Sebille mouth dropped open. “How dare you.”
“I have never been spoken to in this manner,” Brokk spat. “My liege, will you allow such accusations? After all we’ve done for you?”
Their words flew out of their mouths, only showing the truth to my claims. Demrik sat back in the sofa, arms crossed, and a smile growing on his face. Our eyes caught, and he winked at me. It seemed he agreed with me.
“I think this meeting is over.” Sebille stood, swishing her hair off her shoulders. She must have been six feet in her heels, yet she didn’t intimidate me.
“Sit down,” Lars snapped.
Sebille halted, her lashes fluttering.
“Now.” Lars didn’t raise his voice, but the force behind it slammed into me like a truck.
She plopped down on the sofa like an obedient dog.
“You both have been nothing but a nuisance from the day I took the throne.” Lars slid both hands in his pockets, staring at the two blonds. “I, however, dealt with it because of your families and your titles. You ask me if I will permit these accusations. I not only allow them but agree with the Queen. Your Queen. If I don’t see you treat her with more respect, then I will make sure your families never know comfort again. You have grown fat, lazy, spoiled, and greedy. If your King and Queen call upon you, you act. Understand?” Inky black filled Lars’s eyes, his demon threatening at the seams.
All three on the sofa nodded, gulping at the spiking magic in the room.
“Unfortunately, you two hold great power, so I am willing to look away this once. Demrik, I’ve never had to question where your loyalty lies, and I thank you.” He dipped his head at the dwarf. Demrik’s chest rose in pride, his eyes beaming with the compliment. I immediately adored him. There was something genuine about him; I liked his company already. “You three are our greatest hopes in stopping Luuk, shutting this uprising down before it gets any more legs. We need to become a united front. Are we all in agreement here?”
All three nodded their heads.
“Good. Now, let’s have a drink to commemorate our devoted union.” Lars moved to the tray of alcohol set out on a table behind the sofa.
I twisted toward the window. The figures in the glass softly reflected back, like a pond.
“Kennedy?” Lorcan called my name gently, my eyes lifting to the figure standing behind me in the reflection. I sucked in. For one brief moment I saw Jared’s face looking back at me. When I blinked he was gone, but his image left me feeling hollow.
An eerie déjà vu.
Movement coming for the window cascaded horror over me. Oh. No. My mouth opened, and my head whipped back toward the people in the room.
“Run!” I screamed.
But I was too late.
An explosion filled the space with splintering wood and glass, flinging my body through the air. Fire scorched my skin; debris from the room pierced me. I tumbled in the air, my bones crunching as I hit the wall, knocking my senses from me. The last thing I heard was my name screamed in terror.
TWELVE
My lashes quivered, a groan clawing from my throat. I forced my lids to fully open, the haze and aching in my head blurring my vision. I knew my glasses were gone. I reached up anyway, which shot agony through my nerves. Pain covered me like a blanket. The smell of blood and smoke lay on my chest. I lifted my head, glancing down at my body. I looked like I’d been cooked with a blowtorch. Most of my clothes were melted or in tatters. Cuts swathed my blackened skin, fluid gushing out like tomato sauce.
A crackle of fire drew my attention to the room.
Holy shit!
The majority of the room was either demolished or on fire. Half the ceiling was gone, as though it had been peeled back by a giant can opener. Through the haze I saw the entire wall of windows was now open to elements, the balcony gone. The sofa near where we had stood was shredded, a heap of seared remains.
“Lorcan!” I screamed, ignoring the throbbing and bleeding wounds. I pushed myself up, my knees tearing more as I crawled over the debris to where I had last seen him. The thick fumes stung my eyes and burned holes in my lungs.
Oh. Please. Let him be okay. Acid seared my throat. “Lorcan!”
I inched around what was left of the sofa, pockets of flames eating at remaining fabric and stuffing. I froze, vomit rising up the back of my throat. Three bodies, or parts of bodies, seared, bloody, and blackened lay there. Eyes and skin had melted to bone. I had to turn away. A strangled cry came from my mouth, and I gagged. The smell of burnt flesh filled my nose and coated my tongue. Fae were hard to kill, but not impossible. Not much remained of the three nobles.
Demrik. Tears pinched my tear ducts, already feeling his loss. He was good and kind. He did not deserve this.
At the thought of finding Lorcan in the same manner, I scanned the room.
“Lorcan!”
A groan whipped my head toward the fireplace where I spotted what appeared to be legs behind a pile of rubble. “Oh god.” I scuttled toward the form, shoving the wreckage off him. I plucked and brushed glass and debris, my skin numb to the nicks tearing into my palms. Blood soaked his face and body, black soot singeing his scalp and face, lacerations carving huge fissures over his frame. But his chest moving up and down was all I cared about.
He’s alive.
“Lorcan?” I grabbed his face, leaning over him. Large gashes sliced his forehead, cheeks, neck, and chest. A chunk of glass stuck out from both his torso and shoulder. “Be still. I’m going to heal you.” I gripped the shard in his side and yanked it out. A slurping sound of flesh and matter followed. He groaned again, and his eyes rolled back when I did the same to his shoulder.
Trying to center myself when I’m freaking out is difficult, but with him bleeding out into my hands, I set my jaw tight. The memory of one other time I had to do this, save his life, wasn’t far from the surface.
The spell came from me, plunging like a swan dive into Lorcan. If I lose him… The enchantment came out stronger and more determined, immediately healing his larger wounds. I kept chanting, rocking back and forth. My strength drained from me, and I stumbled over some words.
“Hey, li’l bird,” Lorcan whispered hoarsely, his hand reaching to mine, pulling me out of my trance. “I’m fine. Don’t use all your energy.” He was not fine, he was trying to hide it, and the agony of his burns and wounds creased the corners of his eyes.
I couldn’t talk; my eyes locked on the green of his irises, the terror in my gut still not unclasping from its iron grip. The deep undeniable truth of what I felt for him almost suffocated me. I could have lost him.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Police. Firefighters. EMTs. People we didn’t want to deal with.
“Kennedy?” My name hurled through the smoke and cracking flames.
“Lars!” I yelled back, getting to my feet. “I’m here.”
I helped lift Lorcan to his feet, his teeth sawing together as he put weight on one leg, pulling up the other. It was most likely broken, but I didn’t have time to heal it now.
Three large outlines moved toward us. Relief washed over Lars’s expression when he saw me. Or I think it was relief; half of his face was so bloody and charred it was hard to tell. Most of his suit was burnt or torn off, veins popping out of his lacerations.
Lars and Goran carried Travil, barely conscious, between them, his head flopping forward with every step, his dark hair streaked with red and black. All of them were caked in blood, covered in gashes, broken bones poking through skin, and clothing burned into their flesh.
My initial response was to heal, to help the wounded, but Lars shook his head.
“We don’t have time; we have to get out of here. No one can know we were here.”
“And how do you suggest we do that?” Lorcan looked around, the blast had torn through the room to the elevators.
“We have a helicopter on the other side of the hotel grounds. Let’s hope the stairs are still functional. Let’s go.”
The men
hobbled but moved as quickly as they could toward the stairs. Just as I was about to follow them into the stairway, I spotted a large chunk of metal on the tile. Normally I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but the symbol on it drew my attention. It appeared to be an Irish flag—to be exact, a Northern Ireland flag—which I studied in school and knew to be the Irish Republican Army. The ones fighting against England as their sovereign leader. Next to the flag was another symbol. It had three bars with three dots at the top, the two outer ones tilting away from the middle one, almost like three upside-down exclamation points. Somewhere in my subconscious, I felt something stir, recognizing the symbol.
“Kennedy?” Lorcan waved me to the half-missing door. The top level of stairs was twisted and deformed from the heat of the explosion.
I reached over and picked it up. The palm-sized piece of thick metal was hot on my skin. I shoved it in my pocket, swiveled around, and trailed after my companions.
We were not unscathed, but at least we were escaping with our lives.
Billows of smoke rose from the top of the hotel, a large hole blown out of the building where we stood only hours before. Lars hovered the helicopter to take in the damage; its red, blue, and white lights flickered, covering the streets around the building below. Emergency crews streamed in like ants.
We had scarcely made it out before an assembly of firefighters sprinted for the stairs, running into the danger as we ran away.
The helicopter barely fit us all. Lorcan and I sat like bookends keeping Travil in place, his huge limp form squeezing me against the door. Goran sat up front with his King. At first I was surprised Lars climbed into the pilot seat, but of course he knew how to do everything. He was nothing if not prepared and skilled. He most likely could fly his own jet if he was inclined.
None of us spoke, but the air was heavy with our confusion about what had occurred. My limbs shook, blood still leaking from my head, neck, chest, and legs draining me of what was left of my energy.
The rhythmic beat of the propellers lulled me as the moon reflected off the clouds and dimly lit the cabin of the helicopter. Lars turned us away from the city, taking us to safety.
“Hey. Wake up.” I opened my eyes and looked around. The helicopter stood empty except for me. When did I fall asleep? Jolting up, I turned to see Lorcan standing outside, holding the door open for me.
“Where are we?” I rubbed my eyes, missing the feel of my glasses. Even if I didn’t need them like I used to, I felt naked and unsure without them. It seemed with the gain of my Druid powers, my bad eyesight adjusted. It still wasn’t perfect, but I found I needed the feel of them on my nose more than the prescription in the glass.
“Somewhere in France. Loire Valley, I think. One of Lars’s properties.” His critical wounds had mostly mended, but burns and grazes still covered him.
I climbed out, trying to breathe through the stabs of pain I could feel too potently now that my adrenaline wore off.
“Holy crap.” I took notice of the “house” not too far from us. It was a castle, or what they would consider a château here, not a house. It had five stories of buttery limestone, not including the windows in the dormer roof. A pushed-out entrance with a steeple roof stood in the middle, while two round turrets were placed asymmetrically on either side with steep pitched roofs. Toasty golden light spilled out from the windows; smoke billowed out of one of the chimneys.
“What a dump,” Lorcan muttered to himself, his dry humor sounding flat, causing me to peer at him. He kept his head forward, slightly limping, with his expression harder than the stones forming the estate.
Lorcan and I walked silently across the vast lawn, the lights from the château guiding our way. So much was going on in my head, but I still caught the coolness coming off him like a fence I could not see through. He had his guard up, not letting me see his aura. This hurt, as all I wanted to do was hold him and forget all the strife between us. The thought of losing him had been like a slap, waking me up.
When we entered the house, he gave me a wide berth, as if he couldn’t bear to touch me. I rubbed my temples, not understanding what had happened. My gut ached with the feeling that even though he lived, I had lost him anyway. Bile burned the back of my throat at the thought, panic fluttering my stomach.
“Ms. Johnson.” Lars’s voice turned my attention to the grand entrance. Despite tattered pants, all it took was a fresh shirt to restore him to his kingly demeanor. The entry stood at least three stories high with sleek marble floors and the largest crystal chandelier I had ever seen. A large round table with white roses sat in the middle, welcoming visitors. It felt more like a hotel than a home. As stunning as it was, I liked his “cozy” manor in Washington better. “Excuse my rudeness for not showing you around, but I think we have much more pressing matters to discuss.”
Oh yeah we did.
“How is Travil? Does he need me? Are you okay?” I stepped around the table.
“I am fine. Travil is sleeping; Goran is with him.” Lars turned and led me down a corridor to the back of the house. “My powers numbed his pain. He will heal.” I always forgot I wasn’t the only one who could heal others. In Greece he had helped lessen my injuries.
He transported us to a large room toward the back of the château, looking to be a study or office. It had a pair of sofas perpendicular to the fireplace, books lining three walls, going up at least twenty feet, with two rolling ladders attached to the walls. It made me want to belt out a Beauty and the Beast song, and glide along the shelves, touching every book like a long-lost friend.
“Wow.” I stared in awe. So much knowledge and facts... this could be my heaven.
A tall, skinny woman with long white hair bustled into the room, holding a tray of tea, coffee, and snacks. She was fae but must have been ancient, because her face bore actual wrinkles. Fae didn’t age like humans. They could be hundreds of decades old and still look twenty. This woman looked to be in the same age group as Hazel. She was beautiful, with a long nose, blue eyes, and high cheekbones and appeared to be in her seventies.
“Sir.” She bowed, setting the tray down.
“Thank you, Brynja. We’ll take it from here.” He nodded and she quickly exited the room. I had to admit, it was strange seeing someone else besides Marguerite bringing life and love to any of Lars’s homes. I missed Marguerite. And her cooking.
Lars motioned to the sofa for us to sit where the refreshments were placed. He continued to pace in front of the hearth, tension curling off him.
Lorcan sat opposite me, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped, his head bowed.
I felt like a raft bobbing around in the sea with no help in sight. “Soooo…?” I broke the silence. “Where do we start? How did someone find out I was there?”
Lars pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am not certain the bomb was meant for you. You being there may have been happenstance. I think its purpose was to take out the only noble who could have stopped his progression.”
“You think this was Luuk’s doing?” My hand rubbed at the item in my pocket.
“Who else would it be? He gains from their deaths. It weakens us.” Lars switched back between the sofas like a pinball.
“Does Luuk have connections to the Irish Republic?” Both men’s heads jerked to me.
“No.” Lars stopped, his chartreuse eyes worming into mine. “Never. The Irish are supporters of us. Not Luuk’s cause. Why would you ask that?”
“Because…” I pulled the object from my pocket. “I found this next to the elevators. It looks like a piece of the bomb.” I slid the metal across the coffee table for both to see.
They leaned over, eyeing the piece.
“Holy shit.” Lorcan bounded up, while Lars went rigid, his lids blinking like he didn’t believe what he saw.
“What?” I rose to my feet, feeling their anxiety.
Lorcan and Lars exchanged glances before Lars turned away, rubbing his hand over his chin.
“Tell me!” I whipped m
y head between them. “What does this symbol mean? The one below the flag.”
“You don’t know?” Lars swung around, an eyebrow curved.
I peered back down at the three lines, familiarity jogging my brain, but I was too tired to put it all together. “It feels familiar, but no. I don’t know what it is.”
“It means...” Lars cleared his throat, facing me. “We have a new player on the board.”
“Who?” My throat tightened, sensing I was not ready for his answer.
Lars stared at me, his voice crisp.
“The Druids.”
“I am sorry, what?” I sputtered. Did I hear him right?
Lars leaned over and snatched the chunk of metal, turning the symbol to face me.
“I’m impressed you recognized the Irish Republic Army flag. However, it merely suggests where they are getting the bombs from. The other mark is their calling card.” His thumb rubbed over the dark lines and dots. “This symbol is the Awen. It means inspiration or spiritual illumination. It used to be like the yin-yang symbol. Harmony between feminine and masculine. But when the Druids were being prosecuted by Aneira, the rebellion adopted it as the covert symbol of their resistance against her. If you were caught with it on, you were killed on sight, but many continued to fight and this became the icon of their revolution. After most were executed, the emblem disappeared.
“This is no coincidence, and they are not trying to hide who did this,” Lorcan said. “They want to be a known player in this battle.”
“But…” I shook my head. “I thought most Druids were dead. You guys always act like I’m the only one left.”
“You were the only one we could confirm alive, but now I have little doubt there are many out there, emerging from hiding now.”
Lightness Falling (Lightness Saga Book 2) Page 12