I couldn’t shut off the panic and the need for action. I had to get Cora back, and I had to save Hunter.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Cora
“What the actual fuck?” I stand on an outcrop of rocks and look out at the churning gray sea. From my vantage point, it’s clear I’m on an island. A small, rocky island in the middle of nowhere. There’s cover behind me and a trail that leads into it. My bet is that the real HQ of these ouroboros fuckers is that way.
Time to tell the others.
I make the jump.
Pain slashes across my skin, and an unseen force slams into me. I land on my ass, jarring my tailbone.
“Shit.” No, no, no, this cannot be happening.
I take a breath and try again.
Pain and the same slug to the chest, throwing me back.
I’m trapped.
Okay, this is okay. Uri will go back and tell the others, and they’ll come looking and…Fuck, they’ll fall into the same trap.
Focus, Cora. Think.
Jasper! “Jasper!” Come on, where are you? You always sense my distress. I’m distressed, damn you. “Jasper, I need you!”
That should do it. He’ll come get me so that he can gloat.
Seconds pass, the wind tears at my clothes, howling in laughter at my predicament.
No Jasper.
My blood goes cold in my veins as it hits me that maybe he can’t sense me. Maybe whatever’s stopping me from jumping out of here is interfering with our connection. I’ve wanted to get rid of the fucker ever since he latched on to me, but right now I’d give anything to have him here. His snide, cocky attitude and his I-own-you grip would be most welcome this moment. Anything to get the fuck off this rock.
But he isn’t coming, and so I need to get my shit together and deal. I’m here, and if there’s a way onto this rock, there’s a way off it. Another portal probably. Probably through the woodland and at whatever facility lies within. Okay, I may not be able to jump out of this place, but I can jump down from this rock.
I land on my ass, stunned and disorientated for a moment. Seriously? What the fuck? It looks like using that ability is totally off the table on this island.
Okay, no worries. I still have my legs.
I climb down the rise and head for the tree line. I’m beginning to hate forests just as much as Fee hates alleys. I’m almost under cover of the canopy when a sharp click has me stopping in my tracks.
I sense a presence behind me, and then a voice booms over the wind.
“Put your hands up, nice and slow.”
My hands, huh? I raise them slowly, prepared to blast whoever with a nice ball of lightning. I turn and fire.
Knives stab my palms, but no power shoots from my fingertips. The miasma that’s been accessible to me so easily is suddenly absent.
I’m fucking cut off. Totally and absolutely cut off from my power.
My stomach feels suddenly empty and hollow as the three humans dressed in black watch me down the barrels of their guns.
Oh, fuck.
Hunter
I can’t feel my Loup. I can’t connect with it. It’s pushed deep into slumber. The power of this place has finally subdued it. But we fought. We fought hard, and I succeeded in leaving a message for Fee and Grayson.
Have they found it?
I don’t understand how I can connect to them, but I can, and that’s the only hope I’ve had since I was captured.
Captured.
Me.
Fucking ridiculous.
Thinking about it makes my blood boil. I sensed something was off when the human teens showed me the flyer for blood donations. I should have made them drop the idea. Instead, I offered to fucking chaperone.
I should have taken backup.
Ha. Backup.
I’m packless, for fucksake. Mated to a Loup who hates my guts and chose my brother.
Fee…
Thinking about her makes my chest ache. The way she looked at me when I took her, the vitriol in her tone, so at odds with the way her body responds to mine.
I close my eyes and summon her face and heat blooms through my limbs. My Loup is suppressed, but it isn’t dead.
The memory melts, and I sigh. Nothing can distract me from the fact I’m trapped in a cage, a fucking guinea pig for human experimentation. Fucking humans!
The gall.
They’re building soldiers. Vamps juiced up on fuck knows what. I’ve seen them.
And the human prisoners they’ve collected are a food source for their army.
But what do they need an army of vamps for? What are they planning?
I need to know.
I rub the needle marks in my arm. I’m not healing as quickly as I usually do. This place is saturated with magic, and it’s blocking my Loup power. I wager it’ll render an outlier mortal. Clever humans.
This evens the playing field, except that the juiced-up vamps seem to retain their strength. Which leads me to conclude their power doesn’t come from magic, it comes from biological tampering. I’ve seen the vials in the lab where they work on me every day.
They’ll come for me soon. It’s almost time. I can feel it. They have me in a lone cell, in an empty block away from the human prisoners and the vamps they’ve rounded up, ready for altering, but I’ve seen the other blocks. They drag me through them every time they need more samples from me. Up a staircase and past a door, which screams no access. I can feel power radiating off that door. There’s something behind it. Something important.
My hand goes to my neck, but I don’t touch the chafed and bruised skin. The fucking collar they use is brutal. Able to administer electroshocks if I get out of line, and in the first days, I got out of line, a lot.
No point in fighting it, though.
Best to lie low and gather intel until they come for me.
If they come for you.
My stomach twists. No. I’m not hearing him. He isn’t real. Fee will come for me.
Right, because you mean so much to her.
I’m her mate.
A mate she rejected.
She isn’t the kind of Loup to turn her back on someone in trouble.
But when the someone is you... Face it, Hunter, no one wants you. No one has ever wanted you. Needed you, yes, but wanted…Nah. This is where you belong. This is what you deserve. Your father knew it. He knew you were bad luck from the moment you pushed your way out of your mother’s womb, squalling like a little bitch. Your mother died rather than stick around to suckle you.
Anger races, hot and potent through my veins. Fuck off.
Not this time. I clawed my way back, and I’m not leaving.
I’m not listening to you.
You can’t not.
I stand tall, fighting the tremor that wants to take over my body. You’re not real.
Oh, Hunter, I’m real, all right. I’m all the shit you hate about yourself pressed together and given life. I’m self-loathing, and buddy, I ain’t going nowhere.
Boot falls echo off the stone walls, and I back up into the shadows, waiting, hoping for a chance to pounce. All these fuckers need to do is make one false move. I know my way around this facility and—
Yeah, even if they do, you won’t get far. This place is a fortress.
I ignore the inner voice, barely breathing as the guard appears, but he isn’t alone. He has someone with him. A blindfolded and cuffed female. Anger radiates off her like a furnace.
I like her already.
Another guard joins the first and unlocks my cage. My legs ache to pounce, but I know I won’t make it past the woman. They have her blocking my exit. The guard holding her uncuffs her, shoves her into my cell, and slams the door closed.
She throws out her arms to catch herself and cries out in pain as her knees hit the ground. “I hope your dicks fall off!”
Yes, I like her.
“Have fun with your new roomie.” The guards sneer at her before sliding their glances into the shadows
where I stand.
The woman tenses and then rips off the blindfold. Her gaze zeroes in on the exact spot I’m standing.
The guards leave, chuckling to themselves.
She pulls herself to her feet slowly. “Listen, fucker, you try and put your hand on me, and I will rip off your balls, you got that?”
“Loud and clear.” My voice sounds strange, raspy and alien, to my ears. It’s been days since I spoke.
Her eyes narrow. “Step into the light.”
There isn’t much of that. Just a single bulb fixed to the wall a few meters up the corridor outside my cell.
I roll my shoulders and oblige.
She stares at me for a long beat, and then her shoulders sag. “You have the same bone structure.”
“Excuse me?”
“You and Grayson. I didn’t notice it last time we met, but I see it now.”
The last time we met? “Who are you?”
“The woman who’s going to get you out of here.” She shrugs sheepishly. “Fine. That’s not true, but it sounded good. I’m Cora, Fee’s—”
“Tulpa.”
She glares at me. “Best friend. I’m her best friend. We met at your kidnapper’s hideout, remember? I came for Fee, and now she’ll be coming for us.”
Of course…I recall now. Hope blooms in my chest.
Not for you, for her. She’ll come for her.
I push the voice aside. “How did they get hold of you? They’re after humans. I was a lucky mistake.”
“They didn’t catch me; well, not until I got here. Fee sent me to scope out a location. The plan was for me to gather intel and go back so we could plan an extraction.” She sighs and leans against the wall. “Things didn’t go how they were meant to, but my partner will have reported back. They’ll find us. They’ll come. Fee won’t give up on us.”
“On you.” The words were out before I could stop them.
She frowns at me. “Hey, I’m only here because we were looking for you. That symbol you left… Yeah, we used that to find this place.”
Fee was looking for me. The hope flares again. She cared enough to look.
“Only problem is when they do come, they’ll be completely defenseless because I don’t think magic works on this island,” she says.
She has that right. “It doesn’t. Even the Loup is suppressed.”
“The humans have guns and super vamps.” Cora begins to pace. “Fee will be walking into a trap. With this ward running, they’ll be fucked.”
With the ward running… The door with the buzz of power radiating out from it…Could it be?
A plan forms in my mind, risky as fuck, but our only option.
“Then we need to make sure the wards are turned off.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Fee
The farmhouse was crawling with Magiguard. They had the whole place under lockdown. They’d even found a second portal and put it under guard.
We stood at the foot of the staircase, ready to head inside.
Me, Grayson, Uriel, and Bastian along with six other Loup and a team of six Magiguard.
“You remember how to use the comm?” Ursula asked me.
I tapped the tiny radio clipped to my hip. “Yes. Are you sure this will work?”
“Positive. We use them for portal-link communication all the time.” She stared at the portal, lit up bright now because of the activation runes her guards had drawn into the air. “Whoever did this knows their stuff.” She jerked her chin at the Magiguard team. “Bring them in if you can. If the perpetrators are human, use non-lethal force, otherwise…whatever goes.”
Non-lethal force if the bad guys were human. They couldn’t be… Could they?
“Remember,” Ursula said. “Activate the tracker as soon as you go through. It’s the only way we’ll be able to find you.” She tapped the gun at my hip. “Red for lethal, green for stun.”
“I’ve got it.” I also had my daggers and scythe for any non-human wankers who got in my way.
Grayson and I started up the steps together. He took my hand as we reached the top.
“You ready?” he asked.
His face was lit up by the bright light of the portal, golden hair ablaze as if he was backlit by a halo. My heart squeezed with love for him.
“I’m ready.”
We stepped through together and landed on dark rocks slick with water. The wind howled, and the air had bite.
“What the fuck?” Grayson said.
The crash of waves mingled with the moaning of the wind, and the sea churned below, dark and forbidding.
“It’s an island!” Uri called out from above us.
He was on a higher outcrop of rocks just above us, and then he vanished.
“Uri!” I ran toward the rock face, scrambling to get up it.
“I’m all right!” His voice was whipped away by the wind. “I can’t jump, though. The wards must be tampering with my ability.”
Unease prickled my nape. I held out my hand and summoned my scythe, waiting for the tell-tale heat that signaled its arrival.
Nothing. “Um…Grayson, I can’t access my scythe.”
But Grayson was rubbing his chest, his expression grim. “My Loup…It feels…distant.”
One of the Magiguards ran toward us, her black ponytail whipping about in the wind. “Magic is down,” she said. “Looks like a suppressor spell is woven into the wards.”
Fuck. “This is bad.”
“It is,” she said. “But if we don’t have magic, then neither do they.”
They, the perpetrators. “An even playing field?”
She gave me a closed-lipped smile. “Exactly. Use the guns, stick together, and let’s get this done.” Her gaze dropped to my hip. “Put the tracker on.”
I flipped the switch on my radio. “Done.”
“It’ll take a couple of seconds for the signal to transmit, but we can get moving. I see a track up ahead. I say we split into two teams and follow the trail, sticking to cover.”
“Sounds like a good—”
“Fee!” Uri cried out.
My head jerked up to see a man a few feet away with a gun pointed right at me. I caught movement in the periphery of my vision—Grayson leaping toward me to shove me out of the way. But I didn’t need my outlier powers to know it was too late. There would be no bullet dodgery for me this time.
The slug hit me hard, and the world went black.
Cora
Hunter’s pacing is driving me insane.
“Will you please stop pacing.”
“It helps me think,” he says.
“You know what helps me think? People who don’t pace.”
“They’ll be coming for me any minute,” Hunter growls.
“Uh-huh?” I cross my arms under my breasts and look up at him from the ground. I’m leaning against the wall, legs stretched out in front of me. “You said that an hour ago.” He glares at me, dark eyes like obsidian shards. This is Fee’s other fated mate. “I would never have put you two together, you know.”
“What?”
“You and Fee. I’d say this fated mate shit was bollocks, but then Grayson is also her fated mate, and that kinda makes sense to me, so there’s got to be something to it.”
He goes very still, his eyes narrowing. “What did you say.”
His voice is lower, almost threatening. Thing is, he doesn’t scare me. Only one entity does that, and he’s not here. “Grayson is also Fee’s fated mate. You guys are in something called a Tribus.”
His brows flick up as he absorbs this. “They’ve completed the full mating?”
“Pfft, I dunno, they mate…a lot.”
His mouth tightens, and his hands curl into fists at his sides. Maybe I shouldn’t goad him.
“This explains things.” He begins pacing again.
I want to kick him. Instead, I fix my gaze on the cell door. Any minute now. “Run me through the plan again.”
“I get into the lab and get hold of a via
l of super juice and inject myself. Then I kick ass, get to the door where I believe the wards are being powered from, and shut them down.”
“Uh-huh. And you know all about magic wand wards, right?”
He glares at me again.
“Oh, for fucksake, I’m not trying to needle you. It’s a genuine question.”
“No,” he admits. “I know nothing about magical wards.”
“So, let’s amend your plan. You kick ass, then you come get me out and we go to the room together, and I shut down the wards.”
“That could waste precious minutes.”
“And so could you not knowing how to deactivate a ward.”
“And you do?”
“I’ve been doing my research. Reading the books. I think I’ll have more of a shot at it than you.”
“Fine. Be ready.”
The echo of boot falls tells us that our time is now.
Any minute now.
Fee
Fire ate at my side. I couldn’t breathe. Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. I was dying.
I clutched the wound, wet and warm.
Hands were on me. The tear of fabric was followed by pressure.
“It’s a flesh wound. The bullet grazed her. We just need to patch it up.”
The voice was familiar…The Magiguard with the ponytail.
“Argh!” Sobs wracked my body as she pressed down on my wound. “Fuck!”
“Derek, med kit. Now.”
“Grayson? Where’s Grayson?”
“He’s okay. He took down the gunman. “You’re going to be okay, Fee, just breathe.”
“Mother forker, that hurts!”
“Good. If it hurts, it means you’re alive,” she said with a grim smile. “All patched up.” She held out a hand to me. “Can you stand?”
I gritted my teeth and allowed her to pull me up. Fire lanced through me, making me wish for my Loup healing.
Uriel and Grayson strode toward me, expressions like thunder, while two Magiguard tied up the shooter. There were two more guys laid on the ground, already restrained.
“He needs to die,” Grayson growled. His gaze zeroed in on my side, then up to my face, and then he spun toward the human he’d just walked away from.
Reaper Unhinged (Deadside Reapers Book 6) Page 19