Cold was seeping through her, though, and Lexi reached for a location. The earth responded. This was Zurich and she was sitting on the floor, in a darkened hallway with no idea how she’d gotten there. Lexi opened her senses and the answering energy had her heart racing. Christan was near. So was Kace. Male voices carried through a closed door.
“Christan?” She whispered his name in her mind, wondering if she could still reach him telepathically. The floor beneath her palms heaved violently. The wave of power held both aggression and disbelief, and Lexi was certain Christan heard her. The reaction was definitely his.
There was a sharp sound and Lexi struggled to her feet. The door opened, allowing a shaft of bitter light to fall across her face. A male voice, filled with the sibilant hiss of a snake, coiled around her.
“Bring her inside,” the man ordered pleasantly.
Kace nodded, stepping forward with a controlled smile.
CHAPTER 37
Zurich, Switzerland Christan moved his head, his eyes tracking Kace’s movements. A moment ago, he’d heard Lexi’s voice and thought he was hallucinating. Now he realized she was here, and when Kace opened the door Christan bled from a deeper wound. This woman, he realized, was the sole reason for his existence. She alone filled the emptiness in the dark, settled him when he would search the world for what would make him whole. This woman. Who was beautiful even when she was terrified.
Kace pushed her toward the desk and she was cooperating. Her hair was a golden riot around her shoulders. There was blood on her face and stiff courage in her stride. I won’t give up on you. She’d said those words outside the villa, her voice still soft in his mind. She shouldn’t have been able to do it, talk to him telepathically. Only hear him. But she’d been able to use the telepathy the same way she’d been able to use the one word, and he would question it later.
Lexi stood like a pagan goddess with the overhead light in her hair. Christan leaned his head against the wall. His eyes were still nearly swollen shut, but he searched every visible inch of her body for signs of damage. He could withstand this brutal game but she could not, and Christan realized something crucial: Lexi could not have gotten to Zurich unless Six had compelled her. Or someone else had known where he was and sent her here.
Which should have been impossible since she was human, and humans could not physically withstand teleportation.
“I would know you anywhere,” he told her telepathically, his hip bleeding, his legs splayed. “Crawl on my knees to get to you.”
“And I am here.” she answered. “Don’t ask me how because I don’t know.”
Kace had released her, stepped back. Christan struggled to his feet, pressing hard on the impulse to shift. His broken hands shook. The need to touch her was overwhelming. Her fingers clenched in the sweatshirt held at her waist, dark and wet with blood. “Not all mine,” she said again in his mind, and he flashed back to that hot summer day when she extended her hand to the predator he was. Then to her soft palms against his face.
“Your name is Christan,” she’d said, as she laid claim to his soul, and in his memory, he drank in the pure sunlight, the fresh green earth and five twinkling stars in an indigo sky.
She turned her head, and Christan watched her hold Kace’s hard gaze with one of her own.
Something shifted beneath his feet, a low vibration that rolled across the floor. The hot, soft energy came from her and wrapped around him until he felt it to his core.
The wound in his side throbbed.
Silent, Lexi ignored the evidence of the beatings, the wreck they’d made of Christan’s body. Instead, she forced herself to study the room. She looked first at the mix of textures, from the sandstone-colored carpet to the polished sheen of the concrete floor, pleasingly modern until you noticed the blood. It was office space mixed with industrial. The design was all the rage in America where citizens tried to revitalize their dying city centers. Lexi glanced at the furniture and the men, deciding there was nothing worth revitalizing. Other than Christan. When she stared at Kace, his expression was cold and cruel. The other man was ice. Outside it had started to rain.
Lexi’s attention returned to Christan. She didn’t understand how the one word worked but wrapping her hand in a shirt covered in Christan’s blood might not be enough. Physically mingling their blood was probably necessary. Her hand was throbbing with energy, pulling her toward him. If the magic required her to touch him, then she was more than happy to comply.
When she walked in Christan’s direction no one stopped her. She dropped the shirt. Pressed her bleeding hand against the wound in his side. Her palm sizzled. Christan flinched. When Kace noticed, Lexi wrapped her arms around Christan's waist, pretended she was supporting his weight. In a perverse way it looked like they were making love, standing up with a pool of blood at their feet.
The man behind the desk was watching, too, and Lexi’s nerves tensed. He was like every other powerful executive she had ever met—civilized, and yet different enough she felt the fear. She wondered how she would hold up under a prolonged interrogation. Probably not well. He was an immortal, probably Six since Kace was in the room. His face was paler than expected, the masculine features refined. He was not muscular, but then he didn't need to be when she could feel the dark energy surrounding him.
Lexi glanced back at Christan and her expression was sober; his held nothing but profound concern for her. Christan’s hands had been ruined. Gently, she touched them, rubbed her thumbs against the swollen flesh, heard the soft grind of bone moving into place.
From across the room, energy vibrated. The immortal’s sibilant hiss demanded her attention. Lexi took several seconds before glancing in his direction.
“You surprise me, Ms. North.” The voice was as colorless as the skin. Lexi released Christan’s broken hands, shifted around toward the massive desk.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” she said. “We’ve never met.”
“And yet you have presented yourself at my office, uninvited. I am Six.” The immortal paused. “Move over here, please.”
Lexi refused.
The man inclined his head. “I have no intention of killing you,” he suggested in a tone that indicated he intended to kill someone.
Lexi walked in his direction, stopping short of where he’d ordered her to stand. The immortal pressed a hand, knuckles down, on the surface of the desk. A flicker of irritation tightened his face. He might not kill her, Lexi realized, but he wanted her to appreciate how badly he would hurt her.
“I see you are as stubborn as he is,” Six said.
“He taught me all I know.”
“It’s a shame he didn’t teach you enough or you’d be safe right now. How did you get here?”
“I have no idea.”
“Was it Three?”
“I’m not familiar with anyone named Three.”
“Of course you are. You’re mated to her enforcer.”
The edge of a blade scored down Lexi’s arm even though Six remained several feet away. A dark pearl of blood pooled above one of the memory lines. Her wrist burned.
“I will ask you again.”
“I was sitting in the middle of Christan’s blood and then I was sitting in the hall outside your door.”
“That is not a sufficient explanation.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
“Please.” The word became an insult. Six tipped his head as he walked toward her and began to circle around, hands clasped behind his back. His feet were moving but there was no sound. The immortal stopped in front of her.
“Three is not stupid,” he said. “She would see the manipulations, anticipate the moves. She knows I’d try to use you if given the chance. I don’t think she’d let me get this far unless she had a reason for doing it.”
Six wasn’t actually talking to her; Lexi realized he was working something out in his mind, staring at her hand that still dripped blood, not just from the wound he had inflicted, but from the deep cut across her palm. For a few seconds Lexi fought the panic behind her eyes. Then a disembodied touch stroked around her throat.
“Why are you here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”