by Jaymin Eve
I realized then why he seemed familiar – he kind of looked like Daniel. Less rugged, more attitude, but there were similarities. I tilted my head up and mouthed “brother?” to Chase, and he nodded once.
“I’m here because I think we need to talk,” Fraizer said, crossing his arms over his chest. His stance was relaxed, legs slightly spread, boots firmly planted. But there was uneasiness in the way he held his shoulders, tension there that betrayed his confident persona.
Jero took a threatening step forward. “There is nothing you could say which we want to hear. So I guess you’ve come here to die.”
Lexen reached out and grabbed his brother, but Jero threw that hand off with a violent jerk. “He was part of the group which killed Marsil,” Jero said, followed by a string of hurled curse words. “He needs to die.”
Daniel didn’t say anything, and the look on his face was difficult to interpret. There was clearly no love between him and Fraizer, but he also didn’t look ready to join the lynching squad.
“I didn’t kill Marsil,” Fraizer protested. “I was there to try and stop it all from happening. I hoped to let you all know beforehand, but as usual, no one was interested in what I had to say.”
“You tried to contact me through the network,” Daniel said out of nowhere. “On the day Marsil was killed.”
When Fraizer turned to his brother, there was a crap-ton of anger in those narrowed eyes. “Even though you don’t deserve it, I was trying to keep you from getting killed. For Mom.”
Daniel’s face shuttered, and I saw the look Callie threw in his direction. Their mom was definitely a sore point.
“Aren’t you on Laous’ side?” Lexen drawled, a hint of death in those words. “Now you expect us to believe you have switched sides … that you were there on the day Marsil was murdered because you wanted to warn us?”
Fraizer let out a huff of air, his cheeks puffing out. “At first Laous offered me what I wanted, a chance to belong. He is family, after all, and I have always been sorely lacking in that department.” Another side eye at Daniel. “But … our goals are no longer the same. I don’t want … if we break the treaty everyone will suffer, and … I don’t think my parents would be proud of the way I acted, so I’m trying to make amends.” He looked between all of us. “He’s on the way now to find the last secret keeper, so I came to the only ones with the power to stop him.”
The silence felt heavy. No one seemed to know what to say.
“Where is Laous going to try and find the final keeper?” Daniel finally asked him.
“Hawaii,” Fraizer said without hesitation. “He’s heading across with some of his trusted inner circle as we speak.”
Daniel’s question had been a test, to see if Fraizer was actually speaking any truth at all. He’d passed the first step, confirming the location I’d gotten in the network.
“How did you even know we were in House of Darken?” Chase asked.
“Laous knows where you are,” Fraizer replied quickly. “When he had Callie the second time, he took her to House of Imperial and planted a tracker just under her skin. Near her right ear.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Callie stomped her foot hard, letting a ton of swearwords drop, and then she headed toward Fraizer. “Let me kill him. Seriously.”
“It wasn’t me!” Fraizer protested again. “Ever since Laous hooked up with the humans, he’s gone even crazier. A lot of the technology he’s using, private planes and all that, comes from this group called Gonzo.”
I stilled, an instant feeling of revulsion washing over me. “I know that group,” I told them; every face turned in my direction then. “My parents often talked about how they were an anti-government extremist group who want to ditch the current democratic way of running our country. They want to bring in rule by the people.”
“They want anarchy?” Emma asked.
I nodded. “Yep, they believe that if they break down the entire way America is governed, raze it to the ground, then they can rebuild as something much stronger. Less corrupt.”
“But in doing so, they’re willing to sacrifice millions of innocent lives,” Callie guessed.
I nodded again. “Yes, it must be a big deal because my parents were rarely ever able to speak about their jobs and lives. It was classified above top secret, because of …” I shrugged. “The alien thing. But they did mention this group more than once. They wanted to warn me. Apparently they have people stationed everywhere, even in high schools.”
“The human is right, they’re bad news,” Fraizer confirmed. “Connected. Rich. And ruthless. They’re on the way to Hawaii with Laous to track this girl down. If they get to her before you all do, then it’s game over.”
Urgency thrummed through our group again. I wasn’t sure about the rest of them, but I was ready for action. We needed to go now. “Give me a second to set up a temporary transporter back to Earth,” Lexen said.
Before anyone could reply, his eyes were already doing that faraway stare thing as he went into the network. I focused on the ground as well, remembering how I followed the light down. The longer I stared, the more the grass and rocky ground faded away, before it flickered back and forth between darkness and reality. Ohhh, now I understood what they meant about the first time being the hardest. Because the path was easy to follow now, I just needed to … switch my mind across.
Lexen’s focus returned in about thirty seconds. Lights swirled up from the ground in front of him, slow and singular at first, but after another twenty seconds a full transporter was there. “Okay, I’ve informed the council and they’re sending backup across to Hawaii,” he told the group. “But that will take them a few hours to organize, so we’re heading there first. This transporter will take us back to the main one in the platform.”
“What are we going to do about Fraizer?” Daniel asked. He seemed to be avoiding looking at his brother, who in turn was avoiding looking at Daniel.
“This has got to end!” Callie threw her hands up in front of her, exasperation in her voice. “You two need to bury this bad blood between you. Have you both forgotten that you have another brother in Laous’ hands, one who I don’t believe is a bad guy? He just needs someone to give a damn about him.”
Daniel’s face was blank, but the corners of his lips were twitching, along with his eye. He was upset. I had no doubt about it at all.
Fraizer, on the other hand, wore a mask of confusion. “What brother?”
Daniel answered him. “Rao. He’s our brother, not Laous’ son.”
I’d never seen color drain from a person’s face so quickly. Fraizer took a step forward and threw a swing at Daniel. The Imperial overlord had a split-second to try to avoid the hit. He didn’t though. He let his brother’s fist connect.
As Daniel’s head snapped back, Fraizer shouted, “This is all your fault. You let our goddamn family fall apart. You should be the one trapped in Laous’ web of lies, not Rao.”
Callie stepped forward, putting herself between the two of them. That was the first time Daniel had showed a strong emotion, his arms coming out to cage his mate as he pulled her away from Fraizer.
“You’re right,” Daniel admitted, fire in his eyes. “I have failed our family. I’m sorry I blamed you for what happened to Mom. I’m sorry that this all went to hell. But right now all the sorrys in the world don’t mean shit. You don’t trust me. I don’t trust you. And none of us have time to try and deal with it.”
“You’re not going to Hawaii without me,” Fraizer muttered. “Not now I know I have a brother to save. Rao is a good Daelighter who has had to do some really fucked-up things for Laous. And with his abilities, there’s no way Laous will ever let him go.”
“What can he do?” Emma asked, trying to sneak in under Lexen’s arm to see better.
Daniel shrugged. “No idea.”
Fraizer, who still had his fists clenched, chest heaving, snarled. “He’s a soothsayer. He can see events before they happen. He has dreams. This has al
lowed Laous to be a step ahead of the rest of you morons. If you’d rescued Rao early on, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“We didn’t know he was alive,” Daniel retorted harshly, losing whatever control he had on his temper. “I only just found out.”
That took some of the fire out of Fraizer. “Rao was the one who told him how to become Overlord by killing our father.” His voice was quieter now. “He also told him how to find the first secret keeper. He saw it all before it happened.”
After Fraizer said this, Emma stiffened, her face pale. Her parents had been killed by Laous.
“Did he really kill my mom?” Callie interrupted, sounding like she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to know.
Fraizer hesitated. “It was a heart attack, I think. He burned her body after. To hide the evidence.”
Callie’s face didn’t change; there was no grief in her expression, but she did seem to shrink in on herself.
Xander, who had barely spoken since we came out of the network, said, “I know this timing is not good, but the plane is ready. The pilot is waiting for us at the private airfield near Astoria.”
“You guys have a private plane?” I blurted out. How rich were they?
“I have three,” Lexen said with a shrug.
“Same,” Xander added.
Daniel just smirked. “Imperial Exports has dozens, but I have three for my personal use.”
Blinking slowly, I turned to look at Chase. “Please don’t tell me you have three planes as well.”
The other overlords laughed then, and I let out a low sigh of relief. I should have known that he wouldn’t be like the others. He cared about nature and trees and things that stayed on the ground.
Chase’s smile was a little crooked as he reached out and brushed his thumb against my cheek. “My family has hundreds of planes,” he told me. “We own one of the largest commercial airlines in the world. You might have heard of Air Starleight, the one which runs almost completely without emissions. We put a lot of money back into the environment so technology doesn’t completely destroy Earth.”
“Hundreds…” I trailed off. “How much money do you four have?”
That might have been a rude question. I had no idea if they were secretive about money here like a lot of humans were.
Chase didn’t hesitate to reply: “On Earth, our net worth is in the billions. Both individually and collectively. Our families own a lot of the major industries, companies, banking, and oil. We use the money to make sure that things run smoothly for Daelighters on Earth.”
Before I could freak the hell out, Lexen added, “In Overworld, we don’t use money, not in the same way humans do. The overlord families are supposed to provide for our people, and in return the people keep our communities running smoothly. There are some barter systems. The overlord families obviously have help to run their homes and such, but we are expected to keep our people safe, fed, and somewhat happy. That’s how our world works.”
If Earth focused more on keeping people happy rather than making money, I think things would be very different there. Meanwhile … I’d just learned I was bonded to a billionaire who owned more private planes than I owned socks. When did this become my life?
“I’m still the same guy,” Chase reminded me. My expression was not doing a good job of hiding my shock. A grin split his face. “I think you took it better when you found out about aliens.”
A snort of laughter left me. Emma and Callie joined in. It almost felt cathartic after all of the tension. Fraizer even smiled, while still looking uncomfortable, standing off to the side of the main group. “I’ve never lacked for money,” I said, still chuckling. “But it never occurred to me even once that you all would have so much … Earth currency. I guess I should have realized. After all, you’ve entrenched your lives in our world deeply. The bigger picture is starting to come together.”
Chase wrapped an arm around me and my body went willingly to him. As did my heart.
“You’ll never want for anything that cold hard cash can buy,” Chase said, low in my ear. “What’s mine is yours. If you have any charities you want to donate to, just tell me. Properties you want to purchase for us to live in, I can do that.”
I loved that he’d mentioned charities first. I went up on tiptoes and he lowered himself down so I could reach his lips. “Thank you,” I said as I pulled back. “I have a ton of charities I love supporting, and … I’d really love if we could set up a little center near where I used to live. There are so many kids and single moms there trying to escape domestic abuse. They’re homeless, living in their cars. I talked to my parents about trying to do something, but there was never time.”
Gracie, my nanny, had come from a domestic abuse situation. Luckily, she reached out to my father, an old friend of hers from school. He gave her a job and place to live. She said if it wasn’t for us, she would have ended up on the streets. Her husband took everything from her. I had a special place in my heart for women and children who were in that situation.
“As soon as Laous becomes nothing more than a bad memory, we will set up your shelter,” Chase promised.
Thank you, I mouthed to him, too overcome to speak out loud.
I pulled myself together then as Lexen started moving toward the transporter. Looked like it was time to go. Everyone followed, except for Fraizer, who didn’t seem to know what to do. “Come on,” Daniel told him, not sounding happy about it.
“Wait,” Callie called from the back of the group. “What about the tracker? We need to get it out of me immediately. On the off chance that Laous doesn’t know where the fourth is yet, we can’t lead him to her.”
I’d temporarily forgotten about that uncomfortable little fact. Callie clearly hadn’t, and I could not blame her. The thought of someone putting something inside her body while she was unconscious … the vulnerability of someone taking advantage of that … made me really angry on her behalf.
Daniel reached out to her, his hand wrapping around her face as he probed behind her ear. It took him about a minute to find the device.
“Get it out,” she said without hesitation. “Just cut the damn thing out, Dan.”
His nostrils flared slightly, and I saw his hands flinch. “I don’t think I can cut you. But I also don’t trust anyone else to do it.”
She reached forward and grabbed onto his face, pulling his head down to hers. “Daniel Imperial, you will cut this thing out of me immediately. I know you can do this, and I trust you with my life.” She whispered, but I still heard her say, “You’ve saved my life already, more than once. You will not hurt me.”
Daniel pressed his lips to hers once, hard, and then pulled back with a harsh breath. He released Callie’s face and took a step back, reaching down to lift up the leg of his pants. He pulled a small blade from a sheath. It was dagger-shaped, looking razor sharp as it glinted in the light.
He glanced toward Lexen and Chase, who were closest. “Can you hold her still? If she flinches, I might cut deeper than I intend to.”
The pair stepped up on either side of the blond girl, who remained calm, even though she was about to be operated on without any pain relief.
Daniel brushed her hair to the side. “I’m going to need you to tilt your head as far as you can.” He demonstrated what he wanted, and when she immediately followed his instructions, he leaned closer.
“I will tell you when I’m about to cut.” His voice was very graveled. “Try not to move.”
From my angle, it looked like Callie rolled her eyes. “I’ve been cut before, Daniel. I’ll be able to handle it, don’t you worry.”
Her assurance did not lessen the worry he wore. His hand remained steady, though, as he brought the deadly blade to her neck. “Cutting now,” he said.
It seemed like he’d only lowered the knife for a split second before he was lifting it again, blood noticeable on the tip. Callie did not move, but she had closed her eyes. Daniel handed the dagger to Xander, before he ushered Emma and
me forward.
“Are either of you okay with blood?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I’ve never had a noticeable problem with it, but I’ve also never performed surgery on someone.”
Emma grimaced. “Honestly, I’m not great, but for Callie I’ll do whatever.”
“I’ve cut just over the top of the device,” he explained. “But it’s not coming out easily with the blade and I don’t want to cut her any more. I need someone with long nails to lift it and then pull it out.”
Emma waved her fingers at him. “My nails are always short. Long nails annoy me. So I can’t help.”
Her relief was very obvious. Meanwhile, I had a nicely manicured set of teal nails, so I did not have the same argument. Daniel pulled a small cloth from his pocket, which he used to dab at Callie’s neck, and then gestured for me to step forward. I was too short to see, so Chase wrapped an arm around my center, lifting me up higher. Which, of course, had my concentration at about minus fifty, until I remembered that Callie could be bleeding to death.
The cut was about an inch long, and not very deep. Blood seeped slowly out of it; Daniel mopped it up every second or so. “Can you see the tip of the tracker there?” He pointed toward a glint of dark metal.
I nodded.
“Can you get your nail under it and flick it out?”
My initial response was no. I was totally not equipped to deal with this, but … I knew I had to woman up. For Callie. And for the rest of us.
After giving myself a very quick pep talk, I tilted my head back to Chase. “You okay holding me a little longer?”
He just grinned, and I shook my head at him before turning back to Callie. This time I did not hesitate. “I’m going to get it out now, okay…” I told her. Daniel had stepped around to take Chase’s place, holding her to make sure she didn’t flinch. Pretending that this was not someone’s neck, I gently slid my finger across her skin, and when I reached the cut, twisted my hand around so my nail was in a scooping position. It was difficult to get under the device without embedding it further into her skin. I dug deeper, knowing I was hurting her, because she made one low whimper.