by Ophelia Bell
“Brother, that is one hell of a secret you’ve been keeping,” Gavra said. “But I have to know, are the nymphs…”
“No time,” Ked said. “The two of you can compare notes later, after we’ve gotten Evie back. Aodh, can you carry all of us?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said, turning back to Iszak and Lukas. “You two will follow my lead, and answer to me at every point.”
“I take it you have a plan for after we get there?” Iszak asked.
“You’ll do aerial reconnaissance of the compound. From there, I’ll access the compound from the air with my brothers’ assistance. They can null the security sensors to allow me to go in silently. Aodh and Gavra can distract the hunters inside, sending their breath through the ventilation ducts from the roof.” And they would have to just pray that there were no Elites on the premises who would be immune to their tactics.
“And we just sit in the woods with our thumbs up our asses?”
Ked scowled. “You can do whatever the fuck you want, but when she comes out, you remind her who she is. They indoctrinate their captives. She’s been in there for five decades, and she doesn’t know me.”
“What about him?” Lukas asked, pointing at the man in the photo.
“I won’t know about him until I see him—talk to him—if that’s even possible. If he’s still loyal to Nikhil, he’s a lost cause. If he remained loyal to her, he may already be dead.”
Ked stared down at the photo again, taking in the red-haired man. Another Blessed. They were rare and highly desired. Fated to be a dragon’s mate. And desired just as much by their enemy for the magic they carried.
If they had made another Elite hunter out of Marcus, his Blessing would have merged the power of the three Immortal brothers into one man. He would also be able to sense dragons as well as any of the other higher races the second he was near them or heard their voices. Ked had only met a few Elites over the years, and each time they were stronger than before—harder to kill, and learning to harness more of the power carried in their blood. But for so long, there had only been two Elites.
He’d killed one himself before going into hiding in the Glade. The Elite he’d faced had been a female, beautiful and fierce. Full of the kind of fiery light that he almost believed could be his redemption, but a shadow clung to her. Her Blessing had made him want her almost too much to end her life, but she was too far under the Ultiori’s spell to be redeemed. The worst part was that he knew without a doubt that the shadowy power and the lust that flickered in her eyes were a result of his blood in her veins driving her.
The Blessing was all she’d needed to find him. That was all they ever needed. He’d nearly fallen under her spell at the time, until the truth became clear to him. She hadn’t been easy to kill, either. Once he recognized what she truly was, there was only one way to end her life. Only his own black flames could destroy her body, along with that piece of himself that had turned her into what she was.
Chills prickled Ked’s skin at the idea. He was responsible for this, more than his sister was. In order to save her life, he and his brothers had been forced to make a trade—their blood for hers. But the amount of blood Nikhil had bargained for was three times the volume of Belah’s blood that remained. Enough to sustain Elites for thousands of years. After Ked killed the female Elite, he and his brothers had counted on another Blessed being too hard to find.
It was too late now. The enemy may very well have three Elites who, when working together, could sense any dragon when they were near, including Immortals. He and his siblings were all in danger if Marcus had indeed become an Elite.
If Marcus truly carried Ked’s blood, he would be a formidable opponent. If any of the other Elites were in the compound, Ked may find himself as trapped as Belah when her old lover had tied her down and bled her dry.
It was a necessary risk. Aodh and Gavra would have to remain safely outside the walls while Ked went inside to retrieve Evie. Risking his freedom would be a small price to pay if he could make sure Evie North was safe. He would trade his life for hers, if it came down to it.
Chapter Four
Ked
Canadian Rockies
Present Day
The journey was dizzyingly fast and left Ked holding his head to regain his balance for a moment after they arrived. When he opened his eyes he found they’d reached the edge of the remote research facility that served as the Ultiori’s Canadian headquarters. Nestled deep in the northernmost ranges of the Rocky Mountains, built into an evergreen-covered hillside overlooking a raging river, it would be tough to differentiate it from the wilderness around it with an untrained eye. Ked and his brothers shifted and flew in a wide circle around the valley while the North brothers put themselves back together. It seemed turul were more sensitive to that type of instantaneous travel than dragons were.
Ked inspected every detail of the terrain beneath them. Vegetation was lush, which was a good sign. It meant that the Ultiori leader was not in residence. If he had been, there would be a swath of dead foliage surrounding him, a side-effect of his Blessing having ultimately transformed into a curse.
Ked sensed almost no wildlife around the compound, which was no surprise, but at least the forest was healthy.
He spied a moonlit clearing atop the ridge nearest the compound and folded his wings in a dive to reach it. His brothers followed silently. On any other flight they might have bellowed out their elation, but this was not the time. Not even the beauty of the place they landed in captured Ked’s attention tonight as his claws dug into the rich earth.
“Does the Wind have anything to tell us?” he asked, looking at the two huge falcons that perched upon a pair of boulders nearby. Both birds tilted their heads, listening, their profiles eerily framed by the moon behind them. If he didn’t know their grandmother, he’d consider it an ill omen to see two falcons cast in moonlight so starkly.
“Nothing good,” Iszak said. “The place is filled with sadness, pain. But none of it is ever let out.”
“Can you get a read on how many are inside? Their level of power?”
Lukas launched into the air and flew up, weaving a figure eight high above the secluded ravine. When he came back, he shifted into his full human form and dropped down to his knees, hugging himself and shaking.
Was he crying? Ked shifted and bent down beside his sister’s mate, resting a hand on his shoulder.
Lukas shook his head. “It’s not right in there. There are too many captives. Our kind chained. The hunters are there, maybe two dozen, but they’re settling in, business as usual, the bastards. The Elites are there, too. All three. Two are asleep, and Marcus… Marcus seems… broken, near death. I think we may be too late.”
Ked nodded and as he pulled away, Lukas snapped one hand up and grabbed Ked’s wrist. “The Elites. They smell exactly like you and your brothers. The Wind carried all their scents to me, bits and pieces of their magic. Can you explain why the fuck they smell like you?”
Aodh and Gavra tilted their large, horned heads to look at Lukas.
“You tell him, brother,” Aodh spoke in his mind. “He has a right to know the truth now that he’s mated to our sister.”
Ked met Lukas’s gaze and relaxed his hand, moving it to the back of the other man’s head. What he had to tell them couldn’t be processed easily. He hated using his power this way, but he had to. They could hate him later, as long as they were with him now.
Slowly, he let his breath out and directed it into Lukas’s lungs. Lukas’s eyes went wide and he fell back, supported by Ked’s hand.
“I will save your sister the same way I saved my own sister, but this time, I have a few… roadblocks. The Elites are made from dragon blood. I’m only telling you this because if I don’t come out, you need to know what to expect. They have the same powers as me and my brothers, in varying degrees. They can’t fly,
at least… physiology can’t be faked. Magic can be acquired, though.”
“How did they get your blood?” Lukas asked, recovering and settling against a tree trunk. Ked pulled away.
“We gave it to them.”
Chapter Five
Ked
Canadian Rockies
Present Day
“You gave it to them,” Lukas repeated. “You gave what to them?”
“Our blood. Our power.” Ked closed his eyes, envisioning Nikhil destroying his sister and reliving the blood rage he’d experienced in that moment. He’d have given anything to heal her wholly, but he’d had nothing to give then. She’d been on the edge of death for decades, wishing for it, but never able to pass beyond due to her immortality. Even the healing waters of the Glade and her siblings’ magic weren’t enough to restore her health. Too much of her blood had been lost.
She was safe now, and fully healed, but he could still picture her skin cut to ribbons and her blood collected in a myriad of receptacles scattered around the room as he carried her out. His sister’s physician had been the one to warn him something was wrong. After he’d dealt with Nikhil, all Ked cared about was making sure Belah was safely away from her torturer.
“Why the hell would you do that?” Iszak asked, stepping into Ked’s space and glaring at him. “So you’re telling us it was never Belah, but you and your brothers who were to blame all along?”
Ked clenched his teeth and stared down at Iszak, forcing himself to resist letting loose a wave of darkness to remind the other man why they were here. Aodh stepped forward and placed a hand on Iszak’s shoulder, speaking in his low, soft tone.
“We only cared about saving our sister. She needed her blood. We negotiated to get it back. This was his price.”
“Why didn’t you destroy him? None of this would be happening if you had!”
“We tried, but our fire was never enough to kill him. We had no choice but to negotiate. The important thing is that we got her blood back, and she is yours now.”
Iszak’s glare softened at the mention of Belah and he nodded. “I would have done the same, and I would trade my own blood for Evie’s life right now, if I thought it would work.”
“You won’t have to,” Ked said. “The one small blessing is that their leader is not here. Only the three Elites are, and by your accounts, one of them is out of commission. The other two… will be a challenge, if I run into them. Thanks to having mine and my brothers’ blood in their veins, they have more power than I have on my own.”
Lukas stood and came forward, a fierce look in his eyes. “Enough power to fight all five of us if we go in together? Why shouldn’t we take the whole compound, release their captives? There’s so much suffering inside.”
“An army of normal hunters could easily overtake you two,” Ked said. “Two Elites may not be enough to overtake me and my brothers all at once, but there would be too much collateral damage if they believed they were under siege. I don’t want to risk your sister being harmed before we can get to her. The other captives will have to wait. We’ll come up with a plan to help them soon.”
The North brothers had equally grim looks, but nodded in spite of their obvious disappointment at not being allowed to go in fighting. It had to be Ked alone for this. He was the only one of the three Immortal brothers who could get in and out of the compound without having to breach their exits. He could have gotten in without any assistance, but didn’t know what kind of state Evie would be in once he found her, and sublimation with a passenger was never very easy on the passenger. Having her brothers right outside would ensure she knew she was safe at the end of it.
With a glance, Ked’s brothers both nodded and launched themselves into the air. He followed them to the compound and the three of them circled once. Aodh and Gavra both released thick clouds of red and white smoke from their nostrils that swirled and sparked in the night air, descending snake-like to the open vents scattered along the roof. Ked focused his energy until his mass dispersed to become no more solid than a breath, his body dissipating into darkness that sank like black fog. As the embodiment of shadows, he waited, watching the last of his brothers’ breath finally disappear down the open vents.
They would send their breaths through the corridors, blending both the calming white smoke and arousing red that would intoxicate the residents, hopefully leaving them lethargic and more concerned with pleasure than alertness. With any luck, no one would be the wiser after Ked got in and out again with Evie. The Elites were still the wildcards. They would recognize the smoke for what it was, but with any luck, Ked would have enough time to get Evie out before it dawned on them.
Aodh and Gavra circled one last time and then flew back toward the clearing, signaling Ked that it was time.
With barely a thought, Ked filtered his shadows through the vents, letting pieces of himself spread through the ventilation system and into every accessible room in the compound, searching. As mere shadows, he could be in almost any space he chose. Each piece of him explored, eliminating possible holding locations before combining and working his way down from ground level to subterranean level. He had no idea how deep the place went, but as he crept around the dimly lit hallways, he sensed his brothers’ breath at work. Every so often he’d pass a closed door with the unmistakable sounds of lovemaking echoing from the other side.
He searched, fascinated by the labyrinthine architecture of the building. There were corridors upon corridors, some lined with doors, others that came out onto landings that faced the expanse of plate glass windows lining the side of the compound overlooking the ravine. Beyond, the mountain vistas stretched for miles, the dark ribbon of the river snaking through with patches of white water letting him know how treacherous the landscape really was outside this place.
More treacherous inside, however. On the next level down, Ked could sense the despair. The corridors were sleek and modern, the doors nothing more than shining panels of white glass with no knobs. Each one had a glowing rectangle beside the glass, with a keypad glowing underneath. He paused long enough by one to manifest a finger and touched the numbers lightly. The glass was smooth and cool, the number behind it glowing brighter and making a soft pinging sound.
If Ked didn’t know better, he’d have thought it magic. But if it were really magic, the residents inside would have been able to call on their goddesses to release them.
There was no goddess of shadows. Only Ked could get into these rooms with his own powers. He’d considered recruiting the First Shadow, Kol, to accompany him inside, but didn’t want to risk the new father’s life. Now that he observed how deep the compound went and how advanced the security was, he wasn’t sure Kol could have made it this far anyway.
More eerily lit, opaque glass doors lined the hallways at closer intervals, the residents inside a heart-wrenching combination of captives representing the higher races.
What was worse was when he’d passed through dozens of rooms and realized the one thing they all had in common: they were almost all females. Most were turul and ursa females, many were dragons. Only one of the higher races—the nymphs—was poorly represented, though for that, he supposed he should be grateful. On the lowest level, however, he found the sole males among all the captives. A pair of males were locked together in a cell, one a huge white ursa in his natural form, the other a satyr, half-shifted with the hooved lower body betraying his thiasoi parentage. The satyr stood beside the roaring ursine beast, and ranted blindly at the floor with one hand tangled in the ursa’s fur.
Ked paused, shocked at the sight. The male members of the nymphaea race had been extinct for hundreds of years, or so he’d believed. If this male existed, he was likely the only one still alive. Why had they kept this one alive, and for so long? The satyr raised his head and stared into the shadows where Ked hid. His eyes swirled wildly, his lips mouthing words. After a moment, the sounds became audible, but
grated, as though scraped across hard gravel before reaching Ked’s ears.
“Fate’s flood is upon us, the river splits. Black and white. Don’t trust the white ones when you find them, they are filled with secrets and lies.”
Ked glanced down at the white-furred creature by the satyr’s side. The bear showed his teeth and a low growl rumbled up from within him.
The man shook his head. “Not this white one. The humans with the blood-filled needles and chemical smells, their white coats and bright lights—they are the monsters. They are under the Lamia’s spell, just like the master was. The master of this place thinks he is free now, but we are all Fate’s captives. Even you, Void. But perhaps you can find happiness in the illusion, perhaps you can find some semblance of freedom from her song. Follow her song, Void. Let the music free you.”
Impulsively, Ked reached out with his power, sending darkness into the satyr’s mind to drown out all but the keenest of his emotions. Deep regret lay shining among all the dimmer feelings, regret for a love he felt but could not show, because of his knowledge of things no man should be forced to know: his own future.
Ked moved on, leaving the satyr and ursa to their shared misery. He understood the feeling, having carried regrets of his own for centuries. He tried to tell himself that they would have been all the weaker not having Belah at full power. Once the deed was done, and her blood consumed by her lover, there had been no going back for any of them.
When Ked and his brothers found Nikhil to bargain with him for their sister’s blood, he had been as far gone as that poor satyr. But what if his sister had been right? When her mates had rescued her from Nikhil a second time, from a second attempt at stealing her blood, Belah had insisted that Nikhil was under the control of some darker force.