Darkness Unbound (2 page)

“This is none of your business.” Adrenaline spiked. She was alone in a dark, deserted lobby with an unknown behemoth. Her urge to flee battled an inexplicable desire to move closer to him. To touch him. What was wrong with her? Was he using some sort of magical compulsion? She mentally rolled her eyes at her own ridiculousness and blamed it on one too many vampire movies. Her focus should be on rape avoidance and escape.

“Why did you summon me, then?” He glanced around. “Are you in danger? Has someone hurt you?” His hand moved to the hilt of a sword against his back.

A sword? Her fear ratcheted upward. She squeaked out, “I did not
summon
you.”

He dropped his hand from the sword and took another step backward. “You need not fear me. I shall not hurt you.”

“Are you stalking me? Do you work here?” The creases near his eyes placed him at least a decade beyond undergrad. Maybe he was a role-playing computer tech junkie. Somehow she doubted the computer nerd part. Given his gigantic hands, he’d be lucky to get his name right when typed on a keyboard.

“I am unsure why I am here. What is this place?” He scanned the lobby, wide-eyed.

“Are you lost?” She reached out, inexplicably compelled to comfort him.

“Astrid!” Colin’s voice boomed through the lobby. “Where’d you go? We’re not done, damn it.”

“Crap,” she muttered, yanking her hand back and glancing down with a wish to melt into the floor.

Thor look-alike moved close. Her gaze popped up. His hand had moved back to his sword. She reversed until her back hit the wall. His masculine scent rose in the air around her—clean, hardcore male.

“Is he the one that distressed you? Does he threaten you?” His deep intimate rumble triggered a ripple of chills down her legs.

Trapped by his laser blues, she couldn’t lie. “I caught him with his tongue down my roommate’s throat. She’s been my best friend for a while, but not anymore. He is…well, was, my boyfriend.” She locked gazes with him, startled to notice his irises swirled. Not possible. She forced herself to blink slowly. A second appraisal of his eyes found no swirling. Was she losing her mind?

“Boyfriend as in intended? Betrothed?” He ran a finger along her chin, his gaze appreciative.

Her skin tingled, hypersensitive in the wake of that single finger. She wheezed out, “Not engaged. Boyfriend…no, make that
ex
-boyfriend.”

The heat in his gaze made her stomach squeeze. A shiver ran straight to her center. She resisted the urge to pull him closer.
You don’t know this guy. What’s wrong with you? Get out of here.

“Let us show him what he lost.” His hot whisper blew across her cheek. “You
are
lost to him.”

She should get her butt into high gear and dodge him. Right now. But her body screamed
oh-hell-yeah
at the thought of what that husky whisper promised.
“You don’t need to do this.”

“I may not be a hero, but I can be a martyr on occasion.” He flashed an even set of teeth.

Her body jangled with awareness. He leaned in. His tongue flicked over her lips. Her equilibrium faltered, and she grasped his arm to prevent a floor-ass kiss.
What just happened?
She should be offended at his audacity. But this was about Colin, right?

His lips devoured hers, hard and possessive. He sucked her lower lip while his hand plowed into her hair. She stepped into his heat until there was no space between them. Her puckered nipples pressed tight against his rock-hard body. She invaded his mouth. He moaned a low sound. His hips rocked into hers, alerting her that he was more than ready to take this to the next level. They bumped against the wall. Her body shifted into overdrive. She pressed right back and wound her hands in his hair.

A shriek registered on the periphery of her desire-drugged desperation to have this Nordic god incarnate in any and every way possible.

The summons intensified. “Astrid! What the hell?”

She filtered out the noise. The scent of the man kissing her made her lightheaded. The heat radiating from his skin warmed her in ways far more than the lust-fire burning her inside and out. It promised something deeper. Something real. Something she needed to know on a soul-deep level. She craved it.

He broke away from her lips. She moaned complaint and wound her fist in his soft cotton shirt, tugging for his attention. She thought,
Don’t stop.

His startled gaze collided with hers as if he’d heard her wish. Out loud he asked, “Is he the one?”

“Whaa…? Who?” She glanced around, dazed.

His deep voice echoed in her head.
Is this the man who hurt you?

Startled by the mental question and its viciousness, she turned toward the focus of his inquiry. He couldn’t have spoken in her head. Her brain struggled to identify the fuming guy a few feet away until it finally spit out a name. “Colin?”

Colin screwed up his face in self-righteous indignation. “How long has this been going on?”

Still riding the lust high with Thor look-alike’s hard-on pressed tight to her abdomen, she stared at Colin. Her mind slowly repeated Colin’s question. She should rip into the asshole, given he’d been sucking face with Sylvia minutes ago, but her mushy brain zeroed in on Thor lookalike’s freshly kissed lips.

“She’s mine,” the gladiator declared before attacking her mouth once again. She sighed in relief.

****

My God, what she had just done was unthinkable. Yet it had happened. She wasn’t sorry, only shocked. She blinked at the red light of her digital bedside clock. One hour until dawn. She had conked out for almost four hours. Had she really ditched work, brought a stranger into her dorm room, and done all those wild things with him? She felt around her twin bed for him. Zannis. Last she remembered he’d been wrapped around her. Naked.

She popped upright to a sit. He left without so much as a good-bye? She flipped on the lights. No note. Not even a hint that he’d been there remained other than the aches in her body. Those aches reminded her of all the highs he’d taken her to last night. While they’d been together she had forgotten her problems. She had forgotten everything other than him. He erased her loneliness and answered her desperate need to belong. She’d never given credence to the fantasy of a Mister Right. Until now.

Her brain replayed the words he’d spoken in her mind, telepathically, along a shared mental pathway he’d encouraged her to embrace.
I may return to my time when you sleep, rouhi. Now that we know you can bring me here, we shall have another night.
Rouhi meant “my soul” in his language. Her chest warmed at the recollection of his low rumble of the endearment.

He’d come from the past. 1000 A.D. Her mind could barely wrap itself around that whopper. But his massive sword and unease with technology and modern English phrasing helped her believe.

She needed him back to confirm she hadn’t imagined the whole scenario.
It was not a fantasy!
And she wanted a repeat.

But she had to figure out how she’d brought him here.

She pulled on a T-shirt and flannel PJ bottoms. Her roommate still wasn’t home. Sylvia must’ve stayed at Colin’s place. She should be insulted, but felt relieved to be free of him. Colin had never elicited even a fraction of the fire she felt with Zannis. The coward hadn’t even put up a fight to get her back. Zannis told Colin to take a hike and the asshole fled. Well…maybe she would’ve bolted too when confronted by an angry Thor look-alike wielding an enormous sword.

She shuffled down the hall to the bathroom with her shower caddy in hand. Her mind churned over the puzzle of how she had brought Zannis here as she went through her morning rituals—teeth, shower, makeup. As she returned to her dorm room with a wet head, her chest tingled and then burned, but not with the familiar flare of heartburn. The tingles spread down her arms and legs until her toes and fingertips prickled with heat. The barometric pressure in the air around her rose until her ears popped.

A slowly enlarging darkness spread across the wall of her dorm room like a sci-fi movie black hole. She stumbled backwards, tripped over her backpack, and landed on her ass. When the dark hole was the size of standard door, the darkness dissolved into shapes like watching a door-shaped TV.

A familiar massive male back showed through the doorway. She rose and walked trancelike toward him. “Zannis?”

He didn’t reply. She heard impacting bodies as if a fight raged in front of him. She tried to reach him on their mental pathway,
Zannis?

A wave of pain lacerated her mind followed by a pervasive viciousness. She gripped her head and moaned. She fell to her knees.
Make it stop, Zannis!

Zannis turned her way. She released a sigh of relief when the mental agony ceased. With a smile she moved toward him, drawn to him by a mysterious magnetism. She stepped across the threshold of the magical doorway.

Her breath hitched when his gaze captured hers. His eyes were blacked over from pupil to the whites of his eyes. A chill slithered through her chest. Was he some sort of devil?

Zannis shook his head, grimaced and stumbled backwards away from her as if combating an invisible adversary. Then he emitted a strange laugh and lunged at her.

Shocked by pain and disbelief, she stared at her chest where his massive golden sword was buried almost to the hilt. He yanked out the sword and pushed her backwards over the threshold. The doorway snapped closed. Blood gushed through her fingers where she pressed them against her chest. Her mind dimmed with faintness. How could she have been so wrong about him?

The pain of the wound paled in comparison to that of her shattered soul.

Chapter Two

Present day.

“This is your last night as a human. Let’s get drunk.”

Astrid shook off the dream haze, puzzled why that long ago college memory of the worst moment of her life had surfaced now. Flashbacks of the countless surgeries, the weeks in the hospital, and the tortuous rehab slideshowed in her brain. She’d been alone. And in pain. According to the doctors, her recovery had been miraculous. Everyone had expected her to die. She shoved the images and emotions into a dark corner of her brain, and focused on her hate for that not-a-hero.

She waved her arm at the blond hovering near the bed. “Go away, Christian.”

She pulled the comforter tight over her head and rolled, giving him her back. She hadn’t missed Christian’s artsy jeans, dark designer button-down, and spiky highlighted blond hair. During the short plane ride to New Orleans, they’d shared minutes after meeting forty-eight hours ago, he’d been the epitome of charming chill—always smiling and tossing back a bloody Mary. But he was one of
them.
One of the bastards that hadn’t let her die. The Scimitar Magi. They had kidnapped her when injured during a successful op to extract a kid from a cult of Persians calling themselves Hashishins. Now the magi planned to force her to become something apparently not human.

“You’ll be mad, if I don’t push this.” He whipped the comforter off the bed in one powerful tug.

“What the—” Astrid shot upright, chilled by the air attack.

Christian tossed the comforter to the other side of the room, and grinned. His cocky attitude begged for an ass kicking. The guy was pretty enough in a tanned, underwear-model way. But he didn’t interest her. Her intuition kicked out a warning—a lethal warrior hovered beneath that beautiful veneer. His smile verged on wolfish.

He said, “I get that you’ve got some sort of screwed up past. All of us have been through some wild shit before getting inducted. You’ll get over it or work through it or repress it. Just don’t tell Dr. Kira about it because she’ll make you sit on a couch and shrink talk that shit out.” He shuddered and then threw her a brilliant smile. “This…THIS is the end of life as you remember. Of mortality. So, let’s celebrate. Come get a drink with me.” His mesmerizing smile widened. It compelled.

Her skepticism fell away. She almost smiled back, ready to believe anything he said. Wait a minute.
Snap of it! He’s one of them.
One of the immortal Scimitar Magi asses that brought her back from the brink of the death she wanted.

“Go away.” She resumed a fetal position and rolled away from him.

“You wouldn’t be interested dressed like that. Those have got to be government-issue cargo pants, and I suspect you’re wearing a sports bra. You’ve got a curvy supermodel bod. Why hide it?” He pivoted to collect whatever she’d heard him deposit on the plush chair when he entered. He dumped clothes on the bed and a pair of black boots.

“I don’t do boots.”
Liar.
She just didn’t do boots for in-office work. On a mission…well, she’d donned many a disguise that required spectacular boots like those resting on the edge of the bed. A secret thrill hit her stomach. She loved trendy clothes, but denied herself the luxury. Finances were tight and clothes weren’t a priority.

He walked around to the bed until she saw his face. He smiled wide. “Tonight you do.” His voice slid to a velvety caress. “Hit the shower. Wash off the past two days of pouting. Pull on these clothes and then let’s party.” He flashed that too-handsome grin again.

“I’m not sleeping with you.” She scowled at him.

He held up his hands in a whoa-no-way. “Not on the agenda. I mean it. Talk about messing up a working relationship from the start. And when your guy shows up…there’s no way we’re having that hanging over us. Now don’t take that as an I-wouldn’t-be-interested, darlin’. If you weren’t about to get inducted, you’d be on the top of my list.” His gaze centered in on her chest.

“I don’t do one-night stands. If we go out, I don’t want to be touched. By anyone.”

“No touching. I’ll be your bodyguard. We’ll drink, dance, drink some more. Whatever. The first step is to stop this Sleeping Beauty shit. Dying will happen fast enough. Don’t doubt it. But you’ve got to enjoy what you’ve got. For Christ’s sake, Astrid, you can’t be much more than thirty. You’re a prime hottie. Flaunt it. Make men drool and enjoy it.”

A hottie? That’s a stretch.
She knew how to work what she had, when required, but
hot
was not a word she’d ever heard used to describe her
.
His gist resonated loud and clear—live for the moment,
carpe diem
bullshit. Who knew what would transpire at tomorrow’s induction ceremony, which was to be MC’d by a goddess. Apparently, she’d been
chosen
by the magi’s gods.