Part 16 (1/2)
Ashen, she stared at his hand wordlessly, and it lay between them, an unanswered question until he explained his plan. ”I need your power, cousin,” he told her gently. ”It's the only way I can do what I must.”
Hesitating only one moment longer, she extended her own trembling, pale hand to him. Before their fingers had even locked together, the tendrils of his cousin's immense energy had already begun to twine with his own, giving him the strength he hoped would enable him to reach Kelsey across the expanse that separated them.
Kelsey sat on the smooth floor of the mitres chamber, leaning against the tiled wall. She drew her denim-clad knees close against her chest, making herself as small as possible-almost willing herself to disappear-as if an auburn-haired, nearly six-foot-tall woman could ever escape notice. Without being obvious about it, she stole glances around the place, trying to get a better fix on her location. Was she underground? On Refaria? She hadn't a clue, because the catacomb-like place didn't seem to possess a single opening to the outside world. It reminded her of her grandparents' farm in Montana, where she'd once seen a bas.e.m.e.nt fallout shelter left over from the 1960s, still stocked with dingy soup cans and dusty supplies. Only this weaponry complex-for surely that was what it had to be, even if that revelation had come from Marco-was the sort of place that sent people into shelter. It didn't provide it.
Kelsey studied the large, luminous tube in the middle of the main chamber's floor. It held no meaning for her, no relation to anything she had ever encountered as a student of the physical sciences. Yet apparently ten years from now she knew exactly how to operate the d.a.m.n thing. She let her gaze slide over other parts of the chamber, squinting as she followed the trail of a dark, narrow hallway until it vanished into blackness. Maybe the way out was down that hall? With a surge of hope, she knew she had to break away from Marco somehow, at least long enough to see if her freedom lay at the obscured end of that tunnel.
She lifted wary eyes to study her captor. Marco sprawled against the wall opposite her, his lean frame imposing the strength and weight of an armed fortress without so much as twitching a single muscle. His long legs extended in front of him with a casualness that belied whatever purpose had dragged them both to this alien place. His calculating black eyes locked with hers in challenge, and one dark eyebrow shot upward, daring her to question his motives.
She dropped her chin onto her knees and fixed her eyes on his weathered black biking boots-anything to avoid that cold, vacant stare. One of his boots had a long gash along the side, the kind a penetrating knife might have left in the middle of some struggle, and as she stared at that slash of leather, she thought of his scar. Again she wondered why it felt so familiar and significant.
Glancing upward, she studied the way the silver line sliced through the otherwise silken black hairs of his eyebrow. With his waving black hair and sultry-eyed appearance, he was just the kind of guy she and her girlfriends might have ogled from afar. He possessed the dangerous, graceful looks of the unattainable, the sort of bad boy she would never dare to pursue. Not if she didn't want her heart smashed into thousands of pieces-she'd encountered his kind before. Then again, Jared had the same kind of breath-stealing good looks about him too. But in every plane of her lover's face, every realm of his heart, Jared transmitted goodness. Strength. This Marco's dangerous beauty made her s.h.i.+ver like she would in the middle of some sudden snow squall.
”You study me,” he observed, that eyebrow c.o.c.king upward in question again.
She countered, ”How'd you get that scar?” and locked her eyes with him in challenge. Unflinching, he stared back at her for a long, thoughtful moment. Against the wall, he stiffened, as if he meant to come after her, but she refused to cower. Just as suddenly, their battles of wills softened, and he released a breath, settling into his watch again without another word.
But she remained undaunted. ”You're not going to answer me?” she pressed.
He released a low, soft chuckle. ”I owe you no answers, my dear.”
”Oh, so... what? You just get to s.n.a.t.c.h me from the bathroom half-naked, send me flying through G.o.d only knows what that was earlier, but I can't ask about a scar?” She snorted with ironic laughter. ”No, I'm sorry, but I think you owe me plenty of answers.”
His black eyebrows drew together with a focused expression, but he said nothing, only retrieved his weapon from a side holster-a silver pistol unlike any she'd ever seen before-and gazed down the barrel at her.
”That doesn't intimidate me.”
His full lips pulled into an amused expression. ”It would if I fired into you.”
”No, that would just kill me,” she answered, trying to sound nonchalant. ”But it still wouldn't intimidate me.”
This statement, for some inexplicable reason, earned her a grudging look of appreciation. He lowered his pistol and immediately reholstered it. ”I don't believe I am ready to kill you, Kelsey.” He lifted a thumb to his marred eyebrow, rubbing it with a thoughtful gesture. ”Why do you mention the scar?” he asked, searching her face.
”It's important.” She'd felt the undercurrent of knowing in those first moments when he'd taken her captive. She sensed it even more so now. ”Tell me why.” If she could get control here, be the one in command of this situation, then maybe she could control him.
”It's an odd question, Kelsey,” he answered, his hard gaze never leaving her face. ”Again, I wonder why you ask.”
”Maybe the scar is part of all this.”
His expression darkened, and she swore that the dusky skin of his face reddened as well, but he said nothing more. No answers, no reasoning behind what they were doing here in this strangely lit chamber, only a heavily drawn and oppressive silence.
Well, she wouldn't let him think it mattered to her. She dropped her gaze again, and began to trace her finger in little circular patterns on the smooth floor. ”Well, if that question's no good, then here's another one,” she said. ”What are we doing here?” Maybe being direct was better with this enemy. ”Other than your plan to destroy Jared Bennett, that is.”
He tilted his head sideways. ”I liked the first question better.”
He seemed to gaze at some distant point, a surprising mixture of emotions flas.h.i.+ng across his features. Sadness, regret, emptiness-all those pa.s.sed over his dark face, and he made no effort to disguise them from her. Then, just as quickly, he grew guarded again, his expression steely and harsh as his gaze bore down upon her. ”Yes, Kelsey Bennett, I do indeed prefer the first question,” he said, his voice a.s.suming a formal tone. ”And yet I shall answer the second one.” He s.h.i.+fted where he sat on the floor, sitting more upright. ”We're going to call Jared in a few minutes and have him meet us here.”
”Why are you waiting at all?” she demanded, leaping to her feet. Jared would come, marshaling all the soldiers at his disposal, before he'd let this man touch her. ”Why not just call him now?” She stared down at him, unable to suppress her fury and fear another moment.
Only the subtlest shading of surprise even pa.s.sed over his face. ”Ah, well, there's reason to my madness.” He folded his muscled arms across his chest. ”I want to give him time to know you're really gone, because his fear for you will be his weakness.”
”Of course he knows I'm gone!” she cried in frustration, pacing the floor. ”You kidnapped me from his freaking bedroom!”
With unexpected swiftness, one dark hand shot out, clasping her ankle like a strong manacle. ”I want him to feel your absence,” he said calmly, holding her fast. ”To experience the truth of it in the marrow of his bones. Only then will I allow him to know the full measure of his defeat. Now,” he said, his voice edged like a knife blade, ”sit down.”
”So we can wait for Jared to know 'the measure of his defeat,'” she taunted, trembling as she sank back against the wall opposite Marco.
”I wish the battlefield to a.s.semble well,” he answered with a nod.
And for Jared to realize that I'm as good as dead? She s.h.i.+vered at the thought, but forced herself to focus on getting Marco to talk-to reveal some hidden detail that might help her escape.
”Why do you want to destroy Jared? You must be Antousian.”
Marco had told her at the outset that he was Refarian- but from what she already knew about Jared's people, why would any of his own kind wish to see him dead?
”Antousian?” He let out a deep, gravelly laugh, something she never expected. ”No, I told you before- I'm Refarian. Just like you and Jared.”
She would have sworn that her heart stopped beating beneath the ribs of her chest, turning instead to a chamber as hollow as the one all around her. Then with a violent lurch, it began to hammer an erratic, crazy tempo, the room nearly fading to black around her.
Finally, she found her voice again. ”Like Jared, you mean,” she corrected with a swallow. ”You're Refarian like he is.”
Marco's eyebrows drew together in confusion as he studied her. ”Like you, Jared-all of you.” Awareness grew in his expression. ”Kelsey, don't you know what you are? Surely you know by now.”
She felt hot tears begin to sting behind her eyes, anger roiling hard within her. ”What kind of game are you trying to play with me?” she demanded.
”I was merely answering your question as to my genetic makeup.” He cleared his throat with a wry laugh. ”I did not expect to b.u.mp into something so... awkward, shall I say, as your not knowing which species you belong to.” He bowed his head dramatically. ”I do hope you'll forgive my indiscretion.”
”What you're saying... it can't be true. It's impossible.” Her hands began to tremble uncontrollably, the tears still p.r.i.c.kling her eyes.
”Kelsey, it is very much possible, because it is who you are.”
”I have human cells,” she insisted. ”Human blood! My father is Jordan Patrick Wells. My mother-”
”He changed you.”
”My mother,” she continued, ”was Erica Marshall Wells-”
”When Jared left this mitres data inside your mind, Kelsey, it changed you on the most basic cellular level. I'm sorry, but you are part Refarian now.” His voice had a.s.sumed a quiet, soothing tone. ”Between the soul joining and the mind bonding, and the presence of his data, it transformed you. So you're part h.o.m.o sapiens and part”- he chuckled-”h.o.m.o Refarius, I guess you'd say, since our genetic codes are more than ninety-nine percent the same.”
”No, you're wrong.” Kelsey shook her head adamantly. ”There's no way you could even know this at all.”
He studied her with a sympathetic expression. ”Actually, I know firsthand that it is the truth.”