Warrior Enchanted: The Sons of the Zodiac

by Addison Fox

  Melanie?

  Finley raced to the woman only to have her scrabble away as she came close. “Don’t touch me!”

  “Melanie.” When the woman just shook her head, Finley raised her voice. “Melanie! It’s me.”

  The blond head stopped its wild shaking as her gaze focused. “Finley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? How?” Melanie lifted her head farther as hope bloomed on the pale pink of her cheeks. “What are you doing here?”

  White-hot anger sharpened into a narrow point as Finley moved toward the still-huddled woman. “You mean you really don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  Feelings she hadn’t even realized she’d repressed came barreling out. The shivers that had consumed her only moments before shifted on a rush of adrenaline. She clenched her hands into tight fists to try and stop them from reaching for Melanie. “You’ve been setting me up for weeks.”

  That slight wash of pink in her cheeks vanished. “But I haven’t.”

  “Cut the bullshit, Melanie. I know about the files on your computer and your relationship with Gavelli.” The woman’s eyes went wide with surprise, but Finley pressed on. “I know all about it.”

  “But you can’t know. He told me you’d never know.”

  “Who? Your mobster boyfriend?”

  “Franco told me it was all for the greater good and that he just wanted a chance to explain. That you were out to get him for something he didn’t do and that he had evidence that proved he wasn’t guilty.”

  “Guilty for what?”

  “He said you were trying to frame him for those murders up in the Bronx last January.”

  What?

  The urge to simply throw up her hands was strong, but Finley waited. Something in the woman’s voice—in her broken gaze—held her back. “Why would I do that? Why would you think I’d done that?”

  “He had evidence. E-mails.”

  Finley ran the history of the case through her mind, unable to make a connection with the Gavellis. “Those murders had nothing to do with a mob hit. I never even pursued that angle because the police had already gathered quite a bit of evidence that suggested it was a gang retaliation.”

  “But Franco had evidence.”

  “And you believed him?”

  The shoulders that had looked broken when she’d arrived bent even further under the weight of her misjudgment. “Oh my God. Finley. Oh God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I…” A heavy sob shook her. “I love him.”

  Finley wanted to rant and rage.

  Wanted to tell the woman what an idiotic sap she’d been, but playing judge and jury didn’t rest all that well on shoulders that only moments before had shook with the knowledge of her own stupid decisions.

  “Love, Mel? Really?”

  Large tears welled in Melanie’s eyes and spilled over. “I’m the worst cliché. But I swear he was telling the truth.”

  “What would possibly make you believe him?”

  The woman’s slender shoulders crumpled and the blue of her eyes shined with a sudden clarity. “I don’t know, Finley. I really don’t know.”

  Finley moved forward and dragged the woman into her arms. “Come on. There’s a bed over here you can sit down on.”

  They crossed the room and, as she held Melanie’s shaking body close, she couldn’t help but wonder what would come next.

  Drake kept his gaze focused on the big-screen TV that Quinn had hooked up to the security center for their briefing. They’d descended into the Batcave, as Ilsa had dubbed it, in the basement of the brownstone rather than all crowd their way into Quinn’s office.

  While the leather couches were more comfortable than hard rolling chairs, all the comforts in the world couldn’t calm the roiling nerves that filled the room.

  “Where did Eris get a warehouse, Quinn?” Grey argued with the bull as Quinn pointed out the only entry point on the building he believed housed Finley. “She’s got to be somewhere else.”

  “It’s Gavelli’s warehouse and it’s the first place I looked.” Quinn tapped the flat screen. “Luckily, I still had the feed set up from the other night and on a hunch I looked at it. Finley’s there.”

  Grey wasn’t calmed by Quinn’s reasoning. “You’ve got no video of the surrounding blocks.”

  Drake inserted himself into the conversation. Although Quinn had been in Grey’s spot not all that long ago, it was obvious his patience was fried. “And if Eris ported her in—which is likely—there won’t be any.”

  “Wait a minute.” Quinn tapped at a few keys. “I can pull up the city’s cameras. She had to have been taken near work.”

  “Which I should never have let her go back to,” Grey muttered.

  “Son of a bitch,” Quinn breathed on a heavy groan, ignoring Grey’s words. “There she is.”

  They all stood and moved closer to the screen as Finley’s form came into view. They could see Quinn’s man walking behind her, attacked from behind just off camera as Eris got her.

  The port began instantaneously, the two women evaporating from view. Emerson let out a choked cry as the image of her brother stepping over the guard and porting away filled the screen next.

  “Oh my God, he can really do it.” She gripped Drake’s hand, shaking her head all the while. “I believed it. I knew he did it, but I didn’t actually see it happen. Magnus can port on his own, not tethered to Eris.”

  “Emerson. Come on. Sit down; it’s a lot to take in.”

  Despite the subtle pressure on her arm to sit back down on the couch, she stood firm. “No, Drake. I can handle it.”

  Grey pointed to the screen once again. “Rewind it, Quinn. I want to see it again.”

  “She has to know we’re going to put up a fight,” Quinn murmured as he stared at the screen.

  “And she’s using Finley to keep us in line.” Grey’s gaze snapped to him.

  “Finley’s handy. It’s the fight she wants.” Rogan stood at the doorway.

  Grey moved immediately for the archer, but Drake and Quinn were up and after him before he could make contact.

  “Fuck you both!” Grey struggled against their hold. “He’s not welcome here.”

  Drake pushed back, refusing to relent on his grip as Grey continued to fight them. “He knows her better than any of us.”

  “He’s a gods damn traitor.”

  “He’s your brother,” Drake bit out, the power of those words slamming him swiftly in the gut.

  Brother.

  The knowledge of what that meant—of what they’d shared through the years—dragged at his conscience. He’d turned on Rogan, too. Had been quick to blame him for an error in judgment any of them could have made.

  “He put her in danger. He put us all in danger,” Grey spat out as he continued to push against the tight hold.

  “I never meant to cause this. Never.” Rogan’s words were clear and unwavering. He stood at the door, his hands at his sides, ready to take whatever they dished at him.

  Moving forward, he walked up to Grey all the while keeping his hands at his sides. “She’s a hot fuck, Grey. I put us all at risk for that and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Grey’s tense form slackened as Rogan’s words sank in.

  “But I can help you get Finley back. I went to see Eris and I put a tracking device on her.”

  “You what?” Quinn moved forward.

  “Grab your equipment. It’s one of the new ones you gave me a few months back. I put it on her phone.”

  Quinn reached for the ever-present handheld device he carried and started tapping on the screen.

  Rogan turned to address all of them, but his gaze never left Grey’s. “You have my word. I will hunt that bitch to the ends of the earth, but first I’ll help you get Finley back.”

  “Love doesn’t simply evaporate, Rogan.” Emerson’s words filled the silence that had descended between all of them. “I now know that better than anyone. Magnus is my brother and I love him. I can’t ch
ange that, regardless of the fact I know what needs to be done.”

  Rogan shifted his gaze from Grey’s to rest on the small pixie with the iron will. “This isn’t the same. I don’t love Eris.” When she simply raised an eyebrow, he added, “Will you do what must be done, Emerson?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “As will I.”

  As Drake stared at the men he loved like brothers and the woman who was the only love he’d ever known, he fought the rising dread.

  They were his family.

  What if he lost them?

  And then it didn’t matter when Rogan stretched out his hand and Grey took it, dragging him close for a brief embrace. Their archer’s voice was low and meant for Grey’s hearing, but none of them missed his words in the quiet room. “With everything that I am, you have my word. We will bring Finley home.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Drake paced the observatory, his gaze going repeatedly to Emerson’s back fence where it had all started. Had he really stood here only a few nights ago and watched Emerson in the backyard?

  So much had changed.

  Between the two of them.

  Between all of them.

  “You look like you lost your best friend.” Ilsa’s voice carried on the summer’s breeze. “Or like a sad sack of shit. Take your pick.”

  “Refreshing, as always.”

  She walked over to join him, the sly smile that usually rode her features notably absent. “What are you doing up here all by yourself?”

  “Thinking. Preparing.” He sighed, not sure where the sudden impulse for honesty came from, but going with it all the same. “Trying to figure out ways I can trick Emerson and leave her behind.”

  “She’s going to be fine, you know.” Long auburn locks streamed about Ilsa’s face in the breeze.

  “You can’t possibly know that.”

  “I can believe it to be true.”

  Drake had always been willing to listen to that sixth sense—the one that told him his heart knew something long before his head did.

  But this time…he just couldn’t take the risk.

  “Believing it won’t make it so.”

  “She’s your soul mate, Drake. She’s in this. A part of this to the very end.”

  “Don’t you understand? That’s the very reason I can’t let her go in there. She’s a mortal, Ilsa.”

  “A mortal with a shitload of firepower behind her.”

  “She’s still a mortal. I saw her today. In that garage after the fight with Eris. She was crumpled in the corner against the wall and my heart broke.”

  She reached out a hand to stop him, but he shrugged her off, turning to pace. “It fucking broke in two! I can’t keep her safe.”

  “Kane can’t keep me safe. Brody can’t keep Ava safe. You have to trust.”

  “It has nothing to do with trust. You can’t be broken like that. Neither can Ava and neither can Montana. It’s not the same and you know it.”

  “None of us can conjure fire with our hands, either. She’s got a gift, Drake, and it’s hers to use as she sees fit. You can’t stop her from doing that.” Ilsa was quiet for a moment. “You have no right to stop her, either.”

  When had it all gotten so complicated? And why did every reasonable word out of Ilsa’s mouth only reinforce his sense of dread?

  “Even if I could find some way of agreeing with you, it’s her brother. Do you understand the pain of that? She has to take her gift and use it against him. She talks a tough game, Ilsa, but I’ve seen what it does to her. No one should have to make that choice.”

  “But again, Drake, it’s her choice to make. Yes, it’s her brother who breaks her in two. But because it’s her brother, she has to see this through to the very end.”

  Before he could protest any further, Ilsa had her hands on his shoulders and turned him toward her. Her small hands cupped his face and her gaze bored into him with millennia of wisdom behind it.

  “I’ve been where she is, Drake. I know what it is to need to see something through. To finish it. I couldn’t be the woman Kane loves if I hadn’t seen to my demons.”

  Her gaze softened as her mouth turned up into a smile. “She’s the woman you love for a reason. And she loves you, too. Don’t do something that will change that love and make her resent you.”

  “How’d you get so damn smart?”

  “Natural talent.” Her smile broadened before her hand snaked down to slap him on the ass. “And I also had a lot of years of fucking up before I figured it out.”

  “Oh, is that the secret? Fake it until you make it?”

  “Nah, it just feels like it at the time.” In another one of her lightning-quick changes, she linked her arm with his and pulled him toward the staircase, her sky-high heels clacking the entire way.

  “So what is it, then? This mysterious secret you claim to know.”

  “Ah, sugar, you already know it, too. I know you do. Love’s the answer. The rest of it is sort of meaningless if you don’t have that.”

  Drake followed her down the staircase, her words echoing with every footstep he took.

  Love was the answer.

  Which was why his insides were liquid, thinking of what he’d do if he lost it.

  Emerson stood in the weight room, using the last hour to practice. She’d already carb loaded on roughly half a pizza and was trying desperately to work off the case of nerves—and moderate indigestion—that had attacked her as she contemplated what she was about to do.

  What she might be called to do.

  With total focus, she lifted a hand weight off the floor with her mind and tossed it at the far wall. The ten pounder flew straight and true, landing with a thud against the heavy padding that coated the concrete.

  Her line of reasoning to Drake hadn’t been false bravado. She wasn’t willing to back down. This was her family and her fight and she needed to see it through.

  It didn’t mean she wasn’t sick with worry she’d have to make an irreversible decision.

  “That’s quite a trick.”

  Grey stood inside the doorway, clad head to toe in black. It was the first time she’d seen him in anything other than a suit and the contrast was startling. The suave, debonair businessman had been replaced by a gym rat in sweats.

  “Thanks.”

  Grateful for the audience, she used the distraction to her advantage and focused on another weight. Keeping her gaze on Grey, she reached out with her gift, mentally focusing on the weight bench. She felt the ten pounds in her mind, then thrust it toward the far wall.

  The thud on the floor indicated she’d missed her target by several feet.

  “You never looked at it.”

  “Which is why I shorted the target,” she muttered on a wave of disgust, before walking over to grab the weight.

  “He doesn’t want you to go.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t blame him. I’d feel better if you stayed here, too.”

  The weight felt extra heavy in her palm, as if she held his censure along with ten pounds of metal. “I can’t do that.”

  “Doesn’t mean I can’t ask.”

  “I know.”

  Emerson mentally reached out for the weight again while she allowed her gaze to roam around the room. The dumbbell lifted in her mind before launching across the room.

  Another thud indicated it hit the floor and missed the target.

  “Damn it.”

  Between two misses and Grey’s oppressive stare, Emerson whirled on him. “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk some sense into you. He loves you, you know.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Emerson tried to reach out with her mind, but nothing would take root there around Grey’s words. On a small sigh, she abandoned her attempt on the weight and turned toward the Aries. “I love him, too.”

  “So why can’t you put his mind at ease and stay here?”

  “Because then I wouldn’t be true to myself.”

  “Does that
really matter? Isn’t it supposed to be about putting the other person first?”

  “Not when it comes at the expense of who you are.”

  Grey shook his head, and in that moment Emerson knew the long, endless years of being alone finally made sense.

  They’d made her who she was. The person ready to be in a relationship. The person ready to give herself to another.

  The person ready to face her own demons and defeat them.

  She wasn’t her mother, unable to live her life without a man. And she wasn’t her brother, unable to face any of the challenges life holds. And while Veronica had come a long way, even she had ignored the harsh reality of facing who she was.

  Emerson knew exactly who she was.

  And it’s why she knew that when this was all over, she’d embrace what she and Drake shared. Embrace what it brought to her life and would no longer try to put a box around it.

  Or a definition.

  She loved him and that was enough.

  “Would you please sit still?” Eris tamped down on her rising discomfort as she and Magnus sat in the small office. She’d sent a missive more than ten minutes ago and hadn’t heard one word back from the Warriors on her proposed drop point.

  Magnus had damn near paced a hole in the floor, walking back and forth with that freakish snake following behind him. “And can’t you control the snake yet?”

  “No.”

  That was strange, too, she had to admit. Themis’s Warriors all knew how to control their tattoos.

  So what was Magnus’s problem? She’d turned him more than six months ago and it was almost like he was regressing.

  Despite his hangdog face and rather constant bitching, he was a fine specimen. His large body screamed Warrior of old, and he was fairly quick-footed in the midst of battle. Add to it he had a family history of magical abilities and you’d think the guy would be damn near bulletproof. But nothing seemed to work all that well.

  It was like he hadn’t quite gelled all the way.

  The snake sure as shit wasn’t cooperating and she’d yet to see any evidence of magical abilities.