“The longest she ever left me was twelve hours.” Santi grabbed a protein drink from the fridge, absently shaking it before she downed it. “I can start to feel my power around the ten- hour mark but I can never seem to grasp control away from her. I think the window is more like eighteen hours, but it might be different for everyone.”
She tossed the empty bottle in the trashcan and led him to the bedroom. “You’ll get used to the floor,” she said as she made him a place to sleep at the foot of Livia’s bed.
Quinn was too tired to care. The blankets were soft and the pillow was comfortable. They stretched out beside each other in the darkness. As his eyes grew heavy, Quinn reached for Santi’s hand, grateful that he wasn’t alone anymore.
~~~
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Sasha: Summer
Agra, India
As the private jet took off, Sasha still didn’t know where they were going—only south to Tamil Nadu. It made her nervous, but she forced a bored expression on her face, tapping her foot irritably against the pale gray leather seat. The jet was definitely impressive, with a long, sleek sofa on one side and four luxurious reclining seats on the other. She’d caught a glimpse of a conference room in the back when she stowed her bow and arrow in the overhead compartment with her carry-on. That was after Jayesh’s team searched them from head to toe. Imogen’s concealment gift was way more impressive than Sasha had ever realized. It was fascinating to watch the guard’s hands slide right through the weapons at her hip like they were made of vapor. It gave her comfort knowing she was prepared for anything—at least physically. Mentally, she wasn’t prepared at all for what lay ahead of her.
Sasha watched Jayesh sitting opposite her now, poring over a stack of documents and speaking softly to the two soldiers sitting with him. The huge African men had joined them at the airport. They were both heavily scarred Immortals and spoke a dialect of French she had difficulty following. It was similar to Haitian French and called to her roots. She wondered if the two men were from Haiti. Or perhaps Africa? African French would explain her struggle to follow their conversation.
Sasha’s eyes widened in alarm as she realized what that could mean. Jayesh led a “special forces” team that they wanted her to become a part of in the future. He was overseeing her training to become an assassin. Sloane said he was “the best at what he did.” He’s some kind of world-class assassin. And his team was probably active on the African continent. Her family feared that Sasha would not be returned to them as promised when this was over.
Oh my God, are they going to take me to Africa? Her mind whirled with thoughts of warlords, jungles, drug smuggling and blood diamonds.
Sasha leaned over and whispered her suspicions to her sister.
“You could be right,” Gen said. If it was possible, she looked even more uptight than when they’d boarded the plane.
Sasha watched Jayesh now. The moment they parted ways with Lieutenant Governor Sloane at the airport, his tune had changed. Apparently, he’d been on his best behavior for her parents. Now he was a smug son of a bitch, barking orders and ignoring Sasha and Imogen completely. Dressed in faded black fatigues, he was certainly handsome and every inch a soldier, but his attitude ruined any chance of them getting along the minute he opened his mouth.
Sasha concentrated on their hushed conversation, trying to decipher enough of their French to get the gist of what they were discussing. She continued gazing out the window, feigning boredom, catching bits and pieces as they spoke. It was mostly about Jay’s low opinion of the “brat” he was forced to babysit. But they seemed to be discussing a contingency plan for after this was all over.
Sasha just wanted this thing done as quickly as possible. She was determined to get back to her plans and if that meant learning the subtle art of killing people, then she would do it. It didn’t mean she actually had to implement those skills.
She had an insane desire to prove herself worthy of the task they were giving her. A desire to prove herself to the prick sitting opposite her now. But she didn’t want the Senate to come for her again anytime soon. She had to botch this somehow. She had to dance along the razor’s edge of good, but not good enough. She had to convince Jayesh that she was too young, too immature and too inexperienced for this.
“Come, let’s get this over with,” Jayesh said, standing and motioning for Sasha and Imogen to follow him to the conference room at the back of the plane. Sasha followed quietly, unsure of what to expect from his sudden summons.
“Sit,” he commanded. His tone was one of a superior officer addressing the lowest of his soldiers.
Sasha took her seat beside Gen in one of the black leather chairs at the obsidian conference table.
Jayesh leaned over her. “We have a few things to get straight,” he said. “The Senate wants you here. I do not. They want you trained to become a member of my team. I do not. They want you to be the Senate’s representative on my team. I do not.” He slipped into the seat opposite her, keeping his gaze level with hers.
“Then we can agree all around.” Sasha leaned forward, not dropping her gaze from his. “I don’t want to be here either, but it looks as if neither of us has a choice. So I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”
“I expect you to do what you’re told, complete the training to the best of your ability and stay out of my way. I am not your babysitter. I am not your mentor. I am only here because the Senate would place you on my team and under my protection. I can’t stop it, but I can make damned sure you won’t be a liability to the rest of my team, if and when you do join us.”
“I assure you I will not need babysitting,” Sasha said calmly.
“Whatever, angel.” His lip curled into a sneer. “Call it whatever you want. I’m not your handler. For either of you.” Jay gave Imogen a look of equal disdain.
My sister could fry you on the spot, dude. Don’t be an ass. Sasha gave him a withering glare.
“Please,” Imogen interjected. “My sister is young. I’ll ask that you show her a little respect since she’s been asked to do something no one her age should ever have to do. I would suggest that you give her an explanation of what to expect next.”
“Fine.” Jayesh crossed his arms over his chest. “We will land in a few hours along the southern coast of India. We will travel into the rural countryside to one of the most ancient regions of the country. Your training will begin at dawn the day after we arrive. You will train for six weeks. It will be brutal. Mother Raghavan will oversee everything while we are there. When she deems you have successfully completed your training, we will leave and I will return to my team, who are currently ensuring the peaceful transfer of power in a war-torn African country. I should be there now. But instead I’ve been conscripted to babysit a pampered tween with an attitude problem.”
“I’m not the one acting like a child,” Sasha said.
“We are done here, angel. Go back to your seat, I have important work to do while I still have the chance to do it.” Jayesh shouted for his soldiers to escort the sisters back to their seats. He rattled off something in his unfamiliar French dialect. Something about “keeping the brat away from him for the rest of the flight.”
“You will speak to her with—” Imogen began, her eyes blazing in fury.
“I got this, Gen,” Sasha said calmly.
“Need I remind you that I have little patience for questions and prattle?” Jayesh said.
“First. You’re a dick,” Sasha began, deciding she was going to make his life difficult at every possible interval. “Second. Don’t ever call me ‘angel’ again. My name is Sasha and you will use it. You don’t know me, so don’t judge me. Third. I am Haitian born and my native tongue is French so you should watch what you say when you think you’re having a private word with your men. I don’t care if you have a low opinion of me and my ability to embark on this training I never asked to do. And fourth. Tell me—and tell me now—exactly what this training will e
ntail.”
“Ask your sister, angel. She’s been through it,” Jayesh said, nonplused by her demands. “The Senate seems to think you’re capable of hitting the most impossible targets. That’s the only thing about you I’m interested in.”
Sasha sat back in a huff. She could land any shot as long as she made a connection with the target. She had to see it with her gift. When that happened, she could shoot with her eyes closed and still see the target in her mind. But that didn’t always happen, particularly when she was anxious or stressed.
“You won’t be joining my team until I have a complete understanding of your gift.”
“Why do you care? You’ve made it perfectly clear that you don’t want me on your team.”
“I don’t want an untested girl on my team. But if your gift is as good as they say, I’ll get over that. We’re done with questions.” Jayesh rose and left them sitting at the table alone.
“He is a dick,” Imogen muttered.
“What was he like when you knew him before?” Sasha asked.
“He was always a jerk and rather full of himself, but we were friends.” Imogen shook her head in confusion. “That man … he’s not the man I remember.”
~~~
Sasha watched the landscape roll by, her eyes glazing over, lost in the turmoil of her thoughts. This country was so beautifully ancient. She could feel the history in her bones. She might not have been born of her mother’s body, but Naeemah’s lineage was still rooted in her blood through the bond that made them mother and daughter. This was her mother’s country.
Sasha prided herself on her ability to rise to any occasion and bend circumstances to her will, but she was losing her confidence. Lately, each time life threw a curveball at her, she just fell apart.
She sat quietly beside her sister in the back of the large black SUV. They had arrived at a rural airport in Tamil Nadu in the early evening and were traveling to some temple in the middle of nowhere. As they neared the Nigiri hills, a fertile valley rich in vegetation, lying between the Eastern and Western Ghat mountains, Jayesh slowed the vehicle and turned onto a winding path through the foothills.
“We’re nearly there,” Imogen whispered. She’d been quiet and tense in the hours since they left the airport.
“How long ago did you train here?” Sasha asked.
“Another lifetime.” Imogen smiled. “It is not a bad place. There are things about the mother and the Chola Valley temple. Things I cannot tell you until we are there. It will be hard. You will suffer. But you will find good in what the mother can teach you. She is hard, but she is also kind.”
“And I have you,” Sasha said.
“Exactly. A friend was not a luxury I had the day I entered the temple grounds.”
“You made one while you were there,” Jayesh said quietly from his perch behind the wheel.
“True enough.” Gen nodded, but Sasha wasn’t so sure these two counted each other as friends any longer.
“We hike the rest of the way,” Jayesh announced, pulling the SUV to the side of the road. His soldiers were still with them and would be returning to nearby Coimbatore to wait for them.
Sasha grabbed her duffel bag, careful to keep her concealed bow secured by the handles. With a deep sigh, she followed Imogen and Jayesh into the rolling hills of the fertile valley. Steps rose along the slope, following a path that led to the higher hills in the distance.
The light grew dim in the twilight evening as Sasha stepped up one crumbling stair after another. Her brow beaded with sweat and her heart hammered in anticipation. After hours of hiking with her somber companions, she couldn’t take the silence anymore.
“You know, your tension isn’t really giving me the warm fuzzies about where we’re going,” Sasha said as they crested yet another hilltop. The temple still wasn’t visible. But this hilltop was different from all the others lying behind them. As she took a final step up, Sasha entered an ancient, crumbling pavilion.
The structure was weathered and worn, but the mosaic floor was beautiful. Bright blue and green tesserae tiles blended with warm yellows and reds to paint a linear path, like a threshold across the center of the pavilion. The way Jayesh and Imogen stood hesitantly on this side of the mosaic line made Sasha think it really was a threshold. That once they crossed it, there would be no turning back.
“What is the significance of this place?” Sasha asked in a more reverent tone as she joined them.
“The Chola Valley. This place. This experience. It will change you,” Jayesh said, his tone soft as his mind drifted to some past memory. With a deep breath, he took a step forward—his eyes closed and a grimace on his face.
“It is time, sister. I am so sorry for this. All of this,” Imogen whispered as she took Sasha’s hand and stepped across the threshold into the Chola Valley below.
~~~
CHAPTER
NINE
Quinn: Summer
Atlanta, Georgia
“Wake up,” Livia’s tone was flat and hollow, rousing both Santi and Quinn out of a dead sleep.
Her power seared along his spine like a white-hot poker. Through all his time at Soma, Quinn had grown accustomed to the experience of Livia exerting her dominance over him again and again. This time, for a single instant, he could almost grasp hold of his gift. But before he could find purchase, the moment was gone and he was cowering on his side, gasping for breath. He slammed his fist against the floor, oblivious of the blood seeping through his bandages.
He watched helplessly as she did the same to Santi.
“Selena was called away so you’re working at the Fold today, Santi.” Livia turned without another word and retreated to the fortress of her office for the night.
“Is it always like that?” Quinn rolled over to find Santi scrubbing at tears of frustration.
“Sometimes are worse than others. Depending on her mood.”
“What does she mean, you’re working at the Fold?”
“That’s what Sterling Tower’s all about,” Santi said dryly. “The Fold is the public face of Soma. A squeaky-clean non-profit organization dedicated to helping Immortal families through tough times and training young and talented Immortals when their parents don’t have the means to teach them. It’s everything Livia wants the world to see. And it’s a big fat lie. Behind it all is Soma and the Coalition. You’ll see the Coalition running in and out of the building, working hand in hand with Soma, doing Livia’s bidding. She has some kind of agreement with them.”
“So what does the Fold do?”
“Lures young kids and their families into Soma so they can cherry-pick from the most talented of our generation. I suspected it when I came here looking for a job but I was desperate. And too naive to realize the Fold is just another resource they use to fuel their slave market. She’ll have me spend the day working with the kids on the lower level. Kids like Lennox. They grow up here not knowing they’ll end up sold to the highest bidder if they’re talented enough. The ones who aren’t will end up with the Coalition.”
Quinn wasn’t sure why he did it, but she’d shown him such kindness when he was at his lowest, and she had a difficult day ahead of her. He wrapped his arms around her, taking solace in her warmth, and they slept like that until Livia sent one of her minions to wake them at an ungodly hour.
~~~
“This way to my office.”
Quinn reluctantly followed the young Soma agent along a stark white hallway in the early morning light. Dressed in clean clothes but still feeling like a wreck, Quinn grappled with the old memories that had haunted his dreams. Memories of Sasha and their last moments together before he was ripped away from her. All this time and he still wondered what that last kiss meant.
It was only three months, Quinn. Not years.
“In here,” the man said, stepping aside and gesturing for Quinn to enter the small training room. “You’re my responsibility now. I have to get you back on your feet, fit and strong and healed from the mess Michael
put you through. I’m the good guy here, so this will be easy. Take a seat.”
Quinn sat on one side of the long white desk near the door. The room was sparse and white, like everything in Soma seemed to be. Silver gym equipment lined the wall, and a wide white mat ran down the center of the room. Training weapons hung on the walls. It vaguely reminded him of his mother’s office at home. But her rooms were warm and inviting and they reflected her life and her personality. This cold, clinical room had all the elements for training a young Immortal, without the warmth of home.
“I’m James, by the way.” He sat opposite Quinn, offering his hand.
Quinn eyed him warily. He wasn’t prepared to trust anyone in this place, but James seemed like a decent enough guy.
“Relax. I couldn’t care less about the Soma agenda. I’m here to do a job I was never given any choice but to do. I’m in the same boat as you. I’m just the result of what happens when you agree to their terms and sign on the dotted line. You and Santi are the result of … resisting the inevitable.” James pointed to the Soma brand on his neck. “At the end of the day, we all wear the mark of a slave.”
“I won’t sell out,” Quinn muttered.
“Have you eaten?” James asked.
“No.”
“I’ll order brunch brought up from the dining hall.” He tapped a message into his phone. “For now, let’s have a chat.” James crossed his legs, with a notepad in his lap. He looked every bit the psychologist or counselor, although he was quite young. Not much older than Quinn or Santi.
“Oh, God. You’re a shrink?” He almost laughed at the absurdity of it. They wanted to fix what they’d damaged.
“Definitely not,” James said dryly. “They don’t care that much about our mental health. And they definitely never let me go to college. I barely qualified as a high school grad. No, I’m just here to get you back on track, Quinn. This doesn’t have to be difficult. And if you listen to nothing else I say, listen to this. Enjoy your reprieve while you can. This part is a cakewalk compared to what you have behind you and in front of you.”
Immortals of Indriell- The Collection Page 93