Descendants Series

by Melissa Wright

  “Pick her up,” Aern said. “We need to take her some place safe until—”

  “No,” I said, opening my eyes as Logan lifted me from the floor. “No, I’m all right.”

  Emily looked sick, her hands trembling as she reached up to brush the hair away from my face. “It’s close,” she said.

  I nodded. “And Morgan. He’s turning more men.”

  Aern cursed.

  Logan stared down at me. “How long do we have?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “This isn’t … It’s shifting. Every single time I make a decision, it’s wrong.”

  “Not you,” Aern said. “Morgan.”

  I closed my eyes for a long moment, seeing the face of my sister, broken and still, the fire coursing through the city, the lifeless bodies vanished in ash. “Yes. Morgan.”

  “Then we’ll stop him,” Emily said. “Whatever it takes, we’ll stop him.”

  I had worked with Emily as long as I could, but when exhaustion took over I’d fallen asleep on the couch, the muted conversation of the others and their tactics for securing the property seeping into my consciousness as I faded in and out. Morgan had walked right over them the last time, turning their guards with a look, and he was stronger now.

  I woke on the soft white sheets of a bed in the suite Emily had said was mine, Logan sitting on a chair in front of me. “You’re tired,” I murmured, head buried in a too-soft pillow.

  One side of his mouth came up in a smile and I reached over, wiggling my fingers for his hand. He took it and I pulled, sliding over to give him room beside me. “This is completely against Council policy,” he said in a low voice as he slipped his arms around me.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Who did you have this problem with before?”

  He breathed a short laugh, squeezing me closer, and I tucked my head under his chin.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Late. I’m afraid you’ve slept all the way to bedtime, Brianna.”

  I liked the way my name sounded in his quiet voice. I hugged him closer. “Good. I’m not ready to get up yet.”

  A puff of air brushed the top of my head, and I smiled, pressing my cheek against his chest.

  When I woke again, it was morning. Logan was lying on his back, hands laced behind his head, staring at the ceiling. My face had been buried into his side, leg sprawled over his, one arm trapped beneath me while the other rested on his chest. I had to push up to look at him.

  He smiled.

  I dropped my face back to his chest, smoothing a hand over my hair and straightening the hem of my shirt. He pulled a hand free to rub my back. “Stop. I like you all mussed up.” I scrunched my nose at him and he added, “It’s adorable, really.”

  “Too far,” I told him. “I might have believed you otherwise.”

  He rolled to his side so he could face me. “I told you I’d never lie.”

  I bit down a smile. “You did.”

  “And you,” he said, “why don’t you tell me what you did to me?” At my confused expression, he clarified, “I don’t have a scratch on me, Brianna. I feel great, after just a few hours’ sleep.”

  “Oh,” I answered sheepishly. “I know you said to save my strength, but I had to, Logan. I only did what I’ve done for the others, just enough to help you heal. To keep you safe.”

  “This isn’t like the others.” His free hand came up to tug the collar of his shirt lower. “I had fifteen stitches across my chest yesterday. There isn’t a mark left.”

  “You said you weren’t hurt,” I hissed.

  “I believe I said I was ‘fine’.” He stared at me. “You’re avoiding the issue. I’m healing as fast as Aern.”

  “That has nothing to do with me,” I said. “All I do is repair the connection. You, each of you, are using it under your own power. If you heal as fast as Aern, that’s because of your own strength, because of the blood of your line. It works just like the sway.”

  He was silent for a long moment, his eyes tracing the lines of my face, and I said, “But you don’t use your sway, do you?”

  His fingers trailed over my back, his words unapologetic. “There’s no need to.”

  I watched his face, ready to say more, but before I could there was a light click outside the bedroom door as someone walked into the sitting room. “Brianna?”

  “Just a minute,” I called to Emily. “I’ll be right there.”

  I crawled over Logan and he caught my hand, sitting up to face me where I stood by the bed. “More questions?” I asked.

  “Just one,” he whispered.

  I bit my lip, trying not to grin. “What?”

  His eyes fell to my mouth, then rose slowly to meet mine. “In our vision”—our vision, the one where we’d kissed—“what else do I do to you?”

  I blushed, cheeks heating at his words, his slow grin, and he pulled me to him, kissing me soft, slow, and deliberate.

  When he drew back, I brought my lips to his ear. “It’s all a surprise from here.” His hands tightened on my waist and I added, “Now get out before my sister thinks there’s something going on in here.”

  He chuckled, giving me one last squeeze before he let me go.

  I took a quick shower, throwing on jeans and a soft cotton shirt before joining the others. I was sitting on the edge of the sofa lacing up my boots when the vision came again, so my landing was softer, but the shock of it hit just as hard.

  “Brianna,” Emily called, but I didn’t see her face. I saw the dark-haired man, GQ, a pair of hands pressed against his bare chest as he screamed out in pain. It was only a blip, a brief flash of image, and I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Or why.

  “What is it?” Emily said, and I opened my eyes to see her face, the one person who could save us.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “But we’re running out of time.”

  We were sitting on the couch, Logan perched on a chair beside us, when Aern came in. He didn’t look happy, and Logan met him at the desk across from us to go over the Council’s new Intel.

  “He’s got thirty more men posted here,” Aern explained, pointing at the documents now spread over the desk. “And Kara’s team reported a group of uniformed men here.”

  “Uniformed?” Logan asked.

  Aern nodded. “This isn’t like him. And he’s gathering too many men to be predictable.”

  “What are these?” Logan said as he pointed to another section of pages.

  “Fires.” Aern flipped through a stack of photos, laid out three or four. “Explosions here and here, straight fire there.”

  Fire. Aern and Emily, and fire. There was another push. I pulled my hand free of my sister’s, wiped the palm on my jeans. “This isn’t working. I need to try something else.” I returned my hand to hers as she listened, waiting for instruction. “When you connected with Aern, how did it feel to set the bond, what did you do to start it into place?”

  “I told you, I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t do anything. It just felt right; it felt like we were linked. Secure.”

  “She said it was like lacing up sneakers,” Aern called over his shoulder. Emily narrowed her eyes at his back and he turned, winked at her.

  “How did you know it was the bond?” I asked.

  She stared at me. “Because of the prophecy.”

  “You expected it,” I said. “Do you think you could do it again, if I told you it would work?”

  “We’re already connected, Bri.”

  I shook my head. “Not Aern, try it with Logan.”

  The men stopped talking to look at us, the two of them and Emily frozen at my words. “I don’t think …” Emily started after a heavy silence.

  “There,” I said. “That tug right there, when you get protective of Aern.” A flash of indignation crossed her features and I felt it again. “Yes. There.”

  Without taking my eyes from her, I said, “Logan, that thing we’ve been working on, try it on Aern.”

  E
mily’s eyes flicked from me to the men, back. There was nothing we’d been working on, and I didn’t know if Logan could guess my intention, but he moved. And it was enough to make Emily believe.

  It shifted again, the tiniest impression in her bonds. “There. I think I’ve got it.” I glanced at Logan, smiled.

  Emily leaned forward to whisper, “That was mean,” and I laughed.

  “Hush,” I said. “I need to concentrate.” I closed my eyes, feeling along the threads that had wavered, and then followed them, examining their connections and comparing them to my own. It didn’t make any sense, didn’t explain why Emily’s powers had only worked on the bond with Aern, why mine could already free the powers to heal for the others, the ability to shield on Wesley. “Wait,” I said. “Wait, wait, wait.”

  I opened my eyes, staring at the lines crossing my wrists, wounds overlapping the tattoos. And I had it. The connections I needed weren’t threads, they were a network, a spider web of contacts that had been disrupted, the way they’d been disrupted in the others. Bound and severed. Disconnected.

  “They did this to us,” I whispered.

  “Who?” Emily asked.

  “The shadows. Our kind.”

  She gaped at me, unwilling to understand. “What are you talking about?”

  “This isn’t natural, there’s something, some reason we were stopped … separated from our powers.”

  She glanced at the men, both of us knowing they were different. The letter hadn’t fully explained, but the Seven Lines’ power had been taken long ago, stolen from their ancestors thousands of years back. Ours had been robbed from us, from Emily and me. And no one would have the power to do that except a shadow. One of our kind.

  Emily stared at me, gaze beseeching, begging for it not to have been our own mother.

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now. Morgan, that’s what matters now. We can do this, Emily. We have the key.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Time

  All this time, the whole of my life, I’d thought the Seven Lines were the powerful ones. I could see the future, bits and flashes of warning, but they held the power. Emily was the chosen, I the prophet. And we would save them.

  Things were just not turning out that way at all.

  It was time. Now that I knew how to repair the connections in Emily, the moment she was strong enough, we’d have to go after Morgan. Every minute we waited was one more chance for him to use that power, one more life he could destroy. It was the risk that the rest of them would find out the truth, that the Seven Lines would lose the anonymity that kept things from getting out of control.

  I mended another link, joined another disconnected fiber, and Emily said, “So, when you’re done, then I have to figure out how to use it.”

  Behind closed eyes, I answered, “It won’t be as hard as you think. Once it’s there, you’ll know. It will be a part of you.”

  “And I’ll just break someone’s sway, and then we’ll go find a human to test it out on.”

  I shook my head, focusing hard on the smallest of the threads, the tiny fibers that coupled with her bond. “I don’t think that’s the best idea. We should probably keep this experiment in a controlled environment.”

  “So, you’re thinking order a pizza, snatch up the delivery guy?”

  I opened my eyes to look at her, face pinched and knee hopping with the rhythmic bounce of her foot. “I don’t know, Em. We’ll figure it out.” I wasn’t sure if she felt the urgency the way I felt it, or if it was just the idea of waiting when it was so close. I drew back, searching inside my own threads, suddenly convinced I’d been wrong about the bond with Aern. If its purpose was to protect him, then it didn’t make sense that I’d seen the fire in my visions. But I hesitated, because Emily had been gone in those visions, cut down before the flames tore through the city.

  “Bri,” Emily asked, “are you okay?”

  I shook my head absently. “Yeah, I just ... I think I need a break.”

  Aern checked his watch. “We’ve got a meeting at eleven, some of the Division men.” He glanced at Emily, back at me. “If you feel up to it.”

  I nodded, mentally binding one more piece in place before the process, the throbbing in my head, became too much.

  Aern gathered the documents, sliding them into one neat folder before crossing to Emily and me. He put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll have Ava send up some food. If there’s anything else you need …”

  “Thanks, and I’ll be fine.” The three of them tried to hide their concern, but I could feel it, suffocating. “Really,” I said. “Go do your thing.”

  The corner of Aern’s mouth turned up, and he gave my shoulder a pat before he and Emily left the room. Logan moved to sit beside me, drawing me against him for the twenty minutes or so I had for a nap.

  When I woke, there sandwiches and tea waited on a small white platter that sat on the end table, and my head was resting in his lap.

  “You’ve got about five minutes,” he said when I squinted one eye open to check. I squeezed it back shut, not quite recovered but not wanting to miss the meeting if there was a chance it would spark a vision.

  Logan ran a finger across my temple. “How’s your head?”

  “Better,” I promised. I wondered about Emily, if I’d made enough connections for her to feel the change. “Five minutes?”

  “They’ll wait on you.”

  “It’s all right. I can do it.” I sat up, pulling my hair into a low ponytail, and reached for a section of the quartered sandwich. “Logan, if this all works out, I’m going to lock myself in a room for a three-day sleep-cation.”

  He smiled, stretched a leg over the carpet. “I’m right there with you.”

  The others had already assembled in one of the conference rooms, a dozen or so Division soldiers including Kara, Seth, and Eric. They stood randomly scattered about the room, talking, but when Logan and I entered, they began making their way to the leather chairs that circled the dark glass table.

  Wesley surprised me by the door, his familiar face somehow changed, older in the few weeks I’d not seen him. I drew in a breath before greeting him.

  “Brianna.” His voice was more confident than I remembered, stronger despite the thin white scars that ran the length of his neck.

  I resisted the urge to reach out to him in front of our audience, to run a finger over what was left of the damage. “Wesley,” I whispered. “Are you okay?”

  He shrugged it off, his smile more of an assurance than any words could be, and I realized that he was here, at a meeting of Division and Council soldiers. My gaze flicked to Aern, scanned the room again, but I couldn’t determine exactly which team he was on, where he fit in. “Where’s Brendan?” I whispered.

  Wesley’s chin tilted down, the boy I’d known suddenly returning, and said, “He … well, he’s not really feeling up to this yet.”

  I stared into Wesley’s eyes, knowing the answer went deeper, his hesitation implying much more. I was struck with an image, something not quite a vision, not quite right. Brendan, head down as he sat at his desk, a desk at the Westlake house, waving off a fretful Ellin as she tried to offer him a cup of hot tea. His face was scarred, but not like Wesley’s. This was worse, much worse, as one side of his face and most of his ear was raw, even with the healing. I placed a hand absently over my cheek, as if feeling the damage, and Wesley nodded.

  There was something so off about the image that I couldn’t process it. It was not a vision, not the future. Not something that would come to pass. It was the impression of Brendan now, hurt worse than the healing could repair in the days since I’d been taken. It meant that he must have been near death when they’d found him.

  But it wasn’t a vision. And I didn’t know how it had gotten there.

  The others were watching us. Wesley laid a hand briefly on my arm before walking to his seat, leaving two chairs open at the head of the table beside Emily and Aern. I glanced at her, a silent inquiry abou
t her reaction to the changes I’d made, and she shrugged a shoulder, apparently not sure if she felt any different. I’d have to do more, there was something I’d missed.

  Aern was determined to do whatever he could to keep me safe, so he opened discussion without mention of our discovery, of our plans, merely allowing the others to relay the updates and information they and their teams had gathered. Morgan’s numbers were growing too big. He would have been hard to deal with even without the benefit of sway. But he did have that influence, which meant that every man, every soldier, would fight until the end, to whatever lengths Morgan had ordered them. However he had manipulated them.

  “It’s not just that,” Kara said. “He’s placing them in strategic locations around the city.” She dropped a map to the center of the table, dots spreading out and around the Council properties, near Division houses, and near any place unpopulated. Any place where the Seven would be free to fight without having to conceal themselves from the masses of unknowing, from the watching eyes of humans.

  My fingers tightened on the cold metal frame that supported the glass top table. He was collecting rundown properties, vacant lots that were no longer under the care, the watchful eyes, of the city. To build his army.

  “He’s getting close,” Seth said, his gaze skirting mine. No one was going to make predictions with me in the room, but that didn’t stop them from thinking it. Morgan was coming, and soon.

  “Let’s keep teams at these four locations,” Aern said, gesturing to points outside the Council gates. “Keep an eye on his movements, but don’t engage. We only want you to report what he’s up to.”

  “By then it will be too late,” Eric argued, “all we have to do is—”

  Aern cut him off, “We do not engage.”

  He wasn’t one to repeat an order, and the room fell silent. Eric said, “Sir.”

  When Eric leaned back, openly accepting the instruction, Aern looked to Kara. “I want your team outside the Westlake Properties.” She nodded, and by her solemn expression, I knew the vision, the impression I’d had, had been right about where Brendan was recovering. Aern didn’t take his eyes off her. “This is your call, Kara. But you have to know, if they descend too quickly, we won’t be able to get there in time.”