Darkness Possessed (Order of the Blade)

by Stephanie Rowe

  Zach’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded. “I figured it was something like that,” he said. “You’re too much of a warrior and too familiar with the jungle for it to be anything but that. So José wants to kill you because you’re the last thing standing in the way of his ownership of the jungle?”

  “Yes, I’m the last one left of my tribe. I was the chosen one. I was the one that was supposed to have the power to stop him. The seers had projected my coming for centuries.” Bitterly she held out her hand and showed him her palm. The only non-tattooed spot on her arm showed a seven-pointed black star on her skin. Nothing had ever stuck to it. Nothing she’d done had ever been able to hide it. The tattoo needles that had covered José‘s brands had been useless against that black star. “This was my gift, and my burden. The infant born with the seven-pointed star would save the jungle. That was me. I spent my entire childhood learning how to fight and be the best warrior ever. When I turned sixteen, I went out to find him.”

  God, she remembered that day. She remembered the celebration with all the women in her tribe who had gathered to honor her. They’d come from thousands of miles away, even from other countries, those who had left the jungle had come back to bid her good fortune on her quest. “I thought it was so great,” she said softly. “I thought my legacy would give me strength that I didn’t have to find on my own. I had my dagger. I had my bow. I had my quiver. On my way there, I actually had the jungle dancing around me. I thought I was unstoppable.” She could recall with vivid clarity the strength that had been surging through her body on that day. She had been so excited to fulfill the mission that she’d been born with, the one that her mother and the tribe had been training her for since the moment of her birth.

  Zach’s grip on her arms softened, and he leaned forward, watching her intently. “I was once like that too,” he said. “I thought I was the king of the world. No one could stop me. “

  She looked at him then, right into his dark eyes. She saw in them an understanding she hadn’t expected. For the last fifteen years, she’d looked back at her sixteen-year-old self, and wondered if it would have turned out differently if she hadn’t been so arrogant. She had expected condemnation from Zach, and she hadn’t softened the retelling in order to avoid it. Yet, as he watched her, she saw only understanding and compassion.

  “What happened? Were you unprepared for his strength?” Zach asked.

  “No.” She met his gaze, suddenly wanting to tell him, this heroic stranger, about the fatal flaw that had doomed her. The one thing she hadn’t been prepared for, the one thing that had swept her off her feet in a whirlwind, until it had become too late to stop. “I was unprepared for the fact that I was his sheva.”

  ***

  His sheva?

  Zach froze at Rhiannon’s confession. The implications of what she’d just revealed were staggering. She was the soul mate of the warrior he needed to kill. Jesus. She was another man’s woman.

  He immediately released her, dark emotions cascading through him. Intense fury and possessiveness roared through him. He was consumed by a need to rip apart her bond with another man, and he felt like he was drowning in an almost insurmountable sense of loss, as if he were plummeting through the air into a yawning canyon that would never end.

  And it wasn’t just any other man, it was the one he was hunting. Jesus. Was she leading him into a trap? “So you love him?” Shit. That was the question he asked? But even as it hung in the air, he knew it was a stupid question. Of course she did. The sheva bond allowed for nothing else. She fucking loved this prick, which meant that he couldn’t trust her. Not even for a second. “Why the hell isn’t he protecting you from all this crap that’s chasing you?”

  “Protecting me?” Her eyes widened, and bitter revulsion darkened her face. “You want to know if I love him? Love him? How can you ask that? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be some man’s sheva?”

  He hesitated at the sudden venom in her voice, at the depths of her anger and bitterness. Her emotions were stark and raw, and he knew they were real. What was going on? How could she sound like that when talking about the man she was meant to be with? “No,” he said carefully, now uncertain as to what he was dealing with. “I’ve never been another man’s sheva.” He’d seen enough of it though. He knew that the connection was unshakeable…until the rogue took over the male. But when the rogue took over, that only affected the male. The female’s bond with him was so strong that after she killed her mate to stop him, she always wound up killing herself because she couldn’t live without him.

  “Well, then, let me enlighten you,” she snapped. “The day José took me, I thought my world would stop if he didn’t kiss me, touch me, and take me into his arms forever.”

  Something hardened in Zach’s stomach. Something so hard it hurt. Yeah, he didn’t want her, he didn’t need her, but every word she spoke about herself with her mate felt like she had taken her dagger and jammed it right into his flesh, twisting it with every syllable that she uttered. “Yeah. I know all about the physical need between a sheva and her mate.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice, and he lunged to his feet, needing space between them.

  “Do you?” Her hard-edged voice followed him across the clearing. “Do you really know what it’s like to be unable to resist a man who you know is so evil that he makes your skin crawl? Do you know what it’s like to try to run away from him, only to be stopped by the mere sound of his voice calling you back? Do you have any idea what it’s like to hate a man so deeply, recoil from his touch, and be disgusted at the thought of him making love to you, but to be completely unable to make yourself stop him? Your body betrays you. You become the victim of an unstoppable, amoral lust that drives you into the arms of a man who is so despicable that you would have killed him a dozen times over and happily burned in hell, just for the chance to cleanse the earth of his presence. You know he’s that awful, and you hate him that much, and yet you can’t stop yourself from opening your legs every time he comes near you. Do you know what that’s like, Zach? Do you really? Because it’s hell.”

  Zach spun around to face her, stunned by the depths of torment in her voice. She wasn’t faking it. She hated her mate…and yet couldn’t stop herself from responding physically to him. He stared at her, and he didn’t see the warrior anymore. He saw a woman, a vulnerable woman who had been victimized by the man who was supposed to protect her. Her dark hair was tumbling out of her bun, her eyes were burning with pain, and her fingers were clenched around her plate so tightly that her fingers were white. He had a sudden vision of her focusing those dark eyes on him, begging him to stop, but being unable to stop him if he chose not to listen to her. What kind of man would do that to a woman? To his mate? Rhiannon wasn’t even his, and yet the need to protect her was so strong that he’d give his fucking life to keep her safe.

  Suddenly the magnitude of what had happened between them earlier weighed heavily upon him. No wonder she had been shocked when he’d stopped, but even more incredible was the fact she’d surrendered to him. She had no reason to trust a man, and yet she’d completely given herself over to him. She’d trusted him so deeply that it was his touch that had given her the strength to connect to her plants again.

  Son of a bitch. What she’d given him was extraordinary.

  Slowly, he walked back over to her and crouched in front of her. “I’ve known many Calydons and their shevas,” he said gruffly, his voice hoarse with emotions he could barely grasp. “I know there’s a draw between them, but I thought it was mutual. That they wanted each other.” He needed to understand what was happening, what she lived with.

  She shook her head. “It’s an uncontrollable kind of desire,” she said softly. “Not voluntary. I—” She hesitated, her gaze sliding away from his.

  “You what?” He asked the question gently, but something inside him was on fire with the need to know. This was so far beyond his comprehension, what she had endured at the hands of her soul mate.
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br />   After a long moment, she looked back at him. “It wasn’t just the sex. It was more. It was as if he could control me with his will, as if he could infuse his own desires and wants with mine, so that what was inside me became his soul and not mine. My mind was there, and I knew that I hated what was happening, but I couldn’t make my body listen to what I wanted, and I couldn’t turn off the desire that he stoked in me.” She shrugged, a gesture of complete helplessness. “I couldn’t stop it. He liked to watch me have sex with his warriors. He liked the fact that I hated it, but he could make me do it anyway.”

  A deep, visceral sense of betrayal settled deep in Zach’s gut. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. A Calydon protects his mate. He insures her wellbeing. He claims her as his own, and he would never be able to handle watching her with someone else.”

  Rhiannon shook her head, and he sensed a great sadness from her. “It wasn’t like that. He was…depraved.” Her face paled. “Not ‘was.’ ‘Is.’ He’s so powerful, Zach. He’s so far beyond an ordinary Calydon.”

  Zach ground his jaw. Jesus. This bastard was still alive, and hunting Rhiannon. He had to die. There was no other possibility. Instinctively, he set his hand on her hips, needing to encircle her, to use his body to protect her and keep her safe. “How did you get away?”

  Her fingers went to the red amulet at her throat. “Do you see this? This saved my life.”

  Zach studied the red stone more closely. He had noticed it before, but only in passing. He wasn’t really the jewelry type, but now that he inspected it, he could see that it was marked with ancient designs that looked vaguely familiar. “What is it?”

  “It protects my mind from him. When I have it on, I can think for myself. I still sense my body’s need for him, but I can think and I can make my body respond to my own wishes, instead of his.” Her fingers tightened around it, as her voice softened with a memory only she could see. “I found it buried in the dirt beside a river. José and his men had just finished with me, and had left me there so I could clean up.” She ran her hand over her stomach as if she were trying to wipe away the memories of all that they’d left on her flesh.

  Dark anger coiled through him, but he shut it down, staying focused on her. It had been so long since he’d encountered a woman who was so strong and so vulnerable, and she awoke in him things that he hadn’t felt in so long. She inspired him to be a better man so that he could protect her. So, instead of getting all pissed off, he simply took her hand, lifting it away from the almost frantic wiping of her belly. She looked at him in surprise as he encased her fingers in his, trying to draw her back from the memories trying to trap her. He pressed a light kiss to the back of her hand, trying to give something good back to her.

  She smiled faintly, and didn’t pull away. “José was messing with me,” she continued, her voice slightly stronger now. “He was calling me back to him, just to prove to everyone that even though my body hurt so much I could barely even crawl, that I would still come back to him for more.”

  Jesus. What a bastard. He’d thought there was no one lower than Rohan, but he knew now he had not even begun to scrape the surface. Rohan had betrayed Dante, but what Rhiannon’s mate had done to her was beyond comprehension.

  She studied their entangled fingers, hiding her face from him. “I was so exhausted and felt so hopeless that when I felt my body respond to his command, I started to cry. I hated it when he made me cry, and when I showed weakness, but I couldn’t handle any more. I was so drained and horrified by what I had done.” She lifted her eyes to Zach’s, and he felt a part of his soul crack from the agony in her eyes. “I was starting to crawl back to him, dragging myself across the dirt that was churned up from what had happened earlier. The earth was soft and loose, and my hands sunk in with each move I made. It felt so good, so healing, the way it was cool against my skin. It reminded me of when I’d had a connection with the earth, you know? When nature had been a part of me.”

  He nodded. “Your connection with the plants is extraordinary. He took that from you, too?”

  She nodded. “I was so broken and scared that I couldn’t even feel them, but that day, the earth felt different. It felt like it was alive again, like it was telling me not to give up, that the strength was still in me somewhere.”

  Zach leaned forward, watching intently, riveted by her story. “What happened? Were you able to use the plants?”

  “No.” A small smile flickered on her face, a spark of defiance that reminded him of the woman he’d first met, a woman fighting for her life and her freedom. “Better. I found this.” She touched the amulet around her neck. “My fingers sank into the earth, and my pinky suddenly felt like a shock exploded through it. I jerked my hand back, and I saw this stone sitting there in the dirt, completely clean and exposed, as if someone had just finished polishing it and then set it down for me to find. A small, red, misshapen piece of glass that changed everything for me. “

  She smiled, and this time, it was a beautiful, real smile, that made his heart actually tighten. “What did it do for you?” he asked

  She continued to finger it. “I reached for it, and the instant my fingers closed around it, my head cleared, and my body belonged to me again. It’s so hard to explain that moment, but literally, it was as if I had been a puppet, and someone cut every single string at the same time. Suddenly, I controlled my body and my thoughts, and the best thing of all was that I didn’t want him anymore.” She grinned at him, excitement flashing in her eyes at the memory, her expression so vivid that he felt like he was in that moment with her, experiencing freedom for the first time. “Do you know what that felt like? Not to want him? Not to be facing this huge battle in my head against what he wanted and what I felt? It was just gone. It was just me.”

  “That must have been incredible.” He knew what that was like. He had such a clear memory of the moment he’d discovered he had fire, at a most opportune time. Freedom was incredible. Freedom earned by your own strength was the most powerful of all.

  “It was. God, it was.” She was smiling openly now, but she was still holding his hand. Her fingers were relaxed now, though, idly stroking his as if she wasn’t even aware she was doing it. “José called my name, and I tensed, waiting for it to crash through me like it always did, but it didn’t. It was simply a sound, an empty, powerless sound.” She grinned. “That moment was so amazing. He called me, and instead of turning toward him, my hand instinctively reached for a stick, a stick I wanted to use against him. I still remember sitting there on my knees, staring at this stick in my hand, barely able to even understand what was happening. I didn’t even really make a conscious decision to get the stick. It was just instinct, a need to protect myself in a way I hadn’t been able to do for so long. I didn’t even know what was going on.”

  “But you did know, didn’t you?” Zach asked.

  She laughed softly. “Even after all those years of being trapped, I still had the instincts that I was trained with. It took me about thirty seconds to figure out what was going on. I didn’t have time to fully process it, but I knew that something critical had happened.” She met his gaze. “I knew I had been given the power to resist him, but there were eleven warriors there. Just because I could think for myself didn’t mean I could defeat them, you know?”

  Zach couldn’t believe what she was saying. How could anyone have that kind of self-discipline? “You went to him anyway, didn’t you? You made yourself pretend you didn’t have it?”

  She nodded. “I just grabbed the stone and clenched it in my fist, and then acted like everything was the same.”

  Zach heard the agony in her voice, and understood what she wasn’t saying. Even when she was back in full control of her faculties, she had understood that to fight prematurely would reveal what she had found, and José would have taken it from her. A warrior, which she was, would have held onto that stone until she had the right moment to escape. “How long did it take until you had the right opportunity to escape?”r />
  “Eleven months.”

  Zach swore under his breath, barely able to imagine what she had endured for so long. And then, to have to fake it, to force her body not to fight for survival… He shook his head in disbelief. “How did you make yourself stay for eleven months when you didn’t have to?”

  “I did have to. I knew I would have only one chance to get away, so I had to make sure I timed it perfectly.” Rhiannon managed a small, half-smile.

  “But how did you make yourself not fight back?” He wasn’t blind. He could see the torment in her eyes, and hear the pain in her voice. She’d suffered every minute under her soul mate’s power, and yet she’d managed to hide that she could think for herself for eleven months. “How did you let him…” Shit. He didn’t even want to think about what she’d endured, let alone say it. But if she could survive it, then he could say it. “How did you keep yourself from fighting back when he and the others raped you?” Because that’s what it was. It didn’t matter whether she chose to submit or was drawn to José on a deeper level. It was rape, clear and simple, an unfathomable act for a Calydon to perpetrate on the mate he was born to protect.

  A smile flickered briefly across her face, and he saw it for what it was, an appreciation for how he had phrased it, for the fact he accepted and acknowledged it for what it had been. “The only way to do that was to become numb, and not be present in my body, my heart, or my mind. In some ways, that was even harder than the nine years I spent trying to resist him, because at least then I’d been alive and fighting. Once I had to turn myself off, I felt like I was already dead.” She met his gaze. “When I was under his thrall, at least I was trying to fight. During those eleven months…” she shook her head. “A part of me had to die in order to pull it off.”