Blue Abyss: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3 (The Timewalker Chronicles) (17 page)

Bran choked back helpless anger, more determined than ever to
end this war
. It was time. Celestina was perfect, loving, beautiful, and so far beyond his reach he’d hated himself for desiring her. His soul was stained too black to touch her beauty. Celestina was not his to protect, she had never offered him her Mark, but he no longer cared. No excuse was worthy of what Celestina suffered alone.

Mark or no Mark, he would not walk away from her again. She would suffer no more while he lived. No more. The depth of his conviction made his muscles tremble and Celestina shifted in his arms.

The hand at his neck caressed him like a lover’s. Her lips opened on a sigh. Hot and aching, his body hardened for her. He was tempted to kiss her. But he couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t tie her fate to his. He would protect her, he could stay close and care for her, but she deserved better than the destiny that patiently waited to claim him. Fate was cruel.

Her silken hair wrapped around his arm, her scent teased him like the sweetest ice treat. Her eyes darkened to a deep blue with desire. A moan of agonized pain escaped before he could censure it and he buried his face in the hollow of her shoulder, tortured himself with the soft brush of his lips over her skin.

One kiss? He didn’t dare. One would never be enough.

He walked to her bed slowly, savoring every moment of contact, knowing it would end as soon as they reached it. Warm blankets. A soft bed. She’d be safe here until he could find Teagh, The Dark One, The Guardian of the Gate, and end this nightmare. Teagh would open the Gate for him once more, help him retrieve what they’d hidden, or Bran would rip him to pieces with his bare hands.

Half-brother or no.

Simple as that.

<><><>

Raiden held Mari gently in his arms as the boat raced along the coast of the island. Tim steered with a steady hand. The woman, Sarah, shifted constantly, a bundle of nervous energy that made a circuit. First she scanned the horizon, then checked on her husband, then eyes back to Raiden. Repeat. Sarah’s gaze avoided Mari and he wondered why.

He should be asking questions, should be interrogating the people who had somehow managed to find them. Not just ask questions, but demand answers.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the truth just yet, not when the fantasy he held in his arms, the fantasy of both survival and healing was so fresh and powerful in his mind. He was also unwilling to reveal his ignorance. So, he didn’t speak a single word the entire trip around the island. His tongue was trapped in his mouth by both the strategic demands of his mind and unnamed emotions for a woman he did not know, a woman whose stories his war-hardened heart refused to believe.

He had seen the women’s Mark, the Shen on both of them, the Timewalkers’ Mark. On the male, Tim, as well, which unsettled him in ways he didn’t want to examine too closely. But the Timewalkers had all vanished over a century ago.

Could he hope to believe these people were exactly what they seemed to be, independent and unknown Timewalkers who had miraculously escaped the Queen’s attention? Women with the incredible power to create storms and breathe water? Women of old, who fought to pull the world back from the razor’s edge of destruction? Women who could walk the strands of time and
change things
?

Raiden studied Mari’s features. Her straight black hair promised to be as smooth and glossy as silk beneath the salt and cave silt tangled in it. Her skin? Soft to the touch beneath the faint coating of white poweder. She had an inch-long scar on her right temple and a small birthmark in front her left ear. He longed to kiss them both. Her full lips, still tinged green, would be pink, and lush, and ripe for exploration. For now, she remained unconscious, a slight frown her only sign of awareness when the boat would jump or swerve suddenly.

He held her gently and absorbed the shocks and jolts to her body the best he could. Sarah had given him a soft yellow towel, and he used it to wipe away dried salt from her cheeks. When her face was as clean as he could get it, he pressed the towel to her back where it absorbed the deadly green poison from her wound. He needed her to wake so he could discover the truth of what had happened to her before she woke him. Had the Triscani attacked her? Held her prisoner in the cave as well? Where was her family? Who were the men on her boat? Had she loved one of them? Was she already claimed, already mother to another generation of powerful healers?

The bitter smell of Triscani ashes still haunted him. How had she defeated them? Who had given her the Angel’s Fire? How had she found him in the first place? Dreams she said? Just dreams? That didn’t make any sense.

Gerrick’s words came back to him. “
Stay alive. She’ll find you. Mark you.”

How had an Itaran Seer known what would occur? It had been much, much longer than three days since Gerrick had been given both the soul stone and his apparent foreknowledge of the Timewalker who would find Raiden and Mark him. They’d been on the ship for longer than that even before his brother, Ryu’s attack. The Seer would have had to give Gerrick both the soul stone and the message weeks before his brother’s attack, and two years before Mari had actually found him.

How could a Seer on Itara have known what would happen to him? Everyone knew that the Seers usually had a very brief window in which to view the future and directly alter a time line. A few days at most, except for the legendary Seer of old. Celestina. And if it were Celestina that Gerrick had spoken to, how had she made contact with Gerrick from one of his father’s prison cells?

Raiden glanced up when the engine finally silenced. They were at a very small dock with a handful of fishing boats. No tourists here. The tiny cove was obviously very private. “Where are we?”

Tim threw a rope to Sarah who had jumped onto the dock. “We’re north of Tuckers Town. Our house isn’t far. We’ll regroup there.” Tim leaned over and reached out his fingers, obviously intending to check Mari’s wound.

“Don’t risk it.” Raiden turned, taking Mari’s shoulder far from the other man’s reach. “The poison will kill you in a matter of hours, even a small amount.”

Sarah jumped back on board.

“Is the wound healed? Or is she still oozing?”

Raiden lifted the towel to see smooth, unbroken skin. Her lips were no longer green and the poison was no longer seeping from her body, but her skin was still covered in half dried blood and poison. “Her wound is healed, but she still has poison on her skin.”

“Then get her off the boat and rinse off the poison in the water while we clean up.”

Tim shook his head. “Sarah, get away from them and go rinse off first. I don’t want you anywhere near that stuff.”

Sarah leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. “Yes, sir, Mr. Overprotective.”

Tim wrapped her up in a quick but thorough kiss. “Damn right.”

Raiden did his best to ignore the intimate byplay. He didn’t need to like these people, nor trust them. The only thing he needed was to take care of the mysterious woman lying in his arms. He stood, then lifted Mari once again. Time to get back into the water and rinse the poison away. Sarah was right. That was as good an idea as any.

He carried Mari around the small wooden dock and stepped out onto the sand. He waited for Sarah to finish rinsing her hands, then walked waist deep in the water where Mari could float in his arms, her body lifting and falling gently with the ebb and flow of the waves coming into the shore.

With as much care as he could muster in his scarred hands, he cupped the back of her head, holding her face above water as the rest of her body floated weightless in his loose embrace. Schools of fish flashed in the water beneath her, then were gone. Silver. Green. Gold. Curious and quick, they darted around investigating Mari, then disappearing as swiftly as they had come.

Mari’s cheeks were pink. Raiden sighed in relief as the massive sea surrounding them washed away the remnants of poison past the point of any danger. With her head securely resting against his arm, well out of the water, he turned her slightly to inspect her back and the Mark near the top of her arm.

His gaze traveled from her hands to elbow, elbow to neck, as if he were actually afraid to look. Perhaps he was. But was it fear that he’d once again see the Mark? Or fear that it would be gone?

A wild tangle of black hair obstructed his view. With a shaking hand. He gathered the mass of tangled wet silk and pushed it aside.

Her skin wa beautiful and soft to the touch. The healing capabilities of the water clans had once been legendary. But even he was astonished at her ability to process the Triscani poison.

She was much more than a simple human. The Mark on her left shoulder called him like a beacon. The conscious decision made, he reverently traced the extinct symbol, the design that was somehow embedded in her petal-soft skin, with his fingertips. His own shoulder tingled at the contact. He drew a quick breath at the shockwave of energy that traveled through his fingertips, up his arm, to light his shoulder up with the now familiar burn.

His wound. His poison. The stasis chamber had not given his body time to heal. She had saved him. Absorbed his wounds and saved him. Frustration built inside him with the mountain of unanswered questions. He rolled her onto her back in the water, eager to see her eyes focus on him again. Even more impatient to hear her voice and have his questions answered. But she slept on, like a princess under the spell of an evil fairy-tale witch. Still beyond his reach, haunting him.

Sarah called to him from the beach. “Did you rinse off all the poison?”

“Yes.”

“Will it be safe to touch her now?” Sarah tilted her head as if she could see under the water to inspect Mari’s wound. “Her lips aren’t green anymore. That’s good.”

“Do you always state the obvious?”

“Watch it, Prince Charming.” Tim’s warning grated from where he stood on the dock, but Raiden ignored it. The woman, Sarah, was suspect until proven otherwise. They both were. Still, he had no other options, so he’d better play along.

“My apologies, Sarah.”

The tall nymph smiled at him. “No problem. I get it. You’re grumpy when you worry.” She nodded toward Tim. “He’s the same way. It’s cute.”

“I am not cute.” Tim paced the beach along the edge, inches beyond the water’s reach. He was a huge man with scars covering half of his head and neck. Raiden had to agree with him. He looked like a battle-hardened warrior. Definitely not cute. Tim flicked his wrist at them to come back to shore. “If you’re done, let’s get out here. I don’t like being out in the open. We’re too exposed here.”

<><><>

Mari’s head bumped against a hard shoulder and she groaned. The rocking motion made her stomach heave. Her head already felt like a bomb had gone off inside her skull. Raiden carried her in his arms while the man from the beach walked ahead and his freckle-faced girlfriend walked alongside her. Sarah peeked at Mari’s face every few steps, a worried frown on her face.

Mari blacked out. When she woke, Raiden carried her through a small dive shop to a cute little bungalow out back. Wicker furniture and floral designs on the pillows. Paintings of sailboats and beaches on the walls. Thick rugs and a cozy blue, green and tan beach motif decorated the entire house, dolphins, birds, and turtles peeking out from wallpaper and trinkets scattered around. This must be where the two lovebirds nested. She’d bet a hundred dollars that Tim hadn’t helped out with the interior decorating.

Raiden carried her inside their small living area, placed her gently on a couch, and crouched near her head, blocking her body from their hosts.

His stance was protective, and she was grateful not to be alone with people that she didn’t really know. Sarah seemed sweet, but she was a six-foot-tall waif with lines of strain around her eyes and a frown on her face. And Mari didn’t know her from Adam. “Do you remember me? I’m Sarah.”

Names were nice, but if Mari was going to work up the energy to talk, she’d make it count. “Water.”

Mari blacked out again. When she woke this time she’d been stripped to her swim suit, dried off, wrapped in a blanket and moved to a bed. She was propped up against pillows and Raiden held a water bottle to her lips, dribbling water into her mouth.

Thank God.

Mari reached for the bottle and drained it. Tim and Sarah watched every move she made like hawks. “More.”

Great manners, Mari. Way to make a great first impression
.

Sarah didn’t even blink, just opened another bottle of water and placed it in Raiden’s hand. He smelled it first, then handed it to her. Five bottles later, Mari felt her body’s metabolism shift. Sweat beaded everywhere, pushing the excess salt from her system. In a matter of minutes the blanket she lay wrapped in was soaked with salt water and she was cold. Again.

Sarah noticed her shivers, and the wet blanket. Without a word she disappeared into another room and came back with a giant quilt. “Here.”

Mari tried to lift herself off the soaked bedding, but couldn’t. Mari tried again, then sighed in frustration when her arms and legs still refused to work properly. “Sorry.”

“Rest, healer. I will tend you.” Raiden gently lifted Mari off the bed and removed the wet blanket. He settled her on the pillows and tucked the new blanket around her like he might a child at bedtime. If this guy was some kind of super-alien-slayer, Timewalker, badass, royal alien prince, he had a strange way of showing it.