CHAPTER 7
Trees in the landscape could be soothing. In Rock Cove, Lexi would wrap her arms around the ancient Sitka spruce, feel the energy rising in the sap. If the trees were willing, they would expand and retract in time to a human’s breathing, share both strength and resiliency. There were no trees in this desert landscape, though, and Lexi felt neither strong nor resilient.
She felt angry. Maybe her life was lonely, but she liked it that way. Worked hard to keep that way. Nightmares were tucked into separate boxes and she didn’t take them out, not even with Marge. But she recognized him, the man with eyes so dark they pulled the light from the sky. Recognized the faint echoes of a male voice. The sensations embedded in her skin, the glide of a dangerous hand, the warmth of whispers against her throat, building until she closed her eyes and tried to breathe.
Lexi was very aware they’d been alone on the path. He’d cornered her, stood lazy and ready. She’d wanted to tell him to go to hell. Thought it might be like burning if he touched her, held her. The hell could come afterward. When he went away.
And how did she even know that? It terrified her. There was a tingling on her wrist that was filled with him. An ache between her legs that was worse. She was so angry all she wanted to do was walk and keep walking.
That could have been why she never saw the man waiting in the jagged rocks. Hadn’t realized he was there until hard fingers crushed her hand.
“Wallace?” She looked at the grip and then up at the man who’d sent her to Montana to research a location, felt her heart thud with hazard. “What are you doing here?”
“Been looking for you, babe. And isn’t it so damn perfect you walked out here on your own.”
There was aggression in his voice. Once, Lexi found him edgy and attractive, thought he was an angel both dark and profane. But he was too arrogant to be comfortable, and personal boundaries were never respected. She couldn’t imagine why he was here. He still hadn’t released her hand.
Lexi tried to jerk her wrist free; he tightened his fingers.
“What the hell, Wallace.” Alarm rose quick and hard as she glanced over one shoulder, searching the path. “I’m not out here alone. Marge is with me.”
“Marge is preoccupied with her little tent. She won’t miss you for a while.”
The aggression was more threatening. Lexi stopped struggling. Wallace was stronger than he appeared, and when he dragged her toward the rocky cliffs, Lexi forced herself to remain calm. Fighting would only make him grip her more firmly, and she followed along on a path that was both steep and slippery. Gravel was mixed with ochre-colored sand. When a cleft in the rocks forced a new direction, Lexi pretended to stumble. Wallace turned, irritated, and she pressed a palm against her ribs.
“You’re not that out of shape, babe,” he said. “You were just trekking in Montana.”
“I’m not going with you, nice of you to notice.”
Wallace remained silent before whipping her hand against the rock. Blood began to trickle across her wrist.
“You’re a bright girl,” he said, “but we can do this the hard way if you want.”
There was no trace of guilt in either his expression or his voice. Lexi’s heart thudded. Without thinking, she kicked his knee; Wallace grunted, pushing her hard into the cliff. Blood pooled warm and wet against the back of her head and Lexi swayed slightly. The rocks began to spin. A bird screamed in the air above them.
For a fleeting second, Lexi thought Wallace regretted the attack. Then his expression hardened as he noticed the memory line.
“Did you like it when Arsen shifted?” His mouth had a slight curl that was chilling. “The girls always like it when we shift.”
Lexi watched him, tense and braced. Her hair was catching the sunlight, and she didn’t miss the way his eyes locked on the moving strands. He lifted his hand. She remembered being put down hard on the ground, realized he could do far worse. Had done far worse. The recording devices in her cottage and the night terrors hadn’t been enough; Wallace had come to Rock Cove to personally load the meditation app on her phone. She’d thought he was a friend. Had trusted him. Lexi told him as much.
Wallace made no response other than to glance around. The muscles in Lexi’s throat tightened and she was painfully close to tears. He returned his gaze to her wrist, to the single memory line beneath the skin.
“I don’t know why you’re upset,” he said. “It’s just dreams.”
“There’s no such thing as just dreams.”
“It’s easier if you don’t resist.”
“Then you do it,” Lexi said bitterly. “Your dreams have to be better than mine.”
Wallace refused to respond. There was a soft skittering sound in the rocks as if they’d disturbed some small creature. With an almost imperceptible movement, Wallace glanced at the cliff before looking upward to study the empty blue sky.
Lexi reached for the surrounding earth energies but found only the sand and the emotions swirling from Wallace. She realized he was a warrior, she got that now, felt angry that she’d agreed to go to Montana for him. Changed her schedule on short notice. Thought he was interesting and wanted to impress him. Felt more than stupid. She felt empty.
“Why waste your time with me, Wallace? I don’t remember anything even with all your efforts to force the dreams. I’m no one.”
“He isn’t.”
“This is about Christan?”
Wallace stood rigid for so long Lexi wondered if he’d answer her.
“That last life you spent with him,” Wallace said finally. “I thought you’d want to know.”
“I’d rather not remember.”
“But you’re afraid of him every time he comes close.”
“No more than I’m afraid of you right now.”
Wallace looked directly at her, then returned his gaze to the rocks. “Makes no difference to me, but there might be a good reason why you’re afraid.”
“Any you’d know that reason?”
An empty silence fell hard between them. After a long moment Wallace shifted his stance. His face reminded her of a statue carved in stone, remote, immortal. He pushed the hair from her face, lingered, his palm warm on her cheek. His thumb moved; she thought he was brushing away tears but she wasn’t crying.
“Just trying to help, babe.”
“Then maybe you should stop throwing me into the rocks.”
The soft skittering again, now with pebbles trickling down the path. Tension increased. Wallace reached into his pocket. A moment later, a cell phone landed near her feet.
“Call if you ever want to chat.”
He turned and disappeared around the cliff. For endless seconds, Lexi stood until she sat down hard onto the rocky ground, dropping the phone twice before hugging it against her chest. She was still hugging it when Christan pulled her to her feet.
“That didn’t take long.” Christan dragged his hands across her shoulders, then down each leg in an unnecessary search. The goal was intimidation. When he found her fisted hand, she threw her weight to the side and tried to twist away.
“Christan,” Arsen warned, but Christan stepped back, his arm locked around her waist. She resisted with a fierce, wild movement that set his nerves on fire.
“She called him Wallace,” Robbie said, coming into view and breathing hard. “He disappeared around that cliff. Gave her a phone.”
Christan loosened Lexi’s clenched hand, yanked the phone away and shoved it in his back pocket.
“I don’t think she knows who he is,” Robbie continued. “He threw her against the rocks when she wouldn’t go with him.”
Christan felt no sympathy, only anger when she stabbed stiff fingers into his wrist, trying to break his hold. Bending down, he spoke against her ear.
“We watched on the drone’s cameras.”
“I hope you enjoyed the show.”
Her voice reminded him of night and heat and Christan wanted to pull her hard against his body. He was a big man. Towered over her and she still kept fighting. She tried to twist his thumb upward. He got so hard it hurt.
“Did you think we wouldn’t know?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“I don’t give a damn what you know.” She gave up on torturing his thumb and began pushing against his arm. Christan tightened the pressure until the struggling stopped.
“Were you meeting him here?”
“No.”
“Are you calling him later?”
“Are you some kind of crazy person?” Lexi arched back. Strands of blond hair caught in his mouth. “I was not out here meeting anyone.”
“His name is Kace.” Christan ground the words with the same aggression as he ground the taste of her hair from his tongue. “And you were rubbing yourself all over him.”
“Oh, good god—who talks like that?”
Christan didn’t answer. He couldn’t. She continued her desperate little rant.
“That was Wallace. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize him, since that recommendation came from an acquaintance in Montana. Oh, right,” she added, “that was when you were lying about being an event planner.”
Christan tightened his arm and jerked her close. The scent of his enemy was still in her hair. When she shifted to keep her balance, her hips pressed against his groin and he hissed in a breath, barely keeping it together. The fire in his tattoos was fucking burning so hot he started to sweat and knew he was on the verge of shifting.
“Christan,” Arsen warned again. Several seconds passed before Christan relaxed his arm. Lexi stumbled away and Christan saw the wariness in her eyes. He wondered what Kace said in those rocks.
“Lexi,” Arsen said. “What were you doing out here?”
“Walking.”
“Did you call him to come out here?”
“With what phone?”
Christan held up the cell phone he’d pried from her hand. An angry flush moved up her throat and he thought about licking her skin until the flush spread. Right. Here. In front of everyone.
“Robbie explained. Wallace gave me that phone a few minutes ago. I could hardly call if he was already here.”
“The man you were talking to is named Kace.”
“You must be confused.”
“We don’t misidentify our enemies.”
“Enemies.” The word was hard and Christan heard the accusation. Not the present-day accusation, but one much older, filled with bitterness and pain. Emotions she’d carried centuries ago.
Her posture had grown regal, her voice precise. “I was walking, not meeting anyone. As for who I met, I don’t care if you call him Abraham fucking Lincoln. I call him Wallace and I have no idea why he was out here today, nor do I care to explain anything when you can’t even be civil.” Lexi was looking at Arsen, Christan realized, not him, to whom she owed the explanation. And he heard the hesitation, as if there was more to the meeting than she admitted. Resentment was hot and heavy in his veins.
“I did not bring myself out here,” she continued, a fierce fire in the words. “You’re the ones who kidnapped me, probably drugged me, threw me down on the ground and left me there. And you’ve already admitted to the lies.”
“Lexi,” Arsen said, but she was defiant, lush in her feminine anger.
“This no longer matters, Arsen. I don’t know you. I’m not even sure if I really know Marge, and whatever happened here is your problem, not mine.”
She started to turn and Christan reached for her arm. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Lexi evaded him. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
He advanced and she retreated. Tremors slid through her, delicately fragile movements most obvious in her hands. The amber in her eyes was fading, or perhaps it was a trick of the sunlight. When she pressed the heel of her palm hard against her forehead, Christan wondered if she was remembering Kace—or the man she continued to call Wallace. Found it difficult to believe that she wasn’t. She pushed her fingers restlessly through her hair. The small gesture threw him back to the heat of an ancient sun. The sweet tang of wild oranges, the soft laughter when they made love in the shade. Centuries ago. He shut the images down.
“Where’s Marge?” There was exhaustion in her voice.
“Busy.”
“She should be here.”
“Marge can’t help you. Just tell us the truth.”
Lexi shifted her body to face him. Her eyes were unfocused, and Christan wondered if she was wandering through her own dark past, or his.
“I don’t know anyone named Kace.”
But she was lying, because she did know Kace and they both knew it. Moments ago, when Christan realized she was lost from view, he’d redirected the drone’s surveillance cameras. Arsen had been in the air. Robbie on the ground. They found her in the rocks, recognized who she was meeting—which shouldn’t have been surprising but was.
Arsen had warned against making assumptions, even though the scene was so familiar Christan saw it in his dreams. In a past lifetime, this woman stood in the center of a moon-shot road and conspired with his enemy. In this lifetime, she stood in the middle of a wilderness and did the same thing. The cold weight of anger pressed down his spine. He looked at her, wanting to see something else, but all he saw was Gemma.
“Do you believe you should not be held accountable?”
He felt the hard rasp of each word, deep in his throat. Deeper still. She looked guilty as sin and Christan thought about his enemy with his hand in her hair. Touching her face.
“I’ve done nothing.” Lexi dropped her hand to her side. It was the hand that still dripped blood. The hand with the single, stark memory line. “I don’t know you. I don’t remember any past lives with you.”
“I know you.”
“You don’t know me. You have never known me.”
The bitterness moved rough against his skin. Christan realized it was Lexi, staring at him now, and not Gemma. Lexi, who withdrew behind an emotional wall too thick for him to penetrate. And he wanted her to remember who she was. Who he was. Why they were so destructive together.
The demand was viciously unrelenting. He reached out, touched her. The contact was familiar. He should have known. He dragged a blunt finger over her cheek, slid along her jawline, then up to the corner of her mouth. Pressed inside, drew moisture out and would have rubbed it against her lower lip if she hadn’t twisted away.
“Bastard.”
“Come up with something new.”
She hesitated, then said words so familiar because she’d said them to him before, centuries ago. “I hate you, Christan.”
He answered with familiar words of his own. “And it’s so easy to do.”
There was a beat, the hesitation before the guillotine descends. A memory. An ending, fading into an inevitable conclusion. Christan thought something broke inside, felt a pain swallowed into emptiness as he lifted his hand. Arsen’s red Hawaiian shirt became a blur as the warrior moved. A palm connected solidly against Christan’s shoulder.
“Don’t.”
“Shut up, Arsen.” The utter lack of emotion would have been chilling if Christan realized it was there.
“Do not do this,” Arsen repeated, while Robbie grew tense. “Give her a chance, Christan. Give yourself a chance.”
“Fuck that.” He’d made the decision when he’d watched Kace touch her face. This woman had betrayed herself. If she wanted to be free of him, he would accommodate her, if only to see what she would do.
Energy coalesced into a one word and Christan slammed it into her mind. The force was stunning and totally unnecessary. With a second burst of telepathic power he pushed past her psychic defenses. Satisfaction curled like hot blood in his throat and he watched what was happening. Knew the magic was forming into alien symbols of red and black and bronze. Paper-dry whispers would assault her and the swirling images would settle like living things as the magic took hold. It was perhaps the most unreasonably reckless thing Christan had ever done in his long, long life and he didn’t care.
Robbie pushed a hand through his hair. Arsen’s jaw clenched until the muscle bunched.
Lexi sank down onto the ground and pressed her forehead to her knees.
Christan looked at her, then turned and walked away.