by Unknown
Instead, she shifted against him. “I know how we could . . . distract me. Would you kiss me?”
“If I did, you know where it would lead. I want you too badly for just a kiss.”
She nodded against his shoulder. “You have more will-power than I do.”
“I’m trying.”
She saw his fist clench and knew she shouldn’t push him any further.
Determined not to start anything they couldn’t finish, she closed her eyes and stroked his arm, amazed that his presence could give her so much comfort.
This was what it was like to belong to someone. Not the way she belonged to her master. To someone who cared about her—and whom she cared about.
As she lay in his arms, he did what Rinna hadn’t been able to accomplish. While he stroked her and murmured reassurances to her, she felt herself relaxing.
Some time later, the sound of voices made her eyes blink open.
Rinna was back with two other women. Two more life mates, she guessed.
“I’ve brought Antonia and Renata,” she said, gesturing toward the newcomers.
“Good to meet you,” they said.
“Yes,” she answered, even as she felt herself blush.
She was an unmarried woman lying on a bed with a man, and there were three other people in the room, watching. In her world, that would be the height of scandal.
Well, maybe one of the women wasn’t watching. As Kenna tried to meet Antonia’s eyes, she realized with a start that the other woman was blind.
The knowledge that these people had dropped everything in order to help her was overwhelming.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, hearing how thin her voice sounded. “On such short notice. I know I must be interrupting your lives.”
“This is important,” Renata answered.
Talon sat up. “Should I leave?”
Rinna looked toward Renata, and Kenna got the feeling that she was the one who was going to take charge. The goddess.
She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud until Renata answered. “I’m not a goddess. I’m human. But I’m her reincarnation, which gives me powers I wouldn’t ordinarily have.”
“I . . .”
“Please . . . just think of me as a friend and . . . your sister-in-law. I didn’t even know I had any special powers until a few months ago.”
Kenna answered with a tiny nod, overwhelmed at the word “sister-in-law.”
Renata turned to Talon. “You should stay,” she said. “You may be of help.”
“What should we do?” Antonia asked.
Renata stepped forward. “We need to find out what the problem is.”
Talon moved awkwardly out of the way, and Renata sat down on the bed. “Will you let us connect with your mind?”
“If you can,” Kenna whispered.
Renata looked at Rinna, and she was sure they had talked about what Rinna had tried and failed to do.
Well, why not? She had known this wasn’t going to be easy. Maybe getting through the barrier was impossible.
“Relax,” Renata said, reaching out toward her, both with her hand and with her mind.
The other women moved to the far side of the bed and sat down, each of them putting a hand on her. Their touch was reassuring.
“We’re just going to see what’s going on,” Renata murmured.
Kenna felt her mental touch. It was strong—stronger than Rinna’s had been, and she thought that this woman might have a chance of getting through to her.
She could feel Renata directing the process, feel the probing touch.
“Don’t fight me,” she murmured.
“I’m not.”
Struggling to open herself, she felt some kind of barrier waver, then crack.
When the goddess sucked in a sharp breath, Kenna’s eyes flew open.
“It’s not a man. It’s a monster,” Renata whispered.
“Yes. Vandar.”
When she said his name, she felt a jolt of pain digging into the cells of her brain. Struggling against the pain, she fought to send them a picture of the beast. More than one picture. Vandar in his winged incarnation. Vandar as a man. Vandar feeding.
Her vision had turned black, but she heard more gasps around the room.
“Jesus!” That was Talon. He must have somehow picked up the pictures along with the three women. “That’s what’s been holding you captive?”
“Yes,” she managed to say that much before she felt a blast of hot, blinding pain.
“No!” she screamed, but she didn’t even know if the word passed her lips.
From far away, she heard Talon bellow a curse. “What the hell have you done to her?”
“Not us,” Renata answered. “It’s the wards inside her head.”
That was the last thing she heard before a terrible blackness sucked her down.
For a long moment, she saw nothing, heard nothing. Then the blackness turned to a dim gray light, shrouded in mist. Through the fog, she saw Vandar hovering in front of her. He had his human face, but his dragon body, so that his features were five times the size of a man’s.
His mouth opened and a stream of fire shot out, enveloping her whole body in flames. But her flesh did not turn black. Instead, she continued to burn.
“You think you can defy me?” he asked, his voice rising up in the middle of the flames. “I’ll show you what happens to mortals who try to escape from me.”
She screamed and screamed again. Then, for a moment, she felt a spurt of hope, when the flames diminished a little.
Turning, she started to run, down an endless dark tunnel. At the end, she could see a light, and she knew that if she could reach it, she would be free.
She was almost there when something grabbed her from behind, a huge hand with sharp nails that dug into her flesh.
“Not so fast.”
He pulled her back and spun her around, and she saw that he had changed his form again. He was a man, dressed in the black tunic that he wore for his ceremonies.
They were in a cave. Not the cave where she had lived with the other slaves. This was a rounded chamber with rock walls and a shaft of light coming down from the ceiling, shining on a wooden post with a cross bar at the top. The air smelled like rotting flesh, and a roaring sound rose all around her.
Vandar dragged her toward the cross, then clawed at her clothing with his free hand, shredding the shirt and pants she wore.
When she was naked, she tried to cover her breasts with her hand, but he pulled her arm roughly up, attaching it to the crossbar at the top of the post. He did the same with the other hand, so that she was standing with her arms outstretched and secured above her head.
When she was trussed to his satisfaction, he stepped back looking at her.
“You and I are going to spend some time here together,” he said in a satisfied voice. “And before I’m through with you, you’re going to beg me to drain your blood.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
TALON SHOVED THE goddess aside and grabbed Kenna. She was limp as a rag doll. Her skin had turned the color of porcelain, and her breathing was so shallow that he had to press his hand to her chest to make sure it was rising and falling.
“What the hell have you done?” he repeated.
“Nothing!”
“What do you mean, nothing? Look at her.”
The woman’s voice turned hard. “It wasn’t me,” she said, punching out the words. “It came from within her.”
“Christ!”
The other two life mates moved to the far side of the bed. All three of them put their hands on Kenna.
“She’s gone deep inside herself,” the one named Antonia whispered.
“Bring her back!”
He wanted to throttle them for coming here and doing this. He might have leaped at them except that three of his cousins charged into the room. The only one he knew was Logan, the hothead. But the others must be the husbands of the two other women.
“So
mething wrong?” Logan asked.
“Something’s happened to Kenna.”
Renata stood and faced the men, putting herself between them and Talon.
“He’s upset,” she said. “Kenna’s life is in danger. I think we can help him bring her back, but we need to be alone.”
“I’m not leaving,” Logan said.
One of the other men put a hand on his arm. “Come on,” he said. “Remember how you felt when Rinna was kidnapped?”
Logan nodded, but he kept his gaze on Talon. “If anything happens to Rinna, you’ll be sorry.”
“We’re wasting time,” Renata said. “Go.”
Logan turned and marched out of the room. The others followed.
Talon focused on Renata. He’d been angry, but he knew deep down that she was his only hope to save his life mate.
“What should I do?” he asked.
“Lie down beside her. Hold her. You’re the only one who can bring her back.” Not her. Him.
He felt a spurt of hope, until she added, “If the bond between you is strong enough.”
Was it? It had to be!
He might have been embarrassed. But he knew he was past that as he lay down and gathered Kenna’s limp body in his arms, folding her close and squeezing his eyes shut.
The women closed in around them, each of them with a hand on him and a hand on Kenna, and he could feel them sending energy into him, energy that he then sent to Kenna. It was a strange sensation. He didn’t know how he was doing it.
“Speak to her,” Renata whispered. “Tell her how much you love her. How much you need her.”
Could he do that? In front of these women?
Yes, because it was the only way to bring Kenna back, and he would die without her.
VANDAR reached out a hand and touched Kenna’s shoulder. Digging in one nail, he scraped his way down her chest, across her breast, and down to the thatch of hair at the juncture of her legs. After admiring his handiwork, he leaned toward her and pressed his mouth to her breast, sucking the blood that had welled up there.
She clenched her teeth, determined not to scream, because she knew he wanted to feel her fear, and denying him that was the only thing she had left.
When she heard footsteps in back of her, she stiffened. Someone else was here in this chamber.
As Vandar looked over her shoulder, his face contorted in anger.
“Get out of here.”
“No.”
It was Talon. He was here! But how could that be?
“Kenna is mine,” Vandar shouted. “Go back to your own world.”
“Make me.”
She couldn’t see Talon, and when she tried to twist around, Vandar reached out a clawed hand and held her fast.
“Get the hell off of her,” Talon shouted.
“Make me,” the beast snarled, repeating what Talon had said.
Behind her, Talon reached up and worked at the ropes holding her hands. As they loosened, the monster shot out a stream of fire from his mouth, and she heard Talon groan in pain, but he kept working.
“Get away. Before he kills you,” she gasped.
“Not a chance.”
He freed her hands, and she found that she could take a step back.
“Stop!” Vandar commanded, and she went rigid again.
Then Talon began to speak in her ear. “Kenna, I love you. So much. I should have told you, but I was afraid to say the words. I need you. I’m nothing without you beside me. Please, you have to come back.”
“I can’t,” she said, hearing her voice crack.
“You have to.”
“I’m his slave.”
“Not anymore. You’re in a different world. He isn’t here.”
“Yes, he is!”
“He put these images in your head to control you. They’re not real, and they’re not as strong as our love.”
Was he right? When he said it, she felt a bubble of hope.
“Help me,” Talon pleaded. “I can’t do it alone. We have to fight him together.”
FAR away, Ramsay Gallagher was in his garage, working on the 1933 Pierce Arrow that he had restored, when he caught a series of confusing images.
He knew they were coming from the woman—the woman he had first sensed in the smoke ceremony.
Days ago, he had thought she was gone. Dead. Or in some place that he couldn’t penetrate. Then, from one moment to the next, he’d sensed the link with her again, as though she had stepped through a door from another place to this universe.
Was that possible? He didn’t know.
Yet it fit the circumstances in some way that he couldn’t articulate.
Now he went rigid, caught by the scene in his mind. The woman. And two men. But he knew as he looked at one of them that the guy wasn’t human.
He sucked in a sharp breath.
Where the hell was all that coming from?
The scene was disturbing. The nonhuman creature was the most disturbing of all, because it brought back too many memories from his own past.
It was like the monster he had fought long ago—and won. At the time, he had been sure that there wasn’t another like it on Earth. Could he have been wrong?
If he was, where had the damn thing come from? And where was it lurking now?
TEARS streamed down Kenna’s face as she thought of what she longed for with Talon. And what she could have—if she fought for it.
Perhaps he felt the change in her. “Sweetheart, we can do it! Together.”
Feeling her own resolve strengthen, she took a step away from her fearsome master.
“That’s it! You can do it. We can do it.” Talon’s voice filled with hope as he guided her back, out of the rock-bound cave where Vandar had brought her.
As they reached an opening at the back of the cave, the monster shot out his fiery breath again, but it barely reached them. He was too far away, and the fire diminished as he receded into the background.
He was screaming at her, “Fuck you! You’re mine. Fuck both of you. Come back.” But she could hardly hear him now.
Then, all at once, she stepped backwards through a barrier that was something like a portal, only it felt more solid as her body jolted from a shadow world into reality.
Her eyes snapped open, and she dragged in a breath of sweet-smelling air. Blinking her eyes, she realized she was lying on the bed again, with Talon’s face hovering over hers. It was wet with tears, and she realized she was crying, too.
“You brought me back,” she said, hearing the wonder in her own voice. “You went into that horrible place and pulled me free.”
“You had the courage to come with me,” he answered.
“You did it together,” a woman said, and Kenna’s gaze snapped to Renata, then the other two women who had come to help her.
Suddenly, she realized that she and Talon weren’t alone. The adepts were still in her bedroom, where they’d come to break the hold of . . .
“Vandar had me tied to a . . . cross,” she said, bracing for pain as she said the forbidden name. To her amazement, nothing happened.
“Great Mother,” she marveled, looking down at her body. In the dream, she had been naked. Now she was wearing the clothing she’d had on when the women had come in.
“How long was I . . . away?” she asked.
“Only a few minutes.”
“It seemed like hours.”
“He wanted it to. Do you understand that it was just his illusion?”
She nodded, trying to absorb what had happened.
Talon tightened his hold on her arm. “You’re free of him. Forever.”
“Vandar planted those images in your head before you left home,” Renata said. “They were his last hope, if you tried to crack his hold on you. But your will was strong enough to break the compulsion he placed on your mind.”
She marveled at that—at the difference in how she felt. The burden she had carried around was suddenly gone. She wanted to simply enjoy her wonderful freedom
.