by Cherry Adair
His lips twitched. He shook his head.
She nibbled his chin. The man never seemed to shave. How fortunate that she loved his stubble, and God knew, it made him look sexy as hell. “Tonight?” she asked hopefully.
“Sorry, sweetheart. I’ll take a rain check on that offer. But they want us there—now.”
THE FULL COUNCIL WAS present. Jack worked backward, starting with blowing the hell out of what they believed to be the Omnivatic’s portal, then backtracked to their reactions upon returning from the Icehotel, their visit to the hospital, and their reasoning behind their conclusions.
“You’re convinced Grant Baltzer is the Omnivatic?” Duncan Edge demanded, leaning back in his massive chair.
“Ninety-eight percent,” Jack told him, aware of the unseen eyes behind the Head of Council watching their every move, analyzing their every word. He didn’t bother sitting down. He and Sara both stood in front of the enormous desk. “The other two percent goes to his partner William Roe.” He left out a few percentage points for Harry the boa.
“Your opinion, Sara?”
“Unfortunately, considering my relationship with Grant, I agree.” She stuck her hands in the pockets of her red jacket, looking fresh and sexy and kick-ass in her jeans and yellow-laced red hiking boots.
Between them, Jack and Sara filled the Council in on what they knew.
“Want me to do the Sarulu bit?” Jack asked her softly, concerned by her pale cheeks and the haunted look in her eyes. Admitting Baltzer’s guilt to the Council was hitting her hard, he knew. Knowing that someone she’d always believed loved her was capable of deception of this magnitude must be devastating.
His slid his fingers through hers. Her hand was as cold as ice as he tugged her against his side.
Shooting him a grateful look, she shook her head. “No. I’ll do it.”
Jack had never been more proud of her as she stood there, straight and elegant, and told the Council in measured tones about being attacked.
“Were you raped?” Edge asked baldly.
Jack took a step forward. “Easy—”
Sara reined him in. “It’s okay. No, I wasn’t.”
“Yet the other women were.”
“I don’t know why them and not me. I zapped him with fire—but when my power didn’t have any effect, I beat the crap out of him with a big stick. Maybe I woke up from the hypnotic state too soon?”
“And he called you by name?”
“He called me by name.”
He, Jack noticed. Not the snake. Not it. He.
Sara’s throat moved, but her gaze on the Head of Council was steady. “I believe Sarulu and Grant are one and the same.”
“And therefore Omnivatic.”
“Yes.”
“The Aequitas Book of Answers revealed a message last night,” Jack inserted. “‘Erebus Novem two are one to infinity if not stopped.’ I believe that the ninth member of the Erebus is the Omnivatic attempting to rule, and that Grant Baltzer is Novem. ‘Two are one’ could allude to him being Sarulu. And the rest is obvious.” He hesitated. “There was another message a couple days ago: ‘All that you seek is here.’ The Book was alluding to Baltzer being the Omnivatic.” Or else Sara was the one he sought, Jack thought.
The Head of Council steepled his fingers, watching Jack for several seconds. “Thank you for your service.” Edge rose from behind his desk and put out his hand to Jack. “You’ve both done an exemplary job and confirmed the Council’s suspicions. We’ll take it from here.”
“What?” Sara cried.
An icy chill of premonition slicked Jack’s body. “You’re dismissing us?”
“Others will take over from here. Isn’t that what you wanted, what you asked for when we first gave you this assignment?” He raised his hand to summon someone out of the darkness behind him. “Lark, escort Miss Temple to the secure location until the comet has passed.”
Jack moved in front of Sara. “Whoa. Hold up. No one’s taking Sara anywhere,” he said dangerously. “What pertinent piece of the puzzle have you left out, you son of a bitch?”
“You’ve already put together the puzzle,” Edge replied coolly.
“No. There’s something missing. What is it? What’s the key to making sense of this clusterfuck we’re dealing with?” He stepped to the edge of the desk.
“Jack—” Sara grabbed his arm.
He shook her off, then braced both hands on the desk, crowding the other man’s space. Fury pulsed behind his eyeballs as he said tightly, “What haven’t you told us, Edge?”
Edge’s eyes flickered for a nanosecond to Sara, then back to him. Jack’s heart pounded harder. Something, then, to do with her. Something the Council had known all along and deliberately withheld.
“It’s on a need—”
“Bullshit. We’re far beyond need-to-know,” Jack growled.
There was a squeak of patent leather against leather as Lark unfolded herself from her council chair behind Edge. She sauntered up to the desk and perched on the edge, her flossy leather bodysuit gleaming in the spotlight as she flicked back her black hair.
“You were asked to do a job.” Edge telegraphed Lark a message Jack couldn’t interpret. “You did the job. That’s all there is to it.”
“You’ve done more than you can possibly understand,” Lark said smoothly. “Right now, Sara’s a danger to all of us.”
“This isn’t a damned pissing contest, Edge. All of this has something to do with Sara. Doesn’t it?”
He heard Sara’s murmur of denial behind him, but Jack was a hundred percent focused on Duncan Edge. He reached over the desk and grabbed Edge by the front of his black-and-silver robe, bringing them nose to nose. “What the fuck are you hiding?”
Edge put a hand up to keep the rest of the Council at bay. “Sara’s father was an Omnivatic.”
Jack released his hold and stepped back. Chances were, no matter how much he wanted to hurt the son of a bitch, if he touched the Head of Council again, he’d be the one dead. “Impossible. They chose immortality. They can’t breed.”
“Jack’s right.” Sara came to stand beside him. “My father wasn’t Omnivatic. I’d know. We were very close—if that were the case, he would’ve told me.”
Edge shook his robe back into place in a flash of heat and silver. “The facts of your birth are irrefutable. Because of the rareness of your parentage, the first mixed-breed Aequitas-Omnivatic child in three thousand years, the Archon has kept an interested eye on you from birth.”
Jack circled Sara’s shoulders with one arm, tucking her tightly against his side. “Again. Impossible.”
“An aberration. But clearly not impossible.”
He didn’t want to go into the aberration statement right then. “And you know this how?”
“Just as the Archon had an Aequitas in our Council, the Wizard Council has had someone in the Archon. Has for centuries.” Edge’s sharp gaze focused back on Jack. “We don’t know if the Omnivatics think the Aequitas were using her to discover their weaknesses, or if they’re trying to get to her to use her as a means to bring the Aequitas down from within. Either way, she’s as much a liability as an asset to us now.”
“Which is why she needs to come with me. The Wizard Council will protect her and you. We can’t predict how the comet will impact her Omnivatic powers,” Lark said simply.
Jack glared at Lark. “Protect her? With all due respect, Edge, they already took out the entire Archon, and the Aequitas member of your council. Nobody is getting within a fucking mile of her. Not you or the Omnivatics! I will protect Sara without the Wizard Council’s help.”
“Excuse me. I can speak for myself,” Sara inserted furiously, breaking away from Jack to face Edge, Lark, and the rest of the Council. She rubbed absently at her temple, her face pale. “I’m not going anywhere without Jack.”
“Fine. He can accompany you. This will all be over in five hours.”
“First, tell us why the Omnivatics want Sara,” Ja
ck demanded. The Council was still holding back. And until he had all the facts, he wasn’t going anywhere.
“He wants to—oh, God. He wants to mate with me, doesn’t he?” Sara’s small voice was devoid of expression.
“No!” Jack was appalled, and a freezing chill ran up his spine. “Not just no, but fucking no.” Yes. He knew the answer, and it was a resounding freaking yes. That’s exactly what this whole thing had been about. Baltzer wanted Sara, and he wasn’t going to stop until he had her. “To what purpose?” He heard the thread of revulsion in his own voice. “Omnivatics can’t procreate.”
“Fact is that Omnivatics can breed, given the right circumstances.” Lark sent Edge a speaking look as he sat back in his chair.
“As your father did, Miss Temple, they have to give up their immortality,” Edge said simply.
Lark drew a long black-lacquered nail over the polished surface of the desk over and over in an infinity symbol. “It’s a bit more complicated than that. First, they must find and be accepted by their Lifemate; then they must choose mortality. If, and only if, they don’t manage to kill their Lifemate during the mating process, and the mother is strong enough to survive the pregnancy and birth of the half Omnivatic growing inside her—then they can have a child.” The dark curls slid over the patent leather as Lark cocked her head to one side and stared straight at Sara.
“If we’re right about Grant,” Sara said in a monotone, “then I’ve been betrayed by someone I trusted. And now you’re telling me that my father was an evil man? An Omnivatic, like Grant? It’s hard to wrap my mind around.”
“Well, wrap it fast, lovey,” Lark told her briskly. “The information you gave us confirmed our suspicions, and whatever is to be done must be completed in the five hours left to us.”
“I understand. Grant won’t give up being immortal. I know him. He wants something from me, but he won’t risk his immortality to achieve it. He’s vain, ambitious, and competitive as hell. Being an Omnivatic, knowing he’s fooling everyone, gives him a thrill. Knowing things no one else does gives him power. Being in control gives him power. If you take me away somewhere, it’s going to shoot his plan to hell. If you do that—then God only knows what his next move will be.”
“She’s right.” Jack looked from Duncan to Lark to Sara. “Take her out of the equation now, and you’ve just shot your chance of neutralizing the Omnivatics as a threat.”
Lark looked at Duncan. “What do you think?”
“It’s a risk, but I say we let them see it through.” Duncan turned his gaze to Jack and Sara. “I don’t like it, but all right. What’s your next move?”
Sara started pacing. “We have to figure out what it is he wants from me. He’s an immortal already. Sex?” She chewed her lip. “It must have something to do with sex.”
Lark raised a pierced brow. “He already screws any woman who crosses his path.”
“He’s oversexed,” Sara agreed. “He enjoys the chase, gets off on being the hunter.” She glanced at Jack. “Remember what Valentina said? He told the girls to run.” She turned to Edge. “He wanted to hunt them like prey. This isn’t about sex for sex itself. It’s about using it for power.
“He’s watched me since I was a child. Oh, gross! It wasn’t his father who was friends with my dad, was it? That was Grant all along. Grant watching me as I grew up—oh, God. He killed my parents, didn’t he?”
“We believe so,” Lark said, not able to cushion the blow.
Sara dropped into a chair. “He’s been manipulating me my entire life. Shaping me, forming me to be what he wants.”
Nobody said anything, and after a few moments, she dragged in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What does he want from me? How does the comet’s appearance after all this time link with me and with Grant? What does the combination get for him?”
Sara’s being a half-breed changed the game. The Council hadn’t come right out and said it, but Jack knew the score. Baltzer wanted Sara specifically. Otherwise, he would’ve killed her along with her parents.
She was the link between their immortality and their ability to create more Omnivatics. With her, they could unlock the secrets to gaining more numbers, and possibly even greater strength, enough to overwhelm the Aequitas and the wizarding world as it was. Enough to bring down the system that had protected blissfully ignorant humans for so long.
With sickening certainty, Jack realized the answer. “They want to use her as an experiment.” All eyes turned to Jack. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. They hope that the fact that she’s half Omnivatic is the key to them being able to have children.” He blew out a breath.
Jesus. He hated this. Hated Sara’s involvement. Hated where his limited imagination was taking him.
“That’s it, isn’t it? Goddamn it. Baltzer wants to impregnate Sara in the hope that between them they will create an Omnivatic child.”
Chapter Nineteen
Oh, God.” Sara stared at him wide-eyed, her face ashen. “That’s what he wanted all along. That’s it. Eeeuw! The son of a bitch! He couldn’t risk wasting this opportunity. He had to make sure I was fertile!” She shuddered. “And I was. But he didn’t want me to have that child.”
Her eyes welled, and she dashed the moisture away. “As if I’d ever let him put his hands on me, let alone any-freaking-thing else!” She rubbed her cheeks. “It’s all tied in with the approach of the comet. It isn’t a coincidence that Grant moved us to San Cristóbal, right near the cave. He must’ve been planning this for—holy crap. He waited thirty years.”
“He’s waited three thousand years for this moment,” Duncan Edge pointed out. “For an Omnivatic to rise in the ranks of the Erebus, he must amass power. What greater power than being the only member capable of fathering a child? The powerful magic and magnetic pull of the comet must activate something in an Omnivatic.”
“The comet has passed before,” Lark pointed out, “and there’s never been a child born to an Omnivatic other than Sara. And she’s only half.”
“True.” Jack didn’t feel any better about this than Edge and the Council. Worse. “So Ophidian’s comet must—hell. That’s it! We know he becomes more powerful with the advent of the comet; but what if the strength he derives from its passage makes him incredibly potent? For a brief time, the infertility is gone, and he can impregnate—”
“Speculate on the whys and wherefores later.” Sara grabbed his hand in a death grip. She looked as though she wanted to vomit. Jack felt the same way. But for her … Jesus, for her it was so much worse.
“Edge. Will wizard magic work?”
“Let’s find out, shall we?”
“What did you do?” Jack demanded. Because everything in the chamber looked exactly the same.
“Sent my people to the cave to see how far they can get in.”
Jack felt a glimmer of relief. If Edge’s people got as far as the portal and their magic, unlike his own, worked, Sara would be safe.
A few minutes later, a man materialized before Edge’s desk. “I don’t fucking get it. The cave is small, tiny really. But we couldn’t do any magic and only got as far as a solid rock wall a few hundred feet inside.” He vanished.
Edge’s eyes met Jack’s. “You have your answer.”
“Fucking shitty answer.” Jack’s voice was grim. “I have to go back to San Cristóbal, take another look at the portal we thought we blew up. There might be another entrance. I’ll follow it, find the nest, and destroy it from the inside.” And Baltzer with it. He’d reduce the twisted snake-dick to very small pieces.
“Your powers don’t work in the portal, Jack,” Sara reminded him through bloodless lips. “I’ll have to go in with you—”
“Not just no, but hell to the tenth power, no.”
“There is another way in.” Sara stood, ignoring him. “If Grant wants me—for whatever reason—he’ll have to take me inside his nest.”
Jack jumped up. “No! There’s no way you’re going through some portal to
God knows where.”
Sara placed a gentle hand on his arm, and he took it tightly in his. “It’s the only way, Jack. We’ve run out of time. We all know that. He’ll take me to the nest. You can follow.”
Jack gritted his teeth. “What if I can’t? Are you thinking of that, Sara? The two of us couldn’t proceed more than two hundred feet inside that fucking cave without hitting a wall. What if I can’t get to you?”
Sara took a deep breath. “Then I’m on my own, and I’ll have to kill him myself.”
“I won’t let you do it. There’s got to be another way. We just have to find it.” He turned to Duncan. “What about that team you were ready to use, huh? You were going to replace us. Do it!”
“We can’t. Wizard magic, even Aequitas magic, doesn’t work inside the portal, as we’ve proven. Not to mention, even if we could breach his stronghold, Baltzer would trace us before any of us could get close enough to do any damage. None of us can get anywhere near it. Sara is our Hail Mary pass.”
“Don’t go there,” Jack cautioned, his voice tight. “Do not fucking go there, Edge.”
Duncan ignored the angry outburst. “Someone has to be inside the nest to destroy it, and Baltzer with it. That portal has to be closed for eternity.” He looked at Sara, then pointedly at the monitor he’d summoned that showed the progress of Ophidian’s comet as it approached the Earth. “Five hours before the natural disasters start. Cataclysmic events, Slater.”
“I’m well aware of the ramifications as well as the time limit, Edge.”
“If the portal is destroyed, what will happen when the comet passes?” Sara demanded.
Edge’s eyes glinted. “The events won’t be as cataclysmic. Bad, but not irreparable.”
Sara sucked in a deep breath. “I’ll do it.”
Jack spun to face her. “What the fuck do you mean, you’ll do it!”
“It’s the only way, and we all know it.”
“We’ll find another way.”
Her eyes, soft brown velvet, held his. “In five hours, Jack?”