“Be honest, Miss Becker.” Benedict moved his gaze to her breasts and then to her stomach. His thumb squeaked across the plastic box. “Haven’t you always wanted to have children?”
Chapter 13
The rage was like a living beast inside Anthony. He could feel it gnawing at his gut. It hardened his muscles, making him tremble with the urge to smash something. It sent blood rushing to his brain, hazing his vision with crimson. His jaw ached from clenching his teeth, and his body pulsed with the need for action.
The fury was so strong, it allowed him to stay upright despite the tons of solid rock that he knew were pressing in on him from all sides of the corridor. It let him walk without staggering as the guards led them to a room with a raw stone ceiling that arched less than a foot overhead and windowless gray-brown walls that were painted with shadows. But then the door clanged shut and the air suddenly became too thin to breathe and was filled with the smell of gardenias and panic and his sisters’ sobs….
No. It wasn’t his sisters. It was Melina who had sobbed.
The sound yanked Anthony back from the brink of his nightmare. Melina. She was all that mattered.
Before she could draw breath for another sob, he reached out and pulled her into his arms.
She stepped between his legs, pressed her face to his neck and wrapped her arms around him so tightly he could feel the edges of his broken rib grind.
He didn’t protest. The pain from the beating Benedict’s guards had given him wasn’t as strong as his urge to hold Melina.
This was what Anthony had wanted to do from the moment he had seen her in the lab. Only the gun that had been pressed to her head had kept him from going to her. Eagerly, he absorbed the feel of her body next to his. The emptiness that he’d sensed when he’d awakened in his bed and found her gone retreated. Some of the crimson lifted from his vision. His thoughts began to steady.
He cupped her head. His pulse was beating so fast, his hands felt clumsy. His fingers brushed a patch of dried blood on her hair. “They hit you. Does it hurt?”
“No, not anymore. They knocked me out when they grabbed me—” She gasped and released her grip on him. “Oh, Anthony, I’m sorry. I didn’t think. You’re so pale. I must be hurting you.”
“It hurts more when you let go.” He looped his arm around her shoulders. “Stay here. I need to hold you.”
She hesitated, then returned her hands to his back, her touch light, her fingers shaking. “I need to hold you, too. I can’t believe what’s happening.”
“I’m sorry you got dragged into it.”
“I was wrong, Anthony. I thought I understood how you felt about Benedict. I couldn’t have. Now I do.” She spoke fast and low, her voice quavering with fury. “He’s a monster. He doesn’t deserve to live.”
He heard the terror beneath her anger. It was true, she finally did understand.
He wished she didn’t.
It was a measure of her inner strength that she had held herself together throughout Benedict’s obscene revelations. The bastard hadn’t realized how deeply his words had struck, but Anthony did. He knew now how important children were to Melina. He wasn’t the only one who was facing a personal nightmare. She must be going through hell.
“We can’t let ourselves be part of his plans.”
He pressed his lips to her temple and tried to sound more confident than he was. “We won’t be.”
“Oh, God. I pray you’re right.”
Anthony turned his attention to the room. Panic lurked on the edge of his consciousness, but holding Melina kept it contained enough for him to take his first thorough look at their surroundings.
The room was nothing but a hollow in the natural rock, a space large enough to contain a narrow cot, a stool and a small table. The lock on the door wasn’t electronic. It was a low-tech steel bar that had clanged into place as soon as the door had shut behind them. The lights weren’t electric, either. There were no wires or sockets anywhere in sight. The only illumination came from a kerosene lantern that flickered in the center of the table.
The significance of the design hit him all at once. These primitive conditions were no oversight. They served a practical purpose. This room was a prison cell, one Anthony realized was designed for him.
He closed his eyes, trying to calm himself enough to extend his senses and continue his inspection, but it didn’t do any good. There was no electricity in the room, no power source of any kind, not even the battery of a surveillance device. That part was good—he wouldn’t have to worry about Benedict overhearing them—but even a battery would have been better than nothing.
There were no lines of force he could latch on to and follow. He couldn’t feel any current through the stone. No stirrings. No pulses. Not even a tickle. They were locked in. Trapped. Helpless. In a windowless room under tons of rock where they couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t scream….
Anthony buried his nose in Melina’s hair, inhaling her familiar scent to keep the claustrophobia under control. His reaction to the cave was dulling his abilities. So was his anger. Danielle had guessed this would happen. That was why she hadn’t liked his plan.
He had to have faith in his sisters. Along with him, they were the best operatives Jeremy had trained. They would follow the trail of the detectors he’d disabled. They would find a way into the stronghold.
But if he couldn’t feel any current, how could he knock out the central power source? He channeled power, he didn’t produce it. And here, underground, he couldn’t draw on the ambient energy of the atmosphere. Unless he could get close to an electrical conduit, or unless there was another thunderstorm nearby to provide a boost, he might not be able to gather enough energy to get to Benedict let alone get out of this room.
Damn, he had to concentrate. Try harder to clear his head. It was their only hope.
“Did you see those boxes in his lab?”
His heart turned over at Melina’s question. There was no way to clear his head when she was in such pain. He glanced at the cot. The slope of the wall it was set against was low enough to make cold sweat bead his forehead, but the cot was the only place they could sit together. He stooped to walk over to it, lowered himself to the edge of the mattress and pulled Melina onto his lap.
She drew her feet onto the mattress and curled up in his embrace without hesitation. A shudder worked its way down her spine. “There were hoses and wires. And holes in the top. They must be for air.”
“Don’t torment yourself by thinking about them, Melina.”
“I can’t help it. Benedict wants to keep children in there. Innocent children.”
“It won’t happen.”
“Not just any children. Our children. He wants to use my body the way he used your mother’s and take my babies and put them—”
“Shh. No one’s going to use you.”
She glanced around the room, then looked at him. Despite her fear, her gaze was lucid. Terror hadn’t dimmed the intelligence he had always admired.
It would have been easier for her if it had.
“There’s only one cot here, Anthony. One stool. This place is meant for you, not me. They’re going to keep me…somewhere else.”
She was right. And the reason was chilling. Benedict probably intended to keep her under constant medical supervision once the embryos were implanted.
He tightened his embrace, rocking her in his arms, hardly noticing how the top of his head brushed the sloping rock. “I’m not letting you out of my sight, Melina. We’ll find a way out of this.”
“It’s all so twisted. Children are gifts. They deserve to be cherished.”
She had said the same thing last week. He hadn’t realized then how much it had meant to her. He rubbed his hand over her back. “Yes, they do.”
“A baby should be conceived in love.”
“Melina…”
“In love, Anthony, not forced inside me while I’m strapped to a hospital table and my feet are in stirrups
and my body is spread open by instruments—”
Anthony caught her chin and turned her face to his. The desire to kill Benedict was never as intense as it was at this moment, but he strove to keep his grip gentle. His anger wasn’t going to help Melina. “It won’t come to that, Melina. I swear it.”
Her chin trembled in his fingers. The tracks of her tears gleamed in the lantern light. “But that’s not the worst of it, Anthony. It’s not only my body he wants to violate, it’s the dream from my childhood. He’s taking my beautiful dream of a home filled with love and children and perverting it into something ugly.”
“Benedict’s mind is warped.”
“But he spoke the truth. I have always wanted children.”
He moved his fingers to her cheek and wiped her tears. “You told me.”
“That’s why I stayed with Chuck as long as I did.”
“I know.”
“That’s why I took so long to turn Neil down. I didn’t love him, but he would have made a good father. For eight years I tried to convince myself that my job was enough, that I had given up on that old dream, but it wasn’t enough. I hadn’t given up. I do want children. I just didn’t want to give my heart to anyone again.”
“Anyone would be cautious after what you went through.”
“I was afraid of giving up control. I wanted children but not love or passion.” She gave a sobbing laugh that was painful to hear. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? Being impregnated in a lab by a madman is about as far from passion as anyone can get. It’s as if I brought this on myself by my own wishes.”
“Melina, you did nothing to deserve this.”
“Didn’t I? It’s my fault you’re here.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. Benedict’s men found where we were staying because of the cell phone calls I made to Neil.”
“I was going to confront Benedict, anyway.”
“And by trying to stop you, I made it worse.” She touched her fingertip to the scrape on the side of his jaw. “I’m sorry, Anthony. I’m so sorry. I never should have left you.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it isn’t.” She moved her finger to his swollen eyelid. More tears surged down her cheeks. “What we did last night was incredible. It was wonderful. I only left because I wanted you to be safe. This is my fault.”
“Stop blaming yourself.”
“Why not? If I had been honest with myself about why I drive myself so hard, if I hadn’t been so fixated on getting this story, neither of us would be here right now.”
“If you hadn’t been tracking Benedict, we wouldn’t have met.”
“That’s right. We wouldn’t have met.”
“Are you sorry about that, too?”
Her chest heaved, her breath catching. She shook her head so fast, her tears splashed on his chin. “No, Anthony. Are you?”
“I should be. For your sake.”
“That’s not what I asked. Are you sorry we met?”
What could he say? If he had the power of foresight, if he had known what would happen, would he have chosen a different way to pursue Benedict if it meant he would never have known Melina?
Yes. He wanted her to be safe. His feelings were immaterial.
No. He could no longer imagine his life without this woman in it.
How could both answers be true?
“Anthony?”
He leaned forward and answered the most honest way he could.
The moment Anthony’s lips settled on hers, Melina felt the last of her control crumble. The hell with being brave. The hell with being logical. She needed this kiss more than she needed air.
Terror still awaited her outside this room. It was so huge, so overwhelming, it made all those other fears that had shaped her life seem ludicrous.
How could she have been afraid of love and passion? There was nothing to fear in Anthony’s kiss. His taste flooded her senses, setting off a wave of warmth, driving out the chill that had crept into her bones. It made her feel alive. It made her feel as if she were part of him.
He licked a tear from the corner of her mouth, then slicked his tongue over her lower lip in a caress so tender her eyes misted again.
She had once thought this man wasn’t safe. She couldn’t have been more wrong. She had let him see her weakness, she’d had every defense and illusion stripped away, but he had taken her pain and was giving her strength. She trusted him. Completely.
She caught his cheeks in her palms, holding his mouth to hers as she shifted to straddle his lap. The cot creaked beneath them. The wool blanket that covered it bunched under her heels.
Anthony’s lips firmed. His kiss changed, grew harder, bolder. Melina felt her breasts tighten. Heat pulsed between her legs.
But it wasn’t the blinding flare of the last time she had kissed him. The spark that made her catch her breath hadn’t traveled through his skin to hers.
He grasped her thighs, easing her more securely against him. There was no tickle of sensation to mask his caress, only denim sliding over denim, yet she felt his touch more clearly than when they had been naked.
She slid her hands to his hair. Pleasure flowed over her as she felt his wild, thick locks against her fingers, but the pleasure didn’t come in sharp bursts. It was unfocused. Not stronger, not weaker, but…different.
She drew back her head. Her lips throbbed, her heart raced, but it wasn’t from his power.
Different. Yes, something was definitely different.
She caught his hand and brought it to her mouth. She moistened his thumb and pressed it to her lip. There was no jolt, no crash of awareness. Just a simple, basic sensation of contact.
There was nothing paranormal about it.
She glanced at the wall behind Anthony’s back. Their joined shadows floated against bare rock. She remembered what Benedict had said about the mountain—solid rock didn’t conduct electricity.
Anthony’s power must be gone. It didn’t work in this room.
Oh, God. How long had he known? He hadn’t said anything. He probably wanted to protect her from that, too, but it was easy to see they were in worse trouble than she had thought.
The terror that his embrace held at bay threatened to return once more, but she tightened her grip on Anthony’s hand and refused to let the fear win. If she did, she would fall apart.
There was more to Anthony than just his psychic power. Far, far more. There was his strong will, his loyalty to his family, his determination, his compassion, his tenderness, his intensity. There were so many other aspects to this complex, fascinating man, she would focus on them instead of the horror. Who knew when she would have the chance to kiss him again?
So she did, and the feelings that bloomed inside her made the stone walls fade. She memorized the texture of his lips, the warmth of his breath, the soft giving and the frank taking of the kiss. She reveled in the intimate exchange of man and woman, in its own way more magical than anything he had shown her the night before.
For the first time since they had met, what was happening between them wasn’t enhanced by his talent. There was no power behind it.
The thought made her break off the kiss and look at his face. The bruise beside his eye was purple and the stubble of his beard darkened the scrape on his jaw, but the rest of his skin was still pale, even in the golden light of the lantern.
Yet his gaze was as vibrant, as potent, as compelling as when he had held her in the thunderstorm.
No power?
She still held his hand. She turned it over. Keeping her gaze on his, she lowered her head and touched the tip of her tongue to the center of his palm, deliberately echoing what he had twice done to her.
His eyes darkened. His breathing quickened.
Oh, there was power. It wasn’t supernatural. It came from the most basic force on earth.
Melina had felt it for days. Yesterday she hadn’t had the courage to name it, but her old fears were meaningless. They would no long
er hold her back.
She loved this man with all her heart.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t the right time. They were at the mercy of a madman who wanted to use her body to breed children.
Anthony’s children.
Her heart’s desire.
She blinked against another spurt of tears. Yes. Yes! That was what she wanted. That was her heart’s desire. A life with Anthony, a home filled with their love and their babies.
But Benedict’s ugliness was going to taint this, too. She couldn’t bear Anthony’s children, only to see them caged and used—
Her mind wouldn’t complete the thought. She couldn’t go there. Somehow they would escape. She had to believe that. Together, she and Anthony would be able to find a way out of this.
But how could they? Without his talent to help them, how could they get out of this room? They were trapped and helpless.
Anthony tipped her face to his and kissed the tears from her cheeks.
His tenderness zinged right down to her toes.
“Anthony,” she whispered.
“What?”
The words caught in her throat. She didn’t know what new nightmare tomorrow would bring. How could she tell him?
But if she didn’t tell him now, when would she? “Anthony, I know your psychic power is gone.”
He didn’t deny it. “It’s this place.”
“You didn’t want to worry me.”
“I’m sorry, Melina.”
“It does prove one thing.” She laced her fingers with his and brushed her lips over his knuckles. “It proves your stray energy isn’t causing what’s happening between us. We are. The two of us together.”
He glanced at their joined hands. “Melina…”
“So don’t try to tell me that I’m confusing what I feel.” She pressed his hand over her heart. It was beating so hard, she could hear her pulse in her ears. “Do you feel this?”
“I’ll protect you. I promise. I’ll take care of you.”
“All I want you to promise is that you’ll take care of my heart. It’s yours, no matter what happens to the rest of me.”
In Destiny’s Shadow Page 19