Her words fell silent. If there had been light, he was certain he’d find tears in her eyes as she remembered the small rebellion that had cost her everything.
“You left and they caught you,” he said quietly.
“Yes. Just as my mother warned, one of the Esri guards saw me and snatched me. I never saw my family again.”
He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, Tarrys.” And he was. He couldn’t imagine… No, maybe that was the problem. He could imagine. He’d lost his dad just as completely. And though his mom hadn’t physically left, she might as well have for all the mothering she’d done after his dad took off.
“Is this the first time you’ve been back in the mines?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. This has to be hard for you.”
She lit a dot of light, then glanced back at him, her eyes sad but not damp, a melancholy smile lifting her lips. “I was never happier than those years. Being back reminds me of that. Of the laughter. Of being loved. But it also brings back the harsh regret I’ve lived with every day since. I keep thinking I’ll hear them, that I’ll see my mother’s face around the next bend, even though I know this mine has been deserted for years.”
“Why? It’s still full of crystal.”
“Crystal, yes, but not light crystals.”
“I thought these were all light crystals.”
“No, we have to touch these to draw the light. And they provide no warmth. The crystals the Esri seek provide light and warmth without touch. When I was here before, these caves were never dark. The light glowed in rainbows of color all the time. I never realized how beautiful it was until I’d lost it.”
They fell back into silence as they continued through the dark labyrinth. At every bend, Charlie prayed for a glimpse of russet or gold sky, or any sign at all that they’d found the way out. Though he tried to ignore his constant thirst, it was starting to drive him crazy.
As he pulled out his canteen, his hands shook like a drunk who had had too much vodka. Though the gentleman inside him told him to offer Tarrys the first sip, his greedy mouth got there first. Sweet water trickled down his throat. It was all he could do to tear the flask away from his lips moments before he drained it. Damn, but he was out of control.
He offered that last sip to Tarrys, perhaps the hardest thing he’d ever done. To his intense and greedy relief she shook her head.
“You need it more than I. The poison’s making you thirsty, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” If they didn’t get out of this godforsaken mine soon, he was going to turn to dust and blow away.
He had to keep his mind off his thirst. Think of something else.
“Have you ever tried to find your mother?” As soon as the words were out, he realized his mistake. “Dumb question. You were enslaved. Of course you couldn’t have gone looking for her.”
“I couldn’t, no. But she was dying. I would have lost her either way.”
Charlie blinked. “Dying? I thought… Aren’t you immortal?”
“No, Marceils live three or four times as long as humans and heal quickly enough to be virtually indestructible. But we don’t live forever. Unlike humans, we don’t age continually. We reach full growth and stay that way until the last four or five years of life. Then we deteriorate quickly and die. My mother had begun to age before I left.”
“So you’ll look twenty for, what, three hundred years?”
Her soft sound of amusement reached him. “I’m afraid so.”
“Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”
“Sixty, give or take.”
“Damn.”
“I’m twice your age, aren’t I?”
Charlie snorted. “Don’t go there. Don’t even go there.” There was only so much a man could handle. The fact that the woman he lusted after was older than his mother was best left in the I’m not thinking about it file.
They continued on. Time fell away and still there was no change in the smell of the air, no change in the unrelenting darkness. Charlie’s steps grew heavier.
“Tarrys. I’ve got to get water.”
“All right.” She looked behind him worriedly. “We need to hide the light.”
“We’ll use my cloak.”
“But we’ll have to stay here until it dissipates again.”
“You bring me water, eaglet, and you’ll have a heck of a time prying me away from it again. Staying here a few minutes won’t be a problem.” He unfastened the cloak and laid it out on the crystal floor between them.
As Tarrys knelt and slid her hands under the fabric, Charlie arched his back, trying to ease the tension. Faint blue light seeped out beneath the black cloak bathing Tarrys’s face, revealing lines of worry he knew mirrored his own.
“Provide, oh Esria. Provide water for these souls.” Tarrys’s soft words flowed over him like a caress. “Please, provide, my Esria.”
Over and over she repeated the chant. When her voice began to take on an anxious edge, he knew something was wrong.
“It’s not working, is it?”
Tarrys pulled her hands out from under the cloak and sat back on her heels, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. “When I was a child, small pools of water would appear in the floor every now and then for a few hours, then disappear for several days or more. We had what we needed, but no abundance. The land provided. It always provides for the Marceils and the Esri. But we have to ask.”
“Then where’s the water?”
“I don’t know.” She grimaced. “I may not be strong enough. I vaguely remember the others gathered in a circle, chanting. If it took all of them to call the water…”
He finished the thought for her. “We’re in trouble.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps I’ll be more successful in another spot.” Her eyes turned hard. “I’m not giving up, Charlie. Neither can you.”
Forcing the gnawing frustration aside, he nodded. They were stuck in this spot until the light beneath the cloak dissipated.
He sat and pulled her against him, his arm around her shoulders. “I never give up, no matter how hopeless the situation looks. I always make it through somehow. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’ll be curious to see how we get out of this.”
Charlie chuckled and squeezed her shoulder. “That’s my girl.” From out of nowhere, a sense of rightness enveloped him. As if holding her like this were the most natural thing in the world. As if she belonged to him, and always had.
Tarrys looked up at him in the low light, her eyes wide in her lovely face, and he found himself tumbling into their violet depths.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her again, but her chin lifted, her lips parted, and he was helpless to deny himself another taste of her. She met him halfway, pressing her mouth against his, opening her lips, inviting him in, sending hot need flooding his tired body.
As he thrust his tongue into her mouth, she shuddered, moaning with pleasure, and he deepened the kiss as her tongue slid over his in a sinuous dance of welcome. His senses exploded. Colors swirled behind his eyelids. She tasted like heaven.
The rush of blood to his groin hardened him, whipping him loose of his moorings. With frantic need, he pulled her onto his lap and dug his fingers into her hair, slanting his head to deepen the kiss.
She wrenched away and was off his lap so quickly, he barely had time to grab the end of the rope.
“He’s calling me!”
The pull of the rope stung his palms as he gripped it hard and hauled her back onto his lap, struggling to contain her flailing limbs before he took a fist to the jaw. The ceiling was too low to fling her over his shoulder and carry her, so he stayed where he was, determined to hold her tight until the compulsion waned.
The blue glow disappeared, plunging them into darkness, but Tarrys’s struggles and groans continued. She wasn’t big, but she was strong and it took more effort than he would have thought to contain her constant struggles. He watched
that black chasm for sign of their pursuers, but saw no flicker of light.
Tarrys’s thrashing didn’t abate. He could hear her breaths coming in labored gasps. She was wearing herself out, but it didn’t matter. While her Esri master called, she was compelled to answer.
When exhaustion began to stalk him, Charlie knew he was in trouble. He’d never felt anything like it in his life. One moment he was fine, the next moment his limbs felt like they each weighed an extra fifty pounds.
“Tarrys…” Exhaustion sucker punched him, making his head reel. “The poison. Can’t fight it.”
“I can’t go back to him! You need me. Lie on me.”
He didn’t think twice, just rolled her under him as he collapsed, unable to fight the overpowering weakness.
“Too heavy.” He’d crush her.
“No, this is good. You can’t hurt me. And I can’t get away.”
But as the exhaustion pulled him low, he felt her reaching under his tunic.
“Charlie.” His name rose an octave from beginning to end. “Charlie, I have your knife. I think he wants me to stab you. Charlie, I’m going to kill you if you don’t stop me!”
Her words came to him as if from a distance. Knife. She would kill him. Must. Stop. Her. His brain knew the urgency, but his body wouldn’t react. Couldn’t react. Drowning in the poison’s sludge, he felt her arm slide out from under him, felt the sting of a knife cut on his hand, and knew she’d pulled the knife free.
No. The cry wrenched from his mind, resonating in his deepest heart. I refuse to die.
But he no longer had any more control over his body than Tarrys did hers. As the sludge closed over his head, dragging him into oblivion, he felt the sting of the knifepoint at his throat.
And knew he would never wake up again.
Chapter 13
“Charlie, stop me!” Tears ran into Tarrys’s hair and sweat soaked her gown as she fought against the Esri’s control. As she fought not to kill the man she loved.
But Charlie had collapsed on top of her and his weight now crushed her, the hard crystal floor digging into her back. Her new master must wish her to take Charlie’s own weapon and kill him with it because, despite the deadweight pinning her, she’d managed to steal Charlie’s knife from beneath his tunic and now held it, the tip of the blade nicking his throat.
Her muscles strained, bunching, as her mind desperately fought against the Esri’s control of her body. “No,” she cried into the empty mine tunnel, her voice echoing off the crystal, ringing back at her with terror. “I won’t. Kill. Him.” The horror of the thought, of ending the life of this beautiful man, thudded in her ears.
Make me do anything but this. Not this.
Her tears ran faster, her teeth grinding to chalk in her mouth as she struggled not to press the blade through his throat. Pain lanced her skull, tracing across the surface like fire. Tremors racked her body.
I won’t kill him. I won’t kill him. I won’t! The fire along her scalp burst, arcing through her in a torrent of heat, a pain that suddenly and profoundly changed to strength and power, rushing through her body, flowing down her arms.
Gritting her teeth in a savage grin, she fought the compulsion to press the knife into his tender, mortal flesh.
I will not kill him!
As the thought roared through her head, something shattered, tearing through her mind. Her hand flung backward, over her head, the knife clattering on the crystal far behind her head.
I did it.
Tarrys lay beneath Charlie’s crushing weight, her heart pounding, her mind in shock.
Sweet Esria, I broke the Esri’s control.
That strange heat continued to pound inside her body, beating back the Esri’s power, filling her with a startling sense of energy and well-being.
A faint blue glow erupted, shining softly, and she turned her head to look for the crystal she must have accidentally touched. She glanced about in confusion, when she caught sight of her hand.
Thunder pounded in her head as she stared at the glowing blue of her own flesh.
Her jaw dropped, her eyes darting in disbelief. She was the one glowing, not the crystal.
What kind of magic had she tapped?
The moisture in her eyes turned to tears of relief as a soft watery laugh escaped her throat.
For the first time in her life, she’d freed herself from another’s control. But had she succeeded in time?
Frantic, she reached for Charlie’s neck, suddenly fearful that she’d cut him without realizing, terrified that even as she’d struggled for freedom, she’d sent Charlie into the waiting arms of death.
Charlie woke with a start, his senses roaring to life at the feel of a soft body beneath his, a softer hand sliding down his throat. Tarrys’s sweet scent filled his senses.
Jesus, he must be crushing her. He levered himself up and onto his elbows, lifting his head to peer down into her face.
Her glowing face.
His eyes went wide. Holy crap. Chills snaking up his back, he levered himself off her in a single lunge to crouch warily at her side. He knew she wasn’t human, but Jesus.
From that glowing blue face she grinned at him, her eyes soft with relief. “You’re okay.”
“You’re glowing.” Her face, her neck, her hands.
Her smile dimmed as she sat up, her dark hair swinging around her shoulders and into her face.
Her hair.
Chills raced over his skin. “How many days have I been out?”
Tarrys’s eyes must have grown as wide as his own as she reached up and touched the thick, wavy locks that fell nearly to her shoulders. “Minutes. You were only out minutes.”
“No way.” His mind scrabbled for purchase, struggling to stop this free fall into the twilight zone. “What happened? The last thing I remember, I was falling on top of you. I felt a knife at my throat.”
“I tried to kill you.” She flinched. “Not willingly.” Both of her hands went to her head, her fingers touching her hair, sliding down the silken locks as if feeling them for the very first time.
And she was.
Her gaze swung to his, wonder and triumph in her violet eyes. “I fought him, Charlie. I won.”
He stared at her as understanding ripped through the shock that clouded his brain. “You broke his control?”
The grin on her face returned, wider than before. “I can still feel him commanding me to kill you.” She dropped her hands, her head shaking slowly back and forth. “But I feel no need to respond.”
“That’s great,” he murmured, sitting back hard, struggling to take it all in.
Tarrys was a…revelation. The hair swinging around her pretty face was lovely, but it was the joy lighting her eyes, the power radiating through the confident smile lifting her lips that made her extraordinary, beautiful in a way he’d never seen her before.
But even as he stared at her, her smile died, her brows drawing together.
“What’s the matter?” His gaze followed hers to a small, smooth crevice in the crystal wall.
“I know this place.” Dismay colored her voice.
And he was all too afraid he understood. “We went the wrong way, didn’t we?”
The blue glow of her skin faded to nothing, casting them into the dark. A fingertip of green light lit the wall behind her.
“Yes.” The word was little more than a hard exhalation.
The full extent of the error slowly crashed over him. They weren’t nearing an exit, but heading deeper into the mountain. With no water. No antidote to the poison.
“Let me try to call the water again,” she said softly.
“We haven’t gone far from where you tried it the last time.”
“No. But I feel stronger.” But as she reached for his cloak, she stilled suddenly, her eyes widening.
“What is it, Tarrys?” Charlie asked softly.
Her gaze darted left and right. “My master.”
“Do you hear him?”
�
�No.” The gaze she snapped to his was filled with wonder. “I know where he is. Where they both are.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been able to sense my masters like this before. But I sense him clearly, and he’s not alone.”
“Where are they, then?”
“More than a mile behind us. And not moving.”
“They’re probably resting.” He lifted an eyebrow. “You’re sure about this?” His brain wanted to scoff, but he’d seen too much magic to truly doubt anything at this point.
“Positive.” The gaze that met his flashed with certainty, mirroring the tone of her voice. “I know precisely where he is.”
“That’s good. They may be able to track us, but now we can track them, too.” Still, as he considered their situation, he frowned. “That fork in the road was well over a mile back.”
“I know. We can’t go that way. We’re going to have to go through the mountain, now.” They looked at each other, silence stretching between them on a thin wire of tension. “I’ll get you water, Charlie. I promise.”
The earnest sincerity that flared in her eyes moved him. He’d promised her he’d get her to safety. Now she was doing the same.
The question was—could either of them succeed?
She turned toward the wall, her thick hair sweeping over her shoulders. “Ready? It’s going to be bright.”
With their pursuers more than a mile back, and trackable, there was no longer any need to hide the light. Charlie braced himself for the blinding glow as Tarrys pressed her palms flat against the crystal wall. Green light burst through the tunnel, releasing the scent of mushrooms.
“Provide, my Esria,” she murmured, her voice trembling with emotion. “I beg you, provide for these souls.”
Almost at once, Charlie felt something change in the air and heard a hum, like that of electricity. And the sound of…water.
Tarrys whirled toward him, her wide-eyed gaze plowing into him. “Do you hear that?” Excitement flushed her face, filling him with raw hope and a nearly unbearable need to touch her.
“You did it.” He grabbed her face between his hands and kissed her hard.
A Warrior's Desire (Harlequin Nocturne) Page 10