“Faith.”
Faith stopped and looked over at Tessa, who hadn’t moved. Her bronzed skin gleamed with oil or sunblock that made her appear gilded in gold, like some ancient statue. Faith ignored the twinge of jealousy only the very fair felt when confronted with those who could brown instead of burn. “Nice tan,” she said, since Tessa had thus far been civil.
“Thank you.” Tessa leaned up on one elbow and pushed her sunglasses on top of her head with the other hand. “Heard you went shopping.”
“I had nothing to wear. They didn’t give me time to pack.”
“Convenient. So you get a new wardrobe out of this arrangement, too.”
“Part of the deal.”
“I bet.” Tessa’s tone said otherwise.
Faith strode up to the lounge chair. “Look, I was pretty happy with my life in Albuquerque until your brother showed up. I didn’t ask for this.”
“But you took it.” Tessa swung out of the lounge chair and landed on her feet, inches away from Faith. “You saw an advantage—and maybe you already knew who my brother was just from his name—and jumped right on it.”
“You bet I did.” Faith got a hint of satisfaction from the surprise on Tessa’s face. “The Mendukati were after me. They were going to drag me back in whether I wanted it or not. So when your brother offered me a way out, yeah, I took it.”
“A lucrative way.” Tessa’s lip curled.
“You bet your ass,” Faith shot back. “I won’t apologize for it. I need that money, and if the work I can do here takes a bite out of the Mendukati’s power, all the better.”
“Of course you would do it for money,” Tessa said. “What else can be expected from someone like you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Faith.” Darius’s voice had both women turning. He stood outside the cabana, leaning on his cane and frowning. “You ready?”
“Yes.” Faith slanted Tessa a look and walked away from the other woman toward Darius.
Darius addressed his sister. “Back off, Tess.”
“You know what she is,” Tessa shot back.
“Yes,” Darius said. “I do. Better than you do.” As Faith got to him, he indicated the open door to the cabana. “Sorry about Tess,” he murmured.
She paused in the doorway and replied in the same low voice. “It’s fine. She doesn’t trust me. I get it.”
“It’s not just that. Our family lost some more members yesterday.”
Faith’s breath froze in her lungs. More murders? The Mendukati? Please, not that. But her gut churned. “I’m so sorry, Darius. Was it—?”
“Yes, they think it was Mendukati. I’d rather not talk about it.” The words came as if chipped from ice.
“Okay.” She didn’t know what else to say. She, more than any, knew how murder changed people.
“As for Tess, she knows why you’re here and how important it is.”
She nodded as he neatly shelved the topic of murder. “Well, I can’t blame her for wanting to protect you.”
“I don’t need people looking out for me. I can take care of myself.”
“Yes, you can. I saw that for myself yesterday. But you also overdid it, didn’t you? That probably scared her.”
His mouth tightened. “I’m fine.” Again he waved her into the cabana. She walked in and he followed, shutting the glass door behind them.
The instant she fully entered the room, the residual power hit her. She stood completely still as he closed the blinds on the door and limped around the cabana, doing the same to the windows. Whispers of stone song lingered in the air, vibrating like a guitar string that had just been plucked. Her tattoos tingled. He’d performed some powerful stone energy here, and recently, too. His healing ritual, no doubt.
This was why she was here, to do a job, to work with stones of power. Not to become emotionally involved with the Seers—no matter how much her heart ached for them.
Darius closed the last blind, sealing them into the dimly lit room. Sunshine eked in around the edges of the window coverings, but no one could see in, which Faith assumed was the point. As cabanas went, this one looked to be top class, with comfy couches, tables, and a bar with a mini fridge behind it. She stepped farther into the room, then stopped when she saw the armless chair and burned-down candles in a cleared section of the floor at the far end, beyond the sofas. Beside the chair and candles rested a wooden chest. Just like in her dream. If she opened the chest, would she find the amazonite healing stones she’d imagined? The ones she’d rubbed against her body in the dream before she—
“That’s where I do the healing ritual,” Darius said, coming up beside her. Her skin prickled at his nearness, her senses painfully alive. Her tattoos reacted to the remaining hints of energy quivering around them, and her pulse to the scent of him, the warmth of him. The images from her dream slipped into her mind, the two of them naked, joining in passion and power. Her head spun. It seemed so real. But it couldn’t be.
Could it?
“So.” She turned away from the view of the chair and candles and gave him a smile that felt as falsely bright as it probably looked. “Where’s this stone?”
He gave her a puzzled look. “Right here.” He walked to a tall storage cabinet. Faith let her gaze drift down his body as he walked away. Broad shoulders tapering to slim hips and tight buttocks. Even his limp couldn’t take away from the inherent sexiness of the man. He leaned his cane against the cabinet and opened one door, the muscles of his back and shoulders flexing with the movement. She remembered the pool, the way he’d sliced through the water with such control.
Remembered the dream, his strong hands guiding her movements as she rode him. Every female fiber in her body softened like melting caramel.
He set a small wooden box down on a table, raising those amazing blue eyes to meet hers. “You okay?”
“Yes.” She made herself inhale, made herself approach, though she shook with the desire to touch him. This was not the time, not the place.
What was she thinking? There could not be a time or place, not for that. Not for them. This was business. Her body disagreed with her brain, but she ignored it. She’d trusted a man before, and he’d made her a murderer. Darius had lost family. There had been enough bloodshed, for both of them. “So this is one of the Stones of Ekhia?”
“You tell me.” He opened the lid.
Power. The stone thrummed, its song compelling yet unintelligible. Faith staggered back, her tattoos flaring like fresh brands. She could barely breathe. Could barely understand the notes and melodies fighting for her attention, cramming into her mind like too many people in an elevator. The dull roar made her want to cover her ears, but she knew that would do no good. The music wasn’t audible; it was mental.
Darius shut the box, but the connection had been made. The stone hummed in the back of her mind, no longer silent now that it had found its path. “Faith, are you all right?”
She managed to nod. “It’s okay,” she whispered, her throat suddenly tight. “I’ve just never felt anything that strong before.”
“Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.” He reached for the box. “We wanted you to connect with the thing, tell us more about it, how to use it, but not if it’s going to hurt you.”
“I need to do this.” She stopped him with a hand on his arm. The contact of flesh on flesh sizzled, rippling up to her shoulder. But she didn’t let go. “Darius, you know I’m the only one who can.”
“We can try something else.”
“No, I’m okay. Just overwhelmed. But I know what to expect now.” She took a bracing breath, then lifted the lid on the box herself.
This time when the force swept over her, she opened her senses wide, accepting the essence of the stone. It was old, centuries old. Eons even. She started to reach for it, then paused and looked at Darius. He nodded. She lifted the bloodred crystal pyramid out of the box. It fit in the palm of her hand, warm and alive. Its energy throbbed with the stead
y assurance of a heartbeat. She closed her fingers around it.
Memories clamored in her mind, the stone’s memories, some of them thousands of years old. Images flared before her eyes like strobe lights—quick, blinding, blurred together like a smeared watercolor. Song erupted from the stone, swamping her senses. The notes rose in her throat, bursting free like molten magma trapped beneath the earth for too long. The here and now melted away. She was earth, she was fire, she was power. She lost herself in the stone, deeper and deeper, connected with its consciousness.
And sang a song too long unheard.
So many had touched it, eager to learn its secrets. Imprints of all of them, what they looked like, who they were, the emotions they felt; all of the information slammed into her like an ocean wave. She struggled to sort it out, but the knowledge flew at her like bullets, as if the stone had not been able to talk to someone in so long that it wanted to tell her everything all at once.
The memories twined together like different-colored threads in her mind, the newer ones bright white, the older ones deep blue and bright green and shiny black. All of them tangled together in a big knot. She would have to pull the strands one at a time to separate them, to organize them. She wondered how long it had been since a Stone Singer had tuned this stone. Balanced the energy.
Too long. The raspy mind-voice could only belong to the stone.
An image flared in her mind, a young Stone Singer with tattooed hands and a green tunic. His name had been Ja-Red, and he’d lived in Atlantis. He’d died there, too, on the day of destruction.
She nearly dropped the thing. Never before had she received such clear images from a stone, even a stone of power. Any lingering doubts disappeared. This was indeed one of the three Stones of Ekhia.
More images flowed into her thoughts, as if it had simply needed a path. I am the Stone of Igarle, the prophet maker. The ancient whisper swept through her mind with impressions and emotions, a sense of knowing rather than being told. She could detect layer upon layer of old patterns within the stone, patterns imprinted by those who had tried to tap its power. Untangling all that was going to take some time.
For now, she picked one bright white thread and tugged.
Female. Maternal instinct, great love, and equally great power. Maria Montana, Darius’s mother. She’d held the stone briefly, then set it in the box and stored it away in the vault. Other emotions swelled on top of the first, like a series of waves breaking on the shore. Regret at lies of omission. Anger at the attacks on her family, both now and in the past. Fear that there might be more. Worry that she would not be able to stop them. Disbelief that the stone existed, and awe of the same. Joy that finally, after ages untold, one of the Stones of Ekhia had been returned to its rightful owners.
Encouraged, Faith plucked at another white thread.
Male. Furious. Wronged. Arrogant. Great power but also great needs and desires. The hunger for vengeance infected everything, from his first breath in the morning to his last thought at night. The Seers must die to restore order to the world. Faith threw up a barrier to repel the toxic energy. Who was this?
Jain Criten. President of the Atlantean homeland of Santutegi and leader of the Mendukati.
As if the last thread had opened up a floodgate, more information rushed at her, drowning her in images and emotions and identities. She struggled to keep her head above water, but they kept coming, thousands of years of pent-up human energy. She couldn’t sort through them quickly enough to discharge them, from either the crystal or herself.
Faith. Darius’s mind-voice. She could pinpoint him like a lighthouse in fog, a shining beacon of clear blue in a sea of churning white and green and black. She reached for that fragile link, grasped on to it. With eons of other people’s residue flooding her, she knew he was the here-and-now, her only link to the real world.
Help me, she sent.
Let go of the stone. Warm hands covered hers, prying at her fingers’ grip on the crystal. She focused on releasing it, on coming back to the present, to her own reality. The stone protested, its song shifting to a soaring wail of denial. Inch by inch, she pulled her fingers away. The stone fell from her grasp. She stumbled backward.
Darius grabbed her upper arm, preventing her from falling on her butt. She gripped his arm with her other hand as the visions slowly receded from her mind. When she could see clearly again, she noticed that the deep red color had disappeared from the crystal pyramid, leaving it clear and glowing with bright white light in his palm.
“When did it start doing that?” She made to touch it, but he moved it out of her reach.
“Enough for today. I thought for a minute there we weren’t going to get you back.” He set the stone on the table.
“I’ve heard legends about Stone Singers getting lost in a stone, their consciousness trapped.” She frowned at the now harmless-looking pyramid as its color slowly darkened to its previous crimson shade. “Wonder why it changes color?”
“I thought you could tell me. I noticed it goes clear when one of my family touches it. It was going clear with red swirls of energy when you held it.” He eased his grip and rubbed the area where he’d clenched her arm. “Sorry about grabbing you. You looked like you were going down.”
“I was.” She tried for a nonchalant smile, caught as usual by the striking blue of his eyes. She fought the pull. “You saved me from an embarrassing spill my first day on the job.”
“No worries.” He dropped his hand and turned to the stone. The sudden absence of his touch triggered an echo of emptiness in her core, as if a piece of her had broken away.
Oh, boy, this was a problem. Being attracted to a Seer was definitely not on her to-do list, especially if a fleeting touch left her aching like a woman brought to the brink of orgasm and then abandoned. Ignoring the chemistry between them was the best thing to do.
It was the only way she would get through this.
* * *
What had just happened here?
Darius perused the stone, which had returned to its original crimson hue. One moment Faith’s emotions had been front and center, plain for him to see. The instant she’d touched the stone, gone. Like having the world suddenly fall silent.
He had to admit, he’d been reveling a bit in her genuine attraction to him. She had watched him with those cat-green eyes, half wary and half curious, her pink lips parted and a slight flush in her cheeks. His vision from the night before had played over and over again in his thoughts, hot and urgent, the two of them naked and entwined in the candlelight.
His parents’ warnings had slipped into his mind. She’d been with the enemy once and might still be. But when he’d told her about Lorinda’s murder, he hadn’t sensed satisfaction. He’d only gotten the same sort of distress he himself felt that yet another innocent life had been snuffed out by the Mendukati, and even a hint of guilt that she’d ever been associated with them. That spoke of her innocence as far as he was concerned. Alleviated any guilt he felt at being so attracted to her.
At wanting to turn that vision last night into reality.
The truth of it had unnerved him, even as his jeans had tightened and his hands shook. He liked what he was feeling from her, how she stroked him with her eyes even as she tried to appear disinterested. After so many years of women dismissing him with pity, it was heady stuff indeed to be genuinely desired.
Then she’d gotten lost in the stone, gone deeper even than when she’d charged his healing stone for him. He could tell by the way she’d paled, by the glazed look in her eyes. Could sense her distress.
He’d spoken to her verbally, but she hadn’t responded. He’d realized all she could see or feel was the stone, so he’d touched it to try and reach her. And the emotional trail had winked out, like a plug pulled from a lamp.
He chewed the inside of his cheek, trying to moisten his dry mouth as he remembered. He’d never been so scared. Had they really found the last Stone Singer alive, only to lose her essence in the very stone
she was here to examine?
He’d tried to reach her, but his empathy would not respond. After a lifetime of always knowing how everyone was feeling all the time, to have it simply stop working like that had been like losing his hearing or his sight. But he’d lost things before, like his ability to walk. And he’d fought and found new avenues of doing things. This was no different. It couldn’t be.
They … he … couldn’t lose her now.
After the longest moments of his life, he remembered what his mother had said, that Faith was destined to be his mate. When Jain Criten had attacked them a few weeks back, he’d watched, helpless, as Criten had sucked away his brother’s power with a wave of his hand. But Rafe had rallied, fueled by the mating bond he had with Cara, and won.
Did he want a mate? No. He wasn’t ready, especially for an ex-Mendukati agent who happened to be the only person alive who could balance this damned stone. But in that moment when he’d thought he’d lost her, he’d gone for the Hail Mary and looked for the bond that should be there, provided his mother was right.
And she was. He’d found it, a fragile thing, still new, a slender sliver of silver that connected him with Faith. He’d called to her, his knees nearly weakening when she’d responded. He knew he had to separate her from the stone.
The instant he’d touched it, the swirling red had washed away, and the pyramid had glowed with brilliant white light. He’d guided her back with his mind-voice, prying at her fingers to get her to release the stone and come back to him.
“Darius? You okay?” She touched his shoulder, and he turned. There she was with her big green eyes and pretty mouth. His empathy had come back to life, and he could feel her concern for him, and the ever-present attraction.
“Sorry. I guess I was jazzed from the energy in that stone.” He glanced at the now dark red crystal sitting on the table. “That was something else.”
She hugged herself and rubbed her arms. “That was definitely crazy, different than anything I’ve ever experienced. If you hadn’t pulled me out of there—”
“But I did, so we’re all good. I’d advise always having someone nearby when you’re working with it, though, just in case.”
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