For the Power (For the Blood Book 2)

by Debbie Cassidy

  “Is it? It shouldn’t be. Did you not receive my memo?”

  “Memo? No, I mean I haven’t checked my email this morning.”

  Malcolm’s golden gaze tracked over her shoulder to land on me. “I can see you’ve been busy. Can it hear me?”

  “No. It’s in stasis right now.”

  Wrong. So wrong. Did she know, or was she lying to him?

  “Eerie with its eyes open like that.”

  “You get used to it,” Deana said. “Would you like to see the data?”

  “No. I was hoping to have results.”

  “Results?”

  His lip curled. “A weapon ready for deployment. What is taking so long?”

  “Erasing a lifetime of memories is a delicate process. If we rush it, we could damage the cortex, and then it will be of no use to us.”

  “And yet you’ve managed to erase the other two subjects?”

  Deana’s shoulders heaved as if holding back a tirade. “Did you read the data I sent over?”

  “Excuse me?” Malcolm took a menacing step toward her. “I don’t like your tone.”

  She tucked in her chin. “Apologies. What I meant to say was that the other two subjects are tags. They will be linked to and controlled by Alpha X. This subject was chosen because his brain is perfect for the binding. If we fry him then we may not find another brain like it anytime soon.”

  “You have two days.”

  “What? Malcolm, that isn’t—”

  “While you pussyfoot around, the Claws are growing in number, popping out litters and swelling their ranks. Make it happen, or you’ll find yourself on the other side of that glass.”

  He strode from the room.

  Deana’s shoulders slumped for a second but then she pushed them back and turned to me. “Looks like we’re going to have to accelerate things a little. Fuck. Elias will be pissed.”

  What did that mean? Erase me. Erase who I was. No.

  But she was fiddling with her computer and pressing buttons, and pain lanced through my head.

  There she is, the girl I’m going to marry. Neat in her compound school uniform, hair in a ponytail, eyes bright and inquisitive.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  My mouth is too dry. “Nope.”

  Her smile lights up the room.

  Yes. We will be the best of friends. But even the smile can’t stave off the hungry dark.

  Wait.

  What?

  Something … something that needed to be done. Somewhere … needed to be somewhere, and someone … there was someone … someone I needed to find.

  Bright light, blue light, green light, red light. Flashes and sounds penetrated my mind. Fire ripped through my fingernails and ran up my arms to settle at my shoulders like smoldering coals, but my scream was trapped in my head.

  In my head.

  In my head.

  Alpha X. Alpha X. Alpha X.

  Red light, blue light, green light.

  There is a message. A meaning.

  Instructions.

  Code.

  There is metamorphosis.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I hoisted the mirror up, reflective surface facing outward. The others were watching with questions in their eyes.

  “We create a barrier with Benji in the center.” I demonstrated walking with the mirror. “We stay out of sight and let them see their own reflections. It should confuse them long enough for us to get the heck out of here.”

  Jace grinned, his stunning blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “They have no higher brain function, which should mean we can pull this off. Good thinking, Eva.”

  Yeah, getting out of scrapes seemed to be my forte.

  Sage grabbed a mirror and hoisted it up, his brow crinkled in a frown. “This is heavy.”

  “Aw, are all those muscles just for show?” Logan jibed.

  Sage ignored him, his gaze fixed on me. “Eva … how are you holding one up?”

  It was heavy but not unmanageable. “This one’s probably not as heavy as yours.”

  He set his mirror down and reached for mine. I relinquished it and watched his face as he hoisted it up.

  “No. It’s the same weight.”

  Logan picked up a mirror and then glared at me accusingly.

  I looked from Sage to Logan. “What?”

  “Either you’re freakishly strong, or you’re not what you say you are,” Logan said. He set the mirror down and stalked toward me, but Ash intercepted him with an arm.

  Logan’s jaw ticked, and he turned his head to look at Ash. “She’s hiding something. She has to be.”

  “Why?” Jace asked. “Why does she have to be hiding anything?” He sounded genuinely perplexed.

  Logan inhaled sharply. “Forget it.” He backed off.

  “No. Answer him.” I crossed my arms.

  “I don’t want to,” Logan said.

  Jace looked uncomfortable.

  Sage’s smile was revelatory. “Ah, yes. I remember, it’s because you can’t lie, can you?”

  Logan’s expression was murderous. “Fuck you, Sage, and fuck Noah for sharing that with you.”

  Ash’s hands spoke.

  “Ash says we need to get moving,” Jace said. “He also said some curse words, but I’d rather not repeat them.”

  Sage broke eye contact with Logan, dismissing the Fang in favor of me. “I’m sorry, I sometimes underestimate human ability. We should get going.”

  He was attempting to brush this under the carpet, but now that he’d mentioned it, the question was like a barb in my mind. How the heck could I lift as much as them?

  Death waited outside the doors. I closed my eyes briefly and took a steadying breath. “Stay together. Benji, stay in the center. You got that?”

  “Yes, Eva.”

  “Good.”

  I stared at Sage’s broad back. He was at the door, ready to fling it open.

  Okay, we could do this. “On the count of three. One. Two. Three.”

  Cool air rushed into the building and then we were marching out into the bright night. Moonlight reflected off the mirrors that created a barrier around us.

  “Stay together,” Sage ordered.

  I walked sideways, peering through the gaps between my mirror and Sage’s. Darkness writhed just out of reach. They were coming. They could sense us. If the mirrors didn’t throw them off, we were done for.

  “Incoming at six o’clock,” Jace said from the rear.

  “Three o’clock,” Logan said.

  Damn, they were zeroing in on us all right. “Faster. We need to move faster. Benji, grab hold of my shirt.”

  We broke into a jog with Sage as our eyes and the infected plant humans closing in. The air was suddenly thicker and cloying. Benji coughed. They were releasing spores or something into the air. My throat began to close, and the edges of the world darkened.

  Benji’s grip slipped.

  It had to be a toxin to disable us. “How far?”

  “A couple of meters.”

  Benji hit the ground.

  Leave him.

  No. “Cover me.” I dropped my mirror and hauled Benji into my arms. The world was a foggy haze. It wouldn’t be long before I hit the dirt. “Run!”

  I broke cover, sprinting for the wavering gates. Black vines attacked, hacked off by Sage’s machete before they could grab me. Screeches and strange gurgling sounds tore the air, and then I was through the gates and beyond. Knees met earth and my lungs rebelled, leaving me gasping and spluttering.

  Benji. Shit. He wasn’t breathing. Shit.

  “Eva.” Sage fell to his knees beside me as I began CPR on the boy.

  Leave him, you’re wasting time.

  Damn you, old man.

  “They’re coming.” Jace skidded to a halt beside us. “They’re coming through the gates.”

  Benji took a gasping breath and opened his eyes.

  “Thank God.” Sage scooped the boy up in one arm and grasped my elbow with the other. “
Can you stand?” He tugged me up.

  My knees wobbled.

  “Fooood …”

  Ash picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, and we were back on the run. The air whooshed by and branches snagged in my hair, yanking painfully as if attempting to hold us back. My lungs wheezed as they recovered from the toxin the plants had pumped into the atmosphere.

  “They’ve dropped back,” Jace reported.

  We reduced our speed down to a jog.

  “Keep moving,” Sage said. “Jace, are we headed in the right direction?”

  “No. We’re off track,” Jace said. “We’ll exit the Wilds in about two miles and then have to skirt the Wilds to get to The Shack.”

  The very thing we’d hoped to avoid, but I’d take Feral, Fang, and Claw over these toxin-pumping Feral humans any day.

  The air was clearing, and the feeling was returning to my legs when the whispers started.

  Stay.

  Turn around.

  Stay.

  Close your eyes and rest.

  Shit, my eyelids began to droop.

  “Don’t listen,” Sage ordered. “Focus on walking. We’re almost there.”

  Come to me. Touch me.

  Desire jumped under my skin and then flooded my body. Ash’s arm tightened under my butt, his muscles tensing at every point of contact.

  Need me, want me. Touch me. Feel me.

  Oh, God, what was that? Heat traveled down my abdomen to the juncture of my thighs.

  “Fuck.” Logan’s voice sounded thick with desire.

  Beneath me Ash’s chest was heaving in time to my throbbing sex.

  “Focus on something else,” Sage ordered. “Don’t let them in your head.”

  “What are they?” Jace’s tone was breathless.

  “Remnants,” Sage said.

  “Remnants of what?”

  “The lonely dead.”

  “Ghosts?” Logan said, incredulous. “Are you saying the fucking Wilds are haunted?”

  “Souls are energy, and those that died in this twisted place are trapped. Over time, they have become hungry for vengeance. They can’t hurt us, but they can get in our minds and manipulate our actions.”

  So, they wanted me to get horny? That made no sense unless we were all hearing something different. “What do you hear?”

  Sage was silent, but Ash’s grip on me tightened, almost possessively.

  It was Logan that answered, his words laced with anger. “It’s telling me to fuck you. To rip you from Ash and take you up against that tree up ahead.”

  Ash’s growl was a menacing sound that had the hairs on the back of my neck springing to attention.

  “Same,” Jace said softly.

  “Sage?” My voice trembled.

  “It wants us to fight over you, and kill each other to get to you,” Sage said. “But that’s not going to happen.”

  The guys picked up the pace as the whispers intensified, as my body ached to be claimed, as I ground myself against Ash’s shoulder. They penetrated my mind, claws digging in, tearing moans from behind my clenched teeth.

  “Give her to me,” Logan said.

  Ash stumbled, and I slipped from his grasp. Other hands grabbed at me, pulling me away from Ash. Ash let out a roar that was cut off by the thud of fist meeting flesh.

  Hands on my breasts, lips on my neck, hardness between my thighs, the world was topsy-turvy with welcome sensation. Lips on mine. Vanilla, sweet vanilla. Deep cocoa eyes sucking me in, drowning me in sensation that wrapped around my heart and squeezed.

  “Mine,” Logan said. “Can you feel it?”

  How was he speaking to me? His mouth was on mine, tongue sliding against mine.

  A flutter in my chest. An awakening. No. What was this?

  “It’s there. It’s really there.” The kiss deepened.

  “Get a grip, Logan.” Sage’s voice was deeper than usual, cutting through the haze of euphoria surrounding me.

  Logan was torn away from me, and Sage stood before me. His fiery eyes pinned me to the spot and ignited a fresh wave of desire inside me. The whispers were in my head, urging me on, begging me to take what I needed.

  Sage’s lips called to me, his powerful body ached to be touched. I reached for him, and he took a step back.

  “No, Eva, not like this.” He blinked hard and shook his head.

  “Please …” I reached for him again but never made contact.

  The world tipped, and I was staring at the ground as it rushed by.

  Fuck me. Inside, deep inside me.

  And then the voices stopped. Just like that.

  Oh, God. What … I’d almost … Heat bloomed in my face. Ash carried me, his body tense beneath me, and damn if I didn’t still want him. I needed to be on my feet, to not be touching him right now, because even though the voices had stopped, every inch of me was on fire with need.

  I tapped his back. “I can walk. I’m good.”

  Ash stopped and lowered me down the length of his body, tightening his grip when my mouth grew level with his. His silver eyes scanned my face, and then his lips crushed mine in a kiss that channeled all the frustration from the last half hour. My back met the bark of a tree, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, opening for him, deepening the kiss and sucking on his tongue in an imitation of what I’d like to be doing with his manhood. For a moment, it was just him and me. His cinnamon taste filled my mouth, his taut thigh rubbed against my wetness, and his thick fingers bit into my hips.

  “So, it’s okay to get him off?” Logan strode past. “How about a little consideration for the rest of us with a fucking hard-on.”

  Ash broke the kiss and bared his teeth at Logan. The Fang backed up, hands in the air, his mouth turned down, but my body was reacting—that flutter in my chest again. It intensified when Logan’s warm brown eyes met mine, sucking the breath from my lungs, and then he broke contact and walked away. Breathe, Eva, just breathe it away.

  Sage strode past, his profile like stone as he forged ahead, as if he couldn’t get away from the last few minutes fast enough. Jace followed, keeping his gaze averted from us. I’d have let them … if they’d tried to … shit.

  I tucked in my chin, reining in all the feels and the embarrassment, and carefully extricated myself from Ash. I stood on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his jaw, inhaling his cedar scent to ground me.

  His gaze was still scorching, telling me he was far from done. It flipped my stomach and stole my breath. Once this was all over … once we were all safe …

  He took my hand and we jogged to catch up with the others.

  The Wilds parted before us and spat us out into the broken world. The voices were far behind and everyone’s libido seemed to have recovered, and yeah, we wouldn’t be revisiting that scenario again.

  “I never thought I’d be this happy to see tarmac,” Jace said.

  A brief breather to get our bearings and we were on our way again. Benji rode Sage’s back, clinging to the huge djinn like a rhesus monkey, but his eyes were drooping, and it wouldn’t be long until he fell asleep.

  “Jace, how many miles?”

  “Five miles. We should do it in an hour.”

  Too long. “The kid won’t stay awake that long. We need to make a sling for him.”

  “We can just take turns carrying him to our chests,” Logan said.

  “And if we get in a fight?”

  “She has a point,” Jace said.

  Our boots crunched over gravel pushed up by green shoots—innocuous shoots because we were no longer in the Wilds, but still.

  Logan swung his backpack around as he walked and began rifling through it. A sheet and a belt and we had a nifty sling to anchor Benji to Sage’s back. This was working. We may actually make it to The Shack without any further mishaps. Hope, the enticing whore, dropped me a wink, but fate, the treacherous cow, decided she’d do one better and blow me a kiss, because in the next moment howls rose up to the east.

  Distinctive and close.
r />   Feral Fangs.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Elias

  My forte was tracking, and even a cold trail could burn hot under my gaze. The starting point had been the office building where I’d first set eyes on her—hair the color of wet sand bathed in a midday sun, and eyes like a sky just before a storm. The defiant set to her jaw and the gleam of determination in her eyes had teased my pulse. She’d moved like silk, like a dancer that heard a beat we couldn’t. For a moment, I’d been captivated, and then the reality of the situation had set in and instinct had taken over.

  She’d fought well. If she hadn’t then she’d be dead. And then there had been the key nestled against her breastbone. Tanned, velvety skin …

  I blinked and focused on the road ahead, on the purr of the motor beneath me.

  The key. This was about the key, and the trail from the warehouse had led me onto this road. There’d been a stop off on the side of the road where the air reeked of shit and decay. Maybe they’d regrouped there, but then the tire tracks had led north.

  Where was she headed? Was she even in the van? It was a gamble, but it was a worthy one.

  The van’s tracks glowed in the growing gloom just for me. My gift. My ability. If she was in this van, then I’d find her. But then the tracks swerved and ended.

  I brought my bike to a halt and stared at the road ahead, studying the burn marks. The van had braked hard. Something had forced them to stop.

  My heart beat faster. What if she was hurt?

  I blinked hard. Of course, her welfare mattered. She had the key, after all. Leaving my bike propped at the side of the road, I headed toward the scorch marks. Inhale and visualize. Scents, so many scents. Djinn … There had been djinn here. Had they taken her? I reached up to rub away the sudden ache in my chest. Her scent, I’d taken her scent and it was hidden in my memory, easily summoned when visualizing her heart-shaped face.

  Sunshine, she reeked of it, with an undertone of musky heat and wildflowers. Ignoring the tightening in my loins, I set to catching her scent. Here and here. Yes. Time to track.

  The bike was still on the side of the road but invisible to the naked eye under its Camoskin. It would be safe until I returned, but right now my attention was fixed on the camp that glowed eerily in the moonlight. Wards shimmered pale blue in the sky, and an electric tang tainted the air. Feral would steer clear of the anomaly. A clever ploy by the djinn to protect themselves and their human companions. Movement and sound. Was she here? Her aroma had led me here, but there was no going farther, not without being discovered.