“I killed Price, you know. Deliberately. And not pleasantly. I used the Zochen Maru Vo on him. I made him confess that he’d sent you to your death.”
Marcus’s heart nearly stopped. The Zochen Maru Vo torture had the singular distinction of leaving the victim lucid and unable to pass out while the poison fried their nerve endings, upping their pain level as the ritual knives sliced through their body. Most victims died of blood loss. Many went insane from the pain before they died.
“I took his eyelids first. I wanted to make sure he couldn’t close his eyes. I wanted him to see and feel everything,” she rasped with a cold, hard voice devoid of emotion. “I deserved the court-martial.”
“You didn’t deserve prison. Had your father not been in a coma you wouldn’t even have been put in the brig for taking out a traitor to the Elite. You had a perfect right to execute him.” Marcus knew her downfall had been orchestrated. Her punishment had been far too great for her crime and not appropriate for a decorated officer and daughter of the Elite’s greatest General.
A rusty bark of laughter escaped her. “I didn’t care, Marcus. You were dead. Nothing mattered. Nothing at all.”
A heavy shudder shook her frame, and she eased back from his body. He wanted to protest, wanted to haul her close to him and wrap her in his coat and take her back to his quarters where she would be safe. But so much had changed and she had changed. He let her go if only because he sensed that she needed the space to gather herself. Her fragility hit him anew. Not only had her body become more fragile, but her state of mind, her spirit, her heart, and her soul had too. She hid the truth well, but Marcus knew her better than anyone, and he knew she was broken.
All his life, Marcus had been a strategist with an unerring sense of what was needed to achieve his goals. This time, he knew his chances were slim. Not only did he have to uncover their betrayers, he had to protect Tait and find a way to unbreak her soul. He wanted her back. He wanted their life back. A fire burned in his gut when he thought of all they had lost at the hands of men who thought of them as pawns and stumbling blocks to their ambition. He wanted those men to pay for what they’d taken from him and Tait.
With somber eyes, he watched Tait pull a thin flannel robe around her naked body. She walked over to the chair where his duster lay, the heartstone glowing in the pocket. She reached for it, then drew her hand back as if stung. Her head turned, and the fear in her eyes cut him deeply, pain ricocheting through his body.
“Can I…touch it?” she whispered, her indigo irises nearly black with emotion.
He rose from the bed, unconcerned with his nakedness, and went to her. Slipping his hand into the pocket of the duster he pulled out the two pieces of the heart. Each part clung to the other, just as it had when he’d tumbled it from the Spellbound Treasures bag. The runes glowed gold now and heat emanated from the stone. The instant he’d taken it from the bag after picking it up from Spellbound Treasures, he’d been inundated with memories of himself with Tait. His emotions had flowed from him naturally, and he’d known in that instant that he didn’t hate her, could never hate her. His soul was bound to hers just as surely as the two halves of the stone were bound together and imbued with bits of their souls.
Carefully, he took her hand in his and let the two halves of the stone fall into her palm. She sucked in a breath, her eyes grew wide, and her fingers closed around the stone. A long sigh escaped her and the tension left her body as her eyelids dropped.
“So beautiful. Our life together was wonderful,” she whispered sadly.
Marcus took her in his arms, holding her gently. “It will be again, I swear it.”
Tait rubbed her thumb over the runes she had created on her own half of the stone. “I want to believe that, but I just don’t have enough hope left inside me,” she admitted.
He kissed the top of her head, her temple, her cheek, the corner of her lips. “I have enough for us both. I will fix this, Tait,” he vowed. “You hold onto the stone and think about what happened here today in that bed over there. Let Bran and I work on this. When we have more answers, we’ll all go see your father. He’s better now. Retired, but not without power. Giving him back his daughter will be just the impetus he needs to help us clear you.”
She trembled within his embrace and Marcus’s jaw tightened. “Your nightmare is over, Tait. I promise you. It’s all over.”
Unbreak Me (Spellbound Treasure)
Chapter Five
Estep Realm
Falconaire City
Pythian Elite Barracks
Marcus slammed into his quarters intent on a shower and some mission planning with Branson. He skidded to a stop when Bran’s head popped up from the couch. His friend blinked sleepily at him.
“Did you fall asleep waiting for me?” he asked, amusement getting the better of him.
Bran yawned and stretched. “Yes. What took you so fucking long?”
Marcus flopped down on an armchair and grinned. Despite all the obstacles he faced, he felt better than he had at any point since he’d left Tait to go on the Mellonian mission. Bran sniffed the air and his nose wrinkled. His booted feet hit the floor hard.
“You smell like sex.”
The words were harsh, delivered in a rough tone. Marcus frowned. What the fuck was wrong with Bran? He’d thought the man would be happy for him.
“Yeah, so? It’s been a long time. I’m entitled.”
His defensive tone didn’t sit well with Branson. The younger man’s face twisted in disgust.
“I can’t believe you. You discover your woman is still alive and you go out and get your rocks off!” Bran surged to his feet. “Fucking hell, Ren! How could you do that to her?”
Marcus frowned. How could he not, he thought. He’d dreamed of his cock sliding into the wet heat of her body every night for six years. What had happened between them over the past few hours hadn’t even made a dent in his desire.
“Fuck you. Just… fuck you,” Bran puffed angrily. “I never took you for a cheater, but I guess I was wrong. I’ll go help Tait since it’s obvious you don’t give a shit.”
Bran stomped toward the door, and like a flash of light, Marcus realized that his best friend thought he’d fucked someone other than Tait. He leaped out of the chair, grabbing Bran’s bicep. The shorter man jerked his arm away, cocking it back for an instant, prepared to punch Marcus, before he let it drop.
“I can’t believe you’d betray her like this after everything she’s been through,” Bran growled, his blue eyes dark with rage.
“I didn’t!” Marcus hissed, angry at his friend’s lack of faith. “You asshole! I was with Tait !”
Stunned, Bran fell back against the door. He blinked, his eyes widening. “You and Tait?”
Marcus nodded, feeling a grin spread across his face. He could still smell her on his skin and clothes. The sense of being whole again permeated every cell in his body.
“Holy shit. Does that mean you’re together again?” Bran demanded.
Marcus’s euphoria began to dissipate. “Not exactly.” He explained to Bran the problems they faced now.
The glitter in Bran’s eyes spoke volumes to Marcus. Puzzles and information. The two things Branson loved more than anything else. Their unit had been comprised of officers with special skills. Marcus’s skill had been strategy. Mission planning and on the fly in the midst of battle decision making. He had the ability to think and plan and move whole armies to advantage on the spur of the moment. Tait had been the unit assassin. Cold and ruthless. Silent and deadly. Beyond efficient. She could take a man out with a hairpin faster than a foot soldier could yell for help. With a gun in her hand, no one could best her. She had the steadiest hand, the most accurate eye. On a sniper tower, no one was more deadly.
Branson’s skills fell somewhere between Marcus’s cerebral skills and Tait’s talent for killing. The man had a knack for digging up information no one else could find. He solved puzzles and riddles in a ridiculously short amount of ti
me. If the information he needed happened to be inside the brain of someone who didn’t want to talk, Bran would make them talk. His skill at interrogation and torture ranked right up there with Tait’s skill for killing. Finding out who was responsible for everything that happened to them would be easy for Bran. Finding the true motivations behind the person’s actions would be something else entirely, but if Branson couldn’t do it, it couldn’t be done.
“We all deserve the truth, Bran,” Marcus said in a low voice. “Too many lives were lost and too many were torn apart by this. Something big was behind it. To remove an entire specialty unit of the Pythian Elite including a General and his daughter…that takes some major balls. Whoever did this had his eye on a very big prize. Something far beyond Price and his petty political aspirations. He was small time for the size of what occurred.”
“I agree. I’ve already been working on the why and the who. I’ll just step up my investigation.”
Branson walked to the door then paused with his hand on the knob. “How is she? Really, Ren,” he asked in a low tone, his brows knit in a frown.
Slumping back into his chair, Marcus looked up at his oldest and closest friend. “Not good,” he murmured, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “It’s going to take a lot of work to overcome what was done to her. Getting her identity and her life back is only part of it. I never would have thought it possible, and it’s not obvious to anyone but me, but Bran…” He swallowed hard as anguish lanced through him. “They broke her,” he whispered, his gaze holding his friend’s steadily.
Branson stiffened and his handsome face took on a harsh, forbidding expression. “Then they will just have to pay, won’t they?” he hissed.
Turning on his boot heel, Bran wrenched the door open and strode out. Marcus stared at the wood panels as they closed softly. What he hadn’t told Branson was that he had serious concerns about whether Tait would ever be okay. He doubted she could return to the Pythian Elite, even if her rank was restored to her. He sensed that physically and mentally she’d never be able to handle active duty again. The whole assassin career she currently pursued was not only illegal, but with her tremors, it reeked of a death wish. Even the sex they’d shared not an hour before seemed underscored with a desperate sense of goodbye.
Surging to his feet, Marcus paced the small room. He wouldn’t let her go no matter what she had planned. If she thought they weren’t getting back together, she had another thing coming. If she thought she’d continue her career as a killer, knowing full well she didn’t have the ability to get away with it, he would definitely show her how wrong she was. Her time as a Hawksmoor assassin would be over soon, as would her life as Molly Dare. Tait Boland would get her life back, her father, her place as a warrior, and her place at his side as his woman. He would make sure she got it all whether she wanted it or not— including the removal of her scars.
Marcus wished he could remove her memories and pain as easily as removing her scars. Some people born with magic had the inherent ability to perform psychic surgery, but they were few and far between. And although Marcus knew where he could get his hands on one, he instinctively knew Tait would balk at letting someone like that in her head. He knew as well as he knew his own name that what had broken Tait hadn’t been the cruel acts of violence against her, but the act of betrayal that had precipitated everything…the ambush of his unit and pronouncement of his death.
He’d sensed her simple joy in the fact he lived. He’d noticed how she snuck glances at him as if to reassure herself he was real. Until today, he’d never realized how news of his death must have affected her soul. Until today, he’d never fully realized how very much she'd loved him and obviously still did. She’d thrown away everything to exact revenge on the man who had sent him to his death. And she’d let him walk away with the stone because she believed they'd never be together again.
Marcus didn’t care that Tait believed they couldn’t be together because now that he knew she lived, that she hadn’t betrayed him, he’d be damned if he let her go. He’d marked her as his years before, and he’d not done that lightly. Only Tait had ever owned him, body and soul. The fact that his once proud lover was willing to let him go for his own good spoke volumes to him about the despair filling her. Now that he knew the truth, his soul demanded they be together, even if Bran couldn’t find who was behind their betrayals. If he had to take her far away, to the place furthest from Estep, the Xenon realm, he would. He couldn’t live without her, and from what he saw of her current circumstance, he knew she couldn’t really live without him either.
As much as he hated washing Tait’s scent from his body, with Bran on the hunt, Marcus hit the shower. He needed to be ready to strategize the instant Bran returned with information. He washed briskly, with the unnerving sense that for the first time in six years his body had come alive. He certainly knew that his heart had. And he had planning to do. If Bran couldn’t solve the puzzle, he needed a backup plan.
Dressed in a loose pair of shorts, he sat down at his desk and began to sketch out a plan for disappearing. He had plenty of funds. As a soldier, he’d never spent much and had always lived in the barracks. He owned nothing except the heartstone he’d left in Tait’s possession. Because of the nature of his job and the sometimes stealthy things they’d been called upon to do, not to mention the enemies Elite warriors always had, he’d always kept his money in different places, and not always under his real name.
The Pythian Elite had a reputation as the best of the best. They also had plenty of enemies across the realms. He never knew when he’d need resources to get him out of a jam far from home. When he and Bran had escaped the Mellonians, those resources in far off places had come in handy. If he had to take Tait out of Estep, he had to make certain they would not be traced or followed, and that they had plenty of funds to start a new life.
As he worked, Marcus recalled his first day back at the Elite after his six year absence. After Cochrane had bluntly told them Tait was dead and curtly dismissed them, Bran had offered to find out the truth, but Marcus had told him no. He’d been so blindly filled with rage and pain that he hadn’t cared. But the moment he’d set eyes on his heartstone, he’d moved heaven and hell to have it. At first, he’d been outraged that it was in an auction. He’d thought that maybe Tait’s father, the General, had it with Tait’s belongings. The fact that ‘No One’ wanted the heartstone as much as he did had pissed him off almost as much as the evidence that Tait had betrayed his unit to the Mellonians.
Walking into Spellbound Treasures and scenting her, sensing her, had sent his heart into overdrive. Discovering that she was ‘No One’ both irked him and set off alarms. The tremors in her hands and voice had simultaneously angered him and filled him with fear. For six years he had missed her and hated himself for that emotion. Coming home to her death had not been a release. It had been a nightmare, he acknowledged to himself.
Now that he had plans in place to clear her and give her back her life or to remove her from Estep and start a new life with her if the first plan failed, Marcus felt more reassured. He ate dinner and watched the news, then began a program of hacking into files he had no business seeing. By the time Branson used the palm lock to let himself in, Marcus had found some covered tracks that led to some very interesting places.
He shut down his computer as Bran sank into a chair. He raised a brow at his friend’s set face.
“Need a drink? Some food?”
Bran shrugged. “I grabbed a bite while I was down in the Avenal. I’ll take a drink though.”
Marcus went to the drinks cabinet and poured two brandies. He handed one to Bran and sat down across from him.
“What were you doing in the Avenal?”
A gleam lit Bran’s eyes. “Meeting someone with answers.”
Excitement rushed through Marcus. The district known as the Avenal was a lot like the city of Hawksmoor but more upscale. The criminals there had money and connections as befitted citizens of Falco
naire City. You could buy anything there if you had enough money. The black market did a brisk trade in new identities and magical wards for protection. There was also a huge market for secrets and information.
“And what kinds of answers did you get?” Marcus asked softly.
“The kind that lead to more questions.”
Sitting back in his chair, Marcus sipped his brandy. His gazed flickered around the room then returned to Bran.
“You’re sure we’re secure? I won’t risk her,” he said gruffly.
Bran nodded. “I swept this place and mine. I keep monitoring them too. We’re fine.” He finished his drink a couple of swallows. “There are three factions that had a hand in what went down against us. One faction was Nels Price and his brother, the warden at Eagle Island.”
“Brother!” Marcus exclaimed. “Why didn’t Tait tell me they were related?”
“I don’t know.” Bran shook his head. “Maybe she wasn’t sure. They have different names. Roland Marlowe got a promotion out of that prison fire. He now sits as the prison system commissioner, a half step from a juicy political seat as the minister of the district where he resides. From what I’d already discovered, Nels had been after the General’s position with an eye on the Pythian Elite counsel. Apparently, he too had been jockeying into position to become a minister.”
“What the fuck?” The words hissed out of Marcus as his mind raced. Two brothers with different names, both willing to break laws and kill in order to move up the ranks into influential minister positions. And the worst part of all? Bran had already indicated they weren’t alone. “Who are the other two factions? And what the hell is this all about?”
Unbreak Me (Spellbound Treasure) Page 5