Rise of Hope (4 page)

He probed her shoulders, gritted his teeth as he ran his fingers down the outside curves of her breasts, between them, and then spread his hands down, over her midriff and further still, over her abdomen.

Nothing. He couldn’t feel a damn thing. Anywhere.

His palm lingered over the marks that proclaimed her the same as him, that were the mirror image of his and he couldn’t prevent the tremble in his fingers, the lick of heat that seared him from head to toe. Before he realized it, he’d dropped to one knee in front of her. The shadowed cleft between her legs teased him, her feminine scent overtook his senses. But the marks were like a beacon to him, he couldn’t take his eyes off them. He shoved back the words that pounded through him, the urges that rose up inside him and demanded he do…what he didn’t know.

He closed his eyes briefly, hoping to center himself, get his mind back on the job. He saw it when he opened them again. His gaze went right to it, an anomaly that shouldn’t be there. The blemish was next to one of her markings, right up against the edge of a delicate curl. He’d almost missed it but the small circle was slightly paler than the surrounding skin. He rubbed his thumb over her gently. It was flat, but definitely some kind of scar.

“What’s this?”

He glanced up at her, which was a bad move because it gave him a spectacular view up her body. She’d pulled the shirt down to cover her breasts, but it didn’t matter. The image of her was burned on his brain. Her face was flushed, her mouth slightly open, and when she wet her lips, his stomach jolted. “I—I had a mole removed.”

“How long ago?”

“About three years.”

He dragged his gaze from hers and pushed against her with his thumb, digging deep and ignoring her cringe when he felt something small, hard. Something that shouldn’t be there.

Bingo.

“It’s deeper than the other one,” he ground out.

A hell of a lot deeper.
Christ.
It had to be cut out, without the benefit of any anesthesia. And they needed to do it fast.

He dropped the shirt and stepped back from her, felt her sigh. He wasn’t the queasy type, far from it, except this was different. It was
her
and he would have given anything not to have to do what he was about to. He looked to Micah as the other man came to stand next to him. As much as he hated the thought of it, Micah was going to have to hold her down.

“I have some medical training,” Micah offered, his voice pitched low.

“Define ‘some.’”

His mouth quirked. “Two years of med school.”

Seth needed help. There was no question. He just had to decide if he was the one to inflict the pain or the one to hold her down for it. Either way, she was going to be hurt and the knowledge was a twisting burn, deep in his gut.

He looked over at her. She had her arms wrapped around her body.

“I’m sorry. If there was any other way…”

* * *

Devon wet her lips, no longer able to control the trembling in her legs, her arms, her hands. She’d tried to anticipate everything when she’d planned her escape. As much as she could, anyway. Knowing her every move was monitored, her every action analyzed, her every activity carefully controlled hadn’t given her much room to work with, but she’d done her best. This? All this? She couldn’t have hoped to anticipate in a million years.

The coldness washed through her when she saw he had the scalpel in his hand. Again.

“It’s okay. I—I…it’s okay.”

But it wasn’t. None of this was okay. It pretty much sucked. As much as she tried to tell herself the thing had to come out or all this would be for nothing, it didn’t help. Not with the fear of the pain, or the terror that she was going to get both men hurt or even killed. That was so much worse.

Devon lay down on the ground when Seth motioned her to. It was hard, cool, the grasses scratchy against her skin. She shivered, but it had nothing to do with cold.

“Ah…we’ll need you to lift up the shirt,” Micah said.

She should have been way beyond modesty, but her hand stalled, clenched on the hem at her thighs. She swallowed. They’d already seen—everything—but…

“Here.” Seth spread one of her discarded shirts across her abdomen. How ironic that it was one of the ones she’d sewn money into, carefully rolled and hidden along each of the seams because there was no way she could have explained her need for it. Not as much as she’d been able to steal from the house staff over the course of several years anyway.

And then she couldn’t think about anything else but trying to control the sense of panic that threatened to overwhelm her when Micah straddled her legs. He was big, the weight of his body telling her more than words that she wasn’t going to be able to move. She could remember every single time she’d been accidentally touched. Every. Single. One. It was all she could do not to scream at the sense of confinement.

“Better?” Micah asked.

No.

She nodded.

Micah took the scalpel Seth held out.

Oh God.

“I don’t think I can do this. Please…” she whispered. “Let me go.”

Micah jumped to his feet instantly, lifted his hands, looked at them, frowned and then glanced at Seth.

“What the—”

“That wasn’t me, man,” Micah cut him off, his voice thin, unsteady. “It was all her.”

They looked at her. Seth frowned and she felt a frisson of something course through her.

When Seth didn’t say anything, Micah added, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say your
Darce
is the power of suggestion. Probably when you’re in physical contact.”

“My…what?”

“We each have a gift. In the old language it’s called a
Darce
. You can plant a suggestion. You didn’t know?”

Everything in her went still, her heartbeat so loud she could barely hear her own thoughts.

“I— No one is allowed to touch me. Ever. It’s always been forbidden. I—I used to think I had a contagious disease of some kind and they were hiding it from me.”

Could it be? All this time touch had been denied her because of what she could do with it?

She frowned. “You think…you think I can touch someone and tell them to do something and they’ll do it? Just like that? Even against their will?”

“Yeah.”

She knew what Seth could do. Sort of. She looked at Micah. “What about you? Do you have…powers? What can you do?”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “You’ll see. That’s going to be the fun part.”

Fun part?
There was a fun part in all of this? He’d lost his mind right along with her.

Seth looked to the sky. “Look, we don’t have the time right now and I wish there was another way, but we need to do this.
Now.
” He raked Devon with an intense glance. “And you need to be able to permit it. No matter how much it hurts.”

She bit her lip and nodded.

Micah resumed his position across her legs. She gasped when Seth sat next to her, grasped her wrists and pinned them down on each side of her head. He leaned across her chest, effectively anchoring her to the ground and blocking her view of Micah.

She bit her lip. Hard. Now she had two large men touching her, holding her down. She was completely helpless. At their mercy. She wouldn’t be moving unless they wanted her to. Or…unless she told them to? She was still struggling with that one. And they were going to cut into her. The slice on the back of her neck began throbbing in earnest.

“Med school, you said?” Seth asked. He was looking right at her, even though he addressed the question to Micah.

“Yeah,” the other man answered. “Relax, okay?”

Seth’s features were drawn in harsh lines, his dark eyes bore down into hers. His short dark hair fell forward, making him appear vulnerable. But it was just that, an illusion. He was determined and focused. Relentless.

“Okay, this is not the most sanitary of—”

“Christ, Micah, if we don’t hurry and get out of here germs will be the least of our problem.”

“I’m sorry, Devon.”

She tensed at Micah’s low words. She curled her fingers into Seth’s hands, around his wrists. He was so warm, so strong. She let out a shuddering breath, and then drew in a sharp gasp at the searing pain she felt all the way to her feet. It was a sharp—deep, savage tearing. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, felt the moisture leak out the sides and concentrated on the heavy warmth against her, but nothing had ever hurt so much before in her life. And she was going to be sick at any minute. Why couldn’t she pass out?

Oh God, she couldn’t do this.

“Breathe, Devon.”

The words had sounded like they’d been forced from him, harsh, guttural. Her name in his deep voice snapped her eyes open. His had gone almost black, his jaw was clenched, a muscle ticked in his temple. If she didn’t know better she’d swear there was moisture in his eyes. Tears? From him? For
her?

“Breathe,” Seth rasped again.

She groaned as she exhaled, tried to relax muscles drawn taut and failed.

“This one’s different,” Micah said. “I think…it’s powered electromagnetically by her muscles. They’ll know the instant I take it out.”

“Doesn’t much matter,” Seth ground out, his gaze fixed on hers. “They already know exactly where we are. Do it.
And fucking hurry.
”

She flinched, went rigid. She tried, as hard as she could, but she couldn’t hold it in. She screamed and then sagged into the hard ground when Micah said, “Got it.”

She was shaking deep wracking jolts throughout her entire body, and she couldn’t stop, couldn’t move, not even when Seth let her go to look at the small device Micah held out.

“I really never had a chance, did I?” she asked. Her own voice was thin, barely audible.

Seth’s expression said it all. She’d really been a prisoner, as she’d feared, like she’d always known deep down. And she still didn’t know exactly why. Just like everything in her life—even the slightest hope that she’d finally be free—had been nothing but an illusion.

She watched as Micah smoothed a bandage over the cut he’d made. “How do you know that’s it, that there’s no more?”

“We don’t,” Seth said, his voice grim. “We hope like fuck because we’ve run out of time. If that
was
their last way to track you? Determination is going to turn to unrelenting desperation pretty damn quick.”

Devon’s heart leapt into her throat at the distant whir that pulsed out of the sky, because now she knew what it meant. She gasped as Seth grabbed her hand and hauled her up. She put a hand to her side, to the sharp, throbbing pain there.

“How are we going to get out of here? Are we running again?”

She was hurting, bleeding. She’d do her best, but…

“Not exactly.” Seth grabbed Micah’s wrist, Micah took hold of hers. She started at the contact, wondered if she’d ever get used to it, and then gasped as three black helicopters crested the rise, men shouting from below them on the slope.

“Micah,
go,
” Seth shouted.

* * *

This was supposed to be the fun part?

Devon doubled over yet again, her stomach heaving despite being completely empty—painfully, bitterly empty. This was as far removed from fun as she could imagine, not that she’d ever had that much to compare it with.

The feeling of disorientation she was getting used to—
don’t overthink it, don’t try to understand, just go with it
—but the nausea, not so much. And the pain in her side was a blazing fire that she was strangely thankful for. It helped take her mind off everything else. Sort of.

She took a gulp of air as the tangy ocean breeze washed across her skin, lifting some of the sickness away.

Wait. Ocean?

They’d been in the crisp, cool air of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Now she was looking out over a bay—the warm, salted air a little stifling. There were palm trees. A lot of them.

If she thought she was in bad shape, it was nothing compared to Micah. He collapsed, Seth just managing to pull her wrist from his grasp otherwise he would have taken her down with him. He’d stumbled before, had managed to stay upright with Seth’s help, but this time he looked like he wasn’t going to get up. And he was deathly pale.

“Is he okay?”

Seth’s mouth was a grim line. “He’s never taken so many people so far before. The bad news is he’s done, depleted. The good news is that we’re here.”

She glanced back at the massive, looming structure.

“What is this place? A hotel of some sort?”

“Noah’s house.”

Even with the wealth she’d lived with, the accommodations she was used to, the luxuries that had been commonplace, this house was impressive.

“Not that I expect a straight answer, but who exactly is Noah?”

“You’re late.”

Devon started at the deep voice. A man stood in the shadows. What was it with all these guys appearing out of nowhere? She couldn’t see his eyes, actually couldn’t see much of him at all, but her skin prickled. She knew he was staring right at her.

“Yeah, we had a little…issue,” Seth drawled as he bent to Micah.

Before he could hoist him up, several men filed out of the large house. They nodded to Seth who pretty much ignored them. Some stared openly at her. They were all heavily armed, watchful and moved with the same lethal grace she’d first noticed from Seth.

They also reminded her of the bodyguards she’d lived with her entire life, had thought were normal for the longest time, until she’d realized there was nothing “normal” about how she lived, how she was “kept.”

“But it’s taken care of.”

Or it had better be.
The voice was hard for all its silky smoothness and it wasn’t a question. Not even a statement. It was a threat.

Seth’s lips tightened. “Yeah.”

“Meet me up in the office.”

The stranger stepped back, melting back into the shadows, as the men lifted Micah and took him into the house.

He looked… “Is Micah—”

“He should be fine. He knew transporting the three of us over that distance in such a short period of time would exhaust him.”