Stephanie Rowe - Darkness Unleashed by Stephanie Rowe - Darkness Unleashed Read Free Book Online Page A

mates, and with other Calydons. Go to the village, Catherine. You will be safe there.
    No answer, and he knew he was out of time. Zach truly was dying, and he had maybe a half-hour left to save him. He'd done all he could. It was time to move on and trust that Catherine would take the bait. If not, he would simply have to hunt her later. "Let's do this," he said. "Follow me. I know the shortest way."
    Without wasting time with further conversation, Ryland broke into a run, driving all his energy into sprinting toward the one place that could save his teammates. Apollo's hoofbeats thundered behind him as the beast kept pace easily, despite carrying the two massive warriors.
    Ryland bent his head against the branches, not slowing to avoid them.
    The final bell had begun to toll for Zach. The time was now. But would Catherine still be around when he got back? Or had he lost her? Tension radiated through him as he ran. There were so many critical components of the Order's future dangling so precariously in his hands. Thano. Zach. Catherine. If he lost them all, what would be left of Dante's vision?
    Nothing. It would be the final step in the crumbling of what had once been a legend, and it would be his damn fault.
    Ryland sheathed his weapon, lowered his head, and ran harder.
    He could not afford to fail.
    * * *
    How stupid did they think she was?
    Of course they were going to the village. And they obviously wanted her to go there as well.
    Catherine watched her pursuers disappear into the forest. She'd been riveted by the exchange between the men, by the seething cauldron fermenting inside Ryland, which he'd somehow managed to hold at bay while he'd let the others take control.
    She didn't even know him, but it was obvious that Ryland was the man in charge. He exuded a dark power that rolled off him like angry thunderclouds over a vast desert. During the entire discussion about whether to stay or leave, she'd been riveted by Ryland. By the tormented depth of his voice, by the way his hands had twitched with the need to fight back, and by the intense control he'd exhibited to let his men hold weapons on him.
    She knew there was no way the others would have pulled weapons on him if he hadn't given them permission. It had been a setup to bait her, clear and simple. Granted, she knew it was true that Zach and Thano were suffering from talrak poison. That much was obvious. And the rest of the exchange? Zach's hostility had been genuine, but she'd sensed a bond between the mounted warrior and Ryland. Something she didn't quite understand, but it had definitely been there.
    Ryland was danger and death, but he was also something else, something deeper that had been the bridge that had connected him to the mounted warrior. It wasn't warmth. It wasn't a purity of spirit. But there was something…
    No. She couldn't try to find goodness in him. She had to remember that he was the enemy. He was hunting her. He carried death. How, she didn't know. She'd never met anyone like him before. It was fascinating and terrifying at the same time. He'd threatened to take her back to his home, to the Order of the Blade, a thought that made chills of terror race down her spine. If he took her, she would never get to Lucy. She would be trapped, and, dear God, she couldn't be trapped again.
    But at the same time, when he'd uttered those words, that promise to keep her safe, she'd felt like her entire world had come crashing to a halt, as if her heart had suddenly begun beating for the first time in her life. He'd sounded so genuine, a man who would lay down his life for her. The promise had been so beautiful, so intense, that she'd wanted to leap out of the shadows and beg for his help.
    But she knew too much to fall for that again. She was not the naive fool she had once been. There was no way she was turning herself over to a man who wanted to kidnap her. But even as she thought that, his tormented black eyes drifted through her mind, and her heart ached