Lifting a hand, he waited as a small raven came barreling down at them, then opened its wings and slowed to drop a medallion on a leather cord in Yaahl's hand.
She knew that medallion well. He'd given it to her once before, which allowed her use of some of her powers while she wore it. He offered it on an open palm. "I'll grant you the ability to tap your powers and ..."
"Sounds good. Thank you." She snatched up the medallion and turned to leave.
He snapped his fingers and Reese froze in place. She couldn't even feel her heart beating. Really?
"As I was saying," Yaahl continued, "I will also allow you to teleport twice."
That was more than she'd expected from the tightwad who had kept her on a short leash for years. This way, she could teleport to wherever Phoedra had been taken, if she could determine where that was, and back when she had the girl in hand.
Yaahl inquired, "Can you locate her?"
Reese grunted at him with eyes shooting out a WTF message.
He released her body.
She shook off the awful feeling of being paralyzed. "I'll know as soon as I sit in the location where I last saw the van." If that didn't work, she would burn one teleportation to reach Quinn.
He was her only backup plan.
With her mind bouncing around with all sort of thoughts, she slowed at one in particular about Quinn and Kizira.
Could Phoedra be Quinn's child?
Then she got her senses back. No chance.
She could understand Kizira hiding her daughter with Yaahl to keep Phoedra away from the Medb, but Quinn? He had an entire Belador army at his disposal to protect Phoedra.
Quinn was not a man who would abandon his child.
"What are you waiting for, Reese?" Yaahl asked.
"Follow me." She returned to the spot where she'd last seen the van and sat in the middle of it to access her distant viewing ability.
Waving at Yaahl, she said, "Wish I could hang out to give you the audience you so desire for your bore-me-to-tears monologues, but I have things to do. Oh, wait. There's a guy in that building." She pointed at the rear door. "He was bleeding badly. Can you do something about him?"
"There is no one in that building now."
She didn't even want to wonder how he'd vanished. "See ya."
"Do not fail, Reese."
"What? Or you'll take away my powers? Been there, done that, got screwed. I'm going to get Phoedra. All I ask of you is don't get in my way."
"Do not return without her."
"I know. Don't return or you'll take away what little I still have in this world," she quipped, but deep down she was terrified he'd do just that and she'd never see Gibbons again.
"We have spent many years as adversaries. You have a chance to return as a peer in my following."
She had no idea what the hell he was trying to tell her. "What are you saying, Yaahl? Plain words, please. No riddles."
Leaning down, he said, "Return Phoedra to me safe and sound, and I vow I will unbind all of your powers. You'll have them forever. No discussion. No questions. You won't need the medallion anymore and you'll be able to go anywhere you choose. Don't let your emotions rule your actions."
Her mouth slipped open. She'd already told him she'd bring Phoedra home, but he was right. She'd given up Kizira's body last time to Quinn, knowing she could have regained her powers just by showing up with a cold body.
She said, "Understood." No smart comeback when she'd just been assured of the one thing she'd waited ten years to have returned.
"I want no misunderstanding, Reese. If you fail to rescue Phoedra and return with her, do not return under any circumstance."
That was the Yaahl she'd come to fear and hate at times over the past ten years. When in doubt, he added a threat level meant to get what he wanted.
The good news for him was that they wanted the same thing.
She'd bring Phoedra home or die trying.
Yaahl straightened and gave her a solemn look that meant he'd said all he was going to say.
The swirling black cloud of minions that had surrounded them, which had clearly been a cloaking device, burst apart with black feathers floating down.
In the next second, crows flew high. When they disappeared, she looked back down to the ground.
Yaahl was gone and she was on her own.
Fine. She'd spent most of her life that way.
Once she had Phoedra in hand, she intended to press Yaahl to find out everything about her. Phoedra deserved to know who her parents were.
Reese looped the medallion over her head. Power flooded her body. Whoa. The last time she had this medallion, it had given her a limited amount of power, but this time it was far stronger.
That said how much Yaahl wanted Phoedra back.
It wasn't as if Kizira could harm him from the afterworld. Evidently Yaahl took his vows seriously, and right now he was breaking the one he'd given Phoedra's mother.
Reese searched back and forth across the rear delivery area. "Please don't let some truck run me over while I'm doing this."
Opening her senses as she gripped the medallion, colors flashed at her then a dark hole opened up, widening more and more. It took a minute, but once the hole opened up, she started to see a large dome, then streets running away from it. Huh? Her gaze blurred, then cleared. She turned her head to the side for a different view and spotted the van pull up to a rusty overhead door.
Leaning in toward it, she searched behind the van for a street name or landmark, but the edges blurred again.
If they traveled there through a bolthole, could she teleport to the same place? What happened to a body if it stopped in the middle of teleporting?
Would she just land someplace unexpected or would her body get caught in limbo ... or would she just disintegrate?
Yaahl could have given her a crash lesson on it.
A hand clamped down on Reese's shoulder. Pain and energy shot through her. Nonhuman. Oh, shit, oh, shit.
Whoever it was yelled, "Got one here."
No time left for pondering what-ifs or fighting this guy, because she'd lose her viewing location.
She called on the medallion to teleport her to the one thing she could recognize. That dome.
Power raced over her skin.
The world blurred ... was anything happening?
Big hands clenched her shoulders and pulled her backward.
All at once, her body jerked and stretched. She'd forgotten to question one more possibility.
What would happen if she got pulled between her destination and someone using majik to hold her in place?
Chapter 16
--------
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Quinn went on alert as the teleporting ended.
Groomed grass and solid ground beneath his feet. Check.
Giant indoor event facility at his back, which appeared to be the BOK Center. Check.
No one saw him appear out of thin air thanks to arriving in Tulsa at around nine in the evening, if his calculations on central time were correct. He'd departed just after ten from Atlanta.
Almost perfect.
If Daegan had teleported him twenty feet to Quinn's left, he'd have been able to walk through an open area between trees fronting Frisco Avenue without having to jump a wrought iron fence.
Still, Quinn had no complaints.
He hadn't realized that Daegan had been in Treoir Castle in another realm--the dragon king's second trip that day--which meant Daegan had to drop what he was doing to teleport back to Atlanta to help Quinn and then send Quinn on his way.
That wouldn't have happened when Macha had control of the Beladors. The last time Quinn had seen her at the end of a Tribunal meeting, she'd told him, "I am done with you."
As a two-thousand-year-old dragon shifter, Daegan packed a ton of power, but he'd clearly been stretching himself thin to zip all across states, countries and realms throughout the day to protect his people.
He'd taken over
Quinn's role of Maistir and had now teleported Quinn at a moment's notice.
No questions asked.
Paying that man back would require ... he couldn't fathom how to do it and had told Daegan as much, to which Daegan replied, "Bring your daughter home. That will be payment enough."
Daegan was earning loyalty from all of his followers. The Beladors had a true leader.
Quinn hoped this was the place Lanna had seen. Now he just had to locate a faded yellow building with NO TRESPASSING signs. If everything Lanna had observed was accurate, that could be in any of four directions.
He dismissed any doubts. With more of a lead than ever before, now was the time for action.
He waited as people walked along Frisco Avenue in both directions. Thankfully, no event appeared to be scheduled at the dome for tonight. As soon as humans were out of the way, he used kinetics to leap across the wrought iron fence wrapping the back half of the sports complex.
Due to dealing with troll raids and the like in Atlanta, Quinn had been wearing dark-green cargo pants and a black T-shirt when he'd come to the meeting with Lanna. Storm had loaned him a hooded gray jacket, which allowed Quinn the ability to hide his Triquetra blades for easy access.
He could only hope that between those razor-sharp, triangular throwing blades and his Belador powers, he was prepared for whatever he went up against.
Didn't matter. He was getting his child away from her kidnappers.
He struck out in an easterly direction toward downtown Tulsa, covered a mile, then crossed over to a parallel street and headed back to the BOK Center. This was a tedious, but pragmatic approach to covering a mile out in all directions from the center.
It would be simpler and faster if he could use his Belador powers, which allowed him superhuman speed, but he had to do his part to protect the preternatural world from humans.
Not that he had much control of that at the moment. If Queen Maeve and her followers kept up their antics, they would all be exposed to humans.
He kept moving out and back on the parallel streets, using a counter-clockwise direction around the BOK Center.
On his third trip out, he had taken the cut-across to the next street heading back to the center again when his senses picked up energy moving somewhere ahead of him.
Two young men were walking toward him on the opposite side of the street, but they kept going without slowing down. Humans.
That strange energy could be any type of being these days, with trolls and the Medb coven on the move plus Dakkar's bounty hunters added to the mix, but when Quinn keyed in on the power, it dissipated.
Was the being moving away from Quinn?
Or had he been made and the being now hid its power signature?
He continued, walking quickly along the empty stretch. Not much foot traffic. During a game or event at the sports center, all the parking lots he passed would undoubtedly be full.
The odd energy stroked past his senses again.
He paused, turning slowly to see if he could pinpoint where it came from.
A vibration of energy pulsed hard, as if the being started powering up for something. Quinn picked up his pace and started to cross North Denver Avenue when a movement off to his right caught his eye.
Buildings and embankment walls bordered each side of the avenue, which ran beneath a railway bridge five hundred feet away.
Quinn had stopped at the corner and now eased into a dark area, then stood very still. He saw nothing at first.
Seconds later, there it was.
A dark figure emerged from the shadows and prowled along the narrow walkway that ran along the avenue, protected from the highway by a two-foot-tall concrete divider.
Any question he had about energy coming from that person disappeared when the being paused beneath the railway track bridge and leaped straight up at least ten feet.
He had nothing but instinct to go on at this point. Finding a preternatural being in this area raised his suspicions enough to take a closer look.
Quinn followed, found an opportunity to use his kinetics to leap the ten-foot height, then closed the distance between them. He allowed for a reasonable space to prevent being spotted. As he approached, the deep shadows spit out another figure, much larger.
The new player moved like a troll. At that size, a troll would have claws as long as Quinn's fingers.
In two long strides, the troll lifted its arms, preparing to attack the smaller person Quinn had been following.
Quinn raced forward.
The potential victim spun and lashed out with a whip of power that sliced horizontally across the troll's chest.
The troll made a nasty groaning sound, then toppled over.
But Quinn had lost the advantage of being clandestine since his footsteps gave him away.
The victor of the battle took off, running down the tracks.
Now, with no humans around, it was time to use his Belador speed.
Advantage Quinn. He rushed ahead in a blur. His prey was quick, but not quick enough. Quinn saw his opportunity. Someone working on the tracks had stacked a short pile of railroad ties on the side.
When he got within a hundred feet, he used kinetics to spin a wooden tie across the tracks into the path of his prey, sending the lithe figure flying through the air and landing in a tumble.
He barreled up and stopped just short of running over the now-prone body that was heaving air in and out.
Hair that could be red or brown spilled out as her cap fell off. Good goddess.
He stared down at a face he'd never expected to see again. "What are you doing here, Reese?"
Shock washed over her face for a split second before she shut it down to that blank expression he remembered so well.
"I've got business here."
He offered her a hand.
Instead of accepting his help, she jumped to her feet and backed away. "What are you doing here?"
She'd been in Atlanta, hunting Kizira's stolen tomb and never said why she wanted it. Now she was not only in Tulsa, but in the area where Phoedra should be?
A coincidence by definition was an extraordinary concurrence of events or circumstances without an obvious causal connection.
He had yet to believe in coincidence, especially when on a mission.
"What business do you have here, Reese?"
"I didn't tell you?" she said innocently, then snapped her fingers. "It's because I figured out a long time ago not to explain things to people. Otherwise they start thinking they're entitled to know everything I do."
That smart mouth verified he had the real Reese.
But what was she doing here?
"Tell you what, Quinn. If you tell me why you're here, I'll tell you why I am. But if you try to bullshit me, I'm gone."
"I believe we've established that I can outrun you."
"You think that's all I can do?"
The minute she referenced her powers, he scanned her neck for the leather thong holding the medallion she'd worn last time. There it was. For some reason, she could access her powers with that medallion, which meant whoever had taken away her use of them had not given them back fully.
"Who has you dangling at the end of puppet strings, Reese?"
Her cocky smile fell away at that. "I'm busy and I'm on a tight time frame so either meet me halfway or leave me alone."
"I have a third idea."
"What's that, sport?"
"I could use that baling wire over there to tie you up until I finish what I came to do, then take you back to Atlanta with me where you could finally answer my questions."
"You can't teleport."
"No, but I have someone on speed dial who can. Remember the dragon?"
She took a step back.
Shit. He hadn't planned on her calling his bluff.
Chapter 17
--------
Using her peripheral vision, Reese took in her surroundings while keeping Quinn in front of her. He looked the same and yet different. Qui
nn had a way of being imposing no matter if he wore a suit or jeans. The hoodie might downplay him to a regular guy on the street, but only from a distance.
Anyone who got close to him would sense a level of power. Even a human would.
One look at this man, and a woman would start calculating ways to get him in the sack. Not that she was, because she'd already calculated about a thousand different scenarios.
Not one of them looked anything like this minute.
She could not use her remaining teleportation just to get away from him, but that left her few options. She'd seen enough during her trip to Atlanta to know he could back up his threat to contain and teleport her.
He probably had that blasted dragon on telepathic speed dial.
This wasn't how she'd envisioned facing Quinn again. Not that she'd planned to actually see him in person, but in her fantasies he was so happy to see her, he declared his undying love.
Okay, not really, but there was lots of great sex.
She'd definitely envisioned that part.
Threatening to tie her up would sound a lot better in a bedroom with silk scarves, not rusty wire.
Not the time to fantasize, Reese. Why was Quinn here anyway?
Did it have to do with Phoedra?
If Quinn wasn't here because of Phoedra, this was pretty damn coincidental.
He couldn't be involved in her kidnapping. The idea of that made Reese sick for the split second it took her to dismiss it. The alternative was ... that Quinn came here hunting Phoedra for someone else.
That would be even more disturbing if not for one simple fact. Reese had left Kizira's body in Quinn's care because this man epitomized honor. He wouldn't be hunting the girl for any bad reason.
The niggling, ugly, green-eyed monster poked at Reese now, reminding her about Quinn and Kizira's involvement, and how much he'd obviously cared for the Medb witch.
At least she was sure of one thing. Phoedra couldn't be his child, because Reese had spent enough time around Quinn to believe he would not have left Phoedra without a father.
Reese knew, firsthand, the kind of man who abandoned his own flesh and blood.
Maybe Kizira had somehow left Quinn a message asking him to protect her daughter.
Reese brightened at that thought. Her gut latched onto that explanation for now.
Still, her cynical side wouldn't shut up. She had to determine whether Quinn really was hunting Phoedra, and if so, why.
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