House of Leights (Secret Keepers series Book 3)

by Jaymin Eve

  13

  I thought I heard Lexen shout something after us, but we were too far away at that point to hear him clearly. Probably he was annoyed that we hadn’t waited for him, but it was Chase and Daniel. There was nothing to worry about.

  The pair had stopped just inside the gate, waiting for us. The fact that I was running to him should have embarrassed me, but it didn’t. Something had snapped inside of me when we left Chase behind. Whatever fear I had been harboring about fate arranging these connections between the secret keepers and overlords had dissipated with the thought that I might never see Chase again. It was a primal urge I had now, to explore this bond between us.

  It was weird. I could admit that, but honestly, after everything that had happened over the last few days, weird was all starting to feel like a new normal.

  “They look fine, right?” Callie’s long legs were eating up the distance, and she didn’t sound at all winded.

  Meanwhile, I was dying trying to keep up with her. It was basically a sprint pace I had to set. “I - I think so,” I spluttered out. “Why aren’t they moving though?”

  I wasn’t sure at what point I realized that this wasn’t going to be the happy ending I envisioned. But I definitely knew it when I ran into Chase’s arms. There was no stomach flip, no clenching of my chest and fizzing of energy in my blood.

  Not Chase.

  I shouted and started to struggle, but the fake Chase already had his arms wrapped around me. There was a burning pain across my biceps, but I didn’t let that stop me. Callie let out a muffled scream next to me, then she started throwing punches, kicking out with long straight strikes.

  The guy holding me cursed, distracting me from the awesome that was Callie. “Stop moving, you stupid grubber bitch.”

  Yeah, okay, whatever you say. I struggled harder, trying to recall what we’d learned in self-defense classes last year at school. With a larger attacker … stomp foot, knee groin, palm up into throat or nose.

  All of these needed to happen pretty much in the same instant, and that’s exactly what I did. The crunch of his nose was satisfying, even though it kind of hurt my heart to see Chase’s face bleeding and broken like that. He let out a roar and shoved me away, sending me flying back.

  Gravel bit into my palms, and in that same moment heat burst from Callie – past her worry about killing assholes by the look of it. The guy who’d grabbed me took off, but Callie had her hands on the other one. Her hands were the only part of her body not on fire, but judging by his screams, they were still hot enough to burn into his skin as she held him. “Where are Daniel and Chase? What did you do with them?” she shouted into his face, shaking him despite his size.

  I jumped to my feet, wincing at the new pains ricocheting across my body. I had no idea what to do. Getting closer to Callie seemed like a very bad idea. Her flames were flaring in an unstable pattern.

  Luckily Lexen was here now.

  “Callie!” That word was a bite of command. “You have to let him go. We can’t find out what he knows if he’s dead.”

  Emma was at my side then, running a hand across the grazes that decorated my skin. “Are you okay?” she asked, but I didn’t answer, too busy trying to see what was about to happen.

  Fireball Callie turned to Lexen, and it was the most insane thing I had ever seen. Her eyes were swirling red, like lava. “This is how they tricked me last time,” she said, her voice shaking with rage. “The one impersonating my mom told me that they could grow skin from a single cell. Does it mean they have Daniel and Chase?”

  Lexen took a step closer and Emma’s hold on my arm tightened. She didn’t like him getting that close. “No, it takes at least a week to grow a skin. Laous must have taken cells from all of us at one point or another.” He paused. “Actually, we all had to go for a healer scan when the overlord minors were first sent to Astoria. The process was overseen by Laous.” His lips pressed together. “No doubt another part of the reason he got us all sent here.”

  Callie must have almost burnt the guy’s wrists to the bones at this point; he was just whimpering now, no longer fighting her. With a huge burst of exhaled air, her flames disappeared as she let him fall away. Lexen stepped forward, reaching down to feel for a pulse. “He’s alive,” he said as he turned to us. “Once we get him back to House of Darken, the healers can fix him up so that we can question him.”

  I still didn’t want to leave, but I wouldn’t fight Lexen again – no one could say that I didn’t learn from my mistakes. I’d just have to hope and pray that Chase was not far behind us.

  Lexen hauled the guy up off the ground and then turned around. “I’m going to have to check the guardhouse,” he said, face grim. “There should have been security out here by now.” His eyes met Emma’s.

  “Ace?” she said, sounding like she was going to cry.

  “Just stay close,” Lexen replied.

  There was a small booth on the side of the gate, one which looked like it would seat two guards. There was no one visible through the glass window; Lexen continued around until he got to the door. A foul smell hit me just as Lexen stepped forward and blocked the view from the rest of us.

  “Lex…” Emma reached out and touched his shoulder.

  His head lowered as he stepped to the side. Emma’s muffled cry was enough to tell us everything. The two guards were on the floor, half draped over each other, congealed blood pooled all around them. They were clearly dead, eyes staring unseeingly; the stench increased exponentially at that point.

  One of the guards was young, African American. The other was older, with a gruff face, and wiry gray hair. “How long have they been dead?” Emma asked, her hand pressed to her chest.

  “A few hours,” Lexen replied, voice low. “Which means they were waiting here for us even before we left the cabin.”

  This Laous seemed to be a planner. The bastard.

  Emma knelt down, her hand hovering just above the face of the younger man. “Ace was a really nice guy,” she choked out. “Helped me when I first moved here. Got a message to Lexen’s family so that my guardians were protected.”

  She broke off as she sobbed a few times, sucking in some deep breaths. I couldn’t see her face because of the way she was crouching, but I could see Lexen’s. He was doing that scary thing again. Dropping the Daelighter he held – pretty much on his head, because he was clearly way past giving a shit – he reached down and lifted Emma, holding her together as she sobbed.

  “First my parents…” Her next words were lost in more sobs. “Then Marsil, and now Ace and this other poor security guard … who is next, Lex? Who will he take from us?” She shuddered. “Thank God, Sara and Michael are away on business.”

  I felt my own eyes grow hot and damp. Seeing her devastation, her fears were my fears, but she’d already had those she loved taken from her. Callie stepped up and stood by my side, not saying anything, heat still shimmering in the air around her.

  Lexen shook as a rumble of anger emerged. “No one else will die.” His voice was low, controlled, and icy. “I’m going to kill Laous the next time I see him. He’s dead. End of his story.”

  After another moment of Lexen stroking a hand up and down her spine, murmuring words I couldn’t hear, Emma calmed herself. By the time he set her back on her feet and picked up the still unconscious and burned Daelighter, there was determination crossing Emma’s tearstained face.

  “We need to go now,” she growled, mimicking her mate. “Let’s get this asshole healed enough to hurt him some more.”

  Lexen hit a button to close the gates, then we all hurried through before it shut on us. “What are you going to do about the guards?” I asked, hurrying to keep up. Callie remained silent, her expression unreadable. I expected she was both worried about Daniel and trying to deal with the fact she’d hurt someone again.

  “Most of the police are on our payroll.” Lexen’s words were clipped. “We’ll let them know what happened. They’ll take care of it.”

&
nbsp; “My father should be able to help,” I added, realizing this was probably part of his job. Covering these things up. “Call his office or something. Once he gets back to Earth.”

  “Yes,” Lexen agreed, falling silent.

  The rest of the journey along Daelight Crescent was a subdued one. Emma marched ahead, her eyes shiny. Callie was silent and hot. Whatever flames existed inside of her, they were bubbling just under the surface. And I was having a mini-breakdown. I just really needed Chase to get here, so I could stop imagining him with his throat cut, bleeding his precious life back into the trees he came from.

  My morbid thoughts cut off when we reached the end of the street and turned down a lane covered in roses and vines. They were dense on top, trailing down the sides to form a barrier.

  “I’d kill for some coffee,” Callie muttered randomly, breaking the tense silence.

  I couldn’t help but smile. “What’s your favorite?” I asked. I wasn’t a huge coffee drinker, but I enjoyed a macchiato at times.

  “Café au lait from Café du Monde in my favorite city, New Orleans.” Her voice was wistful.

  My smile grew. “I went there on vacation once, with my family. They weren’t around a lot, but we tried to do a family vacay once a year. We ate beignets in Café du Monde almost every day.”

  Some of the blankness left her face then. She turned toward me, and as her eyes ran down me, she jolted.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You do realize you’re covered in blood, right?” she said, voice low.

  Emma and Lexen stopped, looking me over as well. “I only got a bit scraped up,” I muttered, even though the injury in my arm felt a bit more than “scraped.”

  I lifted the hand on my injured arm, surprised by the red on my palm. Pushing up the sleeves of my dark sweater, I felt a little faint at the sight of a thick line of red running down it. “That’s more blood than I expected,” I murmured.

  “What happened to your arm?” Lexen asked.

  I held it closer to me, feeling very protective because all of a sudden it felt really painful. “I don’t know. The guy who grabbed me dug his nails in or something. My arm hurt right after he touched me.”

  I was probably going to get tetanus from that piece of crap.

  Lexen reached out and I didn’t flinch, which was an improvement from the last time he tried to touch me. I’d mostly forgiven him, especially since he had been correct about the dangers. Not that it gave him a right to grab me, but he’d apologized for that.

  His hand skimmed across to the neckline of my sweater. He pushed it to the side just enough to see my shoulder.

  “Not nails,” he said. “You’ve been cut. It’s deep.”

  Swallowing hard, it felt like the pain shot to another new height then. “Why would he cut me? Was he trying to injure me so I couldn’t fight?”

  Lexen and Emma exchanged a look. I clicked in a second later. “He took my blood for Laous, didn’t he?” I was such an idiot. I’d basically handed it over to them without a thought. “That’s why he ran off so quickly and didn’t try to help his friend.”

  Callie spun. “Should we go after him?”

  Lexen shook his head. “No point. They were organized. He’ll be long gone.”

  “I thought Laous wanted us?” Emma sounded weary, her anger fading away. “So why has he given up so easily?”

  “Getting Maya’s blood would be the priority for him. If they managed to capture her, or any of you as well, it would just be a bonus.”

  At least teaming up … bonding … whatever was happening with the secret keepers and four overlords, was making it harder for Laous to just scoop us up. Maybe fate had thought this plan through.

  “We need to move again,” Lexen said. “Maya is losing blood. She needs a healer.”

  My legs were a little wobbly at this point, but I was blaming it on adrenalin crash. The blood loss, though, probably didn’t help. As we continued along the rose covered path, a light at the end caught my eye. It was hard to see exactly what it was at first, but as my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I … still had no idea what I was looking at.

  “That’s a transporter,” Emma answered my unspoken slack-jawed question. “This is the permanent one which connects Earth and Overworld.”

  The transporter appeared to be made up of a million strings of light. Or something close to that number. They were intertwined with each other, moving constantly, with ends shooting off at random intervals.

  “It’s going to be difficult for me to take the three of you across,” Lexen warned. “But I think it’s worth the risk. Leaving any of you behind is not an option, not with Laous and his resistance members out there.”

  “What makes it difficult?” Callie asked. “What could happen?”

  Lexen adjusted the guy over his shoulder. “The path between Earth and Overworld is not that easy to navigate. If you lose contact with me, you might be lost forever. I know the transporter looks like a straight line, but that’s only because I’ve connected to Overworld. If I let that go, we’d be adrift in a place with an infinite amount of destinations.”

  Emma let out a sound of alarm. “How could you not tell me that? I could have accidentally let go of you, and then I’d be stuck wandering in space forever?”

  Lexen shook his head, one side of his lips quirking up. “Not forever. You’d die of hunger long before that.”

  She smacked him on the arm, and I was happy to see some color returning to her face. She’d been so pale and quiet since we found the dead guards.

  “Are you sure it’s worth the risk?” she asked, more serious.

  I didn’t like the fact he hesitated first, before nodding. “I believe this is the better of the two choices, but there’s no guarantee.”

  Emma turned to me and Callie. “I trust Lexen. But I think we should put it to a vote. Are you two okay with taking the risk and all three of us holding on to Lexen as we cross?”

  Being lost in space until I starved didn’t sound like a fun time, but I also didn’t want to stay here on my own until Lexen came back for me. What if there was something dangerous going on in Overworld? He might never come back for me. What if Chase was somehow already in Overworld?

  “I’m in,” I told her. “I should have listened to Lexen before when he warned me it was too dangerous to stay here. This time let’s go with his instincts.”

  Callie also agreed, so the three of us stepped closer. Lexen took Emma’s hand with his right, Callie then took Emma’s other hand, and I grabbed Callie’s. We were a chain, and before I could ask what happened next, Lexen reached out with his free hand, latching on to one of the strings of lights.

  With a jerk, I was pulled off my feet and the world disappeared. I was hurtling into a long tunnel of darkness and light. At first I freaked out, my mind all like “What the hell is happening here?” – especially since it appeared we were racing along the tunnel without having to walk or move our feet. My stomach was in knots, but after a few moments, I started to enjoy the experience. It was like one of those carnival rides where you pretend you’re spacewalking, using a harness to jump your way along a dark tunnel.

  Only this time there was no harness. And it was real spacewalking.

  Okay, so nothing really like a carnival ride, but if I kept my thoughts on an experience that was familiar, I didn’t freak out as bad. It was silent in the transporter, although there was the faintest white noise in my ears. I couldn’t see what was at the end, because it was just very bright, but my body felt eager to get there. Like I was being called … pulled.

  Could it be House of Leights? Was I remembering the place I was born? Were the trees calling me? At some point I forgot that it was important not to let go of Callie. When she squeezed my hand, I jerked, and in slow-motion turned to her. Her face was painted in shock and horror. “What?” I tried to speak but ended up mouthing the words because there was no sound.

  Her eyes darted down to our hands, and I focused there as well. No!
Oh crap.

  Only the very tips of our fingers were still joined. In my fascination with whatever called me at the end of this tunnel, I’d started to slip away from her. The bright light at the end was close, thankfully, so I just had to hold on for a few more seconds.

  I slipped again, and only my index finger remained linked with hers. I tried to reach out for more leverage, but I couldn’t get any more grip. We were literally being pulled apart, like suction was on either end. Another little slip and silent screams ripped from me.

  One final slip, and then I was hurtling away into the endless darkness.

  14

  Panic took longer than it should have to crash into me. At first I was spiraling. Then there was some disorientation. Then there was panic. As the out-of-control spinning stopped, the world around me stabilized. My head cleared as I began to drift along in darkness. After some time, the darkness didn’t seem quite as … eternal. There were these tiny pinpricks of light, which appeared to be very far away, and somehow at the same time seemed like I could reach out and touch them. Nothing made sense in this place, not distance, or time, or emotion.

  You’re going to die.

  This voice of reason woke me up to the serious nature of my predicament. I was going to die. I would literally float along in this darkness until my body ceased to function. It was so unfair. I’d just found out the world was bigger than I ever expected, and I hadn’t explored more than a tiny percentage. I hadn’t seen the land of my birth. I hadn’t … I hadn’t kissed Chase. That hurt more than anything.

  House of Leights had been so close…

  One of the lights in the distance burned a little brighter, catching my eye. By instinct, I reached for it, but the light faded before I could touch it, and I was again just floating along in the nothingness. Despite logic telling me otherwise, I refused to give up this quickly, so I started to experiment, figure out what I could do while I drifted. Obviously doorways could be opened from here, because Lexen had said there were infinite possibilities of travelling to other places. So how did I get one to open?