Gravity (Mageri Series: Book 4)

by Dark, Dannika

  “It has,” he added. “But what use would it be? They could never bear Chitah young and even if it were possible, they would be born human. Why would a male choose a female that would age and die before his eyes and have children that would grow up and do the same?”

  “Love? Nothing lasts forever, Leo. Why do you focus so much on preservation of your own kind when it means denying someone happiness? No matter how brief. You know what I’m getting out of this conversation? That you don’t approve of me because I’m not one of your kind. Logan’s accepted me for who I am. Maybe he’s my kindred spirit and maybe he’s not, but does it matter? We love each other. Isn’t that enough to justify him saving my life?”

  “And if we can prove it?” Logan asked.

  “If it can be proven, brother, then your challenge to the death was justified. Lord or not, no one can deny a Chitah’s right to protect his life mate. They require evidence, and that’s something you don’t have.”

  His tone was heavy because Levi wasn’t in the loop. Leo had inside information now that he worked for HALO. He knew that it meant going public with the genetic experimentation, something we’d kept secret because of the unpredictable upheaval that could occur. This became a choice to save either Logan or the Breed.

  Logan stood up and leaned against the wall, uncharacteristically folding his arms. “I don’t need proof that she has Chitah blood,” he said, turning his gaze to me. “That kind of revelation would put us all in danger. They might lock you up and take you away from me,” he said pensively. “I won’t have that on my conscience.”

  “And I won’t have your death on mine,” I countered.

  “God help us all,” Leo breathed.

  We looked up and he stared at his phone with a ghostly expression.

  “What is it?” Logan asked, lowering his arms and stepping forward. The change in Leo’s scent must have been alarming by their reaction.

  Leo rubbed his short beard and lifted his sullen eyes. “Knox is dead.”

  Chapter 30

  I couldn’t breathe. By the time we reached Novis’s front door, my chest was in spasms, sucking in air so quickly that I came close to hyperventilating. Logan drove and as soon as Adam opened the door, I fell into his arms.

  “Is she hurt too?” I said in a high-pitched voice.

  “Not that bad,” he replied in broken words, stroking the back of my hair.

  “Who did this?” I looked up and Adam’s scarred face was stoic, as if the life had been drained from his eyes.

  “Nero.”

  “What?” I gasped, adamantly shaking my head.

  I backed away in disbelief, tears staining my cheeks. I suspected Tarek had given his guards orders to carry out his plan if anything ever happened to him. Nero was the furthest thing from my mind. Why the hell hadn’t I continued searching for him? Why had I let everyone convince me the labs were more important? My eyes burned with guilt.

  Logan held my shoulders from behind. My energy intensified and I had a sudden urge to throw it into someone. As I stepped away from Logan, faint blue particles of light dripped from my fingertips. My heart sliced in two as the image of Sunny and Knox holding hands flew into my mind.

  “I’m going to kill him, I’m going to kill him,” I chanted.

  Adam caught my wrists and held my shaking hands. “Level it down, Silver. You can’t see her like this.”

  “Were you able to heal her? Is it bad?”

  Adam shook his head and let go of my hands. “My gift doesn’t work on humans. I tried. I would have stopped it,” he said in a pained breath. “The Mage thought he had put enough bullets in them and came over to talk to me. I was the fucking messenger,” he bit out. “The witness. Novis showed up a few minutes later and took out the last Mage. As soon as he pulled the stunner from my chest, I rushed over to their side. I tried, dammit. Knox… that bastard was just too stubborn to come back,” he said with glittering eyes. Adam blinked and looked down. Knox wasn’t just his former partner, but his best friend.

  “Are you okay?” I stepped out of Logan’s grip and touched Adam’s cheek. He flinched at first and then pressed his lips into a thin line. Adam would never understand that despite his imperfections, he was still the same Razor—unruly dark hair, dangerously sexy brows, and a smirk that could melt hearts. A man who once saved my life and showed me how to laugh again. Time was changing the both of us through our experiences. Our best friends were attacked that night.

  Mine survived. His didn’t.

  “Novis is making burial arrangements.” He struggled to keep his voice steady. Adam turned away, folding his arms. “She’s upstairs if you want to see her.”

  He barely had to finish his sentence. Logan remained behind and I flew up the stairs. Uncertain of which room she was in, I opened all the doors. When I reached the last door at the end of the hall, I hesitated before going in.

  Novis sat in a chair at the foot of the bed, leaning on his knees with his hands clasped together. When he looked over his shoulder, his mouth formed a grim line. It looked like he’d been running his hands through his hair so much that it all simply fell flat over his face. I’d never seen Novis this… emotional. Time had eroded the spark he had for life and he often appeared detached.

  Until tonight.

  “Close the door,” he said in a soft voice. “There’s a draft.”

  I wiped my runny nose on the sleeve of a sweater I’d borrowed from Logan. I just stood there, shaking my head at him in disbelief.

  “Knox was brave.” He sat back in the chair and stretched out his legs. “Not many men die for honor. By the time I got there, he was already gone. I believe one of the bullets pierced his lung and caused it to collapse and bleed out, but I’m not a doctor. He took three bullets for her. One of them ricocheted and hit her in the shoulder.”

  I glanced up and Sunny’s left shoulder was in a sling.

  “Is she sedated?”

  “No,” Novis replied. “She refused. Adamantly refused. We called in a Relic who patched her up and confirmed it wasn’t life threatening. She’ll have a scar, but the bullet went clean through.”

  I cupped my elbows and looked at her sleeping in the bed.

  “You can sit with her for a while. I’ll see to it she’s not left alone. She shouldn’t be,” he said, rising from his chair and walking toward me. He stopped to my left and stood at my side. “Sunny watched the man that she loves die in her arms. When we found them, she was so weakened from the Mage having juiced her energy that she couldn’t even wrap her arms around him. That’s what pained her when we brought her back—that she couldn’t hold him one last time.”

  I lost it.

  Tears burned my eyes like acid and I bent over with my hands on my knees, sobbing. Novis closed the door behind me and silence filled the room as my tears spattered on the wood floor.

  The pain was surreal, but I sucked it all in and blew out a few hard breaths. Guilt kept me from approaching the bed.

  This was all because of me. Damn Nero. I hated him to the core of my being. I swore in that room that on my honor, I would kill him. Justus told me not to waste my life seeking revenge, but Nero had taken the life of someone I cared about while attempting to murder my best friend. Sunny was the nearest I had to a sister, and damn him if he thought I wouldn’t avenge this senseless attack.

  I crossed the room to the right side of the bed and sat on the edge. Sunny’s face was different. It wasn’t just her puffy eyes and red nose from crying herself into a deep sleep, but the carefree exuberance I once remembered had been extinguished. It was as if Knox took a piece of her heart with him.

  Maybe it would help him reach his destination.

  Leaning forward, I kissed her cheek and pressed mine against hers. What I nearly experienced with Logan, Sunny had lived through in a cruel twist of fate. My heart understood how broken she must feel—how lost.

  “I love you,” I whispered. “I’m here. I’m always here if you need me, Sunshine. Please don’t h
ate me for what happened. You have my word I’m going to find Nero and kill him myself. He won’t take another life; I won’t let him.” She roused a little and whimpered when I kissed her cheek again. Tears leaked from her eyes, and I couldn’t imagine the pain she had endured without medication. Tenderly, my fingers brushed her wavy hair aside.

  When I stood up, my eyes fell upon her body and I stood frozen in time.

  Clutched tightly in Sunny’s hands was Knox’s black knit hat.

  ***

  Logan didn’t utter a word during the drive home. My emotions must have burned his nose, so he gave me the silence that I needed and dropped me off at my house.

  It was very late, and the house was eerily quiet. I had so much pent up anger that I stood in the center of our training room, pulling every knife from the wall with my energy and throwing them against the opposite wall. It was enough to sedate my anger for a while.

  The study possessed that wonderful smell of aged paper and leather bindings. No one was in there, and it’s where Justus worked late some nights and fell asleep over the desk.

  When I reached the end of the hall, Justus’s door was open just a crack. The soft glow of candlelight remained still until a draft of air swirled in from behind me. Justus was lying on the bed, stomach down, with papers and photographs scattered everywhere. They were on the floor, the bed, a desk, and several opened boxes were lying about. Max stretched out on top of his back, so I quietly tiptoed to a chair, took a seat, and placed a stack of photographs in my lap.

  They were the pictures Simon had taken of the lab, and it looked like he had hauled everything over here and they made his bedroom into a war room.

  The documents were divided into separate areas of the room. The stacks by my feet were related to my case, the piles covering Justus were images of Page’s apartment, vehicles, and other unfamiliar locations. I didn’t recognize any of the names or medical terminology on the photographs I held, but a giant medical book was sitting on the sofa along with several notebooks and pens.

  I stared at a photo of the fridge that stored all the blood. When I turned it sideways, the writing on the vials became legible. What caught my eye was that one of them wasn’t marked the same as the others. After trying a few angles, I could read it and something jogged my memory.

  It was just a series of numbers, but I remembered those numbers. That was my blood that Page had collected shortly after Tarek had attacked me. The numbers were the date she drew the blood, and the last letter was an S.

  Why was this in the lab? Was Page involved with the experiments?

  “Justus, wake up!” I shouted.

  The cat went airborne and scrambled into the hallway, leaving a scratch on the back of Justus’s arm. He spun around, sending an array of papers to the floor. One of his eyelids was still closed and he stared at me in startled confusion.

  “Learner? Why didn’t you…” He shook his head as if he was unclogging water from his ears, but he was really shaking himself out of sleep.

  “Ghuardian, did you hear about Knox?”

  He nodded, rubbing his chest sleepily. “I received a call not long after,” he said regretfully. We both averted our eyes and sat quietly before I spoke again.

  “I’m not going to marry Tarek. It was a lie. Logan had to save me and now he’s in trouble.”

  Justus slid off the bed with his powerful legs and knelt before the sofa. “Are you hurt?” He scanned my body for injuries before his eyes met mine again.

  I shook my head. “I heard what happened to Page and I want to help you find her. I need a distraction before I fall apart.”

  “Not until you tell me what happened.”

  “I lied to everyone.” As I spoke, my fingers tightly weaved together. “Tarek blackmailed me to be with him. He threatened to kill everyone, including you. And Logan. Everyone,” I whispered. “He made me do a lot of things I’ll never get over.”

  Justus’s face tightened and his large hands curled into hard fists.

  “The night of our engagement party, I escaped with Christian, but we got separated. A cop helped me; just a regular human, but he was a decent man. Tarek tore out his throat in front of me,” I said, covering my face guiltily.

  “Why didn’t you call? I would have come for you,” he said. “I should have come for you anyway.”

  “You couldn’t have known what was going on,” I reassured him. “There wasn’t any time and then Logan got dragged into it. He challenged Tarek to the death. Tarek’s dead, Ghuardian. He’s a Lord, and that’s a serious crime.”

  Justus nodded gravely.

  “I need to ask you something.”

  “Ask me anything, Learner.”

  I flipped the photo in front of his face. “Why was my blood in the lab?”

  He snatched the picture and studied it. “I don’t see what you mean.”

  “Look at that one,” I said pointing my finger. “If you ever watched television, you might have seen a show called Sesame Street. There was a little song they used to sing called ‘One of These Things Is Not Like the Other.’”

  Justus gave me an annoyed glance but he turned the photo, squinting his eyes.

  “Those numbers are a date. Does that date look familiar to you? I remember watching Page write it down. She put an S at the end for Silver. Wasn’t this supposed to be for private use—for her to study? Why is it in this lab?”

  “She swore she would not allow anyone else to see this, Learner. I believe her.”

  “If you trust her, then I trust your judgment.”

  Justus rose to his feet and Max strutted in, curling against his leg. I concealed my smile as Justus always pretended to hate my cat, and Max never came downstairs. Now here he was, curled up in Justus’s room.

  “Where’s Simon?”

  “Where is your guard?”

  “He’s hanging out topside, keeping his distance. Simon?”

  “He’s here.”

  I shook my head. “I looked all over the house. He’s not here.”

  A crease formed between his brows. “Are you sure? He went up to get food.”

  We both hurried upstairs and checked out the kitchen, which was empty. Justus opened the door to the pantry and chuckled.

  “Here he is.”

  I peered around his shoulder into the walk-in food pantry. Simon was passed out on the floor—flat on his back—with an open plastic bag on his lap and his arm still inside it.

  “Death by potato chip,” I said. “What kind of warning do you think the Surgeon General would put on this?”

  I smoothed my hand down Justus’s arm. “I’ll help you find her, Ghuardian,” I promised. His shoulders lowered as if a weight had been lifted and it was the first time since the night of Merc’s death that I’d seen him look so emotional.

  On the floor, the bag crinkled as Simon pulled out his hand, rubbing his face to wake up. It smeared grease and tiny crumbs all over his cheeks and brown hair. I laughed when he wrinkled his nose.

  “You are a national treasure, Simon.”

  “Miss me already, love? I hope you’re back because you dropped the wanker.”

  “Tarek Thorn is dead,” Justus said gravely.

  Simon flashed his dimple at me and nodded. “Atta girl.”

  ***

  I laced up my boots to keep my feet warm. Justus called Novis and had a long discussion; it took some convincing that we had to raid the lab that evening. With everything going on, Novis had other things on his mind and gave us his permission.

  An innocent life was at stake, and each passing moment could bring more danger to Page, wherever she was. She was connected to the lab somehow, and the two investigations merged into one.

  I gave Justus the necklace Tarek had imprisoned me with, explaining the unique metal came from Nero. He left it in his bedroom beside a stack of photographs, and with Tarek’s admission, we knew Nero was willing to sell it to anyone for the right price. Maybe HALO already knew this, but I wasn’t privy to their inves
tigations.

  Justus blew past cars on the highway in his Aston Martin, using his energy to screw up any radar detectors, although we were going so fast I didn’t think a trooper would see anything but a blur.

  What we knew about the scientists wouldn’t fill a thimble. Simon still hadn’t discovered what Breed the third man was. He avoided following him because anything that would tip them off could result in the destruction of evidence.

  We armed ourselves with stunners—mine strapped beneath my shirt. Winter jackets were left at home; Justus didn’t need one anyhow, and fighting with a parka on wasn’t on the list of top recommendations for Mage combat.

  Justus emanated heat within the car and Simon complained. “Bloody hell, mate, turn that shit down. I believe your expensive little kitten comes with a heater, doesn’t she?”

  “Silver is cold.”

  Simon snapped his neck around. “Are you cold, Silver? Because if you are, you better get your arse up here in the front seat and change places with me before I incinerate.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “Turn it off, it’s fine.”

  Justus tightened his grip on the wheel and the setting sun reflected on his gold ring, the one every member of HALO wore. Aside from their business card, it was the only identifier, which wouldn’t be mixed up with a wedding band since it was on the opposite hand. I tightened the laces on my shoes, finding the repetitive task one that not only kept my mind distracted, but also prevented me from throwing up. I swear the wheels were lifting off the asphalt at every turn.

  The car rolled up to the lab and we heaved up out of our seats. Justus and Simon flashed to the door and I simply ran at human speed. They turned and watched me before looking at each other.

  “I’m out of practice,” I muttered.

  We had worked out a plan in the car of how this would go down. They needed me to get us inside—avoiding any commotion that might set our targets to destroying evidence or calling for backup.

  I leaned against the door, concentrating my energy until the locks slid open. It was easier the second time around. Christian pulled up on his bike and parked it behind the Aston. I had to give him credit for spending the last hour on a vibrating motorcycle, trying to keep up with our car at speeds up to 150 miles per hour.