The Reluctant Amazon (Alliance of the Amazons) (27 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

White light surrounded Rebecca, bathing her in heat,
pulling her away to an ethereal realm. She was a helpless marionette being
slowly lifted. Struggling vainly against the bonds she couldn’t see, she wanted
to stay at Artair’s side. She didn’t want this, didn’t want anything except to
die with the man she loved more than life itself.

Power unlike anything she had ever known flooded her veins.
Memories that weren’t her own filled her mind. Places she had been, things she’d
seen, people she’d loved—but in other lifetimes. So many other lifetimes.

Relaxing against her bonds, she whirled in the winds that
caressed her skin and soothed her hurt. Her hair came free of its braid,
twirling in tendrils around her head. Her love for the people she’d known
drowned her. Her Aunt Kay. Her students. Her friends. Sparks. Megan. Gina.
Sarita.

And Artair. His love wrapped around her like a cloak,
cushioning her in warmth, feeding her strength.

She suddenly understood things, things that were forbidden to
humanity, things that showed her the universe and its infinite possibilities.
The past, the present and the future were malleable in this realm. But she had
to release this place, this time, this dominion and return to her own. She had
an important task to complete and very little time in which to do it.

Just as the light faded and the ground turned solid under her
feet, she knew exactly what to do. Hope and purpose replaced anguish.

Calmly kneeling next to Artair, she placed her right hand over
his wound and closed her eyes.

The words weren’t her own, but they spilled from her lips in a
chant, a song, a plea. Strange, foreign, unintelligible, the language formed in
her mind before she spoke them aloud.

Her hand glowed, and as she caressed his chest the warm orange
light sealed his wound.

“You will not leave me.”

But those words weren’t what she heard, the ancient tongue one
she didn’t recognize. Yet she spoke them and understood their meaning.

“You will not leave me. You cannot die. You must not die.”

The light shining from her hand grew brighter and brighter
until it hurt her eyes. Her heart slammed in her chest as her breaths came in
long gasps. Somehow knowing what to do, she leaned in and kissed his lips. Then
she took a deep breath, pursed her lips and blew over his face.

“You cannot die.” Sitting back on her heels, she waited. One
tear traced a path down her cheek. “I love you, Artair. I need you. Come back to
me.”

Rebecca pressed her hand, which had stopped glowing, against
Artair’s chest and caught the first gasping breath that filled his lungs. “Yes,
that’s it. Come back to me.”

A rhythm began, his chest rising and falling in slow, even
breaths. His eyes fluttered open.

She let a satisfied smile cross her lips. “That’s it. You’re
back.” She leaned over him, running her hands over his healed chest. “It’s all
right now. You came back to me, just like I knew you would.”

Funny, there were no tears of joy. Just a feeling of
accomplishment. Her tender and loving emotions seemed to have lost their sharp
edge.

His gaze found hers, those handsome green eyes full of
curiosity and, thankfully, full of the spark of life again. “Becca? Becca
mine?”

Rebecca smiled but felt little happiness. “Yes. It’s me. Are
you better?”

“Aye.” His gaze scanned the area. “Helen?”

“I’ll handle her. You go get the baby and take care of her. Her
aunt’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yes. Don’t ask me how I know, but I do. I love you, Artair.
Always remember that.”

“I won’t leave you.” His labored movements betrayed how weak he
still was. Coming back from the dead evidently wasn’t easy.

As he tried to get to his feet, she put a restraining hand on
his shoulder. “I have to do this myself.”

She kissed him, letting her lips rest against his for an extra
moment, but she had more to do. She stood and walked over to Sparks’s limp body,
hoping she wasn’t too late.

The energy sizzled through Rebecca, and she wanted to harness
that power to bring back her friend. As she approached the still body, something
was different. She knelt next to Sparks, but she felt no life hovering nearby as
she had with Artair. No sense of Sparks’s essence remained in that cold
shell.

She knelt and held her hand over Sparks’s chest. It never
glowed orange. She blew a long breath over Sparks’s beautiful face. “Please. I
don’t want to lose you. Please come back to us.”

Her whispered plea went unheeded. Sparks was gone. There would
be no bringing her back. She’d been dead for too long. Her spirit had moved
on.

Rebecca couldn’t cry, couldn’t take the precious time to feel
anything as draining as sorrow. She needed to be strong if she wanted vengeance.
Anger raced through her, drowning out her anguish. It was time for payback.
Grief could come later. She was an Amazon, and it was up to her to stop the evil
that had been unleashed. She rose to her feet.

Squaring her shoulders, she faced Helen.

“Such a touching scene,” Helen said with a crooked smile.
“We’re as powerful as any of the Ancients. Forces to be reckoned with. What
we’ll be able to do together! And when our sister comes of age… Just think of
it. We’ll be able to change the world. Can’t you see it, Rebecca? We can save
this planet from humanity’s selfishness, we can—”

“You’re rambling. And you didn’t hear me earlier. I’m never
going to have anything to do with you, unless you count the fact that I’m
getting ready to lay you in your grave. Just like you did Sparks. Just like you
did Trishna. Just like you almost did Artair.”

Fury gave Rebecca strength beyond anything she’d ever known
existed. It made her giddy. It made her cocky.

It made her dangerous.

Voices whispered in her head, twisting and twirling. “
You are one of us now. You control the world. Use your
strength.”

With only the swipe of a hand, she sent one of the enormous
boulders hurtling at Helen.

Helen deflected the stone. It crashed against the wall,
splintering in a shower of rocks. “No. You—you don’t understand. This isn’t how
it’s supposed to be. You and I should work together. We need to repair the
damage they’ve done to our world. We need to—to—help the Earth.”

“Your evil far outweighs any good you could do. You’re a
murderer. A cold-blooded murderer of women who could have helped keep all the
bad things on this Earth in check. And you say you want to save this planet?
This planet can’t handle a power-hungry bitch like you. It has enough problems.”
Rebecca flung another boulder at Helen.

Helen deflected it like a hockey goalie. “Stop it. Please, just
listen to me. I did this for us. I did it for the Earth. I did it for—”

“For
yourself.
”

“She is not like us, Rebecca,”
the
seductive voices coaxed. “
She will never understand. We are
Ancients, we are legion, we are eternal. You are one with us. Use your
power. Destroy her and come to us.”

Rebecca flipped her wrist. The pole Sparks had been tied to
sailed at Helen like a javelin.

Helen blocked it with both hands. It splintered into tiny
pieces of wood that fell into a pile at her feet.

“I told you,” Rebecca said in a steady, threatening voice,
“there is no
us.
Where is she? Where did you take
the baby?”

“She’s our sister. I won’t hurt her. We can raise her, train
her, make her strong.” Helen dodged the rocks Rebecca kept raining at her.
“Please, Rebecca, if you’d just listen.”

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me the first couple of times I said
it, so I’ll repeat myself. I’m going to
kill you.
You murdered Amazons, and you hurt the man I love. You murdered the only mother
that baby’s ever known. You signed your own death warrant, and I’m the person
destiny chose to serve justice.”

Helen faltered, backing herself against a wall, trying to stop
the shower of stones. “I had to. We’re goddesses. We’re—”

“No ‘we.’ Never ‘we.’
Where is the
baby?
” The air crackled with Rebecca’s newfound energy as sparks of
light exploded around her. She fed on it. Absorbed it. Used it.

“M-my priestess has her in my cabin. We need to—to help her
learn her powers. We need to help her ascend when she comes of age.”

A knowing smile crossed Rebecca’s lips. Helen’s voice held a
shaky timbre. Another tell. Victory was so near, she could almost touch it. And
it felt
wonderful.
“You’re obviously hard of
hearing. There is. No.
We.
There’s just a baby who
was stolen from her home. I intend to make sure she’s got a new one. And I
intend to make sure she isn’t tainted by the likes of you.”

A flash of silver caught her eye, tempting her. The sacramental
knife lay nestled between two rocks, winking at her. She rolled both stones away
with her mind and called the dagger to her with the crook of her finger. The
bloody blade sailed slowly across the cave and settled in her outstretched
palm.

Just like the bullet she’d held between her fingers the day
Sparks had shot at her, Rebecca wondered how something so small could cause so
much damage. Since it had twice been the tool of evil, the time had come for the
knife to be used for good.

With a quick twirl of her finger, she raised the dagger to
hover in the air. She spun it until the blade pointed at Helen. Then she
narrowed her eyes and sent it flying.

Before Helen could raise a defense, it sank in her gut.

“No!” she screamed. Blood stained her white dress. “You can’t
kill me. I’m a goddess.” She sank to her knees. “You can hurt me, but you can’t
kill me. This isn’t over. I want to be your friend, your sister, not your
enemy.”

“Ah, but that’s exactly what you are. My enemy. You’re the arch
villain, and I’m the superhero.” Rebecca walked over to retrieve her bow and
blessed arrows, having a passing thought she could bless them herself now.
“Can’t kill you, hmm? You seem to have forgotten what an Amazon does. We slay
demons like Jin. And we slay rogue goddesses like you.”

She calmly pulled an arrow from the quiver and notched it in
her bow. Easing back the shooting string, she took aim.

The priestesses rushed to surround Helen, preventing Rebecca
from finishing her job. She couldn’t risk hurting the girls who were shielding
Helen. Uttering some words in Latin, Helen and the priestesses disappeared in a
burst of light.

“Damn it!” Rebecca lowered her weapon and stomped her foot,
setting off a strong tremor. Whirling around, she faced Artair who’d risen to
his feet. “I had her! I had her, and then I let her slip away!”

* * *

Artair tried to come to terms with what he was seeing.
Rebecca’s beautiful blond hair swirled around her, whipped by the wind she was
creating with her anger and disappointment. Did she know she was surrounded by
an unearthly glow? She had no grasp of the strength she now wielded. She needed
help before she hurt someone or before he lost her to the power his death had
given her.

“Aye, she’s gone. But we’ll find her. You need to calm
yourself.”

The ground rumbled again. “Calm myself? Are you kidding? I have
to go after her. I have to! She killed Sparks.” The walls of the cave seemed to
bend with her anger.

“You must control your powers, Becca, or they’ll control you.
You need help, lass. Let me help you.” He reached out a hand.

She smiled, but not the smile Artair knew and loved. Rebecca’s
warmth was gone, replaced by an inhuman chill.

“Need your help?” She shook her head. “I have total control
over these powers. God, Artair. You should know what this feels like. I can hear
them all, every person on the face of this planet. I can feel the plants, the
animals. And I can help them,
all
of them.”

The power had infected her, corrupted his Becca. He had to save
her from herself. “We must call Rhiannon. She can help you shed these—”

“Shed?”
Her shriek echoed through
the cave. “You think I want to lose this type of power? Are you insane?”

“’Tis not natural. They’re borrowed powers, given by Ancients
who hate humans. They must be returned before they…”

He couldn’t bring himself to say the rest. The powers would
turn her into a selfish deity. The world already had way too many of those, and
he loved her too much to lose her—especially to that kind of future. Rebecca was
kind, loving, grounded. Earth. She of all people wouldn’t want to follow the
corrupting path laid at her feet.

“But, Artair—think of what we can do now. Think of how I can
help the Amazons.” She suddenly stopped, another frosty smile crossing her lips.
“The Amazons. I have the power of life now. I can help my sisters. I can give
them what they deserve.”

Rebecca disappeared in a flash of white light.

“Ah, Becca mine. What have you done?”

* * *

It was akin to being drunk on good tequila.
Intoxicating. Dizzying. Liberating.

Rebecca’s blood pumped hot and furious through her veins as she
floated on the winds her mind created. She could feel it all. The smooth
rotation of the planet on its celestial axis. The communion of the animals. The
buzz of the humans who needed her love and protection. The whispers of the
Ancients.

And her sisters. She loved them to the very depths of her soul.
That love had sent her on this journey. She had to find them.

She landed outside the Stay Inn and stared at the window of the
suite where her sisters would be waiting for her.

The words of the Ancients whispered in her head, distracting
her from why she’d come.
“You are special now. You are more
than you ever dreamed you could be. You are more than plain Rebecca Massee.
Come to us. Leave these humans behind. Leave these Amazons
behind.”