“Would it be so bad?” he asked. His eyes flicked to her lips again and then back. There was something in his expression that she hadn’t seen there before. There was lust - that, she had learned to recognize in his jade green eyes. But there was also a kind of anguish, new and raw.
Does it hurt? she wondered. The thought wafted through her mind.
And she realized that she didn’t want Victor Black to hurt. And she didn’t know why.
He was wreaking havoc on her mind, on her body. She had to get away from him before he drove her mad.
He laughed again, as soft and harsh as he had before, and Victoria closed her eyes, trying not to whimper. She was almost sorry that she had, for Victor’s next words were spoken ever so slightly against her mouth, his lips brushing across hers.
“What happens now, love?”
She had no answer to that. She could do so many things right now. She could telekinetically crash something into his head, set him on fire, pick him up and throw him across the room…. So many things.
She had recourse to flee from the Gray leader, and hence, she was the king on the chessboard, cornered, but not quite checkmated. She was not defeated and their Game would not be over until she no longer possessed a channel of escape.
However, at that very moment, her powers would not quite answer her. And they would not quite answer her because she couldn’t quite summon the will to call them to her.
She was shaking.
But so was he.
She felt the slight tremor there beneath the ripcord tightness of the strong body that imprisoned hers. A part of her wanted to make that tremor go away. To soothe him.
It was insane.
He was insane. She must remind herself of that. He wants to overthrow Game Control, she told herself.
Black’s look darkened. His grip on her wrists tightened to the point of pain.
But even that didn’t truly hurt. Victoria was stunned to find that it was a different kind of pain. It was the pain of being captured, of being ensnared – of losing control – to someone you trusted.
Trust? No, she thought. No! How can I think that? How could I trust Victor Black? The world that had at one time made sense to Victoria was spinning ever farther away.
“Answer me, Victoria,” Black demanded, the brush of his lips against hers like tiny electric shocks that hardened her nipples and sent rivulets of confusing sensation through her abdomen. “What… happens… now?”
“Let me go,” she pleaded, barely able to whisper the words. It was a plea that came from nowhere and meant nothing. She could barely breathe.
“Never.” The word was a promise, spoken between clenched teeth.
“Please,” she said. “Victor –”
She never finished her sentence. Victor’s lips claimed hers in a kiss that blasted the thought from her brain in a whiplash of hard, uncoiling need. A pleasure-like pain ripped through her stomach, melting her from the inside out. Heat coiled at her core, wet and deep and agonizing. She grew weak, her limbs going numb, her body arching.
She wanted – something. He pressed into her like promises, like danger and night and the thrill of some kind of hunt. There was a yawning, awakening craziness coming to life inside of her body, rampaging her mind. She was going mad. He was making her mad!
He must have been. He must have been using his dark leader power.
Because she kissed him back.
Victor groaned against her mouth, his grip on her wrists letting up just a touch as his tongue made it past her teeth. He opened her up, demanding to explore the depths of her. She let him, welcomed him in, and allowed him to claim her through that kiss.
It was too much. It actually hurt, this new pleasure – and she, the healer, had no idea how to make that hurt go away.
I can make it go away. She heard his voice in her head. One night, sweet Victoria. Give me one night and I’ll show you.
Oh, gods! she thought frantically, witlessly. The heat was spreading like wildfire, threatening to burn her up. It terrified her, this corner that they’d turned. She tried to pull away, but he held her fast and offered no reprieve.
His kiss only deepened.
Bliss.
Had that been his word or hers? She no longer knew.
You have to get away, Victoria.
It was a voice of reason – her own this time – echoing from some place deep inside. The last fragment of her sanity, glittering in some place dark, reflecting what light there was left. You have to get away.
Victor’s gloved hands finally released her wrists to slowly trail down her arms to the sides of her breasts. If he and his dark leader telepathy heard her thoughts, he gave no indication.
Or perhaps he was just that confident in himself.
With that thought, a hard realization came thudding into her consciousness, dropping over her mind and body like a heavy black shroud.
Her eyes flew open. She broke the kiss, pulling away with force. Her body shook uncontrollably now. “Let me go,” she repeated, this time meaning it.
He clearly sensed the sudden and very real change within her, because his hands were instantly gripping her wrists once more, tightening around them with exacting strength. Nonetheless, she jerked in his hold, trying to break free.
Black’s gaze hardened into deadly shards of green ice.
She felt it at once. She sensed it the very moment he began releasing his weakening power into her. She gritted her teeth against its intrusive iniquity and, as they stared each other down, she released her own bit of power – melting the wall behind her into an insubstantial plane of nothingness so that she could drop through it and away from Victor. At the same time, she released fire into her wrists that singed his hands, forcing him to reflexively release her.
“No!” A split second later, Victor tried to reach out and grab her once more, but by then, the wall before him had already re-solidified.
Victoria slipped soundlessly through the rippling planks of wood and realized, too late, that there was no room beyond her own. She was in the corner room on the second floor. On the other side of her outer walls, there was nothing but open air and a two-story drop onto a hard-packed street below.
Chapter Fourteen
She was going to hit the ground and she was going to land on her back. It might knock her out, and it might even kill her. If she was lucky and it didn’t do either of those, then it would hurt. It would hurt really badly.
And while she was either unconscious or in pain, Black would have time to get to her. He would win – and this had been for nothing.
All of this, Victoria realized as the wind whipped past her on her short journey to the packed soil below. She closed her eyes, wishing again that she could fly. But she was beginning to wonder whether the light leader flying capability was just a rumor spread by Game Control.
She also wished that telekinesis could stop a person’s fall. But it couldn’t. It had never worked that way, in reverse – stopping instead of starting.
And then, quite without adequate warning, the air rushed from her lungs in a hard and sudden whoosh, and she heard something snap. She was numb, so she couldn’t tell exactly what it was. Instantaneous unfeeling had engulfed her on impact.
She lay on the ground, her vision blurred to an unrecognizable extent, and waited for the pain to come.
It came.
It was a single throb, followed by another that lasted longer, followed by a constant screaming pain that zeroed in on her injury with cruel efficiency.
My leg! She couldn’t move it. With shaking arms, she pushed herself up against other, smaller pains, onto her hands, and then she gingerly turned where she was on the ground. Oh gods! The pain rushed over her ten-fold, the way pain does when it wants to be felt, noticed, and paid attention to.
Nausea roiled in her belly. Her head swamp. Tiny stars sparkled at the edges of her vision.
She looked down to find it broken. Not again. It was just like before. It was just like wh
en she and Andromeda had been playing in their father’s study and she’d climbed the library ladder. The bone had come completely out of her leg that night. She could still see it, just as she could see her bone now – its jagged, brown-white edge surrounded by blood, torn muscle, and tissue.
Bile rose in Victoria’s throat as the strange memory took over, her pain setting it free from where it had been suppressed so long ago.
* * * *
“No!” Victor pushed off of the wall that Victoria had just slipped through and moved to the window adjacent to it.
Down below, Victoria lay on the hard-packed ground, her right leg twisted beneath her at an unnatural angle. From his distance, Victor could just make out the flash of white midway through her calf, and the blood that seemed to baptize the ground all around her. It was spreading too quickly. The break was a compound fracture. She’d never before been wounded so badly in a Game.
And it was his fault.
There hadn’t been enough time to attempt a time stop, which was horribly ironic. Telekinesis had never been able to stop a falling body. In the end, he’d been helpless to help her.
Oh gods, he thought as she stirred slowly, gradually coming out of the initial shock of her impact. She was clearly dazed and most likely didn’t even know how badly she’d been hurt. If she didn’t heal herself soon, she would lose consciousness from the blood loss.
She was the only one among them with the ability to heal. If she passed out, there would be no one remaining to do it. She would bleed to death.
Victor reared back and, with the elbow of his leather jacket, he smashed out the glass of the second story window. It wasn’t large enough for a human to fit through, but he didn’t always have to be a human.
Below, the giant of a man with blonde hair was racing toward Victoria. He called himself Anders, but Black wasn’t a fool. He knew that wasn’t his real name. The man was a liar; there was much more to him than he was letting on. Victor had tried to read his thoughts as he’d watched him sitting with Victoria last night over dinner. He’d failed – there was even more of a wall around that man’s mind than there now seemed to be around Maxwell Blood’s. Neither was natural.
Black watched Anders skid to a stop and kneel beside Victoria. Hard emotion, torn between jealousy and protectiveness, caused Victor’s world to flash the color of shallow green arctic ice.
As if he knew he was being watched, Anders looked up. When he met Victor’s gaze, something very strange flickered in the depths his brown eyes.
“Captain Blood!” the man bellowed, his voice deep and booming.
Victor’s eerie, glowing gaze narrowed. He stepped back from the window and transformed, using his dark power to morph into a large black bird with feathers the same iridescent blue-black hue as his hair. The giant bird’s wings flapped once against his sudden lack of legs before Victor shot through the window. He dove downward, drawing his wings in tight and aiming toward the woman he loved.
Wind whipped past him for the short space of time it took to reach the ground. Just before landing, he reclaimed his human form and landed with his boots firmly planted beside Victoria – directly across from the man who claimed his name was Anders.
Anders stood, but Black was ready for him. With one over-powered thrust of his dark telekinesis, he managed to ruthlessly shove the large man away from Victoria’s body, sending him flying twenty yards down the street.
Anders hit the ground and rolled, but Victor paid him little heed. His attention was immediately turned to Victoria. He knelt beside her.
He could detect so much wrong with her. He could heal none of it, but the same powers that gave him telepathy allowed him to scan her body, zeroing in on the damage it had taken. She had a broken rib, several jarred and dislocated spinal discs, a punctured lung, and a compound fracture in her leg. For the life of him, he couldn’t comprehend why she was still conscious.
She had always been stubborn.
Against all odds, she’d somehow managed to sit up. From the sound of it now, she was trying not to cry.
“Victoria, can you hear me, love? You need to heal yourself.”
Her eyes were shut tight, her teeth clenched, her face growing paler by the second. He was afraid to touch her, but he wanted to pull her into his arms, give her some of his strength, give her anything and do anything to make this horrible mess disappear. At that very moment, he would have traded his soul for the ability to turn back time rather than freeze it.
But he never had a chance to help her in any way because at that moment, Maxwell Blood came sprinting around the corner two houses down. His long sword was drawn, and his ice blue eyes were glowing with the kind of magical heat that once and for all proved he was no mere team captain.
Victor’s own glacial gaze hardened. He bared his teeth in what had effectively become pure hatred. He no longer wanted to defeat the duplicitous men who surrounded Victoria Red. He wanted to kill them. All of them.
And he was going to start with Maxwell Blood.
* * * *
Victoria couldn’t keep track of what was happening around her. There was too much pain, too much nausea. Her clothes were damp. She knew what it all meant, but her brain didn’t want to accept the truth. She was shoving it away, stubbornly refusing to deal with reality.
She heard Anders call for Max. At least, she thought it was Anders. And then Anders was gone and someone else was beside her. If the wave of cold fury that washed over her was an accurate indication, she would guess it was Victor.
But then he too was gone, and all that remained was the pain.
You’re going to die, Rose. There was a voice in her head. It sounded like her own. But… not exactly like her own.
You’re going to pass out and then bleed to death if you don’t concentrate and heal your leg right now.
She was right – the voice was right. Victoria was going to die if she didn’t do something fast.
She moved, trying to see, trying to get a handle on the damage. Her world went fuzzy and muffled. Her vision tunneled. Still, she saw the blood.
She swallowed hard, forming a wall in her throat to block the bile that suddenly tried to escape.
No, Rose. Don’t think about the blood. Concentrate. Heal the wound. There was the voice again, only this time, it sounded a little less like her – and a little more like someone else. Someone she knew.
But she could barely think past the horrible, horrible pain.
Concentrate, damn it! Hold your hand out, Rose. See the leg whole again. See it whole, and do it now!
Victoria did what the voice told her to do. She held her hand out over her leg and, without looking, she tried to imagine it as it was before, as it should have been. She imagined herself healthy and whole, mended and perfect. She saw the blood in her veins and not on the ground.
But she had never before tried to heal such a serious wound on her own body. The agony was mucking things up. She couldn’t put what blood she’d lost back inside of herself. She set and fused the bone, mended the muscle, and recreated her leg down to the molecules of skin that smoothed out her golden flesh.
But when the leg was whole again, she was still in pain.
Vaguely, she realized it was hard to breathe. She frowned, turning her senses inward. Oh no, she thought.
There was more to heal. This was why it was so hard. She was seriously injured.
You can do it. I believe in you, came the voice.
Victoria’s teeth gnashed together. Her hands curled into fists. She pushed and reached and grabbed her power by the throat and forced it to work for her. She cried out as her rib moved under her healing influence, straightening out and mending back together again. Tears streamed down her cheeks as her lung sewed itself shut.
She coughed, and then vomited, this time unable to hold it back. When she opened her eyes, it was to find the ground soaked in bile and blood.
But she was healed.
And so, so tired. She’d put herself right, but she?
??d lost too much blood, and blood was something she could not replace. The energy she’d spent healing had sapped her dry, and it could not be salvaged.
She was exhausted.
Somehow, she found her hands and knees. She lifted her now-mended leg and tried to get it beneath her, but there was so little strength to call upon. The ground had turned to crimson clay beneath her. It caused the dirt to stick to her uniform in reddish clumps. It stained the other knee of her pants.
And the nausea was back.
“Red.”
Victoria looked up from her position and, with Anders’ sudden and welcome help, managed to sit back on her heels. It was as far as she could go.
“I lost too much blood,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. From behind him, waves of cold washed over them both in coming and going tides. The sound of crackling fury filled the air. Someone grunted in pain. Something else sounded as if it snapped. And then there was a roar of rage or of pain and the icy crackling began all over again.
“What’s going on?” she asked softly. She simply couldn’t get any force behind her words.
“Your captain and the other are fighting.”
She frowned, tamped down another stubborn wave of nausea, and asked, “How?”
“Cold magic. They’re both quite powerful. You have to get out of here.”
“Both?” Cold magic? Max was using dark leader abilities?
He was cold to the touch, she remembered.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. She just couldn’t; she was too sick.
“You will.”
There was a sound of flesh ripping. Someone screamed in pain.
Anders lifted her in his massive arms, cradling her much smaller form to his broad chest. “You’ll take Brom. If either of these two can read your mind, they will be able to find you as long as you know where you’re going, so I won’t tell you where you’re going. Brom knows the way.”
The giant black stallion had made its way to them in the midst of everything. Victoria glanced over to see its shimmering black fur begin to frost. The air was growing steadily colder. She could see her breath now.