Chains of Fire (8 page)

Isabelle had had so much experience with this situation, she knew everything that would happen.

Patricia would look them over, her eyes sharp, silently demanding an explanation.

Isabelle would give her one.
Mother, we had a job to do.

Patricia wouldn’t like that. But once she ascertained that they betrayed no undue fondness for each other, showed no signs of lovemaking, she would invite Samuel to stay the night.

Isabelle would insist he do so.

He would agree.

Patricia would assign him a room so far away from Isabelle’s he might as well be in Italy.

Isabelle smiled painfully. As if that would matter to Samuel. If she gave him the slightest encouragement, he would swim Lake Geneva and scale the Matterhorn to reach her. To sleep with her. To shake her world.

She turned her head to gaze at his warrior’s profile, his chin shadowy with stubble, his dark gaze fixed intently on the road.

God, how she loved him. Most of the time, she could dismiss the knowledge that for as long as they both lived, she would love only him. But when she was tired, when her guard was down . . .

Then she remembered the good times between them. So many good times, filled with laughter and tenderness, lust and glory. She had believed they were soul mates. Sometimes she still dreamed of what it would be like to live with him forever.

But no. No matter how much her body yearned, she wasn’t going to give in to him again. She wouldn’t allow him to destroy her once more.

The tires skidded on the pavement. The vehicle slipped toward the edge of the road.

She straightened in her seat and looked around. Moonlight sprawled over the vast, snowy expanse of meadow that stretched to the right, over the dark silhouette of the medieval castle turned dark and empty ski lodge snuggled against the sleek groomed slopes of the mountain, over the lifts and trams, over the parking lot waiting for tomorrow’s influx of skiers. The narrow ribbon of road before them was shiny-slick with ice. On their left, the land fell away and only a snowdrift stopped them from falling into the dark precipice.

They were moving too fast, taking too many chances in these conditions—and for all that Samuel loved speed, she had never felt endangered by his carelessness.

“Samuel? What’s wrong?”

“Sh.” He didn’t lift his gaze from the road, but something about the way he held himself made her look again across the meadow and above.

The mountains rose abruptly toward the deep black velvet sky, blocking the stars, challenging the moon. In the daytime, their beauty lifted Isabelle’s heart. Right now, she remembered how cruel they could be. . . . “Samuel,
what’s wrong?”

He slammed on his brakes, skidding again.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Yet he corrected so expertly the car slid around sideways, slowed. Then he accelerated around the next corner.

In the headlights, she saw evergreen branches spread across the road and a huge trunk in their midst. The wind had caught the ancient evergreen and blown it over.

Except . . . the stump was cut. The tree had been deliberately used to block the road.

Samuel eased the car to a halt.

Now she knew why he acted so out of character. Somehow, he’d caught the scent of danger.

This was a trap.

With a low curse, he put the vehicle in reverse, flung his arm over her seat, and, with his body arched and his gaze fixed behind them, he backed up as fast as he could. At the driveway leading to the ski lodge, he slammed on the brakes, skidded back, then forward, then accelerated into the parking lot. In a low, terse voice he said, “Emergency kit is behind my seat. Get back there. Get it. Stay there and jump out as I stop.” He put the car into a skid and they skated sideways toward the lodge.

The mountains, their peaks softened by huge mounds of snow, loomed menacingly in the windshield.

With a swift economy of movement, she unsnapped her seat belt and climbed between the seats. She grabbed the black nylon bag, heavy with the gear the Chosen carried when they could—flashlight, flare, first-aid kit, matches—and as the vehicle slid up over the curb and eased toward the ski lodge, she unlocked her door. As soon as they settled to a stop, she was out.

He was out.

They ran toward the ski lodge.

Her heels sank into the snow. Snow sifted through into her strappy sandals, freezing her toes. A minor annoyance.

High above, she heard a deep, menacing boom.

She jerked her head toward the mountain and saw the snow lift off the slope like a cashmere blanket being fluffed by a giant hand. She stopped and stood transfixed as it settled back, slid toward them, gathering speed as it moved. . . .

She prided herself on her cool good sense. She was known for her serenity. But she screamed now. “Samuel! Avalanche!”

He leaned over, slammed his shoulder into her gut, lifted her, and ran.

She gasped, the air knocked out of her, draped over him like a sandbag and bouncing until she was almost sick.

“Hang on to the bag,” he shouted.

She’d never heard Samuel sound like that before: desperate, afraid.

She heard the rumbling, too, and as Samuel slammed against the building, she heard another one of those deep, menacing booms far above.

Someone was setting off dynamite charges, creating avalanches that catapulted toward them under the influence of steep slopes and the weight of the snow.

And Samuel had known this was coming. Somehow, Samuel had known.

He set her on her feet.

The ground shook beneath her as the massive wall of snow thundered toward them.

The ancient castle’s facade rose four stories above them. On the second and third floors, windows had been cut into the stone to give the skiers a view of the Alps. But here on the ground floor, security reigned supreme. One narrow window. A single heavy metal door.

He tried the lever handle, said, “Locked,” and stepped back to allow her access.

She handed him the bag, pulled a long, stiff, platinum diamond pin out of her hair. Kneeling beside the door, she inserted it in the lock.

Her unflagging calm made her the best lock pick among the Chosen. Yet never had she worked under such conditions, with the lock, the pin, and the whole world trembling as death roared toward them.

Samuel flipped on the flashlight and aimed it at the window. “Glass is reinforced with mesh,” he said.

She continued to work the lock.

“Need the light?” he asked.

“Please. No.” The moonlight provided a clear, even illumination. Breaking a lock required a light touch and a narrow concentration, and the flashlight’s beam would simply distract her.

The roll of the avalanche grew to a bellow. Above them, windows broke, raining shards of glass onto their heads. The castle stones were vibrating, shifting.

Samuel stood immobile beside her, ostensibly calm. Yet she could feel him straining, desperate to grab her and run.

Was it going to matter if they got inside? The building wasn’t going to survive the impact of so much snow.

She found the mechanism with the tip of her pin. Lifted. Manipulated. Heard the lock click.

She opened the door.

Samuel grabbed her around the waist, lifted her like a child, and dashed into the dim interior, lit by a pale night-light and the moonlight shining through the window. They stood on a metal landing with stairs going up to the main floor of the lodge and down to the basement.

Samuel vaulted down the first five steps.

She caught a glimpse of the lodge’s locker room.

Then the avalanche hit like a nuclear explosion. Windows shattered. Moonlight disappeared. Electricity went out. Snow blew in with the force of a tornado, ripping at Isabelle’s skin.

The stairs shook like a bucking horse. Samuel struggled to keep them on their feet.

Then the metal cracked. The steps disappeared out from underneath them.

They fell into nothingness.

She landed hard.

He landed harder. Something shattered in his spine. He thought he screamed.

Debris—plaster, metal, glass—rained around them, on top of them. Dust choked the air. The building shrieked as it buckled under the blast.

Then . . . then the massive avalanche moved farther down the mountain.

The shaking diminished.

Silence fell.

Isabelle coughed, wheezed, trying to clear her lungs.

Samuel lay absolutely still and quiet. His hands were numb. His legs felt as if they were attached at the wrong angle. He wanted to lift his head, but he was afraid to move. And the pain . . . he had never experienced such pain, coming in waves, hot, piercing stabs of fiery agony. Not when he dislocated his shoulder in the gym. Not when he had wrecked his Beemer and sliced his head open on the windshield. Nothing could compare to this. He wanted to die.

And very probably he would.
They
would.

Because it was utterly, absolutely dark in here. Because things kept falling out of the ceiling: big things, like steel beams and wooden trusses. Because they were buried alive and no one knew they were here.

“Samuel? Samuel?” Isabelle rolled off him.

He hadn’t thought he could hurt any more.

He was wrong.

Her motions brought a fresh outbreak of suffering.

She groped for him. As soon as her hands touched him, he felt it—an easing of pain, like a salve on his damaged nerves.

“Uh.” She grunted as the pain slashed at her. “Ruptured disks.”

Thank you, God. Thank you.

Ruptured disks were bad enough—but he had thought he’d broken his spine.

The relief didn’t stop him from snarling like a wounded lion. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine!”

“Don’t touch me. Don’t heal me!” He tried to push her hands away. Waves of anguish ripped through him at the action.

And she flinched. When she touched him, she took his pain.

But she assumed she would do for him as she had done for Mathis. As she did for everyone. In incredulous tones, she asked, “Samuel, have you lost your mind? You need to be healed.”

“I hate it when you—”

“Touch you? I don’t believe that!”

“I hate it when you’re suffering.” He supported her when he had to, when others were hurt and she struggled to accept the pain that would cure them. But he
detested
having her suffer to help him.

“I know. But, Samuel. Think. I need you to be well. I don’t know where we are, what condition we’re in.” Her voice wobbled as, not far away, something crashed to the floor.

“Where’s the bag?” he asked hoarsely. “I lost the bag.”

“Samuel, if you’ll just let me—”

“Maybe we can get out.”

“Let me see you lift your hands!”

He breathed hard, trying to control his helpless rage. “If you can find the flashlight, you can signal for help.”

“Fine.” She took her hands off him and groped along the floor.

He heard her moving away from him, slowly working through the debris.

“There’s a lot of ice and snow splattered everywhere. Fallen boards. Crumpled metal.” She hissed, a sound of pain.

“What?”

“There’s broken glass. No big deal.”

Which meant she had to pull some out of her hand.

“It’s a mess in here,” she said.

“No bag?”

“Not yet.”

The floor beneath him was brushed concrete, hard and cold. The pain in his neck and his back burned like fire. He needed to move . . . so he did.

Pain blasted him, broke him, twisted him, fogged his mind.

But he thought he made no sound. He thought she wouldn’t know.

Instead she snapped, “If you’re not going to let me help you, then lie still.”

His eyes strained, staring into the darkness. “No luck on the bag?” They needed the flashlight. They needed the survival gear.

“I’m widening the search area. These stairs just detached from the landing and fell to the floor.”

“I noticed.” He took long breaths, trying to get control of his agony. “Are you getting an idea of our situation?”

“What a delicate way of putting it, Samuel.” Her tone mocked him. “We’re in the locker room.”

Impatience at her facetiousness gave a bite to his voice. “I
know
that.”

“And we’re in luck, because a row of lockers knocked over and exploded.”

They
were
in luck. The chill from the floor was making him shiver in bursts, and each time he did, his torment ratcheted up. “Any blankets?”

“Skis. Ski boots. And a coat.”

“Very good.”

“If there’s a way out.”

“Right. If there’s a way out.” He kept his voice carefully neutral. Because he knew what she knew. In here, the air was frigid . . . and still. No drafts swept down a conveniently placed air vent. No sounds reached them from out-of-doors.

This was a tomb.

“Samuel?” She sounded brightly interested. “Where’s your phone?”

As soon as she asked, he knew what she meant. He moved his hand toward the inner pocket of his jacket. Every inch was a lesson in agony, but he groped until he found the square outline of the phone. Slowly he pulled it out and hit the switch. The screen illuminated the darkness. He looked at her without turning his head. “Smart girl. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re in shock. And I’m tired. And we’re both . . . afraid.”

She was right. He was afraid.

No one knew they were here. They had no air, no food, a billion tons of snow entombed them, and he hurt so much, he couldn’t move.

Yet she smiled, a slow, satisfied curve of her lips, and pointed. “There it is!” She grabbed the black bag, brought out the flashlight, and turned it on.

The glow was almost too much, and he flinched.

She saw his weakness.

Damn it.
He hated that.

But she knew him too well. What was he supposed to do about that?

She knelt by his side. Dust streaked her sober face. Her hands hovered over him, waiting for permission to touch him, heal him.

He didn’t want that favor from her. “Here’s the phone. Call emergency. Get someone here to help us.”

“Samuel, don’t be an idiot.” She took the phone, glanced at it. “There isn’t a signal.”

“There has to be.”

“We’re in the Alps in the basement of a stone castle that’s been blasted by an avalanche. How many tons of ice do you think are on top of us? How many oak and steel beams are holding up the snow? A cell phone signal? Fat chance!”

He’d hoped to spare her this pain. Now his last shred of hope died. If they were going to survive, he would have to be healthy.

But more important, he couldn’t endure the agony.

So he bared his teeth at her. “Go ahead and fix me. I need you.”

She bared her teeth back at him, this clean, good, sweetness-and-light woman. “What did you say? I can’t hear you.”

Through his haze of pain and cold, he felt genuine amusement—and pride. She could really be a bitch—and he was the only person on earth who could drive her to it. “I
said
”—he made sure he was good and loud—“that I need you.”

The building shuddered. Somewhere beyond their circle of light, something fell, a beam, a wall, something that shook the floor.

She threw herself over his face, protecting him from the showers of dust, debris, and ice that fell like harbingers of doom.

Slowly they ceased.

Slowly she sat up.

“I want you to heal me,” he said. “Please. I need to get us out of here before . . .
We
need to get out of here.”

She put her hands on his shoulders. “Relax.”

Even before the sensation of healing swept him, he experienced the pleasure of her touch. To have her willingly stroke him . . . she made the world right.

Then he felt it: the gentle healing as she absorbed his injury.

His eyes fluttered closed.

Heat billowed around him, around
them
, closing them in a bubble where only the two of them existed. As her hands cupped his neck, then slid over his chest and down to his breastbone, the pain slipped from his nerves to hers.

Distantly, he could hear her breathing grow harsh.

This was why he hated her to carry this burden. He knew how she did it. She put her hands on the sufferer and took the anguish as her own. Her body encapsulated his ruptured disks and healed them quickly, generously.

Yet it was a cruel torture, for she suffered all the pain that he suffered—and she knew she would. The first time she touched him, she had tasted the anguish of his injury, and yet she took the pain voluntarily.

He was a strong man, yet he knew he wouldn’t have had the courage to do what she did.

She was the bravest person he’d ever met.

He didn’t know how long she kept her hands on him, how long their hearts beat together, how long they breathed with the same lungs, how long their bones healed as one.

But when he opened his eyes, he was whole once more—and she sat over him, swaying, face pale, eyes weary.

“Come on.” He pulled her down on top of him, wrapped his arms around her. “Rest on me.”

She was stiff, resistant.

“I won’t grope you,” he assured her. “At least until you’ve recovered.”

“Ass,” she whispered. With a sigh, she relaxed and turned her head into his neck.

Her voluminous coat enveloped them, cocooning them in warmth. His body protected her from the chill of the floor. . . . He liked knowing he could protect her from
something
. He sure as hell hadn’t kept her safe tonight. Soon, he knew, they would be at odds again, but for this moment, they had escaped death, and they were joined.

As her body grew warm and pliant, she asked, “How did you know?”

“How did I know what?”

“You knew about the tree across the road. You knew about the avalanche before they set the charges. You’re not a mind reader. So how did you know?”

He grimaced. “I may not be a mind reader, but I was in that guy’s mind tonight. It was not a pleasant place. I forced him to give me the information about Mathis, where they were keeping him, how many men were guarding him. He was fighting me, which made overcoming him kind of fun because . . .”

She tensed against him.

He continued. “. . . Because I knew he’d almost killed a child.” He waited, curious to see whether she would chide him.

But she remained still, neither approving nor disapproving.

So he said, “At the same time . . . he was experiencing this sense of glee.”

“So you made him tell you about it?” She had that tone in her voice, not quite accusatory, but not pleasant, either.

“I didn’t bother. My mistake, but at the time, I was afraid the kid was going to die if we didn’t get there in a hurry.”

“If he didn’t tell you, how did you know about the tree across the road? And the avalanche?”

“I didn’t know. Not . . . really. But as I drove along, I started feeling that glee again. It was sick and it was mean, and I knew it was him. The farther I drove, the worse it got. It made me hurry—”

“That’s why you were speeding.”

“Yeah, I was on the run. Then . . . they must have been watching us with binoculars, because I got this huge burst of pure mean-ass pleasure, right before we went around that corner.”