While she watched, Finn picked up one of the pipes and carefully twisted on an end cap. Rebuilding their supply of explosives was taking a long time, she thought, as he checked the interior of his homemade explosive and carefully attached the fuse. She tapped her fingers against the tabletop until he glanced at her and frowned.
“Not a good idea during bomb-making class,” he pointed out.
She hated the idea of having to use explosives to accomplish their goals. But what choice was there? Some of the places they had to infiltrate were so well guarded, there was no other way.
“Right,” she said and felt suddenly antsy. As if she had to move. Do something. Be somewhere. She wasn’t sure what had prodded the sensation, but it was real and it was growing inside her.
“What’re you planning?” Finn asked, suddenly wary.
She tipped her head to one side and nervously twined a stray lock of hair around her finger. “World domination?”
He nodded sagely but couldn’t quite hide the hint of a smile at his mouth. “I like a woman with goals.”
“Yeah?” She leaned forward, cautiously bracing her forearms on the table. Glancing at the three completed pipe bombs, she took a breath and held it. This probably wasn’t the best time to be having a talk about Mating. But her insides were jumping and a whisper of worry was beginning to thread itself through her body. So the sooner they talked about this, the better.
The sex magic had been great, but her memories weren’t coming any more clear and Deidre knew they were running out of time. She knew what they had to do. They had to become Mates in the truest sense of the word. Open her magic. Complete this quest. So, with her goals clearly in mind, she said, “I’ve been thinking . . .”
“Finn!”
Joe’s shout splintered the quiet.
Finn bolted up off the bench and was at the arched doorway of the armory chamber before Deidre had scrambled hastily to her feet.
Joe raced around the corner of the tunnel, skidded to a stop on the rocky ground and raked his gaze quickly over Deidre before pinning Finn with a steely look. “Shauna’s been captured.”
“What?” Deidre stepped up closer to Finn and stared at Joe as if he were speaking Greek. Shauna? Caught? How? She was with Max.
Torchlight from the tunnel highlighted Joe like an ever-shifting golden shadow. His features were tight, worried and fear snaked through Deidre in response.
“Heard it on the news,” Joe told them, scraping one hand across the back of his neck.
“How?” Finn demanded and his voice was a low rumble of sound that seemed to roll through the room like a clap of thunder.
Joe flinched and blew out a breath. “Heard she’d been turned in by a ‘concerned citizen.’”
“Max,” Finn muttered.
“No, he wouldn’t do that to her. He loves her,” Deidre argued, and both men gave her the kind of pitying looks reserved for those who still believed in Santa. God, if they were right, poor Shauna. Not only captured, but betrayed by the man she loved.
Betrayal.
Something stirred inside her. Memory? Still, she pushed it away for later.
Finn demanded, “Where’s she being held?”
Right. The most important part, Deidre told herself, wrapping both arms around her middle and holding on. They couldn’t save Shauna if they didn’t know where she was. And they would save Shauna.
“Called an old SEAL buddy,” Joe admitted. “He’s got connections high up and less than popular sympathies,” he added wryly.
Meaning, Deidre concluded, Joe’s friend wouldn’t turn on him as someone had Shauna.
“He checked it out for me.” Joe paused. “It’s not good Finn. She’s at BOW. With Fender.”
“Son of a bitch,” Finn muttered and glanced at Deidre.
She saw the worry in his eyes, tangling with pure fury, and she knew her eyes looked the same. Those earlier ripples of foreboding and worry came back in a rush and this time, they were nearly staggering. Her heart felt like it was being squeezed by an ice-cold hand and every breath shuddered in and out of her lungs as if it would be her last.
Fender.
My God, even her mother worried about Fender and had tried repeatedly to shut him down. But he was practically a national hero. This year, he had even been named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for his work against the supernatural.
“Good news is, he’s here in the city,” Joe was saying. “He hasn’t taken her to his lab in Virginia, so they’re close enough that we can move faster.”
“That’s the only good news,” Finn said. He looked from Deidre to Joe and added, “Gather the group. You’ll have to go topside to contact them.”
“On it.” Joe took a step and stopped. “We’ll need a plan.”
“We’ll have one,” Finn assured him and Deidre heard the determination in his tone. “Get everyone back here by nightfall and tell them to be ready to go.”
“They will be.” Joe was already headed down the tunnel to the closest exit.
“Be here in the armory by five,” Finn called after him.
Joe lifted one hand in acknowledgment, but didn’t slow his pace. When his footsteps were hardly a whisper of sound, Deidre spoke up, demanding, “Why are we waiting? Why not go after her now?”
He turned to look at her and in those pale gray eyes, flames of fury danced. “Because we go in with the best chance of getting her out. Broad daylight, the guards are heavier, too many pedestrians out on the street and too easy for us to be spotted.” He walked to the far wall, picked up a bag and started stuffing it with guns, knives and throwing stars.
“Shauna . . .” Deidre whispered her friend’s name and tried to imagine how terrified she was. How scared she must be that no one would come for her. That she would die in captivity at the hands of a madman.
“We’ll get her,” Finn said.
Deidre looked up at him. Tall, broad shouldered, he was a walking wall of muscle. She’d already learned he was single-minded, unwavering from his goal once set on a course. If anyone could get Shauna out of the clutches of BOW, it would be Finn.
But even superheroes needed all of their strength.
“I was going to talk to you about this earlier, Finn, but there’s no time now to slide into the conversation smoothly. We have to Mate,” Deidre said, determination flooding her. It was the only way. They needed every ounce of their magic and strength they could gather before they went after Shauna in a few hours. “It’s time, Finn. Time to accept who and what we are. You said it yourself. I have to open myself to acceptance. No more hiding. No more avoiding.”
Finn’s gaze flickered in surprise.
“We’re strong enough to do this as we are, Dee,” he told her.
“Maybe,” she allowed, walking closer to him. The slide of her shoes across the pebble-strewn ground sounded like a crowd shushing her. But it was well past the point of being quiet about what she was feeling, thinking. Now was the time to speak up. “But what if we’re not? What if by holding back, we risk everything?”
He dropped the bag, letting it hit the dirt floor with a solid thud. Turning to face her, his features were unreadable and his eyes shifted and swirled with impossible shades of pewter and silver. “What’s changed? Why now?”
“It’s not just now. I was thinking about this before, too.” Deidre laughed. “Besides, everything’s changed, Finn. Me. You. My memories aren’t coming fast enough. You said we’ve got thirty days and nearly two weeks are gone already. We’re no closer to ending this ‘mission’ than we were when we started.” She took a step closer, and then another one. “People are dying all around us and now Shauna’s been captured.”
Close enough to touch him, she was still surprised when he reached out and grabbed hold of her shoulders. He could move so fast, he was hardl
y more than a blur of motion. His hands on her sent heat washing through her and Deidre swayed with the impact of his body’s energies mingling with hers.
“I’m right about this and you know it.”
He didn’t want her to be right. That was clear enough from his expression. Emotions chased each other across his features. Confusion, eagerness, reluctance, they were all represented and still he didn’t let her go. His fingers dug in more tightly until she felt the press of each individual fingertip, right through the long-sleeved shirt she wore.
“The Mating ritual is forever, Dee,” he said, gaze locked with hers. “Once started, it can’t be stopped. And there’s no going back to undo it.”
She shivered as his words sunk in. Excitement? Worry? She wasn’t sure and it didn’t matter. “I understand.”
“Do you?” He snorted, let her go and turned away from her long enough to reach up and shove both hands across the top of his head. Whirling back around, he glared at her. “We’ll be joined for eternity, Dee. Always linked. Each of us always aware of the other and never really whole unless we’re together.”
She licked her lips and pulled in a long, deep breath. Right now, that all sounded pretty good to her. She’d already made this decision. Lying in his arms in the dark, she had realized that she wanted more from Finn. She wanted everything. She wanted the Mating not just for the strength it would bring her, but for the sense of oneness she would share with someone else. Even the man who right now looked as if he would prefer being anywhere but there, with her.
“Why are you against it, Finn? What happened in our past that makes you so anti-Mate?”
He laughed again but there was no humor in the sound.
“Aren’t you the one who told me that our feelings didn’t count for shit in all of this? That we had to become Mates for the sake of destiny?”
Shaking his head, he muttered, “I don’t like having my own words thrown back at me.”
“If they’re not worth hearing, then maybe you shouldn’t say them in the first place,” she snapped and moved in on him again. “You called this our fate. Said we owed it to the world to do this.”
“Yeah. I also said I didn’t want a Mate. Remember that?”
Pain slapped at her, but she ignored it. “That’s not news to me, Finn. No one has ever wanted me. Why should you be any different?”
“Dee—”
“But you do need me, whether you want to admit it or not.”
“That’s the problem,” he snapped. “I’ve always needed you. And not once in eight hundred years have you ever returned the favor.”
The look in his eyes had her backing up. Not from fear, but from a bone deep sense of . . . shame? What the hell did she have to be ashamed of?
“You’re talking a good game now, Deidre,” he said, and now it was him closing in on her. His gaze was fixed on hers. His jaw was tight and every word he spoke sounded as if it had been forced out. “But bottom line? We don’t work as a team. Never have. Never will. Neither one of us is big enough to bend. We’re both too blindly committed to going our own way to ever become the kind of Mates destiny had in mind.”
Firelight threw shadows across his face that shifted and pulsed in a weird kind of dance that made him look fierce one moment and tender the next. It wasn’t fair, she thought, him having access to all of the lifetimes they had spent together—when she had only bits and pieces of the past.
She didn’t like knowing that his memories weren’t good ones, either. Didn’t bode well for what she was hoping to recall. But that was then and this was now.
“Well, I need you now. And we’ll become the only kind of Mates we can be,” she said simply. “We do what you said in the beginning. We Mate. We do what we have to and then, if we prefer, we go our separate ways.”
He just stared at her, silence thrumming in the air until it was almost a presence. Another living, breathing being in the room with them.
After what felt like forever, Finn shook his head. “There are risks you don’t know about.”
“Then tell me!”
His gaze darkened, those soft gray eyes of his becoming more like dirty fog with chips of darkness swirling in their depths. “If we don’t complete this quest—find the Artifact—by the end of thirty days, return it to Haven?”
She shivered at that word. “What? What happens?”
“Our souls die. No more rebirth. No immortality. It’s over. Final. End of the fucking line.” He stared at her, his mouth flattened into a straight, grim line. “Get it now? Mate and succeed, big prize. Mate and fail—oblivion.”
Chapter 30
For a second, Deidre didn’t know which seemed colder—that possible fate, or Finn’s voice. Just when she felt as though she was getting to know him, to understand him, he threw her a curve ball and she was clueless again. He had to know, just as she did, that the Mating ritual was all important now. That they needed whatever strength they could get. Yet he was still pulling back. Almost as if he was trying to keep her from taking this step. As if he didn’t want her to remember everything she had to. Why?
Staring up at him, she admitted silently that everything he had said put a new spin on the situation. But it didn’t change anything, either. Without the Mating ritual, she would eventually die anyway. And meanwhile, she wouldn’t be strong enough to do what she had to do. Shauna’s life was at stake here. Not to mention the fate of the world.
“Then we don’t fail,” she said and hoped her voice sounded stronger than she felt at the moment.
“Just like that,” he said flatly. “Shauna’s captured and you’re ready to hostage your soul to destiny?”
“I’d already decided to do it. Last night, after the mugger, I realized that we have to do this, Finn. I could have died right then, game over. We can’t afford to risk failure. Whether you want me as your Mate or not.”
“It’s not about want,” he told her, shifting his gaze to sweep the interior of the room as if searching for something. Finally though, he looked back at her and his eyes were burning now, flames shining at her, mesmerizing her.
Desire etched itself into his features and she felt his heat reaching out for her. Her heartbeat jolted into high gear and raced so fast, she felt it like a wild fluttering in her chest.
“I do want you,” he admitted, reaching for her again, pulling her in close. “And I don’t want you risking the death of your soul for this.”
“It’s my risk to take,” she said, though that part made her insides quake.
“Damn it, Deidre.” His arms came around her and like steel bands, tightened until she could hardly draw a breath. The tension in his big body radiated from him to her and back again. His hands swept up and down her spine, as if he couldn’t touch her nearly enough.
“You do want me,” she whispered and slid one hand up his back to the base of his neck. Her fingertips smoothed over his neatly shorn hair, then dragged across his skin.
He hissed in a breath, then gave her a brief, punishing kiss that had her blood boiling and her mind swimming. When he lifted his head again, his gaze locked to hers. “I do, damn it. That’s why I don’t want you to do this.”
“That’s why we have to,” she said, suddenly feeling the calm that always came when she made the right decision. It was done. The worrying over. The questions, the doubts, the hesitation. And now that she knew which road they had to take, she didn’t want to waste another minute.
She pulled out of his arms and snapped her fingers. Instantly, her clothes disappeared and Deidre smiled at him.
“You’re getting way too good at that,” he said, gaze moving over her in a hungry sweep that took in every inch of her body.
In response, Deidre concentrated, murmured a few words and waved one hand at the ground. Silken blankets and pillows popped into existence, their r
ich, lush colors in stark contrast to the rest of the room.
“You’re sure.”
“I am,” she said and sank to the blankets at her feet.
He got rid of his own clothing a second later and dropped to her side. Pulling her into him, he pressed her body to his and Deidre sighed at the sensation of her skin brushing against his. The hard, muscled wall of his chest radiated heat and drew her touch like metal filings to a magnet.
She touched him and he caught her left hand in his right, threading their fingers together, connecting their bodies.
“Finn?”
He shook his head, glanced at their joined hands and instantly, flames erupted across their skin. Red, yellow, orange, blue licks of fire moved over their hands, between their palms, along every finger.
Deidre’s breath caught in her lungs. She couldn’t look away from the fire that burned without heat, searing the two of them together, into a single powerful unit.
Energy flowed from her palm, along her arm and down into her body. Deidre felt it like electrical sparks, igniting every cell, charging every square inch of her.
“Deidre,” Finn said, calling her attention back to him. “It’s still not too late. We can stop now and walk away from destiny. We don’t owe that bitch anything.”
“No,” she agreed, lifting one hand to cup his cheek. “But we owe each other. We owe the world.”
He seemed to consider her words before finally nodding. “Okay then. Deidre, do you accept me?”
Shadows crept closer and the fire on their joined hands seemed to burn brighter, bolder.
“Yes,” she whispered, her gaze never wavering from his. “I accept you.”
“And our past?”
A shadow flickered in his gray eyes, then disappeared again. Memory tugged at her before slipping away.
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