Stolen Fate (14 page)

“You’re in trouble. And as for you, Ian MacKenzie. Don’t think I don’t recognize you. You’re going to be back in that cell before you can blink. You’re a—”

“Enough.” Lea shot Darrence a quelling look. “We have more important problems. Rest assured, the prisoner will be sent back. But we must address the issue of the rogue god.”

Ian’s stomach lurched at the mention of being sent back to that hellhole. There was no way he’d let that happen. Fiona caught his eye and frowned. Darrence grunted but quieted, his look promising retribution.

“Did you identify which afterworld the demon went to?” Fiona asked.

“I did.” A blond woman leaned forward. She sat at one head of the table, across from Lea. Her skin emitted a faint glow. “I’m Aerten, Celtic goddess of fate and leader of the Praesidium. And from the description you gave of the demon’s tattoos, I think I know who stole the book. His tattoos indicate that he’s a minion of Carthe, a god from one of the pantheons that started the Divine War that led to the creation of the covenant thousands of years ago. You recall the stories of the war?”

There were a few murmurs of assent and Ian nodded along with everyone else. He’d never learned the stories as a child like other Mytheans, but he’d been told about them in prison. The war had occurred thousands of years ago in Eastern Europe, at a time when the Roman gods were busy in Italy and the Celtic gods in Britain. But the continent had been a mess. Four groups of gods from four different pantheons—all lost to mortal memory now because they’d destroyed themselves—had erupted into war on earth. The gods had come down to the mortals in an attempt to gain more worshipers. Not unlike the visits that the Roman gods had paid the Romans.

But there’d been too many gods. Too many choices on display for the mortals. It had erupted into war. The mortals fought for their one true religion, and the gods fought to be the leaders of it.
 

They’d nearly wiped out the entirety of the four pantheons and the mortals who fought the wars, until finally, with few left to worship and even fewer to rule, they’d convened to discuss the future. To save their own hides and ensure that nothing like that happened again, they’d agreed to sign the covenant that would allow gods to visit earth, but only in limited numbers and not for the purposes of war or gaining more worshipers. Other gods who hadn’t been involved in the war had agreed after seeing what had become of the pantheons that had engaged in war on the continent.
 

“So, Carthe dinna like the restrictions of the covenant?” Fiona asked. She caught Ian’s gaze, then looked away.

“Not at all,” Aerten said. “He was one of the dissenters to the original covenant. He was forced to sign anyway, of course, and agree not to come to earth to seek more followers, and thus more power.”

“So why start something now? It’s been thousands of years,” Ian said.
 

Several murmurs from the council echoed his sentiment. Darrence glared at him, but he didn’t bother to respond.

“As punishment for the Divine War, Carthe’s afterworld and the others that started the fight were closed off. The sentence was just lifted a couple hundred years ago. That’s probably when he started to look for the book,” Lea said.

“Didn’t anyone foresee that as being a problem?” Darrence asked.

“That they’d go for the book once their afterworld was reopened? Nay, because we never expected to lose it in the first place. We thought it’d be safe with us,” Lea said.

Arrogance had never been in short supply at the university.

“So the book is in Carthe’s afterworld. How do we get there?” Fiona asked.

“I can get you there,” a dark-haired woman said. “But Dalen, as their afterworld is called, is hard to access. It will take me time to find the path through the aether.”

“Vivienne is new to the world of myth,” Lea said. “Barely a month ago she discovered that she’s a Jinn of the Sila subspecies and that she has full access to the aether and all its afterworlds.”

“But because I’ve never been there, it will take me some time to find the path,” Vivienne said.

“How long?” Fiona asked.

“A few hours. A day.”

“There’s no way faster?” Lea asked.
 

“No. But we can leave as soon as I find it. I can take up to four people.”

“Good,” Fiona said. “Myself and Ian and two others.”

“Don’t think you’re going after it!” Darrence said.
 

“The hell I’m no',” Fiona said. “We need a Historius to track it, and I know the signal. No’ to mention that it’s my fate!”
 

“She’s right,” Aerten said. “It
is
her fate. And she’s already close to it.”

“Then he’s not going.” Darrence pointed at Ian.

Gods, he was being a bastard just to be one. But several of the other council members were murmuring their agreement.

Fiona caught Ian’s eye, then said, “He comes too. He’s a Sylph. If we’re going into an afterworld, we sure as hell canna kill the gods. They’ll be too powerful. Our only chance is to sneak in and steal the book. We’ll need his invisibility.”

Darrence opened his mouth, but Lea cut him off. “It’s done. Her logic is too sound to ignore. Fiona and Ian will go to Dalen with two Mythean Guardians. Ian’s collar will be modified so that he can use his invisibility.”

“Fine. But they’ll be dragging him back to his cell as soon as it’s done.” Darrence’s head looked like it might pop off his neck.
 

Bloody bastard. No doubt he was still angry about all the artifacts that Ian had stolen—or destroyed—over the course of his career. Acquirers hated treasure hunters more than most.

“I’ll get to work seeking the afterworld. I’ll let you know when I find it,” Vivienne said.

“Thank you,” Fiona said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

After having Ian’s collar modified and stopping by the healer to have their wounds tended, Fiona and Ian rode to her house in silence. Thank gods they hadn’t thrown him back into his cell for the night. They had faith in the collar, and she wondered if Lea had pulled a few strings. Though there was no reason to go back to the flat, part of Fiona wished desperately to be able to. To go back in time before she was certain Ian would be imprisoned again. Once she’d grown to like him, she’d hoped his service in helping retrieve the book would get him a reprieve.
 

How wrong she’d been. Everything with the book and the gods and her damned career was flying out of control, and her feelings for Ian were following suit.

Ian. Who had risked his life for her. Gods, she’d been in the archives so long that she’d forgotten this job could actually kill a person.

The pressure to find the book, to fix her fate and her life, had been building slowly over the last five years. It had taken her father a decade to go mad. She was getting close. Now, with all that was happening, it was like one of those great boulders in the Hall of Geology. Bearing down on her until she would be crushed.

She parked her car in the little drive and climbed out. Silence made her thoughts echo louder in her head as she let Ian into her house. She shut the door behind them and flipped on the light in her little living room. The dullness of her life blared at her. Boring white walls and books and reams of paper. Fluffy Black trotted out from the bedroom to greet her. Tufts of wild black fur stuck out of her at all angles, and bright green eyes peered up at Fiona demandingly.

As least she had Fluffy. She reached down and picked up the cat and hugged her, absorbing comfort from the small body. Ian walked up to stand before her.

“A cat?”

Fiona nodded, her mind drowning in worry. “Fluffy Black.”

The corner of his mouth kicked up and he rubbed Fluffy’s head. Fluffy’s rumbly purr vibrated against Fiona’s chest.

“No’ the cleverest name. Yet you’re a verra clever woman.”

“No’ when it comes to naming cats.” What would happen to Fluffy if she never recovered the book? Fluffy squirmed, and Fiona realized that she was holding her too tightly. Fiona set Fluffy on the ground.

“Doona fret.” Concern gleamed in his black eyes.

“I doona know how to stop.”

He reached out and pulled her against him, his hands cupped around her neck and back. His lips were hot and soft on hers, devouring. Feeling hit her like a heat wave, and propelled by the madness of her life and her despair over the possible future, she kissed him back, throwing herself into it.
 

It was crazy. She’d known him such a short time but she didn’t care. She wanted to forget it all for a while. She wanted him.
 

The low groan that tore from his throat spoke of desire and longing that had been building for decades.
 

She shuddered, the memory of him getting nearly crushed by the boulder too horrible to contemplate. It just made her more desperate, made her kiss him back so hard that her mouth would surely bruise.

What a terrible pair they made—an unrepentant convict and an Acquirer—yet she found it hard to care about that when his tongue thrust into her mouth and stroked.
 

His arm, roped thickly with muscle, wrapped around her waist, and he pulled her against his chest. She raised trembling hands and ran them over the cut pecs and abs she’d admired the other night.
 

Aye, it was very hard indeed to think of why this was a bad idea.

“More,” she whispered, and gasped when he swept her up into his arms. “The bedroom is down the hall.”

His footfalls were no longer thief-light as he strode toward the bedroom and it thrilled her to know his control was fraying.
 

He laid her on the bed and tore off his shirt before following her down. The hall light glinted off the hard lines of his muscles and made her fingertips itch to touch him.

She swallowed and raised her arms to him. He put a knee on the bed, then crawled up between her thighs and settled himself between them, his face level with hers.

The heat and hardness of him made her gasp.

“I want you, Fiona, more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

She pulled his head down to her, kissing him until her head spun and her breath heaved in and out of her chest.

“Gods, you feel good.” He pulled his mouth from hers and traced his way down her neck.
 

She reached down to his fly, the zipper cutting into her fingertips. She barely got her fingers inside, barely brushed the heat and hardness of him, before he lifted her arms away and pinned them over her head.

“Careful, lassie, or this will no’ last as long as we’d hoped.”

“I doona care.” She pulled against his arms.

He let go, but before she could reach for him again, he’d shifted down the bed and out of her reach. She dropped her head back on the pillow and gripped his shoulders. Cold air kissed her stomach as he pushed her shirt up, followed by the heat of his mouth. She arched beneath him when his lips traced her ribs.

Desperate, she yanked the shirt off. He quickly unclasped her bra and kissed her nipples, tracing the sensitive skin with his tongue until she was panting.

“I wanted to savor you.” His words formed a delightful pattern against her nipple. “But I find that it’s still too difficult to go slowly.”

He swiftly unbuttoned her jeans and yanked them from her hips, taking her underwear with them. She felt his hands tremble as he parted her thighs, heard the groan that tore from his throat.

She jerked when he pressed his mouth, hot and open, to her sex, and plunged his tongue deep. He stroked and licked and sucked until her head was thrashing back and forth on the pillow and the room dimmed out of her vision.

The taste of Fiona made Ian’s mind fog and his cock hard enough to drive nails. The way she arched off the bed, pressing herself to him, made his control flag. He’d wanted to take this slow, to savor her and the things they did together.

His body had different ideas. Tension and lust tightened his muscles and his mind and made him into the animal he’d so often protested he wasn’t.
 

Fiona cried out and her body started to jerk against him, her orgasm making her twist on the bed.