Willing Sacrifice (13 page)

The first touch of her lips on his was butterfly soft, but potent enough to steal his breath. He couldn’t believe this was happening, that she was real, safe and in his arms. He hadn’t lived a good enough life to deserve this kind of reward, and he prayed that God wouldn’t figure that out before Grace was done with him.

She pressed her lips to his and let out a long, sweet sigh.

Torr drank it in, his body rejoicing at the contact. He wanted to let her go at her own pace, explore, but his good intentions burned away in the face of so much longing. He’d wanted this for too long not to take over and lead the way.

Grace was human. Not his kind. He shouldn’t have been so drawn to her, but he couldn’t help it. She was so beautiful, both inside and out. Kind, selfless, brave. Human or not, she was everything he’d ever wanted in a mate, and if all he ever got with her was this one, single kiss, then he would still count himself lucky to have had that much of her.

Her hands tightened on his shoulders, her fingers grazing his luceria. His muscles clenched as his instincts roared at him to force her to take the necklace. He knew it wasn’t possible, but that didn’t change the need pounding inside him to claim her as he would his Theronai mate.

He couldn’t bind her soul to his, but he could claim her body as his own personal playground, taking her over and over until even the idea of touching another man was an impossible concept for her.

Torr rolled her onto her back, ready to take control of her tentative kiss. His knee spread her thighs wider to make room for him to settle between them. He was hard. She was wet. He’d spent forever imagining this, longing for it. He was done waiting.

He shifted his weight to angle their bodies together, and she let out a sharp cry of pain.

Torr pushed off of her, holding his weight up so he wouldn’t crush her. Tight lines creased her forehead, and the hot flush of pleasure evaporated, leaving her pale.

“What’s wrong?”

She arched her back and reached behind her. “The disk. Hard ground. Bad combo.”

Her words made sense, but any meaning was lost the second he caught sight of her breasts thrust toward him. Full, round, tipped with the most delectable nipples he’d ever seen. Had he known that such beauty had been pressed against his bare skin, he would have come without so much as touching her.

Torr shut his eyes and rolled away, giving her his back. Her wet clothes lay in a soggy heap near the fire. He tossed them toward her without looking. “You should get dressed.”

If he caught sight of her again before she was dressed, he knew he was going to finish what they’d started, rock-hard ground or not. He would put her astride him, riding his cock, and not think twice about the reasons why he shouldn’t.

Of which there were many.

She was human. She deserved a full, human life with a husband and children and a job that didn’t involve hunting monsters every night. She deserved a man who would grow old with her, who wouldn’t make her feel like her life was a fleeting blip of time. She deserved safety, and that was one thing he knew for sure she’d never have at his side.

So many good reasons to find a way to let her live her own life, and yet not one of them could compete with the one reason he had to hold on tight and never let go: he loved her.

Torr pulled on his wet jeans, glad of the chill he needed to get his dick to calm the hell down. The last thing he wanted was for her to see his erection and give him that hungry look again, like she wouldn’t be able to pull in her next breath if he didn’t give her what she wanted.

Because he knew that, in the end, he wouldn’t be able to deny her anything, even if he knew she’d regret it. That made him less of a man, but it was the truth and one he had to accept if he was going to protect her.

“I’m going to patrol the area,” he told her. “Stay here, and yell if you see anything you don’t like.”

“Um, okay. Sure.”

He didn’t look her way as he stalked off, but he didn’t need to see her face to hear in her tone that he’d done the very last thing he ever wanted to do.

He’d hurt her.

If anyone else had done that to her, he would have beat them to a bloody pulp, but since he couldn’t do that to himself and still keep her safe, he put as much distance between them as he dared and prayed he would find a way not to hurt her again. No matter how much she wanted him.

T
orr had been gone for hours when Grace finally gave up and let herself drift off to sleep. Nearly freezing to death left a layer of lethargy over her that she couldn’t seem to fight. It also gave her strange, sad dreams in which he was weak and helpless and she was his only hope.

She couldn’t imagine a man being less helpless than Torr. His body was so casually strong and solid. She’d felt that strength up close and on an intimate level she could only have dreamed about.

Even now, with the suns rising and the night animals growing quiet, she could still remember just how nice it had felt to have his sleek, hot strength caging her in.

He’d held her like he couldn’t stand the thought of letting her go, like he’d been dying to hold her for years. A feeling like that had a way of going to a girl’s head, making her forget what was real and what was fantasy.

As she opened her eyes, she saw that Torr was both. He crouched at the farthest edge of the opening away from her, watching her. He was real, solid and so intense it almost hurt her eyes to stare at him. Definitely the stuff of fantasy, with his good looks and that whole gentle-warrior vibe.

If it hadn’t been for the hard disk digging into her spine, she could have had him last night. She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d do with that much man once she got him, but it would have been fun to enjoy him as her own for as long as it lasted.

“Hungry?” he asked, his bright amber gaze unblinking.

She was, but not in the way he meant. She’d heard some of the women talk about men, after visiting Earth to make their babies. They’d talked about need and hunger, about desire and want, like they were living, breathing things that consumed a woman and made her lose control. The women had sighed and laughed, sharing stories of conquest over who’d found the best father for her progeny, or at least the best lover.

Grace had never really understood what they meant before, but she did now. She hadn’t even known that she could want something as much as she’d wanted Torr.

The slow burn was easier to bear this morning, but it was still there, one single breath away from igniting all over again.

She cleared her throat. When that didn’t loosen her words, she just nodded.

He untied a cloth that held some bread they’d brought with them and set it next to a small pile of fruit he’d gathered. “Eat up. We’ll leave as soon as you’re done.”

Within seconds, he was gone, slipping into the forest as silently as a predator.

That slow burn of desire sent out a few sparks, but she held herself together long enough to shove down some food and get moving. The sooner they found those crystals, the sooner they could be back around other people—people who would keep her from doing anything she might regret.

The only real question left was which she would regret more—taking what she wanted or denying herself something amazing.

That thought was the one that stuck with her as she led the way through the dense woods. She’d never gone this far before, but there was no question that she was headed in the right direction. The whole path was one long, familiar trail. Each step she took put the next one firmly in her mind, as if she’d come this way every day for years.

By the time both suns were halfway up the horizon, she’d found the spot she’d been searching for—a giant forked tree so old that its bark had taken on the same metallic shimmer as its leaves.

“Just over this next rise,” she told Torr.

She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know he was there. She’d felt his silent presence all day, heating her back and making her spine tingle.

Grace started up the hill, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. “I’ll go first and scout. Stay here,” he whispered.

She instinctively mimicked his tone, keeping her words quiet. “I’ve led the whole way and got you this far. I think I know where I’m going.”

“I’m not worried about your sense of direction. I am, however, worried about the sounds I hear coming from the other side.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“You’re human,” he said, as if that explained it all.

“A human with ears.”

“Mine are better. Stay here and stay silent.”

He was gone before she could argue further, leaving her feeling more than a little inadequate. She’d never thought he would have better hearing than she did; it made her wonder what else he could do that she couldn’t. What else she hadn’t considered.

Was he just being nice and pretending that she wasn’t lacking, the way someone might do with a child too small to reach up high?

The notion grated on her as the seconds ticked by in slow progression. If he ran into trouble on the other side of the hill, would she even be able to help him? Would she even know he needed help before it was too late?

Anxiety pushed her into action. She didn’t care if she wasn’t as strong as he was or if her hearing was worse. She wasn’t weak or stupid. If he needed help, she’d find some way to give it.

Grace tiptoed up the hill, lowering herself to belly-crawl as she neared the summit. She crawled, inching forward over scratchy leaves and sticks. The leather of her tunic protected her torso, but the skin above her sandal straps was bare and raw by the time she peeked over the top.

The air here was distinctly colder. The land sloped down into a shallow bowl about a half mile across. The ground was charred and burned to a crisp, with a shimmering sprinkle of rough black sand covering everything. Little pools of frozen water dotted the area, as if the last rainfall had been unable to soak through the hard crust on the ground before it froze.

It looked like something had slammed into the planet years ago and cauterized the ground so that nothing could grow again. Single, infant strands of new plant life crept over the edge of the sand but were frozen wherever they touched the charred earth.

The forest had tried to reclaim this land and failed.

Several large boulders of glossy black rock sat at the bottom of the crater. They varied in size and shape, but each one was made up of jagged angles and razor-thin obsidian blades. In the closest one, she could see a depression that had vaguely the same shape as one of those Hunters that had attacked her and Torr. Beneath that indent, deep within the center of the boulder, was a pulsing light.

As she stared, she felt her own pulse slow to match the pace of the glow. A heavy sleepiness washed over her, tempting her to close her eyes.

Torr was still down there. She couldn’t give in to the need to take a nap when he was in danger.

Grace forced herself to look away from the light and concentrate. She couldn’t see him anywhere, but she could now hear what he had heard. Voices, low and rumbling. They were speaking in the same flowing language that the Athanasian women did, but there was no smoothness to the sound. The rough words were punctuated with a rhythmic clinking that set her teeth on edge.

Her sleepiness faded more as she looked away from the light longer. Whether that glowing was some kind of magic or technology, she wasn’t sure, but it was definitely potent stuff.

She scooted back down the hill and moved a few hundred feet to her left, hoping for a better angle that might allow her to see Torr. By the time she was nearly back in position at the lip of the crater, the clinking sound had changed pitch. It was higher now, but it still made her skin crawl.

As she peeked out from the brush hiding her, she saw the source of the noise. Two huge creatures were chipping away at the glowing stone with heavy chisels and hammers. The workers were shaped like humans, but the similarity ended there.

Their skin was a smooth, flawless surface without a single hair anywhere. They were a muddy gray color with the same sheen as freshwater pearls. Their skin was granular, like fine-packed sand. Their eyes were tall, narrow slits filled with the same glossy black as the stones they chiseled. Completely naked and apparently sexless, they worked in perfect unison. Thick, bulbous hands gripped the tools, making their forearms bulge with visible strength. Each of them had in the center of its chest a bright circle that seemed to glow with its own inner light. Swirling plumes of yellow and white rose from that mark, bursting out like solar flares.

Between heavy blows to the boulder they worked on, their lipless mouths defiled a language Grace had once thought beautiful. She could feel power vibrating in those words as the cold air turned them to fog. As the strange men neared the end of their sculptural project, the black glass they were carving into the shape of a Hunter began to move.

These two gray creatures had to be the Masons that Brenya had talked about—the ones that were trying to kill the people Grace loved.

Torr sneaked out from behind one of the glowing boulders near the pair. His sword was in his hand, as lethally beautiful as the man himself. He moved silently, his breath misting in the cold air.

Grace stared in a surreal kind of trance. She knew his life was in danger and that he was going to try to kill those gray men. She knew that no matter what she did, there would be pain. And yet she still couldn’t pull her gaze away from the scene, as if her watching could somehow alter the outcome.

Torr slipped behind the large boulder they were working on. In a blur of flesh and steel, he moved in for the kill, cutting cleanly through the waist of one of the gray men. It fell into two pieces, but there was no blood, only a spray of fine sand spewing through the air in the wake of Torr’s blade.

The second man screamed in rage and panic, and slammed his hammer down with brutal force. The Hunter he’d been chipping from the stone was broken free, missing one of its legs.

Its jaws snapped as it lunged for Torr. He leapt out of its path, but because of its incomplete form, its aim was off, causing it to veer toward Torr anyway. He brought his sword up at the last second, lodging it in the thing’s jaws with two hands.

Blood leaked from Torr’s palm where he braced the blade with his bare hand. The Hunter’s body bowed and its single back leg scrambled awkwardly, trying to gain traction.

Grace couldn’t breathe. She was terrified for Torr but even more terrified that anything she might do would distract him and make things worse. She hated being stuck here, able to do nothing but watch and pray, but the alternative—getting Torr killed—was unthinkable.

The tall gray man knelt next to his fallen partner, aligning the two severed halves of his sandy body. There still was no blood. Whatever made up those guys, it wasn’t flesh and blood—not as she understood it.

As she watched, the gap between the two halves of the gray man’s body began to close. The whole one picked up his heavy hammer and moved around to angle himself behind Torr.

One blow from that hammer, and Torr would be dead. She didn’t care how fast he healed. A crushed skull was going to be fatal.

She had to do something without making things worse. And she had to do it now.

Grace rose from her hiding place and took a step out onto the charred ground. A chill sank through the thick leather protecting her feet, as if she were standing on ice. Without making any noise that might distract Torr, she began waving her arms.

The gray man who was about to bash Torr’s brains in saw her and started to come her way. That was exactly what she’d hoped for, but she certainly hadn’t realized just how fast legs that long could run.

Holding back the squeak of fear that rose to her throat, she sprinted into the woods. There was no way she could outrun him, but she could hide and give Torr a fighting chance.