A Mermaid's Ransom

  But Dante said the Goddess was not in this world. Did that mean She was deaf to prayers from it? She said them anyway.

  "It would be a lie, telling them you are okay."

  She cracked open eyes that flinched from any light, the pounding in her head increasing. Fortunately, the chamber was dim. No sunlight in the Dark One world, and he'd put out all his torches, so the only light came from the window, that surreal block of flame and gray wasteland. Shadows hid most of his features from her, but the magnetism of his presence was strong enough. He squatted next to the bed.

  As she met his gaze, embers in that darkness, she knew. "I'm dying, aren't I?"

  He nodded. "But you will be . . . okay. You will regain your strength in your own world. The witch sent me word they are preparing to open the rift. We will go through soon."

  There was no triumph in his flat tone, no indication of his thoughts. His feelings were once again too tangled for her to unravel. She groped across the blanket, but he'd withdrawn his touch, moved out of reach. "I thought that was what you wanted."

  "It is. But it will not be so easy. The doorway she has allows one through at a time. It has not been used in a long time, and even it suffered some damage during the Mountain Battle."

  "So you'll go first, to be sure they let you through, and then I'll come behind you." She shied from the idea of being left alone in this world, even for a second. What if the portal didn't hold? As terrible as this place was, without Dante . . . of course, if that happened, she wouldn't live much longer, would she? But if the Goddess wasn't here, how could her soul find its way home? Would she be trapped here anyway?

  He spoke, cutting across her panic. "There will be some trickery. They want you back, but they do not want me there. Her communication left me time for a response. I told them I would be putting a binding on you here that only I can release, and I will do so only after I am safely outside of their influence. Then you will come through."

  "Did they promise you safe passage?"

  "What is a promise?"

  Alexis put effort into the reach this time. She needed to touch him. A lump grew in her throat when he deliberately moved beyond her grasp. Something cold and frightening was inside him, waiting. The predator in him knew he was facing death or battle, and he would not be distracted.

  She'd already seen he was far more powerful than Mina likely suspected. The people she loved would be on the other side of that portal, waiting. Her mother. Oh, Goddess, please let Jonah have forbidden her mother to be there. Gentle Anna, almost as defenseless against power like this as Alexis, and her father couldn't survive both of their losses. Everyone knew it.

  Dante's fiery gaze flickered like wicked candlelight, telling her he heard her thoughts, but he offered no comfort. The male who'd been inside her body was gone. Instead she was facing the creature who'd survived here for Goddess knew how many decades. Perhaps even centuries, though she suspected it was decades. Something about him seemed younger than the angels she knew who'd reached their first century mark.

  She was going to die. This was it, she knew it. So the question was, how would she spend those last minutes? In fear and cowardice, or embracing the destiny the Goddess had given her? She could hate him right now for being willing to sacrifice her for his own freedom, but she'd seen too much here, felt too much from him, even now. While she'd had so much, so many wonderful things, love as vast and deep as the oceans nurturing her, Dante had had none of that.

  The male that had been inside her body wasn't gone. He might not be physically within her reach, but his emotions, his desires, they were all still there, only gone dormant behind the formidable weapons he'd use to gain what he wanted, what he'd sought to have all these years. And these might be his last moments as well.

  Though tears gathered in her eyes, she swallowed, made her voice steady. "Dante, I do want you to have your freedom. If I die . . . I want you to know that."

  "You will not die."

  She continued, though she was certain her heart was going to crack open. She struggled between what she needed to say, and the jumble of thoughts rolling through her head. Clara. I wanted to see Clara meet someone and get married. To watch her truly fall in love for the first time. I would have loved to put Pyel's first grandchild in his arms, let him know he'd never be without us, even to the end of time.

  "The first thing you should do is go to The Butchart Gardens, near the Todd Inlet, in Canada. You'll see things there you never imagined. In fact"--that ache grew jagged teeth as she thought of how many more times she would have liked to go there--"you'll need to sit down on one of the benches, because it will be overwhelming. It's all going to be overwhelming."

  She stopped, wheezing for breath, and the crimson glow disappeared, as if he'd closed his eyes in the dim light, though his voice came through the darkness strongly enough. "Stop talking. Think in your head if you must, but don't use your breath."

  She ignored him, because speaking was the only way to keep her thoughts for herself separate from the words she meant for him. "We have lots of sun. I don't know if it's true or not, but supposedly vampires can't be out in the sunlight. So don't go out in full sunlight until you're sure whether it will burn you or not. Maybe the Dark One blood will protect you. If so, you should go to a beach, watch people play volleyball, or just watch the water. Sometimes you'll see dolphins. With your eyesight, you'll probably see merpeople playing under the waves."

  A wave of coughing took her then, and a new terror gripped her as her vision grayed, threatening her with unconsciousness. Gritting her teeth, she dragged herself upright. Despite the ringing in her head, her nausea, the fatal weakness she could feel claiming her, she pulled herself across the covers, the rough fabric snagging her scales painfully. She'd follow him across the chamber if she had to.

  "Stop this," he ordered. "You weaken yourself unnecessarily."

  "No, you do. I want your hand. Stop avoiding my touch."

  She wasn't the commanding sort, not by a long shot, and definitely not with him. But she had to have this one thing. He might be heartless enough to withhold it from her, but she was determined to have enough heart for both of them.

  Muttering a curse, he erupted into motion, scooping her up and taking her to her back on the bedding. He lay half over her, pressing his bare chest down upon her breasts, his hair falling forward over his shoulder and brushing her lips, her cheek. "There. I am touching you. What is it you want?"

  She lifted a hand, spread her fingers out like a starfish. "Your hand," she repeated.

  He stared at her, then lifted his hand from beside her head, met her palm to palm. Linking her fingers with his, she noted the slimness of hers next to his callused, strong ones. While he watched, his mouth a hard slash, she felt a tremor in his body.

  "You are not going to die," he said. "I will not allow it."

  She could feel it in her bones, a creeping tide that couldn't be held back. She didn't know how long she'd been here, but perhaps the things they'd done had weakened her. Perhaps because of her unique mixing of angel and mermaid blood, she had a more fragile constitution than he'd expected. But death was close. She wished she could send one more message to her parents, because if she gave it to Dante, they would never hear it. They wouldn't listen to the male they'd rightly see as her murderer. But with all her many gifts, she knew one thing for certain. He was more than that.

  "What is a promise?" he said, and now his other hand was cradling her cheek, the lines of his perfect, handsome face tense, strained.

  "It's an oath. When you tell someone you're going to do something, and it's a point of personal honor that you do it. If you don't, it takes something away from yourself." She'd never realized how difficult it was to explain something that didn't exist in the environment of the person asking the question. "Like why you've done all this. You made a promise to yourself, to do everything necessary to win your freedom. You are honoring that promise to yourself."

  As he remained silent, she sense
d he was examining her thoughts inside, even as he listened to her words outside. "No," he said at length. "A promise is more than that. As is honor. I sense it. Otherwise it wouldn't be so important. Tell me more. In your thoughts."

  Shaking her head, she swallowed, realizing how dry she'd become, scales, throat and skin. But it didn't seem to matter. Staying conscious long enough to speak to him was most important. And to nurture the last thoughts of her life and friends instead of her fear of what would happen to her soul in this place.

  "To my father, a promise and honor are things you offer to protect others. You make the world a better place when you honor a promise, not just your own circumstances."

  "You seek to talk me out of my goal."

  She found she had moisture after all, because tears were leaking out of her eyes again. "What you're doing is wrong, but I don't know if I would have done it differently, if I'd experienced what you've been through. So no matter what happens, Dante, I understand. I also believe that once you're free, you'll understand honor and promises much better. I feel your heart." Freeing her hand, she laid it on his chest. "While there's so much darkness in you, probably more than I've ever felt in anyone, there's a light in there so strong, just waiting. Embrace it, and I promise I won't . . ." A sob caught in her throat, her fingertips spasming on his skin, "I will miss my life, but I won't hate you. I promise." Goddess, even her lips were tired, but they still managed to twist in a wistful smile. "And thanks for my first time. It wasn't exactly how I'd planned, but it was as earth shattering as I heard it could be."

  His expression darkened, his fingers curling into her hair, hard enough that the strands tugged painfully at her scalp. "Alexis, I forbid you to die. Do you understand me? Look at me."

  The sharpness of his command had her returning her focus to his face, despite the hammer of pain building in her temples. He locked her into his gaze. Oddly, something there did make her entire body, deep down into her bones, respond to the command in his voice, hold on to that tenuous thread connecting her to life. To him.

  "You will obey me. You will not die."

  "I don't want to die," she managed. "I really, really don't."

  He caught her tears on his thumbs, dampening the soft hair at her temples as he stroked her there.

  An energy shift made her cry out, for it was like an electric shock snapping through the chamber. Her fingers clung to his arms, an anchor against the pain. He stiffened, his head lifting as if he were listening to something else. "She is calling. The portal is ready."

  In a swift movement that had Alexis gasping in pain, he had her up off the bed and was carrying her back to the hated pool of blood. New things had been laid out there. A sharp knife, a spellbook and a second circle next to the original blood basin. This one was marked with a pungent concoction looking like tangled entrails. It made her feel a need to retch, though she was glad it came from the insides of something she'd mercifully not had to see.

  "Please don't put me in the blood again," she said. She didn't want to die there.

  "I must." He put her down into it, despite the sob that escaped her, the shameful clutch of her hands he had to loosen, though he was not unkind about it. She cringed as the blood seeped into her scales again. "It will only be a moment. I will stand there"--he indicated the other circle--"and I will go through first."

  Alexis yelped as something large landed against the tower door, followed by a shriek of rage. Many shrieks of rage. She gasped as two Dark Ones flew past the open window, their burning gaze landing on her, fangs bared.

  "They sense a rift opening," Dante said. "I haven't summoned one of them to go through at the lower level of the tower, where I have an opening just for them, so they know something is amiss. The window and that door are shielded, for now. The circle will protect you for a time from their attack if they burst through. As soon as I am clear, I will release the hold of the circle, and the rift will pull you through after me."

  If everything went as it should. But she remembered that feeling of horrible despair as they'd poured in before, the way it had drained her, even inside the circle. She didn't have enough strength left. It would finish her. She would die in this terrible world, in the blood of a terrified woman and who knew how many other sacrifices, surrounded by those soulless creatures.

  "Dante," she cried out, terrified anew.

  But he was already standing in his circle, and when she tried to move toward him, the circle's shielding had returned, keeping her where she was. As he turned his back on her, energy began to shimmer throughout the room again. He was chanting, setting up his passage and perhaps hers, words she didn't know but she was sure Mina would. She'd wanted to learn more about magic, but there'd been many things she'd wanted to do.

  Dante's magic had an innate energy to it. She felt it wrapped amid his emotions, an inextricable part of him. The Dark Ones may have taught him rudimentary preparations to save them gruntwork, and Dante may have read all the grimoires they left behind, but a great deal of the magical energy pressing in on this room was his own, a natural sorcerer's. Did he know it?

  Dante, don't leave me here. I'm so afraid. Dizziness closed in, her arms barely holding her up. No. Please let me lose consciousness before my face falls into the blood.

  He was tracing symbols that shimmered in flame and then seared themselves into the air so she could see their outline. Power sizzled, burning her lungs, her eyes. Flame shot up around them, and still she yearned toward him, hoping, even though hope didn't exist here. Mercy didn't exist here. She felt nothing from him now, just a pure, focused intent to get the hell out of this place.

  But Jonah would sacrifice all he was to hunt him down and claim vengeance for his daughter. Her mother's heart would break, her spirit shattered. It all rolled into the pain of loss, an end Lex had never imagined for any of them. She couldn't bear it.

  Please, Dante . . . If he did it this way, he wouldn't find what he sought. He couldn't. She knew it. And that was as heartbreaking as all the rest.

  It was too late. The flames shot higher, and now she saw the rift outline, a spiral of starlight, flame and darkness within its boundaries that would take him into her world. Into destruction, of far more than just himself.

  While she would be alone and terrified. It was demeaning for that to leap to the forefront now, ahead of everything else. His back flexed, that beautiful body moving forward. Would he even look back at her, or had he already forgotten her existence? Her soul cringed at that final betrayal, so irrationally deep she wobbled, afraid the breath she rasped before he stepped through would be her last.

  His form shimmered, and she drew in a cry, a painful denial. It was all the strength she had left. As if her arm muscles had turned to water, she fell forward, so hard her face hit the stone at the bottom of the shallow basin. Blood, its wetness and smell, invaded her nose and mouth, forcing her eyes shut. She always kept her eyes open underwater, but this was cold, slimy and brought none of the reassurance the sea did.

  Terror spiked through her sluggish body as the banging on the door became thunder, wood splintering and stone crumbling. She was going to die, chained forever to their hopelessness.

  She screamed as she was grabbed. Adrenaline kicked in enough for her to strike out feebly. Her Dark One attacker pulled her out of the bloody circle, turning her over so fast in its grasp, it was as if the world tilted, upending her onto the cool stone so he and his fellows could rape her flesh, strip it from her bones while there was life left in it.

  "No," she wailed, wishing she could be brave, wishing she was anywhere else, wanting her father or mother . . . or Dante.

  Hands cradled her face, the thumbs swiping over her eyes, taking away the blood. She let her gaze spring open, and saw Dante's hard face above her.

  "You will go first," he said. "You will not die."

  She felt the terrible knowledge in him, what he held at bay like a finger in the dike of his emotions. The larger part of himself was howling, demanding that he sacrif
ice anything he must to get free, to do what he'd dedicated his life to doing. It was like watching one lone man battle all the forces of hell erupting from his soul, and it was a terrible energy, pouring over her, telling her how close he was to changing his mind. But he thrust her down in his circle, straightened and shouted out the proper words, defiant, angry, his shoulders back. His crimson eyes were as fierce as the flames rising around them, stifling her with their heat.

  She was so weak, she could only watch. She wanted to tell him they would help him get back through, they would honor their agreement . . .

  Only they hadn't really had one, had they? They'd agreed to open the portal for him under duress, in exchange for her life. If they had her, they would close it. Nothing he'd done would merit their consideration, because they were not seeing him right now. Only she understood the cost, and even she couldn't completely comprehend it, because she'd only experienced two days of it.

  Her arms started to shimmer as the portal transfer took a grip on her body, a hard, painful suctionlike pull.

  Emitting a piercing snarl that her mother would have recognized in the echo of her father's battle cry, Alexis used a reserve of strength she didn't really have. By force of will alone, her wings and tail muscles shoved her upright, toppling her toward him. In automatic reaction, he grabbed her, because, bless the Goddess, he hadn't shielded this circle to hold her inside it as he had hers.

  Wrapping her arms around his waist, Lex pressed her cheek against his abdomen and flipped over, making him stumble the necessary couple of steps into the circle. Holding on as if the universe was at stake, she closed her eyes. With an ominous scream of wind and energy, or perhaps those were the shrieking voices of those being left behind, the portal pulled them both in.

  Eleven

  HE'D said the portal could only take one at a time. She knew enough about magic to know it was idiotic to go against its rules. While it had been pure impulse, she realized she might have killed them both, because she felt like she'd been shut up in a dryer, blasted with searing heat as she was pummeled, turning and spinning.