She could practically hear the whole room audibly gulp at her challenge.
Jackson tensed at her side, determined but leery. What concerned her more was that Taggert showed absolutely no fear or hesitation, as if he now believed himself to be invincible.
It would get him killed.
Randolph cocked his head, surveyed their audience, but dismissed them. He straightened, his weapons disappearing with barely a flick of his wrists, so quickly that if she’d blinked, she would’ve missed the movement. “I sensed trouble. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Raven was nonplussed.
No matter how hard she concentrated, she couldn’t detect a lie.
The council’s trained assassin had actually rushed to her rescue.
For some reason, it didn’t leave her feeling all warm and fuzzy.
Despite her reservations, she closed her hand over the globe, shattering the sphere. “No need. As you can see, I have everything well in hand.”
Amusement lit his eyes. “Wonderful. Then you won’t mind if I stay and help you mediate any further disputes.”
As one, everyone straightened, seemingly finding the floor or ceiling suddenly fascinating, no one stepping forward to object.
Raven snorted at his high-handedness. When she would’ve spoken, she noted energy gathering near the kitchen door.
And she wasn’t responsible for it.
She wasn’t the only one who spotted the change. She glanced at Randolph suspiciously, not putting it past him to attack when her back was turned, but he gave a small shake of his head, indicating it wasn’t him either. His weapons were back in his hands, and they each began to edge forward.
A hazy figure could be seen in the mist, continuing to consume energy as took shape.
Others began backing away.
Not that she could blame them, either. Even from this distance, she could feel the amount of voltage he was consuming, cannibalizing it from those nearest.
“Are you doing that?” Jackson sounded gruff, the enforcer in him uncertain for the first time.
Not that she could blame him. How did one fight a ghost?
“I’m not sure. He’s drawn to my energy, almost feeding on it.” She lost her train of thought when his features became clearer.
The man was no more than eighteen, his lanky body looking stretched, as if he’d grown quickly, but hadn’t filled out yet. Despite his transparency, it was obvious he was a shifter. His brown hair was streaked with blond, the strands shaggy and matted. His bright blue eyes were dull but piercing.
Her throat tightened as she noted the hundreds of wounds scattered over every inch of his body. Some were jagged, torn flesh, while others had been made with medical precision. She swallowed hard, recognizing the pattern from her own stay in the labs. Raven approached cautiously. She’d been able to pull bodies from the grave, but she’d never seen a live ghost, not while she was awake, anyway.
She couldn’t help wonder if Randolph’s powers, mixed with hers, had somehow drawn it to them. “When did you die? Where?”
She ignored the way the current began to snap along her skin, watching it leap from her to him. She began to taper off the energy, severing him from the stream of power, but then stopped. If he came from the labs, he was her best clue, and maybe her only chance to find Rylan.
With each second, the apparition grew stronger, while she weakened. Randolph must have encountered the same problem, because he retreated and allowed her to take the lead.
The ghost man turned and focused on her for the first time, not acknowledging anyone else.
Or not able to see them.
As the pull of energy increased, the dragon hissed in outrage and began to yank it back. The reversal launched her stomach up in her throat, her body feeling like it just dropped ten feet and hit the pavement face first.
Casper ignored her question, urgency twisting his face. “You must hurry. They’re culling the weak. More will die if you don’t stop them.”
When the energy didn’t return fast enough, the dragon became more determined, flexing its claws and severing the cords connecting them with a single swipe.
The ghost’s form flickered, and his eyes widened in panic. “Please, you have to save my brother.”
“Tell me where, Casper?”
Before he could answer, he blinked out of existence, the dragon locking down the last of her energy. Sounds returned to the room in a whoosh.
When she turned, Randolph raised a brow in appreciation. “You sure like to keep things interesting.”
Raven shivered at his compliment. The last thing she needed was more curiosity. Doing her best to ignore him—as much as you can a trained assassin who found you fascinating—she faced the room. “If you don’t have real numbers and names for me, you are wasting valuable time.”
When she spoke, it broke the spell and the room parted like the sea, everyone pressing themselves against the wall to give her room…trying to make themselves inconspicuous enough to avoid attention. Though their behavior annoyed the crap out of her, the dragon reveled at the display.
In five minutes, a third of the people vanished, and she didn’t doubt a few of them left out of sheer terror. She surveyed what remained of the group, then prayed for fortitude. It was going to be a long, long day.
The sun set over an hour ago, when the last person left. Dominick sat behind the desk, while Raven lay sprawled out on the couch, exhausted beyond measure. “That got us nowhere.”
Dominick stared at the computer and the numbers he was inputting. “Not exactly. We did get some valuable data to help us pin down where the largest number of people have gone missing. Once we have that, we should then be able to figure out how they’re being snatched, and get close enough to learn where the labs are located.”
He made it sound so easy, but she feared nothing was going to be that simple. “Only if the information we received is good.”
Raven rubbed her pounding temples. She’d spent the entire day trying to ascertain who was lying and who was telling the truth. She never imagined such a small thing would put her out of commission.
Dominick glanced up from his computer screen. “Isn’t that why you insisted on touching each of them and expending so much energy?”
She heard the reprimand in his voice, but she couldn’t deny his charge. She could sense when people lied, thanks to Jackson’s gift. When they shared blood to cement his position in the pack, she gained the same ability.
It wasn’t enough.
As long as the person believed they were telling the truth, the gift was useless.
That’s why she had to rely on one of the skills she gained when she became alpha. When she touched a person, she could trace pack bonds. When they mentioned a name, she could tell who was dead by the complete lack a cord tying them back to their pack. A few cords were rotting from within, but she didn’t know if that meant they were dying or just being exiled.
Dina popped into the room carrying a tray of tea and more than a dozen sandwiches. “You poor thing. You should eat.”
She shoved three sandwiches into Raven’s hands, which was a good thing, since the others had already disappeared. Not surprising, since shifters needed nearly double the calories in a day to keep their animal form in check. If she didn’t eat, her body looked elsewhere for the energy, cannibalizing whatever or whoever was closest.
Instead of leaving, though, Dina lingered at her side, shuffling her feet. Even if she couldn’t shift into her fox, her sharp, quick movements always reminded Raven of her true form.
Raven finished the first sandwich before she finally put Dina out of her misery. “You had a question?”
Dina’s head was bobbing even before Raven finished speaking. “Did you really call that ghost?”
“No.” Raven glanced down to cover her wince. She justified that she wasn’t really lying. She didn’t actually call the ghost.
“Oh.” Dina deflated a bit, then flashed a smile. “Never mind
. It was a stupid idea, anyway.”
Raven felt even worse, guilt stomping on her conscience for deflecting the question. “Why did you want to know?”
Dina fiddled with her hands, her natural good cheer dimming. “When we left the labs, we left people behind. I’d like to think that they’ve moved on to a better place, not lingering in that horrible nightmare for an eternity.”
Raven awkwardly patted her hand. “You keep telling me that we saved those we could. Ghosts are attracted to energy, and I expended a lot when that place blew. If any remained, they would’ve made themselves known.”
Dina immediately brightened and smiled. “You’re right.”
Raven released a heavy sigh of relief when Dina bounded away.
Ghosts were an unpredictable bunch. People wanted to talk to them, believing they would be able to speak to their loved ones again, but death changed a person. It took an enormous amount of energy to stay earthbound. Most who lingered after death had a reason…and very few stayed for purely selfless ones.
If any ghosts remained at the labs, she doubted they were sane any longer, the desire for vengeance would have long since consumed them.
And that made contacting them very dangerous.
Dominick stood, his back cracking as he straightened. “You’re not going to like the results.”
Raven stood and circled the desk, studying the results. “What did you find?”
The map had three colors. Red was scattered equally across the state. Purple was blotched on the board like paint spatter. The blue was clustered in small sections of seemingly deserted areas.
The perfect hunting ground to get away with kidnapping.
“Let me guess…the red are humans, the purple clusters the witches and vampires, while the blue concentrations were shifters.”
Dominick rubbed his tired eyes. “Yes.”
“This is worthless. We already know they’re attacking loners.” She threw down the pages. “We’re back where we started.”
Dominick froze. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”
“What?” Raven resisted the urge to retreat, unnerved by the way he studied her.
“We go back to where it all started.”
Chapter Six
Even five minutes after Dominick’s announcement, Raven felt like she’d been punched, still not able to catch her breath. Despite knowing he was right, the spit dried out of her mouth at the thought of voluntarily going back to the labs. It didn’t matter that they were destroyed and defunct, the horror lived on in her mind, even years later.
Current snapped painfully along her skin, her body unable to maintain control under the onslaught of her wild emotions. She hesitated at the bottom of the staircase, knowing the men would be waiting upstairs. She didn’t want them to know the idea of going back to the lab where she’d been raised scared the bejesus out of her. She couldn’t allow them to know, or they might prevent her from traveling with them and doing what needed to be done.
She needed to go somewhere she could be alone, and not hurt anyone if she lost control and went electric. The basement was her sanctuary, the bricks thick enough to keep the current from escaping. She was so rattled by the plan to head back to the labs that she was halfway down the flight of stairs before she remembered the basement was no longer hers.
“You might as well come down the rest of the way.” The voice was soft and cultured.
Diggers.
The man didn’t instill fear with his presence alone, since he was barely five feet tall. He was so timid he wouldn’t hurt a flea, but it didn’t stop her mind from flashing back to the doctors in the labs who ran test after test on her, not caring about the agony they inflicted as they ripped into her flesh and bones to see how much pain she could suffer and still function. The way they would use a blowtorch to melt away the skin on her hands and feet, so she would feel even more helpless, unable to stand or even crawl without the reminder that they were in charge.
Diggers’ concerned face appeared before hers, but he wisely kept his distance, possibly sensing the danger as her rising panic caused the dragon to creep closer and closer to the surface.
“You heard.”
“Yes.” The man studiously straightened his glasses. “You’ve managed to bury your nightmares so deep, you’ve never had to face them until now, but I think you’re a lot stronger than you believe. You must confront your past, or it will consume you. Only you really know what is at risk. The others trust you, but they don’t know how the labs could destroy a person’s soul. If you don’t act, it will be too late.”
She never talked to anyone about what had been done to her. Dominick and a few others had read her files; and they’d lived through their own hell, so they didn’t need to ask.
Diggers’ fervent words had a calming effect. “How do you know?”
He seemed to understand what she was asking. “You survived. You climbed out of that hell and emerged stronger. I was taken captive. They allowed me to live so I would keep the others alive just long enough for them to hunt their victims. I was slated to be killed until you burst into my life.”
Raven knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth. She’d seen him, starved and beaten within an inch of his life. He wasn’t spared any punishment.
“I’m no savior.” She could barely save herself. She was in over her head, and she was afraid that if she sank, she would end up taking her pack with her if she didn’t get her shit together.
“You brought down one lab. You can do it again.”
“And nearly killed everyone in the process!”
“Poppycock and horsefeathers.”
“I lost control.”
“And you’re frightened it will happen again.”
Coward that she was, Raven couldn’t even admit it out loud.
“Let me remind you that you are human. If you’d really lost control, your beast would never had allowed anyone to escape alive. You’re letting your terror control you, and unless you confront it, it will be your greatest weakness.”
She very much feared what he said was true.
“What if I’m not strong enough?” Rylan had been taken. If she didn’t locate her backbone soon, she would find herself in the cell next to him…along with the rest of her pack.
Diggers used one finger to push the glasses up the bridge of his nose again then shrugged. “Maybe you don’t feel like a hero in your world, but we see you in different light. It’s all about perspective. All you can do is try to be your best. Believe me, your best is enough. I’m honored to be a part of what you’re building here.”
He turned and shuffled back down the stairs, his shoulders rounded and bowed by a lifetime of being told he was worth nothing more than dirt beneath their feet because an accident of birth meant he had no pack. Shame washed over her for avoiding him since he moved in, when he’d been nothing but kind to her.
To her surprise, the clawing panic tearing her up inside for the past hour had calmed.
The hard truth was, if she did nothing, more people would die, and her pack would ultimately be at risk if it came to war. If they were going to go back into the labs, they needed to have a plan. Raven wandered back upstairs, stopping outside the kitchen door when she heard a murmur of voices.
When she entered, she found the room packed with people. They all fell silent when she was spotted, and she couldn’t help feeling like she was intruding.
Randolph had long since disappeared, thank goodness, but she had no doubt that he remained near.
What concerned her was Griffin had disappeared without a word. They were supposed to be partners. She suspected where he’d gone. She shouldn’t take it personally that he went to report the events of the day to the council, but it stung that he would go behind her back. She knew nothing would remain a secret—too many people witnessed the incident for that to happen—and she felt their rocky friendship crack a little under the strain.
She wondered how long it would last before it snapped.
<
br /> London was the one that spoke. “What did you decide?”
Raven lingered in the kitchen long after the others went to bed. It was past midnight, the discussion having gone on for hours, people arguing who should be allowed to go, and who should stay and protect the pack.
She wanted them all to remain home and safe but knew they would never agree to that. They understood the risk, but seemed to relish the thrill of danger.
Fools.
As she dragged her ass out of the kitchen, she was more than ready to collapse on the nearest bed. She placed her foot on the bottom of the steps to do just that when she heard the knob to the front door begin to turn. Without thinking, she leapt over the railing, landing lightly on her feet before darting toward the deepest shadows. It wouldn’t keep her safe, but it might give her a few seconds to gain the element of surprise.
Even before the door opened all the way, she was on the move.
Only to skid to a halt when a large, shadowy figure slipped through the door.
“Durant.” His leather scent wrapped around her like a comforting hug.
Their eyes met and a spark of humor quirked his lips. “You sure know how to rile up the conclave. When I finally left, a few of the members were still in a tizzy.”
Durant closed the door behind him, then walked toward her, not stopping until barely a breath of air separated them. Giving into temptation, she rested her forehead against his chest, soaking up the calm he exuded like a cozy fire.
A contented purr rumbled under her touch. He lifted a hand, running it over her hair. The black strands were longer now, growing past her shoulders. Shots of silver highlighted the strands, coloring the tips. Ever since the dragon awoke, her powers no longer leached out the black color, but it left her hair very distinctive. The guys seemed fascinated with the way it shimmered, and couldn’t stop touching it.
She reluctantly lifted her head. “We leave for the labs in a few hours, and the drive into the mountains will take a few more.”
His muscles tensed, the tips of his claws pressing lightly against her lower back. The threat of danger sent a shiver down her spine, but she knew he would never hurt her. All that contained power was irresistible, and she found herself snuggling closer.
Electric series- Raven Investigations BoxSet Page 34