With her army surrounding her, she started walking toward the entrance to the pass.
Chapter 23
T
he last rays of sunlight illuminated a long, dark limousine sitting just outside the pass, and as soon as she saw it, Tina ordered the driver to stop.
“Wait here,” she told the men, and glanced at Walker, who was still unconscious. “Get a dressing on that chest wound. I need this one alive.”
She checked the front of her jacket and composed her expression before she got out. Taske’s size mildly surprised her, as did his hobbling gait, but she kept her smile cool and impersonal.
“Samuel, you’re early.” She weighed one million dollars against the gun she was holding ready inside her jacket, and reluctantly slid the gun into her shoulder holster. “I was just about to call you.”
He stopped several yards away and looked past her. “That’s odd. I was under the distinct impression that you were fleeing the scene.” He lifted the briefcase he was carrying. “For convenience’s sake I bought the additional payment with me. Where is Lilah Devereaux?”
“She’s waiting for you just inside the pass.” She gestured toward the town. “I’m afraid we encountered some resistance from the locals, and had to retreat. Since she’s your friend, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble convincing her to go with you.” She closed the gap between them, stopping only when Taske removed his gloves. “What are you doing?”
“You’ve done an excellent job. I congratulate you.” He held out his hand.
She wasn’t removing her gloves, but saw no reason not to shake with the man who was about to make her a million dollars richer. “I’m glad it all worked out.”
Taske’s face whitened as his hand clenched over hers and then dropped it like a snake. “You shot her.”
“Yes, Samuel, I confess, I did.” She yanked the briefcase out of his hand and drew her gun. “Unfortunately, now I have to do the same to you.”
“That didn’t work out so well for you the last time,” a woman drawled, and Tina turned her head to see the bitch from the park, taking practice swings with her battered bat. When she fired at her, she only smiled. “And oh, dear, you still haven’t a fucking clue. Maybe you need a poem to help you remember: Sticks and stones won’t break her bones, and bullets will never hurt her.”
The fair-haired man from the park strode past Tina, knocking aside her men as he went to the SUV and looked inside. “He’s not in here.”
The white-haired woman gave her an annoyed look. “What did you do with him?”
“What?” Tina turned around in time to see the black streak of motion coming at her, and then it was on top of her, its claws tearing into her shoulders, its fangs an inch from her face.
She screamed.
“Nicola!”
“I got this.” Nick swung her bat, knocking the rogue off the woman and stepping over her cringing form as she reversed the swing and smashed it into his snarling face.
Putting all her Darkyn strength behind the bat threw the beast thirty feet away, but when it landed, it only scrambled to its feet and started limping toward Nick again.
“Huh. Maybe there’s something to the sword approach.” She drew her dagger, and then almost dropped it as a cougar and a bear joined the rogue. “What the hell?” She turned her head to see Gabriel fighting off a pair of wild dogs.
Taske’s driver grabbed her from behind. “In the car, miss. Please.” He hauled her over to the limo, shoved her in the front seat, and climbed in behind her. As soon as he closed the door, a bear slammed headfirst into it.
“Get to Gabriel,” Nick told the driver, and pointed through the chaos. Findley stepped on the gas as she held on to the door handle, flinging it open as soon as the limo reached him. A small herd of hissing house cats landed on the hood of the limo as she pulled Gabriel in, and reached past him to slam the door shut. “Go, James, go.”
“Turn off into the pass,” Taske said from the backseat.
Nick turned around. “You know anything about this
Wild Kingdom
stuff, Sasquatch?”
“No. At least, I don’t think she could . . . ” He broke off as he saw something. “Lilah. There she is. James, do you see her?”
“Got her, sir.” Findley spun the wheel and headed for a woman standing in the center of a mass of animals.
None of the critters were attacking the woman, Nick noticed, and in fact all of them seemed to be holding protective positions, as if they were guarding her. “Gabriel, is there a Kyn who can do your thing but with animals?”
Gabriel’s eyes glowed briefly. “She is not Kyn.” He grimaced, rubbing his temple. “She is also not human.”
“How do you know that?” Taske demanded.
“My talent allows me to command the insect world,” Gabriel said. “These animals all carry some parasites on or inside their bodies. They are trapped now, unable to free their hosts from her command.”
“She’s doing this?” Nick whistled. “Sasquatch, I don’t think I’d try an apology. You might just want to run. Far, far away.”
Gabriel touched her arm. “Look.”
Nick saw another SUV screech to a stop in front of a group of huge predators. They spread out, surrounding the car as the woman walked toward the front of it. She glanced around, and the beasts collectively attacked the vehicle, ripping off doors and jerking out men, tossing them aside like rag dolls.
Findley slowed to a stop as the woman turned around and saw them, and the beasts gathered around her.
“Oh, shit,” Nick murmured. “You might want to put it in reverse now, James. Hey.” She saw Taske climbing out of the back, and swore. “That idiot, what is he doing?”
Before she could go after him, one of the beasts leapt at Samuel, swiping at him with its claws and tearing through his coat. Nick jumped out and ran, shoving the beast off Samuel and protecting him with her body.
“Nicola.” Gabriel came to her, holding off the beast with his sword, and then turned his head as another figure staggered toward Lilah Devereaux. “
Mon Dieu.
It’s him.”
He ignored the violence all around him as he kept his eyes locked on the glowing blaze of Lilah’s hair. As he came closer, he could see her eyes had turned a glacial blue, as if all the fire had been extinguished by the ice of her anger.
If he understood anything, it was the rage.
Someone called his name, the name he had almost forgotten, and it sounded so strange to his ears that he stopped and sought out the source.
“Guy of Guisbourne,” Gabriel Seran repeated. “Stay where you are.”
He glanced at Lilah, who looked back at him, her cold eyes filled with confusion. “I will not fight you, Seran. Only give me leave to bid my lady farewell.”
“Oh, so
now
he goes noble,” Seran’s white-haired companion muttered.
Gabriel looked from Guy to his woman, and nodded.
“Walker?” Lilah moved toward him as if in a dream, and then she was running, her hair streaming behind her like scarlet silk ribbons, and when he caught her, she uttered a raw, terrible sound, the sound of a heart breaking, the sound of a wounded animal. “You’re alive.”
“Hush.” He held her close, kissing her brow, her hair, every part of her face he could reach. “Lilah, I love you. I have loved you from the moment I looked into your eyes, and all I regret is that I was too much of a coward to tell you.”
Bewildered animals began to mill around them, slinking off into the trees, followed by the equally confused werebeasts.
“I knew you did. I could feel it.” She smiled up at him. “Took you long enough to tell me, though.”
“I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my life telling you,” he assured her, “but I must leave you now.”
“Leave me?”
“My people have laws,” he said softly. “Laws I have broken too often. Now the time has come that I must pay for my crimes. I am not afraid of death, Lilah. I am only sorry that I must leave you like this.”
“But you can’t.” Tears filled her eyes. “Walker—Guy—don’t you remember? Where you go, I go.”
“I will be waiting for you, my heart. I swear it.” He kissed her brow, and then turned to look at Gabriel. “My lord, please let her be taken away now.”
Ethan and Nathan Jemmet joined them, and Nathan picked up Samuel as if he weighed nothing. “I’ll take him to Dad,” he told his brother.
Ethan nodded and, after exchanging a glance with Guy, put his arm around Lilah. “Come on, honey. Let’s go back to town.”
Guy kissed her one last time, and then walked over and knelt in front of Gabriel.
When Gabriel drew his sword from the sheath on his back, Guy heard a scuffle, and glanced back to see Ethan sprawled on the ground and Lilah marching toward him. She knelt on the ground beside him, seizing his hand and snapping Ethan’s handcuffs around his wrist. Before he could stop her, she snapped the other side around her own.
“You have to kill me, too,” she said, brushing her hair back from her neck.
“Mademoiselle, you are not Kyn,” Gabriel said kindly. “I am not permitted to kill humans.”
“Then you might want to see this, lover.” Gabriel’s
sygkenis
tore open Guy’s shirt, revealing the chest wound that was still bleeding. To Guy, she said, “Open your mouth.” When he did, she angled his head back and made a
tsk
ing sound. “His wounds are open and his palate is closed.” She sniffed him. “He smells nice, but he’s not Kyn.”
Gabriel lowered his sword. “Nicola, we both know this is Guy of Guisbourne.”
“Do we? He looks a little like him around the eyes, but Guy was nowhere near this big.” She gave his shoulder a friendly slap. “I’d say he has a good fifty, sixty pounds on Guy. Add that to the still-bleeding wound and the lack of fangs, and I think you get a human, right?”
“Miss Jefferson.” Guy wasn’t sure what to say. “I am not a coward.”
“See, that proves it.” Nick wagged her finger at him. “Everyone knows what a horrible, selfish, cowardly coldhearted bastard Guisbourne was. You, you’re kissing a girl and telling her you love her and spouting all kinds of mushy stuff. You’re crawling with human cooties.” She turned to Gabriel. “Well, my lover? What do you think?”
“I think you may be right,” Gabriel said, and frowned at Guy. “What did you say your name was, human?”
“It’s Devereaux,” Lilah said quickly. “First name, ah, to be decided at a later date.”
Guy turned to her. “You would give me your name?”
“Why not?” She grinned, lifting their arms and rattling the chain between their handcuffs. “I am very attached to you.”
Still not completely convinced of his reprieve, Guy looked at the Darkyn lord and his lady. “What will you tell Richard?”
“The truth,” Nicola said. “Guy of Guisbourne is dead, the weather in Denver sucks, and small-town America is a lot livelier than I expected.” She glanced at the men lying in the road. “Now let’s see how many survivors we’re going to have to brainwash before we get out of here.”
Guy stood, and took Lilah in his arms. “I owe you my life.”
She kissed him. “Then spend the rest of it with me.”
Ethan and the townspeople began the cleanup almost immediately, but when Guy and Lilah came to help, the sheriff sent them to his office.
“Just to be on the safe side, you two should stay out of sight,” he said as he handed off one of the injured to his brother. “These people might have backup coming to see what’s taking them so long.” He nodded toward several burned bodies. “We’ll tell them that you were caught in the fire.”
Guy knew Lilah had questions, but when they reached the sheriff’s office, she simply led him into the back room and sat down with him on the cot there, wrapping her arms around him and resting against him as if that was all that mattered.
Hopefully it was, he thought as he set her away. “I wanted to tell you who I was before this. I should have told you, that first night.”
“I kept things from you, too,” she reminded him. “The past doesn’t matter to me. I know who you are.”
“You may change your mind.” He took her hand in his. “There is no place for secrets between us anymore.”
She nodded. “Then tell me everything.”
In the beginning telling her of his life as Guy of Guisbourne made him feel as if he were skinning himself alive. He forced out the story of his human life in England, and how he had fallen in love at first sight with Marian, the serenely beautiful daughter of one of his father’s allies. He told her of his cousin, Robin of Locksley, Marian’s childhood friend, and how violently he had reacted when he had learned of the betrothal Guy had forced on her.
“We both loved her, perhaps beyond reason, but in her heart there was room only for her devotion to Christ.” After centuries of denying it, he could say it now. “I refused to release her, so Robin stole her away on our wedding night, and I went mad.”
He described the frantic months he had spent searching for Marian, and the vengeance he had taken on Robin. Then the dull, gray years he had spent alone, bitter and uncaring, the plague that had taken him and transformed him into one of the dark kyn, and how his mother had used it to imprison him.