Heart of Stone

by Debra Mullins

  “I’m not going with you,” Ben said as Gray opened the trunk and took out two overnight bags. “I have a show in Santa Fe on Wednesday, and I need to finish up my inventory.”

  Gray paused. “That’s a mistake, Ben. You know they’ll probably come after you to get to her.”

  “Then I can lead them away from her.”

  “No.” Faith laid a hand on her father-in-law’s arm. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. Please come with us.”

  Ben smiled. “I already explained why I can’t. Times are hard, and my family depends on the money I make at this show. It’s the biggest one of the year.”

  “What if I go with you?” Adrian said. “I have to get these two to safety, but I can come back by tomorrow.”

  Ben nodded. “I would welcome your company.”

  “It’s a deal then. Since you’re staying, would you mind taking the rental car back for me?” Gray slung Darius’s duffel over his shoulder and tossed the keys to Ben.

  Ben nodded as he caught them. “No problem.”

  “Ben.” Faith reached out a hand.

  “It’s all right, Faith. This is what is meant to be.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Do you think I would let you go if I thought you were in danger from them?” he murmured in her ear. “They will protect you from the Mendukati. Let them.”

  “But—”

  “Trust them.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb before he turned to shake hands with Gray and Darius. “Keep her safe. She is my heart.”

  “Of course.” Gray hoisted both bags and turned toward the plane. Darius followed, but Faith lingered near the car.

  “Go on.” Ben climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. “You have my number. If anything goes wrong, you can call me.” With a last wave, he pulled away, leaving Faith standing there on the tarmac looking after him.

  Darius paused at the bottom of the stairs. She watched the car go, her hands flexing at her sides. Then she turned toward him, raising her chin and straightening her shoulders.

  “I guess I’ll take the job,” she said.

  Though she looked ready to handle anything, her nervousness rippled through her facade, affecting Darius like lemon juice on a bleeding wound. He clenched his hand around the head of his cane. She felt a little abandoned by Ben and less than trusting toward him and Gray, and that uncertainty tangled with his physical pain until his empathic senses throbbed just as much as his body. He swayed on his feet.

  Gray dropped the bags and rushed to his side, catching him by one arm before his legs collapsed out from under him.

  Faith hurried over and shoved herself under Darius’s other arm. Her concern wrapped around him like cotton, and he wanted to rub his face in it, like you would clean, soft sheets fresh from the dryer. He caught a whiff of some kind of floral scent from her hair as she staggered beneath his weight, her small breasts pressing into his side.

  “Darius.” Gray peered into his face. “Can you make it with Faith’s help? Or do you need me to get you inside?”

  Damned if he was going to let Gray carry him like a baby, not with Faith there.

  “I can make it,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

  “Faith, what about you?” Gray asked. “Are you okay getting him on the plane by yourself? I can bring the bags.”

  “I think we’re okay. Right, Darius?”

  “Yeah.” Darius made himself take a step with her help, just to prove to himself that he could. Luckily, her worry for him had blunted her doubts. But he still hated her seeing him this way. Some rescuer he was.

  “See you on board,” Gray said. He fetched the bags and jogged past them into the plane.

  I thought you didn’t like to be touched, Darius murmured into her mind.

  She kept her eyes on the path before them. You’re leaning, not touching.

  He gasped a quick laugh, but even that hurt. He concentrated on the challenge that lay before him: putting one foot in front of the other, climbing the stairs to the plane, and getting himself into a seat before his body went on strike. He hated that he had to lean on Faith to accomplish such simple tasks, but he couldn’t object to the sweet feminine curves pressed up against him.

  One step at a time, he began the arduous climb to board the plane.

  * * *

  The interior of the private plane looked nothing like a passenger jet. Instead of the usual rows of cramped seats, the aircraft had four chairs the size of recliners around polished wooden tables, a couch along one wall and two flat-screen TVs hanging on either side. The decor of earth tones and leather gave a homey feel that commercial airlines never managed to convey.

  Faith was sweating by the time she helped Darius into one of the plush seats on board. “This place looks like a flying living room.”

  He shrugged, his eyes closed as he slowly stretched out his bad leg. “It does the job. Where’s Gray?”

  “I think he’s up with the pilot.” She crouched beside his chair. “Is there something I can get for you? Water? Aspirin?”

  “I need my bag.” He opened his eyes, and she could see the pain he was trying to hide. “Check the overhead.”

  She stood and opened the compartment, yanked out the black bag Gray had put there, and dropped it in the seat beside him. “I know you said this was an old injury, but I still feel responsible.”

  “Don’t. This wasn’t your fault.” He unzipped the duffel and rummaged until he pulled out a brown prescription bottle and a small, black drawstring bag.

  She frowned as he shook a pill into his hand and closed the bottle. “You sure you don’t want water?”

  “I’m fine.” He flipped the pill into his mouth and swallowed it dry. Tossing the bottle back into the duffel, he nodded his head at the seat across from him. “You should buckle up.”

  “Don’t we have to stow the bag or something?”

  He jerked the zipper closed and dropped the duffel on the floor between them. “Shove that under your seat if you’re worried.”

  She bristled at his terse tone. “I know you’re in pain,” she said, grabbing the duffel and swinging it back into the overhead, “but that’s no reason to be snotty.” She slammed the compartment door and dropped into her own seat, pulling the ends of the seat belt to buckle it.

  “Snotty?” He chuckled, but the sound had an edge to it. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before.”

  “I’m shocked.”

  “I doubt that.” He gave her one of those looks again, as if he could see all her secrets. And for all she knew, he could. He was a Seer, after all … whatever that meant.

  He picked up the little drawstring bag and dumped the contents into his hand before setting the bag aside. Her senses flared, her tattoos tingling as she stared at the pentagon-shaped stone in his palm. Delicate veins of white traced paths through deep blue-green.

  “Amazonite.”

  He nodded. “I guess a Stone Singer would know her stones on sight.”

  “Sometimes. Or they tell me.”

  “The stone tells you?”

  “Stones tell me all sorts of things. It’s beautiful.” She leaned closer, unable to help herself. The energy of the stone hummed in the air, its melody teasing through her mind. “May I?”

  He raised his brows but held out the stone. She spread her fingers above it, connecting to its essence. “You’ve been using it extensively. For healing? Yes, for healing.” Her eyes drifted closed as the stone sang its song to her, of cold and fire, darkness and light, pain and healing. Her tattoos throbbed, the minerals in the ink synching to the rhythm of the amazonite. The stone wanted to heal, longed to heal, but its energies had been depleted over time.

  Melody rose in her throat, bursting free with power and pain, death and rebirth, a keening homage to creation and destruction and everything alive. She lowered her hand and closed it around the blue-green beauty. Reaching for the Earth, she lost herself in the age and knowledge, the hot, molten core of the
planet, the icy cold of the darkness. She pulled that energy forth, channeling it into the stone, hands hot and heart bursting as she sang the amazonite back to life.

  * * *

  His hand burned, but he stayed still, rapt in the presence of the Stone Singer.

  The pain in his bones and muscles existed, but seemed unimportant. Joy flooded him, coming from her, he knew. The amazonite glowed white, its energy filling spaces that had once been empty. In him, in the stone. Her song filled the cabin, haunting, compelling. He wanted to sing the notes, but they had no words and slipped from his memory as soon as he tried to capture them. He hungered to be part of this spell she was weaving; it tasted of earth and magic and everything that made her.

  The engines rumbled. The plane eased forward, creeping toward the runway for takeoff. She didn’t seem to notice, so caught was she by the stone. What would happen when they left the ground? Would the connection to the Earth sever? Would it lash back on her?

  He closed his fingers around hers. Her flesh was feverish, her tattoos searing like brands. He could sense her consciousness, still embedded in earth and stone. He squeezed her hand and spoke her name, with his voice, with his mind. “Faith.”

  She opened her eyes, and he could tell part of her was yet distant, miles away and buried in the earth. Her singing trembled in the air between them. Faded. Her cloudy eyes slowly cleared to gemlike green, her fingers quivering beneath his.

  And the stone glowed as if lit from within, warming their palms with healing power.

  “We’re taking off,” he murmured. Her skin had taken on a translucence that mirrored the amazonite. He stroked a hand over the spidery tattoos on her hands, watching embers of energy sparkle along the inked lines like an electric current. His body hummed with the echoes of what she had done. Somehow she had jump-started the amazonite like a car battery, and the nearly drained stone throbbed with new, vibrant energy.

  The hunk of rock wasn’t the only thing throbbing.

  She met his gaze, and his spit dried up. Their hearts beat together in the same rising rhythm, blood heating, awareness like a live wire between them. She licked her lips, and he focused on her mouth. The emotions she’d sparked tasted like cinnamon and bourbon, spicy and sweet, woodsy and tangy.

  The intercom crackled. “Prepare for takeoff.”

  Faith jerked at the pilot’s voice, breaking eye contact. She pressed back in her seat, her hands clutching the armrests, and stared out the window. He sensed her defenses slam down. She thought she’d broken their connection.

  But her feelings flowed free, like warm water beneath ice. The attraction he’d been fighting had flared flame bright between them, touching an answering fire in her. She’d felt the chemistry between them just as he had, and knowing it existed forged a bond neither had sought. Five years ago, he might have acted on the passion that flickered between them. But now he knew that wasn’t possible, not for him.

  He closed his eyes and opened himself to the healing power of the newly charged stone.

  * * *

  They called him Azotay, those who dared speak of him. The name meant “whip’s lash,” and it pleased him, for it summed up his existence nicely. He was the weapon of Jain Criten, a stinging and sometimes deadly reminder that Criten’s will would be done no matter what the cost. As he regarded the two soldiers cowering before him in his spacious office at the Mendukati camp, he pondered their fates.

  “Tell me again,” he said, “why you failed to recover the Stone Singer.”

  “We were ambushed,” stammered the one called Erok. The youth tended to emphasize his own importance in a loud and frequent manner, but had seemed competent enough—at first.

  “Explain,” Azotay said. The young pup had bungled badly, but Azotay did not betray his growing ire in either voice or body. Control of oneself was a path to power too often overlooked by most.

  “It was Seers,” the whelp spluttered. “They did something to Corinne.”

  Azotay glanced at the female. She’d serviced him with great enthusiasm his first night here with the Western unit. He knew well that most of her hunger had stemmed from who he was more than physical attraction, which pleased him. He stroked a hand over the carefully groomed stubble that couldn’t quite hide the thick scar beneath his jawline. They’d both found release and had gone their separate ways, satisfied.

  But this … The whimpering creature with matted hair and broken nails crouching on the floor, rocking back and forth with her arms wrapped around her bent knees, bore no resemblance to the sexually adventurous wildcat who’d left bite marks on his thigh.

  He walked over to her and lifted her chin, peering into her wild eyes despite her futile struggles to smack him away. He speared both hands into her hair. “How many?” When no one answered, he turned his gaze on the cowering cub. “I said, ‘how many?’”

  The young man startled, paling. “Sorry, sir. I thought you were talking to Corinne.”

  “Hardly.” With a quick twist, Azotay snapped the female’s neck. She crumpled into a heap. Azotay spared her a glance, one second of regret for the waste of future raunchy sex that would never come to pass, then signaled to one of his guards to remove the body. When he turned back, the runt was, literally, shaking.

  Azotay smiled, wondering if the kid would piss himself before the night was through. “Now,” he said. “You were telling me about an ambush.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Darius hadn’t said a word the rest of the flight, not when they were in the air and not when they’d climbed into the chauffeured black SUV that picked them up at the airport.

  Maybe it was better that way. After she’d charged his healing stone, Faith had sunk into a light doze, recharging her own energies. She couldn’t imagine what waited for her at the other end of this journey, but the money and the opportunity to finally escape the Mendukati could not be denied. Besides, Ben trusted these men, so she would go along with it. Unless they proved themselves untrustworthy.

  She hoped that day would never come.

  The SUV wound its way upward, the mesas of Sedona masked by the inky night, mere hulking shadows against the stars. Around them pine trees stretched to the skies, at times hiding the heavens from view. They turned left into a well-concealed driveway, passing a pair of stone pillars as they continued up the mountain. The road curved right, and suddenly iron gates blocked further progress. Their driver stopped, lowered the window, and reached through to hit a button on the speaker box outside.

  “Yes?” came a disembodied voice.

  “Darius Montana,” the driver replied.

  The gates rolled slowly, silently, open.

  Faith tensed as they passed through the portals, her stomach sinking as if she were entering somewhere from which she would never return. She glanced back over her shoulder and watched the massive gates close behind them.

  “Don’t worry,” Adrian said from beside her in the backseat. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  She gave a rough laugh. “Then why do I feel like the fly walking into the spider’s parlor?”

  The Warrior’s teeth flashed white in the darkness. “Could be worse.”

  “Says you.” She caught her first glimpse of the house, well-lit from the tall lamps around the circular driveway. “Wow.”

  The place was enormous, with what looked like a multi-car garage and a fountain that ran even this late in the day, clever lighting changing the water’s color from blue to pink to green like something out of a Disney movie. The luxury of a running fountain existing here in the desert spoke of the family’s wealth and status, but the house’s many windows blazed with warm welcome.

  The SUV pulled up in front of the door, which immediately opened. A middle-aged Hispanic woman wearing jeans and a simple, short-sleeved pink blouse stepped out, pushing a wheelchair. She wheeled it down what appeared to be a ramp cleverly concealed by shrubbery, and stopped at the edge of the driveway. As soon as the vehicle stopped moving, Adrian was out and moving to o
pen Darius’s door.

  “Darius, come on. You’re home, pal.” He shook Darius’s shoulder.

  “What…?” Darius stretched his legs and hissed in obvious pain. “Aw, hell.”

  “I’ve got you. Can you get out of the seat belt?”

  “Yeah.” Darius pushed the button and shrugged out of the harness. “I feel like I went ten rounds with the world champs of wrestling. All of them.”

  “You’re home now. Let’s get you inside.”

  Faith climbed out of the backseat and stood by as Adrian helped Darius down from the high vehicle. Darius landed with a jolt, and his knee buckled. Adrian swept in, quick as lightning, and slung Darius’s arm around his shoulder before the Seer hit the ground. Faith darted forward.

  “No.” Darius stopped her with the sheer force of his gaze. His features hardened, like the stone of the mountains around them. “I’ve got this.”

  Left with no choice, she trailed after them as Adrian helped Darius hobble the few feet needed and eased him into the chair. The sight of such a strapping man in a wheelchair, all wide shoulders and broad chest, struck her as wrong. When she’d met him just a couple of hours ago, he’d seemed so vital, so capable. He’d fought beside her and won. He’d rescued her, at least for the moment, from Azotay. Brought her to a temporary sanctuary.

  Now he could barely move under his own power, dependent on an appliance that seemed an insult to everything he was. An old injury, he’d said. From where she stood, that injury appeared to be way worse than a simple bad knee. The grimace creasing his face every time he moved any part of his body made it clear the damage was extensive. And the fact that his home had a wheelchair standing by spoke volumes.

  Their shared connection with the amazonite on the plane told her he was a proud man. It must be torment for him every time he had to use that chair. Her heart ached for him.

  He jerked his head up and glared at her as if she had spoken aloud. His ferocity stole her breath, and she nearly stepped backward before she stopped herself. She wasn’t going to be intimidated by him. Let him growl and scowl all he wanted; she could only imagine what it did to a man like him to be confined to a chair like that.