further out to sea, stretching at least a hundred feet out of the water. She'd clearly decided the first one hadn't been far enough offshore, and had struck out for one further away.
The splash had been Ryland hitting the water, and his hard body was striking fast against the waves as he swam after her.
Alice glanced over her shoulder at Ryland, and Ian saw her stiffen when she realized she was being pursued. She tore her gaze off Ry and looked up, searching the shore. She saw Ian, and for a split second, his heart stopped beating, sucked into the depths of her being. The air seemed to go utterly still, and the sound of the crashing waves went silent, until all that remained was Alice. She froze, her fingers digging into the black rock, her body undulating softly as the waves pushed her around. Her blue tank top was plastered to her skin, and her long hair was cascading down her back. She looked small and vulnerable out there, a tiny thing in a massive ocean, clinging to the base of a black rock that loomed so high and threatening.
She was a woman with a death sentence on her head...just like him. Destined to die.
Shit. They were the same. At least in that way. Involuntarily, Ian took a step toward her, then stopped. Jesus. What was he doing? She was too dangerous to him.
Alice shivered and then tore her gaze from his. She turned her back on him, and started to climb the rock. She was struggling to ascend, and for a split second, she wavered, and he thought she was going to fall—
His mind suddenly flashed back to the first time he'd seen her. It had been when he and his teammate Elijah had been closing in on the trail of the warrior who had cursed his great grandfather. After hunting him for so long, Ian had scented victory and been so close to his prey...until Alice had come tumbling down the side of a massive cliff that was too damned reminiscent of the rock she was currently trying to climb. She'd jerked him instantly and completely from his single-minded focus on the wizard. He'd had no time to react or think. He'd simply leapt beneath her and caught her, breaking her fall before she crushed herself on the rocks...
Holy shit. His adrenaline kicked on as he finally connected the facts...realizations that had eluded him because he'd been so busy trying to stay alive. "Son of a bitch," he muttered. "She was there." Alice had been there, in that abandoned, stark section of high desert, when he'd almost nailed Warwick Cardiff, the black magic wizard who had cursed his family. Did she know him? Could she find the wizard for him? What was her connection to the wizard? Or had it been a fluke?
Fragments of information began to circle in his mind, pieces that didn't quite fit. Suddenly, Ry's evasiveness made sense. "Hey!" He broke into a run, sprinting after his teammate. "Ryland!"
The Order of the Blade member didn't even look back.
"Ry!" Ian called out his mace with a loud crack and a flash of black light. "Hey!" He hurled his mace, and it crashed into the water a fraction of an inch from Ryland's face.
Ry immediately stopped swimming and spun around. "What the hell was that?"
Ian charged through the water, the foamy white spray lashing out into the air as his boots broke the surface. "Who's trying to kill the angels? Who's after the Order?" It couldn't be who he thought it was. A coincidence... it couldn't be. But it made sense. It explained why the Order thought cutting him out was a good idea. "Who is it?"
Ry stood up in the deep water, the streams of water glittering on his shoulders in the darkness. "You're out of the loop—"
"It's Warwick, isn't it? Warwick Cardiff? That's who it is?"
Ry frowned. "Who is Warwick Cardiff?"
Ian swore, realizing that Ryland really didn't know. But Gideon and Kane and a few of the others knew the name. Ry was too obsessed with his own hell to bother with anyone else's problems. They might have realized the connection, but not told Ryland the details. Ian decided to fill him in, not caring why the others might have wanted Ry in the dark. "He's the wizard who cursed my family—"
Ryland snorted in disgust. "Shit, Ian. Let it go. We don't have time for that—"