“I’m not.”
The constriction tightened and relaxed, before tightening again. Lexi thought it felt like a predatory snake.
“Describe again how you got here,” Six instructed.
Lexi looked at the floor, opting for the details but not the secrets. How she’d been on her knees with Christan bleeding out, the screams of wounded men, the silence when he disappeared. She didn’t know if the story was convincing and didn’t care. “Maybe something happened and that’s how I got here.”
“Did you arrive immediately after Christan did?” Lexi shook her head. Behind her, Christan began to move. The immortal said, “I sense energy.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re different.”
“It’s probably because I’m human.”
“No,” Six said slowly, “I don’t think you are.”
The immortal flicked his hand. Kace shimmered at the edges, then shifted into a gray predator. Lion, but unlike any Lexi had ever seen. The pelt was thick and wiry, the muscles archaic. The animal lowered to a crouch, exposing canines longer than her hand. A warning vibrated in the creature’s throat.
The primitive sound sent Lexi backward. She nearly tripped over the thick edge of a rug and wondered if the last lion she would ever fight would be an angel, fallen and profane.
But the creature was not looking in her direction. Christan was walking toward her, totally silent and utterly terrifying. The air exploded as he shifted.
He was an apex predator, a chimera, she thought, like the Etruscan bronze in the museum. Fiercely proud. Wounded but lethal, part lion and something else. A creature of myth.
Kace altered his shape in response until both were equal in size. But not in dominance. The lion backed away while the chimera followed, stalking, testing with lazy curiosity, swiping out to draw first blood. The lion struck back. For an instant, Lexi opened a window in her mind and imagined she was back in her cottage, watching a wildlife show. Muscles bunched with charge and parry; she pictured the two creatures on a savanna with sparse vegetation. Jaws snapped on empty air and she imagined them in a distant jungle. None of her delusions were successful though. The sounds flooded her emotions while massive bodies crashed to the concrete floor. Screams tore at the air when they rolled upright again, twisting in ways joints should never twist. The reality was breaking her heart.
Six stepped closer. His excitement stroked against her back and repugnance drove her forward. He followed. Lexi realized he was pushing her closer to the battle until she stood at the edge.
He did not stop there. When the chimera lunged, Six cut her. The lion went down and Six cut her again, nothing too deep, just stinging enough to make her gasp. Tiny beads of blood dripped on the floor. Then the immortal let her stand there while he made his next move.
With growing horror Lexi recognized the game.
There were only two rules.
When Christan lunged, Six cut her. When Kace attacked, she was granted a reprieve. Lexi focused on the distant wall, refusing to flinch. When the blood and pain increased, Six took her by the hand, held it up. Lexi realized Six was fueling Christan’s rage, giving Christan a choice—this man she loved, who had been broken and ruined on the floor, who said he would crawl on his knees to get back to her. Christan could not kill Kace and protect her at the same time.
Lexi saw the reality in Christan’s eyes. Saw it when the gray lion lunged and the chimera let the creature to take him to the ground. When sharp claws ripped and the chimera did not resist.
“Look away, cara.” Christan’s voice, so harsh in her mind, and yet fiercely tender. As if he’d made his choice and was saying goodbye. Lexi wanted to rage at the sky, swing around and attack Six with every ounce of fury that consumed her. Break into a thousand pieces. Remind Christan that honor was in the action and not the outcome.
“I won’t look away,” she whispered as the chimera labored to his feet and stared directly at her. “I’m with you to the end.”
“This is not the end. You will go on.”
“I would not live without you. You have to fight, Christan. Fight for us.”
The lion had stepped back; it was as if he was waiting, allowing them this time. Without a sound the chimera turned and lunged. But the absence of sound was not silence. The absence of sound was terror. Lexi struggled to remain sane as ragged energy flew around the room, cracking the glass blocks of a false wall, throwing crystal shards like tiny arrows in her direction. The arrows joined with immortal power and sliced her skin. Kace flashed once into human form. He looked at Lexi and then shifted back again, turned to meet his rival. After that, there were no screams left in her throat, no breath in her lungs. Lexi swayed but remained steady. She could not let Christan lose his focus or they would both be lost.
Blood dripped from her hand. Her vision blurred. The chimera lunged, took the lion to the concrete floor, and Lexi bent beneath a sudden, shattering grief over what was happening. Kace had once brought Gemma flowers. Played chess with her through the night. A sob caught in her throat as she realized they’d come full circle, in a converted warehouse and not a moon-shot road, where two men fought to save a woman who was most likely already dead.
Lexi’s soft cry distracted Christan and the wounded Kace disappeared, as he’d disappeared from the blood outside the villa. Lexi realized the immortal had removed his Enforcer from the battle to save his life. But would it save hers?
“It’s the blood guilt,” Six said, his body vibrating. “Your Enforcer is caught up in it and he won’t save you.”
There was no other warning. Six moved his hand and Lexi was crashing against the wall. Pain exploded behind her eyes. Six disappeared as she crumpled to the floor, and Lexi realized Arsen had been right. There would be no more running. No more second chances. The blood bond would save Christan’s life. The price would be her own.
Christan had shifted and was beside her, his beautiful face, his eyes dark with pain. She looked at him with such a look of bewilderment, she knew it crushed him.
“Stay with me, goddammit!” he growled, his shaking fingers on her face.
“Do you remember what you said?” she asked.
“What, cara, what did I say?”
“That you would always know me.”
“Always.”
“Will you know me when I come back?” She lifted one broken hand, pressed it against his cheek.
“Please, cara, stay here. Stay,” he ordered, although he could not articulate the words. Lexi felt every ounce of his considerable power flowing through his hands and into her soul to hold her back. His voice had grown so hoarse she barely understood him. “Fight for us, cara. I cannot wait centuries for you again. Please.”
“I’ll always love you, Christan.”
Her body trembled in his hands. The air vibrated. And she was gone.
CHAPTER 38
Seattle, Washington
Lexi was floating in a sea of sparkling light surrounded by darkness. Memory lines unfurled as she drifted. Faces appeared. She stared at those she didn’t know, let them pass with unseeing eyes. But others caused her heart to pound and brought her closer to the surface. Light shimmered in aqua waves and she looked around, seeking the face of a man, the voice that was always present, calling for her, using different names. Soft names. Foreign names. Familiar names. She heard the voice clearly, heard him asking where she was, but he was so far away she let him go and drifted onward until she slept.