Darkness Surrendered (Primal Heat Trilogy #3) (Order of the Blade) (31 page)

The walls pulsed with darkness and evil, and he realized suddenly that leaving Drew in that prison was the
worst
thing he could do. The longer Drew stayed there, the tighter Ezekiel’s grip on him would get. He needed to get Drew out and protect him from Ezekiel, not leave him there for Ezekiel to harvest.

Do it, Vaughn!

It was
Drew’s
desperate voice in his mind, and it was enough. Vaughn slammed his palms into the wall and thrust as hard as he could. The wall trembled, and he pushed harder, the muscles in his body straining to the point of snapping as he thrust all he had into the walls. Pieces began to fall, and he threw more of his power into the obstacle, fighting to ignore the pulses of darkness coming from Drew.

Then there was a deafening crack that shook the earth, and the walls exploded in a billow of dust and rock, raining down on top of Vaughn and the ground. He shoved his way through the chunks of rock crashing down on him, bouncing harmlessly off his body as he channeled the last vibrations of his power into protecting himself. “Drew!” He waved the dust aside and saw a foot sticking out from beneath a huge slab of clay. “Drew!”

He charged across the rubble, grabbed the ten foot section of wall and hoisted it off Drew, hurling it to the side. But beneath the rubble wasn’t the body of the boy he considered his son. It was a grown man, with scars and calluses. Blood streamed down his face and a sharp chunk of rock was lodged in his chest. His eyes were barely open, his body inert, his skin ashen from the loss of blood. “Vaughn?” he rasped out.

“Drew?” It wasn’t Drew’s voice at all, and Vaughn hesitated before dropping beside the man and placing his hand on his chest.

He felt Drew’s spirit immediately, and his shoulders sagged with relief. Drew was alive, though the body was something else entirely. This physical shell wasn’t Drew at all.

Vaughn felt a pulsing in the air and knew suddenly, with absolute certainty, that the part of the creature before him that was linked to Ezekiel was calling for the ancient Calydon, letting him know he was free.

His warning systems radiating fiercely, Vaughn stared into Drew’s eyes and saw in them a frightened youth, the son he loved. But Drew wasn’t the only one home in those eyes. There was ancient evil as well, fighting for dominance.

Vaughn swore, regret filling him as he realized what he had to do. “I’m sorry, son.”

Drew frowned. “For what?”

Vaughn summoned the remains of his power into his right hand, then clipped his son on the side of the head, knocking him out and breaking the connection between Ezekiel and Drew. Vaughn caught him as he slumped to the earth, cradling his son’s head as he swept him into his arms and stood up. He needed to get Drew to—

“Stop!” There was a loud crack and then something slammed into Vaughn’s back. He staggered as pain blistered through him and sent him to his knees. He fought to keep his grip on Drew, then something smashed him in the head. He hit the dirt, his head ringing and his mind sliding toward a black void as Drew was pulled from his arms.

“No—” He gasped, and then the darkness consumed him.

***

Ana slid down Elijah’s body as they turned to face Quinn, who was sitting on the bed, looking beaten. He was bleeding profusely from multiple places on his body, and his face was tight with pain. “I had no chance of breaking free. How did you do it? And why aren’t you bleeding more?”

Elijah looked down at himself and realized he was still bleeding from where the weapons had pinned him to the wall. But the flow had eased to a trickle and the chunks of flesh he’d left behind on the weapons were already regenerating. He frowned and raised his arm, watching as the hole in his biceps healed. “I don’t heal like this unless I’m in the healing sleep—”

He cursed, feeling Ezekiel’s presence in his mind. He dropped his hand with a shudder of cold dread. “Ezekiel’s healing me.”

“Infecting you,” Ana said. She laid her hand over the wound in his biceps. “It’s like he’s filling you up with evil, wherever you’re open.”

The darkness crept over Elijah, and an ominous feeling of dread settled in his bones. How much access did Ezekiel have to him? “Ana—” But before he could finish, he was hit with memories he hadn’t revisited in six hundred years. Not illusions. Real damn truths. Visions of him being tortured in a sandy arena, of people screaming... A woman, with blond hair... Oh,
hell
. His mental partition was
down
, and he was back there again—

Ana caught his wrist. “What’s wrong?”

I can’t block it.

Block what?

The room started spinning, and Elijah heard the Order descending on him as the team headed upstairs. “Fuck.
Fuck.
” He dug his fingers into his head, trying to stop the images, but they came flooding back. Faster and faster, slamming him from all sides. The blood, the deaths, the faces, the pain... oh, God, the pain...the hell...the torture... Not knowing truth from reality...who had he killed?

Then suddenly Elijah could smell the clean scent of his sister, the metallic tang of her blood. He could feel the hot sand burning the soles of his feet. He tasted the salt of his tears as he called out his throwing stars, unable to stop himself but knowing...so aware...of what he was about to do.

The roar of the crowd beat at his ears, and he could feel the turmoil in his mind. The agony, the grief, the total
confusion
as he advanced on the innocent he loved. The image was so vivid, he saw her face. Freckles across her nose, her wide blue eyes, widening as her big brother charged her, his throwing stars out as he—

“Elijah! Stop it!” Ana’s voice penetrated Elijah’s memories, and suddenly she was there beside him in the sand, standing in front of him, blocking his path to his sister. “Elijah!” Her silver eyes were glowing with alarm. “Come back to me!”

She threw herself at him, and her hands went around his neck, sliding in the blood coating his shoulders. Her body was warm and alive...and
Ana.

Suddenly Elijah was back in Dante’s mansion, inhaling the familiar scent of roses. He wrenched open his eyes as Ana’s voice and her touch broke through the grip of the memories. His body was shaking and he held her tightly. “Jesus, Ana. I killed my sister. She was so innocent and I couldn’t stop myself—”

“No! Stop it!” She dug her fingers into his shoulders. “Listen to me, Elijah! The illusions were making you crazy. You thought they were killing you. You had no choice.”

“I killed my family!” Jesus! He ripped away from her, his stomach retching. He was back in that moment again, when he’d awoken from the illusion, their blood on his hands. He recalled the agony of that first moment when he’d realized what he’d done, that he’d killed his mother and sister in cold blood because he’d been unable to stop himself or see through the illusions to know he was about to kill his own family.

The grief, the horror, the revulsion was every bit as wrenching and raw as it had been in that moment. “My God, I killed my family.” Elijah fell to his knees, reliving the scene again and again, hearing their screams, seeing himself thrusting his throwing stars into their bodies over and over, his inhuman shrieks ripping through the air as their blood dripped down his arms...

“Elijah!” Anguish ripped through Ana as Elijah’s memories filled her mind.

He crawled away from her across the floor of her bedroom, his body shaking, deep moans emanating from him. The images were real memories, not illusions, God help him. But she could see all that he didn’t. The people around him spurring him on with their macabre cheers designed to disorient him. She saw the thinness of his arms as he killed his sister, and she knew he’d been a young boy when it had happened. He’d been tortured by Illusionists, forced to murder his own family.

There was no sanity, no humanity in his memories, just confusion and a soul-destroying terror that had shredded his mind. She could see the demons that were chasing him, beating at him, stabbing him with their talons, sinking their teeth into him...all in his mind, but so very, very real. The fact that the demons had been an illusion didn’t matter. A hundred years of hell he’d suffered in that Illusionist torture chamber. No wonder he’d snapped so quickly when the illusions had come again.

And now it was back, and it was trying to take him away from her. She would not allow it. They didn’t get to have him again! “Elijah!”

He lunged to his feet, ducked out of her reach, and staggered toward the hallway.

The door swung open and Gideon strode in, his body covered in wounds. He caught Elijah by the shoulders, his arms going around him, holding him tight, his muscles rigid with the effort of restraining Elijah as he fought to get free. “It’s over, mate, it’s over.”

Ana ran after him, throwing her arms around Elijah’s waist and pressing herself up against his back as Gideon continued to hold him.
Elijah. You have to let it go. Put it back wherever it’s been.

Then Quinn’s arms went around all of them, holding them tight, and she felt him touch Elijah’s mind, offering him quiet strength.
It doesn’t matter, Elijah. It was a long time ago, and it doesn’t matter what you did. We’ve all done shit like that. It’s okay, man. It’s really okay. It doesn’t matter.

Elijah’s body shook, and his struggles ceased. Ana hugged him tighter, weaving her mind around those of the three males, astounded by the tightness of the bond she could feel between them. It wasn’t simply the blood bond. There was an unbreakable bond of friendship, a love she never would have expected between three stoic Calydon warriors.

Quinn and Gideon’s internal strength was astonishing, the way they held tight to their emotions, and they shared it with Elijah, rebuilding the partition that Elijah had used to keep the memories at bay so his mind could function.

Elijah shuddered as the memories began to lose their grip on him.
Ana
.

I’m right here.
She squeezed between Gideon and Quinn, sandwiching herself between the three muscular bodies so she could wrap her arms around Elijah’s stomach. She pressed her lips to his chest. One of his arms went around her, and he pinned her tight against him, while the other went around the shoulders of his friends. She could feel the retreat of his torment as the trauma subsided to a more distant place in his mind, but the residue was powerful, and his body was still trembling.

It matters
. Elijah’s voice was exhausted in her mind, and she knew he was talking to all of them, responding to Quinn’s statement that the past didn’t matter. He rested his cheek on the top of her head, as if he couldn’t support it himself.

No, it doesn’t.
Gideon replied first.
I’ve learned my lesson about dwelling on the past. Let it go.

Can’t.
Elijah took a deep breath, his body shuddering as his chest expanded.
Did I do it, Ana? Can you tell the difference between the memories and illusions? Did I really kill them? God, it feels real.

She hesitated, as Gideon lifted his head to look at her.
Yes, Elijah. It was real.

Gideon made a noise of frustration that she’d told Elijah the truth, but she ignored him.
But so were the demons chasing you. You were insane, Elijah. Really and truly insane. I don’t know how you ever got your mind back after that.

His grip tightened on her, and she could feel his efforts to control his emotions.
If I was able to kill my family, nothing will stop me from killing you.

We will,
Gideon said.
We won’t let you hurt anyone you don’t want to hurt.

You try to stop me, and I’ll kill you, too.
Elijah’s voice was grim, but Ana could tell he was in control again. Gideon and Quinn had succeeded in helping him partition the memories in his mind so he wasn’t feeling the trauma of them anymore.

He lifted his head, and his friends dropped their arms. The three warriors exchanged serious looks. “I’m a time bomb,” Elijah said. “If I can do what I did in the past, nothing will stop me from going after you.” He pushed Ana away and strode to the other side of the room, putting distance between himself and the others. He met Ana’s gaze. “Because of our bond, I’m a split second away from succumbing to the insanity again, and if I do—”