by Cecy Robson
“That’s hard to say since I never felt anything like her.” She pushes a strand of her blond wavy hair behind her ear and gives it some thought. “Her magic is outrageously strong, but I think she keeps most of it contained, or it’s contained for her.” She pauses and adds, “The best way to describe it is power trapped in a diamond case.”
Gemini and I exchange glances. “Power that’s trapped?” I question. She nods. “So she’s not fully using all the mojo she has?”
“From what I can tell, no.” She presses her lips. “Like I said, I’ve never felt anything like it.”
Wow. I’ve experienced the magic Destiny does allow through firsthand. I can only imagine what she’s capable of at full-strength.
“If she’s that strong, perhaps there’s hope,” Gemini says. “She might recover.” His focus glides toward Johnny. “So long as we keep their magic from clashing again.”
“If that’s the case, shouldn’t Koda turn this bitch around instead of heading to the same damn place Destiny is waiting?” Bren asks. “You saw what happened last time. We don’t need a repeat performance.”
“It should be fine,” Gem tells him.
“Should be?” Bren challenges.
Oh, and this is so not a good time to test Gemini. “The Elders are placing Destiny within the confines of the vault,” he snaps. “All the objects housed there, in addition to their collective magic, should be enough to keep hers and the Fate’s power from connecting.” He frowns when he looks at Emme. “What is it?” he asks, lowering his voice.
“I’m not certain Destiny will recover,” she admits.
“Why?” I question. “You said so yourself she’s outrageously strong. Maybe she can, I don’t know, tap into all that mojo she has stored and allow it to save her.”
“I don’t think it works like that, at least not from what I felt,” Emme explains. “It’s as if her power remains, but her body is weakening.”
“How so?” Bren asks.
Under his scrutiny, her words slow, and she struggles to explain. “Everything that makes her human, her cells, tissue, and organs aren’t functioning,” she says. “At least not as they should. I’ve felt this in my hospice patients before, right before they go into the light. But it shouldn’t be happening to Destiny, she wasn’t sick or injured.” She wrings her hands, appearing at a loss. “It’s like her body has decided it doesn’t want to live anymore.”
“Could he be doing something to her?” Bren asks, motioning toward Johnny.
His voice is terse and Emme doesn’t look at him when she replies. “I don’t see how. When I touched Johnny, it felt like he was shutting down, too, only not as rapidly as Destiny.” She shrugs. “Perhaps males of their kind are stronger.”
“As opposed to females in general?” Bren asks. He holds out his palms when Emme lifts her chin, her cheeks flushing pink. “Hey. Just asking.”
“What would you know about being strong?” she demands.
It’s like a verbal slap across the face. A strong one. Hell, even I jump.
All the muscles along Bren’s chest and arms constrict, and his face reddens. “More than you think, doll.”
“What the hell?” I ask. My attention drifts between them. Bren mutters something I don’t quite hear and Emme averts her gaze. “Seriously, what is it with you guys, lately? You’re behaving like bitter exes instead of close friends.”
My jaw pops open when both find someplace else to look. “Did you—” I can’t even finish my own thought because this is all sorts of messed up. I hold out a hand, forcing the words out. “Are you sleeping together?”
“Not exactly,” Bren answers, looking directly at Emme whose face is practically on fire.
“Not exactly?” I ask, my voice shrilled. “How do you ‘not exactly’ sleep with someone?”
“I kissed her, all right?” Bren says, his face flushing once more. “It was no big deal.”
Emme regards him with so much hurt, it takes all I have not to launch myself across Johnny and beat the cockiness right out of Bren.
“You asshole,” I tell him.
Gemini appears about as thrilled at the news as I am. At the same time, he doesn’t seem surprised. “Did you know about this?” I ask.
“I didn’t know the details,” he admits. “Based on their mutual . . . aromas when they’re around each other, we’ve had our suspicions.”
“We?” I ask.
“Aric, Koda, and I,” he replies, doing a double-take when he catches sight of my non-too-pleased expression.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“Taran, it happens,” he says. “When lone wolves join a pack, they often become attracted to unmated females during, ah, certain periods.”
I think I might actually kill someone. “Are you trying to tell me Bren is in heat?” I swallow hard. “With my sister?”
“Hey,” Bren says, appearing insulted. “Bren can hear you.”
“No way,” I bite out.
He shifts in his seat. “Taran, look.”
I shake my head, the tension thickening the muscles along my shoulders making it hard to move. “Don’t sit here and tell me all this is you being horny.”
He knows what I mean.
“I’m not doing anything,” he rumbles.
“Why?” I demand.
His stare flickers to Emme. “I told her it wasn’t a good idea.”
Emme presses her lips, something she does when she’s trying not to cry. That’s when I finally get it. She doesn’t just like him, and he’s doesn’t just want to sleep with her. They’re mates. Holy shit, they’re mates.
And he won’t do anything about it!
“Stay away from her,” I tell him, my expression and tone as dark as he’s ever witnessed.
“Taran,” he begins.
“I’m serious, Bren,” I say, cutting him off. “If you’re not going to man up, you need to keep your fucking distance.”
His eyes flash with anger and more emotion than I’m used to. I expect him to argue, he doesn’t, and in a way it upsets me more.
“I will,” he promises. He bows his head, but not before casting one last look at Emme who’s seconds from falling apart.
Lightning crashes in front of the helicopter, rattling it hard and causing the stretcher to bounce in place.
Koda yells from the front. “We’re here. But we’re not going to make it to the peak.” The cabin explodes with a flash as lightning strikes once more. “We have to land on the side of the mountain. Hang on!”
Chapter Thirteen
The helicopter lunges forward, sending the stretcher Johnny is strapped to crashing toward the front. He moans in total misery, his head shaking back and forth.
It’s not from the strike. Something is happening to him.
“Gem—” My voice cuts off when I see it, the tattoo, the one of the serpent circling the heart moving along Johnny’s chest and constricting.
Johnny screams, the pain he feels morphing into a physical force that pushes us back and pins us against our seats.
The copter dives, swerving into a tailspin. “It’s Destiny,” I shriek, ramming my eyes shut. “We’re too close to her. We have to head someplace else.”
“Koda, get us out of here!” Gemini yells to him.
Koda grunts from the cockpit, struggling to level the copter. He evens us out, but it’s only for a second. From one breath to the next, the copter thrusts back down. “We can’t leave,” he hollers. “We land now or off one of the peaks.
Thunder explodes from every direction and we begin to lose ground. Johnny is howling in agony, his body jerking back and forth.
The copter barrels down, then up, as Koda fights to stay in control.
Gemini rips free from his seatbelt. Bren does, too. Gem wraps his body around me and Emme, trying to protect us from the inevitable impact.
Bren shoves him off Emme, his hands gripping the seat on either side of her head. “Listen to me, Emme,” he tells her. “I need y
ou to land this helicopter, you hear me? I need you to set it to the ground.”
Emme’s face is the color of chalk, and I don’t think I’m any better. “I can’t move what I can’t see.”
Despite the jerky movements of our ride, Bren smoothly eases closer, speaking low into her ear. “Then let me be your eyes.”
I glance at Gemini, who’s watching them as intently as I am. Like Gemini is shielding me, Bren is doing the same for Emme, using his body to spare hers.
Jesus.
I look to Gemini, trying to gather my courage and remain strong. He adjusts his position around me and presses a kiss on my forehead. “I love you,” he says. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
This is where I tell him that I love him, too, and assure him that no matter what, we’re going to make it. But the awful jolts and Johnny’s pained screams keep me from speaking and the best I can do is wrap my arms around his waist.
I turn my head and watch Bren, hoping he’ll do as he claims and help Emme safely land us.
He keeps his hands beside her head and straightens to look out of the window. “I see the ground,” he says.
Emme’s lids fall closed. “I need more than that, Bren. Give me feet, or yards, something I can picture.”
The sky once more illuminates with light. As it fades, Bren speaks. “High enough to sky dive,” he answers.
I don’t know what that means and practically slump in my seat when Emme nods.
Another stream of lightning follows a long explosion of thunder. It does something to the air, charging it with enough magic to irritate my skin.
The engine’s roars abruptly quiet and the bat of the propellers quickly slow.
“Taran—”
I hold out a hand, silencing Shayna, over Johnny’s wretched cries. “Emme has us,” I manage.
For a moment everything is still, like we’re floating, until another flare of lighting detonates and we tip downward, falling side to side like a feather in the wind.
“Tree tops,” Bren tells her.
“Okay,” Emme says.
“Tree tops,” Bren urges. “Steady, Emme, steady—”
We hit something that rebounds us backward. “Straighten us out, Emme,” Bren says. “Straighten us out, now.”
“I’m trying,” she says, her teeth clenched tight.
We collide into something hard, causing the row of seats across of us to indent inward and a strong wind to seep in.
“Emme, that was a cliff,” Bren says, his voice growing panicked. “Go, right, right.”
Emme loses her fight with the cliff, ramming the side of the copter repeatedly as we spin.
“Hard left,” Bren yells. “Do it now.”
The crashing sound diminishes and we fly blindly through the air.
Gemini cradles my head. I think we’re going to die. We start to fall . . . and then we don’t.
“More trees—shit,” Bren says. “Emme, stay with me.”
Emme’s face is pinched tight, her hands blanching as they grip the arm rests. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. We’re almost there.” Bren curses. “Hold us—just hold us. The road, leading up, we’re almost to it.”
“How far?”
“We’re hitting the top of the trees,” he says, the sound of something smacking the underbelly confirming it. “Lower us. Now.”
“Now?” she asks.
“Yes, now!”
If giants were real, and one was holding us, the landing would be the equivalent of him dropping us in search of a less banged up toy to play with. We bump, judder, and lurch, slamming to the ground.
I don’t expect to stop so abruptly.
Who am I kidding? I don’t expect to live. For the most part, Bren’s whole “let me be your eyes” was bullshit. He’s freaking blind as far as I’m concerned.
But we made it. Yeah, baby, we made it!
I lift my chin to meet Gemini’s face. His expression mirrors mine, as if half expecting us to keep moving, falling, and crashing to our deaths. He eases off me, looking outside the window.
“Did we land?” I ask.
“Yes,” he answers.
“Are we teetering perilously on the side of a cliff?” I’m not trying to be downer, this is just the kind of luck I’ve grown accustomed to.
He shakes his head. “No, but we can’t stay here.” He looks to Emme. “Well done,” he tells her.
“You did it, Emme,” I agree. I reach to stroke her hair when Bren lifts off her. My hand pauses inches from her face when I take a good look at her.
Her small body is covered with sweat and her nose bleeding profusely. I scramble out of my seatbelt, trying to find something to use to stop the bleeding.
Bren rips the leg of his sweatpants off and presses it against her nose. “You okay?” he asks.
She nods, holding the soft gray fabric against her face. “Yes,” she stammers. “A little tired.”
And frightened, and feeble, and my God, my poor sister. Her fair skin carries a sickly pallor, made worse by the amount of blood soaking her dress and face. I want to yank her to me, protect her and keep her safe. It’s what all of us who know her ever want to do. But as sweet and delicate as Emme appears, she’s not weak, nor will she allow herself to appear that way if she can help it.
She looks at me. “I don’t think I can hike up the mountain.”
Her legs tremble, giving away the amount of energy she expended. I stroke her hair. “Honey, I don’t think you should even walk, at least not yet.”
“She won’t have to,” Gemini says. His nostrils flare from the amount of blood he scents on her. “Let me carry you, Emme,” he offers. “You’ve already done enough.”
Bren opens his mouth, ready to argue, but ultimately edges further away from her.
Shayna pops into the compartment with Koda behind her. He brushes off the broken glass covering his arms and shoulders. Lightning flashes behind him, making him appear more ominous and giving me a view of the blood soaking through his white T-shirt.
The front windshield must have shattered, and like our wolves, he used his body to protect Shayna. “You dudes, okay?” she asks.
Her position from the cockpit must have provided one hell of a play-by-play, and she’s likely shaken up. But Shayna is very much a 'don’t panic unless we’re out of weapons and we’re about to be eaten’ kind of gal. We landed, and despite the lightning and thunder continuing to browbeat the mountain, that’s good enough for her. “Time to move, team. Can’t stay here all night,” she reminds us.
She’s right. By now, Johnny is openly weeping in pain. I start toward him when a wave of magic sends me sprawling backward. Gemini catches me, holding me in place.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
My vision sharpens as I feel my irises go white. “It’s Destiny,” I say, her presence barraging my senses. I jerk my head to the right, expecting her to materialize. “She’s coming.”
“They can’t be together,” Gemini snaps. “We have to put some distance between them.”
Bren and Koda charge toward Johnny, breaking through the straps and setting him free.
“It hurts,” Johnny cries, his moans turning to sobs. “It hurts so much.”
Koda throws him over his shoulder, his long legs kicking through the bent metal door and busting it open. Shayna chases after him. I stumble forward, my legs leaving the ground when Gemini sweeps me into his arms.
“Babe, don’t,” I say. “Get Emme.”
“Bren has her,” he answers tightly.
As he speaks, Bren races past us, embracing Emme close to his body.
We’re in a sprint straight down the mountain, only to cut a sharp left when lightning strikes and demolishes an entire row of trees hugging the road.
Through the long, thick branches of sugar pines hovering over us, I catch a glimpse of the thickening clouds as they gather momentum. I think it’s close to dawn, it has to be. But there’s no trace of light. Darkness
reins, its rule interrupted by the harsh appearance of lightning as the storm reaches another pinnacle.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Four miles from the peak,” Gemini replies.
He leaps down the rough edge, his feet sliding and maneuvering through the sharp rocks and thick vegetation. Koda glances back, making sure Shayna stays close. He and Bren are barefoot, not that you would know it by how fast they’re hauling ass.
We reach the next steep, the ground leveling slightly when something passes us, moving like a blur of motion.
“Tye, no!” Gemini yells.
A white lion barrels into Koda, knocking him and Johnny across the terrain. Koda’s back strikes a tree, the impact ricocheting him off the trunk. As he rolls, he changes, into a very pissed and ferocious red wolf.
Gemini’s twin wolf rips through his back, passing us and tearing through the ferns and rocks to stand between Koda and Tye.
Bren jets forward, leaving Emme with Shayna who’s guarding Johnny’s limp form. From one leap to the next, he changes, the large paws of his brown wolf digging into the earth and kicking back the soil.
It takes all three wolves to subdue Tye’s large lion form.
Gemini sets me down between my sisters. I’ve never seen Tye so out of control, his long fangs snapping and his claws raking in the air, fighting to reach Johnny.
“Enough,” Gemini growls, stomping forward.
Thunder roars, shaking the ground and sending more lightning to zig-zag across the sky. An explosion of light bursts on either side of us, one yellow and one silver, materializing the two head witches, their long staffs raised high in the air.
The witches run toward us. Genevieve’s long black hair sails behind her, mere steps from a witch with long silver hair, her indigo gown blending into the night.
“Taran, move Emme,” Genevieve orders.
I don’t argue, lifting Emme and trying to coax Shayna out of the way. Her hand is gripping her sword, her gaze set on Tye. “I’ve never seen him like this,” she says.
She didn’t like him hurting Koda. None of us did. They’re supposed to be friends. Except nothing is normal, not the storm, not Johnny, not anything we’ve seen.