by Lexi Ostrow
Dale’s face twisted, all the satisfaction and lust drained right out of it. His green eyes lit a darker shade, and his voice was raspy, “Then it is true.” He walked away from her completely.
She flew off the wall, wrapped a hand around his arm and was immediately burned. His magic was working just fine. “Dale it started like that, but it didn’t end that way.”
“Do you know how often people say that shit in these scenarios? Don’t forget, I also know your father ordered you to lock me away here to help him, and I have a damn good feeling that you want to be my Guardian to be free from the confines of a story world. Which is fine, most do, I bet. But to know that you also used me to help Demus? That you knew just who and what he was and still went along with his plan. That is true darkness, Breena. Not me, not my attempts to find power to be in control, but the way you use people.”
She wasn’t certain why she said what she did, but it flew out before she could control it. “And you want to use me to stay alive past your birthday!”
He looked as if he was going to lunge at her, but he didn’t. “Yes, but I was fucking upfront, and I knew that a Guardian bond was deep. I was prepared to at least care about you. But to fall in love and not be able to tell if you’re serious or not? Fuck, I can’t even tell which brother you would fight for anymore.” His shoulders slumped as his eyes defocused.
A moment later the space just in front of her began to swirl and distort until his bedroom came into focus. He was leaving, again.
“Your father is dead. Your people need a leader, and you’re the eldest. Have a good life, Breena. I will finish your book tonight, and you’ll not hear from me after this.” There was something unsaid hanging in the space between them.
Her words were caught in her throat, and all she could do was stand and watch as he stepped through and the doorway closed abruptly behind him. He’d left her again, right when she knew exactly how much he meant to her. He closed the doorway on her, on her world, and if she wasn’t wrong, on his own life.
Chapter Nineteen
His jaw slacked open in a way unlike it ever had before. Nothing had prepared him for what he was seeing. When a Word Speaker was born, they lit up. They always did. Light or Dark, it didn’t matter, he and Demus took turns introducing them and their Guardians to the world. The light signified which side they would fight on, and he’d been watching Dale’s so hard for the past month that when it suddenly shifted from a dark black ring to a light black ring, his jaw fell open.
With Dale in his playing field again, he was able to open a window and watch. What he saw, tore him apart. Almost as much as watching Ciara fall apart had. Dale was stalking out of Breena’s world, the doorway slamming shut so fast he couldn’t help but marvel at the power Dale had learned.
He’d been unable to see anything the entire time Dale had been with Breena. Not his Word Speaker, not his viewing. With the light turned back to a solid, glowing white, he had assumed Breena had somehow changed her ways. Now he worried that Dale had walked away. Had forsaken his Guardian.
His jaw closed, and his whole body twitched slightly as memories of Huracan’s rounds of punishment lightly touched his body. If Dale was his Word Speaker, it was up to him to protect him. It wasn’t breaking the rules to help him if he did it fairly. Dale had a book open, Demarcus’ book. While he wasn’t a fan of another encounter in the Horsemen’s world, it was the only thing he could think to do to save Dale.
He shook his head and looked between his jacket and the viewing window he had opened on Dale. His brother’s name was out. There was almost no need for him to slip into the costume of their past, except that it was a welcome comfort. His trench coat was small grasp of power in a world where he had none, despite being one of the two people who held its fate in his hands.
On his way out his front door, to the white space between, he picked up his khaki trench coat and slipped into it, putting on his mask of good versus evil, when really, what he was about to try and do was very Demus and barely him. His Word Speakers had been pushing him in that direction lately, and sooner or later, he would stop saving them and save himself.
The colors swirled on the wall as he called up the imagery of Dale and his place in the world. A moment later, the doorway was complete, and he stepped in, prepared for any physical violence that the men of his side kept executing toward him. Once through, he closed the door, so Dale wouldn’t see something not meant for a Word Speaker, and cleared his throat.
“Get out.”
“But you don’t even know who it is.” There was a playful tone in his voice. He was ready to see how Dale responded.
“Demus. You won, for five fucking seconds you won. I won’t be with your Guardian. I may have fallen in love with Breena, but you don’t get to control me with it. Death is a smarter choice with as much power as I have.”
“Wrong brother, but I’m glad to hear you would take that route if needed.”
Dale’s head whipped around, green eyes filled with regret, and he knew again that stepping in for a Word Speaker solidly on his side wasn’t breaking the rules.
“You. Now you show up?” His voice was one bitter pill after another, but the attack never came.
“I am only allowed to do things for my Word Speakers.” He sat in the chair across the table from Dale. “You were not my Word Speaker. Now you are.”
He barked out a laugh. “So Breena really was dark then? Even with all her pleasantries and how badly it felt like she was her own person with her own rules. She was still a part of the darkness.”
Lying would be easier. Lying would be against who you are. He struggled with deceiving the torn up boy in front of him and thought against it. “Whatever Breena was, she tapped into something in you. Maybe loving her tipped the balance for you both. I can’t know that. Only she and my brother can.”
“About him. He’s got a name, which means you must too.”
He felt his eyes flash and his fangs sink into his lower lip. Every muscle in his body screamed out for him to strike Dale, but he pushed passed it. “Demus is a fool. Names have power, and while my brother might not be afraid of his falling into the wrong hands, I don’t take foolish chances like that.” His hand slammed into the glass table, and he felt the spider vein crack run through it. “Excuse me, that was uncalled for, and there is a point to all of this.”
Dale’s copper eyebrow lifted, and he leaned back in his chair and picked up the rocks glass with whatever booze he’d put it in. Dale’s eyes narrowed as he downed the dark brown liquid and sat the glass back down. “Well, then do tell, whatever could you possibly have to offer me with one day to go. Or is my dying not a truthful statement?”
“Unfortunately, Demus was not fucking with you. No Guardian, and we are to kill you. Even I wouldn’t dare break a rule that strong. I have been through a lot for my warriors lately, and there are some things even I won’t touch.”
“Well, then, by all means, get it over with a day early. I’d hate to make you have to come back and all that. God only knows what you two fucking do in your spare time.”
He growled and Dale’s face showed the slightest hint of fear. “I’m here to help you. Ciara’s book is open, and you’ve got two choices. Force yourself to pull someone from there. Sex is great and dandy, but it’s not needed in a pair. I have thousands of teams not sexually involved at all. The tie still runs soul deep, it just makes you protective of the other. Or, you can hide out in there, well, forever. Time stops when you enter a book. You never turn twenty-seven, and since the power to world walk has been exclusive to you two, there’s nothing forcing me in after you.”
Dale’s eyes focused and unfocused as he clearly processed the information given to him. In truth, he needed Dale to come out of the book. He needed him to do it on his own though, or it would be an easy shift back to Demus’ side, and his brother still didn’t play by the rules. Dale would live, and he would be a force to be reckoned with if he was alive when the war began.
&nbs
p; “And if I don’t?”
“Well, you belong to my side. It’s how I’m here. I wish I could offer you amnesty, but I’ve broken enough rules. I can’t afford to break another and leave my warriors without a leader when the war comes.”
He stood up and opened the doorway back to the place between the planes. Dale’s gasp at what he saw wasn’t shocking. But a Word Speaker didn’t need to be asking questions about the space between their world and the books. So, he was done, even if Dale had more questions. With one last look over his shoulder at the brooding Word Speaker, he stepped one foot through the doorway and then the other. The doorway closed the moment he was behind it, and he walked the small space inside his house and pulled open the viewing doorway.
Dale hadn’t moved far, but he was standing up at the table now. The Word Speaker’s body was tight with tension, and he knew that the he had a long night ahead of him. Threatening him wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t an empty threat, and as he took off his trench coat, he found himself praying to the deities that he used his common sense.
Minutes ticked by, and all Dale had done was stand up, walk into the kitchen to grab the bottle of Jack Daniels and head into his game room. He dropped down with his bottle and controller and hadn’t moved in hours. The day was shifting into night, and Dale was getting drunker and drunker with less focus and less self-preservation.
He growled low and turned away from the viewing doorway. His eyes latched onto the space where he’d ripped a whole. Stalking toward it, he stared at the setting before him. Hayley was sleeping, and if he wasn’t so pissed off at Dale, he might have been hard as shit watching the beautiful technician, that’s what he decided she was, sleep.
“Why won’t you close?” he snarled and waved his hand over the viewing doorway. It didn’t close, but it blinked and fuzzed like a bad television connection and then everything went white. “Fuck me.” The space was torn, he couldn’t see around it, but now he didn’t even have access to whoever Hayley was going to be.
He hung his head and massaged his temples as he turned back to Dale. “How did everything spiral away so easily? You lost him and got him back, and yet, there’s every indication in the morning you have to kill him.”
The rule had always bothered him, but it had been one of the many they’d been told to adhere to. A Word Speaker without a Guardian could supposedly pull too many and tip the balance unfairly for whatever side they were on. Therefore, the rule was death for any whose powers had pulled a Guardian. Julian Michelson had been one of only eight in the history of the battle that had never pulled a Guardian, and so he had been spared. Had he truly separated from Serena, he would have lost his powers anyway. Julian Michelson had never been in danger of death. Just failure.
Dale moved then. The bottle was empty, and it shattered as he dropped it on the hardwood floor. The doorway opened slowly, almost as if it was stuck. He walked closer to make sure he was seeing things properly. Stryder’s Grecian mansion appeared in the doorway, and he could even see Ciara and her mate sitting on a damn picnic blanket. Dale looked around his game room, his eyes lingering on the clock. Eleven pm.
“One hour to go, Dale. Do it.”
Dale’s face looked away from the clock, and a second later, he stepped through the doorway. He sighed in relief and closed the doorway. “Thank you, Dale.” Whatever his Word Speaker chose to do, he knew Ciara would help him make the right choice, and he just wanted five minutes to himself. It had been ages since he’d had downtime, and he was ready for some.
Time didn’t truly stop when Dale went into the book world. It was more as if it would erase him temporarily. The world still went on. Dale just ultimately ceased to have ever existed until he came back through. Ahh semantics, he thought.
Tomorrow morning would still come at the same time, with or without Dale.
Chapter Twenty
The punch to his face throbbed, despite have gotten close enough to water to heal himself. Not to mention that, even though Stryder had apologized about three times, there wasn’t a single part of him that believed the Horseman actually was sorry. The mirth in his eyes totally destroyed any form of apology.
Dale pulled the ice packet off his eye and set it down, his face feeling almost frozen from application. It had certainly knocked the drunk right out of him though.
“Like I said, just be more careful next time. You can’t blame me. You fucking appeared out of nowhere,” Stryder said and shrugged his shoulders as if it was some perfect defense mechanism for attacking Dale when he’d shouted Ciara’s name.
Ciara’s brilliant blue eyes narrowed on her mate’s as she took the icepack Dale had set down. “Enough. I’m not going to say it was your fault, but honestly, learn to look first and swing later.” She stood up and walked into their massive kitchen with the icepack, and Dale heard her grumble, “Can’t imagine how many fucking wars were started because you hit first and questioned later.”
Stryder grinned at Dale. “I can hear you, sweetheart.”
“You weren’t meant to not, dear mate,” Ciara called back in a sing-song voice as she put the pack away.
Dale’s heart tightened at the playful banter. He had been literally right on the edge of his own happily ever after. “And Demus went and ruined it.”
Ciara sat down next to Stryder and put her hand in his while raising a brow. “Who is Demus, and what did he ruin? I assume that’s why you’re here.”
Dale’s eye flicked up and looked at the two pairs of bright blue eyes. There was nothing in his friend’s expression that indicated she knew who Demus was, and Stryder seemed completely undisturbed. He shifted on the couch.
“I’m going to need your brute of a mate to promise not to beat the ever living shit out me. I can’t control how I know who Demus is, and I want that on record before anything further gets said.”
Stryder’s growl sent goose bumps rippling out over his legs and arms, and when the big guy crossed his arms over his chest, Dale temporarily thought about swinging open a doorway and meeting his fate rather than letting Stryder do it for the man in the trench coat.
“Go on,” two words, growled out so deeply they almost didn’t sound like words.
Dale stood up off the couch and walked a few feet away as if it offered some form of safety. “Demus is the brother in leather. The one who worked with The Initiative, the one who controls the darker warriors in the fight.”
What happened next astounded him. Neither Ciara nor Stryder moved. No one attacked him. No one shouted questions and demands at him. They both just sat on the couch blinking at him. Dale wasn’t certain if the silence was scarier than the alternative, but it was making him twitchy.
“Can one of you please fucking say something before I worry I’m going to be decapitated or something.”
“What did he ruin? Besides everything,” Ciara’s voice was level.
“My Guardian. The one we were talking about last time—”
“The one I distinctly remember telling you to walk away from? That Guardian?”
The accusation in her voice dripped with sarcasm and it was his turn to growl.
“Don’t speak about her that way. She’s not who or what I thought she was. Or she wasn’t.”
Stryder’s exasperated sigh was so loud Dale, knew it was extra dramatic. The Horseman put his hands on his thighs and pushed up off the couch. “I don’t even want to fucking know why you know the prick’s name. Mark it on my ‘I don’t give a shit list.’ I also don’t feel like sitting through whatever piss and moan argument is about to occur between you two. I get enough of them with my mate, thank you very much.”
Ciara’s eyes blazed at Stryder, and she crossed her arms. “Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t given Dale all my powers. Times like now.”
Stryder chuckled and leaned down to kiss her. His grin was infectious, and even Dale couldn’t help but laugh, despite himself. “I don’t believe a word of it,” Stryder said as he walked out of the living area.
An uneasy s
ilence filtered between him and Ciara. They had become friends quickly, but even then, they weren’t two people who would be friends under any normal circumstances. He valued her, and her gift, but he was afraid coming here was a mistake.
Ciara broke the silence first. “So, why are you here then?”
Dale exhaled, long and slowly, before answering her. “I tried to listen to your advice, but you know better than anyone how dangerous a Guardian bond can be.” Ciara gasped, and he shook his head. “No, we aren’t mated. I was just using it as example. She’s not what I thought she was, or she wasn’t for a period of time. Now I don’t know.” He sighed and dropped his head into his hands. He didn’t cry, but he was certain he was on the verge of tears.
“It’s okay, Dale, just start from the beginning.”
Her hand ran circles over his back, and he hadn’t even realized she’d stood up and walked over to him.
“Let’s just sit back down and go through this. Especially the why you’re here part. Not that I don’t enjoy it, but last time there was a reason.”
He sat down and looked up at her. A sort of understanding shined from her eyes, and he realized that, whatever came of his visit, the brother in the trench coat had been right to suggest sending him there. Ciara had all the balance and common sense he lacked.
“Breena was different. I went to end things and one thing led to another, and suddenly she wanted to change. And I believed her.” He balled his hand into a fist and slammed it into his thigh. “I still believe that was the truth. That she was ready to leave the darkness behind. She did things for me, Ciara, things that people don’t do unless their heart is in the right place. I could feel the change in her, even as quickly as it happened. I fell in love with her. The moment I sensed the change, it was like everything fell into place. We were the perfect match. We had both been led into darkness trying to make up for something our fathers had done. We were both struggling to be more than we were. Everything just fell into place.” He stopped talking, his whole body trembling with the recent pain of betrayal.