by Jamie Magee
“Is it not?”
“She’s keeping him alive. He will aid us in keeping Adair alive.”
Though King’s words were very ‘kingly’ and reflected why his people loved the balance he led with, Dagen sensed the jealous rage behind them. A tested patience.
“No offense, boss, but I think me and the fifteen million plus at my back have Adair covered—one pissed off immortal isn’t going to make any waves.”
“Will he not?” King asked with a slight tilt of his head. “He’s the reason Adair exists. Father of her flesh. He’s connected to her mother. If that’s not enough for you, this entire MC was created because of him. He has protected and led those we now deem precious for ages.”
“Now deem! You act as if we decided to care—we didn’t. We became aware. It is a completely different scenario.”
King’s gaze shifted to Adair as if she had called his name. Though the fire before her was revealing an intriguing image, her eyes were locked on the tips of her fingers as she drew them to her palms and then out again.
A second later, King sensed him. Seconds beyond then Talley’s roar was heard.
Judge shielded Adair and her altar with his body as he rose and searched for an exit.
“We gotta move,” Dagen said, this time grabbing Judge and leaving Adair to King.
They surfaced on a riverboat, one King’s people were using as a home base in New Orleans. This nest of five hundred were the ones hunting down the souls on Crass’s list, to the best of their ability. They were also making sure Cashton’s girl and her people were protected. With one thought King could call millions more, but secrecy was their greatest weapon at this point in the waxing war.
“What the fuck, man! Take us to the Boneyard,” Judge raged again, refusing to let his guard down. He had no idea who these men were who were gawking back at him.
Their gaze was rich with honor. Each of them were built like King and Dagen. The details of their features were all different, unique to them, but it was clear to Judge they were all cut from the same cloth.
Brothers standing shoulder to shoulder.
They were immortal, Judge gathered as much in once glance. Immortals were hard to see into—their minds were dense with knowledge and experience. Mortals, most of them, were an open book he could read with little effort.
Judge was outnumbered—and completely dependent on King and Dagen’s magic trick of zapping from one place to the other. Fuck this.
“He’s tracking her,” Dagen said to King.
“Well, no shit, Sherlock,” Judge spat.
Dagen didn’t bother to acknowledge him. He did however give a nod to the fifty plus souls in the room staring at them, telling them to leave Judge be. They’d all been briefed by King on the structure of the MC, how to handle and interact with the Sons when or if they crossed their paths.
In the past, King had given the same detailed briefing every time the Faction entered a new dimension. They had to know how to blend, how to live in the world they were in.
The Helco Faction was well versed on the dimension they were in, but not the lifestyle a MC lives. There was a whole other code that had to be learned. For the most part, it was easy for the Faction to understand because it was primal, territorial, just like them.
“Either this curse is upon us or,” King looked down at Adair. “Are you keeping something from us?”
Adair wasn’t listening. She was entranced by the vision before her. The fire, the spell, was playing out before her eyes.
If she had ever bothered to go back and dig up these relics, she would have known the truth she was pierced with tonight.
She saw Talon. She saw him and who had to be her mother. From what Adair could see she had to be a powerful witch. Her image kept fluttering. One moment she was a flaming redhead, absolutely stunning. The next an innocent blonde who seemed out of place next to the likes of Talon.
He smiled at her. It was a vacant smile, but his energy reached out for her as if he knew her. Strangely the reach for her grew when her image was of the redhead, and dwindled when the blonde was seen.
She didn’t see them flesh-to-flesh, she could only see what was in sight of the trinkets she was spelling. She saw the timepiece fall from Talon’s jacket next to the redhead’s gown and the ring roll across the floor.
The next scene showed Reveca charge in the door; moments later, flames were everywhere.
She felt Judge fall to his knees at her side, felt his shock mirror hers.
“I was there,” his deep voice said.
Adair only swallowed, sure now more than ever Reveca would kill her if she saw this, knew this truth.
Hesitantly, she reached to clutch Judge’s hand. She needed some kind of anchor, a way to understand this, because unless Talon, Reveca, and whoever this redheaded woman was liked to reenact the eighteenth century, none of this made much sense.
The flames moved like the waves of the ocean, and Adair saw her vision come to life before her, the flaming bird chained and pulled down into the depths of the unknown.
“I’ve seen this,” both Judge and Adair said at once, in a hollow whisper.
The pair of them locked eyes, feeling the stares of both King and Dagen on them.
Before one more word could be spoken Judge glanced down to where they were touching, sure that somehow ice had been slipped into his hand. It hadn’t, it was Adair’s touch.
Right then he noticed the men aboard the ship standing like a fortress before them and then the roar of Talley.
“Boneyard,” Judge demanded once more.
His demand was denied.
Both he and Adair were grasped and again appeared back at the Cauldron.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Judge said as he kept his hand in Adair’s but charged King all the same. “Why will you not take her where I know she will be safe?”
The answer was simple but not one King would give. If he returned to the Boneyard just now, this curse with Talley would be the MC’s last worry.
King would lose his cool, his men would react, and a civil war would destroy this coalition before it had a chance to harvest the gifts the Creator had given them.
“We can keep her safe,” Dagen said, finally seeing the answer in King’s eyes. King understood what Reveca was doing, but he was still a man, a jealous one.
Even if Reveca and Talon were not flesh-to-flesh, she was giving him energy, she was pushing a part of her soul through him. To Escorts, to immortals, the act was sacred. Something that is not given freely or without deep emotional intent.
Dagen had no idea how King was calm, if it were him—this city would be in ashes by now. Then again...the night was still young.
“Then quit zapping us around this city. How ‘bout moving us across the globe? Or is that not a fucking possibility in the ‘I’m-so-bad-ass-I-can-zap-around’ handbook?”
“It is,” King stated frankly. “I could ‘zap’ you to any dimension you’d wish, but if I did,” he nodded to Adair, “her mother would know she is unprotected. She’s only safe from her in New Orleans.”
“You took her to Savannah,” Judge argued, right as Adair said, “You know my mother? She’d hurt me? She lives?”
King pressed his lips together, glancing at Dagen with discarded scorn in his gaze. “Taking her to Savannah was done for her sanity, for her to retrieve what she wanted. Moments we can do, anything beyond that point would spur us into a war we are not prepared for.”
“Her desire,” Judge said gruffly, tightening his grip on Adair’s hand. At one time he knew every one of them, and now this ass before him was claiming to be able to know them.
“Who is my mother? Why would she hurt me?” Adair demanded. “She’s not dead?” Now that she had spoken the questions twice over her voice had begun to quiver, frantic to stay alert, to fight off the fringes of shock.
Judge was sure he knew the answer. A poor farm girl, working in a tavern to feed her family, accused of being a witch because s
he could heal. He was told personally by more than one soul she perished in the fire Adair witnessed with her spell.
Then again, he wasn’t sure. The farm girl existed lifetimes ago.
King stared at Adair endlessly before he spoke. “She’s chosen to use you to bring her family together—no matter the sacrifice.”
“What family?” Judge asked as he gripped Adair’s hand harder. “Is what she saw true?” he asked with a nod to the altar.
King answered with a shallow nod.
Judge clenched his jaw, unable to understand this but focused on getting the facts King claimed to know. “The blonde witch’s family burned the night Reveca found her with Talon. No one survived. I saw their ashes with my own eyes.”
He’d done more than that. Reveca had charged him with the task of hunting down the blonde. She’d said Talon was not in his right mind when he was with her and he could’ve exposed them, let the town know they were not human. The last thing they wanted to deal with was an uprising from the God-fearing community they were with.
The world was smaller then, news of evil traveled fast, faster than you would think. And people reacted with emotion—apathy was not in their vocabulary.
Judge never found her; he never found anyone even remotely related to her. Ashes, there was nothing more than ashes.
King ignored Judge and stared right at Adair. “I vow to you, both your mothers, one of flesh and one of spirit, adore you in their own way. Their intentions are never clear because they surface in vengeance, but their heart is what guides them.” He paused, his ice-blue eyes shining with pride. “Your creation was less than ordinary, but you, Adair, are extraordinary. Making sense of the past will only lead you so far—question it with caution. You’re protected. I vow it.”
“Here we are again, with this whole dual family bullshit,” Judge said, clearly remembering King’s speech to him as Adair slept.
Adair stared blankly at King, lost as ever. “How am I protected in New Orleans?”
King was silent for a long moment. “Those who ensured you would be where you are, at this time, at this age, have shielded you. They built their protection around your father’s kingdom. You’ve been hidden, Adair, and though it’s time to wake up, it is not time for you to emerge.”
“My father’s kingdom,” she whispered, feeling faint.
“This is not possible. I was there,” Judge protested. “The blonde never had a chance to conceive a child, and even if she did that was nearly two hundred years ago!”
King and Dagen passed long glances, ones that communicated clearly, yet silently. King met Judge’s gaze. “The blonde was a wayward descendant of a Voyager. Though she had no knowledge of what lurked in her blood, when she was possessed, her people heard her cry and came.” He glanced at Adair. “Knowing what I know now, I’d almost believe they were waiting for her to surface, the conception.”
“Voyagers,” Judge repeated with a lifted brow.
“Possessed,” Adair said at the same time.
“Your family history is rich, Adair. The blood that courses through you is powerful. It laid dormant in the vessel that birthed you into flesh.” His eyes grew grave. “Which is why I’m sure she thought you to be evil, why she spoke damning words over you. She was mad, Adair, wickedly so.”
“With good reason,” Dagen muttered. He shrugged, answering Judge’s glare. “She went to work one night in a dusty tavern at the age of sixteen and awoke two hundred years later an old woman with a child and no clear memory of how it all occurred.”
“No memory…sounds familiar,” Adair said, ready to accuse the MC of twisting her all the more. “Wait,” she said as she began to digest what was being said around her. “Vessel?”
King nodded once. “Possession is an odd thing, debated in any lore. However, I have been assured, the vessel was possessed at conception and birth and rumor has it, it stayed possessed through your infancy.”
“Whose rumor?” Judge demanded. Adair was glad of it. She was almost sure she was slipping into shock. Sinking rather.
“Voyagers we’ve met recently,” King answered cautiously. King moved his stare back to Adair. “I know the beginning of your memories are full of pain but you have to understand Voyagers, along with your mother, believe pain brings strength.” He paused. “It was also the only way your father would be able to find you. You had to call out, seal the bond. Choose him.” When she grimaced he quietly said, “It’s their way.”
“I didn’t choose him. I just discovered him.”
“Your soul knew,” King promised.
“Who was my grandmother? The crazy woman who called me the spawn of the devil and tried to kill me?”
“She was the vessel,” King answered. “For Ambrosia, a Lady of Death. Souls that die rich with obsession are in her care.”
“A demon,” Adair said, stepping back.
No one had a chance to answer. Talley’s roar was heard again. This time a little too late. He charged in the back door and reached for Adair, as if he couldn’t see another soul.
Judge let go of Adair’s hand. He was sure Dagen and King would whisk her away, but right then he was sick of this game of running from one place to another. He was sure it was doing nothing but making Talley hungrier for Adair.
Talley needed to be at peace. If he was, Judge’s woman would be at peace—Judge would be free to hunt and slaughter Chalice. Life would be fucking peachy all over again.
Rage, pumped by his adrenaline, allowed the shove Judge gave Talley to soar him back through the door and across the alley.
His plan was simple, rip him from limb to limb all over again and then call Reveca to do whatever spell she could to call this evil out of him and give his brother the peace he deserved.
At this point, seeing him this ravaged was doing nothing but slaughtering the memories Judge had of him, the good ones—not the end. No, when Judge thought of the end, he never thought of it as Talley hurting Adair. He saw Zale pulling the strings, his sick mind hurting this MC.
When Talley crashed into the other wall, bricks fell around him, and a painful grunt left him.
Judge barely heard Adair’s scream as he appeared before Talley. The sound, though, was enough to stop him from ripping the limbs from Talley’s body. He didn’t want Adair to witness how gruesome the act was, and he had vowed to himself he’d never impair her mind again, meaning he couldn’t ask Thames to take the memory away.
When Thames told him Adair’s mind had natural blocks around her trauma, the news gave Judge both a peace and demon to battle with. The peace was her mind knew how to protect her, it didn’t need him to defend her—her mind was her weapon and he’d never unarm her again. The demon was knowing for sure how horrific the trauma had to be from her vantage point.
“Get her out of here,” Judge roared, knowing he would only be able to approach this battle with a level head for so long.
Giving them time to vanish, instead of wrathfully pulling the limbs from Talley’s stout body, Judge slugged him across his jaw. It was hard and fast causing Talley to loll his head to the side.
Judge gripped his kut in his fist and pulled Talley forward and slammed him against the brick wall once more.
Then readily he searched Talley’s mind. He didn’t have time to decipher all he saw—he would later, with any luck. Right then he just needed one deep look, one that would tell him if there was any Talley left. The idea of him wandering the city, and the swamp, lost in this evil was heartbreaking, a death he didn’t deserve.
Sadly. There was.
“You listen to me,” Judge said in broken voice. “I made a vow to you, you son of a bitch. I swore to you I would love her until the day I met my maker. I swore to you I would rip anyone who crossed her into shreds.” Judge jarred him forward and shook him. “I never break my vows. Don’t make me do this—not again.”
Talley gripped Judge’s fist, but not in aggressive way, a desperate touch. “Get-her-away,” a strangled voice that sounded somewha
t like Talley emerged. His eyes dipped to their hands. “I-can’t-stop.” He grunted. “Callin’-me.”
Judge narrowed his gaze as he made sure his immortal ears were hearing the strangled wisps Talley was speaking.
He gripped Judge’s fist tighter. “Seed-son-stop-with-seed.”
Judge jarred his head back in shock.
“Can’t-stop. Can’t. You vowed. Seed.”
Judge shook his head in denial. All at once what was Talley vanished and the demon within raged forward, knocking Judge back, wailing punch after punch at him. It took him a second but Judge gained his second wind and shoved Talley back, landing him feet from where he stood, and then he was before him, slugging his gut in a rapid rhythm. All the aggression that had been building day after day for over a week, Judge released fiercely. This fight felt good.
Somewhere in the mayhem Judge heard Adair’s voice, her chant. The rage spawned because she was still there, was having to watch him deliver this pain to Talley, a sin she’d never forgive him for, empowered him all the more.
The words, after she repeated them over and over, made Talley roar, then he escaped the assault of Judge’s fists and ran from the alley.
With his chest heaving, pure adrenaline coursing through him, Judge looked over his shoulder to see King and Dagen had stood there—he wasn’t pissed they didn’t help with the fight. In fact, he would have been pissed if they had. He was mad they didn’t take her away, that they left her there, that close to Talley.
He stalked forward and gripped Adair’s arm. He thought of where he wanted to go and envisioned the journey. As King said, he moved, only faster.
Chapter Four
With Adair in his arms they emerged in her apartment a block away. At first Judge clenched her to him as they stood stock-still. His breathing was still fast. She was trembling.
He was not only processing this latest immortal power he had just displayed, but also all he had learned in the confrontation with Talley. In those first few dark seconds, he was grateful he and Adair could never use their gifts on each other right then. What he knew was scaring the shit out of him—she’d break if she knew, shatter and blame him. No, he had to make sure he heard it right, process, and decompress before he dared to even mutter what he was sure Talley was saying.