Immortally Embraced (7 page)

I battled up the rocky ground, bracing my hand against the sharp stones when I felt myself slipping. There was no way to do this quietly. The rock crunched like glass under my feet.

This was one of the few natural rises on the limbo plain. Chances were, they’d located our MASH unit here to take advantage.

There was a road off the back side—probably where I’d find my jeep—but I wasn’t about to snake around the base of the hill in the dark. There were shallow caves back there. No telling what liked to nest in them.

Besides, I had somewhat of an excuse to be on the helipad, more than I did wandering the cave openings below.

If any guards spotted me, I’d tell them I’d lost my keys.

And pray they didn’t search my boots.

At last I reached the top and stepped up onto the smooth, flat dirt of the helipad. I didn’t see any guards, at least not yet.

Fiery torches outlined landing zones Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Each pad was marked with a Greek letter, and the Ankh, an ancient symbol for life. It resembled a cross with a loop at the top.

That same Ankh was emblazoned in gold on my scrubs, and on the roofs of our medical tents. It was our version of the red cross.

Beyond the landing pads, I caught a glimpse of movement in the shadows. My breath caught. It could be a guard, or a creature of the night. Or my ride.

Hell and damnation.

I closed a hand over the gun in my pocket, praying I didn’t need to use it.

Wait. I yanked my hand back. Of course I couldn’t use it—not on my own people. My head pounded. I was too keyed up.

Relax.
Breathe.

Easier said than done.

There was no way to make it across the helipad unseen. Heart hammering, I inched along the side, making my way for the hulking machine on Gamma pad. If I could keep it between me and whatever was out there, I’d at least have some protection.

I stayed to the shadows, moving in silence.

My hand touched the cool metal of Gamma pad’s chopper.

“Hurry,” a familiar voice ground out.

Recognition whooshed through me. Marc. “Where are you?”

He stepped from the shadows. He’d stayed. I wasn’t alone. “Thank God. I could kiss you.”

His smooth facade faltered. “You don’t mean that.”

“No,” I said automatically.

Of course I didn’t.

He stood with his flak jacket open, and nothing underneath. Firelight flickered over the wide expanse of his chest. For a moment, all I did was stare. I remembered this, him.

A heaviness hung between us.

“The patrol should be back in five minutes or less,” he said, breaking the spell.

He tore his gaze from mine as he worked the rest of the buttons, shrugging off the jacket completely. He had a strong, swimmer’s build.

Wait. “What are you doing here?” He should have been back at his own camp by now. He’d be missed. Discovered.

“You need a ride,” he said, matter-of-fact.

“Right.” Of course he’d stayed for me. It was Marc.

Yes, I was still mad as hell at him, but the clenched fist inside me loosened. There was some justice in the world. One good man survived, when so often many did not.

His hands went to his waist, unhitching his belt. Firelight illuminated the curve of muscle at his hip.

Yow. Was it getting hot up here? I was starting to sweat.

A jeep was bad enough, but if he thought I was going to ride over the Great Divide on dragon back …

He dropped his pants.

“Do you mind?” I asked, glancing behind us as he shucked his boots. Yes, I’d seen it all before, but not for the last decade. And besides, I was still angry with him. And I kind of hated him and here he was stripping and Jesus on a pogo stick I’d forgotten how good he looked naked.

“No out-of-uniform jokes, okay?” he said, his voice betraying a smile.

Yeah, yeah. He could still get to me. I was glad one of us was amused.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, soldier,” I said, trying to keep it light, trying not to stare—and failing miserably.

He was lithe, with the build of an athlete. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as I stared at the dip of muscle just below his left hip. There he wore the mark of the silver dragons. It was circular, with the head of a dragon swallowing its tail. It was supposed to symbolize never-ending loyalty to the clan. I used to play with it while we lounged in bed on our days off.

“Keep an eye out,” he said, lowering his head to shift.

He was at his most vulnerable during the change. I scanned the area in front and behind us as he bent, the muscles in his back expanding, his bones re-forming. His neck grew long, and scales sprouted along his back. The air around him glittered as his hands and feet morphed into talons and he grew to the size of a large horse. I’d seen it a hundred times and I’d still never seen anything like it.

Spikes framed his long face, curving downward toward the hard white plates of his underbelly. Dorsal spines inched down his neck, as hard as his thick, armored hide. He pawed at the ground with four-clawed talons. Legend said the claws symbolized earth, fire, air, and water. Marc was an elemental dragon, of the air. Immense wings unfurled from his back.

Marc was a born dragon, silver and beautiful.

He crouched before me, rumbling low in his throat, and when he caught my eye, he blasted my leg with a shot of cold air.

“Cut it out,” I said, gathering up his clothes. Teasing would not make me relax. Escaping here in one piece would.

Maybe. At least it was a start.

His clothes smelled like him, spicy and warm. I cradled them under my arm. “This is insane,” I muttered, climbing onto his back.

I wound my fingers around a wide dorsal spike at the base of his neck. Its blunt tip curved upward, like a saddle horn.

He snorted, his warm breath washing over my stiff fingers. For this one night, this one mission, we’d come together. And so I braced myself as he shuddered and leapt off the helipad.

chapter six

We hung in midair for a split second before he dove low. My stomach jolted at the sudden drop. Show-off. It reminded me of the times I’d flown with him back home.

He had no fear, which was good, because I had plenty for both of us.

Back in the day, we’d take long, hot baths after flying. Marc had never been a big tub guy until I showed him just how fun it could be to lick off the water droplets one by one.

I zapped the memory before I could dwell on it too much. I didn’t need to be thinking of Marc that way. He was my past. And he was on the other side. Permanently.

Tonight was just a fluke—a brief moment in time. We were together to investigate the circumstances behind Dr. Keller’s disappearance. Nothing more.

Knees tight against Marc’s flanks, I clutched the thick spike at the back of his neck with one hand. The other, I used to cradle his clothes to my chest. I should have stuffed them into the duffel bag strapped over my shoulder. I would have, if I hadn’t been so distracted by him in the first place.

Wind tore through my ponytail as he skirted the rocky plain beyond the helipad. We flew so low that I could make out the shadows of rocks in the moonlight.

I squeezed my legs tighter and felt a tingle of excitement.

To be fair, it wasn’t every day I snuck out of camp to watch a sexy-as-sin ex-lover strip naked and shift into a dragon.

God, I’d forgotten how beautiful he was. Or more likely, I’d shoved it out of my mind.

That didn’t matter now. I was just glad he’d waited for me. It was the least he could do, considering I still didn’t know how we were going to survive once we hit the Great Divide. Or how I was going to face a murdered soul without it trying to kill me, possess me, or worse.

I readjusted my grip on the clothes and shoes I held tight against my body—his clothes. They still held his body heat, his warm male scent.

Enough
. I focused on the dark desert, and the bright moon. I didn’t need to be thinking about Marc as a man. I liked him as a dragon. We’d make better time flying than we ever could have otherwise. Plus, this way I didn’t have to talk to him. Or risk anything else.

Wind buffeted my legs as his body flexed under me, his wings beating in a comforting rhythm.

Yes, a dragon was much better than Marc naked. I’d forgotten just how tight and powerful he was. Many of the doctors I’d known had let their bodies go, even in medical school. Marc had been a swimmer and it showed.

He’d been my first love, ever since he was my head resident and sent one of the techs to the lab to get fallopian tubes. His joke had flopped when the tech started thinking about it halfway to the lab, but it didn’t matter. I’d fallen hard and fast.

I glanced behind us at the endless desert stretching out into the darkness.

I romanced him by having his least favorite orderly transport a body to the morgue, a body that then came blood-chillingly back to life and had the orderly screaming through the hospital and out into the parking lot. I’d never seen that woman move so fast in her life. Of course there were no real zombies in New Orleans, none that I’d ever met anyway.

Still, with the right makeup, I could be quite convincing.

Marc wised up and took me out for a round of oysters at Cooter Brown’s. I took him home to meet my family. I was never one to play games, and I knew I wanted to be with him. He’d wanted to be with me.

Until he’d been dropped straight into limbo.

An unearthly screech echoed across the desert, and I felt Marc tense. I turned toward the sound and saw a pack of dark creatures barreling straight for us.

Marc growled and I left my stomach somewhere on the ground as we rocketed straight up into the night. “Wait!” I felt like I was hanging in midair, my legs losing their grip on his back.

Sweet mother.

I grabbed him with both hands, clinging to the back of his neck. Hard curved spikes pressed against my chest as I willed myself to hold on. He wouldn’t drop me. I couldn’t fall.

Tears clung to the corners of my eyes, cold and frightening as we leveled off and spun straight for the pack of large flying
things
. They almost looked like giant vultures, slick and spindly in the moonlight.

Marc roared, icy air blasting out of his mouth, and I saw the creatures for what they were—flying imps.

I slammed my forehead into the cool scales of his neck. I didn’t even know imps could fly. We were heading straight for them. Marc tensed under me as screeches filled the air. Leathery wings beat at my back. I prepared myself for the sharp clawing of talons, for them to rip me off Marc’s back and make me fall.

But I only felt Marc’s strong body underneath me, his breath raw and ragged.

Gasping, I raised my head to see past Marc’s long, curved neck. There was only empty sky and the full moon beyond.

“Where’d they go?” I whipped around to look over my shoulder.

The whole pack of them trailed us about fifty feet back. They flew close and disorganized, snapping at one another as their wings collided. But they didn’t attack. Not yet, at least.

Marc dove close to the ground again, keeping a firm driving pace. No question he knew they were right on our tail, but he didn’t charge them again. We kept flying, straight and low.

It seemed that speed was more important than victory over the wildlife of limbo.

“Okay.” A shudder ran through me. If they could attack me, if they could swoop in and snatch me, I had to think he’d take them down, or at least try. I wound my fingers more tightly around the blunt spike at the back of his neck. “We’ll get through this,” I told myself.

I almost believed it.

But here I was, whole and uninjured and, I realized with a start, gripping Marc with both hands. “Oh hell.” I’d dropped his uniform somewhere over the desert.

I rolled my left shoulder and felt the pull of the strap and the weight of the duffel resting on my back. Marius’s gun lay heavy in my pocket. This was going to be fun to explain. I had my things. Marc was the only one who was going to have to walk around naked.

Maybe I could lend him my Zephyrs jacket. That would cover the top, at least.

Heat blasted us from below. Squinting, I saw lava tracing across the desert floor like an insidious growth. It glowed orange hot against the blackness. My legs and feet warmed as if I were standing too close to a BBQ grill.

Keep that thought. BBQ grill. Not hot lava.

Energy crackled in the air. It weighed hard on my chest. With every breath, I could sense us drawing closer to the armies.

Sweat trickled down my back. It felt like the moment before a violent storm, when every living thing, on the most primitive level, knows to run, to hide, to seek shelter before the onslaught. Instead I held on with all my strength as we advanced.

With every beat of Marc’s wings, I could feel the energy thicken. It wound low in my belly and tingled along my spine. I felt rough, wild.

Flames from the soldier’s camps burned hot on the horizon. The Great Divide stood dark and menacing between them, a no-man’s-land, crackling with power. It reached out to me like a living, breathing thing.

Marc beat his wings harder, raising us higher. Soon I saw why. Giant tubes scattered across the desert floor. They glowed red against the rivers of molten rock. With great, snuffling pops, they sent lava flying into the air like mini geysers.

I could feel the heat of each burst through my combat boots.

Holy hell. Is this what our evac people saw every day? No wonder they didn’t like to send mortal doctors too close to the front.

Dotted among the flaming geysers were large flat rocks that reminded me of giant cave formations.

The energy was palpable now, a slow steady pounding that thundered through my veins and slid with an aching familiarity over my skin.

We’d lost the imps, which was as frightening as it was a relief. If minions of the devil didn’t want to be here, what business did we have?

Shoulders hunched, I hugged my knees and my thighs closer to Marc as he circled one of the flat rocks. I couldn’t believe he was actually getting closer to the ground and the geysers.