by Kristie Cook
“They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, right?” I said. “How about Tristan and I make you and Jax a romantic dinner? And you bake him a cake for dessert. We’ll warm him up with a gourmet meal, but once he tastes your cake, he’ll be putty in your hands.”
Blossom grinned excitedly. “You think?”
“He’ll be a goner,” I promised. Not that I knew a lot about seducing a man, but I did know Blossom’s cakes. They were practically orgasmic. If Jax didn’t get the message after the meal and dessert we planned for him, then he didn’t deserve to have her.
Fortunately, the meal went off without a hitch, and the two of them disappeared for their hotel right after, taking the cake with them. Mom and Winston were constantly alone, and she began to talk about bringing him to Amadis Island. Char was happy for Mom, knowing how long she had been alone and what she had sacrificed in the area of love. But now I felt bad for the warlock, whose husband had been a farce for most of their marriage. Sheree remained single, too, and, of course, Vanessa, whose hope for eternal love had once again been placed in the wrong person.
That reminder came to me every day. Not an hour went by that I didn’t think about Owen, Kali, Lucas, or Dorian. Mostly Dorian, of course. We needed to get back on the road. We’d been ready to leave before the discovery of Winston, and Sheree had made great progress with his faith healing. Someone on Amadis Island could provide what he needed now. We had to return our focus to our missions.
“The D.C. area,” Mom said one day in late June as we discussed our plans. “I feel something strong there. I sense that’s where you should go.”
Blossom’s spell had begun to work again, at least enough to give us a small prod north, which confirmed Mom’s hunch. So we finally packed up, said our goodbyes, and gave our well wishes to Mom and Winston before we headed north as they headed for the airport. The smile on Mom’s face and the love I felt radiating between the two of them would forever be imprinted on my soul. I hoped this was the beginning of better times to come.
After we crossed the Virginia state line, we stopped in the Shenandoah Mountains and spent the night in the woods, where Blossom and I could let our minds roam freely. We felt a bump to the northeast, rather than straight north. And it came stronger than usual.
“We must be getting close,” she said quietly, but I tried not to become too excited that Mom had been right about Washington, D.C. After all, it was a big metropolitan area.
The next day, we drove to my old stomping grounds of Northern Virginia and took up residence at the Fairfax safe house—the same one where Tristan had left me years ago. After the fight, we’d been the only ones in residence there for nearly a year, besides a few caretakers, but I’d never really explored the two-story brick structure that sprawled over an acre of land and was surrounded by nineteen more of meadow and woods. As soon as we walked in the door, I was drawn to the one room where I had spent all my time—the place where I’d given birth to Dorian.
Perhaps because of the history, his presence was heavy enough for Blossom to finally zero in, and I found it.
I.
Found.
It!
His mind signature floating in a sea of others, but definitely his.
Dorian! I silently screamed.
“Mom?”
Chapter 18
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
Dorian!
My heart had jumped into my throat at his mental response, and now it throbbed there. I couldn’t believe after all these months I’d finally heard him. We’d found him! But then—
The pick jabbed into my brain.
My vision went completely white. Then black.
I came to screaming Dorian’s name.
“No,” I yelled when I realized we’d lost him. I pushed myself out of Tristan’s lap and pawed at the tickle by my ear but ignored the blood on my fingers as I turned on Blossom. “Did we get his location?”
The witch frowned as she blinked eyes full of tears.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I was just about to, but we went blank at the last second. It was like someone shut us out.”
“That fucking bitch!” I screamed as I slammed my fists against my thighs.
Tristan and Blossom both looked at me with questions in their eyes.
“I’m almost positive it was Kali pushing me out,” I explained through clenched teeth. “She must have Dorian and knew I’d reached him. I had probably been close those other times, too.”
Some part of me must have known it had been her all along jabbing into my brain, not Lucas, but another part had been trying to deny the theory because it meant admitting to Owen’s involvement as well. But the evidence had always been there, and my soul had always known. Because every day my hatred for the sorceress had grown. Every day I wanted to kill her more than I did the day before. Every night I dreamt of when the time would come. Probably not very Amadis of me, but the bitch’s soul had no hope. I fantasized about what the Otherworld would do with it.
When I didn’t dream of killing Kali, I had nightmares of the only real kill I’d ever had. The shifter in Hades, whom I’d stabbed in the gut and left dead in a pool of his own blood. It was self-defense—either him or me—but I’d never know if his soul had any hope. If it could have ever been saved. If I had damned him to Hell without giving him the chance he might have deserved. And when I woke up from those nightmares, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Angels had taken Dorian away from me.
Maybe their sacred wrath would prevent us from ever finding him.
And maybe I deserved that.
But I hoped not. I had to believe that although the Angels had their reason for this to happen, they didn’t intend to keep Dorian away from us permanently. I had to believe they didn’t want Dorian to become Daemoni. I had to have faith they were as forgiving as their god and would show us mercy.
Otherwise, what was the point to any of this? To us, the Amadis? Why fight for these souls if they wouldn’t be given mercy and forgiveness? There had to be a point to it all.
So I would hold on to my faith and beliefs. I would hold on to the hope that we would find Dorian. I would keep fighting for my son, until the end.
“We’ll keep trying,” Blossom said.
“Damn straight,” I said through clenched teeth before stomping off for the bathroom to clean the blood off my face and neck.
We did keep trying, but the trail had grown cold. We tried for days, then weeks. We knew we were close—the prods were so minutely to the east of us, we knew he had to be in the D.C. area, as Mom had sensed, probably here in Northern Virginia. We rode out under cloaks so I could mentally search, and every time we went after potential converts, I reached out with my mind, probing for the familiar mind signatures we sought. They continued to elude me, though, and the potential converts kept slipping through our fingers. The hope of Mom and Winston’s reunion and Jax and Blossom’s budding relationship had lifted all of our spirits, but our moods quickly spiraled downward.
“Here’s something to cheer you up,” Blossom said one afternoon as she placed a mug on the patio table in front of me, steam rising from its contents. My stomach lurched at the smell. “I’ve finally been able to gather all the herbs we’d lost in the plane crash.”
“This is supposed to cheer me up?” I asked, making a face at the atrocious smell of the fertility tea. It was a hot summer day, and sweat already trickled down my back in the humidity. The last thing I wanted was a steaming cup of gasoline-flavored nastiness.
“A baby would lift the spirits of the entire Amadis. Can you imagine what such good news would do for everyone?”
Yeah, actually, I could imagine it. Such news would incite the council to insist on my return to the safety of Amadis Island, which I wouldn’t do until we found Dorian. Well, I didn’t know how long I could do it even then, although I’d have to put up with the confinement for at least a while. And that put me in a bit of a conundrum. I wanted a baby girl as much
as everyone else, although maybe not for the same reasons. Drinking the tea and doing everything we could to become pregnant was the right thing to do. But what if I did conceive this very night? What if I became pregnant before we found Dorian?
Blossom noticed something was wrong—more than my problem with the taste. She sat down beside me and stroked a hand over my hair.
“What is it?” she asked.
Tears stung my eyes. I tapped my finger on my temple to give her warning then spoke via mind-talk.
If I get pregnant now, they’ll make me abandon the search.
“Ah.” She considered this for a moment. “We don’t know how long it’ll take. I don’t think the potion is a one-hit wonder. It takes several doses to prepare your body. Maybe by then, we’ll have found him. We are getting close. I can feel it.”
But what if we don’t? We have Tristan’s stone, so this could be the one last thing we need for me to conceive. It would be my luck to get pregnant right away, before we find Dorian.
“Well,” she said as she gave me a squeeze, “it’s not like you’ll show right away. Nobody will have to know. I can keep a secret. Can you?”
I sighed. Mom will know.
“Not if you’re not around her, and I think she’s pretty tied up with other things right now. She doesn’t even have to know I’ve found all the herbs. Nobody has to know you’re drinking the tea yet.”
I knew the ploy wouldn’t last for long. At some point, Tristan, Vanessa, and eventually the shifters would be able to hear a heartbeat. But my conscience wouldn’t allow me to not drink the tea and do what I needed to do for the next daughter. If I became pregnant and the news spread to the council before we found Dorian, I’d have to make one of the hardest decisions of my life. But for now, that remained a fear unrealized.
I lifted the mug to my lips, grimaced as the gasoline smell engulfed me, and then chugged the entire contents. I clamped my mouth shut tight until I knew it would stay in my stomach.
“Let’s hope it works,” I muttered halfheartedly.
“Yes. But maybe not right away,” Blossom said with a small smile as she picked up the mug and went back inside.
I sat on the deck of the safe house, surveying the beautifully landscaped lawn and the woods beyond. If I hadn’t witnessed the battle myself, I would have never known this scene hadn’t always been so peaceful. This was the exact lawn where Tristan had gone out to fight, leaving me behind, not to return for seven years.
My mood deteriorated more.
And the sudden urge to go for a run hit me like a freight train. I didn’t know if the tea had begun to do anything to prime my ovaries, but it certainly gave me a big burst of energy. A workout would help expend some of the built-up tension, too, which I desperately needed. I hurried inside and found a sports bra, running shorts, and shoes in the wardrobe of our suite. I loved having mages on staff who could anticipate our every need.
“I was just coming to find you,” Tristan said when I ran into him in the foyer. His gaze traveled up and down my body, and he gave me a sexy smile. “You want to work out?”
“Yeah, but not Aikido. I’m going for a run.”
He nodded. “I’ll go with you.”
“Um, actually, I’d rather go alone.” I needed some time by myself. We were always together, and usually not only the two of us, except in bed, which hadn’t been the most pleasant of places between the nightmares and the lack of mental privacy. Tristan grimaced. “I won’t leave the safe house property, so I’ll stay in the shield.”
His eyes narrowed, but he gave me a small nod. “Take Sasha, at least.”
“Good idea,” I said, and I popped up on my toes to give him a kiss. His lack of enthusiasm in returning it made me feel bad. Did he feel rejected? I quickly explained. “Her mind is silent to me. I need to get away from all the buzzing in everyone’s heads for once.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid,” he said, and it sounded like a grumble more than a warning. Then he walked off without a word or another kiss or the smallest of touches.
I began to second-guess myself, but once Sasha and I were outside and far enough from the safe house, I was glad I hadn’t given in to my doubts. Of course, I couldn’t go far enough to eliminate everyone completely from my mental range—I’d have to leave the protection of the shield to do so—but I could go far enough that I didn’t hear the hum of nearby thoughts. If I wanted to, I could pick out mind signatures and listen, but I didn’t want to. I relished the silence.
Sasha and I made a lap near the perimeter of the twenty-acre property, but it hadn’t been enough to expend the energy I felt. She’d grown to the size of a German shepherd to easily keep up with me, and we made another round. When we reached the back of the property, a few yards in the woods, movement farther in the trees caught my eye. A blur too fast for me to see, but my mind caught the familiar signature.
Sasha sensed the danger, too, and became the size of a horse next to me. Her pearly white wings spread above her nearly two stories high. Her white snout wrinkled, and she let out a ferocious growl. Leaves stirred up from the ground, and my hair whipped against my face in a near tornadic wind as her wings beat a violent rhythm against the air. I’d never seen her so angry. So frightening. She roared like a tiger, and then she flew into the woods.
“Sasha!” I ran after her while mentally calling for Tristan and the others. Victor’s nearby, and Sasha chased after him.
“Let her go, Lex,” Tristan said a moment before appearing next to me.
But the loud crack of branches breaking and other sounds of fighting wouldn’t allow me to let it go. Vanessa appeared at the same moment I blurred toward the sounds. I didn’t get there quick enough, though. Broken tree limbs and gouges in the dirt showed there had been a struggle, but Victor and Sasha had taken their fight farther into the woods.
“Sasha,” I called, and I thought I heard something so I ran again. I’d moved way beyond the shield now, but Victor seemed to be alone. I didn’t sense any other mind signatures nearby, Daemoni or otherwise.
“She’ll be fine,” Tristan said when he caught up with me.
“We don’t know that!”
“Let her go,” he repeated, this time his voice lower and more demanding. “She’ll run him off and probably beat us back.”
“Unless she gets hurt again,” I protested. My muscles tensed in preparation for another sprint, but Tristan’s hand wrapped tightly around my upper arm, stopping me.
“Don’t be stupid,” he said, and he definitely growled now.
I jerked my arm out of his grip. “Don’t be an ass. I can’t let her get hurt again.”
“She can take care of herself.”
“And lose another wing?” I glared at Tristan as my chest heaved. “She’s not invincible.”
“Neither are you!”
“Um, I’ll go look for her,” Vanessa said, her eyes bouncing between Tristan and me. “You need to get back in the shield.”
I opened my mouth to protest.
“He’s my idiot brother. My twin. I might be able to find out why he’s here while I’m at it.”
“Or I could,” I countered as I tapped my forehead with an index finger.
“Alexis,” Tristan warned. “You can do that from the safe house.”
“Let me do this,” Vanessa said. “Go! Get your unprotected ass out of here.”
She left in a blur. Tristan grabbed my arm again, but I shook him off once more, still deciding whether or not to find Sasha myself. Electricity crackled over my fingertips, a reminder that my ass wasn’t exactly unprotected. With a rumble in his chest, he snaked an arm around me and flashed us to right outside the safe house property. The air hummed as he carried me through the shield, and then he set me on my feet.
“That flash could have been really stupid,” I snapped. “We could have been trapped.”
“We were too close to the safe house. And don’t talk to me about being stupid.” His voice held that dangerous steel e
dge to it. I wasn’t used to it being directed at me.
“You need to back off,” I said. “You’re way overreacting. It was only Victor. I can handle him easily. And like you said, we were close enough to the safe house.”
“It was still stupid. Damn it, Alexis, don’t you think about what it would do to me if something happened to you?” He shook his head, his sandy brown hair falling across his forehead. “Of course not. All you think about is yourself.”
My breath caught. I felt as though he’d slapped me. “How can you say that? I’m trying to think of everyone. Trying to take care of everyone and ensure they’re safe. Including Sasha!”
“Everyone except me,” he muttered, then his voice raised with each word spewing from his mouth. “You don’t give a damn what I feel every time you do something like this.”
“What?” I asked, at a loss for any other words. I didn’t know where this was suddenly coming from. I’d been good about controlling my impulses. Hadn’t I?
He stepped in front of me, towering over me, his muscles straining with control. He looked down at me with eyes sparking.
“You’re so damned focused on Dorian and everyone else, did you ever stop to think that I’m going through the same thing? That I’m this close to going on a killing spree as it is? I’m on the fucking edge, and it’ll be you who pushes me over.”
Exasperation ballooned within me, and my heart hammered against my chest.
“You need to chill out,” I said through clenched teeth as I pushed a finger into his chest. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you—”
“You don’t know what’s wrong with me?” he roared, making me jump. “My son is missing, and there’s nothing I can do about it! My wife seems to think it’s okay to go off and get herself killed, too! Do you realize the darkness that would throw me into? I’m about to explode as it is, Alexis. And you don’t know what’s wrong with me? Maybe if you opened your fucking eyes and looked at me for once, you’d know.”
I took a step back, blinking away traitor tears. My mouth opened and closed as words failed me. Had I really been so oblivious to him? I’d been relying on him as my rock, the foundation to hold me up because my world was so close to crumbling around me. And he’d been that for me. He’d been my strength this whole time. But . . . I’d been trying my best to be the same for him.
