Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) (13 page)

Lily felt her stomach roll at his direct question, at the searing heat from his touch. The Gideon she’d spent her life researching was a man so ruthless that no one was safe from him if he thought killing you would fulfill his mission. He was death. He was destruction. He was utterly without mercy. He took women with ruthless pleasure to satisfy his own needs, free to indulge all the lustful urges of a Calydon warrior, without restraint since he’d already found his
sheva
.

He was the only Calydon in history who had stood back and watched his
sheva
be slaughtered without remorse. Most Calydons couldn’t even survive the loss of their
sheva
, yet Gideon was so hard that he’d watched her death and walked away unaffected.

How could that stoic warrior possibly be the male kneeling before her, his touch so electrifying she could barely keep from closing the distance between them? His eyes searched hers so intently, as if he could feel every emotion churning inside her. But it was the same Gideon. She knew him so well, from years of research, and from the intensity of his emotions which she could feel so clearly.

Lily brushed her finger over his jaw, unable to keep herself from bridging the distance between them, despite all she knew about him. “I can’t believe you’re...him.”

Gideon’s hands went to her knees. His touch was firm and steady, a caress that sent heat spiraling up her thighs and right into her belly. “Who exactly do you think I am?” His voice was husky and deep, his blue eyes churning with intensity.

Lily wanted to push him away and shove his hands off her legs, but instead, she slid forward, unable to deny the intensity of her response to him. “You murdered my grandmother,” she whispered as his hands slid further up her thighs. “You’re the warrior who destroyed my family.”

Gideon’s hands stilled on her legs. “What are you talking about?”

“My grandma was Elizabeth Ridley. She was the
sheva
of an Order member named Cade.” Lily lifted her chin, forcing herself to say the words that had haunted her for so long, that suddenly didn’t make complete sense anymore. She couldn’t reconcile the past and the present. “They had a son named Trig. You killed both Cade and my grandma, leaving Trig without any parents. You murdered my grandparents, Gideon, in cold blood, in front of their children.”

For a moment, Gideon looked confused, then she saw him remember. He cursed and ran his hand through his hair, and looked utterly at a loss for what to say. “Yeah, I remember,” he said finally. No apologies. No excuses. Just the grim truth of what he was.

Long-held anger boiled through Lily at his lack of remorse and at his ability to look her in the eye and not apologize. “My grandmother was happily married before Cade came into her life. He used the bond to force her to leave her husband and daughter, who was my mom. Cade took her away, then he got her pregnant.”

Gideon’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sure he treasured her.”

“Treasured her? Are you kidding?” Lily shoved at his chest, wanting space from Gideon and from her confusing attraction to the man who had haunted her for so long. “He stole her from her family. My grandpa went to their house to get her back, and Cade murdered him.”

Gideon’s jaw tightened. “Cade went rogue when another man tried to claim her. That’s the
sheva
destiny. He will be destined to lose her—”

“What happened next, Gideon? Do you remember?” Lily leaned forward, anger pulsing in her, fury at this man who had torn apart her family with so little remorse. “You showed up and killed not only Cade, but my grandma, leaving her seventeen-year-old daughter to raise Trig herself.”

His eyes met hers without flinching. They were hard, cold, unfathomable oceans of darkness. “Your mom was there? She saw it and told you?”

“Yes.” Tears suddenly filled Lily’s eyes. “Trig was only two years older than me. My mom raised the two of us together. He died when he was eighteen because he didn’t survive the dream which would have brought him into his powers as a Calydon. Your race destroyed my family, at all levels.” Lily closed her eyes for a minute against the pain of losing Trig, who had been her best friend and brother. Yes, technically, he was her uncle, but in her heart and soul, he was her brother and he always would be.

She felt Gideon’s hands on her shoulders, and she wrenched her eyes open to look at him. His eyes were dark, and his face was raw with emotion. “I am truly sorry.”

She was startled by the intensity on his face and by her belief in his words. “But you...you couldn’t be. You believe in your mission. You have no mercy. You regret no action if it serves your Oath. You simply aren’t capable of remorse or any kind of human emotion.”

His grip tightened. “You know so much about me, do you?”

She swallowed. “Yes, I do. I’ve studied you for twenty years.”

He looked disgusted. “For someone who’s obsessed with Calydons, you know very little.”

She tensed. “I’m not obsessed.”

He gave her an impatient look. “Not obsessed? Exactly how many articles have you published on the Calydons? Somewhere between six and seven hundred maybe, starting when you were about five years old?”

She felt her cheeks turn red, realizing his guess wasn’t that far off. “Okay, maybe a little obsessed.” She gave him a hard look, trying to hide the fact that she wanted to do nothing more than slide into the heat of his body and hug him, burying her pain in him, trying to take his away. Because she felt his pain. She really did. But it simply didn’t make sense. He wasn’t capable of it. “I researched the Calydons because I wanted to understand why my grandmother had died, why my mother was so freaked out about Calydons that she was warning me off them since birth, why my brother had to die. I wanted to understand how to survive it if I became someone’s
sheva
like my grandmother.” She met Gideon’s gaze. “I needed to understand, so I could find a way to keep the nightmare from repeating itself, from having someone like you destroy everything I cared about.”

Gideon growled and grabbed the back of her neck, yanking her toward him. She tumbled off the rock and fell against him, her hands bracing on his waist as he cupped her hips with his hands. He glared down at her, his face inches from hers.

His eyes were dark, bubbling with a rage that made her stomach ripple with fear...and excitement. He was every bit as dangerous as the fictional Gideon who’d haunted her dreams and nightmares for years. And twice as handsome. “Lily.” His voice was harsh, a growl worthy of the brutal warrior she’d studied for so long.

She swallowed. “What?” As terrifying as he was, she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. She should be, on so many levels, but she wasn’t. Why not? Where was her sense of self-preservation? Her intelligence? Her ordered world?

Gideon’s voice was low, vibrating through her body, his breath warm on her mouth. “You’re right that I never regret anything I do to fulfill my oath, even if it’s killing an innocent. I do what I have to do, and I stand behind it.”

“Even murdering my grandmother?” she challenged, desperate to have him do something to enable her to pull back from him and remember that he was the enemy.

“Yes. Even that. I do what I have to do.” His voice became harder. “But my Calydon heritage demands I protect innocents at all costs. It doesn’t understand the concept of sacrificing one innocent to save millions, so every time I go against our heritage and kill an innocent, it’s...” A muscle ticked in his cheek. “It sucks to kill an innocent, and that’s the truth.”

Lily swallowed hard, unable to deny the harsh reality in his voice and his eyes. He meant it. She could feel his regret and his anguish beating her, twisting the air like some poisoned taint. “Oh, Gideon.” She touched his arm, staggered by the pain rolling off him. “I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. “I had no idea.”

His tight grip didn’t loosen. “It’s brutal what you endured. I get that, and I wish you hadn’t had to deal with it. I really do. But if I hadn’t killed them, you wouldn’t be here today. Cade would have killed your mother, his son, and her daughter. You never would have existed.”

She bit her lip at the flash of agony on his face, at the way he pulled her closer, as if he were afraid she would disappear right then. “Gideon—”

“Cade would have destroyed everything he or your grandmother cared about, and any innocent that came within reach would have been brutally murdered. It was his destiny, Lily. Once bonded, the Calydon will go rogue. The only way to stop him is for his
sheva
to kill him, then she dies utterly broken, knowing she took the life of the man she loved.” He shook his head. “Until you’ve seen a rogue Calydon on a rampage, you’ll never understand how bad it gets. My job is to protect the innocents from them, and I’ll do whatever it takes.”

In Gideon’s expression was a coldness that made Lily shiver. He was showing her that lack of emotion he’d culled so expertly to be able to do his job. But she also saw heat. She saw pain. She saw the man she’d never really seen, even after all those years of research. A man she wanted to cradle in her arms and comfort, even as the blood of her own grandmother dripped from his hands. “Damn you,” she whispered.

He raised his brows. “Now what?”

“You’d kill me, if you needed to.”

He said nothing.

“I know that. I know what you are. I’ve lived through the destruction that you’ve left behind...” She closed her eyes. “And yet, I still...”

“You still what?” His voice was softer now, curling through her.

She pulled out of grasp and walked across the clearing, out of his reach. “I can’t get involved with you.”

His eyes narrowed. “Too late, Lily. You’re not only involved with me, you’re involved with the Order.”

Her belly tightened. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? There’s no way I can get involved with you or the Order.
No way.
I have
issues
with you, the Order, and Calydons in general. Big issues beyond even my grandmother and my brother—” Her heritage, her background...it made her so vulnerable to Calydons.

Especially to one as powerful as Gideon. Her magic was linked to Calydons. She was a source of energy destined to be linked to the powerful warriors. An expendable fuel that had always been lethally harvested by Calydons for two thousand years---

Sudden realization flooded her with terror. If she wasn’t his
sheva
, then there was only one other explanation for her intense response to him: her magic had selected him for her. He was the one her Satinka magic had been searching for: the Calydon meant to be her mate, the only one who could truly mesh with her power and use it for all it was.

Lily went cold, ice cold at the thought. When she was seventeen, six Calydons had nearly killed her when they’d raped her for her magic because they’d been driven insane by her gift. What would it be like with Gideon, the male that her magic
wanted
? Lily’s wrists began to burn from the damage of chains long gone, scars in her soul as much as in her skin. Her breath caught in her chest, and suddenly she was back there, in that god-forsaken dump, tied down, at the mercy of those six Calydon for three days—

“Lily?” Gideon turned sharply toward her, his brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

She stared at him, at his massive shoulders, at the sheer, untamed power emanating from him. She’d had no defenses against her attackers ten years ago, and they had been young men with a fraction of the power and strength that Gideon had. What would Gideon do to her if he got caught up in the thrall of her Satinka magic? With his strength, and the way she craved him so badly?

Dear God, if Gideon knew what she was, if he learned that her magic had chosen him, he would kill her for it.

Not on purpose. She knew that about him now. But he would kill her, because he wouldn’t be able to stop himself, and she wouldn’t be able to resist him. No warrior could resist that kind of call. No wonder she’d been so drawn to him. It hadn’t been because of the
sheva
curse. It was because her magic had selected him as the warrior it wanted, the male it would feed with power until Lily was dead.

“Lily?” Gideon walked toward her, his strides long and powerful across the sand. “Talk to me. I can feel your fear. What is it?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I—”

He caught her shoulders, his grip solid, secure, and unbelievably tempting. “Listen to me. I know Nate betrayed you. I get that. I understand your fear. I feel it in every cell of my body. But you need to understand that I’ve given you my protection, and that’s unshakeable. I swear on my Order oath that you’re safe with me. Do you understand? You’re working for the Order now, and that means you have our protection. Not just the Order. Mine.
I will protect you.
”

“I’m not working for the Order!” Dear God, she could never walk into that room and put herself at the mercy of the warriors meant to destroy her. Yes, Lily felt Gideon’s fierce determination pulsing at her, his commitment in every word he spoke. She wanted to believe it, she wanted to just crawl into his circle of safety and trust him. But she wasn’t a fool, and there was no way he could keep that promise, not if he was the one her magic had chosen. “I just want to go home—”

Gideon didn’t back down. “Do you remember the eyes of the Calydon who would have raped you at Nate’s? Deep pits of evil?”

She shuddered at the unwelcome memory. “Yes.”

“There’s a Calydon far more evil than that who has been in a metaphysical prison for two thousand years. The magic that sealed his walls is fading, and he’s about to get out. As the Order, our mission is to stop him at all costs, but we don’t know why his walls are weakening and we don’t know how to stop it.” Gideon’s grip tightened so much it hurt, but it wasn’t aggression. It was his unshakeable instincts to do his job, the same drive that had enabled him to kill innocents for five hundred years. “This Calydon, named Ezekiel, nearly destroyed the world once. If he gets out, he’ll do it for real this time, because there’s no one alive who can stop him once he’s free.”

Oh…she knew exactly how deadly Ezekiel had been two thousand years ago. And he was getting free? Lily couldn’t help the chill that ran through her at his words and at the starkness of the emotions he was sending into her. “What does that have to do with me?”

“Nate was orchestrating it, the stone is involved, and it sounds like Frank is taking over now that Nate’s dead.” Gideon’s eyes glittered. “You’re our only link to all three, and with your knowledge of our history, you might have the answers we need.”

Her stomach churned and she shuddered. “Frank? I can’t—”

“Yes, you can. And you will.” He drew her up against him until their bodies were touching from chest to thigh, until he was all over her personal space. “I’m incapable of letting Ezekiel destroy countless innocents, and as long as you might be able to help, I’m not letting you go.”

“So, I’m a prisoner again?”