by Elise Faber
“Your mother hid the truth from your father.” Caroline tossed her head. “I’d say you have the right genes for it.”
DNA. It always came back to fucking DNA.
Grinding her teeth together, Dee strove for calm, tried reminding herself that Caroline had been through something truly awful.
It wasn’t Caroline’s fault she was a complete bitch.
Or at least not only her fault.
“I am not my mother,” Daughtry said softly, “and I would rather die than become anything like she was. I’m not a monster.”
Caroline didn’t have a retort for that, and the silence that fell between them was heavy.
After a moment, Daughtry shook her head. Why did she even bother defending herself? Caroline would never see her as separate from her mother. It was a waste of breath, of energy.
She turned to leave just as Alex burst back into the room, John close on her heels.
“Everything okay?” Dee asked.
John’s gaze swiveled between her and Caroline, and one blond brow came up. She shook her head in response to the unasked question.
Not going there.
Alex nodded. “I just realized I had forgotten to say thanks to Caroline.” She walked across the room and threw her arms around Cody’s sister. The look on Caroline’s face was comically surprised, but after a moment, she wrapped her arms around Alex and squeezed.
“Thanks for helping me.” Alex bit her lip. “I know the Rengalla don’t trust me . . . I just . . . wanted to let you know I appreciate it.”
Dee’s heart squeezed at the cautious hope in Alex’s eyes. Her sister was an old soul in so many ways, had experienced so much she should have never even seen.
But she was also very young. Deep down she was so, so innocent.
“It was nothing,” Caroline said in a surprisingly gentle voice. “I’m always here to help.”
Maybe there was hope for her yet.
“Great,” Alex said, stepping back. “Because now that Dee and Cody are getting hitched, we’re practically sisters.” She screwed up her face. “And we have to do all of the stuff that comes before weddings. Aren’t there showers or parties or something?”
Caroline’s eyes widened before narrowing in anger.
“Alex,” Dee murmured. “We’re not doing anything for a while, not with all that’s happened.” She shrugged. “And Cody and I already live together, so we don’t need anything more than our friends and family and some chocolate cake.” Her lips twisted into a forced smile.
This was so not the conversation she wanted to have with Caroline in the room.
“Oh.” Alex’s face fell, and she walked over to Daughtry. “Okay. If that’s what you want . . .”
Dee tucked an arm around her, guided Alex to the door. Caroline looked ready to burst, and she didn’t want to be nearby when it happened. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“How can you stand to let her touch you?” Caroline spat.
Or not.
“Caroline,” John said, warning all over his tone.
Alex stiffened and pulled away from Daughtry. The distance hurt, a knife’s slice across her heart. At least until she realized that Alex was glaring daggers at Caroline.
“What did you say?” she asked. Dee had never heard her sister sound so fierce.
“Just ignore her,” Daughtry said. “It’s not worth it.”
Caroline laughed. “Of course you’d think that.” To Alex, she said, “Your sister is the embodiment of Elisabeth. She’s everything your mother was. In looks. In actions.” Caroline lifted her chin. “She’s a murderer, if not by her own hands then by proxy, and tainted with dark magic. Sooner or later, she’ll turn.”
The quiet that fell across the room was a physical thing. Daughtry could feel it swelling, pulsing against her skin as it was fueled by old hurts, wounded memories, and anger . . . too much damn anger.
“If you took even a moment to actually see Daughtry,” Alex said, “you would know she’s nothing like our mother.”
“She’s—”
“No,” Alex said, raising her hand palm out. “It’s my turn to talk now.”
Surprisingly, Caroline shut up.
“The first time I saw my sister, I was four and she was eight. I remember every single detail.” She shuddered. “The fear, the pain as Elisabeth pumped the black magic into us. I remember lying on the floor, every single nerve in my body on fire.” Alex’s voice changed, softened. “It hurt so much that even the slide of tears down my cheeks burned. Daughtry was hurting just as badly, I could see it in her eyes. But she crawled over to me, wiped my tears away, and held my hand.”
Alex swallowed roughly. “And she never let go. Once a year Elisabeth brought her to the house, and every time Daughtry was strong. Every time she held my hand, tried to soothe the pain.” She shook her head. “Until Elisabeth realized what she was doing was bonding us together. Then . . . then she never brought Daughtry back. After that, I might have been alone, but I never forgot Dee, never forgot her many kindnesses when she was suffering every bit as much as me.”
Alex grabbed Daughtry’s hand and squeezed. “So that, Caroline, is what family is about. It’s not blood, it’s not genetics. It’s kindness and love without strings.” Another squeeze and the emotion in her sister’s tone threatened to take Dee to her knees.
Alex already knew more than she’d given herself credit for.
“Love is what my sister is.”
Dee had goose bumps, her tears a watery lens across her vision as Alex led her from the room.
She . . . there was a pulsing deep in her consciousness.
Daughtry had heard those words before. Her mind swirled, a maelstrom of thoughts, emotions—
“Cody,” she thought, stumbling. John caught her other arm.
Memories began pouring through her brain, triggered by Alex’s words, a fog of pain and terror and . . . and Alex. So little. So harmless. So tortured.
Dee struggled to push them aside, to focus and comfort her sister. It wasn’t about her. It was—
She couldn’t.
There were too many. This was the last piece she’d been missing, and it was awful. Then the past mixed with the present and things got even worse.
“Cody,” she thought. “I’m so sorry, but I need you.”
“I’m here.” Sea salt and pine filled the air, and then Cody’s arms were around her. “I’m here, cowgirl.”
“We need every soldier we can muster,” she gasped. “The Master is coming.”
Forty-Seven
Daughtry closed the shield behind Alex and ran faster than she’d ever run before. Intercepting some soldiers as they barreled out the front doors, she grabbed the one with the blue telepath insignia on his uniform and ordered him to call in reinforcements for Cody and the others.
“Then get every available set of hands to put eyes on the exterior of the shield. There’s another attack coming, we just don’t know where.”
A large boom rent the air.
“I’m guessing there,” Morgan said, running through the door and sprinting past her. He paused at the corner of the building to call, “Hurry, Dee, but be careful. I don’t want Cody’s wrath if you get hurt.”
Daughtry swallowed hard as she followed him to the back of the main Colony building.
If Cody was okay. If they survived.
“No maudlin thoughts, cowgirl.” Cody’s mental voice washed over the bond, and her relief was intense. “We’ll get through this.”
“I love you.”
There was a pause, and she felt him battling even as he was trying to talk with her. She needed to end this. Distraction might get him—
“I know,” he thought to her.
She smiled inwardly at the fact that Cody could always make her smile, no matter the circumstances. “Hey, that’s my line,” she thought.
“Be safe.” Another brief halt in communication. “If you need me, I’ll always be there.”
And h
e was gone.
Daughtry blinked back the abruptness of his departure before picking up the pace.
“Alex thought—” she began as she caught up with Morgan.
Another explosion shook the ground and this time she felt its impact shake the shield. Hard.
Good God.
“They’re going after the shield!”
“I know.” Morgan’s voice was grim.
“We need . . .” She trailed off as they came to the site of the explosion.
Because she didn’t know what they needed to do.
A crater.
That was all that remained of the beautiful forest behind the Colony. Where once there had been oaks and elms, now there was nothing. Scorched earth had never meant anything to her . . . until that moment.
Skeletons of the trees—roots half buried, leaves burned off, trunks broken raggedly in half—dotted the rim of the crater.
And inside . . .
Her gasp broke into a sob as she saw the burned form.
“Caden!” A woman screamed as she ran past them. She was a junior soldier, one whose name Daughtry didn’t know.
But her pain.
It was acute, soul-rending, crippling. The woman collided with the shield and began pushing her way through, tearing the magic and ripping through Daughtry’s heart at the same time.
“Belle,” Morgan said, grabbing her arms. “No. You can’t.”
“He’s hurt!” she screamed, tears marring her olive skin, her formally neat queue of black hair disordered. “We have to help him! We don’t leave people behind, we don’t—”
Caden was already gone. Every single one of them could see that.
Belle ripped free of Morgan’s grip and pounded against the shield.
Daughtry held it closed, barely, but she felt each of those punches in her mind. In her heart.
Bang. “Let!” Bang. “Me!” Bang. “Through!” Bang.
“I’ll go,” a voice—Dante—said from behind them.
“It’s too dang—” Morgan began. He tugged Belle back and was trying to get through to her even though it was impossible.
“I’ll go. I’ll get him.” Dante brushed past her. “Daughtry?”
The vision came on without warning and took her to her knees—
Dante walked through the opening in the shield and bent to touch his fingers to Caden’s throat.
A Dalshie appeared out of thin air. He was taller than any Daughtry had seen before, more muscular, and the malice radiated off him. She could feel it, a tangible flood of evil.
She opened her mouth to warn Dante—
The Dalshie moved.
And her friend, their leader, was gone, his body sliced neatly in two by a thick rope of barbed black magic—
Daughtry didn’t scream in the aftermath of her visions, not any longer. But they never failed to chill her to the bone.
“Don’t,” she managed to gasp out, reaching her arm in Dante’s direction.
“I think he got that,” Morgan said, not unkindly. Belle had stopped beating against the shield and was prone in his arms.
The shiny trails of the woman’s tears were acid to Dee’s soul. They burned, leaving only a stinging path of guilt in their wake. Why hadn’t she foreseen the attack sooner? She might have saved Caden, protected the rest of them from unnecessary danger.
Why did her fucking gift of foresight never do anything good or useful?
The anger finally helped her shore up her spine enough to push to her feet.
Dante made as though to touch her arm, before pausing. “Okay?” he asked.
She nodded and stepped closer, close enough to press her shoulder against his. The contact was slight, but it was enough to remind her that no matter her magical “gifts,” she was still just a person who could touch and embrace and live without fear.
Or at least without fear of visions at every turn, the last five minutes aside.
“We can’t go out there,” she said. “The Dalshie—”
The words were barely out of her mouth before the Dalshie from her vision appeared.
He would have been almost beautiful if not for the horrific darkness emanating off him. It rippled through the air, sliced through the shield, and grasped her heart in such a cold, fierce fist that Daughtry could barely breathe.
The Master.
She would bet her life on it.
And if the cold realization dripping down her spine was any indication, that might very soon be the case.
Forty-Eight
The Master moved with the innate grace of a predator, right up to the shield. He stared through, crimson eyes locking unerringly with Daughtry’s.
If it were possible for her intestines to twist themselves into knots, his presence would have done it. Her skin absolutely crawled.
He beckoned, and his voice was shockingly lyrical when he spoke. “Come here, my darling.”
The words brushed against a spot buried deep in her mind, and for a moment, she wanted to walk forward and push through the purple and emerald strands of magic. Then the necklace around her neck went scalding hot, nearly scorching the skin there.
Cody’s mental voice slammed into her at the same time. “No!” he thought, almost violently. “Don’t keep me out.”
“Cody?” she thought. “What’s the matter?”
“I couldn’t feel you.” He paused, calmer now. “Stay where you are. I’m coming.”
“The other Dalshie—”
“Taken care of.” There was a heavy weight of sadness in the back of his mind, but she felt him deliberately push it deeper as he spoke. “I’m letting us into the shield now.”
Daughtry felt him untangling the threads of the barrier to make a hole and then closing it a few moments later.
“Um, Dee?” Morgan asked. He’d retreated away from the shield, and Belle stood next to him, staring woodenly ahead. “You want to do something about Mr. Creeptastic? He’s looking particularly stalkerish.”
Morgan wasn’t lying. The Master’s gaze was fixed on her. His face could have been carved from obsidian, for as shiny and carapace-like the black magic’s stain appeared.
Not a square centimeter of his skin was untarnished, which meant there was no going back for this Dalshie, no hope of stopping the infection.
There was nothing human left.
And that was distinctly obvious when he cocked his head to the side and smiled. That quirk of his lips was icy cold and sharp as a blade.
“Daughtry,” the Master said again, in that almost musical voice. “Let me through.”
She had to lock her knees to keep from moving forward, and the burn from the necklace was fiercer the second time around.
The Master frowned. “Let. Me. In,” he said, command creeping into the edge of his tone.
“Fuck off, asshole,” Morgan said, moving to stand beside her.
Crimson eyes flicked from hers to the left—in Morgan’s direction—and narrowed, ever so slightly.
The burst of black fire made Daughtry gasp and jump back. The shield blocked the dark magic, of course, but the suddenness of it was as shocking as it was disturbing. Flames flew over the front of the shield, burning up the sides, roaring loudly enough to make her ears ring.
“Stay out of this, you fucking insect,” the Master spat. “I could end you”—he snapped his fingers—“this easily.”
“Except you can’t,” Morgan said, not cowed in the least. “Because you can’t get through the shield.”
The Master’s fist collided with the barrier, vibrating the strands of magic enough to make Daughtry’s teeth rattle.
Morgan smirked, bumped Dee with her shoulder. “This is what we call an old-fashioned standoff, folks.”
Dee looked at him in shock.
He dropped his voice. “Shake it off, sweetheart. Dante’s got a plan.” His eyes flicked over her shoulder, and it took everything inside her to not turn around and look. She hadn’t noticed Dante slipping away, hadn’t noticed anything exc
ept the temptation in the Master’s voice.
“Come here or I will destroy every last one of your kind,” the Dalshie said, and it would have frightened Daughtry less had the monster shouted the words. But instead, he spoke with such cool malice that she had no doubt he intended to follow through on the threat. “I will burn your friends to ashes, tear your love to pieces. I will end your existence.”
That was enough for Dee to straighten her shoulders, enough for her to take a few steps closer to the monster on the other side of the shield and ask, “What do you want?”
“You,” he said.
“I’m not for sale,” she retorted.
“Think of it as an exchange,” he said, those crimson eyes piercing into her. “You come with me, you bring the Orb, and I’ll let these pathetic excuses for magical beings live.”
Hardly. The Dalshie didn’t keep their word, they strove to do as much damage and destruction as possible. To hurt as many people as they could.
As for the Orb . . . that was the most concerning.
“I will not turn,” she said. “And I destroyed the Orb months ago.”
“Don’t think me as stupid as your soft-hearted mother, Daughtry,” the Dalshie scoffed. “I’ll harness your powers sooner or later. The only thing you’re in control of is how much harm comes to those whom you care about. Resist me, fail to give me what I want and—”
“Hold the shield, cowgirl.” Cody’s voice burst into her mind, steadied her.
“What—” she began.
Gunshots erupted outside the barrier.
Daughtry tried to track the movement, to figure out where the bullets were coming from, but she couldn’t see anything.
The Dalshie didn’t seem to have the same problem. He shot a bolt of black magic behind him, and Daughtry watched as a soldier blinked into existence before being thrown across the clearing, smoke pouring from his chest.
She gasped when he disappeared again. “Is he—”
“Dante has him.” A pause. “Brace yourself, cowgirl.”
Because the gunshots had just been a distraction.
There was a hiss, and her eyes widened.
Someone fired a rocket. A freaking rocket.