Rising Darkness (A GAME OF SHADOWS NOVEL) (22 page)

The corners of her eyes crinkled as she looked down at him. When she drew the razor across his cheek, it felt like a caress. “I think we can say I’m officially fussing now.”

* * *

WHILE HE WIPED
his face with the washcloth, Mary found clean clothes for him and set them beside the tub. She had to step between his long, outstretched legs in order to move around the tiny bathroom.

A spark lightened his sober gaze. He took hold of her forearm, and she stopped moving. Watching her steadily, he stroked the callused ball of his thumb along the sensitive skin inside her elbow. Sexuality shimmered between them again. She gave him a crooked smile back, shook her head and slipped out of the room so he could bathe in private.

Linen, blankets and pillows were stored in tubs underneath the bed, packed with rings of cedar. She made the bed efficiently with old, soft cotton sheets, two cotton blankets, and a heavy, insulated green bedspread. With only the fireplace for heating, the cabin would get cold at night.

Then she tackled her neglected hair with the travel brush from her purse. The shoulder-length tangled mane was already partially dried, and she had a miserable fight with it. She had just managed to wrestle it into a simple braid when Michael strode out of the bathroom, his dark, wet hair slicked against his well-shaped head. He wore only black cotton pants that rode low at his hips, revealing a long washboard abdomen, and carried socks and a T-shirt in one hand.

She had known he was big, of course, but she hadn’t realized how massive he was across his chest, arms and shoulders. He had the heavy, mature muscles of a man who had spent his life fighting.

She forgot what she was doing and stared at him with her mouth open. Her body forgot how much it had been kicked around, as her long-dormant sexuality came to singing life, not as a brief shimmer of possibility this time but as a searing bolt of urgency. Red heat settled into a sharp, throbbing ache between her legs.

Then she closed her mouth with a snap, spun around and turned down the bed, her hands lingering unnecessarily to twitch the bedspread into better alignment. Maybe while she was fussing at the bed, she could find a way to stuff this attraction under the mattress.

Of all the times for this to happen. Could it be any more inconvenient?

She couldn’t remember when she had last been sexually attracted to someone. Had she ever been? After some experimentation, and her lackluster experience with Justin, she had shrugged, said no big deal and closed the door on the whole subject while she concentrated on getting through the rigors of her residency.

To tell the absolute truth, a part of her had been relieved and even eager to shut that door, for she couldn’t regard sex as just a physical act and she wasn’t able to handle the intimacy, the emotional involvement.

Michael gave her a long, deliberate look then walked over to the table and picked up his gun. He reached into the large black bag and removed a sword in a scabbard. “Do you know how to shoot a gun?” he asked.

Jolted out of her preoccupation, she lifted her head and stared at what he held. Then she sat down slowly on the edge of the bed.

She had been right earlier. That was an honest-to-goodness sword.

“I know how to point and pull a trigger,” she said. “Theoretically. I mean it’s pretty evident. Do I know how to aim, or where the safety catch is, or how to clean a gun or reload it? I do not. I’ve never held a gun before in my life, and I never want to either.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I hope you never have to. But in case you do . . .”

“Oh no.” She threw herself backward on the bed with a groan, flopping her arms flung over her head.

“Oh yes,” he said.

He knelt on one knee on the bed, caught her wrist and yanked her upright. Then he sat beside her and proceeded to show her the sleek, black weapon he held in one hand. She sighed as she thought of the BabyMamas.

“This is a nine-millimeter,” he said. “It’s my smallest gun, and it’s the only thing I have that’s halfway suitable for the size of your grip. Here’s the safety catch. This is when it is on safety, and this is how you turn it off. This is how you reload.” He removed the clip and slapped it back into place. “If you ever have to fire this or any other gun, remember it has a kick. Try to anticipate that and brace yourself as you shoot. Squeeze the trigger, don’t yank at it.”

She endured the impromptu lesson as he made her hold the unloaded gun, heft its weight in her hands and practice holding it in a shooting posture. The gun was lighter than she expected. She stared at it in revulsion.

“That’s it, I’ve had it,” she said. She flopped back on the bed again, a Raggedy Ann doll of passive resistance. “I’ve had-it-ten-hours-ago had it. I don’t want to see or do anything else.”

“I guess that’ll have to do for now. Just be sure to grab this one if you need to.” He placed the nine-millimeter on the dresser and laid the sword on the floor beside the bed. Then he went to the black bag and pulled out another, much bigger gun. His large hand gripped it with casual effortlessness. “This is my gun.”

She stared. “That’s not a gun, it’s a hand cannon.”

“It’s an assault rifle. It fires more than six hundred and fifty rounds per minute.”

“Yeah, well,” she muttered. “Like I said, hand cannon.”

His well-shaped mouth quirked. “Whatever. Just don’t grab this one, okay?”

“That is so not a problem,” she told him as she stared at the ceiling.

Guns are not sexy. They’re not.

Watching him, now, as he held a gun, checked the chamber for rounds, took it apart and reassembled it, his every movement economical and efficient, while his tough face remained thoughtful and calm—okay, that was sexy. That was very much sexy.

Damn it. She had never been a soldier-groupie, and she wasn’t going to start being one now.

“Good.” He placed it on the dresser alongside the other one. “Tomorrow I’m going to take you outside so you can practice firing at an actual target and reloading.”

“Just for the record,” she said to the ceiling, “I’d rather not.”

“Duly noted,” he said ruthlessly. “We’re still going to do it.”

She raised herself up on one elbow and glowered at him. Then she touched the edge of the sword’s scabbard with a delicate toe. The scabbard was plain leather, ugly with scratches and scrapes, the hilt of the sword worn.

This wasn’t a replica or a museum piece. This sword was used hard on a regular basis. No wonder his muscles were so built up across his chest and shoulders. She wondered where and how he practiced, and with whom. “Why a sword?”

“Sometimes it’s the best weapon.” He checked outside then bolted the door.

She brooded. “You know how to use a lot of different weapons,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

He sat on the bed beside her. “Yeah.”

“It’s what you do,” she said. “I know.”

He sat far too close. The mattress tilted down toward his greater weight. The pulse in her throat and wrists gave an erratic leap. Sitting upright, her gaze flew from him, to the fire dying in the fireplace, to the guns on the dresser like a trapped and panicked bird.

“Mary,” he said in quiet voice. He touched her temple and traced along the edge of her hairline. His callused fingers ghosted along her skin with remarkable sensitivity. She shivered. “We should sleep now.”

She nodded. She gave the wall a ferocious frown, miserable with confusion and desire.

She said with grim determination, “Those creatures we once were. They belong in the past.”

He said nothing. He stroked along the curve of her cheek and caressed the soft, sensitive skin of her lower lip.

The muscles of her thighs shook with fine, small tremors. She looked straight ahead then closed her eyes and said unsteadily, “We’re nothing to each other anymore.”

He curled his fingers around her ear. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “We were what we were, and we’ll always have a deep soul connection because of it.”

“We might have known each other for forever, but crazy as it sounds, we also met less than two days ago,” she insisted. Even to her own ears she sounded weak. “We’re human now.”

“We’re more than human. We’ll never be fully human. Look at me.”

She opened her eyes and turned her head. When their gazes met, she felt a deep sense of falling. His lean, tough face was serious. He said, “You are looking at your best friend in the entire world right now.”

She went still, both physically and mentally, everything going quiet and calm, as she realized she believed him. “I know.”

“That would still be true if I was seventy-five years old and looked like Santa Claus,” he said gently.

He surprised her into a small laugh. “Would it? What if I looked like one of Snow White’s seven dwarves?”

“Of course.” He cocked his head, considering her. “You do realize that we have been together in many lives, but we have not always been sex partners.”

She blinked. “I . . . haven’t had a chance to think about it.”

“Of course you haven’t. But the fact is, I am not Santa Claus, and you are not a bearded dwarf. We’re also not siblings in this life, or parent and child, or grandparent and grandchild.” He gave her a slow, male smile that creased his lean cheeks and lit up those pewter eyes. “Instead, you are a woman who is so beautiful and vibrant you take my breath away.”

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t you dare.”

His eyebrows rose, and his smile deepened. Who knew. The tough soldier guy had dimples. His fingers slipped under her chin and caressed the slender column of her throat. “Don’t I dare what?”

Her eyelids lowered to half-mast. Her recalcitrant lips kept trying to droop into a soft sexy pout. She folded them tight and warned, “Don’t you dare try to seduce me.”

“I won’t, I promise,” he murmured. “I’ll just kiss you instead.”

He gave her plenty of time to pull away, she had to give him that. He twisted at the waist and tilted his head, and somehow she found herself leaning forward as she lost control over her renegade mouth. When his warm firm lips took hers she was already kissing him back. Her pulse ratcheted to a higher speed.

His hand moved up to cup the back of her head as he deepened the kiss. The texture and pressure of his firm lips, the penetration of his tongue, were intensely sensual.

Just sharing that one, light kiss with him was more arousing than any sexual encounter she’d ever had. She curled a hand over his thick wrist as she lost herself in shocked pleasure.

He pulled back with obvious reluctance. She forced her heavy eyelids open as he took in a breath that shuddered through his muscled frame. He cleared the back of his throat and said in a husky voice, “I know the timing sucks. And maybe we are more human now than we were, and maybe we don’t know who the hell we are to each other any more. All I know is that we have a rare chance to find out.”

“It’s just all happened so fast,” she whispered.

“I know. But it would be a damn shame if we didn’t keep an open mind about each other. You have been missing for so long, and he took all of your choices away from you for hundreds of years. Give us a chance to find out who we are to each other right now, in this life. Whatever that might be.”

She touched her mouth as she stared at him. Her lips were still slick and moist from his. She whispered, “Yes, you’re right. Of course I will.”

He kissed her mouth again, more quickly, and then her nose, and the thin, tender skin at her temple. “And,” he said, “we need to sleep. I’ll warn you, I am horribly pragmatic.”

“I
know
,” she said.

Surprise bolted across his face. He burst out laughing.

She gave him a small grin and hurried on to say, “No, I mean, I
agree
. You’re absolutely right. We’ve got to get some rest.”

“All right,” he said. “Scoot over. You get the wall side of the bed.”

He was putting himself between her and the door, in reach of his weapons. She didn’t argue with that logic. Instead she slid over and slipped under the blankets. He stretched out on top of the covers with a weary sigh, reached for her and pulled her down against his side. She curled against his long body. He kept one arm around her shoulders, passed the other hand over her hair and kissed her temple one more time before closing his eyes, while she rested her head on his warm bare shoulder.

His male energy surrounded her, warm and nourishing. She relaxed, basking, and something cramped and long-starved melted away.

Maybe that had nothing to do with her ancient, alien self. Maybe that was her human self, relishing the simple pleasure of being held in a strong man’s arms, the exotic sensation of feeling safe and well. She blanketed him with her lighter, more delicate energy, and felt him ease into peace.

They seemed to fit together with such perfection. Contrast and confluence, two interlocking pieces that balanced and sustained each other.

“I’m so glad you found me,” she whispered.

His arms tightened. He murmured, “I am too. Rest.”

She did. She slipped gently into a deep, dreamless sleep, as light and silent and drifting as snowfall.

Chapter Twenty

GRATEFUL FOR THE
chance to let his tired body go lax, Michael fell into a heavy sleep.

If asked, he would have said he was so unconscious that he didn’t know a thing, but there was a part of him that went deeper than unconsciousness, that was more buried than his bones. That part was aware of the warm slender body curled against his side, and the bright energy that lay over him like a silken blanket.

The sensations sent him on a strange journey. He crossed a border into an exotic country filled with comfort and easement, and for the first time in centuries, he enjoyed a nourishing peaceful rest.

When an entity began to probe at the corners of his mind with a subtle, delicate dexterity, he roused.

He met it head-on. When he recognized it, he managed to stay the daggerlike psychic lash he had almost flung in its direction.

He said,
Astra
.

Michael.
Amusement colored Astra’s words.
Always the stronghold.

Naturally
, he told her.
It’s what I do.

I’ve never once managed to get all the way inside your head
, she mused.
Or touch your dream images, not even when you were a child.

He said nothing. He remembered it well, how she had probed at him, trying to get in.

I wish I could figure out how you do that
, she continued.
It’s a hell of a talent. I can get into anyone else’s dreams, human or otherwise, even the Deceiver’s, although I do not like going there. But not you. You do dream, don’t you?

Of course I do.
He pulled an image around him, the mental gesture like donning a cloak.

A great hall in an early Norman castle appeared, with a long scarred wooden table, a massive fireplace standing cold and empty and suits of armor displayed at various points around the room. The castle was from that first, strong memory he had recovered, their home in a previous life. The life that had taught him the simple, powerful lesson of happiness.

He had never let Astra see any other mental image but this public arena where he had once ruled as warlord. It served as both message and reminder to her.

After he had formed the great hall, he created the mental construct of his physical self. Soon afterward, Astra’s small dark, feminine shape appeared. She never appeared as an old woman in dream or psychic sendings. Instead, she wore the appearance of the young woman she had once been so long ago.

She looked so delicate and innocent, in the first blush of her youth, and that, he knew, was one of the most dangerous illusions anywhere in the world.

“What do you want?” he said, his tone truculent. He stalked over to the head of the table and sat. “I’m busy.”

“Are you? Busy doing what?” she asked. She studied him with large, expressive eyes. “I wouldn’t have been able to reach you if you hadn’t been sleeping. Why don’t you want to visit with me?”

She still probed along the edges of his awareness with delicate little touches, rather like a cat lapping at a bowl of cream. He had lost count of how many times he had endured it before. He had always been faintly repelled by the sensation.

“I was
resting
,” he snapped. “Which is entirely different from just sleep. Let’s get this over with. What do you want?”

She ignored that. “How long will it take for you to reach me?”

“We’ve stopped, so it will be a couple of days.” His foul temper prompted him to add, “If we come.”

“What?” The single word hit him like a slap. Fury suffused her features. “You would never seriously consider such a thing. Why would you make such a threat?”

“Because you’re pissing me off,” he said. “Seriously. I am sick to death of your constant questioning and testing. Now quit screwing around with me, and tell me what you really want. Are you trying—again—to see if I’ve been corrupted?”

Anger vibrated through her. “I have seen it happen.”

“I’m sure you have,” he said, regarding her with weariness.

“You of all people should know why I do the things I do!”

“Should I?” His voice turned hard. “There’s a huge difference between someone who refuses to be controlled by you, and someone who’s been corrupted by the Deceiver. I know you’ve always been freaked out that you can’t get inside my head. You think I’m not aware of how often you’ve wondered whether or not I might be too great a risk for you to handle? Get the fuck over it, Astra.”

“You forget your place,” she hissed. “How dare you speak that way
TO ME
.”

“I haven’t forgotten anything. My sense of autonomy doesn’t mean I’ve been corrupted, and I don’t want to play this game right now. Be straightforward for once in your life—if you can—or I swear Mary and I might just walk away, because I’ve earned better from you over the years, and I’ve had it.”

Silence fell. Underneath the illusion of imagery, her energy roiled with anger. He remained as still and obdurate as stone.

Finally her energy calmed, and she approached to sit at the table near his right hand. She asked, “I could sense when Mary stopped bleeding in the psychic realm. You don’t have the skill to heal something like that, and she couldn’t have healed herself. That wound was too severe. I want to know who healed her, and what happened to her.”

He drew on his reserves of patience. “She summoned one of the Eastern dragons. It was a very old, powerful one. It remembered her from a former life and looked on her kindly.”

Quick suspicion chilled her features. “She knew to call a dragon?”

He pinched his nose. “Mary is not faking. She’s not twisted, and she’s not controlled by anyone either. Once I found her, I haven’t left her alone for any discernable length of time. I watched when the dragon breathed fire on her. It burned her clean.” He paused then added slowly, “It was quite a miraculous sight, and I don’t say that lightly, because I’ve seen a hell of a lot.”

“Why have you stopped moving? You know he’s going to redouble his efforts to find you.”

He had to quell another upsurge of irritation. He told her what Mary had said earlier. “We made the best decision we could under the circumstances. We’ve had a complicated, dangerous and exhausting couple of days. Mary was attacked by two of his drones, and we’ve both had traumatic memories surface. Yes, stopping is a calculated risk, but it’s a necessary one, and I’ve taken every precaution.”

She searched his expression. “You’re sure?”

He knew that the closer they came to confronting their old enemy, the more paranoid she had to feel about the possibility of being deceived, but he thought she was beginning to be mollified and reassured. He replied, “Of course I’m sure. You know as well as I do that there are no guarantees, but I’ve set sentinels in place. If he gets close, we’ll be warned.”

“I don’t like it,” she muttered, her delicate brows drawing into a frown. She spread her hands on the table, running her fingers along the scars on its surface.

“You don’t have to like it,” he said, crossing his arms and propping his feet on the edge of the table. “You just have to live with it.”

Her mouth tightened briefly. “At least she’s healed—she’s really healed, and she knows who she is? That is so much more than we dared to hope.”

He smiled. It creased his lean face and lit up his eyes, an expression proud and savage at once. In a soft voice, like velvet sheathing steel, he agreed, “Yes, it is.”

Her glance lifted to his face and lingered on the smile as if it were a strange sight. “You said you both recovered traumatic memories. Do you know what happened to her, and how she got wounded? Were you there?”

The smile vanished, leaving only the savagery. “Yes.”

Her gaze dropped to her hands. After a moment, she said, “I see. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what—that you couldn’t help me remember? Don’t be,” he told her. “We didn’t recover anything of that lifetime because I couldn’t stand to remember. Now I know, and I needed to know. But I also wish I didn’t.”

She took a deep breath. “What happened?”

“I’m not going to talk about it,” he said. “I can’t speak for Mary, so you’d have to ask her what she’s willing to discuss. But my experience isn’t relevant to the present. That’s all you need to know.”

She nodded and stood. The illusion of the young woman wavered and grew thin. “I will see what I can do pinpoint his location,” she said. “Don’t take too long to rest.”

He said, “We will see you soon.”

“Creator willing.” She faded.

He did not echo the sentiment. He doubted there was a God, but if there was, Michael had no use for him.

He had no reason to linger after Astra left but he did anyway. He let his gaze roam over the scene. The only items that were anachronistic to the great hall were the suits of armor on display. At one time or another he had worn each one. He had added them to the hall image over the years, as he had recovered memories of different lifetimes throughout the ages.

He walked toward the oldest sets of armor and let the memories from those lives unfold. The armor was from one of his earliest lifetimes, soon after the group’s arrival on earth. His earliest lives were also his most public. He had only fallen into the habit of stealth much later. This one; yes, he remembered this one well. It had been a time of almost constant war, but then so had most of his lives.

They’d had the Deceiver cornered and had laid siege to the city that sheltered him. The siege had been a long, filthy, brutal business. He remembered the blood and the dust and the sweltering, crowded life of the army.

Gabriel and Raphael had been there. In that lifetime some quirk of destiny had seen them born as identical twins, inseparable as always, vivid and reckless and brilliant as two firebrands. They had loved to switch places and pretend to be each other, but they could never fool anybody from their group. Their birth mother had named them Castor and Pollux.

They had burst into his pavilion late one night, laughing drunkenly over some stupid escapade. Now he couldn’t remember what they had done. He had met the twins just inside the flap, naked, with sword and knife in hand, while Mary had scowled from the pallet of furs where they had slept.

What had been her name? He frowned, unable to grasp it. Members of their group had fast become the stuff of legend, until the stories took on a life of their own. In that culture and time gods and demons mingled freely with kings and ordinary men. The group hadn’t needed to cloak their abilities, which was refreshing in retrospect.

He had fast earned the reputation of being an invincible warrior, gifted by the gods. Whatever her name had been, he smiled to remember Mary’s obstinacy. She had insisted on dogging his heel everywhere he went, no matter how many times he had shouted at her to stay behind in safety. It became well known throughout both armies that she was his only point of vulnerability.

Astra had asked, in equal parts amusement and uncertainty, whether or not he dreamed, and he did. But what he dreamed was none of her business nor was it anyone else’s, except perhaps for one other person. In all four realms, physically, psychically, spiritually and emotionally, he was a fortress. He might be destroyed but he would never be conquered.

Except, perhaps, by or through one other person.

The long-dead people from those days had said that to strike at his heel was to strike him down.

After all this time he supposed that it was still true.