Darkness Surrendered (Primal Heat Trilogy #3) (Order of the Blade) (11 page)

Something deeper was driving Elijah, something beyond what he’d shared. Even as badly as she wanted Ezekiel dead, she suddenly feared it wouldn’t be worth whatever price Elijah would make them both pay for it happening.

Her hand slipped off his back and his body went rigid in the split second before she forced herself to touch him again. Even then it took a minute for his body to relax.

Elijah’s eyes narrowed, and he swept his gaze over her with so much heat that her belly clenched with desire. She became tantalizingly aware of his naked body stretched out on the bed. He was pure male beauty. Perfection. Even with the injuries and the extensive damage, he radiated sensuality.

“Even though I’m too hurt to move, even though a part of me still recoils from your touch, I want you so badly I can’t even concentrate.” He met her gaze. “Every minute with you makes me want to bind you tighter.”

The mark on her arm burned for him. “We can’t bond.”

He shook his head. “The only way to stop the bond is to separate, which is why the Order always kills off Order
shevas.
We both know that.”

“So, you’re going to kill me?”

Wry amusement flickered in his eyes. “No. I’ll go crazy if I do. Not worth it.”

She swallowed, fairly certain his instinctive need to protect his
sheva
would keep him from being able to kill her, but not entirely sure exactly how dark his demons ran. Not sure what his need to kill Ezekiel would drive him to do. “So what do we do?”

“We move fast, and we take Ezekiel out before we bond. Resist the bond. Race to the finish line.” His eyes darkened. “All that matters is Ezekiel dying. That’s it. Nothing else. We need to go after him, but first I need to heal. I’m going down.”

This was the warrior who’d given his life for her when they’d met: focused, fearless, ruthlessly targeted toward his goal, a man who would never be stopped by his limitations. She wanted to be like him, so certain in who he was, so convinced of his power.

Elijah closed his eyes, then his body stiffened and he opened them again almost immediately. “Lie with me.”

Heat swelled in her belly at the thought of climbing into the bed with him. He was far too naked for that kind of activity to remain in the platonic “nursing him back to health” category. “Why?”

He ground his teeth. “I have nightmares when I close my eyes. I need more contact with you to be able to go into the healing sleep. I won’t be able to concentrate.”

Ana felt his reluctance and realized how difficult it was for him to admit his need for her. A warrior of Elijah’s caliber didn’t admit weakness, not even to himself. His willingness to trust her and ask for her help indicated how truly dangerous the monster inside of him was. He was willing to do whatever it took to survive, and right now, what he needed was to heal. There was no choice to be made, no matter how risky intimacy was between them. “Okay.”

She wrapped his hand around her wrist to keep contact, then she kicked off her wet sneakers and peeled off her soaked jeans, peering longingly at her dresser, which was across the room. Too far for her to reach without letting go of Elijah. Then she saw her night tee shirt on the floor next to the bed.

It would have to be enough. She didn’t want to hunker down with him in wet clothes for the next eight hours, or however long it took him to heal.

He moved his hand to her bare hip as she yanked off her drenched shirt and bra. She glanced at him as she bent down to retrieve her oversized tee shirt, and saw the heat of his gaze through his slitted eyelids as he watched her.

Awareness rippled over her and desire pulsed low in her belly. She could feel the heat from his gaze as it swept over her bare breasts, over her stomach and down her legs. It was almost as if he were touching her, his mouth sliding over her skin, across her belly, down lower— She sucked in her breath, realizing she was picking up his thoughts. “That’s you?”

He nodded, his eyes dark with heat. “I can’t believe I’m too beat to do anything about the fact my
sheva
is almost naked.” His gaze locked on hers, a bottomless depth of fire and passion, laced with anguish so deep she felt it deep in her own heart, lacing into the feelings she tried so hard to suppress inside herself.

His hand tightened on her waist, sending ripples of desire through her. “I’m pissed as hell that I can’t throw you down and make love to you until neither of us can move.”

She swallowed, her entire body pulsing with wanting, with the need to connect with him, to have his hands gliding over her skin, over her hips, over her breasts—

Her hands trembling, she grabbed the dry shirt and pulled it on, hiding behind the shield of thin cotton. “We can’t have sex,” she managed to say, embarrassed at how throaty and breathless she sounded. “It’ll tighten the bond.”

“I’m a partially bonded Calydon male, which means I can’t bring myself to give a shit about whether sex is a bad idea when you’re almost naked in front of me.” His voice was almost a whisper, a fierce growl muted by exhaustion beyond what any man should be able to endure. How he was keeping himself conscious, she had no idea.

“You need to sleep,” she said, “not lust after me.” In the interest of fighting off both destiny and her own desires, she opted to keep her underwear on even though it was wet, and then she crawled onto the bed beside him.

I will always lust after you. Get used to it.
Elijah dragged her across the bed so her back was nestled up against his chest. He tucked her into the curve of his body and threw his leg over hers. The feel of his bare skin on her thigh sent desire pulsing through her. His leg was so heavy with muscle, so hot, so
there
.

He slid his arm beneath her shirt and folded it across her chest. His elbow was by her ribs, his forearm angled between her breasts, and his hand resting across the base of her throat. It was a position of intimacy, of possession, of vulnerability, bringing her into his space. It was the statement of a man ready to settle into the moment, to simply breathe in their connection and let it fill him. It wasn’t a position of sex. The tenderness of his embrace filled her with longing so intense she felt like the world was crushing down on her.

Elijah nuzzled his way through her hair, pressed his face to the curve of her shoulder and took a deep breath. “God, I love the way you smell,” he mumbled. There was such satisfaction in his voice, seeded with hazy lust and utter possessiveness, that the female in her wanted to nestle against him and surrender completely to how he made her feel. She wanted to stop fighting so hard, to give up the battle, to lose herself in this moment that was so beautiful, so peaceful, everything her soul had been craving for so long.

“This isn’t a good idea,” she whispered.

His arm tightened around her, and his brand brushed against the side of her breast, searing it through his touch. He didn’t move his arm away.
Need to sleep. Don’t leave me.

I won’t
. Sensing his tight control as he fought to fend off the terrors that had consumed him in the basement, she slid her hand under her shirt and laced her fingers through his where he was holding her so tightly.
I’m here
.

Nice
.

She knew the instant he fell asleep, his mind quieting where it still touched hers. There were no nightmares in there right now. It was simply the focused healing sleep of a Calydon, so necessary if either of them had any chance.

Ana could feel the warmth on her back from his body pressed so tightly against hers. She could feel his chest expand with each breath, his muscles tensed and flexed even in sleep, and she knew that he was still in unbearable pain. She tried not to think about how badly he was hurt, about the wounds still losing blood. Instead, she focused on the even rhythm of his breathing, on the way he held her so tightly against him. She felt cherished. Protected.

Everything Ana didn’t deserve. Didn’t want. Could never,
ever
trust.

But it was such a gift, this incredible moment, to be in Elijah’s arms, to be embraced so tenderly by the man she’d held so tightly in her soul ever since they’d met. She’d thought he was dead. She’d lived with the guilt of his death. She’d ached with longing every time she’d heard his voice whisper through her mind, thinking it was simply her imagination. And now he was with her. Holding her. Needing her. Desiring her.

Elijah was alive
.

Tears spilled out of Ana’s eyes. She’d stood there and watched Elijah die, and yet somehow he’d survived. Damaged, but
alive
. All she wanted to do was snuggle against him, bury herself in the heat of his body and shut the world out.

But she didn’t dare.

She couldn’t afford to get so comfortable that she forgot to keep her eyes open. Elijah wasn’t the only one who saw nightmares during sleep. Her illusions had begun to take her over as well, haunting her the moment she let her defenses down.

She brushed her fingers over the wound on her throat from that morning, when she’d woken up screaming, clawing at her own neck to pry the garrote off her throat. A garrote that didn’t exist, except in her own mind. Her own illusions were attacking her now.

If she fell asleep, the tight mental shields she was using to keep the illusions at bay would fall. Another illusion would come, and with Elijah so connected to her, it would hit him as hard as it would hit her.

And he’d never survive it.

Never
.

As terrified as he was of her on a subconscious level, Ana hadn’t had the courage to tell him how right he was to fear her. Elijah might
think
he was a monster, but she actually
was
one.

She wasn’t simply a monster. She was the tool to Elijah’s destruction. It was as if destiny was pissed off that Gideon and Quinn had managed to survive the bond without going rogue, and fate had hand-selected Ana as Elijah’s soul mate with the sole purpose of making sure it broke him.

It was like a cruel joke, forcing Ana and Elijah together to enable him to get through each minute, when each contact between them sent him catapulting faster and faster toward his ultimate destruction, a hell that she would be solely responsible for.

It was a race now. A race to kill Ezekiel before she and Elijah could complete the bond and destroy each other forever. A race in which two thousand years of destiny and an eternity of Illusionist destruction had all the odds in their favor.