I was walking back across the gravel yard toward the barracks when I heard the shout of one of my buddies and the roar of a truck. I ran back in that direction with my weapon, but it was too late. I heard them rapidly firing rounds as the truck barreled towards them. They never even considered moving out of the way of the truck, never flinched from firing position. They emptied their magazines into the truck until it plowed into them. Metal screeched and the sudden lack of gunfire was painful to hear, I will never forget the way that silence echoed around me for as long as I live.
I still ran to the scene with my weapon at the ready, but there was nothing I could do. The enemy had failed in his mission to obtain access to the base and my buddies had given their lives to protect everyone inside. They got the fucker driving it, but it wasn’t easy to gather up their remains to send back to their families.
The pain of these memories was too much for me to bear and I struggled to pull myself out of this. I couldn’t help James if I was trapped in an endless stream of dark memories. I couldn’t get out completely, but I did succeed in gaining a little bit of distance so that I could keep my stream of consciousness separate from his.
Things changed again and this time I was observing instead of living the memory. I watched as James carried a sniper rifle and set up position on the roof of a house in an enemy village. He got an enemy in his sights but hesitated for a moment. This guy was an enemy… but killing in cold blood? The target picked up a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher and prepared to fire. James’s hesitation disappeared and he squeezed the trigger. The man exploded in a spray of blood and I saw James’s hands shake as he sat down the rifle. “The target was pointing the RPG at our guys,” James mumbled to himself. “He would have killed us all if he had the chance.”
Things shifted again and I knew this was a slightly older version of James. He was dressed in dark clothing that was lacking rank, insignia, or even a flag identifying him as fighting for the US. His face was green and black with combat paint and he was wearing a beard like so many of the other SF guys did. This James wasn’t shocked or horrified by the events in front of him, and he wasn’t in the process of going numb in the face of violence. This James was a cold-blooded hunter. He was in a military unit that didn’t officially exist, in a country that was completely off-limits to the US, and doing deeds that our government would never admit to sanctioning. He was a ghost, doing bad things for people who told him it was for the greater good. I could see that this was when the darkness had truly taken hold in James. His hope for humanity was completely gone, along with every last drop of compassion he’d ever had. He was given a target, and he eliminated it, no questions asked.
I was suddenly back in the cave again with tears in my eyes. I looked at the haggard version of James with blood on his uniform and stepped towards him. “This isn’t who you are,” I told him. “These are things that have happened to you, things you’ve done, but none of this shows your heart or your soul.”
I grasped his face in my hands and showed him my memories. I showed him how fearless and brave he was, how he protected the pack with everything he had, how the twins were learning from him, how much we all needed him, how much I admired him.
I could feel the vision of him wavering, feel the little bit of hope inside of him growing, but what I was showing him wasn’t enough. He needed to feel it. I pressed my lips to his and opened our bond completely. I didn’t show him images or let him hear my words, I just let him feel every bit of love that I had for him. I poured my entire heart out into him and I felt him respond. Little by little the darkness receded, and I could feel James again. He would never be filled with sunshine and rainbows, but he was more than just a cold-blooded killer. James had a heart.
I let go of my hold on him and snapped back to my body. When I opened my eyes, both of the twins were holding me in an upright position, and I could feel them lending me their magic. They were the reason why I had made it through the gauntlet of James’ mind even in my weakened condition. I gave them both a smile of thanks and clumsily got to my feet.
James had just shifted back to human and stepped closer to the bars. “Anna,” he said softly.
I shook my head. There was no reason for us to clue the others into what had happened. This could stay just between the two of us.
“You alright, bro?” Cody asked cautiously.
James had to drag his eyes away from me to focus on Cody. “Yeah, I’m back,” James said in a raspy voice.
Jason cleared his throat. “About the whole trying to murder everyone in sight thing. Is it contagious or…”
James gave him a dirty look and Jason shrugged.
“I don’t think it’s contagious like the flu,” I said slowly. “I think it targets certain people. I think I was targeted because that thing was curious about me, but other people might unwittingly give it a foothold inside of them if they’re harboring some kind of darkness inside.”
“No one can make it through life without experiencing some dark times,” Austin said thoughtfully.
“But combat veterans have a specific type of darkness,” Cody said quietly. “And our pack is made up entirely of veterans with the majority having combat experience.”
“Not entirely,” I corrected him absentmindedly. “I’ve never served or been in combat.” With the exception of when Justin had touched me, every time I had heard the whispers I had already been in a dark state of mind. Was our enemy’s goal to push us even deeper into that? I remembered how Morpheus had caused me to have nightmares in order to feed off of me – was that what was happening here? But Morpheus had needed to be close to me while I slept. Where was this enemy? How were they doing this?
Austin let James out of the cage, and I went to him. James was usually uncomfortable with any public displays of affection, but today he didn’t just allow me to hug him, he embraced me in return. I felt the cool press of the crystal between us and thought about what would have happened if James and I hadn’t had such a strong connection. Is that what had happened to Justin? Had he been consumed completely because he had no one to pull him back? No one to save him from the darkness?
“Justin was a target for this thing,” I said quietly. “What if it’s not just looking for darkness, what if it’s also seeking out wolves with a lot of power?”
“That makes sense if it’s a parasite,” Austin agreed. “It’s going to want the strongest host available.”
“I don’t know if it’s a parasite,” I said slowly, “but it feels fae. Morpheus had the ability to control my dreams and feed off my energy that way. He would make me relive my darkest times and make my biggest fears come to life, but I was able to learn how to block him out. With this I had no defense.” My head snapped up as something I said triggered a memory. “Do you remember my journals?” I asked everyone in the room.
“From your mom?” Mason asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, one was from my mom where she wrote about all of the magic she was learning. I thought the other one was just a collection of old stories meant to inspire the new generation of guardians.” I hesitated before I spoke again. “But one of the stories was about the war between the fae and the lamia.” I glanced over at Austin. “It mentioned what Arminius had already told us, that the fae slaughtered all of the women and children of the lamia. But this story said it was the work of a secret weapon, the dark fae.”
I tried to remember exactly what the journal had said about them, but I had just skimmed over that part. “The rest of the fae were afraid of the dark fae because of their ability to invade the mind and control the victim’s actions. I remember it said that those were the oldest fae among them and that some considered them to be gods.”
“So the dark fae slaughtered the kids and then what?” Jason asked with a frown.
“Then some of the fae who had been horrified by their actions, our ancestors, turned against their brethren and imprisoned the dark fae. The lamia went on to win the war and the fae retreated to their lands
, but they left the fae who they considered to be traitors behind. The fae who had been abandoned here bred with the humans to creat a new race and shifters are their descendants.”
“And now we’re concerned that these dark fae are free from their prison?” Cody asked with a worried frown.
I shook my head. “I’m not sure, I need to read the journal again and pay more attention to the details. I thought it was a metaphorical story about inner darkness, but maybe it was a literal account of what really happened.”
“How do we know that’s what this is? Wouldn’t any of the fae from that long ago have died in our world because they can’t survive here? Couldn’t it be another type of crazy fae like Morpheus or Gemma?” Mason asked.
I sighed unhappily. “Yeah, it could be anything, but we have to start somewhere. And even if I had the ability to call over to the fae realm, do we really trust anyone over there to help us?”
There was complete silence in the room.
“I don’t want to invite Drake back into my life,” I said quietly. “It’s bad enough when he just shows up here unannounced. And I don’t trust my father to help without attaching strings.”
“I agree,” Austin said firmly. “Reaching out to the fae might be a course of action that we need to take in the future, but let’s see what we can do alone first.”
“What do we do about Justin?” Cody asked. “We can’t let him run free and spread this disease all over the place.”
“No,” Austin agreed. “We can’t.”
Everyone looked at me and I realized they were waiting for me to offer some kind of a magical solution. “I need to learn more before I can take it on again,” I admitted reluctantly. “Whatever that was kicked my ass pretty easily.”
James tucked me against his body. “Whatever you need.”
The other guys murmured their agreement.
I took a deep breath. “I’ll look through the journals again and find anything that might help us. Austin, I think I might need to reach out to our Canadian friends again.”
Austin searched my eyes. Mention of the Canadian Pack was a sore subject since Gemma. Ragnar had accepted our help before in dealing with trouble up North, but he had been confused when Austin had breached the topic of Gemma’s death with him. Apparently, they had found the body of the real Gemma a week before the fake one had arrived here in Seaside. Ragnar had been clueless about a fae masquerading as his dead pack mate, but he had been glad when Austin told him we’d executed the imposter who had most likely killed the real Gemma.
Ragnar’s mate was my mother’s twin sister and the only other white wolf that I knew. If anyone knew more about this, then it would be her. She hadn’t reached out to me at all since it was revealed that I was her twin’s daughter and I worried that it was because she considered me to be more of a product of Froston than my mother. I was already struggling with my self-identity because I was something other than a wolf, but also different from the fae. Where did I fit in the world?
“It seems like quite a coincidence that Arminius just happened to give Anna those journals less than a month before Justin shows up with a freakish dark fae infection,” Mason pointed out.
Austin sighed. “I’ll reach out to him. Knowing Arminius, he already has a vague idea of what’s happening and has probably been waiting for my call. Cody, have Caleb scour the dark web for anything that will help us and put together a list of our guys you think will be most at risk of being attacked by this thing. Mason and Jason, I need you to prepare both the house and bunker for a potential siege situation. Run drills with the teams and make sure every team is prepared for any eventuality.” They both gave Austin determined nods. “James, I need you to spend the rest of the day with Anna, don’t leave her side.”
James narrowed his eyes at Austin and the two of them stared at each other in a silent battle of wills. I wasn’t sure if Austin gave that order to have James protect me or if it was the other way around. James’s pride would never let him admit to needing protection from anyone else, so I stepped in to prevent him from contesting Austin’s order.
“I could really use your help, James,” I told him honestly. “You’ve spent more time with the northern pack than anyone else here.” James looked away from Austin to search my eyes for any signs of duplicity. He didn’t find any, because I genuinely did need him.
All of the guys scattered to fulfill their respective duties and I grabbed James’ hand. “Let’s grab a snack before we start working?” I offered.
James nodded and I could see the echo of the haunted look I had seen in his eyes when I was inside of his mind. “You must be starving,” I said quietly. “I know I am.”
“Yeah,” James admitted in a low grumble.
I had been unconscious for a couple of hours, and although it was getting close to dinner time, I’d never make it until then. Plus, I didn’t think I’d even be able to round up the guys for dinner tonight anyway. It was going to be an evening of protein bars and snack food for everyone. I sighed and led James back to the kitchen. We needed to refuel for what was going to be a long night.
Chapter 4
Anna
My eyes blurred as I stared down at the yellowed pages of the old journal. Once I had first received the journals from Arminius, I had skimmed through both quickly, wanting to see what secrets I could uncover. I had initially discounted the older version as a bunch of old stories and magical theory that was beyond my current skill level. Instead I had focused on my mothers more basic, easy to understand language. She had documented everything she had learned from her mother, and had used the journal while getting lesson from Froston. I was now ready to dive deep into the more complex tome.
The old journal had stories about the fae, but the level of reverence it gave them made them seem like gods. I knew that the fae were just as petty and flawed as the rest of us, but I had to admit that their understanding of the world around them was far above the human scientific minds of today.
The brightest minds of the human world scoffed at the idea of magic, putting their faith in the tangible. But what humans didn’t realize was that there was so much more out there than what they could see. This journal barely scratched the surface, but Talen’s memories showed me how much I didn’t know about the fae and their abilities.
Humans treated time and space as constants, things that couldn’t be changed, things that just were. But the fae considered everything around them fair game to play with. They bent reality and even time itself to serve their whims. They could manipulate air, water, and fire. They could affect the weather, make plants grow, and even create life. Playing with human thoughts and emotions was merely entertainment to pass the time during the dull moments of their immortal lives. It was easy to see why humans would consider them gods back when they didn’t have even half of the scientific understanding that they did now. I wondered if science would ever evolve enough to explain the magical phenomena that the fae were capable of.
I had read through this journal three times in a row and had put post-it notes on the parts that I thought would be most helpful for my current dilemma. Obviously, the story of how the dark fae were trapped in the first place was important, but also any passages mentioning barriers, prisons, or traps. Right now, I was lingering over some notes about how the fae traveled through worlds. Apparently, there were more than just the human world and Winter and Summer, not that I had any plans to venture out of this one any time soon.
Because the magical prison had needed a multitude of powerful fae to trap and contain the dark fae, I had discounted that as an option. Plus, if the prison was failing now, what would stop it from deteriorating again? My tired brain had decided that banishing the dark fae to another one of the worlds would be a better option. I felt bad for any world that I would send them to, but if they had come from Winter originally, isn’t that where they should go back to? I also had a sneaking suspicion that the Morrigan, Drake’s mother, was among the dark fae. How many death goddesses ha
d disappeared from Winter? It couldn’t be a coincidence.
Yet I still hadn’t found the answer to the most important question Mason had asked. If the fae were imprisoned in our world that long ago, how had they survived when all of their other brethren had died? Talen had been suffering without the connection to his world, and he had said that he could feel himself fading a little more every day. And most importantly, how could these fae possibly influence anyone outside of their prison?
I opened my mother’s journal to the part where she had recorded how Froston explained using gateways. He had brushed me off about learning how to do it myself, explaining that I was still playing with kindergarten magic whereas gateways were grad school level. But a part of me wondered if he just didn’t want additional competition for a very in-demand skill set. There weren’t many fae who could do what Froston did, and I was guessing that was part of the reason why he was so wealthy and powerful.
I chewed my bottom lip as I thought this through. Between the two journals and Talen’s memories, I had the basic understanding of what I needed to do – in theory. I would have preferred to have Froston show me what he did slowly and step-by-step. But let’s be honest, that was never going to happen. I tried to convince myself that it was better to learn this way. I didn’t have anyone telling me what was and was not possible for me to do – I was the only one holding me back.
I decided to just go for it. I would make a tiny little gateway from one side of my desk to the other. What’s the worst that could happen? The biggest parts of magic that needed to be mastered were intent and control. I had access to all of the power I needed, it was just a matter of being able to use it. I rubbed my hands nervously as I prepared to give this a try, but let out a sigh of relief when a knock on the door stopped me from causing a potential disaster.
My door opened and James slipped inside, moving silently across the room to look over my shoulder. “Any progress?” he asked in a deep voice that sent tingles down my spine.
Finding My Breaking Point Page 6