Through the Veil (9 page)

“You saved my life the first time when you were seven, Lee. You brought me food. Then you disappeared. A few days later, you freed me from where I was being held in some tiny little hellhole.” Eyes grim, he said quietly, “If you hadn’t freed me, and I still don’t know how you did it, but if you hadn’t, Raviners would have had a bloody party with my sorry ass.”

THREE

Lee’s head was spinning. And it wasn’t just from the unbelievable pace he kept up as he carried her across the uneven, rock-strewn terrain. Too much had changed. Too many things that should have been impossible were actually happening—and what was most bizarre, she wasn’t even questioning that any of it could be real.

She knew it was.

Knew he was real, even though a man like him seemed to defy every law she had come across when it came to the opposite sex. He was drop-dead gorgeous, a body covered with rock-hard muscle, a warrior, yet it seemed she recalled him asking for her help, time and again. That was almost like men asking for directions . . . wasn’t it?

She chewed nervously on her lip, staring as they rounded a bend of half-burned trees. In the distance, she could hear faint sounds, voices floating on the wind, a booming pulsation of sound that echoed in her belly, myriad weird sounds that she couldn’t place. “What is that?” Lee finally asked as the booming pulsation rippled through her chest one more time.

“Ion cannon. We managed to get into a fallen military base and we . . . ah—liberated some badly needed supplies. The ion cannon is a bloody powerful weapon, but none of us were exactly sure how to use it. One of the older men was in the army when its predecessor came out, so he’s helping us work the kinks out. Before we have to use it.”

“Oh,” she said faintly. An ion cannon, of course.
I feel like I’m trapped in some weird science fiction movie.
“Why am I so important to this?”

“The ion cannon?” he asked, a smile curving that hard mouth. Her belly quivered as she imagined arching up and pressing her lips to his. His taste still lingered in her mouth and she wanted more. But bad enough she had been making out with a man she didn’t exactly know. She wasn’t going to kiss him when she suspected they would have company at any minute. “No, pet. We can figure the ion cannon out for ourselves.”

Lee scowled at him, her brows drawing low over her eyes before she sniffed and averted her face. “Smart ass,” she muttered. “That wasn’t what I was talking about. And you know it.”

Under the arm she had wrapped around one shoulder and his neck, she felt him shrug. “If I knew why you were so important, don’t you think I would have tried to do something about it before now? I’m a soldier, not a seer.”

Her cheeks heated as she felt his eyes lingering on her face, the slow sweep of his thumb on the underside of her knee. Through the fragile cloth of her pajama pants, she felt that slow, rough stroke as though he were touching naked flesh. A gasp locked in her throat—images slamming into her mind, that long hard body arching over hers, sweat gleaming along his flesh, muscles bunching and flexing as he pumped his hips against hers, the sight of his eyes, gleaming and hot, as he stared down into her face . . .

“Sweet bleeding saints, would you stop?”

Lee gasped as his arm fell out from under her and she was dropped without ceremony onto her feet. With bemused eyes, she watched as he stomped away, his big hands closing into fists at his side as he paced the path before her, keeping his eyes away from her face.

“Don’t bloody do that!” he finally bellowed, spinning around and glaring at her.

“Do what?” she demanded, propping her hands on her hips and glaring at him. “I didn’t do anything!”

A sexy little snarl crossed his face and she felt her belly quiver. She was already dazed and hot from that wicked line of thoughts dancing in her mind, and this wasn’t helping. He looked entirely too—biteable.

Yes. That was the word. She wanted to walk over there and catch his face in her hands and sink her teeth into that sullen lower lip, maybe into the tendon in his neck . . . then the gleaming perfection of his muscled shoulders . . .

“That!”

Her face flushed. No way. He couldn’t possibly . . .

“When you’re a strong projector, anybody can pick up. But I’m a fairly talented receiver, which is how I knew you were here, how I always know you’re here, and damn it, would you stop?” he snarled. “You’ve got enough fucking chaos to deal with right now, trying to figure out what is going on, and you haven’t even grasped the full extent, but if you don’t stop tempting me, I’m going to . . .”

Lee couldn’t help it. Lifting one brow at him, she smiled slightly and asked, “Going to what?” And she really couldn’t help it, no more than she could stop thinking about him, and her, together . . . Damn, had she really . . . ?

“Not yet,” he growled. “But keep this up and we will. Right here in broad daylight. As to what I’m going to do—bloody hell, I’ll just give you what it is you are dreaming about.”

Lee rolled her eyes. “Male testosterone is obviously on the same high levels here that it is back home,” she drawled. “Arrogance sure as hell isn’t in short supply either.” Balancing on one foot, she lifted her right one, staring at the deep gash and poking at it with a gentle finger. Not as sore. Lowering it back to the ground, she lifted her head. And jumped.

Kalen was standing right in front of her, having crossed the good twenty feet between them in total silence. “It’s not arrogance when we both know it’s the truth,” he murmured, using one finger to tip her face up to his. “Now, is it?”

Her breath was trapped in her lungs as his mouth slanted across hers and his tongue plunged boldly into her mouth. His tongue tangled with hers, rubbed sinuously against it, withdrew, and then started the dance all over again. Under the thin cloth of her halter top, her nipples beaded and swelled. One broad sweep of his hand opened the jacket he had placed on her shoulders and it fell to catch at her elbows, leaving her shoulders bare.

Lee whimpered when he pulled back enough to nip at her lip as his fingers tangled in her hair, tugging her head back, exposing the line of her throat. The sharp sting of his teeth had her pulse racing. The brush of his fingers caressed her nape and she arched into his touch, only to have his hands retreat moments later.

Cool air stung her breasts and she glanced down, watching as the top of her halter fell to hang at her waist. “I like this,” he purred, reaching out and circling one finger around the swollen pink tip of her nipple. As she shivered, she felt his eyes on her and she looked up through her lashes, seeing the stark hunger on his lean face.

Lowering his head, he breathed into her ear, “You know one of the most amazing things about being a receiver? I can hear and feel every thought that passes through you, since you don’t seem to understand how to guard against such. And when I touch you—I can feel just exactly how much you like it.”

Forcing a breath into her tight lungs, she said weakly, “That’s not exactly fair, is it?”

Kalen laughed, reaching up and closing his hand over hers. “Well, now, I don’t know that it isn’t fair. After all, you can imagine how touching you affects me just by . . .”

Her eyes met his as he drew her hand to his erection, closing it over the hard length covered by the thick material of his dark pants. Swallowing, Lee trailed her fingers slowly up his length, feeling the slight pulse even through the layers of clothing. “See?” he whispered as his cock jerked under her touch. “I think this makes us even.”

Lee was pretty certain there was something faulty with that reasoning, but the way her brain was functioning, or rather, wasn’t functioning, she’d be damned if she could figure out what the problem was. With a slight smile, she dragged her hand back up his length. She’d figure out logistics and thought and everything else later . . . much later . . .

The rumble of the ground distracted her for a minute, but only a brief minute. As she arched up into his touch, Lee slowly massaged his cock, dazed pleasure suffusing her entire mind.

Damn it, his body was so hot. His mouth closed around her nipple, sucking on it with hard, rough pulls of his mouth. Lee fisted one hand in the thick black hair at his nape, holding him tight against her, whimpering as the very earth seemed to shift beneath her.

Kalen arched her back over his arm, one hand going to her waist, to the tie of her harem-style pajama pants, and she let go of his neck, reaching to tug at the knot even as he was trying to tug them down her hips. One second later she was all but naked and he was fumbling to complete the task.

The next second, he was gone, turned away from her, slinging the gun from the harness at his back as he rasped out furiously, “Son of a fucking bitch!”

Lee whimpered, her brain still buzzing and trying to catch up. “Kalen?” she whispered.

He cut her a disbelieving glance and shook his head. “Bloody hell, what have we gotten into? Climb a tree, pet. We’ve got company coming.”

She stared at the trees surrounding her with vague eyes, even as the rumbling beneath the ground intensified. “Sweet heaven,” she whispered. “What is that . . .”

But even as she whispered it, part of her knew. “Raviners . . . what in the hell are they doing coming out in the daylight?” she asked. She felt like there was a curtain within her mind, dividing her into two separate parts. Every once in a while, it would part and allow some of the knowledge the women from this world had to slip through, letting Lee absorb it.

“You, pet. They felt you.” He glared at her, pointing to the tree. “Climb, damn it. The higher, the better. They don’t like daylight. If you are too high to be worth their while, too far out of reach, they may just go back to their hole for a while.”

The ground in front of Kalen split apart, and Lee screamed as black-robed creatures came spilling out. Blue light pulsed from Kalen’s gun, but he was only one man and there were nearly two dozen of them.

That odd curtain parted again, letting more knowledge slip through. Psychic energy . . . magick . . . they love it. It’s a feast to them.

I sent out a damned invitation,
she realized in self-disgust, backing up to the tree. Lee turned and scrabbled up to the nearest sturdy branch before glancing back down. “If you fall, no chocolate for a month.” Images of every B-movie heroine leaped to mind, the cute teenaged coed, scantily clad as always, falling to her doom just as freedom appeared within her reach.

The tree she had picked was dead, like most of them, but it towered nearly fifty feet into the sky. Like a squirrel, she scrambled upward until she was a good twenty-five feet off the ground, and then she turned and stared down at Kalen as the circle of dark-robed creatures closed around him.

The Raviners weren’t true demons—or rather, they weren’t natural ones. They’d become demons by choice. They were something that had once been human, or close to it. Living in the world of Anqar, they had worshipped a dark lord, practicing blood magick, taking his dark power inside themselves until they were no longer mortal. They needed no food to live, needed little rest, and they thrived on energy.

Cruel, cunning, full of madness and power, they loved a psychic or magickal feast, a man or woman with budding powers that they could feed off of during torture.

Wincing at the information bombarding her brain, Lee muttered, “This is a little too much info to process right now. Can we slow it down a bit?”

The knowledge that had been whispering through her mind fell silent as she watched Kalen stumble when a Raviner lashed out with a hooked staff, slicing at his chest. The black tunic covering his chest resisted the blade but his bare arms didn’t and blood flowed. Lee glanced down at the black jacket that covered her arms and flushed. His armor. This was armor. Would have protected that long, powerful body . . .

Rage boiled inside her as she saw the blood welling on his flesh. She descended the tree so rapidly, she barely even remembered the trek down, and the last ten feet she jumped. She landed without even feeling the impact and stood there, staring at the black-robed creatures as images swirled in her mind.

Broken, destroyed bodies, as empty as husks, their eyes staring upward in sightless terror . . . all at the hands of something that wasn’t even a demon.

Rage had a feel, a mind, a color all its own, and it brewed hot and powerful in her belly as she stared at them. They never even noticed her as she started to move closer.

Use the power. Harness it . . .

Her body suddenly felt like that of a marionette, and she could watch as her hand lifted, seemingly of its own volition, pointing palm out toward the throng of Raviners. There was a river of power flowing under the earth, calling to her. In turn, she reached for it and it flowed into her. The crackle of power jolted up from her belly, zinging out her arm like a crack of lightning, and she cried out as the blue light exploded from her hand.

The scorching smell of flesh flooded her nose and she watched as a swath of Raviners fell. The saner part of her mind started to babble in terror as the blue light wrapped around the humanoids and fire exploded, burning them away until they exploded like a pile of ash and soot, like a TV vampire.