“I don’t think she knows who he is,” Robbie continued. “He threw her against the rocks when she wouldn’t go with him.”
Christan felt no sympathy, only anger when she stabbed stiff fingers into his wrist, trying to break his hold. Bending down, he spoke against her ear.
“We watched on the drone’s cameras.”
“I hope you enjoyed the show.”
Her voice reminded him of night and heat and Christan wanted to pull her hard against his body. He was a big man. Towered over her and she still kept fighting. She tried to twist his thumb upward. He got so hard it hurt.
“Did you think we wouldn’t know?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“I don’t give a damn what you know.” She gave up on torturing his thumb and began pushing against his arm. Christan tightened the pressure until the struggling stopped.
“Were you meeting him here?”
“No.”
“Are you calling him later?”
“Are you some kind of crazy person?” Lexi arched back. Strands of blond hair caught in his mouth. “I was not out here meeting anyone.”
“His name is Kace.” Christan ground the words with the same aggression as he ground the taste of her hair from his tongue. “And you were rubbing yourself all over him.”
“Oh, good god—who talks like that?”
Christan didn’t answer. He couldn’t. She continued her desperate little rant.
“That was Wallace. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize him, since that recommendation came from an acquaintance in Montana. Oh, right,” she added, “that was when you were lying about being an event planner.”
Christan tightened his arm and jerked her close. The scent of his enemy was still in her hair. When she shifted to keep her balance, her hips pressed against his groin and he hissed in a breath, barely keeping it together. The fire in his tattoos was fucking burning so hot he started to sweat and knew he was on the verge of shifting.
“Christan,” Arsen warned again. Several seconds passed before Christan relaxed his arm. Lexi stumbled away and Christan saw the wariness in her eyes. He wondered what Kace said in those rocks.
“Lexi,” Arsen said. “What were you doing out here?”
“Walking.”
“Did you call him to come out here?”
“With what phone?”
Christan held up the cell phone he’d pried from her hand. An angry flush moved up her throat and he thought about licking her skin until the flush spread. Right. Here. In front of everyone.
“Robbie explained. Wallace gave me that phone a few minutes ago. I could hardly call if he was already here.”
“The man you were talking to is named Kace.”
“You must be confused.”
“We don’t misidentify our enemies.”
“Enemies.” The word was hard and Christan heard the accusation. Not the present-day accusation, but one much older, filled with bitterness and pain. Emotions she’d carried centuries ago.
Her posture had grown regal, her voice precise. “I was walking, not meeting anyone. As for who I met, I don’t care if you call him Abraham fucking Lincoln. I call him Wallace and I have no idea why he was out here today, nor do I care to explain anything when you can’t even be civil.” Lexi was looking at Arsen, Christan realized, not him, to whom she owed the explanation. And he heard the hesitation, as if there was more to the meeting than she admitted. Resentment was hot and heavy in his veins.
“I did not bring myself out here,” she continued, a fierce fire in the words. “You’re the ones who kidnapped me, probably drugged me, threw me down on the ground and left me there. And you’ve already admitted to the lies.”
“Lexi,” Arsen said, but she was defiant, lush in her feminine anger.
“This no longer matters, Arsen. I don’t know you. I’m not even sure if I really know Marge, and whatever happened here is your problem, not mine.”
She started to turn and Christan reached for her arm. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Lexi evaded him. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
He advanced and she retreated. Tremors slid through her, delicately fragile movements most obvious in her hands. The amber in her eyes was fading, or perhaps it was a trick of the sunlight. When she pressed the heel of her palm hard against her forehead, Christan wondered if she was remembering Kace—or the man she continued to call Wallace. Found it difficult to believe that she wasn’t. She pushed her fingers restlessly through her hair. The small gesture threw him back to the heat of an ancient sun. The sweet tang of wild oranges, the soft laughter when they made love in the shade. Centuries ago. He shut the images down.
“Where’s Marge?” There was exhaustion in her voice.
“Busy.”
“She should be here.”
“Marge can’t help you. Just tell us the truth.”
Lexi shifted her body to face him. Her eyes were unfocused, and Christan wondered if she was wandering through her own dark past, or his.
“I don’t know anyone named Kace.”
But she was lying, because she did know Kace and they both knew it. Moments ago, when Christan realized she was lost from view, he’d redirected the drone’s surveillance cameras. Arsen had been in the air. Robbie on the ground. They found her in the rocks, recognized who she was meeting—which shouldn’t have been surprising but was.
Arsen had warned against making assumptions, even though the scene was so familiar Christan saw it in his dreams. In a past lifetime, this woman stood in the center of a moon-shot road and conspired with his enemy. In this lifetime, she stood in the middle of a wilderness and did the same thing. The cold weight of anger pressed down his spine. He looked at her, wanting to see something else, but all he saw was Gemma.
“Do you believe you should not be held accountable?”
He felt the hard rasp of each word, deep in his throat. Deeper still. She looked guilty as sin and Christan thought about his enemy with his hand in her hair. Touching her face.
“I’ve done nothing.” Lexi dropped her hand to her side. It was the hand that still dripped blood. The hand with the single, stark memory line. “I don’t know you. I don’t remember any past lives with you.”
“I know you.”
“You don’t know me. You have never known me.”
The bitterness moved rough against his skin. Christan realized it was Lexi, staring at him now, and not Gemma. Lexi, who withdrew behind an emotional wall too thick for him to penetrate. And he wanted her to remember who she was. Who he was. Why they were so destructive together.
The demand was viciously unrelenting. He reached out, touched her. The contact was familiar. He should have known. He dragged a blunt finger over her cheek, slid along her jawline, then up to the corner of her mouth. Pressed inside, drew moisture out and would have rubbed it against her lower lip if she hadn’t twisted away.
“Bastard.”
“Come up with something new.”
She hesitated, then said words so familiar because she’d said them to him before, centuries ago. “I hate you, Christan.”
He answered with familiar words of his own. “And it’s so easy to do.”
There was a beat, the hesitation before the guillotine descends. A memory. An ending, fading into an inevitable conclusion. Christan thought something broke inside, felt a pain swallowed into emptiness as he lifted his hand. Arsen’s red Hawaiian shirt became a blur as the warrior moved. A palm connected solidly against Christan’s shoulder.
“Don’t.”
“Shut up, Arsen.” The utter lack of emotion would have been chilling if Christan realized it was there.
“Do not do this,” Arsen repeated, while Robbie grew tense. “Give her a chance, Christan. Give yourself a chance.”