The Ancients Series

by Christine M. Butler

  “What can I do for you, honey?”

  “Do you know where he’s building the rescue?”

  “Of course, it’s out on Old Timmons Road. He has no neighbors out there for miles, so as soon as those contractors are gone for the day, you’ll have the place to yourselves.” I could hear the smile in her voice, and the insinuation.

  “Perfect! That’s what I was hoping. Thanks so much, Jackie! I owe you!”

  “You’re sweet. You just take care of that handsome young man of yours.”

  “I will.” I hung up the phone then, and looked at Evan, “did you get that?”

  “Yeah, sweetie.” He mimicked. “Got it.” If he hadn’t been smirking, I would have hit him. I forgot how playful Evan could be.

  “Let’s go, then,” I was slipping on my flip flops and heading for the door before anyone could stop me.

  “No! Jess, there’s no way in hell he’d ever want me bringing you there. Think about it. They want you! I’m not…”

  “It’s not your call. Now, let’s go. They haven’t exactly been kind to your brother. Your father just doused him with another round of wolf’s bane before I faded out.”

  “Jess, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Well, I didn’t ask what you thought. They’ve already tried to break our bond, can we go, before they find a way to succeed?”

  “Your bond?” He asked, his face clouded with worry

  “Yes, our bond is fine. They couldn’t do it. We can fill you in on everything you missed later. Let’s get Mikael now.”

  Evan got ready to argue, but shut his mouth and followed me down the stairs and out the front door. Asi was behind him, and my father, Avery Daniels, and a few of his guys were coming too.

  Evan bypassed me quickly, jumped in his car and took off, leaving me to fill everyone else in on the destination. Asi didn’t wait, he took off, and joined Evan before he pulled out.

  I jumped in the truck with my father and Avery, while the rest of the guys hopped in the back. Ashley was standing on the porch with her arms tucked around her body. My mom was there, putting her arms around Ashley. As we pulled off, it was her worried face I was focused on. Her mate had just run out of the house after his best friend, without concern for how she felt about it. That was something they were both going to have to adjust to, and soon. I knew Asi was going to get an earful when we got back, and if he didn’t make it back, heaven help the people who did, and that included me.

  “What did you see when you were in the vision, Jess?” Avery was asking me, and I guess it wasn’t the first time, because he sounded impatient now.

  “Antoine was there with Zach, and a raven-haired woman he kept referring to as Sophia. Malachai will be off getting another site ready”

  “Of course he’d have her with him. That bond breaking witch!” Avery spat the words out like a curse, even though they were an entirely apt description. That was exactly what she was.

  “She tried to break our bond, and couldn’t. She said soul-share bonds were unbreakable.” I was fidgeting with my hands. “We need to hurry. Antoine didn’t seem like he wanted to kill his son, but I think he’d do it. If he thought it was the only way to get rid of me, I think he would.”

  “You mentioned earlier that they were going to move Mikael to set a trap for you? How much time do you think we have?” My father was asking the same question that was stuck on repeat in my own head.

  “I’m not sure, dad. Antoine sent Malachai ahead to set up. He was getting ready to tell Zach and Sophia his contingency plan, in case all else failed, but I was fading then, and didn’t hear. I know that Zach and Sophia will be heading off in a different direction. Malachai will be setting up somewhere else. I didn’t see anyone else in close proximately to them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have others around that I didn’t see. If we get there quickly, maybe we have a shot at Antoine without any issues. Maybe, we get Mikael back in one piece.” My voice cracked as I said it. “They have him in a cage, the kind Marcus used on me.”

  “Oh God, Jess. I wish you hadn’t seen that.” My dad all but whispered into the cab of the truck.

  “We just need to get there, and get him out. He’s hurt. They were dousing him with wolf’s bane, and when she tried to break the bond, there was this shadowy thing that came out of her.” I shivered inadvertently when I remembered how it sat down on Mikael, trying to become one with him.

  “Those who choose to see their mates in that shadow being lose their bond. If they can, or want, to be tricked by it the bond they have with their mate will break. It’s supposedly very painful, and you either have to be weak willed to see your mate in the shadow being, or you have to purposely accept it as a part of you. When you do, you acknowledge that your bond is not real, and it breaks.” There was a bit of anguish in his voice when Avery spoke of the act.

  “Mikael seemed repulsed by it when it touched him.”

  “Be glad it didn’t work on him. I know I made it sound simple, but it’s not. The fact that he saw past the shadow magic is a testament to the bond you formed.” Everyone grew quiet for a few minutes after that.

  “We need to be able to fly. This is taking way too long.” I finally huffed out. I was growing impatient the further we went, even though I knew that the animal rescue Mikael was building was on the opposite side of the town that our pack lands bordered.

  “I’m going as fast as I safely can, Jess. We have men in the back, and I don’t want them flying out.”

  I understood that, and still I was anxious. I realized part of that was because I was feeling something that wasn’t my emotion. Mikael was afraid, but it wasn’t for himself. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on him, and the feeling that I was getting from our bond. It was difficult to do, but eventually the little noises of the truck bouncing, and the men shifting within it were washed away by a banging metallic sound. I had done it, I was in, and I was seeing everything. Only, something was wrong, because this time I was inside the cage where Mikael had been.

  “This isn’t right,” I whispered to myself as panic set in.

  “Your damn right, it isn’t.” Evan yelled back, and then lunged for Antoine again, who successfully ducked out of the way. I watched in an odd haze as they each went for one another and each ducked away just in time. They appeared to be equally matched. The loud metallic clanking noise assaulted my ears again, and this time, I tried to move my head to look around. I had a hard time moving, but I was definitely able to tell I was trapped in the cage, and part of the back of my neck was on fire where it was touching the treated bars. I couldn’t move to get my neck away from it though. I let my eyes wander down to get a look at my body, only it wasn’t my body. I was somehow inside Mikael. This was his body, and he didn’t seem to be occupying it anymore.

  “Nooo!” I screamed out. Evan and Antoine both startled by the outcry, turned to see what was going on, and then quickly went back on alert for battle. The clanging sound on metal started again, just behind me. My heart was beating a thousand miles a minute as I tried to figure out what the hell was happening. “Please, help Mikael!” I whispered through my tears.

  “Jess?” It was Asriel’s voice, and it was coming from behind my head, Mikael’s head, where I kept hearing the clanking of metal.

  “Asi? Please, he’s not… I don’t feel him in here. You have to get him out.”

  “I’m doing my best, Jess.”

  “You’re too late. He’ll be gone before you get that cage open, and then we’ll see if you survive that bond of yours being severed.” Antoine’s cruel voice washed over me in sickening waves.

  “You would kill your own son to stay in power?” I spoke out loud, using Mikael’s voice.

  Antoine grabbed a metal pole that was sitting on the ground, as he ducked another hit from Evan. “I wonder, if I kill him now, while you’re there, if it won’t go ahead and finish the job quicker.” He threw the pole then. Evan dove for his father’s mid-section taking him down to the
ground with a terrible thud, but it was too late, the pole was already flying for Mikael’s body, the body I was currently occupying. I couldn’t watch. The world was moving in slow motion, everything except me, because I wasn’t moving at all. I tried desperately to get Mikael to collapse the rest of the way down to the floor, but it was no use. So, I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the end for either of us.

  A thudding impact hit the front of the cage, and I heard Asi sigh in relief. “Son of a bitch! That was close!”

  I opened one eye, then the other and saw a large beast of man with blond hair leaning against the cage, trying to breathe again after the wind had been knocked out of him. “Avery?” I questioned.

  “Yeah, man. It’s me. Jess passed out or something in the truck on the way here. I figured help might be needed here sooner rather than later. I shifted and ran the rest of the way. The cars are having to go around their asses to get here, because the road winds around the lumber mill out there. I took the short cut.”

  Evan had shifted at some point, and his teeth were gnashing towards Antoine’s throat. That much I could see. He was almost there, Antoine doing a good job of holding him off, and then the scales tipped. Antoine’s strength ebbed, and Evan was there, ripping his throat out the same way Antoine had killed Jack. There was more loud metal clanging behind me. “Help me out here, Avery.” Asi called out.

  “Hurry, his heart’s going really slow.” Despite the fact that my own personal adrenaline was pumping like crazy, my anxiety was through the roof from being trapped in a cage again, and I had just watched Antoine De’ Lune ripped apart by his own son, it had no effect whatsoever on Mikael’s vital signs.

  “What the hell?” Avery yelped when he realized it wasn’t Mikael speaking even though it had been his voice.

  “It’s me, Jess. This is why I passed out. I was trying to hop into a vision, and I guess I concentrated too hard and ended up in Mikael since he was unconscious.” I sighed, “I’m not sure how it works, just hurry. I can’t help him, and I don’t know what they did to him.”

  “That’s so freaking creepy.” Avery said as he grabbed something from behind me and joined Asi in trying to get the cage opened up.

  “He must have gotten the bright idea to reinforce the steel, because the damn thing isn’t budging.” Asi yelled.

  I looked up and saw a hook dangling from the ceiling as Mikael’s body slouched further down with the impacts on the cage. “Is that?” I started, and I tried to see where the damn hook attached. “Is that a hook, like from a crane or something?”

  “Yeah, it is.” Asi said as he glanced back down at the cage and started working at it again.

  “There’s no bottom to the cage,” I said, still staring at the hook that was dangling like a jewel from the ceiling.

  “Yeah, we can see that Jess.”

  “There’s no bottom, Asi, but there’s a hook up there. Lift the God damn cage off of us.” The ferocity of my order finally got everyone’s attention, and they started looking around.

  Avery went to turn the wench on to bring the hook down, but it didn’t work. The sun was going down, and it was starting to get dimmer in the building too. “There’s no electric right now. I bet the crew’s been working on generators and they take them when they leave.”

  “Can we not catch a break today?” Asi screamed out in frustration. “Where are all the guys you were coming here with?”

  “Right here.” I heard my dad call out, and then I saw him from the corner of Mikael’s eye. He had my body in his arms. I was limp as he carried me, as if I were dead. It was not an easy thing to see. “I couldn’t wake her, and I didn’t want to leave her. Please, tell me you have things secure in here?” He looked over to the place where I knew Evan had killed his father, but I couldn’t see that anymore from the angle Mikael’s body had fallen.

  “Dad?” I questioned.

  “He’s gone son,” My father responded to Mikael with the slightest bit of sympathy in his voice. I knew what my dad would say, ‘the boy couldn’t help who his father was.’

  “No, dad, it’s me. I need you to get the guys to lift this cage off of us. Mikael’s not doing well.”

  My father blanched. That probably wasn’t the right word for it. He turned white and then a horrible shade of green began to settle in too. He looked from my body to Mikael’s and passed me off to one of the guys who had walked in behind him. He nearly ran over to the corner and started throwing up whatever had been on his stomach.

  “Gross,” I managed to eke out, but I wasn’t feeling so hot myself now. “Get THIS CAGE OFF!” I yelled with my last bit of strength, and then everything was fading, like it always did when I was in a vision. My fingertips started tingling, and the world grayed out. The next thing I knew I felt strong arms wrapped around me, holding me up against a sturdy chest. It didn’t smell at all familiar to me, and as I opened my eyes, I realized why. It was the man my father had passed my body off to. He was one of Avery’s wolves. I cleared my throat, “can you put me down, please?”

  The poor guy was startled out of his mind and nearly dropped me. I turned in time to see Asriel laughing at me as Avery was directing his men to get one either side of the cage. Some were going to try pulling it over from one side while the others were going to attempt to tip it up. “Be careful, the metal’s been treated, and this shit burns.” I went over to add my strength in the mix. Some of the guys were wrapping their shirts around their hands to protect them. I didn’t bother. I’d been burned by this stuff before. It was going to hurt like hell, but my grip was more important than trying to avoid a little pain. It took us another five minutes to finally get the cage to lift and tip backwards. Then I was down, feeling for a pulse on Mikael’s body. I couldn’t find one. “Damn it, why didn’t we bring Ashley along?” I finally felt a pulse, but it was weak, barely there. I leaned over to whisper in his ear, “you need to come back to me now.”

  “There are some long purple bell looking flowers over here.” Evan spoke up in a shaky voice from over where I had seen the witch making her concoctions earlier.

  “Wolf’s bane?” I asked.

  “No, this is different,” Evan said, and held the long stemmed plant up.

  “Foxglove. It’s foxglove, Digitoxin poisoning slows the heartbeat,” one of Avery’s men offered up.

  “Someone call Ashley. I need to know what to do.” Asi was on the phone before I leaned back down. “Come on, you have to fight this shit!” I begged him as I put my head down on his chest to listen to his faint heartbeat. It was going so slow, and for a wolf, that just wasn’t normal. Usually our hearts beat faster than average, and our temperatures were raised. He already felt colder than he should. I was certain the concrete floor wouldn’t help with that, so I did the only thing I knew to do, I curled up as tightly to him as I could. “Asi? What does she say, because he feels cold, and his heart is so slow?”

  “She said something about needing to pump his stomach, activated charcoal. We have to get as much of the poison to come out as possible.”

  “Where the hell do we get that? We don’t have time to get him to the hospital and they’d never understand his vitals when they come back.” I said.

  “Is there an emergency kit around here? Some work crews leave them, maybe he even had one here just in case. I mean, this place is going to be for holding animals right?”

  Everyone spread out and started looking around the building. I just stayed there plastered to Mikael’s body, trying to keep him warm. I ran my fingers through his hair, and kept whispering to him, “please, don’t leave me. Please, come back.” There was some shouting off in a far corner of the building, but I had tuned everything else out. “Please, Mikael, I need you. I love you. Don’t you give up on me.”

  “Jess,” it was Evan, with his hand on my shoulder. “I need you to move out of the way, sweetheart. We found what we need, and this is going to get messy.”

  I hadn’t even realized I had started crying at some point. “Evan
…” his name stretched on in an appeal I couldn’t even get out all the way.

  “I know, just stand back. We’ll fix him up.” There was a trace of hurt in his eyes, but he shifted, and started moving to get behind Mikael and hold him up. My father came and took me in his arms, his hand petting through my hair as he spoke soft, encouraging words to me. I couldn’t even tell anyone what those words were. I wasn’t hearing anything.

  “Come on, brother.” Evan’s demanding voice made me look up in time to see Avery sticking a long plastic tube in Mikael’s mouth, and he was pouring a small bottle of something into the other end, funneling it down. When the entire bottle had been tossed up and thrown aside, I looked away again, burying my head in my dad’s chest.

  “Don’t let him die. Please, don’t let him die.” It was my mantra, and I wasn’t sure if I was saying it out loud or just in my head, or a mixture of both. It was just on instant repeat. Time stood still, in truth, it felt like time was going backwards for me now. Then, I heard a gagging, choking sound, and someone was getting sick. My father tensed his arms around me as he looked over my head, watching what was happening. I wasn’t sure I wanted to turn and see, but I had to know.

  When I finally twisted around to look, it was in time to see Mikael leaning back into Evan’s arms. He looked like shit, but he was moving, and breathing, and looking right at me. I took off, pushing my dad’s arms away, and slid across the floor to where Mikael was being cradled in his brother’s arms still. When I got there he tried to talk, but his throat was raw and scratchy, so it sounded awful. “You were here.”

  “I was here, with you,” I whispered to him, as I rubbed my fingers across his cheeks, making sure his temperature was coming back up.

  “Yeah, she was actually in you for a while, and let me tell you what kind of a creep-fest that was.” Evan was chuckling as he said it, and Mikael looked puzzled.

  “It’s a long story, we’ll fill you in later.” I moved to get closer, but Mikael suddenly looked alarmed, and then pushed me away with a wobbly hand as he leaned back over and started throwing up some more.