Light

by Angel Payne

  “No.”

  Ira’s declaration jerks my focus back up at her. “No?” I shake my head and lower my brows, attempting to convey my confusion. “No what, sweetie?”

  “No Father.”

  “Huh?” I demand.

  “No Father.” Her dictate is determined but her touch is gentle—as she reaches up and pushes my hand away from Reece’s picture. “Father.”

  And then raises her little hand back up.

  And points at the photo of Tyce.

  “What is it?” Reece demands, charging into the office as if my text declared the penthouse had caught fire. In all fairness, he can’t be blamed. Though I was finally able to process the breadth of Ira’s assertion, all the while getting the kids set up with their desired breakfasts as well as some necessary fruit and milk, the end result was a rushed text that I barely remember. Unchecked shock will do that to a girl.

  “What’s going on? Velvet?” he presses, prompting me to look up from the surface of the desk—where I’ve put the framed Richards brothers photo set that sparked Ira’s stunner of a morning news flash.

  “Hey,” I finally stammer, taking in his disheveled hair, polished silver gaze, and heightened color. It almost looks like he got here using a two-and-a-half-block pulse, winding up with a look that tempts me to jump him. To be honest, maybe that’ll help. Some natural serotonin and endorphins might be the perfect ticket at this surreal moment.

  “Hey?”

  He spits it back as if I’ve really told him to close the door and then get naked. Yeah, even with Sawyer and three more guys spilling into the room behind him. I immediately recognize one of the huge hunks. Ethan Archer is still the epitome of dark vampire handsome, despite being outfitted in black and green battle attire instead of a velvet cape and fluffy shirt. The other two, clearly the brothers Reece told me about last night, are a little bigger than Archer and cute in a scruffy soldier way. They’re dressed nearly identically, clearly ready for action—and even seem a little miffed when all they find in here is dazed little me.

  “Hey?” Reece repeats, incredulous. “After a text saying”—he snaps out his phone and frantically swipes open the screen—“‘we need to talk, how fast can you get here?’” He stabs the phone back into his pocket. “And now just…‘hey’?”

  I hold up both hands. “Okay, baby. Just breathe.”

  “And now ‘just breathe’?”

  I scoot around the desk and sprawl a hand to the middle of his chest. “You heard me, ox. Just do it.”

  I mean every syllable. The man is still in the mode of expecting a thousand boogey men to spring out of the woodwork any second and truly hasn’t taken a breath during the last minute because of it. I don’t see what’s so amusing about that, but Sawyer and the other guys don’t make even minor attempts to hold in their mild chuckles.

  “Oh, I like her already,” drawls one of the brothers, who flashes a sly grin along with his café au lait gaze. “You two need to come for a visit out on Maui,” he tells Reece. “Lani will fall in love with her in two seconds.”

  His brother chuffs. “Ditto for Zoe—not to mention my kid, who’d think your two girls are the coolest thing since Pinkie Pie learned a cloning spell.”

  “Dude.” Brother One grimaces. “Did you just name a character from Equestria by first and last name?”

  “Did you just admit you know what the fuck Equestria is?”

  Sawyer wheels on them. “Are you two turning Bolt Man’s code red into a debate about cartoon horses?”

  “Ponies.” Ethan chimes in on the rebuttal, and I spit out a laugh despite my fight for dignity. Or formality. Or whatever I’m calling my composure after a full plate of my husband’s rugged hotness chased by a four-part chug of military-grade testosterone. Oh, yes, Sawyer’s mojo is definitely a part of that equation right now—finished by a debate about the pony who made “nervouscited” a functioning word.

  And, handily enough, a perfect description for my mindset as Reece resets his stance. All right, it’s not like I’m about to tell him I’m pregnant again—but strange inner instincts are still enforcing the importance of sharing this, right now and in person. There’s part of me that just hopes he shrugs and wonders why I invoked the dreaded “we need to talk,” before he invites all the guys out into the kitchen for some sugar-drenched breakfast.

  “Oh, cool!” The new slice on the air comes from my still-pajama’ed sister, standing in the open doorway. Before I have the chance to hate her for being the only person on the planet who can look that cute in a raccoon kigurumi splotched with Pop Tart filling, she gives me a reason to be even more frustrated with her. “Looks like you already told him. So what about that, Bolt Jolt? Tyce Richards for the baby daddy win!”

  I’m not sure what reaction to expect from Reece. His face is already fixed at high intensity. Though he finally obliged and took a few breaths for me, his stature looks ready for any crisis, from breaking up a fight between the kids to confronting a nuclear bomb. I’m banking more toward that side of the scale as he rolls his gape from her to me and finally blurts, “The…baby daddy? Tyce?”

  I wobble through a nod while pointing to the photo collection on the desk. “Ira pointed him out in the lineup.”

  A tense pause.

  “Tyce,” he finally repeats.

  “Tyce,” I confirm.

  “Ohhhh crap,” Lydia mumbles.

  “Well, damn,” Sawyer adds.

  As another silence stretches, longer than the first, I run a fidgety finger along the photograph frame. “I’m sorry for the kneejerk text. In the grand scheme of things, I know that it doesn’t change anything or even bring Tyce back for you…”

  I’m saved from having to form a lame conclusion for that when Reece vaults over the desk with one determined pulse. In the same fluid motion, he hauls me tight to his chest. His arms discernibly tremble as he holds me even closer. “You’re wrong.” His husk is warm and tender in my hair. “It brings him back in all the best ways, Bunny. And I’m so damn glad you didn’t wait to tell me.”

  “So are all of us.” Sawyer’s voice is weary and dry. “I mean, there’s only so many times a guy can watch underground rooms being imploded on themselves via remote cameras.”

  “As usual, Folic Acid has a solid point,” cracks one of the brothers. “Especially because this place smells better than that fucking cave.”

  His sibling, the one I’m pegging as the younger one, pushes out a grunt. “You live in Hawaii. Aren’t caves considered recreational fun there?”

  “Yeah. Fun that stinks,” the guy retorts. “Especially if you’re comparing it to Pop Tarts.” He shakes his head with a wry chuff. “Swear to God, someone at that company is making full pension from my stepson alone.”

  “And our girls.” Though Reece’s tone carries a chuckle, his face is all seriousness when I pull back and stare up at him. “Yeah,” he ensures, his gaze as gentle as the hand he cups to my cheek. “Our girls, baby—no matter what anyone else says.” He kisses me with awkward swiftness. “I—I only mean that if Mis and Ira are okay with it, and you’re okay with it—”

  I cut him off by leading the way on our next kiss. Forcefully. Ruthlessly. I breach his lips with passionate zeal, offering everything I am to him. All the emotion in my soul. The adoration in my spirit. And more than anything, the connection to him that’s just grown in proportion to the expansion of our family. I guess what they say is true. Children don’t consume what already exists in one’s heart. They break down walls into new parts of a person…

  And new depths of their love.

  Like every new way I’m feeling the energy and essence of this man. Every new chamber of myself that’s being opened to him in return. Every joyous pound of our pulses, ignition of our bloodstreams, and whisper of our souls. Every new synapse of connection, thrilling me as if I’m riding lightning—and judging from the gobsmacked gasps from all the guys, am probably looking like it too.

  Sure enough, as soon as I find t
he self-control to extract my tongue from my husband’s tonsils, I pull away from him on a self-conscious slide—to confront my fireball of a reflection in the office’s window. With the right kind of squinted glance and expanded imagination, one would almost think earth had just gained itself a twin sun.

  Before I can start the strange rumination about what that would mean for Daylight Savings Time, Ethan Archer saves us all from the awkward silence in the room. “Well, damn. Guess I’ll only be retelling this one when I’m really shitfaced.”

  Sawyer grunts out a laugh. “Damn good reason to get shitfaced, though.”

  “Or maybe…that is.”

  Nobody misses how Brother Number One has gone from swaggering to stupefied with his new declaration—as the air before us suddenly sizzles and crackles and whirls and burns.

  Tzzzzzzt.

  And then thunders and roars and rips and screams.

  Thwwaaarrr.

  And then breaks open. Wider. Wider still.

  “Holy shit.” I sob it out as my blissful warmth jacks into terrified fire and my instincts flare into full awareness.

  As the rift in the air spreads even wider.

  And as Faline Garand, in all her high-heeled, catsuited, bow-to-the-bitch glory, strides through it.

  As she bares her teeth, spreads her hands into electric claws, and sets a direct course toward us.

  All right, not completely direct. Sawyer and all three of his friends spring into action, going for their concealed weapons. Ethan and his SIG get in a good shot to her chest, causing a two-step fumble before she whomps him to the floor with a ferocious power pulse. The younger Bommer brother lunges to do the same, but she’s ready for him with a deflection shield. The bullet ricochets and lands solidly in the chest of his big brother. But on his way down, the guy still delivers wicked damage, wielding a gleaming Bowie knife in a hand mottled by old burn scars. One deft flick and three stunning seconds later, the blade impales Faline’s left thigh with a sickening thunk.

  The woman’s scream is one of the most awesome sounds I’ve ever heard.

  Despite knowing what will follow in its wake.

  Another outcry—this time, channeling her pain into pure rage. It morphs into a growl thick with the viciousness of hell. And then a savoring laugh, channeling the hot mire of Styx itself.

  “Do you really think you’ve ended me, Team Bolty-Bolt? Do you think your dynamite and your do-goody-gooding have actually put a single dent in me?”

  She jerks the knife out of her flesh, brandishing its blood-covered length in her hand riddled with glowing green veins.

  “Think.”

  And then stabs it back in, lower on her thigh.

  “Again.”

  And then into her other thigh.

  “Fuckers.”

  And then into the side of her neck, resulting in a grimace that takes care of any remaining outward beauty that might have been trying to persist on her face.

  “You won’t end me, you ungrateful miscreants. You won’t end me because too many across the world are now thanking me. Too many have seen the light of what I’m going to do for their disgusting existences and have given me the proper title for it.”

  She exalts her stance, which widens the wound in her neck. The deep V of her black bodysuit has become a pool of bright-red gore.

  “They call me goddess now—and soon you will too.”

  She approaches again, each footstep a vivid crimson print on the floor, as her skin turns paler and her sneer grows more malevolent.

  “But first, you’re going to give back what belongs to me.”

  Chapter One

  Reece

  I’ll admit it. Reluctantly.

  I’ve been wrong about a few things in my life.

  A few.

  But at this moment, I admit my complete mistake in thinking I could never fall deeper in love with Emmalina Paisley Crist Richards. My best friend. My key ass-kicker. My kids’ super mom. My hot-as-fuck lover. My cherished wife. My guiding light.

  And now, the warrior braced in front of me, fireballs for fists and a disk of sizzling energy for a shield, standing off with the sorceress of skank who’s wormholed her way into our home. Clarification: the invader who’s likely already killed a member of our extra security team before securing everyone else beneath a web of lightning she fabricated as if flinging a handful of rice at a wedding.

  Only she’s not at a wedding today. And goddamnit, I refuse to let her zap out of here like she did at the last one, disappearing through her portal with a “special parting gift.” At our wedding reception, that “trinket” was Laurel Crist. One look at the vehement set of Faline’s features and I already know the bitch won’t be settling for low-hanging fruit like that again.

  She’s here to take back the whole damn basket.

  The prize we snatched from her.

  The twins.

  And if not them, then equal compensation for them.

  Lux.

  Or Emma.

  Taken by the woman to God knows where. With the Source now decimated, we have no idea of knowing where her backup destination is—and the search for it will be tougher than finding a needle in a haystack. She’s a psycho being shielded by thousands of crazy converts—who are all ready to perform her bidding in keeping nonbelievers in line.

  Never.

  I repeat it in a snarl for my ears alone, though I’m damn sure Emma’s heard me anyway. She flinches back her shoulders, an unspoken signal for me to stand down. I comply but only for the moment. If Faline so much as twitches one hand in the direction of my woman, I won’t hesitate to jump into the ball pit most men would call insanity: the fray of a girl fight.

  I save myself from contemplating an electrically enhanced estrogen takedown by alerting one ear to the movements out in the kitchen. Thank fuck for Lydia, who took advantage of the cover fire from Archer and the Bommers to escape out the door, likely sprinting straight for the kids. Since I can’t detect even a small whimper of fear from that direction now, I’m assuming—praying—she and Angelique took them out the back door and down the stairs.

  Possible hitch number one? We’ve practiced this drill with Lux before but not the twins. If either of them has a freak-out on the way down, their flight to safety might be over before it’s barely begun.

  And hitch number two? The plan always entails them meeting Sawyer at the ground floor. He knows to drive them to one of several safe houses I’ve secured around the city, with the Newport Beach complex as a last-ditch option only.

  Right now, all that matters is what I can effect right now.

  The crisis before me.

  “We haven’t taken a thing that you didn’t steal from the world in the first place, Faline.”

  Though my amazing wife addresses the whole issue as the furthest thing from a crisis.

  Clearly Faline shares my bewilderment about Emma’s easygoing tone. If I weren’t so paranoid about watching every millimeter of movement from the woman, I’d join her in casting an openly curious glare around the room—blatantly wondering, as she is, how this luxury penthouse office has become a police interrogation room, with Emma turning into the conversational “good cop.”

  “You’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about…yes?” More of the let’s-shoot-the-shit banter, though Emma doesn’t back off the intensity of her fireballs and their shield-sized extension. It’s not her intention to give me a coronary yet, thank God. “Let’s follow the logic, then. The hundred and forty-eight souls we dragged out of your underground prison, along with nearly that many who paid the price for your evil with their lives, is pretty self-explanatory.”

  She straightens her spine and juts her chin as I privately contemplate Faline’s fall into complete silence—but then start to experiment with it. Strangely, the woman seems to shrink back farther every time I so much as lean in Emma’s direction. There’s nothing different about the result of our proximity—as usual, our pulses quicken as our energies communicate and co
nnect with each other—but those factors have always been ours alone to know about and revel in, never a tangible force outside of our supercharged bubble. Until now…

  “That gets us to the subject of the twins,” Emma announces. “A pair of life forms that you created without the consent or knowledge of their father and then drafted into your service from the day they became half-sentient beings—in essence, turning them into your slaves.”

  I have no idea how she keeps up her casual demeanor, but I’m damn glad she somehow finds the fortitude. Her rundown helps me continue mine. With a step closer to Emma, I watch Faline’s immediate fallback. When I shift away, the bitch is back to determined stealth, making me wonder where she’s hiding the katanas and poisoned apples. The result is a combination of exhilaration and trepidation. I imagine this is what Van Helsing felt when discovering Dracula’s issue with crucifixes. Great—a way to keep the monster at bay. Shit—now we have to face the concept of seriously confronting her.

  Not that my badass miracle of a wife is comprehending any of that—or, for that matter, letting it hold her up. She’s still facing off against Faline with the grace of an Amazonian queen. If she feels the air shifting with the vacillating balance of power, she doesn’t show it—even when Faline moves to fight it, flexing and unflexing her hands as she moves her weight from one hip to the other and back again.

  “What they are is of no concern to you, little Flare.”

  Emma’s jaw visibly stiffens. Her shield blazes so strongly, it sounds like a rocket revving for takeoff. “When children are enslaved, it’s everyone’s concern,” she spits.

  Faline flashes her teeth again. “They are not yours, damn it!”

  “Hmmm.” Emma taps her chin. “Is that so? Because we did just kind of find them, you know? And they just sort of followed us, like hungry kittens, you know?”

  “A lie!” Faline lunges. Well, tries to. As soon as I shift closer to Emma, Faline’s thrown back as if she rammed into a glass slider that was cleaned too well. “You did not just find them. You stole them!”