“Cole, why are you here?” she asked, her forehead creased in a frown.
With her long blond hair pulled into a ponytail, she appeared much younger. And those eyes of hers drew him in. His body responded immediately with a rush of desire.
He walked toward the porch with deliberate intent, dismissing the threat of the knife-clad woman. “Nice to see you too.”
Bri flinched, but held her ground. Betrayal settled, a lead weight in his gut. Anger simmered, too.
Nathanial holstered his gun and followed a few steps behind.
The woman stepped in front of him and blocked his path. She had old-soul eyes. “You must be Cole.”
This woman was dangerous, and he found he didn’t care. He didn’t respond, just stared her down.
At Bri’s brief murmur of acknowledgment, the woman’s posture relaxed. “I’m Celeste. You may as well come in and meet the others.”
“Others?” Cole directed the question at Bri, who nodded and had the grace to appear sheepish.
“We can talk about all this inside.” Celeste stepped aside and opened the door.
Pissed as hell, Cole followed Bri. Her delicate jasmine and lavender scent teased his nostrils and he inhaled deeply. Somehow the woman managed to naturally smell like a damn flower garden.
He’d been a fool for trusting her, for falling in love with her. He could blame the lion’s share of his physical attraction on the pearl’s compulsion. His respect for her though, had come in getting to know her, understanding the ferocity of her spirit, her sense of humor and of self.
Didn’t mean he’d forgiven her for leaving him.
“Cole, I’m sorry,” she said quietly, as if she could read his mind. “You shouldn’t have followed me here.”
“I can’t leave you,” he snarled, “or have you forgotten?”
Her troubled green eyes met his, and he wanted to drown in them. “You have to,” she replied softly.
Nathanial touched his arm, and Cole immediately stepped away from her, realizing he’d growled low in his throat. He took a breath and let anger roll through him. She’d been safe this whole time, probably waiting to lead him here. He’d told her he loved her, and she led him into what was surely a trap.
“I told you to come in.” Celeste’s voice carried to them from inside the house, a command they could not ignore.
Nathanial held the screen door open and gestured for Bri to enter first.
“You okay?” Nathanial blocked the doorway.
“This is a trap.” Cole clenched his fists.
Nathanial raised an eyebrow and moved aside with a barely perceptible nod. “Maybe.”
Bracing himself, Cole stepped across the threshold. The house was more spacious on the inside than it appeared from the road. The opulent interior was shocking given the dilapidated exterior. Off to the left of the elaborate entryway, a wide arch led to an enormous living room complete with plush couches, armchairs, and a flat-screen television along the far wall. Tasteful Persian rugs covered the hardwood floors.
Three large men took up various positions around the room. The dark-haired one who had paralyzed them out front—Darius—had obscured himself in the shadows of one corner. The other two sat on stools at a bar toward the rear of the room. They all had the same look, battle-hardened and far too young to have been alive for centuries. He was sure they were Quytel.
Celeste leaned against the side wall. Cole suspected she was like Mack, a Quytel Warrior. Her dark hair accentuated the delicate bones of her face, and the pale blue of her eyes reminded him of an Impressionist landscape.
One of the men at the bar stood. “Bri told us a bit about you.” He had an unruly mop of curly brown hair and a dimpled smile. “I’m Byron.”
Bri had the decency to seem embarrassed. She ducked her head and slid deeper into the room along the wall, leaving Cole and Nathanial at the entryway to face the four Quytel. Nathanial hung back, leaning with deceptive casualness against the wall near the door to the living room.
“How long have you been here?” Cole ignored everyone else, directing the question at her.
Bri’s face flushed as all eyes turned to her. She squared her shoulders. “I got here a few hours ago.”
“We found your girl in the forest last night. Good job on protection detail,” one of the others chimed in-the good looking one with chiseled features and short, dark brown hair.
The wolf raised its head at the challenge.
“Ash,” Byron warned with a sharp flick of his hand. “Don’t mind him, he’s harmless.”
Ash cocked his head to one side and gave Byron a warning glare as he propped his body against the bar.
“And that’s Darius over there.” Byron saluted the tall man with black hair, who didn’t move from his place in the shadows.
“The two of them were sent to find Bri, and they did,” Celeste explained. “Jonah and Mack have been detained. They’ll join us when they can.”
“Detained by whom?” Cole challenged. “The last time we saw Mack he was nearly dead.”
“He’s healing,” Celeste said dismissively.
“Was Jonah also attacked by Anton’s forces?” Cole paced forward before she could continue.
Five sets of eyes settled on him. Good. Now he had their attention.
“How did you know about Anton?” Celeste probed.
Before Cole could answer, Bri intervened. “My mother is also involved.”
Everyone turned to stare at her, and Bri felt like a specimen under the microscope. She tried not to squirm. She scanned the faces of the Quytel Warriors, each regarding her with expressions ranging from mildly interested to annoyed. Which had essentially been their reaction to her since Ash and Darius had brought her here.
She’d woken up a few hours earlier in this large living room with its plush décor, surrounded by unfamiliar, fierce faces who told her they were protecting her on Jonah’s orders. The abject panic that had prompted her mad dash into the forest during a torrential downpour the night before, which ended in her capture by her father’s goons, seemed a fitting end to the absolute worst day of her life.
“You know your mother is dead, right?” Ash drawled the question, starting a slow stroll in her direction.
She gaped at the Warrior, heart in her throat. “You knew my mother?”
He paused, appearing somewhat unsure. “We all knew her,” he replied carefully.
“Ash,” Celeste cautioned.
Hands on her hips and the beginning of a major tension headache brewing, Bri glared at him. “I’ve grown up with the assumption she was dead, but now . . .”
“Assumption?” Celeste interrupted, every inch the Warrior in her tight leather leggings and severely braided ponytail. “Tell us why you suspect Rowan has a part in this.”
Knees suddenly weak, Bri’s head pounded harder. “A few weeks ago, I started having a nightmare.” A chill settled around her heart. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared up at the ceiling. “It was terrifying. I would close my eyes and be pulled into a cave with crystal-encrusted walls, always the same cave with a sacrificial altar and a woman . . . I could never see her face. It was the same feeling each time too, my body wracked with pain and unable to move.”
The memory ran through her on a shudder of pain, imprinted in her bones, tattooed on her skin.
Celeste bristled. “Did you tell Jonah?”
“Not until a couple of days ago, after Cole found me.”
“Speaking of which,” Ash moved closer to stand in front of her, “how did the wonder-wolf find you?”
A low growl filled the room, and Ash laughed, raising his hand. “No offense, man.”
Bri longed to slap the Warrior across the face. She imagined that wouldn’t go well for her though. What a c
omplete ass. He’d been sarcastic and none too complimentary when he’d found her. Between him and Darius, she wondered about Jonah’s choice of Warriors. Ash had a quick, superficial charm barely covering his disdain. Darius was just plain surly. I guess you don’t need to be friendly to be a deadly warrior.
“Ignore him,” Bryon urged gently. “Please continue.”
She glanced over at Cole. He and Nathanial stood by the arched entryway, apart from the rest of them. He was clearly angry with her. More than angry; thunderous. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t deserve that for leaving him the way she had. As dangerous as it was for him to be around her, she was happy to see him.
Even standing there glowering at her, he looked so good. She wanted to run her hand over his dark hair and trace the perfection of his lips. Though he seemed to hate her now, Bri admitted to herself how much she missed him. Loved him.
At her prolonged gaze, Cole raised a brow. Her heart sank at his cool-as-ice stare. She’d hurt him, and there might be no repairing the damage. Tears pinpricked behind her eyes.
“Bri?” Celeste prompted.
“Sorry.” She cleared her throat, wanting to get this out of the way so she could have a little peace and quiet to collect herself. “Several days ago, I had the nightmare again, only Cole appeared in it.”
“Care to explain that?” The still-as-a-statue Warrior demanded of Cole, breaking his silence and moving into the center of the room.
Before Cole could say anything, Bri jumped in. “It was the first time the woman turned around so I could see who she was,” she explained in a rush.
“And she resembled your mother?” Celeste prompted.
“Yes. Cole thought it was me before we met.”
Celeste studied her face. “You do bear a strong resemblance.”
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Bri waited, trying to hold her breath so she could hear Celeste’s answer over the thundering of her heart.
The Warrior exchanged a long look with Darius and shook her head. “If it’s true, she’s dangerous to you and you have to brace yourself for what she has become.”
“I know—” Bri started.
“I don’t think you do.” Celeste grabbed her upper arm in a move so sudden, Bri didn’t have time to react. “You need to be prepared for this. If she’s somehow alive, there isn’t any way to save her.”
“You don’t know that,” Bri protested, sparks of hope flickering and burning out as she fought for breath.
“I do know that.” Celeste released her.
Darius gave Cole a dismissive onceover. “And how did you end up in Bri’s dream?”
The man seemed to have one expression from what Bri had seen . . . surly, with a touch of irritation.
Cole shrugged, and the movement instantly distracted her. Why she found even his shrug sexy was beyond her.
“My team had been investigating a string of murders,” he explained without any frills, probably wondering why Jonah hadn’t briefed his own team. It seemed her father was consistent in that at least. “Jonah filled us in on the background. Latent psychics drained of their abilities and murdered. When I touched one of the bodies I was transported into a vision remarkably similar to Bri’s nightmare.”
“And you saw Bri in this shared dream?” Celeste prodded.
“I did.” Cole’s voice was clipped. “Who is Anton?”
Nathanial stood beside him, a silent sentinel.
It may have been Bri’s imagination, but the Warriors tensed and became edgier than usual at the man’s name. If this Anton guy was powerful enough to worry the Quytel and had some connection to her mother, she was in serious trouble. Bri tried not to let fear get the better of her.
“He’s a mage.” Bryon sighed with a barely perceptible droop in his broad shoulders. “His powers are vast and have apparently been growing. He’s lived a long time and has been bent on upsetting the psychic balance on earth for most of his life.”
“How long is that?” Bri asked.
“As long as I’ve been a Warrior, and well before.”
“Do I want to know?” Bri smiled at him, forced though it was. Bryon seemed easygoing and friendly, and she needed a dose of that right now.
A low rumble filled the air, and Bri turned. If possible, the glare Cole gave her was even darker than it had been when he’d arrived.
“Why is Anton set on destabilizing everything?” Cole posed the question without shifting the intensity of his steely gray eyes from hers.
It was Ash who responded. “Over six hundred years ago, Anton approached the Commander of the European Quytel and insisted on being initiated. It would have been impossible because he didn’t have the Quytel marker necessary for the process. He either didn’t understand or thought he somehow could change that outcome.”
“Genetic marker?” Cole echoed.
“There are several requirements for becoming Quytel, and that is the most critical.” Ash took a seat on the couch in the center of the room, stretching his arms out on either side of the backrest. “Anton did have the potential in other ways in terms of his abilities. He and the European Commander came to an agreement that he could train with the Quytel and learn from them. Jonah was a Warrior in the European Circle at the time and had been assigned the task of training him.”
Bri inhaled sharply.
“What are his powers?” Cole tore his eyes away from her and focused on the Warrior lounging on the couch as if they were talking about where they might go for dinner.
“Unfortunately he learned a lot from the apprenticeship with Jonah, before he turned.” Ash dropped his arms as he expounded. “It became clear to Jonah at a certain point that Anton was not an ally of the Quytel. It took some time to convince his Commander of that, and in the end, Jonah was sent to destroy him. By then, Anton had learned many of the Quytel’s most deeply held secrets. Immorality had always been elusive to him, although he found a way to prolong his life.”
“Mages,” Darius muttered.
A few days ago, this whole conversation would have struck Bri as crazy, impossible. How things can change in the blink of an eye. Now she focused on every word of the conversation because somewhere there must be an answer to what had happened to her mother.
“In addition to whatever he learned from us, Anton can manipulate energy, cast deadly spells, and harness vast power,” Celeste added.
Bri tried to imagine what deadly spells and energy manipulation looked like. The dull ringing in her ears had returned. Out of sheer will, she forced her inner-reporter to take over. “How has he survived for this long?”
An odd flicker, maybe of compassion, shone in Ash’s green eyes. Compassion couldn’t be high on the man’s list. “Jonah could give you more details. He was made the Commander of the North American Circle shortly after that,” he explained. “Let’s just say we all thought Anton a cautionary tale and we believed he’d been successfully eliminated.”
Celeste cleared her throat and sent him a pointed look. “Aren’t you next up on watch?”
“That we are, my dear.” Ash forced a laugh as he launched himself to his feet and clapped Byron on the shoulder. “Shall we?”
Byron nodded to Bri and then to Cole as he followed Ash to the door.
Hungering for more of the story, Bri turned to Celeste, her gaze colliding once more with Cole’s. Her heart sank at the condemnation in those beautiful eyes. It was better he hated her, safer for him. Her chest was so tight she could have easily choked.
The shrill ring of the telephone mounted in the hallway startled her.
“Saved by the bell,” Celeste muttered, heading for the phone on a small side table next to the couch.
“Jonah. Yes. Yes. They’re here,” she responded to the disembodied telephonic voice. She crooked her finger at Bri.
&nb
sp; Bri rocked to her feet, snatching the phone out of Celeste’s hand.
Jonah’s voice came over the line. “Bri.”
Her knees nearly buckled in relief. He sounded tired. Grief squeezed her at her chest, and despair formed a hard, churning knot in her stomach. She wasn’t sure she could take another betrayal by the man who had been her only parent since she was five.
“Bri, I’m glad you’re safe. Stay where you are. I should be there later today or tomorrow. I’m taking care of some things and they unfortunately can’t wait.”
“I know. I . . .” Bri stuttered, not sure where to start. Questions flew around in her mind about her mother, about the vision she and Cole had shared, about her powers finally triggered. “There’s a lot for us to talk about.” Proud her voice sounded strong, even as the deeper part of her unraveled, she still despaired at too many questions and too much between them now to sort out.
“I love you, Bri,” he vowed before he hung up, not giving her time to respond.
She held on to the phone a little longer, her world shaken. Talking to her father somehow made it more real.
“I think I need to lie down.” Without looking at Celeste or Cole, she ran for the stairs, not stopping until she got to the room she’d rested in a few hours earlier.
Closing the door softly behind her, Bri crossed to the window and opened it. Only a few yards from the house the sharp, crisp pine forest smelled incredible. Crawling out of the second floor window, she sat on a flat section of the roof and took in the impressive vista of the Canadian Rockies surrounding the area.
There was some relief in staring out at the majesty of craggy, forbidding peaks. Pulling her knees to her chest, she hugged herself, letting her mind sift through all the details of the past few days, adding up to the hell her life had become.
The Quytel didn’t really believe her mother lived, although deep in her soul she knew it to be true. And then there was Anton, psycho-mage, who had been harboring a vendetta against Jonah for centuries. In some way Bri felt comforted by the fact that she’d become a target because of her father and not something she’d done. On top of being furious with Jonah and Mack for not telling her about her past, her parents, her abilities, and who they really were, she also felt protective of them, which left an odd emotional footprint.
Circle of Dreams (The Quytel Series Book 1) Page 20