Authors: Rhyannon Byrd
“There’s a lot of shit in my past that I wouldn’t want
you to be forced to live with,” he said, pulling her up higher on the bed, so that they were lying face-to-face and he could look into her eyes. “But I still want you. After seeing the way I react to you, I don’t think there’s any way you can doubt that, Raine.”
“It sounds crazy,” she murmured, touching his stubbled cheek with her fingertips, “but I think I’m actually starting to believe you. But…” Sadness darkened her eyes, her lower lip trembling as she said, “But sometimes want simply isn’t enough.”
“I think you’re wrong.” He slid his hand over her hip, and satisfaction burned through his veins when she shivered from the simple caress. “The way we are together—that’s a helluva lot more than most couples have.”
And no matter what he had to do, he’d find a way to make it enough. He might not ever be able to give her his blood, but damn it, he’d keep her drenched in pleasure. Keep her so satisfied, she wouldn’t care that she couldn’t bite him…or that he’d kept her from her revenge.
“You know, when you look at me the way you are right now, as if you want to eat me alive, it… I don’t know how to explain it.” A soft smile touched her mouth, her eyes burning with a kind of bright, inner light. “But it makes me feel better than I’ve felt in a long time. So thank you for that. For this. For…everything.”
“I have other ways to make you feel better,” he rasped, running his mouth along the delicate edge of her jaw.
She tilted her head back to give him better access, and gave a soft laugh. “You’re insatiable, McConnell.”
“Just desperate.” He groaned with enough feeling that
she actually giggled, the light sound filling him with a poignant shot of pleasure. If he could, he’d spend the rest of his life making her giggle and laugh and smile. Simply making her
happy.
“You do know human males are supposed to have low stamina, don’t you?” she teased as he rolled her beneath him, his weight braced on his elbows.
“Yeah, well, I’ve always been an overachiever,” he drawled, and she was still laughing when he pushed back inside her, that sweet sound becoming an even sweeter moan.
As he started to move, Seth’s throat burned with the need to tell her everything. That he was in love with her. Completely. Desperately. That he loved everything about her, every part of her, and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But he couldn’t get the words out, too afraid of how she would react, terrified his confession would send her running.
So he gathered her beneath him and took her mouth, pouring everything he felt into the blistering kiss…and showed her with his body instead.
The following morning…
H
E WOKE UP ROARING
, but Raine had expected nothing less.
After all, there were only so many ways a guy could react when he opened his eyes and found himself cuffed to a bed. And considering she wasn’t a dominatrix, he
was probably going to assume that this
wasn’t
fun and games, but the real deal.
“What the hell?” he growled, jerking at the handcuff she’d taken from his bag and hooked onto his strong wrist, the other end locked around one of the thick iron bars that ran vertically across the sturdy, antique headboard. Even though he was exceptionally strong, she didn’t think he would be able to break free.
“I’m sorry, Seth.” The words were hardly enough to placate him, but they needed to be said. The look of be trayal burning in his dark eyes cut straight through her like a knife, and she wished there was a way to make him understand. She had to at least try…
Quietly, she said, “I can’t forget what Seton said about Calder.” Her hands wrapped around the strap of the pack she’d thrown over her shoulder, the grip so tight her fingers tingled. “So I called my parents in the middle of the night and asked them to come here. They’re waiting in the kitchen, and they’re going to watch over you until I let them know that it’s okay to let you go.” She paused as she realized she might
not
be able to contact them if things went badly, then added, “Or in a few days, if, um, something happens and I can’t get in touch with them.”
He pushed himself up into a sitting position, his jaw locked so tight it bulged at the sides. “And just where do you think you’re going without me?”
“Kellan called last night while you were in the shower. They’ve found the last Marker. I’m going to meet them in
Paris today, where we’ll try to form the map. And then once that’s done, we’ll be going into Meridian.”
“And you think you’re going with them?” he demanded, the muscles in his chest and shoulders bunching with rage.
She nodded, and he strained against the cuff so violently that his skin started to tear beneath the metal, the scent of his blood filling the room.
“Please, don’t do that!” She fought the urge to move closer to the bed, her eyes filling with tears. “You’re hurting yourself!”
“You can’t leave me here!” he roared, his deep voice bellowing with fury and fear. He twisted around, the sheet tangling around his hips as he used his free hand to wrench and pull on the wrought-iron headboard, but it wouldn’t budge. Finally, he stopped the violent struggle and lowered his head, his breath rattling between his parted lips. “Damn it, Raine, you can’t do this.” He turned his head, locking that searing gaze with hers. “You can’t do this to a man who’s falling in love with you!”
She reeled, her heart stuttering as those rough words slammed into her. Shaking, she swallowed, then somehow managed to say, “If that’s true, Seth, then it’s even more important that I do this.”
“How the hell does that make any sense?”
“If my life is ever going to be worth anything, then I have to know that I did everything I could to make sure that Rietta’s killers pay for what happened to her.”
“Then let me do it,” he growled. “Stay here with your
parents and trust me to do this for you. I’ll get you the revenge you need. I promise you. But I need you to be safe.”
“I can’t,” she cried. “You heard what Seton said. If you go into Meridian with the others, they’re going to kill you.”
“You think I’m that easy to kill?” His expression tightened with a savage mix of anger and frustration. “Jesus, Raine. When are you going to realize that I can take care of myself?”
“I know you can. But they’re going to target you because of
me
. And that’s not fair, Seth. They were my mistakes, which means this has to be
my
fight.”
“Like hell it does. When you love someone, you share the fights,” he argued in a low voice, the look in his dark eyes tearing all the way to her soul. “I’d do anything for you, Raine.
Anything
. But if you walk out that door and leave me here, then we’re done.”
She flinched, her heart hammering as she took a step back, feeling as if he’d just dealt her a physical blow. “You can’t blame me, Seth. You did the same to me yesterday. And I forgave you, because I knew you only acted out of fear for my safety. I’m just doing the same thing.”
“It’s not the same, damn it!”
“Why? Because you’re the man and I’m the woman?”
“Yes. No. I don’t fucking know,” he seethed, his corded throat working as he swallowed. “But just because I know you’re a strong woman doesn’t mean I want
to see you in the middle of a battlefield! I don’t want to lose you!”
She didn’t want to lose him, either. But she had to do this. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life like this. Didn’t want to carry the crushing weight of guilt and failure with her every second of every day. It had taken Seth years to purge his demons. If they were ever going to have a chance, she would have to do the same.
“If you still want,” she whispered, “then we can talk when this is over.”
“You know, I knew it was going to come to this. That you’d run.” His voice cracked at the end, but he shook his head and latched back on to his anger, his words coming hard and sharp. “I knew you were never going to have the guts to give me a chance.”
“I hate that you feel that way, because it’s not true. I just want to keep you alive, Seth. I can’t let you throw your life away because of me. And I can’t let you keep me from doing what I came here for.”
He stared back at her, his cold gaze completely stripped of the warmth that she’d come to love. “You shut that door, and that’s it,” he muttered. “Don’t bother crawling back.”
The words were cruel, but she could see the hurt in the grim lines of his expression and knew he was striking out at her any way he could. Her tears flowed hard and fast and free, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she didn’t try to stop them. It would have been impossible. They were coming from too deep inside her. A place that lay even deeper than her guilt.
“I’ll try it, anyway, if I come through this in one piece.”
“Jesus, Raine. Think about what you’re doing. Are you really willing to break a sacred covenant? Do you know what that will mean? If the Grangers tell the Deschanel Court, the vampires will look down on you forever. Are you honestly willing to live with that for revenge?”
“No,” she said from the doorway, choking on her tears, “but I’m willing to live with that for you.”
Then she closed the door behind her.
Mount Agri, Turkey
Late the following afternoon…
N
O MATTER WHAT
Raine did, nothing felt right, as if she’d left Italy without a limb…or her heart.
No. Don’t think like that,
she silently scolded, following the others as they trekked their way deeper into the mountain
. You don’t have time for it.
And she honestly didn’t. Traveling through an ancient tunnel that’d been carved into a mountain was harder than she’d thought it would be. But then, since the moment she’d walked away from Seth, nothing had been easy. She missed him so much she could barely function…and she wasn’t the only one wishing he was there.
When Raine had met up with the Watchmen in Paris, the first thing Kellan Scott had asked her was, “Where the hell’s McConnell?” She’d claimed they’d had an argument and he’d stormed off, leaving his bag and phone behind, shouting that he was done with her and the war. And while the others were clearly finding her version of events difficult to believe, at least no one had come right out and called her a liar. Instead, they’d grumbled
and cursed, and then they’d gotten to work on the Markers, trying to create the map that would lead them all to Meridian.
Kierland had booked the group a massive suite at the hotel, and almost everyone from Harrow House had been there, with the exception of a few of the women and Aiden Shrader’s adopted daughter. Even Aiden and Quinn had made it, hurrying back from Russia, where they’d been dealing with the latest Infettato attack. As long as the Death-Walkers were around, they were going to keep turning humans…keep creating chaos and spreading fear, and Raine knew it was a concern to everyone on the mission. After all, the moment they used the Dark Markers to kill the Casus shades, the monsters would be sent to hell…and the Death-Walkers would be released by the hundreds. Maybe even the thousands. Then it was
really
going to be a race against the clock to get the death journal deciphered, so that they could find a way to kill the psychotic creatures and save the world.
Wanting to help in any way that she could, Raine had tried using her powers to get a read on the Death-Walkers and their cursed Infettato, but she’d been unable to pick up anything from either species. That was another downside to having betrayed Seth. Ever since she’d left him cuffed to that damn bed, her powers had been growing weaker. With that one act, she’d managed to put herself back into a negative spiral of guilt and self-loathing, and she was now paying the price for her betrayal.
Though she’d wanted to simply go and hide away in
a corner, where she could have some quiet time to try and sort out the chaotic mess of her emotions, she had put on a brave face, knowing damn well that there was work to be done. She and the others had spent hours in that hotel suite, placing the twelve Dark Markers into different configurations, doing everything they could to create some kind of map—and then she’d finally seen it. Not landforms or coastlines. Not rivers or roads. Not coordinates or a diagram or even a map. But one simple word.
Ararat.
When Raine had pointed it out to the others, they’d frowned, not a single one of them making the connection. Rolling her eyes, she’d said, “Oh, come on. Are you telling me that I’m the only one here who ever went to Sunday school?”
“Sunday school?” Aiden had snorted, while someone else had muttered, “Is anyone else as confused as I am?”
Looking around the group, Raine had said, “Mount Ararat is the mountain where Noah landed the ark after the flood. It’s actually a mountain in Turkey called Mount Agri.”
“No shit? I know that name,” Gideon had drawled, a wide smile spreading across his gorgeous face. The vampire had joined up with them a few hours after they’d gathered at the hotel, everyone agreeing that it was more important to have him there rather than waiting for Westmore to show back in Italy. And since Spark had finally been transferred to one of the Italian
Watchmen compounds, Liam had been able to come along, as well.
“Ashe and I have a niece who works in the town at the base of Mount Agri,” the vamp had gone on to say. “She married a human who holds office in the local government. I’ve been to visit and we’ve gone skiing at one of the mountain’s resorts.”
So now here they were, in Turkey, freezing their asses off. Gideon had called his niece and asked her husband to have an avalanche warning declared, which had cleared the area of locals and tourists. But they were hardly alone. Watchmen from all over the world had shown up to help with the fight, and Raine had liked the ones she’d met, except for a guy named Remy from the Paris compound. The shifter had apparently met Seth when the soldier had stopped into his compound to pick up some weapons, and the guy had been vocal in his complaints about a former Collective officer being voted as the new security chief for their still-unnamed organization.
Remy had also enjoyed pointing out that Seth had failed to show for the fight. Kierland had warned the others from his unit to simply say that McConnell had been held up with some personal business that couldn’t be ignored, but it hadn’t done much to stop the talk that was spreading, which only added to Raine’s feelings of guilt. Here McConnell was trying to start a new life for himself, and she’d managed to make him look as though he’d turned his back on everyone when they needed him most.
What made it even worse was that Raine knew, from
the hazy snippets she’d managed to pick up from the others’ thoughts, that his friends were still holding on to the hope that the soldier would have a change of heart and contact them, which only compounded her guilt even more…further weakening her abilities. Then there was the issue of her family. Using her parents to keep watch over Seth had meant confessing to the lies she’d told them, which had been wrenching. But she’d needed their help. They’d been disappointed, but more worried than anything else. She only hoped they would honor her wishes and keep Seth from leaving that villa until it was safe for him to do so.
And yet, despite the fact that her powers were pathetically weak at the moment, Raine didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what everyone was thinking. They were all wondering why Westmore hadn’t attacked. Wondering what he was waiting for. Wondering what he knew that they didn’t.
Even though the Watchmen hadn’t been able to determine if those three Markers that had been in Westmore’s possession had been tagged with tracking chips, they were still going on the assumption that they were bugged. So then why hadn’t the Kraven made his move? Using the unique gift she had of “listening” to physical objects, Saige Buchanan had managed to find a hidden entrance about halfway up the mountain’s side that led to a wide tunnel. They were already well into the tunnel, which they believed was leading them to the prison’s gate, having made their way through a series of doors they’d unlocked by placing a single Marker into the
cross-shaped niches carved into the center of each one. Raine had no doubt they were getting close to Meridian, the walls no longer even made of actual rock, but shimmering with some kind of strange crimson glow that rendered their flashlights unnecessary. But there’d still been no sign of Westmore.
Just as strange was the fact that there’d been no sign of Westmore’s Kraven followers…or even the Collective Army. The weak readings Raine had managed to get on a few of the Kraven that belonged to Westmore’s inner circle had shown them to be in South Africa, waiting on instructions from their leader. And what she’d been able to glean from the Collective soldiers assigned to Westmore was just as disappointing, since it appeared they were in America dealing with a rogue family of wolves. As far as she could tell, no one was preparing to attack them, and more than ever, she wished she could read Westmore and see what was going on in his devious mind.
“This place creeps me out,” Aiden suddenly muttered, running one of his big palms along the glowing side of the tunnel. “Are we even inside the mountain anymore?”
“Don’t think so,” Noah Winston murmured, his deep voice rough with anticipation, his dark hair sticking up in crazy spikes from where he kept scraping his fingers through it. “We probably passed into some kind of alternate dimension when we went through that first doorway.”
Over the next hour, they passed through another
seven doorways, which made twelve so far. One for each Marker in their possession.
And an hour after that, they finally found the gate.
Though Ian had seen the gate before in his dreams, describing it as a vast monstrosity that spanned more than fifty feet wide and rose thirty feet high, the group still gave a collective gasp when they saw it. The same demonic red glow that had bled from the walls of the tunnel emanated from the cavern that held the gate, reflecting off its gleaming surface, its composition the same dark metal as that of the crosses. And since Kierland’s unit was leading the army of Watchmen, it was up to them to figure out a way to open it. They spread out, using their hands to investigate its warm surface, but could find nothing like the niches that had been carved into the doors they’d traveled through to get there. While Quinn used his wings to lift into the air, searching the top portion of the gate, Saige placed her palms against the engraved metal, once again listening with her power. After a moment, she took her hands from the gate and dropped her shoulders, her tone dejected as she said, “All it keeps saying is that the twelve Markers need to be placed at the same time.”
“Placed where?” Kierland asked, frustration edging his thick words. Other than the strange symbols etched into its surface, matching those on the Markers, the gate was smooth.
When Saige said she didn’t know, Ian muttered, “Well, here we are, just like in those goddamn dreams I keep
having. At the gate, and not a damned clue how to get through.”
“Wait!” Quinn called down, and they looked up to find him using his talons to scrape away what looked like layers of lime scale that had grown across the top of the gate. “I think I’ve found something!”
Within minutes, Quinn had uncovered twelve cross-shaped recesses, and Ian looked at his brother, Riley, asking, “Do you think you could move all twelve Markers into those slots at the same time?” Like his siblings, Riley also possessed a unique gift and could move objects with his mind.
Though it took Riley a few minutes to get the hang of handling that many objects at once, he finally managed to get them in place. A subdued cheer went through the group a moment later when a deep groan emanated from the gate. It shuddered as a fissure tore through its center, the ground vibrating beneath their feet. Kierland ordered everyone to draw their weapons, and then they put their shoulders against the heavy gate and pushed inward, forcing the sides to open. They kept pushing until both sides were flattened against the inner walls of what looked like an immense cave that grew wider as it spread deeper into the mountain…or wherever the hell they were. Riley retrieved the Markers from the two halves of the gate, then passed them around to the others, while keeping two for him and Saige.
There was nothing but the soft rush of a swirling, foggy wind as the group moved into the cavernous space, the moist air rank with the nauseating stench of rotting
flesh. Despite the crimson light that glowed from the rocky walls, they could only see about fifty feet in any direction, the fog obscuring visibility, but the place still oozed with evil, as if the very air was drenched with it.
“Holy shit,” Kellan whispered at Raine’s side. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, are we?”
“Definitely not,” she replied, her hands tightening on the long, lethal knives that Noah had supplied her with. Though the men had tried to make her take one of the crosses for protection, she’d argued that it would be best if the supernatural weapons were carried by the trained warriors in their group, knowing they were better equipped to use them against the Casus. Since they didn’t know exactly how the Markers were going to work within Meridian, she didn’t want to be the one who screwed up and made a mistake. She just wanted the Casus to die.
And since Westmore was a Kraven, if he finally showed, all Raine would need to destroy him was one of the wooden stakes she had strapped across her back. Then she could return to Italy and release Seth…and beg him for his forgiveness.
But I’m only going to see him again if I make it out of here in one piece.
“Where the hell are they?” Noah growled as he pushed to the front of the group, standing between her and Kellan. His ice-blue eyes scanned the inner recesses of the cavern. “There’s nothing here!”
“Quiet,” Kierland whispered, staring into the distance. “I think there’s someone coming toward us.”
“Chloe,” Kellan murmured, placing his hand on his fiancée’s shoulder, “can you give us a little more light, honey?”
The half-witch had been learning to use her newly unleashed powers, and was obviously getting stronger, since a warm ray of light spread out from her lifted palms.
“It’s Westmore,” Raine said with a stunned gasp. “How did he get here?”
A slow smile curled the Kraven’s mouth as he approached. “I came in through the back door,” he drawled, and there was no mistaking the thick note of satisfaction in his tone. Something was coming…and Raine had no doubt it was going to be bad. As the Watchmen kept pouring into the cave behind them, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were walking into a trap.
“The back door? What the fuck does that mean?” Kierland snarled, sounding almost more animal than man. All around her, Raine could feel the shape-shifters giving in to their predatory natures as they prepared for battle, while the Grangers released their talons and fangs.
“Well, I meant it metaphorically,” Westmore explained with a low laugh, his normally brown eyes burning with the bright, red glow that a Kraven could only achieve at night. “You see, while Meridian might be a bitch to escape from, it’s not all that hard to get into, if you know what you’re doing. Calder and his followers are powerful enough to do more than merely send shades across the divide. In the right circumstances, they can also pull a body from the outside world and trap them here inside
the prison. Not often, mind you, because it’s quite draining. But Calder was willing to do it for me. I didn’t even need to know the prison’s location. All I had to do was make my way to Marseilles, where I had a special altar waiting. Then it was a simple matter of having the Casus pull me across the divide that separates Meridian from the rest of the world, and now I’m here.”