Authors: Kate Douglas
Crystalfire (19 page)
“Hold, demon.”
Dax jerked to a halt and turned, searching for the source of the powerful command. Alton clung to Ginny’s hand and did the same. Dawson and Selyn drew close, each with their swords drawn.
“Anger does not serve you here, demon. Sheathe your swords, warriors.”
Dawson and Selyn slowly shoved their blades back inside their scabbards. Ginny sheathed DarkFire. Then she turned and, with raised eyebrows, stared at Alton.
Mother Crystal?
Mother Crystal?
Ya think?
Selyn stepped forward and clasped Dax’s hand, lending support. Calming him. Ginny turned Alton loose and put her arm around the ex-demon’s waist. Dax’s entire body trembled. Rage poured off of him in waves. It took what felt like a very long time for him to gain control.
No one tried to rush him. None spoke. Alton moved to stand behind Dax. He gently rested his hands on Dax’s shoulders and offered what support he could. Tension had his friend’s body drawn tight beneath his palms, shivering with the strain of curbing and containing his emotions.
Dawson stood to one side with arms folded across his chest, but it was obvious he was there for Dax, ready and willing to do whatever he could to protect his friend.
Finally Dax shuddered and then released a long pent-up breath. He bowed his head, but when he spoke, it was with a voice strained and taut with emotion. “My apologies, my lady, but I wish to correct a misnomer. I am no longer a demon. I have worked very hard to earn the title
demonslayer.
”
demonslayer.
”
A soft ripple of light across the curved ceiling was the only response. Dax drew his sword. “The fact I carry DemonFire should attest to my honor. I am demon no more.” He looked to each of the ones standing beside him, reached up and pressed his hand over Alton’s on his right shoulder. “My friends, honorable warriors all, stand beside me with the same request. One of our band has been taken from us. Somehow, Eddy Marks has been trapped in the void—she and the blade DemonSlayer with the spirit of Elda. Can you save them? Will you help us?”
Again, light rippled across the room. Alton squeezed Dax’s shoulders, but all of them waited, standing in place, hoping for a miracle.
The light continued to ripple, faster and faster as if the energy within the crystal worked through Dax’s request. The inner walls glowed even brighter and a low hum filled the cavern.
Still they waited. They’d come this far. There was nowhere else they knew to search. There was nothing more any of them could do but wait.
Chapter 15
Willow awoke to a most unexpected sensation, as if she were wrapped in a cocoon of living heat. Slowly she catalogued the sensations—the soft thud of a heart beating against her ear, the tickle of warm breath lifting her hair.
Comforted by a familiar scent, the knowledge that she was wrapped in the arms of one she loved, Willow snuggled close and rubbed her cheek against what could only be the soft crimson pelt covering Taron’s chest.
She’d found that patch of hair unbelievably erotic from the first time she saw him naked—the perfect pattern of deepest red spilling across his otherwise smooth bronze skin. Where Alton was very fair skinned with silvery blond hair, Taron was darker—a warm, bronzed shade that set off his emerald green eyes and that gorgeous crimson mane.
Willow had no idea how she’d ended up in his lap and she really shouldn’t allow this, not after all the things he’d said about not getting involved, but it felt too good, and she’d already decided she couldn’t change Taron—Willow could only be true to herself.
Well, herself truly loved being held and she wasn’t about to ask him to set her aside. At least not now.
He nuzzled the top of her head and kissed her forehead. “Are you awake?”
“I am now.” She arched her back and stretched within his embrace. Opened her eyes and realized she was staring so closely into his beautiful green eyes that she saw two sets. She blinked and backed away, bringing him into focus.
He leaned against pillows piled high against the headboard and held her. One arm supported her back; the other curved beneath her thighs. His hands were clasped against her hip, fitting her into the perfect cradle of his body. And right there, pressed tightly against her bottom, was irrefutable evidence that he was more than a little interested in her.
That hard length of him gave her a depth of raw courage she hadn’t expected and really wasn’t quite certain how to use. At least it gave her the strength to look him directly in the eye and ask without any hint of emotion, “Why are you holding me?”
“I had to.” He sighed and kissed her nose this time. “I wanted to talk to you. I figure this way you can’t escape.”
“That tells me, if you expect me to try and escape, that I’m not going to like whatever you intend to say.”
He shrugged. Then he leaned his head against the pillows and closed his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. I used to think I was becoming an expert on everything, but I really don’t know anymore. In fact, I’ve learned I don’t really know much about anything.”
She ran her fingers over his bare shoulder and thought about that for a moment. “I thought you were a scholar,” she said. “A man whose goal in life is to know all there is to know.”
He sighed, raised his head and studied her for a moment. The arrogance she’d often associated with him was missing. Instead, he looked a little bit lost, a whole lot confused.
“Another lesson I’ve learned is that one doesn’t always achieve all their goals. And sometimes, a man comes to the realization that the goals he has pursued for a lifetime are wrong.” He stared beyond her, as if unwilling to meet her steady gaze. “He decides those long-held goals were all a terrible mistake. A monumental waste of precious time.”
“I imagine that could be quiet discouraging.”
He actually snorted. Shaking his head, chuckling softly, he said, “Willow, my love, you don’t know the half of it.” Then he tightened his arms around her and held her closer. “We need to talk, but I don’t want to let go of you. I want to make love to you, but I’m afraid I’ve ruined any chance you’ll ever want me to touch you again. It’s not easy to admit I’ve been a complete ass.”
Now, this was a definite improvement. “You might be surprised at how far an apology will go. Especially if it’s entirely sincere.”
“Is that right?” He smiled this time, reminding her once again how handsome he was. How perfect. “I’m definitely sincere. I really don’t know where to begin, how to fix what I’ve probably broken.”
She sighed. “I don’t know anymore either, Taron. I’m not certain what’s right and what’s not. What matters and what doesn’t. I know that we have to save Ed. I know we have a battle to fight and a demon that wants to end us, but I’m selfish enough to want to settle things in my own life, too. This life is so new to me, so precious. I don’t want to miss a thing. Is that so wrong?”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing else we can do right now. We’ll need to search for Ed tonight, once the demon is active again. I have no idea where he is right now and our swords haven’t had any luck finding him. As far as the battle, I have a feeling the demon will come to us. I don’t think we’re going to have to search very hard for him.”
She touched fingertips to his jaw and stared directly into those mesmerizing green eyes. “All well said and true, but are we merely justifying our actions?”
He laughed. He actually laughed at her! Willow pulled back and glared at him. “I’m being serious. Why are you laughing?”
“Because you, my dear, sound more like the scholar and I am sounding like a spoiled child. Are we justifying our actions? I honestly don’t know anymore. As I told you—I’ve come to the realization that I don’t know much of anything. That a lot of the things I believed aren’t true. They aren’t real.”
She cupped her hand against his jaw and thought for a moment of what he’d said. “What is, Taron? What is real?”
Touching his forehead to hers, he whispered, “You are, Willow. You’re as real as anything I’ve ever known. I’m through acting like a jerk. I promise to do better, to be better.” He laughed and rolled his head side to side against hers. “When I figure out how, that is.”
Okay. She could give him some major points on that one. He was right. He had been acting like a jerk, but damn it all, he was her jerk. “You were afraid,” she said, excusing him. “Fear is valid.”
He nodded and leaned back once again. “Not always. Not when it becomes an excuse. Not when it’s entirely selfish. At first, it was all about me. I was afraid for myself. Afraid that if I fell in love I would suffer, and I didn’t want that. I defined the word coward because I wasn’t willing to take the risk.”
He was quiet for so long, she finally prodded him. “What changed?”
His soft chuckle definitely lacked humor. “You. We made love and I tried to tell myself it was just sex, that we were both merely satisfying our curiosity, but I was dead wrong. It was so much more than that. You’re so much more. When I finally pulled myself out of that world of denial I was hiding in, I realized it was already too late, that I loved you, and that I’d made a horrible mistake.”
Her blood ran cold at the serious sound of his words. At the way he tightened his grasp on her body. “I don’t understand. Why is loving me a mistake if you’re no longer afraid of the fortune?”
“I’m still terrified of the fortune, Willow, but for a different reason. Remember what I told you? What the fortune teller said to me? That I would know unimaginable joy, and unendurable pain. I’ve already discovered joy beyond anything I’d ever dreamed. You give me that joy, Willow. Your love, your touch. Everything about you gave me joy then and continues to give me joy, and I knew then that the only thing that could cause unendurable pain was losing you. The risk isn’t to me, Willow. It’s you.”
She leaned against him and thought about that for a moment. “So you fear that losing me will cause you pain?”
Shaking his head in denial he said, “Forget about me. This is all about you. The only way I could ever lose you is if you turn back into a tiny sprite, end up stuck in Bumper again, or if you die, because I’m not giving you up. Don’t you see? None of those options is acceptable.”
“So fearing something that might or might not happen, you will deny yourself the joy of whatever you can have now? That won’t work, Taron. At least it won’t work for me. Why would I want to live half a life because I’m afraid of dying, of ending before I’m ready? Every second I exist is an unexpected gift. Everything is new and something I never imagined I’d know or feel. If I knew for certain that I only had hours left, I’d still want to love you. I’d want to experience everything. I’d want to know all I could about love, I’d want to feel every sensation and every emotion, experience everything—even the heartbreak. If life is going to be cut short, why waste a second of it? That doesn’t make sense.”
He pulled her even closer and covered her mouth with his, but the kiss was much too brief as far as Willow was concerned.
Before she could complain, he laughed again. “How is it, Willow, that a woman who started out as swamp gas got so damned smart?”
“For one thing, I was very perceptive swamp gas in Eden, and for another, an extremely observant will-o’-the-wisp once I got to Earth.” She tilted her head and kissed his chin. “I watched Eddy Marks make the decision to love Dax, even though he was supposed to be gone by the end of the week. She said she would rather know love with him for a few short days, than never love him at all.”
“And now she has him forever.” Taron released her to brush the thick curls back from her face. He began untangling her hair from the scrunchy she’d slept in, almost as if he were afraid to meet her gaze. “Not everyone gets a happy ending, Willow. Real life isn’t like that.”
Freed now of his tight embrace, she turned until she straddled his thighs, and looped both arms over his shoulders. “Taron, you’re such a man.”
“Of course I am. What do you mean?” He lifted his hands away from her head and dropped the scrunchy to one side. Only then did he meet her gaze.
“I mean, Taron, I’m not going to think of endings. Right now, I’m only interested in beginnings. Can you try that? Concentrate on beginnings for a change?”
He lifted his hips beneath her, and she felt the thick, hard length of him brushing those sensitive points between her legs. “I think I can do that, though it’s merely one of the things I’m planning to concentrate on, if that’s okay with you.”
She leaned forward and kissed him. By the time they broke apart, Willow didn’t think she’d be able to concentrate on a darned thing.
Dad! Where are you? I hear you! How can you talk to me?
He wasn’t sure if he should tell her, but Ed had always been honest with his daughter, even when she thought he was nuts. Of course, ever since Eddy’d found a wounded ex-demon and a tiny will-o’-the-wisp trailing blue sparkles in her potting shed, she’d been a whole lot more open about accepting the unacceptable.
She certainly didn’t tease him anymore. At least not about his belief in Lemurians or vortexes or magic. He wasn’t certain if that was a good or a bad thing. Life had been way simpler before Dax showed up, before they’d met Alton the Lemurian, and before they’d all gotten messed up in this unbelievable battle that threatened to tip the balance forever between good and evil—in the wrong direction.
Still, there was no reason to lie to her. There was never a good reason to lie, so he’d play his cards the way he always did and give it to her straight—as much as he hated upsetting her. But damn, this was a weird place and it was hard to talk to Eddy without seeing her face, picturing her expressions. Hugging his little girl who was suddenly a grown up woman with grown up problems. Where in God’s name had the time gone?
He sighed.
Well, I’m not exactly certain, and I don’t quite know how to explain this. Eddy, the demon king seems to have taken over my body. I know he’s controlling me. It’s pretty bad, especially when I’m aware of what he’s forcing me to do. A lot of the time it’s like I’ve just gone to sleep, though. I guess my consciousness gets buried under his and I haven’t got a clue what he’s up to. Right now, I think he’s resting and my mind is free—or as free as a possessed person’s mind can be.
Well, I’m not exactly certain, and I don’t quite know how to explain this. Eddy, the demon king seems to have taken over my body. I know he’s controlling me. It’s pretty bad, especially when I’m aware of what he’s forcing me to do. A lot of the time it’s like I’ve just gone to sleep, though. I guess my consciousness gets buried under his and I haven’t got a clue what he’s up to. Right now, I think he’s resting and my mind is free—or as free as a possessed person’s mind can be.
The silence lasted much too long.
Eddy? Sweetheart? You there?
Eddy? Sweetheart? You there?
Yeah. I’m here, Dad. Wow ... we’re both up shit creek without the proverbial paddle, aren’t we?
Laughter, it appeared, did not translate well in the void, but Ed knew that if he could grin, he would. Leave it to Eddy to nail the crux of the matter.
Yep, sweetie. I guess you could say that. Is there anything we can do to get you out?
Yep, sweetie. I guess you could say that. Is there anything we can do to get you out?
DemonSlayer says she’s working on something. She’s mentioned getting help from Mother Crystal. I’m not certain who that is, though DemonSlayer says she’s the entity of the crystal caves where Taron replicated the swords. How can I find you so I can tell you what I find out? And where are you now? Your physical body. Do you have any idea where the demon king has got you stashed?
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