“I would never do that,” he said quickly.
Lily smiled and patted his arm. “I know you wouldn’t. My point was that I would expect my magic to stay quiet like it did in the woods. That’s more normal. What’s unusual is that my magic came when we were at the mansion, even though neither of us called it. It’s never done that before.”
Gideon rolled that idea around in his mind. “So, what do you think happened?”
She shrugged. “My best guess is that it reacted to the blood ritual and the intensity of our emotions at the time. We were both worried about the Order and Frank coming after me, and we did the ritual to protect me. I think we were both so in tune with the threat to me, that we actually did call my magic, at least subconsciously, because we were working so hard to keep me safe. My magic felt the threats we were sensing, and rose in response. To protect us.”
Gideon considered that. She was absolutely correct about what was driving their connection at the mansion. “Whereas, at my place, there were no threats.”
“Neither of us called it, and the moment wasn’t about danger.” She smiled, her face relaxed and happy. “When we made love, it was just about us and how we felt about each other. It was beautiful and passionate, an expression of all good things, so there was no reason for my magic to be summoned.”
Gideon’s chest tightened again at her description of their lovemaking. Had he really been a part of something that was beautiful and an expression of all good things? Had he really helped create that kind of moment? For a split second, he had hope, this glimmer of hope that maybe there was more to him than he’d always believed, that there was a chance for a life he’d never thought about.
Then he sobered. He was a warrior, a killer, not some angel of beauty. He had to remember that. He couldn’t get lost in some delusional vision that he was something he wasn’t. He had to be a warrior right now. “So, how’s Frank going to try to call it up to free Ezekiel? Is he going to try to force you to have sex with Drew?” He couldn’t get the grit out of his voice at his question.
Lily shot him a slightly confused look at his change in topic, but she let it go. “My power is heightened by sex, definitely. But it’s fueled by earth, music and the Calydon spirit.” She rubbed the brand on her arm. “If Frank influences me again with an illusion, he might be able to call it up, but would it be enough power to make the walls fall?” She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.” She looked at Gideon. “If it was with you, it would bring down the walls in a heartbeat. Together, we’re extraordinary.”
Yeah, they were. He agreed with that, and he liked it. “Then we make sure Frank doesn’t get us together.” Hell, what was he saying? He was making damn sure Frank didn’t get Lily at all. End of story. “After we figure out where the rite is taking place, you take my truck back to my cabin and wait it out there. I—”
“No.” Lily folded her arms over her chest. “Gideon, I know you need to protect me, and I’m all for that, but you have to let me fight.”
Yeah, there was no chance of that. “You’re not a warrior.”
“I am. I don’t have weapons like you do, but this is my battle. You need me. My brains. And my magic. And you may need to use me as bait to lure Frank—”
“No!” No damn way would he ever allow that to happen. Never.
“This is my war as much as it is yours,” Lily continued, ignoring him completely.
“Frank was behind the abduction by Nate, he’s the reason Nate raped me, and he’s still stalking me.” Her eyes glittered. “I will not stand back and hide. I need to be a part of it. It’s my right to reclaim my life.”
“I don’t give a shit. The thought of you—” He shot a glare at her. “It would seriously fuck me up if I let you join us and you got killed.”
She smiled, her eyes softening at his confession. “So keep me alive, then. Let me do what I have to do, but keep me alive.”
He cursed softly and thudded his fist on the steering wheel. She was right. They needed her, but God help him if he let anything happen to her. “You make me want to walk away from my duty. I never thought it would be possible but you do. I want to turn this truck around and drive you so far away that none of this shit will ever find you again.”
“But then Ezekiel would get free and we’d all die anyway.”
His jaw tightened. “But Ezekiel would get free and we’d all die anyway,” he agreed. Damn. He hated logic sometimes.
“So, it’s done.” She held out her hand to him. “Teammates?”
“Soul mates.” Gideon wrapped his hand around hers and held tight. This time, for once in his goddamn life, let him not screw up keeping his sheva safe. One. Damn. Time. Let me get this right.
*
Lily’s heart rate accelerated as Gideon pulled onto a sandy road going off into the desert. It was the road that led to Nate’s, and suddenly she could recall with vivid clarity the moment she’d stepped into his house, reeling with shock when he’d grabbed her and she’d realized he was going to keep her—
“Lily.” Gideon’s thumb rubbed over her palm. “You with me?”
“Yes.” She clenched his hand as the truck bumped over the uneven road and Nate’s house came into view.
It was the same brown ranch house, standing so starkly among the harsh high desert scrubs and trees. Her gaze drifted to those tiny basement windows, the one on the far right that had been her only glimpse of freedom for so long. She could see the sunlight glinting off the glass, making it impossible to see the bars over the windows. Her cell.
Movement caught her eye, and her attention jumped back to the front door as it opened. Quinn stepped out onto the stoop, and Kane walked out behind him, his scars so visible in the sun.
Gideon pulled the truck up in front of them, and she felt him reach out to touch his friend’s mind. He didn’t open the car door or turn off the engine. What’s the status?
Quinn answered. We haven’t turned anything up, but the team is willing to wait to see if Lily can help them find the information. I’ve convinced Ryland that his bloodthirsty need to avenge Dante’s death will be better served if he actually draws the blood of the enemy instead of simply making it more difficult for Frank and Ezekiel to succeed, and the others are following suit. They’re not planning to kill her at the moment. She’s safe.
Safe. Hah.
Good. Gideon shut off the engine and kicked open his door. He climbed out and then turned to help Lily get out. For a moment, she couldn’t move. All she wanted to do was have Gideon turn the truck around and drive her away from all of this. What if it was a trap? What if Frank was waiting for her to show up, and then he was going to ambush them? “Oh, God,” she whispered, her hands starting to tremble.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Gideon’s voice was soft, understanding. “We’re all here for you. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know.” God, she didn’t want to be controlled by her fear. She had to face this. She had to be stronger than this. “I’m coming.” She released the seatbelt and scooted across toward Gideon’s door.
He gave her an intimate smile, just for them as he helped her out. The moment her feet were on the dirt, he pulled her close and slightly behind him as he approached the two Order members, using his body as a shield to protect her. “What progress has been made?”
“We’ve searched the entire area Lily suggested, and now we’re looking in Nate’s house. We haven’t turned up anything, though.” Quinn’s gaze went to Lily. “We’re hoping you have a miracle in you.”
Lily nodded distractedly, her heart pounding as she looked at the house. A Calydon passed by one of the windows. Ian. He glanced down at her, and nodded. She clung to her memory of him driving the truck that had taken her away from Nate’s. He’d saved her once. He was on her side. See? She wasn’t going to be trapped here again. These warriors were on her team this time, at least for the moment.
“Lily?” Gideon’s voice was gentle and sympathetic, laced with a hardness that made her
relax. He was on guard. They were all on guard. “You don’t have to do this.”
“No. I do.” She took a deep breath and headed into the house that had been her own personal hell for two years.
*
Gideon kept his hand on Lily’s back as he followed her though the house. Quinn and Kane were trailing behind them, weapons out, senses humming. He knew they were all waiting for this to be a trap, for Frank to send his team after them.
Gideon’s blood was boiling at the thought of what had happened to Lily in this place. He was disgusted that he’d spent two years oblivious that his sheva had been trapped. Her scent was everywhere, deep in the carpets from her years of imprisonment. Her blood hummed at him from the walls where it had sunk into the wood. He couldn’t see it anymore, but he could feel it. He could taste it. He could breathe it.
Her terror was soaking into every pore of his soul. His mind was screaming with rage, with the need to destroy, to annihilate Nate, Frank, and the house. To wipe all of them from the earth so Lily would never have to dream of any of it again.
Gideon. Quinn’s mind touched his. You’re not going to do any of us any good if you go rogue. It was in the past, and you can’t change it. All you can do is go forward. You have her now.
You sound like Lily.
Then she’s a smart gal. Listen to her.
Gideon looked at his mate, at her blond hair cascading over her shoulders and the stray pine needle still in her hair from their lovemaking on the forest floor. He raged inside for her, for the injustice that had stolen so much from her, and for the brutality that had left her blood on these walls. I should have known, Quinn. I should have known she needed me.
She needs you now. Be there for her.
Lily stopped suddenly, and her muscles went rigid under his touch.
Gideon immediately called out his axe, and Quinn and Kane stepped up beside him, weapons raised and ready.
She grabbed Gideon’s arm, her fingers digging in. This is where Nate raped me. This is the room.
Fury spewed through Gideon as he stared into the library. Beautiful mahogany bookshelves, fancy Oriental carpet, a huge oak desk with solid brass fixtures. His gaze was drawn to the floor, and he could see it. Her blood. He knew it was there. Knew that’s where Nate had raped her. He felt his control snapping, spinning away, spiraling out of his control as the room began to take on a reddish glare—
Lily’s fingers slipped into his grasp, her hand shaking and icy cold. Come inside with me, Gideon. I can’t do it without you.
And just like that, her need for him caged his fury, slamming it back with a force that had him staggering. He gripped her hand tightly, able to think of nothing other than giving her whatever she needed from him. That was all that mattered. I’m here. I’m with you.
He felt Quinn’s nod of approval, but he ignored his friend, focusing all of his attention on the woman by his side. She took a deep breath, gripped his hand tighter and then stepped inside.
Even an appearance by Ezekiel himself wouldn’t have pried Gideon away from her side in that moment.
In that moment, Lily was his entire world. There simply was nothing else.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lily’s stomach churned as she stepped into the room, her feet sinking into the thick carpet. This room had been Nate’s favorite place to hurt her. The cloying scent of air freshener floated through the air and she jerked her gaze to the corner, where the little blue flower was plugged into the outlet.
She hated that scent. Hated it.
Gideon’s axe flew through the air and the air freshener shattered as the blade slammed into it. Blue plastic pieces exploded over the room, falling with a soft clatter on the wood floor by the wall. Gideon called back his axe and set it in her palm. “In case there’s anything else you don’t like.”
Her fist folded around the handle, the cold metal so hard and strong in her hand. “I wish I’d had this when I was here before.”
“So do I.”
Lily’s throat tightened at the expression of barely contained fury and deep concern for her on Gideon’s face. She truly wasn’t alone. Not anymore.
The tension in her belly eased, and she felt her shoulders relax. She gave Gideon a quick smile, then walked over to the stereo that Nate had used to play all different kinds of music to try to force her magic.
The only music that had worked for even a minute had been the music Frank had brought.
She glared at the CD player. “Frank tainted my music.” For some reason, it was the CD player she wanted to destroy. Music was her special gift, her life, and he’d exploited and used it to abuse her. What should have been her power had become her noose.
She fisted Gideon’s axe and brought it back to slam it into the CD player, then stopped.
Frowning, she cocked her head at the stereo cabinet, recalling the night Frank had played that music for her. The music had come alive for her…but had it been the tunes he’d selected, or something else?
At the time, she’d assumed it was simply the music selection, or the way he’d worked her over with an illusion. But was that all it had been? She chewed her lower lip, thinking.
The men were standing behind her, quietly waiting. Gideon’s hand was still on her back, supporting, but not demanding. The warmth of his touch helped ground Lily, enabling her to relax enough to focus on the question skittering around the edges of her mind, just out of her reach.
Lily handed the axe to Gideon and walked up to the stereo cabinet. She slid her hands over the metal casing of the CD player. The metal was too new to have been harvested from the days of Ezekiel’s youth. She tapped her fingernails on the wooden shelf. What had been different that night when Frank had played the music?
She closed her eyes, trying to recall it…then suddenly she knew. “It wasn’t the music! It was where I’d been standing! I wasn’t on the earth, but something was working just like that!” She raced across the floor past the men to where she’d been standing behind Nate’s desk, and pulled back the carpet. The wood looked like any other wood, but she knew Satinka magic was there somewhere. “Pull back the floorboards,” she said excitedly. “Pull them back!”
The three males were down at her feet instantly, and she grinned at the sight of their heavily muscled shoulders straining as they ripped back the floorboards after Gideon loosened them with his axe. Order members. Working for her. With her. A miracle.
“This has been pulled up recently,” Kane said. “The nails are new.” He tossed a board over his shoulder and it shattered the glass of a painting.
No one cared.
“Holy shit,” Quinn breathed. “She was right.”
“I was? Let me see!” She squeezed in between Gideon and Kane. Gideon slid his arm around her as Lily peered into the hole in the floor. Nestled between the support beams was a wooden slab, with writing on it.
“The tablet.” Quinn grabbed it and lifted it out of the floor. “I can’t believe it. This has to be the actual tablet created at the time Caleb imprisoned Ezekiel.”
The wood was shiny, as if it had been polished by many hands, smoothing the tablet over long years. Words were burned into the wood, branded into it, like the weapons the men carried in their arms. It looked so old, so significant that Lily itched to touch it. To study it. To lock herself in her office with it for a month so she could decipher all its stories.
Quinn handed it to her. “Tell us where the rite’s taking place. Tell us where Frank is.”
She carefully accepted it, and she felt the Satinka magic the minute her fingers touched it. Tingling spread through her body, and music danced in her mind. Happy music, music that was so ancient and powerful that she knew it was her ancestors’ songs. Music she’d never heard, but that she knew in her heart and in her soul.
“I hear bells,” Gideon said.
She nodded. “This script is written for me. For a Satinka.” She traced her finger over the symbols, over the wealth of information contained in the ta
blet. There was so much power in the scripture. She could practically feel it seeping into her.
Gideon set his hand over hers, laying his palm on the wood. “It feels hot. It’s tingling.”
Quinn frowned. “I didn’t feel it.”
“My magic chose Gideon. He’s connected to my legacy.” Lily was so tempted to peruse the tablet in great detail, but instead, she traced her fingers quickly over the symbols, skimming past the information carved on Nate’s stone that’ she’d already read. “Some of this is exactly what was on Nate’s stone. I think he lifted it from here, so he wouldn’t have to keep accessing the wood.”
She paused as she got to carvings that hadn’t been on the stone, her mind whirling through the translation easily, as if she’d written it herself, the magic of her heritage clearing her mind. “It’s describing an ancient place of magic. The rite was performed in a place of Otherworld magic.” She frowned, trying to think of a place nearby that was so drenched in power, and then she knew. “Oh!” She jumped to her feet. “It’s where the elders used to gather.”
The men stared at her blankly. “Elders?” Gideon asked.
“Elders. Two thousand years ago, certain members of the different races of the Otherworld joined together, seeking to discover a path toward harmony between the races. They created a hidden meeting place where they shared secrets about themselves to try to find a way to keep peace. Ezekiel’s mother was one of the founding members, and Caleb became part of it too. By the time Ezekiel was going crazy, the Elders had disbanded, but it was where Caleb and his team of twenty-one met to make plans for taking Ezekiel down. It was the only place where they knew Ezekiel wouldn’t have little spies lurking to report back. It would make sense that Caleb would have done the rite there, as a symbol of peace.”
Quinn was frowning. “I’ve never heard of this place.”
“Of course not. Only the members of the committee knew about it.”
Gideon raised his brows, and the pride on his face was evident. “And you.”
She smiled. “Of course. If it has to do with Calydon history, I know about it.”
Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) Page 30