by Laney McMann
Giselle glanced away. “Dan … do you think—is this why I’m—”
He shook his head, cutting her words off. “I don’t know. I really don’t.” He knew what Giselle was thinking, but he couldn’t allow his mind to go there yet. Is this why she was a Primeva was what she wanted to say.
Her eyes were glazed, and he could see she was willing herself to be calm. “What about looking for other clues?” Giselle let her brother steer her out of the underground room and up the steps into the laundry room.
“I’m not digging through all this crap.” He thrust his hand at the mess. “I’ll let Cole know what’s here and about the picture. We’ll go from there.” Giselle wasn’t the only one trying to remain calm. Dracon had experimented on babies—he’d said that to Cole when Kade had been attacked. He’d tried to create more Anamolia, but Kade had been the only success. It didn’t take much thought to put two and two together. Danny just prayed that Giselle hadn’t been one of the babies he’d tested the fusionem crystal on. He couldn't deny that it made sense, though. Giselle was the only Primeva in a family of Primori, and no one could explain why.
“Where are we going now?” Giselle's voice sounded far away to Danny’s ears as if someone else was speaking, not her.
“Hm?” He shook his head in an attempt to dislodge the various horrific images filling his thoughts. “I don’t know. Rome?” Reaching the top of the stairs, he pushed the washing machine back over the trap door in the floor. “Take the Jeep to the Brotherhood … and,” he sighed, brain reeling, making him anxious. “Go to the Warden? Tell Plumb?” He glanced at Giselle, at her bright green eyes, identical to his. “I really don’t know. But …” He continued to stare at her, his twin, his only sibling, his sister. “I don’t like this.”
She didn’t respond. “You think telling Warden Caelius and Plumb about Cole might—I don’t know.” She glanced away from him. Danny knew she was trying to change the subject away from the baby picture and onto Cole. For the time being, he couldn’t blame her. His reeling thoughts weren’t leading him anywhere good.
“Do I think telling them will tip them off to something Cole doesn’t want them to know?” They walked through the living room and out of the house. “Yeah. I do. Plumb, at least. Cole talked to Warden Caelius earlier this evening, so …” He started the engine in the Jeep and noticed his hand was shaking slightly. “I’m not sure, but I think Warden Caelius might know what’s going on. Not like we can march over and ask, though.” He put the Jeep in reverse and pulled away from Kade’s house onto the mountain road.
“Did the note Cole left say anything else?” Giselle kept her focus out the window.
“No. Just to go to the house.”
“What are the chances of you finding him in Italy if you go there? Will you be able to find him or just his shoe or something?”
“Nice, G. I found the Jeep in the field, didn’t I?” He shifted into second gear and glanced at his sister. “It’s not as if I’ve tried to find Cole by way of avian tracking before.” He tapped the wings on his neck. “Maybe it just takes practice. Regardless, sounds like he’s safe. I think. His note would have said otherwise if not. He knew I’d find the Jeep.”
“Well, Italy is a big place.” She grinned, but her features were tense, as she held onto the doorframe as the Jeep bumped down the mountain road through potholes. “You can get a lot of practice trying to hone your GPS skills there.”
“Ha. Ha. You’ll be getting practice right along with me. You’re coming, too.”
“Oh, no, I’m not.” She stared at him.
“Oh, yes, you are. Lindsey, too. We’re in this together. Our plan was to regroup and find the Araneum.” Danny didn’t want to go into any of the details about what he and Cole had discussed earlier about the lines on his and Kade’s hands—or any connection it could possibly have to the Daemoneum wanting Stella Urbem. That idea made no sense at all. “I don’t know why Cole hauled ass in the middle of the night without a word, but I’m not going to sit around and wait to see what else is happening. Not with the Daemoneum having gone basically silent.” He turned down a less rocky road and eyed Giselle. “Cole is my Alpha, pain in the ass that he is, and my best friend. I go where he goes as the Doctrine states. Even if that isn’t his plan. We keep each other’s backs.”
“What if he wasn’t your best friend?” Giselle’s gaze remained steady on her brother’s face for a few beats. “If Cole was just your Alpha, like Jake is mine and the rest of the Kinship’s, would you put your life on the line for him then? Because the Doctrine states it?”
He frowned as he glanced at her in the small cabin of the Jeep. “Cole was my best friend before he was my Alpha. The Alpha part is secondary. Honestly, he could be anyone—no one of significance—within the Brotherhood, and he’d still be my best friend. I’d still risk my life for his.” He glanced at her again. “The Doctrine is just a code, Giselle. A piece of paper in the grand scheme of things. Friendship, to me at least, is much bigger than that.”
She looked away and out the window. “Why did you inherit all the goodness, and I got none of it?”
“G—don’t. Don’t do that.”
“I’ll go with you, Dan. I’ll go because you asked me to and because I’m supposed to. I care about Cole and about Kade.”
“But …?”
She glanced down at her hands in her lap. “I just wish I was going because my heart was as big as yours. Because I was brave enough to risk everything for the people I loved.”
“G—risk isn’t about your heart being big enough or about being brave enough, it’s about believing in something even when you’re afraid.”
“The thing about having Devil’s Children blood that no one tells you when you’re growing up,” she said, not looking at him, “at least no one in a family like ours—full of Celestial born Primori—is that it really is tainted. My blood.” She glanced over at him. “I don’t know what that picture of me means or why Dracon had it. Honestly, I don’t want to think about it. It doesn’t matter now. He’s dead.” She let out a breath. “We might be on the same side because we’re twins, Danny, Primeva and Primori, and no matter what I’ll always have your back. You’re my brother, but it’s true what they say: Celestial born kids really are better than the Devil born. We’re selfish by nature. And you’re giving.”
Danny stopped the Jeep in the loading dock behind the Brotherhood in shock, staring at his sister. He’d learned the same thing all Primordial kids had, read all the old texts they were required to read about their ancient history, theology, the Leyline grid, all the Planes, and the separation of the Primordial race thousands of years before into Primori and Primeva in order to keep the bloodlines of the Primori clean of Devil’s Blood, but never once—not even once—had he ever considered Giselle beneath him or lesser than him. Not once had he thought of her blood as tainted. They had the same blood. They were twins. And it had never made any sense to him that Giselle had been born a Primeva while he hadn’t. Finding the picture of her in Dracon’s underground lab was all the proof he needed. Giselle wasn’t born a Primeva.
He stared at her. “Giselle, maybe for some Primeva, that’s true, but it’s not true for Lindsey. Hell, even Jake isn’t that bad. I understand you don’t want to think about the picture we found—I don’t either—but if it was there for the reason we think it might be, then we just answered a lot of unanswered questions.”
She shrugged, eyes downcast. “Maybe I was experimented on as a baby like Kade, but even if that’s true, which totally freaks me out, it doesn’t change what I am now. Just like it doesn’t change what Kade is now. She doesn’t even have her sparrow wings anymore, only a scar. At least I’m still a Primordial. Just leave it alone, Dan. Pretend we didn’t find that picture. It doesn’t matter now.” She didn’t look at him as she got out of the Jeep and disappeared into the underground bunker.
Cole waited at the bottom of the staircase in Heru’s villa near the front door dressed in dark jeans and
a white T-shirt that pulled slightly across his chest. His eyes were still slightly dark from all the kissing before, Kade guessed, but the wells underneath were purplish, something she hadn’t noticed earlier. He looked exhausted. Still, he traced every step she took as she descended the stairs, from head to foot and back up again, with his customary cocky grin.
“Maybe if you didn’t do that you wouldn’t be so hard for me to resist,” she said, coming to a stop in front of him in the entryway.
“Do what?”
“Look at me the way you do.”
He frowned. “Would you rather someone else looked at you that way?”
How he was so vulnerable at times, Kade didn’t understand. She put a hand on his cheek. “No one else on Earth could look at me the way you do. There’s a light in your eyes I swear only shines for me.”
He leaned into her palm, a gentle side of him she’d only seen glimpses of, and placed his hand over hers.
“What’s wrong?”
He averted his eyes. “I’ve faced a lot in my life, been to hell and back,” he said, “seen too much for my age probably, learned too much, but nothing has terrified me as much as this.”
“As much as what?”
“Loving you.” He stared at her.
Her breath stuck in her throat.
“There are so many ways I could lose you, now it seems more than ever, I mean look where we are.” He gestured toward the scene outside through the French doors. “Yes, it’s pretty, yes, it’s Italy, and yes, thank the gods that I’m here with you, but the reason we’re here …? I could lose you, and I think about that—twisted shit like that—all the time. I hate it. Sometimes all I want to do is run. From you, from me, from everything.” He let out a deep breath and stood tall, his hand falling from hers. “I’m not afraid of the Daemoneum—never have been—they can come at me and bring the might of the universe with them, and I’ll still fight with everything I have, but losing you …”
Kade didn’t say anything.
“I tried to make it work with Tiffany.” He held her gaze.
She let out a breath like he’d hit her and took a step back.
“I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear that, but I need to say it—I need you to understand. I tried not only because Warden Caelius told me to … but because I was absolutely terrified of how I felt about you—of what it could mean.”
Her mouth opened, but there were no words to say. She didn’t know the Warden had told Cole to keep seeing Tiffany.
“Losing someone you aren’t in love with—breaking up or whatever—it has no risk. Zero. And I wasn’t interested in falling for anyone. It was the last thing I wanted. But, dammit, Kade, it doesn’t matter what I do, where I go, who I see, or date, or goddamn anything at all—I only want you. Only you.” He exhaled. “And feeling that … knowing that … is both freeing as hell and restricting as hell. I would risk everything for you—every damn thing. I am risking everything for you. But I could still lose you. I could.” He let out another breath. “I’ve survived a lot, more than most, but I don’t think I could survive that.”
Kade closed the space between them, and jumped at him, her arms and legs wrapped around his body as he held her off the floor.
“You’re it for me, Sparrow.” He held her tight, voice thick. “I just need you to know that. If you know nothing else, I need you to know that. I see the light in your eyes, too, and I swear it only burns for me.”
“It does.” Her voice muffled into his neck, face buried, inhaling the sweet smell of him.
“So, we’re in this together. Good or bad. Light or dark.” He swallowed audibly. “Okay?” He lifted her chin, gazing into her eyes. “Whatever happens? No separating. I don’t even want to consider it. Okay?”
She nodded, choked up, her face slick with tears. “Okay.”
He kissed her softly, a lingering kiss that confirmed the only words she needed to know for the rest of her life: I love only you.
Chapter 15
The air outside the villa was cool, not like Colorado in a brutal way, but brisk and light in the late morning sun. Townspeople busily peddled their goods from small shops along the cobbled streets, tourists chatted merrily as they passed, and the scent of freshly baked bread hung in the air.
“We’re taking a train? Really?” Kade tugged on Cole’s waist while they walked through the city streets of Verona, taking in the sights.
“Yeah.” He pulled her closer against his side, his arm slung over her shoulders. “I’d have taken you on a train sooner if I knew you’d get this excited about it.”
“It’s just . . . I’ve never ridden on a train before, and look around,” she gestured toward the rolling green hills in the distance, and all the colorful homes and store fronts. “It’s beautiful here, and I’m sure by train, it’s even more beautiful.”
“It is.” He kissed her forehead.
“So, where are we going, exactly?” She buried her hand in between the buttons on his jacket, resting her palm against the hard planes of his stomach.
“Into the hills. There are areas that get very little human traffic, so it’ll be easy to train without any attention except by maybe the cows.”
“We get to see cows, too?” She hopped and tripped a step on the cobbled road.
Cole caught her by the arm. Her yellow-green eyes were wide, and she wore a huge grin on her perfect face. She was giddy. His stomach fell. “You’ve never seen cows before?” What else hadn’t she seen or done? They were just cows.
“I mean, sort of, I guess. Not really. No.” She shrugged.
He slowed them to a stop in the middle of the bustling street and turned to face her. “You said you‘d never been hiking either.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t been.”
“You know what? I want you to write me a list of all the things you haven’t done, but wanted to do as a kid.”
Her eyes widened further as she stared up at him.
“All the things you wanted to see, places you wanted to go, but didn’t. Can you do that for me?”
Her eyes welled, and she glanced away.
“Sparrow,” Cole guided her face toward him, “I just realized … this is our first real date out in public. I mean the overlook in the mountains, too, it just didn’t—”
“Go so well?” She nodded up at him with watery eyes.
“Yeah. I want to take you on a million more dates, and I want you to do all the things you missed out on. We can go to the fair, Disney World, parks, the beach, anywhere you want to go. Anywhere.”
Tears streamed down her face. “I don’t know what to say.”
He stroked her cheek, drawing circles across her jaw, clearing the tears. “Say you’ll let me show everything you never got to see.”
More tears fell, but she managed a smile. “Can we start with the cows?”
Cole pulled her into him. “Yeah, beautiful, we can start with the cows.”
Danny sat in Cole’s Jeep, staring through the windshield toward the loading dock of the bunker as the sun came up. He had no idea what Giselle was talking about. She’d been acting strange for days—finding the picture only seemed to have made it worse. Not that she didn’t act weird from time to time. Since they were little, she’d had an issue with being what she always called the “black sheep” of the family.
Danny knew she tried to temper any resentment she had against him. No one knew why she’d been the only Primeva born into a family of Primori. Until now, anyway, if Danny’s suspicions were correct. Regardless, he hadn’t missed the looks she’d given him from time to time all their lives. He never chose to call her out on it, not to her, or to their parents. Giselle was his sister, and no amount of Devil’s blood would ever change how much he loved her.
Being gay only seemed to heighten the issues she was clearly having. Danny had no idea what to do about it, though. We can’t change the way we’re born; we can only accept who we are and love ourselves for it. His father’s words rang in
his head, as they always did. Whether Giselle knew it or not, their parents knew she was gay, and they couldn’t care less. Granted, it wasn’t his place to tell her that. She needed to come into her own, to trust herself—and to talk to their parents. It was the only way she would ever accept who she was and love herself for it. The picture they found could explain so much. But if Giselle wanted to act like it didn’t exist ….
“Dan!” The door of the loading dock swung open and smacked the outside concrete exterior of the Brotherhood.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered, sinking down in the driver’s seat.
“Don’t try to hide,” Plumb yelled. “I see you from here.” She stormed toward the Jeep, hair everywhere, Birkenstocks, and one of her too-bright muumuus on. “Where is Cole?”
“Crap.” Danny watched as the door to the underground bunker opened again and his sister came running out, still dressed in her puffy white coat, behind Plumb.
“She knows, Dan,” Giselle said with more alertness he’d witnessed coming from her in days. “She already knows.”
Danny wasn’t sure whether to throw the Jeep in reverse and gun it out of the drive way, or get out. Considering he would be leaving Giselle alone, and he had nowhere to gun it to, he picked option B, and opened the car door.
The Italian countryside sped by outside the train window, nothing but rolling green hills dotted with trees, and the occasional vineyard or farmhouse. Kade watched, giddy, taking it all in. Cole held her hand, resting it on his thigh. All the while, he pointed things out to her until the train pulled to a slow, grinding halt in the station. After staring at a map forever, Cole had finally seemed satisfied with the location he’d found to continue her training, far away from people.
Thankfully, since they were in the middle of the country and there were so few people around, they were able to run to the location in the rolling hills, rather than hike the two miles to get there.
