In the end, Alexis followed his gaze.
She stared at the faces standing there, and tried to decide what they even were.
Most of them looked shockingly human.
A few might have been other things.
She saw what looked like full-blooded seers, fae, even half-demons of one kind or another. Among the latter category, she saw at least one warlock, a handful of full-blown vampires, and a few human-like creatures with strange claws and tails that struck her as decidedly demon-ish.
She also saw a few who might have been shifters from their size and just the overall look of them.
They had one thing in common, though.
Her tattoos were still ignited, as was her Lightbringer sight.
She could see the silvery, sticky threads wound around and into their auras.
They weren’t completely wiped away like those faceless things had been, back in the Hollywood Hills, but she could see all of those threads leading into the portal behind them. She saw the silver-metallic coils creating thick clusters in the middle of their chests, in their bellies and lower abdomens, even in their foreheads and throats, almost like The Others had captured different parts of each individual, turning them into puppets on strings.
Alexis looked from one face to the other, looking for some sign of…
Well, anything.
Empathy. Feeling. Humanity.
Some sense that they could even see her.
They all looked disturbingly the same.
They all looked through her like she was no more alive than the rocks, or the stone legs of the sphinx to either side of where she stood.
She was going to die.
This must be what Darynda saw, right before they killed her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, giving the Traveler a bare glance. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
There was a silence.
In it, Alexis realized the last of the shadowy forms had finally exited the portal.
It still glowed with bright, blue-white light, but no more beings formed shadows in that opening. The door remained active and open to whatever dimension from which they’d come, but now, Alexis suspected, it was waiting for them to come back.
“I’m sorry––” she began again, swallowing.
“No.” The Traveler cut her off.
His voice grew cold, hard, so distant it barely sounded like him.
“It is I who am sorry, Alexis.”
She turned, looking at him.
He looked back at her, his mouth grim as he adjusted the suit jacket on his shoulders, tugging at his sleeves under the jacket’s cuffs. He continued to study her eyes in that silence, and now she noticed his eyes were blue––almost the color of hers, but with golden flecks and threads glinting from his shockingly pale irises.
He looked at her a beat longer, then turned back to the line of armed figures.
“All right,” he said, his voice colder still. “You can take her.”
24
The Bargain
It took a full second for his words to sink in.
Then she looked away from him, at the approaching soldiers, before staring back at the Traveler, back at the look on his face, which had lost every ounce of the emotion she’d seen ripple across it in subtle and not-subtle ways for the past however-many hours since he arrived at her club on the Sunset Strip.
Realizing she understood, that she really understood, that she understood just fine, she forced herself to look away.
It took every ounce of her will to tear her eyes off him.
She stood there, muscles tense, as the row of human-like creatures approached her, carrying those strange-looking weapons.
She didn’t have her swords.
She didn’t have a single gun.
Without thought, she released her fingers around the coils of her whip, letting all but the thick handle drop to the stone. Winding up her arm, she stepped sideways and rolled out a long crack of the handmade weapon.
It rang with a loud, shocking CRACK in the near-silent space.
Up until then, apart from their voices, and that odd, supernatural hum, the only sound had come from water––the steady drips and trickles running down the cliff walls, the quiet sounds of the lake itself, where water lapped at dark shores covered in chips of volcanic stone and rock.
The whip’s crack had a whole different energy.
Startled, the line of soldiers stumbled back, a few holding up their weapons.
One man, who’d stood a little in front of the others, let out a yelp, stumbling backwards and tripping over his own feet in his haste to get out of the whip’s range.
She didn’t hit any of them; they hadn’t been close enough yet.
Still, it was damned satisfying to watch that bastard fall on his ass.
“Alexis,” the Traveler said, his voice stern. “Do not.”
Turning, she coiled her arm around and back, unleashing the full length of the whip on him.
He stood a lot closer.
He darted back, his speed as bewildering as always… but in this case, not enough to get him out of range of her fury.
She saw him scowl, raising a hand to his cheek where she’d caught him with the edge of the leather tip. Blood formed a line on that perfect cheek, and something about that made her feel a little better, creating a warm spot in her belly, even if she knew he was right, that what she was doing right now was utterly futile.
She drew the whip back, turning to the line of shadowy forms.
That time, the five or so in front raised their weapons, pointing them at her head.
“No!” the Traveler snapped. “We need her alive! Do not shoot her. If even one of you pulls a single trigger without my explicit authorization, I will have each and every one of your hearts carved out and served at the banquet back on our Earth, when we celebrate our great victory…”
She stared at him, then back at the line of soldiers.
She cracked the long whip at them a half-dozen more times, but they were getting smarter now, holding up their weapons to catch the sting from the end of her weapon.
Using the whip, she yanked at least four of the guns right out of their hands.
Two went sliding and spinning across the stone floor, smashing into the base of the lion’s paws. One turned into a tug of war with a giant male, easily two feet taller than her and one of those she suspected of having shifter blood.
That same male, who probably had a hundred pounds on her, managed to yank his weapon free of her whip.
The last three lashes from the whip only smacked into the guns, with at least two of the lashes cutting into cheeks and faces, and the last one hitting a weapon up into the bearer’s face, giving them a bloody mouth and lip.
Then something wrapped around her whip, capturing it.
She stared briefly into what appeared to be an electrical field of some kind.
Letting out a gasp, she released it, shocked at the intensity of the pain––
––only to turn and see the Traveler had thrown some kind of bolo at her, something infused with either magic or some form of technology she’d never seen.
The weapon tangled up in the whip, sparking and jumping on the stone floor, making the thing glow.
She watched him walk up to it, then lean down to pick it up.
Something about that simple act finally made her snap.
She clenched her hands, staring at him…
…and exploded in fury.
Letting out a cry of pure anger, grief, and frustration, she ran for him halfway in a leap when he looked up from where he’d bent over to the glowing tangle of bolo and whip, his eyes glinting in the supernatural light.
A frown touched those perfect lips below his bleeding cheek, and he straightened swiftly, throwing up an arm even as hers came down.
He managed to block the heaviest part of her blow, then step aside when she pivoted midair, aiming a kick at his solar plexus.
He blocked he
r again, throwing up his arms and fists to protect his head when she landed heavily on the stone, following up the kick with a series of fast-thrown punches, distracting him with a kick to the lower leg and knee before catching him full in the face with a hard cross.
His eyes glowed brighter, a cold anger rising in his eyes.
“STOP!” he growled.
When she stepped forward, catching him in the chest with another hit and a kick, he swung before she could move out of the way, snapping her jaw sideways.
The blow was hard enough to briefly stun her.
She’d been too furious to see the rest.
She’d been too full of rage to feel the rest of them closing on her.
Now, when she lost her balance briefly, hands captured her arms from behind.
She writhed free, using a back-fist to force the first one back, punching him so hard in the face she broke his jaw.
Two more of them grabbed her from the other side.
She writhed free a second time––barely––mostly by throwing elbows and catching another of the large ones in the face. She heard a surprised “OOF!” right before someone hit her in the gut with something that felt like a cattle prod.
Whatever the hell it was, it brought her to her knees.
She nearly blacked out when they hit her again.
Then cuffs were snapping on her wrists, and on her biceps from behind. When she tried to struggle to her feet, they hit her with the electric thing a third time, and she cried out, feeling them snapping more of those heavy metal bands around her ankles.
When her vision cleared, she found herself looking up at the Traveler’s face.
He still looked angry.
His perfect, dark chestnut hair was mussed, his face bleeding, his eyes now a cold gray and blazing with fury. He stared down at her, and she realized for the first time that it was him holding what must be the cattle prod.
The black pole gripped in his pale, long-fingered hand sparked with purple and violet flames at the end, looking almost alive in the dim light of the cave.
He glared at her, panting, still holding the pole towards her, as if expecting her to attack him again.
“Did you not hear me?” he snapped. “I ordered them not to hurt you!”
She stared up at him, barely comprehending his words.
Looking around at the dark faces surrounding him, it hit her that she didn’t see the silvery-metallic strings choking his aura, not like the others.
She had no idea what that meant.
In that exact moment, she didn’t care.
“Get her up,” the Traveler snapped, motioning towards her, even as he combed the hair out of his eyes with his fingers. “We have to bring her back. Now.”
Alexis felt her body tense painfully as his words sank in.
She writhed in the hands holding her, now from two sides, fighting to get free despite the chains holding her ankles, arms, wrists, and now even her throat, where they snapped on a larger link to attach to the other cuffs holding her.
“You piece of shit,” she panted, struggling as two of the largest beings held her in thick hands. Her feet didn’t hold her weight anymore as they began carrying her towards the portal entrance. She craned her neck, still glaring at the Traveler.
“Murderer,” she panted. “You killed her. Didn’t you? You killed Darynda?”
He gave her a flat look, his now-hazel eyes shifting colors as she watched.
She felt sick.
She’d let him touch her.
She’d let him inside her.
He’d murdered her friend, and then he’d shared her bed.
The Traveler didn’t answer her, but looked away, motioning for the others sharply, using hand-signals she didn’t recognize. It struck her in the same few seconds that none of them were speaking English.
They were speaking the Common tongue.
It was the one language used across dimensions, at least by those who learned it.
Alexis understood it because she’d been raised speaking it, part of her training she’d never recognized as training because she’d assumed the woman raising her was actually her mother. Her “mother,” Lana Poole, told her it was their “secret language” and had her practice it with her and speak it when it was just the two of them at home.
She even taught her to read it, and write it.
Thinking about that only made her angrier for some reason.
Most of her life had been a lie.
She’d accepted it before––to an extent.
She’d accepted that it had been for the greater good.
But now all that was over, too.
“I’ll kill you,” she hissed at the Traveler, feeling her powerlessness shift back into a colder rage. “I’ll fucking kill you… and everyone else behind this.”
That time, he didn’t look at her.
Motioning the others towards the lit gate, he strode behind them, letting them carry her in front as they all made their way back to the entrance in the rock.
Alexis looked up at the image of the sphinx, the stoic face carved in rock where it stood out from the cave wall.
She even felt betrayed by that.
She didn’t notice that the Traveler walked beside her again until he spoke.
“I didn’t have any choice,” he said, his voice cold, gruff.
She made a disbelieving sound, turning to stare at him.
He met her stare, his own unmoving.
“I told them I could turn you,” he said, still holding her gaze unwaveringly. “I told them I could bring you over… that they didn’t need to kill you, like the others.”
Her eyes widened more at that, right before her jaw tightened so much it hurt.
“Don’t make me a liar, Alexis,” he murmured next.
She wanted to scream at him, to spit in his face, but somehow, the depth of her fury paralyzed her, giving her nothing to say, and too much to say, all at once.
She wanted to kill him.
She’d never wanted to kill anyone so badly before in her life.
Maybe he even heard her.
He turned, his eyes cold, yet somehow burning with an internal fire.
They were so dark, they shone nearly black, like the cave’s obsidian walls.
“You won’t make me a liar… will you, Alexis?” he said, his voice like steel striking steel. “You won’t, because you know if you do, I’ll kill you myself.”
Just then, the door flashed brighter in front of them.
The first of the Traveler’s soldiers had passed through.
Forgetting about him, long enough to feel her first flush of real fear, she stared forward, watching as another disappeared through the opening.
Then another.
Then she was right in front of the lit, glowing portal, still supported on two sides by the Traveler’s goons.
She remembered him saying he was a King.
He’d told her he was the King of the Travelers.
That meant he hadn’t just sold her out.
He’d sold out his whole race… in addition to wiping out hers.
She expected the two goons to lead her through the opening themselves, but they stopped just before they would have entered that blindingly bright door. Turning, they both looked at the Traveler, who once more stood behind them.
She nearly fell when they released her, stepping out of his way.
Before she could lose her balance, a strong arm wrapped around her waist, right before he leaned down, yanking her off her feet as he picked her up, holding her against his chest.
The position almost hurt, with her arms bound behind her back, but she didn’t make a sound, barely moved other than to close her eyes longer than a blink.
Opening them again, she found herself staring up at his face, at the blood covering one cheek from her whip, at the bruise on his other cheek from her fist.
She saw a mark there, and realized she was still wearing the ring Lana had given her when she graduated c
ollege.
Staring up at him, watching him look at her, she considered spitting in his face.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” he growled. “I might just decide to drop you, en route. And you can’t go where we’re going without me.”
She frowned, looking around at the others.
She didn’t want to ask.
She didn’t want to, but she did anyway.
“What about them?” she said, her voice cold.
“They are going somewhere else, Lightbringer.”
She frowned, feeling herself tense all over again.
His voice again grew warning.
“I would not, if I were you,” he said again, his voice a touch sharper. “If I let you go, you will be lost forever, Alexis Poole. You’re going to have to trust me now.”
Looking up at him, she let out a disbelieving laugh.
She considered saying more, but he took a step towards the open portal and she tensed.
He gripped her tighter, holding her flush with his body, and she could hear his heart beat, his breath expand and contract. His nearness and warmth, the firm, strangely reassuring way he held her, was infuriating and disconcerting and disarming all at once.
Remembering how he’d been that night in her apartment, she felt her rage spike higher.
Not rage.
Hatred.
She hated him.
She would do whatever it took to avenge Darynda.
She would do whatever it took to avenge all of them.
She would do whatever it took to return to her world.
He didn’t speak, but his hands tightened on her as she thought those things, and she found herself thinking he’d heard them, too.
She didn’t care.
It didn’t make any difference.
Even as she thought it…
…he stepped through the door.
The cave, the shifters and vamps, the armed humans speaking Common and their strange weapons, the stone sphinx and the light-filled lake…
…everything vanished.
Alexis vanished, too.
Lightbringer: An Enemies to Lovers Urban Fantasy with Demons, Portals, Witches, Renegade Gods, & Other Assorted Beasties (Light & Shadow Book 1) Page 18