I followed the sounds of Alayna muttering to herself. It led me to one of the back rooms. She stood in what looked like someone’s office. There was a desk with a computer and a filing cabinet along one wall, but when I looked closer, I noticed the room was used for more than office-related tasks. Shelves lined with various gemstones took up one wall. On another, there were shelves filled with books on herbal remedies, meditation techniques, gemstone meanings, and about tarot. Houseplants were all around this room too, giving it the same nature lover vibe as the front of the house.
Alayna stood near one shelf filled with crystals and gemstones.
“Which one? Which one?” She ran her fingers through her hair and released a frustrated sigh. “I know there’s one here. I just need to remember which one it is.”
I stepped into the room and cleared my throat as I made my way to her. I didn’t want to startle her in case she hadn’t realized I’d followed. She seemed lost in her own world. When I reached her, I touched a hand to her back. She flinched, and her attention shifted to me for a split second before it dipped back to the stones and crystals in front of her.
“One of these magnifies things. I know it’s a clear one. I just don’t remember which stone it is. There are so many that look similar. I really wish I’d paid more attention to my mom when it came to them,” she said in a frantic tone as her gaze drifted between the clear stones she had lined up in front of her.
I licked my lips. “I know nothing about crystals or gemstones. I’m afraid I can’t be of any help.”
I wanted to ask what she needed it for, but she seemed too frantic. I’d ask her once she found it. A book titled Crystal & Gem Meanings on the desk caught my eye. Mainly because of all the sticky notes marking pages inside it.
“Why don’t we look in this book? We can look up the clear ones. When we find the one you’re looking for, we can compare it to the ones in front of you,” I suggested, holding the book out to her.
Alayna took the book from me. “It’s got to be in here.” She cracked the spine and flipped through its pages until she found what she was looking for. “Selenite. I thought that was it.”
She tapped the page and then shifted to look at the gems in front of her. I glanced over her shoulder, so I could see what the gem looked like and help her find it. It looked cloudy white and the one in the picture was a perfect circle. Alayna picked up a stone that looked similar to the one pictured and held it out to me.
“Do you think this one is it?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I guess so. What are you planning on doing with it? It’ll be dawn in an hour or so.”
“I’m not doing what he asked, that’s for sure. I can’t.” She held up the stone. “I’m going to fight. Water against water.” Determination festered behind her eyes. She looked sexy as hell.
This was probably where I should tell her going against Lir was a bad idea, especially with nothing but the gem in her hand.
“Okay. What do you want me to do? How can I help?” I asked.
“You don’t. I’ve lost too many people I care about today. I’m not going to lose you too.” Her eyes softened. “I’m sorry, but you’re human. There isn’t anything you can do to go against him.”
Her words stung. Even though they were the truth.
I was human, and I’d most likely be nothing besides a liability when it came to fighting Lir, but I’d be damned if I let her go after him alone.
“I’m sorry, but I’m going with you. You’re not going against him alone. I don’t give a damn if I am human. I’m going with you,” I insisted with more force than was probably necessary, but she needed to know I wasn’t going to budge on this.
Alayna bit her bottom lip. She shook her head. “I can’t risk it. He’s too dangerous.”
“I might not have powers or be immortal any longer, but I’m not a coward. I won’t let you go against someone that evil and vile by yourself. Tell me your plan, and I’ll tell you how I can help make it happen.”
It didn’t matter if she wanted to use me as bait. It didn’t matter if she wanted me to be the first one to attack him. All that mattered was that she didn’t do this alone.
Alayna took a step closer to me, her eyes never wavering from mine. “I can’t. You have to stay here. You have to stay away from him. He’ll only try to hurt you because he knows it will hurt me. Please, Ryan.”
“In your mother’s vision, we were together, we were happy, and it was because of me being with you. Whatever we did, we did it together.”
The look on her face let me know she’d forgotten about her mother’s vision thanks to everything that had happened. Her entire demeanor shifted. Before I could ask if she was okay, she rushed past me and dashed out of the house. Guilt crept through me.
I’d forgotten about her parents too.
When I made it outside, Alayna hovered over her parents with the crystal gripped tight in her palm. From where I stood on the deck, I could see the hate for Lir building within her.
She was ready to go to battle.
As I started down the steps, I tried to think of words that would comfort her. None came.
“They’re gone,” Alayna whispered. Her eyes never wavered from her parents when she spoke. A visible shiver slipped through her, and she wrapped her arms around her middle as though struggling to hold the fragile pieces of herself together. “This doesn’t feel real. None of it. I can’t believe how awful their final moments were. Things weren’t supposed to end for either of them this way.”
“That’s not for you to say,” I said in a low tone, even though I knew the words made me sound like an ass.
If Alayna cared about my comment or took offense to it, she didn’t let on. She didn’t even look at me. There was a part of me that wondered if she knew I was standing beside her.
“I can’t remember what my last words to either of them were,” she whispered.
Last words. Her father’s last word had been Firestone. There had to be a reason for him saying the horse’s name repeatedly. It meant something; I just didn’t know what.
“What do you think your father meant when he kept saying Firestone’s name? Is there something special about your horse?” I asked in as soft a tone as I could manage. I didn’t want to appear insensitive but felt it was important.
“Not really. I mean, other than sentimental value, there’s nothing special about him. Not in any supernatural way, which is what you’re meaning, right?” Alayna shifted to look at him. “I don’t know why my dad was so insistent on saying his name.”
I’d be lying if I said her words didn’t deflate me a little. There was part of me that hoped Firestone would be our answer to taking out Lir somehow. If that had been the case though, I imagined Alayna’s parents would have mentioned something to her about him sooner.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were missing something important. We just needed to look at things from a new angle.
“Does his name mean anything?” I repeated his name in my head. Firestone.
Alayna bit her bottom lip as she stood and walked to him. She stroked along his face. He made a snorting noise and then shifted away from her to resume eating the remaining hay in the bag hung in the corner of his stall. When Alayna locked eyes with me again, I could tell the gears were spinning in her head. “I’m not sure. My mother named him. I remember her stressing the importance of his name, but I don’t think I ever asked her to elaborate.” She sighed and smoothed a hand along her face. “God, I can be such an idiot!”
“You’re not an idiot. You can’t blame yourself for what you didn’t know.” I stepped to where she was and pulled her close. She buried her face in the crook of my neck, and I felt tension I hadn’t been aware I was holding release.
“I am. I should have paid more attention to my mom and all of her hippie-dippy ways. That knowledge would come in handy right about now.”
“You know more than you think. Look how quickly you found the selenite stone.” Althou
gh, I still didn’t know what she was planning on using it for. Wait a minute. “Is a firestone an actual stone? Like a gemstone or crystal?”
Alayna pulled away from me. Her eyes were wide and bright. “It is!” She started back to the house. “We need to look it up in my mom’s books and see what it means.”
She’d barely taken two steps away from me when I noticed both of her parents become covered in water.
“Alayna,” I said as I grabbed her wrist, forcing her to a standstill. “Look.” I nodded toward them, watching as the strange water continued to travel up their bodies until they were fully cocooned in it.
It reminded me of something from a sci-fi movie.
Before either of us could say or do anything, the bodies of both her parents vanished. It looked as though the sand beneath them soaked them up like a sponge until nothing was left.
“He got what he wanted. I owe him nothing on this morning,” Alayna said. Bitterness twisted her words, making her voice sound as though it belonged to someone else. “Let’s figure out what properties firestone has and see if we can use it to take him out.”
I didn’t say a word, all I did was follow her as she made her way back inside the house.
Chapter Thirteen
I stared at the pages of the book we’d flipped through earlier, looking at the meaning and uses for firestone agate.
“I don’t understand how this has anything to do with Lir or why my dad would say Firestone’s name the way he did,” Alayna said. Her cheeks were red, and she looked on the verge of tears.
“There has to be a reason,” I insisted. “Something that we’re missing.”
“We don’t have time. I need to go to him now. If I don’t, then he’ll come for you. I can’t allow him to surprise me like that again.” Alayna moved to leave the room.
I pressed my palms into my eye sockets and released a long breath. She was right; we needed to get moving if we were going to keep the upper hand. When I dropped my hands to my sides, a new book on the desk caught my eye. I stared at it, knowing there was no way in hell it had been there before.
Crystals and Gems of the Supernatural.
“Where did that come from?” I asked.
Alayna paused at the door. “What?”
“That book. It wasn’t there a second ago, was it?” I blinked. Maybe it had been. Maybe my lack of sleep, need for food, and all the adrenaline flowing through me was finally getting to me. I’d forgotten how fragile humans could be. Especially their minds. “I honestly can’t remember.”
“What’s it called?” she asked as she made her way back to the desk.
“Crystals and Gems of the Supernatural.”
“Uh, no. That definitely wasn’t there before. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this book.” She picked it up and stared at the cover.
“Open it. Let’s see if firestone is in there.”
She cracked the spine and flipped through its pages. Toward the front of the book were two pages dedicated to firestone agate.
“Okay, wow,” Alayna said. She cast a quick glance my way. “You’ll have to thank your fairy godmother for me.”
I cracked a grin but didn’t speak. One, I wasn’t sure this book came from the same person who’d given me the postcard and words of advice. And two, all I cared about right then was learning whether firestone agate could help us.
“Firestone agate has an energetic, wild, and free frequency.” Alayna smiled. “Exactly how I would describe Firestone. Mom definitely named him right.”
“It holds the power to amplify one’s desires. Is strong. And can be useful against water entities such as demons, fairies, mermaids, sirens, and others. It is also useful against water spells, curses, and hexes,” I read, continuing where she’d left off.
“Why didn’t my parents try to use it against Lir before, then?” Alayna asked. “Why didn’t they mention this to me?” Confusion and anger rippled off her in waves.
“They must’ve had their reasons,” I said, even though I understood where she was coming from. If they knew—which clearly they did or else they wouldn’t have named her horse after the one gemstone that might be able to save her—then why had they kept it from her?
They could have told her and then helped her free herself from Lir a long time ago.
My gaze skimmed the page. Was there something we were missing? A catch to using the stone they might have felt was too risky that would justify their silence? My gaze skimmed the page.
And then there it was—her parents’ reason.
“Wait. Listen to this, firestone agate may be used to ward away hexes, small curses, or to deflect some water spells, but it will not be used in full strength unless wielded by one stuck in between.” A shiver slipped along my spine. I glanced at Alayna, wondering how long ago her mother had that vision of me. Was it before they gave Alayna Firestone? Was that why they bought him for her and gave him his name? My mind spun. “I’m stuck in between. Your mother said so. That’s what she called me. This is how I save you.”
They’d kept the information from her because it was of no use to her. Not until I entered the picture.
It was depressing to think about, but it was also exciting because it meant I could use the firestone. It also meant Alayna couldn’t leave me behind even if she wanted to; she needed me in order to defeat Lir.
“Does your mother have one?” I asked, not wanting to give her time to argue with me.
Alayna took the book and then shifted to face the shelf with all the stones and crystals along the wall of her mother’s office. “I’m not sure.”
I scanned the shelves, but there didn’t seem to be one. Damn it, I thought we’d caught a break. It didn’t seem like it now, though.
“There has to be one here somewhere. My mom wouldn’t have figured that out and then not sought out one of the stones,” Alayna insisted.
“I don’t think so either, but there doesn’t seem to be one in here. Would she keep it in another place?”
The answer seemed to come to both of us at the same time. Our eyes snapped to one another, and we spoke in unison, “With Firestone.”
Alayna placed the book on her mother’s desk and then we made our way back out to the stables.
“It has to be here,” Alayna insisted. She grabbed Firestone’s lead rope and harness from the hook beside his stable door and moved to step inside the stall. “I think his name was the clue we were supposed to figure out. Mom knew that once we figured that part out we’d come here next. She had to know that. It has to be in here somewhere.”
I moved to the side as she walked Firestone out of his stall once she’d secured his harness and attached his lead rope. She walked him to a pole in the sand a few feet away I hadn’t noticed until now and tied him to the metal hook attached to it. Firestone stood there as though he’d done this a million times. I returned my attention to the stable while she pet him, making sure he was okay.
Inside the stall was bare. Wood shavings covered the floor, a pile of poop was in the corner, and a blue mesh bag I knew was filled with hay an hour ago hung in the corner. Besides that, there was a bucket of water, a bin I assumed whatever horses ate besides hay went into, and a large fan hung from the ceiling.
“Find anything?” Alayna asked as she stepped inside the stall.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
I smoothed my hand along the inside walls, searching for a secret compartment or a loose board her parents may have hidden the stone behind. Again, I found nothing.
“There’s nothing here,” I said.
“But there has to be,” she insisted. I glanced at her, watching as she made her way around the stall, feeling for a loose board or a hidden compartment like I had. “We’re missing something.”
She kicked her foot, moving around the shavings on the floor. I did the same. There didn’t seem to be anything there either.
I twisted around to glance at the first streaks of sunrise lighting the sky, knowing we were out of time and
about to admit defeat, when something above the entrance of the stall caught my eye.
There was a cutout up there.
“Where’s something I can stand on?” I asked as I glanced around.
Alayna looked up at the ceiling. “Did you find something?”
“Maybe. It looks like there’s a cutout up there above the entrance.” I pointed to the area.
“Oh my gosh, you’re right.” She stepped to the door. “Give me a boost.”
I moved toward her and then laced my fingers together to make her a step. Her delicate foot slid into my hands, and then I hoisted her up until she could reach the area.
“There’s something in the cutout! I think it’s a stone!” Excitement rippled through her tone. I tried to look up, but I wasn’t able to see anything besides her beautiful legs. “Got it. Put me down.”
I carefully lowered my hand, and she stepped out of it. A red stone as large as her fist was gripped tightly in her hand.
“Looks like they did have one. This was what my dad meant when he kept saying Firestone’s name.” A smile stretched across her face. It was nice to see her smile, but I knew it was fleeting.
“Ready to kick some water demon ass?” I asked as I took the stone from her and flashed her a wicked smile. She nodded. “All right then, lead the way.”
“Let me put him back in his stall first.” She motioned to Firestone.
After she situated him back in his stall, she added a few scoops of grain to his tray, and then she headed back inside the house to grab the selenite stone she’d found earlier.
Greed Page 10