Darkness Surrendered (Primal Heat Trilogy #3) (Order of the Blade) (21 page)

Elijah was hard and hot beneath her hand, his skin velvet soft. She closed her fingers around him and he let out a soft moan and began to move his hips.

“Don’t you want to make love?”

“Hell, yes.” He moved up and pressed his face into the crook of her neck, his pelvis rocking under her touch. “Can’t risk the bond.” He was breathing hard, his body tense as she wiggled out of his grasp and slid downward. “Can’t lose my mind.
Can’t get that close to you
—” He lost the words when her mouth closed over the tip of him.

Ana felt a sense of power as he groaned and rolled onto his back, his body rigid beneath her as she licked her way along his shaft to the base. He was raw muscle and power, yet he was shuddering, giving himself over to her in a complete reversal of power from what he’d insisted upon moments before. Her chest tightened at the thought of him making himself vulnerable to her. To
her
. For all that she was to him, for as badly as she could hurt him at any second simply by dropping her shields and letting the illusions fly, Elijah was putting himself entirely at her mercy, trusting her completely.

Her body coiled with excitement, and she cupped his balls as she kissed her way back up to the top of his shaft, his body trembling beneath her. “No.” He gripped her hair and pulled her off him and rolled her on her back, once again taking the position of power above her. “Just use your hand.”

“Why?” She clasped his erect member and began to stroke him.

“Bad memories,” he whispered. “Can’t go there.”

Oh, no. More illusions? What had been done to him? Her heart broke for him, for all he had suffered. She knew this one wasn’t her fault, because she was certain she’d never damaged him in that way with her illusions. So someone else, something else, before she’d met him.

No wonder he’d crashed so fast this last week. He had a past—

Oh dear God. Ana suddenly knew what it had to be, what had to have happened to him before. Tears stung at her eyes as she grasped him, sliding along the length of him as his hips moved faster beneath her touch. His hand stayed in her hair, but his grip softened to a caress as his body went harder and faster, his jaw tight, his eyes shut—

Was he pretending she wasn’t the one touching him? That it wasn’t an Illusionist who held him so tightly?

Elijah’s eyes snapped open, and he met her gaze, his green depths holding hers as his body went rigid under her touch. He shouted as the orgasm swept over him, taking him as ruthlessly as she’d been taken by her own.

And his gaze never left her face. Not even for a split second.
I know it’s you, Ana. I wouldn’t be able to stand the touch of anyone else, now that I’ve known yours. Never, ever think I’m thinking about anyone else when I’m with you like this. Ever.
His hand went to the back of her head and he tugged her close enough so he could kiss her, his grip so tight on her, his kiss so tender that her entire being trembled.
I can’t allow you to think that I want anyone else when I’m with you. Know that truth, no matter what happens.

Ana pulled back to look into his face and he softened his grip to allow her to move, but he didn’t release her. She saw the stark honesty in his gaze, the honor that he lived by as an Order member. He meant it, every word, and she wanted to cry for that truth. “How can you want me and despise me at the same time?”

Elijah put his finger over her lips, silencing her. “How can you actually think I despise you after that?” He thumbed her lips as he sank down beside her and hauled her against his heated body. “Sweetheart, I kissed you only to show you that I didn’t have a problem with it, and then I was instantly lost in the magic you weave around me. I had no chance of stopping. Your kiss crashes straight to the depths of my soul and makes me yours.”

Oh…melting time. “Okay, so that might be the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me.” Ana snuggled against Elijah. It felt so incredible to be held by him, to be nestled in the strength of his embrace and feel the warmth of his body surrounding her. Happiness. Peace. Perfection of this moment. “Then what is it? What’s going on with us?”

“Ah...” Elijah’s fingers sifted through her hair, and he nuzzled her neck. “Honestly?”

Ana nodded, smoothing her hand over his chest, unable to stop herself from touching him, needing to feel the hardness of his muscles beneath her hand.

“So, yeah, this isn’t the most manly thing to admit,” Elijah said, his voice laced with irony, “but honestly, you scare the living shit out of me on a level I can’t even begin to comprehend. You make my gut twist, you make visions of pure hell rise in my mind, and you enrage me because you make me feel so weak and terrified.”

“Oh.” Ana’s heart sank, all her excitement from his prior declaration fizzling away. “I wish I didn’t do that to you.” Where was the magic of the
sheva
bond? Was she so tainted that she could destroy even that?

“Hey, sweetheart, it’s okay.” Elijah’s eyes darkened to a deep green, and he brushed a kiss over her mouth. “Because at the same time, you give me the gift of sanity, even if it still threads my mind with darkness and violence. I’ll take what you give me, Ana. When you’re touching me, at least I know what’s real and what’s not.” His brand burned where it rested against her belly. “The thought of having a
sheva
should fill me with horror, but there’s so much hell in my head right now that the doom of the
sheva
destiny just doesn’t matter compared to the risk of descending back into that madness again...” Elijah groaned and pulled her tighter against him, as if he were trying to bury himself inside her. “Touching you is the only thing that stops it.”

Ana’s heart broke a little bit at his words. That was all she was to him? Just a link to his sanity? Did he feel nothing of the emotional intensity that was consuming her? Of course he wouldn’t. Why would he? The man still had a brain, and he knew what kind of a flawed nightmare she was. But what about his claim about getting lost in her magic? That had to be more than the
sheva
bond, right? Or not. Maybe she was just trying to find a connection where there was none, where she deserved none.

Ana took a breath, trying to will away the swell of loneliness and concentrate on Elijah, on helping him. “What exactly happens to you when your mind fragments?” Her hand trailed down his arm, over the brand on his forearm, aware of his heated gaze watching her. He wasn’t the only one who needed to touch. So did she.

“I see demons. They come after me.” As the confession spilled effortlessly out of him, Elijah knew in that moment why it was Order policy that Order
shevas
had to die. He was barely bonded with Ana, and it felt so damn good to lie there holding her that he never wanted to move. He felt like she was his only light in the hell beating at him. The demons were lurking inside him, held at bay only by Ana’s touch, by her kindness, by the peace she infused into him with not just her touch, but the entirety of her spirit.

She lifted her gaze to his. “I can feel their darkness,” she said. “And your panic. You lose perspective. You lose who you are, the strong, powerful warrior who knows he can defeat anything.”

“Yeah, I guess I do.” He laced his fingers through hers. “Ana—”

“How old are you?” she asked.

“About six hundred, give or take a few years.” He moved closer so his face was nuzzled in her neck and took a deep breath, like he was feasting on her, building up his store so he could move on.

“Six? But Quinn and Gideon are five hundred, and you guys joined the Order together?”

He was quiet for a long moment before he finally answered. “I had a life before the Order.”

Ana nodded. She finally understood, and her heart bled for him. She ran her fingers though his hair, as if her touch could ease the words she was about to say. “When you first met me, when you found out I was an Illusionist, before I did anything to you, you hated me. You still do. Even as the
sheva
bond makes you want me, you still recoil from me. Or are terrified by me or whatever you want to call it.”

His fingers tightened around hers and he rubbed his thumb over her palm. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not intentional, and it’s separate from how I feel about you. It’s an instinctive reaction to a threat that you represent, not you actually.”

“I know, but I think...” Ana sensed Elijah didn’t want to talk about it, but she had to know what they were dealing with. “What happened to you in those hundred years before you joined the Order?”

His body stiffened, and she felt his immediate withdrawal. “Why do you ask?”

Ana shifted, rolling onto her side so she could look at him. His face was stoic, revealing nothing, but those walls told her how much he was hiding. “Illusionists were originally ‘discovered’ by ancient rulers who used them to torture prisoners. To make the prisoners go insane. Your intense reaction to me when we met indicates that you were tortured by Illusionists before. Not just once. Many, many times.”

She’d been thinking of her origins a lot lately, and it made her sick to think about what she was descended from, what she was created to become. But to think of Elijah exposed to it was so very much worse than worrying about what kind of monster she was evolving into.

Elijah sat up suddenly, his fists bunched. “No.”

Ana propped herself up on her elbows, wishing that she believed him, wishing so much that neither of them had to deal with the nightmare of her kind. “If you were tortured by Illusionists before you joined the Order,” she said carefully, as gently as she could, “and then you were tortured by Frank and then me...of course you’d have difficulty managing it. It’s extraordinary that you survived as long as you did and as well as you did. You must have unbelievable strength.”

She’d heard stories from her parents about what happened to people who were tortured by Illusionists, and Elijah fit the description perfectly. She set her hand on his, trying to ease the memories she was afraid she was stirring up. “That’s what happened, isn’t it? What I did to you for the last week shouldn’t have been enough to make you...” She hesitated, not wanting to inflict judgment on him.

Elijah shot her a sharp glare as he surged to his feet and yanked his jeans up. “Violent? Terrified? Unable to distinguish between real threats and imagined ones? Paranoid? Completely fucking insane?”

“Yes.” She set her hand on his ankle, wincing at his frustration. She could only imagine how hard it would be for a warrior who’d been at the top of his game for five hundred years to be so out of control. “Even the strongest mind would crumble after years and years of Illusionist abuse. Especially if it started when you were young. I’ve heard stories, Elijah, and you fit.”

He left his pants undone, parted at the waist to reveal his hard stomach and narrow hips. He searched her face, the plea for help so raw that her heart broke for him. “How do people who have been tortured like that recover?”

She let out her breath. “They don’t. The mind is simply too broken.”

“Fuck that. My mind’s not broken.” But tension was vibrating off him, and his muscles were rigid.

“No, it’s not.” Not entirely. Not yet. “But—”

Elijah narrowed his eyes at her. “But what?”

She met his gaze. “But it’s a gradual descent that sucks you deeper each time you face another illusion. You don’t come up from where you’ve been, but you keep falling further. Even if there are no more illusions...reality will keep twisting on you...”

“No. I’m not going down.
I can’t.”

“I know.” Ana stood up and reclaimed her own jeans as he spun back toward her.

Elijah shoved her hands off her pants and fastened them himself, as if he needed to do something useful. “So, let me get this straight,” he growled. “I’m going to go insane, and you’re going to stop me, but at the same time, the closer I bond with you, the more of your illusions I’ll see in my own head, so you’ll actually drive me insane faster. Right?”

“Probably.” She swallowed. “I’m sure it would be better if we weren’t together, but—”

“But I have no choice.” Elijah swore softly and hooked his hand over the waistband of her jeans. “So I stay tight until I finally lose my mind for good? And when do we know when it’s over? When I finally turn on you and rip your limbs from your body? Shove my throwing star into your heart like some
beast
?” He fisted his hand, tension rolling off him in thick waves. “Fuck that. I’m not going that way. I’m not going to go to a place where I hurt someone I care about again.”

“Again?” And then Ana knew. She understood him so much better. “You killed your family because you were under an illusion, didn’t you? That’s why you killed them.”

Elijah swore again, not answering her question. Anger vibrated off him. “Ana, listen to me. There’s shit about me that would get me kicked out of the Order. I’m not trustworthy, especially now that Dante’s dead. And you’re getting too damn close to figuring it all out.” His eyes flared.

She lifted her chin, letting Elijah see that she wasn’t afraid of him, that she didn’t believe he was the monster he claimed to be. “So, you’re going to kill me to shut me up?”

His eyes darkened. “Don’t
ever
joke about that.”

She bit her lip. “You’re really worried about killing me, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am.” His hands went to her shoulders, and he took a deep breath. “If I could get you out of this mess, I would—”

“I don’t want out. I want Ezekiel dead. That’s all that matters.” But even as Ana spoke the words, she knew it was a lie. She didn’t just want Ezekiel dead. She wanted Elijah to live again, truly live, free from the torment of his mind. She wanted both.

Elijah ground his jaw. “And that, sweetheart, is the biggest problem of all.”

Ana blinked, confused by his words. “What’s the biggest problem? Killing him? Or the fact that his death is what I want?”

“The fact that it’s what you want.” He touched the mark on her arm. “Remember, the bond will destroy everything we care about most, and that’s Ezekiel.”

And Elijah. He mattered too, so much. “So, we don’t bond.” But even as Ana said the words, she remembered how Lily and Gideon and her own sister and Quinn had been unable to stop the bond from progressing, and her heart sank. “We can’t, can we?”

“We’ll hold it off and hope we get to Ezekiel before we bring down hell around us. It’s our only chance.” Elijah squeezed her shoulders, his body relaxing as his expression took on the calm focus of a warrior on a mission. “To the prison, sweetheart. We’ve got a psychopath to track down.”

A psychopath who had effortlessly toyed with them only minutes ago, making it clear exactly who held the power in this battle.

It wasn’t them. Not by a long shot.