Caged in Bone (The Ascension Series)

by Reine, SM

  “Rylie,” he growled, seizing her by the shoulders. Lucky thing, too, because she had forgotten how to stand, and it was only his grip keeping her on her feet. “You’re insane. What is wrong with you? What are you doing here?”

  Her mouth moved wordlessly.

  She had thought she was saving Abel. But as she watched, James Faulkner emerged from the light within the gateway as calmly as though stepping between dimensions was normal. He extinguished the portal with a casual wave of his hand.

  Abel wasn’t surprised to see the witch come out the door, either. He was only surprised to see Rylie there.

  James hadn’t kidnapped Abel—he had left the pack willingly.

  Elise awoke in darkness. It was the kind of artificial twilight that came from heavy, layered curtains that blocked out every hint of moonlight.

  She sat up. The back of her head still ached from the basandere’s chain, but the rest of her was, surprisingly, in good condition. Elise was in a generously large bed with sheets that felt like they had a higher thread count than there were people in North America. They were a pleasant shade of yellow. The comforter on top was stuffed with fluffy down.

  Her gaze traveled from the foot of the bed to a large wardrobe on the opposite wall, which was paneled with dark wood. The wallpaper on the top half had an elaborate Asian design, sort of Indian. An unlit lantern hung from the ceiling. There was an attached bathroom peeking out from behind a paneled screen.

  She had stepped through the gate expecting to be delivered unto Heaven to kick James’s ass.

  Instead, she was in a bedroom. She was unharmed and alone.

  Where was Rylie?

  Elise pushed the sheets off of herself and stood. She had been stripped of her jacket, socks, and shoes. She still wore a sweater and jeans.

  She slammed through the bedroom door to find herself in a roofed courtyard. The exercise equipment to the left didn’t match the rock garden and trickling spring that sliced through the center, either. There was a punching bag, an impressive set of free weights, a few blue foam mats like those used by gymnasts.

  Over the sound of running water she could hear the faint roar of wind. The air seeping through the courtyard was cold.

  This definitely wasn’t Heaven.

  She tried to phase to the door on the other side of the courtyard, but nothing happened. She didn’t disappear and reappear. It was like the ability had vanished.

  Elise stormed to the other door and threw it open.

  It was a kitchen, all bamboo furnishings and shining refrigerator. She opened the cabinets. She had never had favorite foods, per se, but she used to have a short list of foods that she would eat—good fat and protein sources, nuts and cheeses, sometimes creatine powder shakes when she was actively weight training. All of those ingredients were in the pantry. There was also a gallon of whole milk in the refrigerator along with what looked like a side of beef and about twenty-four eggs.

  All food that she used to eat. Food that she hadn’t eaten for three years.

  Only one person would think to leave that shit for her.

  Anger surging, Elise went to the next door off the courtyard—a small office with a desk, a few bookshelves, and an MP3 player that showed every one of Black Death’s albums at a cursory glance. The door led to a bathroom. Every window she found had been carefully covered by blackout curtains.

  Faint magic sparked on the exterior walls. She ran her fingers over the paneling, urging the magic to rise where she could see it.

  The walls burned her hands. She jerked away.

  There was stone set into the walls—the same marble-like petrified bone that the angels had used to build their cities. Slender stone ribs the color of moonlight had been wedged between the wall paneling. When Elise stretched out her senses, she could feel that ethereal marble encompassing the entire building.

  So much for punching through any of the walls.

  And there wasn’t a single door that led outside.

  Elise glanced through the curtains at the world beyond the bathroom window, but immediately pulled back when the moonlight touched her. That glimpse outside had been enough. Maybe too much.

  She was on top of a desolate, wind-beaten mountain range, alone with the burning moon and a cloudy sky. She couldn’t escape. James would have Abel and Rylie. And if he was working with Belphegor, then Elise’s capture would do more than prevent her from saving the werewolf pack—it might let him take the whole damn world.

  Elise tore through the bedroom, shoving over the wardrobe, shattering it on the floor in search of keys or runes or something to help her escape. Nothing.

  She destroyed the kitchen, too, but there was nothing but that stupid food, the dishes, the appliances that served no function for her. She scattered them across the floor, kicked them to pieces.

  The library—maybe he had something in the library.

  She all but ripped the shelves off the wall, tossing the books aside. It was fiction. Looked like books taken from Pamela’s house.

  How fucking considerate of him.

  No hidden doors, no weaknesses in James’s magic. The walls were impenetrable.

  She found herself in the bathroom. It had the biggest window of any room in the house, encompassing one entire wall, and wasn’t laced with ethereal bone. It was her only chance. If she could just shatter it—if she could break through, phase away into shadow…

  Elise jerked the curtains down. She was so hungry that the moonlight on her skin was like being shoved into an oven, pressed against its white-hot heating elements, engulfed in gas and flame.

  If anything would break, it would have to be this window.

  Her body dripped with sweat as she ripped her gloves off, pulled her shirt over her head. She had covered most of her body in runes while she was in the motel closet, and as soon as she was exposed to the air, she began to tremble.

  She focused all the power in her hands, drawing the runes up her legs and abdomen, shoving them down her arms until her hands shook like a plucked guitar string.

  Elise aimed her palms at the window and spoke a word of power—one word to activate every spell.

  It struck James’s magic. Collided, and extinguished.

  The only thing that broke was inside of Elise.

  Eleven

  Abram couldn’t help but feel relieved at the sight of the Union moving into Northgate with their black SUVs, circling helicopter, and fully automatic guns. They were the military arm of the Office of Preternatural Affairs and had the training to show for it. They marched in line, listened to orders.

  It was a far cry from the ragtag band that had been protecting the bridge for the last few weeks. If a kibbeth broke through, half of the Union unit probably wouldn’t get eaten in its tentacles.

  “This is going to be bad,” Crystal muttered, pacing behind Abram. They had just announced to the inhabitants of Northgate that the Union would be providing support. Sounds of discontent spread through the crowd surrounding Bain Marshall. “Like, bad bad. These are the people that want us all tagged or dead—mostly dead.”

  “The commander says that he wants to help us,” Abram said, tracking an SUV with his eyes as it turned a corner. There were over a dozen now, and more coming. Many more than Abram had first seen waiting outside Northgate. “I believe him.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Yasir’s all right, I guess. He probably does want to help us. It wouldn’t be the first time. But the whole Union isn’t Yasir.” She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “And wasn’t Yasir supposed to be dead anyway?”

  Startled, Abram turned to watch the commander. Yasir was deep in conversation with Levi, gesturing toward the Bain Marshall statue, then the ground and the surrounding buildings. He didn’t look dead.

  “He mentioned being Seth’s best man,” Abram said. “He meant at the wedding to Rylie that didn’t happen, didn’t he?”

  “Right, that was when he went missing. Last time we saw Yasir, he’d arrested Cain and tak
en him back to the Union. Then Yasir was gone and suddenly Cain was running around with the Union, and they all had apple tattoos.” Crystal pointed at a bare patch of her arm. She had several tattoos, but none of them were fruit. “We assumed that meant that the Apple cult had killed Yasir.”

  Yet here he was, obviously healthy and in charge of the Union unit securing the Bain Marshall gate.

  Unease crawled through Abram’s gut. “But he was Seth’s friend.”

  “Yeah. Pretty close friends. They went way back.”

  Abram didn’t entirely trust his own judgment, but he trusted Seth’s, even post mortem. If he thought that Yasir was trustworthy, then he had to be fine. Probably.

  Now Yasir was addressing the Scions from beside a flatbed hauled by a semi.

  “We’ll train in the sanctuary,” he said. “Our witches are finding the weak spots in the wards as we speak and will have everything reinforced by nightfall. We’ll be safe within the sanctuary while we prepare. Load up on the trucks so we can move.”

  The Scions exchanged looks and murmurs. Nobody was getting onto the truck.

  Abram stepped forward. “What about the fissure, sir?”

  “These men will stay here to guard the bridge.” Yasir pointed at three of the SUVs. “We won’t leave it unsupervised. No demons will get through it on our watch.”

  “Some demons are allies,” Abram said. “Don’t shoot anyone coming up.”

  Yasir gave a sharp nod. “Understood.”

  Abram faced the others. They were watching him. Waiting for a verdict. “Head into the sanctuary.”

  The Scions listened to his orders where they had ignored Yasir’s. They climbed into the first truck, and, when that was filled, took up a second and third as well. Abram stood back to watch them trundle into the mountains.

  Yasir was right—all of these men would be much safer within the sanctuary, especially if the Union witches could patch the holes in the wards. But he couldn’t quell his nerves at watching them being taken away from Northgate.

  Abram had welcomed most of these people to Earth after long imprisonments in Hell. He had patched many of the wounds himself, given water to those too weak to drink, and even gotten many of them in contact with estranged family. He was responsible for the Scions and the other humans living in Northgate.

  He wasn’t going to let them be taken and trained by the Union without his supervision, even if they were only going to the sanctuary.

  The final truck bed was only half-filled by Scions. Abram joined them and sat opposite Josaiah, who looked relieved to have the Union take over. It was etched all over his aged face, and Abram was a little irked to see it. Josaiah had stepped up to a lot of responsibility after his liberation from Hell. He wasn’t wrong to surrender that responsibility at the first opportunity, either. But it seemed weak to give up so quickly.

  Maybe Abram was annoyed with Josaiah because he was annoyed with himself for feeling the exact same way.

  The truck engine rumbled to life and they slowly accelerated. Before they had traveled more than a few feet, Levi leaped nimbly onto the truck and settled himself across from Abram.

  Levi didn’t look anything like most of the pack members, and definitely nothing like the survivors in Northgate. Everyone who lived there was scraping together an existence by sweat and blood. Levi didn’t look like he had worked a day in his life, werewolf or not. His white leather jacket was pristine. And was that hair gel in his curls? Who had time to style their hair like that?

  He stretched out his legs. He didn’t quite touch Abram, but his feet were only an inch away. Invading his space.

  Abram gave him a flat look.

  “I can’t wait to see what Rylie’s done with the place,” Levi said, propping his arms behind his head and stretching out his body lean and long. The hem of his shirt gapped, flashing an inch of tan skin with a hard vee of muscle underneath. “It can’t be any more craptacular than the Gresham Ranch used to be.”

  This didn’t sound like the kind of conversation that Abram was interested in having. He watched Bain Marshall recede from them, the outstretched hand of the statue seeming to beckon them back as the truck turned a corner.

  Trees flashed between them, and then the forest consumed his view of the town square.

  Levi was quiet for most of the drive. He seemed genuinely interested in watching the surrounding forest as they climbed into the mountains. The twisting roads soon made Northgate disappear. The truck sliced through a narrow canyon, its rocks shimmering with ice, tiny waterfalls frozen into icicles.

  The bite of the wind was even colder within the canyon. Abram pulled his jacket around him. Checked the position of his guns while he was at it. He didn’t like the low visibility in the canyon. Clotho could have been anywhere.

  “I’m Bekah’s twin,” Levi suddenly said, like it was some kind of introduction.

  Abram frowned. He already knew that Levi was Bekah Riese’s twin; they had been introduced the night that he emerged from the Haven—although Levi was barely recognizable as this swaggering would-be Alpha with a bloated ego draped in white leather.

  But while Abram only vaguely remembered Levi, Levi didn’t recognize him at all. Apparently, Abram hadn’t been memorable.

  “Yes, I was expecting Bekah to get here soon,” Abram said. Both Bekah and Stephanie Whyte had been due to arrive that week. They were probably late now, he realized, but he had been too distracted by Abel’s disappearance to keep track of time. “I didn’t hear that anyone else was coming with them.”

  “I came out on my own,” Levi said. The truck bumped over potholes in the road and he had to drop his casual posture to grab the side of the flatbed. “They travel too slowly for my tastes.”

  “And the Union doesn’t?”

  “We ran into each other on the way here,” Levi said. “I asked nicely and Yasir let me up in the helicopter. I jumped down to help when I saw you and Trevin under attack. Don’t rush to thank me. I only saved your life and sanity from being crushed to putty in a super-demon’s hands.”

  Abram ignored the sarcasm. It had been one of Summer’s favorite tools of annoyance during their childhood, and he was immune to that kind of emotional warfare. “You just walked up to a Union unit and they let you into their helicopter.“

  Apparently, his mild incredulity was extremely offensive.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Levi asked.

  Abram wasn’t going to rise to that antagonistic bait, either. He ignored him.

  “Look, new boy,” the werewolf said, pushing a finger into Abram’s pectoral hard enough to shove him against the rail. “I don’t care what bullshit the pack has been getting up to since moving into Rylie’s little werewolf zoo, but her leadership hasn’t always been a given. When she was still a fresh-faced Alpha juggling her harem of boy toys, I was running the show. You’re not a werewolf and you obviously don’t know anything about this pack, or else you’d show me a lot more respect.”

  The outburst blew right over Abram’s head. He allowed Levi’s emotions to pour over him and slide away.

  Levi wasn’t making himself look good with his anger. He was only making himself look like an idiot.

  Josaiah and the other Scions being transported in the flatbed were pretending not to listen, but Levi wasn’t exactly being quiet. His voice echoed.

  “I’m a twin, too,” Abram said in a mild tone.

  “What? Why the fuck are you changing subjects on me? Who the fuck cares?” Levi asked.

  “The pack cares.” Levi was crouched over Abram’s legs, making him a couple inches taller, but Abram didn’t need werewolf strength or petulant anger to intimidate. His calm was an impenetrable armor. “If you ask yourself why Rylie and Abel would leave me in charge, really think about it, you can probably answer your own questions.”

  The canyon opened into the pack’s valley, coated in a fluffy layer of snow that looked pale and pure surrounding the line of trucks. The Union was horribly out of place there. The sanctu
ary was a place of calm and peace, a home for the hopeless—and now it was becoming a military outpost.

  Levi seemed to have forgotten everything around them. He shoved his face in Abram’s. “You trying to stir shit up?”

  “I’m trying to keep you from embarrassing yourself.” Abram nodded toward the others. People were watching them now, and not just those in the truck—the waiting werewolves were watching too. People who knew that Levi was trying to bully the son of the Alphas without any idea of who he was blustering at.

  Golden eyes flashed. “Rylie’s always been the embarrassment,” Levi said.

  So that was what this was about. Old school rivalry. Hard to believe, considering they were about to have Heaven and Hell dropped on top of them.

  “Adjust your priorities,” Abram said, brushing the werewolf’s hands off his shirt. “This argument is ridiculous. And nothing you do or say will change the fact that my mother’s Alpha.”

  Levi’s hands fell limp to his sides. His jaw dropped.

  “Your mother?” he echoed. And then understanding lit in his eyes. “Twins.”

  Abram couldn’t help but smile faintly. It lifted one corner of his mouth. “You can still be useful. You’ll have more familiarity with the Union equipment than any of us. I want you to help them unload and issue weapons to our men.” The order was delivered with his calm voice—the one that Summer said that nobody could argue with.

  All of the hot air had gone out of Levi. He sagged, staring at Abram in unconcealed shock.

  The truck stopped. Abram climbed out of the pickup and left Levi behind.

  Toshiko and Paetrick were waiting for him.

  “What’s going on?” Paetrick asked.

  “It’s okay,” Abram said. “I authorized this, and I can explain everything.”

  And he did.

  By the time he was done talking to the pack, he noticed that Levi had gone to help the Union unload. Abram didn’t rub it in or gloat, as Levi probably would have if he had won the argument. Seeing his orders carried out was satisfaction enough.

  Even the toughest dog could be taught to obey.