Black Gate: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 4 (20 page)

Teagh wanted her. The Dark wanted her for its mistress. Some unknown Triscani Lord wanted her for reasons unknown. Ajax wanted her to help him escape. The Rear Admiral wanted to control her power. Sebastian wanted her in his bed.

And what did Katherine want? To use him up and leave him behind. To steal his power and his soul, and walk away, out of his life. To do her “duty”. Whatever the hell that was…

Anger continued to boil just under the surface as he swam for the beach. He’d felt her tears cease. She’d packed her pain safely away and locked it up tight. Would she ever forgive him now? He’d never been a tease. If he’d promised a woman pleasure, he’d delivered. But this was different. Loving Katherine would make her strong, make her powerful enough to leave him.

Completing their bond would get her killed.

Teagh’s chest was tight and his eyes ached, as if they were drying into little puckered raisins right in the sockets. Katherine’s rejection hurt. The Mark was legendary. An instant bond, ultimate compatibility, unquenchable heat. Men who were lucky enough to carry one on Itara were envied. Nowhere had he ever heard it said that a woman had intentionally Marked her male and walked away. Never.

Wasn’t he just the lucky bastard?

He dragged himself out of the water, exhausted by both the close call with Katherine and with his release of power. He collapsed with his back on the sand and stared up at the stars. Perhaps it was time to cry uncle. He couldn’t be alone with her in that house.

Bran. Raiden. I need your help with Katherine.

There was no response, but Teagh knew both males had heard him. He waited, pulling deep, cleansing quantities of air into his lungs. He slowed his heart to a normal pattern. He had himself nearly back to normal when the portal opened to his right. Bran stepped through just as headlights lit up his driveway.

Bran sat beside him in silence as Raiden walked around the side of the house to join them.

“This better be good. I left Mari in bed.” Raiden took a seat on a fallen tree trunk lying on the sand and crossed his arms.

“Smug bastard, aren’t you.” Bran’s voice held no venom, just reluctant respect.

“Yes, I am.” Raiden smiled and pulled out his blades, started them spinning. A hundred and fifty years of battle on Itara had given the male certain skills.

“How is Mari?” Teagh was worried. The healer hadn’t looked well when she’d left.

“She needs more rest, but she’s recovering. I don’t like leaving her alone when she’s like this. What’s the emergency? You bond with her? Accept Katherine’s Mark?” Raiden lifted an eyebrow and waited. “No.”

Bran scoffed at him. “Take her Mark, idiot. Bond with her.”

Teagh hit the sand with the bottom of his closed fist. “Bond with her, and share our curse?”

Bran paled. “Tell her the truth. Make her trust you.”

“Like you’ve told Celestina?” Teagh grimaced. “We can’t, brother. You know that. We both took an oath.”

“Fucking impossible situation.” Bran muttered the words, but Teagh agreed.

Raiden didn’t say a word, just kept his blades spinning.

Teagh ran his hand over his head and Raiden’s blades stopped spinning. “Seems she’d rather die than talk to me, and I don’t know why.”

Raiden’s silence was unnerving and absolutely no help.

“So ask her.” Bran tilted his head to the side to crack his neck.

“No.” Raiden studied them both with suspicion in his eyes. “What do you two know of Ajax? Of the Crux?”

Bran shrugged. “We left immediately after the battle. We know nothing of what came after.”

Raiden rose and stared up at the starlit sky. “I know. For a hundred and fifty years, I lived in that version of hell. The disappearance of all Timewalkers. Triscani roaming both worlds. Death to millions. A ruling Itaran Queen so vile I was tempted to ash her myself.” Raiden returned his strange silvery gaze to them. “I know what came of the Crux. And it was terrible. These are not idle games you two are playing.”

“We know.” Teagh held himself in check. Raiden knew something, something he wasn’t telling.

“Women and their secrets. Ask her. No more games.” Bran was all business, until it was Celestina they were discussing.

Raiden’s blades flew through the air, one buried in the sand at both his and Bran’s feet. Raiden’s power made the hair on his arms rise. The forbidden son was angry. “Enough.”

Teagh felt his own darkness rising. Could he trap Raiden in a portal before the half-blood turned him to ash? It was a question he’d never before thought to ask. Never thought he’d need to.

Beside him, Bran growled out a warning. “What the fuck are you playing at, Raiden?”

Raiden didn’t back down, and the forbidden son was pissed. A flicker of movement at the house caught his eye and he watched Mari sneak into his home like a snake.

“Why is Mari sneaking into my house? What the hell do you think you’re doing?” They’d come back for Katherine, wanted to steal her from him? No wonder Raiden had arrived so quickly. He’d already been on his way back with Mari.

“That is what I ask of you. Why don’t you two lying assholes tell me exactly where you’re keeping Ajax?”

<><><>

Katherine wrapped herself in a towel and padded silently to the bedroom. Teagh was nowhere in sight. He was close, his energy hovering in her awareness like a fluttering moth flitting about in her peripheral vision. Always there, never clear.

Of course he wouldn’t leave her truly alone. Not again. Not after she’d escaped him the first time.

And what if she hadn’t? Would her team still be trapped beyond the Gate? He’d adamantly refused to allow her to go get them. He’d insisted it was too dangerous, that she let them rot in the dark until he was ready to help her. Until he’d assessed the situation.

Perfect excuse for a perfect traitor. Mari trusted him. Raiden trusted him. But Ajax had trusted him, too. Loved him like a brother. Loved him still…and been betrayed.

Damn it. She would not cry again. She had to get the hell out of here while she still could. Who knew if Teagh would even let her out of his sight after tonight. And if he wasn’t going to make love to her and complete their bond, then she was as stable, as powerful, as she was going to get. She had no reason to stay.

Ten minutes in the tub scrubbing his scent from her skin hadn’t helped her anger cool. She realized that he wanted to keep her weak. Dependent. A prisoner. The contact they’d made, the power she’d drained from him through those few passionate kisses, was enough to keep her on her feet, to keep her steady. At least for now.

She’d worry about later when she got there. She had a job to do. Ajax was the key to everything, the key to Earth’s survival. Raiden believed it and she believed him. He’d come from the future, a future where Ajax had been lost and all of Earth had paid the price. But Raiden also believed that Teagh was a brother in arms, an ally against the Triscani and the dark both.

On that count, Raiden was all kinds of wrong.

Teagh had fooled them all. Raiden. The Timewalkers here, including her cousin, Sarah. He’d fooled Celestina, as had his brother, Bran.

Sarah said that Raiden was from the future. What did that mean for them now? Raiden knew things no one else could know, things that hadn’t even happened yet. Time travel was a bitch on the logic systems of her brain. Ajax remembered a future that hadn’t happened yet. And, if what he’d told her were true, would never happen now.

Ajax wanted to search for a woman, his future Queen.

Trouble was, the Itaran beauty wasn’t going to know who the hell Ajax was, because, in this version of the time line, the woman hadn’t met him yet.

What a head trip. Katherine groaned and rolled into a ball on her side on Teagh’s soft bed. Free Ajax. Hunt an Immortal with her team, the jerk who was responsible for her new D.N.A. That was it. Two things.

To hell with Teagh. To hell with his kissable lips and hot abs. To hell with his tight ass, broad shoulders and delicious skin. To hell with his lies and his power trips and his efforts to contain her, to control her. He was no different than the Rear Admiral.

To hell with them all. She’d been on her own a long time. And now that she could function, could move and think without him touching her, it was time to get off the carousel ride and do what she could to save the people who did care about her. It was time to let Teagh go.

No matter how much it hurt.

With the pain came the Gate’s hungry darkness. It crowded into her senses and covered her like a gigantic balloon full of ice water. It draped over her flesh, invisible but cold, and very powerful. The Dark simply waited for her to command it, seeped into her mind and her bones until she knew that she could go anywhere in the blink of an eye…she wouldn’t even have to move. And if she wanted to accept the Gate’s gift, she wouldn’t have to feel.

The Gate dwelled in her bones now. She was a living extension, a corporeal link to the darkness beyond.

But she was tired. She hadn’t slept in nearly thirty-six hours. She’d battled the evil one’s cage trying to free Ajax, she’d been hunted, and struck by Triscani, so deeply, that the claw marks still burned like ice buried an inch deep under her flesh.

Then she’d been seduced, seducer, and ultimately rejected by a traitor.

She wasn’t on a carousel, she was on a bloody roller coaster.

A smile creased her face as she used her mother’s favorite curse again. Bloody hell. Those two words had kept her mother, Maggie, sane on more than one occasion. And though Katherine had spent a few of her younger years in London with her father’s family, she’d always been a Midwestern girl at heart. Chicago had been home until a few years ago when she’d first seen the dark.

That was when she’d switched her allegiance from country to humanity. She served with the Casper Project, but now she protected all life on Earth, not just the colors of any particular flag.

The Rear Admiral had never known that, never understood why she’d gone out of her way to save some people, and to kill others. She’d mercilessly eliminated anyone that posed a threat to her mother’s network of Timewalker descendants. Five humans. That was the sin she carried to keep her people safe. And she’d add to the total if she had to. Perhaps, after his time on the other side of the Gate, the Rear Admiral would understand the truth of things. So would her team. Both had seen the face of the true enemy. All of them had seen behind the magic curtain and survived…thanks to her.

The dark gained in strength, actually pressing her a couple inches into the mattress, an older sibling, leaning on her, toying with her, bullying her into action.

So be it. Wrapped in the plush towel, she didn’t worry about something so trivial as clothing. She ignored the tear rolling across the bridge of her nose and the leaden ache in her chest where her heart should have been beating strong. Damn Teagh. It didn’t matter to the traitorous organ that she’d had every intention of making love to him and leaving him behind. That had been her head talking.

Deep down, where she’d dreamt her little girl’s dreams of living the fairy-tale ending, she’d known herself too well. If she’d made love to him, she would have dreamed about a way to make things work. Most of the time, her heart kept its opinions to itself. But when it did decide to beat, it demanded to be heard.

Her heart had sent her back through the Gate after her team. Her heart had wanted Ajax free of his cage. And her heart had been in charge when she’d looked into Teagh’s eyes, as he’d knelt like a god before her, and decided to give him everything.

Damn him to hell for making her hurt like this. Her stupid heart could just shut up.

She was out of here. She had things to do and people to save.

Katherine opened her soul to the Gate and commanded it to take her where she wanted to go.

Chapter Nine

Katherine slid out of the dark riding one serpentine strand like it was a horse, her own personal stallion.

She had millions of them, and they promised to hide her presence from the one male she knew could find her.

“Katherine. Good to see you.” Doc Hansen sat behind his desk, a few steps in front of her, glasses perched on his wrinkled face. She had no idea how old the doc was, but she guessed around seventy. She knew he had married late and had two grown children. A boy and a girl. Sam and Grace. Sam was a freelance reporter who traipsed all over the world following one war after another. His sister, Grace, was a physician like her father. Both children were much like their father, and rarely home. The family had enough money that Grace spent most of her time in third world countries trying to save the world’s children with vitamins, vaccines and field surgery.

The doc’s wife had been gone for several years, lost to cancer. The doc spent a lot of time alone. He’d opened his home in Cherry Hills to her on more than one occasion when she couldn’t bear the Rear Admiral for one more minute. His Colorado mansion had become a sanctuary. It had the latest in high-tec security and enough bedrooms to put up a small army. But the only people who stayed here, as far as she knew, were herself and her boys. In fact, they each had her own room upstairs. The doc didn’t look the least surprised to see her step out of a dark portal and into his private home office wrapped in nothing but a bath towel.