Black Gate: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 4 (8 page)

One word from Celestina, the most sacred and beautiful female on board the Archivers’ ship, his pitiable brother, Bran’s, own personal tragedy in a skirt, one word, and the Archivers would wipe the entire Casper Project off the face of the Earth. One. Fucking. Word.

“Katherine, step away from him.” The Rear Admiral’s order echoed through the room.

Instead of releasing her so he could fight or to defend himself, Teagh crossed his arms and waited, totally unconcerned that the toughest, most highly trained soldiers in the world had him cornered. He was outnumbered twenty to one.

He ignored all but the Rear Admiral, like a tiger ignored the jungle rain. “Leave this place and never return, Walter Burroughs, and the others may leave your Casper Project untouched.”

“What others?” The Rear Admiral stepped forward. “Let’s talk about this. Let us get Katherine to a medic, and we’ll talk.”

“No. You have your orders.” Teagh twisted, turning his back on the man, and lifted Katherine. He held her close. The bulletproof vest she wore made him feel like he was holding a sea turtle. Hard and crunchy on the outside, warm and soft on the inside. Vulnerable.

“Kill him. Get Katherine to medical. And someone find a Goddamned camera. I want to know what happened here.” The Rear Admiral issued the command, but it was far too late for that.

Teagh called on the dark and the air shifted, caressed his skin with tendrils of power that tasted just like the darkness from inside the Gate. He held Katherine in place now with a heated hand on the back of her neck. She gasped for breath as shouts rang out. Teagh watched confusion play over her features.

The dark had risen at his command and enveloped them completely, a living shield. Neither the Rear Admiral nor his bullets could touch them now.

“Damn it!” The Rear Admiral yelled out like a wounded animal as Katherine stared up at him in a daze. They both ignored the Rear Admiral as he continued shouting orders on the other side of the barrier, his frantic commands muffled by the dark.

Teagh resisted the urge to laugh, quite sure this human Rear Admiral had never before sounded so panicked. He was stealing the poor little man’s prize possession right out from under his nose. Katherine.

Mine.
No other would ever command her again.

Teagh held her pressed to his chest and fought off the animal instinct to throw her over his shoulder and run. He had to risk the Gate, and risk Celestina’s wrath, because the little Seer had lied to him. The one person he trusted implicitly, and she’d lied to his face. It hurt more than it should.

Damn Celestina. The Seer had to have known what she was asking him to do…kill a Timewalker. This woman was Marked. Sacred.

And he found, against all logic, that he wanted her Mark branded into his skin for all time. The kiss had simply whet his appetite for more. She didn’t know him, fought the passion he saw in her heavy-lidded eyes. She was all about her duty to her men, and control. It was plain to read in her gaze. Lust. Control. Resignation. Regret. The emotions flickered across her face almost faster than he could catalogue them.

So much alike, he and this female.

My men are trapped. I need to go back in there and find them.
She spoke to him telepathically. Why was he not surprised?

Who were these soldiers to her? Her aura filled with love, with respect, when she spoke of them. What were they to her? Brothers? Protectors? Lovers? The primitive male inside him rose its head and snarled at the thought. Teagh held her tightly and asked the dark to pull them through to the other side, away from the Earth plane, the house, and the Rear Admiral’s men.

Did it matter if one of them was her lover when he had zero intention of going after them?

They will keep.
Teagh returned his attention to the humans in the room where he could see back through the portal. The Rear Admiral was pointing at the Gate, issuing orders.

Let me go. I have to find them.
And the little wild cat was not happy that he held her, trapped, when she so badly wanted to roam around in the dark and get herself killed by Triscani Hunters.

No.
Her dedication to her men was admirable, as long as that was all there was to it. If one of them were her lover? The male would never touch Katherine again. The Gate would see to that. There was no honor in saving them from the dark when he’d have to kill them the moment they returned Earth.

Brutal, but honest. He’d made peace with that side of himself centuries ago. He had one job. One. And the eighty-year lifespan of the average human male meant less than nothing to him.

It had to.

However, the human animal barking orders to everyone on the other side of the Gate needed to be taught a lesson. And the young human male that tasted of the Gate’s power? He’d watch the boy, feel his presence if he dared to enter the dark. Most likely, the Gate would simply devour him.

He hated to kill them at all. As he’d told Celestina, he was a guardian, not an assassin. Wiping out this band of humans would be about as useful to him as stepping on a spider.

Teagh called on the Gate to send one more tendril back through. It swallowed the Rear Admiral whole and slid back to the dark side faster than a human could blink. He’d deal with that asshole later.

Stretching his mind, he wrapped the female more tightly in his arms and closed the Gate behind them with a final blast that should render anyone in the room he’d left behind unconscious for several hours, as well as destroy any and all electronic equipment or digital recordings they may have.

So full of demands just moments ago, she now whimpered in pain and contorted in his arms. The cold was devouring her as if she were a normal human, not a Timewalker. Not a Guardian who lived with the dark dwelling in her bones. She should have been immune. Apparently, she was not. So, what was she then? Fully human? Timewalker? Itaran? Something else?

Mine.

Gods help them both, that was the only answer his mind was willing to provide. He sighed as she lost consciousness and went limp in his arms. He had to get her out of the dark.

Teagh tucked her in close, cradled like precious cargo, and opened a portal into the living room of his new home. He stepped out and closed the Gate behind him. He’d been forced to relocate when Droghan had shown up with Triscani Hunters in his kitchen a few weeks ago. He’d loved that house. The beach. The heat. The waves.

So, he’d done something he never had before, bought a new home just a few miles away from the old one. Normally, he’d traverse the globe once his hiding place was discovered, move halfway around the world. He’d done it a hundred times, lived on every continent more than once. He could hide in the dark, but over there the Hunters would eventually find him. Here, on the physical plane, he was hard to kill, but not a true Immortal. His father had been half human.

He was vulnerable here, and there were more than enough Triscani to take him out. Hell yeah, he’d take a good number with him, but in the end, sheer numbers wouldn’t be in his favor. Which led his battered psyche around the bend and back on topic. New house. New furniture. New life.

Always running. Always hiding. Always alone.

Not this time. This time he’d refused to give up his home. He knew a few fishermen nearby, knew the tides and best currents for sailing, knew where to go for a quick bite to eat or for a drink when he wanted company. He’d been moving up and down the Florida Keys for over a century, and he didn’t feel like starting over.

Fuck that. If the last few days had proven anything, it was that the time for hiding was past. Droghan had been in his living room. The Timewalker, Marina, then the Seer, Celestina, had both found him. And now this…

Katherine.

Soft afternoon sunlight filtered in from the huge bay windows to illuminate her face as he walked across the living room. Dark lashes rested in soft crescents against her cheeks. She looked like a sleeping angel, a vision too beautiful to be real. Power clung to her cells, emanated from within them, power that called to the darkness in him and made him long to answer.

He wanted to keep her, but knew the moment she woke the only thing she’d be thinking about was taking care of her men, the ones she loved. She’d leave him behind as soon as she possibly could. He had saved her life, but she’d discard him like chewed gum if it meant saving her men. Such loyalty was admirable, but would make her hate him when he refused to let her go.

Crashing waves and the smell of saltwater helped take a bit of the tension from his shoulders.

He settled onto a large, comfy sofa, still holding her on his lap. Tall. Curvy. Athletic with just enough curves in just the right places.

Damn the gods and Celestina both for tempting him. If he were a stronger man, he’d kill the human woman now and do his duty. She’d opened the Gate, absorbed the dark. The darkness would follow her now, hunger for her. If the ruling Itaran family discovered her existence, they’d torture and kill her for fun.

Protect the Gate. Keep it closed
at all costs
. All costs, no matter how much she hated him. One human life for billions. That was what Celestina had asked of him. And instead? He’d saved her. Made her even more dangerous. Fucking stupid and probably the first time in his life he’d ever let his dick do his thinking for him.

He stared at the creamy flesh of her neck. So thin. So delicate. So easy to snap.

He bit off a curse. There was a reason he lived isolated in the Florida Keyes with water and gulls for company. There was a damn good reason he avoided humans and Immortals both. He was far more dangerous than any idiot with a rifle.

She turned into him, nuzzling his neck like a snuggling kitten. Power flowed between them in a low but constantly humming circuit. He wanted her, wanted to bury himself in her body and let loose his seed and his power together.

She would take it all from him, would thrash and burn and whimper his name.

He watched her breathing. Dreaming. Eyes shifting as memories flickered through her mind. She’d tasted the Gate’s power, all right. And she’d loved it. Wanted more. Was so enthralled by its power that she’d kissed a total stranger with passion, worse, conquered him with her lips and tongue alone.

She was even more dangerous than he’d believed.

Teagh set her down gently and removed the thick vest and her boots. When she looked comfortable in her black pants and T-shirt, he tore his gaze from the steady rise and fall of her small breasts and covered her with a blanket. She was still chilled, not yet conscious. His instincts nagged at him, a feeling that as complex a problem as she already presented him, there was more here than he’d yet seen.

Much more. He couldn’t think without his libido interfering if he held her. So he sat in the chair two steps away and waited.

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Three hours later Teagh leaned back in his chair and traced the contours of her body beneath the blanket with his gaze for the thousandth time. Curve of her hip. Soft depression of her stomach. Rise of small, pert breasts. Lips for kissing. Hair softer than silk. Back to the toes.

Again.

Katherine’s breathing hitched, and he leaned forward, elbows on knees, eager to cross wits with her. Hell, eager for any response. She should’ve awoken when he gave her the command to do so. Instead, her weak body had slumbered on, the darkness within her draining his power in a slow, steady trickle.

She licked her lips and crossed her arms over her chest. A nervous gesture, or an angry one? He wished he knew her better.

“Where am I?” She tried to sit, but moaned softly and collapsed back onto the couch cushion, her hand at her temple.

“Safe.” He watched, helpless, as pain flooded her eyes and she curled into a ball, shivering.

“Where?”

“My home.”

Her laughter was bitter. “And where is that? Why did you bring me here?” She grimaced but swung her long, sexy legs over the edge of the couch until her black-stocking toes made contact with his tile floor. She stood.

“Florida.” Her movement paused then restarted as she digested that.

“Where’s Frank? Oh, my God. I have to go.” Her eyes scanned his floor. “Where the hell are my boots?”

“You’re not going anywhere.” He stood and watched in amusement as her body tensed, ready to strike him. He was, most likely, the only being on the planet safe from both her power and her fists. “The darkness nearly killed you. You can’t go back in there yet.”

“But my men.”

“Will keep.” Teagh crossed the room until they were toe to toe. He expected her to fall back onto the couch, to retreat. She stood her ground, with agony in her gaze and her willowy limbs trembling like a newborn lamb’s. Damn, she was stubborn. And fearless. He liked it.

“You don’t know that. Why did it take them? Can you help me get them back?” She rattled of questions even as she swayed on her feet. He couldn’t take it another moment. He swept her off her feet and held her against his chest.

“Hey!” She wiggled a bit, then sighed in relief. He froze, shocked as the darkness inside his bones, usually cold as steel in winter, shifted inside his body into a thick flood of heat.