“Do you really want me to share it with everyone in this room?” Tony asked in contempt.
I’d give Tony marks for becoming cleverer in the past year, or at least warier. “You will share it with us all,” the councilwoman said with a snarl. The tension in the room tightened when Castillo hesitated.
“Of course,” he nodded in her direction, his voice smooth. “With us all.”
Kristair sped up the healing process he’d been doing in my shoulders, forcing a gasp from me as the flesh knit together, pulling, itching, and sending a wave of dizziness through my head. Drawing away the lingering pain, he bolstered my strength and gave me a mental nudge. “Stop him,” he hissed. “Stop Tony, before it’s too late.”
“He won’t tell them. He’s stalling. Ussier’s somewhere around. He won’t give up when help is so close.”
“He’s running out of time. Castillo is not going to wait!”
“Fine; have it your way,” Tony started. There was a flash of steel behind him as one of Tony’s companions raised his sword. Everything seemed to freeze.
“NO!” I shouted in horror as it slashed down and Tony’s head went flying. Kayla screamed and Artemise roared in fury, turning on Tony’s murderer, raising his cane. The Council and their goons rushed toward the other faction, but Castillo turned on me as I jumped to my feet and ran toward my friend. A blazing golden light surrounded him and the body disappeared.
“What the fuck!”
“Jacob, you and Kayla get out of here now! The Ascended took Tony.”
“But that means….”
“GET OUT!”
Castillo grabbed a hold of me, fingers stabbing the still-healing wounds. He snarled when he found whole flesh. Though, it was still tender enough to make me flinch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kayla dart over and grab the discarded cattle prod as I tore myself free. “How do you think you’ll like it?” Kayla asked with a malicious smile as she shoved it down his pants and danced back out of the way. The vampire went down with a roar of pain.
There was a crash of glass as Ussier came through one of the windows, followed by Alette. I grabbed Kayla’s hand. “Time to go.”
I snatched up Castillo’s fallen gun as the vampire tried to get the prod out of his pants and shot him several times in the chest. He fell back, body twitching as electricity continued to course through him. When he opened his mouth to scream, blue bolts sizzled between his teeth and smoke began to pour from his mouth, nose, and ears, and the reek of burning flesh assaulted my nose.
Hugh came through the main door, his scowl darker than normal. “Come on, kid.” I fought another wave of dizziness as I shoved Kayla toward him and dodged my way through the fighting crowd.
“What’s wrong with me?”
“You lost a lot of blood. I used even more to heal you and that takes an enormous amount of energy. You need to eat.”
“You mean feed?” I asked, sickened by the thought as we reached Hugh. He fell in behind us, guarding our backs as we left the battle behind.
“No, Jacob. You’re still human. Food and sleep will suffice.”
“Faster,” Hugh ordered, scooping up Kayla before taking off down the hallway in a blur of speed. “This place is going to blow in two minutes.”
“That sounds like Ussier. He was probably laying charges earlier. He likes to be thorough, especially when he’s out of town. Better get moving.”
I bit back a curse and bolted after Hugh like I had the football and my team needed one more touchdown to win the game with fifteen seconds left on the clock.
Chapter 26
JET LAG was the world’s biggest bitch. I could hear Kristair calling me urgently. I stirred, felt his rough hands cradling my face. “Jacob, mo chroí?”
My bones ached as memory came rushing back. Memories of night air against my skin, exhaustion dragging me down, the fierce heat and brilliance of an explosion and then welcoming darkness. I opened my eyes with a groan and smiled up into my lover’s anxious eyes. “Hey there, gorgeous. I’m awake. Stop fussing.”
Kristair’s relief flooded through me, a smile tugging on his lips. “Welcome back. You were starting to scare me.”
“Talking to yourself?” Kayla stepped up to my side with a tray in her hands and sat down on the edge of my bed. Wait. My bed? I sat up and stared around my room in the dorm in surprise.
“Whoa.” Had it all been just a freaky dream? “When the hell did we get back?”
“Crack of dawn this morning. You just missed Steve. He dropped this off for you.” She set the tray on my lap as I sat up. It was then that I noticed the dark circles under her eyes and lines of weariness around her mouth. I was still wearing my clothes from our raid, bloodied, tattered, and singed. It was surreal to have Kristair lounging next to me and Kayla sitting on the other side. Then my gaze fell on the food in front of me and I couldn’t think anymore.
Kayla remained silent as I devoured the omelets, toast, and orange juice. There was enough on the tray for the both of us with food left over, but I ate every damn bite and I think I could’ve eaten more.
“I’m sorry,” I started, and she shook her head.
“Uncle Ghedi said you’d need it after all the healing you did. You were hurt in the explosion too. Hugh had thought you were closer to us than you actually were.”
The memory wasn’t clear. It was full of weaving walls and echoing screams. “You’d used too much of your will, not just in healing yourself, but with expending your strength running and fighting. The toll finally caught up with you.” A sensation of lingering fear and anxiety still clouded Kristair’s thoughts. “I couldn’t reach you. I could see that your body was whole, but I couldn’t reach you inside your mind.”
I could only imagine how terrifying it had been for the both of them. “Guess I needed to sleep, and eat. Thanks,” I said to them, then set the tray aside and combed my fingers through my hair. It was damned embarrassing, knowing I’d passed out like that, regardless of the circumstances. “How are you? Oh, wait. Steve.” She’d said I’d missed him. I needed to call him, tell him about Tony. Only I wasn’t ready to face that yet. I still couldn’t wrap my brain around what had happened. It was too unreal. Had it really happened? I couldn’t have lost him again.
“No, don’t worry about it. I already talked with him about everything.”
“And he still let you hang out here looking like you’re about to fall over?”
“He’s not my daddy. It’s time he remembered that.” Kayla crossed her arms. That argument had to have been a doozy. “I think it’s time for some answers, Jake.”
Kristair stirred and I sent out a soothing thought. “She deserves answers, love, especially after what she just went through. Besides, she’s your daughter, and as somebody else who loves you, I know I wouldn’t be happy about not being told.”
“You wield pressure very well.” Kristair grumbled, but his heart wasn’t in it. To be so close to Kayla and not have her know he was okay bothered him a great deal. “Do what you think is right. You will anyway.”
I almost gave him a snippy comeback, when the truth hit me. No, I wouldn’t, not if he asked me to. Anybody else and I’d go with my gut reaction, whether it was wrong or right, but Kristair I actually listened to. Sometimes.
“At least that’s something.”
“You haven’t slept a bit, have you?” I asked Kayla. She was still wearing her jeans from the previous night, though someone had given her a T-shirt to wear in place of her torn blouse. I should’ve been awake and taking care of her. It irked me that someone else had.
“You’re not going to get me off your back that easily. Spill it, Corvin.”
“Give me a minute to figure out how to say it. It’s complicated even with all the madness we’ve been living through.” After a moment, I took her hand in mine. “Remember when I came to see you in your office?”
“Yeah. Feels like ages ago. I can’t believe we’re still in the same week.”
“Me ne
ither.” I’d had enough action-packed adventure to last me two lifetimes. “Remember how I said I thought I sensed Kristair the night before and we talked about knowing whether he was really gone or not?”
Kayla tensed, her eyes searching my face before she drew herself up straight. “He’s not, is he?”
I let out an explosive breath. At least she hadn’t gone nutso on me. “No. The day we were first kidnapped, I came home to find him here.” I ran through everything that had happened, including Kristair’s promise to the Ascended, and she listened without interrupting, an expression on her face I couldn’t read.
She rose, went to the window, and stared out of it for a long time. Kristair turned to watch her and I wished I could touch him. It occurred to me that I could do what my lover always did for me, so I mentally wrapped my arms around him and was rewarded with his warm rush of gratitude.
“So you’re saying he’s in this room. He’s here right now,” Kayla said.
“Yes.”
“And I’m not allowed to talk to him or see him?” The catch in her voice gave me a pang of regret. I rose to go to her, but then she spun around to face me, her eyes wet and furious. “What kind of fucked-up shit is that?”
“I think those were my exact words.” She believed me. I’d been sure she would think I was crazy. “But we’re working on it. We still have time before….” I paused, my words trailing off as Kayla froze and Kristair hissed. “Kayla?” I waved my hand in front of her face, but got no response.
“She can’t hear you, or see you for that matter,” another woman’s strangely choral voice said behind me. “We are between time, in a manner of speaking, and she is still in the ordinary world.”
“What are you doing here?” Kristair demanded as I turned around looking for the speaker. I don’t think I’d ever heard his voice be so cold as it was now.
The woman appeared to be older than Kristair and me. There was something familiar about her, though I swear I’d never seen her before. Her honey-brown hair was caught up in a fancy knot on the back of her head with ringlets cascading down. She was dressed in a toga with scarlet edging around the hem and another piece of scarlet cloth draped over one shoulder. Rings adorned her fingers and multiple bracelets clasped her wrists.
“Just who the hell are you?”
“Don’t be foolish, boy. You know who we are.”
I looked around in confusion, trying to figure out who she meant by all this “we” business. The strange multi-person timbre to her voice was unsettling.
“You have no business being here,” Kristair snapped as he rose to his feet and went to stand in front of me.
“Hush, Kristair. You’ve caused enough damage, and we’re curious to see what your fascination with the boy is.” A wave of choking fury went through my lover, but he didn’t say a word, neither aloud or in his head. I stepped up beside him and glanced at his face, on edge at his silence. He glared at her, his eyes black with rage. Somehow, she’d gagged him with a thought and all the pieces fell into place. This was Kristair’s Mistress.
“Leave him alone!” I shouted, my hands clenching into helpless fists.
“We don’t think so. He’s an interfering lout and we’re growing rather tired of his pitiful attempts to prolong a life he should’ve left behind by now.” She pointed to the bed. “Sit.”
There was no shove and my feet didn’t move, but I found myself sitting on the bed, next to my lover. I started to pull myself to my feet again. “What if I don’t—” Then I found myself to be just as voiceless and paralyzed as Kristair.
Fuming, I crossed my arms and glared at her. To my further irritation, she only smiled and walked over to Kayla. I could see the resemblance now. They possessed the same delicate features, though Nerissa’s eyes were a rich brown and carried none of Kayla’s easy affection, and there was a more worldly and arrogant expression on her face.
“You’ve done well with her. She’s grown up strong,” Nerissa said in approval, touching Kayla’s cheek. “We should’ve known you’d keep your promise.”
She glanced at Kristair and laughed as a surge of snarling possessiveness went through him. It bothered me that she could sense his emotions as well as I could. “You think she’s yours?” She laughed again. “We could take her back anytime we wanted to, old friend, but that’s not why we’re here.”
“Then please enlighten me,” Kristair ground out. I opened my mouth to add my own opinion only to find myself still mute.
“Your time here is up.” Her expression hardened when Kristair began to protest. “That debacle in Rome never should have happened. That youngling was on the verge of giving secrets he never should’ve had in the first place. Secrets you let out because you shared them with this boy!” She waved a hand in my direction. “Do you know what his inclusion into our ranks has done? He wasn’t prepared for this.”
“He had the strength of will to use it or else you never would’ve taken him in the first place. You would’ve let him perish.”
“That’s not the point!”
I didn’t know if Tony was better being off dead or not. After everything Kristair said, being with the Ascended didn’t seem like a heavenly paradise to me. “The point is the Syndicate didn’t get what they wanted. They don’t even exist anymore and I don’t believe Tony had any intention of giving them the information. You know that as well as I, so why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”
“As we said, your time is up. We know you didn’t really need the two weeks, yet we gave it to you anyway. As of now, the offer is rescinded.”
I jumped to my feet before I’d even realized I’d shoved off the compulsion to stay put and remain silent. “You can’t do that!”
Nerissa’s eyes widened in surprise and then she gave me an appreciative smile. “Well now, aren’t you a surprise. You would’ve made quite a formidable vampire.”
“No thanks. You promised him two weeks. I still have one more week with him.”
“Not anymore. You have until dawn.”
Kristair drew himself up straight. “You cannot make me.”
Nerissa laughed, the sound containing just a touch of fondness, and reached up to touch Kristair’s cheek. “My dear friend, how naive you still are. There are many ways to coerce, and some methods you’ve even used yourself in the past. Break the link, Kristair, or he’s dead at dawn. That will also give us the results we want.”
Kristair took a step forward, his face livid. “You will not harm him,” he growled low in his throat.
“Not unless you force our hand.”
I sensed Kristair’s decision to back down before he said a word. “No! No, you’re not going to take this bullshit!”
“I know them, Jacob. They’re not lying and I’ll not risk you.” He shot me an apologetic glance then turned back to Nerissa. “May I ask one favor?”
“Of course. If we’re able it’s yours.”
Kristair locked eyes with me, sorrow evident in his gaze, and I found I couldn’t be angry anymore about his lack of putting up a fight. “If it’s our last night, remove this ridiculous rule where I can’t see him and touch him at the same time.”
My stomach clenched, hope colliding violently with my sense of helplessness and despair. It wasn’t fucking fair. What the hell had we ever done to the Syndicate or the Ascended to deserve them interfering in our lives? Though, if it wasn’t for them, I never would’ve met Kristair at all. Still, I hated every last one of them.
“Very well. At nightfall,” Nerissa agreed then pointed at Kayla. “And she cannot be here. This is just for the both of you. If anyone else sees Kristair, you’ll revert back to the way you were.”
“And privacy,” Kristair said, his tone fierce and unbending. “Just him and I. You are to keep yourselves out of it.”
“Ah, Kristair, only you would ask such a thing. No wonder you were always our favorite.” She gave me an arch look, an appreciative glint in her eye. Anyone else and I might’ve grinned back or given h
er a wink, but this time I glared. She laughed again. “Agreed. You’ll have your privacy. Until dawn then.”
“Mistress,” Kristair said by way of a goodbye, inclining his head ever so slightly. Then she was gone.
“What are we going to do?” I demanded, turning on Kristair.
“Jake? What are you talking about?” Kayla’s voice sounded so faint that she had me spinning back around in alarm. Her face had lost all of its color and she was trembling.
“Christ!” I jumped forward and wrapped my arm around her waist, steadying her. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure. Could be delayed reaction. She’s gone through a lot lately and she didn’t rest at all last night. Or it could be a reaction to what my Mistress just did, or, for all I know, the Ascended could be causing it just to make sure she doesn’t interfere.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
“She’d better be.”
“Stop fussing,” Kayla said. “I’m fine.”
“Bullshit. I’m getting you back to your room and calling Steve. We can argue about it tomorrow.” Tomorrow, after Kristair was gone. Fuck, I couldn’t take all this shit at once.
It didn’t take me long to change and bundle her up. She barely argued, which worried me even more, but at least Steve was waiting for me when I got to her dorm. She didn’t mention Kristair once, which meant either she was really out of it, or else somehow the Ascended erased our conversation from her mind.
“I’m not a baby,” Kayla complained, trying to shake off my arm and glare at Steve. “I don’t need you two hovering over me.”
“Payback, chica. You did the same to me not even an hour ago.” I gave her a light push and she sat down hard on her bed. “See, you’re a pushover. Now take a nap or I’m going to start being mean.”
“You already are mean. You called him.” She pointed at Steve.
“Thanks, man,” Steve said.
“No problem.”
“I hate men.” Kayla grabbed the knit blanket at the end of her bed and pulled it over herself. “Fine. I’ll take a nap if you two will please leave.”
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