by Robyn DeHart
Agnes said nothing; she simply held on to Sabine’s hand, stroking it gently.
“I’ve been as much a failure as my mother was. When it comes to matters of the heart, we cannot be trusted.”
“Sabine, your mother was not a failure,” Agnes said.
“She killed herself,” Sabine said.
Agnes sighed heavily. “Yes, she was ill. Even so, you are not your mother.”
“No, but evidently I’m not any stronger. I fell in love with Max despite my best efforts to avoid it and look what happened. I should have been strong like you and ignored my heart.”
Agnes dropped Sabine’s hand. “Phinneas and I loved each other from the moment we met, and he never once sacrificed his duty as guardian to follow his heart.”
“Strength,” Sabine said.
“No, stubbornness,” Agnes argued.
“He made a great sacrifice.”
“He was a fool, and that sacrifice got him killed. Would any of this have turned out differently had he chosen me?” She shrugged. “Perhaps not. But perhaps it would have. I would have been there. I could have helped him fight off the Chosen One.” Her eyes filled with tears.
“And you might have been killed as well,” Sabine said.
“But I would have died with my love. Died after having a lifetime of love. Not simply have love trapped inside my heart, but to love every day. We had letters and we saw each other every once and again, but it was so rare.”
Tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “I would like to think that if he had to do it all over again, he might make a different choice. He might choose me instead of duty, then I wouldn’t have been available to be selected guardian.
“In the end, his duty killed him and now I am alone. He could have done both, but he wouldn’t take the risk.” She cupped Sabine’s cheek. “Don’t make the same mistake we made.”
“But our family, our Atlantean heritage, is my destiny,” Sabine said.
“No, child,” Agnes said. “Max is your destiny.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Spencer waited outside the marquess’s townhome and watched as Sabine’s three aunts climbed into a carriage. A second rig, this one filled with two guards sent to protect them, followed. Then, half an hour later, Max received a summons to report immediately to his club and he left.
He hadn’t left Sabine unprotected. There were guards here, too, that Spencer would have to contend with. But Max’s absence would give him the opportunity he needed.
It was time, past time really, for him and Sabine to meet.
Sabine tore through another drawer in Max’s desk, but still she found no hint of her missing vial of elixir. More than likely, that bastard had it with him. Perhaps he was even now meeting with scientists or a writer from the Times intending to finally prove the existence of Atlantis. If that happened, she and her aunts would never have any peace, and her attempts to protect the elixir would never be enough. Not against the whole world.
She dropped the drawer on the floor, not even bothering to replace it in Max’s desk. Since he’d departed nearly half an hour before, she’d searched a good portion of his study, but her efforts were proving fruitless.
She turned, and she caught sight of the map. He still hadn’t replaced it in its frame, and instead it draped across his desk. She ran a finger lovingly across the illustration. She should take it. Did it not belong to her people? Had he not stolen it from the hiding place they’d selected to keep it protected?
He’d worked long and hard to find it where other men, grown men, had failed. Phinneas’s vision had called the finder of the map a “great one.” But a Seer could be wrong, couldn’t he? Max had only gone after the map to get approval from his family.
He’d never gotten that from them, though. They’d perished before they had the chance to give it.
She traced one of the water rings. She didn’t want to love Max, especially now. But damned if she didn’t love him. And she’d been right, loving someone else this much hurt.
“Miss Tobias,” a man’s voice came from the doorway behind her. “We finally meet.”
Her blood froze. He was here. The Chosen One. And she was all alone. Slowly she turned to face him, painfully aware that she had nothing of use on her person to inflict any worthy injury.
But she was the dove, she reminded herself. Agnes had told her she had it within herself to destroy him.
The Chosen One was younger than she had expected. Much younger, as he was probably close to her age, but for whatever reason, she’d anticipated an older gentleman. And he was handsome, strikingly so, with pitch-black hair and chilling blue eyes. But knowing how evil he was ruined his attractiveness.
“You know my name,” she said carefully. “Perhaps I might know yours as well.”
“You’ve been expecting me?” he asked. He moved farther into the room. It was then that Sabine noticed the pistol in his left hand.
She took a steadying breath. “I knew we would meet one way or another.”
“Spencer Cole, special advisor to the queen, at your service.” He gave her a mocking bow, but never took his eyes off her.
He worked for Queen Victoria. And he’d murdered her generals right under her nose. “Is that how you’ve been able to do it?” she asked. “How you’ve been able to get close to those generals in order to assassinate them?”
His shoulders rose in a shrug. “Working closely with her majesty does have its benefits.”
She wanted to keep him talking, partly because she was curious about him, but more to buy herself time. She had no idea how she was going to stop him. Sabine caught sight of Achilles’ sword just to her right. “Does she know?” Sabine asked.
“Not yet. Though I suppose before the day is through she will.” He shrugged, with the casual air of someone discussing the weather.
“You’re younger than I expected.” She inched herself so that she was within grabbing distance of the sword.
He smiled with a cruel grin. “My birthday is tomorrow, actually. I’ll be—”
“Twenty-five,” she guessed. So they shared a birthday—the Chosen One and the dove. What other connection did she have with this man?
“How did you know?” he asked.
“It’s mine as well.”
For a moment it seemed as if they were strangers meeting for the first time and exchanging pleasantries, but of course, this was much more than that. Lives depended on the outcome of this meeting. Lives quite precious to her.
“The prophecy states nothing about my sharing a birthday with a guardian.” He tilted his head with curiosity. “Nor do my grandfather’s instructions,” he said.
She wrapped her hand around the hilt of the sword. So far he hadn’t seemed to notice her standing over the weapon. She did her best to lift the sword, but it would not budge. The heavy gold weapon sat firmly against the wood of Max’s desk. She looked up to find him watching her in amusement.
“Even if you could lift that, you can’t hurt me,” he said.
“I never said I was the guardian.” Again she tried to move the sword, but could not leverage it.
“If not the guardian, who else would you be?” He walked slowly toward her, not in a casual manner, but with the slow, steady gait of predator as it circles its prey.
A chill shivered down her back. She wished Phinneas’s vision had given her clearer instructions on how to destroy this man.
“Not the guardian.” He looked down at his hand, then held it up to show her his ring. “You’re telling the truth. Were you the guardian, this would be glowing red. But we obviously have a connection. A shared destiny,” he said. “And I know you know who that third guardian must be. One of your aunts, but which one?”
“It would seem my destiny is to destroy you,” she said, knowing her words would present no threat.
“You?” He chuckled. “I suppose you fancy yourself the dove, then?” He took several steps toward her, closing the distance. He smiled, but the humor never reached his cold eyes.
His right hand snaked around her wrist, holding her in place. “Have you ever really looked at a dove? They’re such delicate, defenseless creatures. Fragile, really.”
He ran the cold metal of his pistol down her cheek, and she willed herself not to move. She refused to show him the fear surging through her.
“I’ve always been fascinated with doves,” he continued. “I’m sure you understand why, given the prophecy. As a boy I studied them. Put them in cages and simply watched them.” His icy eyes bore into her. “There are hundreds of ways to kill a dove once you’ve caught one. I can crush their bones with a single twist of my hands. I’ve ripped off their wings, broken their necks—”
She wrenched free of his hold and moved to the other side of the room. He was worse than she’d imagined. She’d expected the Chosen One to be clever, and while certainly a killer, she’d thought he’d be focused on the fulfillment of the prophecy, not a malevolent man who obviously relished torture. Bile churned through her stomach.
He held his arms open and again came toward her. “Do your worst, dove,” he said. Then he burst into chilling laughter.
Had she been able to lift that sword, she would have had the perfect opportunity to run him through. But she had nothing. “What happens now?” she asked. “You’ve killed seven generals, nine people including Madigan and Phinneas. And no doubt I’ll be next. After I’m dead,” she said, “what will you do?” She had not yet resigned herself to death. But she knew he was skilled and deadly, and that even in extraordinary circumstances, she was at an extreme disadvantage.
He leaned his hip against Max’s desk. “I’m truly happy you asked, Sabine,” he said. “I’ve longed to share this with someone. Thanks to the elixir from the other two guardians, I have been able to start feeding it slowly to the new lieutenant-generals”—he pointed the pistol at her—“who, coincidentally, I was able to hand-select.”
Sabine listened to his words, but surveyed the room, searching for something, anything that would serve as a weapon. Max was conservative in his decor, and aside from his books and the necessities of the room—chairs, desk, sofa—there wasn’t much else. And then she remembered. The spear. It was old, and it was dull, but remarkably, it was also exposed. Max had broken the case and hadn’t replaced the glass yet. She knew the spear was behind Spencer, on the other side of Max’s desk.
“Having the queen’s ear has been key in all of this,” Spencer continued, “but it hasn’t been easy, I assure you.”
He shoved off the desk with a speed she hadn’t been prepared for and closed in on her. She, in turn, moved away from him. It was an odd dance of life and death.
“The queen is an old woman now,” he said. “But she is not daft and trusts none too easily. I bided my time with her. Waited patiently. Now she trusts me implicitly.”
“Why give the officers the elixir?” Sabine asked. She needed to get him around to the other side of the desk with her. But how?
“Do you not know our own history?” He tsked with his tongue. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” He sighed and rolled his eyes as if having to explain something so basic to her truly tried his patience. “The elixir made our army indestructible. And we were so close; the army had invaded several countries and we’d secured control over their governments. Now my new army will be the same,” he said.
“You are Atlantean?” Sabine asked. It made sense, she supposed, but it did surprise her. She’d taken for granted that her people, the ones who had fled the destruction of Atlantis, would have learned from their mistakes. She stepped backward.
His eyes narrowed, and he followed. “Of course. Some of my ancestors fled with yours, on the ships here. One of them reluctantly. But he was smart. Knew that someday one from his line would rise up and complete what had been started. He stole the prophecy from the Seer’s book. For generations, those notes were lost to my family, until my grandfather came upon them. He taught me the ways of our people, the true Atlanteans, with bravery and courage, and not weakness and fear.
“The prophecy is my destiny.” He touched his chest as he spoke. “I must fulfill it, restore Atlantis to her former glory, and finish the work of our army. And being the sole owner of all three elixirs will give me immortality.”
Immortality—it was why the guardians were so carefully selected, why they weren’t allowed to be together with other guardians. The temptation to never grow old was too significant. Now she knew where the rumor about the fountain of youth had started. “You do realize that Atlantis can never be restored,” she told him. “It sank into the ocean eons ago. There is probably nothing left of it.” She felt a pang of sadness at the thought. But she did not want to have anything in common with this man. Again she moved, trying to angle herself in a position to grab the spear.
He frowned. “Not the actual Atlantis; I’m no fool. But rather the ways of the Atlanteans. We were on the brink of domination. So close to having every ruler, every king, every emperor kneel to our own. I will restore that.”
“And you intend to do so with England’s army?” she asked.
“Yes, I am the Chosen One. Think of it; the elixir fed to an entire army. I will have soldiers who are indestructible. An army under my control that cannot be defeated.”
He was mad. Utterly and inexcusably mad. “Do you truly think other nations will allow that?” she asked.
“Other armies won’t stand a chance against my own. England already has the strongest military in the world. Now I will make them indestructible.”
“Other countries will band together to stop you. You will create a state of permanent war. England will be destroyed,” she said.
His lip curled in a sneer. “England matters naught to me. Perhaps I will rule elsewhere. Greece is probably closest to our homeland.” He shrugged. “I’ll move my army there.”
Arrogance was never an attractive quality, but it was even less so when the man in question believed he’d one day rule the world. Her people had planned to do that, and it had literally consumed their continent. Had no one learned from that experience?
“Enough chatter.” He held his hand up to silence her. “You know why I’ve come.”
“I told you, I’m not the guardian; I don’t have the elixir,” she said plainly.
She was very close to the spear. She stood directly behind Max’s desk, and the spear was behind her. Not near enough to allow her to grasp it, though. If she made a direct move for it, he would kill her. He would find Agnes eventually, with or without Sabine alive. It would simply be more convenient for him if she cooperated.
“But you know where she is. Your aunt. Which one is it?” He licked his lips. “I saw them leave in a carriage earlier. Did they go to the shop, Sabine? Or perhaps back to their village?”
While he was talking, she took two steps backward toward the spear.
“I will find them. And my ring will reveal to me which one guards the remaining elixir.” He smiled—a cruel and heartless grin that chilled her to her bones. “I will kill you if I have to.” He meant it. She knew that. “Just as I have done with those who came before you.”
“Perhaps you will. But certainly you didn’t miss the part of the prophecy that details your destruction.”
Max had waited patiently in the research library at Solomon’s for over an hour. Perhaps patiently was an exaggeration, but at least he hadn’t throttled anyone yet. He’d been sent a letter from someone in the club, and Max had assumed it was Marcus. He hadn’t wanted to leave Sabine alone, but he’d had enough men guarding the house to know she would be safe.
But Marcus was not to be found, and no one at the club had seen him all day.
Max shoved his hand into his pocket as he paced the library. The glass vial of elixir brushed against his fingertips. He’d brought it along to show Marcus.
The wait gave him a chance to take stock of the current situation. What the hell had he been thinking? Was this foolish quest so important that he would risk hurting Sabine? He’d betrayed he
r.
The hell with Marcus and his submersible boat. He stormed from the room and then out the front door of Solomon’s. He had been so damned focused on his own desires that he might have lost the only woman he’d ever loved.
“Tell me where the elixir is or I’ll kill you. I’ll kill the final guardian eventually, but then perhaps I’ll kill the rest of your aunts simply for my own amusement. Then I’ll come back here for your lover,” Spencer threatened. “Don’t test me in this, Sabine. Certainly you’ve seen what I’m capable of.”
She’d be a liar if she said that his threat didn’t give her pause. The niece in her longed to save her aunts at any cost, and the woman in her burned to save her lover. But her aunts weren’t at the shop. They’d been packed into a carriage and sent to the home of a member of Max’s club for protection.
She backed up farther. Only a little more and her fingertips could brush the spear.
“I know it’s in this house. I will find it.” He came at her and slammed the back of his hand across her face. His ring slammed hard into her cheek.
The force of his blow nearly knocked her over. But she kept her footing.
He cocked his head to the side. “Fitting that my ring will probably leave a scar on your perfect skin. If you live long enough for that welt to heal.” Momentarily he looked down at the ring.
This time she was ready and ducked when he came at her again. He was faster than she was, though, and he managed to strike her twice more. Her eyes teared up as the pain of his blows rocked through her.
“I don’t enjoy hurting women. You are weaker and less intelligent creatures, bred to rely on men for protection. But I will make an exception for you, since you are the dove. Tell me where the elixir is,” he said, his voice softer now, “and perhaps I’ll be lenient with you.”
He wrapped his hand around her throat and squeezed. Pain spiked through her temples, searing her brain as she lost oxygen. A moment more of this, and she’d be dead. Or ready to tell him everything.
“Or perhaps not. I can search this bloody house, but it will be so much faster if you just tell me,” he yelled.