course, there had always been Naaz and Neela. His godchildren, and the ones he cared for most—or should have. They were loyal from the start, and became nearly as powerful as Nikhil after he first fed them Belah’s blood. But after finding the pair of treasures he now knew were Belah’s own children, he had never trusted them to behave without some incentive. And so he had Neela locked up to ensure Naaz remained compliant.
He still had a link to their minds, but with Meri gone from his head he lacked the will to use it. It had been her dark power that terrified them, and when he put enough force of his own behind it, kept them in line. He could not enter their minds again without their permission.
So he walked, taking the central stairs in the large atrium to the ground level. From there he would access the secure wing and the elevators that took him down to the subterranean levels where those most valuable prisoners were kept.
That was when he registered the eerie silence of the place. It was past midday, but still early enough for the compound to be bustling with activity. The second floor of this wing was where the hunters were housed and had their training facilities, yet he heard none of the usual sounds of combat training and general chatter that indicated people lived here. He took a detour down one hall and peeked into one of the dormitories, but there were no hunters to be found, and none in the community areas, either.
Rushing down to the ground floor and the science wing, he directed his powers outward, seeking signs of consciousness of any kind. He found only one semi-conscious dragon, half-shifted and shackled to an examination table, her feet up in stirrups and an IV line attached to her arm. Around him in the rest of this wing, he sensed other prisoners, yet none of the staff.
The staff had apparently evacuated, leaving all the prisoners behind. But where had they gone? And under whose orders had they left?
Nikhil hated the lack of control he felt over his world, particularly the realization that half of his consciousness—the darker half—had been the one that held the most control.
His temples pounded the more he explored, finding work stations seemingly abandoned in the middle of tasks and captives all unconscious in their cells. He vaguely remembered the cloud of rage he’d been in when he’d arrived to take out his anger on Evie North—he very well may have knocked out the entire population of the place. But he had lost his connection to the true power that had driven that rage.
Either his Elites had awakened and evacuated everyone, or someone with equal authority had done so. He’d always been careful who he promoted to have that level of authority over the staff of the Institute, and there would only have been a handful of people on-site with that rank, but there were still hundreds of others within the entire corporate structure who could have done so in his absence.
Forcing himself to refocus on the more immediate goal, he abandoned his earlier intention of avoiding mental contact with his Elites and reached out with his mind to search for them, too. Relief flooded through him when he sensed their inert presences right where he’d left them, near the unconscious bodies of the other prisoners on the secure lowest level. Only Marcus was missing, and Nikhil felt that absence like a spike through his gut.
“Fucking dragon blood,” he muttered, heading toward the elevator that would take him down to them. Now that the darkness was gone from him, the familial connection to his Elites through the blood they each carried was too strong to deny. He wondered how it must feel to the dragons themselves when they encountered one of the Elites.
How had it felt for Belah to be near him, with her own blood running through his veins? The reminder of that connection made his chest tighten with longing for her.
Discovering Asha’s existence hadn’t diminished his feelings in the slightest. If anything, they were stronger now that his mind was clear of all the other dark urges that had driven him for so long.
The prisoners on this level were still unconscious, except for one. As Nikhil passed by Nicholas and Calder’s cells, he paused, realizing that the pair were both inside the same cell. Calder knocked on the thick glass of the door and Nikhil tapped the button to activate the speaker.
“Welcome to the flood,” the old satyr said. “How does it feel to finally be above water again, just in time to drown?”
“Did you know all along I was … submerged?” Nikhil asked, making an effort to speak the satyr’s odd language in which everything seemed to pertain to water.
“Aye. You would not have taken so well to the drift had you not had a drop of a powerful nymph’s essence mixed with your blood. Did you ever wonder why your brothers were never able to accomplish such a journey on their own?”
His brothers? Calder must be referring to the other Elites, who were in fact his brothers by blood—even if it was stolen blood. “I never permitted them to attempt it. They were only allowed to accompany me on those journeys.”
“You still have her essence within you, and I don’t mean your heart’s true love. The slippery nymph who controlled you left her mark on you. That will never leave until she is dealt with. Have you discovered her identity yet?”
Nikhil caught a hint of a challenge in Calder’s tone. He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the other man through the glass. “I may have an idea, but it sounds like you might have information worth sharing. I’d prefer to avoid torture going forward, but I’ve never been the type to shy from more brutal methods of extracting information when the situation called for it.”
