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3

Middle East Desert

It had been too easy. Chantel had known it all along. Taking out the Blackthorne agent and retrieving the crystal should have been more difficult. From the moment she had stepped into the back entrance of the Embassy, she had known where he was awaiting her. She had known with each step she took, that she was coming closer to the power that was hers alone.

She trembled now, still in the grip of that power. The crystal was safely cushioned between her breasts, hanging on the chain her mother had given her so long ago. You’ll know its use when it is time, her mother had assured her as she lay dying. Your destiny and all you know will one day change, Chantel. Wait for it, watch for it, for its gifts are more than you can imagine.

At the time, those words had terrified her, bringing to mind the nightmares that only her mother had been able to comfort her through. But now she understood. As she had stood before the enemy agent, that knowledge had swirled around her like a rapidly growing mist.

The agent’s fear when she had confronted him, and his warning, now echoed through her mind. Jonar will stop at nothing to destroy you, and now Jonar was on his way. She could feel it. Knew it with every harsh breath she took. He was coming, and she was hanging there like a sacrificial lamb for the slaughter because her father had refused the help she needed.

Betrayal. Fathers are supposed to protect their daughters. Especially when the father was in a position to call out every military force in the United States if he needed to. But there had been no help from him. She had waited in the pickup area, had prayed as she had never prayed before, but rescue hadn’t arrived. Rather, the enemy had found her.

“I have the crystal, Father, but they know I have it. I need pickup.” Her desperate call via the satellite cell phone had fallen on deaf ears.

“You went out on your own, Chantel,” he had growled furiously. “There will be no pickup. The mission was unsanctioned.”

“Dammit, you left the file for me, what do you mean it was unsanctioned?” she had screamed back at him. “For God’s sake, all I need is pickup.”

And she had waited. And waited. And he had sent no one. She had had just enough time to call her brother, to leave a desperate message on his machine. To tell him she loved him, if she didn’t make it out alive. And that their father, the man sworn to protect them, had betrayed her.

Now, nearly twenty-four hours later, Chantel found herself imprisoned, hanging from a damned meat hook by the ropes at her wrists, and still help had not come. She had tried to concentrate on the crystal, praying it would help her. Surely her dreams hadn’t been merely dreams. But even though she had felt the increase in power, had felt a shimmering connection that both confused and gave her hope, she was still imprisoned.

Her back, thighs and buttocks smarted with a fire that only the lash of a cane rod could bring. Her breasts throbbed in pain from the lashes along the upper mounds. Thankfully the pain wasn’t disabling. She sneered. The bastard guard administering the lashes had left, nearly foaming at the mouth. Each time he drew back to deliver a disabling blow, some force thickened around her, slowed it, lessening the impact.

“Who are you?” the guard had screamed at her. “Antea. Are you Antea? Release the crystal and we will let you go. Whore that you were, it is a little enough exchange.”

She had screamed her name until she was hoarse. She was Chantel. Only Chantel.

“Only Antea can wear the crystal,” the guard had charged. “You are Antea. Release the crystal. Give it to me, and you will live.”

She would die first. She would never release what was hers alone, what had always been hers. Never Antea’s. She remembered Antea, she wasn’t certain from where, or how. Someone she had tried to protect, Chantel thought. Someone who had betrayed her. Who had betrayed the crystal. She was not Antea.

Chantel trembled in fear. The guard had assured her that Jonar would come next. That no force on earth could halt the pain he would bring her. The remembered dreams filled her mind. The stone room, the metal rod that had touched her stomach, bringing such agony. A death no one could save her from.

Her toes barely touched the floor, and her arms felt as though they were slowly being pulled out of the sockets, yet she fought to find purchase against the stone floor. Some way, any way to steady her body enough to try to loosen the ropes. Terror lay thick in her throat, tightened her chest. She didn’t have much longer. She trembled, shuddered as much from fear as she did the cold that wrapped around her. She refused to die here in this dirty little hole. Not like this. Trussed up like a damned chicken and helpless to save herself.

The crystal was a hard, heated throb at her breast. Imploring, commanding, demanding that she get free. Her wrists were already bloody from her struggle to escape, the raw marks around them setting fire to her nerve endings as she struggled once again.

The crystal heated further as she struggled, as though to give her strength. Devlin. Where are you? She cried out his name silently. He was little more than a dream image, but she held onto him as though he were real. The heat at her breast surged.

“Time to go.” She swung around as the guard swaggered into the room.

His greasy black hair fell over his forehead, nearly hiding his beady brown eyes. The scar across the left side of his face gave him a menacing appearance that was more than deserved.

“Go where?” Her voice was raw from the obscenities she had screamed at the bastard earlier.

“Jonar’s on his way. He wants you ready for him,” he sneered. “Time to get ready, little girl. He and Oberon have several pleasures in store for you.”

Oh, she was ready. Her body stilled as she gathered her strength, knowing that when he released her the pain in her wrists and legs would be tremendous. She couldn’t wait any longer for rescue. She had to get the hell out of here before Jonar arrived. She sent a silent, desperate plea to the crystal for strength, and a strong one to the heavens for mercy.

He reached up, the long-bladed knife in his hand, and cut the ropes. Agony swelled in her arms, her legs, and her collapse wasn’t totally feigned. She went to the floor, crying out, taking a deep breath. When he bent to her, she moved. A heated burst of energy vibrated through her body as she twisted around, giving her strength, and easing the pain as she made her play for escape. She felt the knife slice across her thigh as she came up with her elbow, slamming it into his groin. She twisted, gasping for breath, her hand going for his wrist, and the knife she would need to defend herself.

Agony sounded in his cry when her nails bit into the flesh of his wrist, her fingers burned, heated, as hot as the crystal burned. The knife came free in her hand, but he seemed to have found the strength to move as well. He jumped for her, a snarl of rage on his lips as she braced her elbows, the knife poised in front of her. She didn’t know who was more surprised, him as he felt the knife sink into his chest, or her as she felt the blade slide in. Her stomach heaved at the sensation of firm flesh giving way to sharpened steel, the sucking sound of its welcome and the dying gasp of the man receiving it.

She moved, rolling to the side as he fell, a strangled moan on his lips. She didn’t wait around to be certain he was dead. She grabbed the clothes they had stripped from her. Her jeans and shirt. Her bra and panties were just gone. Her sneakers were quickly laced, her socks missing from the pile. She grabbed the automatic rifle sitting just inside the door and slipped quietly from the cell.

She was only distantly aware of the strange, emerald aura that began to pulse from the crystal as she made her way down the corridor to the back exit she had been brought in. Pain that she knew should be disabling her was only a hard ache. The blood at her thigh was minimal, the bruises on her body aching but not disabling. She could hear voices in the other rooms, male laughter and raucous jeers as the guards laughed amongst each other, but no one sounded an alarm. They seemed more than cheerful, secure that they had done as ordered, that Jonar would be pleased.

She slid carefully through the opening of the exit door, nervous, watching the shadows as she moved carefully into the darkness of night. She was alone. Alone as she never had been in her life. Even James, her beloved brother, had been unable to help her. Her heart clenched, her soul screaming out silently. Why hadn’t her father even tried to save her?

Devlin. Where are you? The silent cry echoed through her head. He had been her last hope. When she realized no one else would come, she had thought surely he would. Yet he hadn’t. She was alone.

* * * * *

Devlin. Where are you? The words echoed in his head again, driving him insane with his need to answer. As the jet landed on the hidden airfield, pulling into the camouflage metal building that would hide it during the extraction, the voice pleaded with him. His body tightened, both in preparation of the coming mission and in sexual anticipation. She had tormented his dreams for nearly a year now. She had brought sexual desire when before there had been none, and soon, he would have her. He knew now who she was, and who had been hiding her.

The thought of the man who had hidden her had Devlin’s eyes narrowing in anger. The man would pay eventually. Not now, not while he may still need him. But soon, when the danger was over, they would discuss his disregard of this woman, and the vow he had made to Devlin so long ago.

Her present identity was a puzzle. Chantel. He knew that name, though he couldn’t place her face in the past. All he had were the dreams. Dreams of a time long ago of a woman filled with magic and mystery and a smile that lit his heart. Then he saw her resemblance to the woman who had, for a time, attempted to call herself his wife. A title he had denied in rage and unexplained hatred. Too many puzzles, for he only had dreams of the fair Chantel, and memories of the hated Antea. Which was she? Not Antea, he assured himself. For it was at the time of meeting that deceptive bitch that he had lost all the lustful, strong sexual urges that had once filled him. What then? Dream or memory?

“We have her pinpointed.” Joshua pulled out a rough map of the nearby village.

“Two days ago a guard was killed and a prisoner escaped. Rumored to be female, though the guards denied it. Jonar is in residence now, coordinating a search.”

Joshua pointed out the area of her last known whereabouts. A small, nearly forgotten village, far from where she had been taken outside the Montrovian Embassy. Devlin rose to his feet. He slung the sheathed sword over his back then picked up the long leather coat he usually wore over it.

“Is our contact in place?” he asked, referring to the double agent that often traveled with Jonar.

“She’s there,” Joshua sneered. “She’s providing what cover she can for the girl, but says she’ll be found soon if we don’t hurry.”

Lora Leigh

Shadowed Legacy

23

“Jeep is ready.” Shanar, the huge Viking warrior, reported behind Joshua. “Extra ammo and mounted machine gun is in place.”

“I have the occupants here under control.” Derek’s brogue attested to the fact that he did indeed control the minds of the few who staffed this little known landing strip.

“We’re ready to head out.”

Devlin led the exit from the plane into the gathering darkness of the desert night. They were far enough from the village that their landing would not have been detected; especially with Derek and Joshua working together with the alien powers they had been given. Joshua could erase their presence from radar itself, and Derek could control the minds of men from miles away. It was an exhausting, mental drain that often left them sleeping for weeks after the completion of a mission. They were powers rarely used. In this instance, they were powers used in full force. Devlin could feel the echo of the earth crystal, a power that called to him as it hadn’t when Antea had worn it. The crystal was said to belong to one woman and one woman only, he had believed Antea was that woman. His soul believed something else. If this were true, why in the hell did he see the crystal in his dreams of the early Chantel as well? It was worn around her neck naturally, a part of her, rather than the abomination it had been when Antea had worn it. It made no sense. He found little made sense these days though. The battles, the lack of victory or defeat. Only with the crystal would they have a chance of success. A chance at true death. And for this, they all awaited.

He dreamed of his final death, a peace from the life he lived. Or he had. In the past year a new anticipation had risen within him. Vitality, a desire he had not known in a thousand years. A hope he had forgotten, and still did not clearly remember. All those emotions clamored within him, pressing him on, reminding of pleasures long forgotten. Devlin. I’m frightened. Her words drifted along his consciousness. His powers, more subtle, yet stronger than all those of the other three combined, reached out for her. He touched her. For a brief instant, he touched her. Her pain, her fear, hunger and need, they all filled him. She was fighting for her life, and she was alone.

“Joshua, when we return, I want Michael at the castle.” There would be no more trips to the Agency. No more favors granted with no questions asked. “A man does not betray his daughter for no reason. I would know why.”

Devlin glanced at Joshua as he nodded his head in agreement. The jeep accelerated into the night. No lights, since there were none of them that needed the aid of the piercing headlights on the front of the jeep. As Shadow warriors, they were part of the night, and could see as well as any creature that lived within it. He stared out at the endless landscape of sand, reining in his impatience as he fought to assure the voice reaching out to him that he was coming for her. He leaned his head against the seat, stared up at the night and wondered at the remembered screams of pain, her blood on his hands, and a grief that made him ache for his own death.

Twisting, churning inside him, emotions raged and pulsed. Forgotten feelings, dreams only once hinted at, they all seemed to be focused within his mind now. The cold centuries stretching behind him were over. He knew that, yet what was coming he wasn’t certain.

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