by Alyssa Day
Damn. Now he'd have to try another strategy. If only he knew how to be charming, like Jake. Or mysterious, like Griffin. Instead, he was just another violent man in a world filled with violent men. The son of a traitor.
Nothing special at all.
He cleared his throat. "Are you awake?"
Though he'd spoken softly, her eyes opened immediately, and she whipped her head from side to side, scanning their surroundings. "What is it? Are they back?"
"No. Relax. I was wondering if you're also finding sleep impossible. If you'd like to talk, in a non-colors way."
A breath of laughter escaped her lips. "Sure. Tell me about Atlantis. Is it as impossibly beautiful as it looks on TV?"
"More beautiful than anything you could imagine," he said, thinking of home. "Like a dream gilt-wrapped in a fantasy. The marble and crystal spires of the palace, the riot of color in the gardens—flowers like I've never seen anywhere else. The deep blue of the ocean surrounding us…Yes. Atlantis is beautiful."
"My daughter is quite determined to go there and be a princess. She keeps reminding me that the new queen is an American from Seattle, where she…where she was born."
If he hadn't been listening closely, Lucas might have missed the hitch in her voice. "Where she was born?"
And then a new question occurred to him, one he felt oddly reluctant to ask. "Where is her father? Will he not come and try to rescue you?"
Rhiannon turned away, so he couldn't see her face. "No," she said evenly. "No, he won't be coming to rescue me."
There was a heavy weight of bitterness in her voice, so he chose to respect her unspoken wish to change the subject. "Tell me about her."
She made a quiet, broken sound, and he instinctively tightened his arm around her, wanting to protect her from the pain, though he knew only too well that such attempts were futile. He'd been forced to learn that lesson again and again throughout his life, ever since his father had staged a coup against the rightful ruler of Atlantis and stolen the favorite possession of a god.
The Trident's magic had helped then-high-prince Conlan, then-high-priest Alaric, and the Seven track it down and restore it to its rightful place. Conlan, on the verge of becoming king, had chosen to forgive.
Poseidon had not.
"She's only four years old. Stevie, after Fleetwood Mac, of course, like I'm Rhiannon," she said, as if he understood.
"Fleetwood?"
She glanced up at him and comprehension dawned. "I'm sorry. I forgot…it's a singing group. Was a singing group, anyway. There's a singer named Stevie Nicks that Mom followed around the country, going to her concerts. Anyway, she loved the song Rhiannon so much she named me after it, and I grew up with their songs, so I named my daughter Stevie."
"Is it a good song?"
She ran a hand through her hair. "I guess—nobody has ever asked me that before. It's lovely—the singing is lovely—and it's very catching, but the lyrics are kind of silly, in a way. What does a skylark have to do with ruling somebody's life?"
"A skylark symbolizes the joy of the divine. Perhaps this singer wished to convey that message. Perhaps your mother felt that way about you," he told her, regretting the words the instant they were spoken. The joy of the divine. He was an idiot.
"Well--"
"This is not a non-fruit comment," he blurted out, feeling like seventeen kinds of fool when she turned wide golden eyes to him. "I was merely explaining--"
"I know you must be a soldier, but you sound like a poet sometimes. 'A dream gilt-wrapped in a fantasy.' 'The joy of the divine.' You don't hear that kind of language much up here among us non-Atlanteans."
She was mocking him. His face and neck burned with embarrassment. Of course, she was mocking him. He was a fool.
"It's…kind of beautiful," she continued, in a softer voice. "And the fact that you can sound like that? In a weird way it makes me feel safe with you."
She wasn't mocking him. He could hear the sincerity in her voice. The realization slammed into him with the force of a tsunami. She had complimented him and meant it. He sat with that for a moment, turning the idea around in his mind in three-dimensional clarity, analyzing it with his customary logic.
Logic was useless, though. Emotion kept creeping out to blur his thinking. She felt safe with him.
She felt safe with him.
The berserker, which had been raging inside him since the moment he awoke in the cage, calmed but didn't subside entirely. Instead, he could almost have sworn the monster was…yearning. Yearning for more. More conversation. More closeness.
More Rhiannon.
The feeling, one he'd never felt before from the beast, shocked him so thoroughly that he missed what she said next. "What? I didn't catch that."
"I said, do you have any children?"
He shook his head. "No children. No mate. No connections. It's better that way all around. Nobody to mourn when I die."
"That's awful." She reached out and put a hand on his knee, but then seemed to realize what she'd done and snatched it back. "I, um, mean that you should have someone. And didn't I read somewhere that you Atlanteans live a very long time? Like, centuries? Being alone for centuries sounds very sad."
"I don't expect to live even for one century," he admitted. "A warrior's life is violent. Dangerous. As you can see from our current situation."
"Yeah." She shivered and huddled against him. "Yeah. Lucas, I think I'm going to try to at least doze, if you don't mind."
He did mind. He wanted her to keep talking, keep telling him that he made her feel safe. "Yeah. I'll wake you when they return."
She bared her teeth in a fierce grimace. "When we get out of here, I'm going to find a way to pay them back for this, you just watch me. And when they're bleeding on the floor, I'm going to get my daughter and leave this horrible town forever."
"I believe you." He did, and he admired her even more for it. She was brave, this human, and he made her feel safe.
She relaxed against him, inch by inch, and finally slept. He held her and plotted their escape. Plotted ways to spend time getting to know her when the H Prime ordeal was over. Inhaled the fresh, floral scent of her hair.
He would escape this cage. He would protect her. And then back to the mission. After that…well. Anything could happen.
Lucas smiled.
Several hours later…
"They're coming."
She jerked awake, slamming her head into his chin. "Ow! I'm sorry. I—they're here?"
"Yes. Stand behind me, Rhiannon," he said, standing and pulling her to her feet in one motion. "They're dangerous, but I will protect you."
The lights came on and the shifters strutted into the room, grinning with the happy expressions of two men who didn't know they were already dead.
Rhiannon shoved her way past him, despite his command, the stubborn woman. "Please. Please let us out of here now. Have you seen Stevie? Is she okay?"
The bear laughed. "She's fine. She's with Viola, ain't she? Now, it's time for you to come out and talk to us."
"I will be glad to talk to you, shifter," Lucas told him. "They will be the last words you ever hear."
"Not you, killer," the other shifter—Plusick—said, flipping a knife from hand to hand in a pathetic display of aggression.
Lucas would teach him that he shouldn't play with knives. He rose up on the balls of his feet, preparing to rush the cage door. Preparing to let the berserker free.
But then they took out a different weapon and aimed it at him through the bars. Before he could try to take it away from them, another huge jolt of electricity knocked him on his ass. He tried to shake it off, tried to regain control of his body before they could take Rhiannon, but the clanking sound of the locking bar slamming back into place told him he'd failed.
"Rhiannon," he roared, finally making it back to his feet, unsteady but strong enough to kill them if only he could get out before they hurt her again. They were beasts and he'd kill them. Kill them both. Kill them all. "If you harm
her--"
But before he could finish the sentence, Yardley patted Rhiannon on the arm. "Did he tell you?"
Rhiannon glanced back at Lucas but then tightened her lips and turned to the shifter. "He said he and his friends are going after your people at the H Prime compound if he escapes. They're already in place."
Her betrayal sliced into him with sharp claws. She'd said they had to figure out how to escape. She'd said he made her feel safe.
She lied. Just like humans always lie.
He said nothing, just stared at her, but she wouldn't meet his gaze, didn't turn around, but kept her head down.
"We'll take care of that," Yardley said. "As soon as we kill this bastard."
Rhiannon gasped. "But--"
The bear shifter cut her off. "Good job, Rhiannon. Just like we planned it. You're free to go."
She didn't wait to hear anything else but started running for the exit. When she reached it, she paused and looked back on Lucas, a look of pain on her lying, deceitful face. Her mouth moved, but he had no idea what she was trying to say and didn't much care.
And then she was gone.
He turned to face his captors and was unsurprised to see that they both had guns in their hands.
"We're not going to kill you," Plusick said. Then he laughed. "Not yet."
Yardley sauntered up to the bars of the cage, and Lucas lunged at him, but the shifter stumbled back, growling. "Yeah. First we're going to have some fun."
Then three things happened in rapid succession:
1. Yardley shot Lucas in the leg.
2. The electricity in the room flickered and went out.
3. The berserker inside Lucas smiled.
9
A few minutes earlier…
Rhiannon couldn't understand the sharp pang of guilt stabbing at her over the look of betrayal on Lucas's face. He was a killer, after all. She'd only known him for a few hours. But…he'd held her when she was cold. He'd tried to comfort her. He'd nearly killed himself trying to find a way for them to escape.
The voice of reason stepped in to contradict that last: He was trying to escape for his own reasons—you just happened to be there.
Anyway, none of it mattered, because she had to protect Stevie. She needed to get to her daughter. Now.
She ran for the door, but then she heard Plusick and Yardley laughing and the unmistakable sound of the Taser. Her hands, already on the door handle, stilled. She shook her head. Started to open the door.
Stopped.
If she hadn't seen it on the mad dash to the door, she never would have bothered. But she had, and so she did. She quietly reversed course and ran the ten steps down the hall to the electrical panel. She opened the metal door and slammed down the red lever, hopefully shutting down all power to the warehouse. She may have betrayed the Atlantean, but she was giving him a fighting chance. That's all she could do.
She ran outside the warehouse and immediately realized her dilemma. The damn place was out in the boonies, and since they'd kidnapped her she had no car. On the other hand, Yardley's oversized, mud-covered truck was right in front of her. She felt her mouth stretch into a feral grin. She'd seen him casually toss his keys in the cup holder when they'd arrived the night before. Maybe he thought he was too scary a badass for anyone to dare steal his truck.
Think again, asshole.
She broke every speed limit and traffic law in existence on her way home. The only thing in her mind was her desperate need to get to her daughter. Luckily the streets were all but deserted this early in the morning.
Stevie, Stevie, Stevie.
She trusted Viola, she tried to convince herself, as shudders of terror wracked through her body. Not enough, though. Not with the most precious person in the world—the center of Rhi's existence. If V had allowed one hair on Stevie's head to be so much as mussed, she was going down.
Squealing around a sharp turn, Rhi wished, not for the first time since she'd gotten involved with shifters—and that had been a bad, bad, terrible idea—that she had a gun. No matter what else happened, buying one and learning how to use it would be first on her priority list once they found a new place to settle down--Far from any shifter packs.
Nobody was ever going to separate her from her daughter again.
Finally, finally she reached home. She didn't bother trying to find to find a proper parking space in front of her building, but slammed the gear into park, yanked the keys out of the ignition, jumped out of the truck, and hit the sidewalk at a dead run. On her way into the building, she paused to throw the keys as far as she could and felt a fierce moment of triumph when they landed in the middle of a hedge of thorny bushes. Let him figure that out.
The elevator would be too slow. She ran up the stairs to her fourth-floor apartment and tried the door, which was unlocked.
Why the hell was it unlocked?
No matter. She slammed the door open and ran inside, already screaming for her daughter, but then immediately stumbled to a halt and looked around in shock. While she'd been gone, somebody or something had trashed the place. It looked like a tornado had crashed through the middle of the combination kitchen/dining area/family room. Chair were overturned, dishes and a flower vase were smashed and lay in shards on the floor.
Everything was destroyed.
Worse: the room was empty.
"Stevie," she screamed. "Stevie!" Rhiannon ran through the room, stumbling over a broken stool and then jumping over broken glass. "Stevie!"
The bedroom door was open, and she barreled through it. "Stevie!"
But Stevie wasn't there. At first, Rhi thought nobody was, but then she heard a soft whimpering that she almost mistook for the ringing in her skull.
"Rhiannon."
Rhiannon raced to the other side of Stevie's pink and white bed, only to see Viola huddling in a corner of the room, hidden by the bed. She was bleeding… everywhere. Her eye was swollen shut, and deep gouges down her face looked like claw marks. Her leg was clearly broken, too, because nobody's knee bent in that direction.
But Rhiannon didn't have time to care about any of that. Not now.
"Where is my daughter?" She advanced upon the woman who been her friend up until Viola stood by and let Yardley and Plusick drag Rhiannon away from her daughter the night before.
"She's… gone," V whispered. "They took her."
"Who took her?"
Viola's eyes drifted shut – she was probably losing consciousness. Rhiannon had no time for that. She grabbed her former friend by the shoulder that looked less injured and shouted at her. "Where is my daughter? Where is Stevie?"
"They said… Grandma." With that, Viola slumped sideways and passed out.
Rhiannon screamed so loudly it felt like she shredded her vocal chords. Grandma. That nasty bitch had finally figured things out and then come after her granddaughter. They'd be long gone now, on their way back to Washington state.
Agony swamped her--almost drove her to her knees--but she didn't have time for that, either. She took a deep, calming breath, inhaling the sweet scent of baby shampoo and sugar cookies that was wholly, quintessentially Stevie. She had to go after her daughter now, hopefully catch them on the road, because it would be almost impossible to get Stevie back when she was securely in the wolf enclave.
When Brock found out he had a daughter. That Rhi had stolen his child.
Suddenly ice cold, she ran for the closet and grabbed her go-bag. She'd kept one packed ever since she first escaped him. The only thing she didn't have was that damn gun, but maybe she could find one before she left town.
The last thing she grabbed with Stevie's favorite toy – a small stuffed bear wearing a giant pink bow. Terror and rage rose in her throat until she thought she'd choke on it. She rounded the bed again and stared down at the unconscious woman.
"If you weren't so battered, I'd beat you myself," she told Viola, but then she reconsidered. Maybe the destruction of the apartment, and V's injuries, too, meant that she'd fought to pro
tect Stevie. Maybe Rhi was misjudging her friend.
But then Rhiannon looked down at the bear clutched in her hand, and her heart hardened. Whatever Viola had done, it hadn't been enough. Stevie was gone.
She grabbed one of several burner phones in her bag and dialed 911. "Somebody came in and destroyed my apartment while I was gone and attacked my friend. She's injured very badly. Can you please send an ambulance?" Rhiannon gave her address and then, ignoring repeated requests to stay on the line and provide more information, she hung up and dropped the burner phone on the floor next to Viola and looked at her friend one last time, to imprint the lesson in her own stupid mind: Never, ever trust anyone ever again.
"I'm sorry you got caught up in this, V. And I hope you recover."
And then she ran out the door.
She tossed her bag and Stevie's bear into her car and started to climb in, but then she had a thought. What if Yardley was the kind of man who kept guns in his car? She hadn't bothered to lock it, so she didn't need the keys she'd thrown away. She ran over to the car and yanked open the passenger side door, opened the glove compartment, and there it was. A handgun. She didn't know guns, but she was sure a YouTube video could fix that. She grabbed the gun and the box of ammo next to it, stuffed them in her purse, and slammed the truck door. This time, though, she locked it, in case there were any other surprises in the truck that neighborhood kids did not need to find. Then she ran for her car.
I'm coming, Stevie. Don't worry, baby, Mommy's on the way.
And every single wolf in Washington who had anything to do with this had better watch out. She put the car in gear and reversed out of the parking lot and, for the first time since any of this started, she smiled.
Watch out, you bastards. There is no vengeance in the world as harsh as a mother protecting her child. I'm coming for you, and I will burn down your world.
10
An hour earlier, at the Humanity Prime compound…
Jake look around at the idiots happily shoving their breakfasts in their faces. He and Savannah had done their best to try to convince any and all of the H Prime members to leave and go home, without alerting the shifters. What a waste of time.