by Theresa Kay
Maybe they’re hoping we’ll leave them to go back to their cowering if they just say what we want to hear.
We sure as hell don’t have time to coddle anyone. Getting in touch with General Carter and the other humans is our top priority. We have to let them know about what happened here: about the heightened strength of Jastren’s enhancement and how he used it so effectively against his own people. About the human soldiers here, presumably following Jastren’s orders. So Vitrad reluctantly leaves Brin in charge of assessing the damage to the city, while he, Trel, and the two Vi’askari join our party to borrow another ship and head back to the military base.
It’s eerily quiet as we exit onto the street. The city has always been on the quiet side, thanks to the E’rikon’s ability to communicate silently, but now even the normal hustle and bustle sounds are conspicuously absent.
I keep expecting Jastren to pop up. I’m hoping I’m wrong, that he did what he planned to do here and then left his soldiers behind to finish things up, but he’d probably enjoy witnessing the devastation he’s caused. A shudder travels down my back, cold and anxious. I might expect him, but I damn sure don’t want to see him. Clearly, he’s more powerful than anyone realized, and after today, I know beyond all doubt that I’m not ready to face him. Not even close.
I should be. I need to be. And strength-wise I might be a match for him. But without finesse or even control, there’s no way I could beat Jastren in a fight. Like Vitrad always suspected, I’m a weapon, and maybe I’m the only weapon that will be effective against Jastren long term—but for all my “super specialness” I need to get a handle on my abilities before facing him or I won’t stand a chance. Lir suggested we find someone to train me while we were here, but now…
We encounter the first fallen E’rikon less than a block from the Council building. Her face is turned away from us and her navy hair spills over the sidewalk. I want to believe she simply hasn’t woken up from the initial attack yet, that any second now she’ll start stirring, but a quick glance at Rym’s grim face confirms what I already know. She’s dead, her link to the rest of the E’rikon cut and silent.
I take a couple steps in her direction to… I don’t know. Help? Cover her up? A hand snakes around my upper arm and yanks me away.
“There is not time, Miss Mitchell,” hisses Vitrad in my ear.
He’s right. And there it is again, that feeling of gratitude for Lir’s uncle. It disgusts me, but it’s a necessary evil. I hate myself for agreeing with him. Again. But I need the asshole.
So far, Vitrad is the only one besides me who’s managed to shut it all out and concentrate on what needs to be done: getting the hell out of here. Even Lir, who can’t feel the new emptiness of this section of the city like the other E’rikon, is pale and wide-eyed. Well, Gavin and Harrison can’t feel it either, but the others’ sadness is palpable and seems to be weighing them down too.
Two more blocks, three more bodies, splashes of color against the dark pavement. How far does this devastation extend? I keep my eyes down and allow Vitrad to lead me to wherever it is we’re going. He grows more and more agitated the farther we move away from the Council building, his muscles tensing and his head swiveling constantly. He finally draws to a stop outside a small, two-story building.
“Miss Mitchell—”
“Jax. Just call me Jax.” He reminds me too damn much of Dane when he calls me “Miss Mitchell,” and I’m having enough trouble stomaching him without being reminded of all the horrible things he has in common with the former leader of Bridgelake.
The others have stopped as well, and the E’rikon are staring at the building with something close to horror on their faces. Why? To me it looks like just another nondescript gray building.
“Where are we?” I ask.
Lir steps forward and wraps an arm around my waist. “The school the Council members’ children attend.” His fingers dig into my side briefly and he swallows noisily. “The school Stella attends.”
I inhale sharply. Are we past the radius of Jastren’s attack? There are no E’rikon on this street, living or dead. No way to tell.
Vitrad drags a hand over his face, looking perhaps a bit more affected by this than I previously thought. “It is my hope that even if the attack extended this far, the younger ones might not have been affected by it because they do not have kitus.”
“Not affected…?” Realization dawns across Lir’s face. “Adam gave Trel a kitu for Stella. If… she…” He stumbles forward, but Vitrad grabs his arm to stop him.
“I will not ask this of you. I will go in.”
A flash of rage pours heat over the bond, and Lir leans forward until he’s inches from his uncle’s face. “She’s my sister. And she’s in this situation because of you! If she had been with me, with Jax, she would—”
“She is also my niece, and if… I wanted to spare you—”
“Spare me? Spare me? After all you’ve done, now you want to spare me? If you think—”
“Vitrad’s right,” I say. Lir’s anger morphs into a stabbing betrayal as he turns to me. “Well, not right as in ‘correct’… I… well… that’s not what I meant. Never mind.” I place a hand on his arm and continue softly, for his ears only. “I just mean—if it’s bad… you don’t need to see that.”
He hunches his shoulders forward, curling his body inward as if absorbing a blow. His throat bobs. “You’re right.” The words come out in a rough whisper, and I hate myself a little bit for putting that look on his face. “I don’t trust him though, and—”
“I’ll go with him,” I say, the words rushing out before I fully think them through.
Lir’s hands land on my shoulders, and he pulls me to his chest in a tight hug. You do not have to do that.
I shake my head against his chest. Just because I currently agree with your uncle doesn’t mean I trust him either.
There’s a war brewing inside Lir—a war between his desire to keep me from danger and his desire to assure his sister’s safety—and it’s tearing him in two different directions. Ever since we arrived in the city, ever since he first confronted Vitrad, Lir’s fear of losing me has grown. It’s a frantic animal he’s desperately trying to keep caged, and now it’s pitted against that same fear for his little sister. I hate that he’s lost so much and has to fight his own instincts and fears in order to let me out of his sight. I want to take some of that burden away from him, but I don’t know how, so I offer up the only reassurance I can. Leaning back, I meet his gaze. If Stella’s in there… I’ll find her.
“As much as I enjoy standing here while you two converse, we are wasting time. If you are coming with me, Miss—Jax, we should go now,” says Vitrad in a dry voice.
“Okay.” I nod, my lips pressed together to keep in the things I’d really like to say to him. It won’t do anyone any good to antagonize Vitrad right now. “Why don’t the rest of you go and find us some transportation?”
Gavin nods, and Lir finally releases me.
“Vi’Zirekai.” Vitrad twitches two fingers in the blue-haired E’rikon’s direction. “You will accompany us. Vi’Alamiri, you stay with Trel.”
Kai inclines his head respectfully and leads the way to the doors. Vitrad follows close behind. I’m not looking forward to going in there, but at least I’m not going to be alone with Lir’s uncle. I shrug to myself and follow them inside.
Maybe it’s the quiet, but for some reason I expected the school to be dark and dusty, kind of like the old human structures I’ve raided for supplies in the past. But no, it’s clean, the air is clear, and it appears to be deserted. Nobody’s in the hallways, and no one is in the first few rooms we pass.
Kai has his head tilted to one side, nodding every now and then, and Vitrad has an intense expression on his face.
“Care to share with the rest of the class?” I ask. It appears I’ve suddenly picked up Rym’s habit of making stupid jokes. Not that these guys will get it. Or will they?
Vitrad shoots m
e a hard look, but the corner of Kai’s mouth twitches. Of course, Kai gets it. If I’m reading things right between him and Rym, Kai might have spent more time than he’s willing to admit with the golden boy, meaning he probably knows all about Rym’s penchant for badly timed humor.
“We were discussing the fact that it appears no one is here. As if the school has already been evacuated.” Vitrad looks around. “I do not like it. The timing of it all… Something is not right.”
I don’t like it either, but I’m tired of agreeing with him. At the next doorway we pass, I stop and lean into the room. Everything is neat and orderly, nothing out of place as far as I can tell. “If they left, they didn’t leave in a hurry. It’s too clean.”
“I agree,” says Vitrad. Ugh. Him agreeing with me almost feels worse than me agreeing with him. I hate having anything at all in common with the guy.
We continue down the hallway, checking each room. They’re all empty. Where would they have gone? And when? Images of the splashes of color outside cycle through my mind. Even if the children were protected by not having kitus, the teachers would have been knocked out or killed by the mental blast. But then there would at least be…
I shake my head. I don’t want to think about that.
The main hallway ends in a ‘T’ intersection. I glance back and forth between the two choices. Right or left? The idea of splitting up briefly flits through my head, but…
“Kai will go to the left and we will go to the right,” says Vitrad. I have to swallow back a chuckle. Finally something we can disagree on. It’s such a stupid thing, but it makes me feel better all the same.
“No,” I say. “We stay together. It won’t take that much longer, and splitting up… doesn’t feel right. Like it’s asking for trouble or something.”
“Does not ‘feel right’?” Kai tilts his head, studying me.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Yeah.”
His gaze moves to Vitrad, expectant. I guess he’s not going to go against orders no matter what I have to say.
Vitrad nods. “Time is—”
I hold a hand up, and Vitrad stops. There was something… What was it? I squint my eyes and peer down the hall to the left. A shadow moves across an open doorway at the far end, and I take off without another word.
I’m only two doors away when someone steps into the hallway ahead of me. At first, all I see is red hair. My heart leaps and my stomach drops. Jace is here. Does that mean he was the one behind the attack? If my brother could—No.
Then the person turns to fully face me, and I freeze in place. It’s not Jace.
It’s Jastren who stands in front of me with a cold smile slithering across his face.
TIME STRETCHES OUT SO THAT the two beats between my brain registering Jastren’s presence and my next breath feel like hours. My hands are cold and my mind is racing as I stand and stare at him. It’s the pleased smile on his face, probably a result of my shaken composure, that finally snaps me out of the river of fear trying to swallow me whole.
“What are you doing here?” I bite out.
He moves toward me. One step. Two steps. His hand comes out as if to take mine. I step backward to avoid his touch, and I run into Vitrad, who’s directly behind me.
Vitrad places a steadying hand on my arm, both welcome and not. I appreciate the gesture of support, but my fingers are twitching with the electric anxiety shooting down my limbs, and I’m having a hard time separating the threat in front of me from the former threat behind me. Or my abilities are anyway.
A charge gathers under my skin, a tingling heat on the edge of being painful. It ramps up as my heartbeat does the same, and I grit my teeth trying to hold it back. Denied release, it turns into tiny knives crawling along my arms. I need to do something before I accidentally zap someone.
“Let go,” I say, hissing the words out between my teeth.
There’s a pause, but Vitrad removes his hands and moves slightly away from me. Worse than agreeing with him, now I feel like I should apologize to him for snapping at him when he was only trying to help.
The buzzing recedes a bit, changing to a gentle current that travels in waves throughout my body, and I take a deep breath before returning my attention to Jastren. “I asked you a question.”
It’s the pause, the quiet, that unnerves me the most. He’s not worried, or scared, or even pissed off. That smile appears on his face again: knowing, condescending… irritating as hell. “You have not figured it out yet?” He cocks his head to the side. Something in his eyes and the tone of the voice is off—unbalanced.
I slide one foot back and move slowly away from him. Ignoring the last thing he said, I instead ask the question that’s eating at me. “Where’s my brother?”
“Bridgelake.”
The word is so matter-of-fact that I realize he expected the question, that he isn’t surprised to see me. Why not? Did he know I was here? What’s going on?
His head tilts the other way, and the usual coldness returns to his gaze as he narrows his eyes, watching my shifting expression. “I would have brought him with me, but he was… not well. Once I received word you were here, I wanted to move quickly so as to—”
“Received word?” The chill in Vitrad’s voice matches that in Jastren’s eyes.
Jastren lets out a derisive chuckle. “Did you not realize there are still E’rikon here who report to me? Sadly, some of them were killed recently, but there are others as well.”
“That may be true, but I do not believe that is how you knew she was here.” Vitrad steps forward to stand beside me, and Kai responds by angling himself slightly in front of Vitrad.
Jastren ignores Vitrad’s accusation and clicks his tongue. His smile grows. “How quaint. Do you think you can stand against me, Vi’Zirekai? You do not have the protections of the Linaud line or any of the abilities of Jasmine here.” He cocks his head to the side. “I am curious, though. How did you survive my attack?”
Kai opens his mouth, but Vitrad holds up a hand and shakes his head. “Where are the children?”
“Safe. For now.” Jastren steps forward, and laughs again when the three of us step back. His eyes focus solely on me. “I must admit I am a bit vexed by the fact there are other survivors—but your survival, Jasmine, does perhaps prove my theory.”
“Theory?”
“That you inherited the lingali enhancement as your brother did.” His attention flickers to Kai for a second before his eyes move back to me. He rubs his chin and nods. “Though I may have to reevaluate that conclusion since there are others…” He waves a hand at Vitrad and Kai, his lips curling with disgust. “I had not planned on any Council members surviving, or any other high-level E’rikon, but I suppose it will make it that much more interesting.”
Make what more interesting? My mind races trying to figure out where he’s going with this, but it’s stuck on the fact that he hadn’t planned on any survivors from the Council or the E’rikon upper class. He’s acting like this whole thing was an experiment to him. And that it was my presence here that may have triggered it. Nausea curls in my stomach.
That twisted smile appears on his face again, and he chuckles. “Now, back to the children. I have them, including your bondmate’s wayward sibling, and I am willing to trade them—to trade her—for something you can easily get for me.”
“For what?” All my muscles tense. I’m not going to like his answer.
His eyes turn into slits. “The boy. The one with silver eyes. I want him. The pregnant girl too—the one from Bridgelake.”
He wants Bree and Ethan? Why?
“Not interested?” His face darkens. “Well then, how about I give you three days to bring me what I request. After that, I will have no choice but to kill the children one by one, starting with the youngest Vestra. Better yet, I will give her to your brother to play with. He is not fond of the E’rikon, and Steliro in particular. Do you know he shattered a human’s mind just yesterday? Went in and ripped it to shreds. For fun. It
is particularly interesting to see how many ways I can twist his burning hatred for you and target it on other people.”
I stumble backward, away from his leaning body and leering smile. Hatred for me?
Like a predator that’s sighted easy prey, Jastren’s eyes glisten with glee. “You deserted him when he needed you most. You chose the E’rikon over him. And you brought his friend into danger. Jace may have swung the knife, but he blames you for having to do it. You would not cooperate, making that little demonstration necessary.”
He stalks forward until we’re mere inches from one another, then leans down so we’re eye to eye. “I could set Jace loose on your human friends and retrieve the items myself, but I would prefer to save his energy for other pursuits. In fact, I will trade you the humans’ lives as well. Think how many lives you could save.”
“At what cost?” I choke out. “What do you want with them?”
“That is not your concern.” He pauses, eyeing me. “I can see this offer is not tempting enough. Perhaps another demonstration is in order?” He straightens. His gaze passes over Vitrad and lands on Kai.
“No,” I say, shaking my head vehemently. “I’ll—”
Kai drops to his knees, his mouth open in a silent scream, his hands plastered to the sides of his head.
“Stop!” I yell.
Jastren cocks his head to the side and studies Kai as if he’s some kind of experimental subject. To Jastren, he probably is.
A high-pitched keening noise makes its way up Kai’s throat, and green blood trickles from his nose.
“Please!”
“Interesting. This is the first time I have so closely witnessed the effect of this particular aspect of my… new and improved enhancement.” Jastren rubs a finger over his chin, his attention fully focused on Kai. There’s a sick fascination in his eyes, but no other outward emotion. He completely ignores my pleas, like he can’t hear them, like the rest of us aren’t here, and it’s only Jastren and his subject.
I want to hit him, and my feet move forward almost of their own accord. Vitrad grabs my arm, pulling me back. He shakes his head and points to Kai.