by Anne Hope
Lia cut through the circle of Watchers until she stood in front of Regan. “Listen to him,” she urged. “Cal might’ve gone about this the wrong way, but he knows more about souls than any of us. And he’s convinced Ben’s life-force could prove lethal.”
Maybe they were all right, but something within Regan compelled her to keep fighting the inevitable. A deep-seated compulsion drove her, drowning out the voice of reason and pushing her to see this through, no matter what.
“I can’t let Cal kill him.” She tightened her grip on the dagger, raised it defiantly. “I promised Ben I’d keep him safe. Please, Jace, don’t force me to fight you, too.”
“I won’t force you to fight me.” Her son exhaled long and hard, hanging his head in defeat. “I’m going to force you to save yourself.”
Her blood ran cold. “And how are you planning to do that?”
He captured her gaze, and everything within Regan recoiled in shock. “Drop your weapon,” he ordered.
His power took hold, slithered into her mind, as venomous as his betrayal. She fought against it, struggled to break the eye contact even as it ensnared her with its hypnotic power. Tears dampened her lashes, threatened to spill on to her cheeks. “Don’t do this, Jace. Please.”
His inner conflict scrolled across his face, a devastating duel that was painful to watch. “I order you to surrender.”
This time his suggestion took root, and the knife slipped from her fingers and clattered against the terracotta tiles. Taking advantage of Regan’s temporary brain freeze, one of the Watchers rammed a gloved hand into his pocket and yanked out a spool of copper wire, which he secured around her wrists. Their kind had a severe intolerance to copper. It sapped them of their strength, preventing them from using their unique abilities. Even if Regan hadn’t been weakened by angel’s blood, she would have been incapable of folding space.
“Why?” she asked Jace. “Why did you do this to me?” Acid tears throbbed behind her eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was the unstable souls she’d ingested or her son’s betrayal that threatened to open the floodgates, but whatever it was, it hurt like hell.
“Ask her where the boy is.” Regan wasn’t sure who had spoken the command, and she didn’t care.
“Please, Jace.” Her voice hitched. “Don’t make me betray Ben the way you just betrayed me.”
His face crumpled. “I’m sorry.” Remorse twisted his features, as did a steel-coated determination. “Last summer, you did everything you could to save me from my own pigheadedness. It’s time I return the favor, even if you end up hating me for it.” He took a deep breath. “Tell me where Ben is.”
A scream echoed from her throat, right before the words she fought to hold back spilled from her mouth. “At Adrian’s. Unit 12B.”
The dam broke, and Regan began to openly sob. “I trusted you.” It hurt to speak, but she did so anyway because some things had to be said. “More than anyone. I trusted you.”
Her son’s broken expression mirrored her own. A silent apology flickered in his eyes before he turned away. “I know.”
They came at him as one, six Watchers, their bloody blades poised and ready. Thomas was in the lead, his face an ugly grimace brimming with satisfaction. “You’re going down, Marcus. It’s time you accept it.”
Marcus had had enough of this ridiculous game. Ben was missing, Regan needed him, and he was out here engaged in a cock fight with a prick. Raising his hand, he sent a startled Thomas flying through the window of the house he’d just exited. The sound of glass shattering pierced the quiet morning. Broken shards rained down on the cobblestone walkway, glimmering as they caught the light.
The others continued to charge toward him, but he raised an invisible wall, trapping them within. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he told them. “So back off.”
With a ferocious growl, Thomas crawled out the window, pissed but unharmed. He briskly stripped off his leather jacket, which now dripped with angel’s blood. He’d been carrying an extra vial in his pocket, and the fall had broken it. The son of bitch had luck on his side. The thick leather had protected him from the burning effects of the blood. Extending his arm, he held the jacket as far from his body as possible. The reddish-brown substance fell like rain to splatter the broken glass.
Thomas noticed it, too. He dropped the jacket, a vicious smile cleaving his face. By the time Marcus realized what the bastard was planning, glass whizzed toward him at impossible speed. The shards slammed into him, cut him open, embedded themselves in his skin. He fell to his knees, flames licking the undersides of his flesh, heat traveling through his system to incapacitate him.
The world flitted in and out of focus. Marcus heard someone scream his name, raised his eyes to see Regan being dragged down the walkway, her hands bound. Sunlight kissed her hair, made it glow like the fire burning beneath his skin. He willed his eyes to stay open, but they failed to listen.
The flames consumed him, bringing with them disturbing flashes from the past. Memories of a powerful blaze ignited within him. Memories of Regan’s charred body sizzling beside his, of her skin melting to ash even as his own refused to burn.
Then his body went limp and blackness swept in to obliterate thought.
Chapter Forty-One
Back at Cascade Head, Regan paced outside Marcus’s old room at the complex, feeling like she’d just had the daylights pummeled out of her. Her own son had betrayed her, Ben had disappeared without a trace, and the man she loved was in there fighting for his life. How had things gone so terribly wrong?
“How’s he doing?” Jace came to stand beside her, talking to her like nothing was wrong, like he hadn’t just stabbed her in the back.
“I don’t know. Lia is still in there with him.” Using the catacombs Jace had resurrected, they’d carried Marcus back to the complex in a matter of minutes, and Lia had promptly gotten to work extracting the glass from his flesh. The Watchers Regan had injured were also slowly recovering, but none was in a worse state than Marcus.
“Any news on Ben?” Some of the Watchers had stayed behind to retrieve the boy, only to find Adrian’s townhouse deserted. She prayed Marcus had sensed the Watchers coming and had instructed Adrian to take the boy and flee.
“The Watchers have searched the entire townhouse development and surrounding areas. They’ve turned up nothing.”
Relief swept through her, followed by a slow throb of fear. What if she was wrong? What if Ben wasn’t with Adrian? What if someone else had abducted him, like the crazy angel woman who’d assaulted her?
“About what happened today—” Jace inched toward her, and Regan promptly took a step back. She needed him to understand that—even though she was speaking to him—all was not forgotten.
He got the message loud and clear. Pain and regret darkened his gaze to emerald green. “I hope one day you’ll understand why I did it.”
“I understand. I just can’t forgive you for it.”
The door to Marcus’s room swung open, and Lia walked out, wearing a bloodied lab coat and a sullen expression.
Regan approached her. Her throat suddenly grew so tight it hurt to swallow. “Marcus?” she rasped.
Lia gave her a reassuring nod. “He’s alive.” She rubbed her palm over her weary face. “I managed to remove the glass—thirty-six pieces in all. If we hadn’t traveled via the catacombs and I hadn’t gotten to work on him so quickly—” she shook her head, “—the prognosis wouldn’t have been good.”
Regan’s eyes burned, but she couldn’t bring herself to cry. “Can I see him?”
Compassion softened Lia’s features. “Sure, but he’s still unconscious. It could be days before he recovers fully.”
“I understand. I just need to be with him.” Regan swallowed past the bitter lump in her throat, wondering if she’d made a mistake revealing her affection for Marcus. In her world, affection equaled weakness. But right now, she didn’t give a damn. She had to see him, to hold his hand, to hear his heart beating and know he
was going to be all right.
Walking past Lia, she padded into the room, feeling Jace’s sad gaze on her back, ignoring the prickle of unease it elicited within her. The motherly urge to soothe his conscience gripped her, but she tamped it down. Her son’s well-deserved feelings of guilt were the least of her worries right now.
Cal had a difficult time wrapping his brain around everything that had transpired this past hour. A hodgepodge of information had come at him from different sources. As predicted, Jace had disobeyed a direct order and had used his abilities to rebuild the catacombs, making his way to Spokane in time to intercept Cal’s team. Marcus had gotten injured in battle, and Thomas had been the one to incapacitate him. Most worrisome of all, Ben had gone missing, and the Watchers were no closer to locating him.
If Kyros were to get his hands on the boy…
He dialed Thomas’s cell phone. With Marcus down for the count, the young tracker was the only hope they had of finding Ben. When the phone call went unanswered, a foretelling chill skated down his back. Something was wrong. He sensed it in the very fabric of his composition.
Burying the phone in his pocket, he headed toward Marcus’s room to check on his progress. He didn’t want to have to rely on Marcus to find Ben, not after everything that had transpired between them, but he was well aware that he might not have a choice.
He’d barely walked five paces when the air splintered. Lillith stood before him, her eyes flashing fire, her waxen face set in a tenacious frown. “I was too late,” she ranted. “He’s got him.”
Cal scanned the corridor to ensure they were alone. The last thing he needed was for one of his recruits to catch him conversing with an angel. “Who’s got him? What do you know?”
“Micah,” she screeched, her voice echoing off the steel walls. “He got to Spokane first. He took the boy. Now he’s going to hand him over to Kyros, and all will be lost.”
“Calm down, Lillith. How do you know it was Micah?”
A tremor shook her bone-thin body. “I sensed him. Sensed his energy.” She made a high-pitched keening sound deep in her throat, and Cal tossed another furtive glance over his shoulder, hoping no one approached. “We have to stop him!”
“We won’t accomplish anything by panicking. We need to think, to come up with an action plan.”
Lillith couldn’t have looked more stunned had he slapped her. “Haven’t you wasted enough time already? You’re to blame for this. Had you acted sooner, we wouldn’t be in this wretched situation.”
Cal labored to remain calm. “Casting blame isn’t going to help us find the boy.”
“Nor is standing around coddling the very people who stole him in the first place. Tell me, Cal, if you’re such a fierce leader, why are the traitors still breathing?”
“Because we need them. Marcus is the best tracker we’ve got.” The only tracker, he amended, assuming his suspicions about Thomas were correct. He met her virulent stare, ignored the contempt sizzling within it. “If you want to do something, Lillith, I suggest you pray.” He exhaled a slow string of air. “Pray that Marcus recovers in time to lead us to the boy.”
“I stopped praying the day my wings were clipped,” she spat, looking appalled that he’d even suggest such a thing. “I was wrong to come to you, Cal. You’ve grown tolerant, weak. All these centuries living among the humans have corrupted you. If I didn’t know better I’d say you’ve become one of them.” She studied him with an odd blend of curiosity and disgust, as though she didn’t know what to make of him. “I refuse to listen to your platitudes any longer. I’ll find the boy myself.”
Lillith vanished as quickly as she’d appeared, leaving Cal with a sinking feeling in his abdomen and a sour taste in his mouth. Everything had snowballed out of control.
His cell phone chimed, and he fished it out of his pocket. Unfortunately, the caller only confirmed what Cal had already predicted. Thomas was dead, which meant Marcus was the only decent tracker he had left.
Marcus lay on the narrow bed, his eyes closed, his face pale and expressionless. A cold stiffness invaded Regan’s lungs at the sight of him. She’d never seen him look so meek and defenseless before. The image was so fundamentally wrong, it robbed her of both breath and thought.
His torso was stripped bare, revealing several thin red scars, which glistened in the light. His clothes had been shorn off and lay in a bloody heap by the door. A flash of color caught her attention, and she bent over and picked up the object that had fallen out of Marcus’s pocket. It was one of Ben’s mini-figures. She cradled the toy in her hand and closed her eyes against the sharp stab of pain that assailed her.
Pocketing the figure, she approached the bed and sat on the mattress next to Marcus, tenderly touching his cheek. “It’s me. Regan. I’m here.” She traced the sharp angle of his jaw, let her hand glide down his throat to settle over his heart.
The door creaked open. Convinced Lia had returned to check on her patient, Regan didn’t bother to look up, her attention fastened to Marcus.
“How is he doing?” Cal’s voice shook her out of her stupor, and she directed a startled glance his way. He stood in the doorway, tall, blond and oddly deflated.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but Lia says he’ll live.”
Her biting comment hit home, and Cal’s mercurial gaze darkened, taking on the quality of a thundercloud. “Despite what you believe, I never wished either of you any harm.”
Regan laughed, a dry, brittle sound that scratched her throat. “Could’ve fooled me.”
He approached the bed. Worry had taken a toll on him. She saw it in the deepening shadows on his face, the tired lines around his mouth, the concern straining his eyes. For a second she almost believed he’d been telling the truth when he’d said he hadn’t wished to see them hurt. Then she remembered the relentless troops he’d continuously sent their way, armed and ready to kill.
“If you care so damn much about our well-being, why’d you put that asshole Thomas on our tail?”
“Because with Marcus gone, he was the only tracker I had at my disposal, the only one who could find you.” Beneath that marble veneer, an undercurrent of regret marred his picture-perfect features. “And I needed you found.”
“What about the order to kill us if we resisted?”
“You left me no choice.” His tone shook with disappointment and a trace of indignation. “Mutiny cannot be condoned, regardless of who is committing the act. I kept hoping you’d come to your senses and return of your own free will, but sadly that didn’t happen.”
“How could we, when you refuse to listen to reason?”
He sighed, the fight going out of him. “I’ve existed for a very long time, Regan. I’ve seen things. Things you can’t even fathom. My tactics may appear heavy-handed at times, perhaps even cruel, but believe me when I tell you, they’re necessary.”
“What are your plans for us now?” She couldn’t help it. She had to ask. “Are we to be made an example of?”
“It all depends.”
“On what?”
“On how willing you are to cooperate.”
She scrunched her forehead, confused. “Cooperate how?”
“I need you to help Marcus get back on his feet. You and he have always had an impressive ability to heal each other. That’s why I made you partners. I want you to use that ability now.”
“Why the sudden rush?”
He rubbed a hand over his face, exhaled a laborious breath. “I think I know who took Ben.” His piercing gaze met hers, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach. “Micah, the angel of divine intervention,” he explained. “If my source is correct, he plans to deliver the boy to Kyros.”
Till now, Regan had harbored the delusional hope that Adrian had Ben. Suddenly, even that small measure of comfort was gone. “We have to stop him.”
“We finally agree on something,” Cal said. “But before we can stop Micah, we have to find him. The only way to do that is for Marcus to track Ben.”
&nb
sp; That was the last thing she’d expected him to say. Why would Cal turn to Marcus for help, a man he now considered a traitor? “What’s the matter? Did the golden boy let you down?”
Cal’s face crumpled. “I just got a call from Spokane. Thomas was murdered. Based on the description I was given, I’d say Adrian committed the act.”
Marcus’s son was growing on her by the minute. “Can’t say I’m heartbroken.” Her only regret was that she hadn’t gotten the chance to kill the bastard herself, after what he’d done to Marcus.
An idea suddenly sparked in her mind. “Adrian! He’s Marcus’s son. From what I hear, he’s a pretty good tracker.”
“He’s also quite gifted at evasion. Believe me, if he doesn’t want to be found, we won’t find him. The Watchers have combed every inch of the woods surrounding the townhouse development. There’s no sign of him. After what happened today, it may be a while before he surfaces again, if ever.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. I specifically instructed Thomas and the others not to use force unless they absolutely had to. But it appears several of Adrian’s recruits were killed.”
Regan closed her eyes against the bitter regret that expanded within her. “What did you expect, putting Thomas in charge?”
Cal didn’t answer. He was too busy gazing down at Marcus, who remained completely unresponsive. “I hope he awakens soon.”
“I’m not sure how to help him,” she voiced honestly.
“Just sit with him. Right now, you’re his best chance at recovery.”
“Why is that?” That question had harassed her for years, but she’d never mustered up the courage to ask it before today. “What makes us so effective at helping each other heal? I always thought it was the Watchers’ bond, but now I’m not so sure.”
She ran her hand down the length of Marcus’s body, allowed her fingers to merge with his. The second their palms met, familiar heat flared between them, and her skin prickled in response. “There’s this energy between us,” she confessed. “It flows whenever we touch.”