by K. R. Conway
Christian shook his head, “No. She didn’t connect with the minds of the other Lunaterra, which is how she wandered off when she was little. She was her own person. She followed her heart. Following directions wasn’t high on her list of priorities.” Christian’s voice softened. “You said she killed another Lunaterra. Her suitor?”
Rillin seemed lost for words for a moment, no doubt thinking back to my grandmother when she was young and probably stubborn as hell. “Yes. All Lunaterra females are bound to their assigned suitor on the night of their fifteenth birthday.”
Christian drew a careful breath, “What do you mean, bound?”
“Her assigned suitor, a male in his final year of training, would, well, you know. Most females were mothers by the time they were sixteen.” Rillin glanced to me.
“By force?” I whispered, horrified.
Rillin shrugged, “Technically they didn’t say ‘no’ since free will was eliminated from the Lunaterra line. They all followed orders blindly – it was mind control on a genetic level.”
I swallowed hard. “So they were programmed to not object to being . . . being . . .”
“Damn it,” whispered Christian, closing his eyes.
“Elizabeth had come to me the morning of her fifteenth birthday. She was upset about being bound that evening, and I told her to not do anything she wasn’t ready to do. When she left my cell, the determination on her face haunted me, because I knew her suitor would take her by force. No Lunaterra said no. No Lunaterra got a choice. That night she fought him, hard. But her determination turned into desperation and she killed him.”
Christian snapped the edge off the desk and I jumped.
Rillin glanced at Christian, as he continued, “The palace didn’t know what to do with her at first, so they dumped her in my cell with me for days. Her suitor had done a number on her before she smashed his miserable head against the marble floor. She was in rough shape. I tried to keep her warm to prevent her from slipping into shock, but she needed a healer. After a few days, word came that she was to be executed.”
“Her Feon friend came to my cell one night and asked if I was willing to make a run for it with Elizabeth if she could shut down the device that kept me linked to the palace. I agreed and by nightfall she had done it, causing the palace to erupt into chaos. I remember picking Elizabeth up in my arms and looking through the bars of my cell door and literally saw mass confusion. I heard the guards yelling for the traitor to be killed. I knew they were coming for Elizabeth and I just went for it. The second they opened the door I was on them, snapping their necks in seconds. The Limiting Link was no longer working, just as she had said, and I ran with Elizabeth in my arms, through the palace and finally to the woods. Somehow her friend had freed me.”
“If you saved her from the palace, why did you leave her unprotected in the woods?” growled Christian.
Ana put her hands out, as if to halt all conversation, “Hold up. Where in the heck is this damn palace and how in the world isn’t it like, listed on Wikipedia or something? I mean, you can’t exactly misplace a palace.”
“It wasn’t misplaced. It was hidden from the human eye and tucked into a remote area of France known as Auvergne. Much of it was built into the ground and when it crumbled, most of the palace became buried under the land. I was told there were occasional Mortis looters who looked for trophies in the hidden tunnels once the Lunaterra were eliminated. They would sell the remnants on the black market to other Mortis.”
“Hidden from the human eye? Yeah – okay. Sure it was,” replied Ana, but Rillin gave her a knowing look. It made Ana shift nervously on her feet. “WHAT?”
“Nothing,” replied Rillin.
“Forget the damn palace!” snarled Christian. “Why was Elizabeth alone in the woods?”
Rillin drew a deep breath, “I hid her the best I could, but I feared that the palace could still track me via the Link. So I left her, intending to come back as soon as I could get it removed, but then everything went to hell. Fighting broke out everywhere, the other Trials escaped and turned on their captors. Mortis camps were being raided, rebel clans were being formed left and right, and nowhere was safe – especially for her. It was as if the floodgates had opened and the Lunaterra were on a homicidal warpath. When I was unable to find a Feon to remove the Link, I headed back to where I had left her, but she was gone. Within weeks, the palace was nothing but rubble.”
The silence that bled through the room seemed endless. Christian was rubbing his forehead and Raef had woven his hand in mine. Up until this moment, we had only known Christian’s version of what had happened to Elizabeth. That he had found her when she was five and had returned her to the palace, only to search for her again when she was a teenager. He had found her, badly injured and sick, in the woods – the same woods where Rillin had left her after he saved her from being executed.
The portrait of my grandmother was slowly being painted by the men who had known her, all of whom were technically her enemies. Christian had loved her. Rillin had trained her. Raef and Kian had befriended her.
I stepped closer to Rillin and Raef moved with me. “Mr. Blackwood. Rillin. Why are you helping me?”
“A long time ago I left an unlikely friend alone in the woods, and she disappeared from my life. I left you alone in the woods as well, but once I understood who you were, I couldn’t leave. Life rarely offers us second chances, Ms. Walker, and I will not walk away this time. If you let me, I can train you so that you may fight alongside your guards, as I suspect Elizabeth did with Mr. Raines. I owe it to her, for she never treated me as a slave. She treated me as a friend and she went on to help my kind.”
I looked at Raef and he was tense, hard, and unyielding. I turned back to Rillin, “Why did you leave me the billiard ball?”
“I had followed you to this house the night you fell while riding – I knew something was just different about you. But then I saw Raef help you out of your car. In fact, I thought he might have seen me. I was unsure if you knew that Raef was a Mortis. But after the football game, and meeting Kian and Raef at the Lucky Lady and their reaction to what I said about Christian, I knew something was going on. I started digging for details on you, which led me to the link with Elizabeth. I used the billiard ball to test what kind of connection you shared with Raef and Kian. I wanted them to know I got close to you, knew who you were, but did not harm you.”
“Next time leave a note,” muttered Ana.
I looked to my friends, then back to Rillin, “You will have to prove yourself to my guards.”
“I would expect them to demand nothing less,” replied Rillin.
Christian rocked from foot to foot where he stood, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he thought. Finally he looked to Rillin, “Elizabeth said she had two friends inside the palace. Two people who made her life bearable. If you are who you say you are, tell me their names.”
Rillin tucked his hands in his pockets, “Well – she had been friends with Katherine, who she called Keek, the daughter of two metal workers who were kept in the palace, though I don’t know what happened to her the day we escaped. As to her other friend, I am hoping she was referring to me.”
Christian’s jaw pulsed, “I gave her necklace back to her friend Katherine after she died. She had left me a note instructing me to do so. I never knew Katherine was a Feon. She must have been the one to alter the necklace in the first place. That means that Nikki Shea may be a Feon as well.”
“Keek – I mean, Katherine, was her friend who damaged the device which freed me.”
Christian narrowed his eyes, “Speaking of friends, she never mentioned the name Rillin. Ever.”
“No – she never called me that.”
Christian suddenly looked less suspicious, as if Rillin was headed in the right direction. “What did she call you?”
Rillin’s face revealed the smallest touch of longing. “Monster. She called me her Monster,” he replied quietly.
36 Raef
I took a slow, deep breath as the elaborate chandelier inside Torrent Road came into view far above me. I shifted slightly and the right side of my chest and shoulder screamed and I hissed out a curse. That’s when I felt her beside me, her body pressed against mine, and one delicate arm hugged tightly to my torso.
Eila was laying on the floor with me, curled against my body. We had fallen asleep together on a pile of blankets and pillows by the fire, not long after Rillin had left.
I didn’t try to distance myself from her.
Not after last night. Not anymore.
Rillin had passed Christian’s test, and he had left hours ago to dispose of the body he had hidden in Eila’s barn, unlike Agent Sollen, whose body he had hung from a beam. Agent Howe had been right – his partner’s suicide was staged.
Rillin said that once he knew Eila had ties to Elizabeth, he started following the FBI. He soon learned that Sollen was selling details of the Breakers to someone, most likely a Mortis, so he killed Sollen to protect Eila’s identity. After stringing up Sollen at his Boston apartment, Rillin had found a few more files and Dalca’s gun, all of which he took, though he was unable to pinpoint the soul thief who was buying all the details. I was grateful he had grabbed the files before Agent Howe had found them, along with his hanging partner. Unfortunately, Rillin agreed with Christian and me – Eila’s identity as a Lunaterra was now known. She would be marked for death by those Mortis who had fought against the Lunaterra. In Rillin’s opinion, last night’s attack was the first of many. As much as I wanted to distrust him, I believed he was right.
I felt Eila shift and she appeared above me, blocking the chandelier as her hair cascaded over one side of her face and dusted my bare chest. “How are your boo-boos?” she asked, as she traced her hand over the square of tape on my chest.
I reached up and touched her chin. “Boo-boos? I don’t get boo-boos.”
She sunk down to my shoulder, “They looked like bad boo-boos to me last night. Do you think they are all healed?”
Yes, said boo-boos were probably all healed, just damn sore. “I’m fine,” I replied, slowly sitting up and bringing Eila with me. She moaned, as if she didn’t want to get up yet. With her wrapped around me, I didn’t want to get up either, but I could hear voices in the library.
The early morning sun drifted in through the towering glass windows in the living room, twisting its way through Eila’s hair, and catching the mahogany of her eyes. With her warm body nestled to me, and one of her legs twisted over mine, she was beyond tempting.
The tension from the night before eased from my body as I held her, knowing that she was whole and safe in my arms. I ran my hand softly under the fabric of my own shirt that she wore, and along the skin of her back and her kill mark, endlessly thankful that nothing had happened to her. My hand slowly slipped up her spine and she didn’t flinch – didn’t dictate a line I might be crossing. She closed her eyes as she felt my hand splay across her sweet skin, and I traced the gentle divot of her spine with my thumb, a perfectly centered valley along the small expanse of her back. Her eyes drifted open and she smiled, leaning in to steal my breath with a kiss, but Kian’s voice cut through our moment as he appeared from the kitchen with Ana.
“All right already – this portion of the house has a G-rating unless Ana decides to change that with me first,” he said, winking to her. She gave him a shove, her dark hair bouncing slightly.
Eila turned a bit pink as she edged away from me and turned to Kian. “Hey! I like your new haircut!” she said, pulling herself off me entirely, ending my chance of a kiss.
Some days I really hated Kian O’Reilly.
It was then that I realized he had indeed cut his hair, which had previously reached his shoulders. Gone was the straight, blonde surfer-look, replaced by a respectable, far shorter trim. He looked over to Ana, who had shimmied her way up onto the pool table. The sunlight pouring in through the windows outlined her in a golden halo, despite the bitter cold air outside.
She ran her hand through her newly colored hair, “Yeah, well – new beginnings and stuff. I dyed my hair, he asked me to cut his. Blah Blah Blah.”
“She tried to take my ear off,” said Kian calmly.
“DID NOT,” protested Ana, but then she smirked. “Well . . . I may have thought about it.”
Eila was already heading for the kitchen, trying to keep my sweatpants from falling off her lean hips as she asked Ana what was for breakfast. Ana hopped back off the table and trotted in behind Eila, as I dragged myself to my feet.
“Is Christian here?” I asked, pulling the tape from my chest.
“No – he left around two in the morning. With everything that’s going on, he might be thinking of pushing up that vacation he had mentioned.” Kian walked behind me and brutally yanked off the other piece of tape on my back and I growled. Any sign that I had been struck with two arrows last night had disappeared. Even Kian’s bruised face was back to normal.
Eila reappeared with her clothes from last night balled in her hands, Ana close behind her. “We’re going to get changed upstairs and then get to school,” said Eila, obviously delusional.
“Get to school? You can’t go to school today. We have things to discuss, and you fired up your ability last night. I want you to take it easy. You’re staying here,” I said, trying not to sound like an overbearing bodyguard.
She stopped and looked at me. “I have a test today and Ana has to climb to the top of that rope thing for gym. I refuse to stop my life just because, well, you know.”
“Because you are being hunted? Because you almost died last night?” I demanded sharply. Ana muttered something foul about the rope climb.
Eila sighed and wandered over to where I stood, “I get you are worried, but I can’t live my life in a cage. I want to LIVE, every day. I want to go to school, watch dumb movies while eating ice cream, and maybe even go to prom.” She slid in closer to me, bringing her chest to mine, and my hand automatically went to her hip. “I want to be able to kiss the one who loves me so fiercely, without thinking about the rest of the world. I want to experience all that life has to offer, because for me, any day could be my last. I know you want me safe. You want me to survive. But there is a difference between just surviving and really living.”
She rose up on her tiptoes, laying a scorching kiss on my lips before heading upstairs with her short-statured co-conspirator.
I looked over to Kian, who had a huge, irritating grin on his face.
“Ah, yes. The halls of academia beckon thee. Come young man, and learn thee well.”
I glared at him, “Oh, just shut up.”
37 Eila
School was pretty uneventful, until just before lunch. During English and Ecology, Jesse hadn’t mentioned his visit to my place, and I was grateful he didn’t bring it up. I had stopped off at my locker to switch books before heading to the Café to meet up with Raef, Ana, and MJ.
I was shuffling books and folders in and out of my locker, thinking about Rillin, when a perfectly manicured hand slammed down on my locker door, nearly shaving my nose off in the process.
I followed the hand back up to the face of its majorly pissed owner, Nikki Shea. I studied her, trying to see if she was a metal maven like her ancestor and, if it was true, why she didn’t just make the locker come to life and eat me?
“Where is it?” she hissed, close to my face. I didn’t flinch, refusing to move back.
“Where is what?” I asked, though I knew damn well she was asking about the book I borrowed and Elizabeth’s necklace. Nikki’s book full of gears and equations suddenly made perfect sense if she tinkered in supernatural metalwork.
“Don’t screw with me, Walker. I have you on video! Do you really think my computer wouldn’t have a webcam? You are some kind of stupid! You and that waste of space, Williams, should be thrown in jail until hell freezes over. Did he jump out a window when the robber came in? He is such a wuss! The dog is the only living being worth a da
mn in this godforsaken town. Give me back the book and necklace and I won’t tell my parents about the video.”
WEBCAM?? Damn it! Someone I knew who rocked a fur coat once in a while was now on my hit list. Thank god she didn’t see him phase however, which meant the robber must have blocked the camera when he was trashing her room. Thank heavens for small favors, though I was still going to kill MJ. The house is easy to break into he said. We won’t get caught he said. When I find him, he better run for his life, ‘cause he’s a dead doggie walking.
I looked at Nikki, who had a hard, angry glow about her. Her hand had curled around the combination lock on my locker and she was squeezing it so hard, I could see every tendon in her hand. She knew I had broken in, but she must have also seen the other guy trashing her room. How did she know I took the book or the necklace? Maybe she didn’t.
“I didn’t take a damn thing from your house!”
I didn’t move and finally she snapped, screaming in my face, “GIVE THEM BACK!”
“NO!” I yelled, though stupidly admitting I had the damn things.
She leaned in closely and whispered in my face, “I know what you are. I know what he and his brother are as well. After you messed up in the Breakers, my parents had no choice but to tell me everything – about what you are and about Raef and Kian. They told me to leave your sorry ass alone – to stay away, and I have. But YOU are the one who invaded MY space! And I don’t care anymore if my parents told me to keep my distance or that Katherine and Elizabeth were pals. I have no intention of ever helping you. Ever. Katherine was an idiot – just a slave to the needs of your damn kind. Why couldn’t you just stay dead inside the Breakers?”
I was struck into silence. My mind was spinning as I watched her push away from my locker, warning me to return the book and necklace as she tossed her hair to the side, and turned to stride down the hallway and out of sight.