CONCEPTION (The Others) (42 page)

There was another crash and a howl from the room, then a
god-awful silence.

Nick moved her aside, his gaze looking where she didn’t
dare—into the room where her daughter sat with a killer. One blink he was
there, and in another he was gone. And the noise began again, fiercer this
time. Eden forced herself to turn around. To look.

A wolf and a lion fought, blood was everywhere. She couldn’t
see Marlika in any form. And just past the fighting Others, her daughter
screamed. Eden’s heart thundered in her ears and her mouth dried to parchment.
She had to get Jalina out of there.

“Oh my God. What do I do now?” She hadn’t expected an
answer, but one came. Strong and calm, a port in the middle of the horrific
storm, the “Voice” said,
We fight
.

Fight? She didn’t know how to fight. She’d been raised to
throw parties, not fists. But that was her daughter in there, and that was one
fucking ugly werelion trying to take her away. It was either fight or give up.
Eden wasn’t giving up.

Jalina screamed again. The two Others crashed to the floor
next to her in a flurry of gnashing teeth and ripping claws. She had to get her
daughter out of there, now. Pietre and Nick leapt to their feet and faced off
over Jalina’s carrier. Blood flowed from both, coating their fur and the floor.
Teeth bared, they circled each other, jockeying for a better position in
relation to the baby. The lion feinted in. Nick leapt between the carrier and
Pietre. Teeth snapped and more blood flowed. Nick was fast, but was on the
defensive, his attention split between fighting the lion and guarding Jalina.
He was taking heavy injuries as a result. Eden didn’t see how he could possibly
fight much longer, not with all the blood he was losing. Something needed to be
done.

She slipped into the room, pressing back against the wall
just inside the door. To the right Marlika lay crumpled on the floor. She was
still in wolf form. A growing pool of blood spread around her. Eden closed her
eyes against the atrocity, offered a brief prayer for strength, and then opened
them again. As bad as this was, as horrifically surreal as this was, it was
still something she had to take care of.

She made it five feet into the room before Nick went down.
As the lion dove for his throat, she grabbed the marble lamp off the table and
swung for all she was worth. The lamp collided against his back with an
arm-jarring thud. He grunted and looked up, blood dripping from his jaws, eyes
flat and eerily unemotional.

He took a step toward her. She took one back. And then
another, drawing him away from Nick. And Jalina. He snarled. She pulled the
lamp back, ready to swing. He stared at her, those gold eyes holding hers.
Drawing her in. The eyes blurred, changed, grew larger, shifted higher. She
blinked. He’d changed back to human form.

Blood poured from a bite on his shoulder. The flesh hung
from the gash on his cheek. He smiled. The flap of skin stretched into an
obscenity. “Looks like I’m done here.”

She wanted to run. She couldn’t. Couldn’t move. Could barely
breathe. Whatever protection she’d had was gone, and Pietre now held her
thought-bound. This was not good.

Deuce! Goddamn it, Deuce!
The scream came from her
soul.

The only answer she received was the mocking echo of
Pietre’s laughter. “Scream for him, human. It’ll give you something to do.”

He crossed the room with that particular glide of the
Others. No board squeaked to mark his progress. Out of her peripheral vision
she saw him grab his clothes off the floor and step into them. How could he
look so normal getting dressed when all around them people were dying? Jalina
screamed a high, warbling cry that lashed her fear into panic.

Why didn’t Deuce come? Why didn’t
someone
come?

There was a stirring at the edge of her mind.

Deuce?

No answer. But then she could move her eyes. As Pietre
snapped his pants, she scanned the room, the floor the walls, looking for something.
Her gaze lingered on the swords on the wall above the table to the right of
Jalina.

Pietre came back to her, his shirt tucked in, his belt
buckled, looking perfectly normal except for the blood darkening the black
silk, and the dripping gash on his cheek. He touched her face. Jalina screamed.
“I should leave my mark on you. A present for Dusan.”

Hatred like she’d never known before swept over her,
followed by a calm that was equally alien. She felt his nails. His tainted
energy. Her gaze remained locked straight ahead, giving her no choice but to
view his gloating expression of regret. “Too bad I can’t.”

He turned in dismissal. Bent over Jalina. Reached for the
carrier handle.

“Die!”
The scream ripped through her brain, as her
body leapt into motion. Like a passenger on a thrill ride, all she could do was
marvel as she leapt into the air, and launched off Pietre’s back as he tried to
turn. The cool metal of the sword felt alienly familiar in her hand as she
ripped it from the wall, tossed the scabbard and brought it down with a skill
that would have had her mouth gaping had she control of any part of her body.

Blood spewed in a high arc as the werelion’s arm separated
from his body. She stood in the spray, sword held before her in a defensive
gesture, legs braced as she stood before Jalina. She didn’t know how she was
doing what she was doing, but she was profoundly grateful that she was doing
it. Especially when Pietre screamed and backed up two steps, blood spraying in
a new angle. Eden was morbidly glad she wasn’t in control of her body, because
for sure she’d be on the floor heaving up her guts.

“Touch the child and die.” It was her voice, her thoughts,
but she hadn’t thought to utter the words.

Pietre answered with a snarl. His muscles bunched, he closed
his eyes. The spray of blood ceased. When he opened his eyes again, it was to
smile. “They will win in the end.”

“They won’t win today.” Eden hoped whomever was running the
show had the knowledge to back up that declaration.

“You cannot stop me.”

The way he said it, the calmness with which he said it,
scared the shit out of her, but didn’t seem to faze the woman connected to her.
“I will try.”

“You will fail.”

“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”

Pietre’s laugh skittered across Eden’s raw nerve endings in
an eerie prelude to the stillness that dropped over the room. He stood
straight, chin up, eyes slitted, hands open. Energy shimmered around him,
growing in density as it collected. Inside her, Eden felt the stranger
collecting her own energy, drawing it around her in a buffering shield, working
faster as Pietre’s laugh built in volume, a dark reflection of the strange
field all but obliterating the satisfaction in his flat yellow eyes.

The ball of energy throbbed twice before swelling outward
until, with a searing burst of light it exploded. The rippling shock wave hit
the perimeters of her consciousness with a scalding burn before slicing inward.
Her mind’s eye flared red. Pietre roared in agony. The field around Eden
shuddered and wavered before strength not hers surged forward. Energy she
recognized. Deuce. More strength surged in. Bohdan. Her knees gave out, and
then there was nothing. No pain, no light, just a blessed drift toward the
center of a swirling darkness backlit by a woman’s sob, and Bohdan’s anguished
shout of “No!”

* * * * *

Come to me, Edie.

The order reached into the black void, catching her on the
edge of the precipice, holding her when she would have pitched over.

Deuce?

I need you, mate. You will come to me.

She didn’t know if she could.
I can’t let go.

Of what?

She didn’t know, but if she let go, she’d lose a part of her
forever, and she couldn’t do that.
I don’t know.

I will come to you.

She shook her head. He couldn’t come with her.
You have
to stay where you are.

Not without you.

There was no mistaking his resolve. Turbulence shook the air
around her.

You can’t.
He couldn’t go where she was going. It
wasn’t his time.

You go nowhere without me.

The tug of the precipice increased. She didn’t know what to do.
She couldn’t go over and she couldn’t let go.

You will come to me now.

I can’t.

There was a pause during which she hung suspended between
the choices, then Deuce was back, his calm spreading over her panic.
I have
brought Bohdan.

Bohdan? Why? Am I dying?

Be easy, my heart. You do not die.

Then why is Bohdan here?
Wherever here was. The
pressure in her head increased. The energy pulled her toward that edge of no
return. Fighting her, fighting to be free. Maybe she should just let go.

No.
The order slammed into her mind, waves of agony
swelled as Bohdan’s will shoved through hers. She fought back. He was too
strong. The agony tore through her mind, threatening her sanity.

Deuce held Edie tighter as her body spasmed in his arms.
Fresh blood leaked from her nose and ears. He caught her head with his hand
before it could slam into the floor. The psychic blow from Pietre had been near
fatal, leaving her unconscious and on the verge of death. She only lived
because the stranger who protected her had taken the majority of the blow into
herself. Now Edie’s life and the life of the stranger hung in the balance. If
he could not bring Edie to trust him, both would be lost.

No. The stranger you fear is my mate. Eden must not let
go.

Deuce looked across the floor to where his brother squatted,
his expression intense. The stranger was his mate?

“Back off, Bohdan.”

His brother’s eyes were hard and flat when they met his, but
in their depths swirled the red of primitive emotion. “She cannot let her go.”

“You cannot make her hold on.”

“I will do what I must.”

That was what Deuce feared. Bohdan was at his most primitive
right now. Reacting on instinct, protecting his mate at all costs. “If she
dies, we lose them both.”

“I will not lose her again.”

“And I will not let you kill my mate.”

Bohdan took a deep breath. His muscles tensed. Deuce braced
himself. If Bohdan did not find reason, then he would have to kill him. Bohdan
shook from head to toe. Edie spasmed in his arms again. “Let her go, Bohdan.”

Bohdan looked her over, not relinquishing his hold on her
mind. “She is afraid.”

“If fear were something that stopped Edie, I would not be
alive and she would not be here.”

“I cannot chance it.”

“Can you chance the other feeling the threat to her and
taking the choice away?”

Bohdan stilled. His hair fell over his shoulders as he bent
his head. His hands clenched into fists on his thighs, every muscle rock-hard
with the battle he waged with himself. His answer was a flat “No” revealing
nothing of the agony Deuce could feel tearing at him. His hold on Edie
dissipated.

Edie relaxed in Deuce’s arms, her hand falling to the floor,
her head lolling, her life force further away, flickering with indecision. He
followed the flickering light to the deepest corner of her mind, feeling Bohdan
behind him, repairing ruptured blood vessels in his wake.

Come to me, Edie.
He whispered it in her ear, in her
mind, keeping his voice calm through sheer force of will. She was so weak. Too
weak. The other was draining her.

Now.

She struggled to find the path, her
Help me, Deuce
a
soft plea.

I am here, my heart.
He touched his soul to hers,
guiding her closer, wrapping as much of her as he could in his hold.
You
will hold onto me, and you will listen.

I’m listening.
Exhaustion imbued the two words with
lethargy.

Bohdan is here.

Her withdrawal was immediate.
No!

Deuce held her mentally. Soothed her, pulled her back from
that dangerous edge.
He needs your help.

Why?

Bohdan’s voice crossed his, a calm brush of strength.
You
hold my mate.

Your mate?

The woman who speaks to you, helps you, is my mate.

You said your mate was dead.

She is reborn.

I hold her?

She took the blow for you. She is injured. Her link to
you is all that keeps her here.

Shit.

I do not like you swearing.
Deuce gave her the
reprimand as a distraction. Edie’s
Tough
lacked most of its usual force.
Her strength was failing.

He shot Bohdan a warning glance. He needed to keep his
anguish from Edie. She was not an experienced telepath. She couldn’t filter.

Bohdan nodded his understanding.
I need to get to her.

You’re going to tell me you need to mess with my mind,
aren’t you?

Bohdan glanced at Deuce. Deuce nodded. There was no way to
keep that from her.

She is linked to you. I can only reach her through you.

You could at least sound apologetic about it.

I am sorry.

Deuce.

I am here.

Hold me.

He would, with everything he had, ignoring the Others
filling the room, the sounds of battle outside the window. Edie was all that
mattered.
I have you.

He felt her mental bracing. He shook his head.
It will
not work like that. If the other thinks you are in danger, she will sacrifice
herself.

Oh God, you want me to be calm.

I need you to be very calm,
Bohdan inserted.