by Renee George
“Did you hear that?” Trace rose from his chair, fully alert. “Did you?”
The mark’s vibration grew stronger, but Ian hadn’t heard a sound.
“Ian!” Trace grabbed his arm. “Did you hear her?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Benie. Maybe I’m losing my mind.” Trace didn’t let Ian go. “Her voice sounded distant, barely audible, but I swear I heard her.”
“Let me in,” Ian said. He’d shared Calder’s conscience before when Benie had been poisoned. He knew it was possible, and even more, Ian wanted to believe they could still save their mate.
Trace nodded sharply. Ian could feel Trace’s mind, stretching out with his telepathy, opening all Ian’s senses, joining with him and casting a widespread net. He jerked at the first brush of her thoughts. Benie was out there. He could feel her now. Far. Distant. But she was there. Just out of reach.
The mark on Ian’s left shoulder began to burn, and because they were connected by Trace’s telepathy, he felt Trace’s mark as well, as if a branding iron had pressed white hot to their skin. The searing pain brought him to his knees.
Ian cried out, holding his left shoulder with his right hand. “What’s happening?”
Gray’s voice penetrated the chaos in Ian and Trace’s minds. “You must join in mark and will. It’s the Triune. It calls to you both.”
Ian couldn’t move, not under the weight of visions and thoughts, but he refused to close himself off from Trace. He wouldn’t shut it down, not as long as she was out there.
He felt Trace’s hand slip into his palm from behind him. The weight of Trace’s back pressed against his own, and in that singular moment, when the marks joined, time stopped, the voices stopped, and the world stood still.
Suddenly Ian could breathe, think. His mind sharpened with clarity.
“Help me, Ian,” he heard Trace say.
Ian leaned his head back until it rested against Trace’s.
They joined minds completely. Ian found it oddly comforting having his bed and pack mate near him, and for once, beyond their petty rivalry, he could sense that Trace felt the same. Together, they searched out the furthest reaches to find their common destination. He’d always viewed Trace as an obstacle, something to overcome in his relationship with Benie, but in this they were well suited. Allies.
In one voice, they called out to Benie, seeking the connection.
They both heard her voice, clear as a bell. “I’m here!”
Benie heard them calling, Trace and Ian both. “I’m here,” she said, pushing her will and thought in their direction.
The mark, along with her body, seared with an agonizing need for her men. Where were they?
We’re looking for you, love. We won’t stop until we find you. Trace’s voice penetrated the melancholy.
Her body burned with fever, and the delirium had her seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Ian and Trace’s voices were probably another hallucination. She shook her head. They wouldn’t make it in time, not before the toxicity killed her and the babies. “It’s hopeless.”
As long as you’re alive, it’s not. Ian spoke this time.
“Ian…” How many times had he come to her rescue? He’d been the one person in her life she could count on. Always. She laughed, a short barking sound. “Quite a mess I’ve made, huh?”
Not you. Hush now. Ian’s voice brushed her mind like silk across bare skin.
“I’m dying.”
She felt the alarm in them. They were strong men, both powerful in their own ways, but they weren’t a match for her other biology. Ian would know that better than anyone. “I love you.” It was the last thing she said before she reluctantly broke off the connection.
Weariness settled in. Her head pounded to excruciating levels as her internal temperature rose. Benie shivered, her teeth chattering as she pulled the blankets to her chin. It wouldn’t be long, maybe a day at the most until toxic meltdown. Maybe the end would come sooner than she thought. She almost prayed it would.
It had been three hours since Benie had broken contact. No matter how many times Trace and Ian tried to connect with her again, they failed. She’d severed the tie completely. They were no closer to finding her, and Trace worried that when they did, it would be too late.
One of the triplets, Max he guessed, since the man didn’t speak when he entered, ran into the room. The silver-eyed dragon shifter grunted his urgency and handed a piece of paper to Trace.
“It’s from Shade. She’s located Caledon.”
Ian put his hand on Trace’s arm. “Where?”
“He’s moved the kingdom to Arkansas, a remote location in the Green mountains.” They were just outside of Springfield, Missouri, and the Green Mountains were at least a four-hour drive.
“I have a faction of rebels in Little Rock,” Gray said. “A small army. It will take them about six or seven hours to assemble and meet us at the location.”
Trace’s adrenaline surged as his panic rose. “We need to leave now before he moves Caledon again.”
“You can’t take him on alone,” Gray said calmly. “We need the back-up.”
“As it is,” Trace said. “It’s going to take several hours to get to Benie. Hours she might not have left.”
“I know some people,” Destan said. “I can get them here in a half an hour. And we,” he indicated his brothers and himself, “can get you all down there a lot quicker.” His pupils slitted as a nictitating layer slid over and back. “Dragon power. Blah, blah, blah.”
Gray gave a disapproving glance to the young man, but didn’t protest.
Trace stiffened as he felt an arm wrap the front of his chest. The mark on his shoulder warmed as Ian’s chest pressed against his back. His panic dulled with the contact, and he didn’t pull away from the offered comfort.
“I think I have something that will help us take down the bastard,” Ian said.
Trace touched the other man’s hand as it lay flat on his chest. “Yeah?”
“It’s a serum I’ve developed that enhances our abilities. Makes them... more.”
“How?”
“I derived it from Benie’s blood.”
A snort from the open door drew their attention. Destan crossed his arms. “Benie juice?”
“I would never call it that,” Ian said.
Trace nodded to Destan. “And you shouldn’t, either. Not unless you want Benie to take your head off.”
Ian nodded. “We wait for Destan’s back-up, then we go in like it’s World War III.”
Trace put both his hands over Ian’s now, letting the other man’s warmth bolster him. “Let’s find our girl.”
The first night had ebbed into another day, then the day back to night. Benie stretched out on the silk sheets, and then twisted. She’d refused food and drink, hoping to hasten death. She turned and drew up into a ball. She couldn’t find a comfortable position, one not bringing any more relief than another. Why had she cut off contact with her mates? No, she told herself, she’d done the right thing. To distract herself, she watched the gold cuffs on her arms and legs move like ghosts around her as her skin took on the dusty rose color of the bedding.
She needed Ian and Trace. Needed them right then and there. Where were they? Wait. Wait. She’d sent them away. “I’m sorry.” Fevered thoughts picked at her brain.
The impulse to claw her way through the darkness and call out to her lovers pulsed within Benie, palpable and urgent. Her need to protect them was overwhelmed by the Triune’s need to connect. The fever seared her body, causing her skin to sting and buzz. Like a boat adrift in open water, Benie closed her eyes, and in a weak moment, opened her mind and reached out for her anchors. A wash of relief flooded her system when their auras mingled with hers.
It wasn’t enough, not physically. She drew them closer. “I need to see you. To touch you and be touched.” With a swift intake of breath, she reached out her hands and gripped them tightly, amazed she could actuall
y feel them beneath her fingertips.
She knew Trace’s remarkable ability could allow her to see and touch them as if they were real. Benie willed it so. Gradually a figure began to materialize before her, and she held her breath with anticipation. Would it be Ian or Trace? Black hair, definitely Trace. But no… blue eyes. Ian?
Benie’s eyes widened as the rest of the figure formed, so solid and real in front of her. Confused and dumbstruck, she inched back across the bed. “Who are you?”
“It’s me,” he said. “Trace.” The voice sounded like Trace.
“I’m here, too, Benie.”
“Ian?” Confused and confounded, Benie studied the man. He had Trace’s coarse black hair, straight nose, and bow lips, but he was tall like Ian, with Ian’s blue eyes and narrow face. “Trace?” He wore a bomber jacket and a pair of black jeans. Classic Trace. But he had on a T-shirt with the slogan, “Talk Nerdy to Me,” definitely one of Ian’s.
“Yes,” the man said, and she heard both their voices in unison.
That did it—she’d finally lost her marbles. She hadn’t reconnected, merely allowed the fever to take her to a very strange—and, she decided as she looked at the handsome man before her, the best of both her lovers—wonderful place.
She was dying. Why shouldn’t she embrace these last moments? “Take off your clothes. Come lay by me. I want to feel your skin against mine.”
“Benie, listen, we need to know where you’re located in the house. You need to concentrate.”
This was her fantasy, and the hunka-hunka combo-man was trying to ruin it. She ran her fingers over her breasts and licked her lips. “I need you to shut the fuck up and take off your clothes.”
“Go to the window. Tell us what you see.”
The vision’s hands trembled. “You need to focus.”
She reached out, her fingers touching the solid form, cold and hard, not like their warm flesh. Was this a trick? Her father’s idea of a cruel joke? “No,” she said. “You’re not real.”
The creature wended his fingers into her hair and yanked her head back to look at him. “Stop. You have to pay attention.”
The small stab of pain when it pulled her hair helped her mind to clear some.
“Benie.” It was Ian’s voice now. He sounded gravelly, raw.
Benie stared at the thing that was both Ian and Trace, taking in its dark, twisted beauty. She reached out again. Instead of a cold, sold mass, the thing had become warm and permeable. Her hands sank beneath its skin, or rather it began to sink into her. The mark on her lower back flared to life, and she felt a throbbing sensation on her left shoulder, and then on the right, as it completely absorbed into her body. Their psychic touch abated some of the madness.
Ready or not, darling. We’re here, and we’re coming to get you.
Benie lay back onto the bed rolled onto her side. He father stood just inside the bedroom door staring at her.
“Son of a bitch!” Benie yanked the sheet up her body.
“I’ve never seen anything like what you just did. And trust me, that’s saying a lot.” He waved his hand. “You really are a magnificent creature.”
“I hate you.” She moved off the bed, still holding the sheet to her body.
“You have become Triune, not just a symbol, but real strength and potency. You are undeniably the Queen of Caledon. I’m sorry, daughter, but I can’t allow you to live now. Not even your child is worth the danger to my throne.”
Benie smiled, calm and unafraid. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
Garrick shrugged. He pulled out a small pad and pushed a button. The wrist and ankle cuffs yanked together magnetically, pulling Benie to the floor like a calf, roped and tied. “I don’t think the chance has passed. Do you?”
“No,” Benie shrieked, as she struggled helplessly against the magnetic shackles. A crashing boom of thunder shook the room, dashing the smile from Garrick’s face.
Benie heard semi-automatic gunfire, along with two more explosions. She struggled to pull the cuffs apart. They wouldn’t budge. “They’re coming,” Benie yelled. “They’re coming, and they will fucking end you, old man!”
Garrick roared, his shadow-self leeching lightning quick across the floor. Before Benie could react, Garrick shoved a dagger into her chest.
“No!” Benie stared at the blade protruding from her own body with disbelief as a sharp, agonizing pain took her to the floor.
Garrick drew the dagger from her chest. Blood spilled easily from the wound onto the white marble floor. “Your turn, daughter,” he taunted. “End me.”
Screams and shouts out in the hallway spilled into the room. The door exploded inward and two giant werewolves standing upright entered—one with a sword, the other with a gun. They aimed everything at Garrick.
Every slice and shot hit nothing but air.
Benie forced herself to ignore the battle. A war, much greater, waged inside her body as she fought to live. She felt the full weight of the triangular mark on her back flaring with life, filling her with the will to overcome and triumph.
A werewolf skidded past her as Garrick batted him down. The sword clanked onto tile. Blood soaked his fur. Trace. Benie had to keep it together. Somehow, the wound in her chest was healing, but it needed her full concentration. She couldn’t let her father know she was surviving his mortal wound, not if she wanted any chance at all at taking him by surprise.
The black holes in her skin, the ones that came with the fever, flitted in and out of reality. She embraced their emptiness and felt her body give way to something else. Something less solid. Her wrist and ankle cuffs slipped through her skin as her limbs turned to mist.
She hesitated, surprised when the cuffs clinked against the stone tiles. Ian, in wereform, got in a strike on Garrick, before he shadowed once again.
Benie willed her form to float, to move as fluid along the floor and to the wall.
“You can’t kill what you can’t catch,” Garrick said, taking solid form again as Benie’s mates regrouped and began to circle him. “I’ll live and you’ll die.”
“The hell you say.” Benie reached out with a speed she’d never achieved before, punching through his back. Instinctually, she wrapped her ghostly fingers around his hammering heart.
Garrick jerked. “No,” he whispered. “This isn’t possible.”
Benie grasped his heart, still beating within his chest, and squeezed.
Mouth open, gaping, unable to breathe, Garrick dropped to his knees. Benie kept her hold, tight and certain. Myron Gray walked in as Ian and Trace resumed their human guises, and watched Benie take her justice.
“You should have the honor, Uncle,” she said. Benie leaned to Garrick’s ear. “The gray man will have his vengeance.”
“He killed your mother and father. He had your adopted parents murdered as well.” Gray’s eyes softened with sadness and a long overdue grief. “His life is yours to take.”
Benie thought about everything she’d been through, and not just the past four months. The man responsible was in her grasp. Her own father. His blood ran through her veins. But he wasn’t someone who could be redeemed. He was a cancer, and cancers needed to be aggressively removed. She clenched his heart tight in her fist until her fingers burst through the wall of muscle protecting the valves. One beat, then no more.
Benie ripped her hand from his chest, blood splattering across the floor as she shook her fingers.
The fighting out in the hallway stopped. The sudden silence unnerved her.
Destan ran in the room holding a sword wet with scarlet blood high in his hand. He looked disheveled, but exhilarated. “That Benie juice rocks!” He looked at his father, Ian, Trace, Benie, and a very dead Garrick, and said, “All clear. Caledon is taken.”
Benie narrowed her gaze at the dragon shifter. “Benie juice?”
“Uhm,” he said, backing from the room. “I’m going to go check on the bros. Let them know all is well on the home front.”
His breathing grew softer, more shallow. She felt his hand at the small of her back. “This was your mother’s room,” was all he said. He gave her a quick squeeze before disengaging. He turned on his heel and walked straight out the door.
Benie blinked back the tears. Fuck. She’d been a goddamn water fountain since the beginning of her pregnancy, and it didn’t seem as if taking out Garrick had cured her leaky eyes.
Her chest wound was nothing more than a pink mark now. Trace and Ian, once again surrounded her, holding her, keeping all the bad stuff out. Later, she would deal with the world, but right now, she needed her men.
Too soon, Uncle Myron came back, followed by the triplets Eustan, Destan, and Max. Ty Wasape and Shade, along with dozens of more people she’d never seen traipsed in after. All dropped to their knees, prostrating themselves before her.
“Stop that,” she said, feeling uncomfortable and certainly unworthy. The conga line of subjects came to a screeching halt.
Gray approached her with the identical triplets. “Your mother would be proud.”
“Thank you, Uncle.” She kissed his cheek. She looked down at Garrick’s dead body, feeling nauseous. “I need to get out of here. I’m trying real hard not to ralph, but it’s getting tougher.”
Destan stepped back. “She’s already puked on me once. Someone else’s turn.”
She knew it was the pregnancy that was making her feel ill, not the dead man. Benie had killed many, many bad others in the past. No regret. And staring at Garrick, she didn’t have any regret now.