Read Darkness Awakened (Primal Heat Trilogy #1) (Order of the Blade) Online
Authors: Stephanie Rowe
Grace sat up and peered out the window, squinting past the high-speed wipers. It was too dark and rainy to see much besides the glow from his headlights on the ground and the reflection of taillights on all the trucks scattered along the edges of the lot. Suddenly, getting information about a bonding destiny that probably wasn’t even true seemed to fade in comparison to their arrival at the last place anyone had reported seeing her sister alive.
Grace rolled down the window so she could see better. The sign to the bar hung at an angle, and most of the fluorescent red letters were burned out. A small “c” flickered, and a “Th” dangled at the front of the sign. The Gun Rack. A building left untended, designed to be ignored by all but those most intent on finding it.
The windows were blackened, rain was rattling off the metal roof, and a steady stream of water was pouring off the clogged gutters past the front door.
Quinn rolled down his window, then shut off the engine and leaned on the steering wheel, peering out into the night. No, not just peering...sensing. He was silent, and Grace suspected he was searching for smells or sounds that would whisper stories to him.
She let her vision soften ever so slightly, and she saw an iridescent violet dust coating the woods behind the bar. Excitement leapt through her and she gripped the door handle. “Ana’s been here. She did a huge illusion in the woods.”
Quinn peered in the direction she was looking. “How do you know?”
“Every Illusionist has a signature, a colored dust they leave behind after an illusion fades. Hers is violet. It’s everywhere out there, but most heavily around the side of the bar and in the trees behind the bar.” It glowed on the branches, bright light in a forest that was nothing but endless darkness, calling to her. Grace started to open the door, eager to get out—
“Wait.” Quinn stayed her with a light touch to her arm. “Not yet. I want to get the lay of things first.” He glanced at her. “I want to make sure it’s safe before I let you go out there. No more deaths tonight.”
Ah… he had a point. Reluctantly, Grace let go of the door. “So? Do you sense anything?”
“Still checking.” Quinn leaned over her to peer out of her window. She felt a hum of energy from him, and she had to clench her fist against the urge to rest her hand on his back as he stretched past her. He shook his head and sat back. “I can’t see your sister’s dust.”
She rolled her eyes impatiently. “Well, you’re not an Illusionist.”
“That, I am not, which is why you’re here.” Quinn drummed his fingers on the dash, echoing the pound of rain on the roof, as droplets splashed on his door through the open window. “Feels safe.” He slanted a glance at her. “You sense anyone working an illusion on me right now?”
Grace frowned and studied him. “I don’t feel any vibrations that would indicate an illusion, but...” She shrugged. “As I said before, if it’s something inside you, I might not be able to sense it.”
Quinn cursed, not pleased by her answer. “I need to know if I can trust my senses or not. It’s critical.” He worked his jaw. “Since you’re my
sheva
, we’re connected metaphysically, which is why you can hear my thoughts when I don’t block them.”
She eyed him warily. “So?”
“It’d be difficult because we haven’t completed any of the bonding stages, but I might be able to build the connection between us enough for you to get a sense of what’s inside me.”
“Like reading your mind?”
“No. More than that.” He rubbed his jaw. “It’d be more like a merging of our minds and spirits.”
Her heart began to race, her belly tightening at the intimacy of what he was suggesting. “Won’t that tighten the bond?”
“No. It’s not one of the stages. Just a risk-free bonus of our plight.” He took her hand and pressed it to his chest. “Close your eyes.”
She grimaced. “I’m really not that good at trusting—”
“It’s me, Grace.” He gave her a crooked grin. “You’re my
sheva.
I’d cut off my own hand before I could hurt you. You can trust me.”
“Until you go rogue and lose your mind.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, well, I never claimed to be perfect.” He took her hand and folded it between his. “Let’s do this, sweetheart. It’s time.”
His touch was warm and reassuring, his voice intense. He was the man who’d saved her life already. How much more did he have to do to prove himself? She had to learn to trust him enough to make this work, to save her sister. She nodded. “Okay.”
He smiled and kissed her lightly. “Close your eyes, Grace.”
Keeping her attention focused on the feel of his kiss, she let her eyes fall shut.
This is for you, Ana
.
“Relax your mind.” Quinn’s voice was calm and forceful, a warrior who expected those on his team to obey him. “Focus on the beat of my heart.” He set her hand against his chest again. “Try to match your own rhythm to mine.”
She focused on the thud of his heart under her palm. The steady rhythm was strong and reliable.
“That’s right,” he whispered. “Let your own patterns match mine. Don’t force it, just feel them as they come together.”
She allowed his even heartbeat into her mind. She let the pulse echo through her body, and she focused on relaxing all her muscles. But she was out of sync with him, beating irregularly. “I can’t—”
“You can.” He leaned forward and kissed her again. Not a kiss of wild passion. An intimate kiss of connection and unity. His lips moved against hers, seducing her, drawing her away from herself and into him. She felt her mind quiet, and her tension vanished. She felt his strong presence soothing her mind, tangling with her own thoughts, meshing as one.
Their patterns overlapped for a split second, creating a single heartbeat. Then another. Then a third, until her heart was beating in perfect synchronicity with his, so she couldn’t tell there were two.
There was a whisper in her mind, and then she felt Quinn’s presence, filling her with warmth, reassurance and a sense of power as he continued to kiss her, more deeply now, more connected. She realized he was infusing her with his warrior strength, the essence of his being.
Grace
. His voice drifted through her mind, an intrusion that felt natural, not threatening.
Follow the thread that binds us.
His voice was compelling, luring her along, and she let her consciousness drift toward him, toward the dark pulsating energy that resonated with his essence.
It was as if she were traveling through a black tunnel, with safety on the other end...almost within her reach.
A heavy pressure settled around her spirit, wrapping her up tightly, and she knew she was connecting with the real Quinn, with the secrets he carried inside. Strength, power, energy, confidence. It was brilliant and heady, and she wanted to dance with the courage it gave her—
Then it went cold. Ice cold, like a frigid winter wind biting through her clothes. She recognized the energy around her as Quinn’s, but it was so distant and bitter, almost dangerous.
You’re in.
His deep voice whispered in her mind.
Do you see an illusion?
The warmth she’d felt from him earlier was gone. Instead, deep inside, in this hidden place in his soul, Quinn was stark and barren. Had he shut down all his emotions in order to do his job as an Order member, or had he never been truly alive? She reached out as if she were sweeping her hand through him, and the coldness was everywhere. The darkness of deaths, many, many deaths, grabbed at Grace, until it felt like something was pinning her chest with dozens of needles. There was isolation. A sense of being utterly alone. Connected with no one. A shadow lashing about in the wind with no roots, no anchor, nothing to hold it together. It made her want to cry for his pain, because she knew what it felt like. It was what she felt so often, an aching loneliness that was so hard to escape, and it was coating his soul, eating away at who he was.
This can’t be all you are.
His confusion tickled her, like a feather in her mind.
What are you talking about?
She realized that he didn’t even feel the barrenness inside him. He was so used to it that he didn’t even notice it anymore. Tears filled her eyes for the burden he carried, and suddenly she didn’t want to be lost in that void anymore.
She wanted out. She needed to breathe, to connect, to feel the warmth of humanity. Grace took over their connection, plunging past the place Quinn had brought her to. She burrowed deeper inside him, through the layers of darkness and isolation until she found what she’d known had to be there. A faint glowing light that she knew was honor. A warmth associated with Elijah and Gideon—friendship and loyalty.
This was the place inside him she wanted to be. It felt like home. It felt safe. She didn’t want to leave this special hidden gem. This was what drove him, what he protected with his coldness so no one would be able to take it away from him.
Then her mind blurred and she was back on the surface, surrounded by the parts of himself he wanted her to see. There was an impenetrable barrier woven through his mind now, keeping her out of the place she’d just been.
Stay out of there, sweetheart.
His voice was mild, but unyielding.
Focus on the illusion.
Sorry.
Embarrassed that she’d violated his privacy, Grace immediately opened her mind to search for the rising pressure of energy that went along with an illusion. She softened her mind’s eye the same way she softened her vision when she looked for illusion dust. She went into that place more and more deeply until she was no longer seeing Quinn as a man, just a spirit made of energy vibrations.
That’s when she saw it. Emerald-green dust fragments sparkling through his consciousness. Elation rippled through her.
I see illusion dust.
She paused, looking more closely.
It looks familiar. I know I’ve seen that shade before.
He cursed
. So, I’m under an illusion?
No. Dust is what remains after an illusion disappears. It means you had one before, but there’s nothing active right now.
She searched further, and thought she caught the faint remnants of an illusion, but she couldn’t be sure. Each time she tried to tap into it, it slithered out of her grasp, like an elusive thought.
The link between them broke and she slid back into her own mind and her own body, missing the connection with Quinn the minute she lost it. She opened her eyes, and then pulled her hand off his chest when she saw the shadowed expression on his face. “I’m sorry for invading your privacy.”
His face was shuttered. “It’s my fault for bringing you in. I should have realized I couldn’t control you once you were connected to me.” He took a breath. “I’ve never done that before. It was damn strange. I felt you inside me. Not just touching my mind, like Gideon and Elijah do. You were in there. I felt your breathing.” His gaze brushed over hers. “I felt your loneliness.”
“You did?” She froze, suddenly terrified. How much had he found out? What had he learned? “What else did you feel?”
His brows went up at her near panic. “I got a sense of your emotions. That’s it. Nothing concrete.” He studied her, his gaze knowing. “I didn’t catch any secrets, Grace. Whatever you want to stay hidden from me is still hidden.”
“Oh.” She tried to relax, but she was still unnerved by what Quinn could have discovered. She waited for him to ask questions, to demand she share what she was hiding, but he didn’t.
He seemed to accept her need for privacy, and let it be. Maybe he needed to take back his own space himself. “What did you learn about the illusion?”
Grace tried to play off his cue and ignore the intimacy of what had just happened between them. “You were under an illusion at some point. The fact that the dust is inside you means that’s where the illusion was. Someone was messing with your thoughts or emotions.”
Quinn nodded in agreement. “It makes sense that I would have been under one the night I died. It’s more reasonable than to think my instincts simply failed me.” He looked relieved at the thought. “Is there anything currently working on me?”
She chewed her lower lip, trying to think of how to explain the illusion that had fluttered just out of her reach. “You’ve got this...
thing
inside you. It felt like an illusion, or the beginnings of one, but it was so faint or elusive that I couldn’t pinpoint it and identify it for sure.”
He frowned, his jaw cracking as he thought about what she’d said. “So, it’s like a seed, waiting for a trigger? For someone to turn it on?”
“Maybe.” She grimaced. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Can you get rid of it?”
“I’m not sure.” Grace frowned, squinting as the bright headlights of an oncoming truck flashed across Quinn’s face. It pulled into the lot, drove past them, then swung around and backed into a spot at the end of the row, just down from where Quinn had parked at the curb. Its front tire disappeared up to the tire rim as it sank into a rain-filled rut in the parking lot. It was a black truck like Quinn’s, with a gun rack in the back window and a big steel toolbox in the bed. “I’ll have to think on it.”
“Well, figure it out quickly. I need to get clean.” His face glowed bright in the headlights, and Grace could see his concentration in the tense lines around his eyes. Then the headlights turned off and he faded into the darkness again. “Do it soon, Grace.”
She glared at him, chafing under his orders, not liking the pressure to delve into the side of her she’d tried to hide from for so long. “I said I would try.”
He flashed a quick smile of apology. “Thanks.” He squeezed her hand. “You did good, Grace. Really good.”
Warmth filled her, and she realized that his orders weren’t personal, they weren’t an indication that he was trying to control her. It was simply his way of operating in battle mode.
His warrior side was why she’d sought him out, and she needed to get over her aversion to him directing her. She needed to trust him and allow him to do what he did best. But it was difficult when he was asking her to deal with illusions. She’d spent fifteen years fighting them off, and to suddenly embrace them...Grace took a deep breath, trying to steady the panic that was starting to build. It wasn’t easy, even with Quinn by her side to protect them if she lost control. Her fear of what she was ran too deep.
Quinn drummed his fingers on the steering wheel again. “Okay, so I’m an unknown. We can’t truly trust my instincts until you clear them.” He glanced at her, then sympathy flickered across his face, an expression that was soft and human, and he brushed his fingers over her cheek. “You’re not facing your illusions alone. We’re a team, and teams go both ways. Ask me for help if you need it.”