Black Gate: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 4 (11 page)

Under any other circumstances neither of them would condone murdering an innocent woman. But these were far from ordinary circumstances.

Celestina stepped toward him and raised her small hand to rest on Teagh’s forearm. “We aren’t human, Teagh. We can’t live by their rules.”

Teagh sighed and sat back down on the step, eager to escape both her touch and the truth. No. He wasn’t a human man. Those poor bastards had no choice. Once Marked, they were locked to eternal servitude to the woman who claimed him. But Immortal blood changed things. He wasn’t bound to the female’s choice. He could try to seduce her. And if it didn’t work out? If she turned out to be too weak to survive the Gate, too weak to survive him? Then he could return the Mark, refuse the ferocity of her brand burning within his flesh, refuse her soul into his keeping. Could he return the Mark before she died? If he had iron control when the time came, yes. And it would buy him some time to figure out what to do. It was possible.

But the sad truth of the matter? He knew he wouldn’t want to let her go. “I want to keep her.”

“Fuck. She’s a gods damned Gate key. You said yourself it’s too dangerous. You’re going to get us all killed.” Bran spun on his heel, away from Celestina, and resumed pacing. “How are we going to win this war with her walking around? Everyone will be hunting her. Everyone. Top to bottom.”

“They already are.” Top to bottom. Immortal to Triscani and every power-hungry Earthen bastard in-between. “All I can tell you is that I held her neck in my hand, delicate and weak, ready to snap…and I couldn’t so much as bruise her skin.” Teagh looked at Celestina. The female was a powerful Seer. Surely she’d had a vision or knew something that would give him a clue of what was to come. “Tell me what to do to keep her safe.”

She smiled at him, but there was sadness and pain behind it. “You can’t.”

Teagh started to protest, but Celestina raised her hand to freeze him in place. “You can’t keep her out of danger, Teagh. I’m sorry. That is not her destiny.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? You still want me to kill her?”

Celestina shook her head. “No. Not anymore. Apparently, that option has passed us by.” She walked to him and reached for his hand. Wrapping her fingers around his, she raised their joined hands to her heart and closed her eyes as she summoned her power. Teagh shuddered but didn’t pull away. This was the reason no one liked to touch the Seer, or look too deeply into her eyes, or tell her too damn much. Her power washed over him like a cool breeze and she swayed for a few seconds, no more, before opening her eyes to speak.

“No. You must walk through the darkness with her. She will find the answers I seek. I am hoping that she will be the key to discovering how to defeat the Triscani. The Crux is close. A few weeks, maybe less. We need her on our side.”

“The dark will kill her, Tina. It nearly destroyed her today.”

“No. It nearly tore her Mark from you.”

“But she did not Mark me.”

Celestina’s smile was too self-satisfied to be faked. “Oh, yes. She did.” Celestina pointed to his left side. “Check again, Teagh.”

Teagh let her go and lifted his shirt, and there, at the base of his ribs, lay a newly forming Shen, the Mark of the Timewalkers. The Mark was similar to the ancient Egyptian cartouche, but instead of oblong, it was a perfect circle sitting on a straight line. A single line twisted into a perfect loop with no beginning and no end. The Mark was ancient, a gift from the goddess, older than the Egyptian Pharaohs who’d adopted it as their own. But even they had understood its meaning. Eternity. Protection. The Mark was sacred among all the races, even the Immortals, and very, very rare.

He touched it with shaking fingers and remembered the fire he’d felt in his chest, the heat that flowed between them when they touched. The hunger that made leaving her untouched in his bed nearly impossible.

Bran spoke first. “Well, you said you wanted to keep her.” His brother’s gaze was too serious by half. “Just be careful or you
will
get us all killed.”

“Indeed.” Teagh lowered his shirt but kept his hand splayed over the Mark from on top of his shirt. But now, faced with the true possibility of being with Katherine forever, the idea made him nervous as a schoolboy going on his first date.

“Katherine chose you. I had nothing to do with this. The Mark is yours, Teagh. If you can keep it.” Celestina’s whisper stole the air from his lungs and Bran asked the same question that burned inside his skull.

“How can the Gate steal her Mark? That makes no sense at all.” Bran stepped up to the Seer’s side, careful not to touch her.

Celestina looked first Teagh, then Bran square in the eye. “I don’t know, but it can. The Gate wants her for itself.”

<><><>

Katherine knew the moment Teagh stepped through another portal and disappeared. It was like an iron band around her chest loosened and she could suddenly breathe again.

The man stole all her air. Not to mention her brain cells.

But he was gone. Now was her chance to go after her men and to return to that weird wall anchored in the darkness. She didn’t know who was being held prisoner there, but she was determined to return and discover the truth. She felt rested, ready, thanks to Teagh’s magic touch. She hated to admit how much being with him had helped her, but she’d give the alien his due.

But she felt stronger now, more in control. The dark didn’t scare her. Quite the opposite.

She rose from the bed and brushed off her arms and legs in brisk sweeping motions. She imagined her clothing with a scattering of lint over the plain black material. In reality, she was brushing off the feeling of his skin, of his arms holding her. She shook her head to clear the fog caused by his smoking-hot kiss.

Think about something else…anything else.

Desperate for a distraction, she studied his bedroom. The room was basic. A king-size bed with no headboard or other decoration sat near one wall covered in plain white sheets and blankets. The floor was gray tile, the furniture sparse. There was a rocking chair positioned so its occupant could look out the large window. A white wicker dresser with attached mirror lined the opposite wall. There was a very small closet full of black, white, and dark brown clothing, and nothing else. Boring.

She would’ve mistaken it for a recovery room in a private medical facility if not for the view.

A floor-to-ceiling bay window took half the wall space and opened to the most spectacular view of the beach, complete with lapping waves, gulls, and dolphins jumping in the distance.

Here she was, stuck in some kind of picture-perfect vacation photo, complete with sexy male eye-candy and warm sand on a beach. The warm, humid air meant she wasn’t looking at a beach in Iceland, she was somewhere warm. Florida, he claimed. Hell, for all she knew, she could be in Africa. The bottom line was that her mystery man had swooped into the dark and taken her. He’d frozen her in place and refused to allow her to go after her men.

“Trust me,” he said, then tried to knock her unconscious while he ran off on some mystery errand. So what, he was sexy as sin and one hell of a kisser? He was also an arrogant jerk who had frozen her body and refused to allow her leave his home, refuted her need to go after her team, and tried to telepathically force her mind into a sleep coma so he could keep her unconscious and helpless while he went God knows where.

Mr. Right? Wrong. She didn’t have time for that kind of fantasy life. Her team was stranded and Mr. Freeze-Your-Ass-In-Place was gone. No time for Stockholm Syndrome to kick in. He was dangerous. He’d kidnapped her and told her absolutely nothing of any value.

Teagh claimed to protect three worlds.

Screw that. She only cared about one. And on that world there was an excruciatingly small list of people she truly loved. Her mother. Her cousins. Her boys made the short list. She refused to let them sit in the dark.

By her calculations she’d been with Teagh in this place for a few hours. She tried not to worry about the team. She could still feel their heartbeats when she thought about it. Now that she was rested and ready to listen, the darkness she’d absorbed into her body supplied information.

She wondered if it would give her enough power to summon a portal like Teagh had.

Only one way to find out…she’d ask.

The sound of waves called to her and she walked out of the bedroom and past the cuddling couch she couldn’t bear to look at. She hurried past the very modern, very clean kitchen. A sliding glass door opened to the back and she stepped outside into the breeze. The ocean stretched out in front of a long winding line of rocky beach ran in both directions as far as she could see.

She’d try to call a portal. If that failed, she’d hit the road, find a phone, and pray that whoever had replaced the Rear Admiral was in an accommodating mood. She broke into a light jog along the sand and ran until she was about a half mile away from Teagh’s home. Sure steps took her to the water’s edge where she knelt in the sand. She didn’t have time to admire the view. He could return at any moment and she had to be long gone. But first, she needed to send a message.

Katherine knelt and focused on calling forth the energy of Earth, that which had once sang so sweetly to her, but now barely answered her summons.

This was the power that she and Sarah shared. But lately she had begun to suspect that she and her cousin were two halves of the power wheel. Sarah walked in the Light. She grew more certain each day that her destiny was to walk in the Dark.

Sarah. Can you hear me?
Katherine waited patiently for a few seconds and her cousin answered.

Yes. Are you okay? Where are you?
Sarah’s telepathic voice swelled with worry and Katherine sensed Sarah sitting up, pulling away from her husband, Tim, to focus on the conversation. Sarah was in Bermuda and covering long distances this way was usually difficult. But not today. Katherine felt flooded with power, and speaking to Sarah was as easy as breathing.

I’m fine. I need to show you something, in case I don’t come back.

What? What do you mean “in case you don’t come back”? Tell me. We can help.

Katherine smiled and sent her cousin the image of a warm hug.
Thanks, Sarah. But you can’t help me on this one. I’m going in after my team. If I don’t make it out of the dark, I needed you to know.

Sarah didn’t waste time arguing. They’d had many conversations, and Sarah had helped Katherine save more than a few descendants from the clutches of the Casper Project. They’d teamed up to help the newest member of their group, Mari, the water-breathing healer, just a few weeks ago. Sarah knew and understood the risks Katherine accepted as her due, and knew, too, the lengths she’d go to protect the people she cared about.

Fine. Stubborn wench. Show me.

Katherine summoned her memories of the last few hours, the Gate, her walk through the dark, the wall with its prisoner, and the screams of her men. She abruptly cut off the flow of information at the memory of how Teagh’s massive power had forced her to run like a scared rabbit back through the portal.

Sarah took it all in with her usual sunny-side-up attitude.
So, you going back to play hide-and-seek in the dark?

Yes.

Are you going to break that prisoner loose, too?

Yes.

Do you think that’s a good idea? What if he’s some kind of supernatural serial killer or something?

Katherine hadn’t considered that. Didn’t matter. If he was a problem, she’d deal with it.
I can’t leave him there.

Okay. Be careful. Let me know the second you get back.

I will.
Neither spoke of the alternative. If Katherine didn’t come back, there was nothing either of them would be able to do about it.

Katherine broke the connection and dug her hands into the warm sand. The knees of her pants were soaked through, but she didn’t care. She needed to feel something physical, something to remind her that she was human and whole, something besides a stranger’s kiss that could anchor her.

The darkness waited inside her cells, eager to be set free. She closed her eyes and summoned the dark within, felt it rise through her flesh and slide around like a long-lost friend. Energy sizzled along her nerve endings and her skin tingled and burned as a portal of swirling darkness materialized a couple steps away in midair.

Too easy.

Katherine dragged a full, deep breath of sea air into her lungs. The smell of sand and salt calmed her and helped her find her center. She would come back with her men, or she wouldn’t come back at all. Lifting her gaze to the azure sky, she made her vow. All or nothing. She wouldn’t leave them behind again.

She rose to her feet and stepped through the Gate’s welcoming embrace, forging straight ahead into the very heart of the darkness.

Waiting was difficult, as time was impossible to gauge here, but soon she felt them, their pulsing heartbeats and the rapid staccato burst of energy flowing nonstop from Andrew’s calculating mind. They were all alert, aware of their predicament, and no longer ruled by terror.