by Zoe Forward
“When did you get the idea that I wanted help?”
“You look like someone who’s malnourished. Isn’t sleeping. And is in constant physical pain. I’m not commenting on the emotional shitstorm your aura broadcasts. So, let me have a look.”
“Why did you not deal with them when you rendered me unconscious.” He couldn’t help the bitterness of his tone.
“I’m not apologizing for knocking you out. You were about to run. We need you here. I didn’t know what they were. So, I wasn’t about to do anything without a discussion. So, let’s have that talk. Now.”
He was well familiar with people who didn’t accept no for an answer. And going on her hard, level tone, it was damn clear the doctor was having it her way or else.
“Follow me to my office.” She turned and led to the back of the house.
He followed through the white door into the medical area. The room was clean, sterile…and ignited a compulsion to escape. He hated the distinctive smell of cleaned-up blood. And the lingering impression of barely survived trauma. Ending up here meant he’d either had the shit kicked out of him by a daemon, or was about to depart this life from whatever fatal wound Shaiani had inflicted. That meant fifty percent of the time he died in rooms like this.
Too many memories. Too many death moments. Sometimes Shaiani had pleaded for forgiveness. Other times she threw invectives until he passed into death. Too many times he’d stared into her unearthly beautiful green eyes wishing desperately for a different destiny.
He unlocked his now aching jaw. “Let us not do this.”
“I’m not going to do anything you don’t want, but we do need to figure out what those things are and if I can help. They’re draining your energy and they hurt, don’t they?”
Yes, damn it. “You are not like the previous akhrians.”
“In what way other than being a woman?”
“None of the others cared if we suffered. Pain is part of the deal. Most could not care less if we chose to let our injuries heal on their own.”
“But you’re not healing.”
He shrugged.
“So, here’s how I work. If you’re injured and you’re not seeking treatment, I will hunt you down and take care of it. One vulnerable magus weakens all of them. And puts all of us in danger.”
“Who says I will battle daemons again?”
A fleeting smile crossed her lips. “Deny it however long you want, but it’s inevitable. It’s who you are. So, please come in. Take off your shirt and let me take a look at those lesions.”
He seesawed his molars and didn’t budge.
“I promise nothing I see or you say will ever be revealed to another soul. I won’t hurt you. Now, please, step away from the door and take off the shirt.”
Dakar swallowed and tried to slow his hammering pulse without success. He fisted his hands to stop their tremoring. Somehow, he must get through this. She was right. The wounds weakened him.
He unbuttoned, pulled off the shirt, and stepped into the room. “Let us finish this quickly.”
She approached slowly as if advancing on an injured wild animal. He slammed his lids closed, praying the encounter end fast. Her cool fingers lightly touched near the newest black lesion festering on his back.
“How long have you had this?”
“About a month.”
“And the one on your side?” She gently probed her fingers along the edge of the old lesion.
“At least fifty years or so. Time was difficult to interpret where I was.”
“What caused them?”
“Daemon scratch and then spit.”
“Interesting, but icky. Does their spit stink as much as them?”
His lips twitched. “It does.”
She shook her head. “I have no idea how you guys can face those disgusting things. I’m glad of it, don’t get me wrong. But I would gag.”
“It is what it is.”
“You want me to try to clear them?”
He sighed long and hard, despising this weakness. He hated the brutal fact he needed her to do this. He nodded.
She rested one hand on his forearm. A jolt of heat warmed his body with a soothing sensation that beelined for the wounds. After less than a minute, she stepped away and plopped down onto a rolling stool. “Better?”
He touched his side and back where the areas had been, finding only fresh smooth skin. And a new tattoo on his side that signaled magical healing as only the akhrian could do. Probably had a matching tat on his back. He pulled on his shirt. “Yes. You are quite good at this. Different, but good.”
“I keep hearing that from the others. You’re welcome. So, how old are you?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I really do.” She crossed her legs and rested her chin on her hand.
He stood to leave. “Thank you for your assistance. Please, do not take it personally if I say I prefer not to be in this room again.” He paused at the door with one hand on the handle. “I was born into this incarnation in 1642. I regained my memory when inducted in 1668.”
Chapter Nine
Shay departed the Asheville airport in a rented economy car that was little more than a blue plastic egg on roller skates. Now she had to contact Brant.
Her stomach soured at the thought of her stepbrother. Right after her mother married his father, she caught him sacrificing a raccoon in a voodoo ritual. That was the first time he locked her the basement closet and threatened her with something worse than he had inflicted on the raccoon if she tattled on him. One suppressed memory surged to the forefront of her mind, of a time when he used a knife on her when she wouldn’t give him the TV remote. She had a nice little scar on her left arm from that. But it was the memory of eighteen-month-old Jacob smiling up at her in his classic adoring way while he toddled along behind her that caused her abdomen to cramp. Brant had killed him, her innocent little brother, not that anyone could pin it on Brant. But she knew. How could he shoot himself with a rifle? The kid could barely hold a jumbo crayon. His death killed her mother’s zest for life.
She suspected Brant had also arranged her stepfather’s mysterious death. The medical report said he fell off the porch of his house and broke his neck. No one could prove it was anything other than an accident. The last time she’d spoken with Brant had been at that funeral. If her current desperation hadn’t driven her to find him, those eight years weren’t long enough.
He’d already gotten mixed up in some sort of ancient Persian cult called the Order of Assassins when she saw him at that solemn event. Morbid curiosity led her to research them, secretly hoping they’d all do a group suicide thing. No such luck.
She never believed magik in any form existed and hadn’t lent the cult much credence. Now, she wondered if there was some fact to it. If not, perhaps Brant could direct her to someone who had answers.
She didn’t want to just show up at his place of work, the Hashishin complex they called the Sanctum, located just north of the city. The place just sounded creepy. Finding the location of the specific sect had required a lot of Internet digging. She checked into a hotel near downtown Asheville, putting the bill apprehensively on her almost-maxed-out credit card. Once in her rented room, she pulled out the phone book. Revulsion slid down her back as she found him listed. Brant Kiersted. There weren’t many others with that name.
She palmed the bedside phone and dialed before she lost her nerve.
On the second ring, voicemail picked up. Brant’s distinctive voice relayed a generic message. At the beep, she cleared her throat and said, “Uh, hi, Brant. This is Shay. Shay McGinnis. I’m in Asheville and wondered if you had a few minutes to go to lunch or have coffee tomorrow. I’ve got something I want to talk to you about.” She left the hotel’s information and hung up.
With her head on a pillow, she stared at the ceiling cracks breaking through a crappy paint-over attempt. Sleep had eluded her for the past week. Yet, right now…her lids drifted closed.
*
***
He reclined on a wooden deckchair, his naturally tanned chest soaking up sun. A white dress shirt hung unfastened in careless disarray, dangling off the edges of the chair. Shay glided forward, entranced. In the center of his bared chest was the triangle symbol—the one that had propelled her into archaeology. She wanted to touch. And not just the symbol. His body was a masterwork of impressive lines.
Aching need powered through her blood. She slid to his side. Yet, he didn’t acknowledge her. That hurt. How could he not know she stood beside him?
A flat, golden pendant encircled his neck, an Egyptian menat. Without opening his eyes, he lifted his head and neck to flip the pendant so its larger surface sat at the back of his neck. Then, reclined again. The piece didn’t look particularly comfortable, but he’d handled that adjustment like it was a permanent fixture rather than an annoyance. Experts claimed these pendants to be virility amulets. This man needed no pendant to enhance that. Virility was his middle name.
His facial hair no longer screamed wild man, now manicured into a sinful goatee that accentuated the angles of his face. Where was that glorious mane of hair? Had to be confined at his neck…oh please, don’t let him have cut it.
He still ignored her.
No more.
She hiked up her flowing sundress’s ankle-length skirt and straddled him.
His eyes popped open with a startled say-what. She smiled. His pupils dilated. At the desire in those dark depths, her thighs clenched around him.
She placed a forefinger over his mouth when he opened it to speak, muting him. Gently, she ran her hand over the single hoop earring in his left ear to the back of his neck, asking permission to lift his head. To release his hair. He obliged by raising his neck. She undid the band. With both hands, she ran her fingers through the dark strands.
His massive arousal pushed against her core from its confinement in his jeans. With a smile, she latched onto a nipple and sucked. The moan that ripped out of him nearly had her coming. From beneath lowered lids, she kept her stare locked on his as she moved down his chest to his abdomen.
She released the pressure of the jeans’ zip fly.
He hissed and gasped out a strangled “Shaiani.” His muscles tensed, jaw locked tight. He wanted control. To flip her beneath him. To lock himself deep inside her. She saw his vision of where he wanted this to go as if he’d projected the x-rated movie directly into her brain.
She shook her head, denying his fantasy.
With raw, aching need, she took him as deep as she dared. Sucking, giving him no quarter for retreat. His hips undulated as he groaned. She felt him swelling, knowing his release was imminent.
He tugged at her hair, pulling her away from him, and hoarsely demanded, “Say it. Say my name.”
She met his gaze. “Dakarai.”
“Gods, Shaiani. You already own my soul, but go ahead and prove it.”
****
Dakar jolted upright in the wooden deck chair with a hoarse denial. Sticky sweat coated his body. His pulse pounded between his thighs where he teetered on the cliff of climax. With a groan, he shifted against the prison of the jeans.
Now she tortured him in the dream world?
He scanned the perimeter of the manicured yard. As expected, he saw no one. A vision of dark auburn hair and freckled skin materialized in his mind. Fantasy?
The dream was new. Maybe she haunted him now. He wasn’t sure if he could handle that.
If that pitiful woman in the hospital had really been her, then they would already be communicating telepathically as Ashor did with Kira. But they weren’t. So, it wasn’t her.
His gut instinct screamed wrong. His body burned for her. He’d never met another woman who could elicit such a reaction. Hadn’t he confirmed that in Costa Rica? Damn, damn, and triple damn.
A chill slid down his arms. They may not have their normal mental contact, but perhaps she’d found a different path—the dream world. And, bloody hell, she was just as good in the dream world as in reality.
Why had he let that woman out of his sight? If she truly was his fated mate, then their countdown clock to death had just started. All it took was one mental connection. Two weeks or possibly less before one of them would die by the other’s hand, at least that was the curse he’d lived under for thousands of years of reincarnation.
A small part of him desperately didn’t want her to be the one. If she were, then he’d truly need to plan her murder. His sole focus for the past few millennia prior to his little stopover in purgatory-hell had been to break their curse. He had consulted an assortment of renowned shamans, witch doctors, medicine men, witches, warlocks, druids, and even an Aztec priest who attempted to sacrifice him by cutting out his heart. Did not go well for the priest.
Every attempt to terminate their curse humiliated him in retrospect. But the Asian shaman he consulted a year before traveling to the Middle Realm advised he do the contrary to what instinct demanded. For years the ambiguity of that answer infuriated him. He deduced, to ensure in his next lifetime they got more than a two-week march toward death, he must kill her first. That he’d never done.
Based on all the failed rituals he’d performed as recommended by all the other magik specialists, he questioned why he should believe the shaman. The man had dressed as a woman, wore too much face paint, and acted high as a kite. This particular shaman, however, had successfully predicted every catastrophe of his time. What did he have to lose by giving the advice a try?
Even though he dreaded the need to plan her death, a small corner of his mind did a crazy, happy jig that she might be back and could finish what she started in that dream.
A female scream blasted through the yard.
Dakar shot to his feet. Adrenaline kick-started his heart. Instinct pushed him to top speed toward the scream, alert for battle. You’ve got zero weapons. He fingered the lighter in his pocket, gifted to him from Ethan yesterday. Maybe not entirely zero.
Around the edge of the house, a redheaded woman hugged a small infant to her chest. Not Shaiani. As the woman turned a slow circle, three massive triangular-headed snakes slithered into strike position, trapping her. He detected the subtle current of marked power from her, which signaled her to be another’s senariai. Losing her meant losing a magus. Hard-wired instinct pushed him to act.
He flicked on the butane lighter and channeled flames onto the two closest vipers. Just as the muscles of the third coiled to strike, he reached her, and whirled her into his arms. The snake hit his back with fangs extended.
And then it struck again. Son of a bitch, that hurt.
He released the woman to shoot flames at the third snake, which lit up like a writhing roman candle. That secretly thrilled him. There was nothing more gratifying than torching one of the ensorcelled motherfuckers to ash.
He opened his senses with seichim, scanning the yard. No other snakes in the immediate vicinity. But there was at least one other in the area. No time to hunt now.
The woman rocked back and forth on her knees mumbling over and over, “My baby.”
“Are you injured?”
She didn’t respond.
Gently he said, “Let me examine the little one.” He pried loose her death grip on the child who tried to gnaw on his finger. “I see no injury. Did one of them bite you?”
She collapsed, staring toward the edge of the yard. One must’ve struck her. “Listen to me closely…” The woman didn’t respond. He shook her. “You will die, if you ignore me now. Your magus will die. Your baby might die.”
That got her attention. She blinked slowly several times as if struggling to focus. “Hurts.”
He mumbled, “How well I know.” Loudly he said, “Do not let go of my hand. I will work a link spell to hold you to this realm until we get to the healer.”
“Don’t let him die,” she whispered.
He knew not if she referred to the baby or her magus. He seized her hand and murmured the words of a binding spell. Then he ordered, “
Focus on staying in this world. Stay awake.”
If this worked, then their hands must stay connected. He’d never tried this particular incantation nor seen it succeed, but it was worth a try. He’d watched other magi cast it at that moment when a senariai had been mortally injured and there was no chance for akhrian assistance, not that he had experienced that scenario since he’d never watched Shaiani die. In that future moment when Shaiani took the ride toward death, he suspected like his fellow magi his panic level would be too high to perform an effective spell. Right now, his head was tight.
He lifted her and the baby in his arms and charged for the house. As he pushed through the patio door, he bellowed, “I need the akhrian!”
Ashor and Ethan appeared.
What happened?” Ashor asked.
“Oh shit, it’s Julie. Where’s Eric?” Ethan asked.
“Need the healer,” Dakar rushed out, moving toward the doctor’s office.
“In her office. You’re going the right way,” Ashor directed. “Want me to take her?” Ashor held out his hands for Julie.
“No!” Dakar managed to run in a fairly straight line, even though his brain whirled from the snake venom. This poison was a potent concoction. He’d been on the receiving end of many dark-magik potions, and a lot of viper attacks, but this one packed a whopping punch. He deposited Julie on the medical bed, but was careful not to release her hand.
“Julie?” Kira asked as she approached the now-unconscious woman. She laid her hand against Julie’s arm. “Poison.”
“How?” asked Ashor.
Dakar replied, “You’ve got a snake problem. One got her. I killed three of them, but I think there is at least one more.”
“Ethan—” Ashor started.
“I’m on it.” Ethan withdrew a serrated knife from its belt sheath, and left.
“She should be dead,” Kira announced. “What are you doing to keep her from dying?”
“I cast a binding spell. So long as we hold hands, she might stay with us.”
“Let me get the poison out.” Kira rested her hand on Julie’s arm.
They waited in tense silence while Kira concentrated. Kira pushed away from Julie and staggered to the sink. She heaved three times.
