“It’s not the same.” I let him work through his battery of tests. “I feel better putting my eyes on you.”
“What happened wasn’t your fault.” He nodded to himself, appearing content with his results. “You must stop blaming yourself.”
I didn’t remind him he was my responsibility. He knew that. I didn’t promise he would never be harmed on my watch again. He knew that too. Anyone who wanted at Thom would get to him over my dead body. The same went for any member of my coterie. I had lost enough, more than enough. Protecting those who remained wouldn’t bring back Aunt Nancy or Uncle Harold, but it was a step toward the only form of atonement within my grasp.
“You’re fully healed,” he announced to the room, and I noticed Cole push out an exhale at the news.
“The real question is — ” I stood, anger rising with me. “What are we doing about Wu’s father?”
“You must recover.” Miller crossed to me, rested a hand on my shoulder. “What you’ve been through is enough to rattle anyone. We don’t have to strike back right this minute.”
“Luce.” Cole didn’t manage more than that, but the look we shared conveyed the rest.
He wanted me to heal. He wanted me to wait. He wanted to protect me.
But I couldn’t be coddled, and we couldn’t afford to wait.
“Where is Wu?” I searched the room in case I missed him. “Kapoor?”
“They’re in the suite adjoining this one.” Santiago pointed at a door. “I bought this hotel years ago as an investment. Penthouse is too obvious, so we’re staying in king suites. There’s no paper trail tying this building to any of us, or to White Horse. We should be safe here for a while.”
Hotels with penthouse suites in Canton didn’t happen. “Where are we?”
“Jackson.” Santiago walked to the window and yanked back the curtain, revealing a view of the Mississippi River. “There are two clans loyal to Conquest in the area. I’ve put in calls to them. They’re handling security for us to cut down on time we spend on the streets, out in the open.” Before I could argue, he raised a hand. “I vetted them personally. They’re loyal to the bone. Think Veronica. They don’t require you to eat, maim, or otherwise digest any of their members to swear fealty to you.”
Placing a hand over my stomach, I grimaced. “That’s good to know.”
Hoping Kapoor fared as well as I had under Thom’s care, I knocked on the door to the suite next door.
Wu answered wearing loose pajama bottoms, with his bare chest and wings on full display. “Luce.”
“Wu.” I arched an eyebrow at him. “Well? Can I come in?”
“You?” He surveyed the gathering behind me. “Or all of you?”
“Whatever gets me through the door.” I shrugged. “I’ll tell them everything. It’s up to you if they hear it first or secondhand.”
“I’ll leave the door open, but I would prefer the others not to enter. Farhan is … having difficulties. A crowd might kickstart his fight or flight reflexes, and he wouldn’t get far in the shape he’s in.”
“Thom said he saved Kapoor’s wings.” I peered into the suite but saw no sign of him. “How’s the rest of him?”
“Physically? He’s recovering.” He stepped back and gave me room to enter. “Mentally? I’m not so sure.”
Braced for the worst, I was surprised to find Kapoor sitting on the couch reading a report. He looked the same as always, except he wore the same loose style pants as Wu, baring a lightly muscled chest. A pair of black wings draped over the back cushions and swept across the floor.
“Hey.” I started to tuck my hands into my pants pockets, but the pajamas I wore had none. “How are you doing?”
Slowly, Kapoor faced me. His eyes were full black, and the traceries of his veins mapped his face, the blood gone dark as pitch. Ridges fanned his cheeks, and tough plates covered his forehead.
Thanks to interacting with my coterie, I had gotten better about shielding my knee-jerk response to the natural charun form. That pesky inner voice cranked up its wailing a few notches, but I muffled it to a bearable level.
I had been wrong about Kapoor. Whatever he was, he wasn’t Malakhim. Mixing in a little human wouldn’t have resulted in these stark changes.
“I’m alive.” He didn’t so much as blink. “There’s that.”
“You and Wu are a match made in fatalist heaven.” I moved to take the seat opposite him, and six black horns burst from his forehead, in the center of those hardened plates. Chest heaving, he clenched his fists. The muscles in his arms and chest tightened, his core fluttering as his abs flexed. Fight or flight. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Give him his me space,” Thom coached from the doorway. “He’ll calm down once he ceases to feel threatened.”
Easing back, I gave Kapoor plenty of room to find his calm. All the while, my mind raced, pieces clicking into place.
This was the face of the NSB’s janitor. This was what all those charun marked for death had seen before their lives were snuffed out of existence.
For some reason, probably the fact I clung to my humanity so hard, I figured he had hunted them down in his suit and tie then popped a few rounds in them. Except I knew from personal experience unless he had a weapon calibrated to take down charun, he wasn’t going to get far with bullets. Plus, it was in their nature, the urge to hunt. To kill. To feel blood slicking their hands, wetting their throats.
I swallowed hard to force my own urges to take a backseat to reason. “We good?”
Still heaving breaths, Kapoor nodded. “Good.”
“Luce?” Wu straightened his shirt. “Can I speak to you in the kitchen? I have a few questions.”
From there, we could pretend to get coffee while keeping an eye on Kapoor.
Settled in with my mug, wishing for flavored creamer, I got to the point. “What do you want to know?”
“All of it.”
And that’s what I told him.
Afterward, he returned the favor, filling in the blanks about the meeting with his father, explaining what had triggered me, and conveying his ultimatum.
Now that I had been captured and tamed, his father would be looking for his son to choose a side. For good.
That didn’t give us much time, but it didn’t change my mind. “I want to see my dad.”
“That can be arranged.” His attention zoomed back to me. “If you’re sure you want to risk it.”
“I do.” I worried the bangle on my left wrist. “I want him to know how much I love him.”
“He does.” Wu’s expression softened. “He’s never doubted it for a moment.”
“I want to say it, I want him to hear it.” And, I had to be truthful. “I want to hear it too.”
“I’ll make the arrangements.” Wu rested his hand on my shoulder, but no warmth accompanied the touch. “The bangles are more effective than I expected.” His eyes flashed gold. “There’s no resonance between us. For all intents and purposes, you’re … human.”
Hmm. That trick had Cole’s fingerprints all over it.
What a mess. What a flaming hot mess. Astronauts could probably view it from space.
“Most of my life I had no idea there was another person smothered by my conscious mind. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not convinced she’s restrained and not resting. From what I hear, she went on quite a tear before she was captured.” All those lives lost, all my fault for not being stronger. “I feel like me, more like myself than I have in a long time, and it’s great. But it won’t last. It never does. It can’t.” The smile I offered him was brittle. “I’ll be feeling the leash tug before you know it.”
The shock of learning where Wu had transferred my father almost bowled me over. This was no NSB facility. It wasn’t a facility at all. It was a personal residence. His. A mansion built into the side of a mountain I couldn’t name, that I doubt Wu would confide if I asked him.
He instructed us to wait on the ledge where we landed and went in to c
lear the visit with his personal security, giving me a moment to compose myself.
Cole placed his hands on my shoulders, anchoring me, and I was reminded of Wu’s dilemma. “Can you feel our mate bond?”
“No.” He didn’t sound bothered by the lack. More proof he had tinkered with me. “It went silent before you woke the last time. It gave me hope the bangles had done their job.”
Twisting around, I studied his face. “You’re good with that?”
“I don’t need a mate bond to tell me how I feel.” He stroked his thumb across my jawline. “Or to tell me you feel the same.”
Since I had been throwing myself at him from the moment we met, I wasn’t the one in doubt. I had been drawn to him on a soul-deep level from the moment I first spied him through my security feed at the farmhouse the morning after Jane Doe — War — had been rescued from the swamp.
“It’s a relief.” One of us had to say it. “Wu told me I read as human, that Conquest is dormant. That means I’m just Luce. No shadows. Only me.”
Now he was the one studying me. “Did you think it would change things between us?”
If I was being honest, I had to admit, “Yeah.”
Sliding his hand to the back of my neck, Cole pulled me to him. He lowered his head, eyes fierce, and claimed my lips in a scalding kiss that caused spots to dance behind my eyelids. “I love you, Luce Boudreau.”
For the first time, I felt he could mean it. Really mean it. And it shattered my heart in a good way, not that you could tell by the tears streaming down my cheeks. “You’re really mine.”
“I’m really yours.” He brushed his mouth over mine again, softer this time. “I shouldn’t have given you so much reason to doubt me.”
The secrets and lies I couldn’t pin on him. He was protecting me from Conquest, and the coterie as well. Not to mention those he knew I cared for. Keeping me in the dark allowed me time to cope, room to expand my perceptions, and a chance to develop bonds with him and the coterie that were unique to me. The fact he had been torn over pursuing me as Luce when he shared so much history with Conquest wasn’t a blip on my radar. I was too grateful he saw me for myself, that he wanted me, that he loved me.
Me.
What that said about soulmates, fate, destiny, or whatever you wanted to call it, I had no idea. I might never be sure if I felt drawn to him because of what lurked beneath my skin or his own appeal. He would have to guess on his end as well. We were too tangled to unknot. But I could say with absolute certainty that I loved him just as much, wanted him just as much, needed him just as much, with her muted.
For me, for Luce, there would never be anyone but Cole. That’s all that really mattered in the end.
“You’re cleared.” Wu stood in the doorway flanked by two guards who wore the same uniforms I remembered from The Hole, and I prayed they hadn’t been reassigned here, that they didn’t have to carry the guilt of knowing one slot on the schedule had spared them and damned their comrades. “Your father is waiting for you in his suite.”
Nerves made my hands clammy, but I held on tight to Cole as we followed Wu into the lush hallway dotted with ornate doors that could have led anywhere. He stopped at one, seemingly at random, and knocked twice.
“Come in,” Dad called, sounding at ease.
“I’ll wait for you out here.” Cole pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Call if you need me.”
“Sure.” I wet my lips, eyes sliding to Wu. “You going to wait out here too?”
“No.” He shared a look with Cole. “I’ll be in my office down the hall, to the left, when you’re ready to go.”
Out of time to procrastinate, I turned the knob and entered a room straight out of a magazine spread. Hardwood floors. Silk wallpaper. Plush rugs. A bed big enough for Cole to splay without our outstretched hands touching.
“There’s my baby girl.” Dad crossed to me and brought me in for a hug that smelled like home. “I wondered when you’d get around to visiting your old man.”
“I wanted to come sooner.” I held on tight. “Work got in the way.”
“Saving the world does that.” He chuckled as he pulled away. “I made a few friends. Other residents of this … House isn’t the right word. Manor?” He gestured toward the pair of chairs angled toward an unlit fireplace. “Turns out I’m the only human in residence.”
“The only … ” I curled my fingers into the armrests of my seat. “Human?”
“Luce, I’ve known you’re special for a long time.” He leaned back, gazing into the darkened hearth. “I understand just how special now.” His stare would have fit had there been flames, but their lack made his concentration eerie. “I had no idea other worlds, other beings, existed. But it doesn’t surprise me.” He flicked me a brief smile. “Not after you.”
Mouth full of cotton, I couldn’t get my tongue to work. “Dad, I wanted to tell you but — ”
“You wanted to protect me. I get that. I respect that. Understand it even.” He reached for my hand, and I gave it to him. “I’m not mad.” He chuckled. “I was pissed at first. Not at you, but at the confinement. I’m not allowed to leave, to make phone calls, or have contact with the outside world except for you. I was not the best house guest. I suppose that’s why the others took pity on me. They must have figured I’d settle down if they explained what was going on and why.”
Unsure where to start since my whole mental speech had been derailed, I just sat there like an idiot.
“I know about Harry,” he said, softer. “I heard about Nancy too.”
“I’m sorry.” I almost choked on the inadequacy of the words. “I tried to save him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t even know she was sick. If I had, then maybe I could have — ”
“Luce.” Dad’s voice remained gentle but firm. “What happened to them was not your fault. Nancy would have died, and Harry … ” He shut his eyes a moment. “He made his choice, and I can’t blame him for it. I would have done the same for you.”
“War and Famine wouldn’t have targeted them if not for me.”
Finally, he looked at me. Until that point, I hadn’t realized he would rather stare at ashes in the hearth than my face. “What do you want me to say?”
A distant part of me realized I had been spoiling for this fight, and having it whimper instead of bang was a disappointment. I wanted him mad. Fuming. Pissed-the-hell-off. I wanted him to point a finger and damn me for what I brought into his life, into the lives of his friends. Forgiveness was too easy.
“You brought me home with you, and all these deaths followed. How does that make you feel?”
“Like I made a mistake the day I saved you? Like I should have turned a deaf ear when your screams echoed through the hospital? Like I should have my head examined for adopting you?”
“Yes.” The weirdest sense of relief swept through me. “All of that.”
“I hate to disappoint you, kiddo.” His eyes went cop flat. “Cops don’t last long if they don’t listen to their gut, and my gut told me you were mine. Blood doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. What you are matters even less. You’re my little girl. End of story.”
There was more bubbling under the surface, and I couldn’t stop myself from peeking.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I cocked my head, really looked at him. “What did you know that made this leap of logic so easy for you?”
“Easy?” Coarse laughter erupted from him. “I wouldn’t call any of this easy.”
“You ought to be more upset than you are.” I searched the room but saw no pill bottles. “Are they giving you sedatives to calm you?”
“Michelle Fortenberry.”
The name struck no chords with me. “Who?”
“That was your name.” He scratched his jaw. “Your description flagged a missing person’s report.”
“Missing?”
“Michelle was kidnapped and held captive for three weeks. Her abductor tortured and killed her. Her body was found five days before you were spotted in
the swamp. Before more than a preliminary examination of the corpse could be performed, her remains disappeared from the morgue.”
Resting my elbows on my knees, I stared at the floor between my feet, afraid I might get sick.
“The child was pronounced DOA. The estimated TOD was six hours earlier.” He raked his fingers through his thinning hair. “I had a choice to make. Call Michelle’s parents and tell them I found their child running naked through Cypress Swamp, the child they had already held a memorial for, or bury the connection. It didn’t sit right with me, but neither did turning over an amnesiac kid suffering from obvious trauma. One that shouldn’t be alive, let alone thirty miles from the morgue on record.”
The choice must have eaten him alive. “Did Uncle Harold know?”
“He did all the digging.” Dad shrugged. “I took a leave of absence. Had to. I was missing shifts to stay at the hospital.”
Eyes prickling, I rubbed them with the backs of my hands. “That couldn’t have been an easy decision for you.”
“Hardest one of my life,” he admitted. “I didn’t realize I wanted kids — a kid — until you fell in my lap. I thought the urge driving me was a sense of responsibility, but Harry was the one who cut through the BS and made me see it for what it was.” He shrugged again. “Love.” His shoulders hitched for a third time before he caught the nervous gesture and stilled. “He asked me point blank if I thought anyone else could love you, provide for you, teach you, as well as I could, and I told him no without hesitation. That’s when I knew what I had to do. I filed paperwork the next day. I considered you my daughter when I brought you home from the hospital, but we made it legal a few months later.”
“You made all the difference. I hope you know that.” I clutched his hands in mine. “Everything I am is because of you. You made me a decent person, a good friend, a hard worker. That’s all you.”
“Oh sure.” Eyes glassy, he coughed into his fist. “Blame it on your parent.”
“I call ’em like I see ’em.” I smiled, and that ugly tangle in my gut unfurled. “And what I see isn’t what I expected. We need to talk about next steps.”
Rise Against: A Foundling novel (The Foundling Series) Page 19
