Darkness Possessed (Order of the Blade) (25 page)

Rhiannon shook her head, and he sensed a great sadness from her. "It wasn't like that. He was...depraved." Her face paled. "Not 'was.' 'Is.' He's so powerful, Zach. He's so far beyond an ordinary Calydon."

Zach ground his jaw. Jesus. This bastard was still alive, and hunting Rhiannon. He had to die. There was no other possibility. Instinctively, he set his hand on her hips, needing to encircle her, to use his body to protect her and keep her safe. "How did you get away?"

Her fingers went to the red amulet at her throat. "Do you see this? This saved my life."

Zach studied the red stone more closely. He had noticed it before, but only in passing. He wasn't really the jewelry type, but now that he inspected it, he could see that it was marked with ancient designs that looked vaguely familiar. "What is it?"

"It protects my mind from him. When I have it on, I can think for myself. I still sense my body's need for him, but I can think and I can make my body respond to my own wishes, instead of his." Her fingers tightened around it, as her voice softened with a memory only she could see. "I found it buried in the dirt beside a river. José and his men had just finished with me, and had left me there so I could clean up." She ran her hand over her stomach as if she were trying to wipe away the memories of all that they'd left on her flesh.

Dark anger coiled through him, but he shut it down, staying focused on her. It had been so long since he'd encountered a woman who was so strong and so vulnerable, and she awoke in him things that he hadn't felt in so long. She inspired him to be a better man so that he could protect her. So, instead of getting all pissed off, he simply took her hand, lifting it away from the almost frantic wiping of her belly. She looked at him in surprise as he encased her fingers in his, trying to draw her back from the memories trying to trap her. He pressed a light kiss to the back of her hand, trying to give something good back to her.

She smiled faintly, and didn't pull away. "José was messing with me," she continued, her voice slightly stronger now. "He was calling me back to him, just to prove to everyone that even though my body hurt so much I could barely even crawl, that I would still come back to him for more."

Jesus. What a bastard. He'd thought there was no one lower than Rohan, but he knew now he had not even begun to scrape the surface. Rohan had betrayed Dante, but what Rhiannon's mate had done to her was beyond comprehension.

She studied their entangled fingers, hiding her face from him. "I was so exhausted and felt so hopeless that when I felt my body respond to his command, I started to cry. I hated it when he made me cry, and when I showed weakness, but I couldn't handle any more. I was so drained and horrified by what I had done." She lifted her eyes to Zach's, and he felt a part of his soul crack from the agony in her eyes. "I was starting to crawl back to him, dragging myself across the dirt that was churned up from what had happened earlier. The earth was soft and loose, and my hands sunk in with each move I made. It felt so good, so healing, the way it was cool against my skin. It reminded me of when I'd had a connection with the earth, you know? When nature had been a part of me."

He nodded. "Your connection with the plants is extraordinary. He took that from you, too?"

She nodded. "I was so broken and scared that I couldn't even feel them, but that day, the earth felt different. It felt like it was alive again, like it was telling me not to give up, that the strength was still in me somewhere."

Zach leaned forward, watching intently, riveted by her story. "What happened? Were you able to use the plants?"

"No." A small smile flickered on her face, a spark of defiance that reminded him of the woman he'd first met, a woman fighting for her life and her freedom. "Better. I found this." She touched the amulet around her neck. "My fingers sank into the earth, and my pinky suddenly felt like a shock exploded through it. I jerked my hand back, and I saw this stone sitting there in the dirt, completely clean and exposed, as if someone had just finished polishing it and then set it down for me to find. A small, red, misshapen piece of glass that changed everything for me. "

She smiled, and this time, it was a beautiful, real smile, that made his heart actually tighten. "What did it do for you?" he asked

She continued to finger it. "I reached for it, and the instant my fingers closed around it, my head cleared, and my body belonged to me again. It's so hard to explain that moment, but literally, it was as if I had been a puppet, and someone cut every single string at the same time. Suddenly, I controlled my body and my thoughts, and the best thing of all was that I didn't want him anymore." She grinned at him, excitement flashing in her eyes at the memory, her expression so vivid that he felt like he was in that moment with her, experiencing freedom for the first time. "Do you know what that felt like? Not to want him? Not to be facing this huge battle in my head against what he wanted and what I felt? It was just gone. It was just me."

"That must have been incredible." He knew what that was like. He had such a clear memory of the moment he'd discovered he had fire, at a most opportune time. Freedom was incredible. Freedom earned by your own strength was the most powerful of all.

"It was. God, it was." She was smiling openly now, but she was still holding his hand. Her fingers were relaxed now, though, idly stroking his as if she wasn't even aware she was doing it. "José called my name, and I tensed, waiting for it to crash through me like it always did, but it didn't. It was simply a sound, an empty, powerless sound." She grinned. "That moment was so amazing. He called me, and instead of turning toward him, my hand instinctively reached for a stick, a stick I wanted to use against him. I still remember sitting there on my knees, staring at this stick in my hand, barely able to even understand what was happening. I didn't even really make a conscious decision to get the stick. It was just instinct, a need to protect myself in a way I hadn't been able to do for so long. I didn't even know what was going on."

"But you did know, didn't you?" Zach asked.

She laughed softly. "Even after all those years of being trapped, I still had the instincts that I was trained with. It took me about thirty seconds to figure out what was going on. I didn't have time to fully process it, but I knew that something critical had happened." She met his gaze. "I knew I had been given the power to resist him, but there were eleven warriors there. Just because I could think for myself didn't mean I could defeat them, you know?"

Zach couldn't believe what she was saying. How could anyone have that kind of self-discipline? "You went to him anyway, didn't you? You made yourself pretend you didn't have it?"

She nodded. "I just grabbed the stone and clenched it in my fist, and then acted like everything was the same."

Zach heard the agony in her voice, and understood what she wasn't saying. Even when she was back in full control of her faculties, she had understood that to fight prematurely would reveal what she had found, and José would have taken it from her. A warrior, which she was, would have held onto that stone until she had the right moment to escape. "How long did it take until you had the right opportunity to escape?"

"Eleven months."

Zach swore under his breath, barely able to imagine what she had endured for so long. And then, to have to fake it, to force her body not to fight for survival… He shook his head in disbelief. "How did you make yourself stay for eleven months when you didn't have to?"

"I did have to. I knew I would have only one chance to get away, so I had to make sure I timed it perfectly." Rhiannon managed a small, half-smile.

"But how did you make yourself not fight back?" He wasn't blind. He could see the torment in her eyes, and hear the pain in her voice. She'd suffered every minute under her soul mate's power, and yet she'd managed to hide that she could think for herself for eleven months. "How did you let him..." Shit. He didn't even want to think about what she'd endured, let alone say it. But if she could survive it, then he could say it. "How did you keep yourself from fighting back when he and the others raped you?" Because that's what it was. It didn't matter whether she chose to submit or was drawn to José on a deeper level. It was rape, clear and simple, an unfathomable act for a Calydon to perpetrate on the mate he was born to protect.

A smile flickered briefly across her face, and he saw it for what it was, an appreciation for how he had phrased it, for the fact he accepted and acknowledged it for what it had been. "The only way to do that was to become numb, and not be present in my body, my heart, or my mind. In some ways, that was even harder than the nine years I spent trying to resist him, because at least then I'd been alive and fighting. Once I had to turn myself off, I felt like I was already dead." She met his gaze. "When I was under his thrall, at least I was trying to fight. During those eleven months..." she shook her head. "A part of me had to die in order to pull it off."

Her pain seemed to plunge right into his gut, and he closed his eyes, knowing exactly how she must have felt. "I'm so sorry," he said quietly. He opened his eyes. "I'm so fucking sorry, Rhiannon." He didn't know what else to say. There were no words to lessen what she'd endured, and a compliment as to how amazingly strong she was seemed to dismiss what she'd faced. "I know what that's like, to die inside. I've been there, and it's hell."

She lifted her head to look at him. "You have?" There was hope in her voice, a tiny hope that maybe she wasn't the only one in the world who had felt the pain of a living death. "Will you please tell me what happened to you? I need to hear it, Zach. I need to know that I'm not the only one."

Rhiannon waited while Zach bowed his head. His shoulders hunched, and exhaustion seemed to shudder through his massive frame. Instantly, she was sorry. No one should have to relive that which had almost killed them. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked—"

"No." He raised his head to look at her, his eyes dark with turbulence. "You were honest with me. I'll be honest with you." He shrugged. "It's not that long of a story. I met a woman—not my
sheva
—and fell in love. Not the Calydon-
sheva
lust. I loved her."

Rhiannon was startled by the depth of emotion in his voice. She'd never been around a man who felt anything. She was born of a tribe of women who protected the jungle, and men had never been a part of her life, until José had taken her. But the edge to Zach's voice told her that he was telling the truth, th+

at he had truly loved this woman.

Riveted, she scooted forward, as if the mere act of discovering that one male on this earth was built from human emotions would suddenly make things feel better and take away what she'd just relived. Strangely, after recalling her life with José, she didn't feel as scared as she usually did. Sharing it with Zach while he was holding her hand had somehow lessened the impact of the memories. She felt better, as if her past had loosened its grip on her a tiny, tiny bit. "Did she love you back?"

A grim smile played across his stoic features, a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Yeah, she did. I was working for the Order at the time, running around and saving innocents. She didn't want me to do that anymore, so I left." He shook his head, and she felt the bitterness in his voice. "I had made an oath to my sister and her kids that I'd protect the world against other rogues, and yet when I met Jacqueline, nothing else seemed to matter. She won my heart, and I had no choice but to follow."

Rhiannon narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure that wasn't the
sheva
bond? That sounds like what it was like with José."

"No. No
sheva.
" He held up his arm. "Runes, remember? I can't do the
sheva
thing. So, yeah, I just loved her. She had a child, and they reminded me of my sister and her two kids. They were alone in the world, and they had no one to help them. They needed me, and they became my family."

Rhiannon's heart softened at his story. Here was this big, strong warrior whose job it was to save the world, and yet he had been won over by a single mom and her child. "What happened?"

Something darkened in Zach's eyes. "She became pregnant. We had a baby girl. Her name was Madeline."

Rhiannon went cold, so cold with terror at his words, at his use of the past tense to describe his daughter. Her heart began to hammer, as her own memories came flooding back to her. "What happened?"

Zach turned his head away, staring at the wall of vegetation surrounding them. "One day, there was a rogue terrorizing a nearby village. The Order wasn't around, so I went to help. I couldn't stand back, you know? I was Order in my blood, even if I'd walked away from my duties, and I needed to go help. Jacqueline didn't want me to go. She was scared. She was afraid of what would happen if there were more rogues around and they found her while I was in the village, but I didn't listen. The screams from the village were so visceral, I could feel them in my bones.
I had to save them.
We fought about it, but I went anyway. How could I possibly ignore that?"

"You couldn't." She knew that he couldn't. Just as she hadn't had the choice of refusing to face José. Her job had been to protect the jungle, and with José and his team destroying it, she had to go. She understood that he'd had to go, but she could hear in his voice that he didn't. "What happened?"

"There was only one rogue, and I took care of him pretty easily. I was on my way back to our house, and I heard more screams. This time coming from my house."

Rhiannon scooted closer to him, instinctively setting her hands over his balled fists. He turned his hands over and wrapped them around hers as he looked at her.

"The father of her first child had been a Calydon. He'd been killed for going rogue after they bonded, freeing her from the
sheva
bond. But he had a brother who blamed her for his brother's death, and he'd been hunting her. When he found that she'd married another man, he felt she'd betrayed his brother's memory, and he came to kill her. The attack in the village had merely been to lure me away from her."