“Myst, remember one thing,” Boggs said, his tone suddenly urgent.
“What?”
“One man’s weapon is another man’s gift.”
The words had barely left the doppelganger’s lips before there was a crack of thunder and the male disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Myst stumbled back as the blast of magic nearly sent her to her knees.
Holy . . . shit.
Chapter Thirteen
Two hours later, Bas halted in the shadows of the stone wall that surrounded a sleepy village. Still holding Myst’s hand, he studied her pale face.
During the silent trek through the countryside his fury had been honed to a lethal emotion.
The Keeper of Tales had been just as annoyingly vague as he’d expected. Hell, the entire journey had been a humongous waste of time. But it was his companion’s lethargic attitude that was scraping against his nerves.
Myst was a bright, shimmering ray of sunlight. Even after everything she’d endured, she carried with her a buoyant energy that was infectious. Just like Molly.
Now it was as if the light had been extinguished, leaving her shrouded in darkness.
The very thought hurt his soul.
Stepping close enough to be surrounded by her honeysuckle scent, he palmed her cheek.
“Are you okay?” he demanded, his voice pitched low.
She sucked in a shuddering breath. “No.”
“Myst.” His hand slid to cup her cheek, tilting back her head so he could study her grim expression. “Talk to me.”
“It’s stupid,” she muttered. “I knew this was a long shot. I’ve been searching for years without any luck. Still . . .”
His fingers tightened on her chin as her words trailed away.
“We’ll find the answers,” he promised, the words a solemn pledge.
“But not today.” Her lips twisted with a pained emotion as she remained lost in her thoughts. Then, with an obvious effort, she smoothed her features to an unreadable mask. “You need to get back to Molly.”
He narrowed his gaze. He didn’t like the feeling she was shutting him out.
In fact, it frankly pissed him off.
“Both of us are going back,” he said in tones that warned his plan was nonnegotiable. “Once we’re at Valhalla we can decide what our next move will be.”
She was shaking her head before he ever finished speaking. “Bas, you know I can’t go there.”
“Of course you can. It’s the safest place for you.”
“And the most dangerous,” she said, deliberately pulling away from his light grasp.
His eyes narrowed. “Are you afraid of Lana?” he bluntly demanded. “You know I would never allow her to hurt you.”
A strange emotion rippled over her face. “I’m afraid of myself.”
Christ. Abruptly he realized she was worried that she was about to cause some sort of Armageddon.
“That’s ridiculous,” he growled.
“It’s not,” she insisted, her hands clenching. “You didn’t see the vision, Bas. It’s . . . terrifying.” She gave a sharp shake of her head. “I have to stop it.”
He believed her. He truly did. A seer’s vision was a glimpse of the future.
But that didn’t mean it was inevitable.
It was one possible future.
“Then we come up with a new plan,” he said, barely resisting the urge to wrap her in his arms. She looked so damned fragile, as if she might shatter into a thousand pieces. Unfortunately, they couldn’t risk staying in such a visible area even a second longer than necessary. Any comfort would have to wait. “But first we need to get you someplace where the Brotherhood can’t get to you.”
“No.” The word was ruthlessly adamant even as her breath came in small pants. “I won’t go there. I won’t.”
“Easy, Myst,” he murmured, sensing she was barely in control of her emotions. Skimming his fingers down her arms, he urged her against the ivy that covered the stone wall. He felt perilously exposed as a car drove past to slowly turn through the wide gate. Who knew how many eyes were watching them? “Once the clairvoyant is captured we can leave.”
She shivered, her heart pounding so loudly he could hear each beat.
“I’m running out of time.”
His fingers lightly grasped her wrists, his thumbs gently rubbing back and forth in an effort to calm her. A rueful smile twisted his lips. Or maybe he was trying to calm himself.
Her barely restrained panic was starting to twist his gut with dread.
“How do you know?”
She gave another shiver. “I can feel it.”
Dammit. He refused to accept that he couldn’t control the situation.
“Fine, it might be near, but you don’t have a weapon,” he said in gentle tones. “We can still—”
“You heard Boggs,” she interrupted. “He said it might have something to do with my blood.”
“That idiot . . .” Bas made a sound of disgust. “He told us nothing but a bunch of cryptic nonsense.”
Her expression hardened. “He saw destruction.”
“It doesn’t matter what he saw,” Bas insisted. As far as he was concerned the Master of Tales had been nothing more than a gigantic pain in the ass. “We’re going to get through this.” He lifted her hands, pressing his lips to her knuckles. “Together.”
“Bas.” A deep yearning darkened her eyes. As if she was desperately longing to believe his assurances. Then, without warning, she was tugging her hands free and forcing a tight smile to her lips. “You’re right. I’m being ridiculous.”
Bas frowned, sensing the barriers she was trying to create between them.
“I’m right?”
“Yes.” The faux smile never faltered. “Obviously I’m upset and not thinking clearly.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Hmm.”
Easily sensing that she wasn’t fooling him for a second, she cleared her throat and glanced toward the gateway leading into the village.
“How are we getting back to Valhalla?”
“We’ll have to use one of the monasteries,” he confessed. He’d already considered and discarded a dozen different means of transportation. They simply didn’t have the time it would take to travel by traditional methods. Still, his decision didn’t come without risk. “Unfortunately, if the Brotherhood have any brains at all they’ll be waiting for us.”
She gave a slow nod, her lack of response revealing she’d already considered the danger.
“How are we going to get past them?”
“A disguise.”
“A nice thought, but I don’t have your unique talent,” she pointed out dryly.
He shrugged. “Then we do it the old-fashioned way.”
She arched her brows. “I’m afraid to ask.”
Unable to resist, he reached out to stroke back a silver curl that’d escaped from her braid.
“Wait here and I’ll find something that will cover that remarkable hair,” he promised, his gaze skimming down to the sundress that fit her with disturbing perfection. “And even more remarkable body.”
“Okay.”
He stilled. Something was wrong. Really wrong. Myst never gave in so easily. In fact, he’d already decided that she argued with him just out of a perverse need to keep him at a distance.
His fingers stroked along the line of her stubborn jaw. “You’re starting to worry me, cara.”
Her lips thinned with annoyance. “I just agreed with you.”
“And that’s what worries me,” he murmured.
She brushed away his lingering hand, her expression unreadable.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course not.” He forced a smile to his lips that was as fake as hers. She was up to something, but there was no way in hell she was going to share what she was plotting. He would have to find out by more nefarious means. “Stay here, and behave yourself,” he commanded.
He’d turn
ed away and was heading toward the nearby entrance to the village when he heard her call out his name.
“Bas.”
He turned to meet her unconsciously regretful expression. “Yes?”
“Be careful.”
With a nod, he disappeared through the gate that’d been carved into the stone wall. Then, with a blinding speed that made him all but invisible to the human eye, he was at the far end of the village. Bending his knees, he shoved himself upward, catching the edge of the wall so he could vault himself over.
From there he circled back to where he’d left Myst, not surprised to discover her hurrying down the road in the opposite direction.
He’d already suspected she intended to try and slip away, but the proof of her betrayal still managed to slice through his heart.
Dammit.
He’d spent centuries honing his ruthless composure. Not only during his training as an assassin, but during his years as an outlaw mercenary.
Survival meant that his emotions never, ever controlled him. But this tiny female had an unnerving ability to shatter his self-control.
Usually without even trying.
Moving out of the shadows, he stood in the center of the road, his arms folded over his chest.
“Going somewhere, cara?”
Intent on her escape, Myst was nearly on top of him before she skidded to a sharp halt.
“Shit,” she breathed, pressing a hand to her chest. “You scared me.”
“Oh, I’m going to do more than just scare you,” he muttered, taking acute pleasure in the thought of chaining her to his bed.
She licked her dry lips, her gaze darting to the side as if she was considering how to escape him. At last she heaved a resigned sigh, accepting it would be insane to even try to flee.
“What are you doing here?” She sent him a frustrated glare. “I thought you were finding a disguise?”
“I haven’t survived for three centuries by being stupid, cara,” he warned, meeting her glare for glare. “Plus, you’re a rotten liar.”
She planted her fists on her hips, her body trembling with the force of her emotions.
“Dammit, you have to let me go,” she snapped.
He stepped forward, his hands grabbing her upper arms as his heart gave another painful twist.
Christ, he’d done everything in his power to protect this female. Why was she so determined to leave him?
“Go where?” he demanded.
There was a long, stubborn silence before she allowed him to glimpse the aching defeat in the depths of her velvet eyes.
“I won’t let this happen,” she whispered.
The truth hit him with the force of a sledgehammer to the gut, nearly sending him to his knees. She’d been running not to get away from him. But because she intended to...
No. He couldn’t even allow the thought to fully form. Already the air was sizzling with the heat of his fury, the ground vibrating beneath their feet.
He’d destroy the world if he let himself think about what might have happened if he hadn’t sensed she was lying.
“Shit.” His voice was a muted roar, his fingers unwittingly digging into her flesh. “There’s no way I’m letting you hurt yourself.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Bas.”
He jerked her forward, wrapping her in his arms so tightly he knew it must be difficult for her to breathe.
He couldn’t help it. He needed to feel her pressed against him.
So close she couldn’t possibly escape.
“I told you no,” he snarled. “That’s final.”
She trembled, her head lying against his chest. “This isn’t your decision,” she said softly.
His head lowered so he could bury his face in the curve of her neck, breathing deep of her sweet scent.
“I just made it my decision,” he informed her.
“Then you’ll condemn Valhalla to death. Including Molly,” she rasped, a tear trailing down her cheek to drop onto his jaw. “Is that what you want?”
Of course it wasn’t what he wanted.
But he wasn’t sacrificing this female.
No. Fucking. Way.
* * *
Lana perched on the edge of the narrow bed, her fingers absently trailing through the silver strands of Molly’s hair.
She wasn’t sure what had lured her into the nursery at this late hour. After her meeting with Calder, she’d shared the information with Wolfe, who’d made the instant decision to attack the Brotherhood compound. He’d pointed out that they couldn’t risk the clairvoyant leading their enemy to Myst. Not when she had the potential to give them a weapon of mass destruction.
Lana had agreed, returning to her own office to alert the human authorities. She tried her best to keep her dealings with the mortals as civil as possible, and once she’d explained the group was a danger to her people, she managed to get their grudging agreement.
After that she’d eaten the meal that Wolfe had sent on a tray, knowing he would come pester her if she didn’t. Besides, she’d been starving.
But while she knew she should get some long-overdue rest, she found herself unable to sleep.
There was . . . something in the air.
A buzzing sense of urgency that refused to give her peace.
So instead of being tucked in her bed, she’d found herself wandering through the quiet hallways, her feet instinctively bringing her to this shadowed room.
If what the Master of Gifts had said was true, then this tiny girl had the ability to alter the course of high-bloods’ history.
She would be a source of fascination for the healers and scientists. A beacon of hope for those who craved power. And a focus of hate for those who feared the magic that ran through the blood of her people.
But for tonight she was just an innocent child.
Grimacing at the biting need to protect Molly from her inevitable future, Lana didn’t move when she caught the familiar scent of raw male power and heard the rumbling sound of Wolfe’s voice as he spoke to the healer who was in charge of the nursery.
Then, moving with the liquid silence that marked him as a Sentinel, he entered Molly’s private room to study her with a brooding expression.
“I thought I told you to go to bed,” he chastised, his voice low enough not to wake the child even as it held a thread of warning.
She arched a brow, able to see the chiseled beauty of his face despite the darkness. The warm copper skin. The midnight eyes. The proud thrust of his nose.
The arrogance that was so much a part of him.
“And I thought you were organizing our . . .” She hesitated, glancing toward Molly. The little girl looked as if she was deeply asleep, but she well knew appearances could be deceptive. “Visit to the compound?”
“Done.” Wolfe folded his arms over his chest. “We leave in an hour.”
A sharp fear twisted her heart as she rose to her feet. “What do you mean ‘we’?” She held his dark gaze. “Do you plan to go?”
He shrugged. “I want to make sure the traitor doesn’t escape.”
She understood his savage desire to get his hands on the high-blood. She was itching to have him in her dungeons where she could have a long and very thorough conversation with Peter Baldwin.
But as the leader, Wolfe’s place was in Valhalla.
Right?
“Your Sentinels are capable of dealing with the clairvoyant.”
“True,” he conceded, a hint of satisfaction easing his grim expression. He knew she was worried about him and he was enjoying the hell out of it. “But I want to be there.”
She thinned her lips. “Tell me why.”
“And you call me stubborn?” he teased.
“Wolfe.”
He held up a slender hand, his brow furrowing with genuine concern.
“There have been too many rumors of the Brotherhood hoarding illegal weapons for me not to believe they are true,” he said. Over the past weeks Valhalla had scrambled to gather in
formation on the secretive group. The fact that they had a supply of army-grade weapons that had been forbidden by the government had been a nasty surprise. “I won’t risk my men until I can be sure this is not a trap.”
She got it.
Wolfe was a leader who would never send in his soldiers where he was too afraid to go. That didn’t, however, ease her fierce aversion to the thought of him waltzing into such a volatile situation.
“You’re the Tagos.”
His lips twitched as she continued to point out the obvious. “I’m aware of my title.”
“That means you give the orders and your men carry them out.” She tilted her chin, trying to look as imposing as possible. Wolfe called it her “stop being a pain in my ass” face. “Putting yourself in danger doesn’t help anyone.”
Naturally the aggravating male simply chuckled. “I recall giving you that exact speech a few weeks ago, only to be rudely ignored.”
She waved aside his accusation with an impatient hand. “That was different.”
He snorted. “Of course it was.”
“It was,” she said, belatedly realizing she sounded like a petulant child. She gave a sharp shake of her head. “I was the only one able to keep Annie stable long enough to get her to Valhalla,” she finished in cool tones.
He moved forward, invading her space and surrounding her in his heat.
“You put yourself in danger because you thought it was necessary for your people,” he said, reminding her of her refusal to listen to his infuriated command to remain at Valhalla when the crazed witch had been creating chaos. “Do you expect me to do any less?”
She heaved a resigned sigh, turning to study Molly’s tiny face resting so peacefully on the pillow.
“I don’t know why I bother to argue with you,” she muttered. “You’re going to do whatever you want.”
Without warning she felt warm fingers brush down the curve of her neck.
“Oh, if only that were true,” he said in a husky voice.
She quivered, the tiny sparks that raced through her body an intoxicating temptation. Briefly closing her eyes, she willed herself to pull away from his light touch.
“Wolfe,” she breathed, the strain in her voice revealing how hard it was for her to deny the need that pulsed between them.