by Aliya DalRae
Chapter Seventeen
W hen night fell, Nox and Rachel drove to Fallen Cross and parked in the lot behind Mable’s, the town’s most popular diner.
“Two?” the hostess asked, staring at Nox like a piece of Mable’s famous chocolate salted caramel cake.
“Actually, we’re meeting someone,” Nox said, hoping the hostess hadn’t noticed the visual ice picks Rachel darted her way. Nox searched the room but didn’t see Sasha’s telltale white hair.
A brunette in the corner stood and waved in their direction, but Nox’s eyes slid over her before doing a reversal.
“Nox,” the girl was calling, and he blinked.
“I believe we’ve found her,” Nox said to the drooling hostess. He took Rachel by the elbow and guided her to the booth in the back of the small dining room.
“Where?” Rachel said, then, “What the?” as the brunette threw her arms around Nox and planted a kiss on his cheek.
Nox grabbed her shoulders and took a step back to put her at arm’s length. “Rachel,” he said, “You remember Sasha?”
“Oh,” Rachel said. “Your hair. Wow, you really look… different.”
“Thanks,” Sasha smiled and waved a hand at the table where they all took a seat. “You wouldn’t believe how much product I have to use just to keep it tamed down, but I try very hard not to use magic when I’m out among the humans. That was the hardest thing to get used to.”
“Why are you here?” Nox asked, figuring it best to get to the bottom of things before his female tested out Sasha’s control.
“Well, here’s the thing. I’ve been traveling around, and I’ve seen a lot of amazing things. Really, Nox, I had no idea the world was full of such wonders. Anyway, I’ve sated my wanderlust for the time being and I’ve realized I have no place to call home. I thought, well, if your Warlord’s offer still stands, would I be welcome in… Fallen Cross?”
Nox felt Rachel’s reaction through their Link, and what he felt wasn’t good. Still, the Sorceress was on her own because of him.
“Where are you staying now?” he asked, rather than make a rash decision.
“I’ve leased a little house on the edge of town. It’s short term, and it’s lovely, but…”
“The humans can be a bit overwhelming, I’d imagine.”
Nox squeezed Rachel’s hand under the table. He could always count on her diplomacy, even in the presence of a female she couldn’t stand.
“Yes,” Sasha said, “but it’s not just that. I was with the Primeval for centuries. Even when I was being punished, when no one in the house would so much as talk to me, at least there were people there. I was never alone, not really. Once the Legion liberated me, alone time was a novelty, and I enjoyed it for a while. Not having someone looking over your shoulder every moment of the day was a pleasant relief. However, it’s lost its appeal, being alone. Now, I guess I…”
The bell over the door dinged and Sasha jumped as her eyes shifted to the newcomers stopping in for a bite to eat.
Nox and Rachel exchanged a glance. “Are you in trouble?” Rachel asked the question, her nurturing manner overruling her dislike for Sasha, but the Sorceress shook her head.
“No, no, nothing like that. I guess I’m just a little jumpy.”
Nox didn’t buy it, but he didn’t push. “What exactly are you looking for, Sasha? How can we help?”
Sasha fidgeted in her seat, and her napkin had suddenly become the most interesting thing in the world as she twisted it in her hands. “I suppose I’m asking for a place to stay, not with you of course, but if there was room at the Compound, as Mason had suggested. I was hoping maybe…”
Nox glanced at Rachel who had picked up a menu and now studied it like there’d be a test tomorrow. Without her help, he said the only thing he could think of that wouldn’t start an out and out war in the middle of Mable’s.
“I’ll talk to Mason.”
Chapter Eighteen
T akeshi sat through yet another long, boring meal with Master Jonathon, forced once again to listen to the male’s tales of… something. He’d stopped listening after day two. All Takeshi wanted was to organize the Dark Warriors for his purpose, but time and again, Jonathon found other things to occupy his nights. First it was a tour of the grounds, not the barracks of course, just the trees and the fields, as though they might somehow be of interest to him. Next a trip downtown was in order, not that Takeshi cared a whit about Dayton’s nightlife. But one did not challenge a master in his own home, and so Takeshi remained tolerant.
However, his patience had neared its limit.
As Jonathon droned on about the soybean crop and how, even though prices were down, they managed to sustain the entire cadre financially, Takeshi interrupted. He could stand it no longer.
“Master Jonathon, if you please…”
“I do wish you’d call me Jon.” Master Jonathon’s eyes hardened, their usual twinkle disappearing as he leaned against the back of his chair.
“Jon,” Takeshi said, doing his best not to offend. “I appreciate all that you do here, but Master Masaru did not send me here to learn about farming. I’m here to find that traitor, Katsuro, and I…”
“I know why you’re here,” Jonathon said, his usual light tone gone. “What I don’t know is what you expect me to do about it.”
“I expect you to lend me your resources, so that I can bring the filthy bastard to justice.”
“I see. And Master Masaru is on board with this… vendetta?”
Takeshi took a deep breath, realized he walked a thin line. “Master Masaru believes in our traditions, our canons. He is the first to hand down punishments when they are earned, and he knows of my quest.”
“But does he agree with it?” Jonathan leaned forward in his chair, pushed his plate to the side, and folded his arms on the table. “Your cadre is hard to get hold of. Seems they have yet to embrace the joys of twenty-first century living. However, I’ve sent a messenger to him, to confirm that you are acting on his orders and not some rogue Warrior off to settle a personal debt.”
Takeshi leaned back in his chair, pushed the Shade down so as not to set the house into darkness. That would be rude. He had need of this cadre and angering the master here would get him nowhere.
“Master Jonathon, Jon,” he corrected. “I believe we’ve gotten off on the wrong footing. I assure you, Master Masaru knows why I am here, and he has done nothing to stop me from finishing what was started so many years ago. Your messenger will bring you news of nothing different. Until such time as your emissary returns, it would behoove you to accommodate me in my request. If your Warriors are of proper quality, I shouldn’t need more than a few to bring Katsuro down. Once he’s brought to justice, I’ll be on my way, and you’ll not have to deal with my presence any longer.”
Jonathon studied him, and Takeshi fought the urge to squirm. Gone was the good-natured fellow who greeted him upon his arrival, who bent over backwards to oblige Takeshi in all ways but the one he needed. Seeing the male this way, Takeshi now understood why so many called him master. When he spoke, his words held weight, and Takeshi would be hard pressed to challenge any decisions set down by this Kurai Senshi.
“I see,” Jonathon said. “Well, then, there’s just one more thing. As I said, we’re living in a different time than the one where Katsuro Senshi allegedly committed a crime worth dying over. And it’s not just his head you’re after. You want the male to commit seppuku, to take his own life. That’s pretty harsh, and not something we practice here in the US of A. Master Masaru knows this, and he’s modern enough to know that times change, and with it, so have the Kurai Senshi. Especially my Kurai Senshi. I repeat, this is the United States of America, not the backwoods village where you grew up more than a thousand years ago. If my Warriors are going to be involved in punishing a male to such an extreme, then I need to know why.”
Takeshi nodded. There was wisdom in Master Jonathon’s words. And so, Takeshi spoke, confident in the knowledge t
hat, upon hearing the details, the master would be eager to do whatever it took to capture the traitor, Katsuro. He laid it all out, from the moment the boy’s father brought him to the cadre in Japan to the end when the fallen Warrior shamed himself by refusing to die, by running away. He spared no detail, and when he finished, he looked to Master Jonathon, his eyes burning with the need to let the Shade loose, to hunt down and kill Katsuro at all costs.
Finally, the hunt would begin.
Chapter Nineteen
“I don’t understand why you have to be involved at all.”
Nox palmed the steering wheel and gave it a hard twist to the right, having nearly missed the turn onto Legion property. His mate was right, of course, as she usually was. But knowing that made it no easier to come up with an explanation as to why he’d agreed to play go-between for Sasha and the Warlord. Some things there were no words for, you just knew in that cavity where your heart was stored that it was something you had to do.
Did he feel guilty for leaving Sasha to be tortured by the Primeval the first time he escaped? Sure, guilt could easily play into it, but this felt more like common decency, like he’d do it for anyone who was in a bind.
The dagger-eyes Rachel kept throwing at him reminded him that this wasn’t just anybody. A) Sasha was a Sorceress, and her race currently held the top position on the Legion’s Do Not Trust list. B) As a Sorceress, Sasha played a major role in Nox’s own history of torture and abuse, which Rachel had a hard time letting go. Nox got it, he did, but Rachel had no idea how impossible it would have been for Sasha to refuse the Primeval’s orders. She’d been a prisoner, same as him, and they each survived the best they could.
Finally, C) (and this was probably the most pertinent when it came to his mate) Sasha was a woman. He glanced at Rachel as the car sped down the steep decline that led to the manse and the underground parking lot adjacent to the building. He got this, too. If some male called Rachel up and asked her to drop everything to come to his aid, Nox’d probably kill the bastard on general principle, regardless how innocent the request may be.
That, of course, was not at all helpful in this situation.
“If she needed assistance, was so dead set on coming here, why didn’t she join us in the first place?”
“Then we’d have had one more person for your brother to pull from the drink when the plane went down. He barely managed the way it was.”
“That’s not the point, and you know it. I don’t trust her, Nox. She was too eager to get away from us in London, and Mason was more than generous with the accounts he set up for her. Now she shows up out of the blue, claiming to need your help when she’s already rented a house and gods know what else. We don’t even know how long she’s been in town.”
Nox pulled the vehicle into its spot and threw the gear shift into park. Now probably wasn’t the best time to fill Rachel in on the fact that Sasha had run from Raven and Perry the previous night.
“And I know damn well, he gave her his contact information so she could call him if she needed anything. How in the hell did she get your number, anyway? Don’t answer that,” she said, throwing her hand up between them when he turned to her to do just that. “I don’t want to know.”
“You’re right,” Nox said. “You don’t want to know. You don’t want to know what it was like to live through what both Sasha and I have been through. You with your nearly perfect life, have no clue the hell we’ve survived.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You’re right, it’s not fair. This thing you’re doing right now? It’s not fair at all.” Nox let himself out of the vehicle, slammed the door and stalked toward the elevators. The other door slammed and the clatter of Rachel’s heels on concrete echoed through the garage. He pressed the button for the lift and waited an eternity for the thing to open up. By the time it did, Rachel had caught up, and she entered the car close behind him.
“Nox wait,” she said, the fight having left her voice. “I’m sorry.”
He raised a brow at her, and she touched his arm. “Can we start over? Please?”
He reached around her and hit the button for the Sub-T Level. “I need to talk to Mason.” The doors closed them in, silence a heavy weight pressing them apart when all Nox wanted was to draw her to him. One flight up, the elevator doors opened and Nox gently pushed his way to the exit.
“Nox.”
He turned to her, saw the plea in her eyes, but what could he do? “I have to talk to Mason,” he said and stepped into the hall.
“I know,” she said. “Talk later?”
“Will it do any good?”
“Please, Nox?”
He blew out a slow breath and turned to her. She was so beautiful, that fiery red hair falling in waves around her shoulders, her emerald eyes shining despite having given up the spark. Hope rested there as well, and his chest twisted a little at the sight of it.
He knew she was waiting for him to say something, to give her reassurances that he sadly seemed to be lacking. In the end, all he could manage was, “I’ll be back in a little while.”
He turned toward the Warlord’s office as the lift doors closed, presenting a physical wall between them, a steel representation of the virtual barrier this situation had spawned.
One problem at a time, he thought as he set off to find Mason. One problem at a time.
~~~~~
H e tracked the Warlord down in his office with Merlin, going over the previous night’s patrol reports. After getting the wait-a-minute finger, Nox roamed around the room, admiring the variety of hunting prints that adorned the walls. Floppy eared dogs and flocks of migrating fowl, lakes and woods, it was all very casual, laid back, which amused Nox, considering Mason was anything but. That male never had a hair out of place.
“Nox.”
He turned from the Redlin he’d been studying and found Mason and Merlin watching him.
“You needed something?”
Nox joined the others at the desk and cleared his throat. “Sasha’s here.” No need to beat around the bush.
Mason raised a brow and Merlin nodded. “Makes sense,” the Warlord said. “You’ve met with her?”
When Nox answered in the affirmative, Mason reached for his phone. In short order, Raven was on the line.
“S’up?” Nox’s brother said.
“You’re on speaker,” Mason said. “Nox and Merlin are here. Real quick. Describe that Sorceress again?”
Raven blew a breath in his phone, giving it the wind tunnel routine. “Female, tallish, brown shoulder-length hair.”
Nox nodded along with each, and Mason said, “Thanks,” and terminated the call.
“Well, that’s one mystery solved,” Merlin said.
“Yes,” Mason agreed. “But it opens another. What does she want?” He looked at Nox, expecting an answer, of course.
Nox rubbed his head, the fight with Rachel replaying in his brain as he followed through on the promise he’d made. “She wants to, ah… take you up on your offer, to come and stay with us.”
“Your opinion?”
Nox shrugged. As much as he wanted to take Sasha at her word, he couldn’t ignore Rachel’s adamant assertions that the Sorceress was up to something. Knowing his mate was the progeny of a renowned seer and prone to premonitions of her own didn't help his determination to help his… friend wasn’t quite the word, was it?
“She seemed lonely,” he said at last. “She’s been on her own for the first time in centuries. I’ve been there. At first, it seems like a little slice of heaven, but there are only so many ‘solo’ things you can do before you miss having someone else around. Even if that someone isn’t good for you.”
“You think that’s it, then? She misses having people around?”
“I… I do,” Nox hedged. “Full disclosure, Rachel’s not on board, but I don’t know how much of that is legitimate precognition as opposed to the absolute loathing she has for Sasha.”
“I see.” Mason tented his finger
s under his chin as he considered. “Merlin, what do you think?”
The e-genius tucked his long, dark hair behind his ears and leaned forward as he rubbed at the shiny black cuffs he’d taken to wearing on his wrists. “She could be the missing piece.”
“My thoughts exactly. Nox, tell Sasha she’s welcome to stay with us, but we need something from her in return.”
Nox looked from the Warlord to Merlin, puzzle pieces falling into place as he worked out the back and forth between them. Viper had reached a limit with those cuffs Merlin wore. There was only so much science could do to up the voltage on those things, get them working at a level that would keep Merlin safe. Keep them all safe. They needed magic, Sorcerer magic, and what do you know? It just dropped in their lap like a gift from the heavens.
Maybe this was fate working things out, or maybe Rachel was right and letting Sasha into their lives again would end in disaster. Either way, they had to try.
Prepared to face his mate again, with what amounted to orders from the Warlord, Nox said, “I’ll talk to Sasha.”
Chapter Twenty
A fter Takeshi finished filling him in, Master Jonathon led the way to the barracks without a word. Finally, Takeshi thought, he was getting somewhere.
When they arrived in the courtyard, Takeshi noticed a large bell hanging between two heavy wooden beams near the first building. Master Jonathon made a beeline for it, grabbed the rope dangling from the clapper, and struck the thing three times, sending a trio of loud clangs through the area.
Within sixty seconds, scores of Kurai Senshi filled the courtyard, lined up in perfect formation. Master Jonathon stood motionless as he waited for them to settle. He didn’t have to wait long. In a flash, all eyes focused on their master, hundreds working as a single unit eager to do his bidding. It was a well-oiled machine, and Takeshi couldn’t wait to take the helm.