Visions of Chains Page 9

  He didn’t think she would; she was too smart for that. But she’d also been pushed pretty damn close to the edge in the last few hours. He never had been able to figure out the female mind—and this female in particular had always been a damn mystery.

  Centuries of time spent with her hadn’t cleared up a thing for him. In every incarnation she’d experienced, her brain had always been one step ahead of everyone else’s and obviously that hadn’t changed a bit. He could practically hear the wheels in her mind turning, spinning as she searched her heart and soul for the answers only he could give her.

  The tunnel twisted and turned on its way to the edge of DC. Too bad they had to cross the Potomac to get the witches to Virginia. He’d much rather keep the group belowground than risk the boat crossing—especially in November. But he didn’t have a choice. Not only did the group not know he was an Eternal—but it would take too damn long and leave everyone at risk if he flashed them one at a time to safety.

  This was way more involved than he would have preferred. He should have been able to take Deidre out of the tunnels and leave the group on their own. But now that demons were sending hellhounds after them, he couldn’t risk it.

  He hadn’t counted on Hell getting involved so quickly in the action. But now that a hellhound was in the mix, Finn had no idea what to expect next. If there were sorcerers out there spinning demon magic and summoning hellhounds . . . he didn’t want to think about it. With the dark energy still siphoning off into this world, there were all kinds of nasty things that could start cropping up.

  His witch had to be ready to meet every threat.

  Beside him, Deidre’s breath huffed in and out of her lungs in visible streams. Clouds of vapor misted in front of her face as the cold air took her warm breath and froze it. Her scent caught in his chest and despite the situation, everything in him fisted with desire. This was his woman. His witch. And he wanted her. Bad.

  First though, they had to survive.

  Finn’s gaze never stopped moving. The small, heavily armed group behind him was as quiet as possible, but speed was more important than stealth. The hellhound knew where they were. If it survived its wound long enough to report back to its demon masters, silence wasn’t going to help them any.

  Beside him, Deidre slowed down and that surprised him. She had kept up and hadn’t complained about the heavy pack or their fast pace. Hadn’t asked for help, either, and he admired that. Probably stubbornness as much as pride, but hell. She’d need both before they were done.

  “Finn.” She reached out and grabbed his arm, slowing him. “We have to stop for a while. Shauna needs to rest and so do the rest of us.”

  He came to a stop, turned and looked at the ragtag bunch behind him. Shauna was still pale and though she lifted her chin, he could see she was about ready to drop. And Deidre was right. The others weren’t in much better shape. Especially the rescued women. They’d been on the march for more than an hour and the trek, along with the damp cold and the surrounding darkness, was seriously taking a toll.

  “Fine. We’ll rest for five minutes.” While the others dropped to the chill, hard ground, Finn walked on, scouting ahead. The sting of icy, damp earth was all around him and the jagged rock walls radiated cold.

  He reached out with his magic and when he was far enough away from the others, he allowed the flames to erupt on his skin. Shadows and light twisted and danced on the walls on either side of him, but he paid no attention. He closed his eyes, focused his power and mentally searched for danger. He didn’t find any, but that could mean that their enemies weren’t close enough to sense yet. Someone else was, though. He felt her before he heard her.

  “That is so . . .”

  He let the flames die as he turned to look at Deidre, coming up behind him. “Weird?”

  “Beautiful,” she said, surprising the hell out of him. “Weird too,” she admitted with a shrug. “But beautiful.”

  He laughed. “There’s a word no one’s ever used to describe me before.”

  She continued her approach and everything in him lit up as she got closer. His dick went to stone, his chest felt tight and even his nonbeating heart felt a thrum of life. For centuries, he’d waited for her. For the Awakening. And now that it was here, it was all he could do to keep his hands off of her. He wasn’t human. But he knew a male’s need for his Mate.

  She had been through a hellish few hours, but she was still standing. Her chin was lifted, her eyes blazed with worry, fear and determination and Finn wanted her more now, he thought, than he ever had.

  “The fire’s beautiful,” she said, reaching up to touch his face. “You’re not though. You’re too male to be called that. You’re too—”

  Her fingers were feather soft as they smoothed over the hard ridge of his cheekbone and down to follow the stiff line of his jaw. He held perfectly still, not really trusting himself with her. The drive to Mate was overpowering, all consuming. He wanted her under him, over him. He wanted to taste and lick and nibble his way up and down her body. And then he wanted—needed—to bury himself inside her. To feel her muscles clench around him, to take all he had and then demand more.

  He pulled back from her touch—not because he didn’t want it, but because he wanted it too much.

  Her gaze dropped when she let her hand fall to her side. “Okay, that was plain enough.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She looked up at him again. “You don’t want me touching you. That was fairly obvious.”

  “What I want is a hell of a lot more than a quick touch.” He moved in on her and something inside him ignited in an even stronger blaze when she didn’t back up. She stood her ground, not realizing that the most dangerous predator in her world at the moment—him—was just a breath away.

  He stabbed the tip of his sword into the ground beside him, then moved into her, his body aligning with hers. Her quick intake of breath told him that she felt the instant flash of heat that passed between them. He set his hands at her waist and absently noted just how small she really was. Small and fragile. And human. And all too easy for their enemies to kill. And he was all that stood between her and death.

  He felt her breaths, heaving in and out of her lungs in response to his touch. Saw her lick her lips and felt his own body tighten in reaction. “What I want from you, Deidre, can’t be had in a stolen moment or two in a damn tunnel. What I want will take hours.”

  She blinked at him, then sighed imperceptibly. “Hours?”

  His gaze moved over her face, her eyes, her nose, her mouth, then down to the curve of her neck and the pounding of her pulse at the base of her throat. When his gaze finally met hers again, he added, “Or days.”

  “Oh, God.”

  He snorted. “That’s not the name you’ll be calling out. I guarantee it. When we come together, the only name on your lips will be mine.”

  He let the fire burst from his soul. Living flames of blue and red and orange and green danced from his hands to her body, licking at the curve of her waist, at the full roundness of her breasts. She gasped and arched into him, letting her head fall back as she sighed in deep pleasure.

  “That’s . . . oh my . . . Finn . . .”

  Tempting, he thought desperately, watching her eyes close, her mouth part on another long sigh. The fire was him and he was the flames. He felt everything the flames touched. He knew the curve of her breasts and the pebbled tips of her nipples. He knew the sweet taste of her skin and the heat in her blood.

  Hunger roared inside him and Finn surrendered to it for one brief, haunting moment.

  Chapter 14

  He bent his head and kissed her again, claiming her mouth because he simply couldn’t do anything else. The taste of her had lingered with him through the years, taunting him, and now he found that it was so much more than
the memory. The scent of cinnamon rose up around him as he pulled her in close. His tongue pushed into the warmth of her mouth and he swallowed the breath that rushed from her lungs. Their tongues tangled in a frenzied dance of desire that was so much more for having been denied for centuries. He felt every one of her frantic heartbeats and knew that if his own heart were able, it would be pounding in time with hers. And yet his heart would not beat until their Mating had been completed.

  This was better than that first all too brief kiss. This was raw hunger being met by frantic need.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him to her. She leaned into him and he felt every delicious inch of her defined against his own body. The flames still flashing over his skin rippled and waved at the contact with her, enhancing their pleasure, entwining them in a heat that burned bright with magic. And it wasn’t enough. Would never be enough. Not until he had her naked and moaning and writhing beneath him.

  The mission fell away. The tunnels, the group of fighters just down the passage from them. The threat of hellhounds and demons and the promise of a coming apocalypse if he and Deidre failed—it all fell away. All that mattered was this woman. This moment turning into the next and then the next.

  His dick strained at the prison of his jeans and that ache in his balls ratcheted up to torturous levels. That pain was finally enough to remind him where they were, what they were supposed to be doing, and at last, to jolt him out of the moment.

  Tearing his mouth away, he drew in one long, deep breath and let it slide slowly from his lungs as he rested his forehead against hers. He heard her struggling for air and while she did, he called the flames back within him. He cut off the connection between them as surely as if he’d taken an ax to it.

  And even its absence was painful.

  She fisted her hands into the lapels of his coat and hung on as if it meant her life. “What was that? What’re you doing to me?”

  He lifted his head and looked down at her. “That was the Mating magic flaring between us,” he told her flatly. “And, babe, we’re just getting started.”

  Her eyes were dazzled, her lips swollen. She licked them nervously and whispered, “If that’s just the beginning, the ending might kill me.”

  Finn chuckled, lifted both hands and cupped her face in his palms. “Nobody’s dying, Dee.”

  “Okay.” She nodded. “I think I’m going to hold you to that.”

  “Deal.” He let her go, and stepped back from her for his own comfort. Grabbing up his sword again, he asked, “Why’d you come to find me anyway?”

  “Oh. Right.” She shook her head and tossed the length of her braid behind one shoulder. “I just wanted to know how much farther we have to go.”

  He scraped one hand across his jaw, glanced down the snaking, dark tunnel ahead of them and said, “Another hour at least. Maybe more.”

  She sighed, but didn’t complain and his opinion of her went up another notch. She was even stronger now than she had been in centuries past. She was so feminine, looked so damn girly, he hadn’t really expected to find this spine of steel within her. He’d watched her from a distance the last few years and though she’d done her best to save witches, mostly, he had thought of her as a rich girl killing time. Now it seemed he had been wrong about that. So what else might he be wrong about?

  She reached up with both hands and rubbed at her own shoulders.

  “Sore?”

  “I’ll live,” she said.

  “Damn right you will.” He returned his sword to the scabbard at his back. Reaching for her, he turned her around, then set both hands on her shoulders and massaged the muscles.

  She stiffened at first. Then a groan of pleasure erupted from her and she slumped in his grip. Her head dropped and she kept up those soft moans as his thumbs and fingers dug into the tight knots in her muscles.

  “You should have asked me to carry the damn thing.”

  “I don’t need help,” she mumbled. “Oh God, harder.”

  His dick twitched in his pants. She was going to kill him. No doubt.

  “It’s freezing down here,” she whispered, the fog of her breath sighing out in front of her.

  “Gonna be colder topside,” he warned.

  She frowned and rubbed at a spot between her eyebrows. “A Sanctuary is safe haven for witches, right?”

  “Yeah. Run by witches for witches.” He pulled his sword free and tested the balance automatically. “They’re all over the world—small, magically enchanted safe houses. No human’s going to find them and they’re guarded well enough that even a magical attack wouldn’t get far. I flashed over there a couple days ago. Warned them we’d have a few more guests for them and set up a spot for the hand-off.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  He snorted. “You could say that.”

  “Okay, we get the women to Sanctuary. Then what?”

  He fired a look at her. “Then you and I have some talking to do.”

  “And when do I get to talk to my mother, Finn?” she glanced back down the tunnel to make sure they couldn’t be overheard. “I have to let her know I’m all right. She’s probably got the Marines out looking for I by now.”

  He smirked at the thought. “You think I’m worried?”

  She looked up at him, studying his eyes and in the darkness, he looked his fill of her. With his enhanced eyesight, he didn’t need the light to see the depths of the blue of her eyes. Or the curve of her mouth or the arch of her eyebrows. Everything about her was lovely. Even her fury affected him like no other woman ever had.

  Always, through the centuries, he had been drawn to her. She was the one woman who made him want. Need. And never once had she needed him in return, he reminded himself. Which was just one reason why he wouldn’t be doing the happily-ever-after thing. He’d Mate with her, complete their mission—then he’d be gone. He wasn’t going to stick around and set himself up for an eternity of pain, thanks. Though the thought of leaving wasn’t as enticing as it had seemed before he’d gotten to know her again.

  Up until now, she had been his duty. The duty he’d been serving for eons. His honor demanded it. Just as his brother Eternals did, Finn protected witches, fought the rising tides of darkness and held the line that protected humanity from something most couldn’t fathom. And through it all, his duty to Deidre in whatever incarnation she took, rang strong and true.

  He would never turn his back on her—not just because honor demanded it—but because . . .

  “If everyone in the country’s looking for me,” she pointed out with a calm, patient tone to her voice, “it’s going to make your little quest harder to pull off, won’t it?”

  “Our quest.”

  “Whatever.” She waved that away. “I’m just saying that if I can talk to my mother, I can get her to call off the search at least.”

  He shook his head. He wasn’t calling her mother. Finn had no reason to mistrust Cora Sterling—he just didn’t trust anyone but him to keep Deidre alive. Especially now that he knew hellhounds were on her trail.

  “And what would your mother or the Marines do against a demon attack?”

  “We can tell them about silver as a weapon against them.”

  “You think they don’t know already?” He choked off a laugh. “Doc Fender, the MPs, BOW, they’ve all done enough ‘research’ and experiments on witches and anything else with a tinge of magic that they probably know plenty. Doesn’t mean they can handle a full-grown hellhound.”

  “It was a puppy.”

  “Yeah, that one was. Next one probably won’t be.”

  “She has to know I’m alive at least,” Deidre argued.

  He wasn’t telling anyone that he had Deidre. Wouldn’t risk losing her. Wouldn’t risk her safety. “No.”

  “Just no?” She demanded. “That�
�s it? We can’t discuss it?”

  “That’s it.” The buzz of desire was gone, and the mission was, as it should be, front and center in his mind. He walked a few feet back down the tunnel and shouted, “Break’s over. Let’s move.”

  “You’re being a dick,” she pointed out.

  He smiled at her. “Thanks for noticing. Now go get your backpack. We’re on the move.”

  She turned and stormed down the tunnel. He watched her go, held his sword in one clenched fist and waited, as he had for centuries, for Deidre.

  Chapter 15

  “Why not drive them across?” Deidre asked quietly, watching as the women were bundled into one of two boats drawn to the muddy riverbank. Wisps of early-morning fog drifted off the ground and twisted into ribbons.

  “Because cops looking for escaped witches will be checking the cars on the bridge,” Joe told her.

  “And they won’t notice boats?”

  “Not these boats,” he said, helping Shauna board.

  The river raced past them, a rush of black churning water. Isolated chunks of ice bobbed and danced on the surface. The cars on the Key Bridge made a hum of sound off in the distance and their headlights streamed past, looking like a bright white streak in the night. The moon was behind a bank of clouds and the light was so dim, the world was shrouded in shades of gray.

  After a whole day and most of two nights spent in a cold, damp tunnel, Deidre had been grateful to escape aboveground. She’d slept fitfully, as had everyone else but Finn. Every time she had opened her eyes, he was awake, alert, on guard. Now, Deidre felt bedraggled, exhausted and more on edge than she ever had been before.

  And looking at the wild Potomac filled her with a new kind of dread. The two oversized rowboats Finn had had waiting for them looked too small, too insubstantial to withstand the raging river. As Shauna settled onto one of the seats, the boat rocked in a way that made Deidre’s heart clench.