Descendants Series

by Melissa Wright

  He stared at me.

  “You know how they teach you that melody so you always remember your letters. The song is with you, even now, but you don’t remember learning it. It’s just there. And it’s true.”

  “So, the prophecies come to you in a rhyme?”

  I laughed. “No. I’m trying to explain how they feel.” I drew a loose strand of hair behind my ear, knowing I was giving the “feeling” of the prophecy way less gravity than it deserved. “The predictions come to me in words. No, it’s not a nursery rhyme. It’s a heavy, all-knowing verse in the ancient language.” I realized I’d come back around to my point. “That’s why my mother taught me, because she knew.”

  Logan sat up. “Why would the words come to you in the ancient language?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know.” I’d often wondered myself. They felt so real, I was almost certain I would understand their meaning regardless, but she had wanted me to comprehend every facet of the language. Some days, I wondered if they weren’t my words at all, but some other, now gone someone who was pushing the prophecies to us with a long-dead magic. How else could they belong to both our kind and the Seven Lines? But that wasn’t important now, and I shook it off, coming back to our conversation. “Could be worse,” I said, smiling at his questioning expression. “They could be haikus.”

  His lips twitched. “That would be worse.”

  It could always get worse, I thought. A chill ran over me and I sat up, once again returning to the pages in front of me.

  “Brianna,” he said, waiting for me to look up from the book, “you will put things to rights.”

  It was hours later when he finally stopped me again. My body ached and my forearms were creased from pressing against the edge of the solid mahogany table. I scrunched my eyes shut tight before blinking them back open to focus on the canvas backpack he was holding.

  He gestured toward a small carved table in the corner. “This time, I brought lunch.”

  I stretched thoroughly before following him to curl up into one of the well-padded Queen Anne chairs. He sat across from me, laying wrapped sandwiches over the table’s engraved dragon design. I glanced up at him, trying to remember which line the color of his eyes signified. I was pretty sure Amber was some proto-language form of ertho. Earth.

  Logan seemed to notice my appraisal, so I distracted him with a question about the dragon’s line. “Are there any others left, aside from Aern and Morgan?”

  He pulled the cover back from his sandwich. “Not anymore. Things got a little crazy after Morgan was born. There were so many of us waiting for the day, watching for signs of the prophecy …”

  He trailed off, realizing that this was the prophecy, that I was a prophet.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You can’t even imagine how prepared my mother made me.” I knew prepared wasn’t the right word, exactly, but I didn’t need to explain what we’d gone through. It was certainly no surprise to find how central the prophecy was to all of their lives, because that had been practically all mine consisted of for eighteen years.

  “It started small, I guess,” he said. “Once the initial shock of a male heir in the dragon’s line calmed, there wasn’t much else to do but wait. We all had our place, and we were trained for the day Morgan would lead. But waiting was hard for some of them, especially the elders.”

  He sat his sandwich down, glancing at my own lying unopened before me, and seemed to understand.

  “There were some skirmishes, a few flare ups here and there, but for the most part we had things handled,” Logan said. “It reached a fevered pitch when Morgan got older and they knew he would soon lead.” His eyes met mine. “Things took a turn when their mother got sick. Aern and I must have been about fifteen at the time, Morgan close to twenty. When she died, their father changed. He became strict, enforcing rules on Morgan that he’d never lived by before, challenging the elders, calling the entire prophecy into question. There was a man, Tarian, who became convinced their father was trying to keep Morgan from ascending.”

  He hesitated, taking a measured breath, and a tingle ran up my arms.

  “They fought, and Tarian was killed. What we didn’t know, was that he had amassed a following. The battle that resulted took their father’s life.”

  The tragedies of my own family were not far from such, and when I spoke, my voice was barely above a whisper. “So, Morgan’s father was killed so that Morgan could sooner take the seat of power.”

  Logan’s answering tone was level. “By the very people who wished to see him there.” His fist tightened almost imperceptibly where it rested on his leg. “And it wasn’t just his father. Most of the elders among their leadership were taken as well. Everything shifted. The younger of us were thrust into the positions left vacant, forced to choose a side between a split family.”

  “And you?” I asked.

  “And I chose neither.”

  His words lingered in the silence between us for a long while as I picked at the clear plastic covering my lunch. He’d spoken of living alone, of choosing neither, but he was standing guard over me in the Division household for the new leader of Council. “You were going to tell me,” I said eventually, “about the men.”

  The hesitation was there again, and I got the feeling Logan wasn’t a sharer, but this wasn’t exactly a normal situation. And I was the prophet.

  “My father was to protect the One.” His eyes fell for an instant to the archive ceiling, to one of the smoked glass domes that hid surveillance cameras. “He was killed with the others, and it fell to me, to those men, to take his place.”

  His words came back to me. Had it been Aern …

  He straightened. “We don’t work for Council’s best interest anymore. We work for the good of our kind.”

  What he didn’t say rolled through me. He was watching me, his team posted outside my room and in those black SUVs because I was their last hope. Everyone’s last hope.

  “Brianna,” he said after a long pause. I looked up, caught by the change in his expression. “Eat.”

  It wasn’t an order, but I obeyed nonetheless. Absently, I considered the story he’d told, comparing it with the details my mother had given me, lining our histories out on parallel timelines. Trying to find the connection. Trying to understand our link.

  I hadn’t seen anything of our people within the Council archives. My mother hadn’t explained our past, how our lines had lived in the old world, or if there were any others left, aside from Emily and me. The only reference to us at all was that of the prophecy, and it didn’t even imply we were not one of them.

  But I knew. I knew because I could see Emily’s makeup, could see she was built differently than Aern. Not physically, but her connections, and her apparent lack of those powers that the Seven Lines all held.

  When I went back to work, I focused instead on the newer works, the records kept since Morgan’s birth. Logan pulled documents for me, covering the desk with books and certificates, ledgers and registers. There were photographs, too, here and there among the files. I found one of Morgan at maybe four or five, a hollow, lost look in his eyes as he was posed in front of the Council banners. And another, older Morgan as he seemed to accept his place among the elders. My fingers slid over the faces of strangers, the prints dulled with age. Suddenly, I found something familiar in a candid shot of two scrawny young boys. I paused, drawing the picture closer to find Aern, maybe ten years old, arm over the shoulder of another boy his age, standing carefree on the manicured lawn of a large, open and unguarded estate.

  I looked up, comparing the picture to the man who stood across from me, and couldn’t help but smile, given the spiky blond tufts of hair sticking up in all directions in the photo. Logan narrowed his eyes on me, daring me to laugh. That only made it worse.

  My grin widened. “I’d never thought of you as a boy before.”

  His brows shifted. It wasn’t just an odd thing to say, it was the way I’d said it. I ducked my head back to the bo
oks on the table. He didn’t question it, but I could see him as I read, his body unmoving as he watched me from that same position across the table.

  I resumed working, the records of Morgan’s building empire dragging me in despite my need to keep moving through the archives. He’d amassed quite a collection of businesses, but that wasn’t unusual. What was weird, however, was the section of run-down warehouses and crumbling industrial plants. I tried to remember what Emily had said, if she’d told me where the warehouse Aern had been held was, but I couldn’t bring it to mind.

  “What about your visions?” Logan asked, moving to sit in the chair across from me.

  I glanced up distractedly. “What?”

  “The visions,” he explained. “You said flashes. Do you see everything?” My brows drew together, and he gestured to the room around us. “I mean like this. Did you know we’d be here? Did you see me coming?”

  His tone was completely casual, innocent, as if he were simply curious. I’d opened my mouth to answer no to the first question when the second one registered in my brain. Had I seen him coming? A flush tore up my neck, coloring my cheeks before I could curb it. My mouth hung open in a kind of dazed guilt that he’d caught me so completely off guard.

  He nodded slowly, and I could see the knowledge lining up in his mind. My comment about him being a boy. My reaction when I’d first seen him, my utter inability to even speak.

  This was not going to go well.

  “So,” he said with a measured air, “what, exactly, did you see … when I wasn’t a boy?”

  “Nothing,” I answered, way too quick, way too emphatic.

  “Brianna, if something is going to happen—”

  “What? No!” The words stuck in my throat as I tried to explain he wasn’t in danger. “God, no, Logan. It’s nothing like that. Just … It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing.” Three nothings. Very convincing, Brianna.

  I was too flustered to come up with a good lie, and Logan wasn’t letting it go. It was obvious my response wasn’t a nothing, but I couldn’t tell him the truth. What was I supposed to say, that fate had chosen him for me, that he was my one? The idea mortified me even more and I was suddenly too hot as the flush took over my entire body.

  Logan noticed as he stared me down, the concern slowly shifting into understanding. I knew my face went impossibly redder as awareness slipped over his features, but I sat frozen as his eyes stayed locked with mine. It was apparently a full two minutes before the idea became utterly pleasing to him. A smile started at the corner of his mouth, crossing slowly over his lips, as if to say, Ah, so that’s how it is.

  Grin still plastered to his face, he sat up, puffing his chest with unconcealed, all-male pride, and laced his fingers behind his head to lean back into his chair.

  “Oh, please,” I hissed.

  He shrugged, the movement bringing my attention to the way his outstretched arms flexed for just an instant before I caught myself. When my gaze met his again, his eyes were crinkled in satisfied humor.

  I glared at him. He waggled his eyebrows.

  The gesture seemed to imply far more that it probably did, but given my mortification, I took the act to mean it was all me. My idea. My fantasy. I huffed, “It was only a kiss.”

  I regretted the words before they were even out of my mouth.

  He leaned forward, suddenly, impossibly more interested than before.

  I dropped my head to the table, covering my face with my hands just before my brow met wood with a dull thud. I had no idea if he heard me mutter, “Oh God,” into my palms.

  Chapter Seven

  Outings

  Logan had the decency to leave me alone after that. However, I couldn’t help but notice the smile that crept onto his lips every time I glanced in his direction. I tried not to let it distract me, but the research wasn’t getting me anywhere. When evening rolled around, I sighed heavily and closed the cover on the last book in front of me.

  “This isn’t working,” I said. “There’s nothing here, it’s all too general and not helpful.”

  Logan nodded, glancing at his watch before grabbing the backpack to go. I stretched as I slid into my sweater and followed him out the door. A crew was working on the hallway, so we took a narrow corridor toward the garage. Logan stopped at the end of the corridor to enter his passcode and I came up beside him, rubbing a hand over the stiff muscles in my neck. He glanced at the ceiling, where loose wiring hung from what was probably a camera before the work crews had taken it down, and his hand stilled on the handle of the door.

  His eyes met mine, and my arm froze as I abruptly realized how close we were. He hadn’t spoken since my humiliating revelation, but the silence had been different then. Now, it was fully charged, and he was inches away from me.

  “Brianna,” he whispered.

  I couldn’t help that my gaze fell to his mouth when he spoke, but when he returned the gesture my throat went dry.

  He moved closer, slowly, infinitesimally, and his eyes came back to mine. I waited, unable to move, until he said in a low voice, “Is it now?”

  A kind of thrilling terror spiked through me. The rational part of my brain was lost, but I knew it was somewhere, screaming, This is no time to kiss a stranger. After a moment, I managed a squeaky, “No.” However, it was quiet, because my chest had clenched too tight to gather more than a whisper’s worth of breath.

  Logan smiled, but it wasn’t the same smile he’d worn earlier. I didn’t have the chance to fully classify it, though, because he pressed the final button and the keypad beeped as it allowed the door to open. I followed him through the next hall, heart pounding and hand pressed to my stomach, but when we reached the car, Logan opened the door for me as if nothing had happened. As if this situation was entirely normal.

  As if I hadn’t just told him I’d had visions of us making out.

  I smacked a hand over my face, but quickly dropped it to my lap as the driver’s door opened. Logan slid in, checking my seatbelt was in place before starting the engine of what must have been an eighty-thousand-dollar car.

  “Logan,” I asked, wanting to change the subject, but nearly losing my train of thought when he glanced over at me, “are these your cars?”

  He smirked. “Security pays good, Brianna, but not that good.” I pursed my lips and he answered more fully. “On this particular assignment, I have unlimited access to both Council and Division resources.”

  “So …”

  “Pretty much anything I want.”

  I considered that on the drive back to the Southmont house, though I couldn’t see what benefit it would be to my dilemma. I needed something intangible. I needed a miracle.

  Emily was waiting on us this time, flipping through the last pages of the book she’d brought me during my recovery. Caught, she snapped the cover shut and stuffed it behind a cushion. I grinned, not needing to announce to Logan that my sister had some kind of perverse penchant for reading only the end of a novel. She didn’t acknowledge my knowing smile, instead standing to give Logan a wave.

  It struck me then that I had the perfect comparison for the prophecy. It was like reading the end of a book, knowing what would happen but having to wait to see how the chapters played out in between.

  I turned to him, but started as Brendan walked out of the other room. My bedroom.

  My gaze flicked to Emily, who was watching Logan stare at Brendan. It appeared a mild enough look, but somehow, I knew the expression held something more.

  “Brianna,” Brendan said, ignoring Logan and his stare. “We finished bringing up your things.” He gestured toward my room. “I was just doing a final security sweep.”

  Logan didn’t speak, but a muscle twitched in his arm where he stood beside me.

  Brendan stepped closer, speaking only to me. “I didn’t realize you’d be leaving the property. I assure you, our teams will be ready for your next … outing.”

  “Oh,” I said, not wanting Logan’s men to be caught in the middl
e of whatever tension my protection was creating, “I only went to the archives. I—”

  Brendan cut me off. “As I said, tomorrow, we will be ready.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Brendan,” Logan announced. “Brianna’s work at the archives is complete.”

  Brendan’s jaw flexed, but his eyes stayed on mine. “Please, let me know if there is any way I can assist in your efforts.”

  Emily rolled her eyes. “Actually, Brianna has an engagement with me this evening, so if you boys could just …” She made a shooing gesture with her hands. When the men were gone, the door closed behind them, Emily said, “What’s it like being a celebrity?”

  I flopped down onto the couch. “Exhausting.” I turned back to her. “Is it not like that for you at Council?”

  Emily shrugged. “I can’t exactly do anything exciting.” She winced at the implication and tried to cover it. “Like predicting the future, I mean.”

  “Yeah, well it only helps if I can figure out what to do with it.”

  I thought of the prophecies again, how they had shifted when Emily was bound to Aern, how they were changing even now, the future in a horrible flux where every outcome was worse than the next.

  “Maybe you’re trying too hard,” Emily said. “You’re strung tighter than a bobcat on a bowstring.”

  I shot her a sidelong glance at the use of one of our more amusing foster families’ sayings, but the seriousness in her expression dragged a chuckle out of me. I threw a couch pillow at her. “Sit down. We have work to do.”

  She complied, but eventually the exhaustion and constant worry caught up with me, making even my mental efforts useless. When it was clear I’d made no progress, we relaxed, sinking back into the couch. Emily was explaining that she had business with Aern and probably wouldn’t make it the next day, and I nodded my understanding as I closed my eyes against the letters and fibers and connections I’d been seeing all day. I wondered if they would be burned there, a constant swirl and glow that hazed over everything I would ever see again.