4

Devlin stared across the dark street at the woman, seeing the brilliance of dark emerald green eyes, the thick silk of moonlit white-blonde hair, the pure perfection of classical elegance in the delicate features of her face. The crystal that lay at her breast was worn with grace, with a familiarity that proclaimed her the owner of it. Yet, she was nothing like she had been.

She was dressed in jeans, torn and ragged, smeared with blood. The large man’s shirt of dark gray cotton hung on her slight frame. A black baseball cap was pulled over her hair, tendrils of the white silk laying along her neck. She was sweat-dampened, her delicate features streaked with dust, her eyes large and brilliant with fear and pain. At the moment, plastered against the shadowed wall of the cement house, she watched the deserted street suspiciously, her body poised for flight, yet gracefully still as she waited. She knew she was being watched. His lips tilted in a mocking smile as her gaze met his, yet he knew she could not see him, his powers kept him invisible, a part of the shadows, yet he could see her as clear as daylight. She trembled, from the cold, and from fear. The desert was not a friendly place, neither during the night, nor the day. And this forgotten village was the least of hospitable places.

“She knows we’re here.” He spoke softly into the communications unit attached to his head. “She hasn’t seen me, but she’s aware.”

His eyes narrowed as he watched her. He could almost see the fear shimmering along her body. Fear and courage.

Devlin listened intently as each of the three men who fought with him verified their positions around her. They had been searching for her for days, knowing her general location, but unable to get an exact bearing on her until that night. He shied away from looking too deeply into how he had managed to do it. As though by instinct, his gifts had honed in on her and the low vibration of mystical power her crystal held. In that moment, a bond he could not deny had seared his soul.

Shadows he had been unaware of within his own mind began to shift and coalesce. As though knowledge that had been previously hidden from him was now fighting to be revealed.

She held the powerful automatic rifle loosely in her hands, braced against her chest as she breathed roughly. She had been traveling at night only, hiding through the day, fighting to escape the area she had become trapped within. He could feel her frustration, her sense of helplessness.

Chantel. The name whispered through his mind. He had not known of her rebirth. Had been unaware of the crystal’s resurrection until her brother had called. It was then that Devlin had learned of a friend’s deception and a father’s betrayal. He had been shown once again that no bond was secure, and that saving a life meant nothing in the grand scheme of power and games that existed in his world. Chantel. Was she Antea reborn? He stared at her, seeing the resemblance, yet sensing the difference. A difference reinforced by the hardness of his engorged cock, the steadily rising lust that flowed through his body. He had never desired Antea. Her very scent had often made him ill, staring into her face caused black rage to engulf him. Staring at this woman caused him to hunger as he could never remember hungering before. A greedy need to touch, to taste, to consume the passion he knew would fill her small body.

He smiled in anticipation of the coming battle. As though she glimpsed the movement, her body stiffened. Her finger lay ready on the trigger of her rifle, and he watched as she took a deep breath, her head falling back against the cold stone wall. And it was then he saw her tears. A slow shimmering trail along her cheeks before she wiped them dry with the sleeve of her shirt.

She bit her lower lip, and began to move.

“Clear her way. We want her out of town before we show ourselves to her. Let’s do this discreetly,” Devlin warned the others.

He followed her, his movements flowing from shadow to shadow, a part of the night, blending into the dark. She glanced behind her often. Stopping, hiding, aware that she was being followed, confused by the fact that no one had approached her, that no shots had shattered the stillness of the night. No cries of alarm had warned the soldiers that paced the town of her movements.

She would be aware that she herself had passed no soldiers. She would be confused, he thought, fighting to figure out why. Unaware that there were those ahead of her directing the movements of anyone who would stand in her way. He was anticipating the coming confrontation with her. Awaiting it with a sense of impatience and building desire. She wouldn’t come with him easily, he knew. Distrust would be a part of her. After all, her father had betrayed her. Who else could she trust if not him?

Yet, she would come with him. She would eventually trust him, and he assured himself, she would scream in abandon beneath his body, begging for his touch as she had in his dreams. She was his, and soon she would realize it.

* * * * *

She was being followed. Chantel stopped once again, holding herself deep within the shadows of a silent home, listening intently. She could hear the wind, the echo of voices several streets over as one guard called to another, but nothing else. At her breast, the crystal she had stolen the past week hummed with a joyful vibration. A warmth, a resonating power that filled her, invigorated her, terrified her.

She had known the moment she had received the file on the mysterious necklace that it was hers. A part of her dreams. A part of her destiny. But was that destiny the passion and need with the haunting dream lover that invaded her dreams? Or was it her death in a cold stone room as he bent over her, screaming out her name?

Chantel. She fought the whisper that seemed to echo through the night. She wiped at her cheeks once again, furious with herself for the tears that escaped. She had to find her way out before she was seen, before she gave in to the helplessness filling her. There was no time to stop and cry. God help her if Jonar caught her now. She shuddered in fear at that thought, the memory of that stone room and her own blood playing out in her mind. Escaping him had been hell. Her father’s refusal to send her help had done little to give her hope. The night she had spent in that cold little room awaiting Jonar’s arrival, praying for rescue, had been a nightmare. Escaping from it had been a miracle.

She rubbed her thigh, trying to ignore the pain from the knife wound the guard had managed to deliver. A guard that would never torture another woman, she assured herself coldly. The bastard was resting in hell now, his own knife buried in his chest. His blood still coating her hands.

A wracking chill attacked her at the memory of it. She fingered the trigger of the rifle and moved again. The sun would be up soon, and she would have to hide during the sunlit hours. She had little hope of surviving this mission. Her only prayer was that the desert stole her life, rather than the hell she knew Jonar had in store for her. She eased from the wall and began to make her way slowly along the edge of the deserted street. She was careful to stay in the shadows of the silent homes, to be quiet, to blend into the night. She was extremely careful to heed the pulse of the crystal. A wrong turn and its heat would intensify. The right turn and a gentle, comforting warmth would fill her. She was heading out of town, staying on the back streets, and moving closer to the inhospitable emptiness of the desert beyond. She would have preferred to steal a vehicle, but in the silence of the night, and with martial law in effect, she knew she would never escape with it. Her best bet was the canteen of water strapped to her hip and a prayer that she could reach another town soon, one she could find help in. Sure as hell there was no help to be found here. Chantel glanced behind her once again. Her skin prickled in awareness, though the crystal hadn’t warned her of danger. She was being watched, followed with calculated interest. Something or someone had been trailing her all night, but had yet to show themselves. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to catch sight of them.

She was almost clear. If she moved from the protection of the house, then she was entering the desert. A vast sea of sand and body-chilling night temperatures. Blistering heat during the day. She took a deep breath as the warmth intensified at her breast. Time to move. She was insane to obey a piece of rock.

Keeping as low as she could, she moved from the shelter of the house and entered the desert. The waist-high dunes cast enough shadow in the dimness of the cloudy night to allow her to slip unseen from the town. She was careful to keep the rough highway in sight though, knowing it had to lead somewhere, rather than allowing herself to become lost in the desert around her.

When the few lights that still glimmered within the town behind her could no longer be seen, she collapsed at the base of one of the dunes. A quick drink, not much. She probed at the wound on her thigh, thankful that the bleeding was minimal considering her exertion. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for just a second.

“Bad place to rest, darling.” Her eyes flew open.

She didn’t scream. There was no breath to scream as the rifle was pulled unceremoniously from her hands. There was only reaction. She kicked up, catching him off balance as her foot met his lower abdomen. He grunted and went backwards. She was on her feet, running. The rifle was lost. Her only chance was flight. Within seconds a heavy manacle wrapped around her waist, pulling her to a stop as her legs tangled instinctively with those behind her. Another male grunt sounded as they went down, then a chuckle as she tried to ram her elbow into the hard stomach behind her. Before she could react, before she could do more than scream in throttled rage, he had her pinned beneath him. Her arms were stretched above her head while long, thickly muscled thighs enclosed her in a grip that had searing agony racing through her wound.

Within seconds he shifted again, his legs clamped at her knees, as though his last thought was that of hurting her.

“Damn, she’s a wildcat this time, Shadow,” another voice spoke from behind him.

“I don’t remember Antea fighting when held beneath a man’s body.”

She struggled furiously as that hated name echoed in her mind.

“Bastards!” she yelled furiously. “I’m not Antea. Do you morons have sand for brains?”

How many times had she screamed that denial at her tormentors as they held her?

How many denials did it take before a moron could see sense?

“Easy, baby.” Dark, amused, the man who held her down sounded more gentle than tormenting. “We’re here to help you, Chantel. Not to hurt you.”

She stilled her struggles. Yeah, she thought, like she believed that one. She licked her dry lips nervously, waiting.

“Then get off me,” she suggested hoarsely. “You’re hurting me.”

Her eyes widened as the clouds above her shifted. The moon shone down on them all then, and she was given a glimpse of the man holding himself carefully above her. Midnight black eyes burned with purpose. Long, shaggy black hair fell over his aristocratic features. The hilt of a sword could be seen behind his left shoulder, the belt of the scabbard crossing his hard, muscular chest.

“Welcome back, Chantel,” he greeted her, his voice formal with only a hint of deepening lust. “It’s a pleasure to have you beneath me once again.”

His thighs loosened at her knees as shock filled her system. Terror swept over her in varying degrees. Her knees rose forcefully, intending to connect between his thighs with a force that should have pushed his balls into his throat. Instead he shifted at the last minute, his hard thigh taking the brunt of the blow as she scrambled to her feet, half crawling as she fought to escape the vision that should not have been there. If it was a nightmare, then at least she would wake up, she assured herself. Instead, she found herself pushed into the sand, the heavy weight holding her down effortlessly as hard hips pressed into her buttocks. A scream of outrage escaped her lips as she felt his cock; a hard, engorged length of heat pressing against the crevice of her buttocks through her jeans and his pants.

“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” he informed her, his voice steel hard, indicating that either way, it would be his way. “You can stop this fighting and listen to reason, or I can carry you kicking and screaming through the desert. But be warned, it’s been a hell of a long time since I’ve had a woman, and every time you wiggle that tight ass against me, it just makes me want to fuck it more. Now settle the hell down.”

She stilled, breathing hard, gasping as his lips caressed the shell of her ear as he spoke.

“Now, all shit aside, you’re in a hell of a mess, baby,” he continued. “And I’m your only way out. Do you want to continue fighting me, or are you ready to listen to reason?”