“Where were you?” Rowan screamed, and shoved Caleb’s shoulder blade hard enough to send him tumbling forward. “Why didn’t you intercept that thing?”
“Where was I?” Caleb caught himself with one hand on the ground then spun around to glare daggers at Rowan. “I’m human ya soddin’ pirate! You threw the thing at her!”
Oh, look, I mused as the darkness closed in. I finally got them to fight over me.
Rowan forced his way past Caleb and gathered me in his arms. Fear shed years from his face and left behind a terrified little boy. “I’m so sorry, Mo Chroi. I was trying to get it out of the store without callin’ attention to it.”
“It … didn’t … work.” Those parting words and the anguished roar of a lion carried me into the black abyss.
Chapter 21
Light seeped over me with a comforting bliss that erased the pain and made my body sing. I kept my eyes shut and let the waves of euphoria wash over me, cresting and crashing in rhythmic ecstasy. I inhaled, filled my lungs to capacity, then exhaled in an appreciative groan.
“When she’s hurt bad she makes sex noises when she’s getting healed. It used to weird me out, but I don’t think she can control it. Kinda like farting in your sleep.” Keni’s voice came from across the room and not beside me.
My eyes snapped open. Big Mike was leaning over me, his massive hands pressed to my bare belly. For reasons I couldn’t fathom, I wore nothing except my bra and underwear.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked, covering my crucial parts with my arms.
His dull slate eyes registered no emotion. “Repairing the gaping hole in your gut. I can stop if you’d like.”
“Why am I practically naked?”
“You were circling the drain, Celeste.” Grams snatched the shredded rags that had been my clothes off the floor and held them up for me to see. “He needed access to the wound fast, so he cut your clothes off with his pocket knife.”
“And you couldn’t throw a sheet over me?”
“Time was short.” He let one bulging shoulder rise and fall in an indifferent shrug. An almost smile threatened to break through his stoic exterior. “Plus, I really didn’t see any curves worth worrying about or mentioning.”
“Hey!” I jabbed a finger at him as Keni and Grams tried unsuccessfully to hide their snickers behind their hands. “I’m wounded and fragile! Don’t be a tool!”
“Can’t use the wounded excuse anymore, I’m done here.” Mike’s glow faded, transforming him from ethereally frightening back to his standard level of intimidation.
I winced at the twinge in my freshly healed abdomen as I pushed myself up to sitting. “Where are Caleb and Rowan? Did I at least get them back here?”
“I kicked them out.” Gram’s hot pink lips twisted in disdain as she shoved one hand on her hip. “They were snapping at each other like gators over a pork chop. Gabe’s keeping them in line in the hall.”
Kendall flopped down on her bed and pulled Mr. Hoofington onto her lap to pick a fuzzy off his ear. “You’re gonna need to talk to them. They both felt super bad that you got hurt. At least I think that’s what Caleb was ranting about. His accent gets really thick when he’s upset.”
“Might as well get it over with,” I grumbled and pulled my bed sheet over me. “Show them I’m alive so they can go back to pretending I’m not.”
The bed squeaked its relief as Big Mike eased himself off it and walked to the door. “I’ll go alert the troops that the fearless leader’s insides are no longer on the outside.” He paused at the door long enough to stuff a cigar between his teeth and pull a stainless steel lighter from the breast pocket of his vest. “But, if I have to listen to the Glee Club do one more mash up I will kill them.”
Kendall flipped her bangs from her eyes and stared after him. “I don’t think he’s kidding.”
“He’s not.” Grams swatted Keni off the bed. “They did an LMFAO song earlier and I had to stop him from tossing that little scrawny one out the window.” After ushering Keni out of the room, Grams poked her head back in to inject a parting thought, “Go easy on those boys. Seeing you like that wasn’t easy on them—or any of us.”
The tight smile she forced couldn’t mask the pain that crept into her eyes as she pulled the door shut behind her.
“I really gotta stop almost dying. It seems to bum people out,” I mumbled to myself as I leaned back on one elbow and gently poked at the new puffy pink scar that ran up my mid-section. Only about an inch from it rested the faded white scar from Caleb shooting a flaming ball of ice through my core. Battle scars, well earned, but it was a good thing I wasn’t a bikini girl. Unless, unbeknownst to me, patch work skin had suddenly become a trend.
A soft knock rattled the bedroom door. It creaked open enough for Caleb to poke his head in. Raven hair fell across his forehead. One strand tangled in his lashes, giving him an adorably disheveled look. “Ya up fer a bit a’ comp’ny?”
Kendall was right. The brogue was amped up big time.
“Absolutely.” I tried to play it cool despite the heat that rushed to my neck and face.
I adjusted the sheet, tucking it tight under my arms, as the door opened and Caleb stepped in with Rowan right behind him.
“We needed to see for ourselves that it takes more than a flesh wound to claim our Conduit.” Rowan’s icy veneer was firmly in place. Even his glib comment was noticeably devoid of emotion.
Then there was Caleb.
When I was twelve, Kendall developed a deep love for horses. Gramps and Grams decided to treat us kids and indulge her new passion by taking us to see a horse show in Shelbyville, Tennessee. While we were touring the facilities we happened upon one mare picking a fight with another. The ornery instigator lashed out with a potent mule kick that missed her target and connected with the fence. Her hoof splintered a hole in the board that she couldn’t pull it back out of. She panicked and thrashed, but couldn’t free herself. Nearby, her trainer saw the commotion and rushed over. He approached her cautiously, soothing her with his tone as he caught her halter. Her soulful eyes were wide with fear, yet she calmed. Enough for him to run his hand across the length of her body, and down her leg where a bit of maneuvering freed her stuck hoof. The mare had been petrified, but she trusted her trainer enough to take a leap of faith that he would make everything okay. That was exactly how Caleb looked now. Terrified, but trusting … because there were no other viable options.
“I’ll be okay.” I pointedly caught Caleb’s gaze with my own and held it. “Despite the growing need to stock pile hospital gowns for situations like this.”
“I’m really glad to hear that.” Rowan squatted down beside the bed. Only then did I see the traces of tension that sharpened the angles of his face. “It means you’re well enough to explain why in the blazes you were at that store in the first place. Are you completely daft?”
“I’ve been to the grocery store about a million times and ninety-nine point nine percent of those occurrences I came out completely unscathed.” The sharpness of my tone easily surpassed his. Probably because I was still smarting from being gutted. “Today was the first time that record was marred because I had to go chase after two members of my team that took off.”
“Tha’s when ya send ya’r trusty lion.” Caleb picked my Gryphon statuette up from my night stand and turned it over in his hands. “Tha’s not reason enough fer the Conduit herself tah come chasin’ af’er two blokes that hardly matter in the scheme of things.”
“You do …” my hatred of coming across the least bit codependent made the words stick in my throat; I swallowed my pride and forced them out. “… matter.”
Rowan cocked his head. His expression revealed nothing but a trifling curiosity. “The end of days may be rapidly approaching. If there’s something you’re needin’ to say, now would be the time.”
Caleb’s head snapped around. His emerald gaze searched my face as if silently willing the right words to tumble from my lips.
&nb
sp; I didn’t know what either of them expected from me, but that was commonplace as of late. Their behavior ran hot and cold yet somehow I was supposed to accept that and act accordingly. “You know something? I do have something to say!” Irritation sharpened the sting of each word. “I’m a girl!”
“Our relationship would be vastly different if ya weren’t,” Rowan snickered.
I paused my rant long enough to shoot him a death glare. “I’m serious. My whole issue is that I’m female and I can’t turn my feelings off with the flip of a switch like you penis-bearing kind can!” Emotional vulnerability suddenly amplified my state of undress. “I really wish I had pants on for this conversation …”
Rowan’s laughter died away. “You think we don’t care about you?”
“Unless my life is in peril. Then it’s all,” I furrowed my brow and tried to imitate Cal’s accent, “fight tah dah end, save dah Con’uit.’ Which is insanely condescending!”
“First, that sounded nothin’ like me.” Caleb slammed the Gryphon back down on the table then pivoted to face me with his arms folded over his chest. “Second, we’re at war!”
I raised my hand in the air and pointed a guilty finger at myself. “Noticed. Started it.”
The look he shot me clearly read ‘hush, woman’. “More than anythin’ in the world, Rowan and I want tah keep you safe. Tha’s our number one priority.”
“We can’t do that if we’re worried about which of us will have their heart broken when this is over.” Rowan stared at his hands and picked at a hang nail. His mask had slipped off to reveal the blatant fear and vulnerability that lay beneath.
Cal clapped a hand on the pirate’s shoulder. “So we made a deal, tah keep our distance from ya until this is over and we know ya’r safe.”
Words failed me. I didn’t want to break either of their hearts, but they were right. Inevitably it would come to that. Forcing the issue now would put one, or both, of them in a dangerous state of mind—one that could lead to kamikaze-like decisions in the heat of battle. To protect them from themselves I had no choice but to honor their pact.
The best way I could think to communicate my accord was with a conversational detour. “So … uh … what’s happening in town? Was anyone hurt?” A true sign to what an abysmal failure my love life had become; war was a safer topic.
Rowan rose to his feet and shook out his legs that were most likely cramping. “Store clerk took a nasty bump to the head and fear probably took a few years off the lives of the other shoppers. Fortunately, that was the extent of it.”
Caleb’s black T-shirt tightened across his chest as he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his faded jeans and rocked back on his heels. “Towns in a panic ov’r two attacks that close together. Business are shuttin’ down, people are evacutin’. Won’t be long before Gainesboro’s a ghost town.”
A hot rush of protective rage flared in my chest. This was my town and the Countess was wiping it off the map. “All these people the Countess has terrorized and she’s not even making a dent in her resources.”
Rowan leaned against the desk Keni and I shared and plucked Keni’s latest edition of US Weekly from the pile of clutter. “She’ll just keep sending her minions to do her dirty work until there’s nothing left of us. Then she’ll make her grand appearance to deliver the slight flick required to tip the scale in her favor once and for all.” He turned the magazine sideways and raised an eyebrow at a picture. “Oh look, celebrities pump gas just like we do.”
Ebony brows knit together. “Don’t tell her that. We don’t know that tah be true.”
“No, they really do. Look.” Rowan pointed at a page, then rolled his eyes at Caleb’s visible annoyance and tossed the magazine aside. “We do know that’s what she’ll do because that’s what I would do.”
“He’s right,” I interjected before Caleb could argue. “She has an arsenal. We have the equivalent of rocks and sticks without the benefit of eewok charm.”
“So what do you suggest, my liège?” Rowan inquired with a wave of his hand and formal bow.
I slid off the bed and wrapped the sheet around me. “One of you get Big Mike. I think it’s time for a family reunion.”
Chapter 22
Deep within the fantastical exterior of the Spirit Plane beat a heart of structured normalcy. I called him Dad.
Big Mike rapped gently on the six-panel, mahogany door before grasping the polished brass knob and pushing it open. I whistled through my teeth as I followed him inside and gazed upon my father’s lush office.
Dad, seated behind a richly ornate desk, glanced up from the weathered pages of an ancient looking text and rose from his leather wingback chair to greet us. “Thank you, Michael. I believe Terin is in the Hall of Magi. Would you please ask her to join you in escorting my daughter home? I’d feel better with the added protection.”
Big Mike dipped his head in a brief bow then backed from the room and pulled the door shut behind him. As he exited, I took a moment to consider the man before me. Dad kept his hair shorter now, almost buzzed to his scalp. That, combined with the scar across his face, gave him a harder edge. As he rounded the side of his desk I noticed his long navy blue robe brushed the tops of polished black loafers. I missed his old, scuffed up tennis shoes—among other things.
He raised his hands in the subtle suggestion of a hug, but not enough to push the matter. The little girl in me coaxed one foot forward. She wanted nothing more than to sprint across the room and dive into his arms. To nuzzle into his chest and breathe in his scent as he reassured her that everything would be all right. It fell to my inner warrior to hold her at bay. The pain of his funeral was too fresh, as were the deaths of Sophia and Alec. All that misery … and he had set it into motion.
The Council Master cleared his throat and dropped his arms to his sides. “There are crucial elements in play back home, Celeste. What brings you here?”
Standing in front of him, the magnitude of my mixed emotions made basic articulation tricky. I stalled for time by wandering the length of his wall of bookshelves, pretending to peruse the countless book spines in every script imaginable.
“Oh, you know, the library at home has such a limited selection. I thought I’d pop in for a little light reading about …” I slid a random book from the shelf, “… Enchanted and Cursed Artifacts. I hear HBO is making a series of that.”
I heard a rush of air and glanced up to find my father directly in front of me. He took the heavy text from my hand and replaced it on the shelf. “Don’t be glib. There isn’t time for it. I understand why you don’t trust me and I own my blame in that. However, you sought me out. I’m not an empathe nor a mind reader. If you would like my help I’m going to need you to say the actual words.”
“Death made you cranky,” I muttered under my breath.
My dad raised his eyebrows in expectation. When I still couldn’t force the words out, he turned on the heel of one fancy-shmancy shoe and strode back to his desk.
Removing the pressure of his stare loosened my stuck words. “All of Gainesboro is under attack. People are relying on me to lead them and keep everyone safe, but the Countess has an entire army. Power emanates off her. The truth is there’s only one way I see this ending and it comes with a grim body count.”
The Council Master’s chair squeaked as he settled in to it. “By now I’m sure you’ve drawn your own conclusions as to why I picked you to be the Conduit?”
I ground my teeth together in annoyance at his topic diversion tactic and flopped down in the green upholstered chair across from him. “The general consensus was it had something to do with strength. I didn’t buy into the hype.”
Dad leaned back in his chair. His head cocked slightly as he considered me. “Very true. And sometimes being strong means letting go when you want to hold on tighter.”
“So … what? You’re suggesting I give up? Run away? Let the entire town die?” As my irritation grew it dialed the octaves of my voice up a few notches.
“Did a list of cryptic quotes come with that robe or did you have to buy them separate?”
Instead of doing something really crazy, like giving a straight answer to anything, he leaned forward and busied himself rifling through his desk drawers. “Did you know that every talent we are given is considered a gift? One that we are given with the sole purpose of giving away.”
A memory pinged in the dark hallway of my mind. Give it away. “I’ve heard that before.”
“Yes, you have,” he stated without glancing up from his suddenly urgent task. “I pulled you from your body once and brought you to the Gateway long enough to share that message with you. Yet you obviously still haven’t been able to deduce the meaning, because here we are.”
“I’m having a hard time deducing the meaning to any of this.” I ran my hands vigorously over my face to thwart off the headache that loomed. “Any minute now I’m expecting you to warn me of the Jabberwocky.”
“Ah! Maybe this will clear things up.” Out of the bottom drawer he pulled a mosaic ball of clear glass held together by some sort of glittering blue bonding.
I stared from the ball to Dad and back again. “Surprisingly, the paperweight poses more questions than answers.”
“You don’t recognize it?” Light reflected off the office wall as he turned the ball one way then the other under his desk lamp. “I suppose it did look somewhat different before you shattered it in the Gateway.”
“The discus? Wow, great … glue job.” Hanging with my dead dad and these are the conversational pearls I’m tossing out.
He reached over his desk, caught my hand, and plopped the ball onto my waiting palm. “Go back to where it all began and you’ll know what to do.”
“How do I—” I didn’t have time to finish that sentence. Unlike before, focus and concentration weren’t mandatory for this trip. It seemed to have a predetermined destination. The glass flickered to life with familiar scenes that held a tragic nostalgic value for me. I had seen all of this before—but never from a first-“person” perspective.
Ascension (The Gryphon Series) Page 15