She shouldn’t have been able to do it. She was too human to control the magic. But perhaps the magic responded in the way it was programmed to respond; he had aggravated the energy when he’d been probing her deepest fears. Perhaps he’d pulled it with him when she pushed him away. At least she hadn’t pushed the power at full strength. If she had, he’d be a pile of ash.
Robbie was bending over him, along with Arsen—yes, he sensed the cold anger that tested his second’s self-control. And he could hear her thoughts, feel her emotions. She was struggling to breathe. Marge was trying to calm her, but she was beyond that. He had ripped at the soft flesh of her deepest loss and he had no excuse. Never had he violated Gemma’s mind the way he’d done to her, and it was disturbing, the way he lost control.
Christan wanted to shift. Robbie was kneeling at his shoulder, pressing a hand to hold him steady. Christan heard him telepathically.
“You can’t shift, Christan. There might be broken bones or internal injuries.”
Christan’s breathing slowed, heart rate too, and the warmth pooling at his side told him he was bleeding. He must have fallen on the debris from the explosion, but he should be healing by now. He shouldn’t be lying here listening to the frantic beating of her heart as she watched him from across the room.
“Holy fuck, Lexi.” Arsen was walking toward her where she sat frozen in the chair. “Do not move, do not blink or I’ll put you down so hard on the floor you’ll never get up.”
“Arsen, she didn’t—”
“Not your time to speak, Marge.”
Robbie made a sharp sound of censure, then refocused on the calming pressure he was forcing into Christan’s mind. Christan didn’t think it was working. Every muscle in his body clenched with the need to shift.
“My apologies,” Arsen said to the older woman as he walked back to Christan’s side.
The bleeding hadn’t stopped. Robbie was applying pressure. Christan had been wounded many times before, but this was… different. Cold. A hidden pain, like a burning ember buried in the ash, waiting for the first puff of air. There was a thundering in his ears, a pounding in his temples. When the pain became incandescent Christan closed his eyes. He wanted to plunge over the dark abyss but found himself somewhere else. A place where the air was hot and dry, and the figure kneeling by his side was feminine. He heard the soft sound of her breathing. Cool fingers were tender as she washed blood from his skin. Her hair was pale, like a shaft of sunlight in winter, her eyes pure amber with a lion’s humor.
“Warrior… come back to me.”
Sunlight overhead, so dazzling all he saw was the cloud of her hair. She pressed something against his side and he flinched at the sting.
“Good. You’re alive enough to feel.”
He made an inarticulate sound, and she laughed. Kissed him. “You like that, warrior?”
So husky, that laugh. It brought him to a hard erection that throbbed to the point of pain.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she brushed her mouth against his throat. “You should have moved to the left like I expected.”
“You shot me?” She was deadly with her bow.
“You insisted.” She had taken him up on his dare. Usually it was he who penetrated her with piercing sensuality and no need for the bow. His hand fisted in her hair as he dragged her to his mouth.
“I remember, Gaia. I was teaching you to fight.”
“Yes.” She sat back on her heels and watched as he pushed up on his elbows. She was so innocent his heart clenched.
Not like Gemma. Not like the woman who stood with hate in her heart in the middle of a moonlit road. The woman he made into a mirror of himself.
Not like Lexi, who had put him on the floor. And he had deserved it.
Marge’s voice again. “Will you at least let me take her to the bedroom? She doesn’t need to watch this.”
“She caused it.” Arsen, snarling—an unusual sound.
No, I did. Christan pressed the knowledge into Arsen’s mind before he drifted into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 13
“I have to leave. They won’t let me leave, will they? Not while he’s hurt and I did it.”
“Lexi, calm down. Breathe.” Marge guided Lexi toward the bed, then went back to close the door. “If you hyperventilate I’ll have to get a paper bag.”
“What did I do, Marge? What the hell did I do?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything like it. Christan is—I thought he was invincible, but Robbie will bring him back.”
Lexi wasn’t as confident. She pushed agitated fingers through her hair, forcing herself to think.
“What was that explosion?”
“Harassment. An attack would be obvious by now. I don’t think they’ll be back.”
“Unless they realize Christan’s lying on the floor because I did something to him.”
“Lexi,” Marge cautioned, remaining calm. “Arsen has called in other warriors. Robbie says if they shift they’ll be here in half an hour.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me before we left the room. Didn’t you see me pause?”
Lexi hadn’t seen anything except Christan, unmoving on the floor, and the anger on Arsen’s face. Yes, she had seen that anger. It frightened her. Unable to remain sitting, she began to pace from the bed to the window and back again. Marge remained silent. Lexi realized there were bits of white plaster in Marge’s hair and blood on her face.
“You’re hurt.”
“A small cut. Robbie will tend to it.” Marge smiled, and the connection to her warrior was obvious. It ripped at a place inside Lexi that was viciously tender. She gripped her hands together to keep them from shaking.
“If you want to go to Robbie, please go. I won’t try to leave.”
“I know that. You aren’t a coward, even when you’re terrified.”
“He was so angry.” Lexi wrapped her arms against her waist, working through the events. The disbelief in Christan’s eyes. His pallor and the amount of blood on the floor. The seconds she stared at his chest willing him to take the next breath. “I wasn’t trying to hurt him. He was in my mind and I wanted to push him out.”
“Arsen will see that. Robbie already knows whatever you did, you were only protecting yourself.”
“I thought he was dead when Robbie was bending over him.”
“Robbie was talking to Christan telepathically,” Marge said. “Warriors will shift instinctively when they’re wounded, but it can kill them.” She pulled Lexi close for a fierce hug before stepping back and moving into a take-charge mode. “I’ll find out what’s happening. Do you need anything?”
Lexi said no, her eyes bleak. With a nod Marge left and closed the door behind her. Through the window, Lexi caught the flash of movement, and moments later she heard strong male voices, along with booted feet crunching across a littered floor. Then the scrape of chairs being righted, and the sound of a table moved. Lexi wanted to reach for the imprints that were settling in the other room, but she was afraid of what the earth might reveal.
They left her alone, even Marge, and when the door opened an hour later, it was Arsen who walked into the room. Gone was the surfer boy persona, throwing twigs into a fire. This man was hard with the experience of centuries in his eyes. He’d bled and fought at Christan’s side and he would not be swayed against a purpose he judged as right. No matter who was at fault. Lexi stood at the window and watched him approach with that same lethal intensity they all wore like second skins. She didn’t doubt Arsen’s loyalty, nor Robbie’s, or any of the men still moving around on the other side of the wall.
“How is he?”
“Alive.”
Lexi’s knees trembled, but she remained straight with her back to the light. The anger on Arsen’s face told her she hadn’t been forgiven. “What do I need to do?”
“For what?”
“So you won’t look at me like that.”
Arsen turned away and prowled with a restless energy. “I’m angry right now. This is my fault. It was too soon, but I thought he had enough time out of the Void. I thought you—”
“I’m sorry,” she interrupted. The tiny cuts on her hands burned as she rubbed her palms against her jeans. She rubbed harder.
“It was my miscalculation,” Arsen was saying. “I underestimated the effect Kace would have—"
“Stop.” She waited until he looked at her. “I can’t be around him, you see that now. You have to let me go back to Rock Cove.”