Annette’s heart and mind raced. Did Pathos have Stefanie? Was this a trick? “What do you mean? Rankin just said that he sent Stefanie somewhere.”
He didn’t stop, but spoke over his shoulder. “Do you really think I’m not capable of finding something when I want it?”
“Why?” she demanded, rushing to the door. “Why would you want Stef?”
Pathos turned and cocked a brow. “You know why. I want you. When you realize that I have her, I’ll get you. I’ll be back in a day or two. By then I’m sure you’ll have discovered the truth. Meanwhile, my loins have an ache that needs to be soothed.”
Dr. Cinatas chuckled as he climbed into the waiting Hummer limo, leaving the door open for Pathos.
Annette felt as if her insides were being ripped out. How could she just go with this monster? But how could she risk more harm to Stefanie if she was alive, and he had her? Even if she let Pathos walk away now, there would be no way to reach her sister in time to save her from what Pathos planned to do.
“Wait.” The word barely escaped from her throat. Tears blinding her, she stumbled down the stairs, her mind on one thing: get to Stefanie and then escape. She didn’t have any other choice.
Chapter Fifteen
T HE FIRST FIREBALL from the Pyrathians caught Aragon’s shoulder, sending a fiery pain down his arm. The second hit his cheek, and the third slammed into his midsection. He stood facing them, his sword raised but pointed to the side so that it made more of a shield than a weapon. “I’ve no wish to fight those whom I call my brethren,” he shouted to them.
The Pyrathians paused, holding their fire, but drew their swords. “You ceased to be one of us when you turned your back upon your vow,” answered Sirius, leader of the band.
“I saw no other choice for one as unworthy as I. My band was divided, and the decisions I would have made were the wrong ones.”
“No!” came a cry from behind him, one so dearly familiar that Aragon’s chest tightened. He turned his head to see Sven, York, and Navarre at his back, their weapons drawn against him as well.
Sven stepped forward and spoke again. “Once I failed in my promise, there were no good choices to be made. Don’t you see that no matter what you did, your guilt and the dissension among us would have been the same? I am responsible.”
“No! You chose rightly. You fought for Jared’s life.”
“It doesn’t matter,” declared Sirius. “The council has called for Aragon’s execution for one reason only—the desertion of his duty.”
“You speak in error, Sirius,” Navarre said, stepping closer to Aragon. “The council called for Aragon’s arrest, then execution, which has yet to be approved by Logos. The council cannot change the punishment for a sin without Logos.”
“Then we bring him before the council to await Logos’s decision.”
Aragon held up the amulet clutched in his fist, torn between both honors he must fulfill. “I cannot,” he cried. “Pathos must be stopped, or great harm will come. If I am able at the end of my quest, I will return to face the council’s punishment.” Now that he was aware of the council’s decree, his only honor lay in returning to face it.
“What belief can be given to a warrior whose word is broken? You will go to the council now, without delay, under the escort of us Pyrathians,” Sirius said.
Aragon shook his head. “Mortal lives are at stake. Pathos’s reign of evil upon the mortal ground reaches far wider than the Guardian Forces realize.” Holding his sword at the ready, he tried one last time to reason with the Shadowmen. “I came only to learn of a mortal for whom the angels say the Pyrathians intervened. Stefanie Batista must now be within the mortal realm, or Heldon has somehow managed to claim her in another way. I must return to my quest—”
Sirius paused, and a look of confusion crossed his dark features. “Did you speak of—”
“The betrayer can tell the council his woes,” said Draysius, a warrior beside Sirius. He lunged forward, his sword striking out at Aragon.
Aragon knew that if he went to face the council now, Pathos would get Annette. Before he could deflect the attack, York set his blade to block the blow. But another warrior struck from the side. Aragon had no time to twist, and the blade went right for his neck and shoulder.
“No!” Navarre shouted, thrusting ahead, protecting Aragon with his own body. The strike threw him backward.
Aragon clutched Navarre to him. “Fool!” he cried. “Do not take my punishments.” Fear gripped deep into Aragon’s soul. Once beneath the skin, a Pyrathian’s power carried with it a soul-scorching fire.
York and Sven brought their weapons to bear against the Pyrathians, but there was a stunned air amid the fighters, as if none was sure what to do. Guardian Forces fighting amongst themselves?
Aragon pulled Navarre back, ready to join the fight. Navarre grabbed Aragon’s arm, dragging him down. Aragon could see that Navarre’s body shuddered violently beneath the spreading pain. “Anything for my brother,” Navarre whispered. “Leave now. Fulfill your quest. Then honor your word. That is how you must help me! I will keep that truth in my heart and survive. Now go!”
Aragon looked at York and Sven fighting. How could he abandon his brothers again? He couldn’t leave Navarre to suffer such excruciating pain alone, not when he could help. But he couldn’t chance being captured by the Pyrathians either.
“Jared’s cave,” he shouted to York and Sven, knowing that they would remember where Jared had lain unconscious after the Tsara’s poisoning.
“No,” Navarre said, pushing Aragon away.
“Either help me or do nothing, but do not fight me,” Aragon said. “Or I will perish doing this.”
Navarre, weakened so much from the Pyrathian’s fire, nodded and collapsed, revealing to Aragon how gravely he’d been wounded. Aragon gathered Navarre in his arms and made a dizzying plunge for the outer circles of the spirit realm. He heard cries of outrage behind him and knew he was being pursued. But his determination to help Navarre propelled him faster than any Shadowman had flown before. He crashed through the darkened fringes hiding the spirit world and blazed into the atmosphere of the mortal world, moving so fast that the air he displaced ignited, giving him the appearance of a ball of fire.
He dove through the sky, trailing white smoke behind him until he reached the forests, where he slowed his flight to maneuver his way to the earthen cave hidden deep in the Appalachians. It seemed to Aragon that he could still hear Jared’s cries of pain echo off the mountains. The sorrow would grow were Navarre to be lost. Neither of them chose such a fate, but had come to it through the courage of battle, by believing in Logos’s cause and forging ahead.
It made Aragon realize deep within him the error he had made by leaving the Guardian Forces as he did, for he’d come to defeat not through battle but through choice, by not believing. The Guardian Council and his brethren could not help but feel anger and betrayal.
Once inside the cave, he placed Navarre’s shuddering body upon the mortal ground. Then, unwinding his amulet from his fist, Aragon slipped it back over his neck. Though yet unworthy, once he finished what he had to do within the mortal realm, he would face the council as a warrior and accept his punishment. Empowered, he pressed his hands to Navarre’s wound, seeking to absorb some of the pain of the Pyrathian’s fire.
Aragon’s body shook, and his breaths rasped between the agonizing moans he couldn’t keep himself from voicing. He sent his spirit after Navarre’s, wrapping around it and shouldering the burden of the pain. They were in for a long, hard battle. A Pyrathian’s fire could last several moons, a fact that had Aragon praying hard to Logos that his fellow Blood Hunters would follow. For if Sven and York didn’t appear before Aragon thought Pathos would strike against Annette, Aragon wasn’t sure what he would do. Until Navarre regained consciousness and was able to fight the Pyrathian’s fire, his soul would suffer damage if left without help.
Time blurred beneath the blazing pain.
The closin
g of the limo’s door felt to Annette like the sealing of a tomb. Pathos sat facing her, his long legs encroaching on her space. Cinatas sat beside him. Even knowing what Cinatas had done, she could clearly see he was the lesser of the two evils.
The chauffeur cruised down Rankin’s driveway as if on a leisurely Sunday drive, so at odds with her pounding heart. Internally she kept calling out for Aragon, wanting him, wanting him to forgive her because she’d gone with Pathos. Aragon had pledged to find Stefanie, but Annette couldn’t just blindly trust that promise. Aragon didn’t know how much time he had left—and he didn’t know what Annette knew. If Pathos really did have Stefanie, Annette would never forgive herself for not trying to save her from harm. How she was going to rescue them both from Pathos and Cinatas would just have to come later.
Sunlight, mottled by the branches of pines and oaks, fought to penetrate the limo’s darkly tinted windows, but the interior remained dim. Annette searched desperately for any sign of Emerald before it occurred to her with dawning horror that Pathos and Cinatas could have harmed her on their arrival. She shot her gaze to Pathos, and he spoke before she could.
“If your friend was going to help you, she wouldn’t have stayed hidden in the woods.”
Holy hell. Could he read her mind? “And what friend would that be?” she asked.
He smiled. “The one you’re obviously searching the bushes for. Besides, I smelled her. Her scent is unusual for a mortal, which made it stand out from the blood of the other mortal woman.”
“Who?”
Cinatas spoke from the far end, almost completely shadowed by the dimness inside the limo. He sounded peeved. “It’s the second time today that I’ve had to discard my shoes from the filth beneath my feet. How could you miss seeing such a disgusting sight? She was all over the kitchen floor. Rankin had only just started cleaning up, but as porous as tile grout is, there is no way the fool could eliminate all traces of her blood with the bleach.”
She’d walked in on a murder. Celeste’s murder. Though knotted into a tight ball of fear, her stomach managed to roil.
“You would have been next,” Cinatas said. “So you can call us your knights in white armor.” He tapped the Hummer’s white leather door panel. The whole inside was white, with gold accents that only added to its coffinlike appearance.
Annette bared her teeth with a fake smile, determined to hold whatever ground she could. “Ever hear about the baby bird who was too late to fly south for the winter?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “He fell half frozen into a pile of hot manure in a cow pasture. A short while later, a cat came along and dragged him out.”
Pathos laughed, if one could call the rusty sound a laugh. “Let me guess. The cat then ate the bird.”
“Yes. So everyone who—”
“Pulls you out of a pile of shit may not be your savior. Very amusing.”
“You’re not offended?” Cinatas asked, disgust peppering his voice. As he turned from the shadows to see Pathos respond, a small measure of sunlight hit his face directly, and he quickly threw up a blocking hand despite the protection of the super-dark sunglasses he wore. For a moment, Annette got the impression that the doctor was wearing a mask.
“Not at all,” Pathos replied. “In fact, I’m looking forward to a succulent meal.”
Annette clamped her lips together to keep herself both from being sick and from saying anything else. It seemed that the man could spin anything into his little sexual fantasy he had going. She had news for him. It wasn’t going to happen.
She expected that once they hit the main highway, they would travel north toward Arcadia and away from Twilight’s city limits. They didn’t. The driver went about a mile closer to town and then turned left onto an unmarked road half hidden by bushes and a cluster of evergreens. The back road to Hades Mountain. The road switched sharply back and forth as it steadily climbed up the mountainside.
Thirty minutes of near-vertical climbing brought them to heavy iron gates with thick, evil-looking spikes that practically begged to have heads mounted on them. The gate groaned open at a directive from the limo driver, and they eased forward. Annette would need a Mack truck to crash through those gates. Even the Hummer would bounce back on its bumper. Escape was looking pretty dismal at the moment. But she’d come this far, and she wasn’t going anywhere until she found her sister.
“I want to see Stef immediately,” she told Pathos.
He smiled. “Of course you do.”
“Where is she? Where has she been for the past six months?”
“The past holds little importance for you at the moment. You need to be thinking about something else entirely,” he said. Before she could blink, he moved forward. His legs slid between hers, and he shoved her knees wide apart as he pressed his palm to her crotch. “You don’t get anything you want until I get what I want the way I want it.”
A cold burn radiated from his touch, and she tried to shove her hips back, but he had her pinned. She couldn’t escape the burn, which was sickly erotic in some way, nothing like the hot desire that Aragon ignited. Her spirit cried out for the Blood Hunter, his touch, his fire. Her mind scrambled for a way to get the upper hand, but nothing filtered through the fear Pathos was pressing upon her. That cold burn had her thinking that she needed to hurry up and do everything he wanted as quickly as she could so that she could get to her sister. But deep down inside, she knew that was all wrong. So where were the thoughts coming from?
Cinatas laughed. “I can’t wait to see this. Why not have her now?”
Pathos sat back as quickly as he’d attacked. “Patience, son. My little bird needs to be cleaned up first. Aragon’s scent and seed is all over her. She has indeed been wallowing in a hot pile.”
“Then why have her at all?”
“Because sometimes the sweetest bite is the last one.”
Annette didn’t know how she was going to pull it off, but she was damn sure Pathos was going to choke on her. “Poisonous bites are always your last ones as well,” she told Pathos. “I’d be careful if I were you.”
“I am so going to enjoy you,” he said, his tone amused and affectionate.
He was so not, she thought, and then wondered who the bigger fool was, him for thinking he’d have her…or her for thinking she could escape.
As they rounded a bend, she caught a quick glimpse of how high up they were and saw a massive waterfall coming down the side of the mountain up ahead. Then the trees cut off the view, and suddenly a tunnel loomed before them. As they entered it, a loud roar filled the car despite the limo’s extra insulation. She almost panicked, looking in every direction for the train that was surely about to hit her, until she realized from the seeping water along the tunnel’s walls that they were actually going underneath the waterfall.
It was as fascinating as it was daunting, for it added another almost insurmountable element for her to conquer if she and her sister were able to escape by foot.
Provided Stef was alive and able to escape. Once through the tunnel the horizon opened up to an expansive, almost level gap through the double peaks of a mountain that housed a castlelike gray stone structure so large it would take days to search through every room. Annette’s heart sank even more. Oh, God, this was not working out right at all. How could she have predicted this?
“Welcome to the Falls,” Pathos said.
The lump in her throat was too large. She couldn’t say anything at all.
Before they came to a stop, Cinatas pulled a white hooded cloak from a concealed compartment and slipped it on, covering his head like a grim reaper.
A circular drive, sparkling fountain, and sweeping marble staircase rising to a columned portico gave the entrance an appearance grand enough for any opulent palace. The moment the limo came to a stop, the massive doors at the top of the stairs opened, and men in crisp black tuxedo-style uniforms exited and unrolled a red carpet from the portico down the stairs and all the way to the limo.
After bowing, th
e men stood at attention, staring straight ahead, never once looking at her, Pathos, or Cinatas as they exited the limo and climbed the stairs. At the entrance, a bevy of formally uniformed staff had lined up on each side of the door as if they were servants greeting royalty. No one spoke. Pathos and Cinatas didn’t even glance at the people who bowed or curtsied as they passed. Finally, when they’d reached the end of the line, a man sporting decorations to rival a four-star general abruptly dismissed the servants, then bowed, cleared his throat, and spoke to Pathos in a quiet, self-effacing voice.
“Sir, you may wish to know that Señor Vasquez, along with Samir from Arabia and Wellbourne from London, have arrived early. They declined special services and have gathered in the Olympus Room, awaiting your arrival.”
Where was Stef in this dramatically ostentatious hellhole? A Vladarian vampire was here in Twilight! Annette recognized Vasquez’s name—the name that had cut deeply into Sam—from Erin’s list. But neither Samir from Arabia nor Wellbourne from London were on Erin’s list. Were they here for the ride, or were there more vampires than those Erin had given transfusions to?
Pathos frowned, clearly irritated at the development. “Leave us, Ungar, and send Lotus and her women to oversee my companion’s grooming,” he told the man, nodding Annette’s way.
When the man left, Pathos turned to Cinatas, then began to pace. “Why is Wellbourne with Vasquez? I wanted to wait until tonight before introducing the order to you, their new leader, but we’d better start now, especially if Wellbourne is going to side with Vasquez about Ashoden ben Shashur. Due to his oil leverage, Shashur had close ties within the Vladarian Order, and his demise will cause trouble. The sooner we stamp it out, the better. Don’t make me regret choosing you over Shashur.”
Cinatas drew back the hood of his cloak. “Meaning?”
The Lure of the Wolf Page 20