by Brenda Huber
“She will. Or she won’t.” Asher shrugged. “That’s up to her. There’s nothing more I can do for her.”
Sebastian didn’t like the sound of that. But he knew he wouldn’t be getting any more reassurance.
“Thanks,” he said as he gathered Phoebe in his arms.
“I’m assuming you have ward stones around your place?”
That gave Sebastian pause. Discussing the protections around his home with anyone other than his brothers-in-arms or Kyanna didn’t sit well. Suspicious, he held Phoebe just a little tighter as he turned to face Asher. Was the mercenary planning something? Did he intend to try to take Phoebe from Sebastian?
Sebastian’s grip on Phoebe grew even tighter. Just let the bastard try. He’d slice and dice the mercenary. He’d start with the demon’s horns and work his way down. He’d—
“Oh please,” Asher scoffed. “You think I’m that stupid. You Fallen and your mates. Only an idiot—a suicidal idiot—would try to break that shit up.”
Sebastian shot Asher a dark scowl before dropping his attention to the woman in his arms. What the hell was the mercenary talking about? Mates? Why would he even suggest something so crazy? So utterly ridiculous?
So far out there that it wasn’t even…
No…
No way.
But he stilled as he searched her face.
Was it possible? He didn’t even know her, not really.
And yet…
And yet he wanted her. Badly.
The question was, did he want her permanently? Did he want her enough to lay that kind of a claim on her?
“Get rid of ’em.”
“What?” He blinked up at Asher, lost.
“The ward stones,” Asher clarified, eyeing Sebastian like he couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or amused. “Get rid of ’em.”
“Why the hell would I—”
“You don’t get rid of them, she’ll be dead inside a week. Your call.”
Sebastian scowled at Phoebe once more. What the hell?
Asher waved his hand over the window. Sebastian, sensing the protective barrier weakening, knew it was time to go. He’d figure this all out later. He shifted Phoebe higher in his arms and she snuggled close, tucking her head against his neck with a contented sigh. The soft sound stroked at the ache in his chest.
It didn’t matter what she was. Mate or no mate, she would live. He would not allow anything else.
Asher stared on, his expression inscrutable.
Disconcerted, Sebastian shimmered them back to the farm. He returned Phoebe to his bed and, careful not to jostle her, he climbed in beside her. He braced his back against the headboard, stretched his long legs out on the bed, crossed his ankles, and settled in. But within a matter of minutes, she began to worsen. Sweat beaded her brow once more. Her face scrunched up in misery. Her legs began to shift restlessly.
Brow drawn tight, Sebastian rolled Asher’s warning around in his head. He hated to leave her, but it didn’t look like he’d have much choice. It took longer than he thought it would, but he shimmered all around his property, gathering up ward stones. By the saints, he’d forgotten some of these were even out here. He even called down the protective spell Kyanna had given him. Once he was certain he had them all, he shimmered to the foyer of Gideon’s plantation.
A spare moment later, Gideon appeared at the top of the grand staircase, barefoot, dressed in nothing more than a faded pair of jeans. He hadn’t even bothered to button them, and the wood he was sporting was barely concealed. His hair stood nearly straight on end in wild disarray. His lips were swollen, and a healthy flush colored his skin. Even from this distance, the scent of woman and sex wafted down the stairs to Sebastian.
“What are you—”
“No time to talk,” Sebastian blurted, dumping the ward stones in a pile by the door.
“Are those—”
“Ward stones, yeah. Keep ’em. I gotta go.”
“But don’t you need—”
“No.”
Sebastian, worried Phoebe might have gotten worse while he was away, shimmered back to her side. He touched her brow. Cooler, good. She looked to be resting more comfortably as well. Maybe the ward stones had been exacerbating her condition? Well, whatever was going on, he wasn’t taking any chances.
Off and on, he monitored her temperature and her pulse. She seemed to be holding steady, but she had yet to awaken. And that worried him. As Asher said, either she would recover. Or she wouldn’t. It was all up to her now.
He cursed himself for not being able to do more.
And he puzzled over Asher’s comment. “Not human.”
What the hell does that mean?
Damn it, Asher.
It would have been nice to know what he was dealing with here. He knew she wasn’t an angel, or a Halfling. He would feel it, sense it as he could sense other angels. And she wasn’t a demon. He could tell that too, just by the lack of that noxious taint of brimstone all demons gave off in some small amount. To him she simply smelled like…Heaven. Yet he couldn’t sense her lineage, couldn’t sense anything past the overwhelming effect she was having on his system.
But if she isn’t human, then what is she?
One word leapt out at him, catching him completely off guard.
Mine.
His mind went blank for a few moments, and then began skipping around like a broken record.
He hadn’t received some Divine sign. No mystical, predestined mate awaited him. Only this gut-wrenching animal attraction. This instinctive, protective reaction. And the dead to rights certainty that she should—that she would—belong to him.
He didn’t even know her.
But he wanted her.
And every minute, every second he spent with her that wanting only grew stronger.
He’d witnessed her courage in the cave. Surely that was a start. As was her will to live. She’d survived this long against the venom, hadn’t she? So she was a fighter. That would be necessary for the kind of life that he led. The rest would come, in time.
He eased onto his side, propped himself up on one elbow, and he studied her with an intensity that probably would have frightened her had she been awake. Primitive instinct insisted that he’d already fought for her, already won her…it was only right that he claim her for his own.
But that was crazy. Insane.
He wasn’t some Neanderthal, some wild animal.
And yet she drew him as nothing else ever had.
I could make her mine.
The tempting thought swirled up from the bottom of his soul, where his deepest darkest desires were buried, and held him enthralled.
So the real question was, what was he going to do about it?
Without warning, Phoebe began convulsing. Her skin flushed bright red, and sweat broke out on her skin. The fever had returned, pushing all other thoughts from his mind. And so back into the shower they went.
Chapter Four
Phoebe groaned. Had someone used her as a punching bag? There wasn’t a single square inch of her entire body that didn’t ache. She tried to swallow. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t even form spit. Her head throbbed like a bass drum in a really bad rock band.
A gentle hand lifted her head from the pillow, and something hard and cold pressed against her mouth. Water, cool and welcome, trickled past her lips. Greedy, she gulped. The glass was withdrawn.
“Slowly,” murmured a deep voice. The glass returned and, fearful of it being taken away again, she heeded the warning, taking only small sips.
Weak beyond belief, she let the hand beneath her head settle her upon the plumped pillow once more. She heard a whisper of movement, and what she thought might be the creak of a chair. With another small groan, she peeled her eyelids open. The room was dim, the shades drawn against the har
sh sunlight, and yet she squinted and blinked. A blurry motion in the corner caught her attention.
“My glasses,” she managed to croak.
The blurry shape moved once more, clarifying as it came closer.
Her Surfer Boy. He held something in his hand and offered it to her. Her glasses. Grateful, she took them from him, and then slid them up the bridge of her nose. Her hand was shaking. She made a weak fist and pressed it to her chest.
He returned to a chair near the bed, watching her with acute, unsettling awareness. No. No, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t a surfer. At least, not that she knew anyway.
And he certainly wasn’t hers.
Slowly, details came back to her foggy mind. His name was Sebastian, he’d said. And he looked like hell, like death warmed over. His mussed hair stuck up at odd angles. His clothing was wrinkled, as if he hadn’t changed in days. Dark shadows smudged his turbulent blue eyes, and the beginnings of a full, golden beard shadowed his jaw.
“Would you care to explain to me,” he asked, quiet and deliberate, “how you survived a Diffenidus bite?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
He gave her a level look, his expression not giving a clue to what was going on behind those brilliant blue eyes. “A demon. A very, very poisonous demon.”
Phoebe tried to push herself up in the big bed. But she was just too weak, and she slipped back down. “Good immune system?”
She watched as his broad chest rose on a particularly deep breath. He popped his jaw. “Try again.”
Did he already know? Was he trying to trip her up? She licked her dry lips. Was it possible that, in the throes of her illness, she might have—
With the graceful ease of a natural born predator, he rose from the chair, startling her into losing her train of thought. A tube of Chapstick appeared from out of nowhere, and he settled on the side of the bed, hip to hip. His hand was steady as he smoothed the ointment over her lips. The lip balm vanished from his hands, and he then brushed the hair from her brow, tucking it behind her ear. After plumping her pillow beneath her head with the utmost care, he settled the blankets more securely around her.
He seemed very comfortable performing those basic tasks for her. And that made her uneasy.
How long was I out?
Sebastian rose and began prowling the room. He was a closed book; he gave nothing away.
“I’m waiting.” His voice boomed in the room, and she jumped.
Phoebe fidgeted beneath the weight of those blue, blue eyes. “Sheer dumb luck?”
He let out an audible, irritated sigh.
“I don’t think so,” he said at last. Too calm. Too quiet. For some reason, his calm set her teeth on edge far worse than had he screamed threats and waved a gun at her. Or turned back into that smoke-colored nightmare again.
Well, maybe not quite that nervous.
Her mouth went dry again.
“Let’s try one more time, shall we?” he offered as he settled in the chair once more. He braced his elbows on the arm rests and pressed his fingertips together. “And before you attempt to hand me some other creative line of bullshit, let me enlighten you. Diffenidus saliva is, on average, toxic to angels. In fact, very few survive.” He shook his head. “But you’re no angel. Nor are you a Halfling. Diffenidus saliva is also lethal to humans.”
He held a finger up to cut her off before she could interrupt.
“All humans, no exceptions,” he clarified. “But then you’re not human either, are you? At least, not completely human.” He tilted his head and considered her with that same unsettling intensity. She wanted to squirm like a bug under a microscope. “Diffenidus venom, however, isn’t lethal to other demons. Not usually. Instead, it causes severe reactions. Hallucinations, raging fever, delirium, vomiting…and I’m betting right now you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck, yeah?”
Phoebe glanced away. She knew his name. Knew he’d rescued her from Sin’s cave of horrors. But, other than those two basic facts, she knew absolutely nothing about this guy…this demon. And he was a demon. She knew that as well, had seen him transform. Had seen the mind blowing monster he’d become. It didn’t make her feel any better. And it sure as hell didn’t induce her to spill all her deepest darkest secrets.
“Where am I?” she asked, changing the subject.
He regarded her in silence. After a long, uncomfortable moment, he informed her, “We’re at my farm in southern Minnesota.”
She looked to the window, though she couldn’t see past the heavy drapes. “Minnesota!” She gaped. “You took me from Mexico?”
“Technically, Sïnsobar took you out of Mexico. I took you away from him.”
“Well, I have to go back,” she insisted, her panic and fury at last giving her the energy she needed to push herself up on the soft bed.
The sensual line of his lips compressed. A muscle clenched in his jaw. His expression tightened, and his hands fisted on the armrests of his chair. His nostrils flared. “You aren’t going anywhere.” He sounded hoarse all of a sudden. Strained. He looked down, then back to her face, then down once more. His eyes flickered, going completely black, then blue, then black again, once, twice.
“You can’t keep me here.” Panic seeped through her, cold and insidious.
But she couldn’t give in to the threatening hysteria. She had to figure out what her next step was in getting back to her search for the sword. She struggled to the side of the bed. It was only when her bare feet touched the chilled floor that she realized she was naked, the corner of the sheet pooling on her lap.
Mortified, she jerked the sheet up and around her. “Where are my clothes?”
Sebastian stared at her, hard. His face a study in raw, carnal hunger. The way he looked at her set off a strange trembling deep in her core.
“Gone,” he replied at last, his tone level, strictly controlled, despite the fire shimmering in his eyes. “I didn’t figure you’d mind as they were pretty much trashed anyway.”
His sultry stare skimmed down over her, over the thin sheet she clutched to her like a shield. His attention dipped to her bare legs, caressed their way down to her glittery, Scarlet Kiss painted toenails, and the heat in his expression intensified until she feared it would consume him. Consume them both. Nervous flutters winged through her stomach. Careful to keep the sheet in place to shield her modesty, she scooted back in the bed and reached for the blanket as well, covering herself from toe to neck.
“And as to the other”—his stare met hers—“you’re wrong.”
“Wrong? Wrong about what?” She was having trouble keeping up with the conversation. Those mesmerizing electric blue eyes had woven some spell on her senses, certainly on her body. She was having all sorts of strange visceral reactions to him.
He leaned forward, dropped his elbows to his knees and assessed her once more, his attitude…his body language…now reeked of sheer male power. Power and possession the likes of which she couldn’t even begin to fathom.
“I can keep you.” The edges of his mouth curled up, making her heart stutter. “In fact, I have every intention of doing exactly that.”
She blinked at him, as her lips slowly parted in shock.
Those words, combined with the recent visual reminder of that supple body—the very same body he’d spent the last four days intimately tending—took on a whole new appeal. Sebastian clamped down hard on the lust swelling in his groin, but he wasn’t able to suppress it. Not completely. Hell, not by a long shot.
Answers, he reminded himself. He needed to get answers first. Before anything else. The others were counting on him.
And Mikhail…
Christ in Heaven, the tortures Mikhail was enduring even now. Stolas had periodically been sending them sadistic photos of Mikhail’s brutal treatment. Apparently the bastard demon prince got his rocks off not only on vicio
us and inventive torture, but on immortalizing his efforts with candid shots of his handiwork. The pictures, Sebastian rationally knew, were designed not only to degrade the Demon of War, but to break him and to destroy his fearsome reputation. They were also designed to taunt the Fallen. To demoralize them. To weaken them from the inside out. To shake their resolve.
Instead, all Stolas had done was fuel their rage. Fuel it and reinforce their determination. Sebastian wanted to destroy the bastard with his bare hands. The only thing keeping him grounded right now was his focus on Phoebe. Xander, Niklas, and Gideon had been preparing to leave on a rescue mission the last time he’d spoken to Niklas. That had been nearly two full days ago. Since then, nothing. Not a peep. Not an SOS. Not a blip on the radar.
He’d even called Kyanna and Carly as he’d waited for Phoebe to recover. They hadn’t heard anything either. Not for days. Nor had Maggie, they’d informed him. And they were all beside themselves with worry and fear.
Not good.
The last shreds of his control were stretched to the breaking point from his need to take action…any kind of action. And the tiny little spikes of energy that came from Phoebe whenever she became worked up about something drilled into him, making him want to push for answers.
Patience, he reminded himself. Phoebe wasn’t a rogue demon to be interrogated. She was a fragile mostly-human being. As such, he needed to use kid gloves here, not brass knuckles dipped in Ralsha venom.
Still, he was mindful of every second that ticked by.
“Why do you have to go back to Mexico? In case you didn’t notice, somebody’s trying to kill you.”
He watched as she lifted her hand to finger the scar on her throat. He didn’t think she was even aware she was doing it. Her throat moved as she forced a swallow, and then her hand fell limply to her side.
“I’m a Professor of Archeology, currently on hiatus. I lecture at Redmond College in Port August, Michigan,” she informed him. “I am a leading expert on the Mayan culture, particularly Mayan mythology. I’ve spent the last year obtaining academic funding and trudging my way through enough political red tape to make your head spin in order to get the permits necessary to coordinate a dig near Campeche. I have to get back now. My window of time is closing.”