Emma watched him, allowed his lips to touch her hand. Her whispered questions music in his mind. Why aren’t you dead?
Honestly, he did not know, but he didn’t worry overlong about an answer. Her eyes closed and she lost consciousness.
Bran cleared his throat and Ajax looked up at his old friend.
“Bran. Why did she call for you? What are you doing here?”
“Waiting to see if she killed you.”
“She did not.”
“I can see that.” Bran put his sword away and sank into a crouch at Emma’s back. “By the gods, she’s a mess.”
“Is she yours?” Ajax knew he shouldn’t care. He had to find Angeline. Return to his throne, to his people, to his destiny. But the thought of Bran touching Emma was like daggers inside his skull.
“Eight hundred years old, and you’re still a fool.”
“Is she yours? Have you claimed her? She cried out for you when she was afraid. Thought of you when she faced the Triscani Hunters.” Ajax pushed up from the floor to sit, but did not move farther from her. He did not let go of her hand.
“Hunters?” Bran reached out to brush stray locks of hair off her face. Ajax gritted his teeth and swallowed the envy he felt at Bran’s easy familiarity with her as his old friend continued. “I knew it. Damn female. Always has been as stubborn as gravity.”
“Is she yours or not?”
“She’s like a daughter to me.”
“Then who does she belong to? Her power is too great to remain unclaimed.”
Bran studied him for a minute, his eyebrow raised. “We need to get out of here. I’m sure the Seattle Triad will have half-bloods crawling all over this place any minute. That scream could’ve been heard on Itara.”
“I know.” Ajax lifted Emma in his arms, reluctant to let Bran have her yet. “She has a bag of things next to her bed, things that I sensed were important to her.”
“I’ll get it.” Bran returned with Emma’s bag and opened a portal. He looked Ajax’s half-naked body up and down. “You going like that? Or do you want to put some clothes on first?”
“I will not wear their ash while I carry her.” No Triscani remains would taint the goddess in his arms. It was blasphemy. “Why do you refuse to answer my question? Does she have a Marked Mate or not?”
“You’re the only one who knows the answer to that.” Bran stepped through the portal without explanation and Ajax had no choice but to follow.
Chapter Five
Emma sipped a glass of lemonade and leaned against the kitchen counter. Bran had taken them to Florida, to a house on the beach where she’d met another Earth girl named Katherine, and Katherine’s Marked Mate, a giant warrior named Teagh.
Emma and Ajax were now additional house guests of the couple, joining Aron and his Marked Mate, Zoey, a human girl from Denver whose house had been destroyed by the Triscani just a couple of weeks ago. Aron was Ajax’s identical twin brother, and the similarity of their features disturbed her almost as much as the fact that she didn’t have a bit of trouble telling them apart. One look, and she knew which brother she faced.
She didn’t remember much, but apparently she’d slept for a day, been seen by a healer, and been watched over by her dark angel the entire time she’d been out.
A shower, a dress, and the beach had done wonders for her mood when she’d woken up. Now all the men, Teagh, Bran, Ajax, Aron and their neighbor, another half Immortal named Raiden, stood on the beach discussing strategy, or women, or God only knew what.
“The testosterone level on that beach might be strong enough to kill a few fish.” Mari spoke up from her perch at the table, her own half-empty glass of lemonade in front of her. She was pretty and curvy, the perfect candidate for a spot as a sexy salsa dancer. She also had a wicked sense of humor and a serious obsession with science fiction movies.
Katherine, the tall, willowy mistress of the house, tugged on the end of her dark braid where it hung over her shoulder, and laughed. “This is nothing. You should have been here last week, when all the Darkwalkers were here.”
“What’s a Darkwalker?” Timewalkers Emma had heard of. Never a Darkwalker.
Aron’s Mate, Zoey, answered. “My man.”
Mari agreed. “Mine, too. Thank God.”
Zoey, a no-nonsense former reporter and total spitfire, grabbed a cookie off the tray in the center of the kitchen table. Her hair was a hundred different shades from blonde to brown, and wild with curls. “Amen to that.”
“What is a Darkwalker?” Emma had taken lessons from Bran her entire life, sat at his knee and listened to stories about Itaran and Earthen history. She’d never even heard the term.
Katherine took pity on her. “They are Immortal or half-blood sons of the Queen’s line.”
“Forbidden sons?” That was a term she knew. They were the source of the Triscani. Their dark power, to kill another soul by absorbing its essence, as Ajax had done, led most to madness, and evil. They could not contain the souls of others without becoming twisted and dark, without turning into their enemy.
“Yes. But we found out a couple weeks ago that they weren’t supposed to be forbidden. They were created with a very specific purpose that the Itaran Queens tried to circumvent.” Katherine stood, staring out the sliding glass door at the males down by the beach. “The Triscani aren’t evil, Emma. Just lost.”
Emma sat at the table in the seat behind Katherine, so she’d have a clear view of Ajax where he stood with the others. “You still haven’t told me what a Darkwalker is.”
Katherine turned around and sat at the last empty chair. The kitchen was all white with splashes of green and blue, white wicker chairs sat beneath cheerful brass pots that hung from hooks in the ceiling. It looked like a summer beach house, not a command base for Immortals. “The Darkwalkers are forbidden sons, like Raiden, and now Aron, who’ve accepted the responsibility of serving the goddess and helping her maintain the Gates between worlds.”
Emma knew about the Gates. Bran had told her of their existence, of the Thousand Year War that the Immortals had fought with their enemy. When millennia of war brought no solution, both sides agreed to the creation of an energy barrier that would separate this reality from the other. The Itaran Immortals on one side, and their Immortal enemy on the other.
Who that enemy was, or why they’d battled for so long, no one could remember. And Bran said that the information had been deleted from the Itaran Hall of Records before he’d been born. All that the records held was a statement that said erasing the name of their enemy from history had been part of the agreement, on both sides.
“How do they do that? Maintain the Gates?” Emma asked, but was afraid she already knew the answer.
“They devour evil.” Mari tapped her fingers on the table. “Assimilate them. Suck their souls dry and feed the energy into a soul stone. The goddess takes the energy and recycles it. They were never supposed to have to suffer, or carry the evil inside themselves.”
Holy shit. No one had ever told her about that.
“Ajax has one, but he told me that it doesn’t work. I think he needs to get a new one from this goddess.”
Mari shook her head. “Maybe not. Aron didn’t need one, he just needed to reconnect with the goddess and agree to serve. She’s very big on the whole free-will thing.”
“I don’t know.” Katherine leaned forward, hand out on the table. “Robbie tried to help him while you were passed out. It was one of the first things the boys tried. The goddess refused him, both with the stone, like Raiden and Nicodemus, and directly linked, like Aron.”
“What? Why?” If anyone needed an activated, evil-killing soul stone, it was Ajax. She had to have burned enough evil from his flesh to keep a transdimensional Gate operational for a century, at least. She still didn’t understand why she hadn’t killed him. But it didn’t matter now. He had no intention of stopping. The impromptu war council taking place outside was proof of that.
Katherine's voice sounded s
ad. “She told Ajax that he already had what he needed, but when he asked what that was, she refused to tell him.”
“So, all of the Triscani just need a soul stone to be normal again?”
“No, most of them are too far gone. Based on our recent experience with the Darkwalkers, we figure only a quarter of them even want to be saved.” Katherine’s voice was sad.
“But why? Why would the Queen not tell anyone about this? Why make them suffer?” It made no sense at all.
Katherine shrugged and tilted her head back over to check on the men before answering. “I don’t know. We can’t figure that one out.”
Zoey the curious, as Emma was beginning to think of her, was staring at her, her gaze too serious by half.
“What?”
“So, did you Mark Ajax, or what?” Zoey leaned forward and pointed down, through the table, to where Emma’s feet were crossed beneath her chair. “Because we all know you’re one of us. We saw the Mark. And Ajax watched over you like a man possessed, but didn’t say a word. So, did you claim him or not?” She wiggled her eyebrows. “We’d be sisters-in-law.”
“Not.” Emma took a deep breath and shared her nightmare with the only women in the world who could possibly understand the depths of the problem. “He’s already got a Marked Mate. Her name’s Angeline, and he loves her.”
Katherine gasped.
“I have heard of her, but every time Bran or Raiden talk about her, it’s to say that she was turned to ash by the Triscani.” Mari dropped that bombshell and Emma had to let it sink in for a minute. Ajax was in love with a woman who was destined to die? But that was in the future, a future that hadn’t happened yet, which meant Ajax’s Queen was still alive, somewhere.
“Well, she’s not dead yet, and Ajax must think he can save her this time. He’s not giving up.”
Mari expressed exactly what was in Emma’s heart. “That totally stinks.”
“So you’re single?” Katherine clapped her hands together and smiled. “Okay. Ajax is a head case anyway, trust me, I’ve seen him on a bad day. And I just happen to know a couple of great guys. I’ll invite them over for dinner.” She leapt to her feet and walked to her cell phone. None of them moved or spoke as she dialed.
“Nicodemus? Can you and the boys come over tonight? We’ve got a situation and Teagh needs your help.”
Mari grinned and Katherine listened for a minute, then kept talking. “An hour is good. And you better be on your best behavior, there’s someone special I want you guys to meet.”
Katherine hung up and hummed on her way back to her seat. She sat down, reached for a cookie, and broke it in half. “Okay. Next?”
Zoey burst out laughing. “You are evil.”
Emma couldn’t believe it. “Did you just serve me up on a silver platter to an Immortal male?”
Katherine smiled. “Nope. Five of them.”
Mari’s grin was pure mischief. “Resistance is futile.”
Emma turned to her. “What does that even mean?”
Katherine answered. “It means, if Ajax isn’t available, we’re going to get you a fine-looking, delicious Mate, who is. And Nicodemus is hot, hot, hot.”
“You see the movie, Thor?” Mari’s grin was infectious and Emma nodded. Who hadn’t? “Thor’s got nothing on Nicodemus.”
<><><>
“This is pointless.” Ajax looked around at the faces of the men before him, warriors all, and wanted to kill something. They’d been arguing for hours.
“I believe I said that two hours ago.” Raiden, a male he remembered only from his spy’s reports prior to the Crux, stood before him, a forbidden son accepted by the goddess, a Darkwalker who was Mated to the most powerful healer Ajax had ever encountered.
“We’re running out of time. The new moon begins in two days.” Teagh spoke from his place beside his brother. Bran and Teagh, half-blood brothers, who’d sworn a blood oath to him long ago, stood shoulder to shoulder across from him, as they had for centuries. They looked nothing alike. Teagh’s father had been dark skinned, from Earth’s southern hemisphere, where Bran’s father had been a Viking of the north. But their Immortal mother, a daughter of the Archiver’s line, had given birth to two sons who could command the portals and used them to gain political affluence and access to a King.
Fortunately, the two brothers had more honor than their mother. Anger still stewed in his chest every time he looked at them, but it was anger at himself. They’d saved his life, brought him back from the abyss when he’d thought he was lost.
No. Emma did that.
The nagging voice in his head spoke of little else but the human female. Even now, he strained to hear the women’s conversation inside the house, and fought back a growl as Teagh’s Marked Mate, Katherine, suggested that Emma choose Nicodemus as a Mate, while Mari agreed and implied that the Darkwalker was “hot, hot, hot”.
He wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but assumed Katherine referred to a lover’s heat, the fire in the blood, the want…
No. He didn’t have time for the human females. Not until after the Crux. Katherine had said he was a ”head case”, and perhaps he was. But he had a war to fight, a battle to plan for, and his people to protect. He did not have time to dedicate to trying to understand a human female, a female that was not his.
“Let’s take a break and resume this conversation later, once the Darkwalkers have arrived. They may know more of Droghan’s plan.” Aron crossed his arms and his tone invited no argument. So, his brother had heard Katherine’s call to Nicodemus as well. Ajax wasn’t the only one listening to the women. Aron, his identical twin, was a male lost to him so many years ago that his own brother was a stranger. Aron had spent centuries locked away and tortured by the Triscani. And yet, he’d never turned. Never given in. He did not know the ancient male that stood beside him, that shared his face, but he respected that, and he adored Aron’s Marked Mate, the fiery-eyed Zoey, a human rebel who was determined to help Aron battle the Triads on Earth. Assuming they all lived through the next week.
“It would help if we could find Celestina.” Bran’s frustration was evident. And judging by the knowing smirk on Teagh’s face, the Seer had pushed Bran’s patience, and his heart, to the razor’s edge.
“How long has it been since anyone’s seen her?” Raiden asked.
“Three days.” Bran’s left hand gripped and released the hilt of his sword as Aron corrected him with a grin of his own.
“Three days, four hours, and twelve minutes since the Seer told you off and disappeared.”
“Shut it, asshole.”
Aron burst out laughing and Ajax was shocked to see that expression on a face identical to his own. When was the last time he’d laughed? Or even smiled?
Emma’s kitchen. Gods be damned, why did his mind keep circling back to that female? He was the Marked Mate to Angeline, and she was here, somewhere, he just had to find her. Angeline was a delicate beauty from an affluent Immortal lineage. He should not be thinking about Emma. And he should not want to kill a male he’d never met because Katherine was determined to offer Emma to him, “on a silver platter”.
The males took his brooding silence as consent to convene and he didn’t stop them from returning to their Mates. They left him alone on the beach, all except Bran, who sank down beside him to sit in the sand. He had a feeling the male didn’t want to be in that house, around all of the happily Mated couples, any more than he did.
“I know where Angeline is. After your escape from the stasis pod, I made it a point to find her. I thought, perhaps, that might be where you’d go first. I can take you to her, if that’s what you’re sure you want to do.”
Ajax tensed. “Where is she?”
Bran tossed a shell into the waves. “She’s here, on Earth.”
“How is that possible? Her mother served in the Queen’s Third Circle.” The Itaran Immortals had seven lineages, and seven Circles of power with a designated number of representatives from each family’s House servin
g at each level. The First Circle was the Queen. The Second Circle was comprised of One member of every House. The Third Circle held three members of every House, and so on until the Seventh Circle was reached. The Seventh Circle handled most of the day-to-day governance on Itara, and held eleven members of each House. Every seat of power was handed down through maternal lineage, with the Second Circle members having much more power and influence than the Seventh.
The seven maternal lines were the the Queens, the Seers, and the Archivers, as representations of the spirit of the goddess. The remaining four families had mastery over the elements of creation, or the sacred body of the goddess.
The Angeline he remembered had been a diplomat and a servant of the people, in line to replace her mother in the House’s Third Circle. A powerful female from a powerful and respected family.
“Angeline’s in Denver, daughter of a Triad member.” Bran patted him on the shoulder. “Sorry, brother. You can go after her, if that’s what you want. But the Angeline you remember doesn’t exist anymore. Not in this timeline.”
“How is that possible?”
“Her mother was accused of conspiracy and got the chute while you were locked away. Her mother survived her arrival here on Earth, wiped out the entire Denver Triad and took over the region about eighty years ago. Angeline was born there.”
Ajax remembered Angeline’s mother very well. “She always was a power-hungry bitch.”
“Yes. Well, that didn’t change.”
“Have you seen her? Met her? Is she still…” Ajax’s question trailed off. What did he want to ask? Was she still what? Beautiful? Sweet? Soft and serene? Was she still his, the female he’d loved?
“No. She is not exactly what she was before. I have been watching over her since your escape. She’s a cold one, works in her mother’s domain. Smart as a whip and sneaky.” Bran sighed. “But she won’t remember you. Doesn’t miss you. Doesn’t even know you exist.”
“Her soul will recognize mine when we touch.” Ajax had carried that belief for hundreds of years, while his mind had been rotting and his thirst for killing had ridden him hard in his prison. He’d thought of her.
White Fire: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 5 Page 5