Sheltered Roots

by Jeanne Allen

  Sure enough, he gives me a sweet smile and closes the door.

  We listen to the boys stomping around in the hallway, heading up to the front door. After a cacophony of seven shouted goodbyes, we’re alone.

  As if she reads my mind, Leeli turns to me, grinning wide. “Girl time!”

  I catch myself giggling, something I never used to do. Leeli gives me a funny look, but she doesn’t mention the change in my reaction. She lets it go and smiles wider.

  Leeli and I settle into the bed like we used to do when I slept over, with our heads at the end and our feet propped up on the pillows by the headboard.

  I tell her about the boys, sans mutant superpowers and Phósopoi-related information.

  She listens quietly a first, only laughing or smiling at appropriate moments. The only time she interrupts is to call Nadira a “harlot.”

  After I finish, she lays there, eyeing my face.

  I can’t tell what she’s thinking, so I wait it out. Most of the time, Leeli is loud, proud, and a little crazy. But once in a while, she’ll grow quiet, like now, and it’s in your best interest to listen to what she has to say. Leeli can be really profound when she wants to be. She has a knack for understanding people.

  Eventually, she breaks the silence. “You’re different,” she states softly.

  I know this, but I’m curious about what she sees. “How?”

  “I’m not sure. Softer, I think. Those boys have smoothed out those edges you carried around, trying to keep people from getting too close.”

  I’m not sure what to say, but I see the truth in her words immediately. I feel different with the guys. I found more than love or belonging with them.

  “They’re my family,” I say, hoping Leeli catches my meaning. I’m not sure how else to put it.

  She smiles warmly and nods, reaching over to squeeze my arm. “They’re good for you, Rosie. Anyone can see that. Just…” She stops and looks at the wall behind the bed, where a pretty watercolor hangs that she picked up at a show in Paris.

  When she doesn’t continue, I prompt, “Just what?”

  Leeli sighs and turns her eyes back to me; they’re hesitant, worried. “Just be careful. Those boys seem great, and I can tell they really care for you, but they’re only human, and humans get jealous. It’s in our nature.”

  I grimace as she voices some of the worries I have myself. I know it’s different than Leeli thinks, since she doesn’t know about the Bond the boys and I have, or that they grew up expecting to share. Still, I can’t imagine there will never be jealously in our Omás. I silently vow to be more careful about spending time equally with my boys. I don’t want anyone to feel left out.

  “I’ll be careful, don’t worry,” is what I say to Leeli.

  She responds with a smile and a reassuring squeeze on my shoulder.

  We drop the matter and go back to gossiping about my former co-workers at the Kitty Kat and dishing on whether or not we can get the guys to pose for a calendar. For charity, of course.

  When hunger strikes, we migrate to the kitchen, which is where we are when the men return from their hamburger hunt.

  We’re in the middle of discussing how great Forrest would look as a sexy fireman when we hear the front door open. I look up and wait for the guys to find us.

  “Hey,” I say, breathless at the sight of my men.

  Forrest gives me that sexy slow grin and the rest follow suit with varying degrees of smolder, though Lucas is always more impish Goblin than heartthrob, which is attractive in its own way.

  Leeli and I exchange a wide-eyed glance before we burst out laughing.

  Pete watches us and shakes his head, rolling his eyes. He gives me a grin of his own before hugging me fondly, his beard scratching my cheek.

  “Been a while, Pete.”

  “Yeah, kiddo.”

  I huff at the nickname.

  “I’m sorry we can’t stay longer, but we have a prior engagement,” Jackson apologizes.

  I raise my eyebrow at him. This is the first I’m hearing of this.

  He shakes his head, and I get the message. Not here. They’ll explain after we leave.

  I turn to Leeli, giving her an apologetic grimace. “Sorry, Leeli. I wish I could stay longer.”

  “Me, too, Rosie.” She sniffles as she gets up to give me one last hug goodbye. “Don’t stay away so long this time,” she whispers in my ear.

  “I’ll try not to,” I whisper back.

  I didn’t keep up with her when Sebastian was sick, but now, hopefully, things will be better. It nearly breaks me when I see in her eyes that she knows it might be a while before I can visit again.

  She draws me back into her arms, squeezing me until my lungs feel like they’re going to burst.

  Pete gives me another hug as well, then we all say our final goodbyes before piling into the seven-seater SUV the guys rented.

  “So, where are we going?”

  “Let’s talk about it on the plane,” Jackson says, interrupting whatever Sebastian was going to tell me.

  I deduce that, wherever we’re going, I’m not going to like it, and therefore they’re avoiding telling me. I don’t push it. I like avoiding bad news, too. Instead, I snuggle into my seat between Lucas and Lyle.

  Twenty minutes into our drive, Jin picks up speed, weaving in and out of traffic.

  “What the hell, man?” Lucas yells, putting his arm over me after a particularly sharp turn.

  “We’re being followed,” Sebastian says grimly.

  Jin nods, his eyes flitting between the road and the rearview mirror.

  Despite the twins trying to hold me down, I turn in my seat to see who’s following us. What I find turns my skin to ice. Spanning out in the highway behind us are five—no six—black SUVs swerving and turning at the same rate as ours.

  In the one closest us, rapidly gaining speed and closing the distance between us, I catch a glimpse of a man with glinting red eyes and pale-yellow hair. He holds something in his hand.

  Lucas looks, too.

  “Gun!” he screams while shoving my head down.

  Above my head, I can hear the shatter of our rearview window. Not the destructive sound of breaking glass, but with a deafening crack like a bat hitting a homerun.

  My heart beats a thousand miles a minute. I can almost feel it crawling up my throat. I struggle against the thin but powerful arms of the twins, finally managing to throw them off to check where the bullet landed. Another crack strikes the back window, and as I stare, another bullet flies past me, missing my head and clipping Jin in the shoulder.

  He winces in pain but continues driving while blood flows down his arm. He uses his uninjured arm to swerve across the highway, weaving between the other cars on the road. “I thought you said these were bulletproof.”

  Lucas pushes my head back down as Jackson answers Jin’s irate question. “They are. They must have gotten a hold of Gift-made bullets.”

  “How?” Forrest yells.

  Panic fills his voice. It matches my own uneven breathing and shaking fists. I grasp the front of Lyle’s shirt like it’s my lifeline. Maybe it is.

  “That’s not important right now,” Jackson says grimly from where he ducked down with Sebastian, hiding like the twins and me in case more bullets decide to shatter our windows.

  Only Jin remains upright, eyes on the road. His stance is relaxed, and when I maneuver enough to catch his eyes in the rearview mirror, his dark irises light up, and he winks.

  He winks.

  At this moment, Jin is either the bravest or the stupidest man I know. Probably both, like all my Kladí. An endearing mix of perfection and insanity.

  “Sebastian?” Jackson prompts.

  I glance over to see our youngest has his eyes closed. His mouth forms a thin line, and a sheen of sweat makes his pale skin appear pearly. I don’t know how he looks prettier under stress, but he does.

  “They mean to corner us and draw us out,” Sebastian says.

  �
��Why? If they have Gift-made firepower, they can probably take us out now. Not that I’m complaining but…” Lyle shrugs sheepishly.

  I hope he’s wrong. I’m not sure today is the day I want to die.

  “They don’t want to kill us,” Sebastian says with certainty.

  I choke on my own surprise at his statement.

  “You’re sure?” Still in a crouch, Jackson shuffles over and puts a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder, leaning into him as Jin swerves around a big pickup truck.

  Sebastian opens his eyes. “I’m sure. I know Murder-Intent now. I felt it in the garden, remember? This is not it. Violence, sure. I think they’d be willing to hurt us to get what they want, but not to the point of death. It’s why Jin was the only one shot, I think.”

  Jackson’s eyes turn dull green. The coldness in them surprise me, but it shouldn’t. My Prince turns icy when threatened. I have a feeling he knows the answer to his next question, but he asks it anyway, “And what do they want?”

  Sebastian looks at me, his eyes softening to a pearly blueish white. He reaches for my hand, and I give it.

  We have our answer.

  “W-wha—” My words catch in my throat, panic choking them down.

  A sense of calm creeps into my skin, soaking into my pores until I can breathe again and dislodging the words from my throat. I nod my thanks at Lucas, who wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, silently taking away the fear and calming me, giving the support I need.

  “What do they want with me?” My voice comes out far more confident than a moment ago. I should have Lucas give me Gift-Induced Calm all the time.

  At Sebastian grimace, I gather they don’t want to extend an invitation to some kind of bad guy tea party. Too bad. I spent long enough with London-born Mary to know my way around a cup of tea. “I’m not sure. I can only tell intentions, not reasons. And even my intent-reading is weak. From what I can tell, they intend to take you away. Separating us is the means to an end, and you’re their goal.”

  “We’ll have to make sure that goal is not achieved,” Jackson says firmly before I can respond.

  He catches the eyes of each of my Kladí, except Jin. The confidence and determination of my Princes puts steel in the spine of our Omás. We all sit up as straight as we dare, ready to meet this new threat head-on.

  “These windows are darkened, right?” Lucas asks.

  Jackson nods, and they share a look. I don’t understand what they’re thinking.

  “Jin,” Jackson says.

  Jin must be in on their plan, because he grunts and floors the pedal.

  We speed up enough to put distance between us and the trigger-happy Kenós. I lean into Lyle as Jin swerves onto an exit ramp.

  From the way Jin edges off the pedal and weaves through the side streets of downtown Minneapolis at an almost lazy pace, I assume we lost our pursuers, though they can’t be far behind.

  “Let’s go.” Lucas grabs my hand

  “What?”

  “We’re going to jump into that alley. Jin will stay in the car, leading them away from us.”

  “But… but what if they shoot again?” Panic bubbling up again. The thought of leaving Jin behind feels like acid on my tongue. I just got Sebastian back. I won’t lose another.

  “He’ll be fine,” Lyle calmly reassures me.

  I rip my hand from Lucas’s peace-inducing hold to shake it in his face. “You can’t know that!”

  “I’m past twenty-five, remember?” Jin says from the front.

  I catch his eyes in the mirror again as the meaning of his words drown out the hysterics crawling up my esophagus.

  Being past twenty-five means he’s a Mature Phósopoi.

  I forgot he’s not like the rest of us. My eyes drift to his arm, and I’m shocked to find smooth skin through the hole the bullet made in his t-shirt. Seeing him healed already calms me, but I still don’t want to leave him.

  Our eyes find each other again, and I melt at the tenderness there.

  He mouths, “Go,” at me, and I nod.

  When he slows down at the intended alley, I jump out and run, praying to whatever gods will hear me that my assassin is as strong as he thinks he is.

  We’re almost to the side street at the other end of the alley when we hear slow clapping.

  A flashback to the Harvest Ball runs through my mind, but I ignore it.

  Only momentarily distracted by the sound, Jackson moves to continue running until the clapping man steps into the flickering light of the streetlamps on the other side of the alley.

  We stop, frozen.

  Blocking our exit route is none other than the captain of the Elite himself.

  “Lewis Black,” I whisper.

  “Ooooh, a decoy. Clever, clever little Prince.” Lewis’s voice oozes sarcasm stewed with more than a touch of disdain. “Too bad I knew exactly how your precious Assassin would react to a chase.” He gestures to where we stand, an alley growing increasingly dark with the waning twilight. “And now I have you right where I want you, all wrapped up and delivered. I really should thank my former friend for such nice work.”

  “Where you want us?” Lucas guffaws, incredulous.

  “You and what army?” Lyle finished his twin’s thought, equally dubious.

  Lewis smiles that same creepy Ken doll smile that showcases all of his too-white teeth on his too-perfect face.

  I suppress a shudder.

  “Funny you should ask that.” Three overly large Kenós materialize behind him, evil creatures born from draining a Kladí or Agora of their power.

  They look like Vikings who decided to enter a bodybuilding contest. There is so much bulging going on that I’m morbidly intrigued by how their skin stretched over all of it. Glowing red eyes and yellow-blond hair tell me these guys are the bad Phósopoi, the ones who supposedly aren’t organized, and who certainly don’t work with dicky Ken dolls.

  Things have changed.

  Chapter 4

  With the triplet walking protein shake ads comes the three women whom I recognize as Lewis’s Kladí.

  “It was you,” Sebastian whispers as they fan themselves behind their Agora.

  I look at him, raising my eyebrows.

  “Jasmine, one of Lewis’s Kladí, has the ability to manipulate memory,” Lyle explains. “Sofia, the blond one, can put people into comas like Sebastian was in. When we asked her for help, she said she was too busy trying to solve the murder. I didn’t think anything of it since we found that Kladí from Region Nine shortly after.”

  “The murder which he committed,” Jackson says, rage bleeding into his voice.

  This is not the calm and collected Professor Evans or the authoritative and proud Prince Jackson. This is something else, someone else. I try to remember if I’ve ever seen him so angry, and I can only think of the time when I was attacked by the Kenós outside of the club. Even that was tame to how he looks now.

  He’s taken on the visage of a feral beast, primed and ready for us to unleash him.

  Lewis laughs again. “Close, but no. I did not kill poor little Duchess Adelaide. All I did was muck up the investigation a bit.”

  Sebastian narrows his eyes. “Then who…”

  “It was me,” a voice sounds behind us, soft and cold.

  No longer breathing, it takes all my willpower to make myself turn around. I slowly move my limbs as the back-of-my-mind voice chants, Please, don’t be him. Please, don’t be him. Please, don’t be him.

  My heart sinks as I stare into those familiar forest-green eyes in the face of our enemy. Those eyes are not the laughing, gentle eyes of the man I knew. The man who had become my friend, my family. They are cold, sharp and unfeeling. These are the eyes of a murderer.

  Yet, all the same, they belong to Nathanial Evans, flanked by his Kladí, Mei Ling and Anna. Behind them stand several more jacked-up Kenós. I don’t know where they came from, but they came.

  Now we’re surrounded. I look over at Jackson. My already breakin
g heart splinters at the sight of his anguish.

  His brother’s betrayal devastates him.

  I can only think of how glad I am that Jin isn’t here to see his two best friends turn truly psycho.

  As if reading my thoughts, Nathanial smirks the same cocky smirk I usually find so sexy on his brother. “Too bad dear’ol’ Jin isn’t here. I’d love to see his face when he finds out I was the one to kill the Duchess.” He waves his hand vaguely. “Ah, well, can’t have everything, can we?”

  None of us say anything. The man before us is a stranger. Lewis, at least, has always been a dick, but I cannot reconcile this vile creature with the kind and warm older brother of my Kladí, whom I had started to feel was my older brother as well.

  Nathanial frowns at our silence. I’d say he pouted if grown men could pout.

  No, nope, he’s pouting.

  Forrest surprises me by being the one to speak first, the shyest of us finding his courage easily. “What do you want?”

  His voice is as unemotional as Nathanial’s, but his muscles are so tense, touching him would be like touching the side of a mountain.

  “Figured it out, did you? Smart boy.”

  Forrest says nothing, but Lucas and I exchange a look. Figured out what?

  “What Forrest here figured out—your father sends his regards by the way—” Forrest’s fists twitch and Nathanial grins before continuing, “is that we don’t want to fight you. Let’s face it, any battle here will only end in your deaths. Give us the girl, and let Jasmine fix your memories. Nobody needs to get hurt. I have orders to bring you all in, but I can be magnanimous.”

  I move to go to Nathanial, but Jackson stops me. His hand bands like steel around my forearm.

  “No,” he says. The fiery rage of before has cooled into biting ice.

  “Jackson, what are you doing? You heard him. This is the only—”

  “No,” he says again.

  Turning to look at me, his eyes warm into the forest-green color I love so much. Those are the eyes I know.