by Laney McMann
He put his fingers over her lips. “If my grandfather wanted us separated, he would have said that. He gave me a direct order to take you and leave. I appreciate you trying to do the right thing here, Kade, but we’re going. We.” His tone was brusque, resolute, and the statement itself was ‘business’ Cole. This was his job, and he wouldn’t back down from it regardless of the risk.
“But … seriously, this is crazy.” Kade drew away, bracing herself on one arm. “I’ve been on my own, for the most part, for a long time. I can take care of myself.”
“We’re going,” he repeated, all formality dropped from his voice, and his gaze softened. “The thing is, I’m thankful this was my grandfather’s order,” he stared at her, “because I’d break my oath before I’d let you go to the Star City by way of summons. So, if this,” he gestured between them, “is just about you trying to do the ‘right thing’ and protect me, get that thought out of your head. I would walk away from my race entirely before I’d let you go out and face any of this alone.”
Her jaw dropped, her eyes stinging slightly. “Cole …”
“I’m not kidding. And if these assholes want to play,” he shook his head with a sadistic grin, “then we’ll play. But you and I aren’t separating. No way in all hell would I go that route, much less give them the satisfaction.”
She stared into his unyielding eyes. Not one hint of doubt looked back at her.
“I’m dead serious,” he said.
“What about school? I know that sounds like a stupid question, all things considered, but …”
“Primordial come in and out of school all the time. It’s not that unusual. Remember we’re like worldwide watchdogs.” Cole touched the wings on the side of his neck, and Kade saw them flutter between his fingertips like a butterfly’s, lifting away from his skin in wisps of blackish-blue smoke. “The governments across the world need us. They go along with our way of life because it sustains their own.”
“Right.” Cole had told her that weeks ago when she’d woken up in a strange bed at the Kinship, but still. “Where are we going to go?”
Cole repeated the same motion, touching the wings on his neck, before he focused on Kade. “Probably shouldn’t tell you that yet,” he stood up from the bed, “and just keep my thoughts to myself. It’s still only a theory we’re going on, but I’d rather no one tracks us to the Leygate if that theory is correct and we’re being overheard.”
Chapter 11
There were a lot of things Danny had pretty much hated since finding out he was a Primori and moving into the Brotherhood when he was nine years old. One of those was learning his true form was avian. Nothing could have prepared him for what it felt like when his skin shed off and was replaced with feathers. Thankfully, that particular change didn’t occur in Primordial until after they’d been warned it would happen—until after they knew what they were and had taken up residence in a common house.
The first time Danny shifted into his avian self, he’d been eleven, and he’d almost thrown up. The uprush of wind beneath his wings that lifted his body straight into the air, accompanied by the vastness of empty space between him and the ground, was terrifying. The only thing that kept him from crashing down to Earth had been Cole in his falcon form. Danny still remembered Cole’s words echoing in his head as the falcon had flown steadily beside him, a hundred feet from the ground: trust yourself.
“Trust yourself, Dan. You can do this.” Cole had never shifted his position, never moved away as Danny tried to overcome the fear, the weightlessness, and the thinning atmosphere at higher altitudes which made it hard for him to breathe.
Thankfully, he’d at least been blessed by being a hawk and not a finch or something. He would never have lived that down with Cole. Over time, flying became second nature. It still wasn’t Danny’s favorite, but he’d become good at it. And in the past few years, he had only felt the twitch of wings on his neck when he was about to transform, which until a day ago, he’d always assumed was part of the process. Now, he knew better. If the crawling itch on his neck wasn’t something he was controlling on his own, it was a call. A call from Cole—or sometimes—the echo of a call to Cole.
Danny sat up in his bed in his dorm room and clicked on the bedside lamp. The alarm clock read 3:33 A.M. His wings twitched again, an annoying quiver radiating on his throat and over his shoulder. With a wide yawn, he pushed away from the bed, slipped on his shoes and a sweatshirt, and exited his room, entering the dark Brotherhood hallway.
The sconces along the hallway walls were dimly lit due to the late hour—only small spots of yellow light shined on the green shag carpet. Cole’s room was directly across from Danny’s. He knocked once, softly, and waited. Cole was a ridiculously light sleeper, so he heard everything. There was no answer, no scuffling from the other side of the door, no deep, steady breathing—nothing. Danny knocked again and tried the knob, unlocked. He pushed the door, and it swung open. Empty. He pulled the door shut.
Following the spots of light along the hallway until they veered slightly, Danny stood silently outside of Plumb’s office. The door was cracked, as always, the same yellowish light from the sconces flooding the floor in a narrow line. Danny peeked inside. No one sat at the desk, not that he expected to see anyone in the middle of the night. He cracked the door open a bit wider, hoping the hinges didn’t squeak, and squeezed his body sideways to fit through the opening.
Searching the bookcase behind Plumb’s desk, he skimmed the spines until he found the book he was looking for. Removing it, the book fell open and revealed a cut-out section with a key resting at the bottom. Danny unlocked the bookshelf and it slid silently to the side, revealing a hidden underground hallway. Making his way toward Kade’s door, the bookcase slid back into place behind him.
He knocked once. No answer. Knocked again, and again, and again. Tried the knob, and it twisted in his palm from the other side of the door.
“What?” Giselle stood in the threshold, staring at her brother. “I am trying to sleep.”
“What took you so long to answer?” He glanced around her and into the dark bunker apartment.
“Sleep? Did you not catch that part?”
“I caught it.” He slipped past her and into the living room. “Where’s Kade?”
Giselle shut the door, stumbling slightly as she rubbed her half-closed green eyes. “In her room?”
“Go in and make sure.”
“What? What’s going on, Dan?”
“You said you were going to call me Danny, remember?”
“Oh, good god, it’s freaking late.” Giselle stormed toward Kade’s door and knocked softly. Nothing. She turned the knob and opened the door into the dark bedroom. “Kade? Wake up a minute. Danny needs to see you.” She turned and gave him a mock grin.
There was no response from the room.
He lifted a brow and rolled his neck on his shoulders with a groan. “Dammit. We have a problem.”
“Yeah, the problem is it’s three in the morning and you’re annoying me.”
“No,” Danny walked past her into Kade’s bedroom and switched on the light. The bed was unmade, closet doors open wide, clothes thrown on the floor. “The problem is Kade is gone.” He let out a breath. “And so is Cole.”
Cole pulled into the driveway at Kade’s dad’s house and yanked the emergency brake in the Jeep, small round headlights shining against the bumper of Kade’s black MINI.
“Why are we here?” She stared up at her father’s—uncle’s—dark house, rubbing her hands together against the cold night. The exterior landscaping lights were on, set on a timer, but the windows were unlit. Maybe they should set some timers inside the house as well, she thought—make it look lived-in.
“I told you the Warden was concerned about the ring Dracon had?”
“Yeah …” She hitched her scarf higher on her neck, shivering.
“Any idea where it could be? I mean, I know it’s a long shot, but any clue? Inside the house, maybe?”
“Maybe, but … I don’t know.” She hesitated for a second. “When you and Danny moved all of my furniture out, when I moved into the bunker apartment, did you ever check any of the other rooms?”
Cole’s light eyes narrowed. “No. Why?”
She shrugged. “Well … there was a room in our old house in Utah, Salt Lake City, that I wasn’t allowed to go in. It was always locked. My dad said it had his patients’ personal information, charts, diagnoses, that kind of stuff, and it was private. I never really thought about it at the time, but now … well, now we know he wasn’t who he said he was, not completely anyway, and I wonder what he was keeping in that room.”
“Did you have a room like that in this house?”
“No. That’s the strange part. Maybe because when we built the house here I was old enough to know better than to snoop, and my dad wouldn’t need to lock up patients’ charts. I don’t know.”
“When he built the house here?”
“Yeah.”
Cole let out a breath. “Sounds like there could be a lot more to your house than you likely know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I always wondered why your house was so big and so bright. Primordial stay undercover—we aren’t flashy. We want to stay unnoticed, but your house is like a monument.”
“You mean you think he built something else, another room or something on the property?”
“I mean I think he built another room underneath it.”
Kade was already shaking her head, adamant. “I’m not going in there. Don’t ask.”
Cole reached across her, and she sucked in a breath. He grinned, opening the glove box. “Gutter, Sparrow. Get your beautiful mind out of the gutter.” He winked at her. “And I wasn’t going to ask you to go inside. We need to leave.” Withdrawing a small piece of paper and a pen from the glove box, he scribbled a note and tucked it behind the steering well, covering up the speedometer. “Danny will find this when he comes looking for me. And he’ll come looking.” Cole put the Jeep in reverse and backed away from the house. “He can investigate.”
“Thank you,” Kade sighed.
Cole squeezed her thigh. “You’ve been through enough.”
“Seriously, Dan. It’s cold and pitch black dark out here,” Giselle complained as she and Danny exited the Brotherhood’s bunker and stood on the concrete loading dock. “Why are you so freaked out? Cole and Kade probably got sick of hiding out all the time and went on a middle of the night date or something.”
“Really?” his tone was flat. “It’s 3:45 in the morning.”
“It could happen.” She tucked her hands under her arms. “When people are forced to hide their relationship, sometimes they have to get creative.”
“Ugh. Please don’t say more. I really don’t want details.”
“It’s not my fault Lindsey and I have to sneak around. And late night excursions are—“
“Shh.” He put his fingers in his ears. “You’re my sister. Just … no.”
“Fine, whatever. I’m just saying—you’re jumping to conclusions thinking they fled or something bad happened. Where are we even going? It’s not like they left us a note. And I for one don’t want to walk up on anything I don’t want to see.”
“Are you always like this?” he asked. “Seriously, just shut up.”
She put her hands on her hips, staring at him in silence.
“Listen, when we were younger and I was still learning about being a Primori, Cole told me that I could find anything—everything—if I wanted to, or needed to, just by focusing my attention on it. He said if we were ever separated I could find him.” He glanced at his sister. “I’ve always been with him, so I never thought a lot about it, but we have a built in GPS system. As avians, we can find anything on the planet. I can find him.” Danny inhaled, the frigid air infiltrating his lungs, and shifted into his avian form. A hawk hovered in front of Giselle in midair, brown wings spread wide, dark yellow eyes focused on her.
She groaned and slumped her shoulders. “Uh. I’m like you, Dan, remember? The bird-transformation-thing isn’t my favorite part of this life. I’m a lot more partial to this me.” She motioned to her long legs clad in skinny jeans and her puffy white coat.
“G …” Danny said, knowing his voice chimed inside her head. “You’re a Primeva, you’re not human.”
“Oh, shut up.” She glared with her too-green eyes and set her pink purse next to the back door, wedging it behind a potted plant. On a half-breath, half-groan, she shifted into her avian form, and a tiny brown and white owl flew in the air in front of him.
“Thank you.”
“Whatever. I still think you’re overreacting. Where are we going?”
“Wherever my wings lead us.” Danny rose into the air, the Brotherhood compound growing smaller and smaller behind him, as Giselle stayed tight at his side over the mountains.
“Are we really doing this?” Kade rubbed her freezing hands together, leaning forward in the front seat of Cole’s Jeep.
“We really are.” He turned the heat up and directed all the vents at her face.
“It’s kind of … I don’t know, reckless.”
“You like reckless,” he leaned over, planting a quick kiss on her cheek.
“You know what I mean. Giselle and Danny are going to freak out. Aren’t you worried about scaring them? We just … left.”
“Yeah, a little worried, but Warden Caelius gave me strict orders to tell no one.” He sighed. “This wasn’t my choice.”
“I get that, but …”
Cole grinned and reached for Kade’s cold hands, wrapping his warm hand over top of them. “Contrary to what you might think, considering I completely threw out the Doctrine when it comes to you—to us—and well, I would’ve hauled ass with you before I let you go to the Star City, I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t break rules. I really don’t. Until I met you, anyway. The Primordial live by an oath, the Doctrine is our code, and trust me when I say that if Danny were in this position, he would do exactly what I’m doing and not tell me his plan if the Warden had given him a direct order not to. This is part of what we signed up for.”
“So, Giselle wasn’t kidding when she said the Ward is your life.”
“She said that?”
Kade nodded. “When I told her we were dating she said you were a good guy—although she’ll kill me if she knows I told you that—but the Ward was your life. She said it was all you cared about.”
He squeezed her hands. “That’s true—or it was true—until I met you. And regardless, you and my job are interlinked now—you’ve become part of everything—and completely my life. Not to mention, my grandfather is your guardian now—regardless of what the Eldership says.” He smiled proudly. “There’s no real separation anymore. The only issue is the Doctrine states we aren’t supposed to put our life on the line for someone who isn’t one of our own.” He pulled off on the side of the road into a large desolate field and cut the engine.
“Right.” Kade stared out the dark window. She didn’t need to be reminded they were on opposite sides of the Daemoneum/Primordial war. Especially not with the Eldership making it known that, regardless of how Kade was born, she was no longer part of the Primordial fold.
Cole touched her jaw, gently directing her to face him. “You are my own.”
Her cheeks warmed under his touch. She knew he believed that. She’d been a Primori, like him, once, but she wasn’t anymore. “Used to be.”
“I’m not talking blood, Sparrow. I’m talking love.” He kissed her nose and hopped out of the car. “My, god, am I leaving my Jeep out here?”
Kade jumped from her seat and walked around to stand next to him. The field was empty, nothing but dirt, rocks, and a few scraggly shrub grasses shining underneath the moonlight with the usual Rocky Mountain backdrop in the distance.
“It’s an open target.” Cole lowered the tailgate and lugged their suitcases out, putting them on the ground. “Danny wi
ll find it soon enough, I guess.”
“Why didn’t we just run up here and leave the Jeep at the Brotherhood?”
“Easy way to buy time, I hope. If the Jeep is gone, Plumb will assume I went somewhere. If the Jeep is at the Brotherhood, but I’m not, she’ll put one and two together a lot faster. Either way, she’ll know soon enough.” He closed the tailgate, locked the Jeep, picked up both suitcases, and put his elbow out for Kade to hold, walking toward an area where the shrub grasses were clustered together.
“Is this … I’m going to hate this, aren’t I?” Kade had been trying not to obsess about traveling through the Leygate to wherever they were going. After all the stories Cole had told her about him getting dizzy and vomiting for days when he’d learned how to travel from place to place within seconds, she’d had no desire to try it. When she’d gone through the Leygate to the Ward’s infirmary after her attack, she’d been unconscious so it didn’t count.
Cole stopped in the center of a crop of grasses, which had grown out of the ground in a perfect circle, each blade twisting to the right as if someone had twirled the tops with a curling iron. It reminded Kade of the stories she’d read about Fairie Mounds in Ireland.
“You’re probably going to hate it, yeah. I would have liked to have gone over it with you a little, practiced it first by jumping a shorter distance, but here we are.” Cole set the suitcases down, one against each of his legs, and his gaze caught Kade’s underneath the moonlight.
“Here we are,” she said. “You do know where we’re going—I mean, we’re taking the right Leygate? That’s a stupid question, I guess.” She glanced up at a million twinkling stars above, her nerves ricocheting. With no light pollution, the sky over the mountains was truly lovely at night, only the heavens glittering back.
“We’re going home.” He smiled. “Well, not exactly home home, but home on this planet, anyway.” Cole’s gaze lifted toward the stars. “It’s beautiful there, you’ll like it.”
