“Well? Can you save her?”
They both turned around at the sound of Jada’s voice. The Mageaan was standing behind them, her body a misty blue, fading in and out of view. Since the water was being held at bay by an invisible barrier over the entrance, she had legs, but they were iridescent and tinted turquoise, as if the legs were simply an illusion.
Ian immediately stood up. “Cardiff is dead.”
Jada paled. “Dead? Are you sure?”
“Yes. You are free from him.”
“Free?” The Mageaan hissed. “He was our protector, you fool! The oceans are not a safe place! We are so close to demons, and it is a constant battle to fend them off and to protect the earth from them. His magic was what kept us safe.” She strode across the room, fear and tension rolling off her in thick waves. “What am I supposed to do now?”
As Ian watched her, an idea began to form. “If your people need protection, I can arrange for that.”
Jada looked back at him. “At what cost, warrior?”
“One pearl.” Ian ignored Alice’s gasp of surprise, and walked toward Jada. “Alice is of great importance to the Order of the Blade. If you allow her to keep the pearl so she can return to the surface with me, the Order will be forever indebted to you. We will extend our circle of protection to you, and you can call on us at any time.”
Jada stared at him, and then looked at Alice, who was still on her knees beside Chloe. For a long moment, Jada closed her eyes and Ian could see her struggle. He knew the thoughts she was having: liberate herself and sacrifice the people she was supposed to be protecting, or accept her role as leader of the Mageaan and commit to saving them.
He’d seen how much she cared about Chloe, and he knew which she would choose. She was a leader first. After a long moment, she opened her eyes. “If Alice can save Chloe, she may keep the pearl for as long as the Order protects us.”
Triumph surged through Ian, and he grinned. Hot damn! “It’s a deal. We’ll be here for you.”
“No.” Alice stood up and walked over to Jada. “I can’t save Chloe while I’m still in this form. I can’t buck the system.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the pearl. It was glowing bright white. “Jada, I hereby give this pearl to you of my own free will.” Then, to Ian and Jada’s shock, Alice dropped the pearl into Jada’s hand.
“Wait—” Ian lunged for Alice, but she was immediately swept up in a swirl of turquoise and red mist. Ian plunged into the cloud, blinded by the fog as he tried to find her. After a terrifying moment, he finally found her. Just as his hand went around her wrist, the mist faded, revealing her again.
She was a pale blue ethereal creature, and where her legs had once been was a tail. Ian went cold. “Dear Lord, Alice—”
“I had to do it to save Chloe. Once I’m a Mageaan, the angel rules don’t apply. But because of what Chloe is, my kiss will still work to save her.” Her green eyes beseeched him to understand, and then she returned to Chloe’s side, leaping across the floor on the end of her tail.
On her fucking tail. What? Did only the leaders get legs when on solid ground? Shit. Jesus. He was stunned, unable to take his gaze off her scales as she settled beside Chloe.
This time, as she bent over the young woman, nothing stopped her as she pressed her lips to Chloe’s forehead. The moment that her angel kiss was delivered, Chloe’s body shimmered once, turning a brilliant gold.
She sat up, her mouth open wide in shock. “You did it,” she gasped. “Thank you!” She threw her arms around Alice, hugging her. Then, before their eyes, she turned into a luminescent swirl of pinks, purples, and golds, and then disappeared.
Jada let out a cry of relief and fell to her knees, tears of joy cascading down her cheeks. “You did it,” she whispered. “You freed her. Dear God, you set her free.”
Ian stared in shock. “What the hell just happened?”
Alice turned back to him, and her eyes were radiant. “I freed her,” she said. “She went home.”
“Freed her? Went home to where?” He still couldn’t believe what had just happened. Alice had given up their freedom to save one woman?
“She wasn’t meant to be down here,” Alice said, her smile radiant. “Did you see that Ian? I saved her. She’s so important to the world, and I made it right. On my own. I did it.”
The pride shining in her eyes was so riveting that Ian felt his heart expand. He knew now, that this was what Alice had needed to do. Just as his mission as an Order member was to save innocents from rogue Calydons, hers was to use her angel powers to help others. After a lifetime of failing to help those she cared about and being afraid of breaking the rules, she’d finally become the woman she wanted to be.
Jesus. She was the bravest, most honorable person he’d ever known.
Overwhelmed with admiration, he went down on his knee before her and took her hand, pride bursting within him. “You are so incredible, Alice. You honor me with your love.”
Her smile faded as she looked at him. She placed her hand on his head, and he saw tears of sadness fill her eyes. “I trapped us here.”
He shrugged. “That’s fine. I don’t care. I’ll adjust.”
“I care, though. I can’t let you give up your birthright to live here with me. The world needs you, and I won’t be so selfish as to take you from your mission, or to steal you from those who need you.” She smiled. “That’s not what an angel would do, is it?”
Ian stiffened. “What are you talking about?”
“Be well, Ian. Every time you save the world, think of me.” Then she waved her hand. “I love you.”
The invisible barrier across the doorway suddenly burst. Water flooded into the room, and swept Ian off his feet. “Hey!” He called out his mace and jammed it into the floor as an anchor. “What are you doing?”
“Freeing you!” Tears were burning her eyes.
“Fuck that! I don’t want to be freed! I killed myself for you, Alice! The other shit doesn’t matter!” The current grew stronger, and Ian’s grip began to slide off the mace. “Alice! Call it off!”
Alice shook her head. “Don’t you understand, Ian? I can’t take you away from it! It’s wrong!”
“Alice! Shit! Of course I’ll miss it, but if I have to make a choice, I choose you every damn day of my fucking life! Every fucking day! I love you, you crazy woman. When are you going to figure that out?” He lost his grip on the mace, and he howled as he was tumbled out the door, away from the only thing that mattered to him.
Away from Alice
Away from the woman he loved.
Sudden anger roared through him, and his vision went red. Burning, insane rage ignited within him, and he unleashed a roar of fury. His mind blanked out until all that he saw was white-hot insanity. Alice was gone. She’d left him. He’d lost her.
And then the man he used to be was gone, swept up in a firestorm of destruction.
He went rogue.
Chapter Twenty-One
Alice gasped when Ian’s eyes glowed red. “Oh, no! He’s gone rogue—” Before she could finish stating the obvious, he hurled his mace. It crashed into the reef, shattering a chunk of it.
“No!” Jada screamed in protest. “We’ll die if he destroys our home! Stop him!”
“Ian!” Alice shouted at him, but it was no use. The man he had once been was gone, replaced by a raging lunatic intent on destroying the reef. “Stop it!”
He hurled his second mace, and it took out another chunk. Alice realized grimly that they hadn’t escaped destiny after all; it had come screaming after them just as it had for all the other Calydons before them. Fate decreed that Ian was destined to lose her, and he’d done exactly that when she’d banished him from her world. The result? He’d gone rogue.
And now what? She frantically tried to remember the rest of the story. After losing her, he was destined to destroy everything that mattered to either of them…which is why he was tearing apart the reef. It was her home now, the only place of respite she
would have in this lonely existence.
After he finished ripping apart her world, she was supposed to kill him to stop him, and then kill herself. Seriously? After all they had been through? No way! That was patently unjust. She couldn’t let that happen. Destiny wasn’t going to take them.
Alice swished her hand through the water, cutting off the ocean’s expulsion of Ian. It stopped shoving him away and allowed him to move as he wished, allowing him to return her. “Come back to me, Ian! I’m here now!”
Too little, too late. No longer having to fight the waves, Ian launched himself at the coral, preparing to finish it off, even over Jada’s screams.
“No!” Alice called his maces to her, stripping him of his weapons. Ian roared with rage, and she could see there was no humanity in his eyes. No man. Just monster. Beast. Demon. Just as all the other Calydons over the last two thousand years had been fated to become after meeting their sheva.
Jada swam up beside him and attacked with a flash of a dagger. He flung her aside, barely even noticing her. Alice tensed, realizing that Jada might call the rest of the Mageaan. In the state he was in, they would have no chance. A thousand women would be slaughtered. Dammit! She had to stop him!
She threw one of the maces, willing it to obey her. As always, it seemed to take on a life of its own, and it slammed unerringly into his shoulder. Alice gasped with horror as Ian howled with pain, regret filling her at hurting him. “Stop it!” she screamed. “Come back to me!”
But as he charged the reef with his fists balled, she saw only deadly intent in his eyes. There was no man left to hear her.
“Ian!” Kane suddenly materialized beside her, and he swore when he saw Ian. “No way, man, not you.” He sounded pissed as he called out his double-spiked flail. “Pull it together, Fitz! Now!”
At the sound of Kane’s voice, Ian whirled around. His weapons jerked out of Alice’s grasp and slammed into his palms. Instantly, he launched into a full attack, striking right for Kane’s heart. Kane blocked the blow and leapt aside, still shouting at Ian to come back to him.
But even as Alice called to him and Kane fought him, she could see Ian was sliding further and further away into his insanity. The Order was what mattered to him, so that was what he had to destroy. His Order, her home—
Then he turned suddenly and faced her, bloodthirsty rage seething in his eyes. “You die,” he said in a raspy, haunted voice. “You have to die.”
“Me?” Alice scrambled backward as he came at her, apparently forgetting about his need to destroy Kane or the reef. He simply wanted to annihilate her. “But why? That’s not part of the legend, is it?”
“Apparently, you’re what matters most to him,” Kane shouted as he tackled Ian, knocking him off course. “He has to destroy you first!”
Alice’s jaw dropped open as she watched Ian hurl Kane aside and come after her again. There was no doubt that he was coming for her. Was it really because she was the most important thing in the world to him?
There was no other explanation. She was what he cared about most.
Not the way she’d dreamed of discovering a man’s commitment to her, but still, there was something amazingly romantic and undeniable about a love so powerful it could turn a man insane.
And as she looked into his seething red eyes, she realized that their relationship was the most important thing to her as well. Their love was what mattered most to both of them.
Despite all the responsibility both of them had for the greater good, somehow, someway, their love had triumphed over it all. How ridiculous that she had tried to ban him from the oceans for his own good. Being together was what was best for both of them, regardless of the cost. She finally understood that nothing else mattered as much as what they shared.
Tears burned in her eyes, and she held up her arms, welcoming him as he charged her. “Oh, Ian,” she said. “I love you, too.” And then, for the first time ever, she truly dropped every single barrier around her heart. She’d thought she’d done it before. She’d thought she knew what love was. But suddenly, she was filled with the most amazing sense of peace, and she knew she had finally found her place.
It wasn’t as a guardian angel.
It wasn’t as a protector of the Order.
It wasn’t as Ian’s sheva.
It was simply in the arms of the man she loved, who loved her back.
This moment, this man, this love… it was what life was about.
Ian raised his mace to slam it into her heart, and she pressed her palms together, summoning all that was good and loving within her soul. The mixture of golden and white light flared brightly, like a bomb had ignited. It flashed through the ocean, blanking out everything around them. But it wasn’t simply angel light. It was her love, that which she had been forbidden to feel or embrace. She unleashed it into the monster trying to take over the man she loved, cracking through the insanity attempting to steal him from her.
The white light hit Ian, and he screamed in agony. Alice utilized their bond to touch his mind, offering him all the love she had. I love you, Ian. Come back to me.
His mind was filled with thousands of images, of all the rogues he’d killed, his father dying, the gravestones of his ancestors, and then, finally, an image stayed with him. One image. Alice. Holding out her hands to him, offering him her heart.
Ian felt the strangest sensation roll through him, like a golden sun gifting him with its warmth on a cold day. Hundreds of years of suffering and torment seemed to vanish. The rage disappeared. All that remained was one image, one thing, and one vision. “Alice?”
She smiled, and he realized she was real. Not his imagination. He blinked, and suddenly the red haze affecting his sight vanished. “You’re real?”
“I’m real.” She flung herself at him, and he caught her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly against him.
He buried his face in her hair, absorbing every facet of her being into his soul. How did you do that? How did you bring me back from rogue?
She pulled back, smiling at him with so much love in her eyes he was almost overwhelmed. “I combined my love with a little angel power. But you had to accept it in order for it to work.” Her smile broadened. “And you did. I guess you do love me.”
“Of course I do.” He kissed her hard, savoring every touch of those lips, the taste of her tongue. Sweetheart, that was far more than a little angel power. You are way more of a badass than I ever was.
Alice chuckled, making him smile. After all they’d been through, to hear her laughter was one of the most beautiful gifts he’d ever received.
“I guess I’d have to be in order to protect a bunch of testosterone junkies who go rogue over their sweethearts,” she teased.
Ian knew then that Alice had finally accepted who she was, on every level: a guardian angel, a lover, a partner, and a woman. “I love you, sweetheart.”
“I know.” Her smile faltered. “I guess I have to let you stay here with me, then, huh?”
“Wait.” Jada swam over, the pearl still clenched in her hands. She placed it in Alice’s hand. “I hereby offer you the pearl of Lycanth willingly.” She closed Alice’s fingers around it. “Take it, Alice. It’s yours.”
Alice stared at her. “But—”
Jada shook her head. “It’s been hell down here, Alice. I lost hope and even my humanity a long time ago, and have been basically waiting for someone to kill me. I was envious when you killed Esmeralda. I wanted to be freed from this hell.” She sighed. “When Chloe arrived here, and then was dying, it was the final blow. How could she have wound up here? How could the earth lose her? It made no sense. I had nothing left. No hope, no faith, nothing.”
Alice touched her arm. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be.” Jada smiled, the first smile Ian had seen from her. He was surprised by how pretty she was. “You’ve given me hope again, a mission, and that is beautiful.”
Alice frowned. “What do you mean?”
�
��During my time on earth, before I became a Mageaan, I saw many, many Calydons go rogue from the sheva bond. I thought it was unbreakable. Everyone did.” Her eyes were bright with hope. “What I saw happen just now was a miracle. You used your angel power in ways that should have been impossible. Not only did you channel it into forbidden directions, but it worked, both to save Chloe and to break the sheva destiny.” Determination flared in her eyes. “If you can break through your restraints, so can I, and so can the angels trapped here with me. I have to stay, Alice, until I can free every one of these women. They need me.” She smiled. “And I need to help them.”
Alice closed her hand around the pearl in disbelief, but she knew exactly what Jada meant. Saving Gideon and Chloe had been incredible, and she wanted to do more of it. She was so happy to hear that Jada was fighting back, that these women would resist this terrible fate they had been sentenced to.
Jada nodded at her. “Take the pearl. Go to the surface. Come back when you need something.”
Ian touched Jada’s arm. “And you call us whenever you need anything. Got it?”
She smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll be hearing from me.” She stepped back and waved them off. “Safe travels, my friends.” She bowed her head in a statement of respect and honor. “Safe travels,” she repeated.
And then, she turned and swam away, not into the palace, but into the ocean… no doubt in search of the fallen angels she was going to save.
Alice looked down at her hand, at the pearl that her mother had given her so long ago to free Alice from the burden of the angel rules. “I did it, Mom,” she whispered. “I found my own path.”
Ian hugged her close and kissed her gently. “She would be proud.”
Alice looked up at him and knew he was right. “She’s not disappointed in me anymore,” she agreed, words that were so beautiful she wanted to cry.
Ian put his hand around her fist that held the pearl. “Accept the pearl, sweetheart, and let’s go home.”
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