Darkness Awakened (Primal Heat Trilogy #1) (Order of the Blade) (19 page)

Quinn stopped Grace as she started to walk toward Drew, lifting her wrist to his face for closer inspection. It was raw and bleeding, with jagged red marks extending up her arm. His brand burned with the need to unleash the sword and kill the man responsible for hurting her. “Did Drew’s uncle put this on you?”

“No. The other man did.”

“Red’s dead,” Drew said, barely holding himself up on trembling arms as he leaned over. He looked like a kid who had been through too much in the last few days. “My uncle had to kill him. No path can lead back to us. Plus, the guy hurt Grace. That kind of thing really pisses him off.”

“I like him already.” Quinn clenched his jaw, trying to keep his emotions under control. He needed to think logically, not obsess over Grace’s wrist. If Drew was telling the truth, and the ring indicated he was, then he couldn’t leave the kid behind. But they had to vacate fast. Others would come looking, and soon. “You guys have a truck here?”

Drew nodded, still kneeling in the mud.

“You’ll follow me.” No. He needed to have them under his control. “No. You’ll ride with us. Wait here.” Quinn jogged into the clearing, cleared the last of the dirt covering Elijah’s object, pausing when his fingers hit a small, moss-gray stone. He knew instantly that was what he’d been looking for. Round and smooth, it looked like it had been softened by years in the ocean. He picked it up, and closed it in his palm. It was warm, sending a vibrating heat up his arm, heating up to a painful level almost instantly, and he knew he was feeling death, Elijah’s death.

It was a
mjui
.

Elijah was dead.

* * *

Quinn closed his eyes against a crash of grief. Anger roared through him and his body vibrated with rage. He lunged to his feet and punched his fist through a tree, a loud roar ripping from his throat.
Elijah!
He screamed for his teammate, and there was no response. Nothing. Just emptiness, like a black void cutting at his soul, leaving him barren and stripped.

The night was dark, fury billowing through him, violence from him. Quinn fought for control, he battled to suppress the emotions like he did every time he faced death, but this time was different. This time, it was Elijah. This time, it was Quinn’s failure to make good on the promise he’d made five hundred years ago, that he would never let another warrior close to him go rogue and not come back.

Blackness streamed across his vision, his sword sprang unbidden into his hand—

Soft hands touched his back. “Quinn?”

“Grace!” He whirled around and hauled her up against him. Her arms went around him, holding tight as he buried his face in her hair. The warmth of her body was like a whisper of sanity in the raging mess of his mind, and he gripped her even tighter. He breathed her scent, concentrated on the beat of her heart, using her to bring himself back to the present. To sanity. To a place where the loss didn’t shatter him, where the failure couldn’t reach. To their mission.

It was no longer about finding Elijah. It was to avenge his death and bring justice. Again, like he’d done with Felix: avenge the death, not stop it. Because he hadn’t stopped it. He hadn’t fucking stopped it—

“Quinn!” Grace touched his cheek. “Come back to me.”

He stared into those silver eyes and the world began to solidify beneath his feet again. His mind calmed, his shields rebuilt, his focus resumed.

He took a deep breath as he compartmentalized himself, burying his grief so deeply he couldn’t feel it, then he released Grace.

She didn’t move away. Her forehead was furrowed with concern, her hands still tight around him. “What can I do?”

He kept his mind quiet and focused, refusing to acknowledge the tangled mess trying to derail him. “Go to Drew. Keep an eye on him while I get his uncle. We’re leaving.”

She nodded, squeezed his hand, then turned and walked back across the clearing toward the boy. Quinn watched her kneel next to the youth and begin talking to him. He appreciated that she hadn’t asked if he was all right. Or what was wrong. Or told him it would all be better. She’d somehow known he wouldn’t want to talk about it, yet she’d been there to ground him. She’d given him exactly what he’d needed, and she’d done it on instinct. A good woman.

His grief under control, he turned his focus back to their mission.
Gideon. You up yet?

No response.

Gideon should be up by now. Dark foreboding skittered through Quinn.
Gideon. Wake the hell up.

Still nothing.

Where was he? What if their enemy had returned to the site and taken Gideon out while he was unconscious from Quinn’s blow? Alarm began to creep in as Quinn recalled the disturbances in the air they’d both experienced at the site of the carnage, the malevolence. At the time, Quinn had thought it was residue from the attack. What if there’d been a current and active threat lurking, and he’d left Gideon there defenseless? Quinn’s adrenaline spiked and his fist closed around the handle of his sword.
Gideon!

No response.

Quinn opened his mind, thrusting all his mental power into his blood link with Gideon, injecting his own life force into their connection, trying to wake the bastard up himself. Come on! Then he felt it. A faint pulse of life he recognized as Gideon. Still unconscious, but alive. He groaned and dropped his head to his hands.
Damn, man. You scared the hell out of me.

Quinn swallowed his relief and forced himself to return to the emotionless state required of a warrior. Gideon was still alive. For now, Quinn was going to assume Gideon had a soft head and was still getting some beauty sleep in Quinn’s woods, and not wonder whether Gideon had actually been captured by whatever dark threat they’d detected.

It was his only option. There was nothing he could do about Gideon right now. He had to accept that and keep moving forward. Gideon was alive, and that was all he needed to know at this point.

Quinn shoved the
mjui
into the front pocket of his jeans, then swung Drew’s uncle over his shoulder. Drew was talking with Grace, watching her intently while she knelt next to him. He said something to her, and she smiled. For a second time, Quinn felt waves of sadness from her and he saw the weary hunch of Drew’s shoulders. Tough times for everyone, and it was going to get worse if Dante really was dead.

Quinn strode back over to them. “Come on,” he said gruffly. “Let’s move.”

Grace stood and helped Drew to his feet. A part of Quinn chafed at the sight of her hands on another male, then she flashed him a tired look, and all he could think about was getting her dry and warm and safe. Screw the sex right now. He just wanted to take care of her, which was completely insane. He didn’t even take care of himself, for hell’s sake.

On their way back to the parking lot, they passed by the dead man who’d cuffed Grace. Quinn was grimly unsettled by his desire to shove his sword through the man’s heart just to ensure he really was dead, to revel in the satisfaction of marking the man even in death.

Because he’d slapped a bracelet on Grace? That was an extreme reaction for any Order member, but especially for him. He was a master at staying cool and logical, but he was losing his shit at everything right now. He wasn’t right. He wasn’t himself. He was off-kilter and couldn’t pull himself back…. He frowned, a sudden thought coming to him. “How’s your arm, Grace?”

She frowned. “My wrist?”

“No, your forearm. Is my mark starting to form?” If he was being affected by the bond, it would explain a lot.

Her eyes widened, and she quickly pulled back her sleeve as Drew trudged beside her, glancing nervously around them. “It’s too dark for me to see.” She held it out and Quinn caught her forearm to steady it as he looked at it. Shit, her skin was soft.

The arm was clear. Nothing on it. Not even the faintest hint of a brand. “You’re still good.” But he didn’t feel relief.

What he felt was a consuming need to grab her and haul her against him, crushing her body against his, kissing her,
devouring
her, stripping her and taking her right there in the woods. He wanted to fill her with his body and his seed until he ripped through both their barriers, until the first signs of his brand blossomed to life on her body, beginning the process of sealing her as his, for now and forever, until death destroyed them both.

Well, shit. That was a thought he hadn’t seen coming.

Grace’s eyes widened and she stopped walking. “The look on your face right now—” Desire flared into her eyes, and his body hardened instantly.

He started toward her, thinking of nothing but her body against his, how her breasts would taste, how her body would writhe under his touch.

She watched him approach, and he felt her calling to him, reaching for him—

He suddenly noticed Drew backing away from him. He felt the rain pounding onto his face. He became aware of Drew’s uncle over his shoulder. He saw the mud streaks on Grace’s face and the raw red mark on her wrist. What the hell was he doing?

He forced himself to stop, willed his body to go no further toward her.

Grace’s features wrinkled in confusion, in frustration, then he saw her become aware of their surroundings as well. Her face flushed with the self-conscious realization that they’d both been seconds away from going at it in front of other people, in a zone that could become unsafe at any moment.

She jerked her sleeve down over her arm. “Don’t
ever
look at me like that again.” She whirled around and started slogging up the embankment toward the parking lot, her boots sliding in the mud, as if she could run from him and what was building between them.

He palmed her hips to help her up, and she shot him a hard glare. “Don’t touch me,” she said. “I can’t deal with it right now.” She smacked his hand away with a fierceness that told him exactly how badly she was burning for him, and it sent lust roaring so fiercely through him that he had to stop walking just to keep himself from taking her right there.

Drew warily skirted around him, then hurried after Grace.

Quinn let the rain pound into him for nearly a minute before following, his gut actually shaking from the need pulsing through his body. Tonight wasn’t just going to be about interrogating Drew about Dante, or finding out who killed Elijah.

Tonight was going to be about finding a way to get Grace the hell out of his system so he could do his damned job. He couldn’t wait any longer. Tonight he was going to take her.