Blurred Memories

by Kallysten

He only wished Kate hadn’t been there to see it.

  Chapter 23

  Kate’s world crumbled, and seconds stretched into centuries as Blake hit Marc, over and over—and Marc allowed him to. For a long time, she was too stunned to react, until finally, with a curse, she shook herself into motion.

  “Blake! What are you doing! Stop!”

  She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back, but he shook her off, and she fell back on her ass.

  “Ow!”

  Her muffled exclamation got through him in a way her words hadn’t. He stilled and turned to her, still kneeling over Marc, his fist raised. His eyes were consumed by flames as he looked at her, frowning.

  “Kate?”

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, pushing herself to her knees.

  When Blake started to shake and blinked twice, Kate remembered what he had said about not liking seeing her on her knees. At that moment, however, she didn’t care. All that mattered was that he had stopped hitting Marc. She reached for Marc, but when she touched his arm, he merely turned his battered face toward her.

  “Hey. Are you okay?” she asked, her voice trembling with each word.

  He nodded once. Her gaze turned to Blake, and she wished she hadn’t known exactly what was going on in his head.

  “We came here to help Marc, remember? It’s Marc. Not…” She swallowed hard. “Not your Master. Just Marc.”

  A beat passed in silence before Marc closed his eyes and murmured, “There isn’t much of a difference anymore.”

  Kate’s stomach dropped. She thought her heart might just stop. “Why would you even say…”

  She couldn’t finish. She knew why. Simon had told them.

  “You remember,” she said, and her voice croaked on a sob. She rubbed at her cheeks, furious with herself for not being stronger. Both of them had been held by demons and tortured; what right did she have to cry?

  Blake had pushed himself off Marc and just sat there, his bloodied hands at his sides, his gaze going back and forth between Kate and Marc. After a few more seconds, Marc sat up and pulled back until he could lean against the wall. Neither said a word. Kate crawled forward until she was in between them and held out a hand to each of them. Marc took her right hand first. Two heartbeats later, Blake took her left hand. Kate let out a strangled chuckle.

  “God, how did I manage to fall in love with the two most stubborn men in the world? In the entire universe, for that matter.” She shook her head. “This is the wrong place for it. The wrong time. But there’ll never be a right place and time. I know you love each other. I know the last thing you want is to hurt one another. So stop fighting. Stop hiding or running. Just talk.” She held on tighter to both their hands. “Please.”

  * * * *

  Kate’s hand had never seemed so warm in Blake’s own. He looked at those delicate fingers, then looked at her other hand, curled just as tightly around Marc’s. Very slowly, he raised his gaze until he met Marc’s. Even with bruises in full bloom on his face, he still managed to give Blake that infuriating look of concern.

  “How much do you remember?” Blake asked quietly.

  Marc licked his lips before answering, which meant he was trying to decide what answer to give.

  “Just tell me,” Blake insisted. “How much?”

  With a sigh, Marc finally said, “All of it. It’s a bit jumbled but—”

  “The bed,” Blake interrupted curtly. It was taking all his will not to reach for the hilt of his sword. He didn’t know what he would do if he pulled it, though. Simply hold it for comfort’s sake, or follow every screaming instinct in his body and kill his Master.

  Not Master, he kept repeating to himself. Kate wouldn’t have been holding their Master’s hand like this. It was Marc in front of them, even if he had their Master’s memories.

  “What about the bed?” Marc asked warily, his eyes flitting to the back wall against which the bed had once stood.

  “Was it…” Blake swallowed hard, but the bitter taste at the back of his throat remained there. “Was it to taunt me with what I couldn’t have? One more way to fuck with my head?”

  Marc frowned for a moment, like he didn’t quite understand what Blake was talking about. But after a few seconds, he answered.

  “At first, it was just that.” Guilt was thick in Marc’s voice, and he closed his eyes to hide from Blake. “And then, he…he started thinking that if you came to him willingly, he’d let you sleep in it.”

  Blake frowned, shaking his head. “He never let me.”

  Marc’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “He didn’t have time. They took you away before he could try.”

  Every time Marc said ‘he,’ Blake heard ‘I.’ He knew it wasn’t Marc who had tortured him, that his Sire would never hurt him or Kate. So why was he interrogating Marc about his Master’s intentions, like they were Marc’s own? Marc sharing his jailer’s memories made everything more complicated.

  Unless Blake simply pulled out his sword and put an end to it all. It wouldn’t be hard, not if Marc continued not to resist.

  “Blake…” Kate’s voice rose no higher than a whisper. “Please.”

  At her words, he realized his free hand had risen to clutch the hilt of Seneca. He managed to still his movement and didn’t draw out the sword, but he couldn’t let go. Not yet. Centuries of pain, physical and mental, were weighing on him. In this very room, he had dreamed countless times of the simple chance to fight back. And now, at his mercy was a man who remembered the same things Blake did—but from the other end of the whip. A man who wasn’t fighting back. A man whom Blake had called ‘Sire’ and ‘Master.’ It was that second incarnation he needed to destroy. The only thing that stopped his hand was the certainty deep inside that he would destroy himself if he killed his Sire.

  Marc’s throat moved, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. When his voice rose, it was dry and croaky, and Blake wouldn’t have recognized it if he hadn’t seen Marc’s lips move. “Do you have any idea why he beat you just before they sent you back to our world?”

  Blake frowned, curiosity prevailing over his need for revenge, at least for now. “Why?” he repeated. “It wasn’t the first time he lashed out at me without reason.” It was hard to keep the accusation out of his words, but Blake hoped he had. He had even managed to say ‘he’ rather than ‘you.’

  “He always had a reason,” Marc replied, the barest trace of apology in his tone. “I’m not saying they made sense, but in his mind they were sufficient.”

  “So why did he beat me that last time?” Blake couldn’t resist asking despite the fact that his mind supplied the almost tactile memory of the whip digging into his flesh.

  Whatever Kate heard in his tone, she held on to his hand even more tightly like she was afraid of what he might do if she let go.

  “He was angry,” Marc said slowly and quietly, “but not at you. He was angry they were taking you away from him. And angry he cared at all. He had no other way to let that anger out.”

  In a very strange, very twisted way, it made some sort of sense, and Blake was a little surprised to realize that understanding, if only in some small measure, made the memory…less. It was still there, lurking and threatening to take him over if he allowed himself to dwell on it, but it was also easier to push back and trap in a little box to put aside, maybe even for good. The need to hurt his Master wasn’t so overwhelming anymore, and Blake could look over and see his Sire there rather than an enemy.

  He pushed himself to his feet, one hand still entwined with Kate’s, the other on his sword. Letting go of Seneca took all his strength of mind. He looked at his two lovers at his feet, both of them watching him with apprehension. He pulled Kate up first. She stood but didn’t let go of Marc’s hand. Blake held out his own to Marc.

  “Let’s go home,” he said simply, and together they helped Marc to his feet.

  * * * *

  Something had happened in that cell, and Kate was grateful they had listened to
her plea and talked.

  It scared her how close Blake had come to killing Marc—except, in his mind, it hadn’t been Marc in front of him. But Blake hadn’t drawn his sword. He had hurt Marc, but only until he realized it was Marc in front of him, and no one else.

  Given how stubborn they both were, she knew she would have to stop them from shutting down about all of it, but she could be stubborn, too, when she had to.

  The three of them were still holding hands when they left the cell. Marc staggered in between Kate and Blake, and when they started down the hallway, Kate wove her arm around him to stabilize him. They soon came across Simon and Daniel, both of whom looked relieved to see them.

  “Where have you been?” Daniel snapped, but his gaze, as he studied Marc’s face, asked an entirely different question: What the hell happened?

  “We’re here now,” Kate answered. She knew neither Blake nor Marc was up to answering more questions at the moment. “Did you free all the prisoners?”

  They had, and the squad was finishing what was left of the demons.

  “But reinforcements are on the way,” Daniel added. “Jen heard their leader tell the rest of them. We need to go back to the breach, and we need to go now.”

  As they made their way back outside, Kate noticed that Simon was dropping the small herb packets he had been working on earlier on the ground every few steps. She thought about asking what he was doing, but she was exhausted and she figured he would tell them sooner or later. And, indeed, after they had rejoined the rest of the squad and were halfway back to the breach, Simon stopped her, Marc, and Blake.

  “Wait. I want to show you something.”

  Kate’s arm tightened around Marc’s waist. He was much steadier on his feet, but she couldn’t bear to let go of him yet.

  “Simon,” she said impatiently. “We don’t have time to lose. Demons are coming.”

  “It’ll only take a moment,” he said. He was kneeling on the ground, making a small pile of the remaining herb packets. His lips moved silently, and he extended his arm in front of him. As he opened his fist, he murmured one last word –“Now.”—and a ball of pure light shot from his hand, gathering strength as it sped toward the prison. Before it even reached it, more light started to emanate from the building, piercing through the stone walls themselves. Without so much as a whisper, the light coalesced into a giant dome that enveloped the entire prison.

  “Do you want to destroy it?” Simon asked, his voice strangely absent while he focused on his magic.

  For a second—an eternity—the words made no sense. Then Kate’s breath caught in her throat as she understood. Judging by Blake’s and Marc’s matching eager expressions, they understood too.

  “How?” Blake breathed.

  Simon stood and showed them what he held in his palm: a book of matches from the pub in Riverton. “Just light these on fire,” he indicated the packets on the ground.

  Blake’s hand shook when he took the matches. He broke three off and handed one to Kate and the second to Marc, keeping the third for himself.

  “Together?” he asked.

  “Together,” Marc and Kate repeated. They lit the matches and dropped them on top of the herb packets. The packets started to burn immediately, and as they did, the light radiating from the dome over the prison grew fiercer and brighter until Kate had to shield her eyes. When she looked again, the dome was gone and the prison was a pile of rubble. There hadn’t been even a whisper of sound. Somehow, it seemed strange that a place that had seen such horrors could be destroyed so quickly, so quietly. But the important thing, Kate thought as she looked at Marc and Blake, was that it was destroyed.

  “Come on!” Daniel shouted behind them. “Let’s go! Now!”

  They turned back toward the breach and started on the trail again. After a few seconds, Simon frowned at them over his shoulder.

  “You’re welcome,” he huffed, his pride clearly wounded that his magical feat hadn’t been properly recognized.

  The three of them looked at each other and shared a grin.

  “Thank you,” Blake said. “Really. You have no idea what it means that that place is gone.”

  Simon shrugged one shoulder. “I can guess,” he said, mollified, then hurried ahead where Daniel was calling him.

  They finally reached the breach and stepped back through, two and three at a time. Once they were all on the other side, some of the squad started to guide the rescued prisoners and the wounded toward the truck, while the rest of he squad—including Kate, Marc, and Blake—remained by the breach to watch Simon close it.

  Kate fought to keep her voice from wavering when she said to Marc, “If you ever so much as think of doing something that stupid again, I swear…”

  Despite her resolve to be strong, she choked on the words.

  “He won’t leave again,” Blake said from Marc’s other side. His smile was lopsided, but it was a smile nonetheless. His gaze turned to Marc, and he added, “He won’t have to. Not anymore.”

  The two of them shared a look, and there was more in their eyes that Kate could hope to decipher. She knew they both cared for her, loved her, even if the words were hard to pull out of them, and she had long ago promised herself that she would never be jealous of what existed between them. That bond of blood that linked them was beyond anything she could comprehend, beyond anything they could explain in words. Maybe some day one of them would want to share that with her, and she already knew that she would say yes, if only to have more time with them.

  They didn’t say a word, but something shifted in their expressions, and in the way they held themselves. Kate drew a sharp breath when she noticed that those perpetual worry lines that had crinkled the corners of Blake’s eyes for so long were gone. She was afraid to hope, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but wonder: was this it? Was that what Blake had needed to truly start healing? He certainly seemed more like the old Blake, impish and carefree, than he had in months.

  “I missed you,” tumbled out of Kate’s lips without her permission, but the words couldn’t have been more true, and she didn’t regret them. When they both looked at her again, she felt compelled to add, “I missed both of you so, so much.”

  Her hand rose automatically, and Blake’s was already there to hold it tight. He pulled her forward, closer to both of them. Kate squeezed his fingers and turned toward Marc, rising onto the tip of her toes to brush her lips against his cheek where the bruises weren’t so glaring.

  “Never again?” she whispered.

  His arm slipped around her waist and drew her into a hug. “Never again.”

  She relished the hug for a little while, but eventually she shifted, half turning her body toward Blake as he asked Marc, “How long was it? How long were you—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Marc interrupted him quietly. “I knew you’d come for me.” His gaze shifted back and forth between Blake and Kate. “I knew you’d both come. And you did. Thank you.”

  Kate huffed. “Of course we came. You idiot.” She looked at Blake, and her voice softened when she asked, “How do you feel?”

  He laid his hand on her cheek and stroked lightly. “Better.” His gaze shifted back and forth between Kate and Marc. “I can’t promise I won’t stumble again but my head is…quieter, if that makes sense.”

  Kate thought back of their first break-through, mere months earlier. Back then, she had been hopeful too, but with the passage of time she could see that the signs had already been there that Blake wasn’t fully healed. She had just been too relieved at the time to consider how long the road might still be. They might still have a while to go, but at least they had found the right path.

  “What now?” she asked, her eyes going from Blake to Marc and back.

  They exchanged a look. Marc raised an eyebrow but said nothing, leaving Blake to answer. When he did, there was a flame in his eyes, a twist to his lips, that were reminiscent of the old Blake, and that curled tendrils of hope around Kate’s heart.
>
  “We go home,” he drawled. “We celebrate properly. And then we go find another breach.”

  Behind him, the air shimmered with a bright blue light as the breach closed for good.

  Epilogue

  The last demon fell, slain, but energy was still thrumming through Kate’s veins, practically undistinguishable from joy. She looked around the battlefield, her gaze pausing briefly on Daniel, Simon, the other mage, and every other fighter she could see. Some were hurt, but medics were already helping them, and Daniel was ordering the clean-up. They had closed one more breach. They were all one step closer to ending the war against demons.

  Turning to where Blake and Marc were standing a few yards away, Kate slipped her sword into its scabbard and took several long strides toward them. Her eyes ran over Blake, checking he was all right, then she looked over Marc the same way. They were both fine. They had guarded each other’s backs as closely as they had guarded hers—as closely as she had guarded them.

  They stood close enough to each other that, when she reached them, she could throw one arm around Blake and the other around Marc to hug the two of them at the same time. They drew her closer until she was tight against them, close enough to feel the strength of their bodies against hers, along with their arousal. Fighting always made them hard, and over the months she had started to react the same way. From the moment it had become clear the battle would be won, she had started to feel the pull of her lovers’ bodies.

  “You smell good,” Blake said in a rumbling voice, pressing a kiss against her temple.

  She laughed quietly. “Yeah, I’m sure sweat and dust smell really nice.”

  “On you it does,” Marc said. His eyes gleamed with gold flames when he leaned down to kiss her.

  Kate closed her eyes and pressed against Blake as she let herself fall into Marc’s kiss. There were some cat calls; there always were. She didn’t let that trouble her, however. She didn’t care what anyone saw, heard, or thought. She only cared about the two men in front of her.