Blue Abyss: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3 (The Timewalker Chronicles) (10 page)

“No.”

An Immortal then. “The First Circle? The Queen herself? To which Circle are you Aligned?”

She smiled at him, and it froze him in place, stunned his muscles into paralysis. “No circle. No queen. No father. Just…dreams.” The curve of her lips turned down into a grimace and small shudders racked her frame. The poison. Gods help her, he knew that pain, would take it back if he could, spare her the agony of blood turned to stinging fire in every ounce of flesh. The poison wouldn’t kill him, not now that his shoulder was healed, but it might kill her.

“Are you Itaran?”

“No. Just a wee human.” Was that a laugh? “Well, I used to be…”

Mari struggled to unzip a small pocket on her suit and reached inside to pull out an obsidian stone. A soul stone. Next to it, resting side by side like scheming friends on her open palm? An Itaran communicator. She held them out to him as her body went limp in his arms. She rolled her head to look up at him, a desperate plea in her gaze. “I can’t help you now. I’m too weak. You have to go. Take the tank and drag me along. Don’t stop, even if I lose consciousness. I have a boat waiting. My crew will get us out of here. If you really won’t get the bends, just get us the hell out of here. Follow the white string out of the caves. I’ve got a spare light attached to your tank.”

Raiden inspected the stone and ignored the surge of disappointment. Not the stone Gerrick had given to him. Still he secured the items in the pockets of his black combat pants, ignored her order and gently laid her hand back down on the floor of his strange cell. So she was human. How did a human know that he was here, on this planet? No one knew.

She kept trying to give him orders. “Use the communicator. Tell her there is a traitor on her ship. Tell them.”

“Tell who?” He frowned at the bright blood that coated her hand and pooled beneath her wrist on the floor. She was badly hurt. How the hell was he going to get her out of here with only one air tank? They could share the tank, but a moment’s panic from her would cost both of them their lives. Raiden hurried over to inspect the breathing apparatus. As he’d suspected, there was only one mouthpiece.

“Put it on and open the door.” To his surprise, the stubborn woman crawled toward him and pointed to the face mask. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth. The damning red liquid also trailed over the back of her hand where it exited the arm of her diving suit. She held her arm toward him, blood dripping from her fingertips like an offering. “Take it.”

“The blood?”

“Yes.” She moaned in pain and rolled onto her side. “My blood opens the door.” Her eyes closed, breaking their connection. He wanted to protest that separation, but knew it was fruitless. It wasn’t her fault his body and soul were starving for contact. Any contact. His weakness was his burden to bear, no one else’s. “Go. We have to get the hell out of here before more of those things show up. I’m not sure I can focus…”

“What things?” Raiden lifted Mari in his arms and carried her to the landing platform. Smoke and the smell of burning plastic assaulted his nostrils. The smoke was noxious and made breathing difficult. The very subtle hint of something rotten burned into his senses. His eyes watered and his throat threatened to close.

He knew that smell. Gods, no. He knew that smell.

“Triscani.”

She stiffened and struggled against his hold. “More? Where?”

Smooth as silk her voice filled his head and stroked the inside of his mind with warm honey.
The tank is for you. I can breathe the water. Just follow the tunnel, then the white spool line. Get to the surface, to my men on the boat. If the Triscani show up, leave me and go. I’ll try to kill them. I’ll buy you some time.

I won’t leave you behind.
Raiden refused to put her down.
You can’t stand. How are you going to fight? And with what? The Triscani are pure evil. They will kill you, Mari.

They can try. But I’ll take a few of them with me.
As she made her vow her hand started to glow, brighter and brighter, until Raiden felt the need to squint to protect his eyes.

Angelus Mortis.

No. Just one pissed-off woman tired of dying every night
.

Mari made no sense. Was she touched in the head? A bit insane? And she must be lying to him. No human in the history books had ever borne the gifts of the Mater Mortis, the Queen’s own lineage. No human could wield the Angel’s Fire.

Raiden looked down into her golden-brown eyes and drowned in them. She was an enigma he very much wanted to solve.
What are you?

Apparently, I’m a Timewalker. Get us out of here. I’ll smoke any stragglers and buy us time to get to my boat.

Healer. Water-breather. Angelus Mortis. Human.

Nothing about her made sense. Could she be a healer from the water-breathing clans, from a human group that had remained hidden on Earth among the Timewalker descendants? She must have some Immortal blood, the Queen’s own genetic heritage in her cells, in her ancestry. That was the only thing that might explain what she was capable of.

And she’d brought a boat? Did she also have an army of soldiers? She’d found him and brought help. Raiden allowed a small hint of relief to claw its way through him and ease the stiffness in his shoulders. The water clans on Itara were lost immediately after the Crux, all Itarans believed the healers’ bloodline lost to both worlds at the same time that all the Timewalkers had vanished. He held not just a miracle, but a revelation, in his arms.

The smell of Triscani dust nagged at him.

This beautiful woman, this water-breather, was hunted. He had no defense against the protective rage that filled him at the thought of the dark, inhuman Hunters getting anywhere near her. Why pursue her? Were the Hunters sent by her enemies or his? He knew nothing of their situation, could make no plans, and was forced to trust a complete stranger. He had no choice. She had found him, awakened him.

She’d saved his life.

The how and why of it would wait. Survive now. Think later.

Raiden settled Mari at the edge of the platform and lifted the human breathing equipment. It was small and primitive, but it would do. He secured the mask over his eyes, attached the small tank and shrugged into the buoyancy vest before inhaling an experimental breath through the disgusting plastic mouthpiece. It tasted terrible, but it worked. He slipped the fins onto his feet. He’d done enough underwater hunting on Itara over the years to understand the primitive gear.

He turned to the doorway and inspected the strange gemstone. There were no handles, no scanners, no visible controls. He glanced back at the destroyed room, hoping their only means of leaving this prison hadn’t been annihilated with the rest of the charred mess. Mari held up her hand again, drawing his attention. Blood dripped onto the knee of her suit where she braced her wrist, too weak to hold it up. “My blood opens the door.”

He widened his stance, strapped her into her own gear and lifted her from the floor. She rested her head against his shoulder, body small and so fragile in his arms. He stepped as close to the door as he could and she lifted a shaking arm to rest her hand atop the gem in its center.

The crystal absorbed her blood, the open door behind them slid closed with a soft swooshing sound. A giant quartz slid sideways out from under Mari’s weak palm as the door glided slowly to his right and water cascaded around them. The woman dropped her hand and went limp in his arms. He was no longer sure she was conscious. Water crashed around them, swirled at their feet and rose in seconds to completely cover them both. Now, to get out of here…

Gods, he hoped she really could breathe water.

Reaching for calm, Raiden forced down the panic and disorientation of complete and total darkness in this watery prison. The tiny lights from his stasis chamber did not penetrate here. A strange melancholy soaked his heart as he swam forward blindly searching for the way out. The Light of her Angel’s Fire flared, illuminating the cylinder he swam through.

Angel’s Fire.
He wondered how she’d come by such a weapon. A weapon kept tightly within Itara’s First Circle, ferociously guarded by the Queen and her assassins. The Angels of Death were rare creatures indeed, and feared, even among the Immortals. How did a water-breather on Earth come by it? It didn’t make sense. He held his hand lightly above her lips. Warm water flowed in and out of her mouth. She was breathing.

She’d told the truth about that.

He pressed her tightly to his side, determined to get her out.

Exactly who was this woman? How had she survived the annihilation of her people? The longer he held her, the more certain he became. She was not an Immortal. The strange energy that hummed in his blood when one of his mother’s people was near had not even flickered in her presence. No, instead something darker stirred at the sight of her, at the feel of her small body resting in his arms, something much more primitive and dangerous.

His shoulder burned now, not with the pain of the stab wound, but with a sweet aching fire that rocked straight through his blood stream to swell his cock. His whole body strained to touch her, to see her, to peel her out of that suit and inspect every inch of her creamy flesh and make sure she was safe, healed, perfect.

Perhaps it was a side effect of her healing, or of the stasis pod. He didn’t know. His reactions to her were a mystery to be solved later. First they had to make it to her ship, to her soldiers, alive. Her light illuminated the tunnel one body length at a time. He swam, pushing his body’s physical limits until both his legs and his lungs burned. Then he saw it, the white spool line she’d mentioned. It glowed like a beacon about the length of his arm before turning a corner to lead the way through an adjacent cave, to freedom.

He swam straight toward the gleaming white thread and gathered the line in his hand. Their lifeline. The only way out of this labyrinth of caves and tunnels. He turned the corner and saw it stretch away into the darkness. Gods, how had she found him in this black maze? It seemed impossible. A miracle.

Or the thrice-damned Triscani’s interference. A ploy…

Perhaps they had found his ship, knew what he had hidden, and couldn’t find it? Perhaps this siren was sent to him as a ruse to lead them to it? It was all so improbable. A cave in the middle of nowhere. A beautiful young woman, both Angelus Mortis and healer, using nothing more than instinct, than
dreams,
to find him? How had she found him? Why had she been allowed to wake him? And this slip of a girl coming alone and claiming that she’d ashed multiple Triscani warriors? Unlikely.

More likely his brother, Ryu, was willing to sacrifice a few pawns to acquire Gerrick’s stone.

She stirred inside his mind, and he didn’t bother wondering how she could speak to him, just strained to reach her, to feel the soft warmth of her words in this dark tomb that had nearly claimed him. Her strength faded as she pushed an image of the cave to him, a map of the way she’d come to find him.
Follow. It’s not far.

The words that hummed through his mind were laced with exhaustion and pain. Her light flickered, dimmed. The soothing feel of her consciousness touching his, connecting them, faded into nothing as well. The water she miraculously breathed left a dark cloud of blood around her head with each exhalation.

Blood in her lungs. Was she bleeding out? Dying?

Perhaps his injuries were too much for her to handle, or she’d added his burdens to wounds of her own. The dagger wound in his back would knock most healers out for days. Triscani poison would kill any mortal. She’d taken both from him in a few brief minutes of heat and contact. Now she was the one in need of a healer. He moved forward and kicked strongly, his arm wrapped around her slim waist. She didn’t resist, didn’t react at all as she lost consciousness and her light flared brightly one last time before plummeting them both into absolute darkness.

Hand on the spool line, he closed his eyes and ignored the black chasm pressing down on him with more weight than the deepest, darkest parts of space. Perhaps it was a side effect of too long spent in the stasis chamber, but he found the enclosed space difficult to tolerate without the healing touch of her mind. He forced the awareness of the watery tomb from his thoughts. Instead, he focused all of his attention on the warm woman in his arms, on the image of her worried and intelligent gaze, her pink lips, the delicate curve of her cheek and the wavy mass of black silk on her head, the way it had caressed his skin when he’d buried his hands in her hair.

Better to burn with lust than think about the traitor, or the darkness. The hollow sound of his breathing with the strange air tank chased him through the cave. What felt like hours in solitary passed by, the weight of her in his arms all that kept him sane as he followed the texture of white thread slipping through his palm. He juggled the flashlight the best he could without letting go of either her, or the white line in his hand, his one known path to freedom. The light was like a single flame in an ocean of darkness, but it was all he had.

And it wasn’t the first time he’d suffered the dark.

Raiden closed his eyes and swam slowly, gently pulling her along next to him until…finally, light ahead. Sunlight.