His smile was more of a shift of mood than a shift of muscle. “There’s no one to stop me.”
She glanced over at Marlika. She was staring straight ahead. Her face expressionless as if she couldn’t sense what was going on, but Eden could feel the waves of hatred rolling off her. “What did you do to her?”
“She, like the others, are thought-bound.”
He’d frozen the entire compound this way? Was that even possible? “Is that anything like being tongue-tied?”
She couldn’t believe she was cracking jokes, but stalling was the only thing she could think to do, and if cracking jokes gained her two precious seconds she’d take it.
Too bad Pietre didn’t have a sense of humor.
“Yes.” He looked over her shoulder. “Get out of my way.”
She didn’t like the way he was eyeing Marlika. She folded her arms across her chest. “No.”
A force hit the side of her face and the room spun out of focus. Eden caught herself on her hands. Reality centered in a splash of red against the pure white carpet. Blood. Her blood. She touched her lip. And then her cheek. She couldn’t feel pain or the touch of her own fingers. Considering the force of the blow, that wasn’t such a bad thing. She turned her head. Pietre was in front of Marlika. His hand stroking her cheek. As Eden watched, he dragged it over her cheekbone, lingering on her jaw in an oddly tender gesture.
Was Pietre in love with Marlika?
She pushed herself to her feet, receiving the answer to her question as a trail of red appeared on Marlika’s cheek in the wake of Pietre’s caress.
He wasn’t in love. He was just one sick son of a bitch.
“Leave her alone.”
“You will be silent.” He said that with a complete expectation of obedience. She was getting damn tired of these men barking out orders. “What is it with you Others? Did the lot of you miss the women’s movement entirely?”
“Be silent and still.”
She wasn’t going to be either. Deuce, where are you?
There was no answer. In the corner of the room, Jalina stirred. Adrenaline surged as
Pietre glanced at the carrier. No way in hell was he touching her baby.
“Leave her be.”
“My orders are to bring her back.”
“You, your orders, and the delusional cowards who hired you can all go to hell.”
“I do not work for the Coalition.”
Trust an Other to split those kind of hairs. She inched closer to Marlika, angling her steps so that she was between Pietre and Jalina. “Must be the way you blindly follow their orders that confused me.”
“I am merely repaying a debt.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“I told you to shut up.”
She refused to cower before the lowering of his brow and the menace he projected. “And I told you to get out of here.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t look like either of us is going to get what we want.”
She never saw him move, but suddenly he was in front of her, his hand locked around her throat, cutting off her air as he lifted her off her feet.
“Why do you not shut up?” The puzzlement in his tone clued her in to what was bothering him. The man had actually expected her to shut up.
“Is my natural resistance to telepathic persuasion inconveniencing you?” she croaked out, keeping her own surprise that he couldn’t control her buried under bravado.
His hands tightened, shutting off the last of her air. “Not in the least.”
It took everything she had not to give in to her instinctive urge to kick and struggle, but she’d had a lot of practice in the last year, enduring. She could endure this too. For her daughter, because every second he spent choking her was one more her child was safe. Deuce was coming. She couldn’t feel him or sense him, but he’d promised her he’d come and she was holding him to it.
Pietre held her like that until she couldn’t stop herself—she clawed at his hands and saw spots before her eyes.
“Too bad they want you alive.” He dropped her to the floor.
She closed her eyes on a wave of relief. Thank God! She dragged air into her lungs.
Horror distorted her efforts as Pietre approached Jalina.
“What did they do for you that you owe them enough to betray your people?”
He paused and turned so fast his hair flared around his shoulders. She had no doubt if he were in lion form, his mane would be bristling. “My people have been playing second fiddle to the Chosen for too long.”
She propped herself up on her elbows. “And you’ve come to this conclusion how?”
Human form or not, Pietre could pull off a snarl. “Others were meant to rule. After today, all will see that. I have seen to it.”
She really didn’t want to know, but she had him talking instead of walking, so she asked, “How?”
This time his smile was impossible to miss, slashing as it did across his square features. “By learning how to level the playing field.”
God help her, she didn’t know what he meant by that. “Dak is the leader of the Pride and he doesn’t have a problem with how things are.”
“Dak is old-fashioned, accepting what is rather than exploring what could be.” She was once again facing his back as he headed for Jalina. She had to stop him.
“In other words, he’s not a glory-seeking, power-hungry ass like yourself,” she retorted, getting to her feet.
Her insult bounced off Pietre like a ping-pong ball hitting a wall. He didn’t stop and didn’t look back, just headed for her daughter.
Deuce, help me!
Eden threw herself after the man, leaping for his back. He turned with amazing speed, catching her desperate hope for success and tossing it aside as easily as he tossed her. She hit the floor hard. Air exploded from her lungs as she slid. She came up against something unsteady. She grabbed hold. Denim under her hand, the curve of muscle over bone. A leg. Marlika.
She dug in with her fingers, watching in horror as Pietre reached for her daughter. “Shake it off,” she hissed at the other woman, willing her to hear, willing that damn blankness to leave her face. “Goddamn it, Marlika, shake it off!”
To her shock, the woman blinked. Eden grabbed her leg with the other hand, fought for a mental connection and threw every bit of willpower she had behind it when she screamed, “Wake up!”
Marlika blinked again and looked down. Her earrings glittered and swung in the light. Memory wiped the blankness from her face, and before Eden’s shocked eyes, those features shifted. Elongated. In the next instant, she was leaning up against the leg of a wolf. A big, major league, pissed-off, fang-sporting wolf.
Marlika sprang for Pietre, and Eden headed for the door. She needed help. She cut across the floor, feet slipping, stumbling in her panic, terrified she’d feel Pietre’s hand on her shoulder. Terrified that he’d stop her.
Behind her there was a snarl and a roar. Furniture crashed. Glass broke. Eden blocked the sounds and kept her goal in sight. She slammed into Nick, latched onto his shoulder and screamed. “Wake the hell up!”
He blinked. A high-pitched yelp echoed around the hall.
“Oh shit. Oh shit.” Marlika was in there alone fighting that sick son of a bitch. She needed reinforcements fast. Eden grabbed Nick’s face so hard her nails bit into his dark skin. “Wake up!”
There was another crash and a howl from the room, then a god-awful silence.
Nick moved her aside, his gaze looking where she didn’t dare—into the room where her daughter sat with a killer. One blink he was there, and in another he was gone. And the noise began again, fiercer this time. Eden forced herself to turn around. To look.
A wolf and a lion fought, blood was everywhere. She couldn’t see Marlika in any form. And just past the fighting Others, her daughter screamed. Eden’s heart thundered in her ears and her mouth dried to parchment. She had to get Jalina out of there.
“Oh my God. What do I do now?” She hadn’t expected an answer, but one
came. Strong and calm, a port in the middle of the horrific storm, the “Voice” said, We fight.
Fight? She didn’t know how to fight. She’d been raised to throw parties, not fists. But that was her daughter in there, and that was one fucking ugly werelion trying to take her away. It was either fight or give up. Eden wasn’t giving up.
Jalina screamed again. The two Others crashed to the floor next to her in a flurry of gnashing teeth and ripping claws. She had to get her daughter out of there, now. Pietre and Nick leapt to their feet and faced off over Jalina’s carrier. Blood flowed from both, coating their fur and the floor. Teeth bared, they circled each other, jockeying for a better position in relation to the baby. The lion feinted in. Nick leapt between the carrier and Pietre. Teeth snapped and more blood flowed. Nick was fast, but was on the defensive, his attention split between fighting the lion and guarding Jalina. He was taking heavy injuries as a result. Eden didn’t see how he could possibly fight much longer, not with all the blood he was losing. Something needed to be done.
She slipped into the room, pressing back against the wall just inside the door. To the right Marlika lay crumpled on the floor. She was still in wolf form. A growing pool of blood spread around her. Eden closed her eyes against the atrocity, offered a brief prayer for strength, and then opened them again. As bad as this was, as horrifically surreal as this was, it was still something she had to take care of.
She made it five feet into the room before Nick went down. As the lion dove for his throat, she grabbed the marble lamp off the table and swung for all she was worth. The lamp collided against his back with an arm-jarring thud. He grunted and looked up, blood dripping from his jaws, eyes flat and eerily unemotional.
He took a step toward her. She took one back. And then another, drawing him away from Nick. And Jalina. He snarled. She pulled the lamp back, ready to swing. He stared at her, those gold eyes holding hers. Drawing her in. The eyes blurred, changed, grew larger, shifted higher. She blinked. He’d changed back to human form.
Blood poured from a bite on his shoulder. The flesh hung from the gash on his cheek. He smiled. The flap of skin stretched into an obscenity. “Looks like I’m done here.”
She wanted to run. She couldn’t. Couldn’t move. Could barely breathe. Whatever protection she’d had was gone, and Pietre now held her thought-bound. This was not good.
Deuce! Goddamn it, Deuce! The scream came from her soul.
The only answer she received was the mocking echo of Pietre’s laughter. “Scream for him, human. It’ll give you something to do.”
He crossed the room with that particular glide of the Others. No board squeaked to mark his progress. Out of her peripheral vision she saw him grab his clothes off the floor and step into them. How could he look so normal getting dressed when all around them people were dying? Jalina screamed a high, warbling cry that lashed her fear into panic.
Why didn’t Deuce come? Why didn’t someone come?
There was a stirring at the edge of her mind.
Deuce?
No answer. But then she could move her eyes. As Pietre snapped his pants, she scanned the room, the floor the walls, looking for something. Her gaze lingered on the swords on the wall above the table to the right of Jalina.
Pietre came back to her, his shirt tucked in, his belt buckled, looking perfectly normal except for the blood darkening the black silk, and the dripping gash on his cheek. He touched her face. Jalina screamed. “I should leave my mark on you. A present for Dusan.”
Hatred like she’d never known before swept over her, followed by a calm that was equally alien. She felt his nails. His tainted energy. Her gaze remained locked straight ahead, giving her no choice but to view his gloating expression of regret. “Too bad I can’t.”
He turned in dismissal. Bent over Jalina. Reached for the carrier handle.
“Die!” The scream ripped through her brain, as her body leapt into motion. Like a passenger on a thrill ride, all she could do was marvel as she leapt into the air, and launched off Pietre’s back as he tried to turn. The cool metal of the sword felt alienly familiar in her hand as she ripped it from the wall, tossed the scabbard and brought it down with a skill that would have had her mouth gaping had she control of any part of her body.
Blood spewed in a high arc as the werelion’s arm separated from his body. She stood in the spray, sword held before her in a defensive gesture, legs braced as she stood before Jalina. She didn’t know how she was doing what she was doing, but she was profoundly grateful that she was doing it. Especially when Pietre screamed and backed up two steps, blood spraying in a new angle. Eden was morbidly glad she wasn’t in control of her body, because for sure she’d be on the floor heaving up her guts.
“Touch the child and die.” It was her voice, her thoughts, but she hadn’t thought to utter the words.
Pietre answered with a snarl. His muscles bunched, he closed his eyes. The spray of blood ceased. When he opened his eyes again, it was to smile. “They will win in the end.”
“They won’t win today.” Eden hoped whomever was running the show had the knowledge to back up that declaration.
“You cannot stop me.”
The way he said it, the calmness with which he said it, scared the shit out of her, but didn’t seem to faze the woman connected to her. “I will try.”
“You will fail.”
“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”
Pietre’s laugh skittered across Eden’s raw nerve endings in an eerie prelude to the stillness that dropped over the room. He stood straight, chin up, eyes slitted, hands open. Energy shimmered around him, growing in density as it collected. Inside her, Eden felt the stranger collecting her own energy, drawing it around her in a buffering shield, working faster as Pietre’s laugh built in volume, a dark reflection of the strange field all but obliterating the satisfaction in his flat yellow eyes.
The ball of energy throbbed twice before swelling outward until, with a searing burst of light it exploded. The rippling shock wave hit the perimeters of her consciousness with a scalding burn before slicing inward. Her mind’s eye flared red. Pietre roared in agony. The field around Eden shuddered and wavered before strength not hers surged forward. Energy she recognized. Deuce. More strength surged in. Bohdan. Her knees gave out, and then there was nothing. No pain, no light, just a blessed drift toward the center of a swirling darkness backlit by a woman’s sob, and Bohdan’s anguished shout of “No!”
* * * * *
Come to me, Edie.
The order reached into the black void, catching her on the edge of the precipice, holding her when she would have pitched over.
Deuce?
I need you, mate. You will come to me.
She didn’t know if she could. I can’t let go.
Of what?
She didn’t know, but if she let go, she’d lose a part of her forever, and she couldn’t do that. I don’t know.
I will come to you.
She shook her head. He couldn’t come with her. You have to stay where you are.
Not without you.
There was no mistaking his resolve. Turbulence shook the air around her.
You can’t. He couldn’t go where she was going. It wasn’t his time.
You go nowhere without me.
The tug of the precipice increased. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t go over and she couldn’t let go.
You will come to me now.
I can’t.
There was a pause during which she hung suspended between the choices, then Deuce was back, his calm spreading over her panic. I have brought Bohdan.
Bohdan? Why? Am I dying?
Be easy, my heart. You do not die.
Then why is Bohdan here? Wherever here was. The pressure in her head increased. The energy pulled her toward that edge of no return. Fighting her, fighting to be free. Maybe she should just let go.
No. The order slammed into her mind, waves of agony swelled as Bohda
n’s will shoved through hers. She fought back. He was too strong. The agony tore through her mind, threatening her sanity.
Deuce held Edie tighter as her body spasmed in his arms. Fresh blood leaked from her nose and ears. He caught her head with his hand before it could slam into the floor. The psychic blow from Pietre had been near fatal, leaving her unconscious and on the verge of death. She only lived because the stranger who protected her had taken the majority of the blow into herself. Now Edie’s life and the life of the stranger hung in the balance. If he could not bring Edie to trust him, both would be lost.
No. The stranger you fear is my mate. Eden must not let go.
Deuce looked across the floor to where his brother squatted, his expression intense. The stranger was his mate?
“Back off, Bohdan.”
His brother’s eyes were hard and flat when they met his, but in their depths swirled the red of primitive emotion. “She cannot let her go.”
“You cannot make her hold on.”
“I will do what I must.”
That was what Deuce feared. Bohdan was at his most primitive right now. Reacting on instinct, protecting his mate at all costs. “If she dies, we lose them both.”
“I will not lose her again.”
“And I will not let you kill my mate.”
Bohdan took a deep breath. His muscles tensed. Deuce braced himself. If Bohdan did not find reason, then he would have to kill him. Bohdan shook from head to toe.
Edie spasmed in his arms again. “Let her go, Bohdan.”
Bohdan looked her over, not relinquishing his hold on her mind. “She is afraid.”
“If fear were something that stopped Edie, I would not be alive and she would not be here.”
“I cannot chance it.”
“Can you chance the other feeling the threat to her and taking the choice away?”
Bohdan stilled. His hair fell over his shoulders as he bent his head. His hands clenched into fists on his thighs, every muscle rock-hard with the battle he waged with himself. His answer was a flat “No” revealing nothing of the agony Deuce could feel tearing at him. His hold on Edie dissipated.
Edie relaxed in Deuce’s arms, her hand falling to the floor, her head lolling, her life force further away, flickering with indecision. He followed the flickering light to the deepest corner of her mind, feeling Bohdan behind him, repairing ruptured blood vessels in his wake.
Conception Page 32