“I believe you.”
We fell into silence after that, but I felt the weight of every pair of eyes in the room on me. For once, I didn’t mind the scrutiny. Let them see my tears, let them understand my pain, let them believe that I mourned my dead the same as them, thirsted for vengeance the same as them, wanted to dismantle Ezra, feather by feather, and crumble his regime to dust I would scatter to the four winds.
Back at the farmhouse, I lagged behind the others, emotionally drained from sharing my pain so publicly. I was happy to be rid of Santiago, who swaggered into the house mumbling about pork rinds, but I was equally glad that Cole remained with me. He was my rock, and I couldn’t imagine doing this without him.
“I want this to be over,” I said with my back to him. “I want to wake up and not have this hanging over me.”
He encircled me with his strong arms, locked his wide hands around my waist, and rested his chin on top of my head.
“All we do is talk and talk and talk,” I vented. “We’ve gathered all the forces we’re likely to recruit, unless Wu has more tricks up his sleeve.”
And I had no doubt he did since he was forever vanishing and returning with useful tidbits of intel or new allies eager to join the cause. Why he kept it at a steady trickle instead of instigating one huge recruitment drive, I had no idea. Unless, like Santiago, he ultimately expected me to shake hands with each new addition to the cause in order to give them a glimpse of what they were fighting for, and with.
“When does it kick off?” Terror danced down my spine whenever I pictured the form the final battle would take, but anxiety chased it. I wanted it done as much as I never wanted it to begin. “When does the final battle start so it can be over?”
Gently, Cole turned me in his arms until I could bury my face against his broad chest. “The anticipation is hard, almost worse than when the moment finally arrives.”
A text chime had me digging out my phone, and I breathed a sigh of relief at its message.
“Rixton says Haven is secure.” I had volunteered him for a task that let him visit with his family in the hopes he would elect to stay put with them. “There are no signs of anyone lying in wait for Phoebe, and no indication anyone has followed her.”
The invisibility trick came instinctive to Convallarians, especially sneaky kids disobeying direct orders from their parents, so a slim chance existed that she had enjoyed her rebellion without consequences. But she had escaped from Dad several times, and the more often she visited us, the less likely it was her antics would go undetected.
None of our enemies knew to look for her at Haven, but she unerringly found us, no matter where we went, like Cole and I had homing beacons in us she could key into, and that was the problem. We were under surveillance. Heavy surveillance. Each of her arrivals at the farmhouse would have been remarked upon, and one of our people could easily have been tracked dropping her back with her grandfather.
“Haven is no longer secure.” Cole took the words right out of my mouth. “We need to relocate your father and the Rixtons.”
“The staff too.” I massaged my forehead. “Rixton is buying us time, but he won’t stay put forever.”
Rixton wasn’t the wait and see type. He understood the stakes, and he was willing to go all-in with us if it meant preserving a future for his wife and daughter.
Another text chime rang out, but this one came from Cole’s back pocket. I was tempted to slide my hands around and help myself — to the phone and his buns — but I didn’t want to be the kind of mate who acted like either belonged to me.
“You can check if you want,” he said, amused. “I’ll only tell you what it says anyway.”
It took a minute for me to frame the issue, but I finally pegged what bothered me about my first instinct.
“I don’t want to start taking liberties with you.” I thumbed one of the bangles. “It feels like a slippery slope, given how present Conquest is these days.”
“There are some liberties I don’t mind.” He guided my hand around his hip to his pocket, the one opposite his phone. “Is that what you wanted?”
“Maybe.” Heat prickled in my cheeks. “Last I heard, it’s not a crime to have the hots for my mate.”
Mate.
My mate.
Nope. Still not tired of hearing that.
The message forgotten, Cole leaned down and brushed his warm lips over mine.
Rough fingers brushed where I cupped Cole’s butt, and I jolted to find Santiago fishing out the phone.
Craning my neck, I glared at him around Cole’s side. “Do you mind?”
“Do you?” He used his thumbprint to access the phone, telling me nothing was sacred with him, which, honestly, I should have figured out by now. “I just ate, and yet there you two are, making smacking noises and groping each other in public.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, not sorry at all. “I should probably wait to get my fill of Cole until after this is over.”
The bitter tightness there at the end caused Cole to tense in my arms, but he couldn’t have known the reason. Wu wouldn’t still have his head attached to his neck if he knew the truth. For that matter, neither would I.
Fine, so he probably wouldn’t lop off my head. He would duct tape me to a chair in a basement with one exit he could padlock. Odds were good he would stand guard over it himself, in his dragon form, in case anyone got ideas about helping me escape to fulfil my apparent destiny. While I might be willing to explore the tied-to-a-chair thing with him, I wasn’t onboard with him protecting me. Conquest didn’t deserve his consideration, and … she and I were a package deal.
God, it hurt keeping this secret when all I wanted was to curl against him and pretend his arms were safe, that he could make it go away, but only I had the power to end this.
“That would be great,” Santiago agreed absently then gave us an update. “Maggie and Miller have secured supplies for our allies. They estimate six months’ worth of food and water have been delivered to each encampment. That doesn’t take into consideration the game they can hunt on their own. Most have chosen areas where clean water and wildlife are plentiful in the event this drags on longer than anticipated.”
All at once the reason for his grabby hands became clear to me.
Maggie, and therefore Portia, hadn’t checked in for over twenty-four hours.
He was worried about his BFF and obnoxious with it.
“That is good news.” I disentangled from Cole. “The least we can do is make sure they have a tent over their heads and food in their bellies.”
Thom was seeing to the medical supplies, another necessity. Most camps employed their own healers, thankfully, who specialized in their species’ biology. That cut Thom’s prep work in half.
“They’re bringing the rest here to the farmhouse,” Santiago read off a new screen. “They’ll be here in thirty minutes or so with the surplus. Be thinking on where you want to stock it.”
Thumbs flying over the screen, he chuckled under his breath, a wholly evil laugh then tossed the phone back to Cole.
Whatever Santiago sent Portia via Maggie shot Cole’s eyebrows straight into his hairline.
I didn’t ask him.
I was better off not knowing.
As I turned, a snout struck me in the spine with the force of a bullet, and I hit my knees.
“Phoebe,” I grunted, bracing a hand on my back. “Was that really necessary?”
A happy trill answered me with a resounding yes, and she curled her tail around my throat to steady herself while she perched on my shoulder. Good thing oxygen was optional. This kid wasn’t big on giving me breathers.
One of my favorite people in this world or any other stalked into the yard behind her. Had he been in his cat form, he would have twitched his nubby tail.
“She refused a bath.” He folded his arms over his chest. “She tastes like mud and chicken blood, but she won’t hold still long enough for me to clean her.”
The men
tal picture his complaint summoned rendered me mute.
Thom was the most feline member of the coterie, more in tune with his true nature, and I could respect that. I thought it was cute most of the time. But I had trouble wrapping my head around the idea that he might have tried to lick Phoebe clean the way a mother cat might care for her kitten.
As was the case with most charun culture, I wasn’t sure what I could say that wouldn’t cause offense.
“I’ll give her a bath.” I looked to Cole for help, but he was too amused to offer any. “Thank you for letting me know she needs one.”
Mollified, Thom crossed to me and rubbed his cheek against mine. “You could use a bath too.”
“Oh.” I jerked back before he got the chance to lick me too. “I, uh, will get right on that.”
I showered yesterday, with Cole, which was an adventure since he took up the whole tub, and I was forced — forced, mind you — to rub all over him in order to get clean. But there was a difference between human levels of cleanliness and catlike charun ideas on personal hygiene.
“Do you want to get in some practice while we wait?”
Eager for an excuse to escape a possible tongue-bath, I blurted, “Yes.”
Hand in hand, we walked into woods to practice the art of shifting and gliding while not eating people.
CHAPTER THREE
Farhan rode the wind, wings outstretched, and completed a lazy circle that encompassed Haven. Rixton was doing his best to keep the area secure, but he wasn’t charun. He didn’t have the hearing or sight of one. Otherwise, he would have noticed the small contingent camped out five miles from their doorstep.
The Malakhim had been hunting Heaton’s daughter, he was sure, but they hadn’t stumbled across Haven yet, and he aimed to keep it that way.
Adam requested he remain in his room, but Farhan was twitchy with the need to spread his wings, and the perfect distraction had just fallen into his lap. He would get in some exercise then return before he was missed.
Adjusting his flight pattern, Farhan sailed for the patch of woods where the handful of Malakhim rested in the trees. They were hidden well, and they would have spotted the baby dragon with ease from their location had she not been clever enough to use her glamour.
The sword in his hand felt odd after having retired from his position as janitor, but it also felt right. Righter than anything since Ezra stabbed him in the gut in his own damn office.
Just the thought of him was enough to make Farhan see red, for his grip to tighten on the hilt.
Ezra had done things to him. Horrible things. Terrible things. And the rage wouldn’t stop.
A cry went up when he landed on the topmost limb of a spiky tree where three males slept, but it was too late. He slit their throats, watched their bodies fall, then leapt to the next tree and the next until there were none left.
The blood marring his blade wasn’t enough. He wiped it clean on the shirt of a male slumped against the trunk, then sheathed it and patted down the Malakhim until he found the golden dagger they each carried as a sign of their fealty to Ezra.
The next time he killed, he wanted it slower, closer, so he could watch as the light went out of their eyes.
“He will kill you for this,” the Malakhim rasped, his voice a thready whistle.
“He was going to kill me anyway.” Farhan stabbed him through the eye. “I might as well take as many of you with me as I can before that happens.”
The wrongness in him twisted until his gut cramped, and he purged over the side of the limb.
And that’s when he saw what he had done.
These weren’t Malakhim. They were Oncas, loyal to Luce.
As he replayed the dying male’s last words, he realized he had said she and not he.
Luce was going to kill him for this, slaughtering her allies. But he hadn’t meant to do it. He hadn’t known he was doing it. He thought they were Malakhim. They had been Malakhim, hadn’t they?
The dagger trembled in his hand, and it was a plain blade, nothing gilded or branded by Ezra.
“What have I done?” He turned his blurry gaze skyward. “What have you done to me?”
Ezra was nowhere in sight, but Farhan was terrified the silky laughter he heard was real.
Sweat pouring down his spine, he hurled the dagger away and set out for the farmhouse in Canton, too afraid of what he might do if he returned to Haven, too afraid of what he might have already done.
Adam might not welcome Farhan’s arrival after he told Luce what sacrifice was required of her, but he would see that he was too well informed to be left unsupervised if his mind was going.
Farhan never expected to outlive the apocalypse, but he refused to help bring it about, even if that meant he spent it chained to a chair in a bunker.
CHAPTER FOUR
Thanks to Cole and a week of downtime, I had mastered summoning my dragon aspect on command, as well as tucking her away when I was done. I could glide without puncturing a wing, which I had done a few times now, but I couldn’t lift off and fly like Cole. Invisibility was also out of my reach, which sucked. Even Phoebe, a child, had mastered it. I wanted to have a stealth mode too, damn it.
Muscles aching in a pleasant way, if you were into masochism, I was ready to call it a day on the practice field. I had been spending my mornings with Cole, but the coterie spent evenings scattered across the floor in the living room strategizing until dinner arrived, usually in the form of pizza.
Thoughts keyed on food, I started for the house with Cole.
That’s when I spotted Kapoor on the lawn, a sword drooping in his hand.
Charun were really, really into carrying them. And, well, sticking them through people.
“I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” I called. “What’s up?”
The blank expression he wore shot chills up my arms. He hadn’t been right since we rescued him from Ezra, to the point I wasn’t sure if we had saved him. The human guise he used to wear no longer fit him. He kept to his natural form, and it was disconcerting to say the least. Wu had checked him in to Haven, so I was surprised to see him out and about — and armed — this soon.
Massive black wings twitched along his spine, pronounced veins filled with ichor crisscrossed his face, and sharp horns sprouted from his forehead and cheeks.
Funnily enough, he still wore suits like he was on the job with the National Security Branch of the FBI. For all I knew, those were the only clothes he owned since his life, as far as I could tell, was the job. Or it had been. I wasn’t sure where he stood on that front either. Job security hadn’t ranked high on my priority list lately.
The NSB was like a distant dream to me, a barely recalled series of events that I sometimes doubted had ever happened. I hadn’t gotten much mileage out of that promotion to Fed from local cop before I had to ditch the badge Wu never bothered issuing me and step into the role of Conquest full time.
I still collected paychecks, though. There were definite benefits to working with Wu. His familiarity with the system, and his ability to manipulate it, were big ones.
Without meaning to, I pictured a future where I could pin on a badge and get back to the work I loved, the job that was as much a family tradition as fireworks on the Fourth of July. But I saw no path available to me where that was a possible future.
Kapoor didn’t blink, and that made his reappearance all the more eerie. “Where is Adam?”
“He’s at the Malakhim lite encampment near Canton.” I edged in front of Cole. “Can I help you?”
Because it was clear he needed help, had come in search of it, and left Haven behind in the process. I had been fooled until he opened his mouth, but yeah. He still wasn’t right. In fact, he might be more wrong than the last time I saw him.
“I’m tired,” he said on an exhale, and then his legs buckled, crumpling him to the dirt with his wings mashed beneath him in a feathery tangle.
I rushed over, dropped to my knees, and pressed my fingers under his
jaw. “Pulse is strong and steady.”
“I’ll scout the area, make sure no one followed him.”
Cole gave himself over to his dragon and left me with the mystery of Kapoor.
“Thom,” I yelled. “We got a man down out here. Bring your kit.”
He shoved through the front door, pinpointed my location, and ran to me.
“You’re all right?” He raked his gaze over me. “He didn’t hurt you?”
Moved by his concern, I tossed him a smile. “I’m fine.”
With a brisk nod, he turned his attention to Kapoor. “What happened to him?”
“I’m not sure. Whatever is wrong with him was wrong with him when he got here.”
“I will examine him.” Thom leaned down, sniffed Kapoor’s breath. “Hmm.” He licked the underside of Kapoor’s chin then paid special attention to the other man’s hands and fingers, which he licked too. “There’s blood under his nails, but it’s not his. There are multiple flavors.”
“More than one person?”
“Yes.” He compared his findings to the gore on the sword. “The matter under his nails is consistent with the blood on his weapon.”
“I don’t get why he left Haven.” I owed Rixton a text to check and see if he was aware Kapoor had fled or if Kapoor had slipped out while he was on patrol. Either way, he would want to know where Kapoor ended up and that he was okay. “He was safe there.”
“He might have a message for you,” he theorized. “Did he say anything before he passed out?”
Dread tickled my hindbrain, imagining the worst-case scenarios. What if Haven had been breached? What if the Rixtons hadn’t survived? What if the Malakhim had taken Dad hostage? What if that was why Rixton hadn’t called to report Kapoor’s absence? What if Kapoor was the lone survivor?
Skin crawling, I couldn’t ask Thom if his palate was developed enough for him to tell if the blood belonged to humans or charun. If Kapoor had hurt the Rixtons … or my dad …
“He asked for Wu.” Ice crackled on my tongue, crunched between my teeth, and I shoved Conquest down until my ears stopped ringing. “He said he was tired, then he dropped where he stood.”
End Game (The Foundling Series) Page 3