Any Price (30 page)

“And where would that be? I’m rusty on the wizard rule book for defending against a curse,” Lore remarked. It was crazy to even have to discuss this.

“I don’t know…the dungeon? Seems like the place made for these things,” Thomas commented.

“Do we need to keep it?” Lore asked as he eyed it. “I could destroy it.”

“No,” Yuri cautioned. “That might be giving away information.”

“Right,” Lore agreed. “Looking weak and ignorant has its advantages, but I don’t want it in this room.”

“I’m kinda busy getting over the last thing I touched,” Thomas growled as he sat back on the couch scowling at the ring. “All the shit emanating off that thing, I wouldn’t touch it with bio gloves on. The power signature is the same flavor as the one in New York, but stronger.”

“Since I’ve already handled it, I’ll take it down there,” Yuri volunteered. “We can examine the power used on it when we know more about what we’re looking for.” He stepped around the couch and scooped up the ring on the end of his knife again.

Thomas immediately fell back, holding his ears, pain etched across his pale face. Both the other men froze.

“What?” Yuri barked at Thomas.

“It’s screaming as if your touch causes pain. Isn’t it hurting you?” Thomas demanded without removing hands from ears.

Yuri held the ring up higher, examining it for some reaction. “No. Nothing.”

“Go. Get it out of here,” Thomas gasped when he saw his brother wasn’t affected.

After the door shut behind Yuri, Thomas relaxed. The drain of his ordeal was clearly written in new lines bracketing his mouth. Lore glanced from him to the closed door, noting Thomas relaxed as Yuri moved away from them.

“Interesting,” he mused.

“That covers a lot of recent events. Which thing are you referring to?” Thomas asked as his eyes closed. He was no less alert, simply resting the senses he could afford to for a moment.

“You’re a relentless rain stick pointing at this enemy and your brother is kryptonite to it. Working together the two of you are the perfect weapon for it. It seems to be a pattern. Our species needs two or more to function at optimum performance. Our ability to join as a people might hold a greater significance than we now know.”

“You think that’s Yuri’s gift? Being oblivious he’s under attack?” Thomas asked, grinning around the words. “I haven’t noticed anything else in him beside the abilities we all share.”

Lore raised a brow with a half grin. “Before you decide that’s funny and get all smartassed with him, consider the fact that he can effectively become a shield for you. This type of attack affects you more than any of us.”

“You have a point,” Thomas agreed.

Kenna breathed a soft sigh and shifted on the bed. Lore was at her side immediately. Thomas left the room quietly.

Her spirit swam up to consciousness before her eyes opened. Lore was there, unable to hold anything back.

Pain rolled through her. Her body was tired but there was no other sensation within besides the need to rest. The pain was all Lore’s. Examining what had happened, Kenna could see it clearly in his memories. His desperate battle to save her life and the choices he would live with forever.

This morning she had been pregnant. Now she wasn’t and never would be again.

Kenna opened her eyes to look into his face. He leaned over her, grim features regarding her with no expression. He was sorry with every fiber of his being. She could feel the soul-deep regret and yet knew he would make the same choice again if he had to.

Now he expected her response to be bitter condemnation at the loss of her babies. The man planned to accept anything she chose to do or say and believed he deserved it because though he regretted the loss as a parent, he wasn’t sorry about his choice. He would never be sorry for finding a way to keep her with him.

Kenna’s hands glided up the arms planted on either side of her. Tears slipped out the corners of her eyes as she absorbed his soul and sorrow and let her own blossom in the knowledge he gave her. “Hold me, please.”

Lore felt her explosion of pain. Her request was not unexpected. She was asking for the little comfort he could give her as she mourned. His body sank down, covering the precious form of his woman. His arms pushed into the mattress under her to wrap around her body. Most of his weight was supported by his arms under her and his legs on either side of her, but he gave her the physical feeling of his body. He would shield her with everything he was, but the loss of their children was a price he couldn’t pay for her. A choice he’d made that had effectively forced her to this pain.

Cautious, Lore did not read her. He was in her, feeling what she felt, but he couldn’t bring himself to read the words in her mind. He held her and waited.

“I love you,” whispered into his neck.

Nothing had ever hurt so hard as her love invading him now. She ripped down the defenses he was all ready to hide behind as she punished him. This overwhelming sorrow that was both for him and with him cut him to his knees in every way that mattered. Lore had thought he could endure anything she said. The main goal was to keep her with him. That was all that mattered. Her rejection of the notion that he needed her forgiveness was a shock.

His face turned to her neck as pain passed between them and was covered by two hearts. Tears on the pillow were both his and hers, and he couldn’t stop them as slender arms cradled him. He might be covering her, but she held him.

The loss of their children was a grief they shared. In the sharing grew strength. Together the depths of this sorrow changed from a bottomless pit to a bridge they could travel across. There was no division of blame. It welded their souls together as only those who’ve lost a child could understand.

She gave him all, and in doing so made him whole. There would be no forgetting for them, no blunting this pain, but they would endure it, live with it as one. Not two.

Finally raising his head to look at her, Lore marveled at the strength of the woman in his arms. Watery blue eyes looked up into his and the emotions swirling through him became close to worship.

“I love you,” he confessed with all that he was.

“I know.”

“Thank you.” The gravel in his voice almost drowned out the words.

“For what?”

Taking a deep breath, he tried to think of words to explain. “For knowing. For being this woman.”

A sad smile flitted across her face. “Who else would your woman be?”

He shook his head. There was no response to that. Carefully peeling himself off her, he didn’t have to ask how she felt. She felt battered and weak, but there was no fear. Her confidence in him, his protection and strength were the unquestioning expectations that humbled him. He had never felt anything so pure as her confidence that he had made the necessary choices. The pain of those decisions was theirs, not just his or hers.

“I almost feel sorry for them,” Kenna continued. “They have no idea what’s coming now.”

A slow smile pulled at his lips. It wasn’t pretty. What she referred to was him, them. The hunter in him fully unleashed and matched by the strength in her. The enemy had made a huge mistake. The unit this attack made of the two individuals who had been Lore and Kenna fully understood the blood price required to win, no quarter given or expected.

The only mission was the survival of their people. There were no other options. The death of children they’d never known would not be in vain.

“Don’t let pity bother you,” Lore replied. “I’m sure they don’t.”

Kenna raised a hand to caress his face. “I’m over it. Just saying it for posterity, that’s all they’re getting.”

“It’s going to be a long road,” he cautioned. “The conflict has endured thousands of years.”

“Time someone put an end to it,” Kenna agreed then amazed him. Reaching through Lore’s connection, she contacted Synth.

“So I have a brother?”
she questioned by way of greeting.

She was so fully immersed in Lore, he not only heard the words but experienced the link with her.

“Hello, little sister,”
Synth greeted her.
“You are well?”

Sitting up slowly with Lore’s help, Kenna concentrated on the connection she’d felt with Synth since he had taken her blood. Instead of pushing her consciousness at him again, she simply opened her soul to him, inviting him into her heart.

The invitation was entirely different than the bond she had with Lore. Her unique gift of connecting the Keepers made Kenna something more, she was the living heart of their kind. She accepted Synth with no reservations, offering him the family he craved as a sister. Her faith in him a crystal-clear gem held out for him to take.

Both Lore and Kenna felt the effect on the large, dark soul she fearlessly illuminated with her heart. It was Synth’s choice to accept her faith in him. Accepting her gift, he took her pain and she carried a portion of his. She didn’t have to answer his question. She was not well but she lived.

In Synth, the utter blackness of loneliness had been cracked with the knowledge of who she was. Her entrance into his soul was an unexpected gift. Beloved sister was too tame a word for what he gave back to her. He had existed so long on honor and music.

“Music?”
Kenna asked in surprise as she heard the echoes of pain painted on notes swirling through his soul. In him was music that wept with a purity that could only be plucked from heaven’s halls as well as the crashing anguish from the depth of hell’s despair. It was so much a part of him that there was no concealing it. He didn’t try. Music lived in him and he let her see him.

“I am as you see me,”
Synth answered. Instead of being an obscure statement most would not understand, coupled with the view of his heart, the statement made perfect sense.

Tears streamed down Kenna’s face as she smiled. In the music was a small melody of joy. Rising above the pain, this new strain was the family he’d just discovered. There had been no joy since he’d lost his brother.

Both Kenna and Lore sucked in a breath.
“Brother?”

Synth had let her in with shocking honesty. The honor of that openness came with great caution and respect. They had wondered how he survived alone and he’d let them see the cost of living. The dark places that were his reality held many surprises but Kenna had no intention of disrespecting his gift by plunging into them. However, this he had wanted to share.

“Yes. He chose the sleep of our people,”
Synth answered.
“The cost of being alone made him a creature he was losing control of.”

In saying those words, Synth conveyed such a wealth of despair that it became a venomous demon. Showing Kenna what drove his brother, what he, Synth, had almost surrendered to.
“That is what we are, what we grow to be without hope. You have given me hope, little sister. The dark creature that I have become is now the guard at your gate.”

The pledge was more than the words. Synth’s ability to communicate made them more. Kenna’s gift, a light in the endless life of darkness and a charge he willingly embraced. Her unconditional acceptance was a sweet, new experience, novel in its effect. There was nothing beyond family bonding and yet there was no power stronger to their kind. A mating bond was simply another facet of this strength. All of them knew it as they felt the shift in alliance.

She empowered Synth in an entirely different way than she did Lore, however the outcome was the same. An ancient hunter was unleashed on the world. This male who had been the sum of all human fears while holding his destructive nature on a tight leash was now in pursuit of prey. There would be no holding back this time.

“Good hunting,”
Kenna breathed into Synth’s mind.

“Sorrow is ours, little sister. Be assured it will visit those who have taken what can never be restored.”

Synth withdrew from them on that promise.

Tiredness overwhelmed Kenna. Her body relaxed, easily surrendering to sleep. Lore held her. He needed the feel of her in his arms, the reassurance of each breath she took. The number of things clamoring for his attention seemed to increase by the minute but none of them was more important than this.

Being the source of power like the world might never have seen was not a choice she would have made. All of it had been thrust upon her in a very short period of time. Somewhere along the line she’d come to terms with it and now the woman in his arms was changing in a big way.

He’d seen this change before but it’d been different. His years in the military had shown it to him over and over again. A man could complete every type of training imaginable but he wasn’t a warrior. Real combat, where winning was determined by being alive instead of an instructor’s checklist, eliminated the weak and educated the strong. Physical strength had little to do with it. The mind made an operator out of a replacement.

One of Lore’s most valuable gifts was being able to read which way combat had taken a man. Often a recruit survived combat because his unit was made up of warriors. The woman in his arms had lost much more than her innocence to the consequences of this conflict. Death had stalked her. It had stolen life from her body, but instead of killing a part of her soul it had awakened the warrior.

“Acceptable losses” was a phrase used by people who never lived on a frontline of conflict. There were no acceptable losses. If it was not the enemy dying, death only served to strengthen determination to make each life lost count in the ultimate victory.

The fire gathering strength in her was that will to win. She was sleeping but only because it would make her stronger.

Lore closed his eyes. Their children would never know their mother’s love or their father’s protection but they would not be forgotten. Never be lost souls without a home in the universe. Every Keeper saved, every victory won in the future would be their monument. Their mother was going to see to it.

Power was the unknown force flowing through Lore, the weapon he had little knowledge how to wield. It came from her in a way they didn’t understand. It occurred to him that he’d been asking all the wrong questions, focusing on the details instead of the purpose.

It was an elemental lesson in any military training. Combat was not about the weapons involved, it was about the minds behind the tools. The power flowing through them was all about the minds wielding it. What they were becoming was something new and very old. The weight of every life lost to this battle shaped them, molded them. There were no pointless deaths, future or past.

His big body shuddered as the golden glow of her power folded into him instead of flowing through him. The result surrounded them with the blue flame of unbending steel. Not the cold steel of a heartless weapon, they became a forged blade that carried within it the fire of life. They were the One, and there was no other name for them in current language.

He slept off and on that night. Not needing rest as she did made it easy to pass the time in a light combat doze. He was fully aware when she woke at four a.m. and left the bed for the bathroom. Not asking her if she needed help was difficult. Knowing she needed to feel strong kept him silent.

Kenna felt grubby. The steaming shower couldn’t wash away the horror of yesterday, couldn’t erase death’s touch from her child’s life. She wasn’t done mourning that loss but nor was she going to disrespect the sacrifice by letting grief paralyze her.

By the time she emerged from the bathroom Kenna felt a little worn out. That weakness of body irritated her as she slid beneath the covers beside the man who was aware of her every emotion. She could feel him cautiously waiting for her response to the situation this morning.

Turning into his arms, she relaxed as he surrounded her, his body molding hers to its hard contours, shifting so it was his back to the door, covering her. He did that naturally with no thought. Even if he were not the body of power that he’d become, he’d always been the wolf who chose to guard the sheep from his own kind…hunters.

If there was one thing she did not want to be, it was the one forcing him to put his back to the door to protect her. She wanted to face the door with him. Kenna shivered slightly, steel arms tightened.