The Chosen (21 page)

His clever fingers kneaded along her skin, soothing away her cares. It felt so damn good. China closed her eyes and let herself relax into the sensation of being pampered by someone for the first time in her life.

His hand smoothed along her skin, slick with perspiration. China tried to roll onto her back so he wouldn’t touch the brand. She didn’t want to think of it. Especially not now. Not in this place.

But Remy held her close, her body pressed deliciously against his, his fingertips tracing a shivering path down the length of her spine. His kisses soothed her, made her forget not only this hellish place they were in, but who she was, for just a moment.

And then his hand stopped on the curve of her buttock. His fingertips brushed the edge of her scar, and everything within her froze in an instant, rigid and hard. Her throat filled with her heart, making her choke. She pushed away from him.

Suddenly the air was even more stifling than it had been. They were both breathing hard and fast.

Remington’s eyes narrowed as he propped himself up on his elbow, the sheen of sweat on his skin making it glisten. “That’s a hell of a scar. What happened?”

“Accident.” She could barely get the lie out between her gritted teeth.

His blue gaze bore into her, but his voice was calm and level. “Tell me the truth.”

Sitting up, she curled her legs up against her body, wrapping her arms around them and putting her chin on her knees. “I’m one of the marked.”

“Marked?”

And here was where everything between them would crumble and die. Once he knew, there was no going back. He’d know precisely who and what she was and that he never should have trusted her. She would lose him.

The searing pain in her chest spread, like a vicious attack on her body, making her ache all over. She let the curtain of her hair fall around her as she placed her forehead on her knees. But there was nothing she could do to hold back the tears.

Remington, damn him, made it all the harder by gathering her up against him, his strong arms about her shoulders as he caressed her hair. Every touch drove the pain that much deeper. “Darling, what is it?”

“You’re going to hate me,” she said between sobs. “Rathe didn’t just torture and murder my mother. He’s the one who branded me. I’m marked because—” It was so damn hard to get the words out. She hiccupped. “Because he’s my father.”

For a moment Remington wasn’t sure he could breathe. Or that he’d heard China correctly. He pulled back and gripped the back of his skull with his hands to keep from throttling her. “You’re Rathe’s
daughter?
”

China bit her lip and nodded, her gaze slowly rising to meet his. Uncertainty fill her eyes. She expected him to push her away. China wasn’t just any Darkin. She was Rathe’s spawn. Had everything sweet and tender between them been a lie all along? Had she used her Darkin powers to manipulate him into falling in lo—into
caring
for her? Remington didn’t know what to believe. How in hell was he supposed to trust her knowing that?

Remington closed his eyes to give himself space to think in the confines of the room, where there was no door he could walk out of, no window he could open to let in some fresh air. It was just him and her. Alone. And no foreseeable means of escape. He could come to terms with this right here, right now, or potentially die here with a woman who’d been trained since birth to be his enemy. But he didn’t hate her. He didn’t despise her. He ached for her, bone deep.

His inner attorney whispered in his ear, challenging his Hunter self. Since when could a child be responsible for who his or her parents were? Yes, this made her an even bigger liability to his mission than he’d realized, but on the other hand, it also made her potentially an even bigger asset. Regardless, his trust in her was shaken, but it was still there. Dammit, he’d told her they were in this together and they were, for better or worse.

She’d given everything she had to get this far. That spoke of her courage. She’d endured far more than he ever had. That spoke of her determination and a deep wellspring of strength. And she’d never taken anything from him.

Except his heart.

Remington let the confusion and anger drain away, centering himself. He opened his eyes and glanced at her. His calm demeanor seemed to calm her, too. The furrows in her forehead and the worried lines around her eyes eased, and her shoulders relaxed to a more natural position.

“It’s the real reason my blood runs red. Only the marked Darkin have that trait. By the way, an archdemon lord makes a lousy father.”

Remy couldn’t help himself. “How so? Let me guess. Never around much?”

China shook her head. “I wished he’d never come ’round at all. When my mother wouldn’t hand me over to the demons he sent for me, he had her tortured to death in front of me. He branded me too so that all other Darkin would know to shun me. He left me dependent on him, on his every whim. And if I didn’t behave exactly as I should, I was punished. But it was my fault.”

Remy swallowed hard against the acidic bile spurting up in the back of his throat. Jesus. Her fault? Given what little he knew of the sadistic sonofabitch, nothing could have been her fault. She had every right and then some to hate the bastard, and he suddenly felt outraged on her behalf. He brushed the small scar. So small to have such hideous meaning. “How old were you?”

“Six.”

His mouth dropped open. He had to swallow a few times to get his tongue working again. Dear God. She had been tortured, orphaned, and then abandoned? “You telling me you’ve been on your own since you were six?”

China nodded.

Well that just put her in a whole new light. She had to be one of the toughest, most resourceful people he’d ever met. Her habit of stealing was a survival tool she’d learned young. Remington raked his fingers through his hair. “Holy hell.”

He blew out a fast, hard breath, trying to get his lungs to expand again. He didn’t know any Hunters who could have done as well as that, orphaned at six, with a demon for a daddy—literally. And she’d been a girl to boot.

China McGee earned a measure of his respect right then and there.

She stood, buck naked, and walked to the edge of the dark pool, her blond hair a curtain of fine pale silk down her back, and that damn black scar marring her otherwise flawless skin.

He rose to follow, but before he could step any closer she turned and held her hand out to stop him. “Stand back. I don’t want you to get burned if this doesn’t work.”

“What do you mean if it doesn’t work?”

She shrugged. “I’ve never tried to become a phoenix before. It’s not absolutely certain I’ll be able to change back into myself afterward. I may just burn up.”

Remington cursed under his breath and cupped the back of his head, pacing back and forth. “Don’t do it. We’ll find another way.”

“There is no other way, Remington. You know there isn’t.” She cast a glance at the wall. “It’s what needs to be done if we’re going to get to the other side. And I don’t want to try and get back through all of that, do you?”

“Hell no.”

“Well then. Here goes everything.” China closed her eyes, letting the heat flow through her veins, pulsating energy that filled every cell. Fire erupted in her heart, and from there she became engulfed in flame. It burned, but she was no longer just flesh, she felt the energy, the power of the fire dance through her veins and flicker across her nerves. Her fingers extended to become elongated bones of a wing, her ears shrunk into her head, and her neck extended and her breastbone stretched and grew as she took the shape of a graceful gold and red bird, covered in flame.

 

 

Remington stood back and watched her transform with awe. While he’d seen her change into many shapes, nothing compared to this. She was magical. Her blond hair transformed and became gold feathers covering her body, shimmering as the flames danced along their metallic sheen. As a phoenix, she was intense beauty and lethal power all rolled into one. He had no clue if it would work, if he could even touch her and survive. But right now he didn’t want to think. Couldn’t think about the implications of what might happen. The different levels of this place had stripped that away from him. All he knew was that if he were to make it out of this place alive, it would have to be in her arms.

Remington held his breath and stepped toward her, nervous as hell, but determined. But as he glanced up into the bird-like features, he saw something that settled his worries. Even as a phoenix she retained those translucent gray eyes that connected with him. And those same eyes were full of trust, hope, and faith and left him humbled.

“You are truly amazing.”

Just keep your eyes on mine. I won’t let go of you.
Her voice spoke inside his head. For a moment he was shocked. He and Winn had been schooled on guarding their thoughts from Darkin as part of their Hunter training, but being linked so closely with her, those guards had fallen by the wayside.

He kept his gaze fixed on hers as she wrapped her wings about him to protect him from the Darkin flames. Heat, like standing out in the noonday desert sun, seared his skin, but didn’t burn as the phoenix fire caressed his skin. The fire licked along his body. It consumed everything, took everything, leaving him naked against the soft feathers of her as they walked across the surface of the dark liquid and passed through the wall of green flame together.

The green Darkin fire mixed and hovered on the edge of her golden flames but didn’t overtake them. They were surrounded by light and heat; a kaleidoscope of colors swirled around them. In her phoenix form there was nothing to keep him from her, not a scrap of fabric, not the boundary of skin. She was more than that. She was fire, energy, pure soul, able to mingle with the very essence of him. Able to touch his heart.

He couldn’t see how something so beautiful, so pure, so full of light and life, could be claimed to be a thing of darkness. A crack formed in the beliefs that had sustained him. Darkin as a whole were not the enemy—just those that threatened humanity. In the whole scope of things they were just as much a balance of light and dark as humans.

He was hardly aware they’d reached the other side until China began to shift once more. She unfurled her wings and let him step back from her flaming form. Like a breath of wind across a field of wheat, her golden form rippled and began to change. The enormous wings shrank into lithe arms and her body came back to its feminine form, flames still licking along her bare skin. Her golden hair fanned out around her shoulders and waist, caught up in the heated wind coming from the green wall of flame.

She reminded him of an image he’d stared at for hours in an art textbook in the college library: a Renaissance painting of the ancient goddess Venus rising from the sea. At that moment China was every inch a goddess, golden and beautiful, the embodiment of power and sensuality rising above the dark surface of the pool.

The room on the other side of the wall of Darkin flame was far smaller than he’d anticipated. In fact it wasn’t much larger than a parlor in someone’s home. But there was nothing inviting about it. The only thing in the room without windows or doors besides the edge of the dark pool and the wall of flame was a huge mirror of volcanic black glass set into the rougher stone. Their naked images reflected in the dark surface, the wall of flickering green flame the background behind them.

Suddenly the image shifted, and instead of being bare-naked, with China standing behind him, like some sort of twisted Adam and Eve minus the helpful fig leaves, he was clothed in something straight out of medieval history. His reflection revealed his face, but in the uniform of a knight, his arms clad in chain mail, his chest plate dented and scored, bearing a red triple cross—the insignia of the Legion of Hunters. The image shimmered again.

Reflected now on either side of him were the images of Winn and Colt, both clothed as he was, like knights. Each of them held a set of what looked like ancient vellum pages in their hands. Remington’s eyes narrowed, and he glanced from side to side. China was still standing there to his left, her face pinched with concern. “What is it? What do you see?”

Remington rubbed at his eyes, just to make sure he wasn’t so tired his mind was playing tricks with his vision. But straight ahead of him the image remained. Three men. Three pieces of the Book.

Remington raised his hand. His image in the middle of the mirror sandwiched between his brothers did too. What in blue blazes was this?

He turned to China once more. “Do you see my brothers in the mirror, or just us?”

She bit her lip and reached up to feel his cheek. “You’re not fevered.”

“What do you see, China?”

“Just us. Standing here, side by side.” She slipped her hand into his and squeezed it, silently giving him her support. “What do you see?”

“Me, between my brothers.” He frowned, and so did his reflection. “But we’re all dressed like knights from the earliest crusades.”

“Do you see anything else?”

“Yes. We’re each holding a bunch of what looks like pages.”

“The Book,” she breathed. “Reach out and see if you can touch it.”

He turned and gazed at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a reflection and a distorted one at that. That can’t be right.”

She squeezed his hand. “For once, don’t worry about if it’s right or not and just trust me.”

He raised his hand. So did the image in the mirror. He reached forward until the image of his hand holding the pages and his real hand touched. Suddenly his hand was slipping through the surface of the obsidian mirror.

China gasped. “You’re doing it!”

The sensation was like cold aspic, thick and gelatinous, but pliable. His arm was sunk halfway to his elbow in the dark surface.

Something dry and rough brushed against the tips of his fingers. His gut told him to grab it. Even though it went against his Hunter training, he did, not knowing who or what it was that he took hold of or what would happen next.

His hand closed around something. It was papery on one side, smooth on the other. “I’ve got ahold of something.”

“Pull it out of the mirror!”

Remington locked gazes with his medieval reflection. “Here goes everything,” he muttered to himself.

Slowly he withdrew his arm from the gelatinous mirror, and as it emerged from the dark surface, he did indeed have something in his hand. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. Was this it? After all this time, had he finally found the Book? Or was this a sly trick, another obstacle to finding what he sought? It was old, far older than anything he’d seen in the libraries in the college, or in the museums. The pages were softer than paper, thicker and covered in neat handwritten lettering in dark ink. Rich colors and gold leafing embellished the image in the top corner of the page. The back of it was a leather book cover. “It’s Elwin’s piece of the Book!”

China gasped, her eyes widening with delight as she looked at the mirror. “You know what this means?”

Remington glanced up at her, reluctant to tear his gaze away from the piece of the Book of Legend. “We’ve accomplished our mission.”

She turned and snorted. “You wish. No, we’ve almost completed our mission. Our mission is to return with this piece of the Book and reunite it to take down Rathe and seal the Gates of Nyx. And I think I may have found a way to do it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This ain’t just any mirror.”

“I’ll say. It was concealing the Book.”

“No. That’s not what I meant. If it can conceal the Book, then it has other Darkin powers as well. I think this may be a scryvoyager.”

“A what?”

China snorted. “Did I find a word too big for you?”

Remington frowned. “What does it do, woman?”

“It’s a portal. It can take us back to Tombstone, or Bodie, or wherever we need to go as long as there is a mirror on the other side.”

A big smile lit up his face. “It can?”

China nodded. “It’s probably how the original Hunters who placed it here got out safely, so they could later write down their notes in the codex.”

“How many of them are there?”

China shrugged. “No one knows. They’re Darkin magic, like the flames we passed through. Cortez must have bound a Darkin to his service or had one of the locals manipulate one to install the Book in the scryvoyager and erect the wall of flame, and then escaped.”