Warrior Avenged

by Addison Fox

  He trusted her.

  And he desired her.

  Warm heat suffused her as she realized what a precious treasure lay before her. How this man had changed the way she saw the world.

  The way she saw herself.

  Her every thought—about what she wanted from her life and about who she was—had changed since Kane’s arrival in her life.

  And at that moment, she knew the path held no return.

  She could reach out and take life. Joy and heartache, moments of pure magnificence and moments of deep grief.

  Or she could set herself apart from it all and feel nothing.

  Leaning down, she enveloped the very essence of what made him a man between her lips.

  And chose life.

  When Ilsa took him inside her mouth, need swamped him.

  Unable to stop the deep moans she drew from him, he simply lay back and allowed the moment to spin out. Wave after wave of pleasure ran through his body as her tongue swept the length of him.

  Base to tip and back again. Deep, delicious curls of her tongue around the crown. Tender, firm strokes as she cupped the sensitive sacs beneath.

  “Ilsa.” Her name dragged from his lips on a low, breathless moan.

  His heart pounded in heavy rhythm and sweat slicked over his skin, his body wholly and completely affected by her touch.

  “Ilsa. Baby.” He reached for her arms, intending to pull her closer. They were in this one together and no way was he spilling himself all over her. “Baby. Come here.”

  The incredible torture stopped as she lifted her head, a sultry smile spread across her face. “Are you asking me to stop, Kane Montague?”

  “Gods, no! I just want you to come here. We’ll finish together.”

  She sat back on her heels, her fingers tracing a tight path where her mouth had just been.

  Another wave of pleasure swamped him, the muscles in his lower back tightening as his body prepared for release.

  “Ilsa!”

  Her voice slid over him like the finest liquor. “Do you remember what I told you last night?”

  Kane opened his eyes, his breath heavy and his vision blurred as he took in the soft light of the room. “I’m not doing a great job of remembering much of anything right now, darling.”

  “Well, then,” she purred, “let me remind you.”

  With one hand, she applied firm, tight pressure to the base of his cock, the sensations so strong he gritted his teeth to keep from going off right there.

  And then she killed him. Decimated him into the ash of a thousand fires.

  With her other hand, her thumb and forefinger tightened around the crown, applying a steady pressure that held him in check.

  Mind-numbing pleasure assaulted every inch of his body, exploding through his brain like an oncoming freight train.

  In a very good way.

  With her expert strokes, she pulled another low moan from his chest, the pleasure so intense he was unable to keep silent.

  When he took it as long as he could—took the pleasure and the desperate pain that came from holding his release—Kane pulled her toward him for a long, drugging kiss.

  Shifting, he rolled them over, falling on top of her and embedding himself to the hilt.

  She was so wet for him—so ready, so eager—and he let himself fall into the long, rhythmic strokes so incredibly necessary at that moment in time.

  Ilsa met him thrust for thrust, her body in perfect harmony with his.

  He knew the moment he was done for. His body exploded, the storm gathering from his very core. He buried himself deep inside of her and felt the telltale quiver of her muscles tightening around him in her own release.

  The pleasure blinded him, but even in the darkness, he felt the light of love that filled him to bursting.

  Kane reached for her, their fingers locking as the world exploded around them.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Ilsa couldn’t believe her eyes as she looked around. As someone who had spent nearly sixteen thousand years executing each and every task in her life on her own, the sight of other people porting alongside her was a heady feeling.

  She was part of a team.

  Four people accompanied her into MI6. Kane, Quinn, Drake and Emerson stood around her, assembled and ready to help.

  Ilsa opened the door of an abandoned conference room they’d used for the port. Although it was nearly impossible to escape the all-seeing eye of a camera, no one thought to focus on the far corner of a conference room for security purposes. She’d used this corner more than once, on any late-night visits into the building.

  She made a directional motion with her head, her voice a whisper. “It’s down here.”

  They’d ported in small groups. She had taken Quinn earlier to give him a sense of location; then they left separately to retrieve Kane, Drake and Emerson.

  “Shit, that’s quite a ride.” Emerson’s excited whisper floated toward her as they filed out of the conference room.

  They’d agreed ahead of time on clothing. The cameras would capture their every move and it was decided the hassle of trying to override them could be counterbalanced by acting the part and appearing to have the appropriate badges posted on the body.

  Ilsa couldn’t help but smile at Emerson and her enthusiasm, taking in the rather prim-and-proper beige suit that now covered her pixie-sized frame.

  With a quick motion, Ilsa pointed toward the far end of the hallway. “The last door on the right.”

  If they’d had any doubt about bringing her along, Emerson absolutely proved her worth when they reached the door. Drake had a set of lock picks in his hand, when she waved her hands over the door, a steady chant on her lips.

  A soft snick announced the door was unlocked.

  “How’d you manage that?”

  Emerson smiled broadly, her white teeth flashing in the dull lighting of the hallway. “Let’s just say I got bored easily as a child. I liked finding new ways to use my gifts.”

  They filed into the room, the glass walls reflecting a beautiful view of London. Quinn swept the room with one of the many devices he used to check for paranormal activity. “You work for this guy, Monte?”

  Kane’s voice was ripe with the dark tinges of anger. “Did work. It sounds like the St. Giles I knew is long gone.”

  Ilsa glanced toward Kane as he searched a wood credenza, the grief unmistakable in his words. Anguish in the knowledge St. Giles had been killed by Emmett.

  Even though she didn’t know all the specifics, Emerson had been clear in her explanation that removing Emmett from the body wouldn’t bring St. Giles back.

  Sadly, the man was long gone.

  Ilsa returned her attention to Quinn. She’d been fascinated earlier when the Taurus had held up a small handheld device that lit up like a video game. He claimed it could sense paranormal activity of any sort.

  Although Ilsa had her doubts, who was she to argue. Instead, she gestured Quinn toward the desk. “Try over there. I think he keeps it in the desk.”

  The lights on the device played out her theory that the drawer held something important and she moved along behind the Taurus as he approached the desk. Kane stepped away from his hunt through the credenza to join them as well.

  “Emerson’s getting something over here, too.” Drake gestured toward a filing cabinet Emerson stood before, her hands stretched in front of her as she ran them in front of the metal.

  Quinn played with the small computer, punching in various buttons. With a nod, he gestured toward the far side of the desk. “The reading’s coming off the top drawer.”

  “Quinn,” Drake called, “get over here. I think you’re going to get something off of this, too.”

  Kane stood with her over the desk.

  “I’ll get it.” Kane reached for the handle, but Ilsa stopped him. “You don’t know what’s in there.”

  “My blood’s in there.”

  “Yes, but what if he rigged it?”

  �
��Rigged it with what? He gave up his powers to release the poison inside of me.”

  “You still don’t know, Kane. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  “It’s balance. His power for mine. We established that three hundred years ago.” Without waiting another second, Kane pulled open the drawer.

  Ilsa recognized the small vial immediately. She should. She’d been the one to fill it.

  Some prescient thought pulled her forward and before Kane could argue about who would pick it up, Ilsa took matters into her own hands.

  She’d gotten them into this mess by stealing his blood in the first place.

  She’d take the hit.

  As her fingers closed over the vial, a loud rushing of air flew through her, centered around the tear in her soul. The scream rose in her throat, but before she could open her mouth, everything went black.

  “Son of a bitch!” Kane hollered, Ilsa’s body a deadweight in his arms.

  “What the fuck happened?” Quinn’s dumb-ass computer was lit up like Christmas as he, Emerson and Drake ran across the room.

  Emerson shook her head. “Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. I should have known. How could I have been so shortsighted?”

  “What?” Kane demanded. “What is it?”

  Before Emerson could respond, Drake was reaching for the ground. “This must have fallen when Ilsa picked up the vial.” As the Pisces had touched the paper, he yelped, the cry escaping his lips on a loud sigh.

  “What the hell’s the matter?” Quinn demanded.

  “Paper’s hot as an oven.” Drake lifted the paper gingerly at the very edge with the tips of his fingers.

  “Read it.” Kane glanced down at Ilsa’s still form in his arms. “Hurry.”

  Quinn, Emerson and Drake huddled around the desk, reading the copy of the note, until Emerson spoke up. “It’s a letter from Emmett. Informing us of what we just opened.”

  Kane had lost his patience for guessing games. Ilsa continued to thrash in his arms and the urgent need to get her back to New York was overwhelming. “Hurry up.”

  “It says the poison has been unleashed.”

  “What? How?” Drake and Quinn both barked at Emerson in unison as Kane stood stock-still, taking it all in.

  Increasingly frustrated, Kane shifted his attentions off his brothers and onto Emerson. “I don’t need a fucking book report. Give me the highlights.”

  “Apparently, he’s going to make it ‘easy on us,’ ” Emerson said, glancing again at the note before leveling her stormy gray gaze at him. “The poison has now been unleashed in London, possibly in two different places. The London Eye and the zoo. We have exactly one hour to see that it’s brought under control.”

  “How the hell are we supposed to control it?” Quinn snapped.

  In unison, Quinn, Drake and Kane all shifted their focus to Emerson. It definitely helped to have a witch on your side.

  Kane rocked Ilsa in his arms as they ported to the zoo. He could only assume the zoo was the place. The poison was tied to his scorpion—an animal. Of course, he couldn’t stop the anxiety that the poison was actually at the Eye. Hundreds of innocent people. That would be enough to get Emmett’s juices flowing.

  They’d agreed in advance that Drake and Quinn needed to port. Kane wouldn’t leave Ilsa so he carried her wherever they went. Emerson was the variable.

  They needed her at both locations pending the outcome.

  “I’m telling you, it’s the zoo.”

  “The Eye’s more high-profile.” Quinn’s voice boomed so loud through Drake’s cell phone none of them missed the conversation.

  Or his opinion.

  “We have to divide and conquer, Quinn. We’re searching here and will call you back. Go make yourself useful. Kane thinks it’s the zoo, which is why we have Emerson. If you get different intel, I’ll port her there right away.” With that, Drake hung up the phone and turned back toward the assembled group. “Where to first?”

  “The scorpions,” Kane and Emerson said in unison.

  They took off for that section of the zoo, purpose filling each step. Kane worried over Ilsa—she’d gone completely still in his arms.

  He couldn’t ignore his fears as he felt his own strength waning. The deadweight of Ilsa’s body, combined with the increasing pains now shooting like fireworks off the length of his spinal cord, had Kane almost staggering by the time they reached the scorpion exhibit.

  “Let me take her.” Drake held out his arms. “You’re dead on your feet, Monte.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Actually, you can’t. Hand her over. All we need is you falling all over these fine families here. It’s bad enough we’re drawing attention carrying a woman who looks like she went on a three-day bender.”

  Kane handed Ilsa to Drake, who repositioned her into a more upright position next to him. Although anyone who looked would know Ilsa needed help, it wasn’t quite so obvious as when he’d held her.

  Emerson had found a spot on some benches and they settled in to wait.

  “You feel anything?” Kane grilled her the moment he took his seat. The pain was nearly unbearable now, the nerves along his spinal cord shooting sparks down both legs. Sitting didn’t help the pain, but it at least kept the possibility of falling at bay.

  “No.” Emerson shook her head. “Nothing at all.”

  “It’s got to be here.”

  “Why?” Emerson’s voice was direct. “He gave us two very large targets. We’re selecting the most obvious places in hopes he went for predictable in the vain effort to see if we could diffuse his work in time.”

  “You think?” Kane looked up at her, where she paced the ground in front of him.

  “What other reason could there be? There’s a part of him that can only be validated if he gets caught. Can only show he won if we suffer. What’s he going to do? Put it in the middle of the skunks?”

  “Eye,” Ilsa whispered.

  “What?” Kane’s gaze swung around to Ilsa, where she lay propped against Drake’s shoulder. Her eyelids were so heavy they were nearly closed, but her words were clear. “London Eye. That was the site of St. Giles’s last mission. Bet you ten to one Emmett’s got a sentimental streak.”

  Kane was dead on his feet two hours later when Drake finally ported him and Ilsa to New York. Where she’d been doing better earlier, whatever toxin that had wrapped around the poison still held her in its grip.

  As he laid Ilsa on the couch, he held her down, holding tight to her arms. “Get Callie.”

  Emerson stood at the head of the couch where he had Ilsa spread out. Kane longed to curl up and try to grab whatever rest he could find, but he needed to see Callie. Needed her to tell him Ilsa would be fine. “Tell me exactly what happened. Each step.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Callie hollered as she came into the room. “Tell it once. I need to know.”

  Kane took them both through it, from Quinn’s computer readings all the way to when Ilsa touched the vial and Quinn’s subsequent adventures with the London Eye.

  Emerson had been the real heroine, following Quinn through the attraction and diffusing each and every area where the poison potentially lurked. She now moved to kneel next to the couch, holding Ilsa’s hands still with one of her own while singing various chants.

  Soon Callie joined in and added her voice.

  More incantations. More chanting. More hand movements.

  In the end, Emerson’s determination served her well.

  Kane watched as Callie burst back into the room. “What happened?”

  Callie had a book in her hands, the same one she’d held earlier before suggesting they contact Emerson.

  Ilsa’s body had grown deathly still. Panic twisted Kane’s stomach muscles, along with the bone-deep fear of losing her.

  And what would he do then?

  Gritting his teeth against the pain of that image, Kane focused on Emerson. On her expertise. “What did he do to her?”

  “It’s a pr
otection spell. And it’s designed to punish.”

  The pain was centered in her abdomen. The hole where the scientists broke through her soul the epicenter of the pain.

  Great, crashing waves of it poured through her body, forcing Ilsa into a doubled-over position where she sat on a hard bench seat.

  Struggling for breath, she lifted herself slowly and looked around, dimly registering she’d been here before.

  To this place of darkness and pain, sadness and woe.

  The River Acheron.

  Charon spoke to her as he rowed the boat, his movements practiced over millennia of steering the ferry.

  “You sacrificed much for the Warrior.”

  “Charon?”

  “Aye. It is me.”

  “But why am I here?”

  His scaly hands stayed firm on his ferryman’s stick, rowing them steadily onward. “They think I don’t hear. That I don’t understand. But I hear it all.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To Hades. He doesn’t want you to wait on the banks of the river to hear your fate. Nay, he wants to give it to you now.”

  “But I’m not dead.” The pain in her stomach spread out, morphing into a seeping mass of panic that beat in her chest with the ferocity of an out-of-control train.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Hardly. I’m alive.” She struggled to a full sitting position, ignoring the pain and the panic at the little demon’s words. “I’m an immortal, Charon, just as you are.”

  “Your soul is damaged. Your choices are set. You shall go to see Hades.”

  “Turn the boat around.”

  “I shall not, Nemesis.” He stretched out the word, dragging out the first syllable of her name. “How the mighty have fallen, Nemmmm . . . esis. Your fate is sealed, Nemmmm . . . esis.”

  The heat of the river rose up to swamp her senses, and then, without warning, the coldest of colds assailed her nerve endings as the scenery changed.

  Charon’s scaly face morphed into something else as another vision gripped her.

  Something that looked like a large human male.

  Zeus.