by Dianna Love
Storm held his hands out. “She’s telling the truth.”
Reese scoffed. “You keep saying things like that. What are you? A human lie detector?”
No one said a word, waiting for Storm. He smiled at her and said, “That’s exactly what I am.” Then he told Quinn, “Next question.”
Evalle said, “I didn’t even think to explain about Storm and lying.”
Quinn said, “Why should you? It doesn’t matter ... if she plans to tell the truth.”
Reese’s gaze jumped from person to person until she finally accepted what he’d told her, looking more worried than she had when she’d obviously thought Storm was going to drain her, kill her or both.
Chapter 10
A human lie detector? Screw me.
Reese had no idea such a thing existed. Considering she was sitting in a room with Beladors, a demon guy and a witch, she shouldn’t be overly surprised.
Not just Beladors. No, she’d opened door number three and had gotten their leader for this part of the world.
That Quinn had a dark attitude. If he didn’t look ready to fight the world at any moment, she’d call him attractive. Nothing fit with him. He had a British accent but a face that reminded her of the Russian ancestors in her screwed-up bloodline.
Quinn would be the hardest puzzle in the room to crack.
None of these people were making sense to her. The witch had knocked her out, then had been willing to heal her. The human guy, Isak, hadn’t turned his scary weapon they called a demon blaster on her.
Evalle had been cautious around her, but Reese picked up positive vibes from the young woman.
The oddest thing to accept? Storm. He was a demon, but he’d healed her. Granted, he’d dialed back his anger for Evalle, but still ... a demon.
“Reese?”
She’d lost track of the last thing said. “What, Quinn?”
His head pulled back at being called by his name.
She said, “That is your name, right?” Going from one side of the half circle to the other, she called out each one. “You’re Adrianna, a witch with a lot of mojo. You’re Storm and we both know what you are.” She gave him a snippy smile that he ignored. “You’re Evalle, a Belador who I assume is the demon’s main squeeze.”
Storm growled at her.
Evalle said, “You really aren’t much for keeping things calm are you?”
“Calm is boring.” Then Reese turned to badass Quinn. Storm was hot. No question about it. She’d give the demon that, but Quinn had a presence about him that spoke of power and leadership. He wasn’t a man who took orders from anyone.
He was the one person in this room who could destroy her by handing her over to VIPER.
She cocked her head at him. “You’re Quinn, the Maistir. See? I paid attention when you were reading me the riot act in the park.”
Adrianna picked up the questioning. “Evalle brought up a good point earlier while you were still out of it. How were you fighting that demon if you were so sick? I’m not questioning whether your illness was real. We all saw what Storm pulled out of you. What did you mean about a disk protecting you?”
“I had a talisman that had started healing me, but I lost it in the fight at the park.”
“What kind of talisman?” Evalle asked.
“A black medallion that looks like an oversized silver dollar.”
“Do you need that to use your powers?”
What was the point in trying to lie in front of Storm?
Reese said, “Yes.” She took in their faces. Quinn hadn’t been here last time. “Anyone happen to see a disk dangling from a cord necklace?”
“Stick to answering the questions, not asking them,” Quinn said, shutting down her inquiry.
She drew in a slow breath and waited. This was not going to go well if she got pressed for more details. She couldn’t tell them why she was in Atlanta or she’d blow her best chance at gaining that body.
Quinn started in. “Were you with those men who attacked the Medb witch tonight?”
She gave him an offended look. “Of course not.”
He checked Storm, who nodded that she’d told the truth.
“Then who are you and where are you from?”
She decided to test Storm. “Like I said, my name is Reese, I live in California and I’m thirty.”
“Name and California are true. Your age is a lie.”
Damn. He was good. “Correct. I’m not quite thirty.”
“Testing me?”
She shrugged. “Just want to know if I’m being played or not.”
His eyes smiled in confidence. Evidently, she’d amused the lie detector.
Her interrogator started up again. Quinn asked, “What’s your last name?”
“Sorry. I’m not sharing that or where I specifically live. I have no idea who you people are or what you’re after. I will not expose my family and friends to unknown preternaturals.” She looked at Storm, daring him to question that.
He didn’t.
Her last name must not have been a big issue for Quinn, who asked, “What do you do in California?”
“Photographer.” No records of her as photographer existed. She used a third party and a pseudonym for selling her photos.
“Do you know why those men were looking for the body of a Medb priestess?”
She almost blew her next answer by hesitating. She covered it by arranging her face to look confused. “No.” Storm kept his eyes on her and showed no reaction. Clearly, her answer passed as truth. She had no idea what was up with that group who appeared out of nowhere and needed to avoid them if they ran with demons.
“So you’re definitely not helping those men in any way?”
“No.” Truth. She was only helping herself on this trip. She hurried to get ahead of a question she couldn’t answer honestly. “Why would anyone be hunting the body of a Medb? If it’s in this realm, I’d expect it to be burned and scattered with salt.”
She started to push it further, but she glanced over at Quinn and got sidetracked by the grief in his eyes. The pain in them called to her, spoke to the silent voice inside her. When he caught her looking too closely at him, his countenance turned stony. That, she also recognized.
How often had she shielded herself behind a cold exterior to hide what went on inside?
A dead Medb priestess could only be Kizira.
The darknet had erupted about her death, blasting out conspiracies about who had killed someone most would believe possessed no vulnerability. Until her talk with Yáahl, Reese had dismissed the stories as propaganda.
Yáahl believed the body was in a tomb and Reese would stack a heavy bet on anything he believed. He expected Reese to find said body, then keep it from the Medb as a minimum. Who had buried a dead priestess in a tomb in the human realm?
If not for the history of hate between the Medb and Beladors, she’d take Quinn’s intense questions, stacked up beside that grief he was working so hard to hide, to mean he might have buried it.
That wasn’t even logical.
But she did realize one thing. She’d found a lead on Kizira’s body. It burned her to admit it, but maybe Yáahl’s timing and location for where he’d dumped her hadn’t been so off, after all.
Huh.
With the demon poison out of her system, Reese was back in business. She settled into the sofa, prepared to hang in here long enough to find out where Kizira had been buried.
Then she’d escape.
Quinn went and ruined her good mood. “Are you aligned with VIPER, Reese? Before you answer that, let me remind you that besides Storm’s ability to call you on a lie, I am in direct contact with them daily.”
“No, I’m only visiting. I know VIPER requires anyone who stays longer than three days to register with them. I’ll be gone before that.” Hopefully.
“What are you doing in Atlanta?”
There it was. The question that would hang her. She hedged, “I’m here doing a favor for someone.”
“That’s not good enough,” Quinn countered.
Things were about to get real.
Out of the blue, Quinn lifted his finger in a signal to hold everything for a minute as he stared into nothing.
If Reese had to make an educated guess based on what she knew about Beladors, she’d say he was having a telepathic communication.
When his eyes focused again, he said to the other three, “Tzader says a meeting has been called. We need to go now.”
Saved by the bell, so to speak.
Reese said, “If that’s the case, I need to get going myself.” She’d leave, then double back to watch for someone out of this group to follow.”
Quinn stood. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
“Are you kidding me?” Reese jumped to her feet. “I was minding my own business and got sucked into your fight. I saved lives by killing that demon. I have a personal reason for being here.” She eyed Storm quickly, but that was as much the truth as anything else.
He didn’t seem a hundred percent sure about what she’d said, but neither did he throw the bullshit flag on her.
So why was he studying her so closely?
Shoot. She’d said she had a personal reason for being here.
She tilted her chin at a take-no-crap angle. “As I was saying, I have a personal reason for being here. To tell you more would be to break a confidence and expose details about something that I can’t share.”
Storm asked, “Does this confidence you hold have anything to do with us?”
That was a tough one, but she reasoned that she didn’t know how they were associated with her task and replied, “I don’t see any reason it would.”
That earned her a frown from Storm.
What did that mean? Undecided again?
“You have no reason to hold me,” she argued.
Everyone looked at Quinn who said, “But we are holding you.”
She considered several insults and dumped them, going with, “What happened to southern hospitality?”
Storm pointed out, “I didn’t kill you.”
“That leaves me all warm and fuzzy.”
Evalle offered, “Why don’t you spend the night here and give your body a chance to finish healing?”
Reese wanted to snap back at her that she had things to do, but two things happened. She realized that if she stayed close to these people, she might find the body even more quickly. The other reason she changed her tune?
The incredulous look on Storm’s face at Evalle’s invitation.
Reese sweetened her voice just to tweak the demon’s nose. “That would be so kind of you. Thank you.”
Adrianna said, “I don’t think you did yourself any favors with that sappy tone, Reese.”
Storm had a cat-that-caught-the-mouse gleam in his eyes now. “You have no use of your powers without your medallion?”
“Nooo.” She dragged it out just to let him know he got on her nerves as much as she got on his.
“Truth,” he told everyone. “Keeping you here tonight might just be a good idea. I’ve got the perfect place for you.”
What the hell did that mean?
Chapter 11
Tristan groaned as his booted feet touched the solid ground of Treoir Island and the spinning colors of teleportation dissolved. He’d kept his eyes shut until the end or his vision would be out of kilter when he opened them.
With a peek, he sighed, glad to be back in one piece even if he’d had to give up his Friday night to come back early with news.
Twilight softened the edges of everything. The day-night thing never translated the same way here as in the human world.
That last teleport to and from Atlanta had been erratic, but he’d landed right on target. Spread out in front of him were the bluffs that overlooked a turbulent Irish Sea rolling and crashing against Treoir’s rocky shoreline two hundred feet down.
He’d stopped first at the castle, but had earned a little reprieve before giving his report when Daegan hadn’t been available. He planned to spend it gliding over the island in his gryphon form, clearing his head.
A shrill screech pierced the air.
He covered his ears.
Trees crashed against each other in the forest behind him.
Just five minutes of peace. Was that too much to ask? He turned just as something slammed across his back, knocking him off his feet. His body shot forward.
He had no time to use kinetics to break his fall, so he shoved his hands out instead. That didn’t stop him from hitting the ground hard. His face and hands plowed up tall grass. There were no giants on Treoir that he knew of, but damn if that hadn’t felt like being hit by a mega baseball bat belonging to one.
When the ringing in his ears cleared, he heard furious flapping and stomping too close for comfort.
Tristan spit out dirt. Fucking gryphons were at it again.
The ground shuddered with heavy pounding headed his way.
He flipped over fast, prepared for an attack.
A pair of ten-foot-tall gryphons battling each other crashed out of the woods.
That meant a tail as thick as his thigh had swatted him.
The closest beast to Tristan flapped up and down in an exaggerated backwards hop.
Shit! Tristan rolled again to his right and barely missed getting his head crushed under a monster paw.
His nostrils stung with the stench of fresh blood and singed feathers.
What the hell had happened since he’d left the pack this morning?
The tangled-up gryphons crashed into a tree, which didn’t slow them down a bit. They kept right on beating their huge wings and lunging at each other with sharp beaks that gouged bloody gashes. With the head and wings of an eagle stuck on a lion’s body, they had plenty of ways to rip each other apart.
Son of a bitch. Can’t I just get one break?
Tristan recognized the black feathers intermixed with bright red ones.
That would be dickhead Ixxter.
The silver-gray-feathered gryphon with a gold head was no mystery either. Bernie could be just as dangerous as any of the other seven on this mystical island.
But in human form, Bernie was a skinny little guy who never gave Tristan grief and always stepped up to do anything asked of him.
Ixxter, on the other hand, was a vile man in any form, who made life here a misery and enjoyed exerting his power over all the other gryphons who stayed on Treoir.
All except Tristan.
I might need to revise that if I have to tangle with that beast right now.
Ixxter couldn’t win a fight if Tristan had a chance to return to full power, but after the round trip teleporting from this realm hidden in the Irish Sea to the human world, and back, he was spent.
Teleporting hadn’t been a natural power for Tristan to begin with, and using it sucked his energy faster than anything else.
Shoving up to his feet, Tristan knocked weeds out of his hair and spit out dirt. Maybe he’d get lucky and those two idiots would wind down.
Nope. Bernie and Ixxter kept battling as if he weren’t present.
Whatever had that pair pissed off was nothing compared to Tristan’s frame of mind right now.
None of them could speak in gryphon form. Tristan opened his mind to shout at them telepathically. Stop fighting right now or I’ll kick both of your asses.
Heh. When in doubt, make empty threats.
Ixxter shouted back loud enough to make Tristan’s head vibrate. I’m sick of this little prick’s bullshit. He thinks that golden head makes him special, but he’s no different than the rest of us.
Bernie complained, It’s Ixxter’s fault ...
Ixxter took advantage of Bernie’s distraction and flew at the smaller gryphon, but Bernie hadn’t survived this long by being slow. He ducked his head and dove under Ixxter’s chest, taking out Ixxter’s legs. That turned into a new round of wing beating, claw slashing and beak snapping.
Remind me again why I agr
eed to deal with the gryphons while Evalle was gone? Tristan silently asked himself. He wiped his hands over his face, trying to wash away the fatigue from weeks of this crap. All the gryphons tipped the scales at around two tons, but Ixxter had another two hundred pounds on Bernie.
The real difference between the pair was that Bernie hated fighting and Ixxter lived for stomping anyone’s butt.
Tristan understood needing to blow off steam.
Hell, he could fuel a locomotive with all the steam he needed to release. Getting laid would help, but that wasn’t going to happen in this place and the only woman he wanted was human. Mac had been gone during his last visit to the human world or he’d have carved out some time with her.
Screeching reached an ear-bleeding decibel.
He should kinetically shove those two knuckleheads into the thick trees surrounding this normally peaceful clearing, but being a quart low on power had him hesitating.
Best to not risk exposing a weakness, which would happen if his kinetics failed to knock Ixxter off his feet.
Ixxter broke free of Bernie’s claws, which had been gripping Ixxter’s chest. The larger gryphon backed away, flapped up in the air and flew at a wobbling Bernie.
Ixxter hit his mark, then tucked his wing, rolled and gained his feet. He jumped on Bernie, bouncing up and down.
That fucking Ixxter would crush Bernie one bone at a time if Tristan didn’t stop him.
Tristan ripped his shirt off and shed his jeans, then called up his gryphon form, forcing the change fast.
Damn that hurt.
He groaned at the pain when muscles stretched and pulled. Bones extended and his back split on each side as two wings burst from his body, which was now the color of a thundercloud. Blue and black feathers sheathed his wings.
He shook out the kinks and pains, feeling spent as a battery with only a surface charge.
These gryphons had been stuck here too long and by no choice of their own. They needed a chance to return to the human world and feel like real people again.
All except Ixxter.
He needed to feel Tristan’s foot shoved up his ass.
Bernie whimpered and tucked his wings, trying to protect his body. Ixxter kicked the balled-up gryphon.