“Who else?” he demanded.
“What?” Litton edged away from him, but Brennan pointed a finger and the lightning surged. The computers and machines near Litton exploded, raining shrapnel on and around the monster who had killed Tiernan.
Litton fell to the floor, bleeding and crying out, but Brennan had no pity. The lightning had consumed pity; eaten it whole and regurgitated vengeance and death.
“Who else knows how to use these machines? Who else knows the science of enthrallment?” Brennan asked. Though he would die soon, in only minutes if the gods were merciful, he would fulfill Tiernan’s wishes as his final gift to her. He would avenge her, and Susannah, and the baby, and possibly in some way redeem himself for the baby he had not been able to save.
“Nobody,” Litton said. “I didn’t let anyone else know all of my secrets. They would steal them.” Triumphant glee lit up the monster’s face. “So you can’t kill me. You need me, if you want to know how this all works.” Litton’s tone turned shrill and wheedling. “We can work together. All the power can be yours.”
Brennan smiled, a bleak and terrible smile, and Litton flinched, cowering in the corner. “You mistake my intent entirely,” Brennan said. “No one should have this knowledge. Now I will face Tiernan in the next world, content in the knowledge that this hideous experiment died with you.”
Litton screamed and tried to crawl away, and Brennan knew a moment’s pity, Tiernan’s words ringing in his ears. Enough death. Enough killing. Litton would be brought to justice and suffer long years in prison. Needing only to get to Tiernan, to hold her one last time, he turned away and crossed to the chair. He gently touched her face, which was still warm, but so very pale. “I will always love you,
mi amara
, through this life and beyond,” he whispered.
The first gunshot hit the chair. The second smashed into the back of his leg.
As he fell, he spun on his good leg and threw the power—all the power, every ounce of the power—at Litton, who stood against the far wall, the gun from the fallen guard clutched in his shaking hands.
It was Brennan’s turn to call the lightning.
When the smoke cleared, nothing but a blackened pile of smoldering bone remained.
Brennan returned to Tiernan, limping now, blood running freely down his leg. The bullet had missed bone and artery and had gone clear through flesh, but if he left it untreated and unbound, surely it would be enough to kill him.
He prayed it would be enough to kill him.
He ripped the restraints off of Tiernan’s wrists and pulled her gently, so carefully, into his arms. Everything he’d ever wished for lay like ash in his arms and heart and mind. He resolved to carry her out of that miserable place of pain and death, find a way back to the park, and sit with her in the cool peace of the forest until his blood left his body in sufficient quantities to allow him to join her.
He stood, turning toward the door, and took the first step toward freedom, prepared to blast his way out, through guards, through scientists, even through the vampires.
The last thing he expected was the vampire who walked through the door.
Chapter 41
“Daniel?” Brennan stared at the vampire who’d suddenly appeared like a hallucination to his overwrought mind. The vampire who had allied with the Atlanteans over and over again, who had saved Quinn’s life although at the price of a blood bond, here he was and Brennan’s mind could not make sense of it.
“Brennan, we don’t have much time,” Daniel began, but then he looked—really looked—at Tiernan, and he froze. “No. No, not again.”
“She is dead, and the one who brought us here and murdered her lies dead as well,” Brennan said, barely managing to speak through the pain that swamped his mind and drained the breath from his lungs. “I will be next.”
A female entered the room, another vampire, and she scanned the equipment, then trained her gaze on Tiernan. “How long?” she asked, her voice urgent. “How long since she died?”
“A few minutes, perhaps. Long enough for my heart to die with her. Now, get out of my way or by all the gods, I will destroy you, too, Daniel, no matter what help you have been to me and mine in the past.”
The woman pushed past Daniel and blurred with preternatural vampire speed across the floor to Brennan, so fast Brennan didn’t have time to move before she was there, staring down at Tiernan and touching her skin.
“We might be able to resuscitate her,” she said, and at first the words had no meaning, they were just sounds, but then a great, dark hope lit Brennan’s world and he staggered back as though she’d struck him.
“What? How? Vampires have no healing magic,” he said, sanity and rationality returning to crush hope.
“No, we have something better,” she said, pointing to the as yet undamaged machines that had been behind Brennan, near the chair. “Modern life-saving equipment. Put her back in that chair.”
He didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Could only stand there, holding the body of his woman, not daring to hope.
“The machines, Brennan. They have machines to make her heart start again. I know how to use them.”
Daniel leapt across the room to Brennan. “Let Deirdre help, Brennan. Please, let her try.” He gently but quickly steered Brennan around and back to the chair.
Brennan hesitated still; no matter that he had some measure of trust for Daniel, he did not know the other vampire and, most of all, to put Tiernan back in the chair that had tortured and killed her felt like the worst kind of blasphemy.
“Please,” Deirdre said, looking up at him with eyes that were so familiar, and something clicked in Brennan’s mind.
“Deirdre? Erin’s sister?”
She nodded, fathomless pain in the dark depths of her deep blue eyes, and she even smiled a little. “Yes. Please let me help this one, as you and your Atlanteans helped my sister.”
She put one hand under Tiernan’s head and helped Brennan guide her back onto the hated chair, and then Deirdre ripped Tiernan’s shirt open and put pads on her chest that were attached to wires and a machine—a different machine, not the same, not the helmet—and she yelled, “Clear,” but Brennan didn’t know what that meant and he didn’t move.
Daniel yanked Brennan back and away from Tiernan, but he didn’t have time to protest before Deirdre made the machine bring another kind of lightning, and Tiernan’s body jumped in the chair and then fell back, still silent and unmoving.
Brennan roared out his anguish from hope extinguished, and he stumbled back, would have fallen, but Daniel caught his arm in a strong grip.
“It didn’t work,” Brennan said, unnecessarily, as they could all see that it had not brought his Tiernan back, but Deirdre ignored him and adjusted dials on the machine and again yelled out the word.
“Clear!”
This time Tiernan’s body jumped higher, but the result was the same: no life, no heartbeat, no Tiernan. But Brennan looked at the machine and then at Tiernan and he knew what to do.
“I can do it,” he said. “I can call the lightning. Put the machine on me.”
“What?” Deirdre said. “No, you don’t understand, this only works when the heart has already stopped.”
“I understand,” Brennan said, ripping off his own shirt. “Put the pads on me. Surge the power through me.”
Deirdre was shaking her head, but Daniel stopped her. “He has power, Deirdre. Look at that.” He pointed to the corner, to what was left of Litton, and around the room at the destroyed equipment. “Do it.”
She stared around the room and then shrugged, rapidly removed the pads from Tiernan’s chest, and attached them to Brennan’s back. Brennan put his hands carefully, so carefully, on Tiernan’s chest.
“Do it now,” he told Deirdre, and then he smiled down at the woman he loved with every ounce of his being. “One way or another, we will be together.”
“Clear!” Deirdre cried out, and then Brennan called the lightning.
The power surged into him and through him stronger than ever before, and he poured it through his hands into Tiernan, into her heart and blood and soul. He shouted her name as the power surged, but it wasn’t enough, wasn’t enough.
Wasn’t enough.
The power fizzled and stopped, and Brennan took a deep, shuddering breath and then turned his own dead gaze to Deirdre. “Again.”
“But it will kill you—”
“Now
.
”
The command hung in the air, resonating with the measure of power of a Warrior of Poseidon.
Deirdre cried out the word again, like a talisman. “Clear!”
Brennan called the lightning.
Pain scorched through him with the power, leaving a trail of sizzling agony in its wake. The energy burned through him from his back, through his bloodstream, and to his own heart, and then down his arms to his hands and into Tiernan’s heart.
He called the lightning, and screamed her name through the pain that threatened to incinerate him. Screamed her name and pledged his vow: “Poseidon, channel this power through me to save my woman and I freely give my life for hers.”
He staggered and nearly fell, his wounded leg screaming out as the jagged holes from the gunshot were seared shut, the flesh burned and melted to instant scarring from the heat and fury of the lightning. The power surged through him, biting with its jagged teeth, eating everything he was and consuming it as fuel for the lightning that then poured into Tiernan’s body, filling her organs and blood and bone with the power.
This time, the lightning conquered death itself.
Tiernan arched up off the table, crying out, but then she opened her eyes and smiled.
He fell then, against the chair, but she held up her arms to him and he fell forward into his life, into the future, into hope. He kissed her and she tasted of the power and, together, they swallowed the lightning.
They dove, as one, into the soul-meld, and this time they were together, in Atlantis, dancing in the moonlit night, and the future belonged to them, forever and ever. He kissed her, and he tasted eternity.
A sound brought him back. Behind him, Daniel cleared his throat, and Brennan’s conscious mind clicked back into place. “We’re not out of danger yet,” he told Tiernan. “We have to run.”
“As long as I’m with you,” she said, and then her gaze shifted, and she stared at something behind Brennan and to his right. Confusion played over her expressive features and her brows drew together.
Daniel stepped up, next to Brennan, and smiled at Tiernan. Brennan opened his mouth to explain, but Tiernan spoke first.
“Devon? What are you doing here?”
Chapter 42
Tiernan stared at the vampire, wondering what possibly could have happened when she was . . . when she was . . .
Dead.
She had been dead. Her mind rejected the fact, but her soul knew the truth, and some things were far more important than Devon and his intrigues.
“I was dead,” she whispered to Brennan. “I saw Susannah, and the baby. They were so happy, and loved, and they shared that joy with me, but I felt something was missing.”
She sat up and put her hands on his solemn face. “Some
one
was missing. You were missing.”
“I was ready to follow you,” he said fiercely, resting his forehead on hers. “I planned to fulfill your mission, and avenge your friend, and then follow you into death and past its dark shores.”
“Corelia was there, too. She sent me back,” Tiernan said, the memory glowing in her eyes. “She said to tell you that she is in a place beyond the need of vengeance, and that you should forgive yourself. That your entire life has been a quest for redemption, and you should be at peace with yourself now.”
“If I am truly redeemed, you are my reward,” he said, gathering her into his arms again.
“While this is touching, we need to get out of here. Now.” Tiernan didn’t recognize the voice and looked up to find a woman standing near Devon and almost dancing with impatience. No, not quite a woman. A female vampire.
“Deirdre is right,” Devon said. “Back-from-death reunion later, running now. Jones had followers, and they’re going to be very unhappy with me. Not to mention all the vamps who want your billions, Brennan.”
Devon pointed to the black pile of ash on the floor where the vampire had been. “I’m guessing that’s Smith, which means I now have two blood prides and two sets of followers out for my head. We need to go, and we need to go now.”
“Daniel,” Brennan said. “We must destroy this equipment first, so that it can never be used to harm another living being.”
Devon hesitated, then nodded. Tiernan held up a hand. “Wait. Why is he calling you Daniel?”
Devon laughed. “That’s my name. I’ve also been Drakos, D’Artagnan, Demetrios, and, among many, many other names, Devon. Call me Daniel, please. It’s less confusing.”
“We’ll call you a dead man, if we don’t hurry,” Deirdre said, grabbing Devon-turned-Daniel’s arm. “We have to get out of here now. I won’t be captured. Ever, ever again.”
The searing pain and overwhelming terror in Deirdre’s voice and eyes jolted Tiernan into action. She was surprised to find herself filled with energy, as if she’d just eaten a full meal and slept for eight hours, instead of having been dead, held captive, and tortured for who knew how long. Whatever Brennan had done had given her a massive jolt and power boost.
She jumped into action, going to examine the computer consoles and other machinery, but it took only a few seconds for her to realize she had no idea how to destroy any of it. Unlike in the films, there was no giant red button labeled “SELF DESTRUCT.” “I don’t know how to do it,” she had to admit.
A tray of medical instruments caught her eye and she grabbed a couple of them. Just in case. “I don’t know how,” she repeated. “I’m sorry.”