Dalir's Salvation (10 page)

The van made a right onto a pitch black vacant road.

Ari kept going. A few yards ahead, she turned the car around. Headlights off, she drove down the pot-holed black top. Where were they? The van couldn’t have gotten far.

Red lights flashed in the rearview mirror.

Hope plummeted. “I’m pulling over to the side of the road. I just got stopped by the cops.” Hands shaking, she found her wallet and registration. “Do me a favor and don’t pop in the car, right now. I’m nervous enough. I don’t want to make the police suspicious.”

The lights beaming through the rear window seemed to heat up the interior of her coupe.

She wiped her palm on her jeans and ran through the standard protocol. Stay calm. Keep her hands on the steering wheel. Smile and answer their questions. No. Don’t smile. She should be concerned about driving in a remote area by herself. Better yet, she should act relieved.

The officer approached.

Ari rolled down the window. “Boy, I’m so glad to see you.”

* * * *

Dalir prowled through the shadows of the small, dimly lit warehouse. He’d found nothing farther up the road, but on his way back to Ari, he’d felt it. Distress, fear, ill intention. He’d followed it and stumbled on Ari’s warehouse. Inside of the place were light-colored crates with sun symbols stamped on them.

Men dressed in tactical gear, carrying semi-automatics, stood in the gray building. Guards patrolled outside the loading bay.

Staying hidden between rows of stacked wooden pallets, Dalir inched closer. As a precaution, he’d dialed back his energy to almost nothing, so if Kell were around, he wouldn’t sense his presence. That also meant he wouldn’t pick up on Kell or be able to call up his swords for increased protection and power.

“This stuff has to go. Now.” A thin man wearing a suit paced the cement floor.

“Our guys and Tampa are ready to handle the shipment.” A guy with the muscular build of a brawler and sporting a crew cut crossed his arms. “The deal was a month.”

“Screw the deal, Henshaw. Headquarters is conducting surprise audits. They’re inspecting every building on the books, even the inactive ones. They could show up today, tomorrow or next week. No one knows. It’s too dangerous. I could lose everything if these rifles are found.”

A van backed into the loading area. The men removed crates from the rear of the vehicle.

“Did you not hear a word I said?” The guy in the suit swiped his arm in the air. “Get this shit out of here. We’re done.”

Henshaw picked up the man by the throat with one hand and slammed him against the wall. “You don’t dictate when we’re done. The boss does. We’ll move out of here in one month. Understood?”

The smaller man’s face turned red as he clawed at Henshaw’s fingers and gasped for breath.

Henshaw slipped a manila envelope from inside of his weapons vest. He stuffed it into the man’s front suit pocket. “I suggest you stop buying expensive jewelry for your mistress and use the cash we’ve been paying you to take care of the problem instead. If you don’t, one of your sons might just have to disappear.” He released him.

The man crumpled to the floor. “Don’t bring my family into this.”

“We didn’t. You did, when you chose to do business with us.” Henshaw jerked his chin toward one of the men in the warehouse. “Get him the fuck outta here.”

One of the guards, a dark haired woman with a ponytail, came inside. She tipped her head, motioning to Henshaw to join her near the pallets, just feet away from Dalir. “You can’t mention what Tate said to the boss.”

“I have to. If I don’t someone else will. Tate’s a smart man. He’ll figure out what to do.” Henshaw’s expression turned grim. “I just have to stop the boss from smokin’ Tate’s ass before the inspection shit gets sorted out.”

“That’s my point. If you tell him, you know he’s going to fly off the handle like he did in Tampa.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t like the way this is going. I’m loyal to the cause like everyone else, but he’s too erratic to lead us. I’m not the only one who feels that way. He leaves behind bodies that you have to dispose of, and he’s stamping that stupid symbol on everything making us more identifiable. He’s a lunatic.”

Henshaw grabbed her roughly by the arm. “Stow that shit.”

Dalir tensed.

“It’s the truth and you know it.” She laid her palm on Henshaw’s chest. Her gaze held fear. “Please, baby, let’s just leave. We have enough cash saved up. We can find another group to join. Those guys we met in Montana seemed pretty organized.”

“And that’s why the boss is meeting with them. It’s too fuckin’ risky. He’s resurrecting all the chapters. Everyone’s so caught up in his message it’s as if he’s the Second Coming or something. They’re not seeing the other side of him. If we leave, there’s no going back for us anywhere. We’ll have to go underground or he’ll kill us.”

A side door opened.

A male police officer shoved Ari inside.

Dalir’s heart raced.

As she stumbled forward, the soles of her tennis shoes squeaked on the concrete. Handcuffs bound her wrists. “I don’t understand. Why did you bring me here? What’s going on?”

Henshaw stalked to the light haired officer. “Who is she.”

The officer handed him a wallet. “Ari Frasier, a local. She was following the van. You’re lucky I saw her. She’s all yours. And Henshaw, make sure you take care of her out of my area.”

Ari’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute. You can’t leave me here with them.”

“You’re not staying long.” Henshaw sneered. “You can go as soon as you tell me who sent you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Kell strolled in from the loading dock, dressed in tactical gear. He drew a pistol from a shoulder holster. “You know what we do with intruders. We get rid of them.”

Dalir ramped up his power, quick phased, and swooped Ari up. Ribbons of time flowed in front of him. As they flew through a tunnel of golden light, her screams pierced his ears.

Pain, as if she were suddenly set on fire was what she’d experienced, but he couldn’t slow down.

Kell’s phase signature streamed behind them, closing in.

Dalir manipulated time, faster and faster. Putting distance between him and Kell. Whipping past hours, months, years into the future. Then, he doubled back, zigzagging, bouncing in and out of random places in seconds, leaving multiple energy signatures. The equivalent of numerous footprints would make it harder for Kell to track him down.

Ari went limp in his arms.

“Hang on, Little One, I’ve got you.”
She couldn’t take much more.

Gambling it was finally safe, Dalir broke from the time stream and dove into the barrier between The Drift and the Earthly dimension. Silent, heavy darkness engulfed them. He slowed to a hover and dimmed his energy. He waited.

Nothing.

Not willing to take chances, Dalir shot out small pulses of power at intervals. Inertia floated them closer to their destination.

Finally satisfied Kell hadn’t followed, Dalir phased to The Drift.

As Ari floated in darkness, the pain subsided.

A radiant light shaped in human form embraced her.

They zoomed forward.

No.
Not again. She’d never had the experience of someone shooting her out of a cannon. The way they tore through nothingness had to compare. An abrupt stop left her head spinning. She dropped to her hands and knees, fighting nausea. Fresh air. Warmth. The scent of green grass. Ari clawed her fingers into the ground. Real, solid. They’d finally stopped.

Dalir stood over her in the tree lined field. He was no longer dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Now he wore close fitting dark pants, tucked into black boots, and a dark chest plate formed to every muscle in his torso. Leather strips crisscrossed his chest. The grips of what looked like two swords stood out at his back. No part of her imagination could have conjured up someone so formidable. Lethal. And he glowed.

Ari jerked back and landed on her butt. “Stay away from me!” Digging her heels in, she scooted away.

He approached slowly, arms out, hands open at his sides. “Ari, calm down. Give me a chance to explain.” A starburst of silver glittered in his gray gaze. Just like the guy with two different colored eyes at the warehouse. The one who’d issued a command to take her life.

She scrambled farther away, found her footing and stood. Breaths she couldn’t control heaved from her chest. “Calm down? Are you serious? No, I’m not going to calm down.”

“I’ll tell you everything.” He eased toward her. His gaze asked for what she couldn’t give him. Understanding. “Just don’t—”

She ran across the field. Cutting through the trees, she leaped over rocks, roots and through a patch of flowering bushes. Sweat trickled down her spine, sharp limbs scratched her arms.

He easily covered the distance between them at a speed that made her blink twice.

Ari stumbled and smacked her shoulder against the trunk of a large tree.

Dalir stood a few feet away, no longer glowing. “Stop running. You’re hurting yourself.” He pointed to the bleeding scrape on her arm.

She flattened against the tree. A breeze tugged at her shirt. None of the terrain looked easy. She could run, but it was uphill to the left and wilderness to the right. While she was exhausted, Dalir wasn’t even winded. “I’m fine. Leave me alone.”

“I can’t. Ari, trust me. There’s nowhere for you to go.” His chest fell with a deep exhale. “I know this is a lot to take in. Let me help you. Tell me how to get you through it.”

“Help me? You can’t say that. You can’t just do what you did at the warehouse and then say that to me.” Her shouts burned, raw in her throat. “I trusted you. I thought—” An unexpected sob burst out, swallowing her words. “Tell me that I’m imagining this.”

“I can’t do that, either.” He inched closer.

She edged right, along the curve of the tree trunk. “Why did you bring me here? Do you even have a brother? Was it all a lie?”

A hint of something that reminded her of guilt shadowed his gaze. “I didn’t lie about my brother.”

“But you lied about other things.”

“Not to hurt you.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

He held out his hand. “Come. I’ll answer every question.”

Or tell her more lies. “I don’t trust you.” The wind rustled her hair. She batted her bangs out of her eyes.

Suddenly, he stood right in front of her. “You can, Ari.”

The calmness in his tone soothed her as his warmth filled the inches between them. She couldn’t fight him off or outrun him. He’d never let her get away. Her heart clamored in her ears. If she appeared as if she’d given up, maybe he wouldn’t restrain her.

He crowded her space but didn’t touch her. “Just look past the fear.”

She flattened her palms to his chest to keep him at a distance. Desire threatened to spark. She couldn’t be with him. Not now or ever. He’d lied to her. He was connected to people who’d wanted to hurt her. “Right now, you’d say anything to try to convince me to go with you.”

“I’m saying it because it’s the truth.”

If only she could believe the sincerity in his gaze.

Rain misted through the trees.

Dalir placed his hands on the tree trunk near the sides of her head. He pushed closer, shielding her from most of the wind and the rain. His shoulders and biceps bulged with tension. A mere hint of the strength he could unleash. “I know this is hard to believe, but I only want to keep you safe. I’d never hurt you.” As he grasped her shoulders, a hint of light emanated from his pupils.

Ari’s rib cage squeezed. Her mouth dried out. She had to get away from him. Renewed strength rushed in. Ari jammed her knee up between his thighs.

He grunted and jerked back.

Ari slipped under his arm and around the tree. She squeezed through the foliage and broke free. Snowcapped mountains rose in the distance.

A log and brick two-story home, with glass panels in the center of it, stood yards ahead. A woman with long blond hair sat on the covered porch.

Ari’s heartbeats exploded in her chest. Running in sneakers, she struggled to find traction in the damp grass. “Help me! Please.” She pushed herself to run faster.

The woman jumped from the chair, hurried down the steps and rushed across the grass.

It couldn’t be. Ari faltered.

Lauren caught her by the shoulders. “Ari? What are you doing here? What’s wrong?”

“He—I—” Shock and Ari’s panting kept her from speaking.

Dalir stood near the trees.

Ari pointed. “Him.”

Lauren’s mouth dropped open. “Dalir brought you here?”

Lauren knew him?

A guy with short, dark hair, wearing a black T-shirt, military-style boots and camouflaged cargo pants jogged from the porch. “Babe, was that you screaming?” His gaze landed on Ari. “Shit. What the fuck happened?”

Lauren wrapped an arm protectively around Ari. “I don’t know,” she retorted, “but I bet he’s got something to do with it.”

Dalir disappeared from the tree line and materialized before them. His normal gray gaze held hers. The look in his eyes begged for understanding. “Ari, don’t.”

Lightheadedness threatened to knock her off her feet. Words wouldn’t form. She clutched Lauren.

“Don’t what?” Lauren snapped. “Be afraid of you? What did you do? Look at her. She’s shaking. Come on, Ari. It’s okay now. I’ve got you. Let’s go inside.”

Lauren ushered her into the house.

They hurried past a vase with wildflowers and roses on a glass and metal entryway table.

Every step Ari took seemed out of sync. How did Lauren know Dalir? Why did the other guy who’d run out the house seem so familiar? Where were they? What was going on?

Polished wood floors expanded throughout the bottom floor of the house and down the hall. They past an archway leading to the living room. Ari caught a glimpse of a beautiful stone fireplace and a modern seating area.

The faint smell of wood smoke and lemon polish filled the air.

Lauren coaxed Ari up the stairs.

“Whose house is this? Why aren’t you in South America?”

Anger sparked in Lauren’s green-eyed gaze. “He just snatched you up without an explanation or a warning, didn’t he?” Compassion softened her expression. “You’re safe now. I’ll tell you everything.” She tugged Ari down a hallway to the open door of a bedroom. “First, you take a nice hot shower to warm up. I’ll bring you clothes, and some whiskey. Then, we’ll talk.”