by Sue Wilder
“Luca. He’s in charge. The larger man is Dante, the man with the lighter brown hair is Giam.”
Lexi didn’t need to ask; by the size and physicality of them, they were warriors. Black and white photos, interspersed with some in color, flashed on a second monitor mounted beside the first; the conference room was more elaborate and secure than most government installations.
“We’ll start with Renata—Dante’s mate,” the Italian said. An image filled the screen of a woman with dark hair, running down an alley, looking back over her shoulder. Lexi recognized the terror in her eyes—desperate, unbelieving and yet aware. “She was attacked at the outdoor market near the Piazza di San Lorenzo two weeks ago.”
“She’s alive?” Christan’s voice was soft, the question precise. Lexi remembered the tone, what it meant, and shivered.
“Yes,” said Luca evenly, but with the same deadly tone. These men protected their own and an attack would be avenged.
“What damage did she sustain?”
“Nothing physical, for which we are grateful. There are emotional scars, and the returning memories. She will recover with time.”
“And the man responsible?”
Luca’s smile was cold. Satisfied. “He was acquired by Dante, who interrogated him. The man confirmed our suspicions before losing his ability to speak.”
Christan nodded and stared down at the files. “Is Kace still in your area?” he asked, and Lexi shivered again at the cold authority in his voice.
“That is the assumption,” the Italian said deferentially.
“What of the other girl?” Arsen asked.
“Giam obtained tapes from the security cameras outside the Caffé Condotti.”
A third monitor on the wall flashed and grainy video appeared, the action frozen in place. A girl of about twenty-two sat at a table beneath a white umbrella. She was dressed in jeans and a light-colored sweater, her long dark hair caught in a clasp at her nape. A man was sitting across from her, leaning forward. A laptop computer was open in front of him.
Lexi stiffened, recognizing the man’s profile. Wallace. Or Kace. Or whatever he was calling himself in Florence. When Christan glanced at her clenched hands, Lexi forced herself to relax, pressing her palms flat against the table.
The video played, without sound, but the conversation could be followed by the body language. Kace was gesturing to the girl before he turned the laptop around so she could see the monitor. She nodded and lifted a cup to her lips as if she could hide behind the rim.
The breeze twisted the edge of the umbrella, causing bright sunlight to splash across her face. When the girl closed her eyes Kace leaned forward and touched her hand. The girl seemed to shudder. When her eyes opened, he was sitting relaxed as if nothing had happened.
“What did he just do?” Lexi asked the quiet room.
“Calmed her,” Christan said. “She’ll trust him now. It’s a talent we have.”
“Bastards.” Lexi used the plural deliberately, said the word so it would carry. When Christan glanced at her, she shrugged, and looked back at the video feed.
There was more interaction until the man checked his watch, picked up the laptop. Then, as if it were an afterthought, he turned back and handed a piece of paper to the girl, which she stuffed into a messenger bag beside the chair. The video cut off, and the screen went blank.
“That was two weeks ago,” Luca said.
“Phillipe says they lost track of her around that time,” Christan agreed.
“Then, yesterday, Giam picked up her vibration. When he arrived, all he was able get was this cell phone footage.”
Another video feed appeared, the movement jerky. The girl was running down a service alley, dodging construction equipment, a wheelbarrow and bags of cement. A man was in pursuit. He paused, glanced back at the camera, then… disappeared.
“What the hell?” Lexi exclaimed.
Dante’s voice carried from Portland at the same time. “Well, crap.”
There was a grim expression in Giam’s eyes. “My apologies,” he said in Italian. He seemed to be speaking to Arsen. “Wish I could give you more.”
Arsen nodded. Lexi turned to Marge. “What the hell did I just watch?”
Marge didn’t answer. Lexi stared at each man sitting at the table, waiting for someone to answer. It was Arsen who explained.
“The Calata uses telekinesis to summon any warrior they want and send them where they want. It hasn’t been used in years. Cell phones are more convenient now.” What he left unsaid was that the action alarmed them, and Luca’s voice broke the tension, redirected the discussion.
“Do we need to discuss the last photo?”
Lexi scanned the file in front of her, finding the information at the bottom. The victim was young, barely seventeen. The death had not been easy and appeared accidental—if falling off a bridge with solid pedestrian railings could be accidental.
“Kace did this, didn’t he?” She was looking at Christan. He nodded, once. “Is it always like this?”
“Yes. This is an immortal war. It’s been going on for centuries.”
Lexi was shaking, but she calmed when Christan’s hand settled against the small of her back. “Do you know how to stop him?”
“Yes.”
The pressure on her back increased. She thought it felt protective. The Italians were talking again, and both Christan and Arsen agreed to come to Florence to help find Katerina Varga—the dark-haired girl drinking coffee in the sun—who might also be Arsen’s mate.
“I have to go,” Lexi said as the conversation slowed down. “I have to go with you to Florence.”
“Why?” It was Arsen who spoke, and Lexi watched as worry darkened his eyes.
“I know Kace,” she said. “I’ve experienced night terrors, know what it’s like to have those memories forced.” Lexi stopped, then looked at Christan and repeated, “I’m going.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“It isn’t your decision to make. Kace insinuated his way into my life, into my mind. He lied, planted cameras in my cottage. I won’t let him do that to others.”
“You’re being reckless.” Christan seemed to gather himself for the coming argument. “You don’t appreciate the risks.”
“Don’t I?” Lexi wondered where that surety came from as she studied the expressions on every face, even those on the video feed. She could see the resistance in their eyes and wondered why they even thought they could stop her. “This isn’t your private war.”
“Lexi,” Christan cautioned, but she cut him off, oblivious to the audience surrounding them. Her attention was only on him.
“You don’t control me.”
“This isn’t about control, it’s about you not listening.”
“And if I don’t listen, will you face plant me on the floor again?”
Lexi sensed the shock floating through the video feed and realized she’d never heard anyone argue with Christan in public. Never. They all accepted his decisions. Then she remembered he was an enforcer and they were probably afraid to argue.
Christan watched with a predatory gleam in his eye, and the tiny nerves at the base of her nape were zinging the way they’d zinged when he’d chased her across the training mat. Lexi didn’t wait for Christan to make his move. She turned and left the room.
It took two seconds before he was out of his chair and following her.
Christan blocked the escape at the top of the stairs. Lexi turned, hair flaring out in a curtain of gold filled with winter light. Without hesitating, she disappeared into the smaller office to her left.
He followed her.
“I’m not asking for permission.” She launched into the argument before he was through the door. “This is my decision.”
“Without listening to my advice?” Christan kicked the door closed, hard. He wasn’t trying to be threatening but he wanted her to know he was angry.
Lexi retreated to the far end of the room. She was trembling and Christan’s chest c
lenched. He was frightening her. But he also knew the argument wasn’t about control. It was about her safety and his inability to protect her.
Lexi didn’t understand the risks in Italy, but Christan hadn’t forgotten about Kace. The Enforcer wasn’t in Portland. He was more likely in Florence, or nearby since Six’s territory was the Eastern Mediterranean. And despite those risks, Phillipe told Christan to take her to Florence. Drink some wine. Use her with Katerina. Christan wouldn’t explain that to Lexi, how Three wanted her enforcer and his girl back together. Couldn’t. And in this mood, Lexi would refuse to listen to why she should stay in Oregon.
“I would ask you not to do this,” he said, trying to control his frustration. From Lexi’s expression, he wasn’t successful.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Why?” Christan’s stance widened and he wanted to cross his arms but thought the move would be too aggressive. It didn’t matter. Her mouth tightened when she saw his posture. After last night, she expected the worse. Christan watched as she hesitated at the edge of a chair, then sat down.
“Because of things you could never understand.”
When he walked toward her, Lexi looked away. Christan crouched down, enfolding one of her hands in his. Her skin was soft but cold, and his callouses were probably rough against her palm. It felt good, just… good to hold her hand. He shouldn’t be touching her. She shouldn’t be letting him. It surprised him when she did. He remembered, now, how this woman always surprised him with her ability to see what he wanted hidden. At least she had, until the end when she hadn’t wanted anything from him at all.
And now he crouched at her feet, holding her hand as if he wanted something from her.
“Help me understand,” he said.
Lexi resisted. He expected her to, needed her to, because there was no other way she could protect herself. Trust wasn’t something Christan was extending to himself right now. Not if he’d needed his second-in-command to challenge his behavior. Arsen wouldn’t say another word, that was the way they were. Once was enough in their world, and if someone didn’t listen, well… that was why Christan was an enforcer.
He was ashamed of his behavior. And that was an odd sensation, one he didn’t like and had only ever felt when this woman was involved. Lexi wasn’t of their world, not really, even with all the reincarnations. Once, it had been the most important thing to have her be part of them.
But he’d destroyed all that. She’d destroyed it. He wasn’t sure they could get it back or even if they should. Not after what they did to each other in Florence. And yet, she was still sitting here and he was asking her to tell him what he’d never allowed her to tell him before. Why she wanted so badly to go to Florence. Why she needed to help a girl she didn’t know. Because it meant thwarting a man she certainly did know, despite all the names he gave himself.
Asking, for God’s sake, and not ordering. Asking her to trust him. Christan didn’t think she would.
“Words won’t explain what it’s like from my side of the experience,” she said. “You go into my mind as easily as you do everything else.”
Christan looked away. How many times had Kace violated her mind in the past? And what the hell had he’d been doing last night? He was fairly sure Lexi thought it was the same thing. Arsen said the apology offered earlier wasn’t owed to his second. Arsen was right. The words would be difficult. Christan drew in a deep breath.
“I was wrong last night. I shouldn’t have done what I did and I have no excuse.”
Lexi was trying hard to be resilient. She looked vulnerable, defensive. Christan dragged his thumb along the memory line that curved around her forefinger. If she was aware of what he was doing, connecting through the line, she didn’t pull her hand away.
“Will you tell me about the dreams?” Christan hadn’t asked about the dreams before, wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Now it seemed important.
After a moment, Lexi said, “Dreams like the Gabrielle dream feel real, where I’m experiencing and not dreaming. They’re long, or at least the experience has a distinct element of time passing.” She glanced at the memory line he was still stroking. Hesitated. “I dreamed about a girl named Gaia, too.”
His hand tightened around her fingers. “Do you dream anything else?”
“The ones Marge calls night terrors, violent beyond description.”
“Try.”
Christan heard the steel in his voice. The pulse began to beat in her throat like a wild bird, and he wanted to pull her into his arms. Didn’t understand the complex demands that pressed in on him. Finally, she sucked in a shuddering breath.
“It’s a dirty, icy city. I’m holding the hand of a little boy. We’ve reached the corner where there’s so much snow we can’t walk side by side. I tell him to step into the street ahead of me. He’s dancing the way kids do, with a snowball in his hand. I’m thinking how much I love him when the truck comes around a corner. It doesn’t stop. Doesn’t swerve. Just runs over him while I watch. His arms and legs jerk up. It looks like he’s hugging the tire and it feels like my heart is being ripped out.”
Christan was staring at a point on the wall. Lexi pulled her hands away and said, “I’ve learned not to think about those dreams.”
Her body was tense and trembling. He saw it in her hands, and the way she still wouldn’t look at him. Christan stood abruptly, prowled toward the window, staring out.
“The dream about the boy,” he said without looking at her. “It wasn’t real.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know your entire existence, in every lifetime.” He twisted around. “Even in the Void, I knew where you were, what you did.”
Her face paled. “In how much detail?”
“You were never in a place that was cold. There was never a little boy who danced in the snow. It did not happen,” he enunciated with deadly calm, the immortal Enforcer who was both judge and executioner.
“Then why would I dream it?”
“To terrify you.” Torture you.
Christan rolled his shoulders and tried to explain. Marge had suggested it first. The rest came from Ethan’s reports, after the San Francisco warrior had analyzed the meditation app on Lexi’s phone. There was a subliminal suggestion that worked like hacking techniques. Probe for weak points. Apply pressure. Find the vulnerability and then exploit it. The purpose became obvious. Night terrors—through the sheer fear they generated—weakened the thin wall in the human mind. They broke through the natural defenses separating the past from the present, allowing the memories to bleed through.
But Christan wasn’t finished. Marge’s theory came next, and she’d described her own night terrors as short and sharp. They were knives, Marge had said, stabbing in the dark, preventing sleep until pure exhaustion took its toll. Then the past life dreams would start. They were different, unfolding with languorous detail so rich the dreamer tasted the food on her tongue, warmed to the sun on her face. Ached with desire.
“And once the memory lines appear,” Christan said, “the girls remember fragments, until...” The rest remained unfinished. Lexi rubbed a finger across her wrist.
“Were you around for Gabrielle?”
“She lived in France. I wasn’t there.”
“But Gaia?”
Christan felt the memory like a stone on his heart. “Our first life.”
“We were happy?” Lexi asked after a strained moment.
“We were.”
“But you left.”
“I did.”
The pain in her eyes was a fading sun that drew him, and gently, he walked toward her, urged her to her feet and enclosed her within the warmth of his arms. Lexi shuddered when he dragged his broad palm over her hair. After a moment, he pushed his fingers through the strands, untangling and smoothing them around her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I need you to tell me why,” she whispered.
“I know you do. But… I can’t.�
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His moods were razor-sharp since he’d come back from the Void. But he couldn’t tell her how, in his selfishness, he had condemned her to lifetimes filled with pain. Not yet. Not when she didn’t understand enough to forgive him. Once, he thought this woman understood the man he was, but now he overwhelmed her even when he wasn’t trying; it was a loss of something he could never recover. He stepped back, withdrew to a place where he knew she couldn’t reach him, felt the visceral loss of connection.
She stepped back, too; the air in the room seemed to diminish. “Where does that leave us?”
“I don’t want you in Florence,” he said.
“I don’t need your permission.”
“You need my help if you expect to get anywhere.”
“And you need mine with Katerina Varga. You can’t talk to her the way I can. You haven’t experienced Kace the way I have, and if she’s having dreams, she won’t trust you the way she might trust another woman who has dreams, too.”
Those striking amber eyes met obsidian, a splash of sunlight battling black ice. A single beat in the air before it shattered. The immortal Enforcer crossed his arms, widened his stance. Gave in.
“Fine, but you play by my rules. You don’t go running off on your own and you listen to what I have to say.”
“You ass. Could you be any more difficult?”
Christan moved but she put the width of the desk between them. Christan wanted to pull her out from behind that security barrier, show her why she should never run from him again. The need to put her body beneath his was so intense he shook his head and growled. They stood in silence, glaring at each another.
“I have to do this, you know I do.” Her palm was out in front of her as if that would support her argument. “Don’t ask me not to help.”
“I can ask you not to risk your life.”
“Ask, maybe, but not order. There’s a difference.”
“So I’ve been informed.” Christan straightened. “And since I am aware of the dangers and you are not, I will request that you pay attention to my counsel, and if it seems logical to your view of the world at least accommodate me once in a while.”
