CHAPTER 29
It took a long time for her breathing to slow. Christan leaned against the headboard and held her, pushing back the weight of her hair, stroking down the length of her spine until he could ease her back against his chest. The fire had died down to embers, and with a quick flare he brought it back to life.
Lexi turned her head into the curve of his shoulder, was holding on to his arms where they crossed at her waist. She’d been trembling earlier, and he’d worried that he pushed her too far. But when she asked him to come home, he’d been lost to her husky demand. She burned him, rescued him, made him a better man, and she was the only one beside Gaia who had known most of what he was. In all the other lifetimes, he’d kept his secret from her. And like a poison seed in fertile ground that secret always destroyed. But not in this lifetime. Something was different. When he drove deep into her, it was as if a phantom limb had become flesh and bone, and he was whole again.
She moved restlessly and he soothed her. “Hush,” he whispered. “I’m sorry that I frightened you.”
“You didn’t.” She traced her finger across his chest, following one of the amber memories. Christan felt something dark begin to vibrate, sucked in a deep breath as he moved her hand.
“What do you remember of your life as Gemma?”
“That you were right about Nico.” She was drawing little circles against the back of his arm. “I still think of him that way, even though I know he’s Kace. I was foolish in that life. I’m half embarrassed by myself, actually. I’m not that way now.”
He made a half laughing sound, and she swatted at his hand.
“Well, I’m not. I was careful enough around Kace when he was calling himself Wallace. I didn’t let him get close.” She stopped talking and dipped her head. He tightened his arms and settled her more firmly between his long legs. “I’m sorry, Christan. I’m to blame for what I did. I won’t excuse it away.”
“We’re all capable of great darkness. It’s embedded in the human soul.”
“That’s why we ask for redemption, I suppose. It’s hard, facing it, that I could go that deep.”
“Hate is a terrible thing.”
“And we hated.”
“I forced you there with my arrogance and the secrets I kept.”
“And I found just as much pleasure in pushing you back.” She remained quiet, and then she asked, “Did Nico kill her? I don’t remember who held the knife.”
“He didn’t kill her, but he watched as it was done. There are two unbreakable laws with the Agreement. One is that no immortal can kill a bonded mate without paying with his life. That doesn’t mean an immortal can’t have mortals do it for him. There were mercenaries there that night. Kace claims he tried to stop it before it went too far.”
“But you don’t believe him?”
“No. I would have killed him then, but it would have started a Calata war, and for that I owe you a blood debt.” When he spoke again, his voice was unyielding, with the total absence of humanity. “The blood debt will be paid.”
Christan felt the shiver that whipped across her shoulders, and he tightened his hold to bring her back.
“That night on the road,” she asked him, after a long, long moment. “You knew he was there to kill you. Why did you come?”
“I had to know the truth.”
Because only his death would have freed her. It was a stark answer, brutally honest in his self-awareness, and it crushed her. Lexi felt broken inside until he reached out and took her hand. That connection, that one connection above all others pulled them back together, and after everything—all the anger and the pain—it was nearly inconceivable they could have gotten to this place of honesty, stripping the past clean.
When she turned more fully to face him, he was sprawled against the headboard. Lexi grabbed the blanket, wrapped it around herself and scooted down near his feet. She settled herself against the bed post, leaning back to study his changing expressions. The sensual tangle of dark hair made him less intimidating, but she loved that hard angled face, the blade of a smile when he was amused. There was a fierceness in him she admired. He belonged to a world that she barely believed could exist, untamed and earthy and natural. He deserved to be free the way a wild animal was free to live easily within his own skin.
“I want to know all there is to know about you,” she said. “I want to know how they created you if you know. I want to know how you can talk to Arsen with just your mind and what the Calata thought they were doing with this reincarnation scheme. All of it.” He was laughing at her with those dark eyes and she pointed a slender finger toward his chest. “So spill.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gave a gentle tug on the corner of her blanket. Her grip tightened and she glared at him.
“I like cooking with you,” he said.
“What did we cook?”
“Whatever you shot with your little arrows.” He reached out to stroke her foot. “I don’t know how they created us, just one day we woke up and it felt like any other morning since then. We communicate with one another telepathically. We can summon a telekinetic power to move things around.”
“And face plant people on the ground when you lose arguments?”
“It’s how you learn never to argue with me.”
She arched her eyebrow. “Arsen’s teaching me how to guard against that little trick.”
“I’m sure he’s trying.”
“You don’t have faith in his abilities?”
Christan’s smile was wicked. “What else do you want to know?”
“What do you do as an Enforcer?”
“You don’t need those images.”
“What is it like when they compel you?”
“You saw the way the warrior disappeared in the surveillance footage? It’s like that. One minute you’re here, the next minute, you’re where they want you to be. You’re pulled apart and then you snap together again.”
“So, if the Calata wanted to mess with you, they could?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you get advanced warning?”
“Not always.”
“Can you resist them?”
“Not easily.”
She paused. “Why did you leave Gaia and not come back?”
“Because I am a selfish bastard.”
He was leaning back, watching with lazy eyes, but she sensed his tension. She looked steadily at him.
“You accepted the Agreement without telling her, didn’t you?”
“I made a decision I had no right to make.” His voice was lower and thicker than before. “But I would not risk the possibility you would say no.”
And suddenly she understood what the Agreement had cost him, what he couldn’t explain. He’d bound himself into compliance in exchange for her safety, knowing she would resent him if she ever learned the truth. So complex, the emotions that drove this man, an immortal code of honor that fought against his human needs. Her eyes drifted over him, seeing with new understanding the scars that marked his body in ways the bronzed lines never could, telling of centuries of unwilling service to keep her from harm.
Her voice was barely above a whisper. “If you had asked me, the answer would have been yes, although I, too, now carry the guilt over what it did to you.”
Christan reached out and touched her face. His fingertips traced the moisture leaking from her eyes before his hand dropped to his lap. Lexi wanted to crawl to him but didn’t. His eyes were closed and she wondered if he was reliving the memories of loving and then leaving her. To distract him, she continued their conversation.
“Marge told me there’s a blood bond.”
“Marge is a wealth of information.”
“Will you tell me?”
His eyes remained closed. “In the original alchemy, signing a pact in blood creates a uniting of opposites, of souls. The lover receives immortality, while the warrior becomes more than what he was. But the bond might cause a loss of free will, or it might mean death. Nobody knows.”
“Is the magic always so unpredictable?”
“It would seem so.”
“And when you gave me that one word, did you think I could use it?”
“No. I thought if you tried I would know, but I didn’t think you had the strength.”
“So, you thought you were safe?”
“Not safe enough.” His lips twitched. He was laughing and trying not to let it show. It made her feel less guilty about putting him on the floor.
“You know I didn’t mean to do it.”
“I know.”
“Were you always named Christan?”
“No.”
“Will you tell me who you were?”
“My name was Charmion.”
“Who named you Christan?”
His eyes pinned her. “You did.”
“I did?”
He looked amused. “Right down there in that garden. You were five.”
“Five?” She was enthralled, watching the memory soften the guarded expression on his face.
“Your family owned this villa,” Christan said. “Your parents died the year before, and you and your older sister were living here. I was meeting your uncle on business.”
“I was Gemma? Did you know who I was?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I was curious. You were wearing a white dress. You had a ring of daisies in your hair and you were stomping all over your aunt’s delphiniums. You were quite the little terror.”
“I was?” A smile kicked up the corner of her mouth. He looked so relaxed, without the weight of the world crushing him down. Lexi wanted this moment for him with such fierceness it was impossible to ignore.
She realized what it was, of course—that she was surrendering to the idea of loving him. But she had to tread carefully. This thing between them was both too new and too old, embodying everything she both feared and craved. She found it was easier to watch the expressions that relaxed his face.
“Yes,” Christan said. “An absolute terror.” He slipped back into a past she could not remember. “I watched you for a moment, and then squatted down and asked what was upsetting you. You had been chasing butterflies but couldn’t catch any, and you were furious. I reached out and caught one in my hand. I remember you held out your finger. I opened my hand, and the butterfly walked from my palm over to yours and sat there, drying its wings in the sun. You had the strangest expression on your face. Like you were in awe and maybe afraid it might bite you.” His fingers nipped at her foot, and Lexi jumped. The warm sound of his laughter filled the quiet room. She had never heard him laugh. She reached out and touched the back of his bronzed hand.
“What then?”
“The butterfly drifted away. You looked at me and demanded to know my name. When I told you, you couldn’t pronounce it, but you came right up to me. You put your hands on either side of my face, and said very solemnly, ‘Your name is Christan’.” He shrugged. “I’ve used that name ever since.”
“Did you buy the villa from my uncle?” Lexi asked.
“When he died, I covered the debts and offered the property to your aunt. She accepted to protect you and your sister, but privately she refused to claim ownership. She remained until her death two years later.”
“We lived here,” Lexi said. “Gemma never knew the property was yours. She thought you might have married her for it.”
Christan shrugged. “It was always meant to be hers,” he said. “Later, I arranged for the property to change hands on paper to divert my enemies. Caretakers maintained the olive groves. There was a vineyard at one time. The vines still produce, but not at any significant level, so the crop is sold to others. My connection is obscured. But I don’t delude myself. My enemies will know I’m here. I imagine we’ll only have peace for a day or two at the most.”
Lexi gripped the edge of her blanket. She had never been good at surrender, but she was surrendering now.
“Then we don’t have time to waste,” she said, letting the edges fall open as she crawled back up Christan’s body. When she reached him, she straddled his hips and his big hands settled gently around her waist. Her golden hair shimmered in the firelight, brushing against his chest, and she placed her hand over the small tattoo just to the left of his heart. It was in the shape of a delicate curling line that resembled a butterfly.
“Your name is Christan,” she whispered. “And I choose you.”
Their lovemaking was slow and tender, her pale body moving against his darker frame. He moved deeper, and she accepted all of him, offering the redemption that he craved. And when he took her high into the stars where they exploded into a shimmer of light, she whispered gently against his heart, “I choose you, Christan. Only you.”
Dawn held the soft gray of a dove’s wing when Lexi woke. The strong male body was warm against her skin and she pressed in, stretched slightly as he stroked the hair from her face.
“You didn’t dream,” he said, those fingers tracing down the curve of her throat.
She thought about it. “No.” It was the first night in months. “I didn’t.”
“Must be the company in bed.”
“Must be.”
She rolled over to press her nose against his chest and he lifted her thigh, draped her leg across his hip.
“We should probably sleep this way more often,” he suggested.
“Yes.” Those wicked fingers were stroking again.
“I’m going to have to leave soon.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“I’ll come back. I have to meet with One.”
“Who’s… One?” It was getting hard to focus. Lexi couldn’t remember if he told her about One or not.
“I mentioned her yesterday—there’s a teleconference with Three in Seattle. I have to be there to explain the mess I left in the alley.”
“More of those big warrior secrets?”
What he was doing ought to be illegal. “Curiosity will get you in trouble,” he said deep in his throat.
She shifted her leg higher. “I like trouble.”
Christan rolled her onto her back and was inside before she realized it, thrusting slowly. “I would have you safe, cara.”
“Then don’t leave.” A deeper thrust, so sensual she arched luxuriously. “Marking your territory, Enforcer?”
“Claiming what’s mine.”
“That sounds fairly arrogant.”
“You love my arrogant side.”
She draped her wrists around his neck and stared up into his hard face, watched it soften. Lifted against him. This was more than a joining, more than the furious redemption of sinners on the previous night. This was a caress between two lovers that luxuriated with a slowly building heat.
“How can I help you?” she managed to whisper as her body took him in.
“Work with Arsen. He’ll be here soon. He’s going to check our security systems, walk the perimeter, find any weaknesses.”
The war was intruding. Her fingers gripped his shoulders and she looked into those midnight eyes. “Don’t… go.”
“I must.”
“I’m afraid.”
His body flexed and she thought he was reaching toward her very core. “How can you want someone as broken and flawed as I am?”
“I have more than wanted you… many times.”
“Sei la mia vita,” he said.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Someday you will.”