Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) (43 page)

Gideon wasn’t fighting Dante’s son anymore.

He was fighting the warrior who no one could defeat, the man who had almost destroyed the world two thousand years ago. And he was losing.

“You raise them, I kill them. Boring game.” Drew slammed his other hand around her throat, cutting off her air. “I have much more important things to do. My list grew long in the two thousand years I was locked up.”

He threw her limp body over his shoulder. Her mind screamed in protest, but she was too weak to fight, too weak to do anything but keep singing, to keep feeding Gideon.

Drew leapt easily to the balcony surrounding the pit, and spots began to dance in Lily’s vision.
Gideon. I can’t go with him. I can’t—

Suddenly, there was a roar of such uncontained fury that Drew whirled around just as Gideon flew up from the pit and slammed both axes into Drew’s chest, his eyes glowing bright red with the true rage of a Calydon gone rogue. Destiny had taken him.
Gideon was rogue
.

Drew shouted with rage and dropped Lily to yank the axes out of his torso.

Gideon charged Drew as Lily fell, bouncing over the edge of the balcony and falling straight toward one of the giant cracks in the floor. “Gideon!”

The wind raced past her as she plummeted down toward the gaping crevasse in the earth, as the pit shuddered and the ceiling began to fall for real. Weapons clashed on the balcony as Gideon and Drew engaged, and she knew he was too consumed by the rogue to hear her.

Destiny was taking over. The bond complete, Gideon’s destiny was to lose his woman, go rogue and destroy all they cared about. It was all unfolding exactly as it had thousands of times before. Screw destiny. This was not acceptable! “Gideon! For God’s sake,
help me
!” She fell past the floor of the pit into the crevasse—

A firm grip suddenly grabbed her wrist, and she was yanked to a stop. Gideon’s grim face stared down at her from the top edge of the crevasse.

His eyes were blue. Not red. Not rogue. He was back.

“You broke through,” she gasped. Destiny required that once he lost his
sheva
, he would go rogue and never recover, and she’d have to kill him to stop him. But he’d come back on his own. He’d beaten destiny for them both, and he’d cut himself from the high of her magic. He’d triumphed over both of them, for her. She knew in that moment that her big, strong warrior loved her. So deeply. So passionately. Lily knew it in her heart, even if he would never be able to acknowledge it or understand it. She did, and that was enough.

His eyes were soft and full of love. “I couldn’t let you die,
sheva.
” His muscles flexed, and he hauled her back up on the ledge, tumbling backwards with her on his chest as the ground shook violently.

Lily sagged against him, content to feel the hardness of his muscles under hers. She was too weak to do anything other than collapse on top of him. “You saved me because I’m your
sheva
?”

“Hell, no.” He framed her face and kissed her hard, his kiss so full of love and commitment she felt her heart swell with passion. “The mere fact you’re my
sheva
wouldn’t be enough to pull me back from the edge, or other Calydons would have done it too. I broke through the curse because my heart shattered into a million pieces when I saw you falling.” His grip tightened on her, his gaze searching hers desperately. “I love you, Lily, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let destiny take you away from me.”

She smiled at him, her heart filling with warmth and happiness. This warrior, this courageous, amazing man was the gift she’d been seeking her whole life. He was her everything, her oasis from a past that could no longer torment her, not with Gideon’s love surrounding her. “That must be a very powerful love if it’s enough to defeat a fate that has been unstoppable for two thousand years,” she teased.

He hugged her. “Yeah, well, what can I say? You won me over.” There was a loud crash as another piece of the ceiling fell to the ground. Gideon rolled over, tucking her beneath him as rubble showered them, rocks beating at his body. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” He jumped to his feet and tucked her against him, using his body to shield her.

Lily wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his chest as the debris continued to shower down on them. “Did you kill Drew?”

“No.” Gideon broke into a run, sprinting toward the other Order members, who were staggering to their feet, helping each other up. “He took off when I came after you.”

She closed her eyes in dismay. Dear God, he got away? “He’s Ezekiel.”

“I know.” Gideon sounded grim.

“How can you stop him?”

He looked down at her. “You saw it, Lily. We can’t.”

* * *

Ana flinched as rocks pummeled her, dropping down from the ceiling of Frank’s office as she continued to scan Elijah’s folder. She brushed the dirt off with her sleeve, trying to clear it enough to read. The Calydons guarding her door had bolted when the first earthquake had hit, and she had remained behind.

Go.

She jerked her head up as Elijah’s voice rang in her mind, so solid and certain that she knew instantly it wasn’t her imagination. Elation leapt through her heart.
Elijah!
It was as if whatever had been keeping him at a distance had shattered, and now she could hear him so clearly.
You’re alive!
She clutched the folder to her chest as tears filled her eyes.

Get out.
His voice was laced with torment, with agony, and hatred for her. Such brutal, intense hatred, directed at her, but also at himself. It felt as if he couldn’t help himself from warning her and caring about her, but he despised both of them for that fact. Ana knew in that moment that his hatred for her ran too deep. There would never be redemption.

But for all that, she couldn’t leave him here. He died for her once, and she couldn’t let it happen again.
Where are you? Are you here?

Ceilings... Falling.

She looked up at the ceiling and saw the cracks spider-webbing through the rock as another loud rumble made her shudder. A boulder dropped from the ceiling and she dove to the right a split second before it crashed down on where she’d been sitting, trapping Elijah’s folder beneath it. She cursed and tried to tug it out as the ground shook again.

Go.
Elijah’s voice was trembling and she could feel his pain.

No! I need the folder!
She sat down, braced her feet against the boulder and yanked on the folder. The rock didn’t move, and the papers tore. She fell backwards, smacking into the desk. She stared at the folder now hidden under the bolder. “Dammit!” She ran over to the rock and shoved her shoulder against it, her feet sliding on the rubble as more debris rained down. She had no chance at freeing the folder.

Nearly sobbing, she gave up and leaned against the boulder. “After all this, I’m going to fail? Dammit!” She stared at the torn pages in her hand. “Like this is going to do me any good—” She frowned suddenly and started reading more carefully.

Then her heart started racing. “Oh my God. This is it!” She had what she needed!

Clutching the paper to her chest, she ran to the door, threw the lock and ran down the hall toward the main pit, stumbling as her cast knocked into fallen rocks.
Elijah! Where are you?

There was no answer, but she knew he had to be in one of the nearby tunnels.

“Elijah!” She shouted his name as she tripped again, and the paper fell out of her hand.

It didn’t matter. She’d already read it. She already knew what it said.

Elijah! Talk to me! Where are you? I’m coming to get you!

But there was silence again, as if he’d never been.

But she knew he had. She
knew
he’d spoken to her. He was here. In the pit. Somewhere.

A rock landed on her shoulder and she staggered, trying to pick around the debris raining down around her. “Elijah!”

“Ana!”

She looked up to see Ian limping toward her. He was bloody and his leg didn’t appear to be working right. “Ian!” she shouted. “Elijah’s here! We have to find him!”

“We don’t have time. The place is caving in.” He reached her, swept her up and whirled around, limping back toward the pit far faster than she could run with her cast, despite his injury.

“No!” She fought against his iron grip. “We have to get Elijah!”

Kane appeared in front of them, and the blood was so thick on his shoulders she couldn’t even see his scars. “I got everyone else out, and the pit’s collapsing. We can’t get back to the coliseum.”

Ana realized Kane was going to transport them out. “We can’t leave without Elijah! We need him! It’s on the paper.” She kicked hard, and Ian grunted but didn’t let go as Kane reached them. “Take me back and I’ll show you.”

The ground bucked under their feet and they all looked up to see the ceiling implode down toward them, tons and tons of earth pouring down.

Her heart dropped and she realized they were going to die.

Kane grabbed them, and they faded just as the earth smothered the spot they’d been standing on.

* * *

Lily leaned against Gideon as she watched the house that had been Frank’s collapse into a sinkhole more than a mile wide. Dirt and dust flew up in a giant cloud, filling the air as the entire underground structure collapsed and the earth filled in. Lily was wearing Quinn’s shirt, but Gideon hadn’t bothered to find clothes.

His body had healed miraculously from her magic, but he was the only one in decent condition. The rest of the team was damaged and weak. Decimated would be a better word.

The air was thick with the mood of the Order as they silently surveyed the devastation.

“Frank’s dead.” Gideon rested his cheek against hers while the other Order members sat in stunned silence, waiting for Kane to reappear with Ana and Ian. “Neither of us died. Destiny didn’t win. We beat it.”

His arms were secure around her waist, and she was holding him just as tightly. “But Ezekiel is free.” The huge fir trees that had towered over them when they had arrived were brown and shriveled. There were several dead squirrels hanging from the branches, as if they’d died mid-run. There were no birds at all on the land, but flocks of them darkened the sky, the birds squawking as they fled the area.

Lily dug her toes into the earth, and it felt acrid and dead. It made her skin tighten and her stomach turn. “All this is from him?”

“All this is from him.” Gideon’s voice was quiet. “It’s the first step to the world’s descent into hell.”

“We’re fucked.” Ryland wrapped a tourniquet around his heavily muscled thigh, trying to cut off the fountain of blood spewing from his leg. “We’re completely fucked. How the hell are we going to take Ezekiel down?”

“Get us each our own Satinka and attack at the same time?” Thano said. “How did they bring them down before?”

“They had Ezekiel’s brother, Caleb,” Quinn said. “Caleb was the only one as strong as Ezekiel.”

“Well, what was so special about him?” Ryland demanded. “Why could
he
beat Ezekiel when no one else could?”

“Because they shared blood,” Lily said. “They were brothers.”

Gideon rested his chin on her head, and she snuggled deeper against him, needing the reassurance of his touch.

“So?” Ryland sounded frustrated, and she didn’t blame him. “What difference did that make? If we find that out, maybe we can recreate it somehow.”

“They shared the same bloodlines,” Lily explained. “That made them equals in combat. The rest of the original twenty-one took down Ezekiel’s men, but it was Caleb himself who defeated Ezekiel.”

“So, we become as powerful as Caleb,” Thano said. “That’s our only option.”

“But how?” Quinn asked, pressing his palm to the side of his head as blood squeezed between his fingers and trailed down his arm. “Even Gideon wasn’t strong enough with Lily’s help. I’ve never seen anyone fight the way Gideon and Drew did, and it wasn’t even a challenge for Drew.”