Inferno of Darkness (Order of the Blade #8) (10 page)

Ever.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Dante just held Elisha in his arms, their bodies tangled around each other. Her head was nestled against his shoulder, and Dante pressed his face to her hair, nuzzling the soft tresses. He'd wrapped one arm tightly around her, holding her close, while he traced small circles around her breasts with his index finger. "Your skin is so fragile," he said, unable to keep the awe out of his voice. "So soft. I'm afraid to breathe too hard or you'll shatter."

Elisha laughed softly, a throaty sound that made him smile. "How can you say that after you just made love to me like that? You weren't being careful then."

"No, I wasn't." He kissed her lightly, pretty damn certain he would never get tired of kissing her. It was kind of shocking that something that simple could be so immensely satisfying, but it was. "Are you okay?"

She smiled at him, her eyes blossoming with warmth. "Yes, you silly man, of course I am. Making love with you was the most beautiful moment I've ever experienced."

He laughed, caught up in her charm, but stupidly pleased by her comment. He liked the idea of being the one to show her what it could be like, to be the one that mattered. "You're just saying that to stroke my ego so that I'll save the world for you."

"No, I'm not." Her smile faded, and she placed her hand on his jaw. "Dante, there's so little beauty that exists. So little warmth. So little kindness. What you just gave me, I'll treasure for all my existence. It will give me the power to keep my heart open no matter how much darkness consumes me, no matter how much pain takes me."

Dante frowned at her words. "Elisha, I'm not the brightness. It's you."

She laughed softly. "It can't be me—"

"In my world, you are."

She sighed as she trailed her finger over the runes on his arm. "Then your life must have been as dark as mine."

Dark anger rolled through Dante at the thought of Elisha experiencing the kind of life he'd had, and all his peacefulness vanished. "Shit, woman, you deserve more than my life."

"As do you. You've been through so much," she mused softly.

A foreign sensation drifted through him, a sense of connection that unsettled him. He wasn't sure whether he was irritated that she'd seen his truth, or whether he liked it. "You can tell? Is it my lack of boyish charm that clued you in?"

She raised her eyebrow at him. "Well, your foot for one thing. What happened to it?"

His eyes narrowed, not wanting to taint her or this moment with his past. The past was an albatross, contaminating the present and stripping hope from the future. "Hangnail."

She punched him lightly in the chest. "Seriously. It looks cursed."

"Cursed?" Her comment caught his interest, and he looked at her sharply. "I just figured it was poisoned. I never thought of a curse. Why do you say that?"

"Because..." It was difficult for Elisha to articulate it. She didn't have a specific reason. Now that she'd seen it close up, that had been her instinct, after all the curse damage she'd seen in her life. But maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was simply poison. Pulling out of his grasp, she sat up and gestured to his foot. "Can I touch it?"

His eyes were dark, watching her intently. He was lounging on his back with his hands locked behind his head. His biceps were flexed and one knee was cocked, showcasing parts of him that made her body radiate with heat. His sleek, muscular body completely relaxed, yet taut with vigilant readiness. "Sweetheart, there's no part of my body that's off-limits to you after what we just did."

"You're such a deviant." Her cheeks flushed, and she leaned forward to study his foot. The skin was blackened and charred. His foot and lower leg were twisted and mangled, as if every bone had been crushed and torn apart. She held her hand above it, and sharp pinpricks of pain jabbed into her palm. She sucked in her breath and turned her hand over. Sure enough, her hand was dotted with hundreds of microscopic marks, like malignant pin pricks. Fear rippled through her and she glanced at him. "I think it is cursed. What happened?"

He was watching her more intently now. His pose was the same but a new level of tension was rippling through his body. "Why do you think it's cursed?"

"Watch." She moved so she was sitting in front of him, her legs on either side of his. Carefully, she lifted his leg onto her lap.

Dante gritted his teeth, and he bit out a curse under his breath. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

"I know. Sorry." She laid her hands on either side of his ankle and gently opened her mind to his injury. Her fingers became translucent and melted through his flesh. He swore and his leg jerked, as if he had to fight to keep himself from pulling away.

"You're like ice," he said.

"It's not me," she said, as she carefully wove her fingers through his cells. "It's the damage." Slowly, ever so slowly, his foot began to shimmer and fade, becoming slightly transparent. As his skin turned the same sparkly blue of her hands, a pulsing, black shadow became visible beneath his flesh. It was moving and swirling, as if it were alive. Cold fear gripped her. "Dear God," she whispered, horrified by what she saw. "How is that possible?"

"Jesus." Dante sat up, staring at his leg. "What's that?"

"The black magic residue." Her fingers began to tremble from the effort of connecting with him, and she eased her hands out of his leg. Her whole body was shaking now, and she fisted her hands, trying to cleanse them of what she'd just touched. "How did you get this?"

"My father did it when I was fighting him. What is it?"

His
father
had done that to him? "It's a curse from beyond the nether-realm, originating in the queen's darkness." She looked at him, even as she touched his foot again, as if she could fix it by sheer strength of will. "It's made from my mother's energy, Dante. The curse is from my world."

His jaw tightened. "He cursed me? You're shitting me." Dante shouldn't have been shocked by her revelation. He'd seen his father's brutality for years. He'd known his leg was rotting from the moment his father had sliced across his ankle with a blade he'd never seen him wield before, a blade that he'd assumed had contained poison. He'd taken it as another example of what a bastard his father was, fighting with poison instead of relying on his own skills. But a curse? That was worse, because it was destruction on a whole new level, one that attacked the soul, not just the body.Anger rolled through him, fury against the man who had spent his life claiming he was a hero, when he was nothing but scum. "How do I stop it?"

"It depends on what it is. It might not be...there might not be anything you can do." She met his gaze, and her face was anguished. "But there's no way to predict. They're all different." She ran her hand over his leg again, but this time, she kept her hands corporeal. Her touch was soft and gentle, a balm that eased the throbbing in his leg. He closed his eyes, focusing entirely on her touch, on the feel of her hands on him, and on the respite she gave him. He was so used to living with the pain in his leg that it was almost shocking to feel his leg begin to relax under her soothing caress. She was doing something to his leg, and it felt incredible.

"I remember this," he said quietly, trying to force his mind away from the grim prophecy she'd just dealt him. He needed to clear his mind and stay focused if he had any chance of moving forward and finishing his last task before he died: saving the world without sacrificing Elisha.

"Remember what?"

"The feeling of being touched in kindness." Old memories surfaced, memories he'd shut down for so long, memories he'd buried out of necessity. "My mother was kind." Suddenly, he remembered her so clearly. Her blue eyes, the way she'd hugged him, the way she'd sat over his bed every night with a sword, waiting for his father to return to take him. He recalled how she'd kept them on the run, constantly moving, trying to hide from the man who she knew would be coming for Dante. "I used to have nightmares that my father had found me, and she would hold me at night and chase the demons away." He opened his eyes to see Elisha staring at him, her radiant blue-violet eyes shimmering with emotion. "Your touch is like that, too," he said quietly. "Gentle. Soothing." He grinned, a sudden, wicked gleam in his eyes. "Don't get me wrong, it's completely different than a mother's touch. But good."

She swallowed, and her palms tightened around his ankle. "What does it feel like?" she whispered. "To be touched like this?"

There was so much yearning in her voice that he forgot his own pain. "You don't know?"

She shook her head, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, even as she continued to tend to his leg. "When you kissed me, it was the first time that I've been kissed and not been afraid of what was to follow. It was amazing, and beautiful, but it was still a sexual touch, so it's different." She hesitated, and then looked down at her arm.

He could see bruises on her forearm, dark purple marks that hadn't been there before. Fierce protectiveness surged through him, and a low growl echoed deep in his chest. "Where did those come from?"

"I had them all along. I just hid them from you." She shrugged, not answering his question about how she got them. "I can control how much of my true self manifests. Will you—" She hesitated, as if uncertain whether she should ask.

She didn't have to ask. He knew what she wanted. Wordlessly, he took her hand in his and pressed a kiss to the bruises. It wasn't a sexual kiss. It was a kiss of comfort and healing, one that asked for nothing in return. She sucked in her breath, her eyes wide as she watched him. He laid his palm over her arm and focused his Calydon healing energy into the wound. A Calydon could heal only his
sheva
and other Calydons, so he knew he couldn't heal her, but they were connected enough that maybe she could feel some relief. Warmth flowed from his hand into her arm, and he stroked her bruised skin gently.

"Thank you," she said. "For showing me."

He grinned, nodding at her other hand, which was still on his damaged leg. "Feels good, doesn't it?"

She smiled. "It does."

"Maybe we should just sit here and fondle each other's injuries for the rest of the day. What do you think?"

She laughed then, a sparkly laugh that seemed to light up the night. "I think that's a great idea. The world can save itself, don't you think?"

"Shit, I wish it could."

Her smile faded, and her eyes became heavy with wisdom. "I'm sorry you had to kill your father."

He was startled by her comment. He would have expected her to condemn him for it. Good sons didn't murder their fathers. "You understand?"

She shrugged, still touching his leg, as if she were getting as much comfort from it as he was, which he understood, because he was happy as hell to be running his fingers down her arm. He'd never felt skin so soft in his life, and he hadn't been lying when he said he'd be down with just parking his ass on the ground with her and not moving again. He was tired of all the crap. He was tired of watching so many people die. He was just tired. "My mother is the queen of darkness," she said simply. "I understand about parents who hurt their children."

"I wish you didn't." Dante grasped her wrist and tugged her against him. She came willingly, sliding into his arms as if she'd been waiting for him to reach for her. Outside the realm of their little cocoon, he could feel the sword still calling to him, but with Elisha tucked up against him, it couldn't control him. He knew they had to make decisions and take action, but being in Elisha's arms gave him a respite to clear his head and focus, and he needed that right now.

He kissed the top of her head, knowing that reality was too damn close. "How long until I die?"

"I don't know. We never know, do we?"

He laughed at her philosophical answer. "I was looking for something a little more specific, given the rate at which my leg is decaying."

"It's a bad one," she said simply. "Very bad." She propped her elbow on his chest so she could look at him. Her brow was furrowed with worry. "How would your father have gotten access to my mother's curses? What was he like?"

"What was he like? Shit, that's a story."

"I need to know. If my mother has found a way to contaminate the earth..." Fear flickered in her eyes. "Dante, we need to know. The sword I understand, but if she has other tentacles, the situation could be more critical." Fear tightened her voice, and he instinctively wrapped his arms more tightly around her, pulling her into his embrace. Even as he did so, he reached out with his preternatural senses, assessing their surroundings. No longer was he searching simply for the threat of another being. He was looking for that dark, sinister energy that he knew all too well, the one that had bled from his father as he'd watched him die.

Shit. He didn't want to talk about this father. The bastard was dead and needed to be cast aside. But Elisha was right. They needed to know what the situation was. They needed to know if there was more of the same coming after them. He took a deep breath and pulled Elisha closer, as if her presence could block the poison of memories long past while he dredged up the memories of who his father had been. "One hundred and ten years ago, I had my dream," he told her, trailing his fingers through her hair, recalling the story that best exemplified his father. "The one in which a young Calydon has a battle with death in his sleep. If he triumphs, he awakens with his brands and becomes a Calydon. If he fails, he dies in his sleep."

Elisha frowned, her forehead puckering. "I take it you survived."

"I did." He kissed her wrinkles away as he spoke, somehow needing to touch her, to get respite from his words. "I awoke to find my father's dagger in my chest, hilt-deep."

Elisha gasped and sat up, staring at him. "He tried to murder you when you survived the dream?"

Her outrage on his behalf made something in his chest shift, like a knife that had been lodged in there for so long had suddenly begun to work itself free. "He wanted to make sure I was tough enough to be Order. Surviving the dream wasn't enough. I had to survive
him
. He'd had one son before me, a warrior with great potential who hadn't survived his dream. My father was the only Order member who hadn't sired a son who'd made it into the Order, and it made him crazed. He wanted to make sure I was tough enough, so he started training me when I was five." If one could classify the abuse he'd taken as training.