by Kristie Cook
Tristan suggested the Daemoni had taken the building over from the DoD, who may have had nothing to do with any of it. This theory seemed like another good possibility, given the evidence, but still—why would Kali and Owen keep Dorian there? Was it like Lilith and Bree, when Kali had kept them in the Everglades, right under our noses simply because she could? Or was there more to it?
The only way to get answers was to find them all.
Every time Blossom and I were at the safe house together and both of us well rested, we did our search, but Kali had caught on. Whatever had caused her to lift the cloak long enough for us to come as close as we did must have been a mistake she wouldn’t make again. But we also weren’t feeling any kind of nudge to move out of the area. We were essentially stuck in limbo until something broke again.
Without a clue or a prod or anything, we began debating among the team whether to make a charge on the building. If we couldn’t find Dorian, then we could at least find out who the others in the building were and what was going on in there.
“From what Alexis could tell before they put the shield up, they were all Daemoni,” Tristan said. He leaned against the railing of the wooden deck outside, where we’d all gathered for a drink to go with our afternoon debate. I leaned against him, his arms wrapped loosely around my shoulders, a beer in his hands in front of me. “The most obvious and best option is they’re the Summoned brothers and their offspring. The ones Rina told us about.”
“Unless they’re fools who were caught by the norms in their traps and checkpoints,” Vanessa countered. She hopped up onto the railing, and gracefully swung down to sit on it, giving no regard to the fact that we were twenty feet above ground. “And they’re probably being tortured and prodded like freak aliens.”
“Which means they could have Amadis in there, too,” Sheree said. She sat on a cushioned lounge chair, gnawing on her fingernails.
I shook my head. “I’m positive they were all Daemoni. Besides Dorian, of course. And the norms who have been coming and going since.”
“They could be keepin’ the Amadis someplace else,” Jax suggested before taking a swig of his beer. He, too, sat on the railing, his legs swinging in front of him.
“And torturing and prodding them,” Blossom added as she moved to stand between Jax’s legs. “We have to find out. We can’t leave them there.”
“Unless they are all Daemoni,” Char said. She sat under the umbrella’s shade over the outdoor table, an elbow on the glass top and her head resting on her hand. “Then I’m with Alexis—let’s leave them there. Better than on the streets, especially if we can’t convert them.”
“They said we couldn’t save them,” I reminded them all.
“Because they’re probably the Summoned brothers,” Tristan said again, bringing us full circle.
I rocked forward on my feet and placed my hands on my hips. “Well, in that case, we need to find Dorian first anyway. Rina said he’s probably the key to finding the brothers. Maybe even saving them.”
Everyone’s eyes darted around as they thought about what our next step should be.
“You two keep trying,” Tristan finally said, “and the rest of us will create a plan. In the very off chance that I’m wrong.”
I jabbed him with my elbow.
“What? I’m rarely wrong. If ever.”
“I know,” I said with a small smile. “I agree with you. But . . .”
“If you are wrong . . .” Blossom continued.
“We can’t take the chance there are Amadis locked up somewhere, too,” Char finished, “being treated like animals.”
So Blossom and I tried her spell one more time while they created a strategy to make our move on the DoD building.
And the break we needed came. We locked on to Dorian again.
He was with Owen, and they were on the move. Once again, we all rushed for the motorcycles. My heart stuttered for a moment when I sensed them quickly approaching our direction. Could Owen actually be bringing him to us?
No. They went right on by us. But now we knew where they were, and we sped after them. Owen drove a white two-seater Mercedes-Benz, practically flying down the country roads. We closed in on him, but he sped up. Right when Tristan said to make our move, another sports car flew out in front of us. A black BMW, right on Owen’s tail. Kali and someone else—another Daemoni—were inside. Tristan eased off the gas, and everyone else eased back, too.
“What the hell, Tristan?” I demanded. “Let’s get him!”
“Give me a minute,” he said as the cars pulled farther away from us. “We don’t know who’s with Kali, and she and Owen are pretty formidable by themselves. We don’t want Dorian involved in the crossfire.”
I groaned with frustration, but when the two cars rounded a corner and we could no longer see them, I couldn’t hold back a minute longer. If only I were driving. “Come on, let’s go before they get away!”
Tristan must have agreed because he gripped the accelerator and twisted, pushing the motorcycle to its top speed. Our knees practically slid over the ground when we made the tight turn. The two cars were about two hundred yards ahead, and then . . . they disappeared. But not like they were suddenly cloaked. The cars disappeared front to back, as though they drove into or through something. But nothing was there.
We all came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road.
“Why are we stopping?” I demanded.
“Yeah, what the hell?” Vanessa asked. “They’re getting away!”
“We don’t know what that is,” Tristan said through his teeth. He dismounted the bike and strode up to the place where the cars had disappeared, studying it with deep concentration.
Charlotte appeared by his side. She moved her hands in front of her, creating a ball of yellow light, then grew it larger before throwing it up in the air. An outline of what almost looked like a large door briefly appeared, a different landscape beyond it than the actual landscape in front of us. Tristan stuck his hand through it and left it there while the outline and the image beyond disappeared.
“It’s cold and wet,” he said, his brows pushing together as he held his damp hand up as proof. Here was a hot, humid day with not a single cloud in the sky.
“Huh,” Charlotte muttered. We all looked at her. “I’ve never seen a real one.”
“What?” I just needed for her to deem it safe so we could go.
“It’s a portal,” Vanessa said as she walked up to it, and for some reason, the fact that she knew this made my hackles rise.
“Of course,” Tristan said, his voice low as he tried to study what could not be seen.
Charlotte turned to Vanessa and eyed her with the same suspicion I felt. “How do you know? These are very rare. Only used by the occasional—”
“Sorcerer. Or, in this case, a sorceress. I’ve heard they could create them, then I saw one used. By Owen.” She peered at all of us as though surprised by our ignorance. “That’s how Kali got off Amadis Island. He never told you? She’d created a portal, and Owen followed her through it. I didn’t see Kali’s spirit come through—I don’t know if I could have seen it. But I was standing on the hillside in a Himalayan village when Owen seemed to fall out of a hole in the air.”
“A portal. But where does it go?” Tristan asked.
“Does it matter?” I said. “Our son is there, wherever it is.”
“Right,” Vanessa agreed. “Who the hell cares? Owen and Dorian are through there. We need to go.”
And that’s what bothered me. Was she here to help us find Dorian? Or had this always been about Owen for her? The man who had stolen our son. Was she trying to set us up by convincing us to go through the portal? For all we knew, Kali, Owen, and possibly even Lucas and more Daemoni waited on the other side to ambush us. Of course, she blocked out such thoughts if she had them.
“How do we know to trust it?” I asked her. “How do we know it doesn’t go straight into the heart of Hades? And regardless of your answer, why sh
ould we even trust you? For all we know, you have—” Holy shit. Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner? Any of us? It would explain her behavior and my oscillating feelings about her. “Do you have a stone implanted in you? Is this Kali trying to get us to go through there?”
Vanessa eyed me, her face hardening as I palmed my dagger and swiped my thumb over the amethyst. I’d barely withdrawn it from its sheath when she lunged for me and snatched it out of my hand. She was instantly several yards away, gripping the hilt in both palms, the point of the blade at her heart. We all gasped as she plunged the dagger into her own chest, but we only stood there, saying or doing nothing to stop her. Her face twisted as she carved, drawing the blade in a grotesque crisscross pattern over her heart. My heart flipped and rolled at the sight, and my mouth opened and closed, but still, I did nothing but stare at her. She continued to dig until her porcelain skin became nothing but a shredded mess of flesh and blood.
And the knife never connected with a stone, nothing fell out.
She looked at me with a brow raised over one icy eye, as if asking if I was happy now. I had no response. While one of her hands held the ribbons of her skin together as they healed, she flipped the dagger in her other and walked over to us. She held the hilt out toward me while leaning closer.
“Someday, little sister, you’re going to have to trust me.” She straightened up and rolled her shoulder. “For now, I’m going after your little boy, regardless of what Owen does.”
Then she sprinted down the road. In a heartbeat, the air seemed to swallow her whole.
Dumbfounded, I stared where her form had just been while my heart eventually settled. Had she really just done that? Vanessa mutilated her perfect self? She had. And because of me. In a daze, I wiped my blade over my pants a couple of times, then returned the dagger to its sheath.
“I’m sorry,” I said to whoever would listen, though I stared at the ground. “It’s just . . . she came . . .”
A small, warm hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed.
“She came to you about the same time as Sonya,” Blossom said. “I thought of it just now, too. I can’t believe none of us considered it when Sonya told us about hers.”
“Because we all know Vanessa’s really Amadis,” Sheree said. “We know it in our hearts, including you, Alexis.”
That didn’t make me feel any better.
“It’s not like I threw a spell to stop her just now or anything,” Charlotte added. “None of us tried.”
That did make me feel a little better, and I blew out the breath I’d been holding. The regret didn’t expunge with the air, but it helped to know I wasn’t the only one who’d suspected. I hadn’t been the only one to stand there and watch expectantly rather than try to stop her. But I was the only one who had threatened to do it myself simply by pulling the blade out in the first place. The only bit of mollification was that the cuts didn’t hurt her—too badly anyway. I finally looked up at the others. Tristan, whose opinion of me I worried most about, shook his head but lifted his arm for me to walk into.
“Trust has never come easy for you, I know,” he murmured into my ear as he gave me a squeeze. “Nobody blames you. We’ve all wondered at one point or another, but I think we know now.”
I nodded against his chest, a sense of relief washing through me for many reasons. But the feeling was short-lived.
“So, mates,” Jax said, reverting our focus to the problem at hand, “are we goin’ or not?”
“We have no idea what’s on the other side,” Blossom said. “And I’m with Alexis. I don’t completely trust Vanessa.”
“Except our son’s on the other side,” I muttered as I kicked a pebble in the road.
“The portal won’t last forever,” Tristan said, “from what I’ve heard about them.”
“They can close on their own,” Blossom affirmed, “but usually the creator closes it. I’m surprised Kali’s kept it open this long.”
“So she’s probably waiting for us to go through it,” Sheree said. “And now Vanessa’s there by herself.”
“Kali and Owen probably set it up so we’d chase them in,” I said. “Owen knows it would work. He knows what I would do for my son.”
“I could go through first, and if it’s safe, come back to get you mates,” Jax suggested.
“Portals don’t work that way,” Char ground out between clenched teeth as she paced back and forth on the pavement, her eyes on what appeared to be the road stretching in front of us, but her mind focused elsewhere. On Owen and Kali, who were on the other side of the portal. “They’re created for a connection from point A to point B. It’s not a two-way street.”
She stopped her pacing in the middle of the road and stood with her feet shoulder-width apart. She pushed her hand through her blond hair, then spun on her boot.
“Sorry, Alexis, but I’m going with or without you,” she said. She strode back to her motorcycle with purpose, mounted it, and cranked it over. “Are you coming with me, Sheree?”
The shifter bit her lip, not answering right away.
“See you on the flip side then,” Char called over the rumble, and she sped down the road and disappeared.
“Shit,” I muttered. Charlotte was pissed. That was the only way to explain her behavior. She was going after Kali and Owen no matter what, even if it meant leaving me, the person she’d sworn to protect. “I’m going, too.”
I climbed onto my bike, which Sheree had ridden here, and cranked it over.
“Alexis,” Tristan said, already heading to his motorcycle. His thoughts told me he had no plans to stop me—he would stand by my side—but he used my name as a reminder.
“You know what Char’s going to try, and we can’t let her do it alone,” I yelled over the rumble of my engine. “Besides, they have our son. Let’s go get him!”
From the corner of my eye, I saw him nod as I kicked the clutch, put the motorcycle in gear, and twisted the accelerator. I sped down the road and through the portal, blasting into the unknown.
Chapter 21
I experienced no whooshing of air from my lungs. No tunnel of darkness as I rode from Point A to Point B. In fact, I physically felt nothing odd as I rode through the portal and only knew I had succeeded because cold night air suddenly engulfed me and tiny raindrops sprayed my face. Well, that and because Vanessa and Char stood in the beam of my headlight when I turned it on. A rumbling behind me signaled Tristan’s arrival, so I pulled forward in case the rest of our group decided to follow him. Of course they did. They were loyal through and through. I just hoped we wouldn’t get them killed.
At least we seemed to be safe so far.
We shut off our engines, and I immediately searched for mind signatures, but the closest ones belonged to norms in a town about five or so miles away. Well, besides those of animals, but they were normal beasts, too: sheep, cows, hogs, and some wild creatures. We’d been transported to a country road in the middle of nowhere, the pavement stretching north and south, and pastures spreading out in all directions. Clouds blanketed the sky, and a light rain fell on us. At least we hadn’t fallen through a hole in the air. That wouldn’t have been good for the motorcycles—or the cars Kali and Owen had been driving, which meant they hadn’t created the portal as a quick escape to somewhere random. They’d had a plan.
“Where are we?” Sheree asked, her voice small as she sat on the motorcycle Vanessa had left with us back in Virginia.
“Definitely not Hades,” I said with extreme relief.
“No. Feels like northern England,” Tristan said. I glanced over at him as he pulled out his phone, and the screen lit up his face. How would he know that so easily?
Vanessa inhaled deeply. “I agree.”
Following her lead, I took my own whiff, and the air definitely smelled different. I supposed they had enough years and experience in various locations around the world to be able to tell the difference by smell and feel.
“We’re close to York,” Tristan said while stu
dying the phone screen. “About five miles north.”
“York, England,” Charlotte said, not as a question, but as a confirmation. “I guess the bitch has a thing for the United Kingdom.”
“She did when she held Lilith and Bree captive,” Tristan agreed. “Bree said Kali found them in Ireland and moved them to various places in the U.K. before taking them to the U.S.”
Char nodded. “She left Martin as a baby in Ireland after killing his parents.”
“And I think she once had a castle in Ireland,” Vanessa said, then added, “or was it Scotland? She’d never admit to exactly where. I’m surprised she didn’t go there.”
“Actually, it’s either southern Scotland or northern England,” Tristan said. “Lucas had me track her once, but I lost her near the border.”
“So that’s where she’s going?” I asked. “That’s where they’re taking Dorian?”
“It’s the most logical answer,” Tristan said.
I toed the kickstand to make it drop and sat back on my bike with a huff. “But neither of you know exactly where it is. There’s no sign of any of them—Kali, Owen, Dorian, or the other guy—or their minds. How do we know this isn’t a decoy? How do we know they didn’t go through another portal and are back in Virginia or went somewhere else? They could be anywhere in the world!”
“Yes, they could be,” Tristan said as he rubbed his chin. “It would be a quick and easy way to throw us off their trails. Kali would know Vanessa and I would think she went to her castle, so she could have sent us on a wild goose chase.”
I groaned, although I really wanted to punch something. “So what do we do?”
“We can’t go back through the portal,” Charlotte reminded us.
“We really only have one option,” Tristan said. “We go to the nearest town and see if we can find anything out. Maybe someone saw them drive through or—”
“You know they’re cloaked by now. Otherwise, I’d sense their mind signatures,” I said.
“Someone might still know something,” Blossom suggested.