by Emma Hamm
Unlike the creature he had devoured, Wren was not the kind of woman to allow any sort of fear to show. Foolishly, she swallowed hard and replied, “I will never be like you.”
He pressed his nose into the smooth silk of her hair and inhaled slowly. Another shiver traveled down the length of her spine.
“You haven’t seen the monster yet, Wren. But you will. I will make you understand just how truly terrifying I can be.”
CHAPTER 10
T he door to Haven burst open and thumped against the wall. The doorknob left a dent as it swung shut behind the man who was struggling to stay upright.
Jasper had watched Burke drop to the ground after Wren had disappeared in front of them. Though he didn’t really like Burke, the man was far too stiff, so seeing the strong man fall in a dead faint had made him worried. He had touched Burke’s arm and warped back to their home without remembering that he was going to have to carry Burke the rest of the way.
Jasper was a big man. He was larger than Burke, and that was saying something. But even his strong arms had a difficult time maneuvering a six foot, limp man through a doorway. Kicking in the door had seemed the only option.
Wide eyes stared back at him. Most of them were refugees they had saved from the recent attack.
He swore and started to lose his grip on Burke’s left leg.
“Sorry. Sorry,” he muttered as he made his way through the crowd of people who were waiting for medical attention.
He winced when a man yelped after he stepped on his hand. “Sorry, mate.”
“Would you stop apologizing?” He heard the loud shout long before he saw the mop of dark hair that spun around to glare at him.
“Lyra,” he growled.
This time it was her eyes that widened as she saw Burke in his arms. “Right. No jokes. Bring him in, Jasper.”
The Red Bloods were likely more of a priority. Burke was in one of his death sleeps, the kind that he went into when he was Dream Walking. But Jasper had never seen him fall into the sleep that quickly.
“What happened to him?” Lyra asked as they brushed past the Red Bloods.
“Wren’s gone. He tried to follow her.”
“Idiot,” Lyra muttered. “Who nabbed her?”
“No idea. She stepped on a portal.”
“Both idiots!” She tossed her hands in the air and opened a door. There wasn’t a patient in this room yet, and Burke would have to take up some of the space. She hated to lose any rooms for the Red Bloods that needed medical care, though.
Somehow, this felt more important.
“Lay him down here,” she muttered. “I’ll go get Gaia.”
“Shouldn’t we just wait for him to wake up?” Jasper asked, but his gut reaction was to bring him here. Jasper knew as well as Lyra that something was wrong.
“She’ll want to know the whole story,” Lyra muttered as she disappeared.
There were so few Red Bloods that had survived this attack. His heart bled for the shell-shocked people whose blank expressions would forever be seared into his mind. They hadn’t done anything wrong other than exist.
This was the first attack among many. Those who worked for the Five were well aware of that. Malachi had something up his sleeve and now Jasper understood what it was.
The attack hadn’t been anything other than a cover up. He hadn’t cared if people died, he probably didn’t even know what his people were going to do. They just needed to cause some kind of commotion to keep the Five’s attention away from their real intent.
Wren.
That poor girl, he thought. His face twisted slightly as he looked down at Burke’s still body. They had only just gotten her to agree to help them, and now she was gone. He couldn’t imagine the fear she must have felt as she disappeared in a puff of smoke.
He should go back to the house. He should find something that would give them some kind of clue to where she was. At the very least, he might be able to salvage something that might be dear to her.
The door opened and Gaia’s heels struck the floor in hard clicks. She pressed one hand against Burke’s forehead and closed her eyes for a few moments.
“What happened?”
“Wren’s gone,” Jasper said quietly.
“So Lyra said. Now clarify.”
Jasper quickly explained the situation to Gaia, watching as her eyes narrowed the longer the story progressed. By the end, a full blown frown made her expression fearsome.
“You moved him after he went into the dreaming world?”
Jasper nodded.
Gaia sighed and rubbed her forehead. “This day just continues to get worse.”
“I couldn’t leave him there,” Jasper replied.
“No I suppose you couldn’t.” She stroked her hand across Burke’s forehead. “The problem is that he won’t be able to find his way back to his body now.”
“What?”
“A Dream Walker relies on a marker of sorts. There is no sense of distance where he is. He’s essentially traveling hundreds of miles in the blink of an eye. Without knowing where he started, Burke could be lost to us.”
A small noise made both of them look to the doorway. Lyra clapped a hand over her mouth and blushed bright red as they all turned to stare at her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make noise. That just sounds awful.”
“It would be a horrible way to die,” Gaia replied. “It will take him a much longer time to pass away. His body is conditioned to survive months without its soul.”
Jasper cleared his throat. “He’s trying to find Wren. Without him, we’ll never know where they took her.”
Gaia sighed and looked towards the ceiling. They could both see the gears in her head turning. The conclusion she reached moments later was obviously one she did not like.
“Long before the worlds merged, we swore never to involve ourselves in your lives. Anything that may affect the future must be done by one of you.” She looked severely at both Jasper and Lyra. “What I do today, neither of you will ever speak of.”
At both of their nods, she turned back towards Burke. Gaia framed Burke’s face with her hands, and a soft glowing light could be seen between her fingers. She muttered words under her breath as her eyes shifted underneath her lids.
She was looking for him. Both Jasper and Lyra felt the hairs on their arms raise as they always did when Gaia used her powers. As far as they knew, the Five had no limitations on the magical powers they could use. Gaia was proving that as she dived into the brain of a Dream Walker and followed in his footsteps.
They could hear nothing but the soft murmuring for a while until, suddenly, Gaia stopped. She was silent and still for heartbeats before Burke’s body jerked as though in pain. His legs thrashed against the table until Jasper lept forward to hold him down.
Lyra squeezed his shoulders as they both pinned him to the table. Burke moved as though someone was attempting to kill him, but Gaia did not move at all. Her hands were like claws against his skull as she held him down.
“What is she doing?” Jasper grunted.
“Apparently dragging him home,” Lyra replied and let out a squeak as Burke’s arms burst free for a moment. “I don’t think he’s happy about it.”
They held him down for longer than either of them wanted to. It might have been minutes or hours until Burke’s eyes flew open, and he stilled. Great gasping breaths filled his lungs until his heart quieted.
Only then did Gaia release his skull from her hands. Her fingernails had left marks upon his temples, along with bruises from Lyra and Jasper.
“Welcome back to the real world,” Gaia angrily said. “Foolish man. Jumping into the dreaming world after her solved nothing.”
“I have to find her.” Burke’s voice sounded raw. “This is our only chance until she disappears forever.”
“You found her once. You doubt yourself already?”
“I found her by luck. Malachi will have taken her out of my reach; he knows I’m a Dream Walker.”
&
nbsp; “You did not think to immediately return to us?”
“I did what had to be done!” He sat up and moved to swing his legs off of the table. “You should not have brought me back. I would have found her.”
“Perhaps, but with your body moved how did you expect to return to us?”
Burke remained silent. He sat on the edge of the table and squeezed his hands into fists.
“Precisely,” Gaia said. “You do not think before you act. You would have found her and had no way to tell anyone else because you would have been lost in the dreaming world. You are a professional, Burke. Act like one.”
She walked towards the door with a disappointed look on her face. Gaia was absolutely correct. Burke was too old to make mistakes like this. He had been doing this job for many years, and yet with this one woman, he repeatedly failed over and over again.
But this time it felt personal. She had been right in front of him, so close he could have touched her. And then she had disappeared. Slipped out of his fingers as though he was trying to hold a palm full of water in a mesh net.
Gaia paused and looked over her shoulder. “Lyra, run a scan to find her heartbeat.”
Burke’s heart seemed to stop. “You know where she is?”
“I can find where she is. I don’t know where she is,” Gaia clarified. “I placed a bug in her when she was asleep.”
His face turned white. “You put a bug in her? Without her waking up?”
“I suspect E had something to do with that.”
The door clicked softly behind her and Lyra. Jasper was already wincing as he realized the strength Wren must have inside of her. A bug was literally that. It was a small enchanted beetle that crawled underneath a person’s skin.
It attached itself to the inside of a hipbone and existed upon the person’s life force. It took so little to keep the beetle alive that the person would usually never know that there was a bug inside of them. But the process of planting a bug in someone was rumored to be brutally painful.
How that woman had slept through the entire process was a mystery to him.
Silence stretched between the two men remaining in the room. “Burke,” Jasper began, “I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“We were both there. We both should have grabbed her.”
“No one could have known there were portals on the ground,” Burke murmured. He stared down at his hands, which were flexing. He should be gathering his strength to stand. The Dream World had a way of sucking energy out of a person.
“I’m sure they’ll find her signature.”
“It should be me finding her.”
Jasper could hear the frustration in Burke’s voice. He could hear the disappointment and anger that he was now stuck waiting. Sudden clarity struck as Jasper realized what all this was about.
“You’re in love with her.”
Burke snorted. “No, I’m not; I just want to protect her.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
The words hung in the air above the two men. They both held their breath for a few moments as emotions and thoughts whirled around them. But eventually, every bubble had to pop. Burke let out a long sigh.
“I don’t know, Jasper. All I know is I have to get her back.”
He could hear the rattle of air in his chest. He could feel the hairs on his arms stand up as his thoughts flickered through the possibilities. She was without him, possibly in pain, possibly dying.
But perhaps it was the knowledge that he had failed her, yet again. He had always been the person to save others. Burke’s job was to be a bodyguard for God’s sake. He knew how to put himself on the line so that another person might live.
Yet with this woman, no matter how hard he tried, she always slipped through his fingers. He hadn’t managed to save her once. It was trying on his ego.
Lyra barged through the door. Her dark hair was tangled around her face in long wet strips, which made Burke’s spine straighten instantly. She only lost control over her power like that when she was upset. He could hear Jasper gritting his teeth beside him and knew the other man had come to the same conclusion.
“We found her.” The words were said on a long sigh as she tried to catch her breath.
“And?”
“You’re not going to like it, Burke.”
“Of course I’m not,” he growled. “Out with it.”
“The bug’s signal was very faint, but she’s in the Ice Realm. Old Quebec.”
“Oh come on!” The words slipped out of his mouth without thought. “Canada? Really?”
She shrugged. “Guess the portal wasn’t capable of transporting her to Europe. It’s lucky, she’s only a hop, skip, and a jump away.”
“For the teleporter over here.” He hooked a thumb towards Jasper. “We’ll need authorization to cross over into another country.”
“Who needs authorization? We’ll just pop over and grab her.”
“Not without bringing M.O.M. down on our heads. The Frost Giants took over Canada a long time ago and want nothing to do with M.O.M.”
“Oh right,” Lyra murmured.
The chunk of land that used to be the United States had been divided up long ago. Originally it had split in half when the dimensions had collided with the world and since then had been chopped up further. Two hundred years later, no one was exactly sure where the borders had been drawn, but everyone knew that M.O.M. ruled over more of the land than not.
Canada was one of the few countries that had remained relatively untouched. Because of their long winters, they had attracted similar creatures to the cold. Frost Giants, Ice Wraiths, the White Fae, and more had gathered there. They disliked having creatures of all kinds living together and preferred that similar magical creatures existed among each other.
This was obviously something that others disagreed with, especially the agents of M.O.M. Burke sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose.
“Can we get in without anyone else finding out?”
“Doubtful,” Jasper replied. “I can’t even hop in without M.O.M.’s shields finding out. They’ll catch my magic as soon as we land on the other side.”
“Can we get a temporary permit?” Lyra asked. “It can’t be that hard.”
“We might manage to get one in the next six weeks.” Burke hated that he knew the information they required. “M.O.M. purposefully makes people wait a long time in hopes that they’ll change their mind.”
“Well,” Lyra said quietly, “we’re stuck then. We can’t make M.O.M. angry.”
“We can’t just leave her there!”
Burke’s shout echoed in the room as the three stared at each other. They were the strongest that the Five had to offer. They knew nearly everything that the Five planned on doing. But they were incapable of seeing a solution to this problem.
In short, they had failed. The first person they found that had fulfilled the requirements for the prophecy had already been lost to them. The first and the final, as all four were necessary to save them all.
“We’ll be remembered forever for this,” Jasper murmured. “We’re the ones that signed our names on the fate of the world.”
“A bit dramatic, don’t you think?” The voice came from the shadows behind them and was not one that could be recognized.
Burke’s eyes narrowed as he slid from the table. He held a finger to his lips as he moved towards the dark shape in the corner. He was warning the others to remain silent while he dealt with the newcomer. “And you are?”
“Not necessary information.” The voice was deep and obviously masculine. But this was not someone who lived in Haven and certainly not a Red Blood.
They could all see the faint shape that the shadows made. Tall, wide shoulders, a head and hips. But no other information could be found from looking at the creature that stood in the darkness.
“I think it is,” Burke growled. “You came to the wrong place to be sneaking around and listening to conversatio
ns that are confidential.”
“Confidential.” A snort followed the word. “Right. Look, there’s an amulet you can wear to jump over the border. Black Market goods but they’re made by a couple Harpies. Ask for Scylla or Charybdis. They’ll only deal with other women. Harpies, you know.”
“Why are you telling us this?”
“Because I can.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, I suppose it’s not.” There was a slight pause as the shadow seem to flicker in and out of existence. “There’s entertainment in stirring the pot, much more preferred than sitting around and waiting to see what will happen. Just do it.”
“Why should we trust you?” Lyra asked from the back of the room.
“Because you don’t have any other choice. Find the girl, don’t find the girl. I could care less. But now you have the information you need to get her.”
“I’d say you care, or you wouldn’t be here helping us,” she replied. Burke looked over his shoulder to see she had jutted her chin up in the air. Lyra had always been brave for such a tiny little thing.
“Hmm.” The sound appeared thoughtful before the shadow shrugged. “Perhaps. But note I’m not going to find her myself. Good luck.”
The shadow disappeared then, leaving a much lighter dark spot in the corner of the room. Burke shook himself before turning to look at the other two.
“Do we trust it?”
“I can find the Harpies,” Lyra muttered. “Not that I want to talk to those two, I remember them all too well.”
“What?” Burke hadn’t realized that she had ever been to the Black Market. At Jasper’s warning head shake, he wisely did not push for further information.
“Just…” Lyra sighed. “I’ll be back. Hang tight.”
Her head felt scrambled. There were thoughts there, or there should be thoughts in the great expanse of her mind. But there weren’t. Or there were too many. She couldn’t seem to find herself in her own head, and that was particularly disturbing for Wren.
Even worse was that Malachi seemed to play her like a puppet. All he had to do was snap his fingers, and the pain inside her head grew worse. The noise would increase as he yanked forward all the minds inside of her at the same time. She was constantly in a state of potential insanity.