“You’re wasting your efforts,” Sheppard said.
Hank looked at Dez. “Want us to start on him?”
Sheppard shrugged. “Nah, a man like him, I could beat on all day with no results. But going after one of his own—“
Dez’s heart squeezed hard. He had to get Ethan out of here.
Sheppard walked to the door. “Truss that one back up. Give them the night to think things through and we’ll begin again at first light when they’re both fully alert.” He exited without a backward glance, king of his domain, expecting everything to go his way.
“You heard Sheppard.” Richards let go of Ethan, leaving him supported by Hank alone who seemed reluctant to let him go.
Dez held his breath as he glared up at Hank.
Feeling his gaze, Hank turned from staring down at Ethan and met Dez’s eyes. A slow smile twisted his features. It’d be so easy for him to accidentally twist Ethan’s head a little too forcefully. Dez had never felt so helpless in his life. He’d prefer facing off with the Sifts or that damn wolf again.
The wolf was hungry, but it wasn’t sadistically cruel.
Eyes on Dez, Hank ran a finger across Ethan’s exposed throat and then simply let go.
Ethan dropped to the floor in a spineless heap.
Never looking away from Dez, Hank stood over them as Richards did the grunt work, dragging Ethan on his stomach over to the sink and retied his wrists to the pipes before they exited without another jab at them.
Chapter Six
Fury pushed Dez to keep sawing through the ropes, even as his fingers cramped around the small blade.
Ethan could not wake up like that, not on his stomach, arms bound and stretched like that. He’d think…
Dez swallowed around the bile rising up his throat and sawed at his bonds more fervently, watching the subtle difference in his friend’s breathing. He knew too well what Ethan’s nightmares consisted of.
Whatever drug he’d been dosed with was wearing off. Ethan was rousing, the lashes of his unswollen eye were moving against his flushed skin.
Ethan shifted suddenly, trying to lift his head. The muscles in his arms tightened and Dez sawed harder, anticipating Ethan’s reaction.
Ethan tugged more forcefully on his arms, finding them immobile. He drew in a painful breath.
Dez knew the moment Ethan came awake and panicked. His face lifted. He sucked in a painful breath and all hell broke loose.
“No!” Ethan screeched, yanking and yanking against the pipes forcefully enough to make his wrists bleed.
“Ethan, stop! It’s okay, man. You’re not there. You’re not there.” None of this was okay.
Ethan was beyond hearing. He twisted violently onto his back, his features pale with terror, chest heaving so rapidly he was on the verge of hyperventilating, body arching and legs kicking out.
Gloriesdammit! Dez slashed the tiny blade into his ropes, finally feeling the loosening in the fraying bonds. He couldn’t wait, pulled his arms apart with everything he had…groaning as the veins in his neck bulged. Sweat trickled across his neck. Ethan’s leg knocked into his.
With a burst of adrenaline, one of the ropes gave, fraying apart, and Dez twisted his arms, freeing one hand and was on his knees next to Ethan before he had the rest of the rope off of his other hand.
He latched onto Ethan’s arms, holding him steady to quit flaying his wrists apart. His arms were twisted oddly against the ropes, one on top of the other from flopping onto his back.
“Hey, hey, snap out of it.” He curled his hands around Ethan’s biceps, hating to restrain him in any manner while he was like this.
Ethan was still plagued by the occasional nightmare, but Dez hadn’t seen him locked so tight in a terror this bad for years.
Damn drugs, damn Sheppard to the worst parts of hell for this.
“Come on, Ethe. It’s me. You’re okay. You’re not there anymore. You got away. You’re not there. You’re with me. It’s Dez. Right? Come on.”
Tension coiled beneath Dez’s palms. The muscles of Ethan’s arms were rock hard, tight as stone, veins bulged to bursting.
Damn it, he wasn’t getting through. “That’s it.” Dez leaned down into Ethan’s space, getting up close and personal and palmed his cheeks roughly. “Now you listen to me,” he snarled. “Snap out of this right the hell now.”
Ethan tried to shake his head out of Dez’s grip but Dez wouldn’t let him. His eyes tracked to the side and up, anywhere but at Dez. He knew that look, hadn’t seen it since the first months after he’d found the kid in that sewer when he curled into a fetal position, afraid to go to sleep every night. It was like he didn’t even see him and whatever Ethan was seeing scared him out of his gourd.
“Eyes on me, soldier. Front and center.” Dez willed Ethan back to him.
Ethan flinched. His eyes shot to Dez. Something in his tone must have finally connected. Ethan stilled. His chest rose hard, hitching beneath Dez.
Dez lightly smacked his cheek, left his palm there. “You with me?”
Ethan’s Adam’s apple bobbed and he nodded, pupils blown wide, but he was coming out of whatever memory had a grasp on him. He was fighting his way back. Dez hated that he had to go through this.
“Dez?”
“Yeah, man.” Dez sucked in a needed breath of relief. “Yeah, it’s me.”
Ethan’s gaze roved around. He yanked on his arms and his eyes widened, uncertain.
“Hold still for a moment. I’ll cut you loose. Ethe?”
Ethan nodded. “I’m good.” His voice grated like gravel beneath his boots. “Go…go ahead.”
That’a boy. Disoriented, drugged to the gills, Ethan pulled himself through the haze. He stared up at Dez with a trust so certain it humbled Dez to the depths of his soul. What had he ever done to deserve such trust?
Ethan remained still while Dez quickly untied him and then pulled him up, patting his arms to get the circulation flowing again.
For his part, Ethan remained quiet and still during the ministrations, his gaze taking in every surface of the bathroom. “Where?” he croaked so raw the scrape of it made Dez’s throat hurt in sympathy.
“Back at the motel. I think.” Good, Ethan was firing on all cylinders again.
Calloused fingers bunched into the fabric of his worn shirt. “Where? Alexander?”
Oh gods.
Ethan started shaking so hard the hold he had on Dez’s shirt pulled tight. Heat radiated off his skin. “They-they killed him. The bastards killed him. Strung him up…like meat.” Letting go, he flattened his palm on the floor to push himself up, working on adrenaline to kill somebody. Dez was right there with him in that sentiment…that is if Ethan was in any sort of condition to remain on his feet.
“Did you hear me?” Ethan growled. “They killed Alexander! Slaughtered him!” He crumpled over as though the weight of the realization was too much to bear in his fevered state.
Dez steadied him. “No, not dead. I don’t think—“ He couldn’t be sure…
“I saw it!”
“I know, but…” Dez shook his head, rattling his jumbled thoughts. His head was still pounding, even worse than before after restraining Ethan. “Illusion, I think. I saw what you saw. The Sifts—“ He nearly gagged at the memory of it. “I also saw something else. Him being saved, by the girl—Jewel. Both images overlapped somehow…”
Ethan snapped his face up at him, eyes wet and miserable. “Alive?”
Dez nodded. “I think so.” He prayed so.
“Then how? Why would you see something different?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I took a blow to the head, woke up while it was happening, after the illusion was cast, so I didn’t get the full whammy of it.”
“Can Alexander do that? Make an illusion like that?”
Good question. Kid was a sorcerer, had more tricks in his arsenal than they knew about. “Yeah, maybe. I hope so.”
“Then where is he? We have to know for sure.”
“Alexander can’t be alive. He wouldn’t just leave us. As much as I wish he would have. He wouldn’t.”
“Maybe he didn’t have a choice.”
Ethan’s features flushed violet at that. “Sheppard might have him here trussed up somewhere. We’re not leaving Alexander.”
“Absolutely not, but waiting around here and getting ourselves killed isn’t going to help him. Think you can walk?”
Ethan nodded, but his legs went out from under him as Dez got him to his feet. “That’ll have to do.”
He pulled Ethan’s arm across his shoulders and guided them to the door, taking most of Ethan’s weight. “Stay here a moment.” He leaned Ethan against the wall.
“I want to come with.”
Dez grinned. “There’s at least one guard out there. Maybe two. Think I can’t handle that.”
Ethan rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Not going to leave me any fun.”
Dez cuffed the back of his neck. “Just try not to fall down while I’m gone, would you?”
“You say the sweetest things.”
Dez grinned. “Shut up. You’re a moron, you know that?”
Unrepentant, Ethan’s lips formed a loopy smile. He stopped Dez with a palm to his arm. “How we going to find out for sure about Alexander?”
Palm ready to push open the door, Dez frowned. “We’ll find the girl. One way or another, Jewel will know what happened to him.” He hoped to any deity in existence that she’d be able to confirm what he saw. The other possibility was too unbearable to think about.
~~~
Everything ached as though he’d just run across the entire state. Muscles Alexander didn’t know he had were cramping up on him.
He felt sure competent hands turn him on his side and a warm damp cloth smooth over his back. Apparently he was in the middle of some sort of sponge bath.
He must still be in the care of his coddling aunts from when that Sift got a bite out of him. Except…
Alexander cracked his eyes open. That had been months ago, hadn’t it?
His thoughts swirled away, too weighty to keep a hold of.
“Shh, just rest. That’s the drug cramping your muscles.” Jewel’s vice floated behind his shoulder, intermingling with his hazy thoughts. “It will wear off. I promise it will wear off. As will the fever.”
Fever? What had happened to him?
She eased him back over to lie flat on his back. Ah, there she was, leaning over him with such an expression of concern, alarm struck his chest, tearing through his muscles. What had happened to her? Was she all right?
“Wha—?” he croaked.
Her cool palm pressed him back down. “Try not to move. It will be easier.”
He didn’t understand what she was talking about.
“I’m so sorry Sheppard did this to you.”
Her eyes shimmered behind a sheen of wetness and he wanted nothing more than to ease whatever had caused her distress. Or take her in his arms and simply hold her until it all went away. “Just…just rest. I won’t let anything else happen to you, I swear.”
He grinned, or at least he thought he did. He couldn’t be sure the sentiment made it to his face. She’d take care of him. That was cute.
Although as he lost the strength to keep his eyes open, he didn’t fight it so hard, trusting that Jewel did have his well-being in hand. He trusted her on the same level as he did Ethan and…
Fear burst through his essence, a flaming dart, but it was too late. Already on a downward spiral, he couldn’t claw his way back to the surface.
Chapter Seven
The next he awoke, hushed voices circled around him.
“…certain he can be trusted…how can you know?”
“…feel it…”
“…not good enough…have to be sure…what if you’re wrong?”
Alexander squinted his eyes open to two figures hunched near a sloping attic type wall, their heads close together. Jewel and some man spoke together quietly, their closeness suggesting they knew each other very well. Uneasiness stirred in Alexander’s belly. He didn’t like the feeling.
“…have to take a chance sometime…before Sheppard finds more men the caliber of Hank and Richards.”
“Are you prepared…wait, he’s rousing.”
Jewel rushed to Alexander’s side, her knees pushing into his arm where he lay on a lumpy cushion, one of those old pool-side lounge cushions that had been placed on the dusty floor. “How do you feel? Still achy?”
“The drug should have cleared his system by now,” the stranger, a light-haired man, spoke from behind Jewel’s shoulder, eyeing Alexander curiously. “Here.” He passed an aluminum soda can to Jewel.
“Can you try to sit so you can drink this?” she asked. “It’s water,” she added when he merely frowned at her, even while his throat contracted in thirst just thinking of a sip of water.
“Still don’t trust me?” She went for a teasing tone, yet the quaver to her voice gave her away. She wanted his trust. And in truth, she had it. He wasn’t sure why exactly, or why so suddenly, but he did trust her.
But she was with strangers he didn’t know, and Sheppard— The events of what brought him to this point slammed into his awareness like a bullet. Oh déithe. Sheppard and the Sifts. He’d been staked out on that chain link fence like a gobbler for the monsters’ feast. And Dez and Ethan…
He bolted upright in a panic. The muscles of his abdomen clenched in agony. “My men,” he rasped, vocal chords as raw as scraped leather.
“Easy.” The guy with Jewel was on the other side of the thin cushion now, trying to ease him back.
But Alexander wasn’t one to take being staked out while his friends were threatened lying flat on his back. “No. What’s happened? Where are they?” Tiny dots of perspiration pebbled his bare chest and arms. He fought the shaking in his limbs just sitting up brought on.
“The tremors will pass.” The guy’s eyes were sympathetic. “Aftereffects. I should know,” he added bitterly.
Alexander snapped his face toward him. “My men,” he gritted, fearing the worst.
“Sheppard still has them,” Jewel supplied and something loosened in Alexander’s chest.
“They’re alive? They weren’t given to the Sifts?” It took monumental effort to voice that fear past his lips.
The man shook his head. “They’re human. Sheppard would kill them outright before giving them to the creatures. He’s conscionable that way.” Anger streamed from every pore of the guy. Alexander suspected he’d feel it even without the enhanced senses of a sorcerer.
“So they—“
“He wouldn’t have them killed,” Jewel said quickly, flashing a distressed look to the guy. “Not right away. Not until he gets what he wants.”
Gets what he wants. Alexander’s stomach clutched harder. “He has to know Dez and Ethan would never join him.” Not after what Sheppard did to him.
“He’ll want as much information he can get on your location in California.” The guy crossed his arms and cocked his head, a hind of calculation in his light eyes. “Is it true? There’s a large gathering there, large enough to take on the beasts?”
So Jewel told this guy about that. And why wouldn’t she? They gave the appearance of being…close. A stab of jealousy that he had no right feeling burrowed into him. What the hell? He had no business thinking about her in these kind of terms.
Frowning he looked down at his hands. His wrists were bandaged where the ropes had been. He shook his head, reasoning through the worry at hand. Ethan and Dez. He’d figure out who this guy was later and how far he could be trusted.
Jewel obviously trusted him and damn it, he trusted her, even though he didn’t want to like this guy.
“I assume I have you to thank that I’m not bits and pieces inside the belly of one of the beasts.”
“Make tha
t several bellies of several beats.” The guy snorted. “Yes, you have us to thank.”
Hot stomach acid rose up his throat, but Alexander held it down. “Thank you.” He meant it sincerely. Déithe, it’d been close. He could still feel the ropes digging into his wrists as the weight of his body pulled on them. Heard the clanging of the fence as he struggled against it. Felt the hot wash of the monster’s breath, graveyards and death, steal over him…
“How?” He knew magic had to have been involved.
“Illusion.” Jewel answered while the guy hesitated.
“Jewel,” the young man warned.
“He has a right to know,” she insisted, eyes flashing, and Alexander’s breath caught. Here was a woman who was done tiptoeing around the facts. So far, everything he had seen her do, she took head on. Glories, she was amazing. “We’re asking him to trust us. We need to trust him first.”
Both Alexander and the guy stared at her. She was right. It was as simple and as complicated as trust. And he did trust her. It tugged in his gut, an indefinable irrefutable knowledge that she’d never betray him. The scientist in him wanted to quantify it, yet the sorcerer who’d experience things that science could never explain embraced the magic of such incalculable realities.
It simply was.
Jewel was remarkable. She was worthy of his trust.
And she was being brave enough to take a chance on him. Hell, they had already saved his life. How much more trust did they have to earn?
“It’s true. We’re eight hundred strong in California and growing. Humans…” he inclined his head “…and others.”
“Non-humans?” the guy asked.
“A few.”
Jewel locked gazes with the guy, a silent understanding passing between them. The guy shot to his feet and began pacing. “And this canister you gave to Sheppard? What does it do?”
“That he took,” Alexander corrected. “The canister that Sheppard took. It’s a serum.”
“A serum?”
Alexander laid it all out straight for them, the anti-rift formula, time travel, even that he was a sorcerer from decades in the past. If he was going to trust this man, he was going to trust all the way. Dez and Ethan were worth any consequence that might come down on him.
Highland Son (Highland Sorcery: A New Dawn) Page 7