The Burn (9 page)

"Yes." She held his gaze, tears glistening on her lashes. "Please, I need you. I need you like this."

* * *

He knew he couldn't stop. He looked up at her as she sat astride him, the pained whisper of her voice drawing out in his mind. His vision of her blurred as he held her, the feel of her in his arms nothing less than incredible. Every touch, every kiss, felt too intense to endure. It was as if every cell in his body had acquired a lustrous sensitivity, as if his skin burned.

Her hand closed on his cock, guiding him through her wet folds, pushing him deep into the tight warmth of her body. He clenched his teeth as he squeezed into her in slow increments, stretching the skin.

She made a noise that bordered on pain, but her expression glowed with ecstasy, her lips parting, her cheeks flushed.

Miranda was a surreal picture above him, strands of black beads draped over her delicate shoulders and the buttery swell of her breasts, rolling over her tight nipples as she moved. Her crown glittered in the red glow, her face so well painted with its exotic turns and colors that she appeared dreamlike. She tilted her head up, spilling the red waves of her hair down the bare skin of her back.

Seth slid his hands over her hips and thrust into her, hearing her sharp intake of breath. She moved against him, the feel of her slick and tight.

He stroked her in wonder, the image and feel of her catching fire in the crimson light through the windows. The drumming in the neighboring camp quickened, a tribal heartbeat playing to the heat and smell of sex.

Her breathing turned desperate, her hips rolling under his hands, the slide of his cock hitting its mark with each deep push. She rocked forward, riding him harder, her fingers digging into his arms.

She pressed so close, held on so tight, her pleasure mixing with need and vulnerability. The intensity of it was dizzying, heart-wrenching.

"Miranda," he called her name, calling her back to him.

She looked down, the green of her eyes bright with lust, lost in the deep sensation of his thrusts. She kissed him and the coppery taste of metal was thick on her breath. He pulled back, alarmed, only to watch a soft metallic sheen spread across her skin.

The drug. It was the drug.

He shook his head, his hold on her easing.

She sensed the change, fear darkening her expression, as if she somehow knew. "Don't let me go," she implored under her breath. "Keep me here. Don't let me go. You can't."

Her body cooled under his hands. Faint symbols appeared on her skin, markings that seemed to whisper in the darkness.

A hallucination. Just a hallucination.

"Don't let me go," she repeated, desperate. "Seth."

He shook his head, the plea echoing in his heart.

* * *

Miranda felt him go still, concern surfacing in the golden depths his eyes. He could see it, she realized. He could see her weakening, losing her grip.

"Don't let me go," she whispered again. "If you let me go, I don't know if I'll ever find my way back."

"Miranda," he replied gently, reaching up to stroke his hand over her cheek. "Jesus, what has he convinced you will happen? You're here, sweetheart. I've got you. You're here."

"Don't let me go."

"I won't. I won't let go."

He shifted, lowering her down onto the couch and cradling her beneath him. His shoulders spread out above her, his thick biceps sheltering her on either side. He thrust deep into her again, filling her with the hard push of his erection.

She arched her back against him, feeling a euphoric sensation flood between her legs, warming her entire body.

"You're safe with me," he murmured. "You're here. You're alive. I can touch you. You can tell me whatever you want, ask anything from me. I want to make you feel good."

He had already done that. He had made her feel alive. She wrapped her legs around him, feeling the strength of his body embracing hers. He moved languidly inside her, stroking deep as he kissed her mouth, her neck, her hair.

Comfort turned to hunger. His expression darkened, his thrusts growing quick and rough, his breathing ragged. He reached underneath her, his hands sliding possessively under her hips, lifting their angle against him.

His cock rubbed upward in this position, intensifying the bright sensation inside her. Miranda strained against him and felt the pleasure crest. It overwhelmed her, the delirious tension blooming into a blinding orgasm. She caught her breath, then sobbed with it, her muscles held tight as the release burned its way through her soul.

Seth groaned, thrusting so deep she nearly came again. He clenched his teeth, riding out his own orgasm in slow, powerful strokes, his expression transformed by it.

Miranda raised her hands to cradle his face and he looked down at her, lowering his mouth to hers to impart a lover's kiss, a touch that was achingly sensual. He had given her what she needed. The warmth had returned to her skin, the flush of life flowing strong in her veins.

She was immortal and still human, still the woman that Seth believed her to be. The reality of it settled with horrified awe. In her hunger and pain, she had placed Seth exactly where the Necromancer wanted him.

She closed her eyes. "I shouldn't have done this to you."

He laughed under his breath. "Feel free to repeat your mistake," he replied, smoothing the hair back from her temple with his thumb. "And commit any others that come to mind."

"Promise me that you'll leave now. You have to."

"What?"

"Promise me that you'll leave this desert."

He stared at her in disbelief. "You just begged me not to let you go. Now you want me to leave?"

"I needed you."

"And you still need me, which is why I'm staying."

"They're after you," she insisted. "They've already got me, can't you see that? I have to be here. I have to fight. But you can still walk away."

"We can both walk away. I'd like nothing better than to get you out of this place. I'll take you wherever you want to go, wherever you feel safe."

"It's impossible."

"No, it's not. Look, if you want to stay with me, in my home or the studio, you can. It doesn't have to be about what's between us. I can give you the time and the space you need to sort out what you want, what you need."

"I meant that it's physically impossible."

He stared at her. "I don't understand."

"I can't leave this desert. I exist here, only here, only for a short time. I only have a few days left to stop him and I have to find a way to do that."

Alarm surfaced in his gaze. "That's not true, sweetheart, none of it. I know it must seem true, but he's messed with your mind. God only knows what you've endured here. He's convinced you that there's no escape and you can't leave this desert, but you can. I'll drive you out right now and you'll wake up in my arms tomorrow morning, I promise you that."

"You don't understand."

"I don't, that's true, but I'd like to."

She shook her head, clasping onto his arms and gently urging him up. He acquiesced, drawing back to release her from his sheltering hold. She rose to her feet and stepped away from the couch, moving to stand in the red glow filtering through the windshield from the drum circle camp.

"I remember what happened now," she said, scanning the desert outside, finding it easier to speak if she didn't have to see the disbelief in his eyes.

"I remember the woman I was. I remember what she came here to do." She paused, lifting her gaze skyward in anguish. "And I remember the exact moment she died."

* * *

Seth watched her for a moment, her slender form outlined in the crimson light, the beads of her outfit glittering darkly. His image of her blurred, the dizzying effects of the drug in his system mixing with the chemical bliss of sex. It was difficult to see her, difficult to concentrate.

He rubbed his hand over his face and sat back on the couch to refasten his clothing. He stayed where he was after he was done, though he wanted to get up and coax her back into his arms. She seemed too slight, too alone, as she stood against the glow from outside.

"I was like you," she began softly. "I knew he was drugging them, manipulating them. I had camped close by. I had watched the people who followed him and I had spoken to them. They all conformed to the standard profile, people who were a little lost, a little insecure, people who needed something to believe in and thought they had found it."

She dropped her gaze. "I played along. I told them that I was a painter. I dressed in baggy clothes that hid my weapon and engaged in deep philosophical discussions with guys who were stoned out of their minds. I asked about the goddesses, enough to get descriptions that matched those of the missing women I had been looking for."

She shook her head. "The Necromancer didn't give much away at first. He also fit the standard profile, enigmatic, well spoken, persuasive…the perfect cult leader. He metered out information carefully, saving a lot of his so-called secrets for only the most devoted members of his inner circle. He had managed to create a culturally isolated environment where he was viewed as the absolute authority, the only one who could control the Divine Gate and its secrets. They all worshipped him. And the Gate… I thought it was spectacular prop, right up until the moment I realized that it isn’t that at all."

She winced, holding herself tighter. "I don't know where that thing came from, or who really built it, but the walls speak. They whisper."

"Miranda," Seth murmured. "It's not real."

She shook her head then looked skyward, tearing glistening in her eyes. "But it is real. It's very real. It has the power to open a door into a place that humans only dream about, the source of our myths."

"No, sweetheart."

"Listen to me," she implored, turning her gaze to meet his. "My blood, my body, the pain he inflicted and the pleasure you drew out of me when you woke me. None of it is real, because I'm not Miranda anymore. I'm something else."

"You've been told that you're something else. You've been told all of this, but it's not the truth. I listened to him talk. I know how convincing he is."

"I'm good at what I do, Seth," she shot back. "You think it was easy for me to accept this? When I first woke, I was still the same woman. I didn't remember anything, and I wouldn't have believed any of it if I had."

"Wouldn't have believed what?" he asked, slowly rising from the couch. "You've been missing for a year. You really think that you were dead?"

"Yes."

"Isn't more likely that you were drugged and held against your will? False memories can be introduced to people when they're in certain states, when they're vulnerable. The human mind isn't perfect. It isn't supposed to be."

"These aren't false memories."

"What if they are? Maybe thinking that this guy isn't human is easier than getting yourself to believe that one human being could do this to another, that someone could do this to you."

She clenched her teeth, giving a small shake of her head.

"Maybe it's easier." He reached out to gently touch her shoulders, warm them under his hands. "Maybe it's easier to believe the fantasy they've forced on you then it is to remember what actually happened during those months."

"No," she said, her voice small in the cabin of the RV.

"Let me get you out of here. You don't have to demand answers of yourself right now. You don't have to know what the truth is. You just have to let people help you. Let me get you to a safe place, then you can take your time."

"There is no safe place. Don't you understand? He plans on opening the Gate and bringing on some kind of 'enlightenment'."

"Which means what?"

She shook her head helplessly. "I don't know. But he's evil, pure evil."

"It isn't real," he assured her. "He's been able to convince you that it's real, because he put you in a vulnerable position and that made it real to you. Julie told me that he can force you into some kind of trance. He can knock you out merely by speaking a series of words. Who knows what else he can do, what you've been subjected to? You're good at this, I believe that. You're good enough to know when you've been compromised. You need to let other people help you now."

"You think I'm still alive."

"I know you are. Even if you weren't standing here in front of me, even if I couldn't touch you, or feel you… I'd know that you're real."

Miranda let a pained breath escape. Reaching up, she placed her cool hand on his cheek, her green eyes bright. "See me then. See what he's done."

Seth stared at her, confused.

He felt wetness on his cheek.

Raising his hand to hers, he drew it back, catching sight of the blood dripping from her wrists, running down her arms.

He caught his breath, looking at her in alarm.

She was suddenly covered in it, dark blood oozing from precise surgical cuts in her abdomen, a slender crimson line bleeding at the side of her neck.

He rasped in horror, staggering back against the cabinets of the small kitchen. It was all over him too, slick on his hands, staining his skin.

"Miranda—" he breathed helplessly.

"They want something from you," she replied. "There's something about you that they need and you can't give it to them, not for anything. Not even for me. I don't exist anymore. You have to save yourself."

He watched her, stunned beyond words.

Pain darkened her delicate features. Her lips parted, as if she wanted to say more, but instead she shook her head and turned, disappearing through the metal door of the RV as if it were made of water.

"Shit," Seth spoke into the empty darkness.

Pushing the door to the RV open, he staggered out into the darkness. The drum circle beat pounded in his ears. His vision blurred, his mind running in panicked circles. She was gone.

Seth trudged blindly after her, heading for the spin of neon and the glow of lit sculptures in the distance, fear unlike any he'd ever known burning in his chest.

“W
hoa there, buck-o. What the hell happened to you?"