Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) (39 page)

He felt Quinn’s nod of approval, but he ignored his friend, focusing all of his attention on the woman by his side. She took a deep breath, gripped his hand tighter and then stepped inside.

Even an appearance by Ezekiel himself wouldn’t have pried Gideon away from her side in that moment.

In that moment, Lily was his
entire
world. There simply was nothing else.

Lily handed the axe to Gideon and walked up to the stereo cabinet. She slid her hands over the metal casing of the CD player. The metal was too new to have been harvested from the days of Ezekiel’s youth. She tapped her fingernails on the wooden shelf. What had been different that night when Frank had played the music?

She closed her eyes, trying to recall it...then suddenly she
knew
. “It wasn’t the music! It was where I’d been standing! I wasn’t on the earth, but something was working just like that!” She raced across the floor past the men to where she’d been standing behind Nate’s desk, and pulled back the carpet. The wood looked like any other wood, but she knew Satinka magic was there somewhere. “Pull back the floorboards,” she said excitedly. “Pull them back!”

The three males were down at her feet instantly, and she grinned at the sight of their heavily muscled shoulders straining as they ripped back the floorboards after Gideon loosened them with his axe. Order members. Working for her. With her. A miracle.

“This has been pulled up recently,” Kane said. “The nails are new.” He tossed a board over his shoulder and it shattered the glass of a painting.

No one cared.

“Holy shit,” Quinn breathed. “She was right.”

“I was? Let me see!” She squeezed in between Gideon and Kane. Gideon slid his arm around her as Lily peered into the hole in the floor. Nestled between the support beams was a wooden slab, with writing on it.

“The tablet.” Quinn grabbed it and lifted it out of the floor. “I can’t believe it. This has to be the actual tablet created at the time Caleb imprisoned Ezekiel.”

The wood was shiny, as if it had been polished by many hands, smoothing the tablet over long years. Words were burned into the wood, branded into it, like the weapons the men carried in their arms. It looked so old, so significant that Lily itched to touch it. To study it. To lock herself in her office with it for a month so she could decipher all its stories.

Quinn handed it to her. “Tell us where the rite’s taking place. Tell us where Frank is.”

She carefully accepted it, and she felt the Satinka magic the minute her fingers touched it. Tingling spread through her body, and music danced in her mind. Happy music, music that was so ancient and powerful that she knew it was her ancestors’ songs. Music she’d never heard, but that she knew in her heart and in her soul.

“I hear bells,” Gideon said.

She nodded. “This script is written for me. For a Satinka.” She traced her finger over the symbols, over the wealth of information contained in the tablet. There was so much power in the scripture. She could practically feel it seeping into her.

Gideon set his hand over hers, laying his palm on the wood. “It feels hot. It’s tingling.”

Quinn frowned. “I didn’t feel it.”

“My magic chose Gideon. He’s connected to my legacy.” Lily was so tempted to peruse the tablet in great detail, but instead, she traced her fingers quickly over the symbols, skimming past the information carved on Nate’s stone that’ she’d already read. “Some of this is exactly what was on Nate’s stone. I think he lifted it from here, so he wouldn’t have to keep accessing the wood.”

She paused as she got to carvings that hadn’t been on the stone, her mind whirling through the translation easily, as if she’d written it herself, the magic of her heritage clearing her mind. “It’s describing an ancient place of magic. The rite was performed in a place of Otherworld magic.” She frowned, trying to think of a place nearby that was so drenched in power, and then she knew. “Oh!” She jumped to her feet. “It’s where the elders used to gather.”

The men stared at her blankly. “Elders?” Gideon asked.

“Elders. Two thousand years ago, certain members of the different races of the Otherworld joined together, seeking to discover a path toward harmony between the races. They created a hidden meeting place where they shared secrets about themselves to try to find a way to keep peace. Ezekiel’s mother was one of the founding members, and Caleb became part of it too. By the time Ezekiel was going crazy, the Elders had disbanded, but it was where Caleb and his team of twenty-one met to make plans for taking Ezekiel down. It was the only place where they knew Ezekiel wouldn’t have little spies lurking to report back. It would make sense that Caleb would have done the rite there, as a symbol of peace.”

Quinn was frowning. “I’ve never heard of this place.”

“Of course not. Only the members of the committee knew about it.”

Gideon raised his brows, and the pride on his face was evident. “And you.”

She smiled. “Of course. If it has to do with Calydon history, I know about it.”

“So? Where is it?”

“Southern Oregon. It’s a meeting room hidden deep beneath the surface. A chamber. Justice was administered there, but it was really more like a pit of quicksand. People went in and didn’t come out. It’s been used for other things since...” She caught her breath. “It’s been used for Illusionist training. That’s how Frank learned about Ezekiel. He was probably trained there. It makes sense!”

Quinn was on his feet now. “Can you get us the exact location?”

“I can get us close. I don’t know where the entrance to it is, but I’m sure we can find it.”

The door slammed open and she jumped as more Order members came inside. It was Ian, and four others. Their weapons were out, muscles bunched, their eyes hard with battle. She tensed at the hostile glare from Ryland and Gideon carefully slid her behind him.

“Lily came through,” Quinn said. “We know where Frank will be doing the rite tonight.”

Ian gave her a quiet nod. “Right on.”

Ryland gave her a hostile glare, and she lifted her chin. With the tablet in her hands, her magic, when combined with Gideon’s strength, would be impenetrable. But it would corrupt Gideon, and everyone in the room would die. Including herself. So, yeah, not the best option if it could be avoided, but at least she wouldn’t die a victim. No more victim for her.

Gideon’s hand went to her shoulder.
We won’t need that. Everyone’s focused on Frank.

She didn’t look at him.
For now
.

His fingers tightened in acknowledgement. Until Frank was dead, the Order still might be forced to make the kind of choice that had haunted Gideon for so long. Until Frank was dead, she wasn’t safe.

I will do it right this time
, Gideon growled.
I will not fail you.

Lily saw the determination in his eyes and prayed he wouldn’t be tested.

* * *

Ana bit her lower lip as she stared down at the three Calydons passed out on the floor of the pit. They were all bleeding and bruised from her illusions. It was less than four hours until Frank would need her for the rite, and she knew she was going to fail. She hadn’t learned to control her illusions, which meant Elijah would die for her failure, if he were still alive.

But if he wasn’t alive, then she still had to stop Frank...but how would she do that? She hadn’t learned a single useful thing since she’d arrived.

She braced her arms on the clay railing, her fingers digging in so hard her knuckles ached.
Elijah. Are you there? Please, give me something.

But once again, all she heard was the faint echo of his voice in her mind, whispering her name again and again. Her imagination? Or his answer?

She needed to know. Time was running out, and she seriously doubted the reason she’d come here was to help Frank control Ezekiel. She was still certain there was a
reason
she’d gone with him, and she was running out of time to find it.

Ana had already searched the small house he’d built on the surface, and there was nothing in there relating to Ezekiel or Elijah or any of it.

The answers had to be down below in one of those tunnels.

Ana eyed the descent, a good forty feet to the hard ground.

Obviously, there was some other way to get down there, but she hadn’t found it yet, and she didn’t have time.

She took a deep breath, then swung one leg over the railing.

Then the other, so she was sitting on the railing, her feet dangling toward the pit. Ana eyed the distant floor, then rolled over onto her stomach and slid down, until she was hanging onto the railing by only her hands. Then she closed her eyes and let go.

* * *

Kane transported the team from Nate’s house to their destination in southern Oregon, delivering them into a small cluster of trees. Their arrival was dead silent, utter stillness, except the glistening of their weapons. The air began to hum as the Order members searched for threats with their senses.

Gideon set his hand on Lily’s arm, and he wasn’t about to let go. He caught not a single scent or sound in the forest. Total silence.
Anyone sense anything?

Negatives from everyone.

It might be an illusion
, Quinn said.
Everyone still have their bracelets?

Gideon looked down at Lily’s wrist, and realized she didn’t have one. When they’d been going after Nate to rescue Ana, Grace had given them all copper bands that protected them from Frank’s illusions. Yeah, Frank couldn’t create illusions like Ana and Grace, but his ability to create false emotions was just as powerful. He’d created murderous hate between Order blood brothers, and he’d already messed with Lily. The arm bling didn’t work for external illusions, but they sure as hell kept Frank from messing with their heads.

He wasn’t getting to Lily. Not again.

Gideon peeled one of his wristbands off and fastened it around her arm, but as he did, he became increasingly aware of how quiet the forest was. Something had to be very, very wrong.

The forest was never silent.

* * *

Ana yelped as she landed on the clay floor, pain shooting up through her broken ankle, her knees smacking against the hard ground. She staggered to her feet, ignoring the pain as she quickly inspected the area.

Six tunnels.

She grimaced, knowing she had time only to check out one or two of them at most. She quickly paced the circumference of the pit, limping past each tunnel and peering inside. Each one was carved out of hard rock, with stains on the walls and the ground. Stains that made her shudder.

But they were all the same—

The marks on her forearms burned suddenly and she stopped, turning to face the tunnel that headed dead east.

That was the right tunnel. She was sure of it.

She glanced behind her to make sure the Calydons were still down and Frank was nowhere in sight, then she turned and sprinted down the tunnel, the thud of her cast echoing with each step she took.

* * *

The attack came at them so suddenly, from all sides, that the Order barely had time to get their weapons up before the blades came flying out of the forest. Dozens of blades, so many that the sky was a mass of streaking gray metal.

Lily didn’t even bother to duck as she continued to search for the landmarks, letting Gideon fend off the blades while she frantically scanned the landscape for markers that would tell her where the underground coliseum was. She could see the two rocks that were supposed to form the entrance, but there was a hill between them, when there should have been a field instead… Oh, right. Duh. “It’s an illusion,” she said. “The hill’s not really there. It can’t be.”

“Go!” Quinn shouted, as a spear grazed his shoulder. “We’ll hold them off.”

Gideon grabbed her and they sprinted for the hill. Calydons fell in their wake, taken down by Order blades as they chased after Gideon and Lily.