Darkness Surrendered (Primal Heat Trilogy #3) (Order of the Blade)

by Stephanie` Rowe

  She frowned. “You mean, two thousand years ago?”

  He nodded, thumbing her palms. “Calydons are about destiny. We are destined to meet our shevas, they are destined to bring us down. Immortal, we are destined to die by violence.” He met her gaze. “My existence is based on destiny. The existence of my race is based on destiny. Our rituals, our rules, our lives and deaths. It’s all a foregone conclusion.”

  “Grace—”

  “Grace and Quinn staved off destiny, but the fact that Lily is Gideon’s second sheva shows us that destiny will keep trying until she wins.” He raised her arm and pressed his lips to her brand. “It’s only a matter of time, and this whole thing with Ezekiel is destiny repeating itself.”

  “No! I won’t believe that.”

  “He’ll gain power, and no one will be able to stop him until he steals his brother’s woman and bonds with her.” Elijah’s gaze was intense on her. “And it ends with the bad guy getting locked up, the good guy going rogue and dying, and the woman dying. To be repeated two thousand years later with new players. I can feel it, Ana. I can feel the hands of fate directing us.”

  Hearing his words, laying it out like they had no control made her mad. Anger began to rumble through her. Anger that some greater force could take away all that she cared about. “It’ll be different this time.”

  “Will it? Or is it destined to play out again and again? Every two thousand years, Ezekiel gets free—”

  She sensed Elijah wasn’t asking a question. He was stating a fact. His belief in their fate reverberated in every word he uttered, in the tense set of his shoulders, in the way he looked at her, as if it was the last time he’d ever gaze upon her and it was breaking his heart. “Why would it be that way? Why do you think it has to be the same? Why are you suddenly spouting all this destiny stuff?”

  He met her gaze, and she felt the significance of his serious expression, and sensed something had shifted beneath her feet. “Because of this.” Elijah reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a thin metal chain with a large pendant on it. “I’ve kept it all this time, and I never knew what it was for. I didn’t know how I came to possess it, or what it meant, but the partition falling in my mind and our bond tightening has cleared my head. I remember now.” He lifted her hand and opened it, dropping the pendant into her palm, covering it with his hand. “This is my fate. This is our fate.”

  ***

  Ana turned the medallion over in her hand. On one side were letters, an ancient language she couldn’t begin to understand, but she almost felt like she could. Like she’d seen it before. The medallion felt ancient, a timeless relic that spoke of an age when the earth was different. It was heavy and warm, almost as if it were pulsing with life and energy.

  She flipped it over and looked at the back. The lines were all jumbled and confusing, a mishmash of meaningless designs. As she studied them, however, they began to shift. “They’re moving.”

  “I know. Keep watching.” Elijah’s voice was grim.

  The lines reformed into Elijah’s throwing star, down to the most intricate of designs on the metal that didn’t even show up on the brand. Every Calydon’s weapon was unique. Other Calydons might have a throwing star, but theirs would be different from his. This was definitely Elijah’s. “Why is your throwing star on here?”

  “It gets better.” The sarcasm was evident in his voice, and the tense set of his body told her it was going to get much worse. He walked away, as if he couldn’t bring himself to watch it again.

  She frowned, rubbing her index finger over the designs, then blinked as they went out of focus again. Had she imagined it? Then they took shape again…and it was her face.

  Exactly hers.

  Her blood ran cold as the portrait shrank and the faces of two men formed on either side of hers. Elijah, including the mark on his throat from Nate’s blade that had brought him down, and Ezekiel, in perfect replicate, down to his youthful face and the ancient evil and wisdom in his eyes. “Elijah? What is this?

  He leaned on the doorframe, his casual pose belying the vibrating tension in his body. “You see the image of the three of us?”

  “Yes. Why are we on a coin—” The scene shifted again. Elijah and Ezekiel were fighting, and she was between them. Little silver droplets that looked like blood dripped down Elijah’s body. Deeper wounds opened all over his body, until he was gushing blood. Oh, dear God. “Elijah!”

  He frowned and moved beside her, his hand cupping hers to steady them as he leaned over her shoulder to look at the medallion. He swore softly. “I didn’t see this before.”

  The image of Elijah went down on his knees in a pool of his blood, and it rose up his legs to his waist, as if it was going to drown him.

  Ana’s hand went to her throat. “It’s like the illusion I did on you at the shack.” Her throat was dry with horror. “Drowning you in blood.”

  His hand tightened on hers as the image of him lunged for Ana, grabbing her wrist and yanking her into the pool as the blood continued to rise. “Jesus. I’m going to drown you with me,” he said.

  The image of Ezekiel stood over them, no blood touching his body, like the parting of the Red Sea around him. He offered his hand to them. Offered safety. Offered salvation. To them both. “No,” Ana shouted at her image. “Don’t take his hand!”

  Elijah lunged for Ezekiel’s outstretched hand and she could see him throw his weight back to yank Ezekiel in with them. Then the image froze, shimmering in stillness. Elijah’s hand in Ezekiel’s, one man in the pool of blood, one man standing on the shore. Ana in the middle, only her head and shoulders still out of the pool.

  No more action. Just frozen.

  “Look at that! It stopped! Our destiny isn’t sealed.” Her heart was beating so fast she could barely hear Elijah’s breathing. “The ending isn’t written yet—”

  Then the scene moved again. Ezekiel toppled into the pool of blood, and they all sank from sight, ripples fading until it was still. There was a flash of brightness, as if light was reflecting off the medallion, and she flinched, blinking against the glare. When she opened her eyes again, there was a sun.

  Just a sun, shining brightly.

  Holy crap.

  “So we die, but we save the world.” Elijah’s voice was grim.

  The sun flickered, and fell, crashing to the earth in a cloud of dust.

  And then there was nothing.

  Just a blank medallion.

  As if the world had been destroyed.

  Ana swallowed hard, staring at the medallion, hoping for something else. Another scene. Anything.

  But there was nothing.

  Simply blankness.

  She looked at Elijah, who looked pale. “What is this medallion?”

  “It was Caleb’s.”

  The world suddenly got colder. “Caleb’s? Ezekiel’s brother? It’s two thousand years old?”

  He nodded. “The mark on the front is legendary.” He turned it over and pointed to a strange shape that was pressed into the front of it. “His weapon could make that shape, and no other object could reproduce it. He put it on anything that was his.”

  “And you know this, how?”

  “Lily.”

  “Lily.” Lily knew her Calydon history. Ana sat down on the cement floor, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her up. “How did you get it? Why are we on a coin that was created before we existed?”

  “It was handed down to me.” Elijah sat next to her and leaned against the railing, his arms draped over his knees, his shoulder up against hers. “I never knew what it was for or why I had it, then while you were showering, I found it. I remembered then that my father gave it to me, and I could see the picture for the first time.” He looked at her. “Did you see the picture of you, me, and Ezekiel, as he looks now, in Drew’s body?”

  She nodded. “I saw it.” Oh, yes, she’d seen it. Ezekiel looked just as creepy and terrifying in gold metal as he did in real life.

  “Two t
housand years ago, Caleb apparently carved our images into that piece of metal. Our exact images.” He let out a low breath. “That scene, with the blood, which you already began to recreate that night at the shack, was already in that coin when you did it. Either Caleb created the future when he carved it, or he saw the future.” Elijah took the medallion out of her hand and held it by the chain, swinging it from his fingers. “This is our destiny, Ana. I’m going to destroy you.”

  “No!” She yanked it out of his hand, suddenly furious, irrationally and uncontrollably furious. “You’re not! You can’t! You’d never hurt me!” Of anything for him to claim, she would not believe he would hurt her.

  “Look at it.” He swept the medallion out of her grasp and shook it at her. “This has been waiting for me for two thousand years. Two thousand years ago Caleb saw your face. Two thousand years ago, Caleb knew Ezekiel was going to be in Drew’s body. How can you disregard it? How?”

  “Because it’s wrong!” She jumped to her feet, furious now. Beyond furious. “Screw the medallion, Elijah! If it had said that I was going to destroy you, turn you crazy, or wind up Ezekiel’s bed mate…maybe…maybe I could admit there was a chance of that. But you will never hurt me.” She yanked the medallion out of his hand. “This is not our future! It isn’t.”

  His gaze was dark now. “Have you completely ignored all the shit that’s gone down so far? Who I am? I’m not some hero, Ana. I’m not. I’ve got skeletons in my closet that are undeniable. You’re still caught up in that moment outside the Gun Rack when I came back for you, but it didn’t work out, did it? I’m not that guy. I’m not.”

  “You can be if you want!” Why couldn’t he see in himself what she saw? Why was he allowing the world to dictate who he believed he could be?

  “You think I want to kill you?” His face was rigid with anger. “Dear God, Ana, have you no idea what it does to me, knowing you’re in danger around me? This is the bond, Ana. It’s the bond! This is what it does to a Calydon and his mate. It destroys them.”

  She caught her breath, trying to control the fury in her voice. “If you don’t believe, why even try? Why even go after Ezekiel? According to the medallion, you’ll kill me and Ezekiel and the world will still die.”

  He looked down at the medallion, then held it out to her.

  The sun was shining again, and this time only half of it fell. “The fate of the world is still free for the taking. You know why, don’t you?”

  She glared at him, wanting to take that damned medallion and hurl it off his balcony. “Because the medallion says so, and some ancient piece of metal is always right?”

  His eyes met hers. “Because destiny condemns us to losing that which we care most about if the bond is completed. It used to be my sanity, but it’s not anymore. Adhering to my Order oath and saving the world is no longer the most important thing to me, which means I could still achieve it even if we bond.” His voice was fierce, and he grabbed for her suddenly, his hands sinking into her upper arms and hauling her against him. “Keeping you alive is all that matters to me. And that’s why you’re going to die. You are what matters most to me, so you are what I will destroy.” His body shook as he held her. “Do you understand, Ana? You are my entire world, and that’s why I will destroy you.”

  A lump swelled deep in Ana’s throat at the conviction on his face, and Ana knew Elijah was speaking the truth from the very depths of his soul. He cared about her more than anything else in his being. She mattered to him. She mattered. Tears filled her eyes, and suddenly nothing else mattered except the man before her, the one who was so deeply ingrained in her heart that she would give her life for him.

  “Don’t you understand?” Elijah’s eyes were blazing with passion. “The very reason you think the medallion is wrong—because of how fiercely I want you alive—is the very reason the medallion is right that you have to die by my hand.”

  “The medallion is right only if you believe in the power of destiny to destroy us.”

  “How can you not believe in it? There are two thousand years of proof!”

  “And two couples who beat it.”

  “Shit, Ana, do you really think they beat it? And if they did, so what? My brain is so fucked up. I’m not the warrior who can defeat a destiny that has brought down hundreds of thousands of powerful warriors over the last two thousand years, and we both know it.”

  Did she really believe they were bound by a Calydon legend that had destroyed every single bonded couple since the beginning of time? Every bonded couple except her sister and Lily. Had they beaten destiny, or was destiny still coming for them?

  You have to believe. Grace’s words echoed in her mind.

  Could she believe? Could she believe in the face of such evidence of the tight bonds of fate directing their lives?

  She looked into his eyes, into the green depths of Elijah’s beautiful eyes, and she saw his love, his fire, his passion burning so deeply for her. She believed in his feelings for her…but would they be their destruction or salvation? Was that kind of emotion the key to their doom or their survival?

  His grip softened on her arms. “If there was any chance it wouldn’t have to end like that, I’d do it. And I’ll go down fighting, I swear I will. I will fight for you with every fiber of my damn soul. But I can’t lie to you. I know how it has to turn out—”

  Ezekiel’s presence was suddenly in her mind, and she saw Elijah stiffen as the darkness, the hostility, the possessiveness swirled through them. Her forearms burned, and she didn’t know if it was Elijah’s brand or Ezekiel’s. Or both.

  Elijah met her gaze, his jaw tensing. “It’s time.”

  She steeled herself against Ezekiel’s invasion even as Elijah dropped his shields to let Ezekiel into his mind. She watched the torment in Elijah’s eyes, and something swelled in her chest. “I believe,” she whispered.

  He looked at her. “In destiny?”

  “I believe in you.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t, Ana. I will only break your heart.”

  “Dammit, Elijah!” She wanted to shake him. “You said you’d fight for me!”

  Fury blazed in his eyes. “I will! I’ll fight to the death—”

  “It’s not enough!” She slammed her hand against his chest. “The power’s in here, in your heart. You have to believe. If you don’t believe, it doesn’t matter how hard you fight! Can’t you believe in the power of your need to protect me?”

  Sadness filled his eyes, and she knew then that it wasn’t Elijah’s broken mind that would doom them. It was his broken heart, his shattered spirit, his lack of faith in the man that he was. She laid her hands on his cheeks, desperate to help him see himself as she did. “Elijah—”

  Ezekiel appeared in the room before she could continue.

  The time had come, and they weren’t ready.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Despite his intentions to convince Ezekiel they were considering his offer, Elijah couldn’t stop himself from moving between Ezekiel and Ana, putting her behind him. There was simply no way Elijah could stand back and expose her to him. It just wasn’t going to happen, and they’d have to figure out a way around it, because that was the way it was.

  The ancient Calydon was wearing a pair of sleek black slacks, an open collar dress shirt that was starched to perfection, a gold Rolex and a large signet ring on his left hand. He looked every bit the cool, razor-sharp businessman who could take a penny and turn it into millions with a snap of his ruthless fingers. He was giving off the aura of smooth, arrogant confidence, giving away nothing of the insidious, homicidal lunatic lurking beneath the surface.

  Ezekiel’s dark eyes gleamed with interest, and he looked at Elijah with as much anticipation as he did with Ana.

  He wanted them both, it was clear.

  And that, Elijah was certain, would be Ezekiel’s downfall.

  How it would transpire, he didn’t know. Ezekiel was more powerful than the entire Order combined, let alone Elijah. Yet accor
ding to the medallion, they could bring him down.

  If he believed the medallion… Ana’s words reverberated in his mind, and for a split second, doubt flickered in Elijah’s mind. What if he didn’t have to be bound by it? What if there was a way to bring down Ezekiel without losing Ana? Raw yearning pulsed through him, and he tightened his grip on her. Dear God, if there was any way to save her…

  Yes, by hell fire and damnation, yes. That was what he wanted.

  He burned to look at Ana, to sweep her up into his arms and beg for her strength and belief, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off Ezekiel.

  “You dropped your shields,” Ezekiel observed, unable to keep the undercurrent of excitement out of his voice. Hell, he was practically rubbing his palms together.

  Ana set her hand on Elijah’s back, and he could feel how cold it was even through his shirt. At her touch, at her evident need for his protection, hatred burned deep in him for the male standing before him. An image flashed through his mind of attacking Ezekiel and killing him. Right there, right then, ending it all.

  His Calydon nature demanded he respond to the threat and attack so he could protect his woman, himself and the Order.

  But to do so would kill them both. Elijah had already proven to himself that he couldn’t take Ezekiel in a one-on-one. Now was not the time for blind faith in his fighting abilities. Not against Ezekiel. He had to focus and assess. He had to refrain from taking action until he knew how to triumph.

  They had to face Ezekiel and keep him on their side until they figured out how to strike back. Elijah steeled himself and then said with a calm voice, “We felt your presence when we were having sex.”

  Ezekiel’s face became shuttered. “Did you?”

  “Yes.” Elijah suddenly knew how to convince Ezekiel that he was for real. He knew how to convince Ezekiel he would switch sides and go against the Order he’d served for so long. “I won’t share my mate, but I’m willing to make a trade.” His hand went behind his back and he brushed his fingers over Ana’s hand.