by Robyn DeHart
She did not need him to love her. She said the words again and again in her mind, trying to brand them on her soul. Still, tears pricked her eyes as she made love to him. When they climaxed together, the world seemed at peace, in perfect union. She kept her eyes closed and laid her head on his shoulder.
This was a moment out of time for both of them. Merely an adventure for him, and for her, the last time she’d devote totally to herself.
As much as she’d tried to avoid it, she wanted more. Wanted Max. With his sharp tongue and wicked sense of humor, he was everything she never knew she wanted in a man. He made her laugh, and he made her feel secure.
But she would not repeat her mother’s mistakes. Loving Max did not mean she would build a life with him.
Chapter Twenty-two
Sabine Tobias.
She was the third and final guardian. Spencer had followed her and the marquess back to his townhome in Mayfield. Now he knew where to find her, and how to get to her. All along, she’d been there, safe with her lover, Maxwell Barrett. If only Spencer had paid closer attention that day when Max and the detective had come around to ask questions. He’d known that the marquess was involved in some capacity, he’d simply picked the wrong woman.
But the timing was perfect. He had one more general to take care of, then he could pay Miss Tobias a visit. And he’d make certain that Max had other plans.
Now, though, it was time to retire poor General Radcliffe. Spencer had been waiting several hours for this last and final kill. The officer had been expected home hours before, but here it was nearly five in the morning and he was only now arriving home. Spencer was unfamiliar with this man, having never met him before, but he knew he was younger than most other officers of his rank and exceedingly headstrong.
Spencer could tell by the man’s wavering walk that he was drunk. Perhaps this would be easier than he anticipated, an unexpected benefit, considering how long he’d been sitting here in the dark. He stood now and moved to the darkened corner as the drunken officer entered his study.
Men were so predictable. He’d come in here and pour himself another drink, then probably pass out on the sofa. And hours later, his wife would find him in here, only to assume he’d been here all evening, working on some high military secret. They were all fools.
Unlike all those previous mornings, this time when his wife found him, she’d find him dead.
The officer made his way into the study, and after lighting the lamp on his desk, moved to the sideboard and poured himself a hearty glass of scotch. He took a swig, then turned and came face to face with Spencer.
“Who the devil are you?” he asked, his speech not altered by the drink.
“Who I am does not matter. Only who I will become.”
The man blinked at him. “Damned crazed bedlamite.”
Spencer considered for a moment the term, then pulled back and punched the man square in his face. Blood spurted off his nose, and he stumbled backward. It was to be his final kill, so perhaps this once, he would indulge himself. Get his hands dirty.
But the officer recovered more quickly than Spencer had expected. The glaze on his eyes cleared, and in an instant, it was as if he’d become completely sober. “Bastard.” He slammed his fist into Spencer’s stomach, then landed another blow on the back of Spencer’s neck when he bent forward.
So much for wishing this would be an easy kill. Even drunk, this man was a deft fighter. No wonder he’d been promoted through the ranks so quickly. Spencer used his own fighting skills to quickly bring the man to his knees. But his advantage didn’t last long. Spencer was knocked off his own feet and found himself sprawled on his back, the breath knocked out of him.
The officer straddled Spencer and pounded his face. His nose broke, and the crack made a sickening sound as pain shot through his body and blood spurted like a fountain. No, his mind screamed. He had not worked this hard to be taken down by mere brute strength. His body wailed in protest, but somehow Spencer found the strength to reach up and grab the man’s throat. He squeezed so tight the man stopped hitting him. This gave Spencer enough leverage to flip the officer over onto his back, and then he wrapped both hands around his throat.
“This is my destiny,” Spencer told the officer. “Neither you nor anyone else will stop me.” He leaned over him, squeezing the life from him. Spencer watched myriad emotions flit through the man’s eyes: fear, pain, anguish, panic. And then life slid completely out of the man’s eyes, and they stared blankly up at him.
Finally it was finished. Power surged through him. He was the Chosen One; this was his destiny. He had been selected among generations of men to be the one to redeem his people. Now he only needed to find that Tobias woman’s elixir. Then the prophecy would be complete. And the whole world would know he was the Chosen One.
* * *
Sometime after breakfast, Justin burst into Max’s study. “We found another one.”
“What do you mean?” Max asked, coming to his feet.
“Another body. This time General Radcliffe.” Justin looked as if he’d been at Scotland Yard all night; dark circles beneath his eyes were a testament to his sleepless night. He wore no jacket and his sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows.
“Could he have been killed before you apprehended Johns?” Max asked.
Justin shook his head. “It doesn’t look that way. His wife found him about three hours ago. She said he was still warm. The coroner agrees that it was a recent death.”
“You still have Johns?” Max asked.
“We’ve had him in custody all night,” Justin said. “And while he’s confessed to the one murder—some chemist—he claims to know nothing of the military officers.”
“Son of a bitch!” Max swore. “The bastard is still out there.”
“What’s happened?” Sabine’s voice came from the doorway. She searched Max’s face.
He said nothing, merely looked at her and willed her to understand. It still wasn’t over, and Agnes wasn’t safe. And yesterday, when he’d come in to find her tied up and Cassandra armed with a gun… He thought he’d almost lost her, and it had scared the hell out of him.
“It isn’t over,” she said plainly.
“No,” Justin said. “We found another dead officer this morning. This time the note was addressed to you specifically.”
“To me?” Sabine asked.
Max came around the desk, approached Sabine, but stopped. What did he plan to do? Console her? He didn’t know the first thing about comforting a woman. “Why the devil didn’t you tell me that before she came in here?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far,” Justin explained.
“What does it say?” Sabine asked, her expression solemn.
Justin exhaled slowly. “Simply that he knows who you are, and that you’re next.”
“He believes me to be the guardian,” she said after Justin had left.
“Yes, but he doesn’t know where you are,” Max said.
“We don’t know that,” Sabine argued. “I want my aunts to be safe. Can you assure me that they’re safe here?” For the first time since she entered his study, her voice wavered. But she would not cry, she refused to. If that bastard thought she was the guardian, then let him come after her. It was Agnes’s safety and that of the elixir that truly mattered.
“I can assure you that you are all safe here,” Max said. “I’ll add more guards around the house.”
“I want this over with now. At least we have that damned sword,” Sabine said.
He stepped over to her and grabbed her upper arms. “What do you think you’re going to do?”
“I’ll go find him. Or I’ll sit at my shop and wait for him,” she said defiantly. “I need to be alone right now. I need to think.”
He held fast to her arms, trying to stop her. “Sabine.”
“Damnation, Max, you can’t fix everything, and you can’t protect me from something greater than you and all your guards.” She exhaled slowly. “I don�
��t mean to sound ungrateful.” She shook her head and walked away.
She stepped into her room, noting the trunk at the foot of her bed, half-filled with her belongings. Sabine had been packing when she’d gone downstairs to discover Justin in Max’s study. Now it seemed futile to continue. They weren’t leaving, not yet.
She wanted to throw something, but that wouldn’t solve anything. Instead she went back to the pile she’d made on the bed. Slowly she returned her possessions to their proper places. Her hairbrush went back on the dressing table with her combs and few pieces of jewelry.
From her reticule, she pulled out some money and a pair of earrings she’d worn to the party the other night. But something was missing. She felt around to the bottom of the bag, but the necklace wasn’t there.
She tore through the dressing table, picking through each item, one by one, to find it. But it was not there. Still clutching the earrings, she searched the rest of the room.
The bed was empty, so she checked the floor, and still she could not find it. Her elixir was gone. The small vial Agnes had given her. The one she’d used on Max when he’d injured himself in the bathhouse.
She sank to the bed, sitting right on the edge. The earrings dangled from her hand. It was a few nights ago, after they’d made love, and he’d handed her the reticule. That must have been when it happened.
Damn him! He’d stolen it. The earrings fell to the floor with a clang.
He hadn’t wanted her, Sabine realized. He’d been after the elixir the entire time and had seduced her as a distraction! She’d known she’d been nothing more than a diversion, a dalliance, but she’d never doubted his desire for her. How could she have been so wrong?
The other night she’d given him every opportunity to tell her that he cared about her above and beyond his quest for Atlantis. He’d been angry with her for lying about her being the guardian. And she’d thought for a moment, she’d hoped, his anger stemmed from deeper feelings for her. That she’d wounded him because he cared. But that was only what she wanted to hear; it wasn’t the truth.
Did Max have intentions of stealing the rest, only he hadn’t been able to locate Agnes’s amphora? Would he take it, then simply watch her aunt die? He’d always expressed doubt that the guardian’s mortality was mystically attached to the elixir. He’d suggested the Chosen One had killed them. But she knew different.
What hurt the most was knowing that despite this, she still loved him. She still wanted him to come to her, pull her into his arms, and tell her it would be all right, that the Chosen One wouldn’t win, and that she and her aunts would survive this. She wanted him to tell her that he loved her, and he’d never let harm come to her. And that somehow, they would manage to find a fairy-tale ending when this was all over.
But all of that would be a lie. He couldn’t protect her now. It was time for her to take matters into her own hands and fight the Chosen One. She couldn’t allow Agnes to risk her life, so it was up to Sabine to bring about this madman’s destruction.
If only she knew how to find him.
She swiped at a tear just as her aunts entered her bedchamber door. She tried to smile, but she knew they’d seen her.
“Sabine, what’s the matter?” Calliope said as she came over to hug her niece.
“I’m tired, that’s all,” Sabine said.
“We saw the inspector leaving as we arrived,” Lydia said. “What happened?”
Sabine’s shoulders sank. “The man they arrested is not the Chosen One; neither was the woman. He’s still out there.”
Her other two aunts were by her side instantly. Hugs and squeezes and words of encouragement surrounded her.
“I feel as if I’ve failed,” she said quietly. “We tried to find the dove, and we did. We even have that bloody sword. But how am I to find the Chosen One and destroy him?”
“No one expects you to,” Lydia said.
“That sword might help, but you already have everything you need within you to defeat him,” Agnes said.
Sabine shook her head in frustration. “I appreciate the encouragement, but now is not the time for platitudes.”
“No, Sabine, she found something,” Calliope said. “In Phinneas’s book.”
“The quest,” Lydia said, “was not meant for you and Max, but rather for the Chosen One. A diversion, you see, created by our ancestors. But you stumbled upon it by mistake.”
“What are you talking about?” Sabine asked.
Agnes stood and retrieved Phinneas’s book from the chair where she’d set it. “That’s why the first clue, the one that sent you to Lulworth Cove, was so simple. It was meant to be blatant in case the Chosen One got his hands on Phinneas’s book. It was a false clue, meant to set the Chosen One on a potentially fatal trail. The real message, the truth, was more challenging to uncover. It’s an old secret code he and I used in our letters,” she said. “Once I deciphered the journal using his code, I was able to see what he was really trying to tell us.”
Sabine looked from one aunt to the next, but saw no sign of their trying to tease her. “I don’t understand,” she said. “We risked our lives and wasted time for nothing?”
“I suspect you learned much along the way. Though I do apologize for giving you that first clue. I missed the truth,” Agnes said. “Phinneas was trying to tell me, and I only heard what I wanted to hear. We”—she motioned to her sisters—“wanted so badly for you to be selected guardian that when Phinneas told me to give you that vial of elixir, I thought he’d had a vision that you’d be next.”
“Everything has centered on you,” Lydia said. “That’s why Madigan sent you to find the map. And that’s why Phinneas instructed Agnes to give you the elixir.”
“You and Max,” Agnes corrected. “He’s played a huge part in all of this.”
“And your birthday must play a role,” Calliope said.
Her birthday was tomorrow. She looked at each of her aunts in turn. They were speaking so quickly, she could hardly keep up, leaving her feeling as if she’d missed something crucial. “I don’t understand. What are you saying? Is Max part of the prophecy? And is the map somehow important, too? Is the map the dove?”
Her aunts exchanged looks heavy with concern.
“No, my dear,” Agnes said. “The map isn’t the dove. You are.”
Her words registered, but Sabine barely understood them. “I… I don’t understand. The dove is a weapon.”
“We assumed the dove was a weapon,” Agnes said. “We were wrong. Right here in Phinneas’s journal, it says, ‘Sabine is the dove, only she can stop him.’ That is what Phinneas saw in his vision. Not that you were the next guardian, but that you are the dove.”
Her aunts kept talking, but their words flew past. She tried to focus, tried to make sense of what they’d revealed.
She stood and walked away from the bed, going instead to stand by the window. A light drizzle fell from the sky, silently hitting the glass. She was the dove? How was she intended to be a weapon? Time was running out on her figuring everything out. If she didn’t stop the Chosen One by her birthday tomorrow, Agnes would be killed.
She turned to find that only Agnes remained.
“I wanted time alone with you,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” Sabine said. She took a deep breath. Shame burned her cheeks. If she couldn’t be trusted with a small amount of elixir, how could she possibly be the dove? “Agnes, I lost my vial of elixir. No, that’s not precisely true, Max took it from me.”
“Come and sit.” Agnes patted the chair next to her.
“I still don’t understand how I could be the dove,” Sabine said, sinking into the chair.
“It is your role in the prophecy,” Agnes said. “You were chosen, Sabine.”
Sabine shook her head. “None of this makes sense.”
“Of course it does, when you look at it from the correct angle. The date of your birth is tied to the prophecy. Your relationship with Max—the on
e man who was able to locate our map. The final clue of the quest, stating you had to have the right eyes to see what was before you. You said yourself you had to read that clue in the mirror,” Agnes said.
“But if the entire quest was built as a distraction for the Chosen One, how would that have worked for him?” Sabine asked.
“It wouldn’t. The clue says it all. If you have the right eyes.” Agnes placed a warm hand on Sabine’s arm. “Our ancestors set the hunt up to distract the Chosen One, but they must have known it was a possibility that someone else would find the clues.”
“But there is no logic to me being the dove,” Sabine said. “I have no skills or training that would prepare me to do physical battle with a man. How am I supposed to defeat someone who has already killed military officers and guardians, men far more prepared to defend themselves than I am?”
Agnes merely shook her head, her expression an odd combination of resignation and ruefulness. “I cannot tell you that. All I can say is that you will defeat him. If Phinneas saw it, it will come to fruition.”
Sabine knew that Agnes’s faith in Phinneas stemmed more from her love of the man than from her belief in him as the Seer. Sabine didn’t know if she could find that kind of confidence. “I will have to kill him to stop him.” Sabine swallowed hard.
“When the time comes, you will find the strength to do whatever it is you are destined to do. Trust your instincts,” Agnes said.
Sabine said nothing. Her mind frantically searched for the answer, for the key to stopping the Chosen One. Nothing came. She hoped Agnes was right, but there was a lot at stake to rely on her instincts.
“There is more than weariness or fear in your eyes, child. I know what the pain from a broken heart looks like,” Agnes said.
“He betrayed me,” she whispered. “Oh, Agnes, I’m so ashamed. I trusted him; I gave him my body, my heart.” She drew in her breath as a wave of pain crashed over her. Damn him.
“Perhaps he had good reasons for taking that vial,” Agnes suggested.
“Doubtful.”