Darkness Possessed (Order of the Blade) (16 page)

She looked up into the trees surrounding them, and he followed suit, searching for something out of place, like a sniper perched on a branch, a net ready to drop on them, or any other kind of trap.

He saw nothing out of the ordinary that was cause for alarm. "You see anything?"

She shook her head, still searching, just as he was. "He would want to trap me, not kill me," she said quietly. "He would want to detain me until he could get here."

He ground his jaw, trying to decide what to do. A part of him wanted to trigger the trap and get a sense of how powerful this fire god was. But he wasn't completely without a functioning brain. It was a fool's move to walk into a trap and have no idea what it would be. "We skip it. We go around."

"No." She pointed to the center of the clearing, just to the right of the pyramid of stones. "The weapons cache is in the ground out there. We need the weapons that are in there. Without them, we have no chance."

He shook his head. "No. Not worth it."

Rhiannon glared at him. "I understand that you have no clue how powerful José is, but I do. If you want to save Thano, then you better listen to me. We need those weapons, or else José is going to kick your ass, and you're going to die. And if you die, then Thano dies. So, stop being an overly macho jerk and listen to me. We need those weapons!"

Zach ground his jaw, but finally he inclined his head in agreement. "Fine. We'll get the weapons." He leveled his sai at her. "That was uncool to play the Thano card, though."

She used the tip of her index finger to point the sai away from her, almost managing to keep the smugness out of her smile. Almost. "Men are so easy to manipulate," she said. "All you guys want is to be the hero."

"On that one you're wrong." Zach eyed the clearing, trying to assess the best, most unpredictable way to access the cache. "Fuck heroes. I'm so done with that shit." He realized he hadn't kept the bitterness out of his voice when she shot him a surprised look. "A hero is a dumb shit who will betray those who count on him," he said, before she could ask. "Fuck heroes. Just fuck 'em. I tried to be a hero once, and my family died for it, so don't pull that card on me. Stay here. I'm going to get the damn weapons." Before she could protest, he gripped his sai and walked straight out into the clearing.

He made it almost all the way to the pyramid when all hell broke loose.

He heard it before he saw it.

An almost silent crackle and spark, barely audible. His skin prickled, and sudden heat plowed through his stomach, searing his flesh from the inside. It took a split second for him to register what he was feeling, because it had been so long since he'd felt it.
Fire from within.

Then he felt a sudden pressure beneath his feet, as a massive amount of energy surged through the earth. No, the fire wasn't from within. It was coming from below. The air suddenly became empty and barren, a complete void so dry that his lungs burned in protest. Jesus. There was no oxygen in the air. Holy crap. He knew what that meant. He used to make that happen. Fire was sucking oxygen out of the atmosphere. It had to be a massive fire to drain the air like that.
Massive.

He was so shocked that for a split second, he couldn't move. It was as if he had been catapulted into the past, into a world that had once been his. It felt like his soul was lunging for what was coming for him. Every part of his body screamed for release, his need so strong that his cells felt like they were already on fire.
Yes—

"I can't breathe," Rhiannon gasped from right behind him.

Her gasp jerked him from his stupor. "Fire's coming!" He spun around, scooped her up in his arms in one swift move, and bolted for the trees. The earth was searing hot, burning through the soles of his boots, and the air was utterly dead. The noise began to crescendo around him, a screaming, roaring fury as if they were already surrounded by flames.

But they weren't. Not yet. Where the fuck was the fire? He knew it was going to explode at any second, and it was going to rip the hell out of them. Rhiannon was gasping in his arms, her hands clutching her throat as she tried to suck oxygen out of the air that had been robbed by the fire.

And then he saw it.

Ahead of him, a faint golden light glowed beneath the earth, forming a ring all the way around the circumference of the clearing. Shit! The fire was coming up from beneath the earth! He put on a burst of speed and leapt into the air just as the flames exploded out of the ground, shooting straight up toward the sky in a fiery inferno. He tucked Rhiannon's head against his chest, using his body to shield her as the flames exploded past them. For a split second, they were trapped in the flames, surrounded on all sides, and then his momentum carried them through it.

He landed twenty feet past the flames, hitting the ground hard. Rhiannon spilled from his arms. She screamed, slamming her hands down on the flames licking away at her pants. He lunged for her, tackled her, and then threw himself on top of her, using his body to try to smother the fire.

The flames burned against his flesh, and it hurt like hell. Swearing, he wrapped himself around her, cradled her head, and rolled them both across the jungle floor, whipping them in a frenzied logroll across the earth. As he rolled, he tried to pull the flames into his own body and steal them from hers and from their clothes. It should have been easy and automatic to absorb the fire into his own body, but he couldn't do it. It was as if the flames were no longer a part of who he was. "Shit!" He whipped them into a faster roll, slamming them across roots and rocks until finally he could detect no more fire.

He rolled another few yards just to be sure, and then finally stopped. For a moment, neither of them moved. Rhiannon's arms were around him, her face was buried in his neck, and their legs were tangled together. He had one hand behind her head to protect it, and the other arm was locked around her waist.

They were both panting, and he could feel her chest heaving against his as she sucked in air. He lifted his head, and they looked at each other. Then, as one, they both turned to look toward the clearing.

The ring of flames reached at least two hundred feet into the sky. It was an impenetrable wall of fire, a prison from which she never would have escaped. The flames were orange, red, blue, and white. So hot, so fierce, so impressive. A flicker of envy went through him at the sheer magnificence of what José had created, but it was instantly chased away by the grim reality of what they were facing.

"No weapons for us," Rhiannon said. "We'll never get in there."

"No." Not only did they not have the cache of weapons she'd been so certain that they needed, but now Zach fully understood what they were up against. No weapons would defeat José, no weapons short of the fire that he commanded.

Even in his heyday, Zach wouldn't have been able to produce what José had created
without even being present
. Yeah, Zach had to admit he'd been pretty good. He'd been the kind of warrior who could erect a wall of fire strong enough to deflect a volcano, turn himself into a fireball, and use his fire to defeat Rohan. Not only had he been able to generate fire from within himself, but he'd been able to walk through a wall of fire for days and never so much as singe an eyebrow. Those skills weren't enough to defeat José, but at least he might have had a chance.

Over the last few centuries, he'd been aware that his fire capacity had been diminishing, but he hadn't really believed it was truly gone. He'd assumed it was just because he didn't want to use it, and that it was still there for him if he needed it, until the last few days when it had completely disappeared.

In that split second before the flames had erupted, he'd felt something inside him, something hot, something like the man he had once been. For that second, he'd had hope. He'd thought that facing death was going to bring it back to life.

But it hadn't.

Once he had been a fire warrior.

Now? He looked down at his arm, and saw that his flesh was blackened and disfigured, burned to a crisp from the fire.

Now, he was nothing more than a man who would burn.

They were in trouble.

Rhiannon moved in his arms. "José will see that fire," she said suddenly. "He'll be on his way here. We need to get out of here." She pulled out of his arms, and leapt to her feet. "We need to go."

He didn't argue.

She was right. They had to vacate, and fast.

Swearing, Zach broke into an easy run, keeping pace as Rhiannon ducked through the jungle, moving fast to get them away from where José would soon be. As they ran, a dark feeling settled on Zach. The man he needed was on his way to the fire right now, and what was he doing? Running away like a coward instead of facing him.

Except he wasn't a coward. He knew he wasn't. He was a warrior who knew when he'd been beaten, and he wasn't a fool. They could not defeat José. Not right now. To stay would be to fail, and he would not fail again.

But as he followed Rhiannon deeper into the jungle, he felt an invisible noose begin to tighten around his neck, a familiar feeling he hadn't felt in centuries, not since the night he'd held his dead family in his arms and realized that there was no way to defeat the enemy.

Today it was a different enemy, but failure would have the same result: the death of someone he was supposed to protect.Something had to change, or Thano would die...and Rhiannon would become José's prisoner once again.

No.
He could not allow that to happen.

But what the hell could they do against a force like that?

He knew what they needed. They needed his fire, and they needed it fast. The fact he couldn't so much as sneeze a spark?

Yeah, that was going to be a problem.

Jordyn didn't want to admit it. She really didn't. She prided herself on being independent, self-sufficient, and able to take on any challenge.

But there was no way to deny it. Faking it any longer was just not going to help her situation. With a sigh, she set down her backpack as Eric walked up to her. The man still looked fresh and spry after six hours of hiking, while she felt like her shoulders were going to break off and fall to the earth, forever decimated by the assault of the too heavy backpack.

"You find something?" Eric asked.

His deep voice rumbled through her with the same intensity that it had every time he'd spoken over the last six hours. She'd tried to ignore it. She'd tried to lie to herself. She'd tried to hum loudly to drown out his voice. She'd tried reminding herself that he was a flirt who was probably the world's worst boyfriend. Nothing had worked. The fact was simply that she thought he had the sexiest voice of any male she'd ever heard in her life. She just liked to hear him talk, and she'd been goading him on all day just to hear him respond.

"No." She plopped down on her backpack, giving up on asking her legs to hold her up any longer. "I'm lost."

"You are?" He looked around at the dense vegetation surrounding them. "That's odd. You seemed like the type who would be able to flawlessly navigate a billion acres of unfamiliar jungle without a map or a compass."

She eyed him. "I'm too tired, hungry, thirsty, and discouraged to deal with sarcasm."

"I'm not being sarcastic. I meant it." He settled his dark brown gaze on her. "You know you're impressive, don't you? You're sexy as hell, yeah, but you've got something else going on. If I were Rhiannon, I'd be damned glad to have you on my side."

She narrowed her eyes. "You're making fun of me." She waved her hand at the jungle. "I know that I screwed up. We're lost. I don't know where to find her. And I don't need you making me feel bad."

"Hey." Eric strode across the ground and crouched in front of her. He propped his forearms over his muscular thighs, which made his biceps flex. The man was solid muscle, and with his dark hair, dark eyes, and sculpted jaw, he was incredibly good looking. "Do I look like I have trouble attracting a woman's attention?"

Her cheeks flamed, and she jerked her gaze off his pecs, which were visible beneath his slightly-too tight gray tee shirt. "No," she said.

"Exactly. I could be a complete ass and still get pretty much any woman I want. So, why would I waste my breath complimenting you if I didn't mean it?" His eyes glittered. "I'll be honest with you, Jordyn. I'm not that poetry-writing guy I mentioned earlier. I have no tact. I have no use for pretty words. I say whatever's on my mind. Life is too short to play games, so I don't. If I say it, you can be assured I mean it."

Her heart fluttered at the raw intensity of his voice, and the depth of his stare. His gaze was boring into her, unflinching and unyielding. "So, you never lie? Is that what you're saying?"

He hesitated, then shook his head. "Nope. I'll totally lie if it serves my purposes. But that's different."

She blinked. "Different? How? You just said that you won't say it if you don't mean it, but then you said you'll lie if it serves your purposes. How do those work together?"

He looked at her as if she had two heads. "Because I like you. I wouldn't lie to
you
. I only lie to people who I don't trust. You're important to Tristan, you obviously care about him, and you're risking your life to save your friend. That's all I need to know about you. You're good. You don't get lies from me. Ever."

He said it like it was the most logical thing in the entire world, as if she were insane to think that there was even a remote possibility that she would get anything other than honesty and trust from him. It was his absolute conviction in the logic of his words that convinced her that he meant it. She could trust him. The realization sent relief cascading through her, and she even had an insane urge to smile. The man actually, truly thought that she was competent enough to traverse the jungle without a map or a compass and find Rhiannon without batting an eye? He did. And she liked it. "You're a little insane," she commented, finally breaking into a smile. "You do realize that, don't you?"