Absolution (9 page)

Lips thinned, she walked from the window toward him. He would swear she floated across the floor. She sat and allowed him to push her chair to the table.

He took his seat next to her. “I’d like you to teleport to safety. Preferably, out west.” He felt her ice-blue gaze bore into him like a diamond tipped drill. Forcing himself not to flinch or show emotion, he braced for the blast.

“I may have spent my first fifteen years in the Abyss and had my children stolen from me, but I don’t play Fae games. I have lived the past hundred years in hIfreann surrounded by the Goddess’ Paladins. Honor, loyalty, and duty to the Goddess rule that world. I am well aware of my obligations.”

“Glad to hear it. I’ve contacted Fritz. He’ll take you to the Cave of the Fallen. They may have news on your daughters. I promised to protect you and this is the best way.”

She met his gaze with a shuddered one. “We’ll see.”

Damn, talk about your noncommittal statements. Yet, relief warred with fear. His actions had cost him everyone who’d ever meant anything to him. If he let her get any closer, he would lose her, too. Best to park her somewhere until he and Rice took Farley’s head.

He shoveled a spoonful of stew into his mouth and sighed. “You said the woman who lived here was named Sally, right?”

“Yes.”

“Her stew’s really good. Reminds me of my mother’s.” He frowned. She hadn’t eaten any, just stirred it. He dipped her spoon into her bowl and brought it up to her lips. “You’re too thin. Healing Rice and me drained you. Please.” Her lips covered the spoon. She swallowed the stew, and he bit back a moan. “If you’ll eat, I’ll tell you a little bit about your daughters.”

Interest lit her eyes. “You know them?”

“Of them. About them, yes.” As she dug into her meal, he placed a couple pieces of buttered bread on her plate hoping she would be absorbed enough to finish them as well. “I realize they were newborns when you lost them, but you’ll need to remember when dealing with them they aren’t babies or small children who need protection.”

“I’m well aware of that.” She blinked several times, her look faltering. “They do need my knowledge. Please, tell me more.”

“Their names are Sophie Carlson and Kate Ellison. Deva has teams scouring Earth in search of them.”

Her clasped hands clutched at her heart as a small moan escaped. “Are they well?”

He rose, retrieved the pot, and ladled more into her empty bowl. “From what I’ve heard, yes. What do you know about them?”

“King Raziel bound their powers before sending them to Earth, then lost track of them. But that won’t stop Farley from draining them dry if he finds them.”

He couldn’t argue with that. “When he absorbs a magick’s essence, what happens to the soul? You helped my sister’s soul transition. Did she suffer?”

“The soul is inviolate. It returns to Summerland and the Goddess unharmed. As for the magick, it remains with the body and returns to the universe with its death, awaiting the soul’s rebirth. That is Farley’s mistake in judgment. Stolen magick doesn’t last or satisfy.”

“That’s why Rice and I need to kill him. With your power, it’s critical you’re safely out of his reach. He could be the Dark Lord’s greatest weapon, our greatest threat, if that demon were made aware of his existence.”

“True, which is why you need my help. However, once Deva finds my daughters, I can take them to hIfreann, and we’ll be safe there.”

“I thought only those who were born of parents from hIfreann or had been modified as you were could live there.”

“Soul bound mates of other domains can also. My daughters are half Seraphim and can enter and leave at will. Raziel and I will keep them safe in hIfreann.”

Half Seraphim? Who the hell’s their father
? “What are you talking about? Those women aren’t leaving Earth. Even I know they were put here for a reason. You can’t simply take your grown daughters and hide them there. You’ll lose them if you try. And where does that leave the Goddess’ plan for them, for you, for the rest of us who need you three?”

She rested her elbows on the table and covered her face with her hands. At the sound of a soft sob, Luc shoved out of his chair and knelt at her side. Gently he lifted her hands away. The tears streaking down her cheeks shattered him. With a napkin, he blotted them away and brushed strands of hair off her cheeks. He caressed her arms; his eyes met hers. “Talk to me. What is it? Tell me what’s really driving you. What’s so urgent?”

“I’m haunted by nightmares.” Her whisper broke his heart. “What do they look like?”

He stared at the floor and frowned, trying to recall each woman from her picture in the conference room. “They’re both tall, both beautiful. Sophie’s a blonde and Kate...well, given they’re twins, I figure Kate dyes her hair brown.” He shrugged. “It’s been more than seven months since anyone’s seen her, so who knows.”

She nodded. “Kate’s in my dreams.” She paused, took a shaky breath, and leaned forward, her head touching his forehead. “She’s alone, with only a sword, in battle against a hoard of demons from the Abyss. I now believe the demons symbolize Farley.”

He lifted her in his arms, walked to the sofa, and settled her on his lap. “It might help you not to worry about her if you know she’s one helluva woman. I don’t know her personally, but I do know her commanding general, Adams. She’s a colonel in the Supernatural Special Forces. She rescues children from demons and monsters like Carlson’s Humans First and Farley’s Brotherhood.”

Her eyes met his. “In my dream, she’s alone when attacked, except for a wild wolf. If the enemy is Farley and her powers are still bound, she won’t survive. That’s why I have to help you neutralize him before continuing my search.”

“No, you don’t. That wolf’s Mark. Kate has a mate, a soul mate, or she will have as soon as he finds her. He’s looking for her now, following her scent. He’s the Alpha of his pack, a very large pack. He was born and raised to protect his people. All of his people, not just those born of his blood. If you believe nothing else, know this—he will die before he allows anything to harm her.”

She twisted in his lap and faced him, a small smile on her lips as she blinked back tears. “He sounds like a good man, the kind she needs. Once they’re together and her powers are unbound, she can teleport them to safety.”

Luc shifted uncomfortably, her wiggle against his seemingly ever-present erection more than he could handle. Fingers of one hand traced her delicate eyebrow while the other slid along her jaw and cupped the back of her head. She leaned into his palm and touched his lower lip with her finger. He nipped and sucked away the sting, then bit back a smile as her eyes widened. Never breaking eye contact, he lowered his head until his mouth captured hers.

He stiffened when her tongue shyly touched his lips and then relaxed. He entered her mouth, gently learning her taste, slowly reveling in its sweetness, a feast for his senses. He caressed and lifted her breasts.

She pulled back and cupped his face. Blue eyes challenged green. He didn’t know what answer she sought. When a small smile curved her lips, he released a breath he hadn’t realized he had held.

“I am not leaving. I choose to stay with you. I now—”

“No!” Fear charged back. He tightened his grip on her, pulling her closer instead of setting her away. He had lost everyone who had entered his life, and those he’d allowed in his heart. How could he protect her, keep her alive if she stayed with him? “Please, Allana, no.”

“—swear upon my love of the Goddess I will stay with you and remove Farley from this plane of existence. If you refuse my assistance, I will seek him out on my own.”

She glared at him. “You will cease trying to protect me and allow me to help bring down Farley. I had no control over losing my babies, but
we
can control this,
we
can stop Farley.”

Damned woman was impossible. Now he was stuck. With that vow, she couldn’t leave him. Didn’t she realize if they got any closer, he would lose her as he did everyone else?

She leaned back. “Lucan, don’t you understand? If I help send Farley’s soul to the Abyss, I protect not only my daughters but all magicks. Yes, this is your challenge. It’s also mine. Perhaps the Goddess put us together for this reason.”

She didn’t understand. Farley didn’t scare him. She did. Being with her terrified him. Even one more hour was dangerous. Each second he was with her, his resolve to stand alone, to keep himself apart from her weakened. Allowing her into his heart scared him shitless. Yet she had managed to worm herself into it in less than a day.

He jerked. Not one day! She had been with him, in his mind, touching his soul, for months. Now she was trying to work him over with logic.

He swallowed hard. If he agreed with her insane vow, he would not only lose his heart but his soul in the process. If he didn’t acquiesce, he would lose her anyway because she would enter Farley’s camp unprotected and without a plan. “I agree under protest and with specific provisos.”

“Of course. What are they?”

“Fritz joins us here tomorrow night. We come up with a plan before we leave and follow it. We’re a team. You don’t go off on your own.”

“I agree, but how will we leave? The roads are impassable.”

“Fritz’ll create a portal to the Interstate at a lower elevation.”

“Good. Time is short.”

“Right, time is short.” Luc moved her off his lap to the sofa. He couldn’t concentrate. Her innocent sensuality drew him. Forget that, she had his dick hard enough to drive rivets.

Cripes, this was too important for him to fuck up. There was that word again. From the moment he had seen her, that was all he had wanted to do. No, it was more than an itch. He could scratch until the day he died, and it would still be there, irritating him one minute and soothing him the next.

He stood and walked over to the window. Resting his head against the icy windowpane, he closed his eyes and prayed to the Goddess.
I beseech you, Creator of all that was, is, and will be, allow her to live. I know I don’t deserve one touched by Your goodness, but in trying to save me, she’s become my heart.

I won’t survive without her
.

***

Allana stared at the blank paper in front of her. Except for the column headings, she hadn’t written a thing. “I understand the lists for Action and Repercussion. Why do we need the ones for Before Farley and With Farley?”

“
Before
will itemize issues we might run into along the way.
With
Farley, we need to know how to deal with anything and everything that can go wrong at the camp or in his presence.” Luc stopped pacing and studied her. “You planned to go after him. What did you have in mind?”

“We pick up Rice, drive into Farley’s camp, and you turn me over to him. Then you kill him. If I harm someone, even in self-defense, it rebounds on me tenfold. The greater the magick the individual has, the worse the rebound. If
I
kill Farley, the recoil might kill me.”

He stared at her dumbstruck. His only movements—a long, hard swallow and several rapid blinks. Reactions she had come to associate with his attempt to control his temper or his restrained disbelief.

His chuckle quickly turned to snickers, and then whoops and hoots from deep inside his chest. At first, it sounded off, a laugh not used in a long time, the action rusty and almost forgotten.

As he struggled to control himself, she glared at him. “What’s so funny? It’s a legitimate course of action, and safer than waiting for him to show up here. Give Farley what he wants. While he’s occupied with me, you and Rice take his head.”

With a snort, Luc stared at her. She could see his half-hearted effort not to smile. Too bad, he stopped himself. For a few seconds, he looked young, free of worries, a man getting a kick out of life.

“Not going to happen,” he choked out. His jaw tightened and his expression reverted to all business.

“Why not?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

The man had a propensity for rude bluntness. If they were going to be together through the eons, it was time he understood she wasn’t weak. She pushed back from the table and stalked over to him. “No. I. Am. Not.” She punctuated each word with the jab of her finger at his chest, stopping as his brow raised and the corner of his mouth quirked up. “What’s wrong with my plan?”

“First, Farley would take you into his cabin, lock me out, and drain you. Second, we’re on our own when we arrive. Rice won’t join us until I contact him telepathically. Once he learned you could read him as a daemon, we realized Farley could, too. Rice is a dead daemon.”

She rested her hand over his heart. “You’re making an assumption. Just because I recognized him as a high-level daemon doesn’t mean Farley did. Not all magickal ability is the same. We each have different strengths. I have to be able to identify the physical and mystical composition of my patients. If I can’t distinguish a norm from a Fae or a Were or a mage, or a mixed breed, I can’t determine how to save them.”

Luc arched a brow. “There’s nothing subtle about Farley’s power. It’s death. He sucks magicks dry. He’s survived because he senses our essence on a subatomic level.”

“Why hasn’t he realized you’re a Druid, that you’re the poisoner?”