In Other Worlds

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  and his clothes torn. "You look like hell."

  "Yeah, well, it's hard to look good when you're being tortured."

  Sebastian knew that firsthand. "You escaped?"

  He nodded. "Where's the tapestry?"

  "It's safe."

  Damos locked gazes with him. "Were you really going to trade it for me?"

  "I brought it here, didn't I?"

  Tears gathered in Damos's eyes as he looked at him. "I am so sorry for what I did to you."

  Sebastian was stunned. So, Damos did know what an apology was.

  "The Katagaria told me what happened that day, how they tricked you." Damos placed his hand against the scar on Sebastian's neck that Sebastian had received while trying to save Antiphone's life. "I can't believe you survived them. And I can't believe you did this for me."

  "Not like I had anything better to do."

  Damos hissed and placed his hand to his eyes. "Those damned feelers. They're trying to find me."

  Sebastian went cold. Without his powers, he couldn't sense the feelers, but if they were sending them out for Damos, then they would find . . .

  Channon!

  His heart pounding, he ran for the hall.

  Channon wished she had her notepad to take notes on everything she saw. This was just incredible!

  Enchanted, she walked idly past the stalls and huts, looking inside to see families eating and spending the evening together.

  "You look lost."

  She turned at the voice behind her. There were three men there, handsome all and quite tall. "Not lost," she offered. "Just out for a bit of fresh air."

  The blond man appeared to be the leader of the small group. "You know, that can be quite dangerous for a woman alone."

  Channon frowned as a wave of panic washed over her. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Tell me, Acmenes." The blond spoke to the tall brunet beside him. "Why do you think an Arcadian would bring a human woman through time?"

  Panic gone, sheer terror set in, especially since the man was speaking in modern English. She tried to head back to Sebastian, but the third man caught her. He grabbed her right hand and showed it to his friends. "Because she's his mate."

  The one called Acmenes laughed. "How precious is this? An Arcadian with a human dragonswan."

  "No," the brunet said, "it's better. A lone Sentinel with a human mate."

  They laughed cruelly.

  Channon glared. She might look harmless, but she'd been on her own for quite some time, and as a woman alone, she'd learned a few things.

  Tae Kwon Do was one of them. She caught the man holding her with her elbow and twisted out of his grasp. Before the others could reach her, she ran for the hall. Unfortunately, the Katagaria moved a lot faster than she did and they grabbed her before she could reach it.

  "Let her go." Sebastian's voice rolled across the yard like dangerous thunder as he unsheathed his sword.

  "Oh no," Acmenes said sarcastically. "This is the best of all. A Sentinel who has lost his powers."

  Channon's heart clenched at their words.

  Sebastian's smile was taunting, wicked. "I don't need my powers to defeat you."

  Before she could blink, the Katagaria attacked Sebastian.

  "Run, Channon," Sebastian said as he delivered a staggering blow to the first one who reached him. Channon didn't go far. She couldn't leave him to fight the men alone. Not that he appeared to need Page 110

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  any help. She watched as they attacked him at once and he deftly knocked them back.

  "Um, Acmenes," the youngest Katagari said as he picked himself up from the ground and panted. "He

  's kicking our butts."

  Acmenes laughed. "Only in human form."

  In a brilliant flash, Acmenes transformed into a dragon. The crowd that had gathered at the start of the fight shrieked and ran chaotically for shelter.

  Channon stumbled back.

  Standing at least twenty feet high, Acmenes was a terrifying sight. His green and orange scales shimmered in the fading daylight while his blue wings flapped. He slung his spiked tail around, but Sebastian flipped out of the way.

  The other two flashed into dragon form.

  Sebastian held his sword tightly in his hands as he faced them. Even if he still held his powers unsevered, he wouldn't have been able to transform. Not while in the middle of a human village. It was forbidden.

  Damn you, Fates.

  "What's the matter, Kattalakis?" Acmenes asked. "Won't you breech your oath to protect your humans?"

  Bracis laughed. "He can't, brother, his powers are too fragmented. He's powerless to stop us."

  Acmenes shook his large, scaled head and sighed. "This is so anticlimactic. All these years you've chased us, and now . . ." He tsk ed. "To comfort you as you die, Sebastian, know that your dragonswan will be as well used by all of us as your sister was."

  Raw agony ripped through Sebastian.

  Over and over, he saw his sister's face and felt her blood on his skin as he held her lifeless body in his arms and wept.

  "Kill him," Acmenes said. Then he turned toward Channon.

  The dragon beast inside Sebastian roared with needful vengeance. He'd been unable to save Antiphone, but he would never let Channon die. Not like that.

  Ceding his humanity, he let loose his shields. His change came so swiftly that he didn't even feel it. All he felt was the love in his heart for his mate, the animal desperation to keep her safe regardless of law or sense.

  Channon froze at the sight of Sebastian's dragon form. The same height as Acmenes, his scales were bloodred and black. He looked like some fierce, terrifying menace, and she searched for something to remind her of the man he'd been two seconds ago.

  She found none of him.

  What she did see terrified her.

  Acmenes swung about to face Sebastian as he savagely attacked the other two dragons. Fire shot through the village as they fought like the primeval beasts they were. Then, to her horror, she saw Sebastian kill the dragon on his left with one sharp bite. The one on his right stumbled away from him in wounded pain, then took to the skies. Acmenes reached for her, but Sebastian tackled him. The force of them hitting the ground shook it. They fought like men, slugging at each other, and yet like dragons, as their tails coiled and moved trying to sting one another.

  She cringed as both dragons were wounded countless times by their fighting, but neither would pull back. She'd never seen anything like it. They were locked in the throes of a blood feud. Acmenes hefted his body and threw Sebastian over his head, then rolled to his monstrous feet. He stumbled as he tried to reach the sky, but before he could leap, Sebastian caught him through the heart with his tail.

  "Dragon!"

  Now armed and prepared, the men of the village came running back to do damage to the creatures who had invaded them.

  At first Channon thought they came to help Sebastian, until she realized that they intended to attack Page 111

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  him.

  Without thought, she went to him. "Run, Sebastian," she said.

  He didn't. He turned on her with frightening eyes, and in that moment she realized the man she knew was not in that body.

  The dragon snarled at her as the crowd attacked him. Throwing his head back, he shrieked. To her shock, he didn't attack the people.

  Instead, he grabbed her in his massive claw and took flight.

  Channon screamed as she watched the ground drift far away from her. She had no idea where he was taking her, but she didn't like this. Not even a little bit.

  "Sebastian?"

  Sebastian heard Channon's voice. But it came from a distance. He could only vaguely remember her. Vaguely recall . . .

  He shrieked as something
flew past his head. Looking behind him, he saw Bracis coming for them. And with the sight, his human memories came flooding back.

  "Sebastian, help us. We're trapped by the Slayers."

  "I can't, Percy. I can't leave Antiphone."

  "She's safe in the hills. We are in the open, unprotected. Please, Sebastian. I'm too young to die. Please don't let them kill me. I know you can beat them. Please, please help me."

  And so he had heeded the mental distress call and gone to protect his young cousin and brother, never knowing Percy's cry for help had been a trick, never knowing that Percy had deliberately summoned him from the cave.

  He'd found his cousin barely alive and learned too late they had forced Percy to call for him. By the time he'd returned to the cave where he'd left his sister hiding, the Slayers were gone. And so was his sister's life.

  Devastated on a level he'd never known existed, he'd refused to speak up in his own defense when his people had banished him.

  He'd offered no argument at all against Damos's insults.

  He should never have left Antiphone unprotected.

  Now he looked at the woman he held cradled in his palm.

  Channon.

  The Fates had entrusted this woman to him, just as his brother had entrusted Antiphone to him. He would not let Bracis have her. This time, he would see her safe. No matter what it cost him, she would live.

  Sebastian headed for the forest.

  Channon held her breath as they landed on the ground in a small clearing.

  "Hide." The word seemed to sizzle out of Sebastian's dragon mouth. She went without question, running into the trees and underbrush, looking for someplace safe. The forest was so thick that she quickly lost sight of the dragons. But she could hear them as they fought. She could feel the ground under her shake.

  Grateful for the green dress, she found a clump of bushes and crawled into them to wait and to pray. Sebastian circled around Bracis, enjoying the moment, enjoying the feel of the dragon blood coursing through his veins. For two hundred and fifty years he had dreamed of this moment. He had dreamed of drinking from the fount of vengeance.

  Now the moment was upon him.

  Bracis was the last of the Slayers left from that day. One by one, Sebastian had hunted them all down. He had hunted them through time and even space itself.

  "Are you ready to die?" Sebastian asked his opponent.

  Bracis attacked. Sebastian caught him with his teeth and clamped down on the Katagari's shoulder. He tasted the blood of the beast as Bracis shredded at his back with his claws. Page 112

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  Sebastian barely felt it. But what he did feel was the fear inside Bracis. It swelled up with a pungent odor so foul that it made Sebastian laugh.

  "You may kill me," Bracis rasped. "But I'm taking you with me."

  Something stung Sebastian's shoulder. Snarling, he jerked his head around to see the dagger protruding from his back. But it wasn't the steel that stung; it was the poison that coated the blade. Dragon's Bane.

  Roaring from the pain of it, he turned back and finished Bracis off quickly by breaking his long, scaled neck.

  Sebastian stood over the body of his enemy, staring at it blankly. After all this time, he'd wanted more out of the kill. He'd expected it to release the agony in his heart, to relieve his guilt. It didn't.

  He felt nothing except disappointed by it. Cheated.

  No. In two hundred and fifty years only one thing had ever given him a moment's worth of peace. Suddenly, a scream tore through the woods.

  Channon.

  Sebastian reared up to his full twenty foot height, searching for her through the trees with his dragon sight and senses.

  He heard nothing more. His heart pounding, he ran for the woods where she'd vanished. With every step that closed the distance between them, all his feelings rushed through him. He relived every moment of Antiphone's death.

  The guilt, the fear, the raw agony.

  Under the onslaught of his human feelings, the dragon inside him receded again, leaving only the man. The man who had been crushed that day. The man who had sworn over his sister's grave to never let another person into his heart.

  The same man who had looked into a pair of crystal blue eyes over dinner one night and had seen a future inside them that he wanted to live. A future with laughter and love. One spent in quiet serenity with a woman standing beside him to keep him strong and grounded.

  Leaves and brambles tore at his flesh, but he paid no attention to them. Like Antiphone, he'd left Channon alone to face an untold nightmare. Left her to face . . .

  He came to a stop as he caught sight of her.

  Frowning, Sebastian struggled to breathe. His vision was so blurry from the poison that he wasn't sure he could trust it.

  He blinked and blinked again. And still it stayed before his eyes. Channon stood with a sword in her hand, and it was angled at Damos's throat.

  "Bas, would you please tell her I'm not a Katagari."

  Channon glanced over her shoulder to see Sebastian standing naked in the woods. Human once more, he was pale and covered in sweat.

  "Let him go."

  By the sound of Sebastian's voice, she knew the man she held hadn't been lying to her. He was one of the good guys.

  The instant she saw Sebastian stumble, she dropped the sword she'd taken from this stranger. Channon ran to his side. "Sebastian?"

  He was shaking in her arms. Together, they sank to the ground and she held his head in her lap.

  "I thought you were dead," he whispered, running his hand over her forearms. "I heard you scream."

  The man she'd cornered knelt beside them. "I startled her. I was trying to help you with Bracis. I sent out a feeler for your essence and it led me to her. You didn't tell me you were mated."

  Channon ignored the man as Sebastian's body temperature dropped alarmingly. Why was Sebastian trembling so? His wounds didn't look that severe. "Sebastian, what's wrong with you?"

  "Dragon's Bane."

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  Channon frowned as the man cursed. What was Dragon's Bane?

  "Sebastian," he said forcefully, taking Sebastian's face in his hands and forcing him to look up at him.

  "Don't you dare die on me. Damn you, fight this."

  "I'm already dead to you, Damos," he said, his voice ragged as he turned away from him. "You told me to die painfully."

  Sebastian closed his eyes.

  Channon saw the grief in Damos's eyes as her own tore through her. This couldn't be happening. She wanted to wake up.

  But it wasn't a nightmare; it was real.

  Damos looked at her, his greenish-gold eyes searing her with power and emotion. "He's going to die unless you help him."

  "What can I do?"

  "Give him a reason to live."

  Her hand started to tingle where the mark was. Channon scowled as it began to fade. "What the . . .

  ?"

  "We're losing him. When he dies, your mark will be gone, too."

  The reality of the moment hit her ferociously. Sebastian was going to die?

  No, it couldn't be.

  "Sebastian?" she said, shaking him. "Can you hear me?"

  He shifted ever so slightly in her arms.

  She wouldn't let him go like this. She couldn't. Though they had only known each other one day, it felt as if they'd been together an eternity. The thought of losing him crippled her.

  "Sebastian, do you remember what you said to me in the hotel room? You said, 'I'm here because I know the sadness inside you. I know what it feels like to wake in the morning, lost and lonely and aching for someone to be there with me.'"

  She pressed her lips against his cheek and wept. "I don't want to be alone anymore, Sebastian. I want to wake up with you like I did this morning. I want to feel your arms around me, your h
and in my hair."

  He went limp in her arms.

  "No!" Channon cried, holding him close to her heart.

  "Don't you do this to me, Sebastian Kattalakis. Don't you dare make me believe in knights in shining armor, in men who are good and decent, and then leave me alone again. Damn it, Sebastian. You promised to take me home. You promised not to leave me."

  The mark faded from her palm.

  Channon wept as her heart splintered. Until that moment, she hadn't realized that against all known odds, against all known reason, she loved this man.

  And she didn't want to lose him.

  She pressed her wet cheek to his lips. "I love you, Sebastian. I just wished you'd lived long enough for us to see what could become of us."

  Suddenly, she felt another tingle in her palm. It grew to a burning itch. It was followed by a slow, tiny stirring of air against her cheek.

  Damos expelled a deep breath. "That's it, little brother. Fight for your mate. Fight for your dragonswan."

  Channon looked up as Damos doffed his cloak, then wrapped it around Sebastian's body.

  "Is he going to live?"

  "I don't know, but he's trying to. The Fates willing, he will."

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  THREE

  Channon bathed Sebastian's fevered brow while she prayed for his survival and whispered for him to come back to her.

  After they had stabilized Sebastian, Damos had taken them to a small village in Sussex where humans and Arcadians lived and worked together. She learned that though Arcadians could only time-jump during a full moon, they could use their magic to make lateral jumps from one place to another in the same time frame any time they wanted to.

  It didn't really make sense to her, but she didn't care. At the moment, all that mattered to her was the fact that Sebastian was still fighting his way back from death. It was long after midnight now. They were alone in a large room where the only light came from three candles set in an iron fixture against the wall. Sebastian lay draped in a sheet on an ornate bed that bore the images of dragons and wheat and was shielded from drafts by shimmery white drapes. The sounds of the night drifted in from the open window while she waited for some sign that he would wake up.

  None came.

  At some point before dawn, exhaustion overtook her and she curled up by his side and went to sleep.