Fate Forsaken

by Chauntelle Baughman

  Silence stretched across the line before Nick finally answered, his voice low and sharp. “I’m jumping now.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  The call disconnected, and Rho scanned the area, not sure what to do with herself. Usually jumping the lines took only a matter of minutes, so hopefully he’d be here soon. There couldn’t be much time left.

  She settled onto the steps. Max wouldn’t know that she could daywalk. That mover who’d attacked her hadn’t reported back about her abilities—at least she didn’t think he had—so there was nothing to do now but wait. Footsteps pattered against stone floors, the noises echoing off the massive corridors and filtering in from every corner. There were human tourists climbing all over this place. They’d have to be careful about exposing themselves. The last thing they needed was a pissed-off group of Council members because they got into a public fight. Especially if Preshea and Tim shifted forms. How the hell would she explain a white Bengal tiger running around?

  Rho shook her head. Max was up to something. Why would he elect to have this type of an exchange in such a public place? It made no sense. Unless this was some sort of a power play, his way of demonstrating to the Collective that he was beyond their rules. Idiot.

  A blue light flashed, and Rho’s gaze shot up. Nick appeared around a corner, and she jumped to her feet.

  “Thanks for coming.” She gave him a half smile as he strode up to her.

  Nick’s brows were drawn with worry as he studied her face. “What’s wrong?” Clearly he knew she wouldn’t have called him without a reason.

  “I need your magick.” Damn. That made it sound like she was using him—which she was, but still. She needed him. “Eldon’s in trouble.”

  “Where is he?” Nick frowned as his gaze darted around the hallway.

  Rho bit her lip. “I think he’s around the corner and behind some locked doors. But I can’t know for sure.”

  “So what makes you think he’s there?” Nick sounded suspicious.

  And rightfully so. He already knew about her history—both her heritage and her abilities as a siphon. Still, she wasn’t quite prepared to tell him about her relationship with Eldon and how deep their connection went. It couldn’t do her any good for too many people to find out. For some reason, she felt Eldon should be the one to tell him.

  She nudged her head toward one end of the hallway. “I can sense him there. He’s close.”

  Nick’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, you sense him?”

  Damn. Probably not the best word choice. “Look, there’s a long story behind all of it, but we don’t have time for that right now. We’ll just say that he and I have a special connection.” Rho took a step toward him and lowered her voice. “At this moment, Max has him. I have no idea what to expect once I get through those doors, but I do know Eldon’s magick won’t work. He can’t even access the lines.”

  “Shit,” Nick muttered as he scratched his head. “If he can’t access them, what makes you think I can?”

  “Max doesn’t know you’re here. I need to siphon your magick. If I can use your energy to take Max out, then I can set my teammates free.”

  Nick shook his head. “That seems redundant. I can just take him out myself.”

  Rho’s hands balled into fists at her sides. “Eldon is already going to kick my ass for bringing you into this. I won’t let you become a target.”

  Nick leaned forward, the concern on his face quickly turning to anger. “I don’t need you to watch out for me.”

  “I’m not trying to protect you.” Rho brushed her hand through the air. “Hell, if it were up to me, I’d ask you to join our team already. But it’s not up to me. Eldon would kill me if anything happened to you.”

  “Nothing is going to—”

  “No. The only way you’re getting involved with this is if it’s on my terms. I use your magick, and you hide where Max can’t see you,” Rho said.

  Heavy footsteps fell along the corridor, much heavier than the rumble they’d heard before. Rho’s eyes went wide as she eyed Nick. His body tensed as he stood beside her.

  A ball of blue fire tore across the corridor, narrowly missing Rho, and smashed into the wall behind her.

  Shit.

  Nick lunged sideways, taking Rho down as he hit the ground. His weight crushed the air from her lungs, and she tried to ignore the throbbing from the wound she’d earned earlier. Another blue flame flew overhead, and he gave her a push. She tucked and rolled toward the flight of stairs she’d traveled down.

  “The stairs!” Rho ordered.

  Nick didn’t hesitate as he sprang to his feet and rushed down the stone steps.

  Rho followed behind him and surveyed his attire, only to realize he wasn’t armed. Even if he had magick on his side, he couldn’t fight without a single weapon. If things went hand-to-hand or Max managed to neutralize him, too, he’d need to defend himself.

  “Heads up!” She yanked a blade from the holster across her chest and tossed it toward him.

  He caught it by the grip with one hand. “Thanks.”

  Rho followed on his heels as they rushed down the stairs and into another corridor. She wasn’t sure exactly where they were going or how she was going to get back to Eldon, but dying before they got into that room wasn’t an option.

  Nick spun into a dark, sunken space and yanked Rho beside him. They pressed against the wall, neither of them so much as breathing. His heartbeat was loud in her ears. It would have been a dead giveaway had the man chasing them been a vampire, but the blue fire told her he was all magick mover.

  A dark figure rushed past them, and she cringed, waiting for him to come back. But he didn’t. As his footsteps fell further and further away, she let out a sigh of relief.

  “What do we do now?” Nick whispered.

  Like she had any clue. “I’ve got to get to Eldon.”

  “We can’t go back that way. There could be more.”

  She whipped the map out of her back pocket and scanned it for other options. There were none. The room her teammates were being held in had only one way in and one way out. Smart move on Max’s part, that little bastard. He’d know it if anyone even tried to enter that room. Which meant she’d have to go in with guns blazing.

  The sound of a gun clip landing in place echoed, and Rho and Nick fell still. A dark shadow covered the space where they stood, a figure appearing to her left.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a gruff male voice asked.

  With the way the sun fell against the man’s back, she couldn’t see his face. She held up her map and tried to play dumb. “Just appreciating a little art.”

  “Liar.” He centered the gun on Nick’s chest.

  A blue light burst to her side, and her gaze darted to Nick—or at least where Nick had been. He’d vanished.

  Which left her in this by herself.

  The man holding the gun cursed then turned the gun on her. “Don’t even think about it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The man shoved Rho toward the room where Eldon was being held, and she stumbled forward. Sure, she had weapons, but this guy had ley line fire. And weapons.

  “Don’t think I don’t know what you are.” He shoved the pistol into the small of her back. “I have a clip full of silver bullets, and I’ve been granted permission to fire at will.”

  Rho froze. Silver bullets? Son of a bitch. They’d known she’d be coming all along. They’d been waiting her out. He jammed the gun farther into her back, and she grimaced. Things were going from bad to worse.

  “Boss said to haul you in if you showed up. When Steve said you weren’t at the flat, I was hoping you’d come.” The man stepped forward, linking one arm in hers and tucking the other beneath his long jacket, muzzle pointed toward her side. “Let’s take a walk.”

  “Love to,” Rho growled, furious with her own stupidity. She’d stepped right into this whole damn thing. Of course they’d have someone on the lookout for her. She sho
uld have waiting for that Steve guy and eliminated him, and then no one would know she was coming. Stupid. What had she been thinking? That she’d just waltz in there and save the day?

  She shook her head. Some part of that pipe dream had been true. At least until Nick had vanished, leaving her without him and without his magick—which was the only way she knew to get out of this alive.

  Damn it, she’d thought she could trust him. She really did. At the very least, she’d thought he’d stick around for Eldon. The man had been his best friend since birth. Would he have truly left them?

  She stepped through the corridor, allowing the man to guide her. With every step, she sensed Eldon’s presence growing stronger. This man was taking her straight to him.

  A tiny sliver of relief ran through her mind at the thought of seeing Eldon again. At least that way she’d know he was okay. For now. Without his magick to pull from, she had no clue how she’d fight Max when she saw him. Certainly not with her vampire strength. She’d been at the burning end of that ley line fire before, and it hurt like hell. Max would never let her get close enough to touch him.

  They stopped in front of a bulky side door, and she frowned. Eldon was so close, but the connection she’d held with him had vanished.

  A guard stood near the door and nodded to the man holding Rho’s arm. He motioned with his hand, and the door cracked open. “Go in.”

  No use arguing. She’d have to figure out another plan. Giving up wasn’t an option. She took a step forward and entered the room.

  The space was large. Three windows lined the wall to Rho’s left, covered in sheets to block out the sun. Dusty paintings lay on the floor and stacked against the walls, no doubt priceless works of art that had somehow been deemed less important or show-worthy by some critic. At the center of it all were three people, huddled together under a net of blue energy.

  Rho rushed forward before stopping quickly to keep from running into the net. “Eldon?”

  “Don’t move,” Eldon ordered. The sound of his voice was both a relief and a terror. She’d been praying she wouldn’t be too late, and while she was grateful he was alive, she wasn’t sure how she could get to him through the net.

  “Rhowen,” a gravely male voice said softly. “I wondered if you’d come.”

  Rho spun around to see a man standing at the door, his reddish hair and familiar, freckled face giving him away immediately as her enemy. Nothing about him had changed since the last time she’d seen him that night at the Council meeting, when Rhyannon had called her out as a thief. Too bad she hadn’t known then that Max was the thief all along. Anger boiled in her gut as she took in the smug expression on his face.

  “Max,” she growled. “Let them go.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t.” He chuckled as two men emerged from the shadows behind him, flanking him on either side. “You have what I want.”

  Rho took a step back and squeezed the daggers in her hand. The men took a step forward to match her movement, a narrow beam of light from the corner of a covered window providing just enough glow to illuminate their faces. She gasped. Those weren’t just any men. Those were men she knew.

  The very first night she’d gone out to hunt for the vampire Kamen, she’d gone to a bar to try and collect information. She’d ended up knee-deep in a bunch of shit with two men for asking questions about old magick, and Frederick had bailed her out.

  Now they stood across from her. She’d never known their names or who they truly were, but in her mind she’d nicknamed them Lanky and Stumpy. And after they’d nearly killed her, she’d never forget their faces.

  They were fae.

  Holy shit. That was it. These men were fae. As far as she’d always known, the races of the DarqRealm didn’t mingle. A strange and stupid form of racial discrimination if you asked her, but that was how it had always been. So why the hell would these fae be standing beside Max now, acting as if they were his bodyguards?

  Rhyannon.

  The pieces fell together as Rho stared at Max, the man who was supposed to be standing at Cadence’s right hand. This whole time, he’d been the one watching Cadence. He’d followed her, tracking her every move—for Rhyannon. Because as long as Cadence was helping the team, she was a threat to Rhyannon’s desire for power.

  Those fae men must have run to their queen the moment they’d been kicked out of that bar, and she’d put them right to work. No telling how long Max had been collaborating with the enemy, feeding her information from right inside the Collective’s own doors. And if what Eldon had said was right, Max’s relationship with Cadence meant he had all the knowledge of the highest orders of the Collective. Coupling his power with Rhyannon’s could be disastrous.

  Max stepped forward. “You have something that I want, Rhowen.”

  She took an involuntary step back. “I don’t think that I do.” Like hell, she didn’t. She had exactly what he’d wanted—what Rhyannon had wanted. The fae’s Kamen. But they’d get to it over her dead body.

  Max made a motion with his right hand, a glimmer of red catching the light. Rho’s eyes narrowed, focusing on the glitter resting on his finger. Her stomach jumped to her throat.

  Holy shit. On the right hand of her enemy sat the one thing she’d lost. The one thing that had started this whole mess and forced her to join this team in the first place—the vampire Kamen.

  Questions rushed through her mind in a whirlwind. How did he get the vampire Kamen? Had he been the one to enter into her coven and break into her stash? How could he have known where she’d kept it?

  Part of it made sense. A mover of Max’s caliber would be able to pull off the spells necessary to break and enter. And if Eldon knew how to formulate those blood spells she’d used to protect her race’s Kamen, certainly Max would have the ability to break them. Even if he didn’t know how, he’d have access to all of Cadence’s records. He would’ve been able to figure it out. Still, she couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten into her coven. He must have been working with Rhyannon from the beginning.

  Rho pulled her eyes away from Max’s hand to find the barrel of Lanky’s gun resting against Preshea’s temple. That brought things back into focus. Rho sucked in a breath but tried to keep her cool—having a Kamen in her sights wouldn’t mean shit if they didn’t get out of here alive.

  She met Preshea’s cool stare, calm and collected despite the firearm aimed at her skull. That shifter’s expression told her that no matter what, Preshea wouldn’t want Rho to give away the location of those Kamens. Even if it meant she’d have to die. Damn if that girl wasn’t one of the bravest people Rho’d ever met.

  But that wasn’t going to happen on Rho’s watch. “Kill her, and you’ll never get what you want. I can promise you that.”

  “Oh? I think that’ll get me exactly what I want.”

  Lanky rocked the slide and pointed the gun back to Preshea before giving Rho a grin. The little smirk on his face made her wish she could run across the room and remove it with her bare hands. And maybe a tire iron.

  “That’s the last way to get what you want, asshole.” Rho ground her teeth. Lanky’s finger danced on the trigger. She had to think of some way out of this, and fast. Men like Max didn’t bluff. He didn’t have anything to lose. Preshea meant nothing to him—but there was one thing that meant a hell of a lot. “You kill her, there’s no way you can get to the Kamens. Even I won’t be able to get to them.”

  “Rho, shut up,” Preshea snapped.

  Max’s eyes widened. “You did a unification spell?”

  What the hell. She might as well tell him. He wouldn’t know where they’d hidden it, even if he knew how they’d protected it. “I don’t know shit about magick, so I don’t know what it’s called.” Rho raised a brow. “But would you risk destroying one of the keys required to get to the Kamens?” There. He couldn’t kill her teammates now. He’d never risk losing his hold on those stones.

  Max leaned over his shoulder and mumbled to the two fae men beside him. Th
e grin on Lanky’s face grew wider as he lowered his gun. He and Stumpy nodded before turning to disappear into the shadows.

  The grin on that fae’s face made her stomach turn. She’d somehow made things worse. Not that she knew how that would be possible, considering her current predicament. All of her teammates were incapacitated, and she had no magickal resources. As long as Max and the fae men didn’t tap a line, she had nothing to work with.

  A muffled scream came from out of the darkness, and Rho froze. No, God. Please, no. In all of the distractions she’d faced, she’d completely forgotten about the two people they’d dragged into this who didn’t deserve it at all. Two kind and courteous people who’d only been helping a friend when needed.

  Lanky emerged from the darkness, his arm wrapped around a narrow waist and a gun pointed upward. Evette. Her knee-length white skirt was tattered, her navy shirt in the same condition. Blood trickled from a gash on her forehead and dripped off her chin onto the ground.

  Son of a bitch. “Max! Leave her alone.”

  Stumpy appeared a moment later, a gun trained on Lukas. Her stomach did a flip-flop in her gut from the smell of the blood, coupled with the adrenaline racing through her body. It was enough to make her want to crawl out of her own skin. What the hell could she do now?

  “Give me what I want,” Max demanded.

  “I can’t,” Rho choked out. “It’s not here.” That was the truth. Even if she wanted to forfeit the Kamens, she couldn’t.

  “Then take me to them.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Evette spat, her deep brown gaze holding Rho’s intently. “I’d rather die.” The ferocity in her voice was a shocking contrast to the soft-spoken, kind mover she’d been before.

  Panic set in as Rho surveyed her options. What could she do? If she told Max where they’d hidden the Kamens, she’d risk the safety of their entire world. As long as the team possessed those relics, the magick in the DarqRealm would remain stable. But keeping them from Max could mean sacrificing the lives of her friends.