Primal Heat 04 - Forever in Darkness

weighted with the agony of her approaching death.
    No! I'll get this— His
weapons suddenly burned his arms, a violent warning of a threat.
    Ian instantly cut off his
connection to Catherine and called out his weapons as he leapt to his feet. His
flanged mace exploded into his hand as he spun toward the male who had attacked
Catherine in the bar, who was streaking across the graveyard toward them,
moving so fast he was almost a blur. His eyes were glowing green, and his
entire body was carrying a faint green glow.
    "You don't get to have
her!" Ian hurled his mace as he charged Flynn. The male didn't even bother
to duck. He just let the mace hit him in the chest, tore it out of his body and
hurled it aside without even breaking stride.
    Son of a bitch. Flynn was even
stronger than he'd been in the bar. What the hell was he?
    The two males collided with a crash
that shook the very earth, and Flynn careened across the graveyard, thrown
almost a hundred yards by the force of the impact. Ian went down hard, and he grimaced
at the pain as he leapt back to his feet. At least three ribs were cracked, and
his shoulder had been dislocated, but as he watched, Flynn rolled onto his
side, already recovering.
    So, this was war, then.
    Ian's mind quieted, and he went
into the calm, focused place of battle. His senses zeroed in on the male
struggling to his feet, and he assessed Flynn with the efficient vigilance of a
warrior who had been fighting for more than six hundred years. He surged past
the male's bulk and muscle, looked past the crazed energy flowing off him, and
ignored the green glow that seemed to obscure him almost to the point that Ian
couldn’t see him physically. Ian eliminated all distractions until he could
feel the essence of his enemy and was attuned to every twitch of his muscles.
    He was ready.
    Flynn moved suddenly, leaping to
his feet to attack, and Ian responded instantly as Flynn hurled a glowing green
disc at him. Ian cut it down with a stroke of his mace as he raced toward Flynn.
He swung hard with the mace, and Flynn blocked the first blow with a move
faster than Ian had seen on anyone except other Order members.
    Another stroke, another blow, and
the males were locked in battle, dead even, one man focused and sane, the other
so insane with fury and violence. "Stand down," Ian shouted. "I
don't want to kill you." Ian had one job: to protect the world from rogue
Calydons. This male wasn't a Calydon, so he wasn't Ian's problem—except for the
fact he was trying to kill Catherine. "Back off," he yelled.
    But Flynn simply roared a challenge
and unleashed another disc. Ian blocked it with his mace. "Sorry, man, but
I don't have time to be nice." Then he summoned all the energy inside him
that he'd harvested from his ancestors, let it ignite his muscles, and then he
swung his weapon with more force than he'd ever done in his life.
    Flynn dropped to the earth with a
thud. For a split second, he didn't move, then he took a shallow shuddering
breath. Alive. Not about to get up and attack again, but alive.
    Ian was shocked. Flynn had survived
that? What the hell was he—
    Ian.
    At Catherine's urgent call Ian
whirled around, Flynn's blood still caked on his mace. She convulsed on the
ground beside Augustus's grave, her body twisting in the final throes of death.
"No!" Denial roared through Ian, and the world seemed to descend into
a black flaming hell as he threw the mace aside and started running toward her.
    Watching her die before him, unable
to reach her. Faster. Faster. Faster. He felt like he couldn’t get there,
like he was running in quicksand, like he was sinking deeper and deeper in the
mire, his feet like clay, sucking him into the depths. "Catherine!" he
roared.
    Ian. She lifted her hand, a
fragile, desperate gesture of farewell.
    "No!" He bellowed with
fury as he pushed harder, ran faster, his body screaming as he gave it everything
he had. "I'm coming!"
    Too late. Her voice was
faint, so faint in his mind.
    "No! Don't give up!" He
finally reached her and fell to his knees beside her, pulling her into his
arms. Jesus, her body was ice cold, her lips ashen, her eyes closed. "Catherine,"
he gasped. "Don't. I can heal you—"
    I'm not Catherine.
    Ian's entire world froze at her
words. What?
    My name is Alice Shaw. Catherine
is my sister.
    Ian felt like the earth had been
torn out from under him. But—
    I remember you now. You were
there when I died.
    Which time? Which time was you? Had that woman