by Eve Langlais
“Missing,” Cam said, hanging his head.
“What do you mean she’s missing?” Anger coursed through Roark, and he did his best not to kill the messenger.
It wasn’t easy. Especially since if he accidentally did, Casey probably wouldn’t forgive him. But this was his daughter. Charlie had gone missing.
“Where is she?” he asked coldly as he dangled Cam off the floor, the other man’s throat gripped in an invisible fist of air.
“He has to be able to breathe to answer,” was Casey’s saucy retort.
Roark knew his gaze was cold as he said, “No he doesn’t.”
This man didn’t have the same shields as his sister. Cam was an open book, which meant Roark could see right into him. He dug into the recent memories, winding backwards from the trip to Port City and zipped back until the last moment Cam saw Charlie.
His daughter was tucked in bed. Anita had the night watch. Cam would take over in the morning. However, his sleep ended abruptly. Instinct had him rolling from bed and rushing to the princess’s bedroom, only to discover Charlie gone. As for Anita, she lay flat on the floor, knocked out. A quick forwarding of memories showed they discovered no outside enemy. No coordinated attempt to kidnap.
Even worse, Charlie had given Anita the drink that put her to sleep. His daughter had run away.
Why? Where?
Gurgle.
The noise reminded Roark that Cam was still dangling. He flicked his gaze to Casey, who patiently waited. She put too much faith in him. In his goodness. She’d not really had to see the bad king that he sometimes turned into when those he loved were threatened.
And she wouldn’t today.
He dropped Cam, who rubbed his throat and gasped for air. He wouldn’t hold the man at fault for his daughter’s follies, yet he needed someone to blame.
So Roark blamed himself. He shouldn’t have left Eden. Charlie would have never run if he’d been there for her.
“Don’t you dare.” Casey pinched his chin between her fingers and drew his gaze. “Don’t you dare think this is your fault.”
“If it’s not mine, then it’s his.” He glared at Cam. “And Anita’s and Titan’s. Every fucking person who somehow missed seeing a little girl leaving what is supposed to be a heavily guarded castle.”
“She obviously has hidden talents,” Casey replied.
“She’s seven! And no one knows where she is!” The very idea she could be somewhere lost and alone. Scared or hurt. “Argh.” His yell rattled the walls and ceilings.
“What have you guys done to find her?” Casey asked her brother, showing herself to be more rational than he was at the moment.
“We turned the castle upside down. Everyone on duty that night was asked if she’d been spotted. Then we went to places outside she’s been known to visit.”
“She wouldn’t have drugged Anita to visit someone. She left the city.” Obviously on some kind of misguided mission. “Was her room searched for messages or clues? A ransom received?”
“Nothing was found. But I know they were going to search again when I left to bring word.”
Roark snapped his fingers. “Did Titan send out the trackers?” Marsh born and bred men who usually led the hunting groups. Finding a little girl should be easy.
“He sent them out within the hour of her going missing.”
It was Casey who remarked, “Given you’re the best tracker in Haven, I’m going to assume he sent you.”
“He did.”
Roark whirled. “Then why aren’t you looking for her?”
“I am, was. Still am,” Cam hastened to add. “I tracked her to this city.”
“Where? I am going to choke you to death if you don’t talk faster.” Because he didn’t trust himself to not tear the man apart looking for more answers.
“She met someone outside of town. I did my best to follow but lost them in the city.”
“Met someone.” Roark spun and paced. “Someone sent her a message. How? Who let a stranger get close enough to my daughter to deliver it?”
Cam’s head drooped even further. “That would be my fault. A package arrived from the city for the princess, and I didn’t see any harm in it. It was just a toy boat. I thought it came from you.”
“Just a toy,” Roark repeated softly. “Get out.”
“I’m—”
If Cam said sorry, Roark might just kill him. “Out!” Said with even more deadly softness.
Casey murmured to her brother as she dragged him to the door. It shut, and Roark expelled a breath. It hitched when Casey placed a hand on him. “He feels awful.
“l know he does. I can feel it. It doesn’t make his fuckup any less of a fuckup.” The swamp in him came out as his frustration mounted.
“The good news is she’s alive.”
“That’s the only reason your brother is still breathing.”
“I don’t think he’ll like you much after this,” she remarked as Sachi twined between his legs. The pair of them did much to soothe him, to quell the dark power welling within.
“He’ll like me even less if I don’t find Charlie.”
“We’ll find her,” Casey stated with assurance. “And then the only reason he’ll have to hate you will be because you’re dicking his sister.”
He almost choked. “Dicking? What we do is not anything so vulgar.”
She smirked. “Then we’ll need to try harder. Lover.”
He almost missed her saying it given she turned. But the word stuck with him.
Lover.
Father.
King.
None of those three gave in to despair or gave up. With Casey’s help, he’d get Charlie back.
“Where could she have been taken?” Casey remarked, stripping out of her dress, distracting with the lithe smoothness of her flesh.
“I think I might know.” That nagging feeling had finally coalesced. A cold certainty filled him. “She’s in the spire of the Silent Sisters.”
“What makes you say that? Oh.” She eyed him as she grasped his reasoning. “You think your crazy sister is behind it.”
“She’s catatonic, not crazy. And I am beginning to wonder if the first is true. There was something different about her this time.” He’d noticed it the moment he laid eyes on Anissa. She’d still stared off in the distant slack-jawed, yet her mind had felt firmer compared to previous attempts to get in. As if the nothing fog took a hard-repelling shape.
The one thing it didn’t completely manage to mask was her hatred of him, and if she’d taken Charlie, this wouldn’t end well.
Chapter 23
The darkness gathering behind Roark’s eyes indicated he wasn’t about to wait. Charlie was in danger. Already dressed, and spilling power like lightning in a storm, he rushed off to the rescue. Casey didn’t immediately follow because she chose to remove the stupid dress. It took her a few wretched moments to strip. The gown didn’t survive.
Wearing something that actually covered her body and armed to the teeth, Casey tripped her way down the stairs—literally, given Sachi weaved through her legs and just about killed her. She discovered a few of Darius’s crew waiting; Jorah and Tanzie, plus a few more familiar faces and one very sad one.
“Where’d Roark go?” she asked.
Jorah pointed. “Out da door, and den he blocked it so we couldna follow.”
“We’ll follow all right,” she grumbled.
“Once ya get da little princess, ya might want to clear out,” Jorah announced. “Things are ‘bout to get ugly in da city. Dere is rumbling in da streets.”
“Just what we need,” she muttered, “a revolution.”
“Since it might get sticky, Jorah’s going to ensure the ship is ready to go. I’m coming with you to lead you back once we get the princess,” Tanzie announced. “Do you know where she is? Because Roark wasn’t in a talkative mood when he stomped by.”
Casey tapped her lower lip, hated to waste the time talking, but she’d not remained alive th
is long—and with fewer scars than Roark had—to simply rush in. “He’s pretty sure Anissa has lured her to the Silent Sisters tower.”
“His sista?” Jorah whistled. “No wonder he so fucking pissed.”
He also wasn’t thinking straight. “I don’t suppose there’s a back door into the tower?” Casey asked.
“We can get into their cellars via the tunnel,” Tanzie informed her.
“That’s perfect. You and Cam will sneak in the back, while I keep an eye on the king storming the front.”
“Shouldn’t you stop him instead?” Tanzie queried.
She snorted. “I am not getting in the way of a man who needs to do something for his little girl. But I can provide support so no one knifes him in the back.”
“Are you sure your brother is the right choice?” Tanzie asked in a soft murmur.
“I’ll handle him.”
She neared him, but Cam wouldn’t even look at her. Which was why she slapped him in the back of the head and snapped, “Get over yourself. This wasn’t entirely your fault.”
“It’s always my fault. I’m never good enough to protect. Someone always gets hurt.”
She’d never understood how bad his guilt was before. Always saw it as him being overbearing. Then she met Roark, who suffered from the same thing. It gave her a little more patience.
Casey hugged her brother. “It wasn’t your fault, and I’m okay. But Charlie won’t be if we don’t give her a hand, so suck it up and let’s go. You and Tanzie are gonna sneak in through the tunnels.”
“What about you, how will you find him?” Cam asked.
She eyed the cat sitting by the door looking impatient. “I’ve got a guide.”
Once she slipped into the shadows, it wasn’t hard to navigate the city streets and catch up to Roark. Sachi led the way, the feline somehow keeping track of Casey and nudging her into the right direction. Useful scruffy thing despite her gassy issues.
Emerging into a wide-open space ringed in fountains, she couldn’t miss the spire that rose in the sky, all the windows dark except for the ones at the highest level.
Entering the courtyard that was strangely silent even with the fountains, Roark didn’t slow his stride. Not even when a trio of gray-robed women marched around the side of it and arrayed themselves in a solid line in front.
“Give me my daughter,” he demanded, his voice a terrible darkness that seeped forward, full of magic and menace.
The women didn’t reply, either because of their vow or other reasons. Their eyes held a strange glow. Their hands raised, and Casey’s skin prickled.
Uh-oh. Sachi fled before the first of the fireballs was launched. Casey ducked and half turned to cover her face.
The expected heat never materialized. She turned to see Roark holding out a shield that deflected the various magics flung against him, from fireballs to lightning and even a strange green fog. When that failed, the robed women—still utterly silent—threw themselves at him.
It was the last thing they did.
She couldn’t have said what he did, but whatever it was devastated those attacking them. One immediately dropped dead. The two others began to scream and claw at themselves before running off in different directions, caught in a mental nightmare.
He stepped through over the body and spread his arms wide, expending even more of his power. She could almost see the strong shadow breeze that shoved into the doors. They exploded open and banged hard off the building. He walked right in, and Casey, keeping to the shadows, slipped in behind him.
The silence within had nothing to do with a vow, she quickly realized. The bodies on the floor had crooked limbs and staring eyes. Violence had already passed through.
Only as Casey stepped in to follow Roark did the door swing shut behind her.
She whirled to look, just as Roark said, “Remove their heads.”
It made no sense until she turned around and saw the dead bodies rising in stilted and jolting motion. They twitched as they reached for her. Ignoring his instruction, Casey first slashed, only to realize the walking dead did not care about wounds. There was nothing graceful or exhilarating about removing heads and limbs. It didn’t take long to realize this was a stalling tactic because the dead weren’t all that dangerous.
Roark clued in and uttered a noise that was all rage as he swept up the stairs. Because, of course, there were seven stories of stairs. People in the cities seemed awfully fond of them.
Roark didn’t take them slow or measured. He practically flowed upwards, his wrath giving him momentum, and the darkness he emitted practically dragged her along, too. There were more sisters at each level, some shambling in their marionette unlife; others were still alive and, with mad light in their eyes, attacked.
Roark deflected them all and kept moving upwards.
The scene at the top proved less than surprising, an open space ringed in windows and cool from the breezes entering through broken glass. The mosaic on the floor and the curved shape of the walls made Casey think of a place of prayer. Not something she believed in, but she knew many others who did.
Those who’d come to speak to faceless gods lay in a several rows, kneeling in their gray robes, silent. Eerie especially when their heads turned as one and their feral expressions promised attack.
It had to have cost Roark to throw up the shield he did, especially given how it was hammered. While it blocked magic, it didn’t stop Casey from dancing in and out of it, slashing with her knives, aware that Roark remained at her back, fighting as well. A partner in the dance of death.
When it was finally done, the bodies littered the floor, and the slickness of their blood soaked into the stone. They’d eliminated them all, except for one. Her gray robe remained pristine; her expression, though, was quite mad. Standing by her side, face pale and tear streaked, was Charlie.
The poor child. Casey’s heart ached for her knowing how the violence she’d just witnessed would change her.
The darkness around Roark intensified, but he didn’t lash out. Casey wasn’t sure he could. He’d used so much power.
“You don’t want to do this, Anissa,” Roark said, confirming the identity of the sole standing sister.
“Oh, but I do.” A knife flashed in his sister’s hand. “I’ve been waiting for you, brother.” The way she said it held hatred of a depth Casey would have never imagined for a sibling.
“How long have you been faking?” he asked, eyeing her.
The smile turned conniving. “About a year now.”
“Why hide your recovery?”
“Because I needed to gather my strength to orchestrate my revenge.”
“Revenge for what?” he asked with a hint of impatience. “You’re the one who betrayed me.”
“Everything is your fault!” the woman screamed.
Roark remained calm, but tense. Casey stepped into a different shadow as he said, “What do you want with Charlie?”
“Can you blame an aunt for wanting to meet her niece? You never mentioned her before in your visits. No one did, so imagine my surprise to discover I had more family than my treacherous brothers.”
He advanced, and Anissa’s grip tightened on the girl. The princess did her best to be brave, but her eyes filled with tears.
Roark froze. He dropped to his knees. “Leave her alone and take me instead. I’m the one you want to hurt.”
“Actually, you’re the one who needs to watch and suffer as I’ve suffered. Me, who was as strong as any Enclave member, and yet because my father was swamp born, it doesn’t count. And then you come along, a bastard as well, but you made yourself a crown. Called yourself king. I want it.”
“Then take it. Just leave Charlie alone.”
The darkness swirled around him, and Casey wondered that no one could see it. She also wondered why he didn’t attack. Was it still a misguided love for his sibling, or something else?
She moved from shadow to shadow, trying to get closer, only to freeze as eyes hinting o
f madness turned to look right at her.
“So this is the whore you’ve been bandying around. She’s not as pretty as Theona,” Anissa sneered.
“But she’s a lot more trustworthy,” he muttered.
Staring at Anissa, Casey willed Roark to strike.
As if hearing her, the darkness intensified, and Anissa smiled. “Do you really think you can take me? We might share the same father, but I had an Enclave-born mother.” A miasma rose from Anissa and reached for him.
He trembled as he fought to keep it from touching him.
Anissa’s mad grin widened. “I am so much stronger than you. Than everyone. I started playing the sisters’ minds first, but some of them noticed and shielded themselves. Then, I went after the duke’s sons. Weak-minded idiots. I tried to ride them to get my revenge on the duke, but they killed themselves instead.”
“You possessed them?” Roark sounded shocked.
“I did. And don’t pretend you’ve never done it.”
“Only once,” he admitted. “Never again.”
“Liar. You tried to get inside my head.”
“I stopped you from killing me and Darius,” he snapped, not completely cowed, and yet Casey could see the strain on him as he fought against the fog—and appeared to be losing.
He’d used too much magic on the way in. Casey knew there was only one way out of this. Anissa had to die. But Roark couldn’t be the one to do it. He’d never survive the guilt.
Before she could toss a knife to end things, a gun fired.
A single shot. It struck between Anissa’s eyes, which widened slightly in surprise. Then she went limp, and the green fog died with her.
Charlie pulled free and ran for her father.
As for Casey, she glanced to the entrance to see her brother stepping out of a shadow.
She arched a brow. “About time you learned how to sneak.”
“I had the best teacher. I apparently just needed the right time to show it off.”
Casey moved closer and said softly, “While you did the right thing, he’ll never forgive you for killing his sister.”
“I know.” In those two words, she heard so much more. Heard how Cam didn’t want it to be her that Roark hated. How this would help force the separation they both needed. How he loved her.