Darkness Arisen (10 page)

She would have laughed at his humor, which she had to admit was sort of appealing, except she was entirely too strung-out to find amusement in the situation. He might know she'd lost a pearl, but he had no way of knowing it was the pearl of Lycanth. "Okay, yes, it's a pearl. An old one that was reportedly stolen from their treasures a thousand years ago. It has no value, except to them." A partial truth, enough to be able to look him in the eye while saying it, but obscure enough to hide the secrets he couldn't know. "But I dropped it in the water. That was my last chance."

Ian cupped her face, his fingers tantalizingly soft against her damp skin. "Alice, there's always another chance."

She met his gaze then, his intense, powerful gaze, and she realized what he was saying. "You? You'll help me?"

"We'll help each other." He edged forward, crowding her space, and he didn't stop until his chest was almost against hers, forcing her to crane her neck to look at him, or else step back. "We both want to find him. I can help you. You help me. The slippery bastard's days of hiding are over."

"I have to find him." It was difficult to breathe with Ian so close. She didn't step back, but her heart started to race. There was no mistaking Ian's intense strength and determination. He was even more powerful than Flynn, who was the backup she'd been counting on when they finally found Warwick's lands. But... "You're dangerous to me," she whispered.

"Am I?" A grim smile flitted across Ian's hard features. "And you're my doom, in too many ways. But I'm willing to take the risk. Are you?"

She stood taller at the challenge in his voice and lifted her chin. Fear burned through her, but deeper still was her need to help Catherine. To end the nightmares that had been haunting her for years. If he could do that... "When we find him, will you help me...save...Catherine?" 'Save' was a close enough word to what she needed to do when she found Catherine, and it would appeal to his Order of the Blade oath to protect.

Because it wasn't enough to simply find Warwick's island. She needed Ian for that final step, the one she couldn't do by herself, no matter how badly she wanted to.

Ian narrowed his eyes for a split second. "I swore an oath to the Order to put its mission first over all others, no matter what the cost," he said. "I will help your sister if I can, but not if it conflicts with what I'm sworn to protect."

"What?" She stared at him. Hello? Hadn't she just offered him something to protect? "What kind of answer is that?"

"The Order of the Blade is an elite team created two thousand years ago to protect innocents from rogue Calydons. We are not allowed to sacrifice ourselves to protect others, because without us, there is no way to stop them. The greater good triumphs."

She gazed at him in dismay. "You would let an innocent die to save yourself?"

"I would let an innocent die if it was the only way to save a thousand others." Flint glittered in his eyes. "It's what I have to do, Alice." He raised his brows. "If you're an angel, you, of anyone, should understand about the greater good. Isn't that what angels are all about?"

She swallowed and looked away for a split second. "Yeah, sure, the greater good," she agreed. "That's what I do every day. Save the world." She couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of her voice, and she grimaced when she saw the flicker of interest on Ian's face. She immediately faced him again and raised her chin. "Promise me you will help me with Catherine," she said.

"I don't make promises unless I know I can keep them," he said. "I don't know what I'll find at his place, but if there's any way at all that I can save her, I will." He met her gaze. "My promise is that I will do my absolute best to save your sister. If there is a way to do it without violating my oath, I will find it and do it. I promise you my best, and trust me, that's a damn good offer. Deal?"

Alice grimaced, shifting under his stare. Did she really dare align herself with a man who was too smart to trap himself with a simple promise? A man who unsettled her far too deeply? A man she couldn't get out of her mind? A man who had saved her life twice in the last ten minutes? A man who claimed her for his own, threatening to strip her of everything she was?

She thought of her mother dying in her arms, and she knew the answer was yes. Absolutely, unequivocally, without a doubt, yes. Anything to keep the past from happening again. She met his gaze. "It's a deal."

* * *

Relief poured through Ian at Alice's acquiescence. She was on his team.
Hot damn.
She was the first person he'd come across in years who had helpful information about the elusive wizard who had cursed his family. She was the break he needed.

But at the same time, dark foreboding settled around him. A Calydon's
sheva
spelled doom for both parties even under the best of circumstances, and for Ian, his soul mate was the key to an even darker fate.

Every withdrawal by Alice, every time death tried to take her again, every moment that his mark failed to appear on her arm...it was a constant, inexorable slide from sanity to suicidal madness.

It couldn't stay like this.

Alice's expression grew wary. "What is it?" She glanced over her shoulder, as if looking for something to defend herself against him.

"No. Don't retreat." He closed the distance between them in two steps, forcing himself to stop when she leaped back. Anguish tore through him as his
sheva
distanced herself from him again. Son of a bitch. How had he managed to get the one
sheva
in history that was so damn resistant to her mate? It shouldn't be possible, but it was.

Damn that curse. It knew what it was doing by selecting Alice for him.

Alice pulled back, inching so close to the edge of the rock, Ian knew she was considering jumping.

"Stop." Forcing himself to hold back, he raised his palms in a gesture of peace. "Don't retreat. Stay where you are."

She stopped, and then frowned at him. "Are you in pain?"

"I'm fine." He took a deep breath, fighting not to scare her into bolting. As a Calydon, it was etched in the very marrow of his being to claim his woman, not to stand back and give her space. What he was trying to do now was against his nature on so many levels, and with the addition of the curse, it was hell. The need to lock her down was fierce. If he could just get his brand on her arm, it would help. But without it, she was still an elusive enigma, able to flutter out of his life without a moment of hesitation. "If we are going to work together," he said, keeping his voice contained, "there's one thing that is going to have to change."

She stiffened. "What's that?"

"Your response to me." There was no point in hiding it. It was what it was, and he was too seasoned of a warrior not to know when a threat could not be ignored.

Her mouth tightened, but a faint flush rose on her cheeks, sending heat spiraling through his body. "What do you mean?"

"My destiny," he said quietly, "is to find the woman who touches my soul, and then I have to lose her."

"Yes, you told me." She swallowed, but he saw empathy flash in her eyes. "I know what that's like, to lose someone," she said, her voice softening. "That's awful."

He nodded and inched closer, his entire soul screaming to connect with her. "The curse makes the loss so powerful that it's impossible to withstand. Suicide is the only way out."

Alice stared at him. "Suicide?" She glanced at the brand on his forearm and then back at his face. "But you're an immortal warrior. I don't understand. How could anything affect you that strongly?"

"Apparently, I'm a sensitive guy. You didn't notice that about me right away?" He moved closer, carefully, slowly encroaching on her space. "I cry at chick flicks and weddings."

The smallest hint of a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. "Do you now? Why do I find that hard to believe?"

"Just because I'm a badass warrior who is a critical part of the Order of the Blade team, and I spend my days saving the world and killing rogue Calydons, you think I don't have a sensitive side?" Another step, and he was close enough to catch her scent, even though the wind was blowing it in the other direction. She smelled like salt and brine from the ocean, but beneath that was the hint of something fresh and exotic, something pure, like a lily on a spring breeze.

She cocked her head, and he was pleased to see a thoughtful expression on her face. No longer fear or distrust. No longer trying to shut him out. She was analyzing him now, and that was a hell of a lot better than fearing him. "Do you really?" she asked, as if she wasn't quite sure what to believe. "I mean, do you really have a sensitive side? I believe you about the killing bad guys." She met his gaze. "That's why I agreed to team up with you."

He didn't have to feign the look of agony. "That's the reason? It had nothing at all to do with the scorching flames searing the air every time we get close to each other? It wasn't because your soul burns for me and you can't take one more minute without my lips against yours, and my soul entwined with yours?"

Her eyes widened. "No, definitely not that."

"Shit. I don't get how you're so immune to my charms. I'm generally considered a ladies' man, you know." He reached out ever so gently and encircled her wrists lightly with his fingers. She stiffened, but when he didn't tighten his grip, she didn't pull away. "The first time I met you, I was with my teammate, Elijah," he said. "Do you remember?"

"No…" She let the word trail off, as if she wasn't sure what she knew and what she didn't. She cocked her head, and he saw curiosity flare in her eyes, making him realize that she truly did not recognize him or remember what had happened.

Urgency coursed through him. He needed her to remember. The fact he wasn't imprinted in her mind or her soul was brutal, against the laws of what bound them. "We were tracking Cardiff," he said.

Her eyes widened. "You found him?"

He shook his head. "I was following a lead. We were in the mountains of southeast Washington, closing hard when I heard a scream from the heavens."

"The heavens?" She rolled her eyes, in a decidedly human reaction that was pretty damn cute. "Isn't that a little dramatic?"

He raised his brows. "So, now you're calling me a drama queen?"

She burst out laughing. "It hadn't occurred to me, but hey, if that's your claim to fame, it's all yours."

He grinned, loving the sound of her laughter. "I looked up to the heavens, as I said. Know what I saw?"

"Butterflies? Clouds shaped like hearts?"

"Almost." He tightened his grip on her wrist. "A woman had just tumbled off the edge of a cliff at least two hundred feet above my head, and she was plummeting straight down to certain death on the rocks below." He swore, remembering his shock at seeing a woman catapulting through the air in such a barren place. He could still vividly recall that moment when he saw her: auburn hair streaming out behind her, hands hopelessly outstretched, as if she were reaching for some salvation he couldn’t see, the look of shock on her face as she tumbled down toward him. The moment when his world became only about her. "You were wearing blue jeans, a red tee shirt with a sparkly heart on it, and sneakers. Your outfit was so normal and unpretentious, and not at all fitting in with a woman who would be free-climbing those ledges."

She stared at him. "That's my favorite shirt."

He grinned at the stark surprise on her face, as if until now, she hadn't completely believed in their past. "The world stopped when I saw you," he said. "My entire focus immediately switched off Cardiff to saving you." Never in his life had anything taken his mind off Cardiff, not until he'd seen Alice in her swan dive. "I sprinted over there—"

She held up her hand. "I remember now," she said slowly, as if the memories were still coming. "You leapt up to snatch me out of midair. I must have been fifty feet up when you grabbed me."

Ian grinned. "Couldn't let you hit the ground unattended. It wouldn't be chivalrous." Then his amusement faded as he recalled the rest of it. "We landed," he said softly, searching her face for some flash of recognition. "I stood there with you in my arms in the middle of that mountain range and my entire world shifted. For the first time in my life, I felt the power of the curse. I knew you were my downfall—"

"Whoa." She jerked her hand free. "I remember now. You made some announcement about how I was your
sheva
and then your friend killed me."

"No!" He grabbed her shoulders before she could pull away. "Listen to me, Alice. Elijah made that move when the Order was run differently, when it was our duty to kill Order
shevas
before they could kill us—"

"What?" She gaped at him, and it definitely wasn't with love and adoration. "You guys kill your soul mates as a regular thing?"

"We used to. Not so much anymore." At her disbelieving stare, he realized he really wasn't playing the smooth Casanova role well. Shit. "Try this." He grabbed her hand and pressed it against his chest. "Close your eyes, Alice. Feel what I felt that day when you died in my arms."

"I don't want—"

He narrowed his eyes. "If you want to save your sister, then you need to do it."

Alice bit her lip, but she finally stopped fighting. Her fingers were petite and too fragile against his chest. An overwhelming sense of protectiveness swelled inside him, and he pinned her hand beneath his. "Stop fighting me," he said, opening himself to that moment when Elijah had cut her down.

The despair rolled over him like a thick cloud, the agonizing sense of loss that seemed to strip everything else from his mind. He remembered her gasp of shock, and the way she'd reached for him as life had bled from her body. The agony of losing this woman he didn't know. The guilt and shame of being unable to protect her.

Alice sucked in her breath, and her fingers dug into his chest. He realized immediately that she was experiencing his loss, understanding the truth of the words he was speaking.

"Elijah should never have been able to strike before I realized he was coming," he told her. "But I was so consumed by you, and the curse was already working. Every instinct I've honed for the last six hundred years vanished. You were all I saw, until it was too late."