“I can’t imagine why you thought Portia wouldn’t love this,” I said to Santiago, enjoying myself too much. “The subtle design is so classy, not at all what a porn star would wear on a set.”
Confirmation he had successfully combined the offensive, the lewd, and the sexually explicit to the point of total and complete insult made his eyes glitter with what I suspected were tears of pride.
Never in a million years would I understand the facets of his relationship with Portia, and that was more than fine with me. It worked for them. Far be it from me to judge the line of too far when they both crossed it regularly enough it was smudged beyond recognition between them.
Regret and determination mingled on Rixton’s face. “Tell me you have pants and a shirt I can borrow.”
“You want to cover this masterpiece?” I chuckled while Santiago acted ready to snatch the suit off Rixton after having his design insulted. “Okay.” I caught my breath and forced myself to be the adult here. “Hear me out.”
The men shared a wary commiseration, both hoping the other got sank by what I was about to say.
“Santiago, if you’re wanting to surprise Portia, this would do it. But you’ll also never get her to wear it if she beholds its full glory on Rixton.” That put a calculating gleam in his eyes, so I pressed on. “Rixton will test the suit. We’ll make sure Portia sees he’s now superhuman. And then, if she asks for her own suit, I’ll even zip her into this so she can’t escape the mental picture you’ve no doubt been holding in the forefront of your mind every day you’ve worked on this.”
“Deal.” Santiago disappeared then reappeared with a spare White Horse uniform. “Don’t tip off Maggie, either. I don’t want her tattling to Portia.”
“My lips are zipped,” I promised him, already making plans to keep Miller far, far away when this fashion show went down. Then again, maybe I ought to pass him one of Granny Boudreau’s seam rippers on the sly, and he could de-sequin it before the show got started. Better him than me. “Let’s get moving. Wu ought to be arriving any minute now.”
I didn’t make it far before Noel and Franklin found me, Mateo on their heels. “What’s up?”
“Do you need extra bodies for you mission?” Mateo asked, his perpetual smile starting to curl.
“We can send six Oncas with you, if you like.” Noel checked with Franklin. “Maybe even a dozen.”
“We’re good, but thanks. The coterie can handle this.” Though it was nice seeing the various factions play nice. “The fewer bodies we bring with us on this mission, the greater its likelihood of succeeding.”
“You’re bringing the human.” Mateo got to the heart of the issue. “He’s the weakest among us. Taking him but refusing our help makes us look weak too.” He wet his lips. “Our people are charged for a fight, and I don’t want this to be what sparks one. They feel slighted, and it’s raising tempers, making them question where your loyalties lie. With the humans, or with us.”
Spearing Noel and Franklin with a glare, I asked, “Are you having the same problem?”
“No, Mistress.” They bowed their heads low. “We are loyal to you.”
Transform into a dragon, bite a few people, and you earned respect. No wonder Conquest had been so revered.
“Regardless, I’ll give this speech to all of you.” I pointed at the tent. “The human in there is John Rixton, a detective with the Canton Police Department. He was my training officer, my partner, and he taught me everything I know about procedure. I’m the godmother to his daughter, and that makes us family. I don’t care that he’s human. I don’t care that charun are getting their feathers ruffled over it.”
Three sets of predatory eyes narrowed on me, so I got to my point quickly. I didn’t want to eat anyone today if I could help it.
“This is their world. They belong here, and they have as much right to defend it as we do.” I held up my hand before Mateo lost points with me. “Many charun have made their home here as well. I have no issue with them. I am one of them. But when we’re defending our new home, our new lives, our new world, just remember we’re immigrants. We have to respect humans, and all other charun factions, if we expect this truce to hold.”
A thoughtful expression crossed Mateo’s features, and I wondered what side his judgement would land on.
“This is the reason why we follow you,” he decided. “You pull us out of our old prejudices and force us to embrace your new philosophy of acceptance.”
I waved them off and hunted down the others.
“You’re more than he expected.” Thom’s voice carried, and I found him perched in a nearby tree. “Wu thought, perhaps he still thinks, he’s forged a weapon in you.” He leapt to the ground, landing in a graceful crouch. “But it’s not the one he expected. You’re nothing any of us expected. You’ve given us all hope this ascension will be the last.”
Curious, I joined him off the beaten path, standing while he remained low. “Is that what you want?”
“What my people want is unrestricted access to knowledge of all kinds. We are scholars. We are curious about all things. But we don’t want information paid for in the blood of thousands.” He gazed out across the milling gathering. “The others didn’t want me to accept Conquest’s offer of a position in her coterie. They worried for my safety, and they fretted at the danger of me enlightening Conquest to a degree never before achieved. But I had this … urge. A tug in my gut. I had to go. Instinct demanded I leave. And for a long time, a very long time, I regretted my choice. I came to accept my elders had been right to want me to find my own way.” He leaned against my knees, and I scratched his scalp. “Then you came.”
“Cole told me once you were leaving after the coterie achieved Earth.”
“That was my plan, yes.” He laughed, and he rolled his shoulders. “Part of me thinks I should have done just that, but it’s cowardice talking.”
Tightness in my throat made it hard to say, “You’re not a coward for wanting to go home and avoid all this ugliness.” For wishing he had left before he lost his ability to fly. “Every last one of us would choose that if it were an option. I would, if I had somewhere else to go.”
“You have all the worlds that came before this one,” he said softly, and I wondered at the plea in his tone. “You could leave, let the next Conquest fight this battle.”
“And the one after her, and the one after her, and the one after her. All the while, innocents will die. I couldn’t live with myself if I let that happen.”
“That’s what makes you Luce.”
We remained together, in contented silence, and waited for Wu to arrive.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Grief slashed Wu’s face as he approached and demanded to view the live video feed. Anger followed. He began to vibrate, to softly glow, like the apocalypse I heralded was confined within his skin instead of mine.
Santiago obliged, but the scenery hadn’t changed. Kapoor still hung pinned from the ceiling, his blood drip-drip-dripping on the tile floor beneath him.
“It’s a trap,” Wu said, shutting his eyes to block out the screen.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I said to distract him.
“Lobster bladders are located under their eyes. Essentially, they pee out of their faces.”
“Eww.” Good thing I wasn’t big on seafood. “I didn’t ask for something I didn’t want to know.”
“Lobsters flirt by squirting urine on each other. The female’s urine is chockful of pheromones designed to calm the male to prevent aggression and put him in the mood to mate.”
“You made it worse.” I shuddered. “How it could be worse, I don’t know, but you managed.”
“I have to save him.” Wu opened eyes flushed with gold. “I can’t leave him there.”
“Leave no man behind.” I puffed out my cheeks. “How do we do this?”
The gratitude shining in his burnished eyes made him more human than I had ever seen him, more vulnerable too, and I liked the gli
mpse of the man he must have been all those years ago.
“The Malakhim will be waiting.” Wu ripped off his shirt, exposing his lean musculature, and his wings exploded from his back. “You’ll need a two-pronged attack to make this work.”
“I’m confused.” I held up a hand like a kid in school. “You said you’ll and not we’ll.”
“You wouldn’t survive meeting with my father.”
“And you will?”
“I have lifetimes of experience doing just that.”
“Are you sure baiting him is wise?”
“Just the opposite, but I don’t see another way for all of us to walk away to fight another day.”
“Fine.” I exhaled, trusting him to know his father best. “Two teams, one in the sky and one on the ground.”
And one God knows where since Wu would be off cowboying during this op.
“Miller and Portia, you’re ground. Cole and I will take to the skies.” A voice cleared behind me, and I was forced to add, “Santiago, you’re with us.”
“No.” Santiago folded his arms across his chest. “We stick with our partners.”
“This is what you get for hanging out with Luce so much,” Portia teased, attempting to defuse the situation. “You grow on people, Santiago.”
“Like flesh-eating bacteria,” I groused.
Unwilling to be placated, he pressed, “Are you really going to send her in solo?”
“Miller will be with her.”
“Miller will be babysitting.”
Portia slapped Santiago upside the head. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“No,” he said, getting in her face, “you need a partner.”
“I get you’re fried over what happened at Lake Bevin, but you couldn’t have protected me then, and you can’t protect me now.” She placed her hand on his chest, where his heart might beat if he had one. “Miller won’t let Maggie get hurt. He’s already proven that. I’m as good as gold.” She shoved him back. “Luce wouldn’t have requested your delightful company if she didn’t need you more than I do.”
Brushing at his shirt like he might wipe off her concern, he joined us without another word.
“Rixton, Miller is your partner for this op.” I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Stick to his backside like toilet paper lint.”
“You’re grounding me?” His forehead pinched. “I don’t get to ride the dragon?”
“Think of Air Cole as a crop duster. There’s room for the pilot plus one. He’s the pilot, I’m the plus one.”
“Harsh.” He crossed to Miller. “Looks like I’m with you guys.”
Miller smiled, and it skirted the edge of patronizing. “We’ll keep you safe.”
“I haven’t been safe since I graduated police academy.” Rixton squared his shoulders. “Why should today be any different?”
I’m not sure I could have left Rixton with anyone other than Miller. Even Thom skirted the edge at times. Odd how the most dangerous among us was the most stalwart and reliable. Then again, maybe he had to be. Any lapse in control would cost him everything. Years of self-restraint may have evolved into a personality trait.
“Let’s go.” I turned my back on Rixton while I still could and marched off with Cole and Wu in tow. Santiago followed at a grudging pace. “What’s the best way in?” I aimed the question at whoever felt they had an answer. Thanks to Dad’s stint as an invalid, we had all spent plenty of time at the facility. The front and back entrances were obvious. I was betting Wu had a subtler way in. “Aerial attack is out of the question.”
“You told the others — ” Cole started. “You’re protecting Rixton.”
“Yep.” I was as unrepentant as he was about donning that experimental suit. “We’ll fly out to get a head start. By the time they arrive, it should be over.” I acknowledged the grim set of Wu’s jaw. “One way or another.”
“Give me four hours.” Wu rolled his shoulders, rustling his feathers. “I’ll send Santiago the coordinates and instructions on how to operate the locking mechanism. I’ll touch base with you before I go in, but I can’t promise contact after that point. Father might not be fully acclimated, but he’ll understand the significance of me texting or calling an undisclosed number after I show up empty-handed.”
“You’re going to use me to bluff him,” I realized. “What happens when he realizes I’m a no-show?”
“I get the hell out of there using any means necessary.”
“Any other charun aligned with your father we should be aware of?” Cole shifted his weight. “Are they all flight focused?”
“Father is a purist in all ways.” The derision cut sharper than any knife. “He only employs charun from our home world. Those like me, the warriors, and the Malakhim, the foot soldiers.”
“The Hole staff was diverse,” I argued. Various charun species had worked there. “How did you manage that?”
“Wings.” He made it sound obvious. “No creature born of the sky wants to live underground. I convinced Father it was in our best interest to cultivate certain species more apt to thrive in the deep and the dark.”
“Makes sense.” And it did. I could imagine the confinement wearing on skyborne charun over time, but I could also imagine his father telling them to suck it up and deal. “You’ve saved a lot of lives, haven’t you?”
“Not enough.” He ducked his head. “Not nearly enough.”
Unwilling to let him leave on a down note, I mouthed off to get a reaction. “Well, go on then. Run along and get yourself smited.”
A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “I’m hard to kill, remember?”
The polite thing would be to let it pass, but I couldn’t resist. “Will there be trees where you’re going?”
A chuckle escaped him before he shot off to do his damndest to provide us with a distraction.
And then there were three, and I would shave that down to two if I had my way.
“You don’t have to do this, Cole.” I danced out of his grasp when he reached for me. “You could go back to the bunkhouse, wake your daughter. Spend what time you have left with her.”
A curl of frost escaped his mouth. “And risk never seeing you again.”
“I want you to stay behind as much as I want you with me,” I confessed. “I hate these options. I hate that every time we make the call to split up, it might be the last time we see each other. I hate all of this.”
“I belong with you.” He slid his coarse fingers through my hair. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until this ends if I can help it.”
“What about Phoebe?”
“She’s sleeping soundly, and she has been for a long time. Napping a while longer won’t hurt her, and if she never wakes … ” He shut his eyes, drew in air through his nose. “It might be a mercy.”
“I love you.” I cupped his face in my hands. “So much.”
“Don’t say your goodbyes.” He brushed his lips over mine. “Not yet.”
“Break it up.” Santiago shoved us apart. “I thought regular sex would fix this, but it’s just made it worse.”
“You heard the man.” I popped Cole on the butt. “It’s go time.”
Cole smiled before shifting, never a good sign, and the dragon returned the favor by snapping the tip of his tail against my rump.
“Yowch.” I rubbed away the sting. “How am I supposed to ride now?”
With his tail, the dragon encircled my waist, lifted me, and planted me on his back. He allowed Santiago a heartbeat to climb on before launching us into the sky to the sound of my startled scream.
As much as I loved the male, I just might have to kill the dragon.
Assuming Daddy Wu didn’t do the job first.
We landed five miles east of the medical facility and covered the rest of the ground on foot.
With Malakhim sharing the skies with us, and no word from Wu, we couldn’t be too careful.
“There are maintenance tunnels running beneath the building,” Santiago
said as his clever fingers accessed blueprints for us. “Looks like holding pens for various food sources, such as cattle and goats, are on the next level up. Then the labs and imaging center. After that, ground floor and the lobby. The rest of the layout we know.”
The upper floors were patient suites, with the exception of the fourth floor, which was dedicated to physical therapy. There was a pool, a gym, a track, and various other amenities I noted during the tour they gave me prior to me leaving Dad in their care.
“Will they know to watch the tunnels?” Cole matched his stride to mine, even though I held him back with my shorter legs. “How much security are we talking about on the lower levels?”
“There’s more and easier access from the roof and the higher floors of the building.” Santiago glanced back at Cole. “Malakhim will be trained in aerial maneuvers, the same as all winged charun, and they’ll be taught to never take the fight to the ground.”
“They always look up for trouble.” I nodded. “Gotcha.”
Following Wu’s coordinates, Santiago guided us to a stone wall so similar to the enclave’s bunker entrance I didn’t have to wonder how they had stumbled across the tech. Clearly Wu had been using his connections to protect his people in all ways. I could respect that. Admire it, even. As long as it didn’t get us killed.
And there we huddled together until my phone vibrated. “It’s Wu.”
I’m about to go in.
Do you have visual
Rise Against: A Foundling novel (The Foundling Series) Page 16
