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“Easy,” she said, over and over.
Gradually his convulsive movements slowed and then stopped, and he released a breath against her cheek. A moment later his left hand moved from her neck, his fingers sliding up until he cupped her cheek.
He opened his eyes, blinking away sweat that was now pouring down his face from his hairline. “Must. Escape. ”
Her heart constricted. “You’re too sick. ”
Now he moved his head from side to side. “Better. Stronger. Soon. ”
Lilah understood the string of words. He wasn’t convulsing, he was fighting the drugs—or they were wearing off. She watched him as he rested, although like her he kept his eyes open and on her face. She tested her limbs, grimacing as her right arm began to wake with a wave of pins and needles. She managed to lift it, startled by how heavy it was, and then she saw the reason why as her flexing fingers touched the backs of his.
“They handcuffed us together. ”
He nodded slowly.
“Jackasses. ” She tried to hold his hand for a moment, but they were knuckle to knuckle, so she could only rub the backs of her fingers against his. He had huge hands. “My name is Lilah. ” She glanced down at his neck, where the only thing he wore, a length of chain with two metal tags, lay against his skin. She could read one of them. “Walker Kimball. ” She looked into his eyes. “You’re a marine. ”
Walker’s expression turned curiously impassive, as if he was waiting for some negative reaction. From the beginning the war had never been popular, but Lilah knew the troops who were sent over to fight in the Middle East were never consulted as to whether they thought it was worthwhile or not. They were sent there to fight, many of them to die, in a conflict that probably made as little sense to them as it did the rest of the world.
The other tag was an enameled navy blue football helmet with the icon of a white horse with an orange mane. “Looks like you’re a Denver Broncos fan, too. ” Lilah smiled. “Were you coming home on leave?”
“No. War. ” He struggled to get the next word out. “Afghanistan. ”
“They took you from Afghanistan? From the fighting over there?” He nodded, and Lilah felt sick. “How?”
“Wounded. Alone. ” And then he said one last word that chilled her to the bottom of her heart. “Sold. ”
Aphrodite and her other Takyn friends had told Lilah about GenHance’s plans to harvest their DNA and use it to create a superhuman vaccine, one they intended to sell to factions and governments for use on their covert operatives and soldiers. Walker must have been purchased for use as a test subject; who better to experiment on than a real soldier who had been left for dead? No one would ever know what had really happened to him. The military would simply list him as one of the missing in action.
“We have to get out of here,” she told him, gripping his arm with her free hand. “How much do you weigh?” She’d drag him out if she had to.
“Too much. Rest. ” Walker moved his hand to stroke his palm over her hair. “Soon. ” He gave her a small, grim smile before he repeated, “Soon. ”
Until that moment the enormity of the situation hadn’t actually registered, but the gentle touch of his hand brought it home. He was hurt; she was helpless. They were probably going to die, and not quickly or cleanly. Lilah clenched her teeth, fighting back a sob.
“Don’t cry. ”
Walker had shifted his head so that his lips brushed the edge of her ear, the words breathed without voice. If she had woken up alone, Lilah realized, she would have called out loud for help until the men had stopped and come for her. They’d already stripped her out of her clothes and done God only knew what to her while she was unconscious. She didn’t want to think of what they’d want to do to her if they’d found her awake.
His hand was moving again, brushing over the hair at her temple, not as awkward now. She had never understood exactly what it meant to be trapped, to be powerless in the face of indifference and cruelty. The men who had drugged and abducted and stripped her had no mercy. Her feelings, her needs, didn’t matter. They had denied her even the most basic decency.
It had to be worse for Walker. Left for dead while serving his country, alone and suffering, perhaps making his peace with the brevity of his life, only to have his body stolen and sold like a piece of meat … it was too much.
“Lilah. ”
She hadn’t realized that she was silently weeping until she opened her eyes and looked through the shimmer of her tears. They softened his stern features, and for the first time she realized how handsome he was, like some dark angel, the light in his eyes glowing in two slivers, as if reflecting some divine flaming sword.
“Sorry. ” She gulped back another sob, aware that she had to guard against making any sound that might be overheard by the men driving the truck again. “Where are they taking us?”
“Denver. ”
She had no way to tell where they were now. Once, she’d driven straight from Lake Gem to Tupelo, Mississippi, and that had taken her twelve hours with two short rest stops. Since drugs rarely affected her as they did normal people, she guessed she had been unconscious for six, maybe eight hours. That put them in the center of Alabama. With roughly fifteen hundred miles between them and Denver, they had maybe twenty-four hours left.
In another hour or two, Lilah felt sure, the drugs would wear off completely, and she’d be able to attempt an escape. Walker wasn’t Takyn like her, however, so he would need more time to recover. She might be able to free herself from the cuffs, but abandoning him was not an option. Everything depended on how fast he could shake off the drugs they’d used on him.
“Soon,” he murmured, as if he were reading her mind.
He flexed his fingers against hers, and she bent her arm, bringing up their bound hands between them so she could see the cuffs. They had been cinched too tight to work off. She still felt so weak she couldn’t hold their hands up longer than a minute before her muscles began to tremble.
“I’m afraid,” she whispered to him.
“I know. ” He shifted his arm down so that he held her waist in a half embrace. “We will escape. ”
He could barely move, and she was still so listless she could barely think straight. “How?”
“Together. ”
A medieval Italian villa on an uninhabited, windswept island off the coast of Scotland should have seemed at the very least incongruous; instead it nestled like a crown jewel at the base of a treeless cliff. As the two visitors approached, the ornate marble casements and hand-glazed tile work did seem to collectively sniff over being transplanted to such wild surroundings.
Guards emerged from the gated entrance, both armed with automatic weapons, and searched the couple with brisk competence before instructing them to wait. One remained behind to watch them as the other placed a call to the main house.
“Nice place,” Nicola Jefferson said as she studied the scrolled, white-painted iron gates between them and the villa. The wind coming off the sea tugged at her long ponytail of white curls. “Who did he steal it from? A pope?”
“I believe it was a gift from a grateful subject. ” Gabriel Seran, her companion and lover, smiled a little, his green eyes glowing with affection as he ignored the villa and kept his gaze on her face. “You are nervous. ”
“No, I’m not. ” Nick shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “Just remind me never to volunteer to be his Secret Santa. ”
The second guard returned, murmuring something in archaic French to Gabriel before opening the gates and escorting them to the villa’s front entry, where they were met by a much bigger man.
“Welcome to Ì Àrd, Miss Jefferson. ” The blond giant bowed, but Nick noticed he never took his hand from the hilt of his sword. He turned to Gabriel and repeated the bow. “Lord Seran. I hope your crossing was without incident. He expected you to arrive yesterday. ”
“
Richard often expects rather more than can be reasonably accomplished with such short notice. ” Gabriel’s expression remained impassive. “Why did he summon us, Korvel?”
“My lord will explain the matter. This way, please. ”
The captain led them through the front of the house to a long row of stained-glass doors depicting a series of kings on thrones.
“Ì Àrd,” Nick muttered. “What’s that mean? ‘I not soft’?”
“It’s Gaelic,” Gabriel told her. “It means ‘high island. ’ ”
Korvel escorted them through the center pair of doors out into a courtyard garden filled with broad rose-bushes and jasmine-laden trellises.
“My lord,” the captain said. “Lord Seran and his sygkenis have arrived. ”
A dark figure appeared. “Leave us, Korvel. ”
The captain withdrew, and Nick glanced around. The fragrance of the thousands of blooming flowers colored the air, but didn’t quite mask a deeper, darker scent radiating from the cloaked man who came to stand beside the center fountain.
The last time Nick had met Richard Tremayne, high lord of the immortal Darkyn, his scent had been almost identical to that of cherry tobacco. That had been almost a year ago, under less than ideal circumstances that had changed her life forever, and (although she would never admit it) for the better. Now the most powerful immortal on the planet gave off a headier, sweeter scent, she thought, more like chocolate-covered cherries.
Nick approved of the change, but she didn’t let her guard down. Richard could be as unpredictable as he was dangerous, and the only time he wasn’t actively scheming was when he was unconscious.
The hood of the high lord’s cloak kept his face in shadow as he turned toward them, but Nick could see the gleam of his dark eyes as he inspected Gabriel and then her.
“My lord. ” Gabriel bowed. “You sent for us?”
“Four days past I sent for you. ” Richard’s voice, which he could use like a weapon on both humans and immortals, crackled with displeasure. “What kept you from attending me?”