Temptation, Chronicles of the Fallen, Book 3 (25 page)

Maggie licked her lips. “Can’t you just shimmer us out of here?”

“No. The chain’s been reinforced with some kind of dark magicks. I can’t shimmer at all.”

“If it’s because I got sick before—”

“No.” Gideon twisted his wrists around. “The cuffs are gone. Even if I could shimmer, I won’t be able to take you with me.”

“Then you have to turn,” she urged.

“What! No!” He shook his head, unwilling to even consider it. “I won’t risk it. It’s too dangerous,” he stated. “I could end up killing you myself.”

“There’s no other way, Gideon. You have to turn.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Jesus, Maggie! Didn’t you hear a thing I just said? No!”

“Listen to me, Gideon,” she argued. “We will both die if you don’t at least try. All
three
of us will die.”

She watched his gaze dip to her belly, and she took hope. Something fierce and protective had kindled in his eyes at her words. But then he shook his head, and that light in his stare dimmed.

“Damn it, Gideon! Don’t you give up on me! You don’t have that luxury anymore. You’re going to be a father, do you hear me? A daddy.” He looked up at her, and the emotions she saw there were so raw, so exposed, she nearly faltered. But too much was at stake to back down.

“We need you, Gideon. I can’t protect us.” She wiggled her bound fists. “I can’t fight like this. I can’t stop them the next time they come back. I need you to keep me safe, Gideon. I need you.”

She wanted to tell him the rest, but she was too afraid. Too afraid he’d use it as an excuse to shut her escape plan down for good. Too afraid he might not say it back.

“Please, Gideon. I know you won’t hurt me, won’t hurt
us
. You have to try.”

She watched the battle of emotion sweep through him. He didn’t trust himself. That was the bottom line. No matter how much she trusted him, he didn’t trust himself.

Okay then, what else was there to lose? If she didn’t do something drastic, they might never get out of this hole alive. What could possibly be more drastic than telling him her true feelings?

“Then you better know something else,” she threw out there, reckless now. “I love you, you big jerk. I stayed with you because I love you. I believe in you because I love you. Now get that through your thick skull.”

Gideon gazed at her, stunned. Not even the theatrical clapping from the doorway broke through his openmouthed shock.

“Brava, Halfling, brava,” Mortikaï jeered. “Now wasn’t that moving?”

Mortikaï stepped farther into the room, and approached Maggie. The stench of him was enough to make her gag.

“Ah, such lovely sentiment.” He trailed his fingers through her limp, sweat soaked hair as if it were the finest silk. “It stirs the blood, does it not, Temptation?”

“Get your hands off her,” Gideon snarled, fighting his restraints with renewed fury. Blood ran from the fresh wounds on his wrists.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Mortikaï went on, ignoring Gideon’s rabid tirade. Maggie turned her head away, seeking desperately to avoid the aroma of wasting corpse that wafted from his putrid flesh. He trailed a grotesque finger down the line of her jaw, down her neck, and hooked a ragged black claw in the torn collar of her T-shirt. “Why should Stolas have all the fun?”

A scream ripped from her throat before she could muffle it as he used that claw to rip the front of her shirt wide open, leaving a trail of crimson seeping from her skin. Behind Mortikaï, Gideon roared, his face contorting with rage. Mortikaï was too busy staring at her exposed breasts with salacious intent.

“Such a shame to let all this go to waste before Stolas gets his claws into you. I’m told he’s not very careful when it comes to the females he beds. In fact, most don’t even survive.”

Mortikaï reached out, his gaze rapt on the flesh he was about to fondle.

Maggie cringed.

Gideon exploded.

One minute Gideon was there, blond haired, amber eyed, handsome Gideon. And the next moment, his body morphed into a nightmare. One she remembered all too well from the night he’d taken her to her home. One that fought with a mindless, killing rage. And she was directly in his path.

The chains snapped like strings, and Gideon charged Mortikaï. Mortikaï ducked to the side with an evil grin. As if this was exactly what he’d been after all along. He swung a beefy fist, and Maggie could tell he had every intention of drawing this fight out. Of putting her in as much peril as possible.

But there was one thing he had miscalculated. He’d underestimated Gideon’s fury and his relentless drive to protect what he deemed his.

Gideon was all over him in a heartbeat. All his ferocious rage focused solely on the demon now fending off blow after blow.

Maggie could do nothing more than hang on the wall and watch in mute shock as Gideon brutally ravaged Mortikaï. Mortikaï slipped in a puddle of blood and went down on one knee. Gideon was moving too fast for Maggie to tell if any of it was his.

Gideon knocked him the rest of the way down, and then sat on his chest, pinning him to the floor. The air around Mortikaï began to shift, just the slightest bit, just as Maggie had come to recognize it did when a demon was about to shimmer.

Gideon gave a mighty roar and plunged his fist deep in the cavern of Mortikaï’s chest. Mortikaï froze, eyes wide, mouth agape on a garbled roar. Smiling a grisly, serrated-teeth-filled smile, Gideon ripped the still beating heart from Mortikaï’s chest.

A wave of nausea hit Maggie, followed swiftly by dizziness at the sight of Gideon’s blood soaked fist clutching the organ in the air. But he didn’t stop there. He tossed it aside like rubbish and clamped both hands on either side of Mortikaï’s head. With a brutal twist, Gideon liberated Mortikaï’s head from his twitching body.

Gideon roared in triumph, holding the head in his hands. He stood there a long moment, staring at the thing as though admiring a trophy.

Maggie sucked in a shuddering breath, unable to drag her attention from Gideon’s bloody hands. The sound drew his attention. His head snapped around, and his stare zeroed in on her like a heat seeking missile.

“Gideon,” she whispered. Clearing her throat, she forced herself to speak slowly and soothingly. “Gideon, stop. You have to calm down.”

He lowered his head and began stalking toward her, her imminent death glittering in his black eyes.

“Gideon,” she squeaked. Her words tumbled over each other, faster and faster, in her desperation to get through to him. “It’s me. Remember me, Gideon. Maggie. Your mate.”

He hesitated, just for a moment, his head cocked to the side. But then he shook it off and advanced again.

“Gideon! Snap out of it. I’m your mate! You don’t want to hurt me. The baby! Remember the baby! Feel my belly, Gideon! Feel his power. Feel your baby!”

He paused again, less than two feet away now. His eyes narrowed, as if he were trying to make sense of what she was saying. His gaze lowered to her chest, zeroing in on her bare breasts, before dipping lower.

At last, he lifted his hand. His very large, very lethal, very bloody hand. And he laid it against her belly. Part of her wanted to cringe away, but she knew if she did that would be the end of it. The rage would take over, and he’d kill her without knowing what he was doing. Not until it was too late to make a difference.

And so she forced herself to remain still as the blood of his fallen enemy soaked her skin.

Finally, those black eyes rose, meeting hers with a lucidity she hadn’t seen since the moment he’d morphed into this being.

“Mag-gie,” he growled, his voice guttural and layered. “My Mag-gie.”

She sagged with relief, and sobbed aloud. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “Your Maggie.”

He eyed her dubiously for a moment. But he continued to touch her belly, and she took hope.

“Cut me down, Gideon,” she prompted.

His brow puckered, and he looked up at the chains binding her to the wall. He looked back down at her, and suddenly, he was leering. A look he’d perfected in human form, to be sure. But his interest was more than obvious.

Her eyebrows shot up. “No, Gideon.”

Oh, he didn’t like hearing that. Not at all.

“Stolas is coming, remember?”

Just like that, his gaze went flat, and the rage took over once more. She’d lost him. Scrambling to figure out how to bring him back, she bit her lip.

Gideon began to turn away, his body crouching to a fighting stance, his scowling face eagerly searching for another foe.

“Gideon!” Nothing. Desperate, she yelled, “Temptation!”

His head whipped around.

“Mag-gie,” he growled.

“Yes!” She could have cried with relief. At least they weren’t going to have to re-establish her identity. But time was slipping away, and she had no idea how long she had before this Stolas guy showed up.

“Cut the chains,” she ordered, praying that was the right tone.

He looked at the chains once more, then, as if giving a mental shrug, he reached up and jerked them free of the rock.

Not stopping to think about how he might react, Maggie threw herself into his arms. Sobbing, she peppered his chest and neck with kisses. He stood utterly still, frozen like a hunk of granite. He wasn’t even breathing.

And then, so slowly it broke her heart, he eased his arms around her, holding her like she was made of glass. Laughing, leaning slightly back, she tenderly caressed the side of his face.

“Take me home,” she said firmly.

“Home,” he repeated. “My Mag-gie.”

“Home,” she confirmed, smiling as the air around them distorted, and the dank, bloody cell fell away.

Suddenly, they were in the bedroom of the plantation. The nausea wasn’t quite so bad this time. But it still took her knees from under her.

Gideon, still in demonic form, swept her up and laid her upon the bed. As he reached up to touch her face, he must have noticed the blood on his hands. He began to pull away from her, but she quickly grabbed his hand and tugged him back. She cupped his cheek as she searched his face.

Her Gideon was in there. She could just see glimmers of him. It was time for him to come home too.

“I love you, Gideon.” She smiled when he blinked rapidly, frowning. “I. Love. You. No matter what you look like. No matter which form you’re in. I love you, and I always will.”

He looked down at her, wonder slowly turning his black eyes amber. Right before her eyes, he began to change back into human form. Once he was there with her, really there, he started, grabbing her hand up in shock.

“Maggie!” He gasped, tugging her into a bone-jarring embrace. “Maggie, oh, my sweet Lord! I can touch you! Look,” he said, pushing her away to show her their wrists sans the cuffs, only to jerk her right back into his arms. He squeezed her so tight she had to struggle to gain enough room to breathe.

“Why? Why can I touch you?” He pushed her back, gripping her by the shoulders as he stared hard at her. “What am I saying? I don’t care! I can touch you, nothing else matters.”

Maggie giggled at his exuberance—she couldn’t help it—and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Someone discreetly cleared his throat from near the doorway. Maggie glanced over, and felt Gideon stiffen in her arms. In the blink of an eye, Gideon was across the room. He had Asher by the throat, and slammed him up against the wall.

But he was still too close to the rage, and Maggie feared she might not be able to talk him down this time. She leaped from the bed and rushed to Gideon’s side. She wrapped both hands around his straining bicep and pulled. “Breathe, Gideon. Calm down. Just take a deep breath and calm down.”

“Bastard!” He slammed Asher’s head against the wall again.

“Curse,” Asher gasped, struggling to loosen Gideon’s hold. His mocha skin rapidly took on a mottled reddish hue. Somehow he managed to pry a sliver of breathing room and sucked in a pained breath. “Your…curse…broken,” he gasped again.

Eyes narrowed in suspicion, Gideon released him after one last good thunk against the wall. He herded Maggie behind him, and demanded, “You got five seconds to explain yourself. Then I’m gonna rip your head off for putting Maggie in jeopardy like that.”

“Your curse is broken.”

“How?” Maggie asked, edging around Gideon.

He pushed her back, echoing, “How?”

“All this time you’ve been searching for some
thing
to break your curse. You should have been searching for some
one
.” He rubbed at his throat. “A woman worthy of you. A woman who loves you unconditionally. A woman you learned to control the rage for.” He paused, eyeing them meaningfully. “A mate you would willingly die for.”

Maggie froze. Was Asher saying what she thought he was saying? Could it be possible that Gideon actually loved her too?

“All those times I came to you…commissioned you to search for… Why the hell couldn’t you just have told me that?”

“Some things have to happen just the way they happen,” Asher replied with a mysterious smile.

“You had no right to endanger my mate like that.” Though the tone was calmer, somewhat, there was still enough heat to scorch paint from the walls.

“I just made sure you had the proper motivation.”

Gideon growled low in his throat and made to lunge at him again. Maggie quickly grabbed at him. She smoothed her hand up and down his broad back. His muscles were like solid rock beneath her hand. “Gideon, it’s okay. Everything worked out. Calm down.”

“You see?” Asher arched his dark eyebrow, and his deep brown eyes followed the movements of her hands over Gideon as if her actions were only confirming the brilliance of his plan. “Even now, she soothes you.”

Asher reached into his pocket and drew out a small gold pendant on a chain. He offered it to Maggie. “This is for you.”

She glanced at Gideon, who frowned but nodded, before stepping around him to accept Asher’s offering. He laid the circular adornment flat on her hand. She studied the delicate filigree and the dainty stones.

“You must wear it at all times,” Asher cautioned her, his expression deadly serious. “The pendant will protect you and the child you carry. It will prevent any more portals from opening up within at least a hundred meters of you.

Frowning, not sure if she should believe him, she turned a questioning gaze to Gideon. Before she could open her mouth, Gideon snatched the pendant from her hand and had it clasped around her throat.

Well. I guess that answers my question.

Shaking her head, fighting a laugh at Gideon’s superstitious reaction, she turned back to Asher as Gideon’s arms slipped around her waist.

“Thank you.” She smiled at the handsome demon.

He grinned, lifting the edges of his finely trimmed goatee. “A demon and a Halfling. Normally, I’d say that’s a recipe for disaster. But that little one gives me hope. And he deserves a fighting chance. One I never got.” Asher winked at Maggie, and then disappeared, leaving Maggie and Gideon frowning at each other, baffled.