“Everyone else is dead,” Leo called. “Give up and put your hands on top of your head.”
Knowing I had backup, I glanced at the floor. It was true, it was littered with the bodies of the other attackers, all dead. Their bodies were black, motionless lumps on the floor around the transport pad. The queen’s guards were circling, squatting down and taking away pistols, ensuring no one could harm us. Thor stood at my side practically bouncing on his toes, waiting for a chance to move into my fight.
Leo had Trinity tucked against his chest, surveying the damage, ion pistol in his free hand.
Nix had his blaster out, pointed right at my opponent.
When the officer saw that, he grinned again, like a fucking Cheshire cat, and raised his hand to the side of his uniform collar where there was a small, metallic button I hadn’t noticed before.
“It’s a transport beacon! Get him!” Leo shouted.
I didn’t know what that was, but I knew it meant escape. “No!” I leaped for him. Nix fired. His blaster fire hit the wall behind where the male’s head had been a moment earlier, missing me by inches as I flew through thin air.
It was too late. Instead of tackling a big Aleran who’d been shot, I had launched myself through the air at nothing. He had literally disappeared before my eyes. There one second, then he was gone.
I spun about. No sizzle, no vibrations. Just there and then poof. Vanished. It was like something out of the Harry Potter books. Crazy.
“Too late, Nix. Damn it.” My sister’s voice cut through the silence like a splash of ice water.
Thor pulled me to his chest and smothered me, feeling me everywhere. His hands roamed over my back, my front—which in other times would have been very hot, but now a little awkward—and then cupped my face. “Are you all right? Never do that again, Faith.” I looked up at him, his eyes wild. Fierce. “Never. I can’t lose you.”
I wrapped my arms around him and clung. Now that the adrenaline—and superpowered Kung Fu mania—was wearing off, I felt shaky. And furious. What had just happened? Lord Wyse was about to tell us everything and now he was another body on the floor.
“Did they kill him?” I asked.
“Yes, love. He’s dead.” Thor kept my cheek firmly to his chest, the beat of his heart calming me, despite the fact that it was racing. “They’re all dead.”
“Order a hold on all transports to this center. Now!” Nix shouted and one of his men left the room to do his bidding.
“God damn it. Now what?” Trinity pushed Leo away and he let her escape his embrace but kept a hold on her hand, connecting them. It was as if he were afraid one of the dead guys would jump up and get her. “He was supposed to tell us where they’re keeping Mom.”
She ran a hand through her hair. I don’t think I’d ever seen her so mad. She’d made a deal with the devil himself and it hadn’t worked out.
Leo looked over the dead bodies, but it was his father and Nix who pulled off the dead men’s black masks one by one.
“Do you recognize any of them, Father?” Leo asked.
“No.” The older man frowned as he tugged at their clothing. Across the room, Nix did the same.
Nix shoved at one dead man with his boot. “They’re not wearing any identifiable uniform.”
“No, they’re not. But they are marked.” Captain Turaya, Leo’s father, shoved the sleeve up on a dead man and exposed his wrist. He held the arm up for all of us to see. There, just high enough so the cuff on a shirt would cover it, was a symbol. A dark tattoo.
“What’s that?” Trinity asked.
“The mark of the clerics.” Leo obviously recognized it because his voice was grim. “Look at the others.”
Nix and another soldier checked the other two dead men and found the same identifying mark. “Yes. They all have it,” Nix confirmed.
Shit. I wasn’t familiar with the clerics, just knew that they were an order that was supposed to be dedicated to protecting the royal bloodline, protecting order and the law. They were not religious at all. All I could think of were the Volturi in the Twilight books ruling over all the other vampires. But these dead guys hadn’t been protecting us, they’d been trying to kill us. What the hell?
“All of them? They’re all clerics?” I asked. I clung to Thor’s arm where he’d wrapped it around my waist. My fingertips dug in, hard.
“Faith? What is it?” Thor asked. “They’re all dead.”
“Yes, but they obviously knew about the deal Trinity made with Lord Wyse. They knew he was going to talk,” I said.
“They didn’t want him to blab,” Trinity added. “Another band of assassins. This time ordered by the clerics. Will we ever get to the top of the ladder of deceit?”
Through her haze of anger, she looked up at me. The moment our gazes locked, I knew she’d thought of the same thing.
“Destiny. Oh, shit. Destiny.” Trinity spun to face Leo, the same panic in her eyes that I felt.
Destiny was with the clerics.
“We have to get her out of there,” I said. I ignored the dead, stepping over their bodies to get to my sister, hugging her close. “We have to get her out of there right now. Call her. Get Prime Nial to do that insta-dial thing in her head. She has to get out of there.”
“I know,” Trinity replied. “But shit. Leo? How do I do this? We need to get in touch with her again. To tell her that they’re the ones who’ve got Mom. That they are the bad guys. Now. Right now.” Trinity followed a step behind as Leo moved to the transport controls. “She’s in the fucking lion’s den.”
That made Leo wince. Trinity rarely cussed and seeing her in a panic was even more out of character. But this was our baby sister.
“They’ll kill her,” I whispered. “Shit. They’ll kill her if they catch her.”
“I can put in a comm request for Prime Nial from here. But I don’t know when or if he’ll answer.” Leo’s hands were already moving over the controls.
Nix moved so silently I’d almost forgotten he was there, until he was so close I could feel the heat of him. “Where is Destiny?” he asked.
Looking up at him, I tightened my grip on Thor as worry for my twin chilled my blood to ice in my body and I started to shiver. “You were there when we talked to her the last time. It was all dark. She didn’t say. We don’t know. Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, you do not know? Where is she?”
“Cut her some slack, Nix. We really don’t know.” Trinity was bent over the control panel next to her mate, the colored lights from the controls casting her face in a strange green glow.
“If Prime Nial could ping her NPU, then he knows where she is,” he countered. His voice was as tense as his entire body.
Nix’s words made sense, but right now, right this second, she was out there and in danger. “She was going undercover in the clerical order. We know she got in. But there are at least twenty clerical buildings in Mytikas alone. And she could have left the city, could have gone to another city. She could literally be anywhere on the planet.”
“This is Commander Karter. How may I assist?” The Prillon commander’s voice filled the room with a distinct lack of anxiety and I calmed immediately, leaning into Thor with a sigh. I wasn’t sure why the commander was called instead of the Prime, but I trusted Leo to know what he was doing.
“Thank god,” I whispered.
That made Trinity look up at me. “Don’t count your chickens, Faith.”
“I hate that saying,” I grumbled.
Leo ignored both of us. “Commander Karter, this is Leoron Turaya on Alera. I am with Princess Trinity and Princess Faith. There has been an attack and we need to establish communication with their sister, Princess Destiny at once. We were hoping you could assist from Battleship Karter and give us a direct link to her NPU. Her life is in grave danger.”
Nix growled and paced, as if he was ready to go after her as soon as he knew her location. I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or fearful. Nix was not a guard to be
trifled with, but I knew Destiny would hold her own. Hell, she’d kick his ass into next Tuesday.
7
Thor
My mate was trembling and I fought the fire raging in my blood. So much death. So much betrayal. And now, her twin sister, the one I’d yet to meet, was in danger. I had no idea what they meant about counting strange birds, but I would ask Faith. Later.
Much later.
After I’d stripped her naked, inspected every inch of her perfect body and made love to her until neither of us could move.
While it was obvious these cleric mercenaries had been sent to silence Lord Wyse, I was sure they’d have killed all of us, too, if we hadn’t taken them down.
Fuck!
Another attempt on Faith’s life. Another clue we now had to follow. Zel, dead. My mother, dead. Wyse, dead. All of them had been pawns of the clerics.
When would this end? When would we find the true culprit? It was as if we were running and running and never reaching our destination. More death. Never-ending danger. It had to stop.
The silence stretched when Commander Karter did not respond immediately, but Leo held up his hand in a motion for us to wait. He’d been out there in space with the Prillon warriors, fought in the Hive war, and I trusted his judgment.
Nix, however, seemed less patient and I wondered at his scowl and his quiet pacing in front of the control panel. He seemed nearly as emotionally invested as the two sisters, and that made no logical sense. Sure, I was angry about what just happened, but Nix was still obviously agitated, as if his fight weren’t over.
He and I had never met Destiny. I’d heard her voice once on the comm call we placed from the palace. Him, too. But I’d never met her. Neither had Nix, that I knew of. But he seemed disoriented, riled. Hanging on by a thread.
“Leo, I have located Destiny’s NPU signature. It appears she is in the mountains a few miles outside the city,” Karter said through the comms. “I will attempt to patch you through.”
“Thank you.” Leo nodded to Trinity and stepped back, indicating she should speak.
No formal goodbyes between the males. But that was what I’d heard of the Prillons—they didn’t waste time on trivialities or formal nuances. Oh, they had rituals and honor just like the Aleran males, but they sure were abrupt. Since they ran the war with the Hive, they wasted no energy or time for such nonsense.
With Faith in my arms and our enemies dead at our feet, I did not envy the commander the destruction and loneliness of a never-ending war.
“Destiny? Can you hear me? It’s Trin.” Trinity leaned forward, as if that would help her voice travel through space and into her sister’s head a bit faster. “Destiny? It’s Trinity.” Louder this time.
“Quiet!” Destiny’s whispered voice came through loud and clear. And frantic. “I can’t talk now.”
Faith tensed in my hold.
“Destiny, the clerics have Mom,” Trinity continued. “They just tried to kill us.”
“I know.” Destiny’s whisper was quieter now. We could barely hear her.
“What? What do you mean, you know? Why didn’t you tell us they were going to ambush us?”
“Not that,” she hissed. “That they have Mom.”
Trinity glanced my way. It seemed we were a little behind.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Shhh.”
“Where?” Trinity repeated.
“Cell block. Guards. Shut. Up.” Destiny’s voice was very faint, and very frustrated.
Faith pulled from my arms and I let her go but followed her to the control panel and placed my hand on her back so she’d know I was there. Supporting her. Loving her. As if I were going to let her get more than arm’s reach from me.
I’d killed a man with my bare hands tonight. For her.
While she’d been hand-to-hand fighting the transport technician—or cleric disguised as one—I’d wrapped my hands around a mercenary’s throat and squeezed until he’d stopped resisting. I’d do it again. He’d been about to shoot my mate and instinct had taken over. Rage. The need to protect. Faith was mine. She’d lied to all the people of Alera to protect me, and now I would spend the rest of my life protecting her. Loving her. Giving her whatever she needed to be happy. I knew she wouldn’t be fully content until her mother was found and safe and her sister was away from danger.
“Des, it’s Faith. You remember our twin code?”
Two taps sounded through the speaker and Faith sighed with relief and grinned.
“Twin code?” Trinity looked at her sister, frowned. We all looked at Faith. “What twin code?”
“We invented it in kindergarten and used it when we wanted to talk about stuff without people knowing what we were answering,” Faith explained.
“Like Morse code?” Trinity asked. I had no fucking clue what that was, but I was intrigued. So was Trinity. Obviously, the sisters didn’t tell each other everything.
“Not really,” Faith continued. “One for no, two for yes. Right, Des?”
Two taps came through the comm.
“Are you in Mytikas?” Faith asked.
One tap. Holy shit, it was working.
“Are you with the clerics?”
Two.
Fuck. She was in the traitor’s den. And not in the city. Where the fuck was she?
Nix leaned forward. “Are you in danger?”
Silence greeted his question, so he asked again.
“Are you in danger, Princess?” His voice had gentled, but not much, and I looked sideways at him, trying to assess his odd behavior. Laser focus, riled and agitated. Unsettled, as if a part of him was missing. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Destiny was his mate.
Two taps this time and a shudder passed through Faith. Trinity raised her hand to her forehead and rubbed the skin there as if it were in pain. “Where the hell is she?” she asked the room at large.
Leo’s father stepped forward. “The clerical order’s main fortress is in the mountains just south of the city. Just beyond the city walls.”
Two excited taps—if taps could be excited.
Nix’s shoulders rolled back then and he stepped over a dead body. “I am coming.” Nix was already walking toward the door when the single tap sounded in the quiet room.
Nix didn’t stop, the door to the transport room silently sliding open and he stormed out. He had a mission, it seemed. Get Destiny. He knew she was in danger, knew where she was.
“Too late, Des,” Trinity said. “He’s coming.”
Destiny sighed and we could all hear a rustle of movement. “They’re moving prisoners,” she whispered. “Love you both. I’m close. Gotta go now. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine!”
And just like that, she was gone.
“Fine?” I said, voice loud. “She just tapped that she was in danger and now she’s fine?”
Trinity slammed her hand down on the control panel and Faith leaned into me as if she couldn’t support her own weight.
“Why does she always do this?” Trinity asked. “Mom never should have put her in karate when she was a kid.”
“Right. Or Tae Kwon Do. Or boxing. Wilderness survival. She’s the badass in the family, remember?” Faith smiled and there was a shimmer of pride in her eyes. She loved her sisters, that was obvious. But talk of Destiny had her straightening her spine and lifting her chin. There was pride in her voice when she spoke of her twin. Pride and love.
“Nix is going after her. He will find her, keep her safe. Drag her ass out of there if need be,” Leo added.
“He can try.” My mate was grinning, which was a huge improvement from moments ago.
That made me smile in return thinking about what I might do if I was determined to protect Faith, and she was determined not to cooperate. A male could only take so much. “I might actually pity Nix a bit.”
“You’re not wrong.” Trinity looked to me, eyes narrowed in annoyance. “She’s a pain in my ass, that’s what she is.”
“That�
��s no way to talk about my twin,” Faith countered.
“You had a secret code and never even told me.” Trinity pointed to the blaster indent on the wall where Nix’s shot had missed the male that Faith, herself, had been fighting. “You’re no better these days. What’s with all the karate? I mean, Destiny’s the one with all the self-defense training and now you pull out moves like you’re Jean Claude Van Damme.”
Faith shrugged. “I went into the citadel normal and came out with Jackie Chan moves. I don’t understand it myself, but it’s good stuff.”
Trinity opened her mouth, looked at me, closed it.
Faith hadn’t always been an impressive fighter? It was something she’d acquired inside the sacred building? How?
“Got it.” That short answer from Trinity didn’t explain a thing, but the sisters seemed to be having a separate conversation. “I’m still going to bitch slap Destiny when she gets back.”
“I think Nix is going to take care of that,” Faith said and I chuckled, not surprised that my mate had noticed Nix’s odd behavior. Indeed, he did seem like a male possessed. And I knew of only one thing that could make a male that crazed.
The guy had tranquilized me, stripped me naked and tied me to a bed to await my mate. I would enjoy watching him suffer a bit.
Trinity was staring at the doorway through which Nix had disappeared. “Maybe.” She turned to Leo’s father. “I assume the queen’s guard will take care of the mess in here? And investigate the men and who they are? Confirm they are really from the clerics?”
Captain Turaya bowed. “Of course. You’ll have a report first thing in the morning.” He looked to his son. “If you’ll escort the princesses back to the palace?”
Leo nodded, hooked his arm about Trinity’s waist.
Trinity looked from my mate to me as she leaned her head against Leo’s chest. “I need a hot bath, bubbles, candles, and about a gallon of wine. What do you say, Leo? Care to join me?”
“Always.” His expression was so content I envied him. But then, I did not, for Faith clung to me with the same love in her eyes.
Ascension Saga, Book 6: Interstellar Brides®: Ascension Saga Page 7