“So? Where is it?”
“Southern Oregon. It’s a meeting room hidden deep beneath the surface. A chamber. Justice was administered there, but it was really more like a pit of quicksand. People went in and didn’t come out. It’s been used for other things since…” She caught her breath. “It’s been used for Illusionist training. That’s how Frank learned about Ezekiel. He was probably trained there. It makes sense!”
Quinn was on his feet now. “Can you get us the exact location?”
“I can get us close. I don’t know where the entrance to it is, but I’m sure we can find it.”
The door slammed open and she jumped as more Order members came inside. It was Ian, and four others. Their weapons were out, muscles bunched, their eyes hard with battle. She tensed at the hostile glare from Ryland and Gideon carefully slid her behind him.
“Lily came through,” Quinn said. “We know where Frank will be doing the rite tonight.”
Ian gave her a quiet nod. “Right on.”
Ryland gave her a hostile glare, and she lifted her chin. With the tablet in her hands, her magic, when combined with Gideon’s strength, would be impenetrable. But it would corrupt Gideon, and everyone in the room would die. Including herself. So, yeah, not the best option if it could be avoided, but at least she wouldn’t die a victim. No more victim for her.
Gideon’s hand went to her shoulder. We won’t need that. Everyone’s focused on Frank.
She didn’t look at him. For now.
His fingers tightened in acknowledgement. Until Frank was dead, the Order still might be forced to make the kind of choice that had haunted Gideon for so long. Until Frank was dead, she wasn’t safe.
I will do it right this time, Gideon growled. I will not fail you.
Lily saw the determination in his eyes and prayed he wouldn’t be tested.
*
Ana bit her lower lip as she stared down at the three Calydons passed out on the floor of the pit. They were all bleeding and bruised from her illusions. It was less than four hours until Frank would need her for the rite, and she knew she was going to fail. She hadn’t learned to control her illusions, which meant Elijah would die for her failure, if he were still alive.
But if he wasn’t alive, then she still had to stop Frank…but how would she do that? She hadn’t learned a single useful thing since she’d arrived.
She braced her arms on the clay railing, her fingers digging in so hard her knuckles ached. Elijah. Are you there? Please, give me something.
But once again, all she heard was the faint echo of his voice in her mind, whispering her name again and again. Her imagination? Or his answer?
She needed to know. Time was running out, and she seriously doubted the reason she’d come here was to help Frank control Ezekiel. She was still certain there was a reason she’d gone with him, and she was running out of time to find it.
Ana had already searched the small house he’d built on the surface, and there was nothing in there relating to Ezekiel or Elijah or any of it.
The answers had to be down below in one of those tunnels.
Ana eyed the descent, a good forty feet to the hard ground.
Obviously, there was some other way to get down there, but she hadn’t found it yet, and she didn’t have time.
She took a deep breath, then swung one leg over the railing.
Then the other, so she was sitting on the railing, her feet dangling toward the pit. Ana eyed the distant floor, then rolled over onto her stomach and slid down, until she was hanging onto the railing by only her hands. Then she closed her eyes and let go.
*
Kane transported the team from Nate’s house to their destination in southern Oregon, delivering them into a small cluster of trees. Their arrival was dead silent, utter stillness, except the glistening of their weapons. The air began to hum as the Order members searched for threats with their senses.
Gideon set his hand on Lily’s arm, and he wasn’t about to let go. He caught not a single scent or sound in the forest. Total silence. Anyone sense anything?
Negatives from everyone.
It might be an illusion, Quinn said. Everyone still have their bracelets?
Gideon looked down at Lily’s wrist, and realized she didn’t have one. When they’d been going after Nate to rescue Ana, Grace had given them all copper bands that protected them from Frank’s illusions. Yeah, Frank couldn’t create illusions like Ana and Grace, but his ability to create false emotions was just as powerful. He’d created murderous hate between Order blood brothers, and he’d already messed with Lily. The arm bling didn’t work for external illusions, but they sure as hell kept Frank from messing with their heads.
He wasn’t getting to Lily. Not again.
Gideon peeled one of his wristbands off and fastened it around her arm, but as he did, he became increasingly aware of how quiet the forest was. Something had to be very, very wrong.
The forest was never silent.
*
Ana yelped as she landed on the clay floor, pain shooting up through her broken ankle, her knees smacking against the hard ground. She staggered to her feet, ignoring the pain as she quickly inspected the area.
Six tunnels.
She grimaced, knowing she had time only to check out one or two of them at most. She quickly paced the circumference of the pit, limping past each tunnel and peering inside. Each one was carved out of hard rock, with stains on the walls and the ground. Stains that made her shudder.
But they were all the same—
The marks on her forearms burned suddenly and she stopped, turning to face the tunnel that headed dead east.
That was the right tunnel. She was sure of it.
She glanced behind her to make sure the Calydons were still down and Frank was nowhere in sight, then she turned and sprinted down the tunnel, the thud of her cast echoing with each step she took.
*
The attack came at them so suddenly, from all sides, that the Order barely had time to get their weapons up before the blades came flying out of the forest. Dozens of blades, so many that the sky was a mass of streaking gray metal.
Lily didn’t even bother to duck as she continued to search for the landmarks, letting Gideon fend off the blades while she frantically scanned the landscape for markers that would tell her where the underground coliseum was. She could see the two rocks that were supposed to form the entrance, but there was a hill between them, when there should have been a field instead… Oh, right. Duh. “It’s an illusion,” she said. “The hill’s not really there. It can’t be.”
“Go!” Quinn shouted, as a spear grazed his shoulder. “We’ll hold them off.”
Gideon grabbed her and they sprinted for the hill. Calydons fell in their wake, taken down by Order blades as they chased after Gideon and Lily.
Lily focused her mind as she ran, knowing that the only way to break through an illusion was to convince herself that it was a lie, to know it with absolute certainty in her heart. “The hill’s not there. I know it. There’s no hill.” She forced her mind into the truth, until she knew without doubt that the hill didn’t exist.
“I believe you.” Gideon whipped his axe through the air and knocked down a hatchet aimed for his heart. “I’ve seen enough illusions lately to question everything I see. Let’s do it.”
They reached the base of the hill and ran right at it. They burst through the illusion and then Lily found herself running beside Gideon across a flat field. “I was right! We did it—” A huge wooden structure suddenly appeared in front of them, and she crashed into it before she could stop herself, hitting so hard she was flung onto her back, the wind knocked out of her completely.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Gideon grabbed her arm and helped her to her feet, throwing up another block as weapons sang through the air, blades clashed and warriors screamed in pain. “It’s a building.”
The illusion had vanished when they’d burst through it, so it was no longer obscuring what
was really there. It was a house, a quaint little cottage. Quinn? You see this?
It looks like you disappeared into the hill.
So, he and Lily were the only ones who could see past the illusion. There’s a building here. We’re going in. You coming?
Not a chance. We’re a little busy. It’s all you, buddy.
Gideon tried the doorknob, found it locked, then threw his shoulder into the wood and shoved the door out of the frame with the loud crack of splintering wood. He stepped inside and was hit instantly with unbearable agony in his gut. He staggered, his eyesight blanking out with pain, his head spinning, his body screaming with soul deep torment he felt as if he was being skinned alive.
Lily grabbed his arm as he went down. “Gideon!”
He looked at her worried face and for a split second, he was consumed with such a mind-bending terror he couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
And then he started screaming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Gideon!” Lily scrambled after Gideon as he ripped his arm out of her grasp and stumbled across the room. He was screaming, an unearthly horrifying noise that no living creature could possibly make. It was death. It was the sound of specters being tortured in the bowels of hell. It was the kind of torment that made a man slice his own throat instead of facing it.
Gideon’s eyes were whited out, sweat was streaming down his face, his hands clawing at his arms, drawing blood.
“Whatever it is, it’s not real! Gideon! It’s an illusion!” Lily caught up to him when he stumbled over a couch and fell, clawing at his stomach, still screaming…not a scream…something so much worse.
He called out his axe and raised it, and she realized he was going to slam it into his stomach to kill whatever he thought had him. “God, no!” She lunged for him as he brought the axe down, throwing herself in front of the axe before she could even think about what she was doing, her eyes squeezing shut instinctively, waiting for the blow.
It didn’t come.
After a second, she opened her eyes. Gideon was clutching the axe, a look of absolute horror on his face. “I almost killed you.” His eyes were blue again, she noticed with relief. He’d shaken the illusion. “Jesus Christ, Lily! Never do that again! What if I hadn’t broken through the illusion? Are you insane?” His hands were shaking, and his face was coiled with fury.
She realized she was shaking too. “You couldn’t kill me. That’s why you broke the illusion. Your instincts to keep me alive are stronger than anything else.”
Recognition dawned on his face. “You saved me. You risked your life to save me—” He grabbed her arm before she could move and shoved her sleeve up.
She stared at her arm and watched the final design appear, as if someone were drawing it with a silver marker. “It’s done. The bond’s complete.”
His hand closed over her mark. “It is.”
“Why don’t I feel any diff—”
Gideon yanked her against him and slammed his mouth down on hers, and suddenly she was flooded with such intense longing for him that she knew, for absolute certain, that he was her life, her death, her oxygen. Without him, nothing mattered.
He couldn’t think. Couldn’t kiss her hard enough. Couldn’t touch her enough. The need for her was so great, so intense that he couldn’t stop it. They had no time, no privacy and it didn’t matter.
It didn’t fucking matter.
Nothing mattered except being inside her. Nothing.
He had both their pants off in less than a second, and then he was sinking deep inside her. Her body was so hot and wet, so perfect for him. He groaned as she molded around him. Dear God, Lily. This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life. It was perfection. It was right. It was home.
He didn’t give a shit about her parents. About whether he fit it anywhere. Because he was home.
You belong with me, Gideon.
Her arms tightened around him as the total conviction of her words sank deep into his heart, and suddenly he was moving so fast inside her he couldn’t control it. His hips pumped, his body roared with the rightness of it. Tears filled his eyes as an intense sense of belonging consumed him, then the climax took them both. He clung to her as his body bucked, completely out of his control, his heart aching, his soul healing, truly healing—
I love you, Gideon.
The moment he heard those words, he knew they both were damned. But the words felt so good, and so right that at this moment, he absolutely didn’t care. He held her tight against him, while the final twinges of the orgasm left, knowing he had to let go, but not able to bring himself to do it. Not yet.
Because they’d just brought Destiny to her feet, and she’d be coming for them hard and fast now.
*
Ana reached a row of cells, and she shivered at the sight of all the steel doors with their tiny barred windows near the top. Was this truly what she was descended from? People who kept victims like animals, to be brought out for torture?
No. She didn’t have time to think about that. “Elijah! Are you in here?”
“Hello?” A male voice echoed through the hall, and a hand stuck out into the hallway, between the bars, about halfway down the corridor on the right. His arm was torn open like he’d been flayed, the skin raw and serrated.
It wasn’t Elijah, but Ana ran down the hall anyway and grabbed his hand, which was covered in caked blood. “I’m here.”
His hand tightened around hers in a grip that was almost desperate, making the blood ooze from his forearm again. “Thank God,” he croaked, his voice raw. “I’m Drew Cartland. Can you get me out of here?”
“I don’t know.” Ana stood on her tip toes to peer through the bars. A Calydon in his early twenties or late teens had his face pressed against the metal. He was covered in filth and barely healed gashes. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his shoulder was so crooked she knew it had been dislocated. “Oh, God. Are you okay?”
“Frank killed me, stole my weapons in the split second I crossed over, and then helped me revive.” Drew’s eyes were so haunted, she felt her heart ache for him. “He’s got my weapons, and if he uses them, we’re screwed. We have to get them back before the rite. If I can get close enough to them, I can call them back into my arms—”
“Where’s the rite taking place? Where are all the weapons?”
“I don’t know.” Drew jerked his head to the right. “But he always goes in that direction after he comes to see me.”
Ana nodded and started to turn away, then turned back. “Have you seen a Calydon named Elijah since you’ve been here?”
“Elijah?” Drew frowned. “He’s dead.”
Ana’s throat tightened. “Well, if he is, then my job is easy. I’ll be back!” She turned and ran down the corridor, searching frantically for keys or Frank or anything. She made it around the corner and stopped dead when she saw the open door in front of her. There was a table piled high with documents, plus a computer and filing cabinets. Frank’s office?
She stepped to the door, looking around carefully to make sure no one was lurking, then peered inside. She sucked in her breath when she saw the wall on the right was a collage of photos.
Photos of her from the time she was a baby, and the last one was of Nate abducting her off the street. Frank had been there? He’d watched it happen? He’d handed her over to Nate? He’d stalked her since she was born…waiting for the right time to come after her.
She shuddered, and tore her gaze off the wall, thinking of Drew with his shredded arms and the clock ticking on the rite. There had to be something…she looked around the office at the piles of documents and the computer sitting on the desk. Frank’s secrets.
Here were her answers. This is why she’d come. She didn’t know what she’d find, but she knew it was in this room.
She stepped inside, locked the door behind her, pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet and started to search.
*
Gideon yanked on his jeans, hi
s mind racing as he tried to figure out what had happened to him, what illusion had gotten him, but he couldn’t remember anything from his brief trip to hell. “You didn’t see anything on me?”
“No.” Lily was getting dressed as fast as he was, the sounds of battle raging outside. “There was no illusion visible, but I swear, you completely lost it. Can’t you remember anything about what it was?”
He shook his head. “All I remember is thinking of Elijah. That was my whole thought—”
Her head whipped up, her eyes sharp. “You’ve done a bond with Elijah.”
“Yeah, long time ago. Why?” He buttoned his jeans, then he grabbed her hand. Together, they raced through the house, searching for a door that would lead into the ground.
“I’ve read stories about the Calydon blood bond,” she said. “Can you feel his pain when he’s hurt?”
Gideon shot a look at her. “Yeah, sometimes. I mean, I could before he…died.”
Lily nodded. “I’m guessing that what you felt was Elijah’s experience. That he’s been here and been tortured, and you felt what he was going through.”
Gideon frowned. “But he’s dead. I’ve never heard of picking up on the aftermath of an experience through a blood bond. It’s not as if the image hangs around waiting for me to pick it up—” He stopped suddenly, the enormity of his words blossoming before him. “You think he’s still alive? And being tortured right now? Here?” Son of a bitch! Elation and disbelief rushed through him, followed by the dark realization of the extent that his blood brother was suffering, if he truly was alive.
Lily yanked open a door and found only a closet. “Is there another explanation?”
Shit. He couldn’t think of one. Elijah? Gideon reached out over their connection, throwing all his mental energy into the link. Where the hell are you?
No response. That had to mean Elijah was dead. Their connection was too strong. He would at least feel something if Elijah was nearby. It had been a false, fucking alarm.
Lily was still moving quickly through the house, and he rushed to catch up to her, yanking open a door as he passed. Another closet, not stairs to a basement.
Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) Page 31