Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) (40 page)

Lily focused her mind as she ran, knowing that the only way to break through an illusion was to convince herself that it was a lie, to know it with absolute certainty in her heart. “The hill’s not there. I know it.
There’s no hill
.” She forced her mind into the truth, until she knew without doubt that the hill didn’t exist.

“I believe you.” Gideon whipped his axe through the air and knocked down a hatchet aimed for his heart. “I’ve seen enough illusions lately to question everything I see. Let’s do it.”

They reached the base of the hill and ran right at it. They burst through the illusion and then Lily found herself running beside Gideon across a flat field. “I was right! We did it—” A huge wooden structure suddenly appeared in front of them, and she crashed into it before she could stop herself, hitting so hard she was flung onto her back, the wind knocked out of her completely.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Gideon grabbed her arm and helped her to her feet, throwing up another block as weapons sang through the air, blades clashed and warriors screamed in pain. “It’s a building.”

The illusion had vanished when they’d burst through it, so it was no longer obscuring what was really there. It was a house, a quaint little cottage.
Quinn? You see this?

It looks like you disappeared into the hill.

So, he and Lily were the only ones who could see past the illusion.
There’s a building here. We’re going in. You coming?

Not a chance. We’re a little busy. It’s all you, buddy.

Gideon tried the doorknob, found it locked, then threw his shoulder into the wood and shoved the door out of the frame with the loud crack of splintering wood. He stepped inside and was hit instantly with unbearable agony in his gut. He staggered, his eyesight blanking out with pain, his head spinning, his body screaming with soul deep torment he felt as if he was being skinned alive.

Lily grabbed his arm as he went down. “Gideon!”

He looked at her worried face and for a split second, he was consumed with such a mind-bending
terror
he couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.

And then he started screaming.

He couldn’t think. Couldn’t kiss her hard enough. Couldn’t touch her enough. The need for her was so great, so intense that he couldn’t stop it. They had no time, no privacy and it didn’t matter.

It didn’t fucking matter.

Nothing mattered except being inside her.
Nothing
.

He had both their pants off in less than a second, and then he was sinking deep inside her. Her body was so hot and wet, so perfect for him. He groaned as she molded around him.
Dear God, Lily. This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life.
It was perfection. It was right.
It was home.

He didn’t give a shit about her parents. About whether he fit it anywhere. Because he was home.

You belong with me, Gideon.

Her arms tightened around him as the total conviction of her words sank deep into his heart, and suddenly he was moving so fast inside her he couldn’t control it. His hips pumped, his body roared with the rightness of it. Tears filled his eyes as an intense sense of belonging consumed him, then the climax took them both. He clung to her as his body bucked, completely out of his control, his heart aching, his soul healing, truly healing—

I love you, Gideon
.

The moment he heard those words, he knew they both were damned. But the words felt so good, and so right that at this moment, he absolutely didn’t care. He held her tight against him, while the final twinges of the orgasm left, knowing he had to let go, but not able to bring himself to do it. Not yet.

Because they’d just brought Destiny to her feet, and she’d be coming for them hard and fast now.

* * *

Ana reached a row of cells, and she shivered at the sight of all the steel doors with their tiny barred windows near the top. Was this truly what she was descended from? People who kept victims like animals, to be brought out for torture?

No. She didn’t have time to think about that. “Elijah! Are you in here?”

“Hello?” A male voice echoed through the hall, and a hand stuck out into the hallway, between the bars, about halfway down the corridor on the right. His arm was torn open like he’d been flayed, the skin raw and serrated.

It wasn’t Elijah, but Ana ran down the hall anyway and grabbed his hand, which was covered in caked blood. “I’m here.”

His hand tightened around hers in a grip that was almost desperate, making the blood ooze from his forearm again. “Thank God,” he croaked, his voice raw. “I’m Drew Cartland. Can you get me out of here?”

“I don’t know.” Ana stood on her tip toes to peer through the bars. A Calydon in his early twenties or late teens had his face pressed against the metal. He was covered in filth and barely healed gashes. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his shoulder was so crooked she knew it had been dislocated. “Oh, God. Are you okay?”

“Frank killed me, stole my weapons in the split second I crossed over, and then helped me revive.” Drew’s eyes were so haunted, she felt her heart ache for him. “He’s got my weapons, and if he uses them, we’re screwed. We have to get them back before the rite. If I can get close enough to them, I can call them back into my arms—”

“Where’s the rite taking place? Where are all the weapons?”

“I don’t know.” Drew jerked his head to the right. “But he always goes in that direction after he comes to see me.”

Ana nodded and started to turn away, then turned back. “Have you seen a Calydon named Elijah since you’ve been here?”

“Elijah?” Drew frowned. “He’s dead.”

Ana’s throat tightened. “Well, if he is, then my job is easy. I’ll be back!” She turned and ran down the corridor, searching frantically for keys or Frank or
anything
. She made it around the corner and stopped dead when she saw the open door in front of her. There was a table piled high with documents, plus a computer and filing cabinets. Frank’s office?

She stepped to the door, looking around carefully to make sure no one was lurking, then peered inside. She sucked in her breath when she saw the wall on the right was a collage of photos.

Photos of her from the time she was a baby, and the last one was of Nate abducting her off the street. Frank had been there? He’d watched it happen? He’d handed her over to Nate? He’d stalked her since she was born...waiting for the right time to come after her.

She shuddered, and tore her gaze off the wall, thinking of Drew with his shredded arms and the clock ticking on the rite. There had to be something...she looked around the office at the piles of documents and the computer sitting on the desk. Frank’s secrets.

Here were her answers. This is why she’d come. She didn’t know what she’d find, but she knew it was in this room.

She stepped inside, locked the door behind her, pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet and started to search.

* * *

Gideon yanked on his jeans, his mind racing as he tried to figure out what had happened to him, what illusion had gotten him, but he couldn’t remember anything from his brief trip to hell. “You didn’t see anything on me?”

“No.” Lily was getting dressed as fast as he was, the sounds of battle raging outside. “There was no illusion visible, but I swear, you completely lost it. Can’t you remember anything about what it was?”

He shook his head. “All I remember is thinking of Elijah. That was my whole thought—”

Her head whipped up, her eyes sharp. “You’ve done a bond with Elijah.”

“Yeah, long time ago. Why?” He buttoned his jeans, then he grabbed her hand. Together, they raced through the house, searching for a door that would lead into the ground.

“I’ve read stories about the Calydon blood bond,” she said. “Can you feel his pain when he’s hurt?”

Gideon shot a look at her. “Yeah, sometimes. I mean, I could before he...died.”

Lily nodded. “I’m guessing that what you felt was Elijah’s experience. That he’s been here and been tortured, and you felt what he was going through.”

Gideon frowned. “But he’s dead. I’ve never heard of picking up on the aftermath of an experience through a blood bond. It’s not as if the image hangs around waiting for me to pick it up—” He stopped suddenly, the enormity of his words blossoming before him. “You think he’s still alive? And being tortured right now? Here?” Son of a bitch! Elation and disbelief rushed through him, followed by the dark realization of the extent that his blood brother was suffering, if he truly was alive.

Lily yanked open a door and found only a closet. “Is there another explanation?”

Shit. He couldn’t think of one.
Elijah?
Gideon reached out over their connection, throwing all his mental energy into the link.
Where the hell are you?

No response. That had to mean Elijah was dead. Their connection was too strong. He would at least feel something if Elijah was nearby. It had been a false, fucking alarm.

Lily was still moving quickly through the house, and he rushed to catch up to her, yanking open a door as he passed. Another closet, not stairs to a basement.

“I couldn’t reach him,” he told her. “He must be dead.”

“When I was in the truck, when Frank’s men had me, Frank implied you were dead.” Lily looked over at him, and he saw the flash of pain in her eyes at the memory of what it had felt like to be disconnected from him. “I tried to contact you with my mind, but there was no response. Yet, it turned out you were after us and closing fast.”

Gideon frowned as he walked into a den with a huge flat screen television hanging on one wall. “I was trying to reach you, too.”

“So, despite the blood ritual, which should have allowed us to connect over any distance, we got nothing.” Lily ran over to a bookshelf and peered behind it, looking for a hidden door. “Frank must have done something to block our connection. Maybe the car itself was specially designed to block those kinds of communications between Calydons.”

“Son of a bitch. You think?” Gideon walked over to the flat screen television and studied it. Frank didn’t seem like the type to kick back and watch television. His goals were too lofty to spend time doing something that unproductive. “And you think Elijah might be here? Now? But blocked, like you and I were?”
Elijah, if you can hear me, I’m coming for you. Hang in there, buddy. You’re about to get your life back.

“Maybe.”

“Then it ends now.” Gideon backed up a few steps, then he charged the television and slammed his shoulder into it. Sparks flew, the sound of shattering wood filled the room and then he was through the wall, standing in a tunnel built of clay. Bingo. He fisted his hands, his mind going into the singular warrior focus. “I’m going to find him and bring him home.” His voice was colder than he’d intended and he realized he was falling into battle mode. Hell, it was about damned time he figured out how to be a warrior when he was with Lily.

Lily hurried into the tunnel after him. “Gideon—”

“What?” He started jogging through the passageway, his senses on high alert for any threat. Damn, it felt good to be focused. His mind was humming with intensity, his muscles were firing with adrenaline, and he could hear every sound as if it were magnified a thousand fold.

“What do you want most? What’s the most important thing to you right now?”

He glanced at her. “You’re thinking about our destiny? Now that we’ve bonded, we’re both destined to lose that which we care most about? Utter destruction and all that shit?” He heard the faint skitter of cockroach feet in the distance, quickly cataloguing it and dismissing it with the efficiency he hadn’t felt since he’d met Lily. It was as if completing the bond and knowing Lily was his forever had given him the freedom to accept it and let his connection to her weave seamlessly into his being. He could be both her mate and the warrior he needed to be. Feel and fight at the same damn time.