Touch of Temptation

by Rhyannon Byrd

  “What do you think it is?” she whispered, her skin crawling as she looked over the strange structure that appeared to be made of some kind of dark metal, intricate designs etched into every inch of its glittering surface.

  “Those markings look similar to the ones on the Dark Markers,” he said in a low voice.

  Chills swept over the back of her neck. “That’s creepy.”

  His gaze fell on the bowl that sat on the floor at the base of the altar amid a cluster of thick candles, what appeared to be bloody entrails hanging over the bowl’s wide rim. “Looks like they’ve been making blood sacrifices. I guess Gideon wasn’t lying when he told Kier that the Markers were mixed up in some evil shit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He quickly explained, telling her how the Watchmen had recently learned, thanks to a vampire named Gideon Granger, that after the original Consortium had imprisoned the Casus within Meridian, the leaders, desperate for a way to destroy the immortal monsters, had actually gone into hell in order to find the materials they’d needed to fashion the powerful crosses. The Deschanel believed there was duality in all things—aspects of both good and bad, the light and the darkness—and they viewed the Markers as a perfect example of that conviction. Though it was an eerie concept, Chloe figured it made sense when you thought about it, considering the Dark Markers could protect life…as well as take it away.

  “Kellan,” she murmured, tightening her grip on his hand. “If the markings on the altar are the same as the ones on the crosses, then this altar must have something to do with the Casus. It might even be the way Westmore communicates with Calder in Meridian. Like some kind of paranormal telephone.”

  “Could be,” he grunted, tension vibrating through the hard lines of his body. “Come on. I want you the hell away from that thing.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” Chloe let him pull her along as he started back down the corridor, and was still thinking about what he’d told her about the Markers, when Kellan’s guttural curse made her jump, and the next thing she knew, he was tossing the backpack onto the floor and shoving her behind his back. His shoulders and arms bunched with rock-hard muscle as he released his claws once again, a low snarl rumbling in the back of his throat.

  Wondering what kind of monsters they’d run into now, Chloe peeked around his broad shoulder, a sliver of fear slipping down her spine as she spotted a man and woman standing at the far end of the narrow passageway. The man was tall, with thick, sun-streaked brown hair and the ice-blue eyes of the Casus—but it was the woman who caught her attention. She was petite, barely reaching the Casus’s shoulder, with masses of curly golden hair that reached all the way to her hips, the thick locks tangled and wild around a face so thin, she looked as if she were nothing but skin and bones. At one time, the woman had likely been beautiful, but now she was nothing more than a shell, her expression void of emotion, as if she felt nothing at all.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt your little escape,” the Casus drawled, “but you have something that belongs to me, Watchman.”

  Realizing that this was Gregory, Chloe pressed closer to Kellan’s back, fear twisting her stomach into a painful knot.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Kellan growled. “The Merrick is mine.”

  Prowling a step closer, the Casus lifted his brows. “You’re just a pup. You really think you’d stand a chance against me?”

  “I’m ready to die trying.”

  Gregory lifted his nose and sniffed the air, then slid Kellan a hard, knowing smile. “I can smell the poison in you, Lycan. You’re already as good as dead.”

  “Then what do you have to fear?” Kellan snarled, his deep voice raw with fury as he started toward the Casus.

  “Take care of the canine problem,” Gregory murmured to the blonde. “As much as I’d enjoy teaching him a lesson, I just don’t have the time.”

  The woman lifted one of her hands, her fingers up, her palm pointing right at Kellan, and his powerful body suddenly slammed to a stop, then flew face-first against the wall, his muscular arms pinned at his sides. “What the fuck is this?” he roared, the tendons in his neck straining, while the muscles in his arms and back quivered beneath his dark skin. He was obviously trying to move—but be couldn’t. It was as if he’d been locked in place, and Chloe’s fear tripled, nearly doubling her over.

  “Chloe, can you move?” Kellan shouted, while the Casus’s ice-blue gaze raked over her body, and she shuddered, wishing she had on more than underwear and a shirt. “Chloe, damn it, answer me!”

  “Yes,” she whispered, trying to choke down her stupid fear so that she could think of something to do. She couldn’t just stand there like an idiot, waiting for Gregory to kill them.

  Kellan’s voice shook with rage. “Then get the hell out of here!”

  “I’m not leaving you,” she told him, and the Casus slid her a slow, provocative smile. Kellan was roaring for her to run, but she stood her ground, refusing to leave him, her complete attention focused on Gregory.

  She couldn’t believe this man was the reason she’d been taken. If the look in his eyes hadn’t been so evil, he would have been gorgeous, like one of those models in the Armani ads that they put in all the fashion magazines. Not as good-looking or as well-built as Kellan, but not the kind of guy you’d expect to be a ruthless, cold-blooded monster, either—and it was easy to understand how these bastards had been able to lure their human victims into trusting them. When they were hidden inside human hosts who looked like this one did, it no doubt made it easy for them to prey on the unsuspecting.

  He started toward them, jolting Chloe into action, and she quickly grabbed the gun that Kellan had tucked into the back of his jeans. She had no idea how many bullets were left, but she planned on making every single one of them count as she pointed the weapon at Gregory, taking a single step forward.

  “Stop her,” the Casus told the witch, slowing his steps.

  The blonde raised her skeletal hand again, but nothing happened. Chloe took another step forward, ignoring Kellan’s curses as she moved past the next support beam that held up the ceiling, an idea suddenly coming to her.

  “Why is she still moving?” Gregory snarled over his shoulder.

  The woman lowered her hand, her brow furrowed as she said, “She’s a witch.”

  “One without any power!” He flung the words at the woman, his face turning red with fury, and yet, the blonde’s expression never changed.

  Studying Chloe with her pale, emotionless eyes, she simply said, “No. That’s not true.”

  Still straining against his invisible bonds, Kellan growled, “So she’s the reason you’ve been able to survive the Wasteland, isn’t she, Gregory?”

  With an arrogant roll of his shoulders, Gregory seemed to throw off his anger, sliding Kellan a sharp smile. “She’s amazing, isn’t she? My own little one-woman army.”

  “Are you blackmailing her?”

  The Casus gave a low, rusty laugh, pressing one hand to the center of his chest. “Is it so hard to believe she might actually champion my cause?”

  “Whatever he’s promised you,” Chloe said, cutting a quick glance toward the blonde, “it’s a lie. You can’t trust him.”

  Gregory casually crossed his arms over his chest, a smile still curving his mouth as Chloe came a little closer, her two-handed grip on the gun surprisingly steady, considering her palms were damp and her heart was beating like a bitch.

  “You can shoot me,” he offered in a smooth drawl, sounding as if he was actually enjoying himself, “but she’ll only heal me again.”

  “Move back!” Chloe snapped, jerking her chin toward the end of the hallway. “I’ll go with you, but we’re leaving Kellan here.”

  Eyeing her with a speculative, hungry gaze, the Casus followed her command, taking a single step back.

  “Another one,” she ordered, praying her plan would work, her inspiration born from the events that had taken place about an hour ago. She moved past a second su
pport beam, hoping she’d put enough distance between herself and Kellan. Another five steps brought her to the next beam, the Casus standing not fifteen feet away. Taking a deep breath, she searched within her body for any new, unfamiliar spark of power, curious after the witch’s words—but there was only the Merrick, and so Chloe relaxed the hold she’d had on the primal creature, unleashing its visceral fury as she turned and buried the gun’s remaining bullets into the beam. The wood cracked, and she turned the gun in her hands, using everything she had to slam the butt against the groaning support. It started to bow, only seconds away from giving out, and Chloe quickly turned, running back toward Kellan as fast as she could, while Gregory roared with outrage, his heavy footsteps pounding against the floor as he came after her.

  “It’s coming down!” the blonde screamed, and Chloe looked back over her shoulder just in time to see the woman grabbing hold of Gregory’s arm, then yanking him back with surprising strength. They hit the dusty floor, and before DeKreznick could regain his feet, the beam snapped and a portion of the ceiling caved in, crashing into the passageway in a mass of rubble and dust. Though she didn’t remember falling, Chloe found herself sitting on her bottom in the middle of the corridor, and she pushed her hair out of her eyes just as Kellan broke away from the wall, the witch’s spell obviously broken.

  “I don’t even want to know what the hell you were thinking,” he growled, yanking her back on her feet.

  Coughing, she said, “I was thinking I was saving your ass.”

  He grunted, then snatched up the backpack and grasped her upper arm, pulling her back the way they’d come, the air still thick with dust, making it difficult to breathe. “We have to hurry,” he muttered. “That’s not gonna hold him for long.”

  “How do you feel about climbing out through a window?”

  Looking down at her, he snapped. “Where?”

  Chloe jerked her head in the direction they’d just come. “That last room we passed.”

  Without a word, Kellan turned back, and within minutes they’d stacked the room’s furniture into a makeshift platform that allowed them to crawl out one of the high windows that lined the far wall. It was about a ten-foot drop to the ground on the other side, but Kellan braced himself in the open window, lowering Chloe as far as he could, before dropping her into a bank of snow. Without shoes and proper clothing, she was freezing, the shocking blast of cold that tore into her lungs making her cry out, but Kellan lifted her into his arms as soon as he’d dropped onto the ground beside her, his landing one of perfect animal grace that she would have been tempted to compliment, if she wasn’t so miserably frozen.

  Chloe had been unconscious when she arrived at the compound, so she hadn’t yet seen what the Wasteland looked like. Glancing around as Kellan carried her toward the place in the woods he said his friends would be waiting, she couldn’t help thinking that the strange, moonlit region was seriously messed up. Trees, which should have been barren, were still heavy with leaves, swaying in the icy breeze. The moon shone so brightly, it reminded her of a lavender twilight, the shimmering beams of light glinting against the snow-frosted ground.

  “Does the s-sun ever shine h-here?” she stammered, her teeth chattering so violently she could barely talk.

  “Not much, even in the summertime,” he rumbled huskily, the chilly wind whipping at the auburn strands of his hair. “The spells that trap the exiled Deschanel inside also dim the sunlight.”

  “But how can everything still g-grow? There are trees everywhere.”

  “You’re applying the natural laws of science to this place, but it doesn’t work that way. There’s so much magic at work here, you never really know what you’re going to run into.”

  “I wish they could have d-done something about the wind.”

  Holding her tighter against his chest, his earlier anger seemed to soften as he murmured, “Just a few more minutes and I’ll be able to get you warm, honey. I can scent Seth close by, and he’ll have some clothes for us.”

  “Who’s Seth?”

  “The guy who took Raine out of the compound for me. She got banged up pretty badly in that blast and lost consciousness.”

  As if impervious to the brutal climate, Kellan’s body radiated heat as he carried her into the thick forest, and sure enough, within minutes they came across Seth and Raine. The blond-haired, green-eyed male had wrapped a thick blanket around the unconscious psychic, her small body curled on top of another blanket that’d been laid over the ground. A butterfly bandage had already been placed over a gash in her temple, a thick sweater draped over her left arm and torso, while Seth knelt at her side, wrapping some kind of gauze around her injured right arm, an open first aid kit lying beside him. As Kellan called out a greeting, the good-looking blond pulled a flare gun from a nearby pack, then fired it into the air.

  “What was that for?” Kellan asked.

  “To let the others know I’ve got you,” Seth explained, flicking a quick look over Chloe, before lifting his hard gaze back to Kellan. “Now we can get started back right away, without having to wait for them.”

  Lowering Chloe down to the edge of the blanket, so that her feet didn’t touch the cold ground, Kellan wrapped his arms around her from behind, sharing his body heat as he asked, “Where’s my brother?”

  “He and Morgan were just here,” the human replied, returning his attention to his task, the creases of strain at the corners of his dark green eyes evidence that he was trying to be as careful as possible, “but once they saw the two of you dropping out of that window, and knew you were okay, they took off to follow Westmore’s trail.”

  “Who else came with you?”

  “Aiden, Quinn and Garrick, as well as Noah and Jamison, but they’ll head back to the base camp now that they’ve seen the flare.”

  “What about the Buchanans?”

  Seth shook his head. “Saige stayed behind to work on the maps, and Molly and Hope have been helping her, so Ian and Riley are watching over them. Plus, they’re also looking out for Olivia and Jamie, since Ade wouldn’t trust any outside security with the job, and no way in hell was he bringing those two into the Wasteland.”

  Finishing with Raine’s arm, Seth moved to his feet, and Chloe was surprised to see that he was nearly as tall as Kellan. Seth slid his curious gaze over her face, and Kellan said, “Chloe Harcourt, meet Seth McConnell, former Collective badass.”

  She stiffened with shock as Seth reached out and shook her hand, his mouth curved with a wry smile as he noted her wide eyes. “Don’t worry, Chloe. I’m a badass for your side now.”

  “So you, uh, saw the light?”

  With a gritty laugh, he drawled, “Something like that.” Reaching down, he grabbed one of several packs that sat on the blanket and handed it to Kellan. “These are some things that Morgan put together for you. There are shoes and clothes for both of you, as well as some water, food, a knife and a gun with five rounds of ammo.”

  Taking the pack, Kellan replied, “Thanks, man. You’re a lifesaver.”

  “Did you hit any trouble on your way out?” the soldier asked, while Kellan opened the pack and handed Chloe a pair of jeans and a sweater.

  “We ran into Gregory right there at the end, along with some woman who’s helping him.” Looking at Chloe, he asked, “Do you have any idea what she was?”

  Pulling on the jeans that he’d just given her, she said, “Some kind of witch, I think.”

  “Why couldn’t she freeze you in place the way she did with me?”

  “I’m not really sure.” Chloe quickly pulled on the thick sweater, then sat down beside Raine’s legs so that she could slip on a pair of heavy woolen socks that felt like heaven on her cold toes, followed by the sturdy hiking boots that Kellan found at the bottom of the pack. “But…”

  “Yeah?” he prompted, when her voice trailed off into an uncomfortable silence.

  Hoping he didn’t make more out of it than he should, she shrugged, saying, “It’s just that there are s
ome witch clans whose power doesn’t work when going up against a more powerful witch. But it wouldn’t make any sense, in this case, because the Mallory curse binds any power I might have otherwise had.”

  His gaze locked on hers, dark and intense, smoldering with something that looked strangely like triumph. “It would make perfect sense, if the curse is finally coming to an end,” he drawled in a soft rasp.

  Knowing she needed to tell him he was crazy, Chloe took a deep breath, ready to launch into her argument, when Seth interrupted them, jerking his chin toward the backpack that Kellan had set on the ground while he dressed. “What’s in the bag?” the soldier asked.

  Kellan held her stare for a moment longer, warning her that the conversation wasn’t over, then looked at Seth. “We found the archives,” he told his friend, quickly slipping on a black jacket and reaching for the backpack, then slinging it back over his shoulder.

  “Do you have the journal that was with them?” Seth grunted.

  Kellan’s eyes narrowed, his voice a little gruffer as he said, “How do you know about the journal?”

  “After you disappeared, my men got their hands on a Collective officer back in the States. I flew back last week to talk to him. Took forever to get anything out of the guy, but he finally broke. Couldn’t tell us anything about this compound, but he did tell us about a journal that Westmore had found with the archives. Evidently, it’s how the Kraven found out about the maps that lead to the Markers.”

  Chloe sent the Lycan a smug look as she moved back to her feet. “I told you that journal was important.”

  He answered her look with a slow, bone-melting grin that did wonders for her core body temperature. “I guess you were right.”

  “I’m glad you found it,” Seth said in a low voice, kneeling down to dress Raine in the sweater that’d been draped over her chest. Chloe knelt down on the psychic’s other side to help him, both of them trying not to jar her injured arm. “I was hoping we’d come across the journal in the compound, but I hadn’t even had a chance to tell everyone about it,” he added. “The second Quinn, Garrick and I hit Kierland’s camp, we set off for this place.”