Only nothingness…
One
“Don’t touch it, Mariah.”
With dexterous skill bred from close shaves all over the globe, Mariah Hunter pocketed the stone she’d spent the last half hour digging out of the craggy earth and traded it for the Walther P38 pistol she’d bought in a Berlin pawnshop. The warning had come from the last person she’d wanted to catch up to her. And considering the dangerous and desperate people who were currently on her trail even in the middle of this godforsaken wasteland, that was saying a lot.
Bending her knee to cover the gaping hole in the ground, Mariah stood, then slid her boot directly over the spot where she’d found the stone. Ben Rousseau couldn’t see that his warning had come too late. She hadn’t had a chance to notice anything about the rock other than a glossy red shine in one corner and the odd markings carved along the edges, but the find must be valuable or Ben wouldn’t have taken a chance with a confrontation.
He held his open palms at shoulder height. “I’m not armed.”
“Then you’re an idiot,” Mariah replied, flipping off the Walther’s safety. She spared a split-second glance at the thick trees directly behind him. The massive pines curved around the tight, oblong clearing. She saw no sign that Ben had brought anyone with him, but she couldn’t imagine that her former lover had come after her without backup. At the very least, she expected that Catalina Reyes, the paranormal researcher who’d been sharing Ben’s bed for the last year, was out there somewhere, probably training a rifle sight on her while Ben attempted to sweet-talk Mariah out of her hard-earned treasure.
Mariah hoped Cat remembered that she owed Mariah a favor. Mariah had used her aviation contacts to track down some dodgy collector threatening to swipe some Gypsy artifact out from under Ben and Cat.
Ben took a step forward, but Mariah stopped him with a shot that missed his big toe by a quarter inch. He jumped back and cursed, just as Mariah dropped and rolled, bouncing back to her feet with her gun steady.
Maybe Cat isn’t here
.
“Hey! I said I was unarmed,” Ben shouted, side-stepping to the left, arms out, instinctively protective of someone hidden behind him.
Or maybe she is.
“I beat you to this dig, Rousseau. Finders keepers. Back off now, while you still have all your body parts.”
Ben’s gaze dropped slyly to his crotch. Maybe he wasn’t as clueless as she remembered. He’d zeroed in on precisely where she might have shot him ten years ago, after their disastrous relationship and fiery breakup. Now she had no desire to hurt him. She simply wanted to keep what was hers.
Though he didn’t lower his hands, Ben’s posture relaxed and his mouth curved into an infuriatingly lazy grin. “Threats, Mariah? I’m just trying to keep you from falling into a quagmire of trouble you really don’t want right now. From what I’m hearing, you have enough on your plate.”
He wasn’t talking out of his arse on that, was he? If not for the aforementioned
quagmire
of trouble, she wouldn’t be in this godforsaken wasteland digging up rocks and threatening an ex-boyfriend with a gun.
“Listen to the bloody professor,” she said haughtily, stepping back and to the right, lining up her body to make the quickest escape. “And whatever trouble I’m in, I’ll get out without any help from you. I always have. You may have lost your nerve for the antiquities game, but I haven’t.”
“Some artifacts are worth coming out of retirement for,” he replied, with an annoying hint of cockiness that contradicted his current situation. The man never did know when an ounce of humility would do him good.
“But this place,” he explained, “it’s cursed, Mariah.”
“So was that cave near the Oasis at Dakhla. That didn’t stop either one of us from scooping up the statue of Sekhmet and selling it to the collector in Yemen.”
“This is different. Trust me—”
She snorted. “Trust
you
?”
“Anything taken from this area,” he continued, ignoring her justified doubts, “could contain very powerful black magic. There are some really dangerous—”
Mariah laughed. She couldn’t imagine for one minute that Ben thought his warning would scare her off. Not after all they’d seen together. Not after all they’d survived.
“This isn’t funny,” he insisted.
She raised the gun to his chest. “Look, after what I’ve been through, I take my laughs where I can get them. Now pipe down. I thought I heard something.”
The wind, sharp with an icy nip, whistled through the pines. Tucked in a corner of Germany still relatively undeveloped and surprisingly wild, the area had been dubbed Valoren, which the locals told her translated loosely into “land of the lost.” Made perfect sense. From the sharp, jutting ridges of the mountains that surrounded them to the mossy soil beneath their feet, the area was a perfect place to hide treasures like the cricket ball–size stone she now had in her pocket.
Under the circumstances, she didn’t imagine that Ben would tell her why this stone—or whatever else she might have found here—was so sought-after. Even the people she’d met in the nearby village had been perplexed by the recent interest in their undeveloped corner of the world. As a result, the locals had become exceedingly suspicious. She’d considered it a major coup that she’d found a local artisan with Gypsy roots who’d provided a hand-drawn map.
“Look,” Mariah said reasonably, “like you’ve said, I’ve got troubles that have nothing to do with you. Once I pack up, I suggest you don’t follow me.”
“What makes you think you’re leaving?”
“Who’s going to stop me, you?”
Mariah fired the weapon again, missing Ben purposely and splintering the trunk of a nearby tree to his right.
Ben spun and started toward the trees on the left, giving Mariah the chance she needed.
She sprinted into the tangled forest. Behind her, Ben shouted for her to stop. She didn’t look back, but focused on leaping over rocks, ducking behind boulders and sliding over fallen tree trunks. Finally she spilled out onto the path where she’d stored her transportation—a dirt bike she’d bartered for in the village. It wasn’t pretty and it was as loud as a cyclone, but it would get her out of there in a hurry.
She rode for nearly a quarter of a mile before her pursuers caught up, roaring behind her in an open-topped Jeep. With a curse, Mariah leaned forward, downshifted and swerved off the road, sending dirt and gravel flying. She preferred air travel to ground, but she’d scoped out the area well enough to map a few escape routes. Behind her, the Jeep’s horn honked. Did they really expect her to stop?
She careened around an outcropping of boulders and under a canopy of trees that would lead to a river if she could avoid dropping over any of the cliffs that dotted this region. The overhang threw her into shadows. She could hear nothing but the roar of the bike’s engine, the kick of the rocks beneath her wheels and the thumping of her heartbeat in her ears.
The path narrowed, forcing her to either slow down or crash. She cursed, wondering yet again why she’d come here. The whole operation had been a lark—a spontaneous grab at an opportunity that might have gotten her arse out of the proverbial sling. She’d jumped at the chance to beat her former lover to a valuable piece of history, which she planned to sell to pay off her debt to a certain collector who wasn’t above having her legs broken if she disappointed him a second time. Last month’s failed Mayan operation would have been her largest score in years, but she’d had to dump the coins in the Chiapas jungle rather than risk arrest by the Mexican police. Trouble was, the tracking device she’d attached to the treasure before she tossed it wasn’t working. Now, the collector wanted either the coins or the cash he’d paid her up front to facilitate her operation.
She had neither.
But she had the bloody stone. She could only hope that Ben’s persistence meant the thing was valuable enough to buy her out of this mess.
Distracted by her worries, she hit a root at top speed and nearly flew over the handlebars. She corrected, scattering twigs, leaves and dirt behind her, but avoided running into a tree and kept the bike upright. The forest undergrowth was too thick for her to continue. She should have chosen another route.
Damn
. She stopped, fighting to catch her breath as she powered down the engine and listened for her pursuers.
She didn’t have to listen long. They were getting closer.
She might have offered to sell the stone to Ben right there, but she had no way of knowing a fair price until she’d examined the find more closely. She patted her jacket, surprised that the spot where she’d stashed the rock was warm. Without time to wonder about the phenomenon, she hid the bike behind a thick oak, grabbed her dilly bag and crashed deeper into the brush on foot. She’d find a hidey-hole until they gave up, then make her way back to the bike and hightail it to the next village before trading up to a car that would carry her to the nearest airstrip.
She tried to find a balance between speed and stealth. Spying a narrow ledge she guessed might lead her to a lookout, Mariah moved carefully along the edge, digging her fingers into the mossy rocks for handholds. When the flat rock beneath her feet curved around an outcropping above a deep ravine, she stopped. Being a pilot, she wasn’t afraid of heights, but her many talents did not extend to mountaineering.
She cursed. She’d have to go back down and find another route. But in her hurry to change directions, her ankle twisted and she lost her footing. When she tried to recover, she found nothing beneath her. Nothing but air.
***
The
gadje
woman was going to get herself killed.
Infuriated, Rafe Forsyth tried to tune out the woman’s emotions. For years he’d existed in peace. Centuries. His entrapment within the stone had not, until now, included experiencing the feelings of others as he had so naturally in life. Unpracticed at bearing the onslaught of emotions after all this time, he could not tune her out. Despite his efforts to remain alone, he could not ignore the warmth of her flesh so near his, could not resist reacting when a jolt of fear shot into his soul like a scalding blade.
Suddenly the ground beneath them disappeared. Her terror spiked, and the image of an impending plummet caused him to yell out the Romani word for “fly.” A sensation of weightlessness suddenly surrounded him, surrounded her. Movement, sleek and swift, like a bird, propelled them forward. Then her fear gave way to surprise and, a second after her feet gently touched the ground, relief.
He saw none of this, but he sensed it. Sensed it all.
“What the bloody hell?” she said, her voice muffled even as she dug into her pocket. He heard the rustle of fabric, and then a yank of limitless force grabbed at his middle and pulled. She’d wrapped her hand completely around the stone that contained him, and instantly he was injected with an essence of woman that stirred his blood. Spiked his awareness. Tempted him to sin.
Concentrating, he fought the wrench of the magic, the all-encompassing drag of the sorcery that had bound his soul to the stone for what he guessed had been hundreds of years. Rogan had not controlled him in life; nor would he now, despite Rafe’s entrapment by the curse.
How had this woman found him?
And why?
From the moment she’d brushed her fingers across the stone that had become his prison, the same dark magic that had entrapped him centuries ago awakened with full force. The urge to expand from the containment of the stone pounded at him, but he refused to succumb.
And yet now, in the open, with sunlight dappling across hair the color of rich mahogany, he couldn’t help breathing in the essence of this woman named Mariah. He sensed no fragrances except her own natural musk mixed with the fertile scent of the earth and the sweet smell of torn leaves. For an instant, before he saw her startled amber eyes and the pale arch of her cheek, he wondered if she might be Romani, like himself.
She turned the stone that contained him over in her palms, fascinated by what he imagined was the same fiery glow that had drawn him to the marker so long ago. He pushed the memory aside and concentrated on the woman holding him, examining him, her entire being seized by a boundless curiosity unlike any he’d ever experienced.
What was this stone? Had it given her the ability to fly and saved her from certain death? Was it magic? Or was it truly cursed?
He had no answers. Only regrets.
At the sound of distant voices, she released him. Sudden darkness engulfed him once more. An intense burst of energy told him she was again on the run.
This time she suppressed her fear with a thrill of adventure and a burst of confidence. The lure of her tugged at his core, but he fought. He had no desire to leave his prison.
No desire for anything but quiet. Peace. Solitude.
Forgetfulness.
Gifts he suspected he’d never experience as long as this woman possessed him.
Two
“What the hell just happened?”
Gemma crashed backward, colliding with a collection of dusty knickknacks that rained to the floor and shattered on impact. The sound magnified. She grabbed her temples and pressed hard, crouching into a ball as pain radiated throughout her body. She forced her eyes to squint open. She was still in the repository. She hadn’t left? Hadn’t actually traveled back to the past?
It had seemed so real.
She caught sight of Paschal splayed on the ground. She crawled across the floor and turned him over. In the uncertain light from the lantern, his skin resembled fine vellum—thick, but translucent. The dark rings beneath his eyes looked nearly black against his ashen complexion. His mouth, parted slightly, was ringed in blue. Was he dying or already dead?
She pressed her cheek to his chest and tried to distinguish the throbbing in her brain from the beating of his heart. He was still alive. Which was good, because when he came to, she was going to kill him.
“Paschal! Wake up. What just happened?.”
His eyes fluttered but didn’t open. His groan sounded dry and weak.
Visions of her father crushed her with an emotional weight she had worked hard never to bear again. A lifetime clinging to dreams of limitless magic could not save him from mortality. Instead, he died, his beloved organization in disarray, his children pitted against each other in a battle for supremacy, and now, his daughter making pacts with the enemy to regain her family’s once-precious status.