War's Passion (Sons of War) (14 page)

Garrick came into view and memories of that horrific night slammed into her, bring
ing the pain and built up anger to the fore. He stopped outside her cell, an evil grin spread across his lips. Leaning into the bars, he inhaled deeply and his grin turned into a wide smile. “I see Markus wasted no time to claim you as his own. So tell me, did he take you by force?”

Gwen jerked back, fury
fueling her power. “I bet Hades has a special place in Tartarus reserved just for you.”

His eyes went pitch black then the pupil lengthened, transforming into dragon’s eyes. A week ago
, she’d have crumbled into a panting mess on the floor as fear overrode her ability to think and breathe.
But not today.

H
er anxiety wouldn’t control her. Not anymore. Hell, she’d spent the last three days sparing with Markus and Seth. And Drake, who had surprised her in the kitchen, growled at her, and shifted his eyes from human to dragon. When she held up a hand with a softball size energy ball in it instead of running, he gave her the first smile she’d seen from him and left the room.

If Drake failed to scare her, she would
n’t let Garrick do it either.

“
I see the goddess has a backbone after all.” Garrick reached for her through the bars. Gwen stepped back, out of his reach.

Ash made a noise like a cross between a growl and a hiss. “I wouldn’t touch her bare skin. She’d already cursed one of the dragons.”

Gwen jerked her gaze to the other woman and narrowed her eyes. She saw Ash’s lie as plain as if it was written across her forehead. Gwen wanted to smile and thank her, but she had to keep up the false sense of betrayal toward her new friend. “Shut up! I can’t believe I trusted you.”

Ash shrugged and turned to sit on a bench in the corner of her cell. “You were so easy to lure away from your dragon mate, I couldn’t pass it up.”

Garrick laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I’ll deal with you later, Ashlynn. For now I need something from Aphrodite’s granddaughter.”

R
eaching for her again, he growled when she darted to the other side of the small cell. Her heart pounded hard against her ribs. With a growl, Garrick conjured a hypodermic needle with some kind of bluish tinted liquid inside it. She swallowed hard and pressed her back to the stone wall at the back of the cell.

Ash c
ame to her feet and rattled the bars. “Garrick. You can’t inject her with that.”

Gwen glanced to Ash and her heart sank as she saw real fear in the
goddess’s gaze. “What is that?”

“It’s the serum he uses to unlock the descendants’ powers, but it also has a binding agent
in it that would bind your will to his.”

Fuck.

Gwen started to shake all over. Her lungs felt tight, making her take short, deep breaths.
Markus, if you can hear me you need to hurry the fuck up and get here.

Gods, she hoped he was able to track her because she and Ash need
ed a large diversion.

The lock on the cell clicked,
and Gwen jumped. Fear sped up her heart rate as she stared at the needle as Garrick slid the door open and stepped inside. Her stomach churned and she was sure she was going to be sick if he touched her.

When he
lunged for her, she’d already begun the process of teleportation. She flashed to the outside of the cell and slammed the door into place, clicking the lock and palming the key the idiot left behind.

Garrick roared and slammed into the bars. Gwen let out a squeak and rushed over to Ash’s cell and unlocked it. By the time she stepped out, Garrick had shifted into a very large and scary as all Hades black dragon. The cell no longer
contained him. By the size of him, neither would the room they were in.

Ash grabbed her hand and tugged her through the room that Gwen could now tell was some kind of lab and computer center. “Wait!”

Gwen pulled her hand free from Ash’s and rushed to a desk with a laptop and several files and devices on it. Ash was at her side in a flash, picking up objects and stuffing them inside a backpack. Gwen didn’t know where the woman got the bag, but she really didn’t care. She was relieved for her quick thinking.

Ash
shoved the bag at her and the building they were in shook, large pieces of the ceiling raining around them.

“The place is going to cave in. Take this and run.” Ash pointed to an exit behind Gwen.

Shaking her head, Gwen said, “Not without you.”

“You have to. Don’t worry about me. Now go.”

Before Gwen realized what Ash had done, she was being pulled through time and space and materialized outside the building seconds before it collapsed into a pile of stone and dust.

“Ash!” Gwen fell to her knees with the backpack pressed to her chest, tears
streaming down her face.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

Markus landed in a large field about fifteen miles west of Serenity Cove, folded his wings into his back and shifted to his human form. Scanning the area, he couldn’t see anything for miles. A growl rumbled through his chest and he fisted his hands.

Where the fuck was Gwen?

Ty landed beside him and
remained in dragon form. His red and gold scales shimmered in the setting sunlight. He blew out a breath through his noise, drawing Markus’s attention.
I don’t smell either of the females.

“Me either.” Markus
was beyond the point of rational thought. His mate was missing and it was his fault for allowing her to go on the mission.

As soon as the thought formed, he regretted it.
She wasn’t a prisoner and he couldn’t keep her from doing anything. If he told her no, she’d have gone in anyway. “I’m going to try to track her through the mating bond again.”

Ty turned in the opposite direction, giving Markus room to search for the connection to his mate. Apparently
, they had to be within a certain proximity in order to connect. The lack of connection was driving his dragon insane.

Ash was right. Dragon
s did go insane when they lost a mate. He didn’t doubt that the human was dragged under with the beast.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, and sent out his senses, searching out as far as he could.
On his second pass of the area, he felt it.
Gwen’s pain
. Not physical, but emotional.

“I got them,” Markus shouted and took off in a run to
ward the west.

Overhead, Ty followed about twenty feet off the ground.
There’s a group of trees and a building ten yards ahead. Dude, the building looks like it collapsed or something. I’m going ahead to take a closer look.

Dread cut through his heart and all he could think about
was Gwen trapped inside the ruins of a building. Although he knew she wasn’t dead because of their bond, but he couldn’t tell if she was hurt due to the amount of emotions flooding the link to her as he got closer.

Finally, he reached the grouping of trees and pushed his legs faster. When he saw the torn down building, he skidded to a stop, chest rising and falling as his heart
pounded in his head. Ty squatted down next to Gwen, his hand out. Shaking her head, she cried into her hands.

Markus walked over and lifted her into his arms, cradling her to his chest.

Instantly, her arms wrapped around him. “Ash didn’t make it. She wouldn’t leave with me.”

“
Shh.” He spared a look at Ty, who was now standing, glaring at the ruins with murder in his gaze. “Ty, let’s go, man. She’s immortal, remember.”

Without a word, his brother turned, ran, and shifted into his dragon. Markus let Ty go, because if his guess was right, then Ash was Ty’s mate. He needed the time it took to fly
home to clear his head.

Markus spotted a backpack on the ground where Gwen had
dropped it and picked it up before teleporting them to the mansion. Markus carried Gwen through the front door and straight to his study while sending out a telepathic message to his brothers to meet him there. Setting her on the sofa, he positioned the pillow that she threw at him a couple of nights before under her head.

Tears filled her sky blue eyes as she stared at him. “We have to search the ruins for her. I have to know…”

Brushing a strand of hair from her face, he said, “Ash is immortal. A building collapsing would not kill her.”

She held his gaze for several moments as if she was trying to let it all soak in.
Finally she nodded. “She teleported me out right before the building collapsed.”

“Why did it fall in?”

“Garrick.” A shiver passed through her before she continued. “He tried to inject me with some serum. Ash panicked and told him not to. Ash said it had a binding agent in it. When he opened my cell and came inside with me, I teleported outside and closed him in.”

“That’s good. What’s in the backpack?”

Glancing to the bag in his hand, she smiled a little. “Ash stuffed things in there. I’m not sure what’s all in there.”

Zavier, Drake, Seth, and Elle entered the study. Elle rushed over to Gwen. Markus
stepped aside to allow the females some time while he took Zavier the bag. “See what you can get from the contents of this.”

Z opened the bag and a wide grin spread across his face. “This is nice. There’s a laptop, files, jump drives, disks. Oh man
, I’m in techno-heaven.”

Markus shook his head and glanced back at Gwen. His heart ached from the lack of contact with her. He needed to get her alone
, soon, to make sure she was truly okay.

Turning back to his brothers
, he filled them in on what happened to the building, Ash, and Gwen. “Ty didn’t take the fact that Ash didn’t make it out of the building well. I don’t expect him back anytime soon.”

Zavier and Drake nodded. Seth cursed low. “The sorry ass stubborn male will be searching for her.”

Markus agreed. They’d all noticed how much the female got under Ty’s skin. He couldn’t seem to leave her alone, always watching and waiting. For what, Markus had no clue. His only guess was they were mates and both denied it.

The air around them shifted from calm to electric, then Ares materialized next to him. “War,” Markus muttered, really not wanting to talk with the
god at the moment.

Ares rolled his eyes. “I only
came to tell you that Garrick is wounded, badly, but he is still alive.”

Markus jerked his gaze to his father. “Aren’t we feeling like sharing for
once? Why are you telling us this?”

Ares stepped closer to him, coming nose-to-nose with him. “Because when he heals, he’s going to want revenge on every one of you, including
Ashlynn.”

Markus raised a brow. “The female lives?”

Ares backed off to move around the room. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

Markus took that as a yes
and as the gods were using the redhead minor goddess more than as a spy. She had another reason for being there and they weren’t finished with her.

Too tired to think and needing to feel his mate under him, Markus
stalked toward Gwen. He held out his hand, she smiled, and took it. Tugging her to her feet, he glance at Elle. “Do you mind if I steal your sister for the next twenty-four hours or so?”

Elle shook her head. “No. You two need time together.”
Standing, she kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for making sure she came back home.” Then she left the room.

Gwen cupped his face and kissed him.
He wrapped his arms around her and teleported them to his…no,
their
room. Smiling, he laid her down on the bed. “I know what it is to love someone so much that it hurts to be without them.”

Surprise lit up her eyes. “Do you?”

He nodded. “I love you. I can’t ever let you do anything like you did today. It drove my dragon and I insane to think of the ways I could have lost you.”

It came out more demanding then he intended, but she didn’t flinch or draw away from him.
Her eyes began to water as she held his gaze and said, “I love you, too. And I don’t plan on doing anything like that again. Just promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“If the day ever comes that you do capture Garrick, I want to be there to see him go down.”

Markus’s smile widened and his heart warmed. “Deal.”

Taking his face in her hands, she pulled him to her. Nipping at his lower lip, she said, “Make love to me and make me forget about your evil brother.”

His dragon growl
ed in approval inside his head. Dipping his head, he bit her lower lip and tugged. “Anything for my mate.”

Epilogue

Ash lay on her mother’s bed, wishing the goddess would hurry. She ached everywhere, not to mention it hurt like fuck to breathe. Her ribs and lungs took the worst of it. In her concern for getting Gwen out of the building and away from Garrick, Ash had failed to hear him approach from behind until the dagger jammed into her back, puncturing a lung. She broke a couple of ribs when the bastard knocked her across the room.

Then the building caved in.

Artemis eased down on the bed and smoothed her hair from her face. “No one can ever know I rescued you.”

“Of course,
Mother.”

The
goddess opened an amber-colored jar and dipped out a creamy salve, then spread it over her ribs. “The terms for your mission were that I not interfere, no matter what.”

Ash sighed and lifted her hand weakly. “I know, Mother. That was why I didn’t summon you.”

“And what would you have done if I hadn’t shown up?” Artemis met her stare and frowned.

“Survived. After I passed out and healed myself.”

Her mother rolled her eyes and replaced the cap on the jar. “Garrick is injured.” A smile lifted her lips. “You almost killed him with the god bolt you threw at him. It hit his heart, you know.”

Ash smiled
and would have laughed if it didn’t hurt so much. She never got the chance to hit Garrick with her power, but she understood what her mother was saying. Artemis had hit Garrick and most likely made him think it was Ash.

“What about the mission?” Ash asked.

“You will stay here and heal then go back to your dragon and pass judgment.”

Dread rippled through her. Ash hadn’t even come close to
completing her true mission. If she failed at proving Ty’s innocence it would kill what humanity was left inside her to bring him in to be sentenced to death by the gods.

However, s
he was a servant of the gods and would do her job.

“Yes,
Mother. I won’t let you down.”