Ever (The Ever Series Book 4)

by C. J. Valles

  “What did you do to her?” Wren growls at him.

  “Oh, I can assure you, she’s quite well. In fact, she’s not even aging at the moment. Young forever.”

  As Wren attempts to leap toward him, I take her arm.

  “Let her go,” she begs. “She has nothing to do with this.”

  Her plea to Iago is a wasted appeal. He cares for nothing but himself and his own gain. Wren’s breath catches as she imagines her mother in her young friend’s place.

  “That is where you are wrong,” he says, gesturing to Ashley Stewart with sickening glee. “You see, the pawn is a valuable chess piece under the appropriate circumstances, Wren.”

  And Wren is the queen; it is her fate that will decide the destiny of this world.

  “And perhaps you have overestimated my sense of humanity,” I tell him coldly, feeling Wren bristle at my words.

  “By all means, do it. One by one, destroy everything she holds dear, and see if she still holds you in such high regard. She is human, after all.”

  No, Wren gasps silently.

  I would do almost anything to protect her—but I cannot destroy her happiness, because it would mean losing her.

  “If either one of you touches Ashley …” she trails off, terrified for her young friend.

  “Wren, I feel that my brother has misrepresented me. All I ask is that you hear me out. That you listen to the truth that he has kept from—”

  I snarl at him. To call me brother after his duplicity—and then to insinuate that he has been maligned—infuriates me.

  “Wren, he is deceptive by nature,” I growl. “He knows he must turn you against me, and he will say anything to achieve that—”

  When she holds up her small hand and turns to face Iago, I comprehend my error. Again, I have implied that he will harm her young friend, which is an unfortunate truth. If he thinks he is on the brink of losing his game, as he sees it, I believe he would go to any lengths to ensure his victory. However, he also knows that if he destroys Wren’s friends and family, she will be less likely to acquiesce to his negotiations, as he calls them. More accurately, he deceives humans into giving up their free will. In his mind, he is offering them a choice—to become slaves. To me, it is no choice at all.

  “I want Ashley returned home, unharmed,” Wren says firmly, her voice only betraying the slightest waver. “And you have to promise never to touch my mother or any of my friends. Anything else, I’m willing to negotiate.”

  Iago’s smile broadens.

  “That is all I ask of you.”

  “I will not let him take you,” I whisper in a broken voice.

  She shakes her head, defeated and stubborn at the same time.

  “It’s not up to you any more. Unless you’re willing to kill me.”

  As she looks up at me defiantly, I accept how shrewd Iago’s plan is. He has painted us with the same brush—as mercenaries who would pay any price to win.

  “Don’t do this. Please. I’m begging you,” I press.

  She shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears.

  “I won’t let anyone get hurt because of me. I can’t.” Wren turns and looks at Ashley Stewart. “She doesn’t deserve that. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I made a choice like that.”

  Iago holds out his hand to Wren, reveling in his perceived victory.

  “No. Not until I know Ashley is safe and … after I’ve said goodbye to my mother,” Wren says, her voice catching.

  “Fair enough. I trust that you will hold Ever to our bargain, but please …”

  When he points to her pendant, she lifts her hand to touch it. Hesitating only for a moment, she reaches back and unclasps it. Then, for a single instant, she studies it before throwing it to him.

  “Midnight tonight,” he says, again pleased with himself.

  “Only if you have proof that Ashley is home safe—and I have your word that you will leave everyone else I know alone,” she demands.

  “Of course.” He bows and smiles at her. “There is much Ever hasn’t told you.”

  He is as much of a killer as I, and suggesting otherwise to curry favor with Wren, whom he is intent on deceiving, tempts me to tear a rift in this dimension and send us both to the hell of Victor’s dimension. Wren grasps my hand in hers.

  “Will you take me home?” she pleads.

  I look down at her, warring with myself. I could shift away from human reality and keep her removed from time and space forever, but she would hate me. Reluctantly, I nod. The only option I have is to allow Iago to make his offer and rely on Wren to reject it. He could destroy her—thus destroying the portal to our world—but that is not his plan. If it had been, he would have tried to kill her that morning on the street.

  As Wren looks around the room, the spark is gone from her eyes. Bending down, she retrieves her shoe that had dropped to the floor. Then she takes her coat from the hook on the wall. Avoiding my gaze, she walks across the space to the exit.

  I would have turned seventeen in only a few months, she thinks.

  When we reach the car, I open the door. Again, she refuses to look at me as she lowers herself into the seat. As I drive, Wren imagines over and over the scene from a film version of Romeo and Juliet in which Juliet wakes up in time to watch Romeo die. Looking over at her, I make the decision to take her back to the house. Between the five of us, nothing in this world—or any other world—could take her by force.

  Wren shakes her head when I take a right toward the house instead of driving down the hill into the suburbs. She looks over at me with barely contained rage.

  “Where are you going?” she demands in a low, hostile voice.

  I have as much right as she has to be angry—not with her directly, but at the prospect of losing her.

  “I’m taking you to the house.”

  “No!” she shouts. “Turn around and take me home. Now!”

  “It’s not too late. With the others, I can protect you.”

  The thought of losing her blots out everything else in existence. Wrenching the car to the side of the road, I take her wrist and shift to the house, where I carefully lay Wren’s motionless form on the sofa.

  “He cloned the boyfriend’s phone and lured her out of the house. He was gone with the girl before we knew anything was wrong,” Chasen says, his knuckles rumbling.

  I nod and turn to meet Audra’s stare.

  “May we assume, given the girl’s unconscious state, that the decision to come here was not hers? What then? Do we wait for Iago to begin delivering her friends and family to our doorstep piece by piece until we relinquish her?”

  “What would you have me do?” I snap at her.

  “Take away Iago’s advantage and save the girl the suffering of watching him murdering her friends and family,” Audra replies easily. “She is the last vessel; it is her destiny to close the—”

  “Stop. Before you say something I cannot forgive, sister.”

  Wren suddenly awakens, blinking and coughing. Struggling to sit upright, she stops when we all turn toward her. Persephone, recognizing the trauma of the shift, hands her a glass of electrolyte replacement. Gingerly raising the bottle to her lips, Wren tastes the liquid as I step forward.

  “You will be safe here,” I tell her calmly.

  “One to five. It isn’t even a challenge,” Chasen adds, throwing his support behind me.

  Wren’s eyes flash.

  “And what about my mom? Should I let him take her next?” she asks with tears in her eyes.

  “We can protect your mother as well. She will be safe,” I promise.

  Wren takes a shuddering breath.

  “And Ashley? You really expect me to let him kill her?”

  “He will not harm her. You have to trust me.”

  How can I explain to her what I cannot entirely explain to myself? Something I saw in Iago’s eyes makes me certain he has no intention of harming her or her friends. However, the thought of willingly leaving Wren with the tra
itor sickens me. Wren shakes her head.

  “No,” she whispers. “I can’t do that. Not after what you said back there. Take me home. Now. I want to see my mom before it’s too late.”

  Rising unsteadily from the sofa, she walks wordlessly from the room. When I appear beside her, her expression remains impassive.

  “I understand why you would try to save me,” she says. “Can you understand why I have to do this?”

  “Yes.”

  I would do the same for my family, and like my family, Wren is someone I cannot lose. Opening the passenger door to Audra’s Evora, I wait for Wren to sit before shifting to the driver’s seat, mildly grateful that Audra’s sports car was designed to accommodate a person nearly two hundred centimeters in height.

  Wren remains silent as I drive. Then, suddenly, she freezes and I see in her mind our first kiss in these hills. She closes her eyes, and I feel another impulse to take her back to the house before finally accepting that I must adhere to her wishes, even if she is putting herself at risk.

  Parking in front of her house, I step out and open her door, watching as she stands shakily and begins walking. When we reach the front porch, she turns to face me with tears in her eyes. As Wren reaches up to touch my cheek, a wave of emotion flows out of her before she tries to step away from me.

  In an instant, I lift her against me, bringing my mouth down against the softness of her lips. A few precious seconds is all I allow myself. As I pull away and lower her carefully to the ground, she whimpers almost inaudibly. I can feel the pain and loss flooding through her.

  “I will come for you,” I whisper fervently.

  She shakes her head with a resigned expression.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s not your choice to make.”

  She turns and unlocks the door, walking into the house without looking back. With a growl, I shift to the Portland house, looking around at my family.

  “If anyone here feels they owe me their fealty, then I shall call upon it now. We find Iago tonight, and I will run him through as I should have long ago.”

  I cannot kill him, but I can render him inert—and I must say, the thought of leaving him entombed in Siberia or Death Valley is tempting.

  “How many millennia have we been trying to pin down that asinus flagitiosus?” Chasen asks.

  “Tonight is different,” I snap. “This is personal. That profligate jackass, as you so eloquently phrased it, brother, has threatened the one human in this world I cannot exist without. My only challenge lies in Wren’s loyalty to her friends. If I cannot prove to her that Iago will not harm the girl, then I must find him.”

  “And if he offers her to Victor as a gift before you find him?” Audra says caustically.

  I shake my head.

  “No. That is not his plan.”

  “Not one of us has been able to predict his actions since humans first evolved,” Audra counters. “How would you know what he plans to do?”

  “Because I saw his eyes when he looked upon her,” I tell her. “He has no intention of handing her over or destroying her. I will find him, and I will take her back—”

  “To what end? So that Iago and Victor’s minions in this dimension can continue to hunt her?” she demands.

  I look to Alistair and Persephone.

  “I was once vulnerable like she is now, and I will do whatever necessary to aid you,” Persephone says.

  “You brought us to this dimension, and I can never repay you, for it has led me to my greatest love. I am with you, always,” Alistair adds.

  I turn to Chasen.

  “Have you known me to back down from a fight?” he grins.

  “I have not.”

  When I turn to Audra, she smirks and shrugs.

  “Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno.”

  “Are you quoting Dumas or the Swiss?” I ask with a slight smile.

  “I believe Dumas and the Swiss government borrowed that little tenet from us; I find it only fair to take it back now.”

  I smile.

  “Then it is settled. Beg, blackmail, bribe—whatever you must to find his sanctuary. And if you find him before I do, put a blade in his back. My only priority is finding Wren—alive.”

  Audra studies me.

  “Then you are simply going to wait—and allow him to take her?”

  “I am going to trust Wren to listen to his offer and reject it out of hand.”

  “Trusting a sixteen-year-old human to make a rational decision?” Audra asks dismissively.

  “No, not rational. Emotional.”

  “I hope your decision is the right one,” she says carefully. “Our freedom in this world depends upon it.”

  “Falling in love with Wren was the single most important moment of my existence in this dimension. Her love granted me freedom from darkness, and I know trusting her is the right decision. Now it is my responsibility to find her and bring her home.”

  ***

  “Nearly two days of shifting across this dimension. You realize he is going to kill her—whether he intends to or not,” Chasen growls as we stand on the empty beach at dawn.

  I look out upon the water, searching for some meaning behind his movements. We are not far from Wren’s philandering father’s house.

  “No. He has stopped. He will have erased her memory by now—or she remains unconscious. He is reckless, but he is not a fool.”

  “Then perhaps he wishes the portal closed as much as we do,” Chasen says thoughtfully. “After all, he has done nothing to put himself into Victor’s good graces.”

  I close my eyes, searching human minds for some sign of Wren. Unfortunately, if her memory has been wiped clean, I have little chance of finding her. I must wait until he restores her memory.

  “Return to the house. There is little you can do here,” I tell Chasen.

  I can tell he is about to argue, but he seems to think the better of it, leaving me to my ruminations. Reflecting upon my existence before Wren Sullivan, I feel a chill seeping through me. She is the last whose mind can bear infinite possession, but she is also the last like Persephone—a human capable of becoming like us. And, not insignificantly, Iago has spent eternities alone, or—if he has taken human companions—then he has watched them die. As a traitor to both sides of an eternal war, he is alone, even more so than I have been.

  Is it possible that he sees Wren as his last opportunity for companionship? Is it possible that, very much like me, Iago has done everything for Wren?

  Is she the final game, and the winner takes all?

  Books by C. J. Valles

  Young Adult/New Adult Paranormal Romance:

  C. J. Valles

  For Ever (The Ever Series, Book 1)

  Never (The Ever Series, Book 2)

  Sever (The Ever Series, Book 3)

  Ever, (The Ever Series, Alternate POV of For Ever)

  C. J. Valles writing as Alessa James

  Aven’s Dream

  Adult Titles (18+ only):

  C. J. Valles writing as Sheila Grace

  College Girl

  A Note from C. J.

  Thanks for reading! If you would like to find out about my latest book releases, please visit: www.cjvalles.com and sign up for the appropriate list. (Announcements will only be made to let you know when the next book is being released.)

  For general updates and news, visit me on Facebook or subscribe to the blog:

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  Best wishes,

  CJ

 

 

 
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