Darkness Surrendered (Primal Heat Trilogy #3) (Order of the Blade) (6 page)

Gideon kneeled beside him, the faint outline of his face only a few feet from Elijah’s. “Yeah, be sorry. I’ll beat the crap out of you as soon as you’re tough enough to take it.”

The rough teasing made Elijah pulse with fear, not for him, but for them, for their safety. These were warriors who deserved to live. He realized his friends forgave him...but fuck. They had no idea what they were dealing with anymore. But Elijah knew...he swore and felt fear begin to nip at his mind, knew the demons were circling...

Elijah dropped his head, pressing his face into the thick tresses of the female still wrapped around him, instinctively knowing that touching her would help clear his mind. She would help chase away the hell...he knew he had to keep the demons at bay...knew his friends wouldn’t be safe if the demons came back...

Her hair smelled like respite and peace, like beauty and freedom. He liked it. It was right.

The female. His. He knew it, but he couldn’t remember. He knew her...but how? “You’re mine.” It was a statement, a truth he knew deep in his gut.

He could see the slant of her head and knew she was looking at him, even if he couldn’t see her face clearly. But he felt her tension the moment he spoke. “Technically, yes, on some level.” Her words were careful, and they pulsed in his mind, familiar. “But we’re not going there, so don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t worry about it…” He stared at her, and suddenly he understood what she hadn’t said. Dread hit him hard, and he grabbed her wrist and pulled her arm in front of him. He couldn’t see clearly enough, but he laid his hand over her forearm. Her skin pulsed with heat, and he knew. He swore with regret even as rightness and possession beat through him. She was his. Forever. Always.
Yes
. “You carry my mark.”

Reality came crashing down on him, the brutal truth of what his brand on her arm meant. She was his
sheva,
and they’d already begun to cement the bond. She was in as much danger from him as his friends, more even, and yet Elijah owed her the greatest protection of all. He didn’t just owe her, his need to keep her safe raged inside him with a fierceness beyond anything he’d ever felt before.

He had to get himself away from all of them. Had to protect them from what he was, from what was haunting him. Must keep them safe. He tried to shove to his feet, and she wrapped herself around him and came with him. “No, Elijah! Not yet,” she said. “You need me to touch you—”

His legs gave out, and he fell back down, his body too battered to hold himself up. He tried to crawl, tried to drag himself across the floor. Anything to get away from them. But still she clung to him, refusing to allow him to give her the room to escape from him. Her body was warm against his. God, he wanted to stop, to fall into what she offered. Couldn’t. Had to get her away from him. The demons were too strong this time. She wouldn’t be able to keep them at bay. He would kill her. “Let go,” he growled. “Get away from me.”

“No—”

Quinn spoke. “Ana, let him go.”

“Ana?” The name hit Elijah hard in his gut and suddenly he remembered.

Ana
.

He was back in that moment when he’d seen her for the very first time. She’d crawled toward him in those rainy woods, her body battered, desperate anguish on her face. Her jeans had been torn and stained, a soiled white tank top clinging to her body, showing too many bruises and cuts. God, how fragile she’d looked, how vulnerable, those delicate curves revealing the softness of a woman that brought out a need to protect so intense he’d been able to think of nothing but getting her to safety.

The stark agony in her silver eyes, the bruises on her elegant neck. He’d never forget the way she’d looked at him, with such courage in that trembling body when she’d ordered him to abandon her and save himself. He’d felt the beauty in her soul, the raw strength in her spirit, the goodness in her heart, and he’d immediately lost himself to the light she brought into his life.

Gone was his need to chase down the bastard who was controlling him. All that had mattered in that moment was Ana. In that split second, she had become the entirety of his existence.

He could still feel her skin beneath his hand when he’d picked her up and cradled her to his chest, so soft, so fragile, and so damaged from the abuse. Her vulnerability and strength had reached inside his soul and awakened the part of him that had been dormant for so long, the part of him that made him want to step outside his hell and be the man she needed.

But he’d failed her. He’d gotten himself killed, and she’d fallen back into the hands of the bastard that had hurt her so many times already. She’d been so brutalized because of Elijah’s failure. She carried his mark and the bruises that spoke of his inability to do as he should for her. And now, again, she was here, in the shadows of his demons, refusing to leave him once again.

He swore suddenly as more memories tumbled back. Holy crap. She was an Illusionist.

His stomach churned, his body shook under the sudden assault of panic, the terror of what she represented and what she could do to him. It was his own living hell, a terror that made him so fucking dangerous to all of them, a fear that obliterated reality and turned him into a monster. And the terror was rising in response to Ana’s presence, to her Illusionist heritage. “Jesus!”

He gripped his head and rose to his knees, trying to fight off the demons, the terror, but they were coming, hard and fast, ruthless and relentless. He had to get away from everyone before he snapped, before he turned on them. He knew what he would become. He’d been down this path before, and he knew what was coming for him.

“Elijah—” Ana sounded worried, making him want to reach for her, to find the safety he’d found in her arms...

No. Must keep them safe. “Get away from me. All of you!” Sweat poured down his temples, and his stomach wrenched as he ripped her off him. “Take her!” He thrust Ana at Quinn.

The instant he released Ana, panic and terror rose up and seized Elijah. The demons rushed his mind, beady black eyes, rippled callused skin the color of rotted flesh. A scream ripped out of Elijah’s throat as he threw up his arms to block the descending beasts, their fangs already wet with his blood, his skin dangling from their claws. Pain ripped through him as his abdomen was torn open by the demon, and he slammed his weapon into the monster’s head, as more specters descended. He staggered at the unbearable pain in his gut, felt the fresh blood coat his hands, and knew it was his.

“Elijah—” A grotesque horned demon of black blood and scaly poison grabbed his arm.

He slammed his throwing star hard into its flesh, his screams of terror chasing him as he fought for his life against the demons he could never defeat. He ripped himself out of their grasp and bolted for the door, knowing they would chase him, praying they would hunt him and leave behind Ana and his teammates. “Take me,” he shouted as he ran, even as his mind splintered into a thousand pieces. He felt it fragment, and bile spilled through his gut as he lost his grip on the only thing he held dear, the only thing that made him deserve to live: his sanity.

***

Ana shielded her head, tumbling to the floor of the cell as Quinn lost his grip on her after the hit from Elijah. She scrambled to her feet, slipping on the blood pouring from the wound Elijah had opened in his own stomach, when he’d smashed his throwing star into his belly, trying to kill something that no one else could see. Something that had been real only in his own mind.

Her heart bled for the nightmare in his mind, for the damage that had been done to him, by her kind, by her, by the hell that she had become. She had to help him. Had to save him. She could not let him descend into the nightmare that would never release him.

“Elijah!” She lunged for his leg, her soul crying in frustration when her fingers grasped air, missing the chance to touch him and try to bring him back. He charged the door, screaming with the terror of a man sucked into the hell of illusions too horrific to survive, the kind that had broken so many minds over the centuries.

Gideon grabbed his arm, and Elijah slammed his fist into his face, throwing him against the wall with a sickening thud. Gideon slid limply down the wall, and Elijah threw his head back and howled, an inhuman shriek of such raw terror that her own body shook with the horror of it. Then he charged for the door again and was gone.

That split second was all she needed, and she threw herself into his arms. She pressed her face to his neck, burying herself against him.
Elijah. You’re safe. It’s your friends.

His arm went around her waist and for a moment, he held her, and she thought they’d won. Then his anguished voice tore through her mind.
I’ll kill you
.

She was shocked by the depth of his torment, by the clarity of his fear, not for his safety, but for hers. His mind was raging with terror, with raw, visceral agony, with the fog of madness, but his fear that he would hurt her was the true Elijah, not the monster, not the insanity. Tears filled her eyes. He knew what he was doing to everyone he loved, and he couldn’t stop himself? Her heart cracked with the agony of knowing exactly how that felt. He didn’t deserve that, and she grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her.
No, you’d never hurt me—

Anguish tore across his face, and his arm tightened around her, as if he wanted to pour himself into her and sprint away from the hell he was facing. But he didn’t. His face darkened with determination, and she knew he was going to shut her out before the words filled her mind.

Run, Ana!
His order rent her mind with its pain, and he ripped her off him, flinging her to the side, away from him.

“No!” She skidded across the floor, helplessness overwhelming her as she watched him charge Kane. Ryland shouted and jumped on Elijah’s back as Elijah tackled Kane. Ryland slammed his machete into Elijah’s chest, making Elijah stagger long enough for Kane to scramble out of range before Elijah spun around and tried to rake his throwing star across the front of Ryland’s throat. She struggled to her feet and ran back toward Elijah—

“Ana!” Gideon grabbed her and hauled her back as more blood sprayed. “You almost had him,” he said, his face gritty with determination and hope. “We need a tighter bond.” He grabbed her wrist and Ana realized what he was going to do an instant before he did it.

“What?” She tried to pull away as his blade moved toward her skin. “Wait—”

“No.” His axe sliced cleanly through her skin, pain shooting up her arm as he cut her. He looked at her as the blood began to ooze from the wound. “You know about the blood ritual?”

She stared at him, numb horror rising fast inside her. “You want me to do the
sheva
blood bond with Elijah? But it’s one of the stages of the bond—”