by Sue Wilder
Kace pushed her toward the desk and she was cooperating. Her hair was a golden riot around her shoulders. There was blood on her face and stiff courage in her stride. I won’t give up on you. She’d said those words outside the villa, her voice still soft in his mind. She shouldn’t have been able to do it, talk to him telepathically. Only hear him. But she’d been able to use the telepathy the same way she’d been able to use the one word, and he would question it later.
Lexi stood like a pagan goddess with the overhead light in her hair. Christan leaned his head against the wall. His eyes were still nearly swollen shut, but he searched every visible inch of her body for signs of damage. He could withstand this brutal game but she could not, and Christan realized something crucial: Lexi could not have gotten to Zurich unless Six had compelled her. Or someone else had known where he was and sent her here.
Which should have been impossible since she was human, and humans could not physically withstand teleportation.
“I would know you anywhere,” he told her telepathically, his hip bleeding, his legs splayed. “Crawl on my knees to get to you.”
“And I am here.” she answered. “Don’t ask me how because I don’t know.”
Kace had released her, stepped back. Christan struggled to his feet, pressing hard on the impulse to shift. His broken hands shook. The need to touch her was overwhelming. Her fingers clenched in the sweatshirt held at her waist, dark and wet with blood. “Not all mine,” she said again in his mind, and he flashed back to that hot summer day when she extended her hand to the predator he was. Then to her soft palms against his face.
“Your name is Christan,” she’d said, as she laid claim to his soul, and in his memory, he drank in the pure sunlight, the fresh green earth and five twinkling stars in an indigo sky.
She turned her head, and Christan watched her hold Kace’s hard gaze with one of her own.
Something shifted beneath his feet, a low vibration that rolled across the floor. The hot, soft energy came from her and wrapped around him until he felt it to his core.
The wound in his side throbbed.
Silent, Lexi ignored the evidence of the beatings, the wreck they’d made of Christan’s body. Instead, she forced herself to study the room. She looked first at the mix of textures, from the sandstone-colored carpet to the polished sheen of the concrete floor, pleasingly modern until you noticed the blood. It was office space mixed with industrial. The design was all the rage in America where citizens tried to revitalize their dying city centers. Lexi glanced at the furniture and the men, deciding there was nothing worth revitalizing. Other than Christan. When she stared at Kace, his expression was cold and cruel. The other man was ice. Outside it had started to rain.
Lexi’s attention returned to Christan. She didn’t understand how the one word worked but wrapping her hand in a shirt covered in Christan’s blood might not be enough. Physically mingling their blood was probably necessary. Her hand was throbbing with energy, pulling her toward him. If the magic required her to touch him, then she was more than happy to comply.
When she walked in Christan’s direction no one stopped her. She dropped the shirt. Pressed her bleeding hand against the wound in his side. Her palm sizzled. Christan flinched. When Kace noticed, Lexi wrapped her arms around Christan's waist, pretended she was supporting his weight. In a perverse way it looked like they were making love, standing up with a pool of blood at their feet.
The man behind the desk was watching, too, and Lexi’s nerves tensed. He was like every other powerful executive she had ever met—civilized, and yet different enough she felt the fear. She wondered how she would hold up under a prolonged interrogation. Probably not well. He was an immortal, probably Six since Kace was in the room. His face was paler than expected, the masculine features refined. He was not muscular, but then he didn't need to be when she could feel the dark energy surrounding him.
Lexi glanced back at Christan and her expression was sober; his held nothing but profound concern for her. Christan’s hands had been ruined. Gently, she touched them, rubbed her thumbs against the swollen flesh, heard the soft grind of bone moving into place.
From across the room, energy vibrated. The immortal’s sibilant hiss demanded her attention. Lexi took several seconds before glancing in his direction.
“You surprise me, Ms. North.” The voice was as colorless as the skin. Lexi released Christan’s broken hands, shifted around toward the massive desk.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” she said. “We’ve never met.”
“And yet you have presented yourself at my office, uninvited. I am Six.” The immortal paused. “Move over here, please.”
Lexi refused.
The man inclined his head. “I have no intention of killing you,” he suggested in a tone that indicated he intended to kill someone.
Lexi walked in his direction, stopping short of where he’d ordered her to stand. The immortal pressed a hand, knuckles down, on the surface of the desk. A flicker of irritation tightened his face. He might not kill her, Lexi realized, but he wanted her to appreciate how badly he would hurt her.
“I see you are as stubborn as he is,” Six said.
“He taught me all I know.”
“It’s a shame he didn’t teach you enough or you’d be safe right now. How did you get here?”
“I have no idea.”
“Was it Three?”
“I’m not familiar with anyone named Three.”
“Of course you are. You’re mated to her enforcer.”
The edge of a blade scored down Lexi’s arm even though Six remained several feet away. A dark pearl of blood pooled above one of the memory lines. Her wrist burned.
“I will ask you again.”
“I was sitting in the middle of Christan’s blood and then I was sitting in the hall outside your door.”
“That is not a sufficient explanation.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
“Please.” The word became an insult. Six tipped his head as he walked toward her and began to circle around, hands clasped behind his back. His feet were moving but there was no sound. The immortal stopped in front of her.
“Three is not stupid,” he said. “She would see the manipulations, anticipate the moves. She knows I’d try to use you if given the chance. I don’t think she’d let me get this far unless she had a reason for doing it.”
Six wasn’t actually talking to her; Lexi realized he was working something out in his mind, staring at her hand that still dripped blood, not just from the wound he had inflicted, but from the deep cut across her palm. For a few seconds Lexi fought the panic behind her eyes. Then a disembodied touch stroked around her throat.
“Why are you here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
The constriction tightened and relaxed, before tightening again. Lexi thought it felt like a predatory snake.
“Describe again how you got here,” Six instructed.
Lexi looked at the floor, opting for the details but not the secrets. How she’d been on her knees with Christan bleeding out, the screams of wounded men, the silence when he disappeared. She didn’t know if the story was convincing and didn’t care. “Maybe something happened and that’s how I got here.”
“Did you arrive immediately after Christan did?” Lexi shook her head. Behind her, Christan began to move. The immortal said, “I sense energy.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re different.”
“It’s probably because I’m human.”
“No,” Six said slowly, “I don’t think you are.”
The immortal flicked his hand. Kace shimmered at the edges, then shifted into a gray predator. Lion, but unlike any Lexi had ever seen. The pelt was thick and wiry, the muscles archaic. The animal lowered to a crouch, exposing canines longer than her hand. A warning vibrated in the creature’s throat.
The primitive sound se
nt Lexi backward. She nearly tripped over the thick edge of a rug and wondered if the last lion she would ever fight would be an angel, fallen and profane.
But the creature was not looking in her direction. Christan was walking toward her, totally silent and utterly terrifying. The air exploded as he shifted.
He was an apex predator, a chimera, she thought, like the Etruscan bronze in the museum. Fiercely proud. Wounded but lethal, part lion and something else. A creature of myth.
Kace altered his shape in response until both were equal in size. But not in dominance. The lion backed away while the chimera followed, stalking, testing with lazy curiosity, swiping out to draw first blood. The lion struck back. For an instant, Lexi opened a window in her mind and imagined she was back in her cottage, watching a wildlife show. Muscles bunched with charge and parry; she pictured the two creatures on a savanna with sparse vegetation. Jaws snapped on empty air and she imagined them in a distant jungle. None of her delusions were successful though. The sounds flooded her emotions while massive bodies crashed to the concrete floor. Screams tore at the air when they rolled upright again, twisting in ways joints should never twist. The reality was breaking her heart.
Six stepped closer. His excitement stroked against her back and repugnance drove her forward. He followed. Lexi realized he was pushing her closer to the battle until she stood at the edge.
He did not stop there. When the chimera lunged, Six cut her. The lion went down and Six cut her again, nothing too deep, just stinging enough to make her gasp. Tiny beads of blood dripped on the floor. Then the immortal let her stand there while he made his next move.
With growing horror Lexi recognized the game.
There were only two rules.
When Christan lunged, Six cut her. When Kace attacked, she was granted a reprieve. Lexi focused on the distant wall, refusing to flinch. When the blood and pain increased, Six took her by the hand, held it up. Lexi realized Six was fueling Christan’s rage, giving Christan a choice—this man she loved, who had been broken and ruined on the floor, who said he would crawl on his knees to get back to her. Christan could not kill Kace and protect her at the same time.
Lexi saw the reality in Christan’s eyes. Saw it when the gray lion lunged and the chimera let the creature to take him to the ground. When sharp claws ripped and the chimera did not resist.
“Look away, cara.” Christan’s voice, so harsh in her mind, and yet fiercely tender. As if he’d made his choice and was saying goodbye. Lexi wanted to rage at the sky, swing around and attack Six with every ounce of fury that consumed her. Break into a thousand pieces. Remind Christan that honor was in the action and not the outcome.
“I won’t look away,” she whispered as the chimera labored to his feet and stared directly at her. “I’m with you to the end.”
“This is not the end. You will go on.”
“I would not live without you. You have to fight, Christan. Fight for us.”
The lion had stepped back; it was as if he was waiting, allowing them this time. Without a sound the chimera turned and lunged. But the absence of sound was not silence. The absence of sound was terror. Lexi struggled to remain sane as ragged energy flew around the room, cracking the glass blocks of a false wall, throwing crystal shards like tiny arrows in her direction. The arrows joined with immortal power and sliced her skin. Kace flashed once into human form. He looked at Lexi and then shifted back again, turned to meet his rival. After that, there were no screams left in her throat, no breath in her lungs. Lexi swayed but remained steady. She could not let Christan lose his focus or they would both be lost.
Blood dripped from her hand. Her vision blurred. The chimera lunged, took the lion to the concrete floor, and Lexi bent beneath a sudden, shattering grief over what was happening. Kace had once brought Gemma flowers. Played chess with her through the night. A sob caught in her throat as she realized they’d come full circle, in a converted warehouse and not a moon-shot road, where two men fought to save a woman who was most likely already dead.
Lexi’s soft cry distracted Christan and the wounded Kace disappeared, as he’d disappeared from the blood outside the villa. Lexi realized the immortal had removed his Enforcer from the battle to save his life. But would it save hers?
“It’s the blood guilt,” Six said, his body vibrating. “Your Enforcer is caught up in it and he won’t save you.”
There was no other warning. Six moved his hand and Lexi was crashing against the wall. Pain exploded behind her eyes. Six disappeared as she crumpled to the floor, and Lexi realized Arsen had been right. There would be no more running. No more second chances. The blood bond would save Christan’s life. The price would be her own.
Christan had shifted and was beside her, his beautiful face, his eyes dark with pain. She looked at him with such a look of bewilderment, she knew it crushed him.
“Stay with me, goddammit!” he growled, his shaking fingers on her face.
“Do you remember what you said?” she asked.
“What, cara, what did I say?”
“That you would always know me.”
“Always.”
“Will you know me when I come back?” She lifted one broken hand, pressed it against his cheek.
“Please, cara, stay here. Stay,” he ordered, although he could not articulate the words. Lexi felt every ounce of his considerable power flowing through his hands and into her soul to hold her back. His voice had grown so hoarse she barely understood him. “Fight for us, cara. I cannot wait centuries for you again. Please.”
“I’ll always love you, Christan.”
Her body trembled in his hands. The air vibrated. And she was gone.
CHAPTER 38
Seattle, Washington
Lexi was floating in a sea of sparkling light surrounded by darkness. Memory lines unfurled as she drifted. Faces appeared. She stared at those she didn’t know, let them pass with unseeing eyes. But others caused her heart to pound and brought her closer to the surface. Light shimmered in aqua waves and she looked around, seeking the face of a man, the voice that was always present, calling for her, using different names. Soft names. Foreign names. Familiar names. She heard the voice clearly, heard him asking where she was, but he was so far away she let him go and drifted onward until she slept.
The next time Lexi woke she found herself in a room. Someone was with her, sitting in a chair and silent as stone. It was an alien presence different from Six, yet similar, combining an odd mixture of observations, more curious than concerned. It took more than a few seconds for Lexi to orient herself.
The room was decorated in tones of beige and moss green. The furniture was modern with a hint of Scandinavia. Someone had placed her on a couch and she was wearing her own clothes, a loose cotton shirt and jeans. For a moment, Lexi remembered the battle and thought the clothes should be bloody. But they were clean and soft against her skin. Music drifted in the background, Nesum dorma, which Lexi remembered meant “None Shall Sleep.” The aria was from an opera by Puccini. It had been one of her favorites.
“You’re near Seattle,” a cool voice remarked. The woman sat in a cream-colored upholstered chair. There was something regal about her posture and the pale hair swept back from a patrician face. Her hands were folded precisely. An opal-colored silk blouse and tailored pants reinforced the image of quiet authority.
The woman's eyes, though, were dangerously silver. She waited while Lexi pushed upright on the couch.
“You were in Zurich,” the woman continued as the music faded. “In a converted building Six maintains. I brought you to Seattle two days ago. I’ve allowed you to sleep because you needed to heal. And I needed to decide what to do with you.”
“Why must you do anything with me?”
“That was inelegantly phrased.” The woman lifted her hand, but the gesture was lost in the brilliant light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Water shimmered across the bay, and in the far distance, Lexi could see the distinctive skyline. �
�I am Three. You are safe here, Gaia.”
“My name is Lexi.”
“You were Gaia when we first met. I will always think of you as Gaia.”
Lexi shifted on the couch, felt her muscles protest. All the tiny cuts Six had inflicted were gone. The only trace of the battle was the pink scar across her palm. Lexi glanced at the Calata member who’d kept her asleep while deciding what to do. The immortal was sitting with absolute calm, watching her.
“What is it you wish to know?” the woman asked.
“Why I’m here.”
“They attacked you in Florence.”
“Not just me.”
“True. The enemy attacks you in the alley, and when he loses he makes it worse by doing something stupid, like attacking the villa. It is the way of things.”
“Immortal things?”
The woman nodded. “You understand that Six is my enemy?”
“Yes.”
“He started this war.”
Lexi glanced around, not entirely comfortable in the woman’s presence. This was Three, the immortal who had forced Christan from the Void, who believed he belonged to her. A woman involved with the Agreement that took away the choice. Lexi could feel the power radiating through the air when the woman moved and realized the immortal was exerting a subtle intimidation.
Lexi would not be intimidated. She held the immortal’s steady gaze and waited.
Three, however, merely smiled. The opalescence of her clothing reflected the colors in the sky as she crossed one knee over the other and readjusted her hands.
“Who provoked whom?” Lexi asked.
“He provoked me.” The immortal shrugged. “I provoked him. That’s how you ended up in Zurich.”
“I thought I ended up in Zurich because of Christan.”
“You did,” Three said, watching Lexi carefully. “Six knew I wouldn’t bring Christan back while you were here unless there was an advantage. I knew the same thing. Six should have figured it out before he compelled Christan to Zurich.”
