by Lynda Aicher
Confusion pummeled her right before the world turned black and she was consumed by a thousand pinpricks dancing across her flesh. She knew that feeling. This time she welcomed it.
And she accepted the fact that her life was now in Damian’s hands.
Chapter Ten
The sensation of plunging down the steepest hill of a rollercoaster turned Amber’s stomach each time they solidified then quickly faded back out in a flash of light. At some point in the riotous journey, Damian had gathered her tight to his chest, and she clung to him with a desperate grip.
Finally, the motion stopped along with the pinpricks on her skin. She held on and took deep, calming breaths, forcefully willing her stomach to settle.
“Are you okay?” His hold on her loosened, the deep timbre of his voice loaded with honest concern.
“What just happened?”
He exhaled and his breath ruffled against her temple. “Somehow, you did the impossible.”
She blinked, pulled back and looked into his eyes to see if he was serious. “What? I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who zapped us out of there.” His arms tightened around her, just a hint of resistance as she attempted to put space between them. She couldn’t think with him this close, his body touching hers so intimately, the energy burning within her. “But then, it was your own selfishness that put us there in the first place.”
The defensive, verbal barrier hit its mark. He looked away, but not before she saw the guilt flash in his eyes. His face tightened as he dropped his arms and stepped back. The instantaneous loss of his energy hit her deep, almost as if she’d lost a valuable piece of herself.
How? Why? Logically, she should despise this man after what just happened.
Unable, or more honestly, unwilling, to process the conflicting thoughts, Amber changed her focus to their surroundings. They were standing in the middle of a rustic, yet cozy living room. A large leather couch was flanked by two matching chairs and situated in front of a large brick fireplace. The room itself was clean, neat and very masculine, decorated in deep browns, greens and blues.
The architecture of the room was unique in that the room was one large circle. The curved walls were void of pictures or decorations, but the accessories weren’t missed because all the focus was on the large bank of curved windows that composed one-third of the room. The floor-to-ceiling glass offered a stunning view of the snow-covered hillside and valley below. The open landscape provided a feeling of isolation, of floating alone on top of a cloud.
The beauty was breathtaking and called to her in a strangely familiar way.
“It was your power that overrode the energy cuffs,” Damian said, yanking her back to their conversation. “I don’t know how you did it, but you shouldn’t have been able to. These collars are forged with the strongest energy and, as far as I know, have never failed. But our combined energy provided a power strong enough for me to port us out of there.”
Amber’s hand went to the collar that circled her neck. She twisted the hard metal against her skin, the anxiousness returning to make her skin crawl with the need to move. She remembered the feeling of power that had surged through her when he’d touched and kissed her. How, even now, she craved his touch.
“I don’t understand.”
“Energy is what powers the world. It is never created or destroyed, only redistributed and transformed,” Damian explained, stretching his neck as if to escape his own collar. “Circles are the only way to contain the energy, and whoever casts the circle defines the dynamics of the circle. Basically, what energy can enter and exit. The Energy races use circles as a form of protection. Since people are nothing but energy, a cast circle can prevent people from entering and exiting. With the collars, the circle contains the energy within our bodies, preventing our internal energy from exiting, and also keeps us from being able to use any of the external energy that is always around us.”
He stepped forward and unclicked the lock on the collar circling her neck. Her breath expelled in relief as the tight hold that had been clamping down on her was removed. The restlessness that had plagued her eased as the energy surged through her limbs, reigniting the slumbering cells and revitalizing her as it linked with the stone, then reached out to connect with the energy around her. She was quickly becoming attuned to the feel of the energy. It was unnerving yet powerful.
And the fact she recognized that made her muscles tense in pure shock.
He cast the collar dismissively onto the sofa next to them. “And the collars worked, right up until we kissed.” His eyes darkened and dropped to focus on her lips. Her mouth parted to let a small, inhaled hiss escaping as desire ripped through her.
His nostrils flared, and he tilted toward her before he straightened and turned away. He shoved his fists into his pockets as he paced to the windows and stared out at the peaceful scene. His profile was hard, sleek and professional. He was the executive preparing for business negotiations.
Almost absently, he pulled his hands from his pockets and rubbed his fingers over the dragon mark on the back of his hand. Amber’s fist clenched as she felt his touch whisper over the bird mark on her hand. How?
She backed away, her hand closing over the suddenly pulsing stone that was still hidden against her chest. It was a protective move to put more space between her and the man sporting the dragon mark.
The very symbol she had been warned to stay away from.
Internally, she warred with the conflicting information that assaulted her. Her instincts said Damian was safe and good. He had saved her, pulled her from the awful crowd of people who had declared her evil, a harbinger of destruction. But they had also said he was bad. That the marks on both of their hands were the sign of evil. And he had taken her to those people in the first place.
She hugged the thick warmth of Damian’s coat closer to her body despite the rivers of sweat that raced down her back. It offered a meek layer of protection. One she desperately needed at the moment. She forced a swallow, determined not to cower or freak out over everything that had happened, even if she would be justified in doing so. She locked her knees and forced her shoulders back.
She knew she wasn’t evil. But was he?
“How come you hid your mark from me?” She waited until he turned his head toward her then lifted her chin to indicate the dragon on his hand.
His gaze dropped as he moved his hand to stare at the mark. The white dragon was as intricately sketched as her bird. It stretched over the back of his hand, wings spread wide. The mouth of the dragon was open, baring its teeth and looking as if a breath of fire was eminent.
His eyes closed, and a brief hint of vulnerability softened his features before the hardness returned. He opened his eyes and shot her a look of indifference. “It wasn’t something you needed to know.”
She met his challenge head on. “And it had nothing to do with the fact that, twice now, I’ve been told the dragon was a sign of evil? That you have the exact symbol I was told to stay away from?”
Damian’s eyes narrowed. “Who told you to stay away from it?”
She licked her lips. “Just a man.”
He stepped toward her. “The same man who gave you the stone?”
Damn, he was quick. Her hands fidgeted deep within the pockets of his coat. “No.”
His eyebrow rose in speculation before a smile curved his lips, the simple act lifting the darkness that had plagued his face just moments ago. “You’re a bad liar, beauty. The blush gives you away every time.”
She turned away, hating the fact that he was right. She could never pull off a true lie without feeling immediate guilt which then blossomed into a telltale flush. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she changed the subject.
“Where are we?”
“My safe house.”
She turned her head to follow his movements as he strode across the room. “What do you mean, safe house?”
He stripped off the sleek suit jacket, revealing the tight, hard muscles t
hat bunched and flexed across his shoulders as he tossed the expensive jacket over the back of a chair. His tie came off next and joined the discarded jacket before he unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt.
Amber licked her lips, her bottom lip staying between her teeth as her gaze dropped to the tight contours of the delectable bottom that was on display beneath the expertly tailored slacks. She attempted to swallow, the sudden dryness in her throat stoked by the flame of heat that coursed straight to her gut, then lower. The feeling was foreign and startled her with its intensity. She inhaled sharply and stiffened all over again.
Why did she respond to him like that? He was everything she shouldn’t want. Was it the bad boy syndrome, her overt desire to break away from the strict harping of her aunt and try something dangerous? Not that he presented a dangerous façade with his executive front. However, the control that contained the anger simmering just beneath the polished surface screamed of the danger and power he could unleash.
She closed her eyes to block out his image, and the move inadvertently brought the feel of the energy into focus. Oddly, it was becoming an almost viable, living thing. And if she opened her mind and senses just a little, she could hear what it was saying.
Her eyes flew open. No. God, what was she thinking?
“The circular shape of the house was built and cast by me,” Damian said, opening a door on the far side of the room and entering. “No one can enter unless I give them permission. We are safe from the Guard or anyone else who happens to find this place.” His voice became distant as he moved away from her.
Amber latched on to the distraction and took another look around the room that consisted of a kitchen to her right with a long bar to separate it from a small dining area and the cozy living area she stood in.
With more questions in her mind, she hurried after him, her curiosity increasing with each new bit of information. Her progress came to an immediate halt when she slammed into a wall of apparently nothing.
“What the hell?” She rubbed her forehead. “What was that?”
She stared into the open doorway at what she could clearly see was Damian’s bedroom. Tentatively, she reached out her hand and tried to push it across the threshold. It came to a hard stop at the plane of the doorway even though there was nothing there to block it. A faint hum buzzed over her palm as she held it against the invisible barrier.
“Ahh, Damian?” Amber called out. “Can you help me here?”
He appeared, bare-chested, from another doorway at the side of the room. His dress shirt hung open and untucked from his slacks. The wide expanse of exposed muscle and hard, sculpted abs fuddled her brain and caused her to flush with heat once again. She licked her lips and willed away the telltale flush.
“Sorry,” Damian said when he saw her standing at the entrance to his bedroom. He stepped through the doorway to stand next her and took her hand, the energy flaring instantly. “You may enter, Amber.”
The vibration disappeared, and her other hand went past the doorway with ease. She tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow at Damian, the question obvious.
He smiled almost sheepishly, an act so out of character for him that it gave Amber more pause than the doorway. “It’s another level of protection. My bedroom is another circle with more shields. I forgot to grant you permission to enter.”
“But there was nothing there.” She looked up and around the doorframe as he let go of her hand. She was still confused, but somehow she was able to walk uninhibited through the doorway into his room.
“Energy doesn’t need physical walls to hold its form, only a guideline. And,” he continued as he followed her in and went back into what she guessed was the bathroom, “after a thousand years, I’m good at what I do. But I needed your energy to remove the restriction. This damn collar is preventing me from doing even simple things like that.”
She sank into the black leather chair that sat to the side of the door. “Are you really that old? I mean, you don’t look that old.” Hell, he looked closer to thirty. The thought that he had actually been alive for a millennium was another tidbit of information that got clogged in her brain.
He reentered the room wearing nothing but jeans and the black collar that still circled his neck. He definitely wasn’t a soft-gut, flabby CEO. No, the clearly defined six-pack, narrow waist and hard, toned chest and arms were the exact opposite of that. She tried not to stare at the blatantly sexual display, but her eyes wouldn’t follow the commands of her brain. Sure, she’d seen naked chests before, but never in the intimacy of a man’s own bedroom. The air in the room was suddenly stifling, and his coat became more of a sweltering shroud than a comforting cocoon.
“Yes,” he said as he pulled open a drawer and extracted a pair of socks, the movements showing off the muscle definition that bunched and flexed across his back. “Because our species absorbs and uses the energy around us, we can sustain the health of our bodies for much longer than others.”
As much as Amber’s anal-retentive side would have liked to dig into the details of that latest piece of information, there was simply too much stuff to process. She exhaled and let it go. The how and why of everything was irrelevant compared to the what.
“What do we do now? It seems unlikely that I can just go back home and pretend nothing happened.” As much as she wished that could be true, the logical side of her knew it wasn’t.
Damian opened another drawer and removed a black T-shirt. “We run.” He turned back and looked her over.
“What?” His blatant perusal and the fact he’d caught her staring made her cheeks heat. “Why do we need to run?” Damn, she was beginning to sound like an insatiable two-year-old, peppering questions to the point of irritation. But she needed to know. Her mind refused to settle and just go along with whatever he had planned.
“We run because by now half the Energen Guard will be assembling to track us down. They can follow the energy trail that porting leaves behind, which is why I had to do all of that popping in and out to get here.” He pulled on his shirt, the dark cotton clinging to his chest. He rubbed a hand over his hair, setting the short, blond stands into a spiky disarray before he sat on the edge of the bed and slipped on his socks. “And it won’t be long before the others catch wind of what you are and begin to hunt us as well.”
Her attention yanked from his body and focused in on one word. “Others? What do you mean, others?”
“The ones who are truly evil. Who work for the Slanderer, Gog. The ones who will want to use you and the powers you hold to execute their plans. Which, trust me, aren’t very pleasant for the human race.”
“Oh, great.” It just kept getting better and better. “So we just keep running indefinitely? That doesn’t work for me. I have a life that I would like to return to at some point.”
Finished with his socks, he stood and rested his hands on his hips. “That’s probably not going to happen.”
Her chest constricted as the blank reality of that set in. “What does that mean?”
He walked over until he stood before her, forcing her to look up to meet his gaze. “It means that it is now my responsibility to keep you alive. To protect you until we understand what that mark on your hand means and your life is no longer in danger.” His eyes darkened, and his lips thinned as a look of determination settled across his features. “But the chances of you ever returning to your old life are slim to none.”
She swallowed, pushed down the panic that once again threatened to overtake her. She pushed herself up from the chair, keeping her focus firmly on his eyes. A person’s eyes always spoke the truth. Her new position put her within inches of his body, but he didn’t back away. Didn’t move at all. Except for the tic on his jaw which now jerked in hard, sharp twitches.
“I don’t want this,” she whispered.
“If it’s any consolation, neither do I.”
“Why do you care?” She had to know. “Why did you lie back there and say you put the mark on my hand? What made y
ou change your mind?”
The tic jumped with the tightening of his jaw. His eyes darkened, his brow drew together and his muscles stiffened. But he didn’t look away. Amber held her breath and waited. His answer was suddenly more important than she had originally intended.
“You,” he finally admitted, his tone low, intimate. “Despite what the prophecies say and the mark is fabled to mean, I don’t believe you’re evil. That you would choose evil. There is too much innocence in you.”
“How do I know I can trust you? After all, you are the one who abducted me and turned me over to them in the first place.”
He brought his hand up and cupped her cheek. “As you told me before, if you listen to the energy, you will know I am telling the truth.”
His touch brought heat, hot and liquid through her system. The energy sang, whispering its soft melody of truths. This time, she opened herself to them and listened. They spoke of pain and betrayal—his own, not hers—of truth and commitment. And of that slow, building desire that tempted and pulled with its own tune of enchantment.
She felt the heat rise up her neck and over her face. She pulled her gaze away and found herself staring at the black, metal collar.
“How does the energy do that?”
His hand fell away from her cheek. “The energy doesn’t lie. It’s connecting us, speaking to us. Telling us things our conscious mind might ignore or miss. The energy communicates on a deeper, subconscious level that evades the defenses our minds erect. It’s all about feeling and sensing. Not logic.”
“Well, that just sucks,” she mumbled. For a woman who preferred logic, that bit of info was damn disturbing.
His deep, sudden chuckle had her snapping her head up in surprise. “Yes. Sometimes it does,” he agreed.
“So if the energy doesn’t lie, why do your people think you’re evil?”
“Good question,” Damian grumbled, the brief hint of lightness morphing to a hard scowl. He turned away and stalked backed to the bathroom.