A wizened little woman manned the table, standing behind it with great pride. Rows of little carved and painted figurines of a man dressed in a white robe, his head slightly bowed, his arms spread out from his sides with his palms open, all carved from wood, were also for sale. The funny thing was that the man the carvings depicted was variously painted as a brown, black, or white. Had there been more than one saintly visitor?
The woman smiled and said, “Nuestro santo de la misericordia.” Our saint of mercy.
“But he looks so different,” Ash said in Spanish, nodding to the figurines.
The old woman shrugged. “Everyone saw him as they saw him.” After pointing to the necklaces, she continued, “This is our saint’s blood. It was taken from the site where it spilled from his body. Take one home to bless you and yours.”
Ash picked one up, feeling the intense flash of a man in agony. She looked at the woman, stricken.
“He’s in your heart, as he’s in ours. It is good.”
A breeze blew into the village square, heading straight for Ash. How odd that she could hear it coming. It swirled around her, soft as a sigh. Ash gave herself over to it. She closed her eyes, feeling it stroke her cheek. In her mind’s eye, she conjured the presence of the tall blond stranger she’d seen standing at the ocean cliff. His fingers were the breeze. She lifted her chin, felt the tips of his fingers slip down her neck. She couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to; he—the breeze—owned her.
The old woman, the market, the entire village slipped away, leaving her alone with the phantom man. Saints weren’t real, were they? She yearned to feel his lips on hers. Gooseflesh tingled at the base of her scalp, as if roused by phantom fingers. His breath warmed her lips. Her hand tightened on the glass medallion.
The energy surrounding her pulled free from her body and seemed to focus on what she held. An electric shiver moved from the glass into her hand. She covered her hand with her other one, keeping a fierce hold on the little blob of glass. She jumped when something like a sonic boom made the ground beneath her feet rumble, yanking her from her vision back to reality.
The old woman’s table was wrecked. All the necklaces and figurines were scattered over the ground. Villagers hurried over to see what had happened.
Ash glanced around her, stunned and confused. The woman was looking at her accusingly.
“I’m sorry. I-I lost my balance.” Had she? Had she toppled the table? She handed the woman some money and rushed out of the area, escaping from the crowd.
Looking up, she saw a tall man watching her from the far end of the square, in front of the village church. A reflection from the church’s stained-glass window made it seem he glowed a brilliant red-orange.
She glanced around them, curious to see how others were reacting to him, but no one was. When she looked back, he was gone. She shook her head, hoping to clear it. There was no way that guy could have moved from where he was to somewhere out of sight in just the blink of an eye.
It was good that she was leaving with the others that afternoon; if she stayed much longer, she’d lose what was left of her mind.
Merc fought to keep his dream active, but it was already slipping away. All he could do was stay in place and watch it fall apart. No longer a smooth scene, now it was a collection of broken images patched together like mismatched shards of tile. Still he clung to it. She was in there, somewhere, a female he hadn’t met, but it felt as if he knew her so completely.
Ashlyn. He’d touched her face in his dream and felt…desire. A hunger so extreme that he feared for the woman if he ever met her—something that could never happen, because she was Summer’s friend.
He kept his eyes shut as he surfaced into his present reality. He was in the fort. He knew its sounds, its smells. He was in his room, on his bed. He sent his senses out in a widening ripple, checking for anyone in the room. There was only one person with him—Bastion.
“I know you’re awake,” the Frenchman said.
Merc kept his eyes shut. He wasn’t ready to leave her. His Ashlyn. He conjured her scent—green apple and sun, with a hint of roses—bright and joyful like the woman herself. And just as fragile.
As fast as that thought came, it was washed away by guilt. He hated that his waking thought was of her and not his wife.
“Leave me alone,” Merc growled, still without opening his eyes.
“No. Guerre says you’ll live, but we’re not to leave you unattended.”
Merc cracked his eyes and glared at his friend. “I didn’t give you permission to save me.”
Bastion’s features hardened. He leaned back on the hind legs of his chair, bracing a foot on the bed. “Relax. We didn’t save you. No one can. We just filled you back up with blood and let your body take things over.”
Great. He was just a sack of blood, a thing at the mercy of its own will to live. A thing with no sentience, drive, or direction.
He sighed.
Bastion laughed. “It’s true. You have no mind. You are just a dumb sack of shit. What were you thinking, trying to kill yourself?”
Merc sat up and set his legs on the floor. To the best of his knowledge, he hadn’t been upright in some time. The room spun crazily for a moment. He dropped his head into his palms and waited for it to right itself. “Go away. I’m happier having no conscience at the moment.”
Bastion jumped to his feet and kicked the chair away, sending it clattering across the room. The big guy paced angrily to the French doors.
Merc took advantage of the space between them and stood. He closed his eyes again and took stock of his body. Contrary to his first thought, he wasn’t full of anything. He was empty. A void of a man.
Dammit, why hadn’t they let him die?
Next thing he knew, Bastion had him by the neck and slammed him against the nearest wall.
“You didn’t die because you can’t die. You’re one of us, one of the first in the Legion. You can’t break that circle.” Bastion’s white teeth flashed as he spoke, a stark contrast with his black beard.
“Pull your head in, mate. Get off me.” Merc peeled Bastion’s hand off his throat then shoved him back.
“You want me off you? Then get your shit right.”
“I’m done, Bastion. Done. I died in that jungle.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“The Omni mutations preserved my body, but a person can’t live without a soul. I lost mine long ago.”
Bastion straightened and set his big hand over Merc’s heart. “You’ll heal.”
Merc knocked his hand away. “I haven’t yet.”
“You need time. You can love again. You can start over.”
“I don’t want to.” As soon as he said that, a pair of dark blue eyes slipped through Merc’s mind, filling him with all the emotions he didn’t want to feel, things he had no right to.
Hope.
Curiosity.
Hunger… For a female who wasn’t his Tina.
He shut those emotions off, blocking them from Bastion and the others. Summer’s friend didn’t have a future with a guy like him. Especially if the Matchmaker was involved. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I deserve to die, anyway.”
“Why?”