“Misguided!” Draysius cried. “It is he who interfered with the fulfillment of the council’s decree. One as foolish as that deserves whatever death his folly leads him to!”
“He but protected a beloved friend from the impetuous actions of an irrational being! Honor demands that you—”
“Do not begin to speak to me of honor!” Draysius roared. “Blood Hunters have been disgraced beyond—”
“Enough!” Sirius commanded. “This dissension within the Guardian Forces is to end immediately. The Guardian Council is content to await the return of Aragon. Should its Forces do no less? Free the Blood Hunter Navarre from the torture of your fire, Draysius. York is right that honor demands it, though his accusations against your character are as misguided as yours against the Blood Hunters.”
“Is there to be no consequence then, Sirius? Must I bear the brunt of his foolishness?”
Sirius sighed.
Sven spoke. “I have taken full responsibility for the incident before the council and await their punishment. I am the leader of York and Navarre, and they were but following my lead to protect their brother from harm. Everything that has happened, even Aragon’s decision to leave, is a direct result of my failure. There will be a consequence, and I will pay it.”
“And you, Draysius,” Sirius said, walking to his fellow Pyrathian and setting a hand on his shoulder. “You were but following my lead.” Sirius then faced Sven. “It would seem I’ve learned great lessons in leadership today from a great leader. Sometimes there is more honor in compassion than in judgment.”
Sirius then slipped to his knees near Navarre’s head and set his hands upon the fallen Blood Hunter. He placed one hand upon Navarre’s head, the other upon his heart. A bright field of fire surrounded Sirius’s body, and he began to shake as if in great pain.
“No!” Draysius cried, falling to his knees as well. He tried to thrust his hands through the wall of fire, but was deflected.
Moments later, Sirius collapsed, and Draysius gathered Sirius from the floor into his lap.
“What is it?” York asked. “What happened?”
Draysius looked up, grieved and angry. “Sirius did as you asked. He withdrew the Pyrathian fire from Navarre.”
“But what is then wrong?”
“He will now suffer the fire. He will survive, but his strength as a warrior will now become lesser. To recall the fire comes with a price.”
“I didn’t know,” York whispered.
Draysius stood with a shaking Sirius in his arms. “Take your brother and tend to him. He should wake eventually and be whole once he has healed inside, but it will take time.”
Sven helped York lift Navarre to carry him to the Blood Hunters’ circle. The repercussions of his failure were growing wider and wider. He had to find a way to end it before all of the order and goodness within the heavens unraveled. The effects everywhere would be devastating, but worse upon the mortal ground. Evil would rule absolutely.
Annette studied the men from beneath her lashes, wondering if something was up. The planning session for their attack on Corazon de Rojo was too basic. By dark they were going to have an observation point set up. At a set time before midnight, Jared and Aragon would circle the border of the compound, sniffing for Stefanie’s scent. If they found it, Sam would set off a distracting explosion, while Jared and Aragon penetrated the compound and extracted Stefanie. Sam would search for and destroy the Sno-Med blood that had been flown in from the research center. Afterward, Jared and Sam would free any prisoners and kill Vasquez while Aragon led Stefanie and Abe Bennett to the helicopter where she, Nick, and Erin were to have it set to go and all of the medical equipment at the ready.
Sam had special ops training. He’d been a Delta Force team leader for years. She imagined that on those missions every operation had been timed to the last second. That maps and diagrams had been drawn, and that ammunition selection and supply had been discussed. But none of that had happened here. Maybe there wasn’t time.
Or maybe they’d run through that plan to keep her and Erin pacified, and they really were going to sneak off without them.
Maybe she was being overly suspicious because she needed something, anything, to take her mind off Stefanie. There was two hours still to go before they left for Belize, and she was climbing out of her skin. Aragon seemed to be avoiding her.
Or maybe he was just really getting into his first hamburger, french fry, and peach cobbler experience. He hadn’t said much since they sat down to eat at the picnic-style table. She shifted her gaze to Aragon, only to have a wall of heat slam into her, making her throat tighten, her toes curl, and every muscle in between jump.
He’d just slid his tongue over the back of his spoon to get the last bit of the peach cobbler and ice cream from it before he dipped it back into the bowl. The look in his eyes was almost as orgasmic as when he slid into her, all hot and ready.
After watching him suck away three more bites, her mouth watered and everything south heated and grew damp as desire shot through her. She clenched her legs together, trying to ease the sudden need, but only succeeded in making herself ache more. How could she think about that when she was going after Stef in two hours?
Because she had two hours, and she was going crazy.
His eyes shut, and he inhaled as if he couldn’t get enough of the taste and the flavor to satisfy him. She bit her lip, trying to keep herself from leaning across the table and grabbing him. If they were alone, she’d be in his lap in a heartbeat. Then he opened his eyes, a lazy half slit that barely let her see his dark gaze from beneath his thick lashes.
“Can you make this with strawberries?” he asked, melting her completely with one sentence.
A sudden bombardment of images of her covered in strawberries and him licking her as thoroughly as he had his spoon intruded into her mind, and she knew he’d slipped the erotic pictures inside her mind, as smooth and hot and as filling as his arousal penetrating her to the core.
Her wet mouth instantly went dry. She just nodded.
He smiled, luring her heart right out of her chest and into his sensual spell. She completely forgot about any sort of Delta Forces operation planning. Maybe a short walk would do her and Aragon some good.
Aragon stood, shoving his not quite finished bowl of cobbler aside. “Come,” he said. “We must—”
“Talk!” she interjected, fearing he would publicly declare his intention to mate again. She stood and chose not to look anyone else in the eye. Any comments that were made about their abrupt departure she ignored, too. Aragon’s music was the only thing she wanted to face right now.
“Thanks,” Aragon said, tapping an absorbed, cobbler-eating Jared on the shoulder as he passed.
Jared only grunted.
“Thanks for what?” Annette asked as they hurried through the door.
“Advice about the mortal realm,” he said.
The door had just slammed shut behind when Aragon grabbed Annette by the waist, swung her around, and backed her to the wall. His mouth came down on hers, all peachy and creamy and hot. His thick hard thigh shoved between hers, sliding along her needy crotch, and his hand immediately found her breast with a nipple-flicking thumb. The first spasms of her orgasm started by the time he ended the kiss.
He backed away and grabbed her hand. “Come.”
She took one step on wobbly knees. “Can we hurry?”
“I can do that,” he said with a grin and swung her up into his arms, then winced with pain.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, just a cut on my shoulder that will heal soon.”
“The same cut from this morning?”
He shook his head. “Last night.”
“And it hasn’t healed yet? Let me take a look at it.” With everything that had happened, she’d forgotten about his shoulder.
“Later. Right now there is something else I need,” he said roughly, before claiming her mouth with his. He managed to steal her breath when he
trailed kisses down her neck, but when he lifted her breast to close his mouth over her cotton-covered nipple, her mind went blank. The rush into the cover of trees passed in a sensual blur. Barely a hundred yards from the camp, Aragon pushed her up against a tree. Their lovemaking was furious, elementally raw, and gloriously abandoned. He undid the front clasp of her bra and jerked up her shirt. His shirt and her jeans ended up wadded and wedged between her back and the tree trunk. His jeans went to his ankles, and she wrapped her legs around his hips as he thrust deep inside. With his hands anchoring her hips, he pumped fast and hard into her needy heat, driving her to a feverish explosion of pleasure. And in that moment, when his soul wrapped around hers in the ecstasy of their release, she realized something was wrong. She could feel it in his heart and see it shadowing the dark fire in his eyes.
“What is it? What are you not telling me?” she whispered. He shut his eyes and she felt his instant withdrawal from her spirit, even though he was still inside her, still hot and full from their passion.
He leaned forward to kiss her, to distract her, and she pushed him back, lowering her legs. “Tell me.”
He released her with a sigh. She pulled her shirt back down, and tossed his over his shoulder as he was snapping up his jeans.
She didn’t waste time on underwear or socks. She stuffed them in her pockets and went commando, slipping into her jeans and tennis shoes. “Talk,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.
He drew a deep breath, broadening his shoulders as if to brace for the burden he now had to share. “Once Stefanie is found, I must leave for good.”
Her heart sank as a sharp pain shot through her. “Why? You’re not fading yet.” He’d been just as hot and powerful a lover a moment ago as he’d been the first time.
“It’s not a matter of waiting until I fade now. I don’t have a choice. The Guardian Council has changed the punishment for leaving the forces, and I must honor their judgment.”
She paused, as her heart and breath wrapped around his brick-hard words and sank beneath the total conviction in his voice. He was a warrior, and there was no question of what he should do. “You learned this when you went back yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t have gone. I knew it.” She shut her eyes against the flood of shouldn’t-haves and tried to breathe, but her chest was too tight with pain. “What is the punishment?”
“Nonexistence.”
Not even her crossed arms could keep in her pain. She pressed her hands hard against her breasts, fighting to breathe. Tears filled her eyes, and her throat would barely work. “They’ve called for your execution.”
“Yes,” he whispered, reaching for her.
“No!” she shouted, backing away, shaking her head, refusing to accept what he was saying. “No. It’s not right. Forget about them. You left the forces to do something important. They, this council, are no longer important. You don’t need them. You don’t owe them.”
“Yes, I do. Whatever wrong choices I made, I am still a Blood Hunter and a warrior. I didn’t know the full repercussions that my leaving would have upon the forces. Things are bad, and even if they weren’t, honor demands that I respect their decision.”
“Honor?” she cried, wanting to strike out at anything. “Is there any honor in the senseless act of executing a good, loving, courageous, and honorable man?” She swatted at her tears like flies, nearly bruising her cheeks in her anger. “Is there any honor or sense in blind obedience?”
She smacked his chest with the palm of her hand. “You are smarter than that. You left the forces because you knew the only way to stop the evil Pathos has been creating was for a lone man to go after him. You’re already honorable.”
He grabbed her shoulders, trying to pull her into his embrace. “Was it really the only way?” he asked softly. “Or was it the only way I could see in my hatred? Annette, please, I must return. I’m sorry. During this time of passion with you, I, who have been in existence for millennia, learned what it meant to truly live and love. Nothing and no one, not even time, can take that away from us. I love you. No matter what.”
“No matter what,” she whispered, falling into his embrace, unable to believe that this would be the end of their love. “No,” she said, pulling back from the emotional storm consuming her. “You’re wrong, Aragon. Honor doesn’t demand you follow a senseless edict. Honor demands that you do what is honorable, what you do so well, which is love and protect others. If you really loved me more than an army that has no respect for you, then you wouldn’t go back.”
Aragon stiffened, sucking in a ragged breath of air and then exhaling as if punched. “How can you say that? This is who I am, what I do, and what I must be. I failed once. I won’t fail again. If you really loved me, then you would understand.”
Annette pulled from his arms, tears blinding her. “I don’t understand,” she cried. “I don’t.” She ran, and he let her go, a fact that made her pain even worse.
Chapter Twenty-one
A SENSE OF VICARIOUS déjà vu filled Annette as she watched the endless canopy of trees zip past the copter’s window. She’d been a teenager when Romancing the Stone hit the big screen, and though it had been a thoroughly enjoyable movie, she’d thought the adventure Joan Wilder had been forced to take with Jack Colton had been highly improbable. Now, here she was, south of the border, looking for her missing sister with a werewolf, whom she loved and wanted to shoot at the same time.
After copious amounts of tears and tissues amid Erin and Emerald’s advice, Annette had squashed down the pain over Aragon’s decision in favor of being pissed off. The pain was still there, buried inside her, but anger made it easier to breathe.
How could she just accept execution as his fate? She couldn’t. It went against every single fiber of her mind, body, and soul.
She glanced at him from the cover of her sunglasses, which considering the falling twilight looked ridiculous. But she wasn’t ready for anyone else to see her pain yet. She didn’t think she would ever be ready. Here at her most anxious but also her most anticipated moment, the moment when she might find her sister, Annette wanted to pound something. She wanted to shout and vent and change the world. She wanted a fairy-tale moment!
She was a fool.
Nick kept a low profile, flying stealthily over Belize’s Cayo district as they headed for an area near the remote Mayan ruins of Xunantunich. Sam knew of a secluded field Nick could land in that would put them within a mile of Corazon de Rojo. There were no public airstrips in the jungle, and they didn’t dare land closer. Dusk shadowed the evening sky, giving them good cover but allowing them to see the terrain below enough to make a safe landing. Xunantunich’s Archaeological Park had closed at four, and everyone had their fingers crossed that by this time in the evening, not a soul would be around to get curious about their landing close to it. Nick came prepared with a few tools to fake a mechanical problem if anyone did.
It appeared the plan was just as they’d plotted in Twilight, but everyone was still tense, apprehensive over the unknown variables. A lot was riding on Sam’s recollection of the routine and layout of the Corazon de Rojo compound.
Nick landed in the field minutes before a blanket of darkness slipped over the jungle. Not even a ribbon of the sunset remained on the tree-dense horizon. The air was heavy with the humid scent of rain, and dark clouds crept across the moon, pilfering bits of its light. The first thing Sam did was hand out flashlights that were practically weapons—their strobe effects disoriented attackers, their high beams made the entire area glow as if the moon were just a few feet away, and their weight could fell a man with a single blow. He showed everyone how to signal for help with them.
Next, the men immediately began rechecking the equipment and pulling out the real weapons, stashing them at hand but out of sight should anyone happen upon them. It was at that point the full import of what they were about to do hit. This wasn’t a movie. This was real. Though their Jam
es Bond, seat-of-their-pants method and their Mission Impossible goal to bring down Sno-Med and the Vladarian Order seemed like a Hollywood fantasy, the bullets and the danger were real.
And so was Sam’s trouble. Whatever had happened to him here, he was dragging it with him like a mushroom cloud. His pupils were dilated, sweat poured off him, and Annette swore that his hands were shaking.
“Are you okay?”
He jerked around. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
She held her hands up and backed away a step. “Forget I asked. Why don’t you tell me just what kind of guns those are?”
He seemed to force himself to relax. “The best my contacts could get. Mainly a couple of M-16s, one that will launch my supercharged door-buster bombs—guaranteed little babies that will burst their way through any door or gate and then some. Big Bang and Big Fire. I’m counting on that as being our ace in the hole if Stefanie is there. From forty meters away, I can create some serious damage to the gates on the compound and maybe inside on the steel door to the prisoners’ huts.”
Annette swallowed hard. One hundred fifty feet didn’t sound like much leeway, but Sam was clearly ecstatic about it. After making a few appreciative comments, she moved to where Aragon stood on the edge of the forest, staring into the dense trees and brush. She felt as if she had to say something, or do something, more to make him understand.
But when she reached him, she found he was panting as if out of breath from a run. He’d never done that before, which, as many times as he’d carried her as he ran, meant that something was very wrong.
“Aragon?” she said softly. She set her hand on his shoulder and found that even through the cotton of his shirt his temperature was burning hot. He flinched from her touch. “Good Lord, Aragon, you’re sick!”
“I don’t know what this dark fever is.” His voice was raw, as if scraped by broken glass.
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