Refracted (The Celadon Circle Book 2)

by Nicole Storey

  “Very well, but we will keep this one to make sure you keep your word. Once you are in our custody, we will let her go.”

  Jordan didn’t like that arrangement but Mazie was their trump card – the only advantage they had.

  “Watch them,” she told Xander.

  He nodded, and she turned to Ivy. Her brazen, bold sister was dry-eyed but Jordan knew they were skimming the same bitter, churning waters.

  She led Ivy to a far corner of the filthy room, kicking trash and bugs out of her way. Once out of earshot, she whispered, “I’m gonna ask the angels for one more favor. After I’m gone, you’ll have to finish what I can’t, and promise you’ll watch over Mazie. She’s gonna need you.”

  Ivy had no trouble deciphering the cryptic message. “Don’t worry; I’ll be happy to finish it for you, and I’ll protect Mazie – you know I will.” She glanced around and hissed, “Why are you doing this? Just reduce those fairies to smut stains and let’s bolt. I…I don’t want to lose you. What if you get upstairs and can’t break free? What the hell will I do then?”

  Jordan shushed her. The angels were getting antsy and she had to hurry. She gave Ivy her phone. “After we’re gone and you take care of business, call Uncle Case or my brothers. They can get word to Gabe. Hopefully, he’ll know where Michael’s holding me. If not, just tell them I said to look for fireworks and blazing robes.”

  Ivy laughed bitterly and pulled her close. “Please come back to me, Sis. I know you plan to go home when all this is over, but don’t forget you have another family who loves you, too.”

  “Never,” Jordan said. She held on, trying to express just how much she cared in that one simple act. It would never be enough. “I love you. See you soon.”

  Before Ivy could say more, Jordan turned away. Now wasn’t the time to fall apart. She had to stay strong to face Michael.

  When Ivy took Xander’s place as guard, he wrapped Jordan in his arms. If she could bottle the feelings he stirred within her and bring them along, she might make it through this unscathed. She wanted to drink them in, to immerse herself so deep the thought of facing her future alone would not be so frightening.

  “I can’t let you do this,” he mumbled into her hair. His breath, warm against her neck, caused Jordan to shiver. He held her closer.

  “I have to. They have Mazie, and I swore to protect her. I can’t let anything happen to her – to any of you.”

  She felt him nod. Xander didn’t question her motives or decision – as if he had no doubt she knew what was best. Jordan looked into his eyes. “Do you think I’ll ever make it back?”

  He wouldn’t lie to her. He knew the answer was important – could feel it through the special bond they had.

  With no hesitation, he said, “Yes, and I’ll be here waiting for you.”

  “Why?” she had to ask, had to know. “Why would you wait for me? You barely know me.”

  The angel holding Mazie signaled that her time was up but she couldn’t leave without understanding what she was to Xander. “Hold your wings for a minute!”

  “Tell me why,” she pleaded.

  Xander touched her cheek. “For years, I sat in that house in Purgatory, wondering what my place was in all of this. I never felt like I belonged there – belonged anywhere. Most of my life has been spent in confusion with no direction, no answers.”

  He wiped a tear from her cheek.

  When did I start crying?

  “I still don’t have the answers, Jordan. All I know is when I saw you, something inside – a voice – told me I’d found my path, and it was with you.”

  She closed her eyes, not sure how to feel. She knew Xander was supposed to play a part in her life but she didn’t know which role. If he was right, then why were they being separated?

  “What if the voice was wrong?”

  “It wasn’t,” he replied, his voice strong and sure. Ever so softly, like the caress of butterfly wings, his lips pressed against hers. It happened so fast she barely had time to register how her heart went from a comfortable canter to a full-out sprint and the swooping feeling in the pit of her stomach. When she opened her eyes, he smiled. “You’re not the only one who has dreams. Now hurry and come back to us.”

  “We’ve given you ample time for your goodbyes,” the Aeon said. “We must go.”

  Jordan gave Xander a look that said he’d have some explaining to do when, if, she saw him again and then walked to where Mazie stood with the angel.

  Beside him, Gina rolled her eyes. “As if any of us wanted to watch your pitiful attempt at making out.”

  Ignoring her, Jordan faced her little sister. Tears still fell, but not as many as before. Mazie, it seemed, had come to terms with the way things had to be for now.

  Embracing her, Jordan said, “Mind Ivy and Xander, okay? They’ve promised to take good care of you while I’m gone.”

  Mazie trembled in her arms. Jordan took the girl by the shoulders and gave them a squeeze. “Listen to me. We all have jobs to do right now. Yours is to help Ivy and Xander. If we’re gonna get through this, we have to work together – be strong for one another. I need you to be strong for me now. Can you do that?”

  Rubbing away the last of her tears, Mazie stood taller and nodded. “I’ll do my best. Come back for me as soon as you can. I love you, Jordan.”

  When she threw her thin arms around her and held on so tight, it took everything Jordan had not to fall apart. Choking back tears, she hugged her little sister one last time and said, “I love you, too, sweet Mazie.”

  Ivy took charge of their sister and Jordan faced the Aeons. “I have one more request, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “What is it?”

  Smiling, she pointed at Gina, who suddenly looked concerned. “She stays here and pays the price for betraying her own kind, her own blood.”

  “What?!”

  Gina approached the angel. “You can’t do that. It wasn’t part of the deal I made with Michael – with your boss!”

  “And what was the deal exactly?” Jordan asked. “He only promised to save your soul, not protect you for the rest of your miserable life.”

  She looked to the second Aeon, the one who’d been unusually quiet the entire time they’d been in the house. Jordan suspected he hadn’t conversed with them because he didn’t care. He was all soldier, less human than his partner. At least, that’s what she hoped.

  “Did Michael give orders for Gina’s protection?” she asked him.

  When the angel didn’t answer, Jordan got in his face, giving him no choice but to look at her. “You got what you came for. You followed orders and Michael won. What can you possibly lose by granting me this one last request?” She glanced at Mazie. “Gina has threatened that little girl’s life time and time again. I’m scared for her, and now that I have to leave with you, I can’t be here to watch over her! Please…”

  The angel’s eyes flashed blue. He looked annoyed by Jordan’s proximity to him but she didn’t care. Her fear of him was far less significant than the thought of what Gina might do once she was gone. Mazie would never be safe if that psychotic hag was left to her own devices under Michael’s protection. Gina was vindictive, holding onto hate because she had nothing else.

  “We are wasting time,” the Aeon said. “Leave the Cambion; she is nothing to Michael, just a means to an end.”

  “No!”

  Gina grabbed the other angel’s arm. Fear rolled off of her in humid, noxious waves. Sweat beaded above her upper lip and forehead as her eyes darted wildly to and fro. “You can’t leave me here! Take me…take me anywhere and drop me off. I swear I’ll never ask for another thing. You’ll never hear from me again!”

  A few feet away, Ivy popped her knuckles, a grin spreading across her face like sweet molasses. Gina made a sound like an injured cat and tugged harder on the angel’s arm.

  “Get your filthy hands off me, demon scum!” The Aeon pushed her away.

  Both angels then stood on either side of
Jordan and reached for her, preparing to teleport.

  “Goodbye, Gina,” she said, giving a little wave. “I hope it hurts.”

  It all happened so quickly and yet, to Jordan, the act was painfully drawn out in slow motion. Ivy lunged for Gina and she spun away, knocking Jordan into one of her captors. While they struggled to recover their balance, Gina pulled a sword from the scabbard strapped to the Aeon’s back. With a battle cry born of the monster she was, she ran straight for Ivy and Mazie.

  Jordan screamed. Xander moved to intercept but wasn’t close enough. She watched as terror like she’d never known crept into her muscles, paralyzing her from the neck down.

  Ivy moved, and tried to drag Mazie with her. The girl was in shock. Brown eyes wide, she took in the gleaming blade, the sight of it freezing her where she stood.

  Jordan watched Ivy’s lips move up and down, the words lost in a rush of blood that filled her head. She was standing in the middle of a tornado. There was no wind, but Jordan’s body pitched to the side. The angels’ strong hands kept her upright – kept her a witness to her worst nightmare.

  Ivy tugged, gaining a precious few inches, but it wasn’t enough. The sword fell. Jordan’s eyes followed its arc, down…down…

  Mazie turned as adrenalin kicked in and she saw her impending death looming above her. With a sibilate of misplaced air, the blade tore through the fragile skin at the base of her neck, ripping through tendons, slicing muscle, and sinking into her collar bone.

  The room fell silent. Even the birds and insects outside went still. Jordan couldn’t breathe. Her lungs moved in and out but brought no relief. Through a white haze, she watched Mazie fall, the hideous sword jutting out at an impossible angle. Blood surged from the wound, flowing down her sister’s front and back like a parted stream. Veins running underneath her delicate skin turned a blue-black color like lines on a road map, directions to the grave.

  Ivy’s scream was too loud, too high. It shredded the haze – that almost-comfortable cloak of Novocain Jordan had managed to wrap herself in since the blade began its decent.

  “Mazie!”

  Slipping in blood, Ivy shuffled to where their sister lay. Jordan watched with an odd sort of detachment as Ivy fell to her knees and the red liquid that once carried a young girl’s life sloshed over hands.

  “Help her!” Ivy’s face was fierce as she beseeched the angels. “Help her, goddammit!”

  The swordless Aeon moved forward. “We can’t. Our power will not work on a Cambion. We can only heal angels and humans.”

  “That’s not true; Gabriel used to heal Jordan when she went on hunts. She’s part demon, too!”

  Ivy waited on her to confirm this but Jordan couldn’t speak, couldn’t remind her sister that she was more than a Cambion. She could only watch and listen for the blood that oozed from Mazie’s body to the floor, like water dripping from the eaves at the farmhouse when it rained.

  Pat, pat, pat.

  It was only the rain dripping off the roof.

  The red rain.

  Oh, God.

  The world came rushing back as Jordan’s consciousness broke the surface. The first to hit her was a tangy, coppery smell. It saturated her nose and coated the back of her throat. She leaned over and gagged. Everything came up in a steaming rush. Tears sprang to her eyes, sweat ran down her back and her knees buckled.

  To her surprise, the angel holding her arm let go. Heaving, crawling, Jordan made her way through puke and blood to Ivy’s side. Mazie’s beautiful brown eyes were open but the life that made them shine had disappeared.

  Her sister was gone.

  Jordan reached over and gently closed them, then kissed Mazie’s cheek. To no one in particular, she said, “I could have saved her. I could have saved her life and I…I froze. I shut down.” Swallowing hard, she gathered one small, fragile hand between her own. As the puddle of blood she sat in began to congeal, Jordan rubbed the tiny fingers, willing them to grow warm again – wishing she could somehow give her life to the girl who never had a chance to live.

  “There was nothing you could have done,” one Aeon said, kneeling beside her. “The wound was too great. The poison infused in our weapons would have assured death, even if she had not bled out.”

  He spoke like a professor giving a lecture, clinical and detached. There was no sympathy, just the facts. Jordan’s power, which had been strangely subdued until that moment, rose to have a look around. She welcomed the distraction it lent, especially when she saw Gina in the corner.

  Xander had prevented her escape. Gina’s eyes, glassy and dilated, never wavered from his. Jordan guessed he was invoking his power of persuasion.

  Jordan wanted to make Gina suffer for what she’d done, but her grief over losing Mazie was too much. She couldn’t think around it. Her death, and the few months that Jordan got to be a part of her life, filled her head and heart.

  Someone grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet. They stuck to the floor when she lifted them to catch her balance.

  “It’s time to go,” the Aeon said.

  Before she could absorb his words, the other angel snatched his blade from Mazie’s body, jerking it upward. Jordan gasped as her baby sister dangled, suspended by the weapon. Her head lolled back and her neck popped loudly. The wound made a sucking noise as the sword slipped free. She fell like a ragdoll back to the floor.

  Ivy’s strangled sobs as her hands fluttered helplessly over Mazie, the lack of compassion from the Aeons, and her sister treated like a broken toy caused Jordan to lose the tiny grip she had on her sanity. It snapped like an overstretched rubber band.

  Pulling her arm from the angel’s grasp, Jordan turned to face them. Her eyes pulsated with energy making both Aeons stop and stare. She placed her hands on their chests, forcing power through them. Electric sparks emanated from her palms, hurling the angels across the room and into a wall. They crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

  To Ivy, she said, “Go to the car, gather our weapons, and meet us back at the cabin.” Jordan’s fingers curled around the pendant Orias gave her. “This piece of shit doesn’t work and we need to get back inside the safety of the wards.”

  Ivy nodded and got to her feet. With a small pop, she disappeared.

  Jordan took a deep breath and went to Xander. Avoiding Gina, lest she rip her head off and waste the precious moments they had to escape, she asked him, “Are you okay?”

  His pale face shone with the sweat of exertion but he managed a weak smile.

  “I thought that was my line,” he croaked.

  Stone-faced, Jordan crossed her arms, waiting.

  “I’m fine; I’ve got this,” he said. “Do what you need to do.”

  What she needed was to hold him – to be held. Jordan looked down at her clothes, tacky with her sister’s blood. Somehow, it seemed right that she was.

  “Can you take Gina back to the cabin? I want you to help Ivy break the news to Aamon before I bring…bring Mazie home.” She cut her eyes to Gina, still motionless in her trance-like state. “Make sure she’s locked in a secure room. I’ll deal with her later.”

  Xander nodded stiffly. “Please be careful, and hurry.”

  And then she was alone with her sister’s body and two comatose angels.

  Jordan looked around the room, wondering who lived there. Was the owner possessed by the rogue demon? Had the Aeons scared her off? She thought about searching the rest of the house but knew it was only an excuse to put off the inevitable. She didn’t care about the demon anymore or the owner of the shack. She just didn’t want to say goodbye.

  Mazie’s clothes were saturated in blood. It was in her hair, on her face. Jordan hated to bring her back to the cabin in such a state but it couldn’t be helped. Even now, the angels stirred, mumbling. She no longer had the will to take them on. Her fury took a backseat to overwhelming loss.

  Stooping, Jordan gathered her sister in her arms. Mazie’s face was ashen, but she could remember when it was as warm as coffee. Her b
loodless lips turned down at the corners. Jordan closed her eyes as the memory of her sister’s exuberant laughter filled her head. She would never feel Mazie’s arms around her neck again, never have the chance to tell her how much she meant to her.

  This was her sister and she was dead.

  “You told me that you loved me,” Jordan whispered.

  Finally, the tears came, burning tracks down her cheeks, leeching away something she would never recover.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jordan

  The porch swing rocked to and fro. Jordan sat beside Aamon with Koda at her feet. She stared at the star-filled sky and tried to clear her mind. She didn’t want to think, didn’t want to move. The snow had stopped falling but the night was cold. She no longer felt it. Whether from shock or her Paladin status, she wasn’t sure.

  Her clothes were stiff with blood. Long dry now, the red stains had turned rusty-brown. Aamon had asked her several times if she wanted to shower. Jordan heard him, but didn’t hear him. After a while, he stopped asking and just sat with her, moving the swing with his legs while she drifted on thoughts she wished she could erase.

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  By the time she reached the cabin, word of what happened had spread throughout the house. The front room was filled with kids who spilled out on to the porch. Jordan teleported to the yard and sank to her knees. One of the children yelled for Aamon, and then she was surrounded.

  Voices called out; hands shook her, pulled at her, tried to pry Mazie away. She stood on wobbly legs and screamed at the top of her lungs.

  “Get back in the house, NOW!”

  Electric bolts shot from her hands. She didn’t hit anyone, but the five-foot circle of snow she melted was all the encouragement the kids needed. They broke rank and hightailed it back to the porch just as Aamon, Ivy, and Xander ran out the front door.

  Jordan sat with her sister. Occasionally, she heard voices. They might have been speaking to her. She didn’t know, didn’t care.

  She talked to Mazie and told her how strong she was – how brave.

  “Find my mother,” she whispered, pushing a curl back from the girl’s face. “She’ll take care of you.”