BlackWind (63 page)

“Why?”

“He had become too possessive.”

“What did he say would happen if you broke off the relationship?”

“That he'd leave and I'd never see him again.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Yes.”

“That's good,” Danyon whispered. “Because you never will.”

Bronwyn felt a deep sorrow, but remained silent.

“What happened after you let yourself into one of the containment cells?”

“I must have passed out from the pain in my head.”

“How long were you out?”

“I don't know.”

“Then you woke. What did you do then?”

“I went to the elevator but it wasn't working, so I went to the stairwell.”

“And that will be where they will find you,” Danyon said, releasing her. He stepped back. “Change your clothes, Beloved.”

Bronwyn moved away from him, pulling the silk nightgown over her head as she walked, and slipped back into the clothing she had worn earlier in the day. When she was dressed, she turned to await his next orders.

“Take my hand,” he said.

She slipped her fingers into his palm.

In the twinkling of an eye, light and sound fled.

Bronwyn awoke to find herself staring up into the relieved gaze of a firefighter.

“I've found her!” the man shouted, hunkering beside her. “Ma'am, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

Bronwyn lifted a hand to her injured head. “I think I've got a concussion.”

Brian closed the clinic door behind him. Sage Hesar and Briton Wynth were talking as he joined them.

“How is she?” Sage asked.

“She's resting,” Brian replied.

“Dr. Hesar has admitted knowing about those specialty cells. I think you've got some explaining to do, Dr. O'Shea,” Wynth grumbled.

“We can talk about that tomorrow,” Brian said. “I'm so tired I can't keep my eyes open.”

“Cahill sent one of the security men to Cree's apartment,” Sage said, catching Brian's eye.

“And?”

“All his personal stuff is gone.”

“What about the bike?”

“It's still in the parking lot.”

“He couldn't have left on the bike with his possessions,” Wynth argued. “The staff car assigned to Cree is missing. That must have been what he took.”

“And the dog?”

“No sign of him,” Sage replied. “Obviously he took Ralph with him.”

“The thing is, there's no record of Cree having left Baybridge at all,” Wynth complained. “How the hell did he leave without us knowing?”

“I doubt security bothers to check his movements,” Brian suggested. “Why should they?”

“Everyone is supposed to be checked in and out!” Wynth snarled. “And they sure as hell will from now on!”

“Whatever,” Brian mumbled. He was tired, and although he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, he wanted nothing more than to go to his apartment and lie down, to think over the day's events. Relieved that Bronwyn was safe, he was deeply concerned about Cree, knowing full well the Reaper was in serious trouble.

“Why don't you go rest, Brian?” Sage proposed. “I'll be here if she should need anything.”

“I don't know anything else I can do,” Brian said.

“I've got a call in to her mother,” Wynth said. “Perhaps I should go back to my office and wait for her call.”

“Good idea,” Brian agreed. “If they hear about the fire on the news, they're bound to be worried.”

“Then that's what I'll do.” Wynth slapped Sage on the back. “Call me if Bronwyn's condition changes, will you?”

Sage nodded. “You'll be the first to know.”

Wynth left, nodding officiously to those he passed.

“He's already given Cree's job to Cahill,” Sage grumbled.

“It doesn't matter,” Brian said. “The Reaper won't be coming back.”

Brian turned and headed down the corridor. His footsteps dragged and his shoulders slumped, his weariness equal parts fatigue and sorrow. Viraidan Cree was gone—a captive of the Amazeen who had tracked him across the universe—and with him, all traces of Brian's lost son, Sean.

“If the Amazeen should ever get me back to their home world,” Cree had once remarked, “there will be no trial. I'll die in the auto-de-fé cage.”

The thought of Cree/Sean dying in such a horrendous way brought tears to Brian's eyes.

When Bronwyn woke, the urgent need to relieve herself pushing her from slumber, the clinic was quiet. The soft glow from the nightlight near the floor kept the darkness at bay. Not wanting to have to deal with a nurse, Bronwyn aside pushed the covers and got up, clutching her IV pole from which hung a plastibag of glucose.

“What do you need, Beloved?” Danyon asked from the room's deeper shadows.

Bronwyn gasped. Irritated the incubus had once more infringed upon her solitude, she refused to answer. Dragging the IV pole with her, she headed for the restroom.

“Why do you insist on ignoring me?” Danyon queried from his chair.

“Because you're a pest,” she said through gritted teeth. Struggling with the pole, she managed to get into the restroom. When she was finished, she opened the door, annoyed further that Danyon was still there.

“Go away.”

“Not this time.” He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on the tips. “The time for obeying you is long passed.”

She glared at him. “And why is that?”

“It would be easy to put whatever thoughts I deem necessary in that pretty little head of yours, but the time for doing that is over, as well.”

Bronwyn's hand around the IV pole tightened. “What are you talking about?”

The truth of what the incubus had done shifted through Bronwyn's mind as though it were a video she had been watching. The scenes moved from the stables to the morgue to the vast, chilled blackness of the Abyss where she had been taken. The overpowering loneliness of that evil place, the harsh, howling wind, the sulfurous smell of decayed wood and stagnant primordial ooze, the wicked dampness of the rushes upon which she'd lain, rushed up to stagger her. There was the image of the morgue once again as she observed the Bugul Noz transform himself into her. She saw Danyon shapeshift into Koenen Brell, the gleaming scalpel clutched in his fisted hand. As she watched in growing horror, the scalpel was thrust into the belly of her look-alike while she heard Aidan's anguished cries of denial.

“No,” she whispered, realizing her lover must believe her dead.

The scene flashed to Cree's stricken face as flames roared around him, keeping him from coming to aid the “dying Bronwyn.” There was infinite despair stamped on the twisted features of Viraidan Cree. Driven to his knees by what he was seeing, he was oblivious to the spectral figure that materialized at his side.

“Do you know who she is?” Danyon whispered.

“An Amazeen.” Bronwyn whimpered, tears sliding down her cheeks.

“Aye. But not just any Amazeen, Beloved. She is Ski'Ah, the one whose family owns the Reaper.”

Bronwyn slumped against the wall, burying her face in her hands to shut out the awful images. “No,” she wailed, sliding to the floor.

“Have you any idea what they will do to him?” Danyon asked, coming to squat down beside her.

“Don't,” she pleaded, choking on her misery.

“I believe you can imagine. No need for me to go into the gruesome details.”

Bronwyn's keening was like that of a wounded animal. She did not have the strength to bat away the hand that was laid on her head, smoothing back her tousled hair.

“But it need not be,” Danyon whispered silkily. “There is a way to save your lover, if you are so inclined.”

She slowly lifted her head to search his malevolent eyes.

Danyon nodded, his smile as lethal as the fire's of hell. “What would you do to save the Reaper from his richly-deserve fate, Beloved?”

Bronwyn saw the answer before her. She read it in his expectant face. “No,” she said, knowing that if she gave in to him, her life would no longer be her own.

“Will you leave him to his fiery death?”

She shivered, a bone-deep cold settling throughout her body. She wrapped her arms around herself, her teeth chattering.

“Remember what Sean looked like when you visited him in the hospital?” Danyon probed.

Another keening cry issued from Bronwyn's trembling lips.

“Imagine the pain, Dearest. The agony of the flames searing away the Reaper's flesh. Can you feel the kiss of the fire?”

He circled his hand in the air and a quick flash of intense heat wafted over Bronwyn. She gasped, the smell of burning flesh strong in that brief moment. Pressing against the wall, she stared at him with horrified eyes.

“He has felt those claiming fingers before and survived,” Danyon reminded her. “This time, he will not, and the agony will be ten times ten what he felt when his ship crashed.”

“Please,” Bronwyn cried, knowing she had no choice, her heart breaking.

“All you need do is lift one hand,” Danyon encouraged. “Lift your hand and I will take from it a single scarlet drop of your precious blood.” He lowered his voice. “That is all it will take to save Cree from death.”

A parchment scroll appeared out of nowhere, hovering in the air only inches from her face. Bronwyn stared fearfully at the spectral document, its page lit with an unholy, greenish light.

“Sign the Pact, Beloved,” Danyon whispered, his voice as sultry as a lover's sigh. “Sign and I will spare the Reaper's life.”

She tore her eyes from the parchment. “How?”

Danyon smiled. “I will go to Amazeen and fetch the bastard.”

Hope soared in Bronwyn's breast. “You can do that?”

“Of course.”

She held his gaze. “Will you?”

“
If
you sign the Pact.”

She knew he was as duplicitous as any demon ever spawned in the hellish realm. Trusting him had no doubt proven to be the downfall of many women through the centuries. To do so blindly would be a folly she might well have cause to regret.

“Swear to me you will go after him,” she said.

“Have I not just told you I would—
if
you sign the Pact?”

“On your love for me,” she said, stressing every word, “swear you will not harm him nor let anyone or anything else on Amazeen harm him. Swear you will return him to me as he was the night he and I lay in one another's arms.”

The incubus’ face grew hard as stone, the handsome plains creasing with hatred, anger, and envy. “You ask much of me, Beloved.”

“Swear it, Danyon.”

“I will bring him home,” he said from between clenched teeth, “but I will not let him have you! You are lost to him forever once the Pact is signed!”

A shaft of hopelessness stabbed through Bronwyn's heart, but Cree's safety was more important than her happiness. She had the means to free him, to keep him safe. She would do anything to see that achieved.

“Bring him back safely. See to it the Amazeen do not come after him again. See to it he leaves in peace and I will sign your infernal Pact.”

Danyon studied her face for a long time. “This you swear?”

“Only if my Beloved is safe from all that would cause him harm.”

“You will uphold the pledge that you will be mine?”

“Is that what the Pact entails?” she countered, having no idea what was written on the glowing parchment.

“When you sign, you swear to be my lover for as long as you draw breath. You promise to give yourself only to me, as a wife to her lawful husband. You pledge to do as I bid. This you must do as you sign.”

Bronwyn hesitated for only a moment, but the thought of the man she loved standing in harm's way was the only impetus she needed to give in to the blackmail. “Where do I sign?”

A feathery quill materialized in her hand.

“Give me your left hand,” Danyon ordered, his voice quivering with what sounded like anticipation.

Not allowing herself time to back out, Bronwyn extended her hand. She sucked in a quick breath as she felt a painful prick on her middle finger. A crimson drop beaded on her fingertip.

“Dip the quill in the blood and swear as you write your name across the page,” Danyon told her.

She put the tip of the quill to her wound and was not surprised as the blood was drawn into the hollow shaft. Her hand trembling, she put the quill to the parchment.

“Swear, Beloved,” Danyon stressed.

“I will be your lover for as long as I draw breath,” she said and scrawled
Bronwyn
across the page. “I will give myself only to you and do as you bid while we are together.” Her last words were spoken as she wrote
McGregor
upon the parchment.

Obviously thrilled that Bronwyn had signed the Pact, Danyon did not seem to notice the phrasing of her pledge. As soon as Bronwyn took the quill from the page, he snatched the parchment, rolled it up, and threw his arms around her.

“I pledge to lay the world at your feet, Beloved,” he said, raining kisses on her cheeks and forehead. “I will forever be your champion.”

Bronwyn endured his hateful touch for as long as she could stand it, then pulled away. “Now, do as you swore,” she said, her eyes fused with his. “Bring Cree home.”

“It will take me a while to—”

“Get him
now
! Before they can hurt him!”

Danyon lifted his hands. “It will take me but a matter of moments to make the trip to Amazeen, but longer than that to bring him home.”

“Why?” she asked, fearing she had been duped.

“It is much farther to Amazeen from here than it is from here to my lair, Beloved,” he said in a voice more befitting a grownup talking to a backward child. “I could not carry him as I carried you to the Abyss. Amazeen is beyond the boundaries of your galaxy and deep within one at the very edges of the universe.”

She stared suspiciously at him. “You're lying.”

“Beloved, no. I would never lie to you. I could not.” He reached for her hands. “Give me time and I will bring him back here.”

“How much time?”

“Five, six weeks.”

“
Five
—”

He shushed her. “But he will be safe with me! I swear I will bring him back to Earth as he was the night he forced himself upon you.”

“Then go,” she said, striving to keep her secret thoughts from him. “Bring him home.”