by T. M. Cromer
“Stop it,” he rasped. Her scars ranged from cigarette burns to lash marks to jagged marks that he could only assume were from a knife. In the crease of her arms were tracks from needles. “Cover up, Spring.”
A derisive sneer curled her lips as she snapped her fingers and glamoured away all the evidence of the abuse she’d suffered. The image before him was pure perfection. “Is this better? Does it tempt you more?”
“No.”
Spring’s harsh laugh sickened him. “That’s right, I’ve never tempted you. Not with my innocence, and certainly not now that this vessel has been all used up.” Another snap of her fingers clothed her in a stunning emerald evening gown. Its neckline plunged to her navel.
Vessel? Why had she phrased it like that? Was he to assume she only viewed her body as a means to an end? As if it didn’t belong to her? He didn’t like the turn his thoughts had taken. “It’s not like that,” he protested.
How did he explain the sight did turn him off, but not for the reasons she assumed? All he felt when he saw her now was a gut-churning guilt he was unable to rid himself of.
“You know what? I don’t care how it is. I don’t care about anything.”
Knox could see the truth of her statement in her dead, dark eyes. He mourned the loss of their light. “Spring—”
“Go away, Knox,” she said tiredly.
“I can’t.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair in his frustration. “I can’t leave you like this. Not here. Not in this place.”
“If you ever held an ounce of affection for the girl I used to be, you’d go.”
He imagined he caught a fleeting sorrow in her gaze before she ruthlessly tamped it down.
“Don’t ask that of me, Spring. Let me take you home. Please.” The last word came out rough and raw. He needed to help her, if only to help himself deal with what had happened. Even if she hated him, he needed to see her to safety.
Her cold, mocking smile told him she knew he was now the tortured one. “Home? I have no home. Tell them Spring Thorne is dead. That she died in a hovel in the Colombian jungle. Or better yet, tell them she couldn’t kick the heroin that had been forced upon her and finally welcomed. You won’t be lying. That poor unfortunate girl is dead.”
He hadn’t realized tears streamed from his eyes until she lifted a box of tissues from next to the overturned vanity. She whipped the box at his head without blinking an eye. “Don’t mourn, Knox. She was only ever a nuisance to you anyway.”
He let the box rest where it landed. “Don’t.”
“Don Carlos will be here any moment. I don’t want to be on the receiving end of his tantrum should he find you here.”
The mention of her drug-lord captor had Knox seeing red. He intended to kill the scum with his bare hands the first second Spring was free of the bastard.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about Don Carlos,” he ground out. “I’m not leaving you here.”
She spun on him in a fury. Marching to within inches of his face, she growled her rage. “You don’t fucking get it, Knox. I hate you. The sight of your face makes me want to smash it in. If it wasn’t for you, I would never have been taken. Have you thought about that? Have you lain awake nights, recalling that ugly little detail?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I worry she is too young and inexperienced. Her temper could get her into trouble,” she intoned in a passable imitation of his voice. “You tried to play me. To seduce me so you could have the upper hand. So stupid little Spring would fall right into whatever plan you decided would be best to get her out of the way.”
It was as he’d suspected; she’d overheard his conversation with Alastair that night. Oddly, her furious words centered him. In her eyes, strong emotions blazed, but not a one of them was hate or blame. She was trying to drive him away on purpose. A small bit of his confidence returned along with the hope for the two of them.
“You’re leaving with me now.” He latched onto her arm and spoke the words that would teleport them home.
Nothing happened.
Her hollow laughter unnerved him.
Knox attempted a second teleport, to no avail.
“This room is warded against me leaving,” she explained tonelessly. “Another little goody in Lin’s bag of tricks. He didn’t want to sell me to the highest bidder only to have them come after him when I escaped. I tried to tell you that earlier.”
“Then we’ll step out in the corridor.”
“Don’t you think I tried to escape when I first got here?” She chuckled without humor and held up her wrists. “I can’t step over that threshold.”
Something akin to horror filled him. His skin turned cold and his head spun. He couldn’t save her! She was well and truly trapped.
Her expression softened marginally, and she cupped his cheek. “It’s okay, Knox,” she whispered with a slight catch to her voice. “You’ve done all you could. It’s time for you to go home. I’m past saving anyway.”
“I can’t leave you, Spring.” Heart weighted as heavily as lead, he released an uneven breath. “I love you.”
She rapidly blinked away the sheen of moisture that came to her eyes. “When this all started, I’d have given anything to hear those words from you. Now, they only serve to make you feel better. Forget I ever existed.”
The sound of booted feet rushed toward their location. At any moment, they would be interrupted. But still, Knox was unable to leave her.
“Go. I don’t care to have your death on my conscience.” The hardness was back in her tone.
“I’m coming back for you. I swear it,” he promised. Hand fisted, he halted time and leaned his forehead against hers. “Tell me you understand. Tell me you know I’ll be back, and that a thousand Lins and Don Carlos Estebans won’t keep me from you.”
“Hope is an ugly thing, Knox. I can’t afford it.”
It was the closest she’d come to a concession.
“I’m never going to stop,” he said.
Her hopeless, wide-eyed stare eviscerated him. But he could delay no longer. Time would snap back in the next ten seconds. It gave him seven to kiss her and make a run for the room down the hall. Knox took advantage and poured all the words he could never say into the soft, lingering touch of his mouth on hers. He pulled back and pressed his lips to her temple. “I’ll be back with reinforcements soon. Be ready.”
17
Spring had two seconds to process Knox’s departure before an enraged Don Carlos glowered from the doorway with seven hulking guards at his back. His expression left little doubt as to the severity of the beating she was about to receive.
Lin had only left her the ability to glamour and make herself beautiful for her captor. All other magic had been stripped away with spells, charms, and amulets created by the witches and warlocks on his payroll. Spring didn’t have the ability to protect herself from the vicious blows Don Carlos liked to rain down upon her. Nor could she defend herself by fighting back. If she lifted a hand to him, excruciating pain wracked her entire body.
She pasted a submissive half-smile on her face and immediately dropped to her knees as a sign of supplication.
“Where did he go?” His accent deepened with his heightened emotions. “The man who touched what was mine, where did he go?”
Spring closed her eyes in resignation. Maybe she would get lucky this time. Maybe he would kill her and put her out of her misery. “He left, master.”
His hand snagged her hair and jerked her head back. “Puta!”
The first blow split her lip. The second shattered her eye socket. The third bounced her head off the wall. Everything that followed was a blur. Blissful darkness embraced her, and Spring prayed to the Goddess who no longer listened that this time she would never have to return to the mortal plane. She also prayed Knox would never find his way back here. That he’d take her advice and write her off as a lost cause.
Knox reappeared in the Thorne driveway and jogged up the steps to t
he attic. When he stepped through the door, it was to a shocked and solemn group. Preston’s gray face looked ghastly, and Alastair had murder written in every line of his tense body.
“What happened?” Knox demanded. Terror began an invasion of his mind. What had he missed in the short time since he’d left?
“Spring,” Coop rasped out her name. “The block has been broken.”
Their sorrowful expressions finally penetrated. A broken blocking spell meant one thing. “No. I just left her.” Knox shook his head in denial. “No!” His shout shook the foundation of the house. “No!”
He rushed to the scrying mirror and swiped his hand across the glass. Spring’s battered and broken body lay on the ground. Blood pooled around her head. Her glazed, vacant stare left no one in doubt as to her condition.
His precious love was no more. She’d gone on to the Otherworld and left him in hell without her.
Esteban’s men discussed the disposal of her body as if she were no better than an insect they’d stepped on that needed to be scraped from their shoe.
“No!” Knox’s aching cry echoed off the walls surrounding them and shook the windows in their frames.
Without thought to his own safety or the eight men he would face, he teleported back to Esteban’s jungle mansion. He ran full speed down the corridor until he got to the room where Spring had been held captive.
The collective surprise of the group gave Knox the advantage. Fisting his hands, he drew on his metal element to heat and melt the gun barrels pointed in his direction. Outraged cries and gasps of fear echoed about the twenty by thirty space.
In mere seconds, Knox had manipulated the bars from the window frames and bent them inward, removing them from their moorings. They floated mid-air as he melted and reshaped the tips into sharp spears. When the three men closest to the door would have run, Knox used the sharpened bars and drove one through the center of each of their chests, effectively pinning the guards to the wall. Their screams of horror and agony were only marginally gratifying. The gurgle of dying breaths slightly more so.
Knox turned his attention to the remaining men who all stood in stunned horror. Don Carlos, the first to recover, shoved two guards in front of him as if to encourage the soldiers to attack.
Knox lifted the guards with a twist of his wrist and flung them against the far wall.
“Don’t move!” The harsh crack of his voice echoed throughout the chamber as if it were the voice of God. The lethal tone struck fear in all who were present. But just in case Don Carlos took it into his head to be brave, Knox snapped the necks of two remaining guards with a flick of his fingers as warning.
“You…” He pointed at Don Carlos. “You will die a slow, painful death. And if you pass out, I will wake you. And if you die, I will revive you.” He moved closer like a tiger stalking its prey. “You will feel what she felt a hundred times over, and you will beg for the end before I am done with you.”
But Don Carlos was better prepared than Knox anticipated—not that it mattered. The drug lord drew a gun from behind his back and aimed.
“Seriously?” Knox sneered.
Don Carlos saw his own death in Knox’s face, how could he not? The need to kill vibrated through every fired-up cell in his body. A cry was wrenched from Don Carlos at the same time the gun was ripped from his fingers.
The air crackled, heralding the arrival of others. Knox had no idea if they were friend or foe, and he couldn’t drum up the extra energy to care one way or another. Once he’d done what he came for, he’d be happy to die. Hell, he welcomed it if it meant joining Spring in the afterlife.
From his periphery, he noted a figure bending over Spring. Like an animal protecting its mate, he snarled and moved to intercept the newcomer. He miscalculated. Nothing told him that so much as the sharp blade plunged deep into his back. It felt like a hard punch to the kidney. No sting, no searing burn. For that, Knox was grateful; his revenge hadn’t been satisfied. He did no more than grunt before turning his full wrath on Don Carlos.
First, he harnessed his magic to stem the flow of blood from his wound. Then, he concentrated the complete force of his power on Don Carlos Esteban. Knox went to work dislocating and breaking his enemy’s fingers—the bones, then the joints—systematically moving from finger to finger, reveling in Don Carlos’s agonized screams. Each terrified scream fueled Knox’s rage as he imagined Spring’s cries from the torment she had received at this deranged monster’s hands.
As Knox moved to the man’s wrist, Alastair spoke. “While I can understand your rage and pain, son, you need to finish this. We shouldn’t delay.”
“Go!” Knox yelled. “What do I care what you do?”
“Knox,” Alastair said. There was a wealth of compassion in the way he spoke Knox’s name. The shimmering brightness in the other man’s eyes indicated he fought back strong emotions.
“Just leave me alone,” Knox seethed. “If you’d have trusted me to get your precious artifact instead of dragging her into this… she… she would…” He bent double in his grief. Spring was gone. No amount of self-righteous indignation or blame was going to bring her back. Hadn’t he been the one to say it wasn’t Alastair’s fault?
And although Knox didn’t want to see Spring in such an undignified position, he couldn’t stop himself from staring. His eyes were drawn to her still, sightless form. He knelt beside her and smoothed back the matted strands from her pale, colorless skin. The blood had pooled and now began to congeal.
“What am I going to do without you?” he whispered. Agony was suffocating him, and he found it difficult to breathe. “How do I continue to exist?” he choked out. “Ohmygod, Spring.” Silent sobs shook him as he cradled her head in his lap. “Spring.”
He didn’t move as arms encircled his shoulders from behind. Coop’s grave voice came to him as if from a distance. “I’m sorry, cousin. I’m so sorry.”
The ground beneath the building shifted, and a loud rumble filled the air. Plaster dust fell down on their heads, and the windows popped as they shattered in their casings. All the occupants of the room froze in fear, even the mighty Thornes.
“Knox, stop!” Alastair shouted over the roar. “You’ll kill us all!”
Knox slowly shook his head, never taking his gaze from his beloved’s frozen features. “It’s not me.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Don Carlos crawl along the wall toward the exit. Rage boiled over from the steady simmer it had been the moment before. “Your reign is over, Esteban,” he growled and raised his fisted hand skyward.
Don Carlos’s body was suspended three feet above the ground. He clawed at his neck with his deformed fingers, as if to remove the invisible noose strangling away his life force.
Preston Thorne surprised Knox when he sent a flaming ball to eliminate the two remaining soldiers huddled in the corner. The room exploded with fire even as the walls and ceiling crashed down around them. “They didn’t deserve to live.”
No one challenged Preston’s swift administration of justice.
“I’ll bring her home.” Alastair shifted to lift Spring’s body from the floor but jumped back as she gracefully rose from her prone position.
“What the hell?”
Knox had no idea who uttered the question they were all thinking, but it seemed loud in the silence after the earthquake ended.
Dumbfounded, they all looked on as Spring touched a single finger to one bracelet and melted it from her wrist. She repeated the action for the second shackle. Next, her exposed skin transformed from bloody, bruised, and scarred to flawless and smooth. Lastly, a wave of her elegant hand brought with it a stunning Grecian dress of the purest white to encase her body. She flicked her fingers in the general vicinity of her hair. The matted, bloody tresses lengthened and brightened to shining, clean, and healthy once more.
“Much better, don’t you think?” Spring said with a satisfied sigh. Or who should’ve been Spring.
“Who are you?” Knox barked the
question, enraged that another witch would defile Spring’s body by possessing it.
Her image shimmered and another momentarily took her place.
“Isis,” Knox gasped.
“Exalted One.” Alastair bowed and the others followed suit with the exception of Knox.
“I want her back,” Knox stated with an edge of demand. “Spring. You made me believe we could save her. You lied! I want her back.”
Isis walked to where he stood. Pained sympathy filled the glowing amber eyes she focused on him. “She doesn’t want to come back, child.”
“Make her!” Knox flung Don Carlos’s limp form against the wall as if he were a child’s rag doll. “You make her!”
A hard light entered her eyes. All affection disappeared in a nanosecond. “You would dare to order me?”
“He is out of his mind with grief, Goddess,” Alastair cut in as he came to stand beside her. “He knows not what he says. You should understand. You knew grief once… when your husband, Osiris, was taken from you. You of all people should know what he is going through.”
Any indignation left her, and she nodded regally. “Yes, I have known grief. It is a powerful emotion that clouds the mind.” She gave a delicate shrug. “But even I cannot change Fate’s design, Knox Carlyle. Your woman has moved on to the Otherworld.”
Knox dropped to his knees. “If you require me to beg, I will beg. Please.” His voice cracked, and his vision blurred. “Please.”
“What would you do for her return? What would you give up?”
Alastair’s hand came down hard on Knox’s shoulder—a warning of sorts.
“What wouldn’t I do?” Knox returned, effectively ignoring Spring’s uncle. A small ray of hope lit his soul.
A contemplative light entered Isis’s eyes. “If I were to bring her back, I would need something in return.”
He opened his mouth to agree, but the Goddess held up a hand. “Before you accept, you should know that in order to restore her, her memories will be lost. She will wake as if she were a babe.”
