Absolution (10 page)

“I have a dampener implanted.”

She stared into his earnest gaze then her eyes drifted to the sigil on his forehead. “Yes, you are well protected.”

“Damn, so is Rice. If you knew then they aren’t working.”

“They are working. You worry too much.”

“No, I don’t. You don’t have a dampener, and you’re under my protection. You won’t be able to teleport to safety.”

She smiled. The back of her shirt disappeared and her wings expanded, filling a large part of the room. “I can always fly away.”

“You won’t get a chance.” He laid his hand over hers. “Under your plan, you’ll die and Farley will be stronger. A suicide mission where you expect me to save you at the last minute won’t work. I can’t. I’m not strong enough to defeat Farley on my own.”

Foolish man. He was her mate. Once they bonded, their powers would blend, and he would gain the ability to teleport and some of her skills. She retracted her wings, leaned into him, and brushed a kiss across his lips. “We’ll talk and map out our actions tomorrow. Right now, I’m too tired to think.”

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him and covered her lips with his. She opened beneath his soft, insistent teasing and melted into him, oblivious of anything but his nibble of her lips and suckling of her tongue. Heat curled beneath her skin as moisture dampened between her thighs.

Allana moaned and, as if inhaling her desire, Luc curled his fingers in her hair and tugged. The brief twinge of his need sizzled along every nerve. She burned for him—only him. After all this time, all these years, why now? Her physical body was suddenly, violently, unfrozen, leaving a woman of yearning and need. Her heart and soul longed for him as well. Before they left this mountaintop, they would be mated.

A moment later, he pulled away. His hands clenched at his side, but his forehead remained against hers, as if unable to sever their connection. “You take the parents’ bedroom. I’ll stay out here and stand watch.”

“But—”

“Go to bed, Allana.” He turned from her toward the window, once again studying the blizzard.

She pressed her fingers to her lips. The warmth of his touch still tingled against her skin, her need echoed in a synchronized shimmer. She didn’t want to stop. For the first time, she coveted a physical culmination to the desire he stirred within her. If she burned, so would he. He would feel the fiery heat of want and frigid fear of rejection. The first she craved. The second would never happen between them.

Yet he chose not to embrace his feelings and expected her to understand. Given the strong heart that beat within him, she suspected he hadn’t realized that while she was the mother of two, she had never made love. An unbidden smile lifted beneath her fingertips. That would change before they left here, this she swore upon the Goddess.

She had known from the moment she saw his tattoos that they were soul mates.

He might not realize it yet, but when they entered Farley’s camp, they would be one and he would never turn from her again.

CHAPTER 9

Luc rested his head against the icy windowpane.
Goddess, what have you done to me
? Allana might be a hundred and fifteen years old, but she was an innocent.

He stumbled to the sofa and collapsed on the cushions. Goddess help them, she actually thought if she couldn’t teleport, she could fly away. The absurdity of it choked him.

Hadn’t she learned anything from what he and Rice had said? Farley had the ability to neutralize and hold his victims immobile. Fly away? Shit, she’d be lucky if she was able to stand.

Memories of his parents captured by Farley flooded back with the force of a tsunami, washing away the mental blocks Nate had placed on him when he’d found him wandering the woods in shock.

His parents had recognized the monster as he’d approached their home. They’d shoved Luc behind a sigil-warded wall.

He’d grabbed his mother’s hand and tried to drag her inside the bolthole with him. She’d refused, told him the bad man had seen her.

He didn’t know what happened. He couldn’t see through the brick of the fireplace, but he’d heard it all. His father begging for the life of his mate and their child. Farley laughing and saying not to worry, he wouldn’t think of separating a mother from her child. His mother’s cries. And an infant’s yowl.

Then silence.

Elbows on his knees, Luc leaned forward and buried his face in his hands as tears bathed his face.

He couldn’t allow himself to feel. The pain was paralyzing. If he let Allana further into his heart, how could he save her, or himself, when he’d be crippled by fear.

With a choked sob, he stretched out on the sofa and draped an arm over his eyes. It was too late. She already owned him. All that was left was to mitigate the damage.

Goddess above, how could he save her?

***

Allana stood beneath the pounding shower, steam enveloping her. Hot water soaked into her muscles, easing the tension swallowing her alive. For a year, she had been on edge, writing it off as the stress of living on Earth, the subterfuge of hiding from hate groups, and long lonely days of hunting for her daughters. Now, with her heart racing, her feminine core ignited, she needed to reassess the cause behind her irritability.

Now she knew it was all Luc’s doing.

When she had started this journey, she considered the search for her daughters her sole purpose. Luc believed he understood why she had refused to leave his side. That if she ensured Farley’s life force ceased for all time, she secured protection for her children.

They were both wrong.

The Goddess has sent her on this passage. This growth of her heart and her journey was required before locating her girls. Her daughters were as much a part of Earth as they were her DNA. Without the hold of a mate on her love and passion, she would drive the girls from her.

Strange, how freely she had impugned Raziel’s honor. Now as she considered her final words to him, she winced. She had called him a lying monster. Not true, of course. During her time here, she learned he might play the puppet master of lives and worlds, but he wasn’t a monster of evil. Dictatorial overlord perhaps, but his actions always served his people and the Goddess.

His choices had caused her pain, yet they had been necessary for the greater good. She didn’t envy him the weight of his task.

Raziel, please, I need you. We must talk.

I’ll come when the time is ripe. You still have much to learn about yourself and a promise to fulfill.

No, you’ll come tomorrow morning. For once, listen to my needs. You will come
.

Quiet answered her.

The blasted king thought he didn’t answer to anyone except the Goddess. Ha, he would answer to her. Allana had questions about her daughters’ father. She wanted—no, needed—to know which Seraphim saved her from the Dark Lord, and in so doing, took her innocence. How had he done it? Only Raziel knew the answer.

And answer her, he would. Even if she had to return to hIfreann.

She had merely existed, not lived, for the past hundred fifteen years. The reality of that truth only surfaced with her recent struggles.

Time to stop being a ghost. Time to start living. Time to follow her heart. Only then could she discover true joy and freedom.

She stepped out of the shower. She reached for a towel, paused, and visualized her body and hair dry. In the blink of an eye, the water evaporated. Her hair lay in silver blond waves to mid-back. A slow smile broke free at the memory of Luc’s outrage, his male affront as she dared defy his wishes with her vow to the Goddess. Reaching for a dry towel, she wrapped it around her.

She moved to the bedroom doorway between the main bedroom and into the front room. Luc lay stretched out on the sofa, the calf of his legs balanced on the arm of the sofa, his head on the other end. A scowl marred his face. He reminded her of when he had lifted her in his arms, placed her on the bed, and tucked the blanket around her.

Goddess above, she wanted him. Wanted him as a woman desperate for love long denied, love promised for her and her alone. Seeing the sigils had thrown her. They hadn’t shown when she’d traveled the astral plane. The moment she had seen him enter the cabin, the truth spread before her like a banquet. He was hers, and she was his.

She snorted. That was the truth, but not accurate. From the instant she had felt his essence, she wondered why she was drawn to him, why he made her feel emotions no other male had. Then earlier this evening, she realized as she had merged with his mind and soul over the past months they’d been bonding.

Not as normal supe or otherworld soul mates. No, she had to do it one better. A bonding that only occurred in hIfreann when one of the Goddess’ Paladins or Saraphs found their other half, and over the months, their souls had begun to intertwine.

She should have recognized the signs earlier. Darkness below, the first sign had been seeing the sigils. The second, had occurred when she had agreed to his silly oath not to leave. Between being Fae and the additional powers granted her upon arrival in hIfreann—powers necessary to survive in all realms—she could have broken his seal with a single thought.

Instead, she hadn’t hesitated to stay with him. Now, she understood the pull, the compelling connection between them. Their damaged souls sought to mend one another.

To succeed, to become all fate ascribed for them, Luc would have to let her in to his heart. And she feared that would never happen. Her potential reaction to the creeping poison of hate and self-loathing in his heart and soul terrified him. He didn’t see her awe that this honorable man felt such deep love and loyalty.

No, in his mind she could reach no other conclusion other than hatred and repudiation of what he had become. While she had accepted him fully, for him to join with her he would have to allow love, hope, and acceptance. Revenge ruled his heart. Self-judgment didn’t let him see another alternative beyond his pain.

Hopefully, they would have sufficient time to repair the damage. He reacted to emotional pain with the anger, instead of his Druid’s open heart. If she could ease him past his anguish and abate his consuming desire to enter Summerland, she could lure him back into the world of the living—with her. The Light could banish Darkness, but only if he let its goodness encompass and guide him.

The Goddess had guided her to him for a purpose greater than finding her daughters. One that exceeded ridding the world of Farley. To share herself wholly as a mate and bring Luc back from the brink would provide a new chance for both of them.

Allana licked her lips to control her nervousness. At the sofa, she knelt beside Luc and caressed the side of his face.

His eyelids lifted. His troubled gaze fixed on her without apparent surprise. He started to deny her, his intent a certainty in her gut. She pressed her fingers to his lips, grasped his hand, and tugged. “Come with me.”

Slowly, he rose to his feet, his eyes narrowed with stronger conviction. If she didn’t do something fast, he would send her away.

Alone.

And Goddess knew, she was tired of being alone, tired of living with half a soul, tired of not being loved as a woman.

She lifted Luc’s fingers to her lips and kissed them. A sigh rippled through her. Her fear of his resistance faded as his hand joined with hers. Smiling, she gently towed him to the bedroom. She might not have the experience of his past lovers, but with her soul to guide her, he would soon forget any other woman’s touch.

Beside the bed, she felt him stiffen. “I want this. I want you, Luc. Please.”

His gaze focused on her, he reached out and cupped her face in his palm. “Are you sure?”

She met his eyes and read reverence coupled with hesitance. She didn’t want reverence. She wanted—no, needed—his passion. The first inroad into his resistance, into his heart, was her earlier partial melding with his soul. The final joining, the sharing of their love, would happen when they committed to seal together, allowing one another fully into their souls. For now, she would settle for his arms, for the dark lust in his eyes, for the thrill that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

Goddess, his scent made her lightheaded and aching. Dark and male, and like the Druid he was, earthy. Filled with life’s potential. His temptation had driven her mad since the moment he had released her from her bonds.

With a smile, she turned her head and pressed a kiss into his palm. “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”

CHAPTER 10

Luc struggled not to lose himself in Allana’s beguiling smile. How could she want him? He was tainted, riddled from his dark actions, and rough-hewn from his tragedies. Granite to her alabaster. She was too far above him, a princess born and raised among the Goddess’ personal Paladins. Beings didn’t get any more common than he among the magicks. Yet every fiber of his being, every nerve ending, told him she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

Goddess he wanted to believe that.

Unable to hold back, he took the lead slowly. His finger traced the top edge of the towel along her breasts. He couldn’t believe she stood before him. He had been stretched out on that damned short sofa, his dick so hard even jacking-off in a cold shower proved futile. Much as he hungered for her, he couldn’t convince himself to approach her. Now was his chance. Maybe he was wrong; maybe if the Goddess was with him. Allana would be his salvation and give him back his childhood awe and belief that he could have the same thing his parents and Nate had found.