Surrender (THE DRAGONFLY CHRONICLES) (38 page)

She smiled weakly. “That’s why he’s down there even as a party dances over his head. He won’t give up trying.”

Kailin had frozen to the bed. The lamb story Jackson had told her. The lamb hadn’t been a lamb. It had been Cassy, his sister. Kailin closed her eyes. It was all so clear. How had she been so dense? So caught up in feeling hurt that she hadn’t seen the obvious. Jackson was saving his sister again, no matter what. The orb had been a chance. He’d lied, he’d helped kidnap her father, he’d kept his true reasons from her, he may have even tried to steal the orb from her. But it had all been to save his sister. When he’d left the States, his parents and brother had died. Guilt plagued him for leaving them, not being there to help. Cassy was all he had left and he had to save her.

“Damn,” Kailin whispered. He’d tried to tell her with the lamb story. She just hadn’t listened hard enough.

The frail woman had closed her eyes again. “Cassy! Don’t fall asleep. We have to get to Jackson. Cassy?” She didn’t respond. Her breathing became feathery. Was there time? There had to be time.

The door squeaked open and Kailin snapped around. “Jackson?”

“I heard you yell,” Moghadam said in the doorway, his eyes widening at the sight of Cassy across the bed.

“We need to take her to Jackson. He’s in a lower level of this house where some healing waters are supposed to be. Let’s get her to him.” Kailin certainly didn’t want to leave her here.

Moghadam lifted the fluff-enshrouded woman off the pastel coverlet. Chaos echoed from the main hall but most people sounded as if they were leaving. Luckily Cassy wasn’t witnessing the frantic stampede to abandon her party. Tuto still tormented Samantha in the corner while they ran through the room, Cassy in Moghadam’s arms.

“Heavens!” Mrs. Pierce yelled from an alcove and took off after them. “Cassy, Cassy!”

“We need to get her to Jackson, below ground,” Kailin ordered. “How do we get there?”

Mrs. Pierce waved frantically and yanked her skirts high to her knees to run through to the back of the manor. Kailin cursed under her breath at the hindering skirts. Her leather sack, carrying the orb, thumped along one thigh through the many petticoats.

“Blimey!” Anthony yelled and ran after them.

Mrs. Pierce rammed through a wooden door and grabbed a lit sconce on the wall as she barreled down the narrow stairs. Kailin glanced back at Moghadam who cradled Cassy against his chest so her head wouldn’t hit the stone sides.

“Cleo,” Anthony yelled, but Kailin leapt down the steps into the darkness. The dry smell of sand and earth accented the sound of grit on the wooden steps under her slippers. Jackson was somewhere up ahead and she had to reach him.

“Come,” Mrs. Pierce called. The woman was spry in an emergency. Kailin followed with Moghadam and Anthony behind.

“Jackson!” Kailin shouted into the darkness, her eyes focused on the circle of light blocked mostly by Mrs. Pierce’s bulk. A small thought made the light grow. Mrs. Pierce gasped quietly and held the flame higher, lighting the way.

“Jackson!” Kailin called ahead and saw a door at the bottom of the stairwell. The door swung inward.

“Kailin?”

Mrs. Pierce nearly barreled right through Jackson like a charging rhino. He steadied the woman before she could do herself harm, but his eyes focused on Kailin.

“What are you—?”

“Cassy,” Kailin sucked in air and glanced over her shoulder. “She’s…”

“Good God,” Jackson cursed and gingerly took his sister from Moghadam’s arms. “What happened?”

“She was tired,” Mrs. Pierce cried. Anthony handed the grief stricken woman his handkerchief. “She went upstairs to lie down.”

“I found her,” Kailin said. “She was talking and then just lost consciousness.”

Jackson set his sister beside an open bath cut into the ground. Steam and sulfur rose from the surface causing water to drip from the low ceiling. The house must have been built around the hot spring. Was that why Jackson had rented the large manor for his sister?

A hand rested on Kailin’s shoulder. Anthony stared at her, his graying eyebrows raised in utter shock. “Are you well? Here?” His gaze took in the surrounding stone and darkness. “It’s rather tomb-like.”

Kailin blinked. She’d climbed down into this dark, closed pit without a moment of hesitation. Her stomach clenched with the sudden reminder, but she shut it out. “I’m well.” She turned back to Jackson.

He hovered over Cassy, listening to her breath and heart, brushing back the hair from her face.

“Jackson, you need to heal her,” Kailin said and wrestled the bag off her shoulder to pull out the orb.

“Only you—”

“I’ve gifted it to you,” Kailin said, her eyes connecting with him. “Days ago. It’s yours. Use it to heal her.” She shoved the orb into his hands and it instantly glowed from within.

Moghadam stepped back while Anthony surged forward. “Good Heavens,” her father whispered. Even Mrs. Pierce froze in awe. Magic swirled in oily colors along its surface, illuminating the dragonfly.

“What’s going on down here?” another voice called.

“Stand back, Ian,” Anthony said somewhere behind Kailin. “They’re trying to save the girl.”

Kailin guided Jackson’s hands over Cassy’s chest. The light flutters of her breathing seemed to have ceased. “Imagine her breathing,” she whispered. Jackson stared into Kailin’s eyes and nodded. “Imagine her lungs pink and healthy, moving in and out.”

She wasn’t a healer. She couldn’t detect precisely what was hurting Cassy, but Kailin knew enough about human anatomy to know what should look healthy. “Think of Cassy’s heart, strong and pumping blood everywhere, her muscles thick and fed by the blood, her nerves running minutely through her limbs, sending signals to her brain.” Systematically, Kailin told Jackson what his sister’s body should look like if she were healthy. It was all a whisper, a breath of words over the pulsing orb they held together. The swirling magic warmed Kailin’s hand but she didn’t funnel any of her own magic into it. The magic came from the link between the orb and Jackson.

She watched him, his gaze holding onto her as if she were the only thing keeping him from slipping away in the raging rapid of power. She nodded encouragement and watched him swallow hard. Small beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead, but he didn’t show any other sign of the great weight of wielding power over life and death.

Strong, honorable, determined to risk everything for the people he loved. Jackson Black fought now for treasure, the treasure in the delicate life of his sister.

“What is she doing?” Ian asked.

“Don’t meddle,” Anthony chided. Kailin could hear their shoes scuff on sand across the rock floor.

“Heavens,” Mrs. Pierce cried quietly. “Cassandra.”

“Imagine her smiling, Jackson,” Kailin instructed. “Happy and awake, breathing and laughing, running.”

The glow from the orb flowed down onto Cassy’s chest, covering it, absorbing into her through the bodice of her dress.

A movement caused Kailin to look down. Cassy’s chest rose higher and a knot relaxed in Kailin’s stomach. She bent over Jackson’s sister.

“Cassy?”

Moghadam murmured something in Arabic that sounded like a prayer.

Cassy’s head rolled to the side and then back again. Her eyes flickered open. “Where? Am I in a cave?”

Kailin glanced at Jackson. The glow ebbed, the golden rays sucking back into the orb. Was he breathing? He stared at his sister. Shock?

Kailin smiled. “You’re in Jackson’s underground study. How do you feel?”

Jackson’s gaze ran up and down his sister. Cassy bent her knees and gasped as she sat upright. “I…I feel…good,” she said as if she hardly believed it.

Jackson nearly threw the orb to Kailin and grabbed his sister into a fierce hug. “Oh Cassy,” he breathed into her hair. “You’re alive.” He cradled Cassy, but his gaze remained fastened to Kailin. “Thank you.”

“You did it,” Kailin said softly. “You saved her.”

For a second he looked like he would argue, but he closed his eyes and hugged his little sister close until she squirmed slightly.

“You’re smashing my dress, Jackson,” Cassy laughed. He pulled away.

“Can you stand?”

“Let’s find out.” She winked at Kailin.

Anthony stepped up at the same time as Mrs. Pierce. Jackson hauled Cassy up and held her out a bit. Slowly he released her and she stood.

Mrs. Pierce covered her mouth and sobbed happily against her palm.

Anthony laughed. “I’d say you are standing, Miss Black.”

Kailin laughed too. It was cut off abruptly when Jackson scooped her toward him, right into his hard chest. His face was filled with bewilderment and open joy. “I only…I needed to try anything,” he said to her. “If there was a chance to save her, I had to try. I was making plans to kidnap you and the orb if she didn’t improve soon. I am sorry.”

“I would have helped you, helped her,” she answered back.

“You hate me.” His words were stilted, twisted, a glimpse of the unfounded hate he had for himself over leaving his family.

“How could I hate a man who saved a lamb in a blizzard?”

He opened his mouth to correct her, but she smiled and rested her finger on his lips. His body tensed. “I forgive you,” she finished.

Jackson inhaled, his grin softening his jaw. Before she could say anything else, his lips came down on hers, warm and firm, full of passion and promise. The kiss funneled down into Kailin, heating her from the inside out until her skin flushed. Her entire being fell into Jackson and she pushed even closer within the circle of his arms as she slanted against his lips. Safety, acceptance, understanding surrounded her. She felt free and caught at the same time. Her heart thumped with a need that went beyond the physical.

She pulled back gently, her eyes opening. “I love you, Jackson Black.”

Surprise and then something more, much more. “I love you, Kailin Whitaker. I will never let you walk away from me again.” With that he yanked her closer against his body. “You are mine, my woman, for now and forever.” The words sounded ancient like an oath. His eyes widened as if he wasn’t quite sure where they’d come from.

Kailin smiled. “Perhaps Drakkina was right about the soul mates,” she whispered.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” Anthony exclaimed, making Jackson twist and pull Kailin to the side.

Ian MacGivens stood holding the Orb of Life. But the object that pulled everyone’s attention wasn’t the orb, it was the gun he aimed, leveling it directly at Kailin.

Chapter Fifteen

“I’m just taking what should have been mine to begin with, Anthony. I funded your expedition. I insisted you find this amazing power. Yet just when you were about to find it, you stopped looking, gave up, and wouldn’t tell anyone where you thought it lay buried.”

Mrs. Pierce had flattened Cassy against the wall and stood in front of her charge. Nothing would likely get around her frame. Anthony stood in front of Mrs. Pierce. But Ian seemed intent on keeping his weapon turned toward Kailin and Jackson. Moghadam tried to move in front of her, but Ian waved the gun at him to stall his intent.

“No, Moghadam,” Kailin said. The radical was going to get himself killed trying to protect her when she didn’t need protecting. Kailin centered her magic, readying it, controlling it.

Kailin stared at the aging archeologist-gone-renegade. Was he the real power behind this scheme to find the orb? He’d been his father’s colleague forever.

“It is too powerful,” Anthony said. “It makes good men do foolish things. Put down the gun, Ian.”

Ian ignored him. “Dallinton got too greedy. Wanted you”—he nodded to Kailin—“and the power behind the orb.”

Stupid man. Was Ian so uninformed that he thought a simple gun could hurt her? She held her magic in check, waiting to hear all the man said first. If she yanked his gun away, he’d most likely stop talking.

“What powers do you think it has?” Anthony asked.

Ian smiled. “Not completely sure yet, but it looks like it can save a life. Which makes it more valuable than anything I’ve ever witnessed.”

“You have no idea of its greatness,” Moghadam swore.

“I’ll learn.”

“Father?” Samantha’s voice came from the dark stairwell. “Are you down there? People are looking for the Blacks.”

“Stay up there, sweetheart,” Ian called. “Tell them…there’s been an accident down here. Send for a surgeon.”

A surgeon? Good Lord! He was going to shoot them.

“The orb is useless to you. It can only be wielded by the one it’s gifted to,” Kailin said. “Otherwise it is just a rock.”

He frowned momentarily, his eyes shifting between Jackson and her. Jackson pulled her behind his back.

“Let go,” she whispered. With him touching her, they were all in danger. He dropped her arm, and she moved back to his side.

“Take it,” Jackson said. “It’s yours. Leave with your treasure then.”

Ian ignored Jackson. “I’m guessing that you, my dear, are the owner of this magic. With you gone, the power will fall on whoever is holding it.”

It happened too fast. Ian raised the gun as Kailin threw up her magic and Jackson lunged in front of her. She unleashed her energy to stop the bullet, and her power evaporated as Jackson’s back slid along her arm. The bang echoed around the cavern. Cassy screamed, and Jackson fell to the floor.

Moghadam tackled Ian as the deranged man took aim again at Kailin. With a toss of her arm, Ian and his gun flew in different directions. Moghadam hit the floor as Ian slid out of his grasp, slamming up against one wall while the gun shattered against the rocks on another wall. Ian tried to stand but with a flash of her fingers, he found himself stuck to the floor.

“I’d stay still, Ian, if you know what’s good for you,” Anthony yelled and jumped to seize the archeologist’s firearm while Moghadam grabbed rope.

Kailin bent to the ground by Jackson. Blood spread out under his chest. “Oh God,” she whispered and pushed him over, yanking his shirt open. A coin-sized hole gaped near his heart. His eyes remained shut. “Jackson,” she breathed.

Anthony handed her the orb. Kailin held it over his chest, funneling her magic into it, even though her magic fell flat around the heavy rock in her hands. Useless! She’d gifted it to Jackson. He was the only one to make it work, and he was unconscious, bleeding to death beneath her helpless hands.