Smoke filled the room and she hurried back to the platform, choking on the acrid smell of burning plastic. As she waited for the door to close behind her she took a deep breath from Raiden’s rescue tank. Toxic smoke had filled her lungs and made her head spin. Maybe frying this place had been an emotional decision and not a rational one. Still, she couldn’t make herself regret it, smoke or no smoke. She was more worried about the small fires burning up all the oxygen down here.
She had to get Sleeping Beauty out of here. She couldn’t get him out of this hell-hole fast enough. She needed fresh air. Humans. A hamburger. Something normal.
Mari opened the next door and saw her perfect prince waiting for her in the glass coffin. No man should be that gorgeous. It just wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t.
And she wanted to kiss him again. But this time, he’d remember. This time, neither one of them was going to die.
<><><>
Raiden came back to life in stages and focused on pulling air into his lungs for what felt an eternity. The poison coursing through his veins caused everything to ache, but not with the debilitating pain he remembered. Had it been metabolized by his body during the long sleep? Dried blood pulled and tugged on the sensitive skin of his back, reminding him of the traitor’s attack and the reason he’d locked himself in the deathless sleep.
The shredded tissue of his shoulder ached briefly before fading away, replaced by a soothing warmth that radiated from his left shoulder and spread throughout his body. Strength coursed through him to banish his despair. Not for the first time, he thanked his Immortal mother, whoever she was, for making him more.
Rage burned anew, but not the hot forge of emotion that had pushed him to this stasis chamber. He’d been driven to take a desperate gamble, and survived. The fire was banked, replaced with icy resolve. Nothing would sway him. He would complete his mission, but not the mission the Queen had given him. She would brand him a traitor, but he no longer cared about her rules or her struggle to maintain power. Too many had died already, not just his friends on the ship, but millions of souls on both worlds.
He’d slain countless enemies. He need only survive one more…
He sensed the presence of another and opened his eyes. A goddess looked down on him, with eyes the color of Earthen whiskey, thick black hair and deeply tanned skin that looked softer than liquid silk. Her hand rested on his shoulder and was the source of the unnatural heat that coursed through him.
“Time to wake up, Raiden.” A healer. A very powerful healer.
Gods she was beautiful.
He clenched his fists at his sides, the desire to touch her was strong. A fixed suit of some kind impeded his view of her form, and her eyes locked on to his with both confusion and desire in their depths.
Was she a dream? A figment of his imagination? Did it matter?
“Thank you, healer.”
She smiled and he saw pain in the lines around her eyes. The hurt turned her pupils dark and brought lines of strain to her flawless face. Physical pain. Not a spirit then, but flesh and blood.
She grinned despite her pain, relief and some unnamed emotion flashing through her eyes before he could catalog it. In a moment, he’d be healed, thanks to her touch. He only wished he could feel the soft caress of her palm against his bare skin. Perhaps that would make him feel something other than the bitter necessity for vengeance.
The thought stirred him, made him wish for things that would never be. Intellectually, he knew that he’d been asleep for a long time. His memory claimed that he’d lain down in this chamber just moments ago. But his spirit knew better, had been simmering with hopeless despair and white-hot rage for endless days. He'd been alone, utterly and completely alone in his mind, for a long, long time.
Yes, since the Crux, the loss of the Itaran King and Queen, and the beginning of a war with the Triscani that had ruled his life for well over a hundred years.
He’d been twenty-three years old when the world went mad. Over a hundred and fifty years of hunting and killing.
As if to affirm his ominous thoughts, her smile faded and she slid from view, her hand trailing blood on his sleeve as she collapsed to the floor.
Adrenaline flooded his system and he yanked the injection tubes from beneath his collarbone where they had burrowed into his veins. With haste, he pushed the button that would release him completely from his crystalline coffin and sat up, expecting to be weak, dizzy, and nauseous.
Nothing. He felt rested, strong, ready to go into battle with his mortal enemy. Never before had he felt this good from a single healer’s touch. If he’d known of her, he would have summoned her to his unit, regenerated under her care after more than one battlefield injury, no matter the cost. Gods, a healer of her skill would be courted and coveted, fought over and prized. How the hell had she ended up on this primitive planet…alone with him? None but the Queen had known where he headed. The Queen and his brother, his enemy, but that bastard had been right under his nose.
The thought made his vision go hazy, but he forced the anger down and leashed it within. Later. He climbed from the stasis chamber to where the woman lay huddled on her side, curled into the fetal position, eyes glazed and disoriented.
Where was he? This room with its bare walls and stark coloring was not on his ship.
She mumbled about the end of the world. Rock star. Smoke. Triscani…
The last word caused his heart to stutter. Triscani. Pure evil. What did this beauty know of his true enemy? Healers were kept far from danger, they were too rare and much too valuable to lose.
Afraid to hurt her, he rolled her onto her back and slid his hand beneath her head and into the thick wet mass of her hair. It awakened his tactile senses as nothing else could have. Had he been a pureblood, without the weakness his mortal father had given him, it would’ve been nothing. Instead, the thick tug of her hair seared him to his toes. His weak human half craved touch, needed sensation like a drug addict needed his next fix, and he’d gone so very long without. Oh, how he missed the feel of a blade wrapped in his hand, a lover’s skin beneath his fingertips, the burn of muscles fighting exhaustion, or the satisfaction of cold black dust pouring from his cupped hands.
Wet heat and hot silk. She was soaked through, a thick, ugly brown-and-black suit covered her curves. He had assumed its purpose was to protect her from the cold depths of the water where his ship had gone down…but they weren’t on his ship. The smell of smoke clung to her and a smear of blood crossed her cheek.
“Where are we? Are the Triscani here? Hunting you?” He willed her to look at him and to answer his questions. She closed her eyes with a sigh and appeared to gather her strength. A brittle laugh escaped her delicate throat but there was no humor in the sound.
“They already killed me once.” Long delicate fingers wrapped around his forearms, pulling him close to her, while he tried to make sense of her statement. She must be badly hurt. Confused. She opened her eyes and all traces of confusion were gone. She was focused, controlled, beautiful beyond words…and in pain. “I killed them this time.”
Raiden held his breath, not daring to believe that he had been removed from his ship and that she’d somehow found him on her own, and killed Triscani. She was no Mater Mortis. She was human. He’d bet his life on it. “How did you find me? Where are we? Where is my ship?”
“Bermuda. I don’t know where your ship is.” She coughed and blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. She struggled to rise but winced in pain and settled back into his hold. She pointed toward a zippered pocket on her suit, then at the exit. “You have to get out of here. Take the air tank and go. Go do your thing. Save the world.”
Raiden turned where she’d indicated to find a primitive underwater air tank system, but only one. So, he was still underwater. Not surprising. The Triscani liked to hide in deep, dark places. “How deep are we?”
She shrugged, then winced. “Deep enough. My dive team will be waiting around fifteen feet. Stay with them. Trust
them. Decompress for as long as you can.”
“Decompress?”
“Stay underwater and just breathe. Get the nitrogen out of your blood so it doesn’t bubble up and kill you when you get to the surface.”
Raiden wanted to laugh. “It will take more than a few bubbles in my blood to kill me.” What exactly was her plan? To save his life and then nobly sacrifice herself while he simply swam away and left her to bleed to death in this place?
Stupid woman. He’d not leave an injured female behind to die. What did she think he was? Triscani horde? If she hadn’t just saved him, he’d berate her for the insult to his honor. “Who are you? How did you find me?”
“I’m Mari.”
Blood trickled from beneath her suit through her hair and pooled in his palm where he held her head. Why wasn’t she mending? Every healer he’d ever heard tales of could heal themselves as well as others. But then, he doubted any had absorbed so many wounds so quickly before. The stab wound and the poison she’d taken from him would kill any mortal. She was not Itaran, yet she lived, breathed, insulted his honor. She must have Immortal blood. His family must have sent her to him. No healer would dare take on his injuries all at once unless under a royal command to do so. It was tantamount to suicide. “Mari, who sent you? My father?”
“No.”
An Immortal then. “The First Circle? The Queen herself? To which Circle are you Aligned?”
She smiled at him, and it froze him in place, stunned his muscles into paralysis. “No circle. No queen. No father. Just…dreams.” The curve of her lips turned down into a grimace and small shudders racked her frame. The poison. Gods help her, he knew that pain, would take it back if he could, spare her the agony of blood turned to stinging fire in every ounce of flesh. The poison wouldn’t kill him, not now that his shoulder was healed, but it might kill her.
“Are you Itaran?”
“No. Just a wee human.” Was that a laugh? “Well, I used to be…”
Mari struggled to unzip a small pocket on her suit and reached inside to pull out an obsidian stone. A soul stone. Next to it, resting side by side like scheming friends on her open palm? An Itaran communicator. She held them out to him as her body went limp in his arms. She rolled her head to look up at him, a desperate plea in her gaze. “I can’t help you now. I’m too weak. You have to go. Take the tank and drag me along. Don’t stop, even if I lose consciousness. I have a boat waiting. My crew will get us out of here. If you really won’t get the bends, just get us the hell out of here. Follow the white string out of the caves. I’ve got a spare light attached to your tank.”
Raiden inspected the stone and ignored the surge of disappointment. Not the stone Gerrick had given to him. Still he secured the items in the pockets of his black combat pants, ignored her order and gently laid her hand back down on the floor of his strange cell. So she was human. How did a human know that he was here, on this planet? No one knew.
She kept trying to give him orders. “Use the communicator. Tell her there is a traitor on her ship. Tell them.”
“Tell who?” He frowned at the bright blood that coated her hand and pooled beneath her wrist on the floor. She was badly hurt. How the hell was he going to get her out of here with only one air tank? They could share the tank, but a moment’s panic from her would cost both of them their lives. Raiden hurried over to inspect the breathing apparatus. As he’d suspected, there was only one mouthpiece.
“Put it on and open the door.” To his surprise, the stubborn woman crawled toward him and pointed to the face mask. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth. The damning red liquid also trailed over the back of her hand where it exited the arm of her diving suit. She held her arm toward him, blood dripping from her fingertips like an offering. “Take it.”
“The blood?”
“Yes.” She moaned in pain and rolled onto her side. “My blood opens the door.” Her eyes closed, breaking their connection. He wanted to protest that separation, but knew it was fruitless. It wasn’t her fault his body and soul were starving for contact. Any contact. His weakness was his burden to bear, no one else’s. “Go. We have to get the hell out of here before more of those things show up. I’m not sure I can focus…”
“What things?” Raiden lifted Mari in his arms and carried her to the landing platform. Smoke and the smell of burning plastic assaulted his nostrils. The smoke was noxious and made breathing difficult. The very subtle hint of something rotten burned into his senses. His eyes watered and his throat threatened to close.
He knew that smell. Gods, no. He knew that smell.
“Triscani.”
She stiffened and struggled against his hold. “More? Where?”
Smooth as silk her voice filled his head and stroked the inside of his mind with warm honey. The tank is for you. I can breathe the water. Just follow the tunnel, then the white spool line. Get to the surface, to my men on the boat. If the Triscani show up, leave me and go. I’ll try to kill them. I’ll buy you some time.
I won’t leave you behind. Raiden refused to put her down. You can’t stand. How are you going to fight? And with what? The Triscani are pure evil. They will kill you, Mari.
They can try. But I’ll take a few of them with me. As she made her vow her hand started to glow, brighter and brighter, until Raiden felt the need to squint to protect his eyes.
Angelus Mortis.
No. Just one pissed-off woman tired of dying every night.
Mari made no sense. Was she touched in the head? A bit insane? And she must be lying to him. No human in the history books had ever borne the gifts of the Mater Mortis, the Queen’s own lineage. No human could wield the Angel’s Fire.
Raiden looked down into her golden-brown eyes and drowned in them. She was an enigma he very much wanted to solve. What are you?
Apparently, I’m a Timewalker. Get us out of here. I’ll smoke any stragglers and buy us time to get to my boat.
Healer. Water-breather. Angelus Mortis. Human.
Nothing about her made sense. Could she be a healer from the water-breathing clans, from a human group that had remained hidden on Earth among the Timewalker descendants? She must have some Immortal blood, the Queen’s own genetic heritage in her cells, in her ancestry. That was the only thing that might explain what she was capable of.
And she’d brought a boat? Did she also have an army of soldiers? She’d found him and brought help. Raiden allowed a small hint of relief to claw its way through him and ease the stiffness in his shoulders. The water clans on Itara were lost immediately after the Crux, all Itarans believed the healers’ bloodline lost to both worlds at the same time that all the Timewalkers had vanished. He held not just a miracle, but a revelation, in his arms.
The smell of Triscani dust nagged at him.
This beautiful woman, this water-breather, was hunted. He had no defense against the protective rage that filled him at the thought of the dark, inhuman Hunters getting anywhere near her. Why pursue her? Were the Hunters sent by her enemies or his? He knew nothing of their situation, could make no plans, and was forced to trust a complete stranger. He had no choice. She had found him, awakened him.
She’d saved his life.
The how and why of it would wait. Survive now. Think later.
Raiden settled Mari at the edge of the platform and lifted the human breathing equipment. It was small and primitive, but it would do. He secured the mask over his eyes, attached the small tank and shrugged into the buoyancy vest before inhaling an experimental breath through the disgusting plastic mouthpiece. It tasted terrible, but it worked. He slipped the fins onto his feet. He’d done enough underwater hunting on Itara over the years to understand the primitive gear.
He turned to the doorway and inspected the strange gemstone. There were no handles, no scanners, no visible controls. He glanced back at the destroyed room, hoping their only means of leaving this prison hadn’t been annihilated with the rest of the charred mess. Mari held up her hand again, drawing his attentio
n. Blood dripped onto the knee of her suit where she braced her wrist, too weak to hold it up. “My blood opens the door.”
He widened his stance, strapped her into her own gear and lifted her from the floor. She rested her head against his shoulder, body small and so fragile in his arms. He stepped as close to the door as he could and she lifted a shaking arm to rest her hand atop the gem in its center.
The crystal absorbed her blood, the open door behind them slid closed with a soft swooshing sound. A giant quartz slid sideways out from under Mari’s weak palm as the door glided slowly to his right and water cascaded around them. The woman dropped her hand and went limp in his arms. He was no longer sure she was conscious. Water crashed around them, swirled at their feet and rose in seconds to completely cover them both. Now, to get out of here…
Gods, he hoped she really could breathe water.
Reaching for calm, Raiden forced down the panic and disorientation of complete and total darkness in this watery prison. The tiny lights from his stasis chamber did not penetrate here. A strange melancholy soaked his heart as he swam forward blindly searching for the way out. The Light of her Angel’s Fire flared, illuminating the cylinder he swam through.
Angel’s Fire. He wondered how she’d come by such a weapon. A weapon kept tightly within Itara’s First Circle, ferociously guarded by the Queen and her assassins. The Angels of Death were rare creatures indeed, and feared, even among the Immortals. How did a water-breather on Earth come by it? It didn’t make sense. He held his hand lightly above her lips. Warm water flowed in and out of her mouth. She was breathing.
She’d told the truth about that.
He pressed her tightly to his side, determined to get her out.
Exactly who was this woman? How had she survived the annihilation of her people? The longer he held her, the more certain he became. She was not an Immortal. The strange energy that hummed in his blood when one of his mother’s people was near had not even flickered in her presence. No, instead something darker stirred at the sight of her, at the feel of her small body resting in his arms, something much more primitive and dangerous.
Blue Abyss: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3 (The Timewalker Chronicles) Page 7