The Darkest Surrender (30 page)

“I’m going to remove the swords, okay?” He couldn’t allow this to happen to her again. Ever. He couldn’t bear it.
That is a challenge,
he told Defeat.
A challenge you will accept. She is ours to protect and if we fail her again, we will suffer, even if she will later heal. Understand?

A pause. Then, a faint,
Win.

Though Strider didn’t want to release her, he did, and gripped the swords. They were hotter than the dagger he’d used to cut his pants and his already blistered hands throbbed in pain. He didn’t care. His pain mattered little. What did matter?
Her
pain. That small movement tormented her, he knew, because her tears fell more quickly.

Unwilling to prolong the agony, he jerked with all of his strength. For several seconds, the metal caught on bone. He had to jerk harder. She didn’t make a sound. Finally, though, she was free and sagged forward. He dropped the swords and caught her, easing her to the ground. There
were also wounds on her ankles, but they weren’t bound, so he ignored them.

Again he wanted to hold her. Again he didn’t allow himself the luxury. He used his claw to slice deep into his neck, leaned down and placed the wound just above her mouth.

“Drink, baby doll. You’ll feel better, I swear. And then you’ll tell me what happened and I’ll punish everyone involved. That I swear, as well.”

At first, she gave no response. Then her tongue licked, a flick of fire, as hot as the sword hilts. He had to pant through it, but he didn’t pull away. Then her mouth latched on, branding him now and forever, and she sucked and sucked and sucked, and oh, yeah, did he like that.

“That’s the way,” he praised. “Good, good girl. Take all you need. Take everything.”

She took him at his word and drank her fill. When she finished, dizziness swam through his head, but he didn’t care. He was only glad Defeat hadn’t viewed that as a challenge, either. He straightened and peered down at her.

Her eyes were closed, her breathing harsh, shallow. Her temperature had cooled a little and her face wasn’t quite so pallid. That meant she was healing. Right?

He needed to get her out of this smoke-infested cave. His holey shirt rested a few inches away. He grabbed it up and wrapped what was left of the material around Kaia’s body. As tenderly as he was able, he lifted her in his arms. He wobbled on his feet, but didn’t let that deter him.

At the mouth of the cave, he called for Lysander. The angel appeared a second later, hovering just in front of him, wings gliding gracefully through the air.

“Take us to our tent,” he croaked. He couldn’t lose this woman.

“C
OME ON
,
BABY DOLL
.
I’ve let you sleep long enough. Now you’re just being lazy.”

Strider, Kaia thought dazedly, her entire body sparking to life. He was here, next to her. He had to be. His voice, so close, so sweet. Soft fingertips smoothed the hair from her brow. She knew that touch. Loved that touch and she leaned into it.

“Come on. That’s the way.”

His husky baritone proved to be a lifeline and she clung desperately. Inch by inch, she pulled herself from the thick, cloying darkness surrounding her. Even though every movement
hurt.
Strider, she had to reach Strider. That had been her last thought, she recalled. Her last thought before—

She’d heard so many screams. Of terror, of pain. Hers, so many others. The scent of melting skin had hit her nose and she’d gagged. Gagged now, remembering. Released the lifeline. Down, down she fell, back into the darkness.

“Kaia! I’m not going to tell you again. Wake the hell up. Now!”

Strider. She grabbed the lifeline once again. Again she tugged her way up…up… A bright light waited at the surface. She had only to reach out…grab it…almost there…another tug…

Her eyelids popped open as a gasp of shock and lingering outrage lodged in her throat. She was panting and
sweating, muscles locked onto bone. She tried to sit up, but hard hands held her down.

“No. You’re still healing, so I don’t want you moving.”

Suddenly Strider’s beautiful face loomed over her. His deep blue eyes were glassy, feverish. Concern etched deep lines around his mouth and his normally tanned skin was nearly as colorless as his hair. No, not true. There were spots of color, but they were bright red welts and blisters.

He was naked. Seeing him, something sizzled inside her. Knowledge, power, connection. Yes, a connection more prevailing even than what she felt with Bianka. More than binding them, that connection wove them together, until she couldn’t tell who was who. They were simply one.

“Are you all right?” Gods, even speaking hurt. Her throat was raw, agonized, as if someone had scraped the insides with jagged glass and then, just for funsies, painted the bleeding flesh with acid.

“I’m fine, so don’t worry about me. Worry about you. You’ve been out for three days.”

Three days? Her eyes widened. “The third game—”

“Starts two days from now. Bianka has kept me informed.”

Thank the gods.
Still.
Three days. “I must look terrible,” she muttered. She would have finger-combed her hair, but decided lifting her arm would require too much effort.

“You look alive, and that’s goddamn beautiful to me.”

Darling man. Her heart skipped a beat as she soaked up his praise.

“Besides,” he said, “we’re both clean. Lysander gave me robes. Angel robes. A stack of them. Every time I put a new one on, it was like taking a bath. You, too. Everything from your hair to the bottom of your feet was—is—washed. And let me tell you, that was
weird.
”

Why tell her that? Unless…oh. Oh. He wanted her.
Okay, she would put the effort into
that.
Arousal warmed her up and her nipples tightened.

Her gaze swept over her body to catalog the damage she’d have to work around.

She was naked, her shoulders discolored and scabbed. Stomach, fine. Legs, fine. Ankles, bruised. Not bad.

She was lying on a faux fur rug her twin must have delivered, inside a nearly barren white tent, the air around her heated even though the air by the flapping entrance was almost crystallized from cold.

Leaning his weight into one arm, Strider was careful not to brush the long, thick length of his erection—and oh, yes, he had one—against her. Warm heat instantly pooled between her legs. She craved his touch, his mouth. Wanted to explore this new, deeper connection thing. She licked her lips.

“You move fast,” she said with a grin.

“Damn it, Kaia. Get your mind out of the gutter and talk to me. I’ve been waiting patiently for
days.
”

His
pet name
for her brought her gaze back to his face. The concern was back full force and she recalled why she was here, in the condition she was in—and the danger she had become to this man. She didn’t have to push her sexual need aside. It vanished on its own.

“Okay. Yes. What do you want me to talk about?”

His eyes glinted down at her. “First, if you ever had any doubts that I’m your consort, you can put them to rest. You slept next to me.”

Not the terrible topic she’d expected and she relaxed against the fur. “Sorry, darling, but that’s not how the consort sleeping thing works.”

He gave her a fierce frown. “How does it work, then?”

“Naps don’t count if the Harpy falls asleep while injured. I have to sleep next to you when I’m healed and that hasn’t happened yet.”

“It will.” Determination radiated from him and she knew he saw this as a challenge. A challenge he clearly accepted.

She didn’t let it bother her, though. She wanted to sleep next to him, cuddled into his side, something she’d never done with another man. How or why that occurred didn’t matter.

“Now tell me what the hell happened,” he continued, each word gruffer than the last. “Did those men…are you…?” Okay. Blisters weren’t the only thing coloring his face now. Fury did. So much fury.

Fury over her mistreatment? “Did they what? Pin me to the wall? Yes. Did they catch fire and burn to death? Yep, that, too.” Once more the screams and the flames flashed through her mind. Rather than torment her as they had in the dark, dark void, she experienced a surge of satisfaction.

Victory belonged to her.

“No, baby doll.” His expression softened, became tender and seeking. He traced a gentle fingertip along the slope of her nose. “Did they…rape you?”

“No.” She shivered from the succulent contact. “I would have killed them deader if they had.”

Relief joined the fury and the tenderness. “I won’t piss on their charred remains, then. So how’d you kill them? I mean, I know they burned to death, like you said, but
how
did you manage that? You had to have done it after you were pinned. Otherwise you would have been sliced like a Christmas ham.”

Smart man. “I…” As
those
memories surfaced, she frowned, looked away from him. “I don’t want to tell you,” she whispered. While she was satisfied with the end results,
getting
those results had opened a veritable Pandora’s box of complications—and she didn’t think Strider would appreciate the irony.

Dark lashes fused together. “Do it anyway. Now. And start from the beginning. I want to hear everything.”

So commanding, her warrior. So sexy. She hadn’t wanted to tell him, but she would. Had planned to even while uttering the refusal. She would do anything, even this, to keep him from experiencing a moment of pain. “I climbed the ledge and the Hunters were waiting for me. They rushed me and we fought. I would have won, too, but they knew to go for my wings.” Probably courtesy of Juliette, even though discussing such a weakness with
anyone
was forbidden and punishable by death. “Once those were broken, pinning me with the swords was easy.”

Every word had him tensing. “I didn’t hear you scream.”

She knew that; she’d made sure he hadn’t, holding her cries inside. She hadn’t wanted to distract him from his fight with Lazarus. Which he must have won, since he was here and evidently pain-free.

Had she called him sexy? She meant irresistibly ravishing. But why hadn’t he heard the Hunters’ screams? she wondered. Interesting. Had someone somehow kept the noise inside the cave?

“The rest,” he urged on a croak.

Do it.
“I was so mad, so…desperate, the heat inside me just kind of spilled out.”

“I know that heat,” he said huskily.

Her brows knit together in confusion. “You do?”

“Yeah. When we made love, you burned me pretty badly.”

“What!” She must not have been paying attention to his body, only her own. Selfish much? “Gods, Strider. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not.” His lips twitched in his first true display of humor since she’d woken up. “I liked it.”

That didn’t calm her. She could have
killed
him. Rather than considering that, however, and perhaps bursting into
tears, she hurried on with her story. “I caught fire, but it didn’t hurt me. I didn’t understand what was happening, just watched as the men around me caught fire, too. And when the others tried to run out of the cavern, I looked at them and the next thing I knew, they were writhing as they burned. My Harpy laughed.” To be honest, so had she. “Then I just kind of blacked out.”

“I don’t understand. How could you catch fire and be okay minutes later?”

The answer was the very reason she hadn’t wanted to discuss this. “I should have put the pieces together before this, but I discarded them as silly. Maybe because I was too distracted with the courting of my consort.”

He barked out a laugh. “Discarded
what
as silly? And you’re saying you courted me? Baby doll, if the past few weeks are your idea of courting, we seriously need to work on your dating skills.”

“Shut up. I nabbed you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” he said tenderly, huskily. “You nabbed me.”

That mollified (and melted) her. “As I was saying, my father is a Phoenix shape-shifter. I must have inherited a few of his abilities.” And she didn’t like that she had! Of course she valued her newfound ability to fry her enemies to a smoldering crisp, but the Phoenix were an exclusive, unwelcoming race and anyone who displayed the tiniest bit of pyrokinesis was captured and kept—forcibly—within their territory.

Honestly. She had no idea how her mom and dad had ever hooked up in the first place.

O-kay.
Gross.
She shied away from that thought.
Anyway.
That’s why her dad had kidnapped her and Bianka all those centuries ago, to ensure they did not exhibit an affinity for fire. They hadn’t and so they’d been set free. Not just set free, but told never to come back.

She should not be exhibiting such an affinity now. Phoe
nix could withstand intense heat and control fire from birth. Until now, she’d never been able to. So how had this happened? Why now? Latent ability, perhaps? But then, shouldn’t it have hit with puberty? Only other thing she could think of was the one thing that had changed in her life. Her need,
her burning desire,
for Strider.

When—if—her dad found out, would he come for her? Demand she live with his people? No need to consider it. Yeah. He would. And she would refuse. Would she be forced to war with him and all his brethren, just to live her life as she wished? Would he make a gamble for Strider in an attempt to force her hand?

“I’m glad you inherited your father’s abilities. You’re alive and nothing is more important than that,” Strider said. “You did a great job.”

“Really?” She would never tire of his praise.

“If your goal was to worry me to death, then yes.” He was glowering now, his affection morphing into anger. She figured the what-ifs were driving him crazy. “You are never going off on your own again. You will chain yourself to my side and like it. Understand?”

She would not deign to respond to such a ludicrous statement. “Just so you know, you did a good job, too.” Maybe if she applauded him, he’d stop letting his concern speak for him and remember
she’d won.

“Well, you didn’t do a great job, and that’s the gods’ honest truth. You almost died! You didn’t scream and I know why. You didn’t want to distract me. But guess what? I’d rather you had distracted me! I could have raced to the rescue and helped you do that killing.”

He also could have burned to death with the Hunters. “Well…well…you didn’t do a good job, either!”

“Nope. You already said I did.”

“And then I said you
didn’t.
”

“Sorry, no take-backs. You sucked this up because you
let yourself get pinned. Don’t do that again. Do you even realize what they could have done to you?”

Yep. The what-ifs were definitely driving him. The indignation drained from her. How could she blame him? Had the situation been reversed, she would have done the same thing. “I won’t do it again.”

Strider pushed out a labored breath, visibly relaxing more with each molecule of air that escaped him. “So why didn’t you want to tell me about the Hunters?”

Well, maybe she still possessed a
little
indignation. Quite primly, she said, “Because telling you about my newfound firepower meant I’d have to tell you something even worse—we can’t have sex anymore.” And she meant it. She might have forgotten her resolution upon first awakening, but she recalled it now.

“Like hell!” he roared.

“Strider, we can’t. I’ll burn you.” Badly. Perhaps even kill him.

He softened his voice when he said, “You didn’t last time.” Then he finally, blessedly, turned into her, pressing his cock between her legs, hitting her right where she wanted him most.

Her need exploded back to life and she had to clench her hands in the rug to keep from reaching for him. The heat…she could feel it building again, seething beneath her skin. “Liar. You said I blistered you.”

“I also said I liked it.”

Don’t you dare soften.
“Doesn’t matter. Last time I’d never set anything on fire. Now that I have, the chances are greater that I will again. And when I’m with you, I apparently lose all hint of common sense. I won’t be able to control myself.”

“If that’s the case, you won’t be able to fight in the other two games, either. Your anger most definitely will be ignited and you’ll erupt, killing everyone around you.”

“Yeah, but I want to kill my opponents.” Not really, but she didn’t want to admit he had a point.

“Which will endanger your family.”

Damn him!

“Just pucker up, buttercup, because this is happening.
If
you can take it,” he added thoughtfully. “Your injuries…”

He’d just pricked the hell out of her pride and her chin lifted. “I can take anything.”