“They’re swollen shut,” Thom confirmed. “We’ll have to apply a compress to reduce the swelling if she’s lucid.”
“Lucid isn’t the issue,” Santiago remarked. “Luce is.”
“We should get Cole.” Portia added her two cents. “He can always tell.”
“Get him.” Miller kept his grip firm. “We need confirmation.”
“Her scent changed.” Warm breath tickled my face, and Thom said, “She smells right again.”
Fresh blood filled my mouth when I asked, “What happened?”
“Conquest happened.”
That was Wu. Him being here had to be a good sign, right? That meant we escaped. We were all alive. “Kapoor?”
“Recovering.” A gentle hand rested on my forearm, and warmth radiated down to my bones. Definitely Wu. “I thought we lost you.”
“I don’t remember.” I swallowed again, working to clear my throat. “Did she … ?”
“Conquest seized control of you.” Wu stroked his fingers over the delicate bones in my wrists, sliding the tips beneath the cuffs slicing into my skin. “She brought the building down around us.”
I didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know, but I had to find out. “Casualties?”
“You aren’t responsible for what she did.” Miller hadn’t loosened his grip, but he wasn’t hurting me. “You don’t have to shoulder that burden.”
“Tell me.”
“Eighteen patients,” Santiago replied when Miller kept quiet. “Twenty-five staff members.”
A sob hitched in my chest, but I hurt too much to release it.
“There were sixteen injuries, but none serious.” He kept going, driving the knife deeper. “The livestock escaped unscathed except for one chicken that I suspect the janitor ate while no one was looking.”
As much as I wanted Cole, I wasn’t sure I could face him. I wouldn’t ask for him. I wouldn’t. I would stay strong, let him make the choice. He could come to me or not, and I would abide by his decision. We had both known this day was coming, when I fractured enough she slipped through the cracks, but I hadn’t expected it this soon. I thought I was handling it, handling her. But I hadn’t factored in Wu’s father.
A door opened and shut to my left, and heavy footsteps I knew by heart thumped closer.
I wanted to curl into a ball, but I couldn’t move. I had been restrained, and now I knew why.
“Don’t.” I was helpless to stop the hot tears from seeping through the cracks of my lids and rolling down my cheeks. “Please.”
Cole didn’t listen. It shouldn’t have surprised me. He only heard what he wanted to, but I figured he would have gotten this message loud and clear.
“Please.” I struggled against Miller, against the chains. “Please.”
No matter how wide I opened my mouth, that was the only word that came out.
Miller eased up the pressure on my shoulders and then withdrew. Heavier hands replaced his, thicker fingers dug into my skin, but Cole didn’t restrain me to the table. He lifted me upright and settled me against his chest.
“Luce,” he breathed against my throat. “You came back to me.”
The tension in the room eased as the others accepted his assessment as proof I was me and not her.
“How can you stand to touch me?” Sobs hiccupped out of me. “How can you — ?”
“I love you.” He kissed my swollen lids. “Only you.”
Weak, I was so weak, but I couldn’t let him go. “What are we going to do?”
“It’s already done.” He rested his cheek against mine. “I hope in time you’ll forgive me for it.”
“Ease her back,” Thom ordered. “She’s too bruised to sit upright comfortably yet.”
“I want Cole.” I sounded like a child begging for her teddy bear, and I didn’t care. This was my coterie. They were my friends, family, and they understood I was out of strength and needed to borrow his. “I can deal with the pain.”
“Hold still.” Thom fussed at me, his nimble fingers massaging ointment over my eyelids. “That will help with the swelling. You should be able to open in a moment.”
Charun medicine was definitely the good stuff. Thom could be my medic any day. As long as you didn’t stop to wonder what part of his body his wonder drugs came from, it was all good. “Thanks.”
“I’m releasing her.” Miller started with the wrists tucked against my chest, and I folded myself as tight against Cole as I could wiggle. “She’s not a danger to herself or us when she’s Luce.”
The others murmured assent, and their relief was a balm to my soul.
I was back.
I was me.
I had won.
This time.
Next time … I might not be so lucky.
After he moved to my ankles, I noticed a cool weight still encircling my wrists. Testing my eyes, I cracked my lids and sucked in a gasp at the rose gold bangles weighting my arms. “No.”
I recognized their design. These were the bangles Lorelei had made for Cole from the rosendium she harvested from his wrists. The last time I saw them, Sariah had been wearing them, ensuring our control over her and the remaining Drosera.
“Forgive me,” Cole whispered against my temple. “I had no choice.”
“Sariah is free?” Shoving against his chest, I gained enough space to squint at him. “You freed her?”
“I had no choice,” Cole repeated, tormented. “When she heard about your … condition … she came to us. We had no choice but to take her up on her offer.”
An icy prickle down my spine caused me to stiffen. “What offer?”
“Her freedom in exchange for the one thing that might control Conquest.”
Even with Bruster dead and Ezra a freaking ghost, she had managed to strike a deal that got her what she wanted without her lifting a finger.
No wonder she had survived War and Thanases. She was cut from the same brutal cloth with the same ruthless shears.
Sick to my core over who and what they had unleashed to save me, I surprised myself by finding room in my heart for fresh panic. “Who’s holding my leash?”
“I am,” Cole said, and I heard what it cost him to admit he had done to me what Conquest had done to him all those centuries ago.
“Okay.” I rested my hand over his heart. “This is fine. Great even. She can’t get out?”
“I gave you a direct order to suppress her. She didn’t go easily, but it appears to be holding.”
“That’s why I feel like hot shit?” I pressed a hand to my ribs. “She fought being contained.”
“Like her life depended on it,” he confirmed. “It took all of us and Wu to restrain you. He was in critical condition afterward, but Thom revived him.”
“You said Kapoor got out?” Pain dragged at my senses, the edges of my focus unraveling. “He’s okay?”
“He’ll survive,” Thom confirmed. “I was able to save his wings.”
The way he lumped them together, as if they carried the same importance, was a sucker punch to the gut. I might have failed Thom, but at least Kapoor was intact.
“Where are we?” I couldn’t see well, mostly shadowy figures, but even the scents in the air struck me as wrong. “It smells damp.”
“It’s a bunker.” Wu caressed my side, and warmth spread through my tender ribs. “One the enclave uses for … Suffice it to say, the cells and chains were already here. It made the most sense to make use of them. We couldn’t hold Conquest long. We couldn’t get her down here until after Cole got the bangles on her. Even then, it took several days of you rising to consciousness, and Cole refining his commands, to get you back.”
“We’ll take you to our new HQ.” Santiago wavered into view, and his belief I was blind as a bat was the only reason he let me see the worry pinching his expression, I was sure. “We’ve pulled out of the farmhouse. It’s an enclave-only outpost now.”
Better for them all to be as far away from me as possible. The coterie, at least, had s
urvived Conquest. They weren’t in immediate danger from her. “What about the Oncas and the Cuprina?”
“They’ll remain with the enclave,” Cole told me. “We recruited a few to help us track Conquest and corner her, but they’ve returned to their clans.”
Cole held on tight, like Wu might pluck me from his arms, but I had news for him. I wasn’t going anywhere. This was right where I wanted to be. Well, not in this cell, but with him.
“Putting a bullet between my eyes would have been simpler,” I joked, well aware it took more than that to stop a charun, let alone a cadre member. A harpoon gun maybe?
“I’m not giving up on you.” Cole framed my face with his wide hands. “That means you can’t either.”
Cold stung my hip, and the room smudged a bit more. “Hey …”
“It’s a sedative to help you rest.” Thom stroked my hair. “I’ll heal you while you sleep.”
The fact they shot me up as I was coming around wasn’t lost on me. Whatever it had taken to restrain Conquest, they didn’t want me to see the evidence of it. Morbid curiosity kept me blinking, trying to take in the damage to my arms and torso, but I couldn’t focus. I was too tired. Too damn tired to do more than curl against Cole, twine my fingers in his shirt, and let the darkness claim me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Warmth surrounded me, and I drifted in a cozy bubble of contentment until my bladder refused to be ignored any longer. Opening my eyes didn’t hurt, and I could see the source of the comfort snuggled around me on the bed. Cole to my right, Maggie and Portia to my left. Thom, in his boxy tomcat form, slept on my feet. Miller had fallen asleep at the foot of the bed with his arm resting across my shins. Santiago sat beside him, and though he didn’t touch me, he had fallen asleep angled toward me, a guardian too exhausted to maintain his watch.
For a long time, I soaked in the moment. Surrounded by my coterie, I felt safe, loved, protected.
But our enemy was still out there, and it was only a matter of time before he figured out Conquest had stopped rampaging and set another trap for us.
“Morning,” I whispered to Cole as I climbed over him. That had been the plan, anyway. Once I got my leg swung over his hips, he gripped mine and held me straddling him. He was hard and eager between my thighs, and I shivered from wanting him. “Knock it off.”
“I haven’t moved,” he said, sleep making his eyes soft.
“Crap.” That meant I was the one grinding on him. “I have to pee.”
Before my hormones got away from me again, I slid onto the floor and scrambled to the bathroom.
The harsh overhead light stung my eyes, and I gritted my teeth as my temples throbbed. As much as I hated mirrors, I sought out this one.
The woman staring back at me had lost weight in recent weeks and gained muscle. Her complexion was more golden, thanks to all those daytime trips on the back of a dragon. Her eyes were … haunted. But the swelling was gone, so were the dark circles. I traced the outline of my lips, but the splits and cracks had healed.
I could almost pretend it never happened. I was good at locking away what I didn’t want to deal with.
Eighteen dead patients.
Twenty-five deceased staff.
Sixteen injuries.
One dead chicken.
Exhaling slowly, I backed away from the reflection before I saw too much. I used the facilities, washed my hands, and entered the bedroom to find the coterie stirring.
Thom shifted midstride and crossed to me. “How do you feel?”
“Good.” I pressed my fingers against my ribs to test for an ache but found none. “I’m not in any pain.”
“Glad to hear it.” Mags tackled me, slamming me into the wall at my back. “You were gone, Luce. Gone. We couldn’t bring you back. I was terrified.”
I wrapped my arms around her, breathed in the comforting scent of Maggie and coterie, and a fraction of the weight on my soul lifted. Conquest might be resting, but the coterie bond still hummed beneath my skin. “Thanks for fighting for me.” I glanced past her to the others. “That goes for all of you.”
A door opened and shut to my right, and a familiar voice called, “Threesome!”
Rixton slammed into us, dragging Maggie and me against his chest, and held on tight. “You two have to stop dying on me. I’m only human. My heart’s only got so many beats, and you’re making mine go triple time fretting over you. I don’t want to run out before I get back home.”
“I didn’t die,” I huffed, shoving him away before he noticed my discomfort and took it personally. Yep. Even with Conquest down for the count, I was still hooked into the coterie’s feedback loop, which begged the question if Cole had made that an order too. A way to ground me. Then again, much like the rosendium beneath our skins, it might be too intrenched to remove. “I just … went away for a while.”
“I died.” Maggie shrugged, keeping an arm around his shoulders. “In more ways than one.”
Guilt hit me quick and hard, but I did my best to shield her from it. I had made the choice to save her. I had no right to also make her feel bad about how torn I remained. I would do it again in a heartbeat, and that meant I wasn’t as sorry as I wanted to be, as I maybe ought to be. Until that changed, or she pressed the issue, we had nothing left to discuss on the topic.
“I’m glad you made it back,” Rixton said, and the sentiment encompassed us both.
Maggie gave him a look that melted into Portia’s huskier tones. “How did you take those hits?” She raked her gaze over him. “That punch to your ribs should have broken several, but you’re still standing.”
“Santiago designed a flexible armor suit for me.” Rixton kept right on script. “Doesn’t do much to keep my head on my shoulders, but it protected everything from the neck down like a pro.” He skirted the edge of my gaze when he added, “Those things would have killed me otherwise. Humans aren’t built to withstand that type of punishment.”
“Hmm.” Portia measured Rixton then prowled toward Santiago with purpose in her stride.
“You fed her to the lions without batting an eye.” I snorted. “Impressive.”
“Hey, I pay my debts.” He sobered. “I owe Santiago. Big.” He offered me a weak smile. “I wasn’t lying. Those winged bastards would have killed me if not for that suit.”
“You fought?” The blood drained from my cheeks in an icy rush. “I thought — ”
“ — if you held me back far enough I wouldn’t see action?” He laughed. “Your plan would have worked if your cork hadn’t got popped. After you went nuclear, it was all hands on deck.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that.” I shuddered, thinking of the face in the mirror, the haunted eyes I never met if I could help it. “I’m sorry you had to be part of this at all.”
“Luce, I have a little girl, and I have a wife. They’re everything to me.” His mouth tightened. “I don’t want to be here, risking my life, throwing away what time I have left with them, but it’s my privilege to protect my girls.” He punched my shoulder. “You included.”
Cole’s words rang in my ears. Rixton had answered the question without me having to ask. It was no less than I had assumed, but the words carried more weight when he spoke them.
“I’m going to get you home in one piece.”
Stop making promises you can’t keep, Boudreau.
“You’ll try.” He rolled his shoulders. “That’s all any of us can do. Try.”
“This isn’t your fight.” I had to say it, at least once more. “You could go home now. Leave this behind.”
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that Earth is at stake, but no humans are fighting to save it? No humans even know it’s at risk. We aren’t equal to the task. I know that. But it seems like we ought to be given the option to protect our homes, our families, instead of being kept in the dark while the decisions are being made without us by beings from other worlds.”
“We’re not little green men.” Really, I was just glad he hadn’t called
us creatures or things. Beings implied sentience at least.
“Your boyfriend is a dragon. You are a dragon. Don’t talk to me about little green men.” He cut his eyes to where Portia prowled after Santiago. “That’s the weirdest thing yet. Maggie’s body. I mean, I see it. It’s her. But it’s not her. The expressions, the inflection. It’s someone else. In her body. Maybe Sherry was onto something with her alien obsession. Body snatchers are clearly a thing.”
Unreal to be having this conversation with him when I thought I would never see him again, let alone talk to him or cut up with him. A miracle. That’s how it felt. And it left me jonesing for another reunion. One long overdue.
I wanted to see Dad. I was ready to face him. There were no guarantees how long the bangles would contain Conquest. They hadn’t been fashioned with that in mind. She was a power, and using rosendium harvested from her — our — body against her was a losing proposition.
Dad deserved to see his daughter one last time while I was still me. And damn it, I deserved to tell my dad I loved him, to hug him, before I left him behind to deal with the fallout.
“Luce.” Thom urged me over to the coterie side of the room. “Sit down. I want to examine you.”
Rixton pointed at the door and slipped out of the room, giving me time alone with my coterie.
“Fiiiiine.” I didn’t wait for his permission to latch onto him. “Thanks for putting me back together.”
“You’re welcome.” A purr was in his voice when he rubbed his cheek against mine. “I won’t let you go without a fight. None of us will.”
A thought occurred to me, and I reared back. “Hey, the enclave is in seclusion. Why are you still here?”
“I’m done licking my wounds.” A tight smile played on his lips. “I’m not at full strength, but the coterie can’t afford to continue on without its medic.”
Not with Conquest playing whack-a-mole with them when they came after her.
“I’m glad.” I did my best to be a grateful patient and not a grumpy one. “It’s selfish, I know, but I’m glad you’re back. I missed you.”
“We talked every day.” Amusement glinted in his eyes as he sat me on the edge of the bed. “Video chatted every other day at least.”
Rise Against: A Foundling novel (The Foundling Series) Page 18
