“I’m here to buy the stone from you.” Her voice sounded raspy and weak to her own ears.
A bark of caustic laughter escaped him. “You’re the other buyer? The one called No One?” His steel-colored eyes flickered, their expression derisive.
“Yes.” She marshaled her thoughts and thrust her emotions aside, mentally locking them away as if she were going into battle, which in a sense she was. “I’m prepared to pay whatever you want for it, Marcus.”
Rage flared in his grey eyes as she spoke his name. “What if I want the last six years of my life back, Tait?”
She knew then that she could not win. The stone was lost to her. He had as much right to it as she had, therefore she would never be able to call the stone to her. It held as much of his magic as it held of hers so it would never leave him once he took possession of it. White-hot pain lanced through her, and she threw caution to the winds.
“At least you have a future! You can live and love, finish out your career, retire in comfort and have a family!” Her voice rose slightly as her emotions began to wriggle free of her control. “I have nothing but memories and that heart. You don’t need it, Marcus. You have a life. That heart is all I have left!”
His eyes darkened and his lips curled into a snarl. “You’re the one who threw it all away, Tait. I have no sympathy for you. The heart is mine. Go back to the hole you crawled out of and know that now, you have nothing left!”
He turned away from her and strode to the desk, flashing his ID to the demon who eyed him carefully and then handed over the velvet bag. Marcus spun around and headed to the door, his steely gaze flicking over Tait as she stood rooted in place, draped in the folds of the Alizar cloak, shaking with emotion at the cruelty of his words.
“I thought I wanted vengeance. I survived for six long years as a prisoner of war because all I could think of was how you betrayed me and how much I wanted to kill you for it.” His harsh words lashed her already abraded heart. “Seeing you now, I’m glad I never had the opportunity to throw away my life by taking yours.”
The pain exploding within her splintered her caution. “What life? I’m dead, Marcus. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. Captain Tait Boland died because the only man she ever loved was killed in action.” A rusty laugh escaped her. “Even if you wanted me, you couldn’t have me. I don’t exist anymore. I am No One.”
His expression hardened but he didn’t say another word as he turned away from her. Anger began to filter through her pain.
“Vengeance was mine,” she told him boldly in a voice husky with emotion. “My hand took the life of the person who betrayed you, and despite the fact that it cost me my own life, I would do it again. Without you, I had no life anyway. There is nothing you could ever do to me that would be as bad as losing you was.”
He glanced back over his shoulder, his hard gaze raking over her, his mouth set in grim lines. She realized then that he looked nothing like the man she’d loved so deeply and lost. Uncharacteristic tears burned her eyes for a moment, and her throat ached. She touched it briefly with one shaking hand, but when his eyes narrowed, following the movement of her tremor racked, scarred fingers, she thrust it down into the Alizar cloak, out of sight. The urge to run from him, to get away from his cold, steely gaze, rose like panic within her.
When he shook his head dismissively and jerked the door open, she broke.
“You’re welcome to my half of the heartstone. My heart always belonged to you anyway. Have a good life, Marcus,” she whispered, her tone agonized.
He whirled around, eyes blazing, but she used his movement against him, slipping past him as she bolted through the door. She nearly careened into the man standing outside.
“Get out of my way, Branson!” she hissed at Marcus’s best friend and second in command.
Shocked, Captain Branson Gaines stepped back as he obviously recognized her voice. She spared him a brief glance then raced down the road to the portal. She didn’t know if they followed her and didn’t have time to check. She needed to get away from them before she lost what little was left of her soul. The portal appeared in front of her and she swiftly stepped inside, her magic powering up instantly. She closed her eyes, unwilling to check if she’d been followed, and let the portal take her effortlessly to the slum she now called home.
Once she had determined that she’d not been followed, she made her way to the dark little house where she lived deep in Estep Realm, squirreled away in the bowels of the Hawksmoor slums. With the door both physically locked as well as spell-locked, she threw off the Alizar cape and went into the tiny bathroom. She carefully washed her face and hands. Drying herself on a towel, she stared into the cracked and age-spotted mirror.
Fine lines fractured her beautiful face and skin, scars from the torture she’d endured. On her neck, the skin seemed melted, a memento of the fire that had ensured her escape from prison. Her once gorgeous strawberry blonde hair hung in lank, frost white strands, bleached by pain and the horrors she’d endured.
Scarred in mind and body, she crept to her bed and lay there, dry eyed and unable to weep for the loss of her love, her career, and her life. Bleak acceptance of her fate swept over her as she acknowledged the stone and all it represented was as lost to her as every other facet of her former life, including Marcus. She didn’t know why she’d even wanted the damn thing now. It wouldn’t have brought her anything but painful memories that she was better off without.
Her eyes closed, and unbidden, Marcus’s broad shouldered form appeared. Tears didn’t come, but the lump in her throat returned, aching and threatening her breathing. She couldn’t change the past. And knowing what she knew now, she still wouldn’t have done anything differently. Brigadier General Nels Price had sent Marcus, Bran and the rest of the Pythian Elite expeditionary unit to their deaths. The fact that they'd survived didn’t change anything. Even if Tait had known Marcus was alive, she would still have walked into Price’s office and taken his life. He deserved to be executed for his crimes. Based on the Elite’s laws and strict code of honor, as the sole survivor of the unit by virtue of the fact that she’d not been with them, Tait had every right to be Price’s executioner.
Shifting beneath the thin blanket, Tait curled into herself. Marcus had the heart. His piece and hers. Not that it mattered, she thought wearily. She’d spoken the truth when she’d told him he'd always had her heart. The real one and the part of her soul she’d magicked into the heartstone, writing the runes with her fingertip and incantations. Funny how she could still feel pain despite being dead inside.
As an exhausted sleep claimed her, she wondered if Marcus would bother to find out the truth. He could if he wanted to. It wouldn’t change anything though. No amount of magic in the universe could give her back what had been taken from her. You couldn’t buy or magick a future.
Unbreak Me (Spellbound Treasure)
Unbreak Me (Spellbound Treasure)
Chapter Two
Estep Realm
Falconaire City
Pythian Elite Barracks
Estep Realm was the last bastion of humans without magic. Unfortunately, humans born with the ability to use magic had begun to outnumber the non-magical humans nearly a century before. The skewing of society toward magic and technology had divided the realm into cities where magic had been outlawed, cities where tech reigned supreme, and cities where the military had the final word.
Falconaire City had both tech and magic. It was the seat of government for Estep Realm, home of the Estep Prime Minster and home to the Pythian Elite, a branch of the military specializing in warriors who wielded magic as well as modern conventional weaponry. Magic held as much reverence for the inhabitants of Falconaire as technology did. The city prided itself on being the safest place in the realm as well as the most advanced.
The Pythian Elite barracks sat in a corner of their exclusive compound. Each unit was housed together in a pod-like octagon of stripped down mini-suites comprised of a bedroom wit
h a tiny bathroom, a small office slash living room, and a convenience kitchen barely large enough for a man to turn around.
Upon their return from the Mellonian Realm, Marcus and Branson had been issued uniforms and a new unit. Thus far, they were the only two soldiers in their new unit but their new commanding officer Colonel Ayers had promised that wouldn’t last. Currently, they were on medical leave while they reacclimated to their jobs and previous lives. However, neither of them had family or a life to adjust to any longer. They’d spent the first few weeks of their return drinking and hanging out in various old haunts, trying to regain the sense that they belonged there. Nothing worked. Neither of them felt comfortable. Now, after the trip to Crossroads, what little peace Marcus had regained had been turned on its ear.
He paced his quarters, more antsy than he could ever remember being. Bran always did his job exceptionally well, but Marcus couldn’t help but be nervous. The questions racing through his brain over and over needed answers soon. He’d waited six long years for vengeance on those who had betrayed him, and he was eager to have it done. In his mind, he’d enacted just how it would be when he wrapped his hands around Tait’s throat, letting her believe in the caress, only to have his fingers squeeze the life from her worthless body.
When he and Branson had returned to Falconaire City from the Mellonian realm, Colonel Ayers had escorted them to the office of the general in charge of the Pythian Elite. General Cochrane had told them only that Tait and their former CO, Nels Price, were dead and the head of the Pythian Elite, General Boland, had retired. General Cochrane had refused to give any explanation and intimated that questions about what had happened in their absence were not welcome. Rage had consumed Marcus. He hadn’t analyzed exactly what it stemmed from, but knew much of it lay in the fact that Cochrane told him Tait was dead.
Seeing her at Crossroads, her beauty hidden inside an Alizar cloak, hearing the bitterness in her voice, seeing the dull pain in her indigo eyes… She had changed into someone he didn’t know and that more than shocked him. It scared him. Even if she hadn’t hinted at what had happened, the instant he’d seen how different her eyes were, he’d instinctively known there had to be much more to the story of his betrayal than what he’d known for the past six years. His gut had always told him that Tait hadn’t been his betrayer. Now, it sang “I told you so” with every thud of his heart. In fact, just on the strength of that brief meeting with her at Spellbound Treasure, he was willing to bet she’d been betrayed as well.
It galled him that Branson had taken one look at her and known that something horrendous, something far beyond their unit’s betrayal, had occurred. All the way back to Falconaire, Branson had insisted to Marcus that the situation needed investigating, offering to dig up the facts himself. So Marcus had sent him out to do so. Now, he paced his tight quarters, his nerves on edge as he waited for Bran to return with answers to the puzzle his life had become six years before.
He’d just poured himself a brandy when the palm-lock allowed Bran into his quarters. Grim-faced, Marcus’s closest friend sank down on a chair and gestured toward the brandy.
“Make mine a double. I need it.”
Alarm shot through Marcus. Bran had never been a drinker. He was also perpetually optimistic, a smile never far from his lips. At the moment, Bran looked like someone had slaughtered his entire family in front of him. Shaken, angry, shocked, and filled with some sort of grim resolve.
Marcus handed his best friend a snifter half full of the expensive alcohol. With a long sigh, Bran sipped from the glass, his head tipping back against the leather recliner, his eyes closing. Taking the chair opposite him, Marcus drank his brandy and waited, impatience rising.
Another sigh escaped Branson. His eyes opened slowly and focused on Marcus. “You’re not going to like this, so you better drink up,” he advised.
Ignoring Bran’s warning, Marcus cupped his drink in his hands and leaned forward. “What did you find out?”
Bran looked at him with sympathetic eyes. “It’s a complex story, one I had to piece together from a lot of sources.”
“And?” Marcus demanded angrily, his fist tightening on the short stem of the brandy snifter.
Reaching into his back pocket, Bran took out a sheaf of papers. He tossed them down on the small table beside Marcus. On top was a newspaper clipping with Tait’s beautiful face taking up most of the space. The headline held him rigid with shock.
“Convicted Murderer Dies Saving Fellow Inmates.”
“What the fuck?” Marcus whispered, grabbing the article.
“Cochrane didn’t lie. Nor was Tait lying when she said she’s dead now.” Bran flicked a finger at the edge of the paper.
Marcus looked up from skimming the story which told of a fire at the high security prison on Eagle Island. An inmate named Molly Dare who had been convicted of theft had helped Tait rescue the inmates and staff. Molly and Tait had saved the warden’s life, but the walls had collapsed before Tait could get out. Molly had been burned trying to save Tait. Once Molly had been released from the hospital, she’d been given her freedom as payment for all the lives she’d saved. The warden had still been in the hospital, but the minister in charge of the prison system, under pressure by the media and the public, had declared Molly – her face obscured by bandages – a hero and set her free. Tait’s body had been recovered but it was barely recognizable, and had been identified mostly by the unusual color of her hair, some of which had been untouched by the fire. Both Molly, who had been Tait’s cellmate, and Tait’s father, General Boland, identified the body.
The paper fell from Marcus’s lax hand. He stared at Branson, his heart hammering. “Who the fuck did I see yesterday?” he asked hoarsely. “It was Tait. I know it was.”
Bran nodded. “Oh, it was. I’m sure of it.”
Marcus drew a shaky breath. He felt as if someone had knocked his legs out from under him. He swallowed hard. For six years, he’d believed that the woman he loved had betrayed him, and the vengeance in his heart had served to get him through the worst ordeal of his life. Now, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
He got up and poured himself a full snifter of brandy before returning to his chair. “Tell me all of it. I need to know the truth,” he said with a forbidding tone.
Bran smiled at him sympathetically. “You do. But it’s not pretty, Ren, and you need to brace yourself to hear it.”
Marcus settled himself in his chair, sipping his drink, feeling slightly shaky from what Bran had already revealed. His Tait, a murderer who’d been sent to prison? What the fuck had happened when he'd left? He’d already dismissed his long held belief that she’d betrayed him. Her pain the day before had been palpable and wasn’t something she could have faked. She’d never been a good liar, at least not with him.
Paper crackled as Bran held out another clipping. He took it, staring at the face of their former commander Nels Price.
“There’s the bad guy,” Bran told him coolly. “Price set up the ambush. He bargained with the Mellonians to kill our unit. He never knew that they’d taken us prisoner instead, needing us to work the Altair mine. They double crossed him, but he didn’t live to find that out.”
“Why would he want us dead?” Marcus asked, looking up from the clipping which was an article about their unit being lost in an ambush in the Mellonian Realm.
Bran shrugged. “Apparently, he thought he needed you and Tait and General Boland out of the way in order to move up the ranks. He had his eye on the General’s job and after that a spot on the Pythian Elite Counsel. It seems he had political aspirations. From the cou ncil seat, he could have run for a minister seat.”
Ice began to form inside Marcus. He’d never liked his former commander. The man wanted everything by the book, would never bend even the slightest. He saw things solely in black and white, and had shown himself to be egocentric on more than one occasion. His self-serving nature had gone unnoticed by most people, but Marcus had seen how jealous the man w
as of his relationship with Tait, and his closeness to her father, the commander in chief of the Pythian warrior Elite forces. Price had always hinted that Tait and Marcus held such high ranks in the Elite because of their ties to General Boland. He’d constantly sent them on missions they shouldn’t have survived as if their failure would then reinforce his stance that they hadn’t earned their places in the Elite.
“So the ambush was meant to kill me. What about Tait and the General?”
Bran held out another news clipping. This one contained a story about the General’s collapse at his office. He’d had a serious heart attack and had fallen into a coma. The doctors hadn’t expected him to survive.
Marcus’s mouth tightened. How convenient for Price. Too convenient. He glanced up at Bran. “He orchestrated this, didn’t he?”
Another shrug lifted Bran’s wide shoulders. “Probably. I think he poisoned the General causing the heart attack. The coma was a bit of a shock for the doctors too. They’d been sure the General would recover, but as soon as they moved him to a private room, he lapsed into a coma.”
Drawing a deep breath, Marcus finally asked the question that he wanted answered most of all. “Where was Tait during all this?”
Branson finished his brandy and set the glass down. He gave Marcus yet another news clipping. Silently, Marcus read the article.
“When the news about the ambush broke, Tait refused to believe you were dead. She made a lot of waves at headquarters. She began an investigation against Price’s orders. She ruffled a lot of feathers trying to get to the bottom of things. She turned the barracks upside down looking for clues,” Bran said softly. “When she discovered Price was behind it, she confronted him in his office. No one knows for sure what happened, but the official word was that she was insane with grief over your death and attacked Price.”
Unbreak Me (Spellbound Treasure) Page 2