by Tricia Barr
After a few hours at the hospital and a while preparing what they were going to say, Phoenyx and Lily both called their parents. As she suspected, Phoenyx’s mom had no idea there was anything wrong. She had been slightly concerned that Phoenyx hadn’t returned her three phone calls but assumed Phoenyx was just having a lot of fun meeting new people and getting settled in.
Lily’s parents were a completely different story; they had totally freaked out. Lily had never been away from home for more than a day before and, in those cases, her parents knew where she was and when she’d be home. Lily had been gone for over a week and they had no idea where she was or what could have happened to her. Naturally her parents had the cops going crazy looking for her.
So Lily made up a quite ingenious excuse. Apparently, she had pledged a fancy sorority on campus and, as initiation, the sorority kidnapped all the pledges and took them to a camp where they were put through a week of challenges in which they were not allowed to contact anyone. Lily went along with it because this sorority would look good on her resume. Her parents would be pleased to know that the week away from home made her reconsider the sorority and she wouldn’t join. Lily was an exceptional liar considering that chances were she never lied to her parents before in her life. She told them she would be home in two days.
After all they went through, Skylar and Sebastian thought they all needed a day of fun together to celebrate their freedom, so last night they flew them all first class to Las Vegas to stay in one of their favorite hotels, Caesar’s Palace. They promised they would buy the girls a flight home tomorrow, and they spent the day living it up and relaxing. Since this was their last night all together, Phoenyx figured she’d live up to the promise she made to Sebastian the night they met. Tonight she would make sure they had some time alone, in his room.
“All right, I got the champagne,” Lily said, coming over to the hot tub in her adorable little purple bikini with a skirt bottom, carrying a bottle of champagne in one hand and four tiny glasses in the other. She slipped into the tub and sat next to Skylar, and he did the honors of popping it open and pouring a glass for everyone.
“To freedom,” Skylar said, raising his glass.
“To being a bunch of extremely good looking, super powerful bad-asses,” Sebastian said as he raised his glass, making them all laugh.
“So, wait, you’re telling me I actually made the ground shake?” Lily asked after taking a sip.
“Yeah, you did,” Phoenyx said. “You scared the hell out of everyone. Who knew you had it in you.”
Lily blushed, still unable to get her mind around it. “I just can’t believe it.”
“I still can’t believe I missed it all,” Skylar said. “Seeing it through the two of your minds is okay but I would have loved to see them all get what they deserved with my own eyes.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Sebastian said. “All that matters is we’re free and life is beautiful.”
“So, what’s next for all of us?” Phoenyx asked. “Lily, I know you’re going back to college in Seattle.”
“Yes but I definitely want to visit you guys on winter break,” Lily said. “I’m actually really going to miss you all. Now that we all have working cell phones again, you’d better all text me every day.”
They laughed and all assured they would keep in contact.
“My classes start in five days. What about you two, what are your plans?” Phoenyx asked, fishing for an answer about where she stood with Sebastian.
“Well, funny you should mention that,” Sebastian said. “Skylar and I were talking last night and we decided…maybe we could both use a bit of an education.”
“An education? You mean college?” she asked.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, UCLA doesn’t look too bad,” Sebastian said.
“Really? You’re going to leave behind a world of riches and luxury in Las Vegas to go to school in LA?” she pressed, trying to hide her hopefulness.
“Yep,” Sebastian said with a big smile. “We both have a ton of money saved up and, whenever we need more, it’s a short flight from LA to Vegas. I figure I’ll study business, or marine biology, or maybe law with how much I get in trouble.”
She laughed giddily.
“What are you going to study, Skylar?” she asked.
“I’ve always had an interest in Physics,” he said. “Seeing as we’re all a bit of a scientific phenomenon, it might be worthwhile to study.”
“Okay, just as long as we don’t end up as your test subjects,” Lily said.
“I make no promises,” Skylar joked.
Phoenyx turned back to Sebastian. “So, you’re really doing this? You’re going to move to LA and go to school with me?”
“Well, I still owe you that date,” he said jokingly, then his face became sincere and his voice hushed so that only she heard. “I only just found you and I’m not ready to let go.” He took her hand in his and braided his fingers through hers.
She smiled. “Not that I don’t love being in this delightful hot tub, but why don’t you and I take this party to your room? We have unfinished business to attend to.” She winked at him.
“Well, we have to go now. See you guys in the morning,” Sebastian said to Lily and Skylar quite eagerly. He then pulled Phoenyx out of the tub, threw her over his shoulder, and headed to his room.
Laughing exuberantly, Phoenyx waved at Lily and Skylar until they were out of sight. She was ecstatic to finally have Sebastian all to herself.
Tomorrow they would begin to plan their move to LA and the adventures that lay beyond. Phoenyx couldn’t wait for her life with Sebastian to begin!
The Bound Ones’ story is just starting. Join them as they continue on their adventure with Submerge, the second book in The Bound Ones series. Here is a taste of what’s to come in the next book:
Haunting black ashes covered the floor, echoing the horror that had happened in this once holy place. The smell of burnt flesh still hung in the air, even though it had been weeks since the incident.
Vincent Mallick was a handsome and sturdy man of fifty-seven years, with salt and pepper hair thinned slightly by age. The skin on his face was a map of the interesting life he had lived as a member of the High Council of the Four Corners, the ancient society to which he had devoted most of his life. But nothing in all his years with the society could prepare him for the horrifying sight before him, or its implications.
The ritual to remove the Elements from their vessels and place them into a new one took place three weeks ago. Vincent had been in the Headquarters in Prague with the rest of the High Council, awaiting word of victory after centuries of research and hunting. But no communication had come from any of the members. Out of clemency, the Council waited three days, and then out of fear, waited seven more, too afraid of what the silence meant. Finally, they sent Vincent to inspect.
“Mr. Mallick,” one of the young male members hailed. “What should we do about him?”
Vincent Mallick turned to see the boy kneeling over the stiff, motionless body of Dexter Mauldiv, his former apprentice. He had raised Dexter from boyhood after his parents, both loyal members, died in an earthquake—one of Earth’s most destructive calamaties. Dexter had been given the best tutelage the society could offer and was the epitome of all the Four Corners stood for. And now he was nothing.
“Oh, my poor boy,” Vincent sighed, coming to kneel beside his beloved protégé.
Dexter’s body was pallid and shriveled, seemingly lifeless, but his skin was warm and his pulse betrayed that he was indeed alive, but only just. His lips were cracked and dry, his skin the color and thickness of one extremely malnourished. He had obviously not eaten nor drunk in a long time. That he was still alive as a miracle. His face was expressionless and unresponsive, as though he was unaware that any of them were there at all; but his eyes, which were wide open, were the eyes of one screaming on the inside.
“Dexter?” Vincent said, shaking his shoulders.
Dext
er still did not react. His eyes didn’t appear to be looking at anything at all. He was but a shell of himself. What had been done to him?
“Sir?” the boy next to him asked.
Vincent was deeply shaken, but he snapped back to business easily. “Uh, yes, put him on one of the stretchers and get him to a physician,” Vincent instructed. “Show me the surveillance tapes, I want to see what happened here.”
The boy nodded and the five other members did as they were told. Vincent watched as Dexter’s helpless body was lifted up onto the stretcher and taken away. Dexter was supposed to be their answer, their salvation. He had been the perfect choice. Of course, Vincent, in his old age could not take on the task, for he would likely die before they could accomplish any of their goals with the power they sought to take from the Bound Ones. But if Vincent could not do it, Dexter was the obvious second choice to be the new vessel. Dexter, whom Vincent had raised and groomed to be the Four Corners’ Grand Master, the apple of the High Councils’ eyes… No longer.
Once Dexter’s body had been safely removed, Vincent followed two of the members to the security room to watch the video feed. Since no one had been here since that day to operate the equipment, the video from that day was the most recent. They didn’t have to rewind very far. In the fuzziness of rewinding, Vincent caught sight of a terrifying image on the screen.
“Stop!” he said. “That’s it.”
The operator pressed play, and all drew in to watch the video.
They were watching the beginning of the ritual. Four young people were strapped to the stretchers as hooded figures all around them chanted. The electrocution began and the prisoners began to writhe and cry out. It all looked good so far. But wait! The orange-haired girl in the bottom right stretcher wailed loudly and angrily, and suddenly, to Vincent’s horror, all of his faithful brethren ignited from within and burned until they were nothing but ashes settling to the floor. Vincent covered his mouth in shock. He wanted to look away but he could not, for Dexter had been spared Fire’s wrath. The orange-haired girl’s restraints singed away and she was approaching Dexter, whose flight attempts were thwarted by suddenly appearing walls of flame. The orange-haired girl reached out to grab Dexter, and then he fell backward, in the exact same position in which they found him.
Vincent cleared his throat of the emotions that tightened and dried it, then said, “Can you roll that back and play the audio? I must know what she did to him.”
The operator rewound it and turned up the volume.
“You will never speak again,” the orange-haired girl said to Dexter with a voice filled with hatred. “You will never move again. You will see nothing and you will hear nothing for the rest of your life. You will be a shell of your despicable self, and you will have to suffer for the rest of your days with the shame and guilt of what a terrible person you are until it eats you alive.”
The video played on, but Vincent saw nothing else. Amazing the power Fire wielded. Amazing and petrifying, quite literally. She had to be stopped. This was exactly why the Four Corners needed to release the Bound Ones and reclaim the power they had given them. Powers such as these should not be in the hands of ignorant, whimsical children. It was only by chance that the Bound Ones had never developed their powers to use them against the world in all their history. The Four Corners had to act now before the Bound Ones used their powers in the modern age.
“The Bound Ones know of their powers now,” Vincent said to his pupils. “We cannot allow this. Remove the artifacts—the dagger, the necklace, everything. They’re no longer safe here.”
The Egyptian sun was white hot, smothering all in a numbing warmth, and she could not get enough of it. But she couldn’t enjoy it at the moment. She needed to move swiftly away from the palace. She had it. She had what they had been searching for all this time. Now she must get to their hiding place, a place where no one but them would ever find it.
She gracefully floated past guards, nodding coyly as she did, past towering carved and painted columns, past other harem girls loitering with their beautiful foreign cats or rodents, past fine and gorgeous luxuries she was risking losing now, and it was well worth it. She exited the palace and clandestinely slipped the item into the sack on her Persian horse. Then she climbed up, smacking his rear to send him into a mad dash through the city and toward the desert.
After an hour of fierce riding, she arrived. The place was well hidden amongst the rocky, sand-covered mountains of the ancient resting place of the pharaohs. It was impossible to see unless one knew what to look for: the slightest of cracks, so narrow and almost invisible from the ground. She buried the rope of her horse between two heavy rocks and made her way up the precipice, careful to hug the item against her breast so as not to drop it. It was far too valuable to risk damage.
Once at the entrance, she squeezed through the crack in the mountain face and disarmed the booby traps they had set. She stepped into their tomb, or treasury as it were, and, just like every time before, the beauty of it took her breath away. In this room were thousands of years of history and riches beyond even the pharaoh’s wildest dreams. There were solid gold and silver statues of Isis, Horus, Anubis, and various other deities. Countless magical scrolls from all over the known world filled shelves stacked from floor to ceiling. The tomb was a mess of jewelry, weapons and trinkets they had collected all this time, all in search of this one precious relic.
She saw her reflection as she passed the full size serpent-framed gold mirror they had taken from Queen Hatshepsut’s tomb. Her fiery orange hair was long and tussled from the rough ride. Her amber eyes were rimmed in thick black kohl, and her fair flesh, which had been tanned a golden brown by the Egyptian sun, was adorned from head to toe in the finest jewelry and cotton that barely covered her very slender body. Her body was only half the reason the pharaoh and the nobles were falling all over her, and how she managed to get the information she needed.
She turned away from the mirror and walked down the center aisle, past all of their treasures, to set the item in an even more secure spot, so that even if someone did somehow manage to get past all their traps, they wouldn’t be able to take this…
Phoenyx opened her eyes to the soft morning light that painted the room, her ears filling with the sounds of college life that were trespassing into their private space from the outside world.
“Good morning, beautiful,” a wonderfully smooth English-accented voice said beside her.
She looked up at Sebastian’s handsome face. His jet black hair was adorably messy, and he was wearing the jackass smile that she loved.
She curled up into his arms and snuggled against his chest, and he planted a kiss on her forehead.
“Good morning,” she greeted in return.
“How did you sleep?” he asked. “I don’t know about you, but after last night I slept like a baby.” His voice was thick and husky as he spoke, and she could see the bump in the sheets that the memory of last night’s play was erecting.
She giggled and resisted the urge to reach under the sheets, knowing that, if she did, they’d be in bed for another hour and would both miss their first class.
“I slept really good. I had that dream again,” she said, the images still fresh in her mind.
“The Egyptian one?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “It just seems so real, so vivid, like a memory.”
“Well, in our case, it could be a memory,” Sebastian said. “Describe it to me again.” He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at her.
She did the same. “Ok. Well, it starts out with me riding on a horse through the desert to some tomb in a mountain, and I’m carrying… something… something that I gather is really important. I just can’t see what it is, it’s wrapped up in some kind of cloth. And when I walk into this tomb, it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. There’s more gold in there than King Midas’s palace. Does any of this sound familiar to you?”
“Well, I’ve had a lot of d
reams of Egypt, but I can’t remember anything about a tomb in a mountain,” he said. “I wonder what it was you were carrying. Especially if it was more important than a tomb full of gold.”
“I wish I knew. Oh, and you should have seen how I looked! I actually looked like an Egyptian princess or something. My hair was still red, but really long, and I was still white but with a really dark tan, and honestly I would kill to have the clothes I was wearing, which were mostly made of gold. I’m sure I would not be allowed in class dressed like that, though.” They both laughed.
“Hmm, I’m thinking I’d kinda like to see you in this Egyptian outfit. It sounds very sexy,” Sebastian purred, raising a thick black eyebrow.
She closed in and said, “You definitely would not be able to resist.”
“Am I ever?” He closed the distance between them and kissed her, just teasingly enough to make her want to take control. But she pulled away.