Dead Sea

by Debbie Cassidy

  “Is that why Julian hates Emory?”

  He blinked at me in surprise. “Julian has no love for Harker or her offspring. He was merely a child when our parents died. He never got over their loss. It would have been wiser for your council to send someone else to repair the generators instead of Emory.”

  Wait, what? “You asked for Emory. You asked for him specifically.”

  Rydian frowned. “No … No, I didn’t.”

  Then who? A horrific precognitive feeling of doom bloomed inside me. “We have to find Emory. We have to find him now.”

  Chapter 16

  Emory

  I stand in the cold, dark tunnel lined with hatches for the pipes that transfer power from the two generators to the rest of the realm and wonder what the heck I’m doing here.

  What the fuck? There’s nothing wrong with these generators, Gideon growls in my head.

  He’s there more and more often now, riding my consciousness, watching, commenting. He’s under my skin when Echo is around, listening eagerly for her voice, waiting eagerly for her touch. He is hungry for her, but the hunger is morphing into something deeper, something that connects with my desires, and the lines are becoming blurred. One thing I do know is I don’t want to share her with him.

  And you think I do? Gideon growls. You think I want this?

  Guilt tears through me. “No.”

  I should push you down, force you to be locked away. I should hurt you. There is torment in his words that claws at my soul.

  “You should. I deserve it.” The words are spontaneous and sincere, shocking even me, and Gideon goes silent. I feel him retreat.

  Who knows what will become of us, but maybe Echo’s idea could work, maybe Gideon and I could share the light? Maybe we won’t end up tearing each other to shreds. Fuck, what choice do we have?

  I focus on the generators in the wall and then look down at the new ones at my feet. Makes no sense? Why would Rydian have summoned me for this? Waste of fucking time, not that I’m not glad to be here with Echo, but I could have used this time to get the scuttler tracer working.

  I crouch to zip up my bag as boot falls echo down the tunnel toward me.

  Several figures come into view, but I only recognize one, and my hackles rise, because this … This is no coincidence.

  “Hello, Emory,” Julian says with his usual sneer. “I see you’ve discovered the little lie I had to tell to get you here.”

  I stand and turn to face him fully. Four cronies and Julian. Five on one, nice. I may be jumping to conclusions about the intended smackdown, but I doubt it because they have that look in their eyes, the one crying out for a pound of flesh; in this case, mine.

  I clench my gloved hands into fists. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “No, you shouldn’t. And please, don’t take this personally. It’s going to hurt, but it’s not about you, it’s about your bitch of a mother. It’s about what she took from us, and now … Now it’s—”

  “Yeah, I get it. You want to send a message. Some super late payback. How about we cut to the chase and get on with it.”

  I feel Gideon stir under my skin.

  No, I can do this. I send the message to Gideon.

  Really? Fine, have at it.

  Julian’s cronies attack in force, and I react, blocking and punching and landing a couple of uppercuts. Something inside me rises to fill my chest with a strange euphoria because it’s been a long time since my gloves have tasted blood, a long time since my opponent has been flesh and not a leather punching bag, and it feels good, so fucking good to smash some heads. To make some noses bleed, to blacken some eyes.

  The cronies are slowing down. There are four of them, and yet they can’t keep up with me.

  Okay, you’re good, Gideon says reluctantly.

  Right?

  And then fire cuts across my abdomen. I look down to see blood blooming across my torso. Shit, some fucker—

  A hot poker in my side, and I am going down. What the fuck? Bad form, real bad form, but the world is going dark. Julian is laughing, and then Gideon’s roar fills my head.

  Chapter 17

  Rydian led the way as we ran toward the generator tunnels. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I just did. Emory was in danger, and Rydian, bless his heart, hadn’t questioned me.

  We burst through the fire doors into the gray tunnel and around the corner to find several bodies lying broken and silent on the ground and Emory, with his back to us, pinning Julian to the wall. Emory’s fist was pulled back, ready to smash into Julian’s face.

  My mind pieced the situation together in a blink. Julian had gotten Emory here on the pretext of replacing the generators. He’d made sure he was alone, and then he’d attacked. But it looked like Emory had held his own.

  “Please,” Rydian said. “Emory, don’t.”

  Julian’s gaze flew to Rydian and widened in horror. “How are you still alive?”

  Rydian’s body froze, and the look on his face, that awful look of betrayal, made rage bubble up my throat.

  “It was you?” I took a step forward.

  “I’m going to end him,” Emory growled. No. Not Emory. It was Gideon.

  “Get him off me, please.” Julian no longer sounded like the monster; how could he when he was faced with the real thing?

  Rydian glanced at me, and I held up a hand to ask him to just wait. To let me deal with this.

  “Gideon?”

  Gideon turned his head to look at me, his eyes so bright gold in his face they seemed to glow in the dark. Emory’s face was also different, the planes wide, the nose slightly flatter, and his lips more voluptuous. Gideon was so close to the surface that forcing him back would be—my face fell to the blood soaking his shirt. He was hurt. Emory was hurt.

  Gideon’s lips curled as he tracked my gaze. He pulled Julian away from the wall and then slammed him back against it. “You still want me to let him live?”

  Rage was bitter on my tongue. “You’re not a murderer, Gideon. Neither you or Emory are.”

  One of the sea dwellers on the ground groaned, coming back into consciousness. “You could have killed them, and you didn’t.”

  He growled low again. “Still time.”

  I took another step toward him, bridging the gap between us, and placed my hand on his shoulder. His muscles jumped beneath my fingertips.

  “Go on, then.” He looked down his nose at me. “Blast me back into the dark.”

  I could. It would be the easy option, but it was obvious that Gideon had just saved Emory’s life, and I wouldn’t reward him with pain. Instead, I pushed up on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his firmly for a long second.

  I pulled back to watch several indecipherable emotions flit across his face.

  “Thank you. Thank you for saving him.” I touched his arm lightly. “You can take five now.”

  His tongue flicked out to taste his lips, and his eyes darkened. “Bribery? I like it. But you still owe me a blow—”

  “Gideon!”

  He let out a bark of laughter and then stepped back. “I warn you, this is going to hurt.”

  His eyes darkened to twilight then fluttered closed, and his body dropped. I grabbed him before he hit the ground, and then guards were filling the tunnel.

  The wounds were deep, but my arcana healed the worst of them. I left him lying in my bed and wandered out into the lounge where Deacon was pacing, sleeves rolled up to expose his taut forearms. His hair was pulled up in a messy knot now, and his eyes flashed with suppressed rage.

  He looked up as I entered the room. “How is he?”

  “Sleeping. I’ll keep him with me tonight.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He was worried about Gideon, but funnily enough, for the first time since I’d learned of his existence, I wasn’t. “I’m sure I can handle Gideon if he decides to make an appearance, but I don’t think he’ll hurt me, I just … He saved Emory’s life.”

  Deacon’s winged brows came
together in a frown. “He was saving himself too, Echo. Don’t let your guard down.”

  Was I letting my guard down? Maybe. But the look on Gideon’s face when I’d kissed him and thanked him played on my mind. He’d looked thrown, vulnerable, as if he was unused to the simplest act of kindness.

  “Echo,” Deacon prompted. “Promise me.”

  “I won’t let my guard down, okay?”

  The frown melted. “What about Julian?”

  The shock and betrayal on the king’s face were etched in my memory also. To find out the brother he doted on had tried to have him killed had shattered him. God, I wanted to throttle Julian with arcana.

  I shrugged a shoulder. “I would think attempting to kill your monarch would be a pretty hefty crime, but … I don’t know what Rydian will do with the information. He almost died out there. We almost died. But Julian is the only family he has left, so …”

  Deacon’s gaze dropped to my hands, and his face froze. “Echo, what the fuck is that?”

  Crap, I’d unconsciously been toying with the ring Rydian had given me.

  He crossed the room in a stride and grabbed my hand. “How did you get this?”

  Oh, boy. “Rydian gave it to me.”

  He looked up in horror. “And did he tell you what it meant when he gave you this ring?”

  “I may have been in the process of drowning, so no.”

  Deacon closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “He saved your life.”

  “Yeah.” I winced. “I couldn’t find it in my heart to be pissed at him about that.” I gently pulled my hand from Deacon’s grasp. “Especially when this is the last thing he would want.” I turned the ring on my finger. “He was holding out for true love, and he gave that up to save me. I can’t be anything but grateful.”

  “And what does he expect of you?” Deacon asked softly. “Have you asked him that? A king will want his queen to give him an heir.”

  Oh, God. I hadn’t even thought of that, but now that he said it, of course, it made sense. A king needed an heir. “We haven’t discussed that side of things. He said I could go do my guardian stuff, but I suppose I’ll have to come back to see him, and we’ll … well, we can talk about that side of things.”

  I rubbed at my temple, obligation a band around my chest. I liked Rydian, he was a good man, he was attractive, but I hadn’t thought of him in a romantic light. Now he was my … husband or whatever they called it in the sea realm.

  Fate had brought us together and kept us alive. “I owe it to him to give him a chance, to give us a chance, even if we only ever cultivate a deep friendship.”

  Deacon reached up to caress my face. “Oh, Echo, I think you could do more than that. It’s impossible for someone to know you and not love you.”

  There was intensity in his sky-blue eyes, a longing that made my breath hitch, but before I could ask him what that look meant, he dropped his hand from my face.

  “Stay with Emory,” he said. “I have to try and contact the Hive again.”

  “Try again? You couldn’t get through earlier?”

  “No.”

  I searched his face for concern, for alarm bells, but he’d donned his habitual impassive expression. The one that gave nothing away and kept everyone at bay. Why was it that he and Emory were so good at the aloof act?

  “Deacon?” There was a warning in my tone.

  “It’s nothing for you to worry about.” He headed for the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

  The door closed softly behind him, leaving me wondering what it meant that we couldn’t get in touch with the Hive. I blew out a breath. I’d have to corner him when he returned, but right now, Emory needed me.

  I headed into my room to check on the nephilim. Deacon had undressed him down to his boxers, and he lay under the covers, gloves still on, breathing deep and even in sleep.

  Sleep would heal what the arcana hadn’t. It had been a long day, and my muscles whispered rest.

  With a heavy sigh, I climbed up onto the bed beside Emory, snuggled into his side, and closed my eyes. Just a few minutes.

  Emory was still asleep when I woke a little while later, and Deacon wasn’t back. Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I headed to the washroom. Maybe a shower would chase away the cobwebs.

  The washroom was an oval-shaped structure. The toilet was a strange cup shape which was surprisingly comfortable, and the washbasin was a bowl jutting out from the smooth, marble-like walls. It was like stepping inside a pearl. The shower took up one side of the room, and water jets were built into the ceiling and wall. Stripping down, I turned on the spray and stepped into the water. Warm and pleasant, it battered my skin, making me wonder what they did to take out the salt. They’d gone to a lot of trouble to tailor these quarters to the guardians’ needs. There was no soap, but instead, there were tiny pearl-like beads that when rubbed on the skin exploded with scent. I rubbed them over my skin, over my hair, reveling in the delicious aroma.

  The spray beat out the kinks in my muscles and chased away the residue of the day. The room was steaming up as I turned to reach for the knobs to turn off the water, but I never made it because a figure had stepped into the room. He was naked and hard in all the right places with blazing gold eyes unrestricted by his glasses, and his hands … His hands were bare.

  Gideon.

  Anxiety spiked my blood, and Lyrian’s consciousness sifted in the back of my mind, searchingly. I sent back an I’m okay vibe and pushed the door between us firmly closed. I could deal with this.

  My stomach fluttered.

  Gideon stalked toward me, and my bravado slipped. I backed up instinctively, heart slamming into my ribs as if desperate to burrow its way out. Nope. I couldn’t do this. His presence was too large, invasive, suffocating. I needed to say something, tell him to leave, to get out, to—

  Oh, shit. He was in my personal space, his skin so close it was almost kissing mine, and then his hand was on my throat, long, strong fingers pressing into my skin as he propelled me backward and pinned me to the wall. Something in my abdomen twisted and writhed, a darkness that had been hidden until now. A base need that recognized the intention in his eyes and the determination etched into his face like a promise.

  I should have been scared, but I wasn’t; instead, the dark need bloomed and turned my core into liquid heat. My breath came faster, shallower in anticipation of what he was going to do to me.

  The water beat down on us as he leaned in and pressed his body to mine. My gasp cut the air between us as my breasts pressed to his feverishly warm chest. My hands fluttered up to grasp at his skin—silk over steel. I gripped his biceps, momentarily trapped in the violence of his honey gaze, and then that gaze dropped to my mouth, leaving me free to roam the familiar face that was at this moment wild and deliciously alien to me. Droplets skated over the hard planes of his cheekbones, lingering on his perfectly full lips before sliding down to his jaw. Yes, focus on his face, focus on the beads of water clinging to his thick lashes, don’t think about his hard length pressed to your abdomen. Don’t—his arousal pulsed against me, and my stomach flipped hard. Oh, God. I wanted it.

  “You owe me, Echo.” He pulled me away from the wall, and his other hand tangled in my hair. “You owe me, and I’m ready to collect.”

  This was the moment I should tell him to go fuck himself. This was the moment to blast him with arcana, but instead, I found myself falling to my knees. Instead, I found myself reaching for his arousal. Its smooth, hard, velvet length was heavy in my hand, and I wanted to—needed to—taste him.

  His hand tightened in my hair. “Do it, Echo. Fucking suck me off.”

  His words were crude, igniting something devilish inside me. A wicked desire to turn this on its head, to make him my bitch even though I was the one on my knees. I gripped him at his base and ran my tongue over the tip of him. He sucked in a breath through his teeth.

  “Take it in your mouth,” he ordered.

  “You want this, then we do it my way.” I licked
him again and ran my tongue from base to tip then back again achingly slow, savoring the taste of him and the steady throb between my thighs.

  His groan was guttural and pure pleasure, and his grip on my hair tightened. His hips jerked as if urging me to give him more, and euphoria shot through me because I was doing this. I was eliciting those sounds from him, that hiss as he sucked air through his teeth, the rough curses that fell from his lips as I lapped at him, and then I was taking him in my mouth.

  “Fuck!” He sank into me. “Fuck, Echo.”

  I was melting and throbbing with his every moan. His hips jerked, wanting me to take him deeper, but he was too big for me. Still, I gripped his hard buttocks and took him as deep as I could, resisting the urge to gag because those sounds he was making were too divine, too delicious.

  And then he was pulling me off his length, yanking me up and slamming me back into the wall to claim my lips. He fucked my mouth with his tongue, circling my tongue and sucking on it as if it contained every ounce of joy left in the world. He kissed me hungrily, fiercely, dangerously, but he was holding back. I could feel it in the tension of his body, in the clench of his fist in my hair and the flex of his hand on my throat, and something inside me snapped. I dug my nails into his shoulders and raked at his skin. His chest rumbled, and he moaned into my mouth before tearing free.

  His chest heaved. “Don’t push me, Echo. I will hurt you.”

  I tilted my chin and locked gazes with him. “No. You won’t.”