The Price of Knowing: A Powers of Influence Novel (The Powers of Influence Book 2)

by C. B. Haight

  Jarrett, feeling his mouth salivating and his muscles twitching, inclined his head in reply. Quicker than a person could blink, the brothers surged forward in unison, transforming into dark creatures born of night and moon.

  Truly, it was a sight to behold. The two lycanthropes easily jumped fifteen feet in the air. Tanned skin turned to long, black fur as muscles bulged and each brother shifted. The shackled werewolves burst free of their human bodies.

  Landing in tandem, each bore down on their intended victim with fang and claw. The leech demons were surprised by the viciousness they faced and fought furiously. Moments later, there were only eight.

  Four more leeches and two greater-demons shot through the dark to attack and poured over the wolves in hopes of overwhelming them. They met with disappointment as they turned to ash.

  Meditating with Cynda in an effort to stay relaxed and try to have an open link to the two men, Collett found it very difficult to do either. Her worry for Cade and Jarrett superseded any effort she made to focus. Frustrated, she stood. Cynda opened her eyes and looked up to Collett. “I’m sorry, I can’t sit still right now,” Collett told her.

  Cynda rose. “I’ll make some tea to help you relax.”

  “I should have felt something by now.”

  “Not necessarily,” replied Cynda from the kitchen. “Take it as a good sign that you haven’t sensed anything. In the past, your connections haven’t activated until someone was in dire need of help.”

  A few minutes later, Cynda returned with the tea in hand. “I added a few herbs to help ease your tension. You likely won’t be open to sense them if you don’t take it easy. Most of the time, you’ve been asleep when you connected to Jarrett, and according to Cade, you haven’t slept as well as the rest of us. He says you’re having dreams still.”

  “I didn’t realize he knew,” she admitted.

  “Husbands notice more than we give them credit for. At any rate, sleep deprivation will only make it harder for you to focus. You have to relax in case they do need you. So don’t argue, as I can tell you want to. Just drink.”

  Collett looked at the cup of tea. She knew Cynda was right, and she reluctantly accepted the drink.

  An hour later, feeling effects of the hot drink, Collett began drifting off on the couch with the cell phone clutched tightly in her hand. Her head bobbed. She jerked it upright again and blinked several times to revive herself. Even though she had sworn there was no way for her to rest while Cade and Jarrett were out playing bait and hook with Niall, she felt the heavy weight pull at her.

  “Dormir une petite. I will wait,” she heard Delphene say in a soothing tone.

  “I’ll wait too. I want to know the minute they get back,” she mumbled.

  Delphene only smiled as she watched Collett’s eyes drift closed once more. She winked at Cynda and waited a few heartbeats before retrieving the blanket on the end of the couch to cover her new friend. “Dormir une petite,” she repeated.

  For a little while, Collett thought of nothing. Before too long, she felt a familiar icy cold crawl over her skin. She’d felt this before in her dreams the last few nights, and even back in Colorado a couple of times. This time was different. Her wrists hurt terribly, and an achy heaviness fell over her. An unimaginable thirst welled up in her throat as well.

  A shuffling noise startled her, and Collett realized, like the other times, she still couldn’t see. Wherever she was offered no light of any kind. “Who’s there?” she called, determined to understand the recurring dream.

  A strange sound reached her. It sounded like someone sobbing. “C-c-collett?” The voice was familiar to her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I’m s-s-s-sorry,” came the muffled words. In her previous dreams, there’d been no sound, no voice. Her mind processed the vague dreams she’d had the last couple weeks of being in the dark and in pain.

  As she focused on the voice coming at her through the blackness, her mind flashed back to the young boy who sat across from her on Thanksgiving Day in Rederrick’s home. “Cody?” she asked with disbelief.

  “I didn’t know,” he answered with a cracked voice from the dark recesses.

  Desperate, she began moving around the room to find him. She found herself surprised that she could feel the walls. She figured her powers to connect must be growing. With Jarrett and Jenny, even when she tried to reach out, she never made contact before.

  “I didn’t want to,” he insisted.

  “It’s okay, Cody,” she said and suddenly felt skin beneath her fingers. She pulled away as the brief contact surprised her. “Cody?” She reached out again.

  “He knows. I tried—I tried— not to tell him. I swear I did.”

  When she touched him again, the physical connection pulsed through her. The full extent of his condition assaulted her. She felt a sudden need to vomit, but held it back. It was even more vivid than it had been with Jarrett. Collett’s legs almost buckled under the weight of it. “Cody…” she panted, bracing her other hand on the wall. “Cody, who knows?”

  “Finnawick told him about me. I tried to lie, but he knew. It doesn’t work on him.”

  Miraculously, through the pain, she understood his thoughts. She felt more in control of her power than ever before. Her mind searched through his and she saw a big brute of a man beating him as he hung from chains like a human punching bag. She tried to block the horrible images but couldn’t do it fast enough. She saw the large fists coming toward her as if she was Cody.

  Her breath left her, and this time, her knees did falter. She pulled herself back up as the horror of what she saw ebbed. Her tears for him flowed freely. She struggled to find her center again. It was somewhere in that effort for control that she realized Cody wasn’t really talking to her. He was sure she was a figment of his imagination or a ghost.

  “Cody, where are you? Where is this place?” she asked between her teeth, still absorbing his pain.

  “Are you dead then?” he moaned. “D-did, did he kill you? I’m sorry. I tried not to tell him. He knew—about you. About...what you do. But I didn’t tell him. He doesn’t know it all—”

  “All what?” she asked him.

  “You remembered...d-doesn’t know that.” He shivered suddenly, whether from pain or cold she couldn’t tell. It felt all mixed together within her.

  Collett reached into herself for any feelings of warmth and comfort she could find in an effort to lend peace to the battered boy and calm him. “I’m not dead Cody. I’m here to help,” she assured him with a smooth voice.

  “I tried,” he repeated more softly, as if he was drifting off. Her effort to ease his discomfort was working.

  Desperate to keep him awake, she moved her hand, looking for his face. Finding it, she was overwhelmed with shock and anger.

  The emotions tore through her as she felt his disfigured features. She didn’t need light to know how bad it was. Gently, she probed his face. His eyes were swollen shut, and the strange bump between them let her know his nose was clearly broken. He moaned as her hand touched its bridge.

  “Oh Cody,” she whispered, feeling the cracks in his lips and then a scab on his cheek where his skin had split. She forced the tears back to focus on him and his immense needs. She considered unchaining him, but since she had no way to get him out of this place, she knew it could make matters worse. If his captors came back, they would likely punish him for it. “Cody? Cody, where are you? We’ll get you out of here, but I need to know where you are.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Cody, please! You have to tell me,” she begged.

  “I…d-d…” he muttered.

  Collett suddenly felt herself being pulled from the dream—a dream she’d managed to hold onto longer than any before it. Focusing, she tried to stay with him. She couldn’t leave him this way. She could still feel every injury and knew how severe they were. Though she eased a significant amount of it for him, she knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  This was worse than anything she�
��d experienced with Jarrett. She hardly knew this boy, but her heart cried out for him. It was simply too much pain, for anyone to endure. It was too much for her. She tried to pour more comfort into him, but weakened by pain, the more she gave the more she lost clarity of the vision. She could no longer feel his skin beneath her fingers, and the darkness slowly became muted light through her closed eyelids. The lost connection tore at her, and she began to cry.

  “Collett, come on. Wake up. There’ll be none of that while Cade’s not here, you hear me?” she heard Rederrick order.

  Someone shook her, and the residual throbbing pain from Cody came back to her. “Ahhh” she groaned. Her ribs still felt broken. The pain in her face was even worse, and on instinct, she slowly reached up to feel for the expected swelling. She only found salty tears.

  “She’s coming back,” Nate said, but he sounded far away.

  The tears she felt while in the dream continued to leak from her closed lids.

  “Is it Jarrett? Cade?” Rederrick asked urgently.

  Collett shook her head and immediately regretted the action. She pressed her hand to her pounding head.

  “What is it then? What did you see? Jenny?” he question incessantly.

  “Please, not Jenny,” Cynda pleaded hopefully.

  “Not—Jenny. It’s Cody,” she croaked past the lump in her throat. “I can feel Cody.”

  Her revelation startled everyone in the room. Ever since his disappearance around Thanksgiving, many of them had begun to think Cody was dead. It was the only explanation of why they couldn’t find him. Even Delphene had been told of his sudden disappearance and suspected the boy’s demise.

  “Well then, where is he?” Rederrick demanded, helping her to sit up after the shock wore off. His worry for the boy was evident in his tone.

  Collett bit her lip, but her features pinched and a whimper managed to escape her. Extreme pain became evident in her tear filled eyes.

  “What is it? What did you see?” questioned Nate.

  “Something’s wrong,” pronounced Cynda, being the first to see that Collett’s pain wasn’t fading as it had with Jarrett. She pushed Rederrick out of the way and took his place next to Collett on the couch. “Collett?” she questioned quietly.

  “It’s too much,” she cried, laid back down, and sobbed.

  Cade and Jarrett were both satisfied with the outcome. Their golden, predatory eyes locked, and they both realized, for the first time, how powerful they really were together.

  In essence, they’d obliterated their enemy. Only one escaped, Victor, and that had been deliberate on their part. They knew he’d been watching from a distance and wanted to lay him low as well, but they wanted Niall to get the message, loud and clear, even more.

  Jarrett thought, for the first time in his life, that being alone no longer looked so appealing. Being with Cade—facing the battle together, and succeeding—felt far more satisfying than simply surviving any battle he’d engaged in alone. He never before realized how supremely gratifying it could be to share in a victory such as this one with a person who had his back.

  He knew then that he trusted Cade as he’d never trusted anyone before. Despite their problems over the last century, their combined faith in one another this night set a new precedent that he hoped would last long after this. The revelation was difficult to process. It even left him slightly remiss that they hadn’t had that before tonight. Though he didn’t voice it, Jarrett wondered how different his life would have been if the little, angry boy he’d been all those years before had searched for the brother Rowena told him about shortly before she died.

  For too long, he let Niall manipulate him by using his own fear and anger of what he was. Lately, the anger was almost all he had left, and he clung to it. Except on this night, there was something else. Tonight, he didn’t feel the anger so much as he felt…pride. Jarrett felt pride in his brother, pride in himself, and proud of what they’d accomplished together.

  “How long do you think it will take—Victor, is it—to give him the message?” Cade asked with a smug grin.

  Jarrett couldn’t help it, his lips twitched. “Longer than he’d like. Victor can’t use magic. He’ll have to call someone who can or find other transportation. Either way, I wouldn’t want to be him when he tells Niall the news.”

  “If he can’t use magic, what makes him so important?” Cade asked, reaching into his jeans for his own phone.

  Sitting on a rock but keeping his eyes alert, Jarrett answered, “Victor’s a genius, technologically and logistically speaking. He can outthink just about anyone, and predict exactly what they’ll do in any given situation.”

  “I suppose it’s good we’re not just anyone,” Cade replied with a little arrogance, which Jarrett appreciated.

  “It’s likely he’s the one who found the others in Colorado,” Jarrett added as Cade began to dial. Before he even pressed the last button on the phone, Jeffery appeared not more than 20 feet away from them.

  At first, Cade didn’t think the appearance strange. He assumed Collett knew they were ready by keeping linked with Jarrett. In the dark, he didn’t notice the worry in Jeffery’s eyes right away.

  It was, in fact, Jarrett that noticed the strange expression on Jeffery’s face. He became alert, and a sense of foreboding washed away his earlier satisfaction.

  Jeffery looked around, checking to make sure it was safe to be there. “What’s wrong?” Jarrett questioned darkly.

  By then, Cade also noticed the strained expression. “Collett?” he asked urgently, striding forward. “What happened?”

  Clearly uncomfortable, Jeffery gestured to Jarrett. “Come on, you’ve got to come back with me.”

  Gripping his arm tightly, Cade jerked Jeffery. “What! What happened?”

  “She saw Cody.”

  Shock covered Cade’s expression, but he gathered his wits enough to ask, “Is he alive?”

  “Saw?” Jarrett asked at the same time.

  “Like she saw you, only this was worse. Much worse,” he explained. “Cynda told me to get you back there no matter what. Luckily, that won’t be as hard as I thought,” he finished and looked around again.

  More concerned than he cared to admit, Jarrett hurried over to join them, put his hand on Jeffery’s shoulder, and together the three of them left.

  Unfortunately, as a result of their worry for Collet and Cody, they didn’t notice Victor. Filled with indecision, he had come back. If he returned to Niall after the complete defeat the brothers dealt him, he would be as good as dead. Or worse, he could end up like Cody. He had returned, wondering if he wouldn’t be better off in the enemy's hands rather than Niall’s. Hearing the last of their conversation, he knew his defeat would be a small thing compared to this new insight. Instead of ending up dead for his failure at Niall’s cruel hands, it was more likely he was going to be rewarded greatly.

  Chapter 27

  “How is she?” Cynda asked upon meeting Cade in the hall with a tray of food for Collett the next morning.

  “Better. She’s sleeping now.”

  “Is she still in pain?”

  “No, it seems to have faded finally,” he replied. “I’ll take the tray back to the kitchen. She can eat when she wakes up. Can you stay with her for a minute? Just in case.”

  “I’ll come and get you if she has another dream,” she promised.

  He inclined his head in appreciation and took the tray from her. After she went in to sit with Collett, Cade briskly made his way downstairs. Upon entering the kitchen, Jarrett rose from the table where he’d been sitting, and the rest of the group entered from the living room with expectant expressions.

  “She’s sleeping. Most of the pain seems to have receded,” he informed them and saw some of their worry subside.

  “Good. That’s good,” said Rederrick.

  “I need a minute,” Cade said, looking pointedly to Jarrett.

  Understanding that Cade wanted to talk to him alone, Jarrett made his wa
y to the front of the house with Cade behind him.

  “Come and get me if…” Cade began, handing the tray he held to Delphene.

  “Don’t fret, Chère. She’s in good hands.”

  Upon stepping onto the porch, Cade took a deep, cleansing breath of the cold winter air.

  Jarrett eyed him curiously. He noted the lines of worry creasing his brother’s brow, his pale features, and the thick shadow of whiskers on his face. “You know he was working with them from the beginning.”

  It was obvious that Cade didn’t understand, so Jarrett explained, “The night I took her, I happened across the kid you call Cody first. He was just outside the grounds on the phone.”

  “What are you telling me, Jarrett?”

  “He was talking to Finnawick. I heard him. I didn’t tell you before because I figured he was dead, as you did, and thought—why destroy your illusion of him?”

  It was clear that Cade was caught off guard by this revelation. “Why—why would he do that?”

  “Who knows? Look at Jeffery’s reason for coming after Collett. They all have reasons, some selfish, some not. It does explain one thing. That’s how the demons knew exactly where to go in Colorado, and I’m not only talking about the house. According to Rederrick, they tried to cut him off in his security room, and when he figured out what was happening, he saw the bulk of them in Collett’s guest room and your room. They knew where they were going that night. Only luck prevented them from accomplishing their goal.

  “It hardly matters now. He may not be dead yet, but he will be soon according to her. If Collett’s accounting is correct, he messed up, and Niall is only toying with him now.”

  Cade scowled. “What happens to Collett if he kills him? This is the same thing that bothered me with your connection to her, and this time it’s even more severe.”