Darkness Possessed (Order of the Blade) (30 page)

Grimly, he whirled around, spinning in a circle, faster and faster, using himself as a hub and his sai as a deadly spoke, moving so fast that none of the attackers had time to dodge his blows and attack. Even as he gained speed, he felt the fatigue screaming through his body. He'd been at the last of his resources before the attack, and he knew he had only minutes left to continue to move at this speed before he couldn't sustain it.

He thought of Rhiannon, clasped in José's arms somewhere, and fresh energy surged through him.
I'm coming, Rhiannon.
He sent the thought out into the night, even though he knew she wouldn't hear him. The earth was hot beneath his feet, burning through the soles of his boots, and he knew that José's fire still smoldered in the ground from when he'd created the pit that had trapped him.

Zach shut his eyes, and opened his preternatural senses. He became viscerally aware of the location of each of his attackers. He could smell their sweat. He could hear the beat of their hearts. He could feel their bloodlust to kill him. He knew exactly where each of them stood, and how they were balanced on their feet, ready to take advantage of the slightest falter by Zach.

Then, he reached deeper inside him, for the part of him that had been dead for so long, the part of him that had once been so volatile that he couldn't control it, the part of him that he'd shut down the day he'd killed his daughter. He reached past the memories of his daughter's charred body. He surged past the guilt and grief of her death. He tried to cut loose the iron grip of fear of who he was. Deep inside him, he felt something stir, that same something that had exploded so violently when he and Rhiannon had been trapped beneath the earth.

It rumbled deep in his core, a shifting of a great weight that slid roughly through him. Elation rushed through him, and he opened himself to it, sending his focus into the embers in the earth beneath his feet, trying to open the connection to the fire. The connection was almost there. He could feel it at the edges of his consciousness, straining to get free, but he couldn't access it. He couldn't break through the wall that surrounded it so tightly and kept it trapped inside him.

"Come on!" he shouted. "Now!" But even as he shouted it, his mind flashed to the image of his daughter's face, her rosy cheeks, and her blue eyes, staring up at him with such adoration, worshipping the man who would soon kill her. Guilt and terror tore through him, and the heat simmering inside him slipped out of his grasp, receding into the chasm it had been in. "No!"

He screamed his frustration, and then something hit him in the chest. He looked down and saw a battle axe embedded in him. He had a fraction of a second to register it, and then he felt his heart stutter, and blood rushed into his lungs. He stumbled, and there was a cry of victory as his attackers closed in for the final kill.

The acrid scent of smoke was the first thing Rhiannon registered. It burned her nose, jerking her awake. Gasping for air, she rolled onto her side, coughing the searing smoke into her lungs. She dug her hands into the dirt, her body aching and sore as she tried to regain her breath. Her chest felt like it was on fire, and her throat was raw and sore. Even her eyes stung. As she sucked in air, she wiped her hand across her mouth. Grit scraped her lips, and she realized her hands were covered in dirt.

She suddenly remembered being trapped in the tunnel with Zach, and she instantly bolted upright. "Zach? Zach!" She scrambled to her feet as she scanned the jungle around her, searching for him...but there was no one there. "Zach!" She swung around, frantic, trying to get her bearings. What had happened? Where was he?

Movement caught her eye, and she searched the dark woods. "Zach?"

No one answered, but she felt something watching her. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and her mouth went pasty dry. "No," she whispered, as she took a step back. It couldn't be. Not like this.

But as she watched, a man stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight, a tall, muscular man who made fear lodge in her throat. Instinctively, her hand went to her hip, but there was no dagger. Her bow and quiver were gone. She had nothing, and he was here.

Fighting the urge to run, she stood taller as he walked toward her. José was just as she remembered. His dark hair flowed over his shoulders, and his heavily muscled chest was bare. Flame tattoos cascaded down his arms and wrapped around his torso. Across his stomach was a scar, the scar from when she'd tried to kill him, a scar he, apparently, had chosen not to heal entirely. A reminder of what she'd done to him.

His eyes were a dark, bottomless black, and around his neck was a beaded necklace. Black leather pants were slung low over his hips, and the top button was undone, revealing a V of dark hair disappearing into his pants.

Against her will, her eyes followed that V to the bulge in his pants. Nausea churned in her belly, but she couldn't take her eyes off it. God, what was wrong with her? Why was she responding to him like that? She didn't want him. She wanted Zach...
Zach.
Where was he? How had José separated them?

Fear gripped her belly, an icy cold terror for the man who had made such incredible love to her, who had made her feel safe and free for the first time in so long. "Where's Zach?"

"The bastard who fucked you?" José's voice was hard and bitter. "He's dead."

"Dead?" Her voice broke, and her legs went numb. She couldn't breathe. The world suddenly seemed to spin, and she lost her balance. Zach gone? A bottomless abyss of grief swelled up inside her, sucking her down as tears fell from her heart.
Zach? Are you gone?
Desperately, she reached out with her soul, trying to find him, but there was nothing.

José caught her arm in an iron grip just as she started to fall. "You whore," he snapped. "You're my woman. How could you fuck someone else?"

The agony of his fingers digging into her flesh jerked her from her grief about Zach. Anger rolled through her. This was the man who had killed Zach? Fierce strength rushed through her, and she ripped her arm out of his grasp. "You're supposed to protect your
sheva
," she snapped. "How could you do what you've done to me?"

A smile stretched thinly across his face. "It's how it works, bitch."

"No, it's not!" She'd always hated what he'd done to her and how he'd treated her, but until she'd met Zach, she hadn't truly grasped how it should have been. She knew now what it was supposed to be like between a man and a woman. Zach had taught her what it felt like to be cherished, and he'd done it simply out of love and humanity, not because he was bound to her by some supernatural bond.

Her upper lip curled in disdain as she looked at the man who had trapped her for so long. She didn't see his handsomeness. She didn't crave his touch. She just saw a creature who was depraved and twisted, who had contaminated the
sheva
bond into something horrific and evil. "You don't get to have me again," she said. "It's over."

"No," he whispered. "It's just beginning." As he spoke, a sudden wave of desire rushed through her. Heat pooled in her belly, and longing throbbed between her legs.

"What?" Horror congealed through her, and she grabbed for her throat...and then went ice cold. The amulet was
gone.

José laughed, that deep, booming laugh that she hated so much. "I figured it out, bitch. That rock is gone, and you will never get it back. You're
mine
, and this time, you're going to love it."

Bile churned in her belly, even as desire coursed through her. She felt filthy responding to him, disgusted with herself. "I will never love it," she snapped.

"Oh, but you
will.
" He pulled her close so that her breasts slammed into his chest. She winced and then wanted to cry when she felt her nipples tighten. How could she be so weak? She couldn't believe it was happening again.

His lust flooded her, and he slammed his mouth down over hers. Just like she'd done before, the moment his mouth clamped down over hers, she hardened herself to his influence, and tried to distance herself. The moment she did so, Zach's face appeared in her mind. She saw his smile. The twinkle in his eyes. She heard his laugh, and the affectionate tenor of his voice. She saw the way he'd looked at her with such admiration when they'd first met, how he'd called her a warrior. She thought of how his touch had helped her focus her energy and call the plants to life. As all those memories tumbled through her head, a strange sense of fierce determination began to course through her, beneath the lust that was boiling through her.

Why did she have to be weak? Why did she have to be his victim? Jordyn had killed her soul mate, right? Why couldn't she do it, too? She squeezed her eyes shut and envisioned calling out his weapon. A
sheva
could call out her mate's weapon whenever danger threatened. She'd done it once, when one of his crew had attacked her. That had been the final stage to seal their bond, and it wasn't until much later that she finally realized that he'd commanded the rogue to attack her, to force her to call his weapon and complete the bond, trapping her forever.

Since that one time, she'd never been able to call it, no matter what he'd done to her.

But now, with his mouth on hers, and Zach's voice in her mind, she felt different. She felt like she had a chance. She felt like she could do it! She focused all her energy on the brands on her arm, urging them to come to her, to save her, to allow her to defend herself against José. She could feel their energy humming in his arms, but she couldn't reach them. Frustrated, she tried harder, and they began to recede from her, refusing to respond to her call. Why wouldn't they let her call them against her own mate? Was destiny so stupid that she didn't even realize that a woman's greatest threat could come from her own soul mate? Apparently. Tears burned in her eyes, as she realized it was the same as before,
the exact same.

José suddenly broke the kiss, his eyes dark with rage. "I can taste him on you." He flung her backwards, and she stumbled, but stayed on her feet. "You will bathe in the river," he snapped. "Clean his touch and the filth from you. And then you will come crawling to me, and you will beg me to take you again, and again, and again. And I will, until you never, ever think of another man again. Now, go!" He pointed behind her, and she felt his mental push in her mind, commanding her acquiescence.

She didn't try to fight it. A bath gave her time to try to figure out how to stop him. She whirled around and raced toward the river, her skin prickling at his gloating laugh. Even as she reached the riverbed, and plunged into it, not daring to take off her clothes, she felt his lust settling in her belly. Desire rushed through her, and she had a sudden image of him standing over her in his naked glory.
"No!"
She forced her mind to picture Zach, shoving José's image out of her head. The lust poured over her even more thickly, but this time, it felt empowering, because it was her own desire for Zach. Excitement pulsed through her as she ducked her face in the river and scrubbed off the dirt. If she could use José's lust to call up her response to Zach, then maybe she could use Zach to summon her relationship with plants, even though he wasn't with her.

Was he really dead? The thought made her falter, and she immediately dismissed it. Zach would never die on her. He'd promised to keep her safe, and he would.
He would not die.

She whirled around and faced the shore, which was lined with heavy jungle plants. She let the lust fill her, and her belly clenched at the thought of Zach. She opened herself to the desire, and let it flood her, focusing on a vine at the edge of the riverbank. Energy pulsed through her, the energy of her life, and one of the leaves on the plant rippled. Elation leapt through her.
Yes. Yes!
Another leaf began to move, swaying purposefully in rhythm with the first one. And then another, and then another, and then—

Stop!
José's fury exploded through her, and she lost her contact with the plants.

"No, no, no!" She scrambled up the riverbank, and dropped to her knees in front of the plants, laying her hands on the leaves. "Come on, come on," she begged. She tried to think of Zach again, but José was all over the place in her mind and emotions. She could hear his voice. See his eyes. Feel his cold, dark will entangled with hers.

You don't get space from me, anymore. You are mine, Rhiannon. All mine.

Tears burned in her eyes as she enfolded one of the leaves between her palms, struggling to free herself from José's cold grasp on her mind. She focused on Zach, imagining his kiss. Recalling the sensation of feeling his skin against hers. That magical moment when he'd made love to her—

I do admit, I think it's hot as hell that you were able to best me. I knew you were worthy of being my mate.
A rumble of satisfaction rippled through her, jerking her focus away from Zach.
You have proved yourself worthy, Rhiannon. It is time for us to create a son, and my new legacy.

A son? She froze, horrified by his words. He'd killed her daughter, and now he wanted her to bear him a child for him to twist into his depraved world? Never. She couldn't let that happen! Frantic, she renewed her efforts with the plant, but then, as she watched, the leaf turned brown and crumbled through her fingers.

What? She'd killed it?

José's poisonous spirit pulsed through her.
That will happen every time from now on. You will slowly kill your precious jungle each time you try to connect with it. Finish your cleansing and return to my side. I am waiting.
He pushed at her to get back in the river, and this time she fought it.

She dug her fingers into the earth and bent her head, straining with every last bit of her strength to resist. She thought of Zach. She thought of her daughter. She thought of the son she would doom to a life of hell if she were unable to resist José. She even thought of Jordyn, who possessed the emotional strength to kill her own soul mate. She pictured the banners of her tribe drifting in the trees. She tried everything she could to ground herself in her own identity, but all she could think about was getting in that river.