The Pearl of Paradise Page 10

  Bound and gagged, Lily could hear Gregory whimpering, just like in her dream. She strained her ears, trying to determine how far away he might be.

  Hold on, little one. A sour burning in her throat almost gagged her. Damon would come after them—she had doomed him to that now.

  She still couldn’t believe what had happened. She might be rusty at picking locks, but she was very, very good at concentration. Yet somehow, she’d become so lost in contemplation of the Dragon that she’d never registered the change around her, had let them take her by surprise.

  What had she done to Damon’s chances now? Kwan—for she didn’t doubt where she was now—had not only Gregory and the Dragon, but her as well.

  How could Damon not be drawn away from safety? And if he left sacred ground, with or without the Pearl, he would die. The curse promised as much.

  Though Lily’s early years on the streets had given her no religious training and she indeed resembled the thinking of her Western bloodline more than her Asian heritage, still, she’d absorbed from Fan Lee a strong appreciation for Eastern thinking. She knew there was more to the world than the five senses would reveal.

  Though her American mind rejected the curse as little more than mythology, her Chinese soul shivered at its power. Damon was a skeptic, but Lily felt the cold, rubbery tentacles of fear.

  The door opened, startling her out of her thoughts.

  A stocky man, tall for a Chinese, entered first, followed by the man who’d surprised her at Kwan’s home. The two flanked the doorway, an expectancy in the air.

  The man who entered last was not remarkable—until you saw his eyes. Lily’s mouth was too dry to swallow, yet she would have done so, heavily, had she been able.

  Flat, soulless eyes met her gaze. The face around them burned with the vigor of a man who could fight for himself. His shaven head lent him the air of a monk, yet there was nothing in his manner that was at all calm or non-threatening.

  Conversely, menace hovered in the air, almost a living presence. She felt as though he gazed into the depths of her soul, and through his eyes, evil slithered down, to wrap its insidious power around her heart, squeezing dry her faith that this would not end in horror.

  When he spoke, the soft voice took her by surprise. “So delighted to have you here with us, Ms. Shen.”

  Lily tried to calm her heart into silence, but it hammered so loudly she thought even he might be able to hear.

  Kwan. It must be him. The aura of power could not be mistaken.

  “If you were to give me your promise that you would be very calm, I would allow your bonds to be loosened.”

  Lily fought to keep her rage tucked within, lowering her eyes so that he could not see her true feelings. Something about this man slithered over her like the cold scales of a snake, yet she had to give herself the best possible chance to take care of Gregory. She needed to be vigilant in case she might be able to get them both out before Damon knew where they were and came after them.

  Drawing a deep breath, she nodded, still looking downward.

  “Let me see your eyes when you answer.”

  Fan Lee’s lessons in calming a restless spirit had never seemed further away. Drawing another deep breath and searching for detachment, Lily forced herself to think of him as a stranger, one she merely passed on the street and would never know. Holding on tightly to that image, she slowly raised her lids and met his gaze.

  “Ah… interesting. Not only courage but wit, as well.” Nodding to the stocky man, he stood back very still and waited.

  The man’s touch was impersonal, neither gentle nor seeking to render pain. When the gag was pulled out, Lily tried to summon the moisture to swallow, wanting also to lick desperately dry lips, but her mouth seemed filled with cotton.

  “Perhaps you would join me for a cup of tea?”

  Lily fought to keep her surprise to herself. Think with your Eastern mind, Lily. Ceremony and appearances are all. It was a Western idea, to come straight to the point. In business or in war, the Chinese mind would observe the proprieties first. The surprise was that Kwan would share tea with her, a woman—and a half-breed at that.

  When the ropes binding her ankles and wrists fell away, Lily struggled against her inclination to leap up and run in search of Gregory. But she’d made one fatal error already, going into Kwan’s house with too little information. She had to bide her time and play along.

  “Be careful that you gauge your enemy correctly before you make your move, Lily. You will not get a second chance.” Fan Lee had been teaching her the strategies of wei qi, the game that had served for centuries to train warriors in the art of waging battle. He’d have been very disappointed in her thus far, but she would change that. She had not taken Kwan as seriously as Damon had.

  She nodded slowly. “Thank you.” Her voice was barely more than a croak. She could gladly gorge herself on water, but she had to take everything slowly. No more hasty moves.

  Kwan, though he still hadn’t identified himself as such, led the way from the room. The other two men waited for her to follow.

  Please, Damon, don’t come. Let me see if I can find my own way out.

  “Chang, I need to talk to Old Man Wu. I need his skilled hands. Then I have to talk to you and Callie.”

  Chang raised an eyebrow at the mention of Callie, but he merely nodded. “I will fetch Old Man Wu.”

  Damon headed toward Callie’s office. Once there, he found her showing Shirley how to file records. Both women looked up, and he was struck anew by the joy of seeing each of them less haunted and terrified. Dark shadows still lined Shirley’s face, but compared to the wraith she’d been when she arrived, the improvement was remarkable.

  “Callie’s teaching me some office skills,” she said quietly, moving a step away from him.

  Damon knew enough after all this time to understand that any male was threatening to these women. Learning to trust the gender who’d stripped you of all dignity took time. He’d learned to accept that it wasn’t him they feared, just his sex in general.

  He smiled at her but didn’t move closer. “I’m proud of you for daring to learn something new, to give yourself some options.”

  A faint smile played about her lips, but her eyes still held ghosts. “I’m not so brave.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  Shirley met his gaze, gratitude spilling from her own, then tears threatened. She glanced away. “Thank you, Damon.”

  “We’re glad you’re here.” His voice sharpening slightly, he turned to Callie. “If you could spare me a few minutes in the library?”

  Quick hurt crossed her face, and he regretted letting his anxiety cut through.

  “When you can spare a few minutes.”

  She glanced at Shirley. “I’ll be back.”

  Shirley nodded and resumed her filing.

  Callie walked beside him down the hallway, hands clasped together before her.

  “I’m sorry, Callie. I was too abrupt. I’m—”

  “Worried about Lily,” she finished.

  “Yeah.”

  Callie stopped suddenly, placing a hand on his arm, turning her gaze upon him. “Do you have to go, Damon? I mean—what about the curse?”

  He grinned. “Surely you don’t believe in an ancient curse.”

  She lowered her gaze. “I—I don’t know.” When she looked back up, her voice thickened. “But I don’t want to lose—I mean—” she swallowed. “We need you here. You are the heart and soul of this place. Besides,” her gaze pinned him. “What of your promise to Fan Lee?”

  He stiffened. “I could use your help, but I don’t need you reminding me of my responsibilities.”

  Crestfallen, she dropped her hand from his arm. “I’m sorry.” She kept her eyes focused on the ground.

  “Callie,” he placed his hands on her arms, turning her toward him, then lifting her chin with one finger. “I know you want the best for me, but that’s my child out there, in the hands of a madman. I can’t lea
ve him—or Lily—at Kwan’s mercy.” His jaw flexed. “I should have finished this with Kwan years ago, but I thought he’d given up and gone away. Now he has them both, and I can’t believe Fan Lee would have me desert them.”

  “But the curse says you’ll die,” she cried out.

  “I wouldn’t want to live, if something happened to either of them.”

  Astonishing him utterly, Callie threw herself into his arms, clasping him tight around the waist. Gingerly, he wrapped one arm around her shoulders and stroked her hair while shudders ran through her frame.

  “You don’t have to help me if you’re afraid, Callie. I won’t think less of you.”

  She raised tear-swollen eyes to his face. “Anything. I’ll do anything. You gave me my life back, Damon. All you have to do is ask.”

  “It could be dangerous.”

  She stood up straight, wiping her eyes and stiffening her spine. “Anything, Damon.”

  She’d suffered so much in her life. If he had any choice, he’d never involve her, but besides Chang, she was the only person left whom he could trust.

  Hold on, Lily. Please hold on.

  He couldn’t even think about what Kwan might be doing to his child.

  Chapter Eleven

  The room gave Lily the creeps. Beautiful, certainly. But deception screamed from every corner. The silken pillows on which she sat would have teased her skin, had she been with Damon. Here, they unsettled her, too much luxury for a prisoner. She straightened, reminding herself that she was exactly that—no honored guest, as Kwan would pretend, but a hostage to seal Damon’s fate. A lure inside a Venus flytrap.

  The rich, deep red pillows lay on a Persian carpet. The walls were lacquered black. Faint glowing lamps warmed and soothed, in the circle of light beneath each one, a treasure to rival the Dragon.

  On the low teak table before her, its rich veins carved in exotic relief, the Dragon itself reposed, perhaps looking incomplete only to Lily.

  The detail was breathtaking, reminding her why jade was so highly prized. Smooth, yet alive, the stone glowed as if from within. Yet she heard the Dragon cry out to her and wondered if only she knew its pain.

  Longing for Damon swirled through her blood. She mourned that they might know but once the wholeness, the sense of completion that she’d only ever found with him.

  Kwan handed her a cup of tea, then stopped. “Would you pour for me?”

  Quickly she glanced up, seeing those obsidian depths glow as though he read her every thought on her face. Setting her own cup down, she nodded and reached for the teapot, admiring the dragon fire gracing its curves.

  She almost apologized that she’d never learned the proper ceremony, but then she gritted her jaw and told him inwardly to go to hell.

  A small chuckle escaped him. She was afraid to look, not wanting to see the knowledge there, that he truly could read her thoughts.

  Gregory. Focus on your child.

  How she wished she dared ask about him, but her fondest wish was to wipe the memory of him from this evil man’s mind. Tilting her chin upward, she handed Kwan his cup, meeting his gaze with defiance.

  “Little Pearl, I see why Damon is besotted with you.”

  She closed her eyes, not wishing to hear Damon’s name from this man’s lips.

  He chuckled again. “It does not matter. Your mask is good for others, but transparent to me.” He sipped, and she did the same.

  “Your child looks exactly like his father.”

  Lily squeezed her eyes tighter, then forced herself to open them and maintain calm. She remained silent.

  “You needn’t feel yourself responsible. I would have found him one day, with or without you.”

  She wanted to ask why he wanted so badly to harm Damon, but she would not deign to give this man satisfaction. “He does not know his father. His father cares nothing for him.”

  “Pah!” His eyes sparked for the first time. “Do not lie to me. Damon was always too much like a woman in his loyalties. His caring is his soft underbelly.”

  “He is a warrior.”

  “A warrior who has been asleep for five years.”

  “He does you no harm.”

  “He harms me by living.”

  “Take the Pearl and leave him alone.”

  He smiled, and her blood ran cold. “Was that your game? You planned to trade the Dragon for your child.”

  “He’s done nothing to harm you.”

  “He carries the blood of Damon Alexander.”

  Be careful, Lily. You’re making him angry. Do not make him focus on Gregory. Let him focus on you.

  Her skin felt warm, her heartbeat slowing… she drank another sip of tea to wet the dryness of her mouth.

  “You are very beautiful, Lily Shen.”

  “A thief can be beautiful?”

  A small smile. “Wickedness is seductive… but innocence more so.”

  “I’m not innocent. I’ve borne a child.”

  “That has nothing to do with innocence. Your soul is still that of a young girl.” He leaned closer, and a low buzzing in her head kept her in place. One finger touched the valley of her throat, and Lily felt imprisoned by a spell. Cobras hypnotized their prey, she’d heard. Warmth rushed through her body, and her thoughts seemed frozen in place.

  His touch should have been repellent, yet her skin begged for another. Lily shook her head, and the room began to spin.

  “What…?” She drew in a deep breath, watching as though another person lived inside her, as he drew a line with only one finger, gliding from her throat to the valley between her breasts.

  Her body responded though her mind screamed out a warning, her whole attention centered on his voice.

  “Lie back, Lily. Let the Dragon come for his Pearl.”

  She could not seem to speak past the low hum in her ears. The room spun slowly around her, and slowly, luxuriating in the warmth flowing through her veins, Lily’s body surrendered, while her mind scraped and clawed to give her warning.

  Damon paid one final visit to the Pearl. Alone in the night, he knelt before the small shrine in which Fan Lee had created the Pearl’s resting place. No one but he knew its location or the secret arrangement of blocks which, carefully triggered in the proper sequence, would reveal the Pearl’s hiding place.

  Hide in plain sight. Fan Lee had stressed that few would listen carefully enough to the still places within to make the connection. Kwan, in his attack, had made the assumption of others, that the Pearl would be locked behind heavy doors with impenetrable barriers, many arcane and elaborate security measures employed to insure its safety.

  Yet here it sat, in a grove of trees, resting within this simple Buddhist shrine, right out in the open.

  He didn’t need the moonlight to show him the Pearl’s ivory contours. Elegant yet simple—as Damon stared at the relic, he couldn’t help wondering if there wasn’t some power within the Pearl, that men would spend centuries trying to possess it. Yet it lay here, more flower than pearl in shape, a lotus blossom of palest ivory, carved by loving hands—small within the cradle of his palm.

  Much as he wanted to laugh at the curse, something inside Damon shivered. This might be his last night on earth, whether from the power of the Pearl or from Kwan’s hatred.

  So much time lost… so much love turned away, soul dripping useless tears as the heart shriveled. He’d meant to save Lily, yet he’d doomed both her and himself to five long years deprived of the only thing worth fighting for—their love.

  And now he must fight again, kill again. Though he hoped to negotiate with Kwan, he did not seriously assume that it would work. Even if the Pearl’s curse did not kill him for leaving it behind, a very human agent in the form of his childhood nemesis would do the favor.

  He hoped he’d at least be able to lay eyes on his son once before that happened. To touch him, to cradle him against his chest, was too much to expect.

  To save the child and Lily was all Damon asked. A lot to ask, he knew, but
he would expend every ounce of guile and strength he had to make it happen. Chang and Callie would follow, to spirit them away if Damon were successful.

  “Fan Lee, father of my heart,” he spoke to the winds. “I have done as you asked to this point. I have guarded the Pearl, though it was not a role for which I trained or aspired. I have tried to protect those you love and to learn your way to live. Forgive me now that I must take up my warrior ways once more.”

  Placing the Pearl back in its place, his hand feeling suddenly cold and empty, he asked one more thing. “And if you see me from your place in the cycle of life, please lend me your wisdom to save Lily and the child of our hearts.”

  Head bowed for a long, silent moment, then Damon inhaled deeply and rose to his feet, never knowing he was being watched. He prepared himself to take his first steps off holy ground.

  Night sounds of the city filled Damon’s hearing, the cacophony as painful to his ears as the explosion of lights had been to his eyes.

  Five years in solitude, within the same walls, had left him like a blind man who suddenly regains his sight. His senses reeled from the overload of car horns, squealing brakes, neon lights, all the things modern man tunes out and rarely notices.

  As the car slowed to a stop in front of an ordinary suburban house, save only for the dense shrubbery filling the large lot surrounding it, Damon closed off his hearing and his sight, letting the world around him recede, the sounds and sights transmuting into a shroud as he went deep within to feel the pulse beat of this place.

  “Feel the beat within,” Fan Lee had said. “Ignore your senses—they will lie to you. But when your mind settles into the heartbeat, it is there that you will find the truth and know what you must do to survive.”

  Kwan was here. Damon could feel him.

  Lily, too, and the surprisingly strong aura of his son. He didn’t hold back a small smile of pride that their child, though very young, contained within him the power of them both.

  Lily’s essence confused him, though. He’d always been able to feel her even from a distance, but the link was muddied now, somehow. He frowned. Not hurt, he didn’t think, just… diminished.