Darkness Surrendered (Primal Heat Trilogy #3) (Order of the Blade) (29 page)

Good job, sweetheart.

Dear God, Elijah
. Ana’s horror raked over him as she staggered back and he immediately touched her mind, trying to help her partition her mind from the horror of stabbing a man, as Dante had taught him to do when he’d rescued Elijah five hundred years ago.

Ezekiel straightened up, his eyes flashing with fury and pain. “You bitch!”

He lunged for Ana so quickly Elijah lost sight of him for a split second, and Elijah suddenly realized that Ana had been able to stab Ezekiel only because Ezekiel hadn’t been taking her seriously. When he wanted to move...shit. He was too damn fast.

Ezekiel grabbed her wrist. He yanked her toward him, and her hand slipped off Elijah’s ankle.

Panic started to rise in Elijah, but not as hard and fast as usual. He felt blades nicking at his skin, starting to skin him, and he willed himself to focus on Ana, drawing on the additional stages of the bond they’d completed to try to maintain his sense of reality. Demons were sitting on the walls now, watching, and he shut them out.
You aren’t real.
“Let her go,” he growled.

“No!” Ezekiel sounded almost like a petty child as he twisted Ana’s arm, called out a blade and slid it down her forearm over the healing scar from where Gideon had cut her so she could bond with Elijah.

Elijah! He’s going to try to blood bond us!

No!
Elijah fought harder, trying to dislodge the weapons pinning him to the wall. Blood was pouring in hot waves down Elijah’s body, his skin ripping, but he couldn’t get free. It was as if the weapons shifted and dug deeper with every bit of progress he made...and they probably were doing exactly that. He swore, ignoring the screaming pain raging through him and willing his body to fight harder.
Gideon! Can you hear me? We need help!

Little busy. There’s a couple hundred Calydons trying to get into the mansion out here.

Ana’s shout brought Elijah’s attention back to the room. She had recalled Elijah’s weapons from where Ezekiel had tossed them and was shoving them into Ezekiel every time he got close enough to grab her.

Elijah could tell Ezekiel was playing with her, that he could take her anytime he wanted, but it was giving Elijah time to get free. To save her. He fought harder, but he was failing. Couldn’t fucking get free while she was fighting for her life—

“Elijah.”

He jerked his gaze toward Quinn. “What?”

Quinn’s eyes were glazed, swimming on the edge of unconsciousness. “Focus. Channel your strength. You’re diluting your strength.” Then his head rolled and he was out.

Shit
. Quinn was right. He was so jacked up by the threats to Ana that he’d lost his focus. Time to be the warrior he was. Elijah immediately shut down his emotions and channeled his strength and his energy into his body, assessing the location and the strength of every weapon pinning him to the wall. He noted the angles of the weapons and the nature of their blades until he knew exactly where the weak spots were. Then he drilled all his strength into his body and summoned it for a single, final assault.

Ezekiel grabbed Ana’s arm, hauled her against him, and pressed his mouth to the wound he’d opened. He began to drink, his fingers tightening in her hair to force her face to his chest, where he was still bleeding out from Elijah’s throwing stars.

“No!” Elijah let out a roar, thrust his energy into his restraints and tore himself free with a shout of victory. He charged Ezekiel and Ana just as Ezekiel shoved Ana’s mouth to his wound.

Elijah’s soul shuddered the moment Ana’s lips touched Ezekiel’s blood. Elijah felt their connection in every inch of his body, and his spirit screamed with anguish the split second before he reached them and ripped Ana out of Ezekiel’s grasp.

He and Ana tumbled to the ground, and Elijah used his body to protect her from the impact as he heard Ezekiel speak the binding words of the blood ritual.

No, God no. He must have reached them in time to stop it. This couldn’t happen—

Ana tensed and Elijah heard the first words of the ritual begin to form in her mind in response.

...I will always keep you safe...

Ezekiel’s satisfaction hovered in her mind, and Ana recoiled in horror as she felt a part of her respond, rise to Ezekiel’s presence.

“No!” Elijah shouted as he yanked at the fly to her jeans, ripping them off as he shed his own.

Like an insidious poison, the bonding words kept coming
...No matter what the cost...

“Elijah!” Ana wrapped her legs around Elijah’s hips as his erection found her core and he drove deep, penetrating her fully in a single thrust. Her need for him swelled inside her, her heart blossomed, and her forearms burned as the bond tightened with Elijah. She held him tight to her as he filled her, her heart beating in rhythm with his.

She opened her eyes to find his green gaze staring down at her, so full of tenderness and possessiveness and strength. He slid his hips back and began to move inside her, and her body came alive with need and longing for him.

...I am yours...
Dear God! It wasn’t stopping!

Stay with me, sweetheart. Focus only on me.
Elijah kissed her fiercely, driving hard and deep with his hips, working her into a frenzy of fire and need and passion. As his muscled body clenched above her, his orgasm yanked her over the edge, and she clung to him as she bucked beneath him gasping.

Their minds and souls merged, and every memory of Elijah’s filled her. Every minute of torture and all of his demons melted into her mind, showing her his pain. Accepting his torment without reservation, she caressed and soothed it, offering it peace. Elijah threw himself into their connection, filling her spirit with his, binding them, holding them together for all eternity, and it was as it should be.

One more stage complete.

Elijah shuddered and let himself collapse on top of her, protecting her with the weight of his body, his breathing hard. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him to her as tight as she could, basking in the feel of his body against hers, in the heat on her forearm as his marks formed—

The compulsion to finish the ritual thrust at her mind. “Elijah?” Ana gripped his shoulders with sudden fear. “It’s still happening—”

He grabbed her face, his green eyes fierce with adrenaline. “Focus on me, Ana. Only on me!”

Tears filled her eyes. “I can’t stop...”

...as you are mine.
And the blood bond with Ezekiel was complete.

“Oh, God.” Ana felt sick. Her insides felt dirty, like someone had spread filth and rot through her soul. How could she be so weak?

Elijah swore and dropped his head to her chest, his body going rigid, deep fury vibrating within him.

Ezekiel’s voice floated through both their minds, replete with the satisfaction.
The ritual is done. The woman will be ours. The bonding has begun.

Elijah lifted his head to look at her. Pain filled his beautiful green eyes, and the most agonizing sense of failure consumed Ana. “Elijah, I’m so sorry—”

“No, no, no.” He framed her face and kissed her so tenderly she felt her heart was going to shatter. “It’s not your fault. Never your fault.” He sighed, his ribs expanding under her embrace. “We’ll find a solution. I’m not giving up.”

I will be back.
The energy in the room lightened, and she sensed Ezekiel had left her bedroom. Then there was a shout of victory from outside, and Ana knew that Ezekiel’s Calydons had withdrawn. There was a thud and a low groan as the weapons released Quinn from the wall and he fell to the floor.

God, had they been on display? She covered her eyes with her palm as Elijah turned his head to look at Quinn. “He’s unconscious. He saw nothing.”

She nodded, unable to stop the tears from forming as she felt Ezekiel’s darkness, his
evil
settle in her body. “I can feel him inside me. In my mind. We’re connected.”

“But so are you and I.” Elijah unwrapped her arm from his neck and held it where they both could see it. The image of his throwing star was nearly complete, the lines a thick silver.

“You trusted me to keep you safe while you slept, then my weapon recognized you and became yours to call.” He kissed the mark gently, but she felt fury vibrating from him, could almost see the air simmering as it rose from his shoulders. “And then we made love. Four and a half stages done. Only half a stage left. You risking your life to save mine, or you taking a life to save mine. We’re almost sealed together forever—”

But as they watched, another line formed. A straight silver line, bisecting Elijah’s throwing star as it crept down her arm toward her wrist. Ezekiel’s mark.

Elijah swore and Ana’s stomach churned.

Panic bubbling up inside her, Ana grabbed Elijah’s wrist. “I want to complete our bond. I want to finish it now before Ezekiel can take me. I can’t let him bind me to him. I already feel...something...for him, and...Oh, God.” Her stomach lurched, and Elijah’s arms went around her, holding her close.

He brushed his lips over her temple. “No. We can’t. You know we can’t. We’ll lose everything, especially our ability to stop Ezekiel if we completely bond and invoke our destiny to lose all we care about. Ezekiel is trying to force us into making the wrong choice. If we complete the bond, we lose it all.”

Ana could feel Elijah’s rage simmering beneath the surface, but he kept his voice calm, soothing. His body was rigid with the self-control he was using to keep himself from erupting at the sight of another male’s mark on her arm, as if he knew it would send her over the edge. “You and I are the ones who are connected,” he said, his voice raw and sharp. “Only a half stage away from sealing it completely. You. And. I.”

She wanted to nod, but all she could look at was the line on her arm that didn’t match Elijah’s. “He marked me.”

Elijah’s gaze followed hers, and he laid his palm over Ezekiel’s brand, covering it, his fingers digging into her skin with barely restrained force. “No,” he growled. “The bastard raped you for your spirit.”

She pressed her lips together, and nodded, but she could feel despair overwhelming her, the walls closing in.

Elijah took a deep breath, as if he were summoning all his self-control, and she tensed, ready for him to explode. But he merely rolled onto his side and pulled her into his body, tucking her against him until he was shielding every inch of her. “Hey, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Concentrate on me.”

Ana huddled against the hard planes of his chest, trying to concentrate on his scent, on Elijah, but Ezekiel was in her mind, in her body, in her soul. He was evil, he was darkness, he was everything she didn’t want to be, everything she was so scared of becoming. He represented the path she was already on, and now he was infecting her, quickening her descent into the nightmare she didn’t want to become.

She could feel him alive inside her. His heart beating in time with hers, his mind testing hers, trying to uncover her secrets.

“Ana.” Elijah’s deep voice penetrated her thoughts, and she tried to focus on it, but she couldn’t.

She couldn’t get herself to stop thinking about Ezekiel, the way he was prowling through her, testing their bonds. “He’s everywhere inside me, like he’s trying to take over, to own me—”

“He doesn’t own you. It’s only one stage.” There was so much fury in Elijah’s tightly bound muscles, and his eyes lashed with anger, but he kept his voice calm and began to rub her back. “Concentrate on raising your shields against him. Just because you’ve blood bonded doesn’t mean you have no privacy from him.”