Darkness Possessed (Order of the Blade) (3 page)

Her hand started to shake from fear she couldn't suppress, and she knew she had to leave before she fell apart. She felt her connection to the plants fizzle away, and they retreated back to their places of rest as if she'd never called them. She knew she wouldn't be able to call them again, not with the panic and fear hammering through her.

"Don't make me come back. Because I will." Somehow she managed to keep her voice steady, despite the panic starting to grip her, despite her growing terror that she was in danger, that she couldn't keep herself safe anymore, that José was hunting her and would find her.

No! She couldn't think like that! She had to make Philip think she was still the woman who had almost murdered him with a snap of her fingers, and not let him see that she was nothing more than a pathetic, damaged woman who knew how to do nothing but run and hide anymore.

"I won't." He nodded, and his gaze flickered nervously to the vines creeping back across the lawn to where they belonged. A few leaves floated in the water, brushing up against his knee. "What are you?"

She realized he'd changed his question. No longer was he asking "who" she was, but rather, "what" she was, as if she were some freak who wasn't even a person. As if she wasn't even a woman anymore, as if her years with José had somehow robbed her of all that made her who she was. She shook her head, startled by the tears suddenly burning the back of her eyes. "I hunt bad men, and I
will
be back." Then, before she could fall apart, she tore herself away from him. She vaulted over the railing, landed on the patio two floors below, and sprinted across the yard.

She scaled the fence, dropped onto the sidewalk beyond, and then ran through the shadows and into the night.

She tried. She really tried. She thought of ice cream. She sang her favorite song. She pictured the adorable face of a Labrador puppy with its floppy ears. She even envisioned unleashing a contingent of mutant ninjas onto the jungle to track down José while she sat on a tropical beach enjoying a sunny, perfect alibi. In desperation, she even tried to remember what it felt like to put on a pair of pants that used to be too small, but now fit. She thought of everything good she could possibly manufacture, but in the end, nothing worked.

She didn't even make it two blocks before the tears won.

The air was oppressive and blazing hot, as if a thick sludge of humidity was crushing the earth. The moisture clung to Zach Roderick's flesh, suffocating him. Tall trees stretched endlessly up toward the sky, their bare trunks a stark contrast from their plush canopies. Streaks of sunlight filtered through the branches, like dust-filled beams fighting to survive the darkness of the jungle floor.

Relentless, almost violent buzzing pounded at his head, and huge, black insects circled around him, hunting him. Wild calls of tropical birds and grunts of hidden animals echoed around him, nearly concealing the rasping sound of a massive snake sliding through the branches. Zach could smell the oppressive stench of a river, but the foliage was so dense he could see no more than a few yards in any direction. It was a place of wildness and untamed danger. Even the ground was so thick and moist, Zach felt like it could suck him right into the earth in one ruthless move. The weapons branded on his arms burned and vibrated, ready for him to call them out and use them to protect against the danger he could sense in the air.

He clenched his fists, unwilling to arm himself with his three-pronged sai until he knew it was time to fight. Too many brutal lessons had stripped him of his desire to strike a lethal blow unless he had no other option. Unfortunately, in his line of work, he didn't get his first choice very often. As a member of the Order of the Blade, an elite group of Calydon warriors tasked with the mission to protect innocents from Calydons who had gone rogue, his job required him to cut down men who had once been sane, some of whom had once been his friend or teammate. Sometimes, he'd even been responsible for killing the women who had driven them to such insanity.

He hated it all, but he saw no other alternative for what he needed to accomplish.

Right now, he wasn't on duty to hunt rogue Calydons. His only job was to find a way to save the life of his teammate, Thano Savakis, and that's why he was here in this jungle, swatting at bugs and prostrating himself to a team of Calydons he knew he couldn't trust.

Moments ago, his team had been in a wooded forest in southern Washington, fighting for their lives against deadly beasts outside the entrance to the nether-realm, the doomed, deadly realm that bred creatures worse than demons. They'd been fighting side-by-side with a group of unknown Order members, led by Rohan, a powerful warrior Zach knew from many centuries ago, a Calydon he didn't trust for one minute. Rohan had not appeared to recognize him, but Zach didn't believe it, which had made him even more suspicious of the situation.

Shit had gone down, and Thano had gone rogue, descending into the maddening hell that stalked every Calydon at every moment. It was a hell from which there was no recovery, to which the only answer was to slaughter the male before he could kill too many others. No rogue had ever reclaimed sanity in a thousand years. To go rogue meant the complete destruction of one's humanity, and the utter, irreversible capitulation of one's soul to pure, merciless evil.

And yet, Rohan and his crew had claimed they could save Thano. Zach and his team had allowed them to take action—which had resulted in Rohan's crew almost killing Thano. He was alive now, but unconscious, trapped in the thrall of the magic that Rohan and his team had used against him. Even unconscious, he was still consumed by the deadly insanity that stripped him of all humanity, the curse of going rogue.

Rohan had said they would take Thano to heal him, and Zach had followed when they'd begun to vanish into thin air. There was no chance he was leaving Thano's life in the hands of the man who had betrayed his own leader so many centuries ago.

And now, it appeared that Rohan had taken them to a tropical jungle, one that Zach had never been to, and he wasn't liking it one damn bit. With his instincts screaming in warning, Zach moved closer to the massive black stallion on which his unconscious teammate was strapped. He readied himself in a protective stance as Apollo and Thano finished materializing, shimmering as they completed the transformation from incorporeal to living flesh. Their grounding was barely complete when four other Calydon warriors appeared out of thin air.

A split second later, as if he'd delayed his appearance to arrive last, the leader of this other Order materialized. Rohan shimmered into flesh, his hooded cloak obscuring his face, while the dark brands of swords almost glowed on his skin. He was taller and broader than the others on his team, pulsating with energy that seemed to ripple outward from him and coat the atmosphere with magic...the kind of magic that would slither into a man's bedroll while he was sleeping and strangle the life from his soul without ever awakening him.

The five Order members dominated the clearing with their bulk and strength, and Zach's weapons burned even more fiercely in his arms. Usually, one against five were odds that didn't make him blink an eye, but these warriors were Order, like him, which meant they were as powerful as he was. He couldn't afford to fight them, not with Thano's life at stake, and not when he was stranded in some remote jungle, a world where Zach had no foothold, no teammates to back him up, and no idea what was going on.

Zach studied Rohan, the mysterious warrior whose face was hidden behind his hood, just as it had been so many centuries ago when Zach had known him briefly. He'd thought Rohan was long dead, and he'd figured the world was a better place for that fact.

But he was alive, and as ominous as he'd ever been. "Where are we?" he asked.

Rohan turned his head toward him, his face nothing but a black shadow beneath the hood. "We're in a jungle."

Zach didn't bother to look up at the thick canopy of trees dripping with moss and vines. "I can see that. Where are we?" He repeated the question, unwilling to let the other warrior duck his interrogation. "South America?"

Rohan shook his head in refusal, shutting down Zach's request for information. "We need to make camp before dark. Fortify our defenses." He nodded at his team, who silently disappeared into the woods, ostensibly to set up camp.

Rohan began to move toward Thano, but Zach stepped in his path to block him. "No one touches Thano except me."

Rohan snarled, and a blue light crackled from his fingertips.

"Don't even think about it." Zach immediately called out his weapons. With a crack and a flash of black light, the sai that were branded onto his forearms leapt into reality, exploding into his hand. He pointed the blade at Rohan's throat, and the older Calydon went still.

"Put it away," Rohan commanded.

"What the fuck did you do to Dante?" The question burst out before Zach had even realized he was thinking it, but the moment he asked it, he knew he wanted an answer about what had gone down between Rohan and the leader of Zach's Order, Dante Sinclair.

Many centuries ago, Zach, Rohan, and Dante had been a team. Led by Dante, they had resurrected the Order of the Blade, reassembling the only force in existence strong enough to slay Calydons who had succumbed to the demon blood that ran hot in their veins, men who had once been good, and now were destined to destroy all that was worthy and deserving in their lives. Back then, Zach had left the team briefly for personal reasons, because he'd met—

The image of the raven-haired woman he'd loved flashed into his mind. Grief and anger flooded him so violently that he didn't have time to block it, and his knees almost buckled at the assault of emotions, at the anguish and guilt that was as raw as the day that it had all happened. He gripped his sai, fighting desperately to regain control of his thoughts, to shove aside the visceral self-loathing and terror that flooded his body, and the sense of failure that had almost destroyed him completely.

Blood trickled from his palm, and he fought to loosen his grip on the sai as he refocused on the warrior standing before him, the man who'd been Dante's sworn backup when Zach had left. And yet, when Zach had reunited with Dante years later, his master was alone. Rohan had vanished, Dante's woman was missing, and his mentor had barely been alive. Dante had been as fucked up as Zach, and they'd pulled each other out of the abyss that was consuming them.

Zach had told Dante about what had happened to him when they'd been apart, yet Dante had never spoken of what had happened with Rohan and his own woman, but whatever it was had changed him forever. Never again had Dante spoken of the woman who had been his soul mate. Never again had Rohan's name so much as crossed his lips. The Calydon who had once been Dante's best friend had disappeared completely, and Zach knew that something unforgivable had gone down between the two warriors.

And now, he wanted the answers that Dante had refused to give him. "What happened with Dante?" he asked again.

Rohan didn't respond. A dark menace filled the air, but Zach didn't back down.

Finally, Rohan answered. "I didn't think you recognized me." There was a hint of surprise in Rohan's voice. "It was long ago."

"I was twenty-seven years old, not an infant." When Rohan hadn't acknowledged that he recognized Zach when they'd first encountered each other outside the nether-realm, Zach's instincts had fired up at the deception. He'd played along, trying to assess what Rohan's agenda was.

But now that Thano's life hung in the balance, Zach was done with playing games. He wanted results, and he wanted them now.

"Leave it alone, boy."

Boy.
Back then, Zach had thought he was a man. He'd thought he had already suffered enough to learn what he needed to know. He'd been wrong. Fucking
wrong.
But he was a man now, a warrior with an agenda stronger even than Rohan's, whatever that might be.

Rohan shifted slightly, and Zach followed him with his sai, keeping the prongs tight against the warrior's flesh. Warnings were vibrating in Zach's body, and he felt Apollo, Thano's horse, at rigid attention behind him, ready to do whatever was necessary to protect his master. "What happened with Dante?" he demanded for a third time.

Rohan shook his head. "It's in the past."

"The past is always inextricably linked to the present," Zach snapped. "What the fuck is going on? Where have you been for a thousand years? What did you do to Thano? And how the hell are you going to save his life?"

Rohan smiled.

Zach didn't know how he knew that Rohan had smiled when he couldn't see his face, but he did. He could feel it in his mind, a stoic veneer stretched thin, devoid of any humor or good will. "I'm not going to save his life," Rohan said simply.

Zach's fingers closed more tightly around the handle of his sai. "You
will
save him. You don't get to take down an Order member and walk away."

"I'm not going to save him," Rohan said softly. "Because I can't."

A low growl began to build inside Zach's chest. "You said—"

"I can't save him, but you can."

Zach stared at him, trying to grasp the unexpected twist in the conversation. He knew Rohan never wasted words. He meant what he said. "What?"

"That's why I brought you here." Rohan slid one index finger along the blade of Zach's sai, taunting the younger warrior, as if to say that he knew Zach would never strike. "To save him. I can't do it. I need you, and that special talent of yours."

Foreboding began sliding down Zach's spine. "You didn't bring me here. It was my idea."

One eyebrow quirked up, but again, it was a move Zach sensed rather than saw. "Was it?"

Zach stared at him, quickly replaying the events that had wound up with them here. He and Thano had been assisting another Order member, Ryland Samuels, on a quest that had sent them into the nether-realm. When they'd shown up at the entrance, Rohan had been waiting for them with his own team. He'd given no sign of recognizing Zach, and they'd attacked the three Order members when they'd tried to pass.