Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) (34 page)

She was in the back seat of an SUV, and three huge Calydons were in the truck with her. Two were in the front, one in back with her. Lily fought to sit up, pressing herself back against the door, her mind screaming in denial. It couldn’t be happening again. Not again. Not again. Not again.

The SUV lurched as the driver floored it and skidded around a corner. The momentum threw her across the seat and she crashed into the Calydon sitting beside her. His body was hard and powerful, and nausea churned through her at the contact.

He shoved her away from him, his palm bracing against her chest as he pinned her against the opposite door. “Call Frank.”

He was pressing so hard she couldn’t breathe. She was trapped again. At their mercy. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go through this again. It couldn’t be happening again.

“Call Frank,” he ordered.

Frank. Dear God,
Frank.
He knew she was Satinka, which meant these men would too. Would they be able to resist her? Would they even try? Or were they intending to steal from her that which kept her alive?

Frantically, she checked them out, trying to ascertain how much immediate danger she was in, trying to focus her mind away from the debilitating panic and into the sanity of self-preservation. Her captors were all wearing black, with heavy boots and dark leather pants. Thick, rugged leather, like it was designed to protect them if they went skidding across concrete. They were not of a more delicate persona, like the Runner who’d chased her down outside Nate’s. These were thugs, males hired because they were willing to do the ugly stuff.

The driver hit a couple buttons, and then a voice echoed through the truck. “You got her?”

A chill crawled over Lily at the gravelly sound of Frank’s voice, thin and flat, almost disembodied, yet so full of evil that she felt it prickling at her arms. She shuddered, trying to shake off the cloying darkness.

“Yeah.” The Calydon driving the truck glanced in the rearview mirror at her, his eyes black, little bottomless pits of doom. “We got her.”

“Let me speak with her.”

The Calydon holding Lily against the door, dug his fingers into her flesh, bruising her. “Talk.”

She coughed as his fingers squeezed off her air, her mind spinning as she tried to think of what to say. Frank didn’t know she’d translated the knife, or that she’d had time to study it. Maybe she could work it to her advantage if he thought she was clueless. Anything to buy time, to make him underestimate her. “What do you want? Why are you after me?”

“Ahh...Lily.” Frank’s voice drifted through the car. “I’m so glad to hear your voice.”

She could feel the sweat beading on her forehead, and her palms were clammy. “Why? What do you want from me?”

“To sacrifice you, of course.”

Sacrifice? Was that what he called draining her dry for her magic? “For what?”

“I have plans, my dear. You are my ticket. You and Nate’s stone.”

She closed her eyes. “Do you have it?” Lily wasn’t sure how much to reveal she knew, but couldn’t keep herself from asking, “Is Ana with you?”

“Yes, she sought me out. My darling Ana thrives under my tutelage even as I speak.”

Lily’s head began to ache.
Oh, Ana, what have you gotten yourself into?
“Is she okay?”

“She’s making me proud.” There was no hiding the clear pride in his voice, and Lily grimaced.

Anything Ana could be doing to make Frank happy was not a good thing.

“I assume you know how to read ancient scripts?” he asked.

She glanced at the Calydon in the back with her. He was watching her like a predator scenting his prey, and she shrank back against the door. “Well, some of them...”

“Excellent. I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Wait!” she interrupted.

There was a pause. “What?” There was a flicker of irritation in his voice.

“You want to free Ezekiel, don’t you? Is that what you’re doing?”

There was a longer pause. “Why do you ask?”

“I won’t help you do it. You’ll never be able to harvest my magic. Find someone else. Don’t waste your time with me.” A last ditch effort, but it was all she could think of. It wasn’t as if she had any leverage.

There was a murmur of amusement. “Oh, Lily. I look forward to the challenge you present. For your information, I figured out the earth component to Satinka magic, so I’ll make sure you have plenty of Mother Nature at your disposal.”

Of course he would have figured that out since the failed attempt to harvest her magic at Nate’s. If he had earth and a Calydon, it would be practically impossible for Lily not to respond. Her magic wouldn’t be that powerful, but Frank could force it out of her on some level.

Her mind flicked back to that horrifying five days when she was seventeen, to that feeling of having her magic stripped from her, of being helpless to stop it, of seeing those males coming at her, with that gleam in their eyes—

“Not only will you help me free Ezekiel,” Frank interrupted, jerking her back to the present, “but you’ll help me murder a young Calydon named Drew who looks almost exactly like your dead brother.”

Lily’s stomach turned. “Did you kill Trig?” she whispered. “Was it you?”

There was another chuckle that made her shiver. “Did it ever occur to you that you might have killed him yourself, Lily?”

“Me?” she echoed, unable to stop the rise of horror at his question, as he breathed life to the fear that she’d been carrying for so long.

“You. You played with your magic, Satinka, and you interfered in an ancient Calydon rite. Did you really think you could do that and not kill him?”

Her stomach lurched, her body seizing as her deepest fear slammed into her. “No,” she protested in a strangled voice. “I didn’t kill him.”

“Didn’t you?”

Lily clenched her fists, fighting so hard not to lose control. She scrunched her eyes shut, but she could still hear Frank chuckling. It couldn’t be true that she’d killed her brother. It couldn’t. Could it? Memories of that night started to crash back into her mind, and she winced, trying to keep them at bay, unable to cope with remembering. Not right now. “How do you know about me?”

“I’ve been studying Calydons far longer than you have my dear. And everywhere I turned, there you were. So interesting when you showed up at Nate’s that day. So very interesting. Did you ever wonder how you got his name?”

She blinked, trying to understand what Frank was saying. “You set that up?”

“You think major plans such as mine occur overnight? It takes decades of planning.”

Lily went cold at the thought that he’d been manipulating her for years, that he’d been stalking her for so long. “Gideon will stop you. The Order knows about you.”

“The Order is being taken care of. As powerful as they are, they’re no match for the number of warriors I have under my control right now. Even as we speak, the Order is falling.”

“You’ll never defeat them.” Lily immediately reached for Gideon over their bond.
Gideon? Can you hear me?

Silence. Nothing but an empty void where Gideon’s presence should be. Bitter loss, overwhelming loneliness, and utter desolation assaulted her.
Please, Gideon, don’t be dead.

“How many of you are in the car?” Frank asked.

“Three of us,” the driver said.

“One to drive, two to rape her. It’s the ultimate psychological torture. Should work well on her.”

Lily sucked in her breath, and her body went rigid. The Calydon in the front passenger seat jerked his head back to look at her. There was something in his eyes...regret? Reluctance? Anticipation? Cold fingers of fear beat at her, and panic fought to take over her mind.

“I expect Lily to be thoroughly beaten down by the time she arrives here,” Frank said. “Do whatever you want to her. My only stipulation is that her mind is working fine because I will need her to translate the stone when she gets here and I need her to be able to do the rite. Other than that, break her will.”

The Calydon in the passenger seat ground his jaw. “What if she agrees to help?” he asked. “Then we can leave her alone?”

There was a pause. “Lily? Do you agree to help me?”

The Calydon in the front seat gave her a hard look, and she could feel him willing for her to agree. She looked at the one sitting next to her, and she tensed at the sight of his dark eyes fastened on her. They were brimming with lust, violence and anger. Not rogue. Perfectly sane, yet brutal.

The Calydon in the front passenger seat reached back and touched her shoulder. He gave her an emphatic nod.

Lily swallowed hard and knew she has no choice. Keeping her eyes fastened on his face, she nodded, knowing she was lying. Anything to buy her time. “I agree. I’ll help.”

Some of the tension left his shoulders.

“You lie,” Frank said, sounding disgusted. “Do you really think I’m that naïve? I know you, Lily, and I know you don’t give in. Ever.”

“No, I survive,” she retorted, furious that this psychopath thought he knew her so well. “I know when to fight and when to give in. I’m giving in. You win, you bastard.”

“She lies,” Frank said to her captors. “I need her so beaten down that she can’t resist me by the time she gets here. You three have approximately eight hours until you arrive. Get on it.”

Then there was a click, and he was gone.

The Calydon in the front dropped his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. She saw his hand flex, and she prayed he was about to call out his weapon to protect her and not slay her. She hoped that his Calydon instincts to protect an innocent were overriding whatever hold Frank had over him.

Lily shifted, testing the bonds that held her wrists, her heart thudding. If he moved in defense of her, she had to be ready. He looked over at her, then inclined his head slightly.

She tensed, ready to move.

There was a loud crack, black light flashed above his arm, and a dagger appeared in his hand. She lunged for the door--

The Calydon in the back seat grabbed her and hauled her into his lap as the driver slammed a mace into the chest of the Calydon in the passenger seat. Lily screamed as his body convulsed. Blood splattered over the windshield and the dash, then he slumped back against the seat.

She covered her mouth as the driver yanked his mace out of the Calydon’s chest, and then the dead Calydon shimmered and disappeared, his splattered blood vanishing with him, leaving no trace behind. Dead. A very old Calydon, for him to have vanished so quickly after death. Was that why he’d been able to fight off Frank’s influence?

The driver glanced in his rearview mirror at Lily. “And then there were two.”

There was no reluctance in his eyes. He wasn’t rogue, but his instinct to protect innocents was gone. Frank had done something to them. Somehow, he’d completely overridden the most basic tenet of what defined a Calydon: to protect innocents.

The warrior in the back with her grabbed her ankles and ripped the binding holding her feet together. His eyes were dark, and she saw the commitment on his face. The commitment to destroy her.

She knew in that instant that she’d never survive the next eight hours with them. Even if she lived, she would be dead. Forever. She didn’t have enough left to survive it again.

He yanked at her jeans and they came easily over her hips as he jerked them down to her ankles. Panic screamed through her mind, but she forced herself not to move, to wait. Like she’d done in the basement.
One chance, Lily. You’ll have one chance.
She clenched her fists, willing her trembling body not to move. Not yet.

“What are you waiting for? Start already,” the driver ordered.

“She’s not struggling. I can’t hit her if she doesn’t fight.”

She jerked her gaze to his face at the revealing comment. He wasn’t totally lost to Frank’s influence. Not totally. Something inside was resisting what he had to do, even as his conscious mind was telling him to rape her.

“Oh, she’ll struggle. They always do. Free her. Make her feel like she has a chance.”

The Calydon in back grabbed the cords binding her wrist and ripped them, freeing her arms. “Fight me.”

Lily stopped resisting the tears and let them fall, forcing him to see her as the innocent he was born to protect.

He glanced at her face and his eyes darkened. “Hell. She’s crying.”

“For hell’s sake. I’ll do it.” The driver slammed on the brakes, and Lily rolled off the seat onto the floor.

She scrambled back up as the predatory instincts of the male in back with her rose to the surface. “Fuck that. I get her first.”

Lily saw the moment his natural need to protect lost the battle. His shoulders flexed and his jaw hardened as he committed to what Frank wanted him to do. Lust rose in his eyes, and the front of his jeans swelled in anticipation. She fought back nausea, her body shaking as he released her to free himself from his pants.

The Calydon in the front seat gave a grunt of satisfaction as he kicked the truck into drive again. The instant her assailant’s hand went to his zipper, Lily slammed her feet into his crotch and shoved off him, grabbing for the door handle. She got it open, then he grabbed her feet and hauled her back across the seat.

“No!” She threw up her hand, and suddenly there was a loud crack and Gideon’s axe appeared in her hand.

For a split second, they both stared at the axe in shock, then she tightened her grip around it and swung as hard as she could. The blade slammed into the side of his neck with a sickening thud, disappearing several inches into his flesh. He screamed and yanked the axe out of his neck, and slammed it at her chest as blood poured down his shoulder.

But the axe diverted itself and harmlessly hit the seat next to her shoulder. She held up her hand and the axe flew out of his hand and slammed into hers. “Calydon weapons don’t work for other Calydons,” she snapped as she drove the spiked handle straight into his heart.

He screamed and his hands went to his chest, trying to pull the axe out. The driver was shouting, and Lily planted a foot on the end of the axe and shoved as hard as she could, pushing the axe deeper and thrusting herself out the open door in the same movement.